It is especially characteristic of the barbarian culture.
Here there is pretty uniformly present in the devout observances a direct appeal to the emotions through all the avenues of sense.

And a tendency to return to this naive, sensational method of appeal is unmistakable in the upper-class churches of today.

It is perceptible in a less degree in the cults which claim the allegiance of the lower leisure class and of the middle classes.

There is a reversion to the use of colored lights and brilliant spectacles, a freer use of symbols, orchestral music and incense, and one may even detect in "processionals" and "recessionals" and in richly varied genuflexional evolutions, an incipient reversion to so antique an accessory of worship as the sacred dance.

This reversion to spectacular observances is not confined to the upper-class cults, although it finds its best exemplification and its highest accentuation in the higher pecuniary and social altitudes.