Preliminal rites (or rites of separation) involve a metaphorical “death”, as the initiand is forced to leave something behind by breaking with previous practices and routines. Liminal rites (or transition rites) involve “the creation of a tabula rasa, through the removal of previously taken-for-granted forms and limits”. The destructive nature of this rite allows for considerable changes to be made to the identity of the initiand. This middle stage (when the transition takes place) “implies an actual passing through the threshold that marks the boundary between two phases. The term “liminality” was introduced in order to characterize this passage. Postliminal rites (or rites of incorporation) is the stage when the initiand is re-incorporated into society with a new identity, as a “new” being.

Victor Turner, who is considered to have “re-discovered the importance of liminality”, first came across van Gennep”s work in 1963. In 1967 he published his book, The Forest of Symbols, which included an essay entitled Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites of Passage. In conducting his fieldwork amongst the Ndembu in Zambia, Turner made numerous connections between tribal and non-tribal societies, “sensing that what he argued for the Ndembu had relevance far beyond the specific ethnographic context”. He became aware that liminality “...served not only to identify the importance of in-between periods, but also to understand the human reactions to liminal experiences: the way liminality shaped personality, the sudden foregrounding of agency, and the sometimes dramatic tying together of thought and experience.”

Liminality has limitless applications and interpretations. It can relate to individuals, communities, whole societies, and entire civilizations. What Turner’s concept of social liminality does for status in society, Jung does for the movement of the person through the life process of individuation‘. Individuation can be seen as a 'movement through liminal space and time, from disorientation to integration. What takes place in the dark phase of liminality is a process of breaking down...in the interest of "making whole" one's meaning, purpose and sense of relatedness once more. Philosopher Karl Jaspers made a significant contribution to the idea of societies in crisis (or societies withstanding a collapse of order) through his concept of the “axial age,” which was “an in-between period between two structured world-views and between two rounds of empire building; it was an age of creativity where “man asked radical questions”, and where the “unquestioned grasp on life is loosened.”

In the context of rituals, liminality can occur spontaneously, as in the case of natural disasters.It can also occur artificially, as in the case of say a college graduation. The liminal phase is the period of time between attainment of credits and reception of diploma. That no man’s land represents the limbo associated with liminality. The stress of accomplishing tasks for college is over, yet the individual has not moved on to a new stage in life (psychologically or physically). The result is a unique perspective on what has come before, and what may come next. Engagement to marriage, conception through to pregnancy, death to burial—all these liminal periods constitute a kind of “life stage limbo.”

The temporal dimension of liminality can relate to moments (sudden events), periods (weeks, months, or possibly years), and epochs (decades, generations, maybe even centuries). Twilight serves as a liminal time, between day and night. Within years, liminal times include equinoxes when day and night have equal length, and solstices, when the increase of day or night shifts over to its decrease. This pertains, as well, to individuals.

There is the liminal phase of a commute, not at work or home, but somewhere in-between. The experience of meditation, therapy, prayer—all liminal. Really, any situation in which the individual is not departing or arriving at a place (physical or otherwise) puts them in a state of liminality.

It can also mean a “threshold” in time and space, the middle ground between more than one entity without being either entity. The energy of both entities meet at this spot. For example the seashore which is both shore and ocean is liminal. The 60 seconds at midnight is neither the past, present, or future—liminal. Near-death experiences where people talk of connecting with the other side—liminal. Energy healers, Reiki masters, mediums—all those who spend time between our recognized reality and “other” exist in a state of liminality.

Various minority groups can be considered liminal. Illegal immigrants (present but not “official”) and stateless people are regarded as liminal because they are “betwixt and between home and host, part of society, but sometimes never fully integrated”. Intersexual or transgender people, bisexual people in most contemporary societies, and those of mixed ethnicity or accused but not yet judged guilty or not guilty, are liminal.

There are liminal characters in literature. In mythology, there are the ‘trickster ” and “shapeshifter” archetypes operating between the sacred and the profane. In literature, there are characters that exist between two species such as cyborgs and hybrids.

Things can be liminal. Wounds are liminal in that a wound is in constant flux, either getting better or getting worse. It is a site of healing or infection (or both, simultaneously). Menstruation is a condition in which (like a wound) the boundary between the inside of the body and the outside of the body is broken. It has been suggested that “the Internet itself...creates a natural environment for liminality: a place separate from one’s space where the ordinary norms of everyday life easily may be suspended.”