The next interesting fact I found from Turner was also in Chapter 1, which stated that a prime ingredient in liminality is spacial location. They mention that liminality in major initiation rituals was unlike any other sacred ceremony. "In many tribal societies, initiands are secluded in a sacralized enclosure, or temenos." Such "temenos" were purposely built away from the villages and other common areas so that when rituals were performed, the atmosphere was nothing but sacred and had no bias or caused any distracting thoughts or events. The point of temenos is to totally in-capture a person's focus and have them become one with the location, therefore making the place sacred for every person who tred on the land. That to me was an excellent idea on the tribes' behalf. Today, there are so many "sacred places" such as churches and monasteries that are right in the middle of everyday terrain. How is that sacred? And how does a person who sees those landmarks when out of the threshold, become liminal when entering them later? I think all sacred places are better when nowhere near areas that consume the rest of your life or are simply involved in such everyday living. It just makes the connection nowhere near as strong when the time comes to have transcendence. And to leave cultural norms behind is hard to do when the sacred place is sitting in the society that it is trying to leave behind.
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