Tarot

N° 94

Tarot
ATS Newsletter December 2010
ATS - AGM 29th January 2011
A brief mention that the Association’s AGM will be held
on the 29th January at 2 pm, at Soul Foods, Brunswick (Mel-
bourne). Any member that wishes to add an item to the Agenda
please contact the Secretary. Current provisional agenda include stand-
ard Reports, Conventions, & Publications.
Tarot Studies

2011 Membership (new & renewals)

Whether renewing or becoming a member for the first time, you can now
pay for your 2011 membership via PayPal from our homepage! Membership
payments received in December will be deemed as applying to 2011.
Tarot events galore in 2011
I’m not going to list all forthcoming events in order-of-appearance, but rather
take the opportunity to mention especially two: the New Zealand June Southern
Tarot Symposium; and our own ATS Convention in September in France. The Ital-
ian Tarot trip organised by Arnell Ando, which follows on from our Convention,
already has, I have been told, a waiting list, so more details at this point would
only add to feelings of dissappointment for those desiring to participate.
If you are in this situation, do consider coming along to one of the other events
which can accommodate more people than the trip! For other events, do check
both our Events page as well as the editable Calendar of Tarot Events. Regular
for

events in New York, San Francisco and in the UK also make for wonderful
opportunities of participating... but at this stage simply highlight the following:
Southern Symposium, N.Z.
Association

Taking Stock will be the theme for the upcoming Southern Symposium

scheduled for 17-19 June 2011 in Auckland, New Zealand. Co-hosts Fern Mercier
and Lyn Howarth-Olds are once again collaborating to offer a weekend of tarot
indulgence. The weekend will take shape as a ‘live’ three-card reading. Where
we have been, where we are now and where we are heading (past, present, future).
Jean-Michel David will take us back to the PAST, Annie Dunlop, will bring us
into the PRESENT, and Fern Mercier will guide us into the FUTURE.
Mini-Master classes taken by tarot luminaries from Australia and New Zealand
will add to a fine line up of tarot talk. For full details, registration, accommoda-
tion options etc, visit www.tarot-ART.com
Tarot History & the Esoteric
This year’s Convention will the the first time the ATS ventures further afield to
A 0044941 T
co-host the annual event – and what a setting and line-up of presenters!
Association for Tarot Studies The location is itself in a semi-remote village not far from Brittany, atop a hill,
PO Box 4013 and classified as one of those few mediæval villages remaining in France. The area
Croydon Hills bosts card-making from the period, and, of course, it is also the home of master
Vic. 3136 card-maker Jean-Claude Flornoy who has given us remakes of the Noblet and the
Australia Dodal tarot.
association.tarotstudies.org The focus of tarot history and the esoteric will interweave varied discussions
and presentations on tarot in general. As always, we’ll also have a couple of sessions that engage us in pertinent
tarot art. One of the keynote speakers will be Christine Payne-Towler, whose book The Underground Stream
has become a classic in terms of tarot history and the esoteric; Marcus Katz, Lyn Olds, Dan Pelletier, Karen
Mahony and Alex Ukolov, Mafalda Serrano, Russell Sturgess, Fern Mercier, and Enrique Enriquez are amongst
the confirmed speakers… with a few others not-quite-confirmed at the time of the release of this month’s
News.
This is an event, has as already been claimed by others, not to be missed! Yet, places ARE limited, so please
do organise yourself early. The first sixty booked are all that are manageable, as we don’t want to crowd the
presentation spaces!
Please DO share these events on your blog, facebook page or site. Go to the 2011 Convention page for an
image and link information.
Want to book now? see our 2011 Convention page!
Random card
I’ve been asked for some time for a means to display a random card on sites – I’ve finally got around to it! If
you’d like to display a random Noblet card on your site, insert the following code:
<p><iframe src=”http://www.fourhares.net/ats.irev” width=”260” height=”390” align=”middle”></iframe></p>

An example is in the right-hand panel on our home page.

New Books
Tarot in Culture
We’re in the process of of putting into book form an important collection of essays
on tarot edited by Emily Auger. The collection includes important essays from a
range of people, including Michael Dummett, Robert Place, Mary Greer, Helen
Farley, Ed Buryn, Julie Cuccia-Watts and a host of others!
It is expected that the printing will take place in about July 2011. You can help a lot
by pre-purchasing a copy. Not only will this guarantee you the price, but it will also
help us offset the increasingly high costs of printing such a voluminous work.
More details available from a link on our home page.

The Secret of the Tarot

It’s always a pleasure to be able to peruse through new books. Robert Swiryn’s The Secret of the Tarot is one
such that I look forward to reading. At the same time, I remain sceptical, but open to any new evidence he
presentes, to the central idea which subtitles the book: ‘How the story of the Cathars was concealed in the
Tarot of Marseilles’. For those interested, the Preface and Introduction are available as pdfs from his site. See
our home page for a link.
I also hope to also be able to bring you a taste of this book in a not too distant future Newsletter!

Finally, on behalf of everyone at the Association, a Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Solstice, and Merry Christmas!

Until the New Year, enjoy!!!

Jean-Michel David
 PLAYING THE FOOL
Fern Mercier
Roam through the 600 years of tarot histo-
ry with the Fool, raiding the treasure houses
of art, history, poetry, literature, theatre,
film, folklore, fairy-tale, myth and math-
ematics with Fern Mercier. We won’t pin
her/him down but we can widen and deepen
our appreciation of The Fools’ irrepressible
wisdom and wit.
Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s free
Skipping apart from the ordered procession of the
other Major Arcana, the tarot Fool has no number.
Is s/he first or last in the Arcana sequence? It is irrel-
evant, for the Fool is a nothing - it is neither below
one nor less than one - it is no- one! The zero of the
Fool suggests s/he moves before or after, above or
below, in and out of the other personages in the cards.
Metaphysically and psychologically s/he is a wild card.
The fool is a holy nothing – a whole, a zero. The zero
is as contrary as the tarot’s Fool for it is a universal
symbol of absence or negation, but also a symbol of
completion. Nothing is null and void, insignificant,
empty, absent, insubstantial, worthless. It is the ether,
the immensity of space, a point, a hole, yet also con-
versely, the whole.
For every culture uses the circle as a representation
of unity, perfection and cyclical movement.
The circle symbolises spirit and a circle describes
the cosmos – everything unified in the vast realm of
the uni-verse, the one song of life. A circle is alpha
and omega where there is no beginning or end. The
ancients said God is a circle whose centre is every-
where and circumference is nowhere. So the circle is
a vision of limitless possibilities, just like the Fool in
perpetual motion, ever restlessly roaming the world.
The Fool is embryo in the womb of the World.
Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here.
Where did you get your eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.
Where did you get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.
(George MacDonald 1871)
The circle with the dot inside shows us the idea
that new life arises spontaneously, unique and fresh, -
separate yet inseparable - from the heart of the chaos
of everything. The circle is the cosmic egg as well as
the womb where the embyro is birthed. The original
Mother Goose was the Egyptian goddess Hathor. She
laid the golden egg that was her son, the sun god Ra.
The ancient creatrix produced the universe in the
primordial World egg.
So in the tarot’s circle, the Fool is the embryo’s
thrust to begin life’s journey that completes within
the World card’s circle/mandorla/egg/womb. The
World card holds and reveals the eternal beginning
and ending cycle of life, the circle out of which The
Fool pops.
Thus the miracle of birth and death is bounded in
the idea of nothing – a circle that is a zero: a cosmic
wholeness with comic loopholes.
The Fool reminds us that the center of the universe
is here where we are now and there wherever the Fool
might show up next.
In the great game of life, Tarocchi was
the most popular card game for over
300 years throughout Europe. Games
played with the tarot used the Fool
as an expendable card, playable at any
moment, yet incapable of taking any
tricks or of being taken, valuable in points only if held
unplayed.
The modern Joker in playing cards, invented by the
New York Poker Club as a ‘wild card’ to make the
game more interesting, is apparently not related to
the tarot deck’s Fool – so the authorities say. But it
does serve a similar function to the tarot Fool and to
the Court Jester – it’s wild, powerless and free. Para-
dox rules its being.
Playing ROUND with Number Nothing
Nothing comes from nothing.
Everything comes from nothing.
Zero contains a wealth of concepts and yet it is
nothing. The biggest questions in science and religion
are about nothingness and eternity – the void and the
infinite. Zero has been rejected and exiled and yet it
has always defeated those who opposed it.
Nothing is a profound problem. It has the potential
to unsettle the very foundations of thinking in physics
and philosophy – it forces us to ask the ultimate ques-
tions of the meaning of life.
Zero provides us a glimpse of the ineffable and the
infinite – it is in fact infinity’s twin both equal and
opposite, paradoxical and troublesome.
The Tarot assigns infinity to The Magician and
Strength cards who both employ the symbol of infin-
ity in their headgear. In a deeper reading we might
assign The World card to infinity, whilst The Fool is
given zero.
 Nothing really matters
(Freddie Mercury)
We moderns know that Nothing –no-thing - is really
something because it occupies space and contains
power. Our computer keyboard affirms this reality.
Yet in the West, during the late Middle Ages when
tarot emerged, zero was a dangerous idea to be feared
and outlawed. For nearly two millennia the West
could not accept zero. It had had no place within the
Pythagorean framework.
What shape could zero be? Its irrationality made
non-sense of the Greeks neat and ordered universe, so
Pythagoras and Aristotle rejected and ignored it.
The Medieval Christian scholars, who imported
their ideas from the Greeks and Romans, included
this fear of the infinite and horror of the void.
Satan was considered literally Nothing. The circulus
– little circle – was the brand burned into the fore-
head or the cheeks of criminals in the Middle Ages.
You ain’t seen nothing yet
(Al Jolson)
In other parts of the world however, zero was
embraced very early on. The Indian Hindus readily
accommodated a wide variety of concepts about noth-
ingness. Unlike Christianity and Judaism who sought
to flee from the void as it was considered a state of
poverty and anathema – the Indian religious tradi-
tions accepted non-being on an equal footing with
that of being. Zero formed a coherent whole. Nothing
was a state, from which one might have come and to
which one might return. Furthermore, these transi-
tions might occur many times – without beginning
and without end. In Buddhist teachings, one sought
to achieve Nirvana – the being at oneness with the
cosmos.
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself
a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams
(Hamlet by W. Shakespeare.)
Nevertheless, zero wormed its way into European
society, firstly through its use by traders and mer-
chants. The Muslim world had long accepted the won-
derful zero and convinced the Jews that the Arabic
counting system was far superior to Roman numerals.
Throughout the 13th century, Italian merchants began
to put commercial pressure on their governments to
eventually accept zero in the business world.
Then artists took up zero’s cause. At exactly the time
tarot appeared in Northern Italy, an Italian archi-
tect Filippo Brunelleschi demonstrated the power
of the infinite zero by painting a vanishing point. In
1452 he placed a zero point in the centre of his draw-
ing of a Florentine building and thereby magically
transformed Western art, turning two dimensional
work into 3 dimensions.
Eventually the church and its scholars were forced
into the realization that the earth is not the centre of
the universe. Nicholas of Cusa and Nicolaus Coper-
nicus cracked open the nutshell universe of Aristotle
and Ptolemy.
Among the great things which are found among us, the
existence of Nothing is the greatest
(Leonardo da Vinci)
In this millennium, the 2000s – the age of the
‘naughtys’ - the zero has become commonplace.
There are many more zeros around today than when
Tarot emerged into being and in fact, than anytime in
history. Because of binary arithmetic, computer calcu-
lations and codes, astronomy’s billions of stars within
the known universe, not to mention national debts –
we are accustomed to the ubiquitous zero.
In our mathematics, we announce each decade with
zero as that circular no-thing recycles and ushers in
the next cycle ie from 9 to 10 or 19 to 20 and so on.
By adding a few zeros we increase our source of
income. Add a few more zeros and the banks and
speculators move us into hyper-inflation. We assume
that zero moves us into infinity, as we take for granted
that zero increases a number 10-fold, a hundred fold
and on and on ad infinitum….
Much ado about nothing
(Shakespeare)
Is it first or last in a sequence? Where does The Fool
fit?
Zero is neither below nor less than one. If we count
forwards we generally start with number 1. Except
for the Mayans, nobody had a year zero or started
a month with day zero. To Europeans, that seems
unnatural. Yet if we count backwards, it is second
nature. – 9,8,7 … …O - we have liftoff! The bomb
goes off at ground zero. An important event happens
at zero hour not at one hour.
Zero has become a commonplace - we name Year
Zero as the time when the unspeakable began in
Cambodia and Ground Zero in New York City marks
an historical spot.
A baby turns one after a year’s
life which surely means the baby
was zero years old before that first
birthday?
It is a silly, childish discussion and only exposes the want
of brains of those who maintain a contrary opinion to that
we have stated. The Times (London) December 26th
1799
 We Westerners left the Fool out when our calendar
was devised – there is no year zero. Hence the won-
derful joke of the third millennium with its spectacu-
lar world-wide opening ceremonies taking place a year
early on December 31st 1999, when really it began in
the year 2001.
The Fool’s Title
The Divine Bum
(Paul Huson)
The word fool comes from the Old French fol from
the Latin follis meaning a “pair of bellows” or “a wind-
bag”. The tarot Fool indeed often carries an inflated
bladder. Today’s clowns sometimes carry a pair of
bellows maintaining that ancient connection with the
windy folly of their origins.
Buffoon from the Latin buffo means toad and the
Italian buffare means “to puff ” also suggesting a
windbag.
The Fool’s French name Fou means madman and is
cognate with the word fire, echoing the connection
with light and energy. Folle means madwoman and
Folie means folly. In the Swiss deck, the Fool is called
Le Mat meaning “the dull one”. In Italian Il Matto –
the Mad One.
Often court fools were mentally retarded and there-
fore considered to have a special relationship to the
spirit. Affectionately called “God’s folk” the village
idiots were cared for by the community as they were
considered under protection – touched by God.
Silly once meant blessed. To be “silly” in a Medi-
eval sense meant to be holy and sensitive to religious
impulse.
Frequently the image of The Fool is shown in medi-
eval and Renaissance engravings as a child of the
Moon (La Luna ); the Fool as a luna-tic. The 17th
century Fool in the Mitelli deck from Bologna may be
a lunatic.
Jester is a word that comes from the
French and originally meant “someone
who recites gestes or heroic tales”. This
suggests an earlier role of fools being
all-round Minstrels and troubadours.
Many centuries later, the 20th century
“song and dance men” of Vaudeville,
Burlesque, Music Hall, both pre-and
post-television and moving pictures
have entertained the masses royally.
The Fool was also at home in the Medieval Morality
plays, free to move on and off the stage, improvis-
ing both with the other actors as well as with the
audience. Harlequin and his mates Pantaloon, Scara-
mouche and Pulchinello of the Italian Commedia Del’
Arte complete with their hectic slapstick craziness,
derive from this foolish, time-honoured, theatrical
tradition.
Clown is a native English word probably from the
Celtic meaning “ a boorish rustic” and cognate with
the word “clod” meaning “country bumpkin” and used
interchangeably with Fool” in Elizabethan times.
Circus clowns are known for their droll buffoonery.
There have been many names for the Fool as there
are colours in his crazy clothing. Buffoon, Harlequin,
Joker, Droll, Zany, Punch, Vice, Puck, Jack Pudding
and Merry Andrew are a few of his names in English.
Folly, Sister to Wisdom
Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And
hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?
(Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn)
Images of the Fool were common in the Renaissance
at the time the Tarot appeared in Europe. Literature,
theatre and people’s daily life abounded with Fools.
The Fool was celebrated in folk Festivals. Our
modern April Fool’s Day is a pale left-over from
the outrageous anarchic carnivals and Mardi Gras
of Medieval times when the Lord Of Misrule over-
turned the strict hierarchies of the times at the
Winter Solstice and on Holy Innocents’ Day. Foolery,
drunkenness and cross-dressing ruled the day. Every
small town and large city held a rowdy parade that a
crowned Fool headed in triumph. Topsy-turvey ruled,
gender-bending expected when even wives had license
to beat their husbands.
In the literature of the time, the Fool’s mother was
called Folly and it is she who is sister to Wisdom.
Shakespeare’s motto that a wise man knows he is a
fool, recalls the famous assertion of Socrates, wisest
of the Greeks, who said he knew only that he knew
nothing.
It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
(Aeschylus)
Tarot artist Brian Williams re-launched 15th century
Sebastian Brandt’s wonderful Das Narrenschiff - The
Ship of Fools – (1494) with his Tarot of Fools deck
in 2002. The allegory of foolish humanity all in the
same boat sailing oblivious through
the world, seems especially poignant in
this environmentally fragile era of our
global village.
Erasmus the great Dutch humanist portrayed Folly
as Goddess in his masterpiece “In Praise of Folly”
published in 1511. To Erasmus, Folly encompassed all
forms of Unreason and defended the “creative vital
instincts of humanity against the encroachment of
the analytical reason.” For although Folly “may have
no altars or temples, she is nevertheless the most uni-
versally worshipped and beloved and obeyed of all the
deities who bear sway over human affairs.” Folly “fos-
ters the pleasing allusions which make life possible”.
Erasmus asks “What would work without Folly?
What would sex be? Folly is the very giver of life for
is not the very act that brings humans into existence
filled with folly?”
The Court Jester
The revelation of laughter
T’were better Charity
To leave me in the Atom’s Tomb –
Merry and Nought, and gay and numb –
Than this smart Misery.
(Emily Dickinson)
Fools played a large part in medieval life and were an
integral part of every feudal court. Sometimes they
could even attain certain renown. Mattello was one
such famous fool. His name is derived from the Ital-
ian matto and he was the court fool to Isabella d’Este,
Marchioness of Mantua.
Great Lords and Popes found a place for a Fool in
their households and there s/he was kept in an hon-
ored position. The Fool’s job was to entertain their
master and mistress and to remind him that like
Caesar, he was only human and open to error. Theo-
retically at court, the poor Fool was the one person
immune from retribution for quips at the master’s
expense. However all too often s/he became the butt
for cruel jokes, for s/he was also a scapegoat.
Fools came in all shapes and sizes, often absurd, gro-
tesque physical specimens, which emphasized their
role as an outsider. There were giant
fools and dwarf fools. Jimmie Camber
who lived in the early 1500s and was
the pet dwarf of King James 5 of Scot-
land was said to be “just over a yard
high and two yards in girth” (round the
waist).
Both male and female could play the Fool. In the
1600 Mathurine was the favorite fool of three French
Kings.
There were learned fools who specialized in clever
wordplay. Some university professors took part-time
jobs as buffoons to supplement their meager teach-
ing salaries. Buffoonery could pay so well, that many
could give up teaching entirely.
Some dwarf fools were prominent in other profes-
sions and many were lawyers. Our modern-day equiva-
lents – of which there are many - are easy to spot!
Each country and time period has ‘em. Our modern
media is full of Fools.
Fools Kings and Popes
The Emperor, The Hierophant & The World in Cap & Bells
The Fool and the Priest have a special
relationship as evidenced by the Fool’s
headgear, which seems to have hidden
a shaved head, a parodying imitation of
the monk’s tonsure. The hood itself is a
grotesque illusion to the religious cowl.
Nevertheless, Fools were often wel-
come among the clergy. Pope Leo X loved his jokers
so much they could enter his chambers unannounced
anytime they wished. Visiting officials were not so
privileged. They usually faced long delays before they
could see the Pope. It was jested throughout Rome
that an official who wanted to see the Pope quickly
should dress up in fool’s motley.
The dwarf- fool Querno was a poet, musician and
wit. He lived in Naples and had an amazing ability
to make up rhymes. Leo, patron of buffoonery heard
about Querno and wanted to add him to his collection
of fools. He summonsed Querno to Rome – a great
honor for the tiny fool. To create a sensation, Querno
made his entrance into Rome riding an elephant and
wearing as a joke a crown of vines, cabbage leaves
and grapes. From the top of the huge beast, Querno
shouted funny Latin verses that he had composed
with the Pope in an earlier meeting on the outskirts
of the city.
The relationship between Fool and King is best illus-
trated with Shakespeare’s play, King Lear. In this great
and absorbing tragedy, we are exposed to the ultimate
exposure and defeat of the King who is degraded to
the status of the meanest of his servants. We watch
the royal sufferer being progressively stripped, first of
extraordinary power, then of ordinary human dignity,
then of the necessities of life, to physical nakedness,
helpless and abject as any animal. Then as the king’s
very sanity dissolves, the great reversal occurs. On
the heath the poor mad king is turned into fool and
beggar, guided by his half-witted court jester. Shake-
speare crowns the Fool and invests the king with
motley. Throughout, the Fool remains the mouthpiece
of truth, of real sanity, an impartial critic.
In his dotage the tragic hero Lear cries “When we are
born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools”.
So the Fool/Jester plays at the court of
the king as well as pope. In tarot talk
the Emperor and the Fool as well as
the Hierophant and Fool are partners.
Sometimes the Fool speaks in riddles,
which encode a truth the king accepts even when he
can’t accept any honest declaration. The Fool’s wit
or buffoonery reverses the edicts of authority and
officialdom, so that the highest dignitaries of State or
Church appear as fools themselves and the State, the
Church and even the World herself, is revealed in cap
and bells.
Bottom or Simpleton
Taboo is the Fool’s terrain
The Fool, slippery as s/he is, can be divided roughly
into two types, although s/he has the capacity to be in
both camps.
The Buffoon, like the clown is Shake-
speare’s John Falstaff or Sir Tony Belch.
They make lots of noise, and they’re
spiteful, rapacious, lying, deceitful,
greedy and drunken. We laugh at poor
Bottom wearing ass’s ears in Midsum-
mer’s Night’s Dream. He reminds us of
our own worst fears – being laughed at
for our ignorance.
We are familiar with the buffoon in drag in Panto-
mime or at university Capping concerts and transves-
tite and Queer festivals. All Fools love to cross-dress
and confound sexual stereotypes. Australia’s own
Dame Edna is a marvelous modern Buffoon/ Fool.
Buffoons thumb their noses and show their bot-
toms at convention and authority. Their tomfoolery
includes iconoclasm, disrespect and subversion.
Jennifer Saunders and Pamela
Stephenson in the TV series Absolutely
Fabulous are two buffoons spilling
venom at the fashion industry and all
other aspects of the filthy rich’s lifestyle. The two
Fools laughter directs derision toward society and
society’s derision is flung like stones back at them.
Then there is the Holy Innocent, often a simpleton
or saint-like Forrest Gump character. The Idiot in
Dosteovesky’s book by the same name is a beautiful
example. Prince Mishkin is an epileptic who “sees”
things with a heightened awareness and personifies
the redemptive power of simplicity plus faith. Men-
tally and physically abnormal, a Fool is always an out-
sider who is set apart and therefore views the world in
a different way.
(11 image Charlie Chaplin) Without
guild and malice, naïve, usually celibate
the holy Fool is often used as a foil to
show up a corrupt society, the only
person to speak but with no power to
change the world. Parsifal from the
Arthurian legends was a great Fool,
relying on his naive intuition. He was fool enough
NOT to ask and eventually then to ask the one simple
question that was needed to redeem the Wasteland.
Like the foolhardy youngest brother or sister in fairy
tales who rushes in where angels fear to tread and by
doing so, wins the hand of the prince/ss and the king-
dom, the Fool’s approach to life combines wisdom
AND folly, which can result in miracles.
The Fool shows us how the sublime and the ridicu-
lous are one and the same. Either or neither, idiot
or jester, s/he unites Shakespeare’s Caliban who is
lurking, willful and dark - with Ariel who is quixotic,
brilliant and light. Both are servants and both desire
freedom.
The Fool, like zero, employs and embodies paradox,
the exception that does not deny the rule, but man-
ages to escape or break it. S/he blurs distinctions,
especially in the area of sexuality and spirituality.
An ambiguous figure of fun, s/he can be both grossly
obscene and (w)holy innocent. The Fool criticises
the ego while celebrating the self. The Fool scatters
certainty about sexual identity.
The Fool often represents the marginalized and the
dispossessed. Taboo is the Fool’s terrain. Nothing is
sacred and comedy is his/her map and journey.
The Fool is our guide who does not know where or
what s/he is. A medieval text tells of the Fool Philip,
who was given a new shirt by his master. Philip put on
the shirt and ran all through the house asking every-
one who he was, for he did not recognize himself in
his new clothing.
And then there’s the child in Hans Christian Ander-
son’s tale The Emperor’s New Clothes” – who speaks
like the jester without punishment or censure… to
the whole community trapped in illusion…. “But the
Emperor is wearing no clothes!”
The Fool is the revelation of laugh-
ter and the embodiment of mirth.
Laughter happens when we are totally
involved, absorbed in the moment and/
or looking on as an observer, standing
quite apart from the moment. Laugh-
ter breaks us out of ourselves and may
restore proportion, whilst reflecting
skepticism and credulousness. Often though, a fit of
the giggles does NOT restore order, but increases the
silliness of the moment. The Fool scorns our ortho-
doxies, and substitutes absurdities, encouraging us to
believe them because s/he does.
The Fool’s Clothing
‘Motley: – an assortment and variety of types, the costume of
a jester.’
In early tarot decks, the Fool was sometimes por-
trayed as ragged and unkempt, sometimes simply a
beggar, sometimes in complete jester’s panoply with
bells, cap and bladder. A Fool sports a medley of col-
ours, baubles and bells.
In medieval drama, the fool’s costume traditionally
consisted of a tight-fitting hood with long ass’s ears at
the sides and sometimes a cockscomb trimmed with
hawk bells on the top. Sometimes he sports horns
from his cap. The flaps of her coat frequently ended
in bells and the trousers were often of variegated col-
ours, the favourite tints being light green and yellow.
Sometimes the Fool has feathers on his
head as in the Visconti-Sforza deck (1450)
where Il Matto is a beggar in penitential
white. Feathers can be found in other
Renaissance paintings such as Giotto’s
Folly in the Arena Chapel in Padua. Cesare
Ripa in the Iconologia tells us feathers are
a symbol of foolishness. However, maybe
they also emphasize his connection with the heavenly
spirit. The movie Forrest Gump begins and ends with a
feather drifting from and to heaven. Here the feather
alludes to the foolish Forrest Gump as being a feather
on the breath of God.
The horned hat in the Marseille deck
links the Fool to the God Dionysus who
was born with horns on his forehead.
This linked him with the young kid or
goat – a suitable sacrificial offering to the
gods in the ancient world and gives an
undertone of scapegoat to the insouci-
ance of the Fool. Dionysus was said to
have gifted wine upon human beings – and wine is
one of the great doorways to ecstasy and revelry. April
Fool’s Day is a remnant of the great drunken holidays
when the Fool reigned supreme. Annual carousing in
public on New Year’s Eve in New Zealand has become
a Fools’ paradise for many, while Authorities wring
their official hands.
There are a few particular animals associated with
the Fools clothing. Asses (the ears on his cap) and
cocks (his hood is called a coxcomb) – remind us of
the Fool’s infamous lustiness, for both these animal’s
names have become semi-taboo. In polite company
we call them donkeys and roosters. Interesting to
note that both animals are implicated in the sacrificial
imagery of Christ’s story; it was a humble ass that
carried Christ to triumph into Jerusalem to his death,
and a cock that crowed three times to announce
Peter’s betrayal. Do we take this to mean that the
Christian Lord is a Fool?
Dionysus also celebrated his birthday at the winter
solstice and was an ancient god of sacrifice.
The English Morris and Mummers’ Fool frequently
wore a fox’s skin which may link him to Reynard the
Fox, a trickster of European origins and hero of the
12th century beast epic Roman de Renart. Reynard like
the Fool is canny, amoral rebel pitting himself against
all authority - foxy indeed.
The Fool’s traditional bauble is a wand
he carries, that is usually an inflated
bladder filled with rattling beans or peas.
It would often look like a phallus – like
the manic Punch who has a colossal
penis. The Fool’s bauble has two pendant
balls and is obviously his tool, a fertility symbol. At
the same time, as a scepter it connects him directly
with the King as his alter ego. If you get hit with the
Fools’ bauble, the joke is on you. His slapstick is the
defenseless Fool’s only weapon.
Women Fools could carry a leather dildo called a
Baubo. This name alludes to the cathartic and heal-
ing function of the bawdy Dionysian comedies which
are associated with the Greek myth of the Goddess
Demeter. She is pulled out of her grief by laughing
uproariously at the grotesque crone Baubo’s dirty
jokes. Baubo also entertains the Goddess by showing
her bare rump and genitals.
Lewdness and fertility are associated with the Fool,
although Love itself doesn’t sit easy with the poor
Fool…… “in love everybody plays the fool” or “I’m just a
fool for you” etc
The Fool’s Dog
Hounded by our instincts
The Fool, like the hero in the Fairy tale,
is almost always in every deck walking
with an animal companion, usually a dog
who represents the forces of nature, our
instinctual self, our desires driving us on,
leading us into success or misery, happi-
ness or failure.
The dog is our familiar, our domestic compan-
ion, our guardian. In the Marseille decks the dog is
attacking the Fool’s bottom (who seems oblivious
nonetheless).
Perhaps the idea being conveyed here is that the
wandering Fool is a stranger in our midst and our
animal instincts are warning us to be on guard?
Perhaps the dog represents our animal desires that
are driving us onwards?
Perhaps we should be listening to the watchdog’s
barking? What has it got to tell us? What is dogging
us?
Perhaps the Fool doesn’t care his backside has been
exposed by his animal drives? The Marseille Fool’s
bottom is bared and yet his face is unembarrassed and
shows no shame.
We seem unaware or ignorant of the dog’s power to
make an exhibition of ourselves.
Perhaps ignorance is bliss?
If our head is in the clouds and we doggedly pursue a
quest like Don Quixote, we will tilt against reality, fall
prey to accidents and crazy whims.
Doggone!
Contemporary Fools
… fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
(Alexander Pope. Essay on Criticism.)
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Fools rush in where wise men never go…
(Elvis Presley)
The demise of the fool - at least as an
institution and as an accepted part of
the ruling classes everyday life - began
in the 17th century. The 1790 image
shows us a stern nymph admonishing
the fool in ass’s ears. “Know Thyself ” she instructs….
Tut tut – the Age of Reason(?!) and political correct-
edness is upon us.
Of course the Fool is still within and without, and
of course in the modern age, Fools abound. They’re
all around us. Popular culture is their playground and
they pop up wherever you may least expect them - in
our music, on the radio and TV, and of course in the
movies.
Nothing is real - Strawberry Fields Forever
(The Beatles)
Some of my favorite Fools are:-
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol is a fabulous
Fool as is the Book itself.
Charlie Chaplin like Don Quixote
tilting against reality, the little tramp
is the quintessential fool… with his gift
for self-mockery, exploiting his own
absurdities without any apparent loss of self-esteem.
Marilyn Monroe played The Fool in most
of her movies where the Hollywood macho
machine forced her into being the dumb
child blonde. However she transcended
her sex-objectification in roles such as
Some Like it Hot or Diamonds are a Girls’ Best
Friends with her comedic sense of timing
and naivety in taking things at their face or
literal value. Her waif-like vulnerability was
often ingenuously/ genuinely funny.
Buster Keaton, Peter Sellers, Mae
West, Judy Holliday, Lucille Ball,
Guiletta Masina (Fellini’s wife in her role in his mas-
terpiece movie La Strada.
Danny Kaye – one of my all-time
favorite Fools. Spike Milligan.
And then there are the groups of
fools and eccentrics, the Buffoons, the
Keystone Cops in the 1930s the Carry
On Films from the 1950s, The Goons
1950s, Dad’s Army and The Hillbilly’s
1960s TV, The Young Ones 1980s etc
etc.
The Marx Brothers, and the inimi-
table Monty Python – their classic
‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
(and Death)’ as they swing from the
crosses of Gethsemene in the Movie
Life of Brian
The great Sammy Davis Junior, Vaude-
ville and Music hall “song and dance
man”
Jack Nicolson’s The Joker in the
movie Batman. He has no past and is
never seen without the wild make-up of
a joker in a deck of cards.
Billy T. James in his brilliant rendi-
tion as The Mexican Kid in the immor-
tal NZ movie Came a Hot Friday.
Jim Carrey in The Truman Show plays
a classic Fool, Peewee’s Big Adventure.
And then there’s real life.
The hippies and the young at heart of all ages wear-
ing a medley of colours affecting rags and patches,
baubles and bells. Maybe the motley of psychedelic
colours of the ‘60s and ‘70s presaged a new dawn of
consciousness for all of us? Remember those cries –
oxymorons all – of “free love” and “make peace not war”
while sticking flowers down the barrels of the soldiers’
guns…. Ah how foolish we were! Pied Pipers and Peter
Pans all.
Backpackers, wanderers traveling around with all
their worldly goods slung over their shoulder. Tramps,
hobos, transvestites…. Fools are punks, the social out-
casts, the homeless, the bawds, the drunks.
The centre of reality is wherever one happens to be, and
its circumference is whatever one’s imagination can make
sense of.
(Margaret Atwood.)
The King and his court can be a lovely symbol for
the inner world of our psyche. The child/Fool criti-
cizes the King, who stands for our adult ego - while
celebrating the innocent self. S/he is
equally at home in the everyday world
of ‘reality’ where most of us try to live
most of the time, and in the non-verbal
world of the imagination where we visit
not nearly enough.
Like Puck, King Oberon’s Jester in Midsummer’s
Nights Dream, our inner Fool revels in moving freely
between these two worlds, mixing them up to make
fun of the waking consciousness.
“Lord what fools these mortals are!”
(Shakespeare)
The Fool’s world is often bizarre and delights in illu-
sion and the imaginary. It is the Cheshire cat’s grin.
It destroys logic and entertains in puzzle. It lies in
the singularity of the Big Bang and the heart of black
holes. The Fool will always have the last laugh.
Let us celebrate and crown our own Fool. “Ask our-
selves where’s the Fool in my life? Who’s the Fool in
my family or workplace, the community, the funny old
world?”
Let’s skip into and through our own lives, looking for
the Fool, playing the Fool, being the Fool.
“Esser come il Matto nel tarocchi” (to be like the tarot
Fool – all over the place, at home everywhere and
nowhere)
The Fool Spread
Devised by Fern Mercier
A circular spread with Number 7 sitting alone in the
middle of the circle
Remember Folly is sister to Wisdom.
1. What kind of fool am I? This describes me and the
journey I’m on.
2. Specifically in what area of my life is my folly located?
3. The Dog - my instincts/desires - that are driving and
accompanying me?
4. The Knapsack – my baggage/resources – what am I
carrying?
5. What in my wildest dreams do I want to be?
6. What is grounding me?
7. One card in the middle of the circle – what is my great-
est Folly?
Bibliography: Books and Magazines
authors listed alphabetically
FOOLS PLAYS A study of Satire in the Sottie by Heather
Arden. Cambridge University Press 1980.
THE BOOK OF NOTHING by John d. Barrow. Vintage
2000.
SAMBO The Rise and Demise of an American Jester by Joseph
Boskin. Oxford University Press 1986.
THE KING’S FOOL A Book about Medieval and Rennaissance
Fools. By Dana Fradon. Duttons Children’s Books 1993.
THE FOOL - THE CLOWN – THE JESTER by Fred Fuller.
From Gnosis a Journal of Western Inner Traditions No. 19 Spring
1991.
THE DEVIL’S PICTUREBOOK by Paul Huson Abacus Press
1971.
MYSTICAL ORIGINS OF THE TAROT From Ancient Roots
to Modern Usage by Paul Huson. Destiny Books 2004
JUNG AND THE TAROT An Archetypal Journey by Sallie
Nichols. Samuel Weiser Inc 1980.
ZERO The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife.
Souvenir Press 2000
CRAFTSMAN OF CHAOS by Lynda Sexson from Parabola.
Myth and the Quest For Meaning. The Trickster Vol 4 No. 1
Tamarack Press.
THE WOMAN’S ENCLYOPAEDIA OF MYTHS AND
SECRETS by Barbara Walker. Harper San Francisco 1983.
FROM THE BEAST TO THE BLONDE On Fairytales and
Their Tellers by Marina Warner. Chatto and Windus 1994.
THE FOOL His Social and Literary History by Enid
Welsford. Gloucester Mass. 1966.
BOOK OF FOOLS by Brian Williams Llewellyn Publications
2002
WOMEN ON TOP Symbolic Sexual Inversion and Political
Disorder in Early Modern Europe. From Society and Culture
in Early Modern France by Natalie Zemon Davis. Sanford
University Press 1975.
www.clownbluey.co.uk
Images
images in their order of appearance
1 IJJ Swiss Fool
2 Playing Card Joker
3 January 1st 2000 cartoon
4 Mitelli Fool 17th century
5 Ship of Fools
6 Velazquez Dwarf Jester
7 Fool and the Priest
8 Cleopatra and Fool Jacob Jordaens 1653
9 Keying Up Fool William Merritt Chase 1875
10 Absolutely Fabulous
11 Charlie Chaplin
12 Fool Laughing Anon Dutch c.1500
13 Visconti-Sforza Fool
14 Rahere, Last Jester to Henry 1 and Mathilda 1100.
15 Fool Tickling Woman’s Fancy
16 Marseilles Fool with Dog Jodorosky and Camoin
17 Nymph admonishing Fool
18 Charlie Chaplin
19 Buster Keaton
20 Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby (2 images)Danny Kaye as Court
Jester
21 Marx Brothers (2 images)
22 Monty Python
23 Jack Nicholson as The Joker from Batman
24 Billy T. James
25 Jester in Motley – modern image