From Mental Health to Spiritual Technology: The Evolution of Religious Practice in Scientology

Scientology’s self-association with technology is visible not only to academics of religions but also to the general public. Even the Church’s 2014 Super Bowl halftime commercial carried the message that Scientology is a “spiritual technology.” Although in the early Dianetics L. Ron Hubbard was deal...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Miklovicz, Attila (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
Vérifier la disponibilité: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Publié: 2023
Dans: The journal of CESNUR
Année: 2023, Volume: 7, Numéro: 6, Pages: 45-60
Accès en ligne: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Résumé:Scientology’s self-association with technology is visible not only to academics of religions but also to the general public. Even the Church’s 2014 Super Bowl halftime commercial carried the message that Scientology is a “spiritual technology.” Although in the early Dianetics L. Ron Hubbard was dealing with the human mind and mental health only, he was already developing a methodological approach and technological attitude that remained when he came up with a new term, Scientology, and started referring to it as a religion. He not only defined the religious practices of Scientology as a “technology” but used engineering terms such as “SOP” (Standard Operating Procedure). Later, he introduced the “Standard Technology” concept, which became a key objective to achieve for Scientology practitioners. The paper is an attempt to trace the “religious” turn from Dianetics to Scientology by following the evolution of the concept of the individual’s consciousness into spiritual being, parallel with the development of the “technological” paradigm, as part of a larger study into the philosophical analysis of the subject.
ISSN:2532-2990
Contient:Enthalten in: The journal of CESNUR
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.26338/tjoc.2023.7.6.4