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The Trickster

Statistics

  Counts

  Total Pages: 5.13
  Total Words: 1282
  Total Characters: 6310
  Number of Sentences: 92


  Averages

  Words per Sentences: 13.93
  Characters per Words: 4.92


  Readability

  Flesch Reading Ease: 65
  Fog Scale Level: 11.35
  Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 7.66  

The Trickster


     Karl Jung's explanation for the archetypes that surface in cultural and
religious literature is that they are the product of what he calls the
collective unconsciousness. That thread of consciousness that connects all human
beings and cultures around the world. Yet it is not visible to the naked eye,
one must look for the signs of it by researching cultures who are long gone and
comparing them to each other and our own. Studying it reminds us that all humans
are bound together by a common source.
     The "Trickster" is an archetype that surfaces in many cultural and
religious stories. Each trickster is unique to it's own culture, but all
tricksters are bound by certain characteristics no matter what religion they
show up in. Anthropologists would argue that each trickster should be evaluated
in it's own cultural setting, but in order to see their archetypal value they
must be and can be evaluated as a group. Jung would say he is a manifestation of
our own collective unconscious. Evidence to support such a claim was found by
psychologist John Laynard. In his research on schizophrenia he found the
qualities of the trickster surfacing in the disorder (p.54 Euba). This suggests
that the Trickster is within all of us just sitting on the borderline of
conscious and unconscious though.
     So who is this Trickster? He has many forms both human and animal. His
physical form seems to be particular to each religion. The best way to view a
trickster is by his personality. "[He is] Admired, Loved, venerated for his
merits and virtues, he is represented as thievish, deceitful, parricidal,
incestuous, and cannibalistic. The malicious practical joker is deceived by just
about anybody; the inventor of ingenious stratagems is presented as an idiot;
the master of magical power is sometimes powerless to extricate himself from
quandaries." (p.67 Hynes and Doty). The trickster seems to be a comedy of
opposites. For every good aspect of his per...

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