The Trickster and the Paranormal

The idea of “archetype” helps explain the trickster.3 For purposes here, an archetype is defined as a collection of abstract properties that can manifest on several levels (e.g., within individuals, situations, small groups, entire cultures). The properties are not necessarily related by cause and effect; rather they are a constellation. As more of

When the supernatural and irrational are banished from consciousness, they are not destroyed, rather, they become exceedingly dangerous.

The Greeks recognized that boundaries referred to more than just the physical and geographic kind. Bolen reports that “Hermes is firmly cast in the role of messenger between realms”5 explaining: “As the traveler between levels, Hermes seeks to understand, integrate, and communicate between the conscious mental world of mind and intellect (Olympus),

The central theme developed in this book is that psi, the paranormal, and the supernatural are fundamentally linked to destructur-ing, change, transition, disorder, marginality, the ephemeral, fluidity, ambiguity, and blurring of boundaries. In contrast, the phenomena are repressed or excluded with order, structure, routine, stasis, regularity, pre

Any comprehensive theory of the paranormal must explain its role in cultural transitions.

Hermes means “he of the stone heap.” In Greece, mounds of stones served as landmarks and property boundaries. Somewhat paradoxically, Hermes is also a boundary-crosser. The themes of boundaries and boundary-crossing arise again and again in interpretations of Hermes, and tricksters generally.

Parapsychology is the study of two phenomena, extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK). ESP is simply the obtaining of information about the external world without the use of any known physical process; correspondingly, PK is the influencing of the external world without using any known physical method.

Van Gennep’s book The Rites of Passage is a classic; it was first published in 1909 but was not translated into English until 1960.2 Turner’s The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (1969) substantially extended van Gennep’s ideas. As those titles indicate, their primary emphasis was on rites and ritual, but the theories have much wider ap

Revitalization occurs in periods of cultural liminality. The trickster constellation manifests during such times, as is clear from Wallace’s descriptions. The disregard of sexual mores, general disruption, and a highly visible role of the supernatural, including the sometimes unconscionably bad advice of the spirits, are all trickster characteristi

Weber’s concept of charisma was an integral part of this. In its pure form, charisma involves supernatural power, a fact that Weber clearly stated. Again amazingly, scholars almost universally ignore that. If they do acknowledge it, they seem puzzled. For Weber, charisma was central to understanding authority, power, and domination. Authority is re