CLAIRE BLACK
DOI 10.20933/100001379
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Ritual, the Liminal and the Sacred - Embodied Practices of Transformation and Hierophany
Claire Marion Black
Art & Philosophy BA(Hons)
Cover Image: Mary Beth Edelson, Dematerializing: Slipping into a reconsidered story, 1975. Cut gelatin silver print, 10 × 8″
Abstract
This dissertation explores the transformative potential of ritual to enable selfdiscovery, by deconstructing the motivations of desire and the implications for self-knowledge using the method of internalising ritual as described in foundational philosophical Indian texts, the Upanishads.
I expand this discussion by introducing philosopher Byung-Chul Hans’ anthropological critique of the decline of ritual in contemporary society, leading to a loss of connection and increased individuation in the absence of the essential structure and stability of ritual. I will then explore the art of Mary Beth Edelson as performative ritual. Embodying the roles of hierophant and artist in her works from the 1970s Pilgrimage/See for Yourself, Up from the Earth and Woman Rising series, Edelson’s work pertains to discovering and defining the self through ritual art-making.
Introducing concepts from philosopher and religious historian Mircea Eliade’s text The Sacred & the Profane, I will describe the critical role of ritual in accessing an alternate space and time. For Eliade enacting ritual establishes a new sacred dimension - a transitional threshold- which aligns with an essential objective of Marina Abramović’s art. Analysing the durational performance The Artist is Present (2010) I will describe the journey of self-analysis and metaphorical mirroring that takes place for both artist and viewer.
Concluding this dissertation, I will reflect on the core teaching of ritualised experience as described in the Upanishads, that the sacrifice of material gain and desire brings the essential realisation, which is the ultimate liberation, the ultimate gain -the discovery of a knowing self.
Introduction
This dissertation explores the transformative potential of embodied ritual as a pathway to self-discovery, by examining how the internalisation of ritual can enable selfawareness and the implications for self-knowledge as described in the Upanishads of Vedic culture.
By placing the example of sacrificial ritual into the wider framework of transformative experience, it will theorise how aspects of our being can be symbolically sacrificed - the intent of desire, ego and material gain that instigate ritual are instead considered as motivations to interpret a higher meaning of reality for our core being, our Self. The Upanishads teach that our desires metaphorically hold up a mirror to what is lacking in our inner life, showing that experiential knowledge beyond ritual culminates in the understanding that the true sacrifice revealed is that of desire, and the ultimate liberation found in this revelation. Through transcending the limitations of a material, temporal reality, to recognise a unity with Brahman, the Ultimate Reality, the Upanishads indicate the potential to become a knowing, liberated being.
Theoretical frameworks from Vedic culture are compared with contemporary philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s critique of the decline of ritual. In The Disappearance of Ritual, Han identifies that traditional ritual comes into conflict with modern day motivations in what he describes as a crisis of community. With the erosion of ritual, Han describes modern society as lacking belonging and connection, and preoccupied with commercial and commodified pursuits. Through this lens, the motivations of
artists who access the transformational power of ritual to highlight the continued relevance of ritual practice to enable transformation and profound self-discovery are considered.
Contemporary loss of connection to archaic sources of power, embodied ritual as art practice and performance bridging the dimensions of sacred and profane worlds, are reimagined by artists Mary Beth Edelson and Marina Abramović.
Selected artworks by artist and hierophant Mary Beth Edelson, whose performative rituals and object making are replete with symbolism, re-imagine historical narratives and re-claim archetypes of sacred feminine energy to actively transcend a linear temporality. Her ritualised artworks integrate myth, creation and power to recall and subvert historical narratives placed on the body and serving as a means of discovering her own authentic self.
The distinction Mircea Eliade makes between the Sacred and Profane definitions of reality provide a theory with which to view ritual’s capacity to manifest alternate spheres of time and space and leads to a more detailed analysis of what space is created and accessed when ritual is performed.
When considered alongside the duration all performance artwork The Artist is Present by contemporary artist Marina Abramović it is shown that both Eliade and Abramović are exploring the ability of ritual to view space and time as transformational and manipulatable within their respective fields. Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane defines dimensions accessed by ritual as creating a threshold between the mundane and transformational modes of being. Abramović’s endurance artworks exemplifies contemporary art serving as ritualistic rite to bring about a ‘liminal’ space where
prolonged meditative reflection transcends individual bodily limitations, allowing connection to heightened layers of selfhood .
The conclusion of this dissertation states that embodied ritual enables the transcendence of material realities, the internalisation of desire and sacrifice, to uncover an authentic, knowing self. Insights from the artistic expression of Edelson and Abramović are put forward to show that the essential necessity of ritual is in seeking and re-interpreting ancient sacred practices, and reclaiming ritual as a form of embodied creation as a method for personal and collective transformation.
The Transformative Potential of Vedic Ritual
The Vedas form the earliest known collection of Indian scripture, which outline the practices and commentaries on Vedic tradition, they are foundational to classical Hinduism, and describe a culture based on ritualistic sacrifice and ceremony. The Upanishads conclude the texts, recycling complex layers of symbolic meaning in Vedic literature using allegories and dialectic examples to communicate lessons about life, death, and the Selfi . The etymology of Veda comes from the root vid -meaning ‘to know’. ‘Upanishad’ is translated as ‘sit down close together’ indicating the learning methodology of master to student, as was the common pedagogical practice.
Animal sacrifice rituals, libations and other offerings to a ceremonial fire were an integral part of Vedic practice. Those seeking advancement in power, reign, fortune and influence, would have complicated rites performed on their behalf. However, the unique function of the Upanishads is to communicate a higher awareness that goes beyond ritual and teaches knowledge of the self.
Central to the understanding of the meaning of ritual in the Upanishads is the radical rejection of the ‘being’ that is manifest in the ‘real’ world, limited to time and causality; attainment of material goods, gain for oneself and desires limited to the earthly body, are ways in which we objectify ourselves, according to the texts. Instead our focus should be directed towards the inner self, and the role of ritual becomes a concept for understanding our experience of the world which is not limited to a corporeal body.
In the Vedic context, ‘knowing’ is defined as either ‘Apara’ (see Glossary) -knowledge gained without any transformative experience, or ‘Para’ (see Glossary) - transcendent
knowledge. Ritual is directed towards para, but only when the act of ritual is internalised and evolved into a method of seeking higher meaning, can it transform something within our being.
In the Brihadaranyaka (see Glossary) Upanishad section IV, this is explained that the inner self is “The domain of all knowledge. While that of ignorance is relative existence, which consists of the ends and means of rites [ritual].” (Śaṅkarācārya, 1965, p.241)
This ‘relative’ or material, existence is categorised into name, form and action,and to align oneself with any or all of these categories is to show ignorance rather than knowledge of the true identity of the self. To be preoccupied with the categories of ‘name’ and ‘object’ is to define oneself with the mundane, material qualities of ordinary objects. Likewise, ‘action’ , or ritual, if enacted for purely material gain, frustrates the purpose of self-knowledge. The ideal fruition of Vedic knowledge is to understand and experience ourselves as being identical with an ‘Ultimate Reality’ , called Brahman (see Glossary). In an ontological sense Brahman represents a ‘oneness’, beyond attribution, transcending the physical and temporal. Rituals guide practitioners to ‘something seen’ an inner realisation of a unity with Brahman.
To hold that it is in the life of the ‘self’ that ‘transcendence’ becomes manifest does not mean to be limited within his own resources. Actually he is transformed out of his earlier individuality, first of all by the discovery that the ‘self’ (Atman) is not limited to the forms of his own space and time, and eventually by the awareness that he is being reabsorbed into the all-pervading consciousness (Brahman).
(Younger 1972, p122)
By defining the self as both an individual consciousness and ‘the Self’ referred to as Atman (see Glossary) a being which is unified with the highest version of reality, develops a self-awareness possible of immense personal expansion. The ‘self’ is defined and understood in experiential terms, driven by individual desires, and what is discovered by meditating on the self, is not a superior iteration of being (without sin, as in Western tradition) but a knowing subject.
The Role of Ritual
Close study of the Upanishads develops the distinction between ritual action and interpretations for the self. The reason being is that there are aspects of the self that ritual cannot reach, and only interpretation and embodiment of ritualised performance can lead to self-realisation and spiritual awareness. The path to discovery of the true and authentic Self transcends what is offered by the structures of organised religion and ritual.
When considering the ‘embodiment’ in the concept of both ritual and the art practice of Mary Beth Edelson’s and Marina Abramović that I will later discuss, it is important to note that the term ‘embodiment’ is referenced both as an act of internalising, bringing method and action inside of oneself, and as as an act of expression - that what has been internalised is then projected outwardly.
Expansion of the concept of ritual allows an essential interpretation of ritual in creating an altered state, a sacred space of self-knowledge.
Ritual stood for all human action, sacrifice, once internalised was the key idea of mysticism. In the Upanishads treatment of sacrifice we can learn many things about how they work as literary, philosophical and religious texts. (Easwaran, 2007, p.309)
Therefore, every act, especially ritual, becomes an act of knowing. “Rituals become symbols of Self-realisation” (Easwaran, 2007, p.298). The person who understands that to embody and internalise the intent of ritual, transcends its meaning.
Early translations of the Upanishads made bold claims as to the efficacy of ritual, “He who performs this rite-knowing- goes beyond death” (Ibid, p.316). This quote indicates that the ‘knowing’ Self (Atman) gains eternal life because they have transcended the individual self and corporeal body and come to understand themselves as unified with Brahman, and therefore part of all creation. Beyond the symbolism and role-play of ritual is its true meaning -to identify that ritual moves from being an external action, to an embodied intention. Ritual itself is transformed by its embodied internalisation into a necessary pathway but of lesser importance to knowing.
The Authentic Self
American artist Mary Beth Edelson (1933-2021) worked extensively with ritual throughout her life and art practice. Her interpretation of artistic ritual increases our understanding of ritual as an exercise in self-exploration in the same vein as Vedic ritual by gaining an expanded awareness of the self. Edelson employs ritual to enable ‘knowing’ the self, as a form of para knowledge -transformative, transcendent, and validating. Edelson insists “Ritual should go beyond exercises. It should take us to another state, facilitate bringing about change and release.” (Zawadski, 2016, p.8)
Both ritual and Edelson’s art practice share a commonality of symbolic language and intent to facilitate a change in consciousness, revealing the authentic, knowing, self through embodiment. The task of transforming ones’ inner self aligns the method as put forward by Paul Younger earlier in this paper, “…that transcendence becomes manifest does not mean to be limited and contained within ones’ own resources”. Edelson takes up this idea and runs with it, calling on all manner of archaic feminine energy to bring about her transformation into a realised and knowing being. Connecting to the imagery of many Goddess figures by manipulating her own form using long-exposure photography, painting, collaging, and drawing over photographic prints of her performances. She radically transforms and ‘expands herself’ by connecting her innermost self with an abundance of universal beings and realities. In the work Dematerializing (see Cover Image), the epitome of this gesture of transcendence is made abundantly clear, Edelson ‘slips’ into a sacred ritualised space where her meditative pose and literally transformed body is indicative of the internal and external manifestations of ritual.
The appropriation of ritualised gesture and symbols in Edelson’s art can function in a number of ways through the interpretations by the artist, and the viewer, but primarily they show the artist constructing a new language with her body, involving and renewing herself within mythical feminine energies. A similar thread runs through Vedic thought, ‘The cosmic myths are all relived within the life of the individual, and the ancient stories of these myths slip back and forth between cosmic and personal language.” (Younger, 1972, p.90). Demonstrating that myths, archetypes of feminine power and deities are available as resources, re-awakened and re-activated by Edelson through personal embodiment.
It is important to note that Edelson is not substituting her own form in the place of an idol; rather, she is actively seeking and creating her own authentic self that is defined within oneself, not one shaped by external influence. An image of the authentic self is discovered and projected outwards from the embodied intentional action of ritual. Therefore, it may be said that it is only through the enacted ritual that the authentic self emerges and is manifested.
By engaging in the symbolic activity of ritual, Edelson gains access to a direct encounter with a spiritually transcendent experience, highlighting the transformative power of creative practice in ritual by redefining her own personal spiritual nature, her authentic self, by accessing a deeper metaphysical understanding.
Figure 1. Mary Beth Edelson, Pilgrimage / See For Yourself, 1977. Photographic Print of Ritualised Performance
Desire and the Loss of the Sacred
Desire is a profoundly important motivator identified in the Upanishads as the ultimate tool for progressing the experienced self of the individual, because the pursuit of selfknowledge begins with the desire at the root of that motivation. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad begins “Om. In the Beginning we Desired ” What motivates that desire and encourages introspection to discover previously unknown truths about our inner selves? The Brihadaranyaka continues:
You are what your deep, driving desire is,
As you desire, so is your will.
As your will is, so if your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.
Upanishad : IV.4.5
The thought-provoking message contained within these lines is that your destiny can be traced right back to your desires. Calling attention to the fact that all desires, whether everyday and trivial, or awesome challenges, require endless amounts of potential, drive and action to succeed. Channelling that potential through embodied experience of ritual into self-realisation is one of the key aims of the teachings. To recognise and recall desire, and to consolidate that drive and ability to make change, is according to the Upanishads, how whole worlds are created.
Brihadaranyaka
The pages of the Upanishads reveal frequent encouragement to investigate the source of desire, inevitably finding that desire arises from a thought, or a superficial impulse, that has awakened a sense of incompleteness. When a sense of disconnect or unease is felt in our consciousness, this is a sign of desire running unchecked, hindering our ability to be a ‘realised self’.
As per the conditioning of modern society, we look for external solutions and validation for our desires, but the Upanishads teach that this is a misinterpretation - our attention should be on what is missing within ourselves. If accurately assessed, our desires show us what we lack, how we are incomplete. This is a typical teaching moment of the Upanishads where motivations and urges are not checked and suppressed, but meditated upon, internalised, and channelled towards a reconnection with a deeper level of awareness. Through sacrificing desire, we can become truly liberated by becoming an aware and knowing being. This is a reoccurrence of the concept of embodying ritual to gain self-knowledge previously mentioned, showing that desires and ego-centric pursuits should be diverted into transformative practices for the self.
World Making
Throughout history, humankind has sought to metaphorically find a centre of the world, a point of ontological orientation, in both religious and secular perspectives. This need is evidence of a disconnect with the ‘Ultimate Reality’ in Vedic culture, an incomprehension of our identity to Brahman, manifesting in an uneasy feeling of discontent. The desacralised worldview reflects a disconnect from the sacred that can be addressed by ritual to re-establish and gain access to sacred domains and ontological meaning.
Later in this paper I will discuss in more depth the definitions chosen by 20th Century religious historian and philosopher Mircea Eliade to describe his view of the two ontological modes of being, the ‘Sacred’ and the ‘Profane’. However, for the moment Eliade’s’ theory contextualises the need for ritual and its role as a reconnection to and accessing the space of the sacred. As Eliade claims even someone who rejects the sacred and all religious presumptions, cannot, and does not desire to, live a completely profane existence. To whatever degree he may have desacralised the world, the man who has made his choice in favour of the profane life never succeeds in completely doing away with religious behaviour…Even the most desacralised existence still preserves traces of a religious valorisation of the world.
(Eliade, 1987, p. 23)
Nostalgia for the ceremony and solemnity of religious practices persist in the human psyche, which can manifest in a desire to encounter sacred influences in other forms, for example, motivating modern artists Mary Beth Edelson and Marina Abramović to explore and embody ritual as a bridge between the sacred and profane worlds. The potential in the embodiment of ritual is the collapse of limiting boundaries of temporality, the sacred and the secular dimensions, and the ability to transform oneself. The process of ritual makes tangible abstract concepts like the transcendence of the self, sacred space and time, and through embodiment, reveals an altered space and time.
Figure 2. Mary Beth Edelson, Woman Rising / With Spirit series, Blazing Red Shell, 1975. Oil, Ink and Collage on Silver Gelatin Print, 25.4 x 20.3cm
Loss of Connection
In his book The Disappearance of Rituals, contemporary philosopher Byung-Chul Han discusses the decline of connection and stability in modern day society by noting the erosion of the significance and celebration of rituals. Han believes that the compulsion to endlessly represent and produce ourselves as individuals for a commodified and commercialised society has created a “crisis of community” (Han, 2020. p13).
Connecting lack of self-knowledge with a decline of a belonging in modern community.
“Rituals as symbolic practices create a wholeness within a community, rejecting an individualistic bent in identity, rituals invoke a distance between the self, an internal “self-transcendence.” (Han, Ibid).
This analysis of ritual in combination with the internal workings of ‘self’ and ‘selftranscendence’ refers to the transformative power of ritual in human experience. The distance Han comments on is the symbolic separation in ritual from the ordinary sequence of daily life, which when enacted, means ritual causes as a break with habitual self-serving concerns. To transcend one’s ‘self’ describes an inner movement beyond the surface-level perception of ego, desire and self-awareness, evolving to something more nuanced and connected to a greater aspect of reality, whether that be spiritual or community.
As Han concludes the decline of enacting ritual leads to individuals becoming more insular beings, unable to access elevated aspects of collective experience. It is this aspect of ritual that we will later encounter with artist Marina Abramović’s work where the participation by the audience in her performance is intended to wake them from their passivity.
For Han, ritual represents an essential part of how we “make a home in the world” (Han, 2020, p.2) by serving as a background for which values and order are maintained. In ritual by gesture, action, words and repetition, we engage in an activity that provides a repeatable familiarity and stability. Offering what modern culture struggles to provide - a sense of togetherness, connection and belonging. As within Vedic culture, the search for the connection of the Self within is instigated for the very reason that the self does not feel at home in the world.
Where ritual comes into conflict with modern consumer-culture is in its opposition to nature, the instant gratification of technology, desire and media in what Han sees as an individualistic and performance-driven society. The technique of ritual is found in intention, repetition, and meditation on objects, the resulting focus of thought provides structure, duration and presence. “In ritual context, things are not consumed, or ‘used up’ but they are used in a way that also allows them to remain, and ‘become old’” (Han, Ibid).
Artist Marina Abramović acknowledges the atemporal significance of repetition in ritual creation, stating:
You can start with any object and create an energy field around it again and again though ritual…because repetition of the same thing over and over again generates enormous power. Old cultures know this, that’s why they base their entire ritual structure on repetition.
(O’Brien, 2014, p.46)
This places ritual in contrast to today’s fast paced consumer society in Han’s opinion, objects, people and values are not consumed but returned to with reverence and contemplation.
Figure.3 Mary Beth Edelson, Red Kali, 1973. Oil, China marker, and Ink on Gelatin Silver Print, 10 × 8″. From the series Woman Rising, 1973.
Embodied Ritual
Much of the feminist body art produced in the 1970s utilised the unashamed presentation naked female body, refusing the portrayal of women as passive and lacking agency. Reclaiming the nude female body, then altering it -with collage, photography techniques and drawing- enabled Mary Beth Edelson to transform herself by physically layering alternative contexts and realities onto her body.
The pose and provocative stance of Woman Rising (Fig.2) and Red Kali (Fig.3) signal defiance, which is reinforced when presented through the medium of the naked form, declaring the female body as synonymous with the identity of the sacred divine. Through ritual, pose, and image manipulation, Edelson opens up the image of her body to new possibilities of experience, connecting her inner-self with broader universal realities, revelling in a liberating expression of a prophetic, spiritualised body.
Rituals are necessarily processes of embodiment -myths and values are physically manifested, and experienced, creating a “bodily knowledge and memory” (Han, 2020, p.11) which shares a vocabulary of language and gesture between ritual and the body.
In the performative ritualisation of Edelson’s work the body has to be present and participatory in the experience to begin the ritual. However, in an almost paradoxical sense, because although the material embodied state is an essential first move, what is being encountered is a wholly immaterial space. Therefore when considering the embodiment present in both ritual and the art practices of Edelson (and later in this paper, those of Abramović) it is important to note embodiment is a spiritual act both simultaneously inside and outside oneself - that which has been internalised is expressed outwardly. As ritual works its way in and through the body and time, the
emphasis on embodied experience moves from a ritual act to a transformative act for the self.
Edelson’s work reflects a being in the world that goes beyond the limiting dichotomies of division that separate dualisms of ‘mind / body’ and ‘thinking / feeling’, and points to the possibility of something ‘other’- where humankind and nature are inter-related, and encouraged to adapt, communicate, make and re-make their story. At the age of 57, she wrote:
My rituals also provided resistance to the mind / body split by acknowledging sexuality in spirituality, reconciling the experience of a united spirit, body and mind.
(Edelson, 1990, p.45)
A recurring metaphor of her work is unification of the mind and body, enabling a change of consciousness by the invocation of a new and personal creation of female power. She emphasised the importance of connected experience when discussing her work Pilgrimage/See for Yourself (Fig.1.) a ritual performed in a Neolithic Yugoslavian cave in 1977. Edelson describes the initial process of ritual:
Allowing the ritual to spring from within. I start from a body position that leads to a mind/spirit position…touching primordial places which take up from the present and move me forward…I put everything out of my mind and begin the ritual, letting it flow where it will
(Edelson, 1978, p.99)
As an art critic, and contemporary of Edelson, Lucy Lippard stated in the late 1970’s:
Much recent feminist art seems aimed at returning the artist back to the earth…Many of these works resemble or specifically include ritual, which began as animal communication, and persisted as magic. (Lippard, 1977, p.32).
Lippard is highlighting in this quote that the body is both organic and sacred, ‘back to the earth’ implies a return to natural resources of strength and connection to the figure of the Earth Mother prominent in Edelson’s praxis. Also underscoring the prolific use of manipulating the elemental - the landscape, sky and water in works such as Up from the Earth (Fig.4). This series of photographs of a performed ritual show the blurred form of Edelson draped in cloth, struggling, and surging upwards from a cracked and barren landscape, in a kind of re-birth or epic expansion. This series is particularly successful in blurring the distinction between the rocky, tree-less terrain and the captured and contained energy of Edelson as she “Establishes her own nature” (Edelson, 1990, p.58).
Interestingly as critique and commentary on art and feminist activism began to shift in the late 1970’s, Edelson believed she had explored the extent of what she could achieve with her naked form and was by this stage clothing her body in loose material.ii
Figure 4. Mary Beth Edelson, Up From the Earth, 1979. Photographic Print of Ritualised Performance.
Discovery and Liberation
The Atemporal Body
Edelson turns towards an ancient internal authority, embodying ritual to address personal metaphysical concerns and artificial separation from ancient belief systems. She becomes a hierophant -a being who reveals and interprets ancient myths -exploring and accessing through ritual “our own primal authority” (Edelson, 1990, p.11). There is an element of myth-making as well as myth-interpretation in the ownership Edelson is declaring, as well as recalling a more elemental and evolutionary time.
We are all cut adrift from our original sources [ancestral cultures, nature, etc] this may be why some of us are so attracted to penetrating to a timeless primal level of consciousness (Edelson, 1990, p.9).
Edelson avoids a nostalgic re-working of past narratives of the female body, and through her work represents various Foremothers of sacred feminine mythologies; the Earth Mother, Sheel-na-Gig, Witch and Prophetess figures- are all reclaimed and resurrected for her use. She harnesses the radical energy of those figures by reaching back into history to gain access to women’s collective experience as primal and potent vessels for rage, prophecy and creation, creating an atemporal body to house ritual.
In Red Kali (Fig.3) Edelson borrows from Hindu religion the Goddess Kali, displaying her ferocious form with human heads roped around her neck and long lizard-like tongue, uncontainable within her mouth. The repetition of the symbols that represent Kali along
with Edelson’s bodily repetition of a wide-legged stance characteristic of the Woman Rising series, show the artist as wishing to access Kali’s command of time, change and empowerment. Edelson insistently recalls and represents her form as containing multitudes.
Repeating actions and appropriating symbols accomplishes a mythical function for Mary Beth Edelson, revealing the interconnectedness of time, invoking deities from a variety of historic backgrounds to assist in her transformation, and as a portal to access and renew a sacred timeframe where these symbols were most potent. Analysis of what power resources are available to and being summoned by Edelson help to expand our understanding of why she chose to reference the particular symbols, and beings of history. She is not indiscriminately selecting power-poses and symbols of strength, but using historical detail, alongside examples from myth, and provocatively presenting and claiming these as the facts of women’s experience, and therefore available reserves of power. The concentric circles painted on Edelson’s stomach in Woman Rising (Fig.2) illustrate this idea by retracing an ancient symbol that expresses the balance of inner and outer life, physical and metaphysical boundaries. The use of the spiral shell covering her head, again in (Fig.2) points to renewing the symbols of ancient cultures; the shell representing primordial time, and connection to the past. In Vedic ritual, the shell is an important symbol for signalling the beginning of ritual, and to invoke the presence of the Gods and Goddesses. With its spiral shape indicating the cyclical nature of life, death and rebirth, divine connection and invocation, it becomes clear why this particular motif was employed by Edelson.
The full title of this dissertation’s Cover Image- Dematerializing -Slipping into a
Reconsidered Story, signals Edelson’s intention to dismantle her present reality and slip into a past that is open for reinterpretation. Ritual as an artistic form is an act of renewal for her, yet she is unafraid to interpret and invent new rituals of her own devising, in order to progress and exorcise history rather than merely re-enact it. As Lucy Lippard comments “Art, like ritual, can be defined as formalising one’s experience to make it familiar (old) at the same time, it is being renewed” (Lippard, 1977, p.32)
Having considered how Mary Beth Edelson employs ritual as a device for accessing and renewing an archaic and empowered time, the question again arises of specifically what space is embodied through ritual world-making and what period of time is occupied and accessed? It is clear that the intention with artistic ritual performance, invocation of archaic symbols and ritual in general is to create or access an ‘other’ space outwith the linear progression of common temporality. This concept of ritualised time as a outofsynch rhythm, a registration mark, repeated and re-presented encourages thinking of time as both past and present overlapping or somehow held together.
Theories of what specific time and space is accessed through ritual have similarly preoccupied Mircea Eliade. His theory that ‘Sacred’ space can be manifested in a secular existence by the ‘hierophany’ (see Glossary) of ritual, are foundational to the view of rituals transformative ability. Eliade’s concept of hierophany allows an insight into the mechanisms of ritual in manifesting a new and sacred dimension.
Sacred Time and Sacred Space
In his book The Sacred and the Profane, the Nature of Religion (1957), Eliade discusses how modern secular societies have desacralised the world. Just as in the 21st Century
Byung-Chul Han will comment on the challenge to traditional meaning and values in The Disappearance of Ritual, in Eliade’s view, we understand and perceive the world as a dualistic imagery of two opposing cultural spheres. He categorises them the Sacred and the Profane, the former belonging to ‘religious’ or ‘archaic’ man, the latter, to ‘profane’ or ‘modern’ man.iii
The Sacred encompasses everything imbued with a divine transcendent quality ritualised and symbolic objects, places, and mythologies. Whereas the Profane represents everything mundane, secular, and lacking in any transcendental significance. Eliade’s framework corresponds to the Vedic ‘name’, ‘form’ and ‘action’ categories situated within Profane existence, as to concern oneself with these classifications reduces consciousness to the level of the material object, while ritual provides an alternative route to transcend these limitations.
Eliade makes the distinction between the space and time within both the Sacred and Profane dimensions, explaining that the space which is described in folklore, myth and ritual differs radically from the ordinary space known to modern consciousness. For Eliade, Profane time is associated with linear thought and action, divorced from any transcendent quality. Sacred time is eternal and cyclical and can be ‘reproduced’ or accessed via ceremonial objects and the performance of rituals.
“By reproducing the mythical and ritual world of archaic man, Eliade can ‘know’ the sacred in its archaic manifestation.” (Altizer, 1975, p.44)
Connection can be made to Sacred space through structures like temples and altars, but crucially, by enacting rituals. Only ritual has the ability to transform the Profane into the Sacred. The performance of ritual manifests a threshold, which exists outside of ordinary space and time. Drawing a parallel between Eliade’s theory and the embodiment of Vedic ritual; it is in this created space that participants are able to transcend Profane time, symbolically return to the divine, and discovering the unity of the Self with Brahman. iv
The collapse of the boundaries between the Sacred and Profane conditions enable the individual to realise, and ‘see’ oneself as unified with Brahman, mirroring Eliade’s concept of an eruption of a Sacred dimension of time to a transcendent dimension. When ritual is performed, the gestures, acts and symbols that have been repeated for centuries retrieve Sacred time, because it is cyclical and eternal, it can be recalled and renewed for the participant of ritual. All ritual, for Eliade, revolves around a repetition and regeneration of Sacred time and space. After considering the transformative power of embodied ritual, it becomes evident through Eliade’s theories and Mary Beth Edelson’s performative rituals that a specific space and time is being accessed. Sacred time is an accessible resource for self-transformation. For participants of ritual stepping out of linear time becomes possible, and that which struggles to make itself known or understood in the Profane world, can achieve its fullest definition through ritual.v
Hierophany
To transcend the everyday and encounter the Sacred through ritual, is a process of hierophany, an “act of manifestation” (Eliade, 1987, p.11). In hierophany, the sacred ‘speaks’ and ‘reveals itself’ through symbols, revealing ‘eruptions’ of the sacred into the world of the profane. When the sacred manifests itself in hierophany, there is not only a break in the homogeneity of space; there is also the revelation of an absolute reality, opposed to the non-reality of the vast surrounding expanse. (Eliade, 1987, p.21)
The performance of ritual creates its own temporality, in an emergence from ordinary, profane time, giving access to a sacred time which is “indefinitely recoverable, indefinitely repeatable” (Ibid, p.69) that neither changes or is depleted. Participants in rituals, Eliade claims, access the exact same period of sacred time that is manifested in all previous rituals. This concept resonates with Mary Beth Edelson, as the praxis of her artwork places her in the space where the two selves of hierophant and artist meet in her embodied performance. Edelson’s invocation of archetypes create an instance of hierophany, an eruption of the sacred into the profane world is revealed, or in Eliade’s language “something Sacred shows itself to us” (Eliade, 1987, p.11).
This notion of hierophany aligns with the transformative process of ritual and also corresponds with what I describe as Edelson’s atemporal body, with the enactment of ritual and use of archetypal symbols collapsing linear time and renewing a connection with a recoverable eternal time.
It is occupying this threshold of space and time in art practice that I define as ‘the Liminal’ ( see Glossary) that I will explore in more detail in relation to Marina Abramović, exploring The Artist is Present as an exercise in performative ritual that occupies the liminal space of a shared experience of transformative embodiment.
Figure 5. Marina Abramović, Rhythm 5, Close up Detail of Performance, 1974. Belgrade
Figure 6. Marina Abramović, Rhythm 5, 1974. Performance. Belgrade
Marina Abramović (b.1946) has incorporated ritual into her artwork for over four decades, through her study and expression of the bodily limits of breath, heat, cold, stillness and pain she has pioneered performance art as a method for selfunderstanding. Using her body as both subject and object, Abramović’s longdurational works advance conceptual performance artwork to test and engage the audience as both witness and participant. As Abramović explores the relationship between artist and audience, she brings to the fore the importance of ritual, “Everyday experiences such as lying, sitting, sleeping, standing, thinking or dreaming, become transformative acts.” (O’Brien, 2014, p.7). Since her early works a strong ritualistic element of release and purification has been present, as well as recurring symbolismvi . For example, in Rhythm 5 (Fig.5) Abramović ritualistically cuts her hair and fingernails and sacrifices them into a blazing fire in the shape of a star. Lying in the centre of the star she eventually lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen. It was with this work that she says she realised that the subject of her art should be the limits of the body’s endurance. Where previous ‘body art’ worksviiconfront the durational limits of physicality. Later works such as The Artist is Present, are more about changing perceptions of time, and creating a new conscious awareness within our own selves.
Figure 7. Marina Abramović, The Artist is Present, 2010. Performance. Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Abramović’s 2010 performance, The Artist is Present (Fig.7) exemplifies her shift of focus from the physical concerns of the body, to the metaphysical concerns of the self. Every day, for three months (the duration of the Marina Abramović Retrospective at MoMA) the artist sat on a chair that faced a second, empty chair, inviting the audience to one at a time, sit opposite her for as long as they pleased and silently, simply be present with the artist.
This uncomplicated invitation and minimalistic tableau would not normally be considered indicative of a strong response from an audience, but during this work, powerful, overwhelming emotion was elicited and observed in the gallery.
The power of this artwork is in its ritualistic creation of an abstracted environment in which participants discovered and confronted layers of their unconscious selves. The simplicity of the arranged furniture and bright white gallery space only serve to emphasise the power of embodied ritual. Abramović says of the artwork “I don’t think people ever really look into themselves…Now you’re sitting in front of me…There is nowhere to go except into yourself.” (Ibid, p310). The instant the participant sits in front of the artist, they are complicit in an undertaking to enter into a new perspective. The passivity of the viewer is erased, now there is an active participant, engaged in the same journey of self-discovery as Abramović (and Edelson before her). Demonstrating that through the internalisation of the act of ritual, symbolic gestures and symbols are not merely performative, but act as a vehicle for self-discovery.
“It is important to provide a constant mirror for the participants, so they do not look at me and see my work but try and see who they are. That’s the most important thing.” (Allsop, 1996, p.18)
The Artist is Present is a culmination of previous works where the primacy of the body and a certain amount of choreography was involved, and a newly evolved dimension of Abramović’s work that concentrates on the interior spaces of the self. The narrowing of focus, refusal of superfluous props, the experience of silence, stillness and time, enables “a confrontation with oneself” (O’Brien, 2014,p.39).
Even the body as the object of art has disappeared, replaced by the immaterial forms of process: repetition and time. All performative action present in previous artworks screaming, whipping, burning and cutting of the body- coalesce into the still form she exhibits in The Artist is Present. By reducing external distractions, Abramović allows the Liminal threshold, and the Sacred to manifest.
Mircea Eliade describes the ‘boundary’ between the Sacred and Profane spheres as a threshold where the Profane is relinquished and the Sacred is revealed.
The threshold that separates the two spaces also indicates the space between two modes of being, the profane and the religious. The threshold is the limit, the boundary, the frontier that distinguishes and opposes two worlds - and at the same time the paradoxical place where those worlds communicate, where passage from the profane to the sacred world becomes possible. (Eliade, 1987, p.25)
The Artist is Present creates a liminal mode of being for participants as well as the artist, dissolving ordinary notions of time and space and allowing slipping out of linear Profane time. For the audience, the artist and the participant sitting across from her, a certain conditioning is happening. In this abstracted environment, the ritualistic prolonged silence and meditative stillness of the body are reminiscent of Vedic ritual, where embodied acts concentrate the mind on a higher plane of self-awareness. In her memoir, Walk Through Walls, when describing The Artist is Present, Abramović reflects “From the beginning, people were in tears - so was I. Was I a mirror? It felt like more than that. I could see and feel people’s pain.” (Abramović, 2017, p.309)
Abramović does represent a mirror or sorts, but not one blankly reflecting a surface image, rather, she is internalising the others energy, and they hers, meeting on the threshold of the Liminal state between two modes of consciousness. In this stark
example of the simplified forms of two people, occupying a shared metaphysical state, emphasis is on the process of recognising and harnessing desire, eliminating ego and journeying into the self through the internalisation and embodiment of ritual.
While Mary Beth Edelson employs the hierophany of manifesting the sphere of atemporal Sacred time to reclaim the past, Abramovic creates fluctuating, liminal spaces that engage participants in the present moment and confrontation with themselves. Through this liminal method, Marina Abramović demonstrates the transformative potential of embodied ritual allowing for deep introspection and the profound possibilities of knowing.
Holding the Threshold
Through their work with performative ritual, both Mary Beth Edelson and Marina Abramović produce and interact with the Liminal space on the threshold of the Profane and the Sacred, manifesting transformative experiences for themselves and their audiences. By challenging pre-conceived notions of selfhood, time and space, Abramović converges ritual into a still and essential form, inviting introspection and a journey within the self. Whereas Mary Beth Edelson enthusiastically opens up possibilities of revolt, creation, and new mythologies by acting as hierophant and erupting archetypal symbols of power into the present.
By using the body as both the site and the subject of radical transformation, the internalisation of Vedic ritual finds its fruition. The material categories of ‘name’, ‘form’ and ‘action’ as defined in the Upanishads as objectifying the self, are rejected by Abramović as she transcends material definitions by internalising all movement and energy of ritual. Edelson is also successful in refuting these categories by subverting them for her own purposes, bodily becoming one with symbols, and female archetypal forms by appropriating them for her personal requirements.
By completely and intentionally internalising ritual and symbolism these artworks show the dissolution of desire and ego and move towards a higher understanding of the self and the unity it can achieve in the world.
Conclusion
In this paper I reflected on how utilising the distinctive expression of embodied experience as described in the Vedic texts the Upanishads enabled insight into a more thorough understanding the self through the analysis and internalisation of ritual.
Embodiment of ritual in the Upanishads articulates a process of synthesising ritual, embodiment and transcendence resulting in the experiential transformation into a realised, knowing Self.
Describing those rituals that were once enacted for material and worldly gain delivered their true intent and meaning when considered as interrogation of inner desires. The sacrifice of ego and self-identity lead to a discovery ones existing true nature - a unity with Brahman.
Artist Mary Beth Edelson and her powerful performance rituals proclaimed the desire, for women in particular, to access archaic sources of sacred divine energy. In order to engage the collective conscious of women’s historical past and to reclaim and subvert that narrative for modern political and personal circumstances. Ritual as employed by Edelson was shown to be an experiential tool for accessing a developed and profound introspection of her own authentic self. As well as embodying ritual in the Vedic sense of internalising its intent, meaning and power, Edelson also embodies ritual in the sense of embodiment within herself in order to manifest it outwards for the use of others. The art of ritual as well as Edelson’s appropriation of symbols from past incarnations of sacred feminine figures were discussed as enabling Edelson to bridge the linear temporal space of the profane and to embody a radicalised atemporal being.
Edelson’s ritual practice was demonstrated with a selection of artworks that serve as an alternative position to the contemporary loss of connection felt in modern society.
Connected by Byung-Chul Han to the decline of ritual and the increase of individuation in a commodified existence. As with in the Vedic culture, desire was assessed and understood to be utilised as a form of self-development, if properly interrogated.
Performance artist Marina Abramović and her artwork The Artist is Present were considered as an embodied example of the definition of the Liminal, a space on the threshold between two ontologies as described by Mircea Eliade. By redefining ritual in a contemporary art context, Abramović’s work is a exercise in creating and mirroring energies between a shared consciousness to enable transformation of, and meditation on, the self.
In conclusion, the ancient texts the Upanishads are shown as being culturally and personally relevant today as a framework for understanding ritual as a pathway for embodied self-transformation, from a materialistic being centred in the time and causality of reality, to a realised, knowing self. How worlds are made, and how we make ourselves.
Figure 8. Claire Marion Black, Everything that Rises, 2024. Photographic Print of Performance Ritual in the Landscape, 7x5” From the series This is a Picture of Me and My Mother, 2022-24
I end this dissertation with an image of my own created ritual performed in the landscape. Greatly inspired by Mary Beth Edelson, the series, from 2022-24 named This is a Picture of Me and My Mother, (Fig.8) recognises the earth as the eternal mother figure, with the landscape allowing and sustaining us as beings upon it. This photographic print documentation of ritualised performance features the body in the landscape, engaged in myth-making, attempting to access and discover an archaic connection with the earth, sky and, in this iteration of the series – birds. Everything that Rises was performed as an imagined ritual to attempt connection with the natures of animal (human) and bird species. Dressed in an altar cloth hand-dyed with earthy Henna and hemmed with foraged Heather roots, I performed a ritual that invokes an imagined possible past, or possible future, where there exists a shared bird/human ancestry. A blended form rises from the landscape that surrounds it, story-telling its earth-bound reality, with bird-like gestures and sky-like memories.
Glossary
Atman - the Self. An experiential knowing subject, aware of their unity with Brahman.
Apara - from the root an ‘to breathe’. Non-transformative knowledge. The prefix of ‘a’in many instances of the Sanskrit lexicon refers to the negative definition of a word, as in atypical, ahistorical, etc.
Brahman - from the root brih meaning ‘to expand’. The formless ‘Ultimate Reality’underlying all phenomena in Vedic philosophy.
Brahmin - priests of the highest order in Vedic religion responsible for the preservation of the rituals and sacred knowledge of the Vedas
Brihadaranyaka - The largest of the Upanishads, ‘aranyaka’ means ‘great forest’- possibly related to the pedagogical practice of forest learning or imply its sheer scale as a text.
Hierophant – a person who reveals and interprets sacred myths and esoteric mysteries. From the Greek hieros – meaning sacred or holy, and phainein – to reveal or bring to light
Hierophany – to bring about a manifestation of the sacred in an object or being.
Liminal - between or belonging to two spaces, describing states, times, etc, that exist at a point of change a metaphorical threshold.
Para - transcendent knowledge, where our knowing and action is transformative for the Self.
Bibliography & Reference List
Books
Abramović, M. et al. (2010) Marina Abramovic : the Artist is Present [published on the occasion of the exhibition held at the Museum of ModernArt, New York, 14 March - 31 May 2010]. New York, NY: Museum of ModernArt.
Abramović, M. and Kaplan, J. (2017) Walk through walls : a memoir. UK: Penguin Books.
Allsopp, R. and deLahunta, S. (1996) The connected body? An interdisciplinary approach to the body and performance.Amsterdam:Amsterdam School of theArts.
Altizer, T.J.J. (1975) Mircea Eliade and the dialectic of the sacred. Westport, Conn Greenwood Press.
Easwaran, E. (2007) The Upanishads. Nigiri Press.
Eliade, M. (1987) The Sacred and the Profane : the nature of religion. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Frazer, S.J.G. (1922) The Golden Bough. Abridged ed. London: Macmillan.
Han, B.-C. (2020) The Disappearance of Rituals : a topology of the present. English edition. Translated by D. Steuer. Cambridge, UK ; Polity
O’Brien, S. (2014) Marina Abramović : 512 hours. London: Koenig Books.
Leaman, Oliver(2004). Key Concepts in Eastern Philosophy. New York: Routledge, p.268.
Śaṅkarācārya. (1965) The Brihadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. Fourth edition. Translated by Madhavananda. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, Publication House of Ramakrishna Math.
Younger, P. (1972) Introduction to Indian religious thought. London Darton, Longman and Todd.
Articles
Damiani, G. (2023) 'Between the Cave and the Cosmos', Nero.Available at: https://www.neroeditions.com/between-the-cave-and-the-cosmos/ (Accessed 12.12.2024)
Edelson, M.B. (1978) 'Pilgrimage/ See for Yourself:AJourney to a Neolithic Goddess Cave, 1977’ Heresies, #5 p-96-99.Available at https://archive.org/details/heresies_05/page/n99/mode/2up. (Accessed 10.09.2024)
Rajagopal, S. (2024 ) 'The spiritual philosophy of Advaita: Basic concepts and relevance to psychiatry', Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 66(2): 202–207.Available at : doi: 10.4103/indianjpsychiatry.indianjpsychiatry_368_23 (Accessed 08.08.2024)
Seibutis, K. (2004) ‘A. Sharma.Advaita Vedānta. An Introduction’, Acta Orientalia Vilnensia, 5. Available at: https://doi.org/10.15388/AOV.2004.18254.(Accessed 03.06.2024)
Zawadzki, M.F. (2016), ‘Listen to the Words of the Great Mother: The GoddessArt of Mary Beth Edelson’. J Am Cult, 39: 334-347. https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.12573
Podcasts
Bragg, M. (2012) In Our Time - The Upanishads [Podcast]. November 2012.Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b01nq7ct (Accessed: 01.11.2024)
End Notes
i Both the capitalised and uncapitalised versions of ‘self’ are referred to in the Upanishads, to clarify these mean two different perspectives of the self. Firstly, ‘self’ uncapitalised, to communicate individual personality. Secondly, as Atman or ‘the Self’. The capitalised version is a state of consciousness that has progressed beyond ordinary experience and understands the unity of the inner self with Brahman.
ii The defiant nakedness exhibited by Edelson’s cohort of feminist artists began to be regarded negatively by the following generation of activists. They saw the use of the naked female form in art as reinforcing the female nude for the ‘male gaze’. Therefore, the next step in counterculture feminism was to reverse the conditions of rebellious naked female form, and instead to conceal, not reveal it. This is an effort to subvert the patriarchal claim on the female body, because -to borrow the title from American writer Audre Lorde’s 1984 publication “The Masters’ Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters’ House”. Feminist action must take place out with the systems that suppress it.
iii In Eliade’s texts, he uses the phrases “man”, “mankind”, etc -in the interest of clarity I will retain the same terminology when discussing Eliade, as the phrasing is in-keeping with the era of Eliade’s writing.
iv It is interesting for the purposes of this paper to note that in Eliade’s’ study of the history of religion, he found the truest synthesis with his belief in the Sacred and the Profane with Eastern religions and was specifically at home with the philosophies of Hindu thought. “The world of the sacred...received its fullest expression in India” (Altizer, 1975, p.98)
v For example, when describing myth, Eliade states myths cannot be understood in a profane existence. “Modern man cannot think of myth in its sacred form…myth is to be understood on its own terms, it cannot be given a modern definition.” (Altizer, 1975, p.36)
vi Rhythm 5 features a petroleum-drenched five pointed star, its inclusion in this piece as a Communist symbol is a comment by Abramović on the potency of symbols in relation to the political structures of her upbringing in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
vii For example Freeing the Voice(1976) where Abramović screamed continuously for three hours until she lost her voice