[A]n enlightening ethnographic study by Claire Wanless [that] offers an important qualification to secularization theory by looking at individualized religious practice ... The book aims to provide nuance to the secularization debate “by proposing new ways of theorizing individualized religion, [and] new ways of thinking about the relationship between individualized religious practitioners and the communities” (10). This is done successfully.

Reading Religion

This outstanding account of contemporary spirituality turns received wisdom on its head by showing that its individualism is its greatest strength.

Linda Woodhead, Distinguished Professor, Lancaster University, UK

A number of ethnographies of vernacular religion and the holistic milieu have recently appeared. But the specific form of religion which sustains them remains undertheorised. Individualised Religion: Practitioners and their Communities addresses this gap though a ground-breaking case study of 'individualised religion'. Based in an ethnography of non-aligned Buddhists, Pagans and Quakers in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, Wanless recovers and theorises a nuanced middle ground of practitioners and their communities who do 'religion' between the polar extremes of secularization and spiritual revolution. Based in theories of learning and community practice rarely employed in the Study of Religion/s, this is a benchmark study in how the holistic milieu actually works.

Steven Sutcliffe, Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion, University of Edinburgh