A liminal
state is a
temporary state in the
transition between two recognized and
defined ways of being. Generally, in a
liminal state:
i'm sure there are things that i'm forgetting, i'm doing this from memory. Liminal phases occur in all kinds of rituals, but often in landmark life rituals, like entering adulthood (in those societies civilized enough to have those).
Victor Turner did a great deal of studying liminal states, as a critical tool for understanding parts of
social drama.
[Van Gennep] saw society as a house with rooms and corridors in which passage from one to another is dangerous. Danger lies in transitional states; simply because transition is neither one state nor the next, it is undefinable. The person who must pass from one to another is himself in danger and emanates danger to others. The danger is controlled by ritual which precisely separates him from his old status, segregates him for a time and then publicly declares his entry to his new status.1
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. 1966.