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The fool is one of the most relatable, intriguing and recurring figures in the world.
There have been fools who have caused surprise and laughter since time immemorial.
We worship folly by seeing it in people and in the world and by willingly displaying it
in ourselves.
It is one of the timeless archetypes, which we all inherit at birth.
Many of us suffer from the absence of the fool in our lives.
Frenetic and upright, we take ourselves too seriously, trying so hard to conform to a
world which promotes workaholism, efficiency, and productivity that we might as well be
cogs in a machine.
As William Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely
players.”
Forgetting that playfulness is a basic human need, we wonder why we so easily become bored
and exhausted, losing all capacity for spontaneity, authenticity, and passion.
The antidote to this would be to give the fool archetype some space in our lives.
To be in balance, and not become excessively foolish and irresponsible, we need to develop
the archetype of the sage, who despite being wise, recognises the limits of his knowledge,
and can laugh at himself every now and then.
Archetypes are not part of a mechanical system, but pieces of life itself – images that
are integrally connected to the living individual by the bridge of the emotions.
The character of the fool is complex, and various characteristics have been attributed
to the fool: that he is dull-witted, inarticulate, unable to conform to the conventional standards
of behaviour; and that he has a natural simplicity and innocence of heart.
The derivation of the word “fool” is the Latin “follis”, meaning a pair of bellows
expelling empty air; extended to people, it implies an empty-headed person, with insubstantial
thoughts.
At the same time, bellows furnish the oxygen needed for combustion in much the same way
that the fool “fires us up”.
In 1511, the Dutch scholar Erasmus published In Praise of Folly, which became hugely popular
and is a profoundly penetrating examination of the fool in Western literature.
Folly introduces herself, and since nobody ever praises Folly, she begins by praising
herself, arguing that life would be dull without her.
Folly criticises everyone, and Erasmus’ close friends warned him of the possible dangers
of attacking the church.
However, even religious figures found the work amusing.
Friendship and marriage contain a certain amount of folly, because we tend to overlook
the defects of our friends and loved ones, and consider them “small vices” in comparison
to other people.
Intellectuals are foolish in their pursuit of knowledge, spending years going to the
library, doing research, thinking that what they are doing is tremendously important,
so that a few other intellectuals over of a century will read their book and think very
highly of it.
Folly compares philosophers to theatre critics who unmask the characters onstage and ruin
the actors’ performance.
They are boring and annoying.
Philosophers don't seem to understand how the illusions that help make life bearable
are useful even if they distort reality.
The fool seems to be infinitely freer and happier than those who are burdened by wisdom.
They are the life of the party.
Fools always speak the truth because they lack the wisdom to craft lies and seek to
manipulate others.
In essence, there is nothing that can make life happier than the joy that accompanies
laughter and play.
Folly is not merely universal, but necessary and even desirable to humanity, to be a person
is nothing other than to play the fool, and to acknowledge this very fact is the highest
form of wisdom.
The fool represents a nostalgic return to a simpler way of life, a wisdom that comes
not from the mind but from the heart.
Sometimes the down-to-earth and simpleminded, in their purity of heart, can penetrate to
profounder truths than those encumbered with learning and convention, in the same way we
sometimes sense a more resonant truth in popular proverbs than in rational exposition.
Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky writes: “The wisest of all, in my opinion, is he
who can, if only once a month, call himself a fool — a faculty unheard of nowadays.”
In literature, wise characters sometimes depict insanity and madmen express wisdom.
The oxymoron, “wise fool”, is a literal paradox where the character who is identified
as a fool comes to be regarded as the beholder of wisdom.
People sometimes accuse wise people of insanity in order to “conceal” their unwanted wisdom
either fearing the harsh words on many controversial topics or simply to punish them for speaking
boldly.
The archetypal wise fool is Socrates.
Not only was his educational method based on exposing the folly of the supposedly wise,
but he himself claimed that his own wisdom was derived from an awareness of his ignorance.
Knowledge of ignorance is itself a kind of knowledge.
As Shakespeare writes: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the
wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
There are two ways to be fooled.
One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.
When there’s an uncomfortable truth that needs to be spoken, and those in power are
afraid to speak about it, it is usually the fool who steps in.
There is something heroic about this.
It is the fool who speaks a truth nobody else dares to utter, and this brings instant relief,
because people know it has to be said.
Generally speaking, we can distinguish between two types of fools: the natural fool, who
lacks social awareness and occasionally utters the truth being unaware of social conventions,
and the professional fool, whose job it is to make harsh truths more palatable by disguising
them with humour and wit.
One follows his heart, the other his mind.
The greatest fools are often times cleverer than the people who laugh at them.
The fool is fearless in speaking the truth.
In fact, the great secret of the successful fool is that he is no fool at all.
As the great English visionary artist William Blake writes:
“If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.”
The fool, the clown, and the trickster share similar traits.
They are sources of humour, inevitably eliciting laughter, serving as catalysts for comic catharsis.
However, they also express a duality: folly and non-folly, order and disorder.
What may seem like a joke, can in fact be a warning.
Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard writes:
“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre.
The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded.
He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater.
I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who
believe it’s a joke.”
Professional fools can bring a sense of awareness
to what is going on in the world, and where we are headed.
Many of them, however, come from a place of tragedy.
The contradictory association between comedy and mental disorders (such as depression and
anxiety) is known as the sad clown paradox, where comedy can act as a defence mechanism
to remove supressed feelings of rage and aggression.
People may respond with laughter at the clown, yet harbour feelings of pity, fear or repulsion
– evoking ambivalent reactions.
Some people, in fact, suffer from coulrophobia – the overwhelming fear of clowns.
In this day and age, clowns are a constant source of horror in books and movies.
Perhaps this is because the modern clown’s role is always the same: to entertain others
by being the subject of laughter, and he is not always successful at it.
The clown has to sacrifice his well-being by always having to put on the same face,
and play the same character.
This one-sidedness can take its toll mentally, and the clown slowly becomes enveloped by
his shadow, the dark side of his personality.
The evil clown archetype is best portrayed in The Joker, one of the most recognisable
villain characters in popular culture.
In medieval theatre, clowns would not only make spectators laugh, but sometimes also
snatch them off with them into a Hellmouth, the entrance of hell envisaged as the gaping
mouth of a monster, which scared the audiences.
Thus, their light and dark sides were balanced.
The fool and the trickster have a few psychological differences as well.
Generally speaking, the fool is presented as an innocent or naïve figure, who wouldn’t
hurt a fly, while the trickster is intentionally deceptive, and seeks to trick others and laugh
at them.
The trickster loves engaging in what the Germans call schadenfreude (literally “harm-joy”),
in which one obtains pleasure from learning or witnessing the misfortunes, failures, or
humiliation of another person.
A trickster may console others when they fail, and hide that internally he feels joy.
When there is an opportunity to play a trick on another person, the trickster immediately
seizes the opportunity.
The fool, however, is not interested in laughing at a person, but rather laughing with the
person, or laugh at himself.
To laugh at oneself helps to break the ice, because it not only removes one’s own persona,
but also the audience’s social mask, allowing for genuine behaviour.
This courageous feat throws one in a vulnerable state, which allows others to open up and
receive a message more profoundly, While the fool likes to entertain others,
and is usually the butt of a joke, the trickster, on the other hand, seeks primarily to entertain
himself, even if it is at the expense of others.
The fool is able to have a sense of humour even in difficult situations, which radiates
hope in others.
In a tense atmosphere, the person who is hurt takes the risk to make a joke, even if it
means making a fool of himself, not just to set himself at ease, but also to bring relief
to others.
When a person acts like a fool through some kind of outward action, it is immediately
apparent to the audience.
With the trickster, it is more ambiguous, he plays like a fool in order for people to
fall into his trap.
The trickster tricks others who never expect to be tricked.
In medieval times, the court jester’s job was to entertain the aristocracy in a wide
variety of ways: music, storytelling, satire, comedy, or juggling and acrobatics.
It was believed that keeping a fool in the premises warded off the evil eye.
This is no antiquated superstition; it represents a psychological truth of enduring value.
It is usually a good idea to place the fool out front where we can keep an eye on him.
We must make room for the renegade factor in ourselves and admit him to our inner court,
where he can bring us fresh ideas and new energy.
Without the fool’s blunt observations and playfulness, our inner landscape might become
a sterile wasteland.
During the Middle Ages, the Feast of Fools would be celebrated by the lower clergy on
New Year’s Day.
To ensure society against unexpected uprisings of latent destructive urges, all conventions
were temporarily suspended.
The natural order of things was turned upside down, sacred rituals were parodied in obscene
fashion, church authorities were ridiculed, and all underdogs were allowed to give vent
to year-long repressions of hostility, lust and rebellion.
These blasphemous celebrations were eventually driven underground by the church.
The fool also had an important role in the royal court and was given permission by the
king to speak the truth.
Both an insider and outsider, the fool occupied a peculiar place at court as the one person
able to ridicule the very person he served, in humour only, of course!
Anyone who dares to challenge others, or the status quo, is considered a fool by those
who are too afraid to be speak out, and would never risk their reputation by being authentic.
To make his special privileges known, the fool imitated the king’s crown and sceptre
with a cap ‘n’ bells and a bauble, or fool’s sceptre.
In the manner of a ventriloquist’s doll, the miniature head of the bauble could say
things that the jester might not want to say himself.
Because of their close relation to the king, jesters were free from punishment and allowed
to speak without fear.
Nevertheless, some of them went too far, and were beheaded.
Fools represent values which are rejected by the group, because they oppose social norms
and rules.
They are seen as incompetent, frequently ostracised for their rebelliousness, and are thus social misfits.
However, every group must have such a figure, because they are agents of change, and the
liveliness of culture require that there be space for figures whose function is to uncover
and disrupt the very things that cultures are based on.
Court jesters usually had some sort of physical deformity.
They came from poor families and were financial burdens, but because of their unusual bodies,
they were used as natural fools to create amusement.
Deformities were looked upon as a special mark of the Lord; so, dwarfs, hunchbacks,
and the like, were often chosen to be fools in royal houses.
Dwarfs were particularly valued and resided in many royal courts, being frequently delivered
as gifts to fellow royal members.
They stood next to the king, who would then appear much larger, enhancing his powerful position.
These maimed ones proved to be human beings of unusual depth and wisdom.
Excluded by their physical handicaps from the activities and interests of the average
person, through their loneliness and suffering these people were forced to discover resources
within themselves.
In Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, the king’s relationship with the fool is one
of friendship and dependency.
When the king is left with his knights, he is a terribly lonely figure and keeps asking
where the fool is.
The king wants the fool to accompany him everywhere, acting as his alter ego.
The fool can be expected to reverse relationships between those dominant and those subservient,
as he is placed in the paradoxical position of virtual outlawry combined with utter dependence
on the support of the social group to which he belongs.
Shakespearean fools, just like the fools and jesters of the time, use their wits to outdo
people of higher social standing, but their characteristics are exaggerated for theatrical effect.
The myth of Parsifal, an old Arthurian legend, describes the journey that a boy must undertake
to become a man.
He is known as Parsifal (young fool) and lives alone with his mother.
After seeing knights pass by him, he is marvelled and decides to leave his mother in order to
become a knight himself, and goes through many trials that initiate him into manhood.
In the story, the Grail Castle is in serious trouble, The Fisher King, the king of the
castle, has been wounded.
His wounds are so severe that he cannot live, yet he is incapable of dying.
He is rendered infertile and his kingdom is barren.
This expresses how the psychological wound manifests itself in problems in the external world.
Every adolescent receives his Fisher King wound.
It is the graduation from naïve consciousness into self-consciousness.
It is painful to watch an adolescent grow up and realise that the world is not just
joy and happiness.
However, his first contact with a wound, is what later will be redemption in life.
Every night there is a solemn ceremony in the Grail Castle.
One of the maidens holds the Holy Grail, filled with wine, and each person that drinks from
it is granted their deepest wish.
The Fisher King, however, does not participate and is suffering alone.
No further outward effort is possible, if our inward capacity is wounded.
It is perhaps the deepest form of suffering, to be right in front of beauty, happiness,
and holiness, but unable to partake in any of it.
The court fool had prophesised long ago that the Fisher King would be healed when an innocent
fool arrived in the court and asked a specific question.
One day, Parsifal finds a man in a boat fishing on a lake; it was the Fisher King.
He asked if there was any place to stay the night, to which the Fisher King gave him the
directions to the Grail Castle.
Parsifal attends the ceremony, but the Fisher King is groaning in agony alone.
The young fool, who refused to remove the homespun garment made by his mother, remembers
her advice not to ask too many questions (symbolising a mother complex).
He forgets what he was taught by the Godfather figure who trained him, and does not talk
to the Fisher King.
The following day, he leaves the castle.
As he turns around, the castle was nowhere to be seen.
It took Parsifal 20 long and painful years to find the Grail Castle again.
The original myth ends here.
The inner castle is always there, but appears invisible to our eyes, unless we see the world
with new eyes.
Many of the continued stories say that after Parsifal revisited the Grail Castle, he asked
the Fisher King, “whom does the Grail serve?”.
Immediately, he was healed, and peace and happiness reigned over the land.
The Grail is the centre of meaning in human life, and the meaning of life is to serve
the Grail or higher self.
Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson writes: “A man must consent to look to a foolish,
innocent, adolescent part of himself for his cure.
The inner fool is the only one who can touch his Fisher King wound.”
In Don Quixote, which is often considered as the first modern novel, Spanish writer
Miguel de Cervantes portrays a man who is driven “mad” after reading many books
of chivalry.
He decides to become a knight-errant under the name of Don Quixote.
He rides on his weak horse, and goes on to defend the innocent, and defeat the wicked,
only to do exactly the opposite.
All this he does in the name of a peasant woman, whom he idealises as a princess, but
remains unseen in the novel.
The term quixotic refers to a person who is apt to be deluded, unable to distinguish reality
from imagination, and pursues lofty and romantic ideals that are impractical.
In a famous scene, the hero has an imaginary fight with windmills, which he believes are giants.
This is the origin of the idiom “tilting at windmills”, attacking imaginary enemies.
Don Quixote recruits Sancho Panza as his sidekick and squire, a down-to-earth peasant who is
puzzled by his master’s grandiose fantasies, but being promised great wealth, follows him
riding a donkey.
Sancho’s realism contrasts to his master’s idealism.
Don Quixote’s good intentions, however, end up doing harm to those he meets, since
he is largely unable to see the world as it really is.
He is not only seen as a fool, but a complete madman.
Despite his insanity, he is witty and at times, seemingly sane; so long as he avoids the topic
of chivalry.
This may be a warning that even the most intelligent people can fall victim to their own foolishness.
At the end, Don Quixote becomes sick and falls asleep, and later awakes from a dream, awakening
from his madness too.
He realises that he has wasted his life, and is just crazy.
The atmosphere of the novel turns from comedy to tragedy, and the people who looked at him
with scorn, can’t help but feel pity for him.
They insist that he is wrong and that he really is a knight.
What was before viewed as insanity is now considered sanity.
After his life-giving illusions are dissipated, he dies.
He dies from an overdose of reality.
This brings in the question: is it better to know the truth and be unhappy, or live
in a fool’s paradise?
In his novel, The Idiot, Dostoevsky explores this question to some extent.
He portrays the ideal man, “a positively beautiful individual” in a morally corrupted
and decayed world.
The protagonist, Prince Myshkin, returns to Russia after spending time in a Swiss sanatorium
receiving treatment for epilepsy and “idiocy” (until the 20th century an actual medical
term for neurological disorders).
Starting with the train ride to St. Petersburg he is thrown headfirst into the corruptness
of society.
The character appears different from other virtuous fools in fiction by emphasising innocence
rather than comicality.
Dostoevsky writes: “First of all, this prince is an idiot,
and, secondly, he is a fool – knows nothing of the world, and has no place in it.”
Myshkin’s open-heartedness, innocence and lack of social experience, is an instrument
of satire, standing in sharp contrast to the corrupted, cold, money-hungry, manipulative
and egocentric society he finds himself in.
The prince is frank, open, and unable to hide his true feelings behind a persona in order
to impress others.
He says what is on his mind, regardless of the social setting.
This leads people to call him an “idiot”, even though he has deep insights about human
nature and what it means to be a true Christian.
The antithesis of Myshkin is Ippolít, a young atheist and nihilist in the final stages of
tuberculosis and near death.
He loses his will to live and rebels against society, nature, and God, and famously states:
“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.”
Prince Myshkin, on the other hand, does not understand why someone would choose to be
unhappy.
Instead of philosophising, the prince spends a considerable time with sinners, serving
as their moral and spiritual guide.
It is the small acts of kindness that truly matter in the world.
Redemption is a key theme in the novel, to save the soul from the state of sinfulness
through humility, and compassion.
In the most popular line of the book, Dostoevsky writes:
“The prince assures us that beauty will save the world!”
In many fairy tales we see three brothers, the youngest being a simpleton whom everybody
laughs at; but it is always this fool who becomes the hero in the story.
He is the foolhardy brother who rushes in where angels fear to tread – and by doing
so wins the hand of the princess and her kingdom.
The fool seems to possess magical powers, and has Lady Luck on his side.
His spontaneous approach to life combines wisdom, madness, and folly.
When he mixes these ingredients in the right proportions, the results are miraculous, but
when there is one-sidedness, everything can end up in a sticky mess.
One of the most beloved figures in Russian folklore is Ivan the Fool.
The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy wrote a story titled Ivan the Fool, alluding to this figure.
In the story, Ivan is the youngest and third son in a peasant family.
He is taken advantage of because of his naivety, kindness, and capacity to easily forgive others,
even at his own expense.
His brothers are tempted by money and military power; however, Ivan lives a simple way of life.
He lives in a farm, taking care of his old father and mute sister, and works in the fields.
When the two brothers run out of money, they insist on getting their share of their father’s wealth.
The father objects, because it is Ivan and his sister who have helped him.
Ivan, however, agrees to his brother’s demands.
The Old Devil, seeing Ivan’s generosity and lack of conflict between the brothers,
sends a little devil to each brother to start a feud.
The two devils succeed in tempting the two brothers with greed and power, and they get
into trouble.
Ivan, who is stricken with illness by the devil, only works harder and overcomes all obstacles.
The three little devils get together in order to defeat Ivan, but they all fail.
As Ivan finds each devil one by one, they beg for their life and tell him that they’ll
grant him any wish if he spares their life.
And so, Ivan is granted a wish and innocently utters, “God bless you”, which makes them vanish.
He can make gold out of leaves and soldiers out of straw, and decides to give the gold
coins to the village peasants and conjure up soldiers to sing and dance.
Finally, the Old Devil loses his patience and goes to Ivan, but is also defeated.
While Ivan relies on his heart and believes in legends and mythical beliefs, the brothers
focus on their minds and practicality.
Ivan ends up marrying the Czar’s daughter.
The man who has nothing receives everything.
The fool becomes the hero.
In Tarot, the fool is commonly depicted as a man holding a white rose symbolising innocence
and purity, and a small bundle of possessions in the other.
He is willing to sacrifice everything for the trip.
He walks merrily looking up at the sky, living in a fool’s paradise, absorbed in all the
great adventures that await him, at his heels, a dog tries to draw his attention, because
he is about to fall off a cliff.
Tarot derives from the 15th century Italian illustrated playing cards known as trionfi,
inspired by theatrical festivals and used for entertainment.
They were later called tarocchi from which tarot is derived, and whose root – taroch
– translates to “foolishness”.
Therefore, Tarot is also called the Fool’s Journey.
In the 18th century, the occult practice of cartomancy started to rise to prominence,
and mystics referred to the seventy-eight cards as “arcana”.
The first twenty-two being the Major Arcana, and the remaining fifty-six the Minor Arcana.
The fool has the number zero, and in most decks is the first of the twenty-two Major
Arcana cards, the last of which is The World.
In the last card there is a large laurel wreath symbolising wholeness, in which the fool (who
is androgynous) becomes the cosmic dancer and the Anima Mundi (World Soul).
However, just as the journey towards wholeness ends, it begins anew, for it is a lifelong process.
The fool is both the beginning and the end of the journey.
He is heroic because he jumps off the place of comfort into the place of the unknown.
The Fool’s Journey is similar to the monomyth of the Hero’s Journey, in which the hero
has a call to adventure and must leave the safety and comfort of the Ordinary World and
enter into the unknown and difficult territory of the Special World.
Here he must defeat his dragon (worst fear, event, person or memory long avoided), and
gather the gold, the “treasure hard to attain”.
The journey is a psychological and spiritual death and rebirth, in which an old aspect
of oneself dies, giving birth to a new and more capable self.
Finally, the hero must return to his people in the Ordinary World and share the gift acquired
in the Special World with others, something with the power to heal, whether it is wisdom,
love, or simply the experience of surviving the Special World.
The fool is a wanderer, energetic, ubiquitous and immortal.
He is the most powerful of all the Tarot trumps.
The fool is always in a process of becoming, and is considered as the initiation into the
great mystery of life and the Major Arcana can be viewed as pictures representing the
typical experiences encountered along the age-old path to self-realisation, or what
Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung called individuation.
Tarot cards can be used for amplification, a Jungian method which allows one to clarify
obscure dreams, visions, drawings, or other fantasy material by “turning up the volume”
of the images, through the comparative study of mythology, religion, alchemy, fairy tales,
and art.
It is appropriate that the fool has the number zero.
The power of zero is inherent in its circular form which is symbolised by infinity.
The ancient Egyptian symbol of the ouroboros or tail-devourer represents the concept of
endless return and eternity, associated with the maxim, “One is All, and All is One.”
It is the pleroma, the fullness of being where past, present and future exist simultaneously.
As many sages have pointed out, “God is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is
everywhere, the circumference nowhere.”
A circle with a dot at its centre is the universal sign for the sun, source of all warmth, light,
and power.
This hieroglyph also stands for the World Egg, from whose fertile centre all creation
arose and continues to arise, and is related to Paradise, that blissful state of unconscious
nature which humanity experienced before falling into the reality of consciousness.
It is the primeval womb where we all lived once upon a time outside space and time.
The nostalgia we feel for our childhood reflects this great longing to be contained once more
in the perfect circle, the original state of wholeness, where the union of opposites
is attained.
In Jungian psychology, the dot is the ego, the centre of consciousness, and the circle
is the Self, the centre of the entire psyche, which embraces both consciousness and the
unconscious.
Jung writes: “It is not I who create myself, rather I
happen to myself.”
The imagery of the fool, who lives on today in our playing cards disguised as the Joker,
has gone through many symbolic transformations, alternating between beggar, madman, and fool.
The Visconti-Sforza Tarot which date from the 15th century, are believed to be the oldest
surviving cards, though no complete deck has survived.
Here, the fool is depicted as a beggar or vagabond wearing ragged clothes and stockings
without shoes, he carries a stick and has feathers in his hair, which may relate to
the notion of the wild man.
In the Sola Busca Tarot created by an unknown artist in the late 15th century, the fool
has a feathered headdress and plays a bagpipe, while in the German Hofämterspiel of the
15th century, the fool (Narr) also plays a bagpipe, but is barefooted, wears a robe and
bells on his hood, reminiscent of the court jester.
In the Mantegna Tarocchi from the same century, the fool is portrayed as a semi-naked old
man leaning on a staff, with the word “misero” (beggar) inscribed.
In this card, we see an animal trying to grab his attention.
The fool is in such close contact with his instinctual side that he does not need to
look where he is going in the literal sense; his animal nature guides his steps.
In an old French Tarot card, the fool appears blindfolded, further emphasising his ability
to act by insight rather than eyesight, using intuitive wisdom instead of conventional logic.
In an old Swiss card, the fool has a full jester outfit and holds a wand.
In subsequent card decks, such as in the Tarot of Marseilles popular during the 17th and
18th centuries, the fool wears a jester hat, carries a bundle of belongings on a stick
over his back, and is chased by an animal who has torn his pants, or is happily following
a butterfly.
Finally, we have the popular image of the fool who is about to fall off a cliff used
in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck published in 1909 by the Rider Company, illustrated by
Pamela Colman Smith and based on the instructions of British poet and mystic Arthur Edward Waite,
both of whom were members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Psychologically, the archetype of the fool is the precursor to transformation, representing
a new beginning.
Nothing would start without the fool.
“Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at
the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.”
Shoshin is a Zen Buddhist concept meaning beginner’s mind, which is opposed to closed-mindedness
and thinking oneself as an expert.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.
Open mindedness can lead to the cultivation of silence, which provides the necessary space
for the mysterious experience of the numinous.
If you can’t listen to what someone next to you is saying, you are not going to hear
the voice of silence.
The potential of our five senses is vast, but they are limited by our lack of their
refinement.
Jung writes: “The soul demands your folly; not your wisdom.”
To embark on a journey of self-discovery is traditionally considered foolish.
We are supposed to follow a linear path: education, work, marriage, and so on.
When a person deviates from this path, he is seen as a fool whose adventures will amount
to nothing but poverty and misery.
The first step is usually the hardest and the most important.
As the Chinese proverb goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
The fool thinks of all the wonderful adventures that lie ahead, and is less worried about
making mistakes.
He thinks on his feet, is energetic, and urges us to live life to the fullest, while the
person who thinks too much is over-cautious and remains stagnant.
It is the fear of uncertainty that scares many of us, to the point of paralysis.
In order not to suffer from anticipation, we’d rather experience failure and sacrifice success.
This state of rumination and overthinking creates anxiety, and one suffers more in imagination
than in reality.
Failure, however, can open new doors that one never imagined or expected to be open.
What we think of abstractly as absolute failure may in fact lead to unimaginable success.
As the alchemists say, “in filth it will be found.”
What you need most is to be found where you least wish to look.
The fool usually has no idea what he is getting into by starting a new journey, and does not
see all the trials he has to overcome, which may have prevented him from going on a journey
in the first place.
The fool lives in the moment, and sees reality as it is.
He is not afraid of change and exploring unknown and new territory, despite being told of its dangers.
No matter how many times he stumbles, the fool keeps going.
No great person has ever not committed a mistake.
In the end, it is the journey that matters, not the end.
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.”
While the fool has many positive aspects, he can also be so stubborn that he does not
take a moment to step back and reflect, to look where he is headed, so he falls off a cliff.
The fool stands on the edge.
Sometimes our inner intuitive voice of protection becomes judgmental and self-perpetuating.
The voice that tells you: “Be careful, you will make a fool of yourself”, “that is
a dumb question, everyone is going to laugh at you, and judge you”, “you sound ridiculous.”
This is the voice of conformity and the dark side of the fool.
It is the voice that causes you to dumb down and play it safe, to be content with superficial
pleasures and safety, and strive for other people’s acceptance to the detriment of
your true desires.
This happens when we are unconscious of the fool within us, which leads to jealousy, resentment,
shame, and other neuroses.
In his relationship to the journey towards individuation, the fool demonstrates both
the initiative and the resistance inherent in his nature.
He is closely tied to the archetype of eternal youth which we all possess after growing up
from childhood.
It can bring the energy, beauty and creativity of childhood into adult life, or thwart self-realisation
and doom us to both unrealistic adolescent fantasies and experiencing life as a prison.
The fool is closely related to the child archetype.
Children have less of a persona, and follow their instinct rather than what others tell
them to do (the Freudian superego).
The child has half entered the rational world, and the madman has half escaped from it – for
these two are in some measure released from the remorseless pressure of daily events,
the ceaseless impact of the external senses, which burden the rest of mankind.
The fool is light-hearted, and optimistic, and does not take things too seriously.
Friedrich Nietzsche writes: “Man’s maturity: to have regained the
seriousness that he had as a child at play.”
Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz equates the fool with the inferior function, Jung’s
term for the most undeveloped aspect of the psyche, related to the four basic psychological
functions: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition.
For example, the inferior function of a predominantly thinking type would be feeling.
However, the fool concerns something more than the inferior function, for the fool is
an archetypal religious figure.
von Franz writes: “He implies a part of the human personality,
or even of humanity, which remained behind and therefore still has the original wholeness of nature.
He symbolises a specific, mainly religious, function.
But in mythology, as soon as the fool appears as the fourth in a group of four people, we
have a certain right to assume that he mirrors the general behaviour of an inferior function.”
The fool hero represents the despised part of the personality, the ridiculous and unadapted
part, but he also is the bridge to the unconscious, and therefore holds the secret key to the
unconscious totality of an individual.
The fool connects two worlds – the everyday world where we live most of the time, and
the world of imagination.
He is the gate to the great treasure, bringing a renewal of life.
It is the inferior function which leads to the healing of our Fisher King wound.
The holy fool is one who is willing to risk ridicule, scorn and rejection to follow the
path of truth and love no matter what the naysayers have to say.
He possesses an integrity displayed in the courage to be himself in all circumstances,
not needing to be defined by the responses of others, or become conformist out of fear.
He is free of judging others by values usually used, and is fully present to another human being.
The holy fool is unstoppable, and is thus the most threatening to the authorities and
powers that control and rule the world.
Each person is worthy of God’s love, and therefore each person has the potential to
grow in the full life of the spirit.
To be a fool for Christ’s sake derives from the writings of Saint Paul, who claims that
God has made foolish the wisdom of this world.
He says of unbelievers that, “professing themselves to be wise, they become fools.”
Foolishness for Christ consists in a rejection of worldly possessions in favour of a religious
and ascetic life, even if it may result in humiliation and mockery from the crowd.
The fool is the precursor to the saviour.
“Let no man deceive himself.
If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.”