liminalitynothing being able to cling to him. The liberated person lives in the world
without sorrow or pain, unbound, free of fear, and unconditioned by the
structure of the world. Devoid of desires or doubt, the liberated person lives
simultaneously in time and eternity. By attaining this condition while alive,
the liberated individual is considered among the living dead because such
a person is literally dead to the world. Later Hindu thinkers refine the
notion of the liberated person.
Further reading: Fort and Mumme (1996)LIMINALITY
Liminality is a condition or status in which one finds oneself or attains by
ritual. To be in a liminal condition means to find oneself in an ambiguous
situation because one is neither here nor there and between positions
assigned by law, custom, social convention, or ceremony. Someone in a
condition of liminality completely lacks status or rank. Liminality is linked
to such events as death, being in a womb, bisexuality, and invisibility.
According to the anthropologist Victor Turner, there are two main
types of liminality: rituals of status elevation or life crisis rites (e.g.
initiation, marriage, or death) and cyclical and calendrical rites. In the
latter type of rites those of low status exercise ritual authority over supe-
riors, who accept ritual degradation, which Turner calls rituals of status
reversal. While life crisis rites pertain to the individual, calendrical rites
tend to be collective in nature. In addition, life crisis rites are about status
elevation, whereas calendrical rites may become rites of status reversal.
The liminal condition can give birth to what Turner calls communitas,
a being with another that emerges where structure is lacking. Communitas
represents an anti-structure, something that breaks through structure, or
something beneath structure evoking a sense of inferiority. Ultimately,
communitas, a relationship between individuals, is beyond structure,
although it does not last for a long period of time, reverting dialectically
back eventually to structure, which a society needs to function. The lim-
inal nature of communitas, however, does contribute to the revitalization
of society. Turner gives the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca as an
example, although other scholars dispute his claims using examples of
pilgrimage from other cultures.
According to Turner, there are three basic types of communitas: exis-
tential or spontaneous, normative, and ideological. The last type is based