Fools, shamans, goblins: liminality, otherness and ritual inversion

The peripheral location of the Folle / Buffone / Jester of the medieval era links him, as well as to the archaic Shaman, to other liminal characters of myth and folklore, such as the Wild Man, Harlequin, the Genius Cuckold and more generally to all that category of feral entities connected on the one hand to the demons of vegetation and on the other to the functional sphere of dreams and death. With regard to the rite, the Folle is to be seen connected to the so-called "ritual inversion" that was carried out during the Roman Saturnalia and during all those collective walking rituals of the Charivari type from which the "Feste dei Folli" were born in the Middle Ages. and the modern Carnival.


di Marco Maculotti
cover: β€œFolle che ride”, XNUMXth century
(all the images of the article apart from that of the Genius Cucullato are taken from the cd-rom attached to Sandra Pietrini: "The jesters in the medieval imaginary" and from the pdf by Enrico Comba & Daniele Omezzano, "Men and Bears: morphology of the Wild ")

It is not known exactly when the figure of the was born Crazy or of Jester: probably in ancient times it was considered a sort of "facet" of the Shaman, presenting himself as a liminal individual, who lived on the borders of the social consortium and often also on the edge of "mental health". In all probability his character and his iconography crystallized starting from the Middle Ages, with the birth of the first courts in which these ambiguous figures began to appear.

Our working hypothesis, which here we will try to dissect to the best of our ability, is that the medieval figure of the Fool / Jester is - as mentioned - on the one hand a "degeneration" of that of the shamanic operator of the most ancient traditions, and on the other an anthropomorphization and profanization of mythical entities of ancient traditions, that is to say those entities halfway between the human and the non-human, such as Elves, Wild Men and Demons of the Other World, which not by chance were physically represented by masked dancers during the walking processions of the type of Charivari, from which the modern Carnival was born.

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On the other hand, it will be seen how this type of processions are to be seen in connection with the so-called "winter crisis", and therefore with the traditional conception of "Regression to mythical time", feasible only by virtue of what we will call "Ritual inversion". It will be no coincidence - we will try to explain - how all these recurrences (originally sacred and more recently made at least partly profane) are to be connected, following the example of the ancient Roman Saturnalia, to the aforementioned "ritual inversion", concerning, as we will have way of seeing, both the archaic shaman and the medieval Fool / Jester, as well as, in full, to all those subtle entities of myth and folklore that on such occasions can access our world by entering into connection with the human consortium.

On the other hand, as Sandra Pietrini points out referring to the medieval iconography of Folle, "although many of these representations can be interpreted as fantastic and exotic elements, their peripheral location seems to allude to the idea of ​​otherness and diversity that invade the borders of the everyday worldΒ» [1] - this by relating, as will be seen in the continuation of this study, the Folle with further figures other and liminal of medieval folklore, such as the Wild Man and the feral entities connected both with the functional sphere of fertility and with that of the Other World (which is also the world of the dead); functional areas which, moreover, are found since the archaic age in a paradigmatic figure that anticipates the Fool as regards clothing, namely the so-called Genius Cucullatus.

16-09-Lanternarius-asleep-National-Roman-Museum -–- Museum-of-the-Baths-of-Diocletian
Genius Cucullato (Sleeping Lanternarius), National Roman Museum - Museum of the Baths of Diocletian

Although the latter bears strong resemblances to other mythical characters of Mediterranean traditions - such as the little god Telesphorus in Greece, or Harpocrates in Egypt - it is usually believed to be of Celtic origin, since the largest number of statuettes representing it has been found in Celtic countries. The Cuckold genius looks outwardly as a full-blown ancestor of the medieval Fool / Jester: represented as a child or a hooded dwarf, it is functionally connected on the one hand to the "propagation and [to] the preservation of human life and soil fertility; and, on the other hand, [to] the nocturnal and funeral function, of sleep and death " [2] - in this denoting that character of liminality and otherness that the Fool / Jester of the medieval era will recover from more ancient figures belonging to the mythical sphere, such as the various elves of ancient traditions, which will be discussed extensively later in this study.

We reserve the right, however, to better frame the iconography and the mythical functionality of the Genius Cucullato further here, when we will analyze the points of contact between the medieval Fool and the feral entities of traditional folklore; for the moment let us highlight some connections between the Jester and other mythical figures close to him in iconography and functions, namely the Wild Man and the Harlequin of the Commedia dell'Arte.

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The Fool, the Wild Man and Harlequin

Often, in medieval iconography, the figure of the Folle is in fact confused with another equally liminal: that of theWild Man, descendant of the ancient fauns, silenes and other mythical entities halfway between the human and non-human world. For example, in a bas-relief on the church of St. John in Caen, Normandy, he is depicted a Fool holding a gnarled staff in his hand, a classic attribute of the Wild Man (which also held, alternatively, an uprooted tree). A print from 1701 shows us a hollow elm inhabited not by the Savage but by a mythical character who is in part a functional copy: theHarlequin / Hellequin well-known mask of the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, and before that mythical driver of the Wild Hunt o "Wild Hunt", as well as ruler of the underworld [3].

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This is particularly important for our purposes as in the figure of Harlequin they convey both the elements of the Wild Man and the King of the Underworld and those, more interesting for us here, of the Fool and the Buffoon, which are usually represented with colorful clothes like those of the famous character of the Italian Carnival: it follows that in his character the carnival-buffoonish dimension typical of the Folle (and not infrequently the Shaman) and the inferior-subtle one of which all the fairy progeny of the myth belong they blend perfectly, almost presenting themselves as a paradigmatic figure or "connecting link" for this study of ours.

Conversely, another bas-relief of the front of the House of Artisans in Thiers, made in the XNUMXth century, shows a Savage holding one marotte, the stick typical of the Folle, whose top reproduces his carved face and his enigmatic grin. Likewise, the Native American Fool possesses a ceremonial staff often decorated with animal elements, such as hooves or spurs, but which sometimes features a swollen human head on its end: it is the ritual staff of the Foolish OneΒ of the Mandan, one of the three supernatural spirits who participated in illo tempore to the creation of the world [4].

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Even the Fool, like the Wild Man, sometimes has gods β€œnaturalistic” attributes, both animal and vegetable. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the capes that on the top of the hood have what appear to be rooster's combs (and in many cases also a real rooster's head) as well as, on the sides of the hood, donkey ears, a symbolic animal that leads us to the Mad King of the Saturnalia Romans, adorned with the same attribute, and therefore with the Saturnian eschatology of time which is renewed by periodically devouring one's own children and himself [5].

In this we can see, in the symbolism of the donkey and the rooster, the spies of a very ancient conception of which the Roman Saturnalia are one of the first ritual explanations known to us; being able to frame the donkey as a symbol of the "King of the Old Year", destined to be sacrificed for the creation of the new year, and the rooster, on the other hand, as a symbol of the "King of the Rising Year", of which he announces the principle with its morning song.

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Nor are plant elements lacking, as mentioned, in the iconography of Folle: the bas-reliefs of the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Fontelle of the sixteenth century show him with a cape and a hood of leaves, while in the bas-reliefs of the Cathedral of St. Peter in Troyes, dating from the previous century, we find gods Fools "wrapped in twigs" [6].

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This fluidity of boundaries between the anthropomorphic, the zoomorphic and the vegetable, in the figures of the Savage and the Fool, attests to the functional scope of fertility and fecundity.: equally the ancient Romans, celebrating the Saturnalia, considered it necessary to perform ritually and periodically an "orgiastic" regression to chaos pending the start of the following year, a year that, indeed, to better say, was ritually made to be born precisely through the ceremonial and collective return toillud tempus of the beginning, during which Saturn ruled as god of the golden age.

Which is why, as we shall see below, the Folle is also to be reconnected to the so-called "ritual inversion" which, in addition to the Saturnalia, can also be found in medieval carnival festivals, such as the so-called "Feste dei Folli".

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The Fool and the Shaman

Returning to the typical stick of the Fool / Jester, there is to be emphasized as the marotte reminiscent of other ceremonial sticks used in the history of humanity, such as the wooden staff of the Mongolian shamans of the steppes, usually decorated at the end with a horse's head, or as the so-called "Sticks of command" used by "witches" in certain Kazakh para-shamanic practices, "To give the evil eye or play tricks on people" [7].

But there is more: other superhuman powers and abilities are traditionally recognized to the Fool that bring him closer to the mythopoetic sphere of shamanic operators (and people with "second view ") and entities from the Other World (including i fairies, as will be seen below). It is sometimes represented as a healer, as can be seen in an engraving of Albrecht Durer from 1511 which depicts a Folle wearing the typical cap with donkey ears and a sumptuous cloak as he reaches the bedside of a dying man blatantly showing an ampoule that he is holding in his hand; next to him also appears what looks like a Wild Man [8].

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Yet: medieval iconography often shows the Fool speaking with animals, almost mainly with birds, who seem to come specifically to converse with him. Another engraving by DΓΌrer, made in 1507, shows a Folle with a donkey-eared cap and a cockscomb, astride a large shrimp (symbol of his ability to go counter-current, both in the sense of "opposite direction" to the norm and in the esoteric sense of go back up the current of time in order to finally get out of it, to access the "Sacred Time") converse with a bird that is coming near him.

We limit ourselves to remembering that the language of animals, and especially that of birds, is considered by many archaic traditions to be a sort of esoteric language known only by magicians, by great shamans, by individuals in possession of the "second sight". by saints (the best known case is that of St. Francis of Assisi) or by people of pure spirit.

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However, this belief is much older than the Christian era: it appears for example in the ancient Thracian-Greek ecumene in the character of Orpheus, but traces of it are also found in antecedent traditions, such as in the populations of the sub-Arctic belt dedicated to a shamanic religiosity: from the Lapps to the Siberian populations (Ostiachi, Yakuti, Tungusi, Ciukci), up to the Inuit of Canada.

The understanding of the language of animals is to be ideally reconnected, as we shall see, to the situation of fluidity and indeterminacy typical of time out of timeΒ in which the sacred experience is lived: paradigmatic in this sense is the belief reported by Eliade, according to which during the trance state the Tungus shaman would have been able to understand "the language of all Nature" [9].

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The Fool and the "ritual inversion"

Having mentioned the Saturnalia, we must now speak of the carnival festivals, in which the Fool / Jester has always played a central role. The origins of the Carnival are in fact to be found not only in the Roman Saturnalia, but also in the Festum Fatuorum o Festum Stoltuorum, the medieval "Feasts of Fools", which took place mainly in France. Hordes of people disguised as Fools poured into the streets and, led by a Bishop of Fools, broke into the church during the service, giving life to obscene curtains and singing irreverent parodies of sacred songs.

Collective events of this kind, ritually centered on the inversion of the pre-established rules (it must be remembered in passing how the Other World or underworld of the dead and gods fairies is always seen as a "world upside down" compared to ours) are recorded as early as the twelfth century and continue at least until the fifteenth.

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Central element of the action and of the ceremonial representation was the so-called Ship of Fools, a boat that was dragged grotesquely through the dry roads of the town [10]. The passage of a Ship of Fools was already recorded in Gesta Abbatum Trudonensium, a Belgian chronicle dated 1133.

This kind of collective ambulatory ritual it may perhaps be related to ritual raids on the type of gods Charivari of certain male brotherhoods such as iΒ Luperci in ancient Rome, i taltos in Hungary, i calusari in Romania, and those who disguise themselves as Krampus in the Alpine area, not surprisingly during the mid-winter solstice crisis period of the year; equally, among the Kwakiutl of the subarctic area, the members of the Cannibal's Lodge, during the days dedicated to the ritual practices of Mid-Winter, noisily pass through all the houses of the village, to scare the inhabitants and at the same time to ward off the demons [11].Β 

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The ritual inversion of Midwinter is connected by Nigel Jackson to the practice of Indo-Tibetan Tantrism called Ulta Sadhana, "Going against the tide". It is a total regression of the human, psychic, respiratory and physiological faculties to return to the Pure Void of the "Diamond Body", the eternal consciousness beyond time and space. [12].

In medieval England, on January 6, the day on which the 12-day "solstice crisis" of Midwinter ends, the Christmas Fool walked the streets of the town wrapped in animal skin, dancing accompanied by the Morris Men and swordsmen [13]. And Janet Bord, still speaking of the British tradition, pointed out how [14]:

Β«The descriptions of fairy dances recall in some cases the popular dances still widely diffused in Great Britain, and above all the so-calledβ€œ Morris ”, whose origins remain surrounded by an aura of mystery. It is not to be excluded that centuries ago people copied the dances they saw the fairies perform and that, over the years, they adapted them up to the current versions. Β»

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The Fool and the Fairies

We have already noted, at the beginning, how the medieval figure of the Fool / Jester can be iconographically connected to much more ancient figures, belonging to the world of myth and folklore. However the hooded cape, typical of the Buffoon, is worn in archaic traditions by supernatural beings, geniuses and demons as well as "by the gnomes of the Christian era, their heirs"Β [15].

All these figures, as anticipated, if on the one hand they appear connected to the functional sphere of fertility and healing, on the other hand they are nevertheless to be linked to the nocturnal and funeral one of sleep and death. In fact in the Celtic tradition i fairies they are recognizable on the one hand as demons of the vegetation, on the other as spirits of the dead [16]. These are - as we have said - the same functional iconographic areas of the Folle, as well as other liminal figures of medieval folklore such as the Wild Man and Harlequin.

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Not by chance the red hood with a cloak commonly worn by the Fool it is also, in various traditions, an attribute of the feral entities. Le nothing, shape-shifting spirits of the northern European water, wear a scarlet cap, as do the nani and gnomes (usually pointed), and also the kallikantzaros of Greece (which goes around completely naked except for the red hood), the Barabao mutamorphic of the Venetian tradition, i pixies of Cornwall, the Little People who dwell within the Irish rath of Enniscorty, the evil spirits of the British Isles known as redcaps (who dip their caps in the blood of their victims).

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And again, we can mention the Feorins of Lancashire, i Duende of Spain and Portugal, the Heinzelmannchen Germanic, similar to kobolds, the Oakmen English (whose hat recalls the Amanita muscaria) and the Fuddittu Sicialian. Others, such as i Rubezahl and Hey hey man from Central Europe they wear a red cape, which sometimes covers their faces. Even the Erdluitle, dwelling in the caves and mines of Austria, Italy, Denmark, France and Germany, are dressed in a red (or black) cape that covers them up to duck feet [17].

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Without a shadow of a doubt the hood and the cloak are to be connected with a popular cult very much in vogue among the Celtic populations: that of the genius cucullatus (as the Romans called him), a deity clad in a cloak with a hood that covers his head. The Latin name cucullus is of Celtic origin, indicating at the same time the "hood" and the "foreskin": hence a reference to fertility and sexuality [18]. The phallic and prophylactic character of these is to be emphasized cuddled geniuses: they came also adored in the thermal springs, as they were attributed therapeutic properties [19].

It was also believed that their hood, as in the case of the aforementioned feral entities, allowed them to gain invisibility and not be seen by humans. It was also believed that they were the spirits of the earth, sometimes represented with a female figure who could be the goddess of fertility [20]. With regard to the Genius Cucullato, which we have already mentioned as the archaic ancestor of both gods fairies that of the Fool / Jester, Waldemar Deonna detects [21]:

Β« Il cucullatus it is also a symbol of suspension, of the blocking of life; dressed in a nocturnal cloak, in the night he illuminates, that of sleep and dreams; dressed in the funeral cloak, that of the last sleep. Life, light, fecundity on the one hand, night and death on the other, far from being antagonistic, are on the contrary related and associated. The deities of fertility, fecundity, vegetation, healing, are everywhere and at the same time the deities of death; and the phallus, source of life, stands on the tombs. But this death is but a passage to a new life. "

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Numerous Fools with donkey ears appear in the satirical engravings of the Narrenschift (Ship of Fools) by Sebastian Brant, published in Basel in 1495. Here too Buffoons remember in their indeterminacy of number and sex i fairies of British traditions and the souls residing in the Underworld, as well as the legions of demons of medieval demonology treatises: sometimes it happens, moreover, that even the devil is depicted, as well as horned and itiphallic, also in possession of the fateful donkey ears that link him to the iconography of the saturnine King of the Waning Year or of the Holly, as well as of the Fools [22].

I fairies, like the Fool, they do not act according to human rationality, but apparently without a purpose: β€œHumans generally act with a purpose, and expect other creatures to do the same; but it is possible that this concept is not common to beings from another world " [23].

It is also interesting, for the purposes of our study, to note that even in recent times i fairiesΒ exhibit external characteristics that clearly bring them closer to the medieval image of the Fool / Jester. For example nn 1979 in Nottingham, England, some children who were in Woolaton Park at dusk saw about sixty "little men" wearing blue shirts, yellow tights and jester hats with pompoms; they also had wrinkled faces and long white beards with red tips [24].

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I fairies/ jesters in psychedelic experiences

Not only: Subtle-world entities that appear during psychedelic experiences are often described as similar to fairies and medieval jesters. Entities encountered during the DMT experience are described by many as "elves" and even as "clowns". One of the volunteers who underwent the tests of Rick Strassmann she claimed to have been "on a merry-go-round", along with a large number of "dolls dressed in the fashion of the late nineteenth century" and "some clowns, whirling in and out" [25].

Similar experiences are very reminiscent of some visits to fairy land collated by folklorists: for example one that took place in Wales reported by Walter Evans-Wentz, in which a little boy, after being brought by Tylwyth Teg in an underwater cave below a river, he found himself in a palace where they were playing with golden balls, arranged in circles like those in which they usually dance and sing [26].

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Another Strassmann volunteer demonstrated the impression of having been inside "a crazy circus show", adding that the entities of the Other World "looked like gods wildcard, and they almost seemed to represent him to me. They looked funny, with bells on their hats and big noses. However, I had the impression that they might be angry with me, and they didn't seem entirely friendly. '

A third volunteer confirmed these feelings: β€œThey were like clowns, or jokers, jesters, or even imps. There were a lot of them doing their funny things ". After describing the scene in which he found himself, similar to a "casino in Las Vegas, all a twinkle and a whirlwind of lights", he feels transported upwards, where he could see "Clowns in full action ... animated clowns" [27].

Benny Shannon, professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reports that many of the people who have tried ayahuasca mention structures reminiscent of amusement parks, rides and amusement park wheels. Michael Harner, a well-known American anthropologist who did research in the Amazon in the early XNUMXs, reported that the night he first drank ayahuasca he saw what he described as a "Supernatural carnival of demons" [28].

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Conclusion

In the notes that we have drawn up here, passing from the iconographic context of the Folle / Jester of the medieval era to the mythical-folkloric one relating to entities other such as the Wild Man, the Genius Cucullato and all the various categories of feral entities of the various traditions, we have tried to frame the desecrated figure of the Buffoon / Jester in a more traditional order of ideas, which has to do ritually with the "ritual inversion" typical of some sacred festivals such as the Roman Saturnalia: on the other hand we have seen how the Mad King with donkey ears, double of Saturn, is nothing more than an ancestor of the medieval Fool, who also maintains the same asinine attributes many centuries later.

From this we have assumed that, during the Christian era, the Mad King of Saturnalia and all those mythical figures engaged in collective walking rituals of pagan origin, have iconographically resulted in various types of entities, such as the Wild Man and Harlequin, connected to the Fool / Buffoon for their liminality and otherness, as well as for the indeterminacy and fluidity they exhibit among the anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and vegetal forms.

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Characteristics, these, that we have shown typical of all those entities of the other world that we have named for convenience fairies, which are found in the Cuckold genius Celtic and in Telesphorus Greek ancestors perhaps more archaic as well as those subtle entities which according to the most recent studies can be encountered in the midst of psychedelic experiences such as those experienced by Terence mckenna, Michael Harner or the volunteers who underwent the tests of Rick Strassmann, who therefore ideally place themselves, in contemporary folklore, as the clearest descendants of fairies, genes and various demons.

We could therefore hypothesize, having provided these data, an iconographic descent of the figure of the Fool / Jester from far more archaic mythical figures, subtle entities well known from the foklore. From this point of view, the medieval Jester seems to be, in the final analysis, an anthropomorphization and a paradigmatic profanization of figures other in an era in which, by dominating the Christian conception, they had been excluded from the collective imaginal and sacred sphere and therefore, consequently - as mentioned - profanized and in this way reinterpreted at an understandable level for the new dominant conception.

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Note:

[1] St. Pietrini,Β Jesters, p. 19

[2] W. Deonna, Gods, geniuses and hooded demons, P. 13

[3] M. Amateis, At the borders of the human: Savages, Fools, Bears. Medieval Amerindian and European traditions, β€œDecantatore 11” (Presenze grafiche).

[4] Ivi, p. 36. The Wild Man, by virtue of his ontological link with the loci in which the myth placed his home - a place not yet anthropized and in which he aspects more panics of nature still reveal themselves to travelers - it reveals itself as the symbol of a connection with the natural forces that we could define as organic, holistic, based not on rational knowledge but rather on a way of being, on an engulfment in a panic flow that seemed to flow through all the realms of manifestation, from the mineral to the vegetable, from the animal to the human - and beyond.Β  It is therefore not surprising that in many medieval representations the Savage, usually depicted as a naked, bearded and hairy man, sometimes with features reminiscent of those of the ancient Satyrs and Silenes, is somewhat confused with the green man, god-demon of the vegetative force adored above all in Celtic-British territory, where he often appears also in the sculptural decorations of churches (representation that in the Mediterranean area is superimposed on that of the river god Ocean). Not only in medieval European art, but also in the Amerindian conception, eg. of the Kwakiutl, a tribal population located on the north-west coast, the Man of the Woods, here called Bekhu's, is imagined Β«green in color, testifying to his nature, also vegetal, and covered with foliage in the trunk areaΒ«; "The beard is made up of foliage, as is the headdress of intertwined leaves and branches." Another initiator spirit of Kwakiutl mythology, the Hamatsa Cannibal Spirit, dwelling "at the northern edge of the world" from where he initiates mid-winter novices to shamanic apprenticeship, is displayed adorned with spruce boughs and cedar bark. As Margherita Amateis comments, "initiation foresees an interpenetration with the forces of the forest", the same interpenetration that we believe the Wild Man of the European tradition experiences [Ibid, pp. 8-9].

[5] Vi is also the one who wants to see Jesus riding a donkey on Palm Sunday at the entrance to Jerusalem, which will be the prelude to his immolation, a not too veiled continuation of this sacrificial tradition of the Mad King.

[6]Β Amateis, op. cit., p. 37

[7] D. forest,Β mesh, p. 53

[8] Amateis, op. cit., p. 46

[9] M. Eliade, Shamanism, p. 118. Eliade notes: "Everywhere in the world learning the language of animals and, first of all, that of birds, is equivalent to knowing the secrets of Nature and, therefore, being able to prophesy", adding that sometimes this secret knowledge can be obtained eating the flesh of certain animals considered magical (such as the snake), as "conceived as the receptacle of the souls of the dead or as epiphanies of gods" [Ibidem].

[10] This is a scene that the twentieth-century imaginal genius of Werner Herzog re-imagined - and therefore re-created - in the splendid film Fitzcarraldo (1982), where we witness, in an epochal sequence, the transshipment of a ship in the Amazon forest, from one side of the mountain to the other; and the conductor of this iconic Ship of Fools and "Bishop of Fools" can only be Klaus Kinski, who followed the "Via del Folle" even with the lights off, to the end - and who already ten years earlier was leading an equally iconic Ship of Fools in another collaboration with Herzog, thatAguirre (1972) embellished by the musical harmony of Popol Vuh, which in hindsight can be considered as a modern update of the vein of Navigation typical of Celtic Christianity, from S. Brendano to S. Patrizio.

[11] These collective incursions may perhaps also be related to the topos legend of the "Wild Hunt" or "Furious Army", particularly alive in the Central European, Northern and British areas, or with the Dianaticus or procession of Diana (interpreted "Christianly" as the procession of the souls of the dead condemned to Purgatory).

[12] N. jackson,Β Masks of Misrule, p. 88.Β A scene inspired by this ritual procession can be seen in the film The Wicker Man by Robin Hardy from 1973, where the protagonist is tricked into being invited to take on the role of the Fool… with predictable consequences.

[13] Ivi, p. 65. This conception of going backwards through the current of time in order to get out of time proper, the historical one, and access the atemporal dimension of mythical time (what the Australian aborigines call Dreamtime and Mircea Eliade "Sacred Time") can perhaps be connected, as some have proposed, to the Italic god Janus (Janus or Dianus, consort of the goddess Diana, a selenic goddess still worshiped in the Middle Ages in many rural areas of Europe), liminal god ultimate: it is in fact the number of the beginnings, of the entrance and exit doors (ianua = "Door") from the world and time, which Ovid already put in relation to the primordial power of the Kaos at the time of creation; he was considered the "lord of the time amidst the times". Janus was also obviously, like Saturn and before him, ruler ofgolden age, which is unique with the Β«Sacred TimeΒ»: its celebrations occurred at the beginning of each month, and especially at the beginning of the new year, immediately after the Saturnalia dedicated to his successor. As Margaret Murray reported, the cult of Janus was still alive in the seventeenth century among the Basque witches, who worshiped him in his classic, horned and double-faced aspect, and under the name of Janicot [Ibid, p. 20].

[14] J. Edge,Β Fate, P. 51

[15]Β Deonna, op. cit., p. 25

[16]Β Ibid, p. 38

[17] M. Conese,Β Born with shirt, p. 86-89

[18] Ibid, p. 94

[19] Ibid, p. 96

[20] Bordeaux, op. cit., p. 148

[21] Deanna, op. cit., p. 82

[22] Jackson, op. cit., p. 61

[23] Bordeaux, op. cit., p. 115

[24] G. Hancock,Β Shamans, p. 387-8

[25] Ibid, p. 449

[26] WY Evans-Wentz,Β Fairy Faith, p. 149

[27] Hancock, op. cit., p. 449

[28] Ibid, p. 450. The same Terence McKenna perceived in his encounter with what he called "interdimensional elves" a reflection of the archetype of the circus and the amusement park, "carnival" places that nevertheless have two facades, one "bright" and one "dark, sinister" (the one for example which includes the spectacle of freaks), an archetype that according to ours had well understood the local filmmaker Federico Fellini, who in works such as Amarcord o Juliet of the Spirits (but, we add, also the Satyricon and the short film Toby Dammit) created "carnival scenes that refer to DMT" (it is also known that Fellini had experiences with lysergic acid, LSD). McKenna summed up with these words the ambiguity of the encounter with these "other" intelligences, connecting it to the panic experience of the ancient Greeks: "There is an emotionality in all of this, which finds no correspondence in our world, because it summarizes in itself an incredible strangeness combined with an extraordinary familiarity. It is an ecstasy that it is coincidence oppositorum, it is simultaneously what it is and what it is not. And the human mind cannot manage it, it is called cognitive dissonance and generates total panic "[McKenna, DMT, p. 54].Β 


Bibliography:

BORD, Janet: Fate. Mondadori, Milan 1997

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