trickster

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),

Another issue we will meet in future chapters is the reluctance to examine foundations too closely. Existence of society requires collectively held fundamental premises, beliefs, and assumptions. When they are questionned or challenged, disruption ensues. Western science adheres to the myth of objective reality, but it does not comprehend the

Historically, many groups that attempted to engage paranormal phenomena became unstable. There is little reason to think that secret government projects would escape that fate. They too are probably prone to paranoia and conspiracy theorizing. Because of the secrecy surrounding their work, and the importance of it, they could be susceptible to

His origins, which would somehow define his new self, are uncertain and labile, as the Joker admits: “If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!”28 Thus, only something chaotic and indefinable remains. The Joker becomes an embodiment of chaos and starts spreading it, laughing at society’s illusions.

Some may be puzzled why I chose the trickster as a vehicle to explore psychic phenomena. I started this book as an effort to understand why the paranormal is so frequently associated with fraud and deception. Many trickster figures are linked with supernatural powers and with deception, so that is an obvious connection. But as I began reading the

This is one of the Joker’s roles: to remind us of the chaos and meaninglessness that lurks beneath the surface of our everyday lives. A joker in a deck is the wild card—the randomizer. It throws off what you thought would happen, what you calculated would happen. For the Joker, this could be in the sense of interrupting your day with a goofy,

Carl Jung’s idea of archetypes is also helpful in understanding the trickster. The term archetype is often confusing, and there has been much debate over its definition. For purposes of this volume, “archetype” means only a pattern that can manifest at multiple levels. No more is implied, and nothing paranormal is necessarily required to explain

Postmodernist theories suggest that the world can be understood as though one was reading a book or text. This metaphor (i.e., the world is text), allows one to ask new questions that would not be generated by traditional scientific paradigms. Reading requires interpretation, and postmodernist and post-structuralist theories emphasize the variety