The Trickster is one of the most ancient archetypes, standing (on their head) at the foundation of civilization, showing up in the mythology of many, if not all cultures. Neither loyal, nor moral, the trickster acts as the power at the center of the universe that destroys in order to create, waking us up with a jolt and in shocking ways. Personally. Collectively. Sometimes beneficent, other times harmful, and often revolutionary or even evolutionary, the trickster archetype meaning is rich, complex, and timely. 

What Is the Trickster Archetype?

The trickster Archetype is the cosmic disrupter. In a way, you can say that Trickster is the one who banged this universe into existence. Chaos and creativity are at the core of this mythic motif. Messy. Hungry. Horny. The Trickster has an appetite for life that cannot be satisfied, and as he roams the world looking for food and sex, he disturbs the status quo and throws the world into upheaval. 

The role of the Trickster Archetype is to break social constructs, to mess with the order so that the order doesn’t get too rigid. Wherever there’s stagnation, trickster will come and make things flow again, which might be needed, but will most likely not be pleasant. Trickster is an agitator, a troublemaker. He doesn’t necessarily mean to be the rebel, but he is the necessary energy that pokes at the norms and makes everyone uncomfortable so that life in society can renew itself and change. They do the “wrong” thing, so that world order can restart itself.

Trickster in mythology disturbs the establishment, and carves new paths. In most cases, he doesn’t do it intentionally, it’s just who he is. He reshapes and enlivens the world not because he sees the need, but simply because he is hungry. Or because the over-culture takes itself way too seriously, and he thinks that’s funny. 

It doesn’t matter what the social norms are, or what political forces are in power, or what the current norms are, or what values form the current status quo. Trickster is here to ridicule whatever seems too stable or sure of itself. 

Can you feel the Trickster around you right now?

Trickster Archetype Meaning in Myth and Psychology

Trickster embodies the role of chaos in transformation. They are the loud trumpet that wakes you up in the middle of the night, wearing clown makeup, sitting at the edge of the bed, staring at you. Wake up! They pull the blanket off of you and turn on the light. Wake up! They look for food right where you sleep and they may even pee on you if you’re not careful. WAKE UP!

Chaos and disruption, challenging authority, mischief and breaking taboos are key attributes of the trickster archetype. In our psyche we need this character to shake things up for us, so that we don’t get too caught in our own sense of identity. It shows up in our lives so that we question ourselves enough, so that we don’t become too sure of ourselves, too rigid, too comfortable. They are agents of change, and change is inevitable. Whenever we resist it, Trickster will be there and blow a loud horn in our ear. Wake. Up. 

The Trickster Archetype and the Power of Ambiguity 

Dangerous and fun, playful and problematic, flexible, crafty, and innovative, self-serving, shrewd, naive, innocent, and seductive, the trickster is ambiguous. Gift bringer, storyteller, liar, and thief. Never altruistic, yet generous and happy to help. 

The road keeps turning, life keeps twisting, and the trickster character will not give us a direct answer. With him, we will be dropped into the pool of ambiguity. He shows us that more than one thing is true, even if those truths contradict each other. He will not give us an easy answer, but instead take us through a maze filled with contradictions. 

The story of the trickster twists and turns, bends and curls, sometimes it makes no sense at all. Sometimes he is the actual force that causes the road to coil. Most of the time, he is the energy that gets you off the path, like the Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood – classic Trickster character; hungry, deceptive, cunning, if you read between the lines you can see that he is trying to get laid, he knows how to disguise himself, he is full of tricks and tactics, and he consumes his victims, which is a common motif in trickster lore. 

If you look at your own inner world, and look at the twists and turns in your own life, you might discover that with your own hands you’ve taken yourself off the path, deceiving yourself that it was just a few flowers that you were after, when really it was your shadow – your inner Big Bad Wolf – that took the road straight to grandma’s house for a big fat meal, and ended up consuming you for a while.  

Common Symbols and Motifs of the Trickster

The Trickster in mythology is on a journey. In his book Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde writes about the trickster as a character that lives on the road; “all tricksters are ‘on the road.’ They are the lords of in-between. A trickster does not live near the hearth; he does not live in the halls of justice, the soldier’s tent, the shaman’s hut, the monastery. He passes through each of these when there is a moment of silence, and he enlivens each with mischief, but he is not their guiding spirit. He is the spirit of the doorway leading out, and of the crossroad at the edge of town.” 

The Trickster Archetype as the Liminal Space 

In mythology and in psychology, the trickster archetype is the energy of liminality. Neither here nor there. Dusk. Dawn. Trickster is the energy of uncertainty. You don’t know what they’re going to do. You don’t know where the road will take you. You don’t know what life will bring. Trickster is the energy of the edge, but he is at the core of all life. The unknown is always greater than the known. 

Why the Trickster Archetype Never Belongs

Lewis Hyde describes the trickster as the spirit of the road that runs between towns, and doesn’t belong to either. This motif of trickster’s non belonging keeps stirring the pot of our society. There’s a whole episode in the Emerald Podcast, where Josh Schrei reminds us that the trickster isn’t on either side of the political map, and that he doesn’t belong to the right or to the left. Wherever there are norms, wherever the culture takes itself too seriously, trickster will be there; making fun, making noise, making a mess of things. 

And it’s not just in society, it’s also inside of us. Midlife crisis, anyone? 

The role of the trickster is to be an outsider. As soon as the trickster becomes mainstream, or popular culture, he will spin itself round, shapeshift, and show up in a different form. He’s counter-culture. He’s the rebel. He’s the very energy that resists the current trend.

The Trickster Archetype as Thief 

In myth and in your psyche, there are thieves on this road. The path isn’t safe. Life isn’t safe. Trickster will steal from you because he’s hungry. He’ll steal from you because he’s bored and he wants to sow chaos and confusion. He becomes a thief when a road is not open, when there’s a block, an obstacle on his path. 

Mostly he steals for personal gain, but every now and then, a Trickster god might steal something that ends up benefiting others, such as Prometheus of the Greeks who stole the fire from the gods and gave it to the humans. The Raven in the Native American stories of the Pacific North West is another example of a trickster whose thievery benefits others. He steals the sun, the moon, and the stars from a greedy chief, and sets them free in the sky to illuminate a dark world. 

Trickster steals food, they steal power, they steal fire, knowledge, sacred objects. Greek Hermes steals his brother Apollo’s sacred cows soon after he is born. He outsmarts everyone and thrives in chaos. He is able to move in liminality, to walk between the underworld and the world of the living. Norse Loki steals Freya’s necklace for his brother (and her husband) Odin, telling us the trickster might sometimes work their mischief in the name of others. 

The Trickster Archetype as Boundary-Crosser 

The trickster doesn’t only steal, they cross boundaries in many other ways; to annoy you, to trigger you, to disturb the waters as soon as they get a moment of calm. They break down social norms. They break up with expectations. They break through and carve a path where no road ever was before. It is the voice that guides you to break up with a stable known life path that everyone else expects you to take, so that you can follow the path of your heart. 

She figures out new ways, not by staying on the same path, but by getting off the beaten path, and picking beautiful flowers on the side of the road, and deeper in the forest. She crosses the boundary set by her mama; “Don’t get off the path, my darling. Go straight to grandma’s house. There are dangers in the forest. Stay on the path.” 

Trickster is the discomfort of the crisis of puberty. Do you see it? She’s Red – she wears the blood on the outside because she hasn’t started to bleed yet. She is on the verge of this powerful threshold. The dangers of puberty lurk behind the trees in the form of the Wolf. The teenager will be wolfish. Her hormones will make her cross the boundaries set by her parents. 

On the other side of this bleeding hood, lurks the wolf as the unease of a woman’s midlife crisis. She will also cross the boundary of society’s norms and expectations. Her blood will stop, and she will stop giving a fuck, and start to pick flowers and make crowns as she becomes the crone. She will have an affair. She will take off the red hood and become the fucking wolf. Grandma and the wolf have a cross-dressing party every Friday. 

A trickster creates a problem so that she can solve it (very Ganesha, although I wouldn’t place him/them in the Trickster category, which just shows us how archetypes can cross and overlap, and how complex the mythic psyche is). 

Life is filled with challenges we create for ourselves, so that we can keep pushing against those boundaries and keep on growing. She draws the line and then crosses it, moves the line and changes the way. They create a boundary and then break it. 

When Trickster Archetype Gets Messy

Breaking norms is a messy business, and the role of the trickster in myths is to break taboos, which inevitably makes big waves and throws the world into mayhem. There’s a lot of poop in trickster mythology, perhaps because we need to remember that life is shitty sometimes. Just kidding (or am I?). Perhaps because this mess does not skip any of us, and this is precisely what trickster wants us to remember. 

You are not beyond any of it. Everyone’s shit stinks. You are not immune to the mess of being human. Sometimes, just like the trickster, you wake up covered in the shit you tried to cover someone else with. And Trickster laughs at you – loudly – every time you raise your nose and pretend that you’re above it. 

The trickster archetype belongs to a larger gang of shadow archetypes. They will always show you what you don’t want to see. The question is; are you willing to see it in yourself? Or are you gonna let the trickster come and poop on your head so that you may no longer ignore it? 

Uncomfortable with this section? Good. This is exactly how Trickster wants you. 

Why the Trickster Archetype Breaks Sexual Taboos

Phallic symbols are inseparable from Trickster mythology. The hunger of the Trickster manifests not only as a belly craving food, but as primal sexual desire. He is always looking for somewhere to stick his (is she really gonna say it???) dick (she did!), and often stays with his dick in his hand, or somewhere else he did not intend to leave it. Both his intestines and his sex organs have the tendency to disconnect from the rest of his body, get lost, and get him into a lot of trouble. 

Trickster breaks sexual taboos because he lives on the outskirts, commenting on anything we keep too tight or too precious, anything we hold too sacred. He pushes against cultural sexual boundaries because his role is to cross all boundaries. Taboos hold enormous cultural power. Breaking them exposes where our fears reside, our shame festers, and our desires breed. Anything we want to hide spills out of the trickster’s body. 

Trickster in mythology is a shameless character. He doesn’t worry about what society thinks of him, and the role of the trickster in myths is to provoke our own discomfort and embarrassment. 

Sex is instinctual, primal, and is at the core of nature. Trickster is the energy that brings the world into being; the chaos out of which darkness is born, and then light follows (Tohu Vavohu in the Hebrew creation story). The trickster is usually a lustful character, and their appetite for sex doesn’t usually result in children. The creative power of the trickster isn’t a reproductive creativity. The trickster archetype is hungry and their appetite is the leading force of  their wandering. Their hunger for sex drives them to think outside the box, break social codes and cultural expectations, disrupt the status quo, and bring forth something new. 

Like sex itself, trickster is involved in shaping the world, giving us hunting, fishing, fire, and the ability to cook. His energy can be highly problematic, harmful at times, and yet Trickster is the very primordial creativity of the universe.   

Why Chaos Creates Change

Transformation isn’t convenient. Change isn’t comfortable. Creativity doesn’t emerge through convention. The world gets messy before a new order is born. 

The trickster is the creator of culture. He sits on the edge and makes fun of popular culture, but the edge trickles into the middle and shapes the mainstream. In an obscure, unobvious way, the trickster is the leader of trends. And once the trend is established, trickster farts, makes some noise, throws tomatoes on that which has become the convention, and wanders away 

Trickster Archetype as Disruptor and Innovator

Characters and concepts on the fringe rebel against the mainstream, shake things up. The fringe attracts more and more people toward it – it’s where the cool cats hang, and cool is what home cats want to be, even though they don’t want to leave the comfort of their cozy homes. The more people stream toward the fringe, the less fringy it becomes, and then a phenomena such as Burning Man becomes mainstream. 

In a capitalistic society, that which was the cool fringy space occupied by the starving artist, the radical thinker, the spoken word philosopher, the shabby theater, is now taken over by the trust fund kids. Radical self-reliance is replaced by rich kids paying someone else to do the work for them.

The trickster on the outskirts rolls her eyes, leaves the place that was once the sideline and is now the center, her original art now sold for cheap in every online store driven by Instagram, and goes to create new things somewhere else.

Trickster as Teacher Through Trouble

The chaos and disruption we experience in the world right now are the embodiment of the trickster archetype. You’d think humanity would have learned from the trickster seasons of the past, but here we are again – not in the same place exactly, but in a rhyme within the poem of human history. Lessons, like life itself, move in cycles. The trickster is always there, on the outskirts. But he gets really loud when the binaries are too strict, or the over culture is too rigid. 

It’s not easy to live through Trickster times, but there’s a lot to learn when Trickster is a driving force. This difficult time is a fertile soil. New connections can be made when reality untengles itself from the conventions that tied it together before. 

When we go through chaotic periods in our lives, when everything we’ve built seems to crumble, and everything we thought we were is washing away in the violent stream of a gushing river, we get to stand naked. Not all of our parts are intact. But the scattered pieces are like the light of the stars in a dark moon’s night sky. We can make new constellations. 

The role of chaos in transformation is crucial. You have to get messy in order to make real changes. You have to experience uncertainty in order for something new to be born. The leaves have to fall off the trees in Autumn, and scatter in every direction in order to feed the soil and help keep its moisture, and in order for green leaves to emerge again in Spring.

Find your desire in the mess. What are you hungry for? What turns you on? Let the hunger of the Trickster teach you about what matters to you. You don’t need to follow every desire into action – that would be harmful. Remember that Trickster is highly problematic. You need to listen to the hunger though, and let it reveal to you what wisdom can come through the trouble. 

The Trickster Across Cultures and Traditions

Trickster has been with humanity since its dawn, with narratives that stretch into the very beginning of human civilization. From Ancient Greece to Native American traditions, from Norse mythology to the Indian Pantheon, there is no ancient culture that didn’t have a trickster god woven through its landscape and stories. We are not so different from our ancestors. Trickster is a shapeshifter, and always finds its way into the outskirts of the current culture. 

Trickster Archetypes in Mythology 

Chaos and creativity carry us through all different characters that sprout out of trickster soil. Some lean into this motif, others lean into different ones. Some are hungrier, others hornier. You can find Trickster archetype across cultures and continents. There are Trickster figures in Native American mythology, and Tricksters that take us 30,000 years back to Africa. Some are clearly wise, others seem like fools.

Greek Trickster God Hermes: Messenger, Thief, and Boundary-Crosser

Greek trickster god, Hermes, is the smartest of all. He outwits everyone – from Apollo to Zeus. He’s not only a thief who steals his brother’s cattle, but on the day he was born he ran into a tortoise and turned it into a lyre, which later on he gifted to his brother Apollo, turning him into the god of music (and diverted his attention from anger about the stolen cows). He makes special sandals with twigs and tree bark that cover his tracks. He teaches the cows he steals to walk backwards. He rubs two twigs together and invents fire, then sacrifices a couple of cows to the gods, starting a new trend. 

In Hermes myths, humans become mortals because they get hooked on meat. Hunger and mortality go hand in hand  – to live is to be hungry, because in order to live one must eat. Hermes is able to shapeshift. He’s volatile, hard to pin down. Ever changing. He becomes the messenger of the gods; he is able to move between the worlds, crossing the boundary between life and death, back and forth. And he’s got new sandals with wings, which makes him the swiftest of all. Reinvention is in his bones. 

Norse Trickster Loki: Chaos, Fire, Fishing, and Shapeshifting 

A recurring theme for Loki is that he makes a mess, gets caught, and helps to clean it up.  

His mess making tendencies arise out of attraction or aversion. He’s after survival or pleasure, and the process often involves shapeshifting. 

Loki is a natural born trickster. The companion of Norse gods, as well as their trouble. He is a shapeshifter, a thief, a liar, sly and cowardly, cunning and fearful. He is disrespectful and lacks care for his fellow people. He goes against societal expectations. And he is also a helpful, playful force, and a necessary ingredient for transformation. Loki is known to make others angry.

He invents fishing nets when he flees the gods he has angered. He plays with a string and imagines the way they might capture him. Without noticing, he creates a net. When he hears the gods coming, he throws the net into the fire, shapeshifts into a salmon and jumps into the stream. The gods find what’s left of the net, and with it they catch him. Tickster’s tricks get him into trouble. He shows us our own tendency to create the very thing we try to avoid, to weave the pattern that captures us, to give shape to the net that will catch us in our shadowed deeds.

In the net that we weave we can catch the mind’s unhealthy wonderings, the functions that arise from our shadow. We throw the net into the waters of the unconscious in order to capture the tendencies that otherwise rule us from within our own unseen territories. We learn from Loki to both burn the patterns that tend to capture us and limit our freedom, and to recreate them and use them to capture the tricky, shapeshifting aspects of ourselves that get us into trouble. This is the trickster’s conversation with freedom – from social constructs, and from limiting patterns within ourselves – the freedom to create a new world and a new self.

Native American Coyote Trickster: Teacher Through Foolishness

Coyote is one of the key Trickster figures in Native American mythology. He teaches humanity how to hunt. He develops a relationship with the prey and with the trap, and often falls into his own trap. He survives. He keeps on going. He wisens up. Filled with a sense of humor, the joke is often on him, as he is fooled by his own tricks. When Coyote shows up we learn something about ourselves. There’s a lesson, a teaching, an opportunity to understand something. He demands that we stop taking ourselves so seriously.

Puck; the Trickster Spirit of Mischief and Play

From the woods of the British Isles, Puck arrives galloping on his hooves, a twinkle in his playful eyes, his devilish horns erect, and his mischievous smile spread across his face. This shapeshifting spirit is known for his unpredictable, wild nature, for meddling with love and causing troubles between lovers (as in Shakespeare’s famous Midsummer Night’s Dream), for leading travelers astray, for making a mess just for the fun of it, and also for cleaning up and helping out with domestic chores for the exchange of some milk. He is a creature of mischief, dressed in green, dancing in the moonlight to the music of frogs and crickets. His character gives a nod to the Greek wild god of nature, Pan, who carries many trickster attributes. 

The Feminine Trickster Archetype: The Hag and the Witch

There are so many more Tricksters I didn’t mention here, such as West-African Anansi, the Devil, Indian Krishna, and even Jesus. Most importantly, I’d like to give a seat of honor among important tricksters, to the hag, the witch, the old wild woman of the woods. They say that feminine tricksters are rare, but I would argue that they are not often spoken about, because as usual, the patriarchy shoved them under the surface. I am dedicating my next Substack post to the feminine trickster archetype. Subscribe here to make sure you don’t miss her powerful spell, as she stirs in her cauldron a brew of wisdom and transformation. 

Trickster in Modern Times

It is not hard to find the Trickster in this day and age. Look at the political scene, and you’ll see that the Trickster is, as Lewis Hyde says; makes the world. 

We are living through shadowy times. The current Trickster character is reshaping the world for his own benefits only, destroying systems that may have been flawed and problematic, but have also served to protect us. The chaos we experience is stirred by his hunger for power and control, his lust for money and fame. 

Times of chaos, such as now, evoke the Joker, and the chaos and crime associated with Gotham City. Fascism and Authoritarianism emerge from the chaos stirred in order to activate control and authority. We are watching it happen right in front of our eyes. 

We are living through a time when the jester has become the king. 

As we turn to mythology for support, we learn that whatever has made it to the seat of control, whatever becomes too rigid, will be toppled over by the Trickster archetype, even if the trickster himself is the one on the throne. 

Why We Need the Trickster Archetype Now

Trickster needs to live in relationship to other forces. The road needs a home. The pushing against boundaries requires, well, boundaries. The breaking of social constructs, the messing with institutions, the churning at the heart of traditions require those very things to exist. Trickster, as solitary as he may be, doesn’t exist without the very structures he is here to untangle from. 

Now, as we watch the world burn by the fire given to humanity by the trickster, we need to turn toward the trickster to find solutions for the very issues and problems the trickster themselves created. In chaos throbs the fertile source of creativity. 

If you want to bring Trickster to your ritual, to call on this spirit purposefully, so it doesn’t come when it is not invited, use this free guide – it offers practical tools and ideas for how to create your own rituals. 

If you want to embody the trickster archetype, and support yourself in times of chaos, try this playful yoga practice, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for more somatic archetypal, mythic, philosophical exploration. 

If you enjoyed this essay, you’ll love this one about the Hero’s Journey Vs the Heroine’s Journey.  

And if you liked this time with the Trickster Archetype, share it with a friend. 

Much love,

Hagar