J. Gordon Melton

Who is J. Gordon Melton?

John Gordon Melton is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently a research specialist in religion and New Religious Movements with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion.

He is the author of more than twenty-five books, including several encyclopedias, handbooks, and almanacs on American religion and new religious movements. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

His areas of research include major religious traditions, new religions and alternative religions, occultism and parapsychology, New Age, and vampirology.