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Alternative Religion Quick Reference Chart
Overview of Alternative Religions

By Catherine Beyer, About.com

The table below is offered as a quick reference to the religions currently covered on this site.

Member estimates are based on the data at Adherents.com. It should be stressed that these numbers are only rough estimates, as religious statistics often are. Particular note should be taken of the following entries:

  • The number of Jedi is provided by a variety of census results, which were influenced by an email campaign urging people list Jedi as their religion regardless whether they believed or not.
  • The Church of Satan does not provide membership numbers.
  • The Church of Scientology generally claims eight million followers, but this counts all people who have attended a class or purchased a book. The number here represents the estimated number of current active members.
  • Adherents.com gives the number of Zoroastrians as 2.5 million, but it also states that the claim is under review. Most sources put the population around 200,000. Adherents.com suggests there may be many more Zoroastrians in existence than previous studies have reflected because persecution has kept Zoroastrians in some areas from advertising their numbers.

Name Est. Followers Founder Date Belief Type
Baha'i Faith 7 million The Bab and Baha'u'llah 1844 Monotheistic
Jediism Up to 500,000 None, based on the fictional works of George Lucas After 1976 Non-theistic
Raelian Movement 20,000 - 40,000 Claude Vorilhon (Rael) 1974 atheistic
Rastafari 700,000 Marcus Garvey, Leonard Howell and others 1930 Monotheistic
Satanism, LaVeyan Unknown Anton Szandor LaVey 1966 Atheistic
Scientology 500,000 L. Ron Hubbard 1949 Personal development movement
Thelema Unknown Aleister Crowley 1904 non-theistic
Zoroastrianism 200,000 - 2.5 million Zoroaster (Zarathushtra) 10th to 15th century BCE Monotheistic
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