Notes on Contributors
Olav Hammer
is professor emeritus of the study of religion, University of Southern Denmark. His research focuses on alternative archaeology, esotericism in the modern period, new religious movements, New Age religiosity, religious apologetics and polemics, and theoretical issues in the study of religions. Publications include Western Esotericism in Scandinavia (co-edited with Henrik Bogdan; Brill 2016) and New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion (co-authored with Karen Swartz-Hammer; Cambridge University Press 2024).
Davide Marino
is a postdoctoral fellow in religious studies at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and a research fellow at the Department of Relgious Studies, University of Vienna. His research focuses on the interplay between East Asian religions, particularly Chinese traditions, and European esotericism, with an emphasis on Traditionalism. His Ph.D. thesis, Chinese Whispers: Albert de Pouvourville, René Guénon, and Traditionalism’s Hidden “Chinese Roots”, which received the CUHK Young Scholars Thesis Award in 2023, examined the influence of Chinese and Vietnamese religious concepts on the works of Albert de Pouvourville and René Guénon. More recently, he has been investigating the role of Chinese “criminal religious movements” (xiéjiào
Johan Nilsson
is a postdoctoral researcher in the history of religion at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University, Sweden. His research focuses on esoteric currents and new religious movements, with a special focus on the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He has recently concluded a research project, funded by the Crafoord Foundation, examining the Theosophical movement’s role in public debate in the early twentieth century. Among his publications are Satanism: A Reader (co-edited with Per Faxneld; Oxford University Press 2023) and his Ph.D. thesis As a Fire Beneath the Ashes: The Quest for Chinese Wisdom within Occultism, 1850–1949.
Lukas K. Pokorny
is professor and chair of religious studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. Large parts of his current research focus on East Asian religions, millenarianism, new religious movements, esotericism, and religions in Austria. Recent publications include the Handbook of East Asian New Religious Movements (co-edited with Franz Winter; Brill 2018), The Occult Nineteenth Century: Roots, Developments, and Impact on the Modern World (co-edited with Franz Winter; Palgrave Macmillan 2021), Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China (co-edited with Franz Winter; Bloomsbury 2024), East Asian Religions in the European Union: Globalisation, Migration, and Hybridity (co-edited with Laurence Cox and Ugo Dessì; Brill Schöningh 2024), Taking Seriously, Not Taking Sides: Challenges and Perspectives in the Study of Religions (co-edited with Astrid Mattes; Brill Schöningh 2024), Blicklichter und Grenzgänge. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf Religion, Gender und das Lebensende (co-edited with Leona Mörth-Nicola and Kerstin Tretina; Brill Schöningh 2025), and Religion in Austria, so far published in nine volumes (Praesens Verlag 2012–2024).
Julian Strube
holds the chair of religious studies and intercultural theology at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He works on the relationship between religion and politics from a global historical perspective with a focus on exchange processes between India, East Asia, Europe, and North America. His research focuses on the relationship between modernity, tradition, and colonialism in India, völkisch movements, National Socialism, contemporary right-wing extremism, and early socialism, especially with regard to new and alternative religious movements, comparative religion, and questions of cultural exchange. His latest monograph, Global Tantra: Religion, Science, and Nationalism in Colonial Modernity, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022.
Karen Swartz-Hammer
is a guest researcher at Malmö University. Her research focuses on esoteric currents and new religious movements, with a special focus on the organizational aspects of these movements. Her Ph.D. thesis, Management Matters: Organizational Storytelling within the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden (2022), investigates the narratives stakeholders involved with the Anthroposophical Society construct in their attempts to make sense of the historical trajectory of the movement. Publications include New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion (co-authored with Olav Hammer; Cambridge University Press 2024).
Franz Winter
is professor and chair of religious studies at the University of Graz, Austria. His research interests cover the history of religious and cultural contacts between Asia and Europe, Asian religious history, as well as religion and the media. Recent major publications include the Handbook of East Asian New Religious Movements (co-edited with Lukas K. Pokorny; Brill 2018), Religionen und Gewalt (Tyrolia 2019), The Occult Nineteenth Century: Roots, Developments, and Impact on the Modern World (co-edited with Lukas Pokorny; Palgrave Macmillan 2021), Religious Diversity, State, and Law: National, Transnational and International Challenges (co-edited with Joseph Marko et al.; Brill 2023), Here be Dragons: East Asian Film and Religion (co-edited with Christian Wessely and Yukihiko Yoshida; Schüren 2023), and Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China (co-edited with Lukas K. Pokorny; Bloomsbury 2024), as well as contributions in academic journals, such as NVMEN, Religion, Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft, and the Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte.