We are as Mystery Performers, in an archetypal way, an interesting mixture of The Fool and The Magician. Our role beyond entertainment is being the reminder of the nature of reality, just as shamans in our human origins. The first man/woman of mystery was that important figure, a beautiful combination of storyteller, doctor, scientist and spiritual guide.
We can observe particularly the interesting "sacred clown" role (Heyoka in Native American culture) as a clearer example of the association of entertainment and the spiritual duty.
In our modern times, we tend to separate roles, assuming that a performer can only express his/her role in light ways, forgetting the importance of what is essential.
Using the language of "Birreal", The Fool expresses our Inner Reality and The Magician our Outer Reality as Mystery Performers. We are camouflaged tricksters, as all Shamans. Shamans are experts of spectacular moves, the ones that bend reality in order to express the deeper truths, the explorer of the dimensions, the original experimentalist and practical philosopher.
The trickster that shows people the wonders of reality and the possibility of experience an apparent impossibility, and especially in Mentalism, we are offering people the complex notion that every reality is based in the mind, using our cool tricks.
But remember, doing the cool trick is not enough. The Fool is our "Inner Archetype", our responsibility is to transform those techniques and technologies and be present to the fact that The Magician is the "Outer Archetype". Our audiences wants mystery, not just tricks. The technical tools that we have are in service of the performance, not in reverse.
Lets embrace then the trickster archetype, lets have fun defying the assumptions of reality, inverting the common social roles and reminding people that the Ego is a persistent illusion ands lets constantly remember that in the perspective of our audience, we need to go beyond the trick, arriving to the mystery experience that people wants to have.
As my friend Jeff Mc Bride says: "Shaman, to Showman", both being sides of the same coin and dialectic polarities of our being as Mystery Performers.
It is our opportunity then to say now "and Showman to Shaman" back again in a cyclical constant advancement towards the beginning.
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