Over the next few centuries Christianity became the dominant religion in the Empire. All signs point to a declining membership, and today the faith is independently estimated to have as few as 50,000 members worldwide. A major turning point for classical Christianity was when Constantine the Great decided to halt the persecution of Christians in the Empire, instead embracing elements of the faith. It deliberately adopted a version of Christianity which was unorthodox so as to establish and maintain their national distinctiveness and independence. One plausible scenario he came up with was that a Chinese preacher might meld elements of Christianity with a “universalist message of inner harmony” and gain millions of followers. Looked at this way, any new religion, to be successful, would have to present millions of believers with an offer they couldn’t refuse. I asked Palmer if a reason why new faiths typically struggle to gain adherents is that we tend to laugh when we hear claims about fantastic and miraculous events that occur in the present day-such as when Vorilhon, the founder of Raëlism, claimed he learned about humanity’s origins after being abducted by aliens. “We’re capable of accepting Muhammad’s claims of hearing God and Jesus’s claims of being the son of God, because it happened 1,000 or 2,000 years ago.

This has reinforced a sense of separatism and fuelled higher retention rates than in the years before the second world war, when differences with wider society were less stark. Denise Leidy is curator of Asian art at the Yale University Art Gallery and held the same position at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 22 years. Konstan, David. “The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Greek Literature.” University of Toronto Press. Six Studies in Dogmatic Faith, with Prologue and Epilogue. Andrew Chesnut, an author who has written a book about the vibrant new faith, suggests that as many as 10 million people may worship Santa Muerte, though as with most new religious movements numbers are difficult to verify, and other scholars I spoke with said that figure may be inflated. “When you have families of 13 people and most stay with the faith, then you end up with lots of people,” says Karen Johnson-Weiner, an anthropology professor and author of books on the Amish (though she is not Amish herself).

“Our values are different and we chose to safeguard them,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot about Facebook, but it seems a waste of time,” says Michael, 15, one of Daniel’s four sons, over fresh tomato soup. “I can be doing things a lot more beneficial than going to bars or spending time looking at a phone.” Children can choose to be baptised into the church in their late teens – and researchers say retention rates appear to have risen in recent decades. Children are actively choosing to stay in communities, resisting the lure of clubs, sport, music and technology. Daniel is Amish – a member of a community famed worldwide for their plain clothes and use of horse-drawn buggies – and he fears the impact of modernity and the temptations of technology on his children, his church and his traditional Christian world. It’s quite clear that the Catholic Church is alarmed by the rise of Santa Muerte, with the Vatican’s representatives condemning worship of her as “blasphemous.” So is Santa Muerte distinct enough from mainstream Catholicism that it should be considered a new religious movement? Santa Muerte-Our Lady of Holy Death-is the rare example of a new religious movement that appears to be steadily gaining followers in the Americas.

In addition, some of the religious towns eventually grew to a considerable size, as in the case of Ise and Izumo. Instead, he has returned to the Amish tradition of farming, enjoying a homespun lifestyle that eschews things the rest of us take for granted – from televisions to trouser belts, in case they distract from a devotion to God. This German-speaking sect, which demands simple lives of self-reliance based on the Bible, may be at odds with the rest of today’s society – yet surprisingly, it is booming, rather than being swamped by a fast-evolving world of smartphones and social media. It emphasizes the importance of dharma (righteousness) and encourages individuals to fulfill their duties in society. Regardless of how scholars classify it, efforts to stamp out Santa Muerte-the Mexican government has been bulldozing roadside shrines, perhaps out of concern over the faith’s association with narco culture-haven’t been enough to keep it from acquiring a following among marginalized communities in the Americas. This association further highlights the Hierophant’s role in guiding you towards spiritual growth and adherence to traditional values.