2022 Theses Doctoral

Everyday Eschatology: Centering and Healing in Two Hindu Sects

Tackes, Nick

“Everyday Eschatology: Centering and Healing in Two Hindu Sects,” examines the two most prominent eschatological groups in North India: the Gayatri Pariwar and the Brahma Kumaris. Both organizations envision and pursue an imminent transition into a new Golden Age through self-care regimens that connect Hindu rituals to the authority of modern medical science. Rather than prepare for the end of the world by retreating from society, these groups attempt to act as custodians of societal welfare by way of goods and services meant to cleanse at once the mind, body, and environment. Drawn from ethnographic and archival fieldwork conducted at the headquarters and local-level cells of both institutions, this project demonstrates how members of both groups position everyday religious practices as the means of saving a world under-stood to be on the brink of collapse.