This book is an antidote to the polarised thinking of our time. It is a journey along the threshold edge of things: thresholds of ideas, body, mind, mindfulness, environment, society, identity, belief, ritual, architecture, theatre, writing, landscape, life, death, and time. They are everywhere.
This middle ground is not dull and indifferent, but the dynamic point of difference and exchange. Interaction and differentiation are both in this liminal boundary.
We inter-are with so many things. That which separates also connects. Threatening. Enticing. Fuzzy. The twilight zone. The grey between the black-and-white. The point where we realise that the map is not the territory. Where our ideas, ideals, and idols clash with the real.
Nick Hanks works as a landscape archaeologist and half of ‘Time and Tide Taletellers’ storytelling duo. Nick studied drama at Warwick University and archaeology at Bristol University. He has lectured and written academically on ritual space and archaeology. He lives in Cornwall (UK).
You can find him at nick-hanks.co.uk
Praise for Thresholds
Thresholds is beautifully written, erudite without being difficult for a layperson to understand. I found it hard to put down once I’d started, so hooked was I by Nick’s guided tour of ideas. Many of these concepts I hadn’t met before, but they seemed familiar and almost obvious once he had deftly and skillfully pointed them out.
From the physical to the metaphysical, Nick parses meaning and possibility with fascinating perspicacity. I particularly enjoyed the religious spaces section – there was such a lot of condensed insight there, I could tell that this is an area of real expertise even above and beyond the earlier parts of the book (which are certainly not superficially treated!).
I am going to heed boundaries and edges so much more now. I can’t wait to get my hard copy, so I can reread and make notes in the margins(!).
~ Lis Jardine, author of The Detention Detectives series.
We are surrounded by transitory spaces. They can be physical or abstract, psychological or emotional, social or defined by rules. Our own minds and bodies exist in them and are even part of them.
Thresholds by Nick Hanks explores the way we intersect with everything, everyone and every idea around us. Nick uses science and philosophy as part of a spiritual exploration of edges. He starts by taking the Vesica Piscis – the symbol of threshold found at the head of Glastonbury’s Chalice Well – and shows how this Venn diagram of intersecting circles exists in all aspects of life.
This is a brilliant book, clearly and gently written, that takes the reader on a thought-provoking journey through edgelands, interzones and liminal spaces. Highly recommended!
~ Lucya Starza, author of Pagan Portals books Candle Magic, Poppets and Magical Dolls, Guided Visualisations, Scrying, The Wheel of the Year, and Dowsing; and the Gothic novel Erosion.
In this book, Nick Hanks explores wider concepts around the idea of the threshold, the liminal space, the point of crossing over. An archaeologist by training, though with a background in the creative and performative arts, Hanks’ book draws upon a wide range of case studies – not just the archaeological – to illustrate the concept of the transition point, the threshold, and places beyond. As such this book has a lot to offer historians, archaeologists, anthropologists (and geographers, sociologists, psychologists, and the lay reader). It is an engaging and informative cross-cultural analysis of physical and metaphysical crossing points which we encounter in our lives. … This is a gentle yet provocative and challenging book, encouraging us to see the world through a fresh lens, a work firmly embedded in an embodied and phenomenological approach. It draws upon a range of different approaches, yet is fundamentally an intriguing work of anthropology seen through the eyes of a very gifted observer of humans and nature. Readers will find this an accessible and approachable read, and Nick Hanks is a wonderful guide through the complexities of human engagements with the physical and natural worlds.
~ Professor Niall Finneran, University of Winchester
Thresholds is one of those books that bring together a large number of seemingly unrelated ideas, and prompts you to consider what they have in common.
Or perhaps it is one of those books that describes one idea, and brings together a large number of seemingly unrelated examples.
Or maybe, most fittingly, it is somewhere between the two.
It is a book about the concept of liminality. A word that describes that region of space, or time, where established structures break down, and new ones are created. Where one thing becomes another. The mysterious place where interesting things seem to happen.
The author, Nick Hanks, provides a fascinating collection of ideas, each one sparking connections in the reader’s brain, enabling them to see things in a way that they have not experienced before. What, for example, does a single-celled animal have in common with religious architecture? How is the idea of freedom related to the Uffington White Horse? In what way is the idea of a hug related to the Chalice Well in Glastonbury?
… One is invited to look at a collage of concepts, and consider the similarities between them, and the differences, in a way that perhaps they had never done before. It makes it very easy to keep turning the pages.
The author provides examples from a number of different categories: abstract thresholds, physical thresholds, mental thresholds, social thresholds, spatial and spiritual thresholds and temporal thresholds. By the end of the book, the general concept of a threshold starts to come into focus, and one starts to see why thresholds have always been viewed as slightly magical things.
And like all books, this book is a threshold where the ideas from one person’s mind become enmeshed with the ideas in another person’s mind.
Which makes reading it not only very enjoyable, but also a little magical.
~ Kevin Wilson
Exploring concepts of liminality and interactions within spaces and states of mind in an accessible way, this book is a must for fans of Alain de Botton and Phil Cousineau.
Liminality is a very useful concept in anthropology, archaeology, and psychology, and this book shows how it is applicable in a wide variety of contexts.
Using the image of the vesica piscis, the author shows how most situations have a threshold where inside and outside meet.
~ Yvonne Aburrow,
author of Ancient Trackways, Pagan Roots: Reclaiming Concepts of the Sacred and Changing Paths
Contents
- About the Author
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Professor Niall Finneran
- ‘Magnificent Octopus’ – how to read this book
- Threshold – the idea of the edge
- Abstract Thresholds
- Vesica Piscis – the symbol of threshold
- Embodied Cognition – metaphor is the foundation of thought
- Embodied Metaphor – the container
- Physical Thresholds
- The Single Cell – the primal container and threshold
- Species – the leaky DNA container
- Thresholds of the Earth – where life thrives
- Body-World – your physical threshold
- Mental Thresholds
- Mind and World – your conscious threshold
- Mindfulness – the thresh-hold
- Social Thresholds
- ‘Getting’ the Edge – in minds and organisations
- Self and Others – transaction, separation, reflection
- Freedom – free to, free from, free-fall
- Us and Them – fear and desire
- Spatial and Spiritual Thresholds
- Liminal Landscapes – places of discard and discord
- Pilgrimage – walking as threshold
- Myth and Story – the threshold of adventure
- Liminality in Ritual – when the edge becomes the centre
- Beyond Geometry – the experience of architecture
- Experiencing Geometry – the subtle thresholds of space
- Building Thresholds – doors, gateways and portals
- Religious Buildings – containing and extending the edge
- Religious Worship – holy counters for encounters
- Temporal Thresholds
- Life – in two halves linked by a fall
- Death – the threshold that awaits
- Time – the ever-moving threshold
- Dawn and Dusk – the threshold of day
- Thresholds of this Book
- Afterwords
- Bibliography
Coming soon!