Occult origins of the Joker
photo by Warner Bros Pictures
It’s great that Heath Ledger won an Oscar for his role as the Joker. Bravo! In his performance he created one of the great movie villains. When I saw the Dark Knight movie in the theatre, it left me thoughtful. What was the theme of this movie? It really did tackle some significant themes, something uncommon for action movies. I had to ponder this movie for a while.
One of many themes in the Dark Knight film, is both Batman and the Joker are damaged individuals, suffering from severe childhood trauma. Bruce Wayne’s childhood trauma shaped him for the better, or at least in a better direction. This was a reflection of the positive nature of his upbringing by his parents. Wayne channeled his parent’s ethics into a positive direction. The movie suggests the opposite of the Joker. The personal stories he tells his victims suggests a horrific childhood. A child raised in a dysfunctional family will very likely follow in those dysfunctional footsteps. The Joker seems as intellectually brilliant as the Batman, but his intellect is aimed at trying to prove to the world how unfair life is and how morality and civilization are all a joke. The Joker’s rage is actually against his childhood.
The writers of the movie thought this through very well. The Batman character has evolved through the decades. From a child’s comic book, it matured under writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore. Inspired by these writers, director Tim Burton reinvented Batman along the line of this mature Batman. Yet, it was only a halfway journey into the direction the comic’s writers had already taken Batman. Later directors totally sank the movie franchise by going back to the silly past.
Director Christopher Nolan finally realized the Batman character’s full potential, taking the work realized with the Batman comics and transforming it into his movies. The themes of the movie were already present in the comics. The idea of the Joker as Batman’s dark opposite is not a new concept. That the Joker finds meaning in his life with his duels with the Batman is a common theme in the comics. What Nolan did that was brilliant was to take the very best ideas of the comics and somehow distill them into a truly excellent series of films.
Lets look at the character of the Joker. The Joker is an example of a Jungian archetype, the trickster. The trickster is a mythological character who plays tricks on clueless humanity. They were often malicious, such as the Norse trickster god Loki. Other tricksters were the fairies whose used their “glamour” or illusion to befuddle mortals. Or he could appear as the diabolic Mephistopheles who attempts to trick men into selling their souls in a doomed Faustian bargain. In the Batman movie, the Joker is very much like a Mephistopheles, who presents terrible moral choices without any chance at victory.
Also significant is the very name…the Joker. The Joker card is reputed to be based on the Tarot card, the Fool. If so it is the only card of the Tarot’s Major Arcana that appears in our modern playing cards. The Tarot’s Joker, the Fool, is the only unnumbered card. It shows a vagabond wandering with a bag hitched over his shoulder and a dog nipping at his legs.
What is the symbolism behind the Fool card? Slung over the Fool’s shoulder is a bag containing the suits of the Tarot. The four suits of the Tarot cards represent the various conditions of human existence, but they are tied up in the Fool’s bag, unrealized and unused. The Fool is unaware of their potential, and his own.
The next card in the Tarot is the Juggler. The Fool’s bag is now opened and their contents are laid out before the Magician on his working table. The Magician understands his potential and exercises it. The Fool wanders the earth clueless to his potential in his bag, chased by the dog of mundane everyday life. The Fool card symbolizes a state of ignorance and unawareness. The other cards of the Tarot show a steady progress through the various states of human existence on the path to final enlightenment. But at the very beginning is the Fool, completely oblivious to his great potential.
Is the Joker the Fool, and Batman the Magician?
The Fool and the Juggler cards
Continue reading here: Is channeling spirit guides a good idea or dangerous? Abramelin’s answer
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