Trickster for beginners

I  have to write about Trickster as Loki and others have been knocking on my mind's door for a while leaving me little choice. 


Trickster is a label for a group of beings sharing certain attributes.  In a hard polytheistic  model all tricksters are different but alike, in a soft polytheistic model all tricksters are aspects of an Ur-Trickster, a super Bugs Bunny  chewing a carrot, in an energy model Trickster would be a form of energy, in the subconscious model the trickster is an archetype, possible linked to the Shadow, in an information model the trickster would be a piece of maverick cosmic code.

Sometimes Trickster is used  as a generic name and sometimes used as if Trickster were an entity in itself.  Considering “Trickster” to be an entity  implicitly suggests all tricksters are  aspects of this entity, the soft polytheistic model. Many  who surrender their faith, be it Christian or other, start by considering all  gods as aspects of a  single god. Many do not manage the step from monotheism to polytheism.  As one who believes the universe may well have been designed – by a committee using  and implementing buggy software, I take the view there are many tricksters – the Sidhe, for example, are a race of tricksters, as are Kobolds -  and  use “Trickster” as shorthand for “A typical trickster”

 The label “Trickster” fits  creatures in North American  folklore,  such as the primitive  Winnebago who carried his penis around in a box – occasionally it got loose and acted of its own accord as if this is a folklore memory of an advanced  ancient civilisation that invented the vibrator - an archetype resurrected in Red Dwarf where the robot butler builds a penis that runs away and hides-  the  clever/stupid Coyote, Raven and Rabbit, who survives in literature as Brer Rabbit and in film as Bugs Bunny. It also fits  Wu Cheng An's  Monkey in “Journey to the West” ,  The spider god Anansi in Africa, Mr Fox in Europe and to a degree the fox spirits of Japan.  Norse pagans and scholars consider Loki a trickster but ignore Odin's trickster aspects and behaviour,  the ravens on his shoulder  and the similarities between Odin and the Voodoo trickster  Papa Ghede.  In ancient Greece Hermes tricked his way into Olympus to get a job as messenger of the gods  where he spent most of the time outside the home of the gods

Jung considered the Trickster a full fledged  archetype rising from the deep unconsciousness,  Hyde (“Trickster makes this world”) looks at Trickster in Art  and literature and Hansen ( “The Trickster and the paranormal”) considered the role of Trickster in  the area of Psychic phenomena.  Dossey (“healing beyond the body”) noted the trickster effect in medical research where any research seems to  generate research proving it false. In Mathematics Gödel was the trickster who used logic to show that mathematics could not be reduced to logic, thus neatly removing boundaries, while Jung a natural Shaman  with Trickster tendencies showed that the unconscious was in some ways larger than the body that housed it.

Tricksters tend to live at crossroads. The African trickster Elegba lived at crossroads, and emigrated to the Carribean and the US as Papa Legba. Blues Guitarist Robert Johnson was alleged to have sold his soul to the devil by going to a crossroads at midnight in return for prowess with the guitar, and this may have been a Hoodoo rite where he met not Satan but Elegba.

Tricksters tend to be highly sexual. Elegba is seen seated with an enormous erection, somewhat like the medieval picture of the Goat of Mendes. Loki is not especially fusssy about his sleeping partners, Odin is a fairly dedicated womaniser. Ghede was originally the god of Sex incarnate. Satan was always associated with sex and many medieval tales of Satan can be read showing him to be a trickster, albeit one easily gulled (though that may be Christian propaganda).

Tricksters are often shape shifters but seldom protean. Loki can shift into the form of a hawk and managed to become a horse and there are tales hinted at in Lokasenna suggesting both Odin and Loki indulged in cross dressing if not more.

Trickster is related to Clown but not the same though in some cultures clowns also perform a trickster role, and are a valuable complement to the Priest. The difference seems to be that Trickster is often an agent of change and renewal, where clowns are associated with carnival and temporary suspension of the normal order of things, one of the reasons I do not consider St Juttemis as a trickster.

When dealing with Trickster remember everything is possible, nothing forbidden and not everything that looks like Trickster is, though it would be just like Trickster to hide his true nature.