Graceful women: An ethnographic account of women's experience in the Healthy-Happy-Holy-Organization, and of the interplay of sociocultural tensions, organization-building and selfhood in one of the new religions

Alternative religions and lifestyles no longer proliferate as they did in the 1960's and early 1970's. Some of these experiments, however, have survived into the 1980's. Study of their characteristics, accomplishments, and compromises can improve our understanding of the developmental patterns of such groups, and of their potential and their limitations.;This dissertation is an ethnographic account of women's lives in one such group: the Healthy-Happy-Holy-Organization (3HO). 3HO sprang from the counterculture and was incorporated in 1969. Since then, efforts to legitimate and institutionalize the 3HO belief system and lifestyle have produced a disciplined way of life and rapprochement with mainstream institutions. This has been accomplished, in part, by combining such diverse traditions as Sikhism, Tantric and Kundalini yoga, and aspects of Hinduism, with many conventional American beliefs and attitudes. Not surprisingly, this has led to some internal contradictions. It has also resulted in an organization whose structure, beliefs and imagery have come to reflect many of the tensions that exist in the surrounding society.;This paper looks at members' accounts of life in 3HO and at the incorporation of sociocultural tensions in 3HO life. Further, it examines gender roles, the life course, and identity processes in 3HO. It describes ways in which organizational definitions of the self have come to be aligned with organizational structure. It examines some of the 3HO imagery and the ways this imagery is employed in members' interpretations of their experience. Some of the author's reactions to participation in 3HO events are included, as well as an analysis of the author's ambivalence about the organization. Research methods were participant observation, intensive interviews and content analysis.