Mauss wrote of primitive society repaying itself with the false coin of magic. The metaphor of money admirably sums up what we want to assert of ritual. Money provides a fixed, eternal, recognisable sign for what would be confused, contradictable operations; ritual makes visible external signs of internal states. Money mediates transactions; ritual mediates experience, including social experience. Money provides a standard for measuring worth; ritual standardises situations, and so helps to evaluate them. Money makes a link between the present and the future; so does ritual. The more we reflect on the richness of the metaphor, the more it becomes clear that this is no metaphor. Money is only an extreme and specialised type of ritual.
In comparing magic with false currency Mauss was wrong. Money can only perform its role of intensifying economic interaction if the public has faith in it. If faith in it is shaken, the currency is useless. So too with ritual; its symbols can only have effect so long as they command confidence. In this sense all money, false or true, depends upon a confidence trick. The test of money is whether it is acceptable or not. There is no false money except by contrast with another currency which has more total acceptabilty. So primitive ritual is like good money, not false money, so long as it commands assent.
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger, 1966
Find the original on Google Books - this passage starts on p.88.
