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Books The Church of Scientolo, The economics of ecstasy, Songs of Ecstasy | ||
Hugh Urban is a professor of religious studies at Ohio State Universities Department of Comparative Studies and author of eight books and several academic articles, including a history of the Church of Scientology, published by Princeton University Press in 2012.
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Hugh urban march 17 2016 scientology
Early life, education and family
Urban is the son of a psychologist and was raised in a religious Episcopal family, received his PhD in history of religions from the University of Chicago and is married to Ohio State University lecturer Nancy Jesser with their having one child.
Academic research
Urban's academic focus began with the religions of India and expanded to his studies of new religious movements in both the United States and Europe, with his stating that the knowledge and power used by religions to keep information hidden from others had always fascinated him and of which he has written many academic books and articles about.
Scientology scholarship
In 2006, Urban wrote an article for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Religion) titled Fair Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America.
By 2011, Urban had expanded his research into the practices of the Church of Scientology, incorporating his information into a new book titled The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion (published by Princeton University Press) which received praise:
In this book too, Urban asserted that Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard formed many of his theories from those previously written about by the early to mid 20th century astral projection pioneer Sylvan Muldoon in his (Muldoon's) 1951 book The Phenomena of Astral Projection co-written with Hereward Carrington.