Only When I Laugh

Somewhere in Scotland, a group of people gather for a ritual. It is Lughnassah, time to celebrate the beginning of Harvest. The atmosphere is light, but generally serious...until Fred shows up. Fred, an Englishman well known among the company for his unusual antics, has appeared wearing a lurid pink, red, lime green and black tartan trimmed with very obviously fake fur and topped with a silly jester’s hat. Fred is being weird again.

He bounces happily among the company, making a complete prat of himself as some of the more serious members worry about the possible effect of Fred’s strange mood on the ritual to come. Then suddenly, without warning, Fred takes his place in front of the company in his deadly serious role as the Corn King. The ritual has begun. In fact, it had actually begun sometime before. Fred, playing the Fool, had been doing exactly that.

The role of the Fool in magic takes many forms. Fred’s demonstration was one of learning that we mustn’t always take ourselves too seriously. A little healthy irreverence in ritual can be a very purifying experience. It brings us back to the state of innocence, represented by the Fool in the tarot, which we must sometimes remember to adopt in our approach to magic and to life itself.

The Fool can equally represent humour. Humour in ritual can be fun. Someone I know well has often proclaimed that no ritual is complete until somebody farts. Here in Britain, bodily functions are an endless source of irreverent amusement. To see the humour in the occasional (alright, frequent...) cock-ups which occur during ritual allows magic to flow freely rather than to become stiffled by disapproval and extreme formality.

A formal ritual can be a beautiful experience. Getting everything exactly right can be very satisfying. However, if someone flubs their lines, belches or knocks over one of the Altar candles, how will the ritual itself be effected by quiet disapproval or remonstrance as opposed to a quick witicism which results in a laugh and then getting on with the ritual? We must remember that the Fool, also known as the Trickster, will have his way with us in magic. We must also remember that it isn’t always funny.

I once saw a t-shirt which read, “The gods love a hero. They also love a good joke. Think about it.” Whether or not we personally believe in any external gods, that statement sums up a condition in the workings of magic. Magick will often play tricks on us or work in ways that we do not anticipate. The lessons of the Eternal Joker include learning to anticipate the possibilities where things might go wrong, and also learning to take our knocks when we slip up. It happens to all of us, even the most experienced of magicians.

This is where my often quoted favourite saying comes into play. “Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.” The Trickster is not always kind. I could quote endless examples of unpleasant backlashes from simple wish magic in my own experience as well as others. Some lessons can be very painful.

The important thing is to learn from the experience, and also to learn to take our own fallibility with good humour, rather like laughing at our misery the morning after a night of heavy drinking because we know that we have no one to blame but ourselves. Laughing at one’s own stupidity takes away some of the sting, and is far more conducive to thinking out ways of repairing the damage than by indulging in misery.

There is a time for seriousness, and a time to appreciate the joke of life. The Fool is balanced by the Wise Man, or Hermit. The magician knows that wisdom is approached through innocence. The Trickster is always there among us, and to deny him leaves us open to being tripped up by him. If we acknowledge him, we can learn to look for the tricks and for the humour when he gets us anyway.

One can invoke the trickster in ritual. Just be careful that the joke isn’t on you! Working with any of the Chaos gods or goddesses is a direct invitation to the element of surprise, not always pleasant. On safer ground is the simple concept of recognizing the dual aspects of humour and seriousness in many aspects of ritual, perhaps even the choice of deity. The followers of Azo, a benevolent bovine god, are able to see the humour in their reverence of the small mechanical icon of Azo, yet still practice serious magic as He dances with His followers in ritual.

Magic is a serious business, yet one can be too serious. On the one hand, one must be alert to potential pitfalls at all times. On the other hand, we must also be prepared to deal with anything the universe throws at us. Life will throw pitfalls at us that we cannot avoid, and how we deal with them will determine how well we survive.

Practicing magic in and of itself invokes the Sacred Fool, the Universal Trickster, and in the end this aspect of magic in whatever form it takes will teach us valuable lessons. One of the most important of these is depicted on the tarot trump. The Fool shows us many things, but most of all he demonstrates that we must always pay attention.