Among the Scientologists

Among the Scientologists PDF Author: Donald A. Westbrook
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190664975
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
The Church of Scientology is one of the most recognizable American-born new religions, but perhaps the least understood. With academic and popular interest on the rise, many books have been written about Scientology and surely more will follow. Although academics have begun to pay more attention to Scientology, the subject has received remarkably little qualitative attention. Indeed, no work has systematically addressed such questions as: what do Scientologists themselves have to say about their religion's history, theology, and practices? How does Scientology act as a religion for them? What does "lived religion" look like for a Scientologist? This is not so much a book about the Church of Scientology, its leaders, or its controversies, as it is a compilation of narratives and histories based on the largely unheard or ignored perspectives of Scientologists themselves. Drawing on six years of interviews, fieldwork, and research conducted among members of the Church of Scientology, this groundbreaking work examines features of the new religion's history, theology, and praxis in ways that move discussion beyond apostate-driven and expos� accounts.

Among the Scientologists

Among the Scientologists PDF Author: Donald A. Westbrook
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190664975
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Church of Scientology is one of the most recognizable American-born new religions, but perhaps the least understood. With academic and popular interest on the rise, many books have been written about Scientology and surely more will follow. Although academics have begun to pay more attention to Scientology, the subject has received remarkably little qualitative attention. Indeed, no work has systematically addressed such questions as: what do Scientologists themselves have to say about their religion's history, theology, and practices? How does Scientology act as a religion for them? What does "lived religion" look like for a Scientologist? This is not so much a book about the Church of Scientology, its leaders, or its controversies, as it is a compilation of narratives and histories based on the largely unheard or ignored perspectives of Scientologists themselves. Drawing on six years of interviews, fieldwork, and research conducted among members of the Church of Scientology, this groundbreaking work examines features of the new religion's history, theology, and praxis in ways that move discussion beyond apostate-driven and expos� accounts.

Going Clear

Going Clear PDF Author: Lawrence Wright
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385350279
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower comes “an utterly necessary story” (The Wall Street Journal) that pulls back the curtain on the church of Scientology: one of the most secretive organizations at work today. • The Basis for the HBO Documentary. Scientology presents itself as a scientific approach to spiritual enlightenment, but its practices have long been shrouded in mystery. Now Lawrence Wright—armed with his investigative talents, years of archival research, and more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—uncovers the inner workings of the church. We meet founder L. Ron Hubbard, the highly imaginative but mentally troubled science-fiction writer, and his tough, driven successor, David Miscavige. We go inside their specialized cosmology and language. We learn about the church’s legal attacks on the IRS, its vindictive treatment of critics, and its phenomenal wealth. We see the church court celebrities such as Tom Cruise while consigning its clergy to hard labor under billion-year contracts. Through it all, Wright asks what fundamentally comprises a religion, and if Scientology in fact merits this Constitutionally-protected label.

The Church of Scientology

The Church of Scientology PDF Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069114608X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Hugh Urban tells the real story of Scientology from its cold war-era beginnings in the 1950s to its prominence today as the religion of Hollywood's celebrity elite. Urban paints a vivid portrait of Hubbard, the enigmatic founder who once commanded his own private fleet and an intelligence apparatus rivaling that of the U.S. government. One FBI agent described him as "a mental case," but to his followers he is the man who "solved the riddle of the human mind." Urban details Scientology's decades-long war with the IRS, which ended with the church winning tax-exempt status as a religion; the rancorous cult wars of the 1970s and 1980s; as well as the latest challenges confronting Scientology, from attacks by the Internet group Anonymous to the church's efforts to suppress the online dissemination of its esoteric teachings.

Scientology

Scientology PDF Author: James R. Lewis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199715955
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
Scientology is arguably the most persistently controversial of all contemporary New Religious Movements. James R. Lewis has assembled an unusually comprehensive anthology, incorporating a wide range of different approaches. In this book, a group of well-known scholars of New Religious Movements offers an extensive and evenhanded overview and analysis of all of these aspects of Scientology, including the controversies to which it continues to give rise.

My Billion Year Contract

My Billion Year Contract PDF Author: Nancy Many
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781441566874
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description


The Church of Scientology

The Church of Scientology PDF Author: J. Gordon Melton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
The author explores the theology and hierarchical structure of the Church of Scientology providing information on its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, the church's social reform programs, and a summary of the major points of controversy.

Inside Scientology

Inside Scientology PDF Author: Janet Reitman
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0547549237
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
“The most complete picture of Scientology so far.” —Garry Wills, New York Times Book Review Based on five years of research, access to confidential documents, and extensive interviews with current and former Scientologists, Janet Reitman sheds some long-awaited light on the ever-elusive religion of the Church of Scientology. Scientology, created in 1954 by pulp science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world’s fastest growing religion, with millions of members and huge financial holdings. Celebrity believers keep its profile high. But Scientology is also a very closed faith, harassing journalists and others through litigation and intimidation. Its attacks on psychiatry and its requirement that believers pay as much as tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for salvation have drawn scrutiny. Ex-members use the internet to share stories of harassment and abuse. Reitman offers the first full journalistic history of the Church of Scientology in an account that establishes the truth about the controversial religion. She traces Scientology’s development from the birth of Dianetics to today, following its metamorphosis from a pseudoscientific self-help group to a global spiritual corporation with profound control over its followers and ex-followers. This is a defining book about a little-known world. “[A] searing expose.” —People Magazine “A masterful piece of reporting.” —Washington Post “This book is fearless.” —Wall Street Journal “[A] frightening portrait of a religion that many find not just controversial, but dangerous.” —Boston Globe “[Reitman's] revelations — including abuse allegations against church leader David Miscavige and details about the organization's aggressive courtship of Tom Cruise — come with impressive backup.” —Entertainment Weekly

Scientology, a History of Man

Scientology, a History of Man PDF Author: La Fayette Ron Hubbard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This book claims to unravel history with an "E-Meter", describing what the author believes are the principal "incidents on the whole track to be found in any human being". These incidents include electronic implants, entities, the genetic track, between-lives incidents, the relationship of the Genetic Entity to Theta Beings, and so on. Also presented are Hubbard's theory of how bodies evolved and why human's got trapped in them as well as his descriptions of how specific incidents reveal "the true story of between-lives" and "the insidious nature of electronics in enslaving thetans".

The Creation of Human Ability

The Creation of Human Ability PDF Author: L. Ron Hubbard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788779897519
Category : Scientology
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description


Revisiting Jonestown

Revisiting Jonestown PDF Author: Domenico Arturo Nesci
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498552706
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Revisiting Jonestown covers three main topics: the psycho-biography of Jim Jones (the leader of the suicidal community) from the new perspective of Prenatal Psychology and transgenerational trauma, the story of his Peoples Temple, with emphasis on what kind of leadership and membership were responsible for their tragic end, and the interpretation of death rituals by religious cults as regression to primordial stages of human evolution, when a series of genetic mutations changed the destiny of Homo Sapiens, at the dawn of religion and human awareness. A pattern of collective suicide is finally identified, making it possible to foresee and try to prevent its tragic repetition. At the same time, through an artistic editorial work on original images from the Peoples Temple files, a sort of Multimedia Psychotherapy is subliminally delivered in order to help the mourning of the victims of Jonestown, to whose memory the book is dedicated.