As a first rule of thumb, we can state that the institution is always instituted by an
instituant, and that the instituant is always a primary moment in the process
of institutionalization.^6 Applying these categories to rituals, we can show how
instituant and instituted are articulated. An instituted ritual, for example, can be the
periodic re-enactment of a mythical foreground, aiming at maintaining a certain
social order or structure. The ritual that seeks to be instituant, on the contrary, can
be the source of major disorder, renewal and reorganization. Although these
categories are set in opposition, they are not exclusive: an instituted ritual must
possess a certain instituancy, or else its religiosity ‘degrades’ in a sense, becoming
purely moral, its fervour dried up, unable to transcend the profane.^7 On the other
end of the spectrum, the instituant must be wrapped in some amount of
domestication and tied down by some sort of institutionalization to enable passage
from the sacred back to the profane. In this articulation, when instituted forms no
longer provide for the vividness of the instituant experience we witness the
appearance of savage quests for the vivid fervour of the instituant that shun any regard
for domestication.
Calling upon his extensive knowledge of Brazilian and African trance rituals,
Bastide, in his essential article Le Sacré sauvage (1997:209–29), shows how the
contemporary rapport with the sacred differs from that in traditional and tribal
religion. He argues that the traditional, ‘organic’ society is essentially geared towards
restricting, controlling and channelling the dangerous but necessary instituant
experience of the sacred, in a sense domesticating it. Far from being a hysterical free-
for-all, the tribal trance ritual is tuned to a T, as religious (mythical reference) and
social control (behaviour codes) transform the spontaneous, instituant trance into an
institutionalized, domesticated one.
This general scenario, which also applies to larger social bodies, varies when two
levels of social change occur. First, when the religious institution is weakened, its
capacity to hold the experience of the sacred within its mythical frame proves largely
handicapped. The instituant trance is then harder to transform and domesticate.
Second, when community becomes eroded, this leads to feelings of solitude and
helplessness. Synonymous with the erosion of instituted, conservative forms of
religious experiences, these transformations induce an increased need for instituant
experiences of the sacred—eventually through savage forms. Ferality and wildness
are then expressed with increased intensity and periodicity in flourishing religious
countercultures.^8 Often shying away from institutionalization, this quest for
instituancy reveals a tragic disparity between a society’s conservative superstructures
and its more mobile social infrastructures.
Such would be the situation in much of the Western world today, where all
institutions—religious, social and political—have their legitimacy affected by
widespread disillusionment (Boisvert 1995, 1998). As any discourse or
representation will be regarded as essentially relativistic, no authority will be
accepted as a definite bearer of Truth. Rather, and given a new pragmatic reality
that some have argued to be constitutive of a postmodern ethos (Boisvert 1995),
truth and meaning must come from and be judged on the scale of experience.
64 FRANÇOIS GAUTHIER