Freedom, Liminality and Social Change
The notion of Rave events as vehicles for social change may be illuminated by the notion of liminality, a term originated by Arnold van Gennep in Rites of Passage (1909) and later expanded by Victor Turner. Liminality refers to the ambiguity of the ritual realm, where everyday reality is transformed into a symbolic, ‘commitarian’ experience which thereafter affects the individual’s lived reality. In this way it can act as a catalyst for social change. In psychological terms, ritual can be viewed in terms of flow as a ‘psychophysical experience of involving oneself totally in an activity’, which provides the individual with the opportunity to assess his/her normal life, and that this can induce personal and social change.
In his semiotic analysis of rituals, Keyan Tomaselli defines them as ‘The collectively patterned performance forms through which processes of cultural or sacred signification are integrated into consciousness and social practices’.
Tomaselli identifies the liminal state as one that enables the individual to question traditional ways of operating and to recognise new possibilities. Liminal states are also where the noumenal is oft to be found; ‘noumena’ in Tomaselli's view are ‘things and processes which resist scientific understanding’, which range from the paranormal to the supernatural.
One of the most powerfully transformative music events currently known to humankind is the Rave. At these events, the energies of electronic music and light are transcribed into kinaesthetic energy, ie. movement, through dance. People dancing in this energy field resonate to the sound and light frequencies which cascade about them...
>>8004955
Raves can ellicit in participants a state of liminality
When people experience a liminal state, the constraints of everyday life and its attendent social relations and norms are suspended. This state of suspension can enable people to gain insights into themselves and their relationships with others. Such experiences can induce permanent change in an individual or in a society, if the insights or new ways of relating are applied to everyday living
The liminal moment which frees people from the constraints of normality is what Hakim Bey calls the TAZ, the Temporary Autonomous Zone
https://youtu.be/UVyNRiDSnrg
The TAZ is a moment of freedom...
...It happens at events which celebrate life and freedom
There is no end, no limit to love. It is the boundless ocean in which we live. We have but to open our hearts to it, let it pour through us like pent-up water through the floodgates of a dam. Let the power of light drive us. Let there be Love!
Perhaps if we look far enough into the future, we can catch a glimpse of our own potential
Sage and hide.
We are the ones who define ourselves, our own lived reality.
This full-blown love!
https://youtu.be/k5FDxrWNoUQ?t=456
>>8004955
Nice dubs
>>8005130
...At Crownpoint I watched an artist painting
https://youtu.be/RhLaj6t-G7g
>>8005194
>>8006493
Loving it !
