Image and Pilgrimage- Liminoid verses liminal

Pilgrimages are seen as more liminoid than liminal. Liminoid is defined as “open, optational, not conceptualized as religious routine,” while liminal is “belonging to the mid- stage in a religious processual structure consisting of rites of separation, limen or margin, and reaggregation.” Liminal is focused more on the mandatory work done by tribal or early societies. Liminoid is opposite where it is focused on the voluntary actions of individuals (Turner, 231). When a pilgrimage becomes so structured it loses the liminoid side of it and begins to convert into a liminal pilgrimage where there are strict guidelines and rituals. Forcing people to go on a pilgrimage results in the lose of the special experience that it holds. There would be more of a desire to go if it wasn’t mandatory for a religion. An example of this was seen when in the High Middle Ages, the church began to incorporate a pilgrimage as part of the religion (Turner, 232). 

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