When theology erodes and organization crumbles, when the institutional framework of religion begins to break up, the search for a direct experience which people can feel to be religious facilitates the rise of cults.

S. His most influential books are The End of Ideology (1960) The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976) and The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973). ; his dissertation was entitled "The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties" the title of his first book.

He has been described as "one of the leading American intellectuals of the postwar era. " His three best known works are The End of Ideology The Coming of Post-Industrial Society and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.