Converting — gaining a new identity

Conversion is sometimes understood as the gaining of certainty, but what it actually involves is the reorganization of the self around a new center — new practices, new stories, new community, and a new account of who one has been and is becoming. Many converts describe the experience as a form of recognition rather than adoption: finding, in the new tradition, something the self already knew. The convert's perspective — arriving from outside — can also illuminate what long-term members no longer see.