The Trickster and the Paranormal

by George P. Hansen

  Wakdjunkaga is a relatively primitive being who is sometimes identified with hare (and also with raven, spider, and coyote), but “basically he possesses no well-defined and fixed form.” He is usually a selfish buffoon, caring little about his fellows, and he may hurt others and himself with his antics. His tales are full of accounts of eating, release of flatus, excreting, bumbling around exploring, sexual congress with a variety of creatures, temporary transformations into a female in order to give birth, and attempts to use magic, some of which backfire.

  In one story, one arm cuts the other during a quarrel between the two. Only after feeling the pain does Trickster start to question what happened and then recognizes his foolishness. His anus and penis can be detached and sent off on various tasks; he gives them orders, and when they disobey, he punishes them, but finally realizes that he hurt himself. Despite his bizarre behavior and blundering about, there are inadvertent benefits for mankind.

  Some of the stories are odd and even grotesque. Wakdjunkaga disrupted things and violated taboos. He played tricks, was deceptive and sexually insatiable. Yet like a god, he eventually ascended into the heavens.

  There are innumerable perspectives from which to interpret the tales, and it makes no sense to try present them all. Radin’s analysis alone spanned many pages. For introductory purposes here, I point out that trickster tales can give some insight into psychology. Wakdjunkaga displays dissociated, autonomous aspects and only limited self-awareness. The tales reflect competing basic life processes. Eating, defecation, and sex are some of the most fundamental requirements for life. Deception and self-concern are necessary for the survival of the organism. A young individual learning about the environment does blunder about, and this exploring and experimenting can be disruptive. Various needs, compulsions, and instincts sometimes compete with each other, and they are often contradictory. The self is not a unified, coherent, logical entity. Paradox, contradiction, and ambiguity abound. This is part of the human condition.

  Hermes

  Hermes, the trickster of the Greeks, is a god, and he is perhaps better known by his Roman name of Mercury. He is the son of Zeus and Maia. There is a considerable literature on Hermes, and one of the most frequently cited books on him is Norman O. Brown’s Hermes the Thief (1947). Jungian analysts have provided a number of psychological interpretations. Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Gods in Everyman (1989) has an accessible chapter, as does Christine Downing’s Gods in Our Midst (1993). Rafael Lopez-Pedraza’s Hermes and His Children (1977) gives an extended treatment.

  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.

  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 realm in which the ego decides and acts (earth), and the collective unconscious (underworld),” and “As Hermes Psycho-pompos, he accompanied the souls of the dead to the underworld.”7 She cites Jungian analyst Murray Stein, who “calls Hermes the God of Significant Passage. Hermes is the archetype present ‘betwixt and between’ psychological phases—especially during midlife transitions. He is a liminal god, present in the transitional space (from the Greek word limen, the space under the door frame or the threshold).” Boundaries and transitions are explicit here, and these are key themes in this book.

  Compared with Wakdjunkaga, Hermes is more refined, more restrained, more considerate and sophisticated. With Wakdjunkaga, the base characteristics are more overt. Hermes displays greater integration of instincts and personality characteristics; he can exist along with and contribute to others in society. He is the friendliest of the gods though a bachelor; whereas Wakdjunkaga is a more solitary figure, almost completely unrestrained by social mores.

  Hermes can easily pass unnoticed. His half-brothers, Apollo and Dionysus (all three gods were sons of Zeus), typically receive more attention. Many writers use Apollo and Dionysus to characterize persons, situations, events, and tendencies: Apollo for farsightedness, planning, order and structure; Dionysus for wine, ecstasy, sensuality, and orgiastic excess. Even dictionaries contrast the two. Hermes is betwixt and between them, and is often overlooked. He served as midwife at the birth of Dionysus, and as I will show, this function appears in a number of contexts. Hermes facilitates transitions, as between order (Apollo) and orgiastic excess (Dionysus).

  Hermes’ links to the paranormal are explicit. In mythology, Apollo gave him the power of prophecy, though not through words but rather interpretation of signs as in divination using dice. We are told that Hermes “is the god of the unexpected, of luck, of coincidences, of synchronicity.” Bolen elaborates: “Hermes opens up moments of discovery and synchronistic events—those ‘coincidences’ that turn out to be meaningful, unforeseen ‘accidental’ happenings that lead us somewhere we couldn’t have known we would go and that yet turn out uncannily right. People miss Hermes if their minds are set on a particular itinerary and schedule, who set out and know ahead of time just what they will see and when. Thus when we go on vacation or even spend an unstructured day on a lark, with an attitude of adventure, not knowing what we will find, letting each day shape itself, we invite Hermes to accompany us—to be part of us.” Divination, synchronicity, and foretelling the future all involve psychic phenomena, and they are found in conjunction with other tricksters as well.

  Sexuality is salient in the life of Hermes, as it is with many tricksters. Norman Brown notes that Hermes is the patron of trickery in sexual seduction. Lopez-Pedraza gives extended discussion of Hermes’ unrestrained sexuality, and Bolen succinctly reports: “Regardless of his sexual orientation, a Hermes man is likely to have a bisexual attitude—isn’t judgmental or threatened by any tendencies in himself.” This is another instance of boundary blurring.

  Deception is a notable quality of Hermes. His deceits are clever, even charming. On the day he was born, he cunningly stole and killed some of Apollo’s cattle. When confronted, he denied doing so, with the cute alibi that he was too young and tender to possibly have done the deed. Bolen tells us that: “Hermes as trickster is the archetype embodied as a charming sociopath, who feels no qualms about lying or taking whatever he wants”13 and that: “As a trickster, he is a ‘con artist’ who gains the confidence of his victim[s] and then fleeces them, or a selective and imaginative thief, or the imposter. For example, we read of Hermes men who have posed as doctors, fooling hospital staff for a long time before being exposed.” Speaking of the Hermes boy, Bolen cautions: “He needs to be caught in the lie or the act and taught the difference between truth and make believe, (because he can move from reality to imagination readily, not examining the boundaries).”15

  Blurring the boundary between imagination and reality is an important function of Hermes. Both psi and deception blur the same distinction. Others have given brief hints of this. For instance, Norman Brown notes that Hermes’ trickery is not simply “a rational device”; it is more subtle than that and is shown “as a manifestation of magical power.” Thus Hermes blurs the line between trickery and real magic. This is a confusing and disconcerting idea that is rarely given serious, extended treatment. It is typically regarded as so preposterous as to be beneath consideration, but later chapters will provide a number of examples and extended discussion of it.

  Eshu-Elegba

  Eshu-Elegba is the trickster god of the Yoruba of West Africa, and he displays remarkable similarities to Hermes. There are variant designations and spellings for this deity, and many distinguish between Eshu (or Esu) and Elegba (or Legba). But the two blend into each other; they are not completely distinct. I will fo
llow Joan Wescott in referring to this deity as Eshu-Elegba because the combination helps emphasize the blurred boundaries that typify trickster gods.

  Like Hermes, Eshu-Elegba is associated with boundaries, and his symbol is a mud pillar. Wescott reports: “This symbol, never kept inside houses, is placed instead at doorways, where it serves not only as a protection but also to remind men of boundaries,” and it “is placed wherever trouble may break out … and also before the divination board to symbolize his presence in all transition states.” We are further told that: “As an explorer, and in his concern with transition states, it is fitting that his symbols and also representations of him are present during If a divination. In Yoruba cosmology If a, the divine oracle, and Elegba are seen as counterparts; both are mediators between gods and men.” The connection with magical divination practices is confirmed by Robert Pelton’s lengthy study, The Trickster in West Africa (1980). Pelton even notes that “Eshu is pure synchronic-ity.”20 Thus the link with the paranormal is explicit, and these passages contain direct mentions of transition states, divination, synchronicity, and mediation. All are recurring themes in this book.

  Sexuality is prominent in the accounts of Eshu-Elegba. Wescott reports: “The most important symbol of Elegba sculpture, however, is the long-tailed hair-dress sometimes carved as a phallus … The priests of Eshu wear their hair in this fashion … a very high proportion of ethnographic evidence points to an association of long hair with libidinous energy, with power and aggression, with unrestrained sexuality, and with uninhibited instinct. These are indeed all qualities of Elegba,” and she notes “It is in fact Eshu who is held responsible for erotic dreams and for adulterous or other illicit sexual relations.”22

  Disruption is a typical trickster characteristic, and Eshu-Elegba exemplifies it, as Wescott notes: “He is present whenever there is trouble and also wherever there is change and transition,” and “His unscrupulous tricks define him as a creature who has no regard for

  authority.”24

  Eshu-Elegba, like Hermes, is involved in communication between the divine realm and humanity, but their communication function involves more than that. Foundations of communication are tied to the trickster. In fact hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation, i.e., the determination of meaning. That discipline was named after Hermes.25 There are parallels with Eshu-Elegba. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., chairman of the Afro-American studies program at Harvard University, developed a theory of literary criticism based upon Eshu-Elegba, focussing on the problems of interpretation. All this brings us rather far afield from what most people might expect in considering trickster stories. In order to better grasp this, some background in semiotics, structuralism, literary theory, and deconstruction-ism will be needed. They will be presented much later. They are usually seen as having relevance only to analyses of stories and texts. But their implications are far greater.

  The Spirit Mercurius

  The Spirit Mercurius of alchemy is another trickster figure, and much of what is known about him is due to the explorations of psychologist Carl Jung. Jung began his study of alchemy in mid-life, and his concern was not with precursors to chemistry but rather with transformation, especially in the unconscious. Jung attempted to translate the images, symbols, and concepts of ancient alchemical texts into

  modern terms and place them in a rational framework. He was fortunate to have had encounters with similar imagery of his own.

  Mercurius is closely related to Hermes, and Jung specifically notes that Mercurius is “an evasive trickster” and that “his main characteristic is duplicity.”27 Like Wakdjunkaga, Mercurius has associations with excrement, and Jung reports: “The texts remind us again and again that Mercurius is ‘found in the dung-heaps,’” and “Pictures in old manuscripts of excretory acts, including vomiting, likewise belong to this sphere.”

  Sexuality is prominent, and Jung states: “His lasciviousness is borne out by an illustration in the Tripus chimicus of Sendivogius, where he appears on a triumphal chariot drawn by a cock and a hen, and behind him is a naked pair of embracing lovers. In this connection may also be mentioned the numerous somewhat obscene pictures of the coniunctio in old prints, often preserved merely as pornographica. 30

  Like some of the other trickster gods, Jung notes that Mercurius is “a redeeming psychopomp,” i.e., a guide of souls. He is also a link between two worlds, a mediator who dwells in the realm betwixt and between. With Mercurius, transformation is explicit, and Jung notes that: “He is the process by which the lower and material is transformed into the higher and spiritual, and vice versa.” Transformation is, of course, nearly synonymous with transition, a recurring theme in trickster literature.

  “Opposites” is a common subject in trickster analyses, and a number of Jung’s passages reflect the idea, e.g., “Mercurius consists of all conceivable opposites” and “He is the devil … and [also] God’s reflection in physical nature,” and “He is both material and spiritual,” and “Mercurius truly consists of the most extreme opposites; on the one hand he is undoubtedly akin to the godhead, on the other he is found in sewers.” Jung states that: “He is thus quite obviously a duality, but is named a unity in spite of the fact that his innumerable inner contradictions can dramatically fly apart into an equal number of disparate and apparently independent figures.” Volume 14 of Jung’s collected works is entitled Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy. That volume runs to over 700 pages, indicating the importance he gave to opposites. Despite the lengthy exposition, I find it nearly incomprehensible. This notion of opposites can be difficult to grasp because it indicates internal contradictions, and in the forthcoming pages, I will illustrate the idea with a number of specific examples. Other scholars have also addressed the topic, and notable is the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, the French anthropologist who was the premier figure in the French structuralist movement. The coincidence of opposites is also found in discussions of Neoplatonism.

  The Spirit Mercurius was associated with both gods and dung heaps. This appears odd, but it is not unique. Abusive language often contains scatological references alongside those to deities. This association signals a primordial nexus of the trickster, communication, and deity, though the link may appear happenstance. It does not seem logical or plausible, but British structural anthropologist Edmund Leach has addressed it, and that will be covered much later in this book when literary theory and taboo are discussed. I inject this example simply to alert the reader that the trickster facilitates unexpected connections, including some that can induce intellectual vertigo.

  Biblical Tricksters

  Religion professor Susan Niditch analyzed several Biblical characters in her book Underdogs and Tricksters (1987). She included the stories of Abram and his wife Sarai (Genesis 12:10—17) and Isaac and his wife Rebekah (Genesis: 26:1—17). In both instances, the families faced famine and were thus forced to flee their homelands. The wives were beautiful, and the husbands worried that foreign peoples would kill them and take their wives. So each husband presented his wife as his sister, and Abram allowed the Pharaoh, and Isaac allowed Abimelech, to take his wife as a sexual partner. Trickster elements are seen in these stories. The wandering (boundary crossing) and deceit, especially in the sexual sphere, are trickster qualities. The forced moves due to famine resulted in a loss of status, and status reduction is often seen in conjunction with tricksters. Additionally, supernatural communication plays a central part in the stories as Yahweh spoke to both Abram and to Abimelech. Niditch acknowledged that the Old Testament Biblical tricksters are relatively sedate versions of the general type, and they do not have the extensive narrative accounts of many tricksters, yet they share qualities with them.

  Divine deceit raises problematic theological questions. J. J. M. Roberts of Princeton Theological Seminary published an article entitled “38Does God Lie?” (1988). His conclusion was: sometimes, yes. Following that lead, Nancy Bowen,
a graduate student at that seminary completed a dissertation entitled “The Role of YHWH as Deceiver in True and False Prophecy (Old Testament)” (1994). She showed that Near Eastern texts from antiquity recognized the un-trustworthiness of the gods in divine-human communication. The ancients realized that prophecy and divination were not always reliable. Bowen explicitly drew upon analyses of the trickster, and the abstract of her dissertation states that those ancient writings “share a view that YHWH acts as deceiver in a time of social and historical transition and that YHWH’s deception serves as a means to disrupt the present social situation in order to bring about a transformation of the social order.”39

  Other Tricksters

  The designation of trickster is not limited to mythology and folklore; some actual persons merit the title. Fools and clowns are subclasses of tricksters and share most essential qualities, including the association with supernatural powers. There is a long history of professional buffoons, known for their wit, gluttony, and sometimes extremely crude jokes, yet honored at the very highest levels of society, and a number of eminent ones were known for their prophecy. Their connection with the paranormal is unmistakable. In fact Enid Wels-ford’s classic The Fool: His Social and Literary History (1935) has one chapter entitled “Origins: The Fool as Poet and Clairvoyant.” William Wellford’s volume The Fool and His Scepter: A Study in Clowns and Jesters and Their Audience (1969) demonstrated that fools were associated with chaos, the primitive, and also with the magical and the supernatural. Grete de Francesco in his The Power of the Charlatan (1939) noted that charlatans in the Middle Ages and Renaissance often claimed special alchemical knowledge, were wanderers and gluttons, and were considered to possess the power of prophecy. The Harlequin figure is yet another with trickster qualities.