The Rings
and the Web.

The Rings and the Web, in one picture

The 22 camps of the Third Ring in the middle, their ties to one another crossing the hall; around them the 33 bodies studied in full, set out by island; then the 103 people and the 37 funds. Tap any point: its lines run to what it belongs to and what it is tied to, and its facts open beside it.

How the Atlas fits together

The religions of the world hold the bodies studied in full; those hold the live camps of the Third Ring; those are made of people, and the people have their hands on the money. The Cult Dossier sits beside them all.

Where the ties run

The most-connected body in the Atlas is The Roman Catholic Church, with 20 ties to people, camps, money and other bodies.

• The Roman Catholic Church2015 people, 2 ring bodies, 3 funds
• Mainline Protestantism1912 people, 1 ring body, 6 funds
• Islam104 people, 3 ring bodies, 3 funds
• Anglicanism95 people, 4 funds
• Buddhism96 people, 1 ring body, 1 fund, 1 other dossier
• Transhumanism85 people, 3 funds
• Baptists & the Free Church75 people, 1 ring body, 1 fund
• Hinduism73 people, 1 ring body, 2 funds, 1 other dossier
• Pentecostal & Charismatic75 people, 1 ring body, 1 fund
• The Black Church75 people, 1 ring body, 1 fund

Left out of the Web on purpose: The Contenders, the bodies still waiting for a dossier of their own.

The islands · 12

The Web is not one net. Its ties fall into 12 islands that no run of ties joins. The largest holds 91 names: Anglicanism, Baptists & the Free Church, Lutheranism, Mainline Protestantism, Oriental Orthodox, Pentecostal & Charismatic, The Assyrian Church of the East, The Black Church, The Eastern Orthodox Church, The Non-Denominational Megachurch, The Roman Catholic Church.

Two bodies on different islands share no person, no camp, no fund and no word the files can find. Where the islands meet in the world but not in the files, that is the next tie to look for.

See them on the map.

The bridges · 18

A name that turns up on more than one deck is where two bodies touch. Some are people; some, in the cult decks, are the methods that recur from group to group.

One person, more than one group

From the Cult Dossier: those who stand in two groups at once, as founders, members or the scholars who studied both.

The money · 37 funds

Money is traced for 24 of the 33 bodies. The most is traced for Mainline Protestantism, with 6 funds.

What kind of money

The commonest kind is the pension board: the money set aside to keep the clergy in old age.

• Pension board8
• Foundation3
• Treasury2
• Venture fund2
• Church treasury2

One each: bank, business conglomerate, endowed parish, endowment, federation, funding body, fundraising body, gurdwara trust, hospital endowment, humanitarian giving, investment arm, lay organisation's holdings, membership society / nonprofit, national treasury (registered charity 250851), patrimony, principal corporation, state endowments, state religious budget, state treasury, temple trust.

The bodies, by funds traced

• Mainline Protestantism6
• Anglicanism4
• The Roman Catholic Church3
• Islam3
• Transhumanism3
• Mormonism (LDS)2
• Hinduism2
• Baptists & the Free Church1
• Jehovah's Witnesses1
• The Anabaptists1

Whose hand is on it · 30

What it comes to · 25 of 37 funds sized

Each figure in its own currency and on its own date, as its source gives it: a fund's assets, a body's budget and a year's giving are different things, so they are not added together.

Each fund, its size and its source: the money, in the Web.

Where the cults come from

Of the 182 groups in the Cult Dossier, the largest family is Christian-Derived, with 34. 19 are still active.

• Christian-Derived34
• Apocalyptic / Doomsday31
• Eastern-Derived18
• Occult / Esoteric / Satanic15
• Syncretic / Other NRM12
• Commercial / Therapy / LGAT11
• Psychiatry / The Asylum11
• Political / Terror9
• Ancient Mystery Cult8
• Moral Panic / Mass Hysteria8
• UFO / Extraterrestrial6
• Shared Psychosis / Mandated Killing6
• Second Generation / Born In6
• Racial / Nationalist3
• Jewish / Islamic-Derived2
• The Opposition / Anti-Cult2

The Third Ring in contact

The 22 live camps name their ties to one another in their own profiles. The ones in contact with the most others:

• #38 Southern Baptist / Convention Evangelical6
• #42 Non-Denominational Megachurch6
• #35 Traditionalist Catholic5
• #36 Institutional Roman Catholic4
• #37 Eastern Orthodox / The Convert Wave4
• #39 Charismatic-Apostolic / NAR4
• #46 Messianic Judaism / Hebrew Roots4
• #50 Sufi & Perennialist / Traditionalist School4

Standing alone · 5

These name no tie to another camp, and their own profiles say why. That is a finding, not a gap.

The map and every camp's profile: the Rings.

The families of the faiths

Of the 125 religions in the Canon, 98 are living, 20 are gone, and 7 have been revived.

• Abrahamic38
• Dharmic / Indian18
• Esoteric / Occult15
• Indigenous / Folk10
• East Asian8
• Classical Mediterranean7
• Non-Theistic / Philosophical6
• New Religious Movement6
• Ancient Near East5
• African & Diasporic5
• Indigenous American4
• Iranian3

How they descend from one another

The Canon's own family tree. Tap a faith to open its entry; the dates in gold are when a body split away.

PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGION  (reconstructed, c.4000 BCE)
   |
   +-- Indo-Iranian
   |     +-- Historical Vedic religion --> HINDUISM
   |     |        +-- Vaishnavism / Shaivism / Shaktism / Smartism
   |     |        +-- Advaita, Vishishtadvaita, Dvaita
   |     |        +-- Bhakti movement --> Sikh milieu, ISKCON, Hare Krishna
   |     |        +-- reform: Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission
   |     |        \-- reactions AGAINST it:
   |     |              +-- JAINISM      +-- BUDDHISM     +-- Ajivika      +-- Charvaka
   |     |                                        |
   |     |                                        +-- Theravada
   |     |                                        +-- Mahayana --> Chan/ZEN, Pure Land, NICHIREN, Tiantai
   |     |                                        +-- Vajrayana --> Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, Gelug
   |     |                                        \-- modern --> Won Buddhism, Secular Buddhism / mindfulness
   |     |
   |     \-- Old Iranian religion --> ZOROASTRIANISM
   |              +-- Zurvanism  +-- Mithraism (Roman form is largely a new construction)
   |              \-- influence --> Second Temple Judaism, Manichaeism, Mandaeism, Yazidism
   |
   +-- Hellenic --> Greek religion --> Orphism, Pythagoreanism --> Plato --> NEOPLATONISM
   |                                                                          \-- Hermeticism --> Renaissance magic --> Golden Dawn --> THELEMA, WICCA, chaos magic
   +-- Italic     --> Roman religion (absorbs Etruscan divination)
   +-- Celtic     --> Druidic religion  ......... (broken) ......... modern Druidry (1717+)
   +-- Germanic   --> Norse paganism    ......... (broken) ......... Ásatrú / Heathenry (1972+)
   \-- Balto-Slavic --> Slavic & Baltic paganism ... (broken) ...... Rodnovery, Romuva (1990s+)

ANCIENT NEAR EAST
   +-- Sumerian --> Babylonian / Assyrian  (last cuneiform tablet 79/80 CE)
   +-- Egyptian --> Atenism (dies with Akhenaten); Isis & Serapis cults  (extinct c.537 CE)
   \-- Canaanite / Ugaritic
          \-- ISRAELITE RELIGION
                 +-- SAMARITANISM  (splits c.400 BCE, ~850 people survive)
                 +-- JUDAISM --> Rabbinic Judaism
                 |        +-- Karaite (rejects the Talmud)
                 |        +-- Kabbalah --> HASIDISM
                 |        \-- modern: Orthodox / Conservative / Reform / Reconstructionist
                 |
                 +-- CHRISTIANITY
                 |        +-- Church of the East        (splits 431)
                 |        +-- Oriental Orthodox         (splits 451 — Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Syriac)
                 |        +-- EASTERN ORTHODOX   (splits 1054)
                 |        \-- ROMAN CATHOLIC
                 |                \-- Reformation 1517
                 |                       +-- Lutheran   +-- Reformed / Calvinist --> Presbyterian, Congregational
                 |                       +-- Anglican --> METHODIST --> Holiness --> PENTECOSTAL --> charismatic
                 |                       +-- Anabaptist --> Mennonite, Amish, Hutterite
                 |                       +-- Baptist    +-- Quaker    +-- Unitarian
                 |                       \-- restorationist: LATTER-DAY SAINTS, Adventist, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science
                 |
                 \-- ISLAM
                          +-- SUNNI  (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali) --> Wahhabi / Salafi
                          +-- SHIA   --> Twelver, Ismaili, Zaydi --> Alawi, Alevi, DRUZE
                          +-- Ibadi
                          +-- SUFISM (a dimension, not a sect — runs through both)
                          \-- later: Ahmadiyya, Nation of Islam
   and standing apart, claiming all of them:  BAHÁ'Í FAITH (1863)

EAST ASIAN
   +-- Shang ancestor & Shangdi religion
   |      +-- CONFUCIANISM --> Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming) --> Korean & Japanese forms
   |      \-- DAOISM --> Celestial Masters, Quanzhen; Chinese folk religion
   +-- Japanese kami worship --> SHINTO --> State Shinto (1868–1945) --> sect Shinto --> TENRIKYO
   +-- Korean folk religion --> Muism; CHEONDOISM
   \-- Tibetan pre-Buddhist religion --> BON

AFRICAN & DIASPORIC
   +-- YORUBA / ORISA --> Santería (Cuba), Candomblé (Brazil), Trinidad Orisha, Umbanda
   +-- VODUN (Fon/Ewe) --> Haitian Vodou, Louisiana Voodoo
   \-- African + Christianity --> AFRICAN INITIATED CHURCHES (Zionist, Aladura, Kimbanguist)

INDIGENOUS AMERICAN
   +-- Maya  +-- Aztec  +-- Inca / Andean   --> all fused after conquest into folk Catholicism
   \-- Plains & Southwest traditions --> NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH (1918)

NON-THEISTIC LINE
   Charvaka (India, c.6th c. BCE) ... Epicureanism ... DEISM (1624) --> Unitarianism, freethought
        \-- SECULAR HUMANISM (1876/1933)  |  organised atheism  |  THE UNAFFILIATED (1.9bn)

Who led before · 18

When the cards were re-checked against their sources, 18 offices had changed hands or were changing: a death, a retirement, an election, a resignation. Each is shown as the re-check found it.

How each tie is known

Every one of the 244 ties names the page it is said on. 182 also carry an outside source with the day it was checked.

• An outside source182the card's re-check, the source printed on the card, or the fund's filing
• The camp's own profile34the Third Ring is compiled from public record and not yet sourced line by line
• Both dossiers' word lists4two Lexicons define the same words
• The page alone24said on an Atlas page whose card prints no outside source yet

223 of the ties are stated outright; 32 are inferred, a name printed in another file, and are marked so wherever they are shown. A tie is what a file states or plainly implies; it is not a charge.

Every tie with its proof, to take away: ties.csv or ties.json, free to use under CC BY 4.0.

What changed

The record of the Web begins this month, 2026-11, with 244 ties. From next month this shows every tie added and every tie gone since the month before.

The rooms