A self religion (or self-religion) is a
religious
Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...
or
self-improvement group which has as one of its primary aims the improvement of the
self
In philosophy, the self is an individual's own being, knowledge, and values, and the relationship between these attributes.
The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from personal identity. Whereas "identity" is (literally) same ...
. The term "self religion" was coined by
Paul Heelas and other scholars of religion have adopted/adapted the description.
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...
scholar Peter Bernard Clarke builds on Heelas's concept of self religion to describe the class of "Religions of the True Self".
Scope
Hanegraaff notes that "self religion" may equate to
New Age
New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...
spirituality
The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...
in general. Author Michael York writes, "If 'self-religion' means personal exegesis and selection by the individual, the general rubric is applicable to trends in the late modern/early postmodern transition, which encompass much more than simply New Age and Neo-pagan religiosities." Eileen Barker, in her 1999 book '' New Religious Movements: their incidence and significance'', said that they were "toward the New Age end of the
NRM spectrum".
Massimo Introvigne, an Italian
sociologist of religion, describe "self religion" as "a deep but vague and unorganized interest in the sacred".
Examples
Groups characterized as (or associated with the concepts of) self religions or "religions of the True Self" include:
*
Arica
* the
Emin Foundation
*
est has been called "the most important of the self religions"
* Exegesis
(an est-offshoot)
*
The Gurdjieff Work. Heelas traces some self-religions to the tradition of
Gurdjieff:
*
Insight Seminars
*
Landmark Forum (a derivative of est)
* the Life Training (Kairos Foundation)
*
Mind Dynamics
*
Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA)
*
Rastafari
Rastafari is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by Religious studies, scholars of religion. There is no central authori ...
*
LaVeyan Satanism
* the
School of Economic Science
* the
Church of Scientology is characterized by Heelas as "one of the best known self-religions"
*
Silva Mind Control[
]
Notes
References
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Self Religion
New religious movements