Ivan the Fool and Three Shorter Tales for Living Peaceably. Leo Tolstoy

      Foreword

      “In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”

— Leo Tolstoy1

      Tolstoy’s desperate command in the quote above is perfectly suited to the challenges of the early 21st century. In an era that idolizes wealth and power, that inundates us with vile proclamations such as “time is money,” and that defines ‘maturity’ and ‘responsibility’ in terms of economic prosperity (while denying that its pursuit has caused global climate change and massive inequality), the need to “cease our work and look around” is imperative. Of course, in the prevailing economic paradigm of global capitalism, this is a foolish act. But ‘fools’ have been trying to help us see through illusions from the beginning of time.

      In this small but powerful collection of folk tales, you will meet Ivan and come to see how his actions, though considered foolish by many, help to unveil the reality behind the world’s illusions and offer a glimpse of a different way of being. These stories draw on an ancient, archetypal motif, present in almost every culture, but known within Christendom as the Holy Fool. Often understood as a type of prophet, the Holy Fool veers sharply away from the status quo, embracing the seemingly ridiculous in order to reveal deep truths.

Holy Fools in Tolstoy’s Russia, known as “yurodivy,” were known for putting on eccentric displays of poverty, theatrical protest, and public nakedness, and yet were revered as divinely possessed devotees of Christ. A most beloved yurodivy, Basil the Blessed, for whom a cathedral in Moscow is named, is just one of many fools venerated in orthodox Christian traditions. These folks walked a thin line, serving people yet shunning recognition. They used a kind of performative madness to undermine any “respectability politics” and called into question the very notion of sanity.2 As barefoot monks who scavenged for food, they illuminated the stigmas of poverty and the crimes of the mighty.

The practice of using foolish actions as a foil for societal dysfunction is certainly not original to these Russian holy men and women, but appears in cultural mythologies, folktales, religious figureheads, and festivals across the globe and throughout time. Wes Nisker suggests that Holy Fools rise from the fringes of society, but end up shaping the hearts of the great religions.3 He includes Lao Tzu, Buddha, and Christ within their number. They each cherish an uncompromising commitment to live according to their deepest convictions, even if that means shirking social obligations and rejecting hierarchical structures. Nisker goes on to elaborate on the nuances of this tradition of “crazy wisdom” that ushers in absurdity, rebellion, and reversal through many types of holy foolery.

      In Nisker’s book, The Essential Crazy Wisdom, we meet and learn about the distinctive characters of Clown, Jester, Trickster, and Holy Fool. The Clown is familiar to us as the laughable buffoon with ridiculously exaggerated features and actions. The Clown’s awkward stumbling mirrors our own frailty and ineptitude, seeding doubt in the midst of our misplaced confidence. The Jester is a master of wit and playful mockery, uniquely positioned to speak truth to power. Tasked with entertaining the king’s court, he often finds himself in influential roles, compelling the ears of the elite. The Trickster is a boundary crosser who recreates worlds through transgressive actions; he breaks taboos, challenges concepts of right and wrong, and introduces new or competing paradigms. Each of these characters critique the prevailing socio-political framework; they poke, they prod, and they play, thereby calling dominant narratives into question. The last of these characters, however, the Holy Fool, completely obliterates the paradigm by acting outside of it. His presence beyond accepted systems and symbols casts doubt not only on their power, but also on their very existence. He turns the world upside down and inside out.

      The “powers that be” cannot allow such rebels to thrive, and thus these four expressions of “crazy wisdom” are in constant danger of being either destroyed or domesticated. The Church and State have utilized both strategies, working, on one hand, to discredit, demonize, or even outlaw Holy Fool outliers, or, alternatively, to co-opt them through appropriation and commodification. But despite proliferated attempts by the Church, the State, and the ruling class to eradicate these figures and their legacies, folk traditions worldwide have preserved these archetypal powers. Nisker writes:

“The four archetypes share an uncanny ability to escape the trouble they inevitably get themselves into: the clown gets bopped, the trickster is dismembered and blown apart, the jester may have his head cut off by the king or be hit by rotten fruit thrown from the audience, and the great fool is about to fall off a cliff or be martyred by an angry mob. But just when it seems that all is lost, they rise again, recovered and whole, even from death. (The dismembered Coyote reassembles, Jesus Christ rises into everlasting life.) Because of their humor or their innocence, or because their revelations are so important, these crazy wisdom characters are immortal.”4

      The Holy Fool’s message is recurrent throughout history, not because it is allowed a seat at the table of empire, but because those under the table or banished to the margins choose to celebrate it and keep it alive. (Notably, however, the fool is often given a seat of honor within indigenous and earth-honoring cultures, whose traditions involve sacred clowns and mythologies that revere the tricksters.)

Tolstoy’s interest in the notion of “crazy wisdom” is evident in the way he approaches the telling of these folk

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