Crime and Justice Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which
expertise the answer needs.
These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows
only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where
the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the
hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither
one settles it alone.
Grouped by the expertise recorded on each question, in the words the question itself uses. Most of these are held by a single question.
Filter By Specialty 99 fields
Showing 41 to 60 of 608 open questions, page 3 of 31.
Biographical research 12
Lawrence Principe
Where was Lawrence Principe born?
Open Lawrence Principe
Why It Is Open His education, career and awards are extensively documented, but none of his dedicated institutional profiles states a birthplace; a vague "born in northern New Jersey" claim recurs in aggregator sites with no named source behind it.
What Would Settle It An interview, memoir or institutional biography from Johns Hopkins or the Science History Institute naming his actual birthplace.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference), Encyclopaedia Britannica editors.
Leonard Horowitz
Where was Leonard Horowitz born?
Open Leonard Horowitz
Why It Is Open His birth year and professional credentials are widely documented, but no source found, including his own author biography pages, states where he was born.
What Would Settle It A biographical profile or public statement from Leonard Horowitz naming his birthplace.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Leonard Horowitz (reference article), SourceWatch contributors.
Russ Hudson
Where was Russ Hudson born?
Open Russ Hudson
Why It Is Open He is extensively documented as a teacher and author, but no interview, profile or biographical page found states his birthplace or hometown.
What Would Settle It An interview or biographical profile from the Enneagram Institute or elsewhere naming his birthplace.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Deborah Blake
Where was Deborah Blake born?
Open Deborah Blake
Why It Is Open Her Llewellyn author page and her own official site describe only her current residence in upstate New York, not where she was born or grew up.
What Would Settle It An interview or profile of Deborah Blake naming her birthplace or hometown.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Deborah Blake (Llewellyn author page), Llewellyn.
J. R. Rivera
Where was J. R. Rivera born?
Open J. R. Rivera
Why It Is Open His public bios across retailers and his own blog focus entirely on his tarot practice and interests, not personal geography.
What Would Settle It An interview or profile of J. R. Rivera naming his birthplace or hometown.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Jasmine Becket-Griffith
Where was Jasmine Becket-Griffith born?
Open Jasmine Becket-Griffith
Why It Is Open Secondary summaries claiming Kansas or Kansas City, Missouri, trace only to a conflation with her university location, not to any statement by her; her own site and Wikipedia give her birth date only, with no place.
What Would Settle It A statement from Jasmine Becket-Griffith herself, or a primary record, naming her actual birthplace.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Michelle A. Motuzas
Where was Michelle A. Motuzas born?
Open Michelle A. Motuzas
Why It Is Open Her official site describes her only as a "native New Englander," with no specific city, state or hometown named.
What Would Settle It An interview or profile of Michelle A. Motuzas naming her specific birthplace or hometown.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Michelle A. Motuzas (official site), Michelle A. Motuzas.
Michelle Buchanan
Where was Michelle Buchanan born?
Open Michelle Buchanan
Why It Is Open She is a fairly public figure with a known birth name and date, but no source found states where she was born or grew up.
What Would Settle It An interview or profile of Michelle Buchanan naming her birthplace or hometown.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Radleigh Valentine
Where was Radleigh Valentine born?
Open Radleigh Valentine
Why It Is Open He is candid in interviews about his career change and formative spiritual experiences, but no source found states where he was born or grew up.
What Would Settle It An interview or profile of Radleigh Valentine naming his birthplace or hometown.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Radleigh Valentine (Hay House U profile), Hay House.
Theresa Reed
Where was Theresa Reed born?
Open Theresa Reed
Why It Is Open She writes and speaks extensively and personally about her family and upbringing across many interviews and podcasts, yet no specific hometown or birthplace has surfaced in any of them; her own site names only her current base in Milwaukee.
What Would Settle It A statement from Theresa Reed herself naming her actual birthplace or hometown, which her extensive interviews so far have not covered.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Yoshi Yoshitani
Where was Yoshi Yoshitani born?
Open Yoshi Yoshitani
Why It Is Open A commonly repeated line describes her as born in California and raised in numerous locations, but no primary source could be found actually saying this; interviews specifically about her mixed race, multi location upbringing discuss moving frequently without ever naming a place.
What Would Settle It A statement from Yoshi Yoshitani herself, or a primary record, naming her actual birthplace.
Expertise Needed Biographical research
Question posed in
Yoshi Yoshitani (official site), Yoshi Yoshitani.
Sociology of religion 10
Tengrism
How many people identify with Tengrism as a distinct present-day religious practice?
Open Tengrism
Why It Is Open Test why open, twenty plus characters here easily.
What Would Settle It Test what would resolve, twenty plus characters here easily.
Expertise Needed Sociology of religion
Question posed in
Tengrism (Wikipedia).
Thelema
How many people practise Thelema worldwide, across Ordo Templi Orientis, A A and its other initiatory orders?
Open Thelema
Why It Is Open Thelema has no single organisation: its chief initiatory orders keep their own membership rolls, some of it oathbound material, and no outside survey covering the tradition as a whole was found.
What Would Settle It A survey of the major Thelemic orders' own reported membership, or an independent sociological study using a stated, defensible definition of practice, aggregated across the tradition's known organised currents.
Expertise Needed Sociology of religion
Question posed in
Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism, Henrik Bogdan and Martin P. Starr (eds.).
New Age
How many people participate in New Age spirituality worldwide?
Open New Age
Why It Is Open New Age has no central organisation and no agreed boundary with the wider fields of alternative spirituality and Western esotericism it draws on, and its many independent teachers, retreat centres and publishers each keep at most their own local records.
What Would Settle It A sociological survey using a stated, defensible definition of participation, since belief surveys on individual New Age adjacent claims (reincarnation, astrology, psychic phenomena) measure belief rather than movement participation.
Expertise Needed Sociology of religion
Question posed in
New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, Wouter J. Hanegraaff.
Sant Mat
How many people practice Sant Mat worldwide, across all its lineages combined?
Open Sant Mat
Why It Is Open Sant Mat has no central organization: its many lineages, Radha Soami Satsang Beas among the largest, each keep at most their own membership records, several privately, and no independent source aggregates them into a total for the tradition as a whole.
What Would Settle It A survey methodology that could count across separate, non-communicating religious organizations without relying on each one's own self-reported figures, or a change in disclosure practice by the larger lineages themselves.
Expertise Needed Sociology of religion
Question posed in
The Radhasoami Tradition: A Critical History of Guru Successorship, David Christopher Lane.
Goddess Movement
How many people participate in the Goddess Movement worldwide, across its many independent covens, temples and networks?
Open Goddess Movement
Why It Is Open The Goddess Movement has no central organisation and no agreed boundary with modern Wicca or the wider Pagan movement, and its component groups, Dianic covens, the Reclaiming tradition and independent Goddess temples, each keep at most their own local records.
What Would Settle It A sociological survey using a stated, defensible definition of participation, aggregated across a representative sample of the movement's known organised currents.
Expertise Needed Sociology of religion
Question posed in
Living in the Lap of the Goddess: The Feminist Spirituality Movement in America, Cynthia Eller.
Religion of Humanity
How many people currently belong to or attend the Positivist Church of Brazil, the surviving organised body of the Religion of Humanity?
Open Religion of Humanity
Why It Is Open The Positivist Church of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro is documented as the one organised body still holding services, but no current membership or attendance figure for it was found in the sources checked for this record.
What Would Settle It A current statement from the Positivist Church of Brazil itself, or an independent survey of its membership and attendance.
Expertise Needed Sociology of religion
Question posed in
Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference), Encyclopaedia Britannica editors.
Deism
How many people today hold deist views, whether or not they use the label, and can a philosophical position without an organised membership be reliably counted at all?
Open Deism
Why It Is Open Deism has never had a central organisation or membership process, and general religious surveys that ask about belief in God, an afterlife or scripture rarely isolate a specifically deist position from theism or agnosticism more broadly.
What Would Settle It A survey instrument specifically designed to isolate deist belief, of the kind occasionally attempted in general religious surveys, applied consistently enough across countries to support a global estimate.
Expertise Needed Sociology of religion
Question posed in
The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, John Bowker (ed.).
Luciferianism
How many people currently identify as Luciferians, and by what count could that be known?
Open Luciferianism
Why It Is Open Luciferianism has no central registering body, no formal congregational structure comparable to most religions, and its practice is conducted largely through self-published books and online communities that keep no membership rolls, so no sociologist of religion has published even a rough estimate.
What Would Settle It A survey instrument capable of identifying self-described Luciferians within broader surveys of religious identity or occult and Left-Hand Path practice, of the kind already used to estimate Wiccan or Satanist populations, applied consistently across at least one national population.
Expertise Needed Sociology of religion
Question posed in
The Invention of Satanism, Asbjorn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis and Jesper Aa. Petersen.
Discordianism
How many people identify as Discordian, and can the question even be answered given the tradition's own boundary-less self presentation?
Open Discordianism
Why It Is Open Discordianism has no central organisation, no membership process and no agreed test for who counts as a practitioner rather than a reader enjoying the joke, so no census or registry exists to consult, and scholars of the tradition treat the boundary question itself as open rather than merely uncounted.
What Would Settle It A sociological survey using a stated, defensible definition of practice, or, short of that, a scholarly argument for why the question is not meaningfully answerable for a tradition of this kind.
Expertise Needed Sociology of religion
Question posed in
Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith, Carole M. Cusack.