Avesta people. The term "Avesta" is from the 9th/10th-century works of Zoroastrian tradition in which the word appears as Zoroastrian Middle Persian "abestāg", Book Pahlavi "ʾp(y)stʾkʼ". In that context, "abestāg" texts are portrayed as received knowledge, and are distinguished from the exegetical commentaries (the "zand") thereof. The literal meaning of the word "abestāg" is uncertain; it is generally acknowledged to be a learned borrowing from Avestan, but none of the suggested etymologies have been universally accepted. The widely repeated derivation from *"upa-stavaka" is from Christian Bartholomae ("Altiranisches Wörterbuch", 1904), who interpreted "abestāg" as a contraction of a hypothetical reconstructed Old Iranian
Self religion to trends in the late modern/early postmodern transition, which encompass much more than simply New Age and Neo-pagan religiosities." Eileen Barker, in her 1999 book " New Religious Movements: their incidence and significance", said that they were "toward the New Age end of the NRM spectrum". Massimo Introvigne, an Italian sociologist of religion, describe "self religion" as "a deep but vague and unorganized interest in the sacred". Groups characterized as (or associated with the concepts of) self religions or "religions of the True Self" include: Self religion A self religion (or self-religion) is a religious or self-improvement group which has