ABSTRACT
Lutheran theologian and sociologist Ernst Troeltsch, who had been influenced by W. Dilthey, developed a typology of church and sects. Differently from the church, the behavior of individual members is controlled in a much more rigid fashion. Troeltsch saw in mysticism, or in spiritual religion, another category that was close to church and sect. Some scholars have incorporated Troeltsch's category of mysticism into the concept of cult because of the loose and weak bonds existing among its members, and because of the low level of institutionalization and rather tolerant religiosity that characterize cults. Institutionalized religion could be viewed as another form of dehistoricization. It was based on a metahistorical order, the myth, that could deal with a metahistorical order of behavior, the rite. Religious life for de Martino thus became a protective technique that produced values that were able through culture to reshape individual fears deriving from the loss of presence.
