Beyond Sociology: Mysticism and Society

Abstract

This chapter undertakes a synoptic integration of theorizing the society–mysticism relation. There is a dearth of sociological theory in the field, but also the pre-eminent contribution of Max Weber, which is taken as a starting point. For Jewish mysticism, the relevance of Weber and Ernst Troeltsch in the work of the founding academic scholar of Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, is reviewed. In the study of Jewish mysticism, Scholem, the founder, returns to the field to explicitly address what he calls a “scanting” of analyses of “Mysticism and Society.”