Forma y libertad. La religión como unidad cultural en Ernst Cassirer

This article studies the religious experience as a moment of encounter and cultural unity. From the philosophy of Religion proposed by Ernst Cassirer in Mythical Thought, an interpretation of two texts is elaborated: the encounter between San Juan Diego and the Virgin Mary (Tonantzin Guadalupe) and Moses and the Burning Bush (Yahweh); with both analyses two central results are manifested: (1) that the emotional warning, denominated by Cassirer as “symbolic expression”, constitutes the foundation of the encounter and unity between the human being and the divinity and (2) that such symbolic expression implies ritual activities through which the understanding of the mystery is possible.