Author Webpage Throughout Western history there have been numerous periods of religious innovation. These periods and the specific groups involved in them have been studied retrospectively by humanities and social science scholars. There is also a long tradition of conservative Christian literature that condemns the heretical theologies both of other religious traditions and of sectarian movements within Christianity. It was after World War II that serious social science scholarship began on a number of sectarian religious movements, such as the Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Father Divine's Peace Mission. The 1960s and 1970s witnessed the beginning of an extraordinary period of religious and secular experimentation in Western societies. If new religious movements, New Age groups, and communal/experimental communities that emerged during these decades are combined, it was an unprecedented period of innovation and experimentation. What has distinguished this period from earlier eras is that a well‐developed set of theories and methods for studying emerging movements and a group of scholars possessing these skills are in place. The result has been the emergence of a new interdisciplinary area of study—new religions studies (NRS)—the focal interest of which is the study of new religious movements (NRMs).