Free Zone Scientology: Contesting the Boundaries of a New Religion (Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies) - Hardcover

Thomas, Aled

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1350182540 ISBN 13: 9781350182547

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021

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, which 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.

About this title

About the Authors

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).

Bettina E. Schmidt is Professor in the Study of Religions and Director of Graduate Studies at the School of Theology, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK.

Steven J. Sutcliffe is Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He is the co-editor (with Carole Cusack) of The Problem of Invented Religions (2016) and (with Ingvild Gilhus) of New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion (2014) and is the author of Children of the New Age: A History of Spiritual Practices (2003).

Amy Allocco is a professor of religious studies at Elon University, USA.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350182540
• ISBN 13: 9781350182547
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200