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# tactiq.io free youtube transcript # The Psychology of The Trickster # https://www.youtube.com/watch/38hwk0BgGNU 00:00:00.000 There is perhaps no figure in literature more fascinating than the trickster, appearing in 00:00:04.960 various forms in the folklore of many cultures. He is different from the f igure of the fool, who 00:00:10.240 is harmless but also naïve, and many times ends up harming himself. The fool walks joyfully dreaming 00:00:17.040 about all his adventures, unaware that if he takes just one more step, he would fall down a cliff. 00:00:23.440 Trickster is witty and deceitful. He is the timeless root of all the picaresque 00:00:27.840 creations of world literature, and is not reducible to one single literary entity. 00:00:33.040 Trickster tales have existed since ancient times, and has been said to be at the very foundation 00:00:38.720 of civilisation and culture. They belong to the oldest expressions of mankind. 00:00:44.932 Tricksters are the breakers of rules, agents of mischief, 00:00:48.400 masters of deceit, and boundary crossers.“[T]he best way to describe trickster is to say 00:00:54.640 simply that the boundary is where he will be found – sometimes drawing the line, sometimes crossing 00:01:00.560 it, sometimes erasing or moving it, but always there, the god of the threshold in all its forms.” 00:01:08.306 Tricksters are always “on the road”, they are the lords of in-between. While we endeavour to 00:01:13.440 trace the trickster to his origin, he continues to play his tricks on us, always evasive, always 00:01:19.440 crossing our conceptual boundaries of definition in which we try to confine him. Perhaps here is 00:01:25.040 a first lesson to be learned from the trickster: whatever we do, he is always one step ahead of us. 00:01:31.920 The victims of people such as con men and snake oil salesmen, are those who are unconscious of 00:01:37.840 trickster – they have been tricked by their own naivety, greed or self deception. We have to be a 00:01:43.920 little tricky, to guard against being tricked.There can also be people who really believe 00:01:49.520 that they are helping others, but are in fact tricking them. In this case, both perpetrator 00:01:55.200 and victim are unconscious of trickster. Trickster is disruptive only when it operates unconsciously 00:02:01.280 in our lives as an autonomous entity.Another way the trickster can appear 00:02:06.080 is as one who is not deceiving but telling you the truth, but we likely won’t believe him. 00:02:12.105 In medieval times, the jester was known to speak the truth without losing his head. 00:02:17.172 He was the only person who received permission from the king to be allowed to tell it like it is, 00:02:22.480 and was an important figure in the royal courts. To make his special privileges known, 00:02:27.840 he wore a cap ‘n’ bells and a fool’s sceptre, mirroring the king’s crown and sceptre. 00:02:33.740 Trickster is present in us as soon as we gain awareness of our ego in our childhood. It is the 00:02:38.400 most primitive progression to the hero myth, but a necessary step towards becoming mature and whole. 00:02:45.293 “The Trickster cycle corresponds to the earliest and least developed period of 00:02:49.280 life. Trickster is a figure whose physical appetites dominate his behaviour; he has 00:02:54.240 the mentality of an infant. Lacking any purpose beyond the gratification of his primary needs, 00:02:59.760 he is cruel, cynical, and unfeeling… This figure, which at the outset assumes the form of an animal, 00:03:06.560 passes from one mischievous exploit to another. But, as he does so, a change comes over him. 00:03:12.880 At the end of his rogue’s progress he is beginning to take on the physical likeness of a grown man.” 00:03:19.768 Trickster rises against the restrictions and authorities. Just like the id, the unconscious 00:03:25.040 instinctual component that is present at birth, the source of instant gratification, 00:03:30.160 of bodily needs and wants, emotional impulses, and drives – that is in constant conflict with 00:03:35.600 the superego, the internalisation of cultural rules, which helps us act in socially acceptable 00:03:41.520 ways. Tricksters usually have an enormous libido, and often present scatological themes. 00:03:48.000 An early and innocent form of trickster is parents playing 00:03:51.440 peekaboo with their children to make them laugh.Trickster comes to us when we are too serious, 00:03:57.200 rigid, when we follow rules and schedules, and when we lack a sense of humour. He causes us 00:04:03.120 to forget what we intended to remember, say things we later regret, or appear in the form 00:04:08.320 of a Freudian slip, and cause laughter.Perhaps no philosopher has written 00:04:13.040 about the importance of laughter as eloquently as Nietzsche. He writes: 00:04:17.760 “I would really allow myself to order the ranks of philosophers according to the rank of their 00:04:22.640 laughter - right up to those who are capable of golden laughter. And assuming that the gods also 00:04:28.160 practise philosophy… I don't doubt that in the process they know how to laugh in a superhuman 00:04:33.600 and new way - and at the expense of all serious things! Gods delight in making fun: 00:04:39.280 even where sacred actions are concerned, it seems they cannot stop laughing.” 00:04:45.360 Laughter mediates between the sacred and the profane, where trickster resides. 00:04:50.000 Laughter represents an attitude toward life and toward oneself, especially, laughing at oneself. 00:04:57.120 To laugh is deep inner work, it breaks through our persona, and opens us up to a profound message. 00:05:04.160 Trickster pinches us and tells us that life is a play. We are the actors on a vast stage 00:05:10.240 following a predetermined script. However, he also tells us that we don’t necessarily have 00:05:14.880 to follow the script, that we can make our own, improvise and not be afraid of making mistakes, 00:05:20.560 but rather laugh at them. We have the freedom and responsibility to do so. This is a core aspect of 00:05:26.560 existentialist philosophy which teaches us to become authentic and discover who we truly are. 00:05:32.645 We can deceive others or be deceived, but we can never deceive ourselves. 00:05:37.040 Trickster forces us to look at ourselves in the mirror, and to the persona that 00:05:40.720 we are putting on to impress others, to the detriment of our instinctual needs, 00:05:45.120 our creativity and playfulness that is so vital to give us the energy that we need in our daily life. 00:05:51.594 Trickster is against any authority, as he wants to do what’s best for him, 00:05:55.920 and he is never going to put someone else before himself. He pokes holes in rigid 00:06:00.720 boundaries and calls into question fundamental assumptions about the way the world is organised, 00:06:06.160 and reveals the possibility of transforming them (even if often for ignoble ends). It is the figure 00:06:12.240 that pushes us to question those in power, and the limitations, and rules that are imposed on us. 00:06:17.920 His energy sweeps in and delivers hard knocks in an attempt to wake us up as individuals and as a 00:06:24.320 culture. He steps in and points things out, asking a culture to look at its own folly, 00:06:29.840 addressing hot topics with wit and humour, shining a light into shadowy areas and bring 00:06:35.280 public attention to the underbelly of society.Comedians help deliver the trickster’s message, 00:06:41.120 which can often be at the cost of their own mental stability. Comedians are important figures and 00:06:46.320 help society as a whole. When comedy is supressed, there are severe consequences – since the 00:06:52.480 trickster will remain unconscious. However, the trickster will find a way out, and if one ignores 00:06:58.240 him, he will appear in the form of a neurosis.Doubt is a precursor to change and trickster is 00:07:04.480 all about change. The problem then is not doubt; the problem is fear of change. Confronting the 00:07:10.960 risk of doubt is necessary for any individual to grow. As an agent of change, Trickster 00:07:17.040 triggers our fear of change and is an uneasy yet essential companion on the path of growth. 00:07:23.680 “[T]he origins, liveliness, and durability of culture require that there be space for 00:07:29.040 figures whose function is to uncover and disrupt the very things that cultures are based on.” 00:07:35.600 The totality of life consists of order and chaos, and the spirit of this disorder is the trickster. 00:07:42.320 He is the Dionysian god of wine and music that connects us to instinctual forces that lie outside 00:07:48.560 the bounds of all things civilised, and who seeks to break conventions and take us into wild, 00:07:53.920 untamed places. Nietzsche, who called himself the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, wrote: 00:08:00.800 “I say to you: one must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.” 00:08:07.040 Without chaos, society loses its culture, the system becomes flawed, stale and bureaucratic. 00:08:14.080 Therefore, trickster not only destroys old values, but also creates new values. He 00:08:19.520 reshapes the surrounding world with inner magic, continually weaving old into new. 00:08:25.559 “[I]n spite of all their disruptive behaviour, tricksters are regularly honoured as the creators 00:08:30.800 of culture. They are imagined not only to have stolen certain essential goods from heaven 00:08:36.000 and given them to the race but to have gone on and helped shape this world so as to make 00:08:41.440 it a hospitable place for human life.”Apart from creation, trickster teaches us 00:08:47.680 that we all have the capacity for destruction.“Trickster is at one and the same time creator 00:08:53.280 and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes and who is always duped himself.” 00:08:59.760 The person who appears to be too kind, or pure on the outside, and is supressing his true emotions, 00:09:06.320 may suddenly become self-destructive or engage in sinful behaviours. Intuitively, we may feel 00:09:13.120 that there’s something “off” about such a person, and that he is putting on a persona. It is as if 00:09:18.560 trickster is compelling him and insisting that he do the very thing that consciousness prohibits, 00:09:24.240 and also tricking him into revealing that about himself. 00:09:27.520 One shouldn’t try to live at the extreme end, but rather achieve a balance 00:09:32.000 and make peace with one’s dark aspects. The psyche compensates to achieve equilibrium and wholeness. 00:09:39.601 Because trickster disrupts convention, he is commonly cast in a negative light. However, 00:09:45.280 this is wrong, since he knows neither good nor evil, yet he is responsible for both. He 00:09:51.360 has both a light side, and a dark side. Though, he always presents an element of playfulness, 00:09:57.840 that is what defines trickster.Trickster possesses no values, 00:10:01.680 moral or social, is at the mercy of his passions and appetites, yet through his actions all values 00:10:08.000 come into being. His creative cleverness amazes us and keeps alive the possibility of transcending 00:10:14.160 the social restrictions we regularly encounter.Unlike the devil, who is an agent of evil, 00:10:20.880 trickster is amoral, not immoral. Morality is a structure of society and ego-consciousness, the 00:10:28.000 unconscious does not play by our rules. Trickster epitomises the paradox of the human condition. He 00:10:34.560 occupies the peculiar unity of the liminal: that which is neither this nor that, and yet is both. 00:10:40.960 As humans, we struggle to understand paradox, contradiction, and to grasp the possibility 00:10:47.280 that unity can underlie apparent duality.Trickster is often identified with specific 00:10:53.680 animals, taking the form of a fox, raven, monkey, coyote, hare, or spider, among others. 00:11:00.960 He possess no well-defined and fixed form. As a shapeshifter, he is just like liquid, 00:11:06.960 escapable. Trickster can cleverly show up in any guise and imitate the form of other animals, 00:11:13.680 yet we can identify trickster energy by the very nature of its changeability 00:11:18.400 and its incendiary actions. Whatever form he takes, he is a primordial being of the 00:11:24.160 same order as the gods and heroes of mythology.In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a trickster 00:11:30.560 who stole fire from the gods to give it to mankind, to the displeasure of the gods, 00:11:35.920 for mankind was not ready to use this principle in a creative, unselfish manner. However, this is 00:11:42.800 precisely what made us human in the first place, as fire was essential for the evolution of man. 00:11:49.040 Here we find a paradox, that which is necessary for the progress of the human species, is also 00:11:55.280 capable of destroying us. One may think here of artificial intelligence or the singularity. 00:12:01.680 When trickster is punished, he is replaced by stupidity. Prometheus is punished by the gods and 00:12:07.680 is replaced by his brother Epimetheus. Prometheus is the forethinker, who thinks before he acts, 00:12:13.840 while Epimetheus is the afterthinker, who acts before he thinks. One might almost say 00:12:19.280 that in them a single primitive being, sly and stupid at once, has been split into a duality. 00:12:25.920 Another trickster figure is Br’er Rabbit, a character from African American folktales who 00:12:31.600 is portrayed as an underdog and is weaker than his opponents, thus gaining the audience’s sympathy. 00:12:37.680 In the stories, he gets himself into trouble through his own mischievous nature, and then 00:12:42.560 must use his cleverness and ability to deceive and outsmart larger and stronger animals, take control 00:12:48.960 of the situation and get himself out of trouble.Anansi the spider is an African trickster. He is 00:12:55.840 a morally ambiguous character who fools humans and gods alike. His tricks are enhanced by his ability 00:13:02.160 to change form and take whatever shape best suits his escapade. Yet some also cast him 00:13:08.080 as divine creator who spun the entire world into being, bringing stories and wisdom to the world. 00:13:15.040 Similarly, in Native American culture, Iktomi is a spider-trickster spirit. 00:13:20.160 He was once Wisdom, but was stripped of the title because of his troublemaking ways. 00:13:25.040 His malicious plans often failed, so these tales were usually told as a way to teach lessons to 00:13:31.440 the youth. He gives the dreamcatcher to people for protection. Folk tales unveil how he is respected, 00:13:38.480 feared, and mocked. He can use strings to control humans like puppets, and has the 00:13:43.440 power to make potions that change gods. According to a prophecy, his web would spread over the land. 00:13:50.000 This can be interpreted as the telephone network, and then the Internet – the world-wide web. 00:13:56.080 Iktomi has been considered from time immemorial to be the patron of new technology. 00:14:01.200 The myth is a way for the psyche to talk about itself. Many of the Native American people 00:14:06.480 consider Iktomi to be the god of the Europeans, who (they claim) seem to readily follow his 00:14:12.720 bizarre behaviour and self-entrapping tricks.Coyote is another important trickster 00:14:18.240 figure in Native American folklore. The European equivalent is Reynard the Fox. 00:14:24.000 One of the most popular figures in Norse mythology is Loki, the trickster God. By trickery, 00:14:30.320 and mischief, he causes the death of Baldur, the most beloved of all the gods. Loki is soon found 00:14:36.480 to be guilty and is punished, and the gods knew that this event was the foreshadowing of Ragnarök, 00:14:42.880 the downfall and death of the gods, and of the very cosmos they maintained. In other words, 00:14:48.480 if one ties down the trickster, that will destroy the world. 00:14:53.040 The Greek deity Hermes is a troublemaker and thief, as well as a beneficent creator who 00:14:59.200 brought fire and music, among other things, to the human realm. His divine status, however, 00:15:05.280 is unclear at his birth. He is born as an outsider, but wants to be an insider. 00:15:10.800 Through his early exploits as a trickster, such as stealing Apollo’s cattle, he wins 00:15:15.840 the admiration of Zeus and an uncontested place on Mount Olympus, the home of the Greek gods. Hermes 00:15:22.320 is a divine trickster, psychopomp, and messenger of the gods, negotiating the boundary between man, 00:15:28.800 and god, matter and spirit. He is the only Godwho can traverse all three realms: Mount Olympus, 00:15:36.640 earth, and the underworld. And perhaps even, as mediator between the dream world and waking life. 00:15:43.680 Hermes is a third way of life, besides the Apollonian rational and the Dionysian 00:15:48.720 irrational. He is the God of jokes and journeys, the tricky guide of souls. 00:15:54.560 When enemies invaded his city, Hermes dressed as a simple shepherd and carried a ram around the city, 00:16:00.960 and wherever he walked he created safety. He showed people that he was their ally in any battle 00:16:07.200 they might encounter, and protector in any danger. This reminds one of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, 00:16:14.080 carrying the lost sheep back to the flock. The trickster god also has a protective energy. 00:16:20.800 Many tribes wear masks and abandon their personality, becoming possessed by the spirit 00:16:26.480 of the trickster. Rituals are an important element of trickster. If the ritual setting is missing, 00:16:32.240 trickster is missing. The behaviour of the tribes become eccentric, comic, and rude. However, the 00:16:38.720 sacredness connects these traits with fertility, wellness, and joy. In the ambiguous character of 00:16:45.120 the trickster, we can observe the close connection between the realms of the sacred and the profane. 00:16:51.040 Trickster strikes a deeper human chord. He performs a fundamental cultural work, and in 00:16:56.720 understanding the trickster better, we understand ourselves better, in the unconscious aspects of 00:17:02.000 ourselves that respond to the trickster’s unsettling and transformative behaviour. 00:17:07.040 When we describe trickster phenomena we are always describing aspects of ourselves. He is a speculum 00:17:13.920 mentis, a mirror into the mind – common to all mankind, which at a certain period in our history, 00:17:20.720 gave us a picture of the world and of ourselves. The problem is primarily a psychological one, 00:17:27.200 an attempt by man to solve his problems inward and outward. 00:17:32.080 Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung calls the figure of the trickster an 00:17:37.680 archetype. It is part of the collective unconscious, 00:17:41.440 the inherited and universal structure present in everyone, which is deeper than the layer of 00:17:46.560 the personal unconscious, that is formed by the experience gathered through life. 00:17:51.440 Archetypes are primordial patterns or imprints of the experience of our ancestors, the primary 00:17:57.280 source of psychic symbols, which attract energy and structure it, and lead ultimately to the 00:18:03.040 creation of civilisation and culture. Trickster is everywhere, he is an eternal state of mind. 00:18:10.240 Archetypes appear cross-culturally as images, symbols, and motifs found recurrently in myth, 00:18:16.800 religion, and art throughout history. There are numerous examples of archetypes such as The Wise 00:18:23.200 Old Man, The Great Mother, The Hero, and The Trickster, to name a few. Trickster is the 00:18:29.280 archetype who attacks all archetypes. Jung stated that there are as many archetypes, as typical 00:18:35.840 situations there are in life. We cannot observe them directly, but they have a great impact on 00:18:41.280 our personal activities, and way of thinking. It is the deep and dark place where impulses 00:18:47.280 and instincts emerge. Archetypes are organs of the soul, the tissue of the structure of the 00:18:53.200 unconscious. They are living personalities within us, autonomous, and numinous. If they get enough 00:18:59.840 energy, archetypes can have control over a person.The unconscious is older than consciousness. It is 00:19:07.520 primordial, from which consciousness arises. Thus, our conscious life “dresses” and guides 00:19:13.600 our actions, but it is impossible for something to appear in consciousness 00:19:17.600 without having roots in the unconscious.The mythological features of the trickster 00:19:23.280 extend even to the highest regions of man’s spiritual development. In the early Middle ages, 00:19:28.880 strange customs were taking place. Jung writes:“In the very midst of divine service masquerades 00:19:35.440 with grotesque faces, disguised as women, lions, and mummers, performed their dances, sang indecent 00:19:43.200 songs in the choir, ate their greasy food from a corner of the altar near the priest celebrating 00:19:49.120 mass, got out their games of dice, burned a stinking incense made of old shoe leather, 00:19:55.200 and ran and hopped about all over the church.”These pagan rituals were uncommonly popular 00:20:01.840 and it required considerable time and effort to free the church from them. 00:20:06.400 The phantom of the trickster, however, continues to haunt the mythology of all ages. Jung writes: 00:20:12.880 “He is obviously a “psychologem,” an archetypal psychic structure of extreme antiquity. 00:20:19.120 In his clearest manifestations he is a faithful reflection of an absolutely undifferentiated human 00:20:25.520 consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal level.” 00:20:31.302 The trickster myth reflects an earlier, rudimentary stage of consciousness – a 00:20:35.840 collective personification that is the product of an aggregate of individuals, 00:20:40.400 and is welcomed by each individual as something known to him, which would not be the case 00:20:45.840 if it were just an individual outgrowth. If the myth were nothing but a historical remnant, 00:20:51.040 one would have to ask why it has not long since vanished into the great rubbish-heap of the past, 00:20:56.880 and why it continues to make its influence felt on the highest levels of civilisation. 00:21:02.080 The trickster points back to a primitive stage of consciousness which existed before the birth 00:21:07.200 of the myth. Only when our consciousness reached a higher level could we detach the earlier state 00:21:12.880 of ourselves and say anything about it.“He [the trickster] is a forerunner of the 00:21:18.400 saviour, and, like him, God, man, and animal at once. He is both subhuman and superhuman, 00:21:26.480 a bestial and divine being, whose chief and most alarming characteristic is his unconsciousness... 00:21:33.280 He is so unconscious of himself that his body is not a unity, and his two hands fight each other.” 00:21:40.982 The trickster is a primitive “cosmic” being of divine-animal nature, 00:21:44.960 on the hand superior to man because of his superhuman qualities, 00:21:49.200 and on the other hand inferior to him because of his unconsciousness. 00:21:53.680 The myth of the trickster, like many other myths, is supposed to have a therapeutic effect. 00:21:59.280 It holds the earlier low intellectual and moral level before the eyes of the 00:22:04.000 more highly developed individual, so that he shall not forget how things looked yesterday. 00:22:10.000 “The so-called civilised man has forgotten the trickster. He remembers him only figuratively 00:22:16.080 and metaphorically, when, irritated by his own ineptitude, he speaks of fate playing 00:22:21.120 tricks on him or of things being bewitched. He never suspects that his own hidden and 00:22:27.040 apparently harmless shadow has qualities whose dangerousness exceeds his wildest dreams.” 00:22:34.480 For Jung, the trickster forms part of the shadow, both of which are dangerous 00:22:38.800 to the extent that we keep them hidden from ourselves and project it onto others. He writes: 00:22:44.480 “The trickster is a collective shadow figure, a summation of all the inferior traits of character 00:22:49.920 in individuals. And since the individual shadow is never absent as a component of personality, 00:22:55.840 the collective figure can construct itself out of it continually. Not always, of course, 00:23:01.600 as a mythological figure, but, in consequence of the increasing repression and neglect of 00:23:06.480 the original mythologems, as a corresponding projection on other social groups and nations.” 00:23:13.774 The collective trickster energy is present in someone who looks like a leader, but is really 00:23:19.280 the great pretender, one who convinces the people by promising truths, but delivering lies. 00:23:25.680 This figure appears, disappears, and reappears – throughout all of human history. 00:23:31.760 We think that the danger is the one who’s trying to break into our house, but little do we know of 00:23:36.640 the dangers of the unknown and repressed part of ourselves, which causes us to lose our own self. 00:23:44.072 “Ourself, behind ourself concealed, should startle most.” 00:23:48.960 The trickster accompanies us into the rabbit hole, to the depths of our unknown self, 00:23:53.920 to the valley of the shadow of death. However scary it is, trickster helps us to find depths 00:23:59.840 in ourselves that we didn’t know were there.While the shadow helps us know our morality, the 00:24:06.480 trickster is concerned with helping us reduce the sin of pride. He keeps us from being too confident 00:24:11.920 in ourselves, since hubris forecasts a fall.Trickster is important in individuation 00:24:18.000 because he helps deflate ego inflation: when we become controlling, arrogant or narcissistic. 00:24:24.560 The healthy ego is our sense of who we are, serving as a bridge to the inner world. 00:24:30.240 “The trickster is the ego demolitions expert who helps us become more realistic about our 00:24:35.760 psychological limitations and ultimately our spiritual limitlessness. This is an energy 00:24:41.760 within ourselves and within the universe that humbles us, topples our ego, upsets our plans, 00:24:48.240 demonstrates to us how little our wishes matter, and dissolves the forms that no longer serve us 00:24:54.800 though we may be clinging to them for dear life.”When the ego is at its height, the trickster takes 00:25:01.280 a little pin and bursts our “bubble of greatness”, and as we start to see the reality of things, 00:25:07.840 everything that we thought to be meaningful (power, 00:25:10.880 money, fame, pleasure) becomes meaningless.Trickster helps to humble us down, and tells 00:25:16.960 us that our power is limited in the vast universe. This surrender is a necessity for self-realisation 00:25:24.160 and a connection with the divine.Instead of the great helping the lowly, 00:25:28.480 trickster reverses this and disguises himself as someone very lowly, but this lowly person 00:25:33.840 overcomes the so-called great person, one who has an inflated ego. The bible has a passage 00:25:40.080 that expresses this trickster energy clearly:“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the 00:25:45.920 world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the 00:25:51.760 things which are mighty. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, 00:25:56.880 hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.” 00:26:04.536 No matter how lowly you are, or how utterly useless you might feel in life. 00:26:09.200 There is always something in the higher Self or God that still calls you. 00:26:14.766 In alchemy, the trickster archetype manifests as the elusive symbol of Mercurius, 00:26:20.320 the Roman equivalent of Hermes, who is fluid like quicksilver. Jung writes: 00:26:25.920 “A curious combination of typical trickster motifs can be found in the alchemical figure 00:26:31.040 of Mercurius; for instance, his fondness for sly jokes and malicious pranks, 00:26:36.640 his powers as a shape-shifter, his dual nature, half animal, half divine, his exposure to all 00:26:43.680 kinds of tortures, and – last but not least – his approximation to the f igure of a saviour.” 00:26:50.720 Mercurius masterfully holds the duality of spirit and matter, and is associated with 00:26:56.320 the lapis philosophorum (philosophers’ stone) or the Self. He is paradoxically associated to Christ 00:27:03.840 and to Lucifer, the light-bringer.“In comparison with the purity and 00:27:09.120 unity of the Christ symbol, Mercurius-lapis is ambiguous, dark, paradoxical and thoroughly pagan. 00:27:16.800 It therefore represents a part of the psyche which was certainly not moulded by Christianity 00:27:22.400 and can on no account be expressed by the symbol “Christ”. On the contrary, as we have seen, in 00:27:28.960 many ways it points to the devil, who is known at times to disguise himself as an angel of light.” 00:27:36.480 The paradoxical nature of Mercurius reflects an important aspect of the Self, the fact that it is 00:27:42.320 essentially a union of opposites, and indeed can be nothing else if it is to represent any kind of 00:27:47.920 totality. The elusive philosophers’ stone, the central symbol of alchemy, which allows one to 00:27:53.920 turn base matter into gold, is a product of a real trickster, Mercurius, who drove the 00:28:00.240 alchemists to despair. For Jung, the philosophers’ stone is not found externally, but in ourselves. 00:28:07.550 The trickster, in the form of the alchemical Mercurius, can be said to contain the totality 00:28:12.640 of the psyche, both the unconscious and the conscious mind, the known and the unknown, 00:28:17.840 and the light and dark within us all.The psyche seeks balance, not staying in extremes, 00:28:24.240 but a combination of opposites. The transcendent function in alchemy is where the psyche finds 00:28:29.680 the midpoint. This occurs when the time is just right, that is, in synchronicity. 00:28:35.920 In a way, “not enough” or “too much” are the trickster, the extremes are how we get tricked. 00:28:42.240 However, trickster is trying to point us towards the centre, to the path of individuation. 00:28:48.880 This reminds one of what Aristotle said about virtue, that it is a point between a deficiency 00:28:54.480 and an excess of a trait. For instance, the golden mean of confidence is between self-deprecation 00:29:01.520 and vanity. As one becomes more balanced in life, one also reaches psychic wholeness. 00:29:08.000 Tricksters are always on the scene, attempting to show culture its shadow and the inevitable changes 00:29:14.480 that are afoot. In mythological terms, the battle between the forces of creation and destruction, 00:29:20.800 as typified by trickster polarity, are as alive and well in the modern world as they were for 00:29:26.400 our ancestors. Trickster makes its way to the world stage via the psyche of the individual. 00:29:32.240 We must come to terms with inner conflicts in order to gain more clarity about the outer 00:29:37.600 conflicts we seem, as a culture, to be mired in.The integration of the trickster archetype 00:29:43.680 allows us to go from being ruled by our own self-centred ego to a new way of living, 00:29:49.200 in which one has integrity and relatedness. It allows us to become aware of our true emotions, 00:29:55.520 behaviours, and thoughts, that our unconscious persona is hiding, and without which there is 00:30:00.880 no individuation at all. In other words, trickster allows us to discover our Self, 00:30:07.440 the totality of the personality which unites the opposites of consciousness and the unconscious and 00:30:13.440 holds everything together in balance and unity.Trickster attempts to wake us up and in the 00:30:19.920 process, shake us to the core of our being. Perhaps this is because he embodies fundamental 00:30:26.320 patterns that we fiercely struggle with and desperately need to reconcile within ourselves 00:30:32.000 and our world. Through negotiating and disrupting conventions and boundaries, 00:30:37.120 trickster broadens the realm of human potential. While trickster may bring us difficult lessons, 00:30:42.400 he is also the force that allows us to imagine and create entirely new possibilities. 00:30:49.360 “In the history of the collective as in the history of the individual, everything 00:30:53.280 depends on the development of consciousness. This gradually brings liberation from imprisonment in 00:30:59.920 unconsciousness, and [the trickster] is therefore a bringer of light as well as of healing.”