What is liminality?
 Liminality describes a state of being when
individuals enter a field that is outside of
normal space and time. These individuals are
are betwixt and between the normal roles,
behaviors and positions assigned by law,
custom and convention.
Entering the field
 In Family & Systemic Constellations we enter
the field in unique moments where the right
clients, representatives, witnesses, elements
and facilitators bring forth something that
wants to be seen in a singular event.
 Never repeated.
Entering the field for ritual
 Indigenous peoples enter the field on a
regular basis for ceremony, ritual, and
initiation.
 The challenge for these cultures is how to
have a number of people, if not the entire
group enter the field together, how to enter
specific places/experiences in the field with
regularity and predictability and how to use
these experiences in the field to support a
living, vibrant culture and society.
What is liminality?
 Their ambiguous
attributes are expressed
by a rich variety of
symbols in the many
societies that ritualize
social and cultural
transitions.
The idea of liminality
 The idea of liminality was first introduced to
the field of anthropology in 1909 by Arnold
Van Gennep in his work, Les rites de passage
as a three-part structure:
 Separation - liminal period - Re-assimilation
Young man of the
Hamer tribe, a tribal
people in southwestern
Ethiopia
Istockphoto.com
Characteristics of
Liminality
accept pain
androgynous
anonymity
equality
foolish
heteronomy
homogeneity
humility
nakedness
without status
obedience
sacredness
abstinence
silence
simplicity
stateless
totality
transition
uniformity
unselfish
mystery
paradox
ambiguity
cosmic
The idea of liminality
 Victor Turner, cultural anthropologist, first
introduced his interpretation of liminality in
1967.
Turner’s masterpiece
Social and cultural
transitions
 In many rituals such as rites of passage,
coming-of-age rituals and marriage, liminal
individuals are reduced or ground down to
be fashioned anew, endowed with new
powers to cope with their new station in life.
 Submerged into the essence of a culture’s
soul.
Death and Rebirth
Bugisu of Uganda circumcision ritual
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/3152733/Circumcision-ceremony-in-eastern-Uganda.html?image=5
Realm of Pure Possibility
 Liminality shows up in some form in
every society.
 Liminal areas of time and space—
rituals, carnivals, dramas, and latterly
films—are open to the play of thought,
feeling, and will….
Realm of Pure Possibility
 …. in them are generated new models,
often fantastic, some of which may
have sufficient power remake the
structural world.
Australian Aborigines Woggan-ma-gule Ceremony
http://www.abc.net.au/news/photos/2010/01/26/2801345.htm?site=sydney
Australian Aborigines Woggan-ma-gule Ceremony
http://www.abc.net.au/news/photos/2010/01/26/2801345.htm?site=sydney
Liminal symbols
 Liminal symbols help the group to
experience the field in a “language of shared
meaning and experience”
 Liminal symbols are dense, rich and evoking
 They are archetypal
 Multiple arrangements of liminal symbols
produce complex meaning (multivocal)
Liminal Symbols and Color
Black
White
Red
Darkness
Death
Sickness
Despair
Sorrow
Mourning
Underworld
Evil
Witchcraft
Light
Sun
Death
Birth
New
Purity
Surrender
Goodness
Resurrection
Health
Sun
Masculinity
Fire
Passion
Energy
Blood
War
Danger
Aggressiveness
Yellow: death, betrayal, optimism, idealism, imagination, hope,
sunshine, day, dawn, cowardice, jealousy, deceit, illness, hazard
Northwest Coast
Tsimshian circa 1825
https://plus.google.com/105956661266411
189618/posts/GJMop38nbfT
Amazonian Indians inhabiting the Xingu River basin
http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2012/01/chapter-51-art-of-of-body-painting.html
Juan Pueblo, Deer Dance in New Mexico
http://placephotography.photoshelter.com/image/I0000IYSNPwnlplw
Liminal Boundaries
 Indigenous cultures take great care to keep
liminality separate from the everyday world.
 The symbols of liminality help to maintain the
separation from the chaotic, fluid and
inverted behaviors that could be a hazard to
social structure, roles and status.
Kikuyu People of Kenya
photo by Retlaw Snellac on Flickr
Images of Liminality
Kikuyu People of Kenya
photo by Retlaw Snellac on Flickr
In the southern Indian city of Kochi a Theyyam dancer waits to
perform during festivities marking the start of the annual harvest
festival of "Onam" .
http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2012/01/chapter-51-art-of-of-body-painting.html
Liminality in indigenous
cultures and constellations
 Soul experience of life on a larger
landscape with movements, stances
dances and images
 Different sense of
proportion/space/time and meaning
 Weight and dignity
The Turkana live in northern Kenya around Lake Turkana
http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2012/01/chapter-51-art-of-of-body-painting.html
The Turkana live in northern Kenya around Lake Turkana
http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2012/01/chapter-51-art-of-of-body-painting.html
The Turkana live in northern Kenya around Lake Turkana
http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2012/01/chapter-51-art-of-of-body-painting.html
Asaro Mudmen of Papua New Guinea
http://www.theguardian.com/world/picture/2012/nov/04/papua-new-guinea-prince-charles#zoomed-picture
Huli man from Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples
Structure vs.
Anti-structure
 According to Victor Turner, the rules,
norms, statuses, codes and behaviors
which comprise everyday life, make up
, the structural portion of human
existence.
Structure vs.
Anti-structure
 Against structure Turner sees anti-structure,
a place that all societies create to temporarily
drop the normative ways of life and enter the
land of possibilities and pure feeling, a place
where societies can express themselves
without the usual constraints.
 Bijago man
wearing the mask
after his initiation
(From the island of Orango
Grande, in the Bijagos
Archipelago, off the coast of
Guinea Bissau)
http://kwekudeetripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com/2012/12/bijagopeople-guinea-bissau-african.html
Structure vs Anti-structure
Liminality is Revitalizing
 According to Turner this dialectic
process is indispensable for any society
because no society can function
adequately without it.
 It is the way that societies can adapt,
change and renew their essential
qualities.
A dialectic of social action
 Structure and Anti-Structure oscillate back
and forth much like Yin and Yang.
We need liminality
 The pull of liminalty is strong within us
in the same way that the orders of love
influence our thoughts, emotions and
behaviors. It is instinctual, hard wired.
Liminality as pilgrimages
Muslims on hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/hajj-begins-muslims-seek-erasing-past-sins
Sadhu In Haridwar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadhu
Liminality in religion
Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters
Liminality in Social Groups
http://grind365.com/news/true-crime/gangland-a-look-inside-germanys-biker-wars/
Liminality in Social Groups
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/nazi-skinheads-brooklyn_n_4234498.html
Liminality in Entertainment
Cirque du soleil
Liminality in Film
http://bitchinfilmreviews.com/the-matrix-on-blu-ray/
Liminal process and
Constellations
 What happens when the renewal of liminal process
is missing?
 Does the flow of love require the oscillation
between structure and anti-structure?
 What if the degree of entanglements found in family
system are heightened when the family does not
move regularly together into the field?
 Does a lack of liminal oscillation create more
pathology?
Barry Krost
Family & Systemic Constellations Facilitator
Bodywork & Energy Healer
healingfamilyconstellations.com