In the first part of this article I propose a reflection on the religious experience such as it is recounted by certain adolescents during the celebration of the « mystery ». I will then review succinctly the social order established by religion. In this confrontation between « subjective and objective rite », the second part of the article will show how it is necessary to situate their encounter at the deepest level which is that of otherness, that is, of the inter-subjectal bond. The argument will follow accounts by two writers on the mystery in question : that of F.-R. de Chateaubriand and that of A. Gide.