ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses identical types of religious and social organization and have noted that this identity prevails in less complex cultures. Two factors tend to promote a change in the situation: the growing differentiation in the sociological, political, and cultural structure of society and the enrichment of the religious experience of individuals and groups. Students of the classical civilizations have always found themselves at a loss when trying to explain the great changes that have accompanied the decline of the traditional cults and the emergence of new religious attitudes. The mystery society is the one type of specifically religious organization. The term “mystery religion” is frequently used quite loosely. Mystery groups may be of various types, all distinctly different from the age groups or the purely professional groups. The study of religion has occasionally suffered from the antagonism between the two schools of thought conveniently labelled as the individualistic and the collectivistic.
