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    An alternative way to explore and explain the mysteries of our world. "Published since 1985, online since 2001."

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Reality Checking


Trickster archetypes and their possible influences in ancient and modern times



By Brent Raynes




EVP Collinwood

EVP Lynchburg Four

EVP Lynchburg Green Light

One evening recently I was chatting on the phone with my long time friend, colleague, and co-editor Dr. Greg Little about my ongoing EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) studies and firsthand experiences. Well versed in a vast spectrum of deep and complex subjects dealing with everything from Jungian archetypes, Native American spirituality and shamanism, and even plasma physics, my friend (a nationally certified psychologist) quickly and candidly expressed his view that my involvement with EVP activity reminded him of the classic manifestations of the Trickster archetype. He explained that he perceived a recurrent pattern wherein myself and many others are drawn deeper and deeper into a mystery, hoping each time for clarification, for a breakthrough of some kind, but instead only continuing on the same unresolved path.

As other paranormal team members will tell you, Greg was preaching to the choir somewhat as they will admit I have spoken about the trickster element on quite a few occasions. In fact, on an investigation in May at a haunted jail in Lynchburg, Tennessee, one of them got to talking about how I have expressed that one of the “voices” we’ve heard during a number of different EVP sessions may be a trickster. However, I continue in my investigative pursuit as things trickster may not explain everything, and on that note Greg isn’t entirely convinced that the trickster archetype explains all, although he does see it as playing a very significant and central role in the overall scheme of spiritual manifestations.

For example, when I explained to Greg about how Joan and I did two recent EVP sessions, trying to communicate with her mother who passed on nearly two years ago, we got some very clear EVP-type messages that Joan found very comforting and reassuring. He expressed that in that type of an instance he perceived it differently, feeling that it was something of a more genuine spiritual substance, so to speak.

In order to more fully understand Greg’s position regarding the role of the trickster archetype we will need to regress slightly and review previous statements he has made on this subject. For example, in Greg’s book People of the Web (1990) he wrote: “The trickster’s aim is to fool the person into believing that he (the trickster) represents truth, knowledge, and can bring balance, harmony, and wholeness into the person’s life. What the trickster actually produces is disorder and chaos.”

Greg’s book focuses a lot on Native American shamanism, explaining how the trickster figured very prominently within that setting. Greg contributed some very important points regarding this archetypal entity. He added: “Despite the trickiness of the trickster, several things are apparent. First, given the right circumstances, frame of mind, purpose, and place, the trickster could be used for good. The Indians knew that the trickster could never be contained and controlled, but he could be put to use. Secondly, the trickster was not only a powerful figure from the spirit world who emerged to delude and toy with man, but he served as a test that initiates had to pass before they could gain access to higher spirit forms.”

In a personal interview I did awhile back with Greg on this subject, which was quoted in my own book Visitors From Hidden Realms (2004), he explained: “The trickster forces are there to essentially test you, to see how balanced you are, to see how serious you are, to see if your inquiry into the spiritual world is full of good motives or negative motives. The tricksters are designed to delude people, to mislead them. There’s no doubt that a lot of people get unbalanced in the UFO field. Their involvement in it leads to just tremendous life problems and deterioration. John Keel said that again and again in all of his books. If you can get by the tricksters—even in Native American lore—if you can see through them, then you can get to the next level of the spiritual world. There are more levels, of course, and with each level comes deepening truth.”

Greg sees the trickster as taking many different forms. Today this overlaps into the ufological landscape. In People of the Web, he adds, “The humanoids of Whitley Streiber, Budd Hopkins, and Leo Sprinkle are archetypal forms of the trickster. They appear to delude and entrap people. They take on the behavior and characteristics that we would expect of extraterrestrials who have come here to conduct research and experiments. Depending upon the beliefs and expectations of the people who are ensnared by these trickster beings, the ‘extraterrestrials’ can be benevolent helpers or cold, calculating scientists conducting genetic experimentation.”

Greg had met and spent a good deal of time with Lou White Eagle, an Arrow Priest of the Cheyenne, a keeper of the sacred arrows, who shared with Greg much about his Native American beliefs and ceremonies. Greg was told that in their ancient ceremonies, spirits of the earth known as the Maiyun would interact and appear to them.

“The appearances of the maiyun usually took the form of certain animals,” Greg wrote. “However, we are told that at times the maiyun would appear in the form of ‘little people’ so that they could directly communicate. It was a common experience for each participant to go with his personal maiyun during this process. Many reports indicate that the maiyun sometimes took individuals away for periods of time during the process of communication. Thus, the maiyun are similar to the humanoid entities encountered in the typical UFO abduction. Both Whitley Strieber’s ‘visitors’ and Budd Hopkin’s ‘intruders” appear to be modern-day versions of maiyun manifestations. They are an ‘evolved’ form of physical archetypes adapted to modern, technological times.”

Greg further takes this issue to more sweeping global and historical lengths when he further adds, “The humanoids we encounter in UFO abductions are tricksters, yet they are the same as the Jinn, the fairies, and the Maiyun. They are just adapting their appearance and behavior in ways symbolically appropriate to our needs, expectations, and symbolic understanding.”

You’ll recall in my last column, that ufologist Phil Imbrogno had suggested that some EVP “voices” might be the Jinn. At one point, I asked over the spirit box about Jinn being identified with what we have called “aliens” and was told by a male voice that I was an “alien” too! Certainly in their view I may well be!

In a recent interview with noted ufologist Chris O’Brien, author of The Mysterious Valley, Enter the Valley, and Secrets of the Mysterious Valley, Tim Beckley was told, “The trickster is arguably the most ancient of all cross-cultural archetypes and their role in any given society or tribe has ancient importance/relevance that rivals the influence of all other god-forms.” After that O’Brien concluded, “UFOs, for instance, can be viewed as a classic, modern trickster form. These unexplained objects challenge culture to question the omnipotence of scientific thinking and call into question scientific explanations explaining the true nature of reality.” (Source: Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer: UFO Parasites – Alien “Soul Suckers” – Invaders from Demonic Realms, edited by Tim Beckley & Sean Casteel; Global Communications, 2011, ISBN: 1-60611-091-1).

In my last column I asked Tommy Lightning Bolt, a Native American spiritual teacher, counselor and healer from Oregon, to give us some thoughts on the EVP subject if he would. This time I asked him if he’d like to contribute anything to this discussion on the Trickster. Without hesitation he launched into a rather lengthy, well prepared statement expressing his personal observations and views. He wrote:

“About EVP's: Have you noticed that the majority of the messages seem to have negative connotations? ‘Get out of my house’! .... ‘F&%* off’.... ‘Help us’... These are emotions of high distress. The amount of energy needed to transform a message from the spiritual realm into the physical realm is an incredible amount of energy, and the darker emotions tend to resonate to the higher frequencies easier. Distress, agitation, anger, rage, hate, unrest - these are intense emotions and feelings. This is why I don't really like being subjected to them or having them around. I do because that’s what I have been asked to do. But I frequently have people who come to my home say ‘I just saw an orb of light... like a foot ball size... right over there’! Or when I turn around and there is a half decomposed corpse standing in my kitchen asking me for help (then I have to go out the door to my appointment and act like everything is normal)! Then a week later someone sees the same thing in my kitchen and tells me private details about what I saw a week earlier! I know I am not talking about the electronic aspect of this phenomenon, but I am Native and these kinds of things as I have afore mentioned I can pick up without the electronics.

“Regarding your ‘unresolved path’, what I loved so much about the movie ‘Mothman Prophecies’ was when it portrayed his obsession leading him to the point that he was losing his own center as to who he was. Some spirits will entertain you... if you oblige them. And you do so at your own risk. They play by different rules. They are amused, sometimes easily. They like toys, and some of them will play with them till they break, and just like an innocent child stronger than their own awareness, they go grab another toy and play with it till it breaks too. So if you notice any of these spirits you might want to pray that they don't notice that you noticed them. So unless you know how to protect yourself and you understand what you are getting into, it should not be indulged. That is how people get hurt.

“Some things we aren't meant to know as mortals, even mystics aren't allowed to know everything all the time. Would some regard the mothman in that movie as acting like a trickster spirit? What path was it really leading Mr. Klein down? Was he chasing his own tail? There is no bottom to the rabbit hole! Sometime the answer IS mystery itself! Celebrate in it.

“Yes, there are ‘Little People’, good ones and bad ones too! I recognize star people as different entities entirely from ‘Little People’ or trickster spirits. From my training, I recognize them as the custodial fingertips of ‘Creator/God’, and yes, there are some not so benevolent ones out there too. What may seem as ‘Trickster’ to us, may be just the way we are filtering our understanding of the reasons why things are happening the way they are. Those star beings are beyond playing trickster games. When I end up with a physical mark after going to the desert with Coyote... well... there ain’t nothing ‘Archetypal’ or ‘Psychological’ about physical contact. Although I do understand the 'Theological' aspects being that cultures have very similar archetypes, after all humans are humans.


“My experience with the trickster I trained under, ‘Grandfather Coyote’, this is it:


The trickster brings humans understanding of the Universe as it is. Period. There is good and bad. The Universe is not complete without both. There must be a balance. There is no ‘right / wrong’ there just ‘Is’... ‘I am’. The trickster will trick you in to looking at yourself. Why? Because as Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of god is within you and all around you, not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and I am there, turn a stone and you will find me’... So why? If you want to get to know ‘God’, if you want to get to understand the Universe, the ‘kingdom of heaven’, then you must go within. Most of us are truly too scared to face ourselves, we are lucky if we can do it in the darkest watches of the night and we don't have to admit it to anyone. So Coyote (the trickster) tricks us into looking at ourselves. He tricks us into taking the journey inward, and as we get to know the mysteries of ourselves we come into our understanding of the mysteries of the Universe and our own place and connectedness within it. At times it may be brutal at times Coyote can seem cold. But it is detachment. The lessons of the trickster can be very hard, and can take many years to digest. The experience is best written in this song.






Coyote With a Crown
By Thomas J. LIghtning Bolt
(C. 2009 All rights reserved)


Coyote dancing round your circle laughing,
Weaving illusions round and round my mind.
Is immortality worth the price of torment?
Earthly sorrows like chains that ever bind.
Coyote, master of deception,
Of tricking with illusions you are king.
Coyote, you tore my soul to pieces,
When you placed upon my hand the master ring.
Waters oceans deep closing round my head,
Worlds upon my shoulders words unsaid.
Coyote, can’t you see me crying,
But I’m still standing, death I’m still defying.
Coyote, master of conception,
Of weaving trickster circles you are king.
Mato Wambli, you nearly crushed the life force from me,
When you placed upon my hand the master ring.
You stitch my soul together with your thousand faces,
While weaving your illusions all the while.
Coyote, can’t you see me crying?
All you do is laugh and dance and smile.
Coyote, master of confusion,
Of dancing circles of power you are king.
Fools Crow, you tore my heart to pieces,
When you placed upon my hand the master ring.
Coyote, you throw my life in torment,
Though as if you were merely casting dice.
Coyote, you tear my world to pieces,
Is immortality really worth the price?
Fools Crow, master of illusion,
When it comes to cheating death you are the king.
Fools Crow, in the name of God I beg you,
Please don’t crush me with the master ring.
Fools Crow with all your greatest power,
Of wielding rings of power you’re the king.
But Fools Crow, you’ll never hold a candle,
To the one who made the master ring.
Fools Crow, your power doesn’t matter,
When it comes down to the one who made the ring.
So Fools Crow, in the name of god I beg you,
Please don’t crush me with your master ring.


“The “Master Ring" that is referred to is what I refer to as the highest ring of power, Immortality, but the true master ring is your connection with the Great Creator.

“As for ‘Chaos’...
So when we start our journey inward most of us need to get the wind knocked out of us. Why? Because spirit/god doesn't have our undivided attention. So what happens? Our lives fall apart. Why? Because it is usually when we are on our knees that we remember to PRAY to our higher power! OOOHHHHH! Guess what? Creator/God has our undivided attention! Why are we praying? Because our life just turned to disaster! Chaos! But guess what? That chaos IS Creator/ God manifesting in your life! What? No? Why? Because it didn't manifest in the way YOU think it should? THAT is the chaos! You’re thinking how your life should look versus the way the Universe has your life planned so you can fulfill your role in the web of human evolution! Here is where the test REALLY comes... if you fight it it will get 1000 times worse very fast, like quick sand, but if you let go and step back and say... I need to breath... wait.... let go, and see what is happening like a fun movie it won’t be quite as painful.

The ultimate trick would be to find a way to trick Coyote into looking at himself! That would be one for the history books!!!”

Tommy wanted to share with our readers a You Tube video which tells some of his story in the form of a statement from his teacher Coyote. Go to the link below to watch the video.

To Walk The Medicine Path




Obviously the many masks of the Trickster can take countless forms and expressions. The Trickster can truly test and challenge our wittiest and mightiest intellectual abilities and debates. Accurately discerning and divining the absolute and objective implications, meanings and reality to be best ascribed to this most ancient, complex, and confounding archetypal historical presence, who can vacillate so easily between friend and foe, is a formidable and daunting task. Whether drawing from the more modern Jungian perspective or closer to core shamanic orientations and values, this universal archetype continues to elude a truly universal consensus of precise agreement and definition on how to best perceive its intentions and identity. But, alas, would he be a true and worthy historic Trickster figure if he didn’t sow long shadows of mystery, myth and misunderstanding over the landscape of our evolving, as yet unresolved paths?

I suspect not.

Missing Galactic Mass Found

Well, here’s an interesting new development reported from the field of astronomy. It seems that a 22-year-old Aussie named Amelia Fraser-McKelvie, an aerospace engineering and science student, solved a mystery that had perplexed astrophysicists for decades, and she did it during a holiday internship with a team from the Monash Univesity’s school of Physics in Australia.

Monash astrophysicist Dr. Kevin Pimbblet was quoted saying, “There is missing mass, ordinary mass not dark mass. It’s missing to the present day.” He had suspected years ago, that this so-called “missing mass” was contained in what are referred to as “filaments of galaxies,” vast structures that stretch across expanses of space.

“Now we do know where it went because that’s what Amelia found,” he pointed out. The technology to detect and confirm this has only become available to scientists in recent years. He added that with this discovery he felt that new telescopes would be designed and constructed that could specifically study this mass.

“Whenever I speak to people who have influence, politicians and so on, they sometimes ask me, ‘Why should I invest in physics pure research?’ And I sometimes say to them, ‘Do you use a mobile phone? Some of that technology came about by black hole research.’”

Way to go Amelia!


Thursday, March 28, 2024