Digital 'Squirelling': Transitions and Transformations in Free Zone Scientology

This paper will explore the dynamics of Free Zone Scientology, an umbrella term for all Scientologists practising outside the institutional Church of Scientology (CoS), in the digital age. The relationship between the Free Zone and CoS is marked by tensions surrounding the legitimacy of each group's application of L. Ron Hubbard's 'spiritual technology'. Indeed, the CoS positions the use of Scientology outside its remit to constitute the heretical act of 'squirrelling'. Drawing from my ethnographic research of Freezoners who primarily practise Scientology online, I will demonstrate that digital applications of Scientology have significantly transformed how Scientology is practised and understood by contemporary Scientologists. These innovations point to key issues for scholars - including the ways in which established new religious movements transition and transform in online spaces, breakdowns in routinized charisma, and how the intentions of the CoS have been subverted by those practising in fluid and non-heirarchical digital envrionments.