ABSTRACT
The perspective which is derived from the German humanistic tradition of sociology maintains a deliberate and unflinching affinity with the concerns and aspirations of classical sociological thought. Modernity is typified by a number of salient features. Among the most important are institutional differentiation and bureaucratic augmentation. According to Arnold Gehlen, one of the most important aspects of modernity is that the foreground of choice is growing, and the background of stable institutional patterns is receding. Modernity is characterized by an unprecedented degree of deinstitutionalization. As a demodernizing movement, the new religions are a sign that in some sectors of modern society, the strains of modernity have reached the limits of human tolerance, at both the collective and the social-psychological levels. What is unique about the counter-culture in general and the new religions in particular, in relation to demodernizing movements of the past, is a quantitative shift.
