Spiritual virtuosity is an important but neglected concept for theoretical and empirical scholarship about movements for religious and social change. Weber focused primarily on ascetic spiritual virtuosi who sought to transcend the world. We suggest that when virtuosi enter the larger society and become leaders in movements to democratize access to sanctification, their influence can be dramatic. By approaching virtuosity as a social form and focusing on activist virtuosi, we are able to consider virtuosi’s individual attributes, their collective relationships, and the social contexts that shape the success or failure of their movements. We advance our argument with the help of case studies of two very different virtuosi-led movements: the central European Reformation and the American Human Potential Movement.
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