Conversioni religiose. La ricerca del senso nella società contemporanea.

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]