Mediation (culture) - Definition and Overview

Mediation - a central concept in traditional magical thinking - is an act of crossing the borders of sacrum and profanum. It was traditionally associated with things like: advancing between different stages of human life, changing the role in society, passing the border between civilized/known/home world and natural/unknown world, trangression of social constrains and other things.

As mediation is crossing between distinct states in neatly ordered, polarized traditional mindset, it is inherently dangerous causing individual to remain in sort of primordial limbo where distinctions are blurred and qualities uncertain. To relieve the tension mediation needs special ritual activities (rites) and to ward off disaster, special rules of conduct (taboos) are formed.

Mediators

The rites use special circumstances and tools that - by virtue of being mediators themselves - aid in acts of crossing the borders. Some examples include:

• Natural points of change
  • dawn and dusk
  • noon and midnight
  • doors, windows, bridges and town gates
  • roads and crossroads
  • pits, hills and mountains
• Sacred individuals
  • child, virgin, crone
  • shaman, priest, ruler
  • jester, executioner, foreigner
• Mediating items
  • alcohol, tobacco, hallucinogens
  • mushrooms, poppy, mandrake
  • musical instruments, costume's parts

See Also

Magical thinking, Superstition, Tradition, Myth