68. Bateson, Mary Catherine. "Ritualization: A Study in Texture and Texture Change." In Religious Movements in Contemporary America edited by Irving Zaretsky and Mark P. Leone. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1974: 150-65.

An attempt to distinguish ritual from other forms of behavior by its texture; to "describe ritual behavior and the distribution of meaning over different units in that behavior without [reference to content]" (p. 150.) Ritual cannot be delimited but falls into a continuum and is accountable by its texture; it is not necessarily associated with religion and it is always best seen as interactive even when solitary. Language cannot be separated into components, especially at high levels. In a multi-level conception, there is extreme complexity of shared coding; in interactions, we must assume that only the divisions at some levels may be shared. Do segmentations at different levels have different importance in varying contexts? This is a key to ritual. Ritual may not diverge significantly from other codes, especially in new groups, where it will be highly conservative, but there is a tendency to diverge.

Addition of meaning is perhaps crucial; "a nonce pattern becomes crystallized into a single unit," as the Last Supper. Atrophy of components is the stripping of meaning from elements (e.g. words) which are not themselves dropped, usually through age. Blurring of boundaries is a result of habit; turning the key is no longer part of starting the car, [except when it doesn't work]. This may be forced, as when words are set to music-only high-level boundaries will match perfectly. This may become like "total experience" as in mixed-media shows. See Marks (1974: item 464). Hyperregular surface structure is an aesthetic aspect analogous to increased regularity and redundancy, so the whole is appreciated. In excess, you have kitsch.

Different kinds of meaning are appropriate to different degrees of fusion. The more fusion, the less reference: expression and phatic purposes are emphasized. The acceptance of bizarre theologies in conversion is explicable: they become fused in the conversion experience, a single act. This is particularly characteristic of NRMs, since they must rely on ecstasy instead of time to form ritual [is ritual remembered communitas reconstructed?] There is in our society a lost capacity for fused experience leading to rejection of ritual as boring; it needs to be experienced as fused.

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