Chapter II, Sec. 1 (d–e) & Sec. 2: Correlative Thinking, Liminality & Revitalization

Indigenous (Autogenous) Modernity and Liminality

inline.]

The thought of immanence, which originated in European structuralist philosophy centered on France, developed on one hand into empirical research such as the New Age Science Movement and Self-organization Theory, and on the other hand crossed into the Anglo-American world, where it evolved into correlative thinking and liminality theory. Correlative thinking and liminality theory developed by applying the binary-opposition and symmetrical thinking of structuralism to Eastern thought, yielding the characteristic of correlative thinking as a mode of cognition and liminality as an aspect of conceptual change. Correlative thinking developed in a positivist direction, as in Fractal Theory [FN 1], while liminality theory came to attract attention as a theory of post-modernity under the concept of "liquid modernity." [FN 2]

[FN 1] Yi Jae-geol (이재걸), "A Cross Study of Kant's Concept of 'Self-Organization' in His Theory of Organisms and Fractal Theory: Aesthetic Premises Regarding Organism, Vitality, and the Infinite (無限)," Munhwa wa Yunghap [Culture and Convergence] 44(9), 2022, pp. 419–433.

[FN 2] Yi Jae-geol (이재걸), "A Cross Study of Kant's Concept of 'Self-Organization' in His Theory of Organisms and Fractal Theory: Aesthetic Premises Regarding Organism, Vitality, and the Infinite (無限)," Munhwa wa Yunghap [Culture and Convergence] 44(9), 2022, pp. 419–433.

Let us next examine the criteria for distinguishing East and West. The Daesoon Thought scripture Jeon'gyeong (『典經』), which contains more instances of the East–West distinction than Donghak Thought, employs criteria consistent with those used historically in the East Asian cultural sphere. The earliest chronological East–West distinction in Jeon'gyeong begins at the point where Matteo Ricci demarcated the Orient from the Occident — a distinction that geographically corresponds to the traditional concept of designating the region west of the Kunlun Mountains as the West and the region to its east as the East. From a Western perspective, the Orient (orient) includes the Middle East, but within the East Asian cultural sphere, the Middle East falls under the category of the West; thus it is the Kunlun Mountains that serve as the dividing line. Furthermore, in Jeon'gyeong, the distinction between East and West also manifests as a division within the spirit-deity realm (神明界). This is evident in such passages as the account that prior to Matteo Ricci, East and West were rigidly separated such that spirit-deities did not travel between them [FN 3], and the account that the eminent monk Jinmuk (眞默大師) crossed over to the West leading all the spirit-deities of the Way (道通神) of the East. [FN 4] That the spirit-deity realm itself is divided into East and West signifies that the criteria for the East–West distinction are of fundamental importance in the constitution of the world.

[FN 3] Jeon'gyeong, "Gyoun" (教運) 1–9. [FN 4] Jeon'gyeong, "Gongsa" (公事) 3–15.

The reason the East–West distinction in Daesoon Thought extends even to the division of the spirit-deity realm is connected to the worldview of Daesoon Thought, which understands all things in terms of yin and yang as differentiated from the Taiji (太極), and to its conception of divinity expressed as Heaven-Veneration (天尊), Earth-Veneration (地尊), and Human-Veneration (人尊). In the Daesoon worldview, which regards all things as yin and yang differentiated from the Taiji, the East and West each represent one pole of the yin-yang axis. The reason the East–West distinction in Daesoon Thought expands even to serve as the criterion for dividing the spirit-deity realm is that the historical age of humanity is the age of Earth-Veneration (地尊時代), in which spirit-deities are enshrined upon the earth. [FN 5] If the historical age of humanity is the age of Earth-Veneration — in which spirit-deities are enshrined upon the earth — then the East–West distinction, which divides the earth, becomes a core concept that extends all the way to the division of spirit-deities.

[FN 5] Jeon'gyeong, "Gyobeop" (教法) 2–56.

If East and West are the core concepts by which spirit-deities are distinguished, then within the framework of Daesoon Thought — in which spirit-deities are understood to be immanent in all things — East and West can be understood as the application of the principle of the Taiji, which is the standard of yin and yang, even to the realm of spirit-deities. According to this principle, the everyday objects of the East and the West must each manifest in mutually contrary forms, like yin and yang. Consequently, in the Eastern scholarly tradition — where universal principles are held to be immanent in everyday objects — the distinction between Eastern Learning (東學, Donghak) and Western Learning (西學, Seohak) becomes a foundational distinction, and indeed Donghak and Western Learning manifest as opposite attributes, like yin and yang. It has been noted that there has been difficulty in understanding the difference between Donghak and Western Learning as articulated by Suun (水雲) in the opening of the "Nonhangmun" (論學文, Discourse on Learning), because Western Learning has been interpreted not as Western learning in general but restricted to Catholicism. [FN 6]

[FN 6] Hwang Jong-won (황종원), "The Direction of Confucian Reform, Views on Equality, and Attitudes toward Western Modern Civilization in Choe Je-u and Pak Ŭn-sik," Toegyehak wa Yuhyo Munhwa [Toegye Studies and Confucian Culture] 49, 2011, p. 330.

Donghak and Western Learning were not only the core concepts for distinguishing spirit-deities but also important concepts for understanding the West amid the collision of Eastern and Western civilizations in which Eastern civilization risked collapse under Western influence. Theories aimed at understanding East and West as distinct — such as the "Eastern Way, Western Instruments" theory (東道西器論), the "Chinese Essence, Western Function" theory (中體西用論), and the "Western Learning Originates in China" theory (西學中源論) — already existed at the time. [FN 7] However, the distinction of East and West in terms of mode of thinking — as yin and yang — was at once modern and more consonant with tradition, and among the three countries of East Asia, Donghak was the first to make this distinction.

[FN 7] Ham Yeong-dae (함영대), "The Development of the 'Western Learning Originates in China' Theory (西學中源論) in the 18th–19th Centuries and Its Implications: The Argumentative Logic of Joseon Scholars in Response to Western Learning (西學)," 2020.

In the present day, after more than a century of Western civilization spreading into the East and with anthropological and cultural comparative studies of Eastern and Western modes of thinking well advanced, the East–West distinction as a fundamental cultural division — as it appeared in Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought — proves to have been highly apt. Because East and West display contrasting patterns not only in culture and language but also in modes of thought, Donghak can be seen as having realized the continuation of tradition from its very name.

CORRELATIVE THINKING AS THE PHILOSOPHICAL METHODOLOGY

OF INDIGENOUS MODERNITY

Today, the logic of Eastern science has established itself as a correlative thinking (相關的 思惟) distinct from that of the West. [FN 8] Correlative thinking is a theory that applies structuralism to Eastern thought and conceives of all things as interconnected; it represents the West's re-evaluation of the rationality manifested in Eastern thought. Correlative thinking (相關的 思惟, correlative thinking) is a mode of thought in which the part and the whole move simultaneously. It is an approach to cognition and understanding that holds that the whole is present within the part and that all things are interrelated; most civilizations outside the West possess this type of thinking system. [FN 9] Correlative thinking, previously considered a form of superstitious cognition, is now being verified by modern science and is actually being explored as a new scientific possibility. The scientific exploration of correlative thinking is said to have been initiated by Needham and Capra and subsequently developed by Kauffman and others at the Santa Fe Institute. [FN 10] More recently, it has even been discovered that the theories of analytical science are themselves, in fact, a form of correlative thinking. Among these, the yin-yang theory — the representative classical Eastern theory constituting the first of the four cardinal principles (種旨) of Daesoon Thought — is attracting particular attention as a representative system of correlative thinking that brings to the surface the fact that analytical thinking is actually a hidden form of correlative thinking.

[FN 8] Jeong U-jin (정우진), "The Logic of Eastern Science: A Study on the Types of Resonance," Doekyo Munhwa Yeongu [Journal of Taoist Culture Studies] 42, 2015, pp. 119–140. [FN 9] J. J. Clarke, translated by Jo Hyeon-suk (조현숙), Seoyang, Doyo reul Mannada [The Tao of the West: Western Transformations of Taoist Thought], Seoul: Yemun Seowon, 2014, p. 152. [FN 10] J. J. Clarke, translated by Jo Hyeon-suk, Seoyang, Doyo reul Mannada, Seoul: Yemun Seowon, 2014, pp. 141–144, 167–177.

Until now, Western science has adopted an individualist thinking that regards all things as moving independently. For example, while man and woman are opposites of each other, their movements are held to be entirely separate. Thus it has been thought that all things can be broken down into certain particles (atoms, molecules, quanta) and that objects are collections of such parts. Even modern Easterners raised with a Western education mostly engage in analytical thinking. This method of cognizing things by breaking them apart because all things are independent is called analytical epistemology. In opposition to this, the generative mode of thinking — which holds that all things are interconnected and therefore cannot be divided, and which cognizes them through their correlative relationships — is called correlative epistemology. [FN 11]

[FN 11] A. C. Graham, translated by Yi Chang-il (이창일), Eum-yang gwa Sanggwan-jeok Sayoo [Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking], Cheongye, 2001.

The theory of correlative thinking began with Granet, who was the first to evaluate positively the yin-yang and five phases (陰陽五行, ŭmyang ohhaeng) theory — the representative logical theory of Eastern thought — and subsequently developed through Graham (Angus Charles Graham, 1919–1991), Ames (Roger T. Ames, 1947–present), Hall (David L. Hall, 1937–2001), Schwartz (Benjamin Isadore Schwartz, 1916–1999), Needham (Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham, 1900–1995), and others. The theory of correlative thinking evaluated the yin-yang and five phases theory — which has both positive and negative aspects — as objectively as possible, assessing it as a form of primitive science. [FN 12] In particular, the American structuralist thinker of Eastern philosophy, A. C. Graham, integrated structuralism with Chinese philosophy and demonstrated the correlative scientific character of Eastern thought as distinct from Western individualism. [FN 13] It was only after the research of Graham and others that the West began to understand the scientific nature of Eastern thought, and the East in turn began to discover its own identity by learning about Eastern thought through the lens of the West.

[FN 12] Kim Gi (김기), "A Study on the Patterns of Application of the Yin-Yang and Five Phases Theory in Neo-Confucianism (Jujahak)," doctoral dissertation, Sungkyunkwan University, 2012, p. 4. [FN 13] A. C. Graham, translated by Yi Chang-il, Eum-yang gwa Sanggwan-jeok Sayoo, Cheongye, 2001; D. L. Hall and R. T. Ames, Anticipating China, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.

Henderson (John B. Henderson) divided correlative thinking into four categories. [FN 14] First, the relationship between humanity and the cosmos — that is, between the microcosm and the macrocosm. Second, what Needham called the "imperial analogy": the relationship between Heaven as the cosmic realm and the dynastic or state bureaucratic system as the terrestrial realm. Third, numerological correlative systems such as the five phases. Fourth, the system of the Book of Changes (易, Yŏk). [FN 15]

[FN 14] John Henderson, translated by Mun Jung-yang (문중양), Junggukeui Ujuron gwa Cheongdaeui Gwahakheokmeong [The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology], 2004, p. 45. [FN 15] Jeong U-jin, "The Logic of Eastern Science: A Study on the Types of Resonance," Doekyo Munhwa Yeongu 42, 2015, p. 122.

That correlative thinking is a distinctive characteristic of the Eastern worldview, in contrast to the West, is empirically demonstrated in the field of cognitive psychology today. Nisbett, who was the first to theorize the cognitive-psychological differences between East and West from the perspective of correlative thinking, shows that due to correlative thinking, the world appears more complex to Easterners than to Westerners. Easterners are subjects of collective rather than individual control. For Westerners, the world is a relatively simple place and an object of decidedly individual control — truly two different worlds, as he put it. [FN 16] The East encompasses diverse layers and significant differences between nations, but in the engagement in correlative thinking it may be said to share a commonality.

[FN 16] Richard Nisbett, translated by Choe In-cheol (최인철), Saenggage Jido: Dongyang gwa Seoyang, Sesang eul Barabonn Seoro Dareun Siseon [The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently — and Why], Seoul: Gimyoungsa, 2004.

Since correlative thinking is the shared cognitive framework of the Eastern worldview, the principles underlying the continuity and transformation of tradition manifest through correlative thinking. Eastern thought, represented by yin-yang, the five phases, and the Taiji, has explained the continuity and transformation of tradition in terms of how well they conform to the Taiji and yin-yang. Accordingly, the continuity of tradition and the transformation appearing in Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought can be examined through the concepts of the yin-yang, the five phases, and the Taiji.

In relation to correlative thinking, the focal point of Western discourse that has re-evaluated Eastern culture since the Enlightenment may be said to be Confucius's (孔子, 551–479 BCE) concept of "one thread running through all" (一以貫之, iliguanji). Confucius threaded his entire theory together with the concept of sympathetic empathy (忠恕, chungseo). Moreover, Confucius stated that his method of "one thread running through all" was not his own theory but a methodology transmitted from antiquity — one of transmitting without creating (述而不作, suloibujak). In fact, "one thread running through all" is a characteristic not only of Confucius but of the entirety of Eastern culture. The East is in fact more attached to consistency than the West. Before Kant, Confucian thought in Europe was interpreted as the "one thread" of sympathetic empathy and became the foundation for a new Western morality. However, since the inner consistency of Eastern thought differs from the Western kind, post-Kantian researchers could see Confucian learning (儒學) only as a miscellany.

When Confucian thought is reinterpreted through the lens of the "one thread of sympathetic empathy," Eastern thought — previously regarded as subjective — reveals an objective consistency. First and foremost, there is something understood from the standpoint of empathy in the thought of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity (天地人, Ch'ŏnji-in) — the fundamental concept of the Book of Changes (易) that underlies all Eastern thought. In the Eastern tradition, the mutual sympathy (感應, kamŭng) between Heaven, Earth, and Humanity has been expressed as resonant response. In Eastern thought, since Heaven, Earth, Humanity, and the human being all emerged from a single source (一物, ilmul), they are necessarily beings that resonate with one another. Empathy also lies as an extension of resonant response; it is not that resonant response is a personification of empathy.

Today, Western research that understands Eastern thought through empathy is broadly represented by Jullien's theory of immanence and evolutionary anthropology. These two fields of research each represent the rational and empirical traditions of contemporary Western scholarship, and may be seen as cases where disparate disciplines have converged at the cutting edge of inquiry. First, Jullien's research — which inherits the rationalist tradition via Deleuze and Foucault — discovers commonalities between Mencius and Enlightenment philosophers in the process of studying the immanence (內在性, immanence) that is the West's own distinctive character when viewed from the outside. [FN 17] The reason the Enlightenment philosopher Rousseau (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712–1778) attracted the attention of his contemporaries was that he introduced the Eastern immanence — that is, empathy — which is difficult to find in Western philosophy. Empathy is the immanence of the East, the most representative characteristic that distinguishes the East from the West.

[FN 17] François Jullien (프랑수아 줄리앙), Maengja wa Gyemong Cheolhakjaui Daehwa (Doodeokui Gichoreul Seuda, Rusoeu Kanteu) [Dialogue between Mencius and the Enlightenment Philosophers: Establishing the Foundations of Morality — Rousseau, Kant], Seoul: Hanul Academy, 2009.

What Jullien identified as the immanence of the West is the concept of substance used in explaining change. Aristotle, unlike Plato (Plato, 424–348 BCE), perfected the syllogism (三段論法) and formalized the principle that change must be explained in terms of the attributes possessed by a substance. For example, when A changes to B, in the East and in the West prior to Aristotle, this change could occur through resonance such as empathy. However, after Aristotle, the change from A to B required there to be a substance of B already immanent within A. Within this tradition, the Eastern immanence — in which resonance serves as an element of change — ultimately led to empathy, and this empathy became the very cornerstone of Enlightenment thought. Enlightenment thought was heterodox in the West, yet the West was able to well develop this heterodoxy as the moral foundation to replace God, thereby achieving modern civilization.

Another theory that interpreted the core of Confucian thought transmitted by Matteo Ricci as "empathy" was British empiricism. Because empiricism was not bound by Aristotle's concept of immanence on account of its own practical utility, it naturally received Eastern thought as "empathy" from the outset. After Kant, the exchange with Eastern thought stagnated on the Continent, but British empiricism continued to develop through evolutionary theory and evolutionary anthropology. Evolutionary theory and evolutionary anthropology further expanded empathy theory by assimilating the recent discovery of mirror neuron theory in brain science. Indeed, American pragmatism (實用主義) — influenced by British empiricism — had a great impact on China especially through Dewey (John Dewey, 1859–1952), and this is said to be because it is very similar to Confucian thought. [FN 18]

[FN 18] Roger Ames (로저 에임즈), translated by Jang Won-seok (장원석), Dongyang Cheolhak, geu Salmgwa Changjoseong: Hwaibudeong [Thinking Through Confucius: East-West Comparative Philosophy Lectures], Seoul: Sungkyunkwan University Press, 2005, pp. 155–199.

In fact, the West's interpretation of Eastern thought as empathy is not something that first occurred today. Ever since the West encountered Matteo Ricci's translations, it had been consistently interpreting the East through the concept of empathy. The Enlightenment and British empiricism may be said to have begun under the influence of China. If Western modernity was a modernity based on the rationality of Confucianism as transmitted by Matteo Ricci, then Donghak Thought — which appropriated Western Learning (西學) through liminality — may be called an indigenous modernity.

Accordingly, research connecting the correlative thinking of the East to post-modernism as a form of post-modernity has continued. Kim Hyeong-hyo (김형효) early on connected post-modernism and Eastern thought, extending this even to Jeungsan (甑山) thought, [FN 19] and many subsequent Western scholars have concurred with this view. Bak Jeong-jin (박정진) produced substantial research results from a religious-anthropological perspective based on Kim Hyeong-hyo's research. [FN 20] Bak Yong-suk (박용숙) studied the East–West convergence of ancient shamanism from a civilizational-historical perspective, [FN 21] and Kim Jeong-min (김정민) explored empirical materials. [FN 22] This work has also been carried out in Daesoon Thought research. Kim Sang-il (김상일), the proponent of Han (韓) philosophy, illuminated the significance of Daesoon Thought through process philosophy and related frameworks. [FN 23] Kim Dae-hyeon (김대현) also compared Daesoon Thought with Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida, and Deleuze. [FN 24]

[FN 19] Kim Hyeong-hyo (김형효), "Philosophical Reflections on the Thought of Return to Origins (原始返本) and the Resolution of Grievances (解寃): A Study of Jeungsan Thought," in Dongseocheolhakae Daehan Juchejeouk Girok [Subjective Records on Eastern and Western Philosophy], Seoul: Goryeowon, 1985, pp. 38–67; Kim Hyeong-hyo, Derida wa Nojangui Dongbeop [Derrida and the Reading Method of Laozi and Zhuangzi], Seoul: Korean Studies Information, 1994. [FN 20] Bak Jeong-jin (박정진), Jonggyo Illyu Hak [Religious Anthropology], Seoul: Bulgyo Chunchu, 2007; Bak Jeong-jin, Cheolhakui Seonmul, Seonmului Cheolhak [The Gift of Philosophy, the Philosophy of Gift], Seoul: Sonamu, 2012. [FN 21] Bak Yong-suk (박용숙), Cheonbugyeong 81 Ja Paramil [The 81 Characters of the Cheonbugyeong: Paramita], Paju: Sodong, 2018. [FN 22] Kim Jeong-min (김정민), Syaemen Baibeurou [Shaman Bible], Seoul: Global Contents, 2023. [FN 23] Kim Sang-il (김상일), "A Civilizational-Historical Examination of the Four Cardinal Principles of Daesoon Thought," Daesoon Jinri Haksul Nonchong [Academic Journal of Daesoon Truth] 1, 2007. [FN 24] Kim Dae-hyeon (김대현), "A Comparative Study on the Concept of 'Conscience' in Daesoon Thought and Heidegger: Focusing on the Regressive Character of 'Conscience' Toward Its Origin," Daesoon Sasang Nonchong [Journal of Daesoon Thought] 28, 2017, pp. 243–265; Kim Dae-hyeon, "A Study on the Cheongji Gongsa (天地公事) Through the Concept of Labor (勞動, Arbeit) in Hegel," Daesoon Sasang Nonchong 32, 2019, pp. 175–199; Kim Dae-hyeon, "A Study on the Background of the Formation of Deleuze's System: A Countercurrent from the Depths of Kant's Transcendental Philosophical System," Daesoon Sasang Nonchong 37: 329–355, 2021; Kim Dae-hyeon, "A Deconstructionist Understanding of the Thought of Haewon (解寃) in Daesoon Truth: Centering on Jacques Derrida's Deconstruction," Daesoon Sasang Nonchong 39, 2021, pp. 69–97.

2. LIMINALITY AND REVITALIZATION

a. Liminality as the Mechanism of Sacred/Profane Change

in Indigenous Modernity

Among the representative Western theories in the humanities and social sciences that connect the correlative thinking emphasized by Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought to modernity, liminality (Liminality) theory holds a prominent place. Liminality is a term first coined by van Gennep in anthropology to express the common properties found in "rites of passage" (通過儀禮, t'onggwa ŭirye) across world cultures. [FN 25] The Latin word "limen" refers to the threshold (Threshold) as a boundary area, and liminality is a term derived from "limen." Liminality is sometimes translated into Korean as "境界性" (gyeonggaeseong, boundary-ness) or "易置性" (yeokchiSeong, threshold-ness), but since these translations cannot convey its full meaning, it is generally left untranslated as "liminality."

[FN 25] Arnold van Gennep, translated by Seo Yeong-dae (서영대), T'onggwa Ŭirye [The Rites of Passage], Incheon: Inha University Press, 1986. Van Gennep's name in the original pronunciation is rendered as "Bandzhnev" or "Hennep," but here we follow the general romanized pronunciation and the usage in other translated works and render it as "van Gennep."

Van Gennep discovered the concept of "passage" (通過, t'onggwa) as a common attribute of world religious rituals. [FN 26] Van Gennep holds that the rites of passage (通過儀禮, rite of passage) of the world share a common structure consisting of three rites: the rite of separation (分離儀禮, rite of separation), the rite of transition or passage (轉移, 過渡, rite of transition), and the rite of incorporation (統合儀禮, rite of incorporation). [FN 27] Van Gennep expressed as "liminality" the boundary zone through which one moves from the first to the second stage — that is, from separation to transition. [FN 28]

[FN 26] Arnold van Gennep, translated by Seo Yeong-dae, T'onggwa Ŭirye, Incheon: Inha University Press, 1986, p. 13. [FN 27] Arnold van Gennep, translated by Seo Yeong-dae, T'onggwa Ŭirye, p. 13. [FN 28] Arnold van Gennep, translated by Seo Yeong-dae, T'onggwa Ŭirye, p. 14.

Van Gennep further held that rites of passage are divided, centering on the boundary zone, into pre-liminal rites, liminal rites, and post-liminal rites. The liminal state, by momentarily departing from established values, possesses ambiguous, indeterminate, and equivocal properties. [FN 29] For this reason, liminality is frequently compared to death, the womb, darkness, androgyny, desolation, solar and lunar eclipses, and so on. The reason the liminal state has such duality and ambiguity is that the purpose of the rite of passage is not merely a formal social procedure for maintaining the existing social order, but genuinely aims at unexpected new emergence. The transformation before and after the rite of passage is significant precisely because neither the participants in the rite nor those who assist from the outside can predict what it will be. The transformation following the rite of passage, however, becomes a state of "encompassing transcendence" (包越, p'owŏl) — one that includes and yet surpasses the pre-liminal state.

[FN 29] Z. Bauman, "A Revolution in the Theory of Revolutions?", International Political Science Review 15(1): 15–24, 1994.

The advantage of liminality theory is that it formally articulates in detail the form and content of change, illuminating well the role and significance of the symbols of the transformative process in rituals. As such, liminality theory offers modern people — who find it difficult to understand the meaning of religion — a fast approach to communicating with religion. [FN 30]

[FN 30] Victor Turner, translated by Gang Dae-hun (강대훈), Ingan Sahoe wa Sangjiang Haengwi: Sahoejeok Deurama, Gujo, Keomyunitaseu [The Human Seriousness of Play: Social Drama, Structure, and Communitas], Seoul: Hwangso Georeum, 2018, pp. 5–12.

The two theories that have attracted the most attention as concepts of modernity following the debates of post-modernism — Zygmunt Bauman's [FN 31] "Liquid Modernity" (液體近代) and Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt's (1923–2010) [FN 32] "Multiple Modernities" (多重近代性) — are both connected to the concept of liminality. [FN 33] The reason liminality theory attracts attention as a theory of modernity is that it analyzes problems of contemporary society that Hegel's (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1770–1831) dialectic — the representative ideology of conventional modernity — fails to address. Bauman, who devoted his entire life to the concept of modernity, concentrated worldwide attention in his later years with the concept of "liquid modernity." Liquidity (Liquidity) is a term denoting the "ambiguity" (兩價性) said to be characteristic of modernity, which carries the positive connotation of liminality. Furthermore, "multiple modernities" — which describes modernity through the concept of consilience (統攝, t'ongsŏp) that redefines the sacred and the profane — represents the concept of liminality situated at the boundary transition between the sacred and the profane.

[FN 31] Zygmunt Bauman, translated by Jeong Il-jun (정일준), Sseuregigas Doeneun Salmdeurui: Moderoniteowa geu Chubang-jadeul [Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts], Seoul: Saemulgyeol, 2008. [FN 32] Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, translated by Im Hyeon-jin et al. (임현진 외), Daajungjeok Gundaeseongui T'amgu: Bigyomunyeongjeok Gwanjeom [Exploring Multiple Modernities: A Comparative Civilizational Perspective], Paju: Nanam, 2009. Multiple modernities is also a concept that encompasses alternative modernities such as indigenous modernity. [FN 33] A. Szakolczai, "Liminality and experience: Structuring transitory situations and transformative events," International Political Anthropology 2(1), 2009, p. 160.

Liminality shares with the dialectic — constituted by thesis, antithesis, and synthesis — the property of the coincidence of opposites, but it points out the problems of ambiguity inherent in the optimistically interpreted coincidence of opposites in the dialectic and interprets this ambiguity as representing the profound despondency and indeterminacy of contemporary society through concepts such as "permanent liminality" and "liquid modernity." The concept of liminality is recognized as a theory that brilliantly analyzes the confusion of post-modernity, having shown that the modernity born of overcoming feudal values resulted in throwing out the baby with the bathwater. [FN 34]

[FN 34] Bauman received the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences in 1992 and the Theodor Adorno Prize of the City of Frankfurt in 1998.

The development of liminality theory into a theory that interprets modernity as an alternative to the dialectic proceeded through three stages. The first stage is that in which van Gennep's liminality theory, criticized by Durkheim (David-Emile Durkheim, 1858–1917) — who to this day remains a mainstream theorist of sociology — remained confined to the domain of rites of passage theory. The concept of "passage" that van Gennep discovered as a common property of ritual was the concept that anthropology had long sought. Following Frazer (Sir James George Frazer, 1854–1941), who discovered the "Golden Bough" manifested in the priestly succession of the forest as a common principle of humanity, anthropology had been seeking the common principle underlying the formation of human society. Van Gennep, a contemporary of Dumézil (Georges Dumezil, 1898–1986) — who succeeded Frazer and discovered the tri-functional system common to the Indo-European language family — discovered the common concept of "passage" in ritual and the concept of liminality as the core of passage, and subsequently exerted a great influence on religious studies scholars such as Eliade.

Van Gennep's discovery of "passage" as the common property of ritual was a theory of great influence, capable of explaining not only anthropology but also the core principles constituting society. [FN 35] However, it ran counter to the sociological theories of "function" and "maintenance" that then dominated sociology. Durkheim — who first propounded sociologism, that is, the theory that religious phenomena are reflections of social phenomena, and who formed the mainstream theory that persists to this day — criticized van Gennep's liminality theory for emphasizing action over structure, thereby reducing the liminality concept — which had originally set out as a universal concept — to the domain of rites of passage theory alone. The concept of liminality that van Gennep discovered was consonant with the French Revolution — the context in which sociology first arose through Comte and others — and was also consonant with concepts of liminality found in Pascal's "thinking reed," which exerted an influence as great as Kant's at the time. Nevertheless, thereafter liminality became a largely forgotten concept in the sociology of religion.

[FN 35] B. Thomassen, Liminality and the Modern, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014, p. 4; as re-cited in Kim Gwang-geon (김광건), "A Multifaceted Understanding of the Concept of Liminality," Sinhak gwa Silcheon [Theology and Praxis] 78, 2022, pp. 700–701.

The second stage is that in which the dormant concept of liminality was revived through Victor Turner's accidental discovery. While researching the rites of passage of the Ndembu tribe, Victor Turner, in seeking to develop his own concepts to explain the Ndembu rites of passage that could not be explained by existing structural-functionalist anthropological theory, discovered van Gennep's liminality theory and by introducing the concept of structure, uncovered the hidden meaning of the liminality concept that even van Gennep had not been able to explain. [FN 36] Victor Turner focused on the transition stage among the three stages of separation, transition, and incorporation in the rite of passage, discovering that the liminality phenomenon appearing in this stage is a concept — like the dialectic — capable of explaining not only rites of passage but also macroscopic changes across society as a whole. [FN 37] After discovering the social-dramatic character of liminality, Turner, together with Schechner (Richard Schechner, 1934–present) and others, defined the common properties of ritual as performance and pursued research in ethno-performance studies. The third stage is that in which the concept of liminality, expanded by Turner's wife Edith Turner (Edith Turner, 1921–2016) after Turner's death to encompass diverse analyses of everyday life, was actually introduced into the analysis of the concept of modernity by Zygmunt Bauman and Shmuel Eisenstadt and subsequently widely disseminated across the humanities and social sciences, being further extended by Kim Ik-du (김익두) [FN 38] and Yi Yeong-ran (이영란) [FN 39] to the theory of post-modernity of individual national cultures.

[FN 36] A. Szakolczai, "Liminality and experience: Structuring transitory situations and transformative events," International Political Anthropology 2(1), 2009, p. 160. [FN 37] M. Engelke, "An Interview with Edith Turner," Current Anthropology 41(5), 2000, pp. 843–852. [FN 38] Kim Ik-du (김익두), Han'guk Minjok Gongyeon Hak [Korean Ethno-Performance Studies], Paju: Jisik Saneop, 2013. [FN 39] Yi Yeong-ran (이영란), Riminaelliti [Liminality], Seoul: Dongbang Printing, 2020.

From an early date, the dialectic had been compared to the yin-yang theory — the correlative thinking theory — in terms of the commonalities and differences between them as representative of the difference between East and West. [FN 40] Liminality theory served as a concept mediating between yin-yang theory and the dialectic, interpreting the commonalities found in Eastern and Western modernity. Liminality theory, which originally began as a concept of cultural anthropology arising from ritual and ceremonial theory in the context of rites of passage, was decisively expanded by Turner to a universal concept applicable across the full range of social and cultural change.

[FN 40] Kim Hye-suk (김혜숙), Sin Eum-yang Ron [New Yin-Yang Theory], Seoul: Ewha Womans University Press, 2014; Kim Yeong-ju (김영주), "Transcending Western Dichotomy and Eastern Yin-Yang Method — Taiji Dichotomy," Sahoe Sasang gwa Munhwa [Social Thought and Culture] 4, 2001, pp. 37–80.

Victor Turner's liminality theory is broadly divided into liminality and communitas. Liminality and communitas are theories of social-dramatic ritual. Of these, the concept of social drama represents a reinterpretation of van Gennep's rites of passage theory as a theatrical theory of social change. According to van Gennep, human beings experience rites of passage when facing a survival crisis, passing through unfamiliar territory, or undergoing a change in status. The rite of passage encompasses the process of "separation → transition → incorporation." Turner, the symbolic-comparative cultural anthropologist, viewed van Gennep's concept of the rite of passage not only as a ritual but as a universal principle and structure of society. Victor Turner expanded van Gennep's concept of the rite of passage to all domains of society, culture, and religion, calling it "Social Drama" on account of its resemblance to a theatrical drama enacted against the backdrop of society. [FN 41]

[FN 41] Victor Turner, translated by Kim Ik-du (김익두), Jeuieso Yeongeugeuro [From Ritual to Theatre], Seoul: Minsokwon, 2014.

Communitas is a term relating to the quality of human interrelationality. Victor Turner proposed two types of human interrelationality: parallel mutual relations and either-or mutual relations. Liminality and communitas appear almost simultaneously and are named differently according to differences in emphasis. The former refers to the structured state of the existing society — the structured and differentiated social mode of political, legal, and economic status — while the latter refers to a relatively undifferentiated social mode in which organization is incomplete during the transitional period of the ritual. The latter corresponds to the anti-structure (反構造, pan'gujo). In this sense, communitas may be called a deconstructed community of "anti-structure" — transcending the dimension of structure — or of "non-structure," a state in which structure has been dissolved.

Victor Turner's social drama was expanded for Eliade to function like myth. However, while for Eliade myth is a narrative that relates to the one unique sacred time, Turner argued that myth contributes to present psychological and social purposes by broadly providing experiences that straddle the boundary of consciousness. This is akin to accepting the claim of the ritual school in mythology. While the ritual school connected myth and ritual to justify the ritual itself, Turner connects ritual and myth, focusing on the point that both perform the psychological function of helping people more easily pass through the painful transitions of life. The reason Victor Turner's social drama theory attracts attention in the interpretation of crisis situations is that it informs, in the most comprehensive yet detailed manner, how to overcome a crisis. Communitas is today applied not only to ritual but also to domains including society, politics, religion, culture, and the arts.

Victor Turner, while studying the Ndembu tribe of Africa, discovered a remarkable fact. [FN 42] The members of the tribe were courageous, robust, and responsible. What he came to learn through the traditional coming-of-age ceremony held in the village for thirteen-year-old boys was that at the appropriate time, adult men would secretly enter the lodge and abduct the boys by wrapping them in blankets. Thereafter, the adult men would take the boys to an entirely unfamiliar location and disappear. The place into which these boys were thrown was precisely the liminal state. The boys, thrown into a crisis they had never before experienced, came to realize that they had been cast into the mountains without any familiarity with their surroundings. At first they wept and wailed, but their parents did not come simply because they cried. The tribal elders visited once a month to inquire after their well-being and offer advice. Within such an environment, the boys learned how to survive. The boys came to form a very strong spirit of cooperation, comradeship, and solidarity — a keen sense of social solidarity and belonging — with the understanding that "in order for us to survive here, we must stick together." After going through that process, they returned to the village and performed the coming-of-age ceremony. The community that the boys formed through living and learning together as members of the community before undergoing the coming-of-age ceremony is called communitas.

[FN 42] Victor Turner, Sangching eui Soop [The Forest of Symbols], Seoul: Jisikeul Mandeuneun Jisik, 2020.

Victor Turner states that social drama is a theory that explains changes in "universal socio-cultural phenomena occurring worldwide." According to Victor Turner, all social dramas and conflicts pass through the dialectic of "structure (構造) → anti-structure (反構造) → structure (構造)," and more specifically through the stages of breach — crisis — redressive action/healing — reintegration/schism. Whereas van Gennep concentrated his attention on rituals performed at life's crises — such as initiation rites, wedding ceremonies, funerals, birth, and pregnancy — Victor Turner focused on the fact that most rituals and events possess the process and form of "passage." In short, Victor Turner became interested in the second of the three stages — transition, the time-space of the threshold (threshold, limen) that belongs neither to this stage nor to that — and came to think that this second stage, transition — anti-structure — is the key to resolving crisis. He accordingly developed in earnest the study of the symbolic system of ritual, employing such terms as limen, liminality, liminoid, communitas, anti-structure, and the subjunctive mode of culture.

The communitas and liminality that constitute anti-structure are closely related yet distinct. Liminality concerns the existential modes, situations, and conditions of human beings or groups. By contrast, communitas concerns the modes of human interrelationality revealed within liminality.

Liminality is an intermediate state and process, full of all possibilities and latent power, through which one passes after breaking free from existing social, cultural, or symbolic systems or orders, losing one's previous status, in order to reintegrate into a new system. Communitas is a relationship among individuals who are essentially concrete and of a different character from one another. Such individuals do not divide themselves by role or status but instead form free relationships among themselves.

The characteristics of anti-structure are as follows. First, anonymity. Within communitas, human beings generally become anonymous entities. The participants in the ritual are represented as those who possess nothing, wearing identical clothing. All mundane markers of identity — the status, property, occupation, rank, social position, and privileges — that they held in the existing society disappear or are homogenized. Second, equality. In a state in which all existing social status and rank have been nullified, a strong sense of fellowship and equality develops among the initiates, and egalitarianism is actively embraced. [FN 43] Third, the paradoxical power of the weak. In an anti-structural situation, social roles and authority are reversed: the weak gain authority while the powerful are stripped of it. Those below rise to higher positions, or those of low status or rank permanently or temporarily come to possess sacred attributes. This serves the purpose of framing the manner of the society's mode of existence.

[FN 43] Victor Turner, translated by Bak Geun-won (박근원), Ŭirye eui Gwajong [The Ritual Process], Seoul: Korean Psychotherapy Institute, 2005, pp. 144–170.

After Victor Turner's death, his wife Edith Turner further expanded the scope of communitas, explaining that it emerges in nearly all domains of life. She proposed not only communitas found in rites of passage, festivals, music, and sports, but also new categories such as communitas in work (labor), liberation, resistance, and disaster. [FN 44]

[FN 44] Turner, Edith L. B., Communitas, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

In particular, Edith Turner holds that the response of communitas is crucial in disaster situations. This is the redressive action/healing stage in the four stages of social drama: breach — crisis — redressive action/healing — reintegration/schism. [FN 45] Today, what most influences redressive action/healing in social drama is the various media of society, including social media. However, when social media alone cannot resolve conflict — as in the case of Covid-19 — what comes to the fore is religious response.

[FN 45] M. Engelke, "An Interview with Edith Turner," Current Anthropology 41(5), 2000, pp. 843–852.

In this regard, prior studies have not sufficiently brought out the performative (修行論的) tradition of Daesoon Thought. The properties of liminality that integrate these elements have a strongly performative character that synthesizes performative post-modernity, as in drama therapy. Nevertheless, liminality provides a useful framework for encompassing socio-cultural elements while preserving its own inherent performative characteristics. There is also prior research conducted by Khyentse Norbu — the Bhutanese spiritual leader famous as the director of the film Cup — relating performance studies to Buddhism. [FN 46] In both East and West, modernity arrived at moments of crisis, such as disaster situations. In the case of the West, modernity arose from the crisis of the Middle Ages — the Mongol invasion and the plague — and in the process of reflection thereon, in the attempt to exchange with China and India. Donghak Thought also arose as a rite of passage for overcoming crisis amid the racial extermination posed by imperial domination of Asia.

[FN 46] Norbu, Khyentse, Renjian shi Juchang [People Are the Stage], Beijing: Xinxing Press, 2016.

Meanwhile, the term "liquid modernity" — which signifies a state containing many possibilities for change yet extremely unstable — well explains why "liminality" has come to attract attention in modernity crisis discourse as a replacement for the dialectic. In "liquid modernity" theory, modernity is interpreted as a state of extreme fluid change arising from permanent liminality. The concept of "liquid modernity" holds that modernity, born of overcoming feudal values, has failed to establish alternative values and therefore exists in a state of permanent liminality, like a liquid. [FN 47] The concept of liminality is a useful theory that provides lucid interpretations of both everyday yet emblematic modern mythological concepts — such as romantic love [FN 48] — and difficult modern cases such as the May 18th Gwangju Democratization Movement. [FN 49] Nonetheless, liminality — which achieves modernity through the redeployment of the sacred and the profane — also presents the problem of modern people who have fallen into permanent liminality. Because modern people have never truly been modern, [FN 50] modernity has always remained as a perennially unfinished project.

[FN 47] Zygmunt Bauman, translated by Yi Il-su (이일수), Aekche Gundae [Liquid Modernity], Seoul: Gang, 2009. [FN 48] Eva Illouz, translated by Bak Hyeong-sin (박형신) and Gwon O-heon (권오헌), Nangmanjeouk Yut'opia Sobihagi [Consuming the Romantic Utopia], Seoul: Ihaksa, 2014. [FN 49] Gang In-cheol (강인철), 5·18 Gwangju Keomyunitaseu [The May 18th Gwangju Communitas], Seoul: Saramui Munyi, 2020. [FN 50] Bruno Latour, translated by Hong Cheol-gi (홍철기), Urinŭn Gyeolko Gundaein-ieoss'eun Jeogi Eobss'ŏ: Daech'ing-jeok Illyu Hakeul Wihayeo [We Have Never Been Modern: For a Symmetrical Anthropology], Seoul: Galmoori, 2009.

In connection with this problem, scholars who extended liminality — the core concept of modernity [FN 51] — to indigenous modernity as manifested in correlative thinking are Kim Ji-ha (김지하), Kim Ik-du, and Yi Yeong-ran. Kim Ji-ha, who discovered in Donghak Thought a generative mode of thinking distinct from the Western dialectic and advocated the life (生命, saengmyŏng) philosophy, discovered indigenous modernity in Donghak Thought and expanded his research to encompass Daesoon Thought through the thought of Yullyo (律呂) and the aesthetics of Hŭin Gŭl (흰그늘, White Shadow). Kim Ik-du applied the anthropological concept of liminality to Kim Ji-ha's aesthetics of Hŭin Gŭl, demonstrating that indigenous modernity is connected through the concept of liminality. Yi Yeong-ran holds that the key difference distinguishing liminality as it connects to post-modernity from the dialectic lies in ontogeny repeating phylogeny. For example, if Heaven, Earth, and Humanity in the Trinity of Heaven, Earth, and Man (天地人 三才) are designated as 1, 2, and 3 respectively, then the change from Heaven (1) to Earth (2) — that is, liminality — manifests the emergent properties of Earth (2) becoming Earth (1, 2, 1+2), yielding a liminal state. Likewise, the change from Heaven (1) to Humanity (3) requires the properties of Humanity (3) to manifest as Humanity (1, 2, 3, 1+2, 1+2+3), and to constitute the Three Powers (三才) requires once again becoming a greater 1. Yi Yeong-ran holds that the reason ontogeny repeats phylogeny in the liminal state is that the "body" (身體, sŏnch'e) has a principle of accumulated change. Yi Yeong-ran holds that through the body the liminal state acts simultaneously, and is therefore the phenomenon itself as it operates in the present. [FN 52]

[FN 51] A. Szakolczai, "Permanent (trickster) liminality: The reasons of the heart and of the mind," Theory & Psychology 27(2), 2017, pp. 231–248. [FN 52] Yi Yeong-ran, Riminaelliti [Liminality], Seoul: Dongbang Printing, 2020, pp. 231–232.

Turner also defined liminality as the emergence of a new third element. Turner sees the difference between the liminality he rediscovered and the liminality van Gennep first articulated in terms of the indeterminacy of liminality. Whereas existing liminality had treated the rite of passage as a formal social procedure primarily aimed at social reintegration, the reason liminality actually functions in society is — he argued — precisely because of this indeterminacy of liminality. [FN 53] Turner further holds that this indeterminacy is the emergence of a third element, and that this third element has a redoubled character (加一倍, gail bae) that integrates the contradictions of both the existing element and the new element. It is as in a scientific revolution: a new paradigm can replace an existing paradigm only if the new paradigm explains everything the existing paradigm explained and also explains new phenomena. In Daesoon Thought research, liminality has also been studied as a religious experience in terms of the difference between surface religion and deep religion. [FN 54]

[FN 53] Victor Turner, translated by Kim Ik-du, Jeŭi eso Yŏngŭk euro [From Ritual to Theatre], Seoul: Minsokwon, 2014, pp. 47–48. [FN 54] Liminality has also been studied in Daesoon Thought as a religious experience in terms of the difference between surface religion and deep religion. (Yi Eun-hŭi [이은희], "Daesoon Jinrihoe Viewed from the Perspectives of Surface and Depth: From the Standpoint of Religious Experience," Daesoon Sasang Nonchong [Journal of Daesoon Thought] 27, 2016.)

In the East, liminality has long been explained through the terms "method of adding one double" (加一倍法, gail bae beop) and "transformation" (化, hwa). The method of adding one double is a concept derived from Shao Kangjie (邵康節), meaning that when there is a change from one dimension to the next in the Book of Changes, one is added. Here, "adding one double" means doubling by a factor of two. For example, if something cannot be explained by yin and yang, the explanation is achieved by doubling yin and yang — that is, multiplying by 2 — to yield the Four Symbols (四象, sasang). Indeed, the yin-yang and five phases of the East are structured as yin-yang (2 = 2¹) → Four Symbols (4 = 2²) → Eight Trigrams (8 = 2³). Here, 2, 4, and 8 move as multiples of 2, but in terms of the exponents of 2, they form the sequence 1, 2, 3, which is the method of adding one double. Expressed as trigrams: —, 二, 三, 𝌆 is the method of adding one double.

At this point, "adding one" in the method of adding one double means adding one unit on top of the existing foundation, and this accords with the substantive characteristics of liminality as described by Yi Yeong-ran. The same principle applies to numerical progressions in the Eastern Six-Line Hexagram (六爻, yukhyo) and in Western systems such as the enneagram, tarot, and Kabbalah. In the six lines of the hexagram of the Book of Changes, the next line always contains the elements of the previous line. Likewise in the enneagram and tarot, a later number carries the characteristics of the preceding number. The relative ease of religious reception in Korea — where the character of "embracing transformation" (接化, chŏphwa) is strong — can also be explained in this way. That is to say, when Koreans receive a religion, it is not a conversion (改宗, kaejong) but an additive adoption (可宗, kajong). Hwang Phil-ho (황필호) holds that additive adoption is a characteristic of Korean religious culture. [FN 55] For example, when Buddhism arrived, it was simply an addition of the Buddhist element to pre-existing shamanism, and the same was true thereafter for Confucianism and Christianity. In the East, this has traditionally been expressed as "encompassing transcendence" (包越, p'owŏl), "embracing transformation" (接化, chŏphwa), or "transformation" (化, hwa). Korean culture — with its strong character of embracing transformation — compared to Chinese culture with its strong character of assimilation or Japanese culture with its strong character of condensation, is closer in character to the heaven-above-heaven, that is, the transcendent heaven (超越天, ch'owŏlch'ŏn). The heaven-beyond-heaven is referred to as the transcendent heaven or the heaven-beyond-heaven (天外天, ch'ŏnoech'ŏn). [FN 56] Among the three countries of East Asia, it is said that only Korea has had the transcendent-heaven religions of Christianity and Catholicism prevail. Embracing transformation is a concept encompassing both spirit and body. Likewise, in rites of passage, one must overcome the rite of passage in both spirit and body. When the spirit changes along with the body, it changes according to the principle of the method of adding one double, and this was traditionally expressed using the character "化" (hwa, transformation), which signifies chemical change. "化" expresses the principle by which the transcendent heaven operates things — as in the Jeong-yeok (正易), where the Creator is expressed as "Hwamuwong" (化无翁, the Old Man of Inexhaustible Transformation).

[FN 55] Hwang Phil-ho (황필호), Jonggyo Byeonho Hak·Jonggyo Hak·Jonggyo Cheolhak [Apologetics, Religious Studies, and Philosophy of Religion], Seoul: Cheolhakgwa Hyeonsil, 2004, pp. 220–235. [FN 56] The heaven-beyond-heaven is referred to as the transcendent heaven (超越天) or the heaven-beyond-heaven (天外天). In this paper, in the case of Daesoon Thought the heaven-beyond-heaven is referred to as the "Ninth Heaven" (九天, Kuch'ŏn); when the contrast with the immanent heaven (內在天) is being emphasized, it is called the transcendent heaven (超越天); when the spatial distinction is emphasized, it is called the heaven-beyond-heaven (天外天, Ch'ŏnoech'ŏn).

The liminality of correlative thinking appearing in Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought is explained in greater detail by Kim Ji-ha, Kim Ik-du, and Yi Yeong-ran. Kim Ji-ha, who actually experienced the liminality of life (生命, saengmyŏng) given by Donghak Thought during his imprisonment, after his release from prison left behind a vast body of writing on the indigenous modernity and post-modernity that appear in Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought. Kim Ji-ha explained the development from Donghak Thought to Daesoon Thought in three stages — life (生命), Yullyo (律呂), and Hŭin Gŭl (White Shadow). Regarding the difference between Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought, Kim Ji-ha argues that Jeungsan Thought placed more emphasis on everyday life than Donghak Thought did. [FN 57] Kim Ji-ha discovered "life" in Donghak and found therein an indigenous modernity in response to the materialist-centered Western modernity. However — he explains — Donghak, having discovered "life," "yin-yang," and "Sich'ŏnju" (侍天主, Serving the Heavenly Lord), was unable to find the root that could sustain "life," "yin-yang," and "Sich'ŏnju" in everyday life on a sustainable basis, and failed to transcend the Confucian precept of "Yoksokbuldal" (欲速不達, haste makes waste), and this is why the indigenous post-modern Daesoon Thought emerged.

[FN 57] Kim Ji-ha (김지하), Kim Ji-ha Jeonjip 1 [Collected Works of Kim Ji-ha, Vol. 1], Seoul: Silcheon Munhaksa, 2002.

The person who revealed that the central pivot of Kim Ji-ha's three-stage theory of development lay in the concept of Hŭin Gŭl liminality was Kim Ik-du. Kim Ji-ha had perplexed surrounding researchers by failing to find a Western theoretical concept similar to the concept of Hŭin Gŭl he had devised, and it was Kim Ik-du who resolved this problem. Kim Ik-du demonstrated that the dual properties of Hŭin Gŭl are consistent with the dual properties manifested in the liminal state, and that the three-stage development in Kim Ji-ha's theory corresponds to the three-stage development inherent in the liminal state. Kim Ik-du presented not only the commonalities but also the differences in the liminal properties of Hŭin Gŭl, thereby deriving the distinctiveness of Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought as Kim Ji-ha explained them. As a specialized drama researcher, Kim Ik-du analyzed Eastern and Western myths as dramas and found that the decisive difference in the patterns of Eastern and Western myths lies in Aristotle's theory of conflict. And he explains that this Aristotelian theory of conflict extends to liminality theory, and that the East–West difference in liminality connects further to the difference between the indigenous post-modernity discovered by Kim Ji-ha and Western post-modernity. Therefore, Kim Ik-du reveals that the indigenous modernity and post-modernity appearing in Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought — as discovered by Kim Ji-ha — constitute the alternative modernity that Western post-modernism has been so desperately seeking. [FN 58]

[FN 58] Kim Ik-du (김익두), "The Vision of 'Heaven-and-Earth Gut (天地굿)' of Mutual Flourishing (相生), Resolution of Grievances (解寃), and Grand Unity (大同), and the Style of Creating Sinmyŏng," Ch'ŏnnyon eui Sijak [Beginning of a Millennium] 11(3), 2012, pp. 12–25.

Kim Ik-du's research, through Yi Yeong-ran's research that identified liminality as the common property of post-modernism, became more precisely integrated with Western theory and developed further into the theory of indigenous modernity and indigenous post-modernity. Yi Yeong-ran analyzes liminality theory as a common phenomenon appearing in post-modernism. Yi Yeong-ran discovered that a liminal aspect underlies the commonalities among the various concepts that post-modernity theorists used to critique modernity. Accordingly, liminality is regarded as a keyword encompassing contemporary Eastern and Western thought as a whole. Yi Yeong-ran integrates and presents — from a performance studies perspective, as shown in [Table 2] — Merleau-Ponty's (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 1908–1961) phenomenology of the body, Derrida's deconstruction, Whitehead's process philosophy, Deleuze's philosophy of becoming, Kim Sang-il's Han thought, and Korean Sundo thought within liminality theory. [FN 59]

[FN 59] Yi Yeong-ran, Riminaelliti [Liminality], Seoul: Dongbang Printing, 2020, p. 162.

The table summarizing liminality and post-modernity from a performance studies perspective [Table 2, reproduced below] provides the major viewpoints for expressing the liminality of correlative thinking as indigenous modernity. When the integration of hun (魂, spiritual soul) and paek (魄, corporeal soul), and of body and spirit, is the core task given to humanity in the View of Heaven, the View of Earth, and the View of Humanity, performance studies — which integrates body and spirit — can offer major methodological insights. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty, who introduced the body into phenomenology, is evaluated as a philosopher who made an original contribution to the development of phenomenology, and it is said that the introduction of the "body" is also the core theme of post-modernity. Furthermore, Yi Yeong-ran characterizes the feature of liminality as post-modernity as "ontogeny repeating phylogeny," thereby specifying its difference from the dialectic. Yi Yeong-ran holds that the stages of anti-structure, separation, and others occurring in the liminality process can be understood as a process of ontogenesis that must repeat phylogeny. That is, the process of integrating binary opposites in liminality becomes the passage process of an individual who must repeat phylogeny. Indeed, Turner also explains the nullification process in the transitional stage as an integration of the pre-liminal and post-liminal stages.

[Table 2: Summary of Liminality and Post-modernity from a Performance Studies Perspective]

| School | Theorist | Core Concept | |---|---|---| | Phenomenology | Maurice Merleau-Ponty | The lived experience between individual consciousness and actuality; manifestation of the world through the body of the living actor | | Deconstruction | Jacques Derrida | The unpredictable, indeterminate modes that occur in the "between"; unpredictability arising in the "gap" between "I" and "the Other" (役) | | Process Philosophy | Alfred Whitehead | Existence is constituted not by being but by becoming; the processual act itself in which "I" and "the Other" (役) change together of their own accord | | Philosophy of Becoming | Deleuze / Guattari | The operational principle of being and being is interpreted as machine and assemblage; the modes of change occurring between existences — not in them |

As such, Yi Yeong-ran, by extending the concept of liminality to post-modernity, laid the groundwork for Kim Ik-du's research to be further broadened. Yi Yeong-ran synthesizes the similarities manifested in Eastern correlative thinking and Western post-modern concepts through liminality. In this way, Yi Yeong-ran's research laid the theoretical foundation enabling the indigenous modernity of Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought to become an alternative modernity that connects to post-modernity. Kim Ik-du and Yi Yeong-ran both, in common, found the liminality of Eastern performance studies — in which body and spirit corresponding to Heaven, Earth, and Humanity are integrated — in the performance studies of Turner and Schechner. Accordingly, liminality can become a major philosophical mode of thinking for understanding the modernity of the two thought-traditions. Viewed in this light, indigenous modernity as the liminality of correlative thinking consists in the phylogenetically generative fusion of the substance-centered Western views of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity with the attribute-centered Eastern views of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity — that is, in the continuity and transformation of tradition — while indigenous post-modernity comes to encompass indigenous modernity.

The first research to interpret the new religions (新宗敎, sinjonggyo) represented by Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought through liminality was that of Yun Seung-yong (윤승용). [FN 60] In his analysis of liminality and new religions, Yun Seung-yong interprets the unprecedented success of Korean new religions through liminality and communitas. However, since post-modernism had not yet been introduced in Korea at that time, Yun Seung-yong did not extend liminality to indigenous modernity. If Yun Seung-yong's prior research were expanded and applied to Kim Ji-ha's research and then further combined with Chŏng Chin-hong's (정진홍) research that synthesized the spiritual history of Korean religion, [FN 61] Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought could be understood as indigenous modernity.

[FN 60] Yun Seung-yong (윤승용), "A Brief Study on the Anti-structural (communitas) Character of New Religions (新宗敎)," Seoul: Seoul National University Graduate School, 1988. [FN 61] Chŏng Chin-hong (정진홍), Han'guk Jonggyo Munhwa eui Jeongae [The Development of Korean Religious Culture], Seoul: Jibmungdang, 1988.

Modernity, having been situated amidst rapid change, came to possess the properties of liminality — like a rite of passage — thereby helping the emergence of the anti-structural modern thought of equality and freedom. For example, a man and a woman about to undergo the rite of passage of marriage occupy a liminal state that is neither unmarried nor married, and prior to the rite of passage, a certain degree of deviation and anti-structure contrary to the rite is partially permitted. Society on the eve of the great transformation of modernity likewise passes through a period of equality and freedom — like the French Revolution — before departing from its pre-modern character. In the East, there were the Taiping Rebellion of Hong Xiuquan and the Peasant Revolutionary Movement of Donghak.

Both the East and the West construct liminality through their views of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity to realize modernity, but the forms of liminality in modernity differed between the West — possessing a rationality that expands from the self outward to the cosmos — and the East — whose rationality expands from the cosmos inward to the self. [FN 62] Misunderstanding this difference, the West claimed there was no modernity in the East and plundered the East as colonies. Fortunately, Japan's miraculous victory over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War allowed the East — albeit centered on Japan — to successfully make a comeback. The West, having reached the limits of colonial governance, internally turned its struggle inward and brought about its own mutual destruction, enabling the East to find the path to independence.

[FN 62] Richard Nisbett, translated by Choe In-cheol, Saenggage Jido: Dongyang gwa Seoyang, Sesang eul Barabonn Seoro Dareun Siseon [The Geography of Thought], Paju: Gimyoungsa, 2004.

Liminality shares similarities with Eastern correlative thinking, which emphasizes the harmony of opposing elements. Indeed, following post-modernism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism (儒·佛·仙, yubunsŏn) of the East have been re-evaluated as archetypes of post-modern thought, and the modernity possessed by the correlative thinking of yin-yang and the five phases — upon which Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism are based — has been reassessed. Among the three East Asian countries, it is especially the Korean Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought that constructed modernity through the indigenous Trinity of Heaven, Earth, and Man worldview (三界觀, samgye'gwan). Unlike China and Japan — which, through the May Fourth Movement and the Meiji Restoration respectively, rejected the traditional Three-Realm worldview — Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought commonly emphasize "gaebyeok" (開闢, cosmic renewal) related to the indigenous Three-Realm worldview. Korean modernity indeed begins its modernity from "gaebyeok" — the transformation of the indigenous Three-Realm worldview. [FN 63]

[FN 63] Jo Seong-hwan (조성환), "The Indigenous Modernity of Donghak: Centering on Haewol Choe Si-hyeong's View of Humanity and Worldview," Sinhak gwa Cheolhak [Theology and Philosophy] 36, 2020, pp. 223–243.

Viewed from this perspective, in ideal circumstances a greater diversity of equality and freedom was realized through correlative thinking than through analytical thinking; however, in circumstances distorted by accumulated grievances (怨恨, wŏnhan), the negative aspects of correlative thinking arose and freedom and equality could be suppressed even more than under analytical thinking. The negative aspects of correlative thinking are expressed as the "fallacy of the perfect schema." The correlative thinking inherent in the traditional views of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity secured stability and continuity in which facts and values do not conflict within a single cosmos. However, in exchange for this, a costly price had to be paid — the forgetting of adventure and challenge — owing to the perfect schema that mercilessly absorbed and neatly classified new experiences. [FN 64] In particular, for the East — which faced rapid changes in the external environment — there was an urgent need for a new indigenous thought capable of renewing (開闢, gaebyeok) the Three Realms distorted by grievances.

[FN 64] Yi Chang-il (이창일), Sogang Jeolui Cheolhak [The Philosophy of Shao Kangjie], Seoul: Simsan, 2007, p. 479.

b. Revitalization as the Mechanism of Sacred/Profane Continuity

in Indigenous Modernity

Liminality as modernity reveals a clear difference in attitudes toward tradition depending on whether one belongs to an empire or a colony. [FN 65] Whereas in the case of Western modernity — which defined identity as a reaction against tradition — liminality was characterized by a negative stance toward tradition, in the modernity of non-Western nations that experienced colonialism, there were many liminal patterns in which a positive stance toward tradition was emphasized as a reaction to the West. The liminal forms in which a positive stance toward tradition is emphasized in non-Western modernity have been referred to as revitalization movements (再活性化 運動, revitalization movements). Because revitalization theory appeared before Turner's liminality theory, its potential for expansion is more limited than liminality theory; however, regarding the aspects of continuity and change of tradition within liminality theory, it provides a clearer explanation.

[FN 65] Ihab Hassan, translated by Jeong Jeong-ho (정정호) and Yi So-yeong (이소영), P'oseuteumodeonijeum Gaeron [The Postmodern Turn], Seoul: Hansin Cultural Press, 1991.

According to Wallace, the transformation of a society's belief system occurs through the mazeway (Mazeway, cognitive map; the original meaning is labyrinth) — the mental image held by a member of that society. [FN 66] According to Wallace, every member of a society, as part of the social organism, comes to hold a mental image not only of their own body and the regularity of the body's actions but also of the society and culture to which they belong, and it is precisely this image that constitutes the "mazeway." As Wallace states: "It is functionally necessary for every person in the society to maintain a mental image of the society and its culture, as well as of his own body and its behavior regularities, in order to act in ways which reduce stress at all levels of the system. This image, which I am calling the 'mazeway'... [It is] a person's image of nature, society, culture, personality, and body." [FN 67] Wallace viewed human society as a vast organism, and the mazeway is the way in which each member of the society adapts to this social organism. The concept of the labyrinth includes not only awareness of physical objects living within the social environment, but also awareness of the manner in which the individual adjusts to minimize given stresses and the manner in which the individual adjusts and reconstructs this labyrinth together with other members of society. [FN 68]

[FN 66] Wallace, Anthony F. C., Religion: An Anthropological View, New York: Random House, 1966, p. 166. [FN 67] Ibid., p. 166; as re-cited in Kim Ju-gwan (김주관), "Donghak as a Revitalization Movement: A Cross-Cultural Comparison," Donghak Hakbo [Journal of Donghak Studies] 35, p. 244. [FN 68] Choe Hyeong-geun (최형근), "Mission and Cultural Change," Seongyosinhak [Missionary Theology] 16, 2007, p. 272.

When an identity crisis comes to a society, a crisis in this mazeway comes to the individual, and since this connects not only to a material crisis but also to a crisis in the ideology constituting the society, it poses a greater threat to members of society than a material crisis. Accordingly, society responds with various religious revitalization movements, and some religious movements expand even into political movements. What was most threatening to the leaders of the numerous colonial nations in the 19th–20th centuries, when imperialism was expanding, was not a material crisis but an identity crisis. Traditions maintained over thousands of years were labeled as superstition and tabooed by Western civilization, and respected leaders were reduced to fraudsters promoting superstition, such that the traditional social belief system could no longer maintain social order and the social status of individuals had irreversibly collapsed.

For the general populace as well, the collapse of tradition acted as intense psychological stress. Despite the fact that the new Western belief system was also one that had come from a long tradition and could collapse at any moment, in a situation where only their own belief system was being negated, the option available to both the general public and leaders was the appropriation of the existing tradition through new interpretation — that is, revitalization. Revitalization was applied to time, space, and human beings alike. In the case of time, it manifested as millenarianism (千年王國運動, ch'ŏllyŏn wangguk undong) — the belief that a new era was coming; in the case of space, it became the movement for a terrestrial paradise — the belief that a new utopia would arrive. On the human level, the syncretism of religious doctrines appeared, and politically, non-resistance movements emerged. Most of the religious movements of the 19th–20th centuries can be classified as types of revitalization, and in the case of Donghak, all these types are synthesized.

Revitalization theory began in 1952 as a theory aimed at evaluating the birth and development of religious groups, based on an investigation of the Long House Movement (Long House Movement) that appeared among the Iroquois (Iroquois) in the early 19th century — a movement conducted by Handsome Lake (Handsome Lake, 1735–1815), a prophet of the Seneca (Seneca) tribe, one of the Native American tribes. Just as Japan and Western capitalist material culture caused an identity crisis in Joseon — which had known only the long-established Sinocentric patriarchal order as the entirety of the world — so also the Western culture and Westerners who toppled the authority of Native Americans at gunpoint came as a great shock to the Native peoples who had long lived with cultural pride.

That shock came even more forcefully to the Iroquois — the representative Native American tribe of northeastern America where New York is located. Handsome Lake, one of the leadership class of the Seneca tribe (a branch of the Iroquois), was also a figure who suffered seriously from an identity crisis due to American colonial policy. The period during which Handsome Lake lived was the time of the Gold Rush following the discovery of gold in America. As this Gold Rush occurred, the status of the Native Americans — who had previously concluded treaties with America on an equal state-to-state basis — fell to that of a protectorate, just as Joseon lost its status as a nation at the time of the annexation by Japan.

Unlike Japan — which, even after annexation, preserved the status of the existing aristocracy in order to maintain control — America did not recognize the status of the Native American leadership. Like other despairing Native American leaders, Handsome Lake also slipped into a life of drinking and dissipation, until one day a turning point for his conversion was provided. Just as the Supreme God (上帝, Sangje) appeared to Suun (水雲), Handsome Lake also had a mystical experience: a spirit being appeared to him and revealed to Handsome Lake the revitalized future of the Native Americans, requesting as its condition that he live by disciplined rules.

Awakened from his mystical experience, Handsome Lake gave up his dissolute life, personally practiced and widely propagated the experiences and teachings he had received in the mystical experience, and many Native Americans, like Handsome Lake, gave up their dissolute lives and joined the movement of discipline. The place where they gathered was the Long House where Handsome Lake resided; hence this was called the "Long House Movement." Even after Handsome Lake, in Native American society in North America, the ghost dance spread in accordance with a revelation that the Native American utopia would arrive sooner if they danced, and the "peyote ceremony" of eating the herb "peyote" also appeared. [FN 69]

[FN 69] Kim Ju-gwan (김주관), "Donghak as a Revitalization Movement: A Cross-Cultural Comparison," Donghak Hakbo 35, 2015, p. 257.

The case of Handsome Lake demonstrates the typical stages of revitalization. Through the case of Handsome Lake, Wallace discovered stages common to the numerous cases of revitalization. Wallace defines the revitalization movement as "a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture." A revitalization movement arises when people feel the need to do so because the present system is unsatisfactory. People innovate new functions, new systems, which leads to a chain reaction effect. Revitalization is a theory signifying viewing society as an organism — a concept first introduced by Durkheim. [FN 70] When under pressure for change, society takes emergency measures in order to preserve the invariance of the "Matrix" of the life-maintenance system of individual members. [FN 71]

[FN 70] Wallace, Anthony F. C., Religion: An Anthropological View, New York: Random House, 1966, pp. 146–149. [FN 71] Wallace, Anthony F. C., Religion: An Anthropological View, New York: Random House, 1966, p. 255.

While liminality theory and revitalization theory share the commonality of both being theories of change, if liminality is a theory of the mechanism of change, then revitalization (Revitalization Movements) theory can be said to be a theory of the mechanism of continuity. Whereas liminality theory primarily solves problems through change in response to crisis, revitalization theory differs in that it solves problems through tradition in response to crisis. When an individual faces severe stress and realizes that their mazeway is not providing relief, they face a choice: to continue the tradition or to change. "It may be necessary to change the 'real' system in order to bring the mazeway into conformity with 'reality.' The effort to jointly change both the mazeway and the 'real' system so as to permit more effective stress reduction, as well as the collaboration of many people in such an effort, is the revitalization movement." [FN 72]

[FN 72] Wallace, Anthony F. C., "Revitalization Movements," American Anthropologist, 1956, pp. 266–267.

The reason liminality theory and revitalization theory attract attention as theories of cultural change is that they have discovered a single common formula among the various types of change in response to both internal and external change. In the case of myth, from among the numerous myths discovered by Eliade, Joseph Campbell (Joseph John Campbell, 1904–1987) discovered the single formula of the "Hero's Journey," and this formula was applied to Hollywood screenwriting, producing numerous blockbuster films. [FN 73] Indeed, Western modernity began with the revitalization of Greco-Roman culture called the Renaissance, and Islam and India are also constructing indigenous modernity through revitalization.

[FN 73] Campbell's seventeen-stage cycle is as follows. Act I: 1. Ordinary World, 2. Call to Adventure, 3. Refusal of the Call, 4. Meeting with the Mentor, 5. Crossing the First Threshold. Act II: 6. Tests, Allies, Enemies, 7. Approach to the Innermost Cave, 8. Ordeal, 9. Reward. Act III: 10. The Road Back, 11. Resurrection, 12. Return with the Elixir. Campbell's twelve-stage cycle consists of three stages: Departure-Initiation-Return. When divided into three stages, it can be further subdivided into seventeen stages: I. Departure/Separation: 1. The Ordinary World, 2. Call to Adventure, 3. Refusal of the Call, 4. Supernatural Aid, 5. Crossing the First Threshold, 6. Belly of the Whale. II. Descent/Initiation/Passage: 7. Road of Trials, 8. Meeting with the Goddess, 9. Woman as Temptress, 10. Atonement with the Father, 11. Apotheosis, 12. The Ultimate Boon. III. Return: 13. Refusal of the Return, 14. The Magic Flight, 15. Rescue from Without, 16. The Crossing of the Return Threshold, 17. Freedom to Live. Christopher Vogler, translated by Ham Chun-seong (함춘성), Sinhwa Yeongung geurigo Sinario sseugi [The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers], Muusu, 2005, p. 51; Joseph Campbell, translated by Yi Yun-gi (이윤기), Ch'ŏnŭi Eolgureul Gajin Yeongung [The Hero with a Thousand Faces], Minŭmsa, 1999, pp. 44–45, 54–59, 315, 333–337; Jo Deuk-chang (조득창), Kim Deok-sam (김덕삼), and Choe Won-hyeok (최원혁), "A Reexamination of Peking Opera Through Campbell's Myth Theory," Yesul Inmun Sahoe Yunghap Mŏltimidia Nonmunjip [Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences Convergence Multimedia Journal] 7(1), 2017, pp. 979–987; Kim Hyeon-ja (김현자), "Campbell's Mythology," Jonggyo wa Munhwa [Religion and Culture] 6, Institute for the Study of Religion, Seoul National University, 2000.

In Buddhism, the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (十牛圖, sibu do) have long presented commonalities across numerous stages of transformation through spiritual practice. Daesoon Thought also adapted the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures into the "Simu-do" (尋牛圖, Pictures of Seeking the Ox) and calls for earnest effort in the practice process. In this context, Campbell's seventeen-stage Hero's Journey follows the stages of revitalization, just like the six-panel Simu-do. The revitalization process follows "five somewhat overlapping stages":

1. Steady State

2. Period of Individual Stress

3. Period of Cultural Distortion

4. Period of Revitalization (functions of mazeway reformulation, communication, organization, adaptation, cultural transformation, and routinization occur)

5. New Steady State. [FN 74]

[FN 74] Wallace, Anthony F. C., "Revitalization Movements," American Anthropologist, 1956, p. 268.

In religious studies, liminality belongs to the rite of passage, and revitalization belongs to the revitalization rite. This is analogous to the Confucian concept of "inner sagehood, outer kingliness" (內聖外王, naesŏng oewang). Liminality is close to inner sagehood (內聖) — the cultivation of the interior — while revitalization is close to outer kingliness (外王) — communication with the exterior. Donghak also responded with inner sagehood as anti-feudalism (反封建) and outer kingliness as anti-foreign interference (反外勢).

The process in correlative thinking from liminality to revitalization is analogous to the stages in the Confucian classic Great Learning (大學, Daehak): investigation of things and extension of knowledge (格物致知, gyeokmulchiji) — rectifying the mind and cultivating the self (正心修身, jeongsimsusin) — regulating the family and bringing order to the state and bringing peace to all under heaven (齊家平天下, jegyap'yŏnch'ŏnha). If correlative thinking derives the epistemology of Donghak through investigation of things and extension of knowledge, then liminality, like rectifying the mind and cultivating the self, shows the method of Donghak's internal growth, and revitalization theory, like regulating the family and ordering the state, represents Donghak's external response to Western Learning.

The name "Donghak" carries the seed of revitalization through the integration of existing Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, and "Chamdonghak" (參東學, True Donghak) carries the meaning of its completion. Daesoon Jinrihoe (大巡眞理會) is the only organization among the numerous groups related to Donghak today that has formed a major religious institution with the ecclesiastical name and doctrinal system of the Eastern tradition. Viewed from the perspective of liminality, this may be seen as the only communitas in which the transformation achieved through the liminal state has been sustained. If Donghak Thought is regarded as a continuously generated liminality, then the "Fellowship" (會, hoe) of Daesoon Thought may be said to correspond to communitas. Regarding this, Patrick Laude (Patrick Laude, 1958–present) interpreted the characteristic of "hoe" (Fellowship) as the modernity of the East. [FN 75]

[FN 75] P. Laude, "Reflections on Civilization, Modernity, and Religion in Light of the Fellowship of the Truth," Journal of Daesoon Thought and the Religions of East Asia 1(1), 2021, pp. 39–60.

From Mugŭkdo (無極道, the religious organization from which Daesoon Thought arose as a formal institution), revitalization is more appropriate than liminality. In this way, the indigenous modernity found in the correlative thinking of Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought can be explained in a more universally applicable manner through the liminality and revitalization theories of religious anthropology. Unlike modernization focused on industrialization, modernity emphasizes cultural change. In non-Western societies into which Western industrialization was transmitted, modernity is more prominently characterized by the aspects of cultural change and continuity than by modernization per se, and accordingly liminality and revitalization become apt terms for explaining the indigenous modernity of non-Western societies. Western modernization prior to industrialization can also be explained through liminality and revitalization. Even in the West, the impetus for modernity is said to have been the collision of East and West — specifically the Mongol invasion and the plague. The Mongol invasion and the plague brought about a crisis and reflection concerning the existing views of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity — represented by Christianity. Eventually, the West devised a new view of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity — atomism — as a counter-theory to Christianity. They devised atomism through revitalization under the name of the Renaissance and sustained the transformation. Furthermore, the West embraced Eastern empathy culture and, through the Enlightenment, constructed modernity.

While the liminality and revitalization of East and West develop in common, the main difference lies in correlative thinking. Today, epistemologies such as correlative thinking are also being interpreted in the domain of cognitive religious studies, evolving beyond post-modernity toward post-humanism (Post-humanism) — where the integration of human and machine becomes a problem. [FN 76] However, at the time when Western modernity was being transmitted, correlative thinking was identified as a factor that had stagnated Eastern modernity and was thus rejected by mainstream society as a foundation for indigenous modernity. Yet Korean new religions adopted it as the foundation of indigenous modernity — a fact that must be reassessed today. If the thought underlying Korean new religions can be called humanocentrism (人間中心主義), [FN 77] it is because this can be interpreted as a post-humanism capable of countering the age of artificial intelligence, going beyond new materialism.

[FN 76] Chŏng Chin-hong (정진홍), Kim Tae-yeon (김태연), Jang Seok-man (장석만), Yi Jin-gu (이진구), and Im Hyeon-su (임현수), Han'guk Jonggyo Hak [Korean Religious Studies], Seoul: National Academy of Sciences, 2021, pp. 398–431. [FN 77] Kim T'ak (김탁), Han'guk Sinjonggyo reul Gwan'tonghaneun Inyeom, Ingan Jungsimjuui [The Ideology Permeating Korean New Religions: Humanocentrism], Seoul: Minsokwon, 2023.

The theory of correlative thinking reveals the characteristics and reasons behind the Eastern tradition's constant tendency to oppose the West. Turner's liminality theory shows why religious liminality is necessary in times of crisis. Furthermore, Wallace's revitalization theory presents the patterns through which the reconstruction of tradition occurs.

The commonality of correlative thinking theory, Turner's liminality theory, and Wallace's revitalization theory is that they are the representative theories discussing the continuity and transformation of a society's cultural tradition. While correlative thinking theory is a theory that informs the fundamental differences between Eastern and Western culture and thereby explains the continuity and transformation of the Eastern cultural tradition, liminality theory and revitalization theory clearly show how the existing order of a society transforms and how that transformation is sustained.

Just as Kuhn's philosophy of science holds that even science — the representative of objectivity — may be nothing more than a paradigm, a discipline's methodology functions as a frame of thought that maintains and transforms a society, and this frame forms the ideology and utopia of each society. Mannheim long ago summarized the maintenance and transformation of a society's order through the concepts of Ideology (Ideologie) and Utopia (Utopie). [FN 78] Whereas ideology is an ideology and attitude that seeks to maintain the existing order, utopia is an ideology and attitude that seeks to transform the existing order. Liminality and revitalization theory are theories that explain the religious-anthropological genesis and process of change of ideology and utopia as they appear in religion. [FN 79] Whereas liminality theory — which originated from rites of passage theory, the transformation of internal members of society — focuses on the internal transformation and growth of social order, revitalization theory — which originated from culture contact theory — emphasizes the response to external shocks. Both theories are representative theories that explain the ideological and utopian functions of religion.

[FN 78] Karl Mannheim, translated by Im Seok-jin (임석진), with commentary by Song Ho-geun (송호근), Ideollogi wa Yut'opia [Ideology and Utopia], Paju: Gimyoungsa, 2012. [FN 79] Anthony F. C. Wallace, translated by Kim Jong-seok (김종석), Jonggyo Illyu Hak [Religion: An Anthropological View], Ch'ŏnan: Aunae, 2010, pp. 146–149.

Donghak's name reveals the pattern of its response to the external ideology of Western Learning. In this connection, Donghak, first, emphasized the aspect of "Eastern" (東, tong) — with the strong meaning of a distinctly Eastern epistemological method. Here, "Eastern" signifies a methodological response through correlative thinking. Second, from the aspect of "Learning" (學, hak) — which pursues internal change and growth — it includes liminality theory as a theory of rites of passage. Third, from the standpoint of being a response to the shock of the external ideology of "Western Learning" (西學, Seohak), it also includes the characteristics of revitalization. In this way, Donghak-related thought can yield universally human values in religious studies terms when the three theories are applied three-dimensionally.

While there are almost no cases in which the theory of correlative thinking has been applied to Donghak Thought or Daesoon Thought, there are studies that have applied liminality theory separately to Donghak Thought [FN 80] and Daesoon Thought, [FN 81] though not at the level of a comparative study between the two thought-traditions. Liminality theory can be applied as detailed research in the comparative study of the two thought-traditions and thereby can be used to reveal their ideological differences and significance more clearly. There are comparative studies of Donghak Thought and the enlightenment ideology (開化思想), and of the communal consciousness of Donghak Thought and Confucian thought. [FN 82]

[FN 80] Jo Hye-jin (조혜진), "The Correlation between 'Ogwandae Nori' as Resistance Ritual, 'Donghak,' and the 'March First Movement': A Study of the Narrative Characteristics and Resistance Ritual of the Novel [Toji (The Land)]," Hyeondae Munhakui Yeongu [Studies in Modern Korean Literature] 78, 2022, pp. 63–102. [FN 81] Kim T'ae-su (김태수), "A Study on the Initiation Rites in Jeon'gyeong," Daesoon Sasang Nonchong 24(2), 2015, pp. 85–115; Kim T'ae-su, A Study on the Ritual Character in Cheongji Gongsa (天地公事), doctoral dissertation, Daejin University, 2013. [FN 82] There are comparative studies on the communal consciousness of Donghak Thought and the enlightenment ideology, and of Donghak Thought and Confucian thought. (Jin Bo-seong [진보성], "Two Strands of Socially Transformative Public Consciousness in Late 19th-Century Joseon," Inmun Sahoe 21 [Humanities and Social Sciences 21] 13(2), 2022; Jin Bo-seong and Kim Jong-gon [김종곤], "The Solidaristic Communal Consciousness of Donghak and the Road to Modernity," Daedong Cheolhak [Daedong Philosophy] 104, 2023.)

Wallace's revitalization theory has also been applied in research to various world cases related to the meeting of Christianity and traditional religions, and has been applied in studies focused solely on Donghak Thought, [FN 83] in studies connecting Donghak Thought and Ch'ŏndogyo, [FN 84] and also in Daesoon Thought by Bernadette Rigal-Cellard. [FN 85]

[FN 83] Kim Ju-gwan (김주관), "Donghak as a Revitalization Movement: A Cross-Cultural Comparison," Donghak Hakbo 35, 2015, pp. 237–272. [FN 84] Kim Han-gu (김한구), "An Anthropological Study on Donghak-Ch'ŏndogyo," Sahoe Gwahak Nonchong [Social Science Review] 9, 1990, pp. 143–172. [FN 85] Rigal-Cellard, Bernadette, "Daesoon Jinrihoe in Light of Anthony F. C. Wallace's Revitalization Theory," Religiski-filozofiski raksti 30(2), 2021, pp. 134–162.

However, Bernadette Rigal-Cellard's research did not compare the liminality of Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought. Accordingly, the differences in liminality appearing in the differences between the two thought-traditions and the correlative thinking were not highlighted. The present author therefore holds that if the two thought-traditions of Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought are compared from the perspective of Eastern modes of thinking, and if the liminality and Wallace's revitalization theory are applied, the differences between Daesoon Thought — designated as "True Donghak" (參東學, Chamdonghak) — and Donghak Thought can be clearly revealed.

Prior research that comprehended Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought in continuity from the perspective of True Donghak (參東學) is the research of Ko Nam-sik (고남식). [FN 86] This paper, building on prior research that examined Daesoon Thought from the perspective of the continuity and change of Donghak Thought, synthesizes existing prior research on Donghak Thought and applies the scholarly methods of Eastern thought. However, by examining this in detail from a religious-anthropological perspective, it more finely illuminates the aspect of Daesoon Thought — which expanded the scope of Donghak to encompass even the realization of the ideal world that Donghak presents. In particular, the paper aims to examine, from the standpoint of the continuity and transformation of tradition, how Daesoon Thought revitalized Donghak at the point where Donghak's revitalization had failed. Through this, by applying an organic method that synthesizes the two differing directions of research on Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought — the people's movement and religious thought, as well as the practical Donghak research on the realization of an ideal world — the paper aims to present the value of the two thought-traditions as thought of universal human significance.

[FN 86] Ko Nam-sik (고남식), "The Status of Donghak in Daesoon Thought and the Development of Jeungsan's True Donghak," Daesoon Sasang Nonchong 16, 2003, pp. 1–23.

Liminality and revitalization share as common characteristics self-reflection and creative reception. Liminality as a rite of passage manifests the experience of rock-bottom — through which binary opposites can be integrated — and new creation through reflection. Revitalization theory also re-illuminates the positive aspects within one's own culture by viewing that culture as unfamiliar. Reflection and discussion — viewing oneself as a stranger through a third-person perspective — are emphasized in Daesoon Thought from the point that Gyohwa (教化, religious instruction) is called "discussion of truth" (眞理討論, jinni toron). [FN 87] This accords with the attribute of Mujagi (毋自欺, non-self-deception) — long emphasized as the foundation of cultivation in Daesoon Thought. This is because Mujagi, by viewing oneself as unfamiliar through reflection, re-illuminates the experience of rock-bottom and new creation through reflection, as well as the positive aspects within oneself. The connection between the concept of Mujagi and the Mutual Flourishing (相生, sangsaeng) of Daesoon Thought has also already been studied from the perspective of Western philosophy. [FN 88] With this in mind, the present paper aims to illuminate the point that the indigenous modernity of Donghak Thought and Daesoon Thought consists in the correlative-thinking views of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity being newly recreated through the reception of the Western views of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity — through liminality and revitalization. Mujagi accords with the ideal society and the goal of Daesoon Thought — along with the realization of the terrestrial paradise (地上天國, jisang ch'ŏn'guk) and the terrestrial immortal (地上神仙, jisang sinsen) — in which the relationship between Heaven, Earth, and Humanity in Daesoon Thought is epitomized. [FN 89]

[FN 87] Reflection and discussion — viewing oneself as a stranger through a third-person perspective — are emphasized in Daesoon Thought from the point that Gyohwa is called "discussion of truth." (Daesoon Guidelines [大巡指針], Chapter 1, Section 5; Eom Hye-jin [엄혜진], "An Approach to Discussion-Based Education in the Methods of Religious Instruction (Gyohwa) in Daesoon Jinrihoe," master's thesis, Daejin University, 2019.) [FN 88] The connection between the concept of Mujagi and the Mutual Flourishing (相生) of Daesoon Thought has also already been studied from the perspective of Western philosophy. Kim T'ae-su (김태수), "The Ethics of Mutual Flourishing in Mujagi (毋自欺) of Daesoon Thought: Centering on a Contrast with the Ethics of Kant and Mill," Daesoon Sasang Nonchong 27, 2016. [FN 89] Mujagi accords with the ideal society and goal of Daesoon Thought — the realization of the terrestrial paradise and the terrestrial immortal — in which the relationship between Heaven, Earth, and Humanity in Daesoon Thought is epitomized. (Na Gwon-su [나권수], "A Study on the Theory of the Ideal Society in Daesoon Jinrihoe," doctoral dissertation, Daejin University, 2016.)

The misunderstanding of the Eastern origins of Western modernity and the rationality of correlative thinking has also affected the evaluation of the indigenous liminality and revitalization found in Donghak-related thought. The difference between the liminal aspect of correlative thinking and the liminal aspect of analytical thinking is that whereas the liminality of analytical thinking, like the dialectic, harmonizes two mutually opposing elements, the liminality of correlative thinking harmonizes the boundary between two complementary elements. Accordingly, in the present study, bearing in mind the Eastern origins of Western modernity — which Donghak-related thought implies and Daesoon Thought emphasizes — the paper intends to trace the path by which the two thought-traditions sought to achieve revitalization as indigenous modernity through the liminality of correlative thinking.

END OF TRANSLATION: Part IV, Chapter II (Part 2)