ABSTRACT
Of all the communal expressions describing the relation of human being to the Absolute, ‘cult’ is probably the clearest one. It thereby becomes the most
important manifestation of the homo religiosus for theology and anthro-
pology. In the study of religion, an analysis of the phenomenon of the cult
cannot be avoided. This obtains whether faith and its forms of expression
are understood to be a necessary but nonetheless transitional level that is to
be transcended in the history of human development, or whether one shares
the opinion of dialectical theology that Jesus Christ has permanently
superseded every cult – like the law. One cannot avoid facing the cult, and certainly not in a time when worship has shifted from being an unques-
tioned fact to a quantity that is questionable in growing measure. At the
same time, new cults shoot up from the ground like mushrooms in
totalitarian systems on the one hand and in esoteric circles on the other.
