In the previous episodes, we mainly examined the development and operation of faith organizations including Providence and the Rajneesh movement. Here we enter the heart of the chapter:If faith is understood as a “market,” why does it continually appear, and why are people always willing to join?

Why do new faith organizations proliferate in particular historical periods? Why do people desire a new system of explanation most strongly during war, crisis, social transition, and dramatic changes in values? And why do people follow different faiths in different countries and social contexts?

Every market depends on supply and demand. From these two perspectives, we discuss how a market for faith takes shape. By comparing Eastern and Western systems of belief, we explore how faith answers the character of an era and individuals’ needs for meaning, order, and belonging.

 

- Why can faith be understood as a “market”?

- The supply side of the faith market: how does an era shape faith?

- The demand side of the faith market: what do people seek in belief?

- Steve Jobs, hippies, and Eastern spirituality: why was the West fascinated with Eastern mysticism?

- University students, scientists, and outsiders: who is more likely to join a faith organization?

- Why is organizational capacity more important than doctrine itself?

- When ideology and organization are taken to extremes: how terrorism forms

- Why did Eastern and Western societies form different systems of belief?

- Religion in Chinese society is diffused rather than institutional

 

- The Stranger: A Conversation with Jihadists (2023) (documentary)

- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) (film)

- The Flowers of War (2011) (film)

- The Shadow’s Edge (2025) (film)

- The Crown (television series)

- Luo Weihong, World Cults and Counter-Cult Research (book)

- Angelo Quattrocchi and Tom Nairn, The Beginning of the End: France, May 1968 (book)

- Cheng Wei, Children of the Middle Class: The 1960s and Cultural Hegemony (book)

- Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (book)

- Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (book)