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The aim of this article is to reflect on the spirituality concept which, although part of international sociological debate for about three decades, has still not become central to Italian empirical studies. Based on an analytical survey of this debate, we argue the heuristic usefulness of the spirituality concept in order to understand forms of religiosity emerging since the 1960s - both within and without traditional religions. We shall also claim that the religion and spirituality spheres, albeit analytically separate, reciprocally influence each other, benefitting from a relationship of exchange, loans and assimilation producing non-stop transformation and innovation within the religious field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reflection about spirituality concerns two conceptual keypoints: personal experience of sacred and public/institutional dimension in which this experience take place. This polarization refers to the distinction, purposed by Simmel, between 'religion' and 'religiosity', on the one hand, and to Saussurian binomial langue/parole, on the other hand. As there is a necessary connection between langue and parole (each does not exist without other), as religion is ever linked with religiosity even though different historical contexts present different modality of valorization of these dimensions. The article purposes a scheme for analysing the process of secularization through the effects that the macro-modifications of institutional level (riduction of social relevance of religion) generate on micro level of the individual behaviours (autonomy and privatization of religious choices). In this scenery, religious conversion is a paradigmatic phenomenon. Autonomy of subject implies processes of religious mobility: current spiritual biographies outlines acquired courses orientated to a religious socialization intermediate by non traditional agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]