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malicious pranks is there, as it is in Hermes, but there is also the
power of shape shifting between the animal and the divine, and his
exposure to initiatory tortures that confer upon him salvific healing
power.91 Insofar as the tortures are concerned, the Spirit Mercurius
occasional y allows others to outwit him so as to play the divine
jester or fool toward a greater end – like an animal playing dead.
Unlike Zeus, who is always concerned to defend his apparently very
fragile honor, the god Hermes is willing to be made a fool of, but he
uses his foolishness as another device for his machinations. What is
so significant about The Cosmic Joker in his guise as arch-comedian
is that he dynamites the Hegelian dialectical progression from the
overcoming of the irrational in Art through its final stage of comedy, onward to the autonomy of rational Man over Nature in modern
Science.
Carl Jung explicitly draws a connection between the Trickster
archetype and the paranormal phenomena and psychic experiences
studied by parapsychologists.92 He sees the malicious tricks played
by poltergeists as manifestations of the Trickster. He notes how
these often take place in the ambience of pre-adolescent children.
The deceptively stupid and inconsistent character of some
‘communications’ from spirit mediums is also the Trickster at work.93
Jung understands the Trickster archetype to be a dissociated or
split-off personality, not belonging exclusively to any one individual or another, but a personification that is produced by the totality
of individuals in a society. Consequently, it can be perceived by
individuals as if it were something external – in a way that they
91 Carl Jung, “On the Psychology of the Trickster Figure” in Paul Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books, 1972), 195.
92 Ibid., 195.
93 Ibid., 196.
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would not be able to recognize a dissociated aspect of their own
personality.94 This projection is a collective analog of the personal
shadow side of the psyche, and it expresses itself whenever accidental circumstances convey the impression of jinxes, or again, in
poltergeist activity or spiritualist séances. It has been well noted that
‘channeled’ material often reflects the contents of the unconscious of all those present at a séance on any particular evening.95
The more the shadow of the irrational is found to be at odds
with the conscious ego and is repressed in the individual, the more
impressively it may be able to manifest as an antagonistic force on a
collective level.96 The Trickster figure gains even greater strength on account of the secret al ure that its primal vitality has for a repressed psyche. In primitive cultures this collective projection had a kind of autonomy and was even capable of possessing certain individuals.97
Suppressing this relative autonomy, as the rationalistic ‘scientific’
mind has, is not going to cause the Trickster to disappear. Jung
believes that on the contrary there will be an even more violent and
destructive return of the repressed on a collective level, especial y
if conditions of socio-political uncertainty open an opportunity for
its release from out of the unconscious.98 When it seems that fate
is playing tricks on us, or things appear to be bewitched, then the
Trickster is breaking through the crust of civilization and making
his way back into our world.
In his book on Flying Saucers, Carl Jung speculated that
contemporary close encounters represent a reemergence of the
Trickster from out of a collective unconscious rebelling against
the overly mechanistic and materialist framework of modern
science.99 There is increasing clamor for UFO “Disclosure” but, if
Jung was right, just what would it be a disclosure of? In his study
94 Ibid., 201.
95 Ibid., 202.
96 Ibid., 204.
97 Ibid., 205.
98 Ibid., 206.
99 Carl Gustav Jung, Flying Saucers (New York: Princeton University Press, 1979).
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of the UFO phenomenon, Colonel Alexander, whose use of the
term “phenomenology” opened this chapter, comes to a very
similar conclusion as Jung. Dr. Alexander and other researchers
set up a laboratory of sorts at the Skinwalker Ranch to study the
Trickster and its relationship to close encounters.100 On the basis of a phenomenology of the occurrences that he and others witnessed
on the ranch, he formulated the term “Precognitive Sentient
Phenomena” (PSP) to refer to the form of intelligence behind close
encounters and UFO phenomena. Here is how the Colonel explains
his idea:
The issue of The Trickster is well established in paranormal
research. That means that whatever is generating the incidents does
so in a manner that does not remain consistent over time. What
is being proposed is a derivation of that idea. The precognitive
sentient phenomena concept suggests that there is some external
controlling agent that initiates these events that are observed and
reported. It appears as though that agent not only determines al
factors of the event, but is already (i.e. precognitively) aware of
how the observers or researchers will respond to any given stimuli.
The agent can be considered like the Trickster that is always in
control of the observations. Every time researchers get close to an
understanding of the situation, the parameters are altered or new
variables are entered into the equation.
The preface to John Alexander’s book is written by Dr. Jacques Vallée.
In his decades of research on the close encounter phenomenon,
Jacques Vallée has demonstrated that the UFO phenomenon of
the 20th century is on a continuum with the airship sightings of the
18th and 19th centuries, the Fairy aerial conveyances of the Medieval
and Renaissance periods, and the chariots of the gods and heavenly
armies of the Lord observed in antiquity.101 Vallée has also noted
the inextricability of UFOs from psychic phenomena and from
100 John B. Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, 232–236.
101 Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1993).
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a theatrical display of absurdity characteristic of the Trickster
archetype. He characterizes “the mechanism by which UFO events
are generated” as a “phenomenon whose manifestations border on
both the physical and the mental… a medium in which human
dreams can be implemented...”102
Vallée suggests that the human imagination may be behind close
encounters, but in that event it is a far more powerful force than
scientists in the grip of materialism believe it to be.103 UFOs may be collective hal ucinations of a kind, as Jung suspected, but if so they are what early psychical researchers called “veridical hal ucinations”
or apparitions, and moreover telekinetic apparitions that leave
physical traces.104 Vallée compares the quality of the disembodied
voice ‘heard’ by those who experience a close encounter with the
&n
bsp; characteristics of psychic automatism studied by the Society for
Psychical Research, and interestingly he cites the work of Frederick
Myers in particular.105 This imaginative force may not be as entirely
irrational as it seems; there may be purposeful patterns to discern
beneath its outward aspect of patent absurdity.106
Vallée finds that one of the clearest overlaps between fairy
folklore and close encounter experiences is time distortion. People
who dimly hear the distant music of the fairies making merry and
try to trace it, are sometimes drawn into the fairy rings or magic
circles of the Celts or the elf-dans of the Norse, which Vallée compares to the contemporary “crop circles”, imprinted on wheat
fields and hil sides so that the fairies or elves can dance at night.107
These perfectly circular imprints or clearings, measuring two to ten
yards, have been reported for centuries.108 Mortals who dance with
the ethereal beings in their circles, may even go away with them
102 Ibid., 153, 159-160.
103 Ibid., 49.
104 Ibid., 67, 94.
105 Ibid., 94.
106 Ibid., 48-49.
107 Ibid., 32, 38.
108 Ibid., 38-39.
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inside a round or conical object that stands on tripod-like legs inside the magic circle, for what they take to be a brief visit to the fairies’
abodes. They return looking just as they were and thinking that they
have only been away for a few hours, whereas in fact days, weeks,
months or even years have elapsed from the perspective of ordinary
folk, who have aged in the meantime.109
One particularly extraordinary case involved a bride who, on her
wedding day wandered off for a little while in pursuit of the strains
of a strange, ethereal music. She soon found a knoll “where the elves
were making merry” around a large, flattened circular or disc shaped
“magical object” that the woman later described as a round table. This
‘table’ was standing on red pil ars. After drinking a cup of wine offered to her by the “wee folk” and dancing with them for a round, she
hastened to return home to her own wedding festivities. Her family
was not there to greet her. Everything and everyone had changed
in the vil age. Final y, upon hearing the panicked bride hysterical y
relate her story, a very old woman identified her as the wife-to-be
of her grandfather’s brother, who disappeared without a trace on his
wedding day a hundred years ago. Hearing this unfathomable truth,
the miserable young woman dropped dead of shock on the spot.110
On the basis of the significant time distortions implicit in the
phenomenon, Vallée speculates that close encounters may represent
some sort of window into the future – a window through which
people who have freed themselves from linear time are accessing
various epochs of our history as it approaches the singularity of their own present:
…should we hypothesize that an advanced race… sometime in
the future has been showing us three-dimensional space operas
for… thousand[s of] years, in an attempt to guide our civilization?
If so, they certainly do not deserve our congratulations! …Are
the UFO’s ‘windows’ [into the future] rather than ‘objects’? 111
109 Ibid., 29.
110 Ibid., 108.
111 Ibid., 153.
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In other words, Precognitive Sentient Phenomena or – the Trickster,
who may or may not be traveling through space but is certainly
working backwards through time and history. Vallée even describes
the Trickster’s creation as “a pure form of art.” It may be that: “Like Picasso and his art, the great UFO Master shapes our culture, but
most of us remain unaware of it.”112
112 Ibid., 160.
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TRIAL GODDESS
Joseph K. is “guilty” as charged by the mysterious ‘Law’
that is brought to bear upon him. His crime is the failure
to recognize and reconcile the strife between two aspects
of his character – the possessive, conscious, rational
self in pursuit of advantage, and the unconsciously reckless seeker
of chaos and ecstatic transcendence of the ego. Fraulein Burstner,
the Usher’s wife, and above all Leni, are in some way involved with
the mysterious ‘Law’, and they invite Joseph K. to acknowledge the
second of these two aspects. I will argue that these promiscuous
women hold high unofficial positions in ‘the Court’ and that they are
emanations of the Triune Goddess of Witchcraft, Artemis-Hecate,
whose image Titorelli paints above the High Seat of the Judges of the
Court. Mythic imagery of esoteric significance associated with this
goddess, pervades The Trial.
In his present life, Joseph K. fails to resolve the duality of his
character into the spiritual harmony of a Trinity forged beyond
judgments of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. He cannot overcome his rationalizing
and possessive ego in order to understand the true nature of the Law
presided over by the Goddess in Titorelli’s painting. He forgoes the
help of the three witches of the Law on account of his inability to
transcend his desire to possess these wild and untamable maidens.
Drawing from references to the subject in Franz Kafka’s Blue Octavo Notebooks, I examine the possibility that reincarnation might allow Joseph K. a chance to learn from this shameful failure.
In this connection, I suggest that the “definite acquittal”,
“ostensible acquittal”, and “indefinite postponement” explained by
Titorelli, can be interpreted as metaphors for the transmigration of
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the soul. I reveal a connection between “indefinite postponement”
and the imagery of the wise innocence of the children of the Court,
and of the Court officials who have returned to the playfulness
of childhood. Final y, in light of the above, I argue that the third
interpretation of the parable “Before The Law”, the one accepted
by K., is more or less correct. In other words, the deception of the
exoteric aspect of the Law and its scriptures is a necessary deception
– a means of preserving the manifestation of a world of diverse
beings, by concealing the devastating Oneness of Being itself.
1. Extant Interpretive Frameworks
Interpretation of Franz Kafka’s masterwork, The Trial, has hitherto fallen into one of four basic categories: psychoanalytic, political,
religious, and existential. So as to see more clearly how the reading
to be developed here transgresses all of these superficial interpretive rubrics, it would be in order to briefly remind one of the broad strokes of these four positions. This should sharpen the contours of my own
proposals, without compromising their clarity and directness by
repeatedly interrupting my text to draw explicit contrasts with one or another of these interpretations.
The psychoanalytic interpretation is perhaps the most superficial
of al , and the one that can be most easily dismissed – especial y in
light of Kafka’s own view of psychoanalysis. Within a decade of Kafka’s death, Hellmuth Kaiser came forward
as the first representative of
this interpretation,1 which has since been developed by many others.
According to this interpretation Kafka’s writings, including and
perhaps especial y The Trial, are an attempt to rationalize his own psychological injuries. The conspiracy of the omnipresent court is
ostensibly indicative of paranoid delusions and projections from out
of a persecution complex, while the hierarchy of officials is taken to be an attempt at establishing mediate relationships to authority so
as to temper the envy that would predominate in a direct encounter
1 Walter Benjamin, “Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of His Death,” in Illuminations (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 127 .
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between persons with too great a social difference separating them.2
Joseph’s relationships with the women that are supposedly reified
as sexual objects and connections, are seen as expressive of his own
neurotic feelings of guilt over his sexuality, motivated in part by an obsessive concern with ‘purity’.3 A perversely enduring infantile
sexuality is allegedly crafted into a sophisticated critique of accepted erotic norms.4 As we shall see from entries in his notebooks, Kafka
was a harsh critic of just such reductive psychobabble. He recognized
that in its infinitely regressive manner of interpretation psychologism only pretends at ‘explaining’ anything.5
Although they are also overly reductive, political interpretations
of The Trial have a little more substance to them. These are often grounded in notes wherein Kafka makes fleeting references to
anarchist figures such as Peter Kropotkin, Lily Braun, and Alexander
Herzen.6 One note of particular significance is a sketch of a
“Propertyless Workingmen’s Association”, which seems to have been
a suggestion for a Zionist commune.7 In June of 1912 Kafka apparently
attended an anarchist lecture on the class structure of America
delivered by Frantisek Soukup.8 Michael Mares, who was a member
of the anarchist klub mladych in Prague, claimed (perhaps falsely) that Kafka was also in attendance there from 1909-1912.9 With support
from these suggestive ties to radical leftists, some critics have read The Trial as an argument that the Law is inherently hegemonic – that legal order as such is a machtergreifung or ethical y unwarranted “seizure 2 Theodor Adorno, “Notes on Kafka” in Prisms (MA: MIT Press, 1983), 250.