One of the reasons why so many adults have enjoyed the Muppet Show is because we see ourselves and the people around us in it. Some of the characters illustrate certain personalities that are familiar to us and some of them were modelled on actual people such as Dr Teeth who is modelled after the jazz musician Dr John. By watching the show we also see aspects of our own selves and familiar situations shown in a humorous way and via these characters we are able to see and laugh at our own foibles which often acts as a powerful stress release.
So far for me the ultimate lesson that I have taken from the Muppets is not to take oneself too seriously. This is because too much seriousness leads to tensions that act as blockages to our progress throughout life. Doing magical rituals that have a giggle attached to them can be difficult for us as we feel that magick should have a sense of gravity and importance. We feel that by doing a ritual with a humorous bent we are in some way disrespecting the magick and the gods. However, as the charge of the goddess says “Let there be… mirth and reverence within you” meaning that laughter and reverence are not an either/or choice and that finding things funny is not incompatible with a sense of reverence and awe for the creative power of the multi verse. Humour is in fact a necessary component for communicating with the divine. To put it simply the gods have a sense of humour and we have been gifted with the same. I feel it is a mistake to throw that humour away due to a strange need we sometimes have for being serious and important coupled with our own adult inhibitions. Sometimes seriousness is appropriate and sometimes humour is important. Sometimes both are important and that is true for ritual practice as well as anywhere else in life.
I found my first “Power Muppet” via a ritual to connect with the Muppets and to allow a Muppet character to take possession of me. I got nothing at first. I got zero, zilch, de nada. So using the “fake it til you make it” philosophy I began to act out Muppet characters to see if any fit.
First of all I tried on Kermit, as I have often found myself in the position of co-ordinating magical and pagan events I do have empathy with the difficult task that Kermit has of bringing all the muppets together enough to be able to put on a show. However, no invocation occurred. I tried on Dr Teeth and members of The Electric Mayhem- still nothing.
Then it happened. I’d stopped trying and I think that was the key. I had been trying too hard and had not let the character come to me. In the moment or relaxing and letting go a strange sound came out of my mouth, a warriors cry of “hurdy gurdy” and I knew that my Muppet ally was the Swedish Chef.
I did not get it at first but on further reflection I could see that the Swedish Chef is King of the lateral thinking. He has his own way of doing things and is very experimental. Some of his experiments go extremely well and others end in complete disaster. That is key to the creative process. Chaos magick encourages one to be creative and encourages the magician to create their own rituals and paradigms. If you are a creative person them you will know that you have as many failures as you have successes and so is it with my magical workings. Some things go amazingly well and some do not which is Ok as it’s all part of the creative process. Working with the Swedish Chef led to my feeling ok about the failures after all the failures do not stop the Swedish Chef. He takes things in good spirits and carried on until he reaches that stage where he is able to make brussel sprouts by throwing a cabbage in the air taking a shot gun to it and the cabbage explodes into sprouts. One of his finest moments, but to get there, there needs to be a degree of experimentation and before you attain success things will go wrong, that is how we learn and improve.
(2) Muppet Show. Swedish Chef – Salad and Brussells Sprouts. 205 – YouTube
That is the case with the greatest of minds I’m sure such people as Tesla, Einstein, and Newton made plenty of mistakes before they got it right so as magicians we should allow ourselves a margin for making them. When exploring the mysteries of the Universe we are bound to get things wrong sometimes. If we see our error, own our error and then change things as a result of the error then the error is a win as we have gained more valuable knowledge and experience as a result of it. So we should not be afraid to make mistakes sometimes. We are not perfect nor is it desirable for us to be so. Beauty often resides in the flaws that make each one of us a unique expression of part of the Universe. So as magicians/ witches/ occultists/ druids/ or whatever we choose to call ourselves we can embrace our flawed selves and embrace our own creativity with the confidence of knowing that it is Ok to get things wrong sometimes and to laugh at our own idiosyncrasies, pick ourselves up and try again. That is the lesson of the Swedish Chef.
The Swedish Chef is also not put off by the hecklers manifesting as Statler and Waldorf, we all have our inner Statler and Waldorf’s and Swedish Chef is barely aware of his. They are not important to him so he genuinely does not give them his attention. The Swedish Chef is so involved in the task at hand that there’s no room for negative thinking in his life, so his creativity runs free. An interesting quirk of the Swedish Chef is that he is not really Swedish, neither does he speak Swedish. He speaks in his own particular magical language that no one else understands and he is unhindered by any negative reactions of others to this.
Recently I have found a further Muppet ally although I did hesitate at first to call this character an ally as it does not necessarily show me at my best. I think of this Muppet as a shadow side, a part of me I do not want to admit to having but nevertheless this is a part of me.
Having had a few challenging weeks I was randomly watching YouTube videos which is something that I do to relax and I found myself watching this video of the Muppet known as “Screaming Thing.” This invoked a great deal of hilarity in me as this muppets moment on the Muppet Show perfectly encapsulated how I had been feeling over the previous few weeks and how life had been for me. I think that this is something that most of us can relate to.
The Muppet Show – 201: Don Knotts – “The Windmills of your Mind” (1977) (youtube.com)
Having wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes I realised that this was the very thing that I had been missing for the last few weeks. I too had been too serious and important and had forgotten to laugh and enjoy within my own busyness. This had led to a tension and anxiety within me that manifested as a Screaming Thing. Yes we can be busy but that does not mean that we cannot have a good time as well as being busy. Screaming Thing reminded me that if I feel like Screaming Thing I do need to stop for a minute. I need to breathe and find the laughter and the joy in life again and by doing that there would be no need for me to crash into the windmill or throw myself off the balcony. Screaming Thing acts as a warning not to go down this road and gives their warning in a humorous way, which is a way that I am more likely to hear.
In this way looking at magical with a degree of humour can render interesting lessons but as the lessons come in a humorous way we are less threatened by them and are more likely to hear the messages when they arrive.
If hover, the muppets do not speak to you then you can find your own archetypes within other paradigms. Some time ago there was a meme going around social media asking one “What Middle Earth Creature are you?” I thought about this and while I of course wanted to be an elf, elves are cool; the truth is if I was a character from Lord of the Rings I’m a Bilbo Baggins. This can be an interesting way of playing with archetypes and finding one’s own inner archetypes and could be a less threatening way of looking at ones shadow sides. A strong sense of levity being a useful trait to employ when looking at the darker sides of ones psyche.