Playing with frames of reference in veneration rituals: Fractal dynamics in encounters with a Muslim saint

Introduction

Throughout nearly a century of anthropological research, conceptual distinctions between play and ritual have remained a recurrent issue in theoretical inquiry; and yet, no coherent analytical framework has been established. As a review of past research seems to suggest, play and ritual are categories that describe mutually exclusive types of action with distinct modes of performance. By highlighting certain features of framed social interaction, they are commonly associated with different spheres of social life. Although play and ritual have been studied in conjunction with one another, their differences typically outweigh their similarities in anthropological discourse.

Play, usually defined as an enjoyable activity carried out to pass time, is a universal form of human expression that encompasses all types of social life. Including jest and joking, it seems to follow arbitrary rules involving different levels of probability with an unpredictable outcome. Depending on the degrees of strategy, fantasy, chance, and agility involved, scholars tend to classify different types of play, including sports, theatre, lottery, and mime. By contrast, ritual—commonly defined as a symbolic act, behaviour, or practice—is perceived as formalized, rigid, redundant, and associated with seriousness and solemnity. Identified as a sequence of choreographed movements, postures, and gestures performed in conjunction with formulaic acts and utterances, rituals are conceived as non-instrumental and reflexive. Set apart from other forms of everyday activity through framing, they seem to follow a set of meticulously stipulated procedures with varying degrees of precision and rigour. Considering their defining design features or reference points involved, different types of liturgical and performative rituals are classified to include initiation, prayer, pilgrimage, festival, and sacrifice.

To overcome such categorical distinctions and to better account for integral relationships between play and ritual, I propose by further elaborating on established theories an alternative conceptual framework—that of fractal dynamics. The concept of fractal dynamics helps identify the replication of similar patterns on different scales of human agency and social interaction. With a focus on how play and ritual are set apart from each other or conjoined with one another, fractal dynamics helps analyse the tacit transitions between these forms of social interaction. Emphasizing how ritual and play introduce different frames of reference and how they twist, subvert, or suppress others, fractal dynamics is a means to conceptualize subtle transitions between play and ritual as interludes and ruptures in otherwise seamless processes of social interaction. Thus, it promises to question well-established assumptions in contemporary anthropological theory.

The argument presented in this article features rituals of venerating Hz. Hızır (Arab.: al-Khidr) among Arab Alawites in Southern Turkey. Ethnographic instances are used to demonstrate how ritual interactions of devotees with saints are playful by design, with disguise and simulation being integral to the encounter with the saint. It is argued that the concept of fractal dynamics can be applied to a case where swift transitions between play and ritual occur through just a subtle change in frames of reference. Using fractal dynamics as an analytical tool to identify the tipping points from ritual to play and back helps to establish the devotee as the ritual agent who interacts intentionally with the saint and to account for the saint’s expected response and interaction with devotees via sequential signs or events. Conceptualizing veneration rituals as social interactions between devotees and a saint introduces an imaginary non-human agent, as stipulated by devotees, and adds another frame of reference that interferes with anthropological reasoning (Eickelman, 1976; El-Zein, 1977; Gell, 1998; Gilsenan, 1976, 2000). To theorize veneration rituals as a form of play with frames of reference, and as play of probability, means to configure the asymmetric and yet reciprocal relationship between devotees and a saint. If only for methodical reasons, it is paramount to account accurately for the practitioners’ point of view, which implies that notions of choice and chance are attributed to the saint as imagined and experienced by devotees (Engler, 2009; Mittermaier, 2011, 2015; Shapiro, 2016). By reconstructing the perspectives of devotees and the saint as mutually exclusive and responsive to one another, it becomes possible to account more accurately for the fact that devotees attribute agency to the saint or the tomb where the saint's presence is experienced as virtually real (Kreinath, 2009, 2014). Nevertheless, encounters with Hızır dwell on the boundary of real and imaginary, full of uncertainty for the devotee due to the possibility that the saint would actually respond to the devotee’s request.

Fractal dynamics also facilitate the study of ritual and play in conjunction with yet another frame of reference: myths, which institute and insinuate such veneration rituals as a virtual play with frames of reference. Fractal dynamics help to account for ways in which myths, as social cosmologies, tie into the performance of saint veneration rituals and constitute another frame of reference for interactions between devotees and the saint. My ethnographic findings not only demonstrate how Alawite devotees virtually play with frames of reference—with what is visible and invisible, real and imaginary—while performing rituals of saint veneration, but also how the saint is imagined as interacting with his devotees through delusion, disguise, wonder, and surprise. As referenced in the Qur’anic myth of Where the Two Waters Meet, and its local adaptation to the environment of the southernmost province of Turkey named Hatay, this article shows how the mystical saint Hızır plays with multiple frames of reference in devotees’ imaginations, as insinuated in the myth of Moses’ encounter with him. The social cosmologies attributed to Hızır involve notions of unpredictability and uncertain outcomes in strange encounters with the saint. Accounting for heuristic distinctions, such as the visible and invisible and the real and imaginary, introduces new possibilities to analyse saint veneration rituals as fractal dynamics.

Ritual and play: framing conceptual boundaries

To better account for the recursive dynamics of play and ritual, and to contour their distinctive and subtle features, it is imperative to revisit some previously well-established concepts and categories of anthropological theory. Despite comparative approaches that synthesize various features of play and ritual, the anthropological study of play and ritual emerged in considerably different fields of research, as any historical discourse analysis would confirm (Asad, 1988; Boudewijnse, 1995; Köpping, 1997; Minnema, 1998; Handelman 2006). Only later were they locked in a mutually exclusive matrix. While the early study of play stems from evolutionary theories of animal behaviour that became relevant for anthropological research (Darwin, 1872; Huxley, 1966), the study of ritual originated in the context of historical research on the religion of the Semites (Frazer, 1890; Smith, 1889). Though animal play was soon conceptualized as ritualization and compared to human play with a primarily ethological framework (Groos, 1898 [1896]; 1902 [1898]), there was virtually no conceptualization of play in early anthropological theory, with one exception (Tylor, 1871). In contrast, early approaches to the anthropology of religion studied ritual and ceremony in more pronounced ways (Bateson, 1936; Durkheim, 1995 [1912]; Malinowski, 1922; Radcliffe-Brown, 1922; Van Gennep, 1960 [1909]). However, none of them even remotely compared ritual to play (Handelman, 1980; Houseman and Severi, 1998).

Initial interest in the study of the relationship between play and ritual rose to prominence only after they were considered paradigmatic for the study of religion and culture. The main shift in studying ritual and play in conjunction with one another occurred after the first conceptualizations of play as a universal phenomenon, foundational for all human culture (Huizinga, 1949 [1938]: 18). In clear opposition to a renewed attempt to study play in ethological terms (Buytendijk, 1932), from then on, play was defined as a free activity, constitutive for human culture outside of everyday constraints that ‘transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action’ (Huizinga, 1949 [1938]: 19). Conceptualized as creating its own reality, play was separated from everyday activity and performed within its own temporal and spatial boundaries. It was understood to be the means to its own ends, not driven by a material interest. This distinction provided a conceptual framework to examine the relationship between play and ritual. Play was now considered a direct opposition to seriousness; ritual was ‘seriousness at its highest and holiest’ (37). Ritual was identified within the sacred sphere, and characterized as a kind of play, ‘in the main a matter of shows, representations, dramatic performances, [and] imaginative actualizations of a vicarious nature’ (34). Stressing the identity of ritual and play, it was claimed that ‘ritual act has all the formal and essential characteristics of play’ (37). This conceptualization integrated ritual into the idea of culture as play, and yet it remained separate based on its essential feature of seriousness.

This conceptual framework for the study of play was widely adopted in early approaches to the history and anthropology of religion. With the main difference of festival having a spiritual and divine element, the assumption was made that ‘all cultic acts are festival and all festival is play’ (Kerényi, 1938: 65—translation JK). However, the direct identification of ritual as play did not remain unquestioned. Acknowledging the playful character of ritual (Jensen, 1963 [1951]: 46), it was assumed that sacred acts are a form of play (49), but the need for differentiating the sacred feast from other play became more apparent. Thus, ritual was considered to be more solemn, revealing ‘a deeper and more fundamental relationship to reality’ (Jensen, 1963 [1951]: 53, see also Jensen, 1942: 127–129). Therefore, it was determined that if a specific emotion is identified with the festival, then those festivals are not play, or, ‘not yet play’ (Schmidt, 1950: 14). More succinctly, early anthropological interpretations of ritual as play led to conceptual refinements but ended in circularity. Specifically, ritual is not play because of the difference in the aesthetics of sensuous perception in play and ritual through moods of joy and solemnity, and the difference in the social spheres attached to them, namely the religious and mundane.

The initial attempt to identify ritual with play and delineate the boundaries between them produced inconsistent results, failing to describe the actual forms of play, as if ‘all play represented an answer to the same need’ (Caillois, 1955: 62). Even though play merely consists of a mimetic relationship exclusively identified with spectacle and drama, but not with competition or betting, this distinction proved productive, as it opened a new field of research. Based on the assumption that play is free, separate, and regulated—meaning no one can be forced to participate, it is bound to a fixed time and space and consists of conventions that suspend ordinary rules—it became possible to classify games depending on whether competition, luck, disguise, or agility was predominant in each activity. Subsequently, games were classified into agon (competition), alea (luck), mimicry (disguise), and vertigo (agility) (Caillois, 1955: 64, 1961 [1958]: 12). This classification did not cover the world of play entirely, and two complementary tendencies were subsequently identified: the common principles of diversion, turbulence, and improvisation, in which unrestrained fantasy (paideia) manifests itself, and its inversion: the inclination to change play to arbitrary and deliberately obstructing conventions to produce pleasurable yet useless results (ludus) (Caillois, 1955: 64, 1961 [1958]: 13). ¹ This grid in the classification of games introduced new terminology and refined the study of play in relation to ritual. However, aside from applications of how play and ritual materialize as forms of expressive culture or religious practice, conceptualizations of play and ritual took rigid classifications for granted and were confined to mutually exclusive categories and frames of reference.

By focusing on cultural practice integral to the formation of social relationships and the framing of social situations, new studies converged mainly on formal features of play and ritual, neglecting the specific social cosmologies and contexts within which they are embedded. While earlier studies concentrated on games of competition, subsequent research privileged forms of disguise (Radcliffe-Brown, 1922: 246–247). It is noteworthy that the naven ceremony among the Iatmul was in early research only considered as ritual, and later became the prime example of the ambiguities among play and ritual (Bateson, 1936: 6–7, 87, 148; see also Handelman, 1979, 1980). ²

Recognizing frames of reference in conjunction with contexts of social relations made it possible to conceptualize play as a form of meta-communication. By concentrating on formal features and ways in which frames of reference emerge, play was defined through framing: an activity that changes the mode of interaction and perception, leading to higher levels of abstraction (Bateson, 1955). Mathematical set theory and cybernetics helped to study verbal and non-verbal feedback loops and the emergence of self-referential paradoxes (Harries-Jones, 1995). The concept of framing reconfigured play by introducing different levels of abstraction through the distinction between map and territory (Bateson, 1955, 1956). While play would allow participants to negotiate the frame of reference, ritual was conceptualized as not allowing for the distinction between different layers of meta-communication or questioning the ritual frame. Therefore, ritual was considered as a borderline case of a map-territory distinction, ‘in which the discrimination is drawn, but not completely, between denotative action and that which is to be denoted’ (Bateson, 1955: 42). While play can entail sudden shifts in frame of reference, ritual fails to distinguish between the different orders of message and meta-message, fusing one into the other (Bateson, 1956: 167; see also Geertz, 1966, 1972).

Though similarities are present, subsequent approaches tended to conceptualize ritual and play in opposition to each other by emphasizing primarily their differences. These differences were based on degrees of ‘discrimination between map and territory’ (Bateson, 1955: 42, 1972: 182). However, subsequent theoretical approaches either used different types of communities and degrees of participation and commitment to distinguish between play and ritual (Rappaport, 1974: 8) or conceptualized the two as complementary based on mutually exclusive premises, meta-communicative messages, or relationships to the social order (Handelman, 1977: 187). ³

This approach to play and ritual shifted toward a more refined model for relating the two; a clear emphasis was placed on features of reflexivity and framing. Reflexivity was identified with liminality in ritual, but when the social order is reversed and criticized the liminality was considered ‘full of experiment and play’ (Turner, 1977: 33). The concept of ‘play’ thus came to distinguish between different forms of social interaction, emphasizing its potency and potentiality (Turner, 1977: 33). In contrast to former approaches, which stressed that ritual ‘is in earnest, even when it is playful, entertaining, blasphemous, humorous or ludicrous’ (Rappaport, 1974: 8), it now was possible again to conceptualize ritual as ‘both earnest and playful’ (Turner, 1980: 167). The consideration of ritual reflexivity called for a new emphasis on the role of human agency and the establishment of alternative frameworks to conceptualize play and ritual (Babcock, 1978, 1980; Rappaport, 1980; Schechner, 1982; Turner, 1974, 1979).

Acknowledging the dichotomy that separated play from ritual as too rigid, attempts were made to consider the various ways play and ritual complemented each other. Emphasizing the very processes of ‘playing’, as in mime, experimental theatre, and expressive dance, play was now defined as ‘a creative destabilizing action that frequently does not declare its existence, even less its intentions’ (Schechner, 1988: 16). Nevertheless, in the attempt to emphasize swift transitions and gradations between play and ritual by stressing their similarities, it was paramount to establish a conceptual template that could explain how play is able to continuously generate new rules by bending and twisting the frame itself (Schechner, 1988: 15, 1994: 638–643). Even though it was possible within the framework of ritual liminality and reflexivity to emphasize creative and playful dimensions of ritual, the conceptualization of the relationship between play and ritual remained limited (Schechner, 1987: 21). This theoretical lacuna emerged because play became the paradigmatic term to conceptualize ritual, considering it playful activity that constantly generates new rules by an ‘ongoing underlying process of off-balancing, loosening, bending, twisting, reconfiguring, and transforming’ (Schechner, 1988: 18). Therefore, ritual was predominantly compared with play through the framework of mime, experimental theatre and expressive dance performance, but without taking playful behaviour as a framed, yet unscripted behaviour into consideration (Schechner, 1974; Tambiah, 1981).

Moebius framing and fractal dynamics

If play is considered ‘a creative dissembling of conventional orders, blurring the distinctions between the real and the unreal’, or a way of ‘opening a space of pure potential, of the boundless possibilities of being’ (Ingold, 1994: 343), one could question what difference the framing of ritual and play makes after all. It is, therefore, important to develop a theoretical model that allows consideration of the contextual ruptures between play and ritual while yet acknowledging the instability of the ritual frame and the seductiveness of playful interactions (Handelman, 1998: 66; 1999; Lindquist, 1997: 295). One promising proposal is the concept of Moebius framing, which addresses the shifts and ruptures between play and ritual, bringing to light the mutual inclusiveness of both types of human action (Handelman, 2004).

Questioning the rigidity of the distinction between play and ritual, Moebius framing is an alternative to delineated framing, which would require a clear-cut inclusion and exclusion in play or ritual. It accounts for the continuous flow between the inside and outside of the ritual frame: ‘Paradoxically, if the boundary is “of the inside,” then it is also “of the outside,” like a Moebius strip’ (Handelman, 1981: 341). Moebius framing can demonstrate how the boundary of the ritual frame is internally composed of the oscillation of contradictory, opposed or unlike sets of attributes. The boundary is characterized as ‘being “in-between,” or “in the middle,” of what it separates and combines’; and the interior as ‘marked by qualities of movement, fluidity, plasticity, and transition’ (Handelman, 1981: 341). Addressing framing as ‘a central problem in understanding how rituals are organized within themselves and how they relate to the realities outside themselves’ (Handelman, 2004: 9), the idea of Moebius framing argues for ‘a single frame that speaks to the problem of being inside and outside the frame with virtual simultaneity, thereby opening the ritual frame to the outside world while enabling the ritual to be practiced as relatively closed’ (Handelman, 2004: 15; emphasis—JK).

This approach helps account for the dynamics of gliding shifts and sudden ruptures in the performance of ritual and play by arguing that ritual can be constructed as playful in that it ‘plays with framing itself’ and elaborates on ‘the very existence of horizons of possibility’ (Handelman, 2004: 14). One of the advantages of this idea of Moebius framing is that it provides a tangible model to better conceptualize the apparently seamless transition from ritual to playful and back. It emphasizes the recursive dynamics of ritual framing to ‘bring forth the flexibility of organization and not simply its capacity to make linear order’ (Handelman, 2012: 66). Nevertheless, the model is, in itself, paradoxically rigid and linear in its own way, as it only twists the categorical distinction between the inside and outside. Moebius framing calls into question the very foundations upon which it is built: linearity and the categorical distinction between the inside and outside. Thus, it becomes a form of play with the boundary and hierarchy of the real and imaginary. ⁴ To better account for the possibility of choice among those who perform a ritual—and for the recursive dynamics of ritual framing—it is important to consider improvisational features in the performance of ritual by which ritual participants ‘intervene spontaneously in the ritual framework at their whims’ (Drewal, 1992: 7). If ritual and play are not mutually exclusive human interactions, both following a set of rules while implying the possibility of choice for the respective ritual participants, they can be considered as framed yet open-ended, with a certain yet unpredictable outcome. The probability and risk in ritual performance that can lead to failure (Coleman, 2009; Howe, 2000; Kaell and Hardin, 2016; Köpping, 2004; Schieffelin, 1996) makes it possible to conceptualize play as including change and choice by integrating this notion of play systematically into research on ritual. It is, for these reasons, important to take the performance of play and ritual as a sequence of reciprocal decisions with its own recursive dynamics leading to forms of transition, transposition and, transformation.

To account for unpredictability in the outcome of ritual performances, I once proposed the concept of ‘random fractal dynamics’ (Kreinath, 2012: 54–59). This concept—used in chaos and fractal theory and applied in mathematics to study unstable dynamic processes—can best be abbreviated here as ‘fractal dynamics’ with emerging patterns of similarity and difference that arise from continuous chains of decision-making processes as their minimal recurring unit. The aim of this concept was to account for the interactive nature and unpredictable outcome of decisions made by participants during a ritual, even as configurations and assemblages emerge.

In reformulating a concept formerly described in cybernetics as ‘group dynamics’ and ‘feedback loops’ (Bateson, 1972; Harries-Jones, 1995), I attempted to account for the various ways in which participants respond to the acts and utterances of other participants, how the latter respond to the former, and so on. Intending to propose an analytical model that identified recursive patterns in ritual interaction on different scales (Kreinath, 2012: 54), I elaborated upon a concept of ritual framing that accounted for the emergence of ‘fractal dynamics’, or the sudden and unpredictable occurrence or conjunction of similar patterns across dimension and scale. This heuristic concept allowed me to include the increase and decrease of human agency in my analysis of ritual interaction, by focusing on the possibility of choice that individual ritual participants have in varying degrees during ritual performances. It also helped to account for the potential risk and uncertainty that every immediate response or calculated decision by one or more participants may have on the outcome of a ritual (Köpping, 2004).

Despite its universal outlook and mathematical jargon (Handelman, 2012: 67–71), this approach to ritual dynamics is contextual and relational. It systematically considers the risks involved in any such form of social interaction in ritual and play including the different degrees of possibility and probability involved. By introducing the abbreviated concept of ‘fractal dynamics’, I aim to better account for unpredictability in the performance of ritual and play. This helps conceptualize both as being based on the sequential yet contingent on decision-making processes that virtually coincide, accumulate, and accelerate in the emergence of recurring patterns of similarity and difference, the outcome of which could not be known in advance (Kreinath, 2004, 2009). The concept of fractal dynamics, in short, allows me to account for the dimensions of risk and chance, simulation, and disguise, as well as the flow of inclusion and exclusion through emerging patterns in the dynamics of rivalry and cooperation, as exemplified in my ethnographic material.

Rituals of saint veneration and the interaction with non-human agents among Alawites

The ethnographic section of this contribution demonstrates how rituals of saint veneration presuppose a play with frames of reference and virtually open a space for the formation of social relationships with the saint as a non-human agent. By focusing on the uncertainty in the ultimate outcome of the veneration ritual and accounting for the unpredictability of social interactions among human and non-human agents, the proposed conceptual framework of fractal dynamics aims to account for local social cosmologies and to utilize veneration rituals by tracing their impact (Daryn, 2006; Handelman and Shulman, 1997). This approach considers the devotees’ point of view in how they attribute agency to the saint.

Supporting ethnographic evidence was collected during my research on rituals of saint veneration among Alawites, a Muslim minority in Hatay. ⁵ The objective is to elucidate how different spheres of social life are connected through ritual and play—that is, how unanticipated events are considered as a play of chance and choice, and how they are attributed to the interference of a mystical saint. The saint serves, in the social cosmology, as an emblem for the unpredictability of human life, venerated through rituals of vowing and wish making. I therefore argue that the interplay between social cosmology and ritual practice in veneration rituals unfolds as fractal dynamics, which is a key for understanding the role of sociability among Alawites in ritual and play by including human and non-human agents. The most prominent saint among Alawites is Hızır (the Green One or Green Man). Numerous pilgrimage sites are dedicated to him; 36 out of the 283 sites are dedicated to Hızır alone, and 15 sites to him in conjunction with other saints (Türk, 2002: 78–82, 2005: 160–161). He is considered a helper for those in need and central to the individual religiosity of the rural and urban neighbourhoods of Alawites, as his veneration is present in numerous everyday activities of mundane life.

Even though Alawites consider themselves Muslims, they do not attend religious services at mosques but instead visit one (or more) of the numerous local pilgrimage sites. These places, also known as türbe or makam, are attributed to a saint or sheikh. They are identifiable through common architectural features: a tomb at the centre of the sanctuary, white walls and a green dome on top of a quadrangular wall structure (Prager, 2013; Procházka-Eisl and Procházka, 2010; see also Geertz, 1968: 49–50). Other elements include a sacred tree near the sanctuary and a place for burning incense. Some larger pilgrimage sites also have sleeping places, kitchens and even facilities for animal sacrifice. These pilgrimage sites are visited predominantly by women, sometimes even by whole villages or extended families, for animal sacrifice when a vow or wish has been fulfilled or for the celebration of a saint’s day (Kreinath, 2014, 2015; see also Eickelman, 1976; Schielke, 2008).

Transfigurations of Hızır and fractal dynamics in rituals of saint veneration

Some of the clearest indicators of elements of play in saint veneration rituals exist in the chance of an encounter with the respective saint in the devotee’s dreams or visions, as well as the disguise and mimicry of the saint during the interaction. Focusing on these two aspects of play, this section discusses some of the devotees’ interactions with Hızır to indicate specific contexts for the fractal dynamics in rituals of saint veneration. Although it would be possible to explore ways in which devotees introduce moments of play during their rituals of saint veneration or animal sacrifice, given my ethnographic data, I provide instances in which devotees act playfully by sealing the vow and knotting a rag around the twig of a sacred tree, or during the preparations for an animal sacrifice. Considering the implication of these forms of play in the possibility of the devotee’s choices, it should be explicated that these forms of ritual interaction cannot be considered essential to the performances of the respective rituals themselves. The aim of a prayer, vow, or sacrifice is directed to the saint and integral to the performance of veneration rituals. Therefore, emphasis is placed upon such rituals of saint veneration where features of a devotee directly interacting with the saint are apparent.

Encounters with Hızır, and the belief in their transformative efficacy, are an outcome of rituals of saint veneration. These encounters often take place at the local pilgrimage site, although they can happen anytime and anywhere (Prager, 2013). Prayers are directed to Hızır by persons in need, and vows are made regarding desired outcomes like passing an exam among students, marriage and childbirth among women, success in business enterprises among men, or healing among the elderly or disabled. Rituals of saint veneration involve the request or fulfilment of wishes through prayers and vows; they follow a specific sequence of visits, starting with pilgrimage sites in the neighbourhood and leading up to the main sanctuaries in Samandağ and Harbiye.

Every visit to a pilgrimage site involves a series of acts and utterances that choreograph rituals of saint veneration from beginning to end, even if they are only loosely prescribed. Regardless of their apparent informality, saint veneration rituals among Alawites include the following string of ritual acts and utterances performed by men and women alike: before entering the interior of the sanctuary, devotees buy incense and burn it in an oven at the sanctuary’s entrance for purification; they then take off their shoes and kiss the doorframe to the left and right. Upon entering the sanctuary, they first approach the tomb at the centre; they stand still before the tomb and lower their head while raising their hands with their palms facing upward, directing a prayer to the saint. Often, the Fatiha Surah, the opening chapter of the Qur’an, is recited. After completing the prayer, devotees touch their face with the palm of one or both hands and holding their hands in front of their chest with palms facing upward, begin to slowly circle the tomb in a counterclockwise direction. This form of walking prayer is interrupted when devotees approach and kiss the four edges of the tomb.

At various points during this prayer, devotees also take one of the Qur’ans placed on top of the tomb and either raise it above their head, or kiss and touch it with their forehead several times. Opening and closing the Qur’an in front of one’s forehead, while inhaling the exuded particles of dust, is also a common practice. After a series of circles, between three to twelve in total, devotees either sit down and rest or recite from the Qur’an and cut off a strip of green silk covering the tomb. After completing the sequence of ritual acts, devotees return to the opening position before the tomb with a concluding prayer. While facing the structure, they back toward the door and only turn around after having left the sanctuary. Sometimes, devotees will kiss both sides of the doorframe again and burn incense. Strips of green silk may be tied with a lock of hair and knotted around the twigs of a sacred tree, completing the vow.

Other practices at the site involve the placing of water and olive oil at the base of the tomb, the rolling of marble cylinders over arms and legs for treating rheumatism, and standing in a special ritual posture in a round niche at the back of the sanctuary behind the tomb. The performance and sequence of these acts are neither prescribed nor required and are only performed as desired. The relative informality of these venerations is apparent, even though these rituals follow a specific procedure and are performed in solemnity. Regardless of the devotees’ interactions with each other, and the possibilities of playfulness that might be involved in some of the side rituals, the performance of veneration rituals at the sanctuary gives devotees the possibility of choosing which acts to include. These occasions can be considered interaction rituals among devotees and are performed in jest with a smile, bordering belief and disbelief. Even though these healing rituals imply forms of playfulness, as they apparently dwell on the border between belief and doubt, of which some devotees are consciously aware, the main aspect of play in rituals of saint veneration is the fact that devotees are directly interacting with non-human agents with the expectation of the saint’s response.

Although devotees follow or imitate specific rules of conduct when performing these rituals, they make conscious and calculated decisions before, during, and after the performance. Devotees intentionally interact with the saint and with one another through performing ritual gestures, postures, and movements, with varying degrees of intensity and velocity. Ritual interaction with a saint as a non-human agent cannot be identified with social interaction among human agents. However, devotees deliberately distribute their agency to the saint by making a vow, interact with him through the performance of personalized acts of veneration, and interpret the events which follow as his response. If a wish comes true, devotees must keep their promise or fear the saint’s retribution. In considering the saint as a non-human agent, invisible but present, the devotees’ rituals involve an epistemological and ontological play with frames of reference, dwelling on the boundaries of what is real and imaginary (Bubandt et al., 2017; Kreinath, 2014; Luhrmann, 2012; Shapiro, 2016).

By visiting local pilgrimage sites, entering the sanctuary, and performing rituals of saint veneration, devotees expect the saint to interact with them and respond to their wishes and desires. Considering that devotees approach the sanctuary with the assumption that the saint is present, they distribute their agency to the saint as recipients of the saint’s power and presence, interpreting every sign they perceive as a response by the saint as a blessing (Arab.: baraka). The rituals of saint veneration are insofar an ‘ontological play’ (Fink, 1960; Handelman and Shulman, 1997), as the success or failure of the vow and wish can considerably impact the life of the devotee or one of their relatives. Rituals of saint veneration are also risky because they can have positive or negative effects on the devotees’ lives through joy and sorrow or jest and suffering. Even though they may look informal and non-efficacious, ritual interactions with the saint have real consequences, as they can turn for or against the devotee’s favour depending on whether they pleased or angered the saint by keeping or breaking their promise. Thus, such rituals of saint veneration are existential and consequential, as they entail an uncertain outcome and hence a play of chance.

Scaling encounters with Hızır as interaction ritual

The marked difference of saint veneration rituals to other forms of interaction ritual among human social agents is that it is possible to observe the course of responses. In rituals of saint veneration, only one agent can be observed: the devotee and his or her perception, intention, and interpretation during the ritual performance. In this regard, the description and interpretation of these rituals rely on a play with frames of reference and imply the possibility of choice, as distributed among the believer and the saint.

Aside from indirect or mediated encounters with Hızır through saint veneration rituals, there are some accounts by devotees who can attest to direct encounters with Hızır. These interactions differ significantly, as they implicate a moment of surprise, often in times of despair. One of my interlocutors, an elderly woman, told me a story of her encounter with Hızır during the dark hours of an early Friday morning when she was praying at the tomb. Seeing water coming from underneath the tomb, she interpreted this phenomenon as a sign from Hızır and a form of divine blessing. Similarly, miracles and wondrous events are taken as signs, even though Hızır may not become tangible for the devotee. Sometimes, it is enough that the result of an event is attributed to the working of Hızır, particularly when a prayer was directed to him and the outcome was in favour of the believer. These mediated forms of agency can be considered a form of interaction between the devotee and the saint.

Direct encounters with Hızır indicate a radical change in the devotee’s sense of bodily perception of what is real and imaginary. These encounters are transformative, as they indicate a play with frames of reference that leads to a transformation of the devotee’s agency. Considering Hızır appears in transfiguration, devotees are caught by surprise and usually unable to immediately grasp the significance of their encounter. Two more elaborate accounts I collected in Hatay (Kreinath, 2014) imply that devotees realized they encountered Hızır only after he left. The stories I collected in Hatay differ considerably from the accounts previously collected by scholars and mystics. In those accounts, Hızır either identified himself by words and actions or was identified by someone else. ⁶ Regardless of these differences, devotees perceive and experience Hızır as a saint who plays with the perceptions and frames of reference with which devotees are familiar. Nevertheless, he tends to appear at places or times considered sacred.

If dreams or visions of Hızır, or miraculous events attributed to him, occur at a specific place more than once, it is likely a sanctuary will be built there to acknowledge its significance. In this respect, such encounters with Hızır initiate rituals of saint veneration in a way comparable to how veneration rituals prepare devotees for possible encounters with Hızır. Pilgrimage sites are sacred and serve as indexes of agency used to commemorate encounters with Hızır and to interact with the saint through prayers, vows, and sacrifices. Every pilgrimage site dedicated to Hızır has its origin in a saintly encounter. Thus, these sites are perceived as traces of significant encounters with Hızır and visited as places in which devotees expect to interact with him.

As several interlocutors pointed out, the sanctuaries, along with their tombs, trees and waters, are imbued with a divine light indicating the saint’s presence. It is not these material objects that are venerated by devotees, but the divine light with which the sanctuary is charged. The agency of the saint is present at the site and has a direct connection to the divine realm. However, not every visitor or devotee is able to see this light. Only for the visitor who believes and thus senses the presence of the saint can the tombs, trees and waters transmit healing power, as attributed to the saint’s presence. These sites then become indexes of the saint’s agency, and therefore to touch the tombs and trees and to drink from the water—that are all sanctified and blessed through the saint’s presence—means to interact with the saint. It is with this frame of reference that devotees approach the tombs in the sanctuaries, or the trees and water springs at the site.

Considering tombs and trees as indexes of the saint’s agency implies an extended notion of personhood. Thus, the saint can distribute his agency into objects of veneration. Furthermore, by touching the tombs and trees, believers distribute their agency to the saint to receive blessings. Such rituals of saint veneration were considered a form of contagious magic, following Frazer’s law of contact (Frazer, 1890; see also Bubandt and Willerslev, 2015; Taussig, 1993). The semiotics of such rituals can be conceptualized in terms of the ‘fractal person’ (Wagner, 1991), who distributes their agency through material objects (Gell, 1998, 1999; Mosko, 2009; Strathern, 1992). In a sense, the saint himself is a fractal person, as his agency is distributed to various places and pilgrimage sites where he is believed to be present. Even though the saint is not physically there, it is imperative to analyse rituals of saint veneration as interaction rituals through which devotees respond to him, by whatever they consider the saint’s response onsite or during events that happen after they sealed their vow. If the wish expressed in a vow comes true, devotees are required to do what they promised in return. Commonly, an animal sacrifice is performed in Hızır’s name at the respective pilgrimage site where the vow or wish was made. Distribution of the sacrificial food is considered to be a sign of gratitude to the saint’s response and blessing. In this regard, the prayers, vows, and sacrifices are integral for the divine economy of the gift, by receiving the blessing and distributing the sacrificial meat (Mauss, 1954 [1925]; Werbner, 1988).

Tracing the social cosmology in mythic accounts: Musa’s encounter with Hızır

The performance of veneration and sacrifice rituals blends religious beliefs and practices. As the ethnographic evidence implicates, saint veneration rituals can be described as a type of play due to their main compositional features, namely as a play of chance and a play of delusion as well. The distinction between the visible and invisible facilitates venues to account for how devotees interact with Hızır as a non-human agent. To study ritual and play in conjunction with the analysis of social cosmologies that institute rituals of saint veneration, a multilayered approach to the foundational myth is needed. This helps account for the ways in which social cosmologies of the visible and invisible are integral parts of saint veneration rituals and constitute rituals as a playful interaction between saint and devotee, full of unpredictability and uncertainty.

To better account for the relationship between human and non-human agents reflected in the devotee’s encounter with Hızır, it is helpful to revisit the local interpretation of the passage of the Qur’an that deals with Musa’s encounter with Hızır. This myth plays a central role in visits to two major Hızır sanctuaries in Samandağ and Harbiye, and serves as a template for Alawites to perform rituals of saint veneration. Widely known in Hatay, it provides a paradigm for the devotee regarding where and how to encounter Hızır. The Qur’anic template is the story of Where the Two Waters Meet from the Kehf Surah, verses 60–82, engraved in Arabic on a marble plate at the centrepiece of the main pilgrimage sites for Alawites in Samandağ. This place’s association with the Qur’anic myth is important for local perceptions of this sanctuary and its significance. Although Hızır is not mentioned in the Qur’an, it is commonly accepted that the unnamed person whom Musa met is Hızır. Following local interpretation, the plot can be summarized as follows:

After he studied the Torah (Turk.: Tevrat) and perfected his knowledge of divine law, Moses (Turk.: Musa) attempted to gain divine wisdom. He asked God to show him the man who was believed to be the source of divine wisdom. In a dream, the man’s identity was revealed to Musa, and that he was to set out on a journey to find him. After a long and exhausting voyage with his companion, passing through desert and sea, Musa finally arrived on the other side of the sea where he immediately fell asleep resting on a rock at the coast. After he awoke, the fish inlaid with salt he brought with him as provisions came alive and sprang into the sea. He was then approached by a stranger, whom he asked for advice, as he had come in search of divine wisdom. The stranger said he could help, but Musa had to promise not to challenge him or interfere with any of the acts that he might witness. Musa promised to follow his order and they went along.

The direction of events in the myth of Hızır and Musa results from the protagonists’ decisions and provides another twist relevant for the social cosmology of ritual as play. While their actions appear as games of chance without predictable direction, concluding interpretations transform the interactions between Musa and Hızır into a pretence game, or a play full of simulation and concealment. Musa plays, and loses, this game of deceit and disguise, with the two players acting under fundamentally different conditions and assumptions, chances, and choices being unequally distributed. Hızır presents himself in disguise and challenges Musa with tests to which only Hızır would know the answers. Musa could have properly responded if only he would have known his counterpart’s identity and intention. By analysing the interaction between Hızır and Musa as a fractal, this myth could also be interpreted as a play with frames of reference through simulation and delusion. In this regard, the myth of Hızır and Musa displays patterns resembling a play with concealment and disguise.

Although Musa and Hızır are obviously uneven partners during the events, at least superficially, their interaction can be interpreted as a game of chance and choice, or even a play of concealment and disguise. Musa presumes he must judge and discard the actions performed by Hızır as non-compliant with the divine law of the Tevrat. However, Hızır and his actions are beyond the judgements of the Tevrat, justified through his divine wisdom. His acts may be oppositional to divine law, but they are, at the same time, justified through his provision. Furthermore, Musa is judged for his own actions, primarily by his promise to keep silent, and is punished by an inability to see Hızır. Blinded by his pride and justified by his knowledge of the divine law, as revealed in the Tevrat or Torah, he judges all the actions of his companion, but he remains unaware of his own failure and hypocrisy.

In this story, Hızır is portrayed as an opaque protagonist who appears and disappears abruptly and, even though he agreed to teach Musa divine wisdom under set conditions prior to a series of challenges, leaves Musa without a clue. As the main protagonist of this myth, Hızır plays with frames of perception and reference, but Musa is presented as simply being caught in an inescapable ‘double-bind’ (Bateson, 1972)—the limits of his knowledge prevent him from gaining insight into divine wisdom. Musa is unable to comprehend Hızır’s seemingly outrageous actions. In whatever way Musa reacts, Hızır foresees how Musa will respond to these acts. Musa continually questions Hızır’s actions and is unable to keep his promise. The story can be interpreted as a model for the improbability of human comprehension gaining insights to divine provision, but also as a model of the uncertainty of divine acts that interrupt human plans and promises.

The myth of Musa’s encounter with Hızır is a type of play with frames of reference and a double-bind, in which conflicting moral values are played out. Hızır, as the main protagonist, is depicted as someone who acts in seemingly erratic ways; while breaking accepted norms of human social demeanour, his acts are made on moral grounds. Musa, in contrast, is portrayed as someone who is outraged by Hızır and demands proper moral conduct, without realizing that he himself has broken his own pledge. This myth is also about the limits of human knowledge, while acknowledging human aspirations for divine wisdom; it describes Musa’s failure to achieve such wisdom due to his impatience. In the Qur’anic myth, Hızır is, contrary to popular perceptions, not portrayed as the helper of those in need, but as someone who is rigid and assertive in his acts, and opaque in his words. Although presented in the form of a myth, the encounter between Musa and Hızır as described in the Qur’an is the outcome of decisions that each of the protagonists make in response to the other protagonist’s response, leading to what I call ‘fractal dynamics’.

This myth provides a template for understanding the recursiveness of play with limits of human knowledge and, therefore, is relevant for understanding fractal dynamics, by dwelling between what seems to look similar but is actually radically different. The limits of human knowledge exist in ignorance of the actual intentions of other humans or what the future will bring, as illustrated in the fact that Hızır is disguised as a stranger. Even after he reveals himself to the listener or reader, it is not clear whether Musa realizes that he is Hızır. Considering the consistency with which Musa understood Hızır’s words and actions, it is open to interpretation. However, it is likely that Musa takes the encounter at face value and simply does not realize whom he met. As the myth’s outcome indicates, this story plays with frames of reference as reflected through the sequence of actions and reactions in the strange encounter between Hızır and Musa.

The distinction between the visible (Turk.: zahīrī) and invisible (Turk.: batınî ) is essential for Alawite discourse on religious beliefs and practices. The terms zahīrī and batınî relate to the outward and the inward meaning of the Qur’an. With this distinction, Alawites differentiate between the literal and mystical meaning of the Qur’an, and the religious practice it institutes. Applied to the title of the myth of Hızır and Musa in the Kehf Surah, Where the Two Waters Meet, this means there is a visible and invisible dimension attached to the locations. The visible dimension of the zahīrī applies to the place where the Orontes River (Turk.: Asi Nehri) enters the Mediterranean Sea (Turk.: Akdeniz), located south of the Hızır sanctuary in Samandağ. Similarly, numerous pilgrimage sites are located along the Orontes River. The invisible dimension of the batınî, in contrast, applies to the interaction of human and divine spheres, represented through Musa and Hızır’s encounter. While Musa embodies the visible as the realm of humanity, Hızır represents the invisible as the realm up of the divine. This interpretation is recursive because it implies a pattern that is reiterated on different scales. The zahīrī represents the material and can be perceived by the senses, while the batınî represents the spiritual and becomes visible only through an act of belief. By reiterating the same pattern on different levels of abstraction, this distinction is fractal.

To decipher the local point of view, it is important to consider social cosmologies as embedded in the fractal dynamics of ritual and play. For devotees, the tombs of Hızır and Musa are places that mark the simultaneous presence of divine light in the material world. The visible and invisible are different frames of reference from which these sites can be viewed. However, depending on which frame of reference devotees employ, the materiality of tombs and trees might be something very different from what would otherwise be perceived (Luhrmann, 2012; Navarro-Yashin, 2009; Shapiro, 2016). The argument that the notion of fractal dynamics accounts for this play with frames of reference is integral to rituals of saint veneration among Alawites in Hatay, and therefore reflects and mirrors the myth of Hızır and Musa in the Kehf Surah.

These pilgrimages are integral to the ritual interaction of devotees with the saint to whom the site is dedicated. It is not necessary that the tomb contains actual relics of the respective saint. In various cases, the sanctuaries and pilgrimage sites commemorate the saint’s appearance. Therefore, these places are indexes of the material or spiritual presence of the saint. Devotees interact with the respective saint through tombs, trees, and water, which are considered material representations or embodiments of the saint. The devotees’ and saints’ ritual interactions can be observed through acts such as touching the tomb, knotting rags around twigs of the tree, and drinking water from a spring near the sanctuary. Still, the direct encounter of devotees with the saint through dreams and visions is a rarity—a onetime occurrence typically seen among elderly women of the community, but also known among men (Kreinath, 2014).

Hızır’s association with the formation of cosmological ideas about chance and choice in one’s life also indicates notions of play that are integral to rituals of saint veneration directed to Hızır at pilgrimage sites. ⁷ Veneration of Hızır not only reaches far beyond the rituals performed at these sites but also indicates his relevance for the working of social cosmologies of the real and imaginary. In very similar terms, a devotee’s encounter with Hızır can also be interpreted as a form of play with different frames of reference; and yet, this play of chance takes place on unequal grounds. In folk traditions and personal encounters, Hızır is first and foremost experienced as a beggar—commonly as a pitiable and despicable old man who turns out to be a blessing for those who fulfil his wishes.

Hızır is also referred to in daily conversation, especially in situations where a person appears in the right place at the right time. This is most clearly reflected in Turkish idioms that express the moment of surprise in situations of unexpected help, such as ‘Hızır gibi yetişmek’ (‘to arrive just at the right moment’ or ‘to come as a godsend’), or in sayings like ‘kul daralmayınca Hızır yetişmez’ (‘Hızır will not come to help unless one is in distress’). One conclusion that can be drawn from the use of such linguistic conventions is that he—as an immortal, mystical saint believed to potentially appear anytime or anywhere—indexes notions of unpredictability, deception, and surprise. However, these figures of speech are used jokingly and pointedly to index the synchronicity in ambiguous moments of surprise and utter disbelief. Such succinct expressions have broader implications for conceptualizing the notions of probability and their relationship with ritual and play, insinuating apt appearances of Hızır as trickster.

These patterns of similarity, cutting across different dimensions and scales of the social cosmology, justify considering the recursive dynamics of simulation and disguise involved as fractal. Whether regarding the myth of Hızır and Musa, or personal encounters with Hızır in dreams and visions, as part of saint veneration rituals performed at sanctuaries, the figure of Hızır appears as a trickster who, regardless of what his counterpart will do or say, is believed to be ahead of the game. In this way, he challenges what believers conceive as real and imaginary. Encounters with Hızır in dreams and visions are not only a play of probability and chance, but also refer to notions of simulation and disguise. Therefore, rituals of saint veneration implicate different notions of play as integral to their very design: namely those of probability and chance (alea), and those of simulation and disguise (mimicry), which both have broader implications for Alawite social cosmology and ritual practice alike.

Conclusion

Various approaches have been proposed to analyse play and ritual as distinct forms of social action or cultural practice. Despite their varying degrees of failure and success, I do not believe that the history in the concept formation can be discarded or fully overwritten but instead must be critically scrutinized to develop alternative venues that allow for more concise description and analysis of their constitutive and elusive design features. A key element in revisiting the distinctions between play and ritual consists of finding contrastive concepts through which the ethnographic record can be rectified, and anthropological theory be refined or adjusted. Depending on the types of play and ritual under consideration, as reflected in the contributions to this special section, different types of analytical concepts are needed.

As the ethnographic evidence on Alawites in Hatay certainly indicates, religious cosmologies, ritual practices, and forms of social organization are systemically intertwined in saint veneration rituals. To varying degrees of elaboration, they include different types of play and ritual that frame the possible contexts of social interaction in unfamiliar forms. In reconfiguring the underlying theoretical parameters, it is possible to move beyond categorical distinctions and distortions of concept formation and to better account for the transfigurations of play and ritual in religious practice. As suggested, the dynamics of framing must be studied with a set of analytical concepts that better accounts for contextual and relational configurations that emerge through the interaction of different types of agents. One alternative elaborated on in this contribution is how the stipulation of the saint’s agency in veneration rituals must be seriously taken into consideration, to include the possibility of choice among human and non-human agents and to account for the play of possibilities in the performance of rituals. Such play can occur inside and outside of the ritual frame and most likely twist or alter clear conceptual boundaries.

To facilitate ethnographic insights and enhance anthropological theory, the concept of fractal dynamics served to discuss veneration rituals as a play with frames of reference. The reconstruction of a social cosmology of the venerated saint as a trickster and its role in the performance of veneration rituals led me to consideration of the recursive dynamics of framing. By introducing fractal dynamics to account for decision making processes by participants, I aimed to conceptualize the unpredictable and contingent outcome in their social interactions. Consideration of fractal dynamics in rituals of saint veneration emphasizes that play is a central feature of these rituals. In this regard, alea and mimicry are integral to the study of saint veneration rituals. It takes into consideration the devotee’s decisions by stipulating the responses of the saint in their perceived interaction. Through these findings, it becomes clear that former anthropological concepts of play and ritual must be reconsidered through the aesthetics of sensory perception and that the study of saint veneration rituals must be embedded in notions of social cosmologies as implicated in local religious cultures. Both ritual and play are performative acts that create a double-bind between what can be seen and what remains unseen. The simultaneity of the visible and invisible, as they are produced in play and ritual, translates into the possibility of multiple interpretations and frames of reference.

A refined concept of fractal dynamics thus helps to overcome the pitfalls of rigid distinctions between play and ritual by arguing that their features are best described through the perception of recurring patterns disrupted and produced during their performance. These patterns, if they recur on different scales of abstraction, can be interpreted as having qualities of fractal dynamics. Thus, fractal dynamics focuses on the emergence of situated, recursive patterns that evolve in the continuous interplay of ritual interactions between participants, who act upon each other’s decisions by reacting to the decisions of other participants. This, in turn, leads them again to react to the decisions other participants made before (Batseon, 1936; Kreinath, 2012). This approach allows the relational and contextual features of play and ritual to be reconsidered. Transitioning from the interior to the exterior of play, or ritual, frameworks can be conceptualized both as the twisting of the same surface, as seen in the Moebius strip, and as an iteration of a series of irregular ruptures grounded in the decisions of individual participants. The continuous transition between the inner and outer aspects of ritual is reconfigured through the conjunction of similarity and difference in ritual interaction. This concurrence is replicated on different scales in the relationships between the whole and its parts, mirrored in the various scales in which these relationships are nested (Mosko, 2009, 2010).

The concept of fractal dynamics, if applied to the study of ruptures in social interactions of play and ritual, can trace the interaction among participants across different scales. Moreover, the very concept of the fractal implies ambiguous boundaries that arise through the dynamics of situated framing in play and ritual alike. It accounts for irregularities of social interaction and helps conceptualize the dynamics of framing as a paradoxical event that produces the distinction between the inside and outside (Handelman, 1981, 2004). It accounts for irregular dimensions in the transformation and transition from play to non-play and ritual to non-ritual, in which the social interactions as ‘relationships of relationships’ oscillate between different levels of abstraction in the transition from the inside to the outside; not as continuous flux, but as a series of ruptures (Friedson, 1996; Handelman, 2001). The recursive layering of interrelated social relationships, and the formation of indistinguishable boundaries, are outcomes of recursive processes of layering in the differentiation and de-differentiation processes of framing. Self-similarity and difference make the relational organization of social interactions in play and ritual possible and produce the difference between the inside and outside of the frame—a difference that makes a difference (Bateson, 1972).

As Matan Shapiro (in this volume) elegantly describes, the notions of intensity and pulsation can serve as conceptual alternatives to better analyse the seamless transition between play and ritual. The approach Shapiro proposes as alternative to categorical distinctions between ritual and play has numerous advantages, as it is able to grasp subtle shifts between ritual and play. However, one needs to recognize that how to better calibrate and rectify the conceptual tools of analysis very much depend on the type of ritual and play, and even the type of concept formation involved. The main difficulty is that these concepts, like Moebius framing, presuppose a single frame of reference in how they account for emerging similarities and differences between different types of social interaction. Although it would be possible to describe saint veneration rituals in these terms, the theoretical conclusions one can draw from such an analysis would be different from mine.

In contrast to Handelman and Shapiro, I propose a model of analysis that is able to account for the emergence of difference through the recursive dynamics that are involved in the transformations of various states of the real and imaginary. It is, in particular, the transition, transposition, and transfiguration of play and ritual that I aim to tackle with the concept of fractal dynamics, namely what leads to the leap between these two types of human action and the different frames of reference they imply. With the possibility of framing shifts and ruptures in social interaction that demarcate transfiguration from play to ritual and back, the concept of fractal dynamics is designed to examine play through its different frames of reference. In comparison, Shapiro’s approach would conceptualize the unpredictable and uncertain dynamics in the interaction of human and non-human agents differently. While he sees them as the result of social interactions, I would view these dynamics as integral preconditions for the interaction between the saint and his devotees. As shown for the Alawite form of saint veneration in Hatay, the devotee and saint have an actual or stipulated ability to establish different frames of reference to counter and contradict each other, which in one way or another impacts the contexts of social interaction between human and non-human agents. Therefore, it is paramount to account for the counter-rhythm and the counter-pulsation that is simultaneously occurring when moments of rhythm and pulsation can be observed. This mode of description would overcome the fixation on only one frame of reference and better account for the dynamics in the transformation and transitions between different frames of reference.

To compare my approach with that of Shapiro on a conceptual level, I would describe the main differences in how we approach the transposition and transformation of play and ritual and what conclusions we draw from their structural dynamics. Shapiro favours one frame of reference by using pulsation, intensity and rhythm as his key concepts. These concepts certainly help develop a more refined focus on their subtle transitions in the dynamics of ‘open-end’ and ‘closed-end’ social interaction. My proposal to use fractal dynamics is designed to foster a social model of divergent and potentially conflicting agents participating, or interfering, in a course of action leading to new and different forms of framing. In doing so, I view ritual and play as intersecting and transfiguring into each other; transforming into something else. Even if simply for heuristic reasons, I would still insist on the need for clarity in such analytical distinctions. While maintaining some conceptual differences yet enabling the description of moments of transfiguration and transformation, the concept of fractal dynamics serves as a tool of analysis that allows for conceptual configurations in playful and ritual-like forms of social interaction. Thus, conceptual schemes and categorical distinctions are required for heuristic purposes: to facilitate comparison and elucidate the analysis of distinct forms of social action or human practice.

Particularly when considering forms of human interaction with non-human agents, it becomes apparent that saint veneration rituals are a means to play with frames of reference regarding what is real and imaginary. To consider saint veneration rituals as forms of social interaction between human and non-human agents helps to account for rituals as a game of chance, with a certain unpredictability in the outcome. The heuristic distinction between play and ritual helps to account for the twisted frames of reference with recurring similarities and differences on varying scales and scopes of social interaction among human and non-human agents. Thus, I consider such forms of social interaction between human and non-human agents in veneration rituals to be a play with refracting frames of reference. The advantage of using fractal dynamics or other alternative terms, like those of rhythm, intensity, and pulsation, for describing transfigurations of play and ritual is that it allows for the proposal of a new language to analyse processes in the transformation of social reality. Key to understanding these processes is the concept of framing as one that provides new contexts of interpretation or new configurations of social interaction. Framing, in this sense, is not understood as being based on, or resulting from, a binary on–off code, but rather it is focused on the multiple processes of transformation involved in the transfiguration of social relations and the formation of different genres or types of play and ritual. In this regard, framing in ritual play and playful ritual is not hierarchical, static, and redundant, but directional, performative and transformative, as it creates frames of reference that may not have previously existed.