In the following article I deal with some theoretical issues relating to terms like "new religions" and "traditional religions", and with inability of contemporary sociology and the study of religions to clarify what the label "new" with reference to religions means. I have attempted to clarify the issue through the contextual analysis of the phenomenon of acculturation of Hinduism in Czech occultism during the beginning of the 20th century. I have found that the most important condition, which made the mentioned phenomena possible, was an establishment of printing industry and a market with printed books and magazines. Mass accessibility to printed material resulted - with reference to religion - in crucial transformations of the organizational structures as well as of ways of thinking and believing. These transformations affected finally the so called traditional churches as much as the "new religions". Certain sociologically significant differences, however, can be found among different types of modern religious expressions: i.e. the tendency to cling on delimited canons and subjection to particular religious authority vs. the emphasis on unlimited individual choice and the sole authority of the self.