Trickster Figures in Myth

The Trickster is an actor who may mimic another reality or portray a story so well that we are enchanted and believe it to be real. People usually refer to this as a "willing suspension of disbelief",  but I prefer to think of it as pushing aside the mundane stream on consciousness and jumping on the back of the Harley of enchantment.

The original flash mobs were trickster events. The Trickster is Improv also: the quick and mercurial improvisational acting and comedy, and when done well, we truly see the "power" behind it. So also do we see these "powers" and dynamics in the work of regular actors, rehearsed and working from the script and direction and choreography. However, the improvs are stunning in their immediacy.

The Improvs at their best bring to mind peoples benignly possessed by powers of great acuity and far-seeing wit and wisdom.

To understand Raven or Kokopelli and the energy they represent, we need to experience the suddenness of Improv or the studied grandeur of Theater,  wherein the actor or comedian is "on a roll" and is, in a sense, possessed by the dynamism of the moment... and we are spellbound.
Our sense of being spellbound is our own state of quasi-possession as our participation in viewing the actors' possession endures. We are not infused with the comedic spirit that animates the Improv, for example, but we are very susceptible to suggestion... more like a trance, perhaps.

(It may be that most mythology is based on normal possession experiences of a people, the Trickster being a comedic possession and other figures being other roles, such as tragic figures or heroes. In each case, there is a turning aside from the mundane stream of consciousness and a jumping into a different consciousness, all of which - if done well - enchants the onlookers to lose track of time and space.
It is like a great film during whose running time you are aware of nothing else.
Thus, in the present, films and the characters within may become mythic figures. Darth Vader is surely as ominous as Baron Samedi or Dracula or Nosferatu or the Grim Reaper ever were to most of our eyes.

We may note that this is usually a Group event.)

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