REL 020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Gennep
17 Oct 2016
School
Department
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Professor
Van Gennep and Turner 90-01.
• Theories of rites of passage: 3 phases.
o Separation: people who are going through the transition.
▪ Might be a physical/special separation, a change in dress, a
different title, a change in hair (especially shaving one’s head).
There is often a change in teachings or a time where those
who will go through the transition are taught separately.
o Liminal: part of the ritual in which the transition occurs.
▪ Supports the idea that rules are required and individuals are
assigned a specific role in society. The role will continue even
after you die and thus they confront the reality of death and
change. You continue to have an identity. This reassures the
individual and the entire society.
o Reincorporation: always involves a recognition from the rest of
society as having attained a new status or role.
Kessler’s Types of Rituals:
• Technological – nature/environment. Trying to have some type of control
over nature or the environment.
• Therapeutic/anti-therapeutic – rituals that put the body in a healthy or
unhealthy state.
• Ideological – normally applies to every ritual because it enacts the doctrines
for a specific religion.
• Salvation – rituals the purify the soul.
• Revitalization
Examples:
• bar/bat mitzvah
• baptism
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