vital to the bond, and the bond becomes a creative condition
of intentional life.
In theological or religious language, the epigenetic se-
quence is often expressed in terms of the transformation
from death to life, from darkness to light, from slavery to
freedom through a time and history of salvation.
A total object relation allows the recognition of the
other as total object. This is achieved by means of a resolu-
tion of the dynamics and structural intentional modalities of
a partial object relation that are destructive or appropriative
of the object and therefore inadequate to the condition of
reciprocity of an intentional bond. This occurs through a
creative intentional initiative (gift, sacrifice) in which the in-
tentional dynamics of the partial object relation are trans-
formed from appropriative to reciprocal and through models
of thought and action that sustain intentional reciprocity in
the creation of sociocultural institutions that express the
bond. It follows from this that the nascent state and the epi-
genesis of a total object relation, in its temporal symbolic
structure, is a sequence of intentional positions that build a
symbolic intentional bond. Each passage from one intention-
al position to another is guided, in its unity, by particular
dominant symbols.
The temporal correlation of the dominant symbols is
the order of successive creations of the intentional relation;
this develops the nascent state into a vital form of life and
corresponds to the sacred history of the bond.
The initial stages of the sequence are not merely inci-
dental to the development of a vital cultural and institutional
bond. They are, instead, the necessary elements, stages, and
modalities of the temporal process of the bond itself.
Symbolic time is a generative symbolic form. It traces
and differentiates a specific way by which human action, in
a given intentional bond, both at the level of the individual
and of the collectivity, becomes intentionally creative. The
nascent state related to the figura is a process of formation
of something new, the specific event of the coming into
being of an intentional bond, a dynamic covenant that con-
stitutes a new order of possibility and the creation of new cul-
tural and institutional forms. The figura is the generative
time of an intentional public bond that has been brought
about by a transformation of the structure of intentional rela-
tions and by the symbolic and institutional elaboration of in-
tentional existence.
The intentional character of the figura within the devel-
opment of a sacred history is differentiated as the paradig-
matic action, the symbolic agent (identified as founder, hero,
or prophet), and the normative order of intentional life.
Symbolic time is, therefore, interior to the intentional rela-
tion of the bond, and symbols are structures that both differ-
entiate and connect the initial perception of reality to the
elaboration of concrete forms of relation and to their articu-
lation through time.
RITUAL PERFORMANCE. The figura, as it is represented by
a calendrical order, makes use of three types of temporal pa-
rameters: time units, rules of symbolic performance, and sets
of festivals or rituals. The “time units” are periodical intervals
normally related to astronomic measurements of the solar
and lunar year, the solstices and equinoxes, the month, the
week, and the day. The set of performative rules defines the
logic of interrelation of the symbolic features of word, action,
and object in the form of intentional exchange and coordi-
nates the different symbols in such a way as to express the
intentional structure of the figura through its temporal peri-
odical performance. Festivals are symbolic public actions that
have a mythic and ritual structure.
The features of the three main temporal parameters are
correlated so that a condition of time is created that is period-
ical. The temporal coordination of the dominant symbols is
ritualized in a calendrical, repetitive form.
The different festivals and their distribution, which is,
as has been seen, uneven and discontinuous through the year,
correspond to the calendrical coordination of specific events
of the epigenetic sequence. These events are correlated into
a performative paradigm that has the pattern of a “fact com-
ing into being” (fait naissant). This performative pattern,
which structures the individual ritual and permeates the peri-
odicity of the figura, has a tripartite structure consisting of
a phase of separation and destructuration, of limen, and of
restructuration and organization into a new relationship (van
Gennep, 1960; Turner, 1969). In the first phase the ritual
subjects become detached from their former modalities of in-
tentional relation and from their structural expression; in the
last phase a new cultural and structural bond is created in
which the individual and the collectivity express a new inten-
tional modality. The celebration of the intentional bond oc-
curs in the liminal phase of the ritual and is centered in the
performance of the sacrifice. The central phase is liminal and
transitional: The ritual actors are freed from structural or so-
cial definition while they acquire a new symbolic definition.
The performative paradigm of the figura elaborates the
three main phases and conditions of the epigenetic sequence
that are intrinsic to the formation of a bond: the originating
occasion and condition of the fact coming into being, which
carries with it the resolution of modalities that are contrary
to the bond, the definition of the bond through the sacrifice,
and the public and historical structures instituted by the
bond. The whole corresponds to the nascent state and to the
process of adaptation within the intentional bond.
Every festival, and indeed the figura as a whole, creates
a confrontation between the new and the old, between viable
and unviable modalities of the bond. Through the performa-
tive pattern, the figura roots the continuity of the cultural
symbolic institution in a constant dynamic process.
THE PERIODICITY OF THE FIGURA. The figura is predicated
on the correlation of the epigenetic and performative para-
digms. In the case of the Christian tradition, the figura is
centered on the three initiatory sacramental symbols of bap-
tism, Eucharist, and confirmation. The epigenetic model isSYMBOLIC TIME 8917