The Trickster and the Paranormal

by George P. Hansen

  Disenchantment Of The World

  The concept of rationalization was one of Weber’s seminal contributions to sociology, and it is directly related to charisma. In his usage, rationalization has several related meanings that are a bit difficult to

  summarize because it affects so many aspects of culture. Briefly, it involves instrumental use of objects and requires planning. Talcott Parsons explains that “Rationalization comprises first the intellectual clarification, specification and systematization of ideas.”15 This of course requires abstraction and drawing of clear distinctions, both of which are antithetical to the trickster. In law, rationalization leads to a growing body of rules and regulations, and the duties to enforce and interpret them lay in the offices (established legal positions) rather than individual personalities. For production of goods and services, it begets standardization and interchangeability, both of machines and of people. A regimentation emerges. There is increasing specialization in education and occupations. Social structure takes on greater and greater complexity, leading to ever growing hierarchy and differentiation. Bureaucracies act to maintain and advance themselves; they take on a life of their own, and people become alienated.

  These aspects of rationalization are well understood in sociology, and there is an enormous amount written on them. But there is another feature—”the elimination of magic from the world.” Weber recognized that a direct product of rationalization was die Entzauberung der Welt or the disenchantment of the world. Another scholar of Weber, S. N. Eisenstadt, explains that this is “a concept which denotes the demystification and secularization of the world, the attenuation of charisma’ (emphasis added). Rationalization-disenchantment is a long-term process, extending over thousands of years through which there have been stagnations and even reversals of the trend. Details of Weber’s rationalization theory have been criticized, and critics have pointed to counter-examples, but the broad sweep remains valid when a sufficiently long time span is considered. The overall trend is unmistakable.

  Weber noted that in ancient times as priests became differentiated from magicians, injunctions were placed against the use of magic. He specifically commented on the “rational” training required for priests in contrast to the “irrational” initiations of magicians. This is consistent with the findings of Winkelman presented in the last chapter.

  The rise of Protestantism was one step in the global rationalization process, and its contrasts with Catholicism are instructive. Catholicism has the stronger mystical component, whereas Protestantism largely disavows mysticism and monastic orders. Protestantism has no priests who serve as mediators between God and humanity. In the Catholic Mass with transubstantiation, bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, but in Protestantism, they are only symbols. Protestantism is more “text-based,” with God being mediated more through the written word of the Bible. Protestantism fostered the Higher Criticism, which disputed the reality of miracles. Many now look upon these differences as only arcane theological disputes, but in reality they have profound implications for our world.

  A set of factors merits contemplation here: Weber has immense stature in sociology; his ideas are universally known therein; he remains influential in other disciplines. Charisma has had enormous impact in the history of the world, and miracles played central roles (e.g., the miracles of Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed gave them legitimacy). Given all this, it is altogether astounding that social scientists ignore the question of the reality of supernatural phenomena. In fact, the vast majority of scholars writing on Weber’s notion of charisma give no hint that it involves such phenomena; if they do, it is typically in extremely vague, abstract terms. Even sociologists who write on the paranormal avoid mentioning it, even though Weber explicitly cited telepathy as a property of pure charisma. Only by reading Weber directly does one discover the importance of magic, the miraculous, and supernatural phenomena. This near-universal avoidance by academe is an important clue to the nature of the paranormal.

  Winston Davis, a professor known for his writings on religion and East Asian Studies, summed up the current situation: “if there is any attitude that is universally regarded as irrational and anti-modern, it is the outlook of the magician.” Weber noted that “the magician is permanently endowed with charisma.”21 Davis elaborates: “The conflict between the magician and the secularist is every bit as intense as the struggle Sir James George Frazer depicted between the magician and the priest of old. Not only theologians, but sociologists and intellectual historians seem convinced that this must be a battle to the finish.” He also comments: “We are told that in the modern world, magic must be sequestered or else it will cause the maladjustment of individuals or the dysfunction of the entire social organism.” Even casual reading of the academic literature will confirm Davis’ observations.

  Academe today is both a product of and an agent for the disenchantment of the world. It has steadily become more bureaucratic and hierarchical. Davis noted that “Weber believed that the very progress of civilization inevitably led to the permanent anesthetizing of the human spirit.” Anti-structure, pure charisma, and supernatural phenomena are needed for the vitality of culture. In academe they are marginalized, occasionally denounced but generally ignored.

  All these ideas illuminate the trickster. Weber states that “Bureaucratic authority is specifically rational in the sense of being bound to intellectually analyzable rules; while charismatic authority is specifically irrational in the sense of being foreign to all rules.”25 The trickster is explicitly a crosser of boundaries, a violator of rules, a denizen of the irrational. These ideas also raise matters pertinent to psi. In discussing Weber’s notion of disenchantment, Davis noted that one factor “less obvious from the annals of intellectual history, may be even more important: the disenchanting effect of the routines of everyday life in industrial society.” Davis is perceptive. “Routine” is antithetical to spontaneity and synchronicity. As will be described later in the book, William Braud’s research has shown that spontaneity facilitates the occurrence of psychic phenomena. Rigid structures of thought, behavior, and belief all conspire to reduce magic, suppress the trickster, and marginalize the paranormal.

  At this point something needs to be said about a small misunderstanding by Weber on the topic of magic. Magic is never actually eliminated from the world; it is only marginalized. It is removed from the conscious attention of cultural elites. The bureaucratic institutions of government, industry, and academe now ignore it, but it is still found in popular and low culture. As will be explained in coming chapters, cultural elites relegate magic to fiction, and large industries now flourish by portraying magic and the paranormal in and as fiction.

  Despite the small (but significant) error, Weber provided us with grand vistas on history and sociology, and from them we can see patterns of the paranormal. Miracles (paranormal phenomena) are found in conjunction with pure charisma. Pure charisma is a source of primordial power, but it’s unstable; like liminality it’s dangerous; it can overturn established orders. It needs to be attenuated and rationalized. In all this, Weber’s ideas are compatible with those of Victor Turner.

  However, Weber’s general formulations on rationality and disenchantment have additional implications—far beyond what he, and most others, have recognized. We will encounter those ramifications in a variety of contexts, and it may be helpful to give some idea of the coming discussions. Here I can outline them in only broad, general terms; much more detail will be given later. The concepts and terms may be difficult for those who have little prior familiarity, but some forewarning may be helpful even so. These are central to foundational issues being debated in academe today.

  One reason that the full force of Weber’s ideas has not been recognized is that they ultimately implicate the limits of rationality—the very foundations of Western thought. Science ignores those limits, and it is at those limits that the supernatural erupts. But it is not only the supernatural that is of interest, the p
roblem of meaning, the idea of objective reality, and the validity of logic are all directly related to rationalization and to each other. These matters are entirely ignored within science, but they are at center stage in the humanities—particularly in postmodernism and deconstructionism. When these ideas are raised in regard to science, scientists become anxious, panic, viciously lash out, and display an unconsciousness of the fundamental

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  issues.

  In post-structuralist literary theory, meaning is a central concern. By meaning, I am not referring to some grand purpose for an individual or for humanity, but rather the simpler and more prosaic concept discussed by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. The connection between a signifier and its signified, between a word and its referent, is the issue. Science today considers meaning to be entirely unproblematic. It assumes that a word can be unambiguously attached to an item or event. Ambiguity is repressed from consciousness. Deconstructionists recognize that meaning is problematical. They point out that a reader and writer can have very different interpretations. They emphasize the ambiguity inherent in language. Scientists steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the problem. Deconstructionists see the fundamental difficulty, and a few even vaguely suggest that a theory of literature requires a theory of telepathy. With this, magic and meaning are joined.

  In order to explore and explicate this, future chapters will examine the precursors to deconstructionism. It is well recognized that structuralism immediately preceded deconstructionism, but the precursors to structuralism have rarely been fully understood. The linguistic root receives attention, to the neglect of the anthropological influence. Most assume that deconstructionism’s consequences are limited merely to text. They’re not, and the implications for the real world are uncovered by considering the anthropological root.

  Furious debates about postmodernism, deconstructionism, and post-structuralism revolve on the issue of power. Deconstructionists assert that there is no objective reality, and that all attempts to define and control the world can be reduced to plays for power. Scientists maintain that there is an objective reality that, in principle, everyone can know, and that it does not depend upon power to force agreement. Weber’s contribution is of exceeding importance here because his work extensively addressed issues of authority, power, and domination. The concepts of bureaucratic, traditional, and charismatic authority are central to the debates—especially charismatic authority, because it is the primordial source. It is the wellspring of supernatural power.

  Another issue we will meet in future chapters is the reluctance to examine foundations too closely. Existence of society requires collectively held fundamental premises, beliefs, and assumptions. When they are questioned or challenged, disruption ensues. Western science adheres to the myth of objective reality, but it does not comprehend the foundations of that myth. Rationalization (and our society generally) presupposes the validity of Aristotelian logic, but that has severe limits. One way to demonstrate them is through paradoxes generated by reflexivity. Reflexivity is found in diverse areas, but there is a subtle and pervasive avoidance of the topic. These should be central issues for science and knowledge, and as I will show, the paranormal is fundamental to them.

  In summary, Weber’s concepts of charisma, rationalization, and disenchantment are crucial to understanding the structure and stability of societies. They also explain why the paranormal is marginalized. The implications are even deeper; they address the very foundations of Western thought.

  CHAPTER 9

  Cultural Change and the Paranormal

  In times of great cultural change, trickster and anti-structural manifestations are particularly apparent, and the supernatural is an important part of them. In 1956 University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace published his classic paper “Revitalization Movements.” It is one of the most illuminating works on cultural transformation, and it has been widely cited. Wallace compiled a database of several hundred such movements from five continents and analyzed their patterns of development. For his analysis, “revitalization movement” meant “a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture,”1 and he provided a number of examples to explain his meaning. Both Christianity and Islam originated in revitalization movements, and there have been thousands of others throughout history.

  Wallace delineated the process saying: “The structure of the revitalization process, in cases where the full course is run, consists of five somewhat overlapping stages: 1. Steady State; 2. Period of Individual Stress; 3. Period of Cultural Distortion; 4. Period of Revitalization (in which occur the functions of mazeway reformulation, communication, organization, adaptation, cultural transformation, and routinization), and finally, 5. New Steady State.” This formulation is strikingly parallel to van Gennep’s three phase model of separation, transition (or limen), and incorporation, as presented in The Rites of Passage (1909). Wallace’s period of revitalization is essentially equivalent to the liminal phase of van Gennep.

  Wallace defined his concept of the “mazeway” as a person’s “mental image of the society and its culture, as well as of his own body … it includes perceptions of both the maze of physical objects of the environment (internal and external, human and nonhuman) and also of the ways in which this maze can be manipulated … The mazeway is nature, society, culture, personality, and body image, as seen by one person.” In essence, it is a person’s picture of the structure of his or her existence. The metaphor of the mazeway is particularly apt for our consideration because a maze is simply a combination of passageways delimited by boundaries—rites of passage and boundaries being primary themes of this book.

  Wallace chose an organismic analogy for human society, which he viewed as composed of, not only individuals and groups but also the very cells and organs of people’s bodies. He described his framework as “holistic” saying it assumed a “network” of intercommunication (years later the New Age movement used the same terms). He went on to explain that a stress on one level would stress all levels.

  When society or some part of it is subjected to high stress, there will be an effort to ameliorate it. During the stress, not everyone attempts to change; reactionary forces try to maintain the status quo. In what could have been written by psychiatrist Ernest Hartmann 35 years later, Wallace comments: “Rigid persons apparently prefer to tolerate high levels of chronic stress rather than make systematic adaptive changes in the mazeway. More flexible persons try out various limited mazeway changes in their personal lives.”

  Some of the characteristics of cultural distortion parallel those described for shaman initiates undergoing their individual transformations. Wallace notes that during these periods “Some persons turn to psychodynamically regressive innovations … [including] disregard of kinship and sexual mores … states of depression and self-reproach, and probably a variety of psychosomatic and neurotic disorders.”5 Such deterioration can potentially lead to the death of a society.

  If the stress is not relieved by modifying discrete parts of the culture, a more radical change is needed. Such alterations can be abrupt. During the process, cultural mazeways are demolished and rebuilt.

  The supernatural plays a crucial role, and Wallace states: “With a few exceptions, every religious revitalization movement with which I am acquainted has been originally conceived in one or several hallucinatory visions by a single individual. A supernatural being appears to the prophet-to-be.” Wallace acknowledges that many people believe that such visions are pathological hallucinations, but he says that “the religious vision experience per se is not psychopathological but rather the reverse, being a synthesizing and often therapeutic process performed under extreme stress by individuals already sick.” Wallace even acknowledges the similarity of revitalization to shamans’ transformations in rites of passage. (There are also many parallels to Henri Ellenberger’s concept of creative illness. ) Wallace explains that the prophet generally “shows eviden
ce of a radical inner change in personality soon after the vision experience: a remission of old and chronic physical complaints, a more active and purposeful way of life, greater confidence in interpersonal relations.” Such a person often develops charisma.

  Wallace recognized the crucial role of paranormal phenomena, saying: “Followers defer to the charismatic leader not because of his status in an existing authority structure but because of a fascinating personal ‘power,’ often ascribed to supernatural sources and validated in successful performance, akin to the ‘mana’ or ‘orenda’ of ethnological literature.” Thus the leader derives power from outside the structure (i.e., via anti-structure) and gains legitimacy by paranormal manifestations. Wallace discussed supernatural encounters, focusing primarily on the leader’s, but he also mentioned that some of the other participants have “hysterical seizures” and ecstatic visions. He noted that “Like the prophet, many of the converts undergo a revitalizing personality transformation.”

  Revitalization attempts are not always successful; in fact they can lead to destruction, sometimes hastened by the supernatural. Oracles, diviners, and spirits are not altogether reliable, and their advice occasionally has had particularly nasty consequences. Anthropologist Weston La Barre surveyed some of them in his book The Ghost Dance (1970). In the late 1800s the Dakota Sioux were being pushed to extinction, and they undertook a ghost dance to revive their culture. After a shaman instructed them to wear magic shirts to protect them from soldiers’ bullets, they went into battle. They fought valiantly, and with renewed confidence, but the shirts afforded no such protection, and the Sioux were massacred. The Xosa of South Africa provide another example. In 1856 spirits promised them that if they made sacrifices, the spirits would help them drive out the English. The Xosa then destroyed their animal herds and all their grain, and consequently nearly all of them starved to death. Their reliance on the spirits proved disastrous. These are just a couple of the many examples summarized by La Barre.