Question

What Weber does mean by "charisma" ?

Answer 1

The satisfaction of all demands that go
beyond those of everyday economic rou­
tine has had, by and large, an entirely dif­
ferent foundation, a charismatic one, and
the further back we look in history, the
more we find this to be so. This means
that the 'natural' leaders -- in times of psy­
chic, physical, economic, ethical, religious,
political distress -- have been neither of­
ficeholders nor practitioners of an 'occu­
pation' in the present sense of the word,
that is, men who have acquired expert
knowledge and who serve for remunera­
tion. The natural leaders in stressful times
have been deemed possessors of particu­
lar physical and spiritual gifts, which were
believed to be supernatural, not accessible
to everybody. The concept of 'charisma' is
here used in a completely 'value-neutral'
sense.