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Free Zone Scientology: Contesting the Boundaries of a New Religion - Couverture souple

Livre 12 sur 19: Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies

Thomas, Aled

 
9781350232990: Free Zone Scientology: Contesting the Boundaries of a New Religion

Synopsis

In this novel academic study, Aled Thomas analyses modern issues surrounding boundaries and fluidity in contemporary Scientology. By using the Scientologist practice of ‘auditing’ as a case study, this book explores the ways in which new types of ‘Scientologies’ can emerge. The notion of Free Zone Scientology is characterised by its horizontal structure, in contrast to the vertical-hierarchy of the institutional Church of Scientology. With this in mind, Thomas explores the Free Zone as an example of a developing and fluid religion, directly addressing questions concerning authority, leadership and material objects. This book, by maintaining a double-focus on the top-down hierarchy of the Church of Scientology and the horizontal-fluid nature of the Free Zone, breaks away from previous research on new religions, with have tended to focus either on new religions as indices of broad social processes, such as secularization or globalization, or as exemplars of exotic processes, such as charismatic authority and brainwashing. Instead, Thomas adopts auditing as a method of providing an in-depth case study of a new religion in transition and transformation in the 21st century. This opens the study of contemporary and new religions to a series of new questions around hybrid religions (sacred and secular), and acts as a framework for the study of similar movements formed in recent decades.

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À propos de l'auteur

Aled Thomas is a Teaching Fellow in the Study of Religion at the University of Leeds, UK. He is the author of Free Zone Scientology: Contesting the Boundaries of a New Religion (Bloomsbury, 2021).

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Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9781350182547: Free Zone Scientology: Contesting the Boundaries of a New Religion

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  1350182540 ISBN 13 :  9781350182547
Editeur : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021
Couverture rigide