Danny Shine: A Modern-Day Jester

Danny Shine, also known as the ‘Social Experimentalist’, runs a YouTube channel where he posts videos of himself out in London with a megaphone, voicing his polemical views. (His more recent content on his channel is recorded monologues on various social, cultural, and philosophical topics.) In public, he’ll interact with passersby or those standing to…

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Timothy Leary: The Embodiment of the Trickster Archetype

The psychologist Timothy Leary was (and still is) a controversial countercultural figure. He can be credited with introducing many young people to LSD and mind expansion, which spelled good news to some and bad news to others. When you open your mind, you may not always like what falls in. Leary became an evangelist for…

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Psychedelics as Trickster Chemicals

There are many ways to define and conceptualise psychedelics. For example, these chemicals may be referred to as plant medicines or entheogens, based on their ability to generate healing or spiritual experiences, respectively. The Aztecs called Psilocybe mexicana (a species of psychedelic mushroom) teonanácatl, which in the Aztec Nahuatl language means ‘divine mushroom’ or ‘flesh…

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The Gestures of DMT Jesters

In my essay on DMT jesters and tricksters, I described how the entities of the DMT experience often take on the appearance and behaviour of court jesters and trickster beings found in mythology, offering an ultimately Jungian explanation, but stressing still how mysterious and idiosyncratic this psychedelic effect is. I also examined the psychological and…

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Part Human, Part Animal: What Therianthropes and Tricksters Reveal About Human Nature

A therianthrope is a mythical being that is part human, part animal, with some examples including the centaur, faun, satyr, werewolf, weredog, werecat, mermaid, siren, and minotaur. In furry fandom slang, the term therianthrope term also refers to someone who feels or believes she is partly or wholly a non-human animal, but for the purposes…

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