This article is a psychosociological study of an outstanding figure in the history of religious sects : pastor Charles Taze Russel, founder of the International Bible Students Association, from wich the Jehovah's Witnesses orignated. The author traces the life of this person and then goes on to show how the prophetism of Russel corresponds with the conceptualisation of Max Weber and how it is bound up with a definitive social and cultural context. This This kind of prophetism is found in industrial societies, although somes sociologists deny the possibility of its existence. The prophet directs his charism and develops his movement according to the rules of a capitalist economy.