In Drifting Through Samsara, Masoumeh Rahmani provides a fieldwork-based study of Goenka's Vipassana meditation movement in New Zealand. This group is distinguished by its refusal to identify as Buddhist and by a rich rhetorical repertoire for repackaging Theravada Buddhist teachings in pseudo-scientific and secular language. Drawing from qualitative research, the book examines the way the movement's discourse shapes unique processes and narratives of conversion and disengagement. Rahmani argues that conversion to this movement is tacit and paradoxically results in the members' rejection of religious labels and categories including conversion. Tracing the linguistic changes associated with the process of conversion and increased commitment, she outlines three main disengagement pathways: (1) pragmatic leaving, (2) disaffiliation, and (3) deconversion. Pragmatic leavers are individuals who were disengaged prior to developing a commitment. Rahmani argues that the language of these leavers is characterised by pragmatisms, dualistic discourse, and ambivalence, and their post-disengagement involves an active gravitation towards practices with easily accomplished goals. Disaffiliates and deconverts are individuals who disengaged after years of intense commitment to the movement. One of the distinguishing features of disaffiliation narratives is self-doubt resulting from the movement's ambiguous discourse regarding progress. For these people post-disengagement often involves the retrospective adoption of Buddhist identity.

Rahmani finds that as a consequence of its linguistic strategies, deconversion is a rare exit pattern from this movement. In general, however, the themes and characteristics of both disaffiliation and deconversion fit the contours of exit from other traditions, even though conversion was tacit in the first place. The book thus questions the normative participant recruitment approach in conversion studies and argues that a simple reliance on the informants' identification with or rejection of religious labels fails to encompass the tonalities of conversion in the contemporary spiritual landscape.

Drifting through Samsara: Tacit Conversion and Disengagement in Goenka's Vipassana Movement, Masoumeh Rahmani, Oxford University Press, Hardcover, 264 pages, $74.00

Masoumeh Rahmani is a lecturer in Religious Studies at the School of Social and Cultural Studies in Victoria University of Wellington. She received her PhD from the University of Otago in 2017 and has previously held a research associate position in the Brain, Belief, and Behaviour lab at Coventry University. Her research interests include religious change, meditation movements, atheism and unbelief, and Asian spiritualities in non-Asian contexts. Her latest longitudinal project explored the diversity of "unbelief" in the mindfulness subcultures of the UK and the US and examined the influence of the practice on the worldviews of non-religious/atheist practitioners.

CONTENTS: Drifting through Samsara
List of Figures		ix
A Note on Terminology and Transcription		xi
Conventions of Transcription		xiii
Introduction		1
	S. N. Goenka's Vipassana Organization	3
	The Field Site	10
	Introducing the Participants	16
	Conceptualisations	21
	Research Design and Personal Orientations	32
	Outline of the Book	40
1.	Conversion Career	43
	Preaffiliation	44
	Affiliation	51
	Conversion	56
	Commitment	75
	Concluding Summary	92
2.	Tacit Conversion	94
	Conversion Narratives	99
	Language and Self-Transformation	101
	Selected Case Study: Elijah	102
	Plotting the Narrative	103
	The Performance of Conversion Narrative	106
	Self-Acceptance and Agency	112
	Mind-Body Relationship	115
	Concluding Summary	117
3.	Pragmatic Leaving	119
	(1) Pragmatism	120
	(2) Dualistic Discourse	121
	(3) Ambivalence	122
	Experience Seekers	123
	Traumatic Meditative Experiences	125
	Frustrating Experiences	134
	Loss of Experience	137
	Loss of Experience in Disengagement Literature	142
	Concluding Summary	145
4.	Disaffiliation	147
	Religious Disaffiliation	148
	Selected Case Study: Damian	151
	Doubt and Religious Disengagement	159
	Ambivalent Language in Disaffiliation Narratives	162
	Chasing Enlightenment	166
	Concluding Summary	171
5.	Disaffiliation Trajectories	172
	Trajectory (1): Drifters in Samsara	173
	Trajectory (2): Pursuers of the Gateless Gate	180
	Selected Case Study: Karen	181
	Remnants of the Movement's Language	185
	Concluding Summary	191
6.	Deconversion: Breathing New Self into Not-Self	193
	Selected Case Study: Luke	194
	Leaving a Universe of Discourse Behind	201
	Authenticity vs Authenticity Talk	207
	Authenticity in Disengagement Talk	207
	Origins of Authenticity	213
	Concluding Summary	216
Concluding Discussions		217
Appendix 1: Vipassana Ten-Day Course Timetable		223
Appendix 2: Participants' Information		225
Bibliography		229
Index		241