Laughter: from the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Laughter connects to what I feel to be a higher oneness. When I clown on the streets or wherever the forum, I feel myself in another world, one where there is no judgement, where I just feel love and acceptance. When you are a fool, clown, tricksters, jester etc you can easily break the rules. It is not done as a form of rebellion, it is that you are in a space of freedom, and through the unifying nature of humour we connect to people and they allow us the freedom to say and behave as we do. I feel it comes from the innocence in which we interact with people. We are seeking no harm, simply to love and yes truth is part of this, we are completely visible. When you are a clown you are visible and vulnerable, within that you are completely free.

Laughter Is a Transcendental Experience

Laughter’s role is thought to be devine. The pieces of pleasantry are thought to have a secret charm to heal the spirit.41 It is the soul’s weapon in the fight for self preservation. Laughter is a transcendent experience it moves beyond words and is mystical.42 It rises above the situation creating a distance between the condition and itself.43 This state of Being is considered high indifference, objectively removed from consensus reality models and able to appreciate the humour of the human condition. Herman Hesse states that the highest endeavour is where humour attains the impossible, an ability to live in the world but not of it, and yet, to stand above it. In its highest forms it gives the power of sifting the true from the false.44 The spirit experiences itself freed from passion and exists in the here and now.45 Through the power of humour an exalted worldly wisdom can result.46 The universal aspiration is liberty, true freedom of thought. 47

Breaking the Rules

The messengers of humour have been characterised by the fool, clown, trickster, joker, buffoon and jester. They operate outside the norms of society and simultaneously are near the centre of human experience.48 These provocateurs are disorderly in their behaviour and their roles are designed to break rules, upset law and order, challenge conventions and taboos. They are agents of comic chaos, shape changers, uninhibited, wild, and are both nothing and everything. Through jokes and humour distinctions are broken down between wisdom and folly, sanity and insanity and rules and disorder.49 The fool, clown, jester and trickster exist on the borderline of humanity marking out the limits.50 The sound of laughter provides the audible boundary of having stepped over or having ‘gone too far’.51

The fool, clown and comedians exhibit powerful characteristics, which enable them to be ‘allowed’ to step over conventional boundaries. The fool was common in the courts of Medievil Europe. The fool is a fun character playing the role of someone who is foolish or intellectually insufficient. There are are range of up to 10 variations or types of fool. The fool’s image is symbolic and revealing national character. The fool has a licensed freedom and exhibits a willingness to be the butt of jokes or the object of laughter. He is admired for what he can get away with and embodies the deeper wishes of others to escape from responsibility. Thus he has a special position and power.52 The clown is a reminder of how far civilisation has come from its animal origins. The clown is more deliberate in action, he feins incompetence and is reknowned for a basic sadness. The clown utilising a range of up to 27 personality types. Carl Jung and Radin value the mythic and psychic qualities of clowns. The laughter at modern clowns is of great antiquity and modern comedians unconsciously reproduce the actions of this achetype. The lid is removed from the conscious every day life and as if in a dream, an insight into the infantile, primitive Self is revealed.53 The comedians use jokes and puns aimed to escape from the weight of tradition. The comedian is strategic and uses jokes to define situations and selves.54

The laugh makers serve an important function as a safety valve for society. They liberate hidden and inhibited wishes such as issues of sex, excretion or aggression. It provides a sense of empowerment to the majority and upholds social order. 55

These laughable characters are in a unique position of power to be able to tell the truth through the eyes of children, poets and the insane. The laugh makers are the catalyst of laughter in society.56 There is a hidden power with a secret sense and an ability to call forth a laugh at will and by timing.57