Deconversion

This chapter explores deconversion as a rare exit pattern from Goenka’s Vipassana movement. Through a detailed exploration of a single case study, this chapter explores the narrator’s attempt to flee the movement’s universe of discourse. The chapter introduces the term ‘authenticity talk’ to refer to a style of discourse that functions both as (1) a recourse for self-reconstruction post exit, and (2) a rhetoric that provided the narrator with a sense of autonomy, empowerment, and self-validation. The chapter argues that the disengagement literature takes authenticity talk at face value and mistakenly conceives of it as an actual motive behind exit.