ABSTRACT
Three typologically distinct attitudes towards religious fellowship may prevail: first, the naively affirmative, characteristic of those groups in which natural and religious organizations coincide; second, the negative, best illustrated by radical asceticism; third, the selectively positive, which limits religious communion, quantitatively or qualitatively. The influence of religion, sociologically speaking, then, is twofold: there is a positive or cohesive integrating influence and there is a negative, destructive, disintegrating influence. As a more elaborate and complicated system of cultic practices develops, the expanding need for experts leads to a reservation in principle or in practice of certain cultic acts and to the formation of a body of functionaries who take over and in fact monopolize certain activities in the cult. It is very important, however, to recognize the ambiguity in the interpretation of religious forms as well as of all cultural expressions.
