A self religion (or self-religion) is a religious or self-improvement group which has as one of its primary aims the improvement of the self.[1] The term "self religion" was coined by Paul Heelas[2] and other scholars of religion have adopted/adapted the description. King's College London scholar Peter Bernard Clarke builds on Heelas's concept of self religion to describe the class of "Religions of the True Self".[3]
- ^ Chryssides, pp. 290–291.[need quotation to verify]
- ^ For example in Heelas, Paul (1991), ""Cults for capitalism? self religions, magic and the empowerment of business", in Gee, Peter; Fulton, John (eds.), Religion and power, decline and growth: sociological analyses of religion in Britain, Poland, and the Americas, Twickenham: British Sociological Association, Sociology of Religion Study Group, ISBN 0-9517224-0-9
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Clarke, Peter Bernard (2006), New religions in global perspective: a study of religious change in the modern world, Routledge, p. 8, ISBN 978-0-415-25748-0, retrieved 2010-05-22,
Looking at the situation from West to East, one kind of spirituality that is increasingly sought after in the former concept is the [...] inner-directed or internally focussed spirituality that gives rise to what, building on Heelas' (1991) concept of Self-religion, I prefer to describe as Religions of the True Self.