Mary Douglas in Purity and Danger suggests the correlation between social structure and the mystical power arguing that controlled, approved and conscious power reside in those who occupy the key positions in the society, while unconscious, dangerous and disparaged power such as witchcraft is attributed to ambiguous and liminal, marginal entities: “To have been in margins is to have been in contact with danger, to have been a source of power”. She illustrates her point by the experiences of ex-prisoners and those who have been once admitted in the institution for the treatment of mental disease. Perceived as marginal beings, society proves to exhibit greater difficulty in incorporating them since they are believed to be simultaneously dangerous
