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Dec 1, 2015 · Hubbard established Scientology as a religion in 1953 when he founded the Church of Scientology in Camden, New Jersey. It grew into one of the most controversial religious movements of the twentieth century. Adherents see it as guiding their path to self-empowerment; critics charge that it is a cult that ensnares the emotionally vulnerable.
Dec 26, 2019 · The academic study of Scientology traces to at least 1958, when L. Ron Hubbard granted an interview to new religions scholar and librarian J. Stillson Judah in Washington, DC. Since then, relations between the Church of Scientology and academics have at times been strained yet, on the whole, remain more productive and congenial relative to other outsiders such as journalists and former members.
- Donald A. Westbrook
- 26 December 2019
- 6
- 14, Issue2
Dec 20, 2018 · The Church of Scientology is one of the most recognizable American-born new religious movements, but perhaps the least understood. Based on six years of interviews, fieldwork, and research conducted among Scientologists in the United States, this groundbreaking work examines features of the new religion’s history, theology, and praxis from 1950 to 2018.
Nov 5, 2014 · Urban says there are two big reasons for the dearth of academic interest in Scientology. First, it has been an unusually secretive movement from its inception, with the highest levels of information accessible only to those who have progressed through (and paid for) the proper training. And second, “it has been probably the most litigious ...
Nov 1, 2022 · As part of a resurgence of scholarly interest in Scientology over the last decade a handful of articles and book chapters have addressed aspects of the practice of Scientology outside of the institutional Church of Scientology. Based on his doctoral dissertation at the Open University, Aled Thomas’ Free Zone Scientology provides the first book-length ethnographic portrait of this fissiparous ...
"Historically, most new religions die, and it's fairly clear now that Scientology is on a downward path," said Kent. The seeds of Scientology. The Church of Scientology was created by Hubbard in 1954, developed from ideas he presented a few years earlier in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health . A form of self-help psychology, the ...
Oct 8, 2023 · FREE ZONE SCIENTOLOGY: CONTESTING THE BOUNDARIES OF A NEW RELIGION.By Aled Thomas.Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2021.Pp. x + 189.
