The Lucas New and Minority Religions Collection features books, periodicals, newsletters, recordings, interviews, ephemera, and other materials documenting new and minority religions. The collection is curated by Dr. Phillip Lucas, and is organized by series including Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT), Holy Order of Mans (HOOM), New Religious Movements (NRM), and Cassadaga Book Project Materials.
Phillip C. Lucas is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Stetson University. He taught courses on World Religions as well as courses on Comparative Spirituality and American religious history. He founded the Millennialism Studies Consultation of the American Academy of Religion to examine controversies that arise in millennial movements around the world. Dr. Lucas is also the founding editor of Nova Religio, a scholarly journal dedicated to the study of minority and new religious movements throughout history. Lucas created the non-profit corporation Association for the Academic Study of New Religions, which supports research in new and minority religions and in the publication of Nova Religio. He has written four books: New Religious Movements in the 21st Century: Legal, Political, and Social Challenges in Global Perspective, with Thomas Robbins (2004); Cassadaga: The South's Oldest Spiritualist Community, with John J. Guthrie, Jr., and Gary Monroe (2000); Prime Time Religion: An Encyclopedic Guide to Religious Broadcasting, with J. Gordon Melton and Jon R. Stone (1997); and The Odyssey of a New Religion: The Holy Order of MANS from New Age to Orthodoxy (1995). He has also published numerous articles on new and minority religions in edited books and peer-reviewed journals. In his later career Lucas created 3 documentaries on religious pilgrimage around the world, and he also maintains a website on Neolithic Studies.
After earning his doctorate in Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1992, he began teaching at Stetson. In 1999 he was a visiting associate professor at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. At Stetson he has served on the Faculty Senate and on numerous other committees. In 1995 and 2007, he won Stetson’s Hand Award for Excellence in Research, and in 2002, he won Stetson University’s McEniry Award for Excellence in Teaching.
