ABSTRACT
Ritual is a perfunctory, conventionalized act through which an individual portrays his respect and regard for some object of ultimate value to that object of ultimate value or to its stand-in. In contemporary society rituals performed to stand-ins for supernatural entities are everywhere in decay, as are extensive ceremonial agendas involving long strings of obligatory rites. One approach to the study of supportive ritual is to bring together phenomenally different acts that seem to have some sort of formal feature in common, some sort of shared interpersonal theme. It is apparent that a precondition for the performance of supportive rituals is that the giver and receiver be in contact, whether face-to-face/mediated. Ritual support of the relationship will be accommodated to the affirmations that the usual frequency and costs of contact allow. The "natural" ritualization of a supportive interchange into an encounter is inhibited, and the man in fact acts as though part of him had done nothing at all.
