The circus is a place where dreams and reality intersect, where the limits of human ability and perception are tested and surpassed. It is a place of escape from the everyday (to “run away and join the circus”), a place of spectacle & entertainment, and a proving ground for the human imagination. In this article, we’ll explore some of the primordial archetypal characters from the circus and carnival tradition, and connect them with pastiche of historical context and symbolic meaning.

The Circus Ring

Our first stop is the circus ring itself, the circle.

The Romans were famous for their circuses, elaborate spectacles featuring “horse and chariot races, equestrian shows, staged battles, displays featuring trained animals, jugglers, and acrobats.” {See also: Circus Maximus} The word “circus” itself comes from the Latin and simply means “ring” or “circle” (kirkos in Greek).

Symbolically, the circle represents the world in its fullness, as put forth eloquently in Black Elk Speaks:

Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished….

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop.

Medieval and ancient cosmology rested upon similar concepts, that a series of crystalline spheres encompassed the earth itself, embedded in each of which was a planet. The rotation of the spheres caused the movement of the heavens, and from them emitted a sacred song, the so-called music of the spheres.

The sacred hoop, the medicine wheel, the Round Table, the witches circle, the circus rings all could be said to represent the sum total of all possibilities of earthly existence: what could happen, destiny, fortune, fate, change, chance, opportunity.

Additionally, the circus ring underneath the big top tent could be thought of as the human sensorium, the perceptual field in which an entity experiences life and itself through the action of the senses upon the mind. Such a reading allows one to look at the “main event” of a circus as the primary focus of perception, and the side shows and freak shows as outlying elements, strange events and occurrences happening on the outer fringes of awareness.

The Ringmaster

If the circus is the field of the senses at play, then the ringmaster would be that part of your mind which directs attention from one thing to the next. The ringmaster is the master of ceremonies, the stage play narrator, the television talk show host or tv news interviewer who acts as interpreter of events on behalf of the audience.

In the days before modern lighting equipment, it was the ringleader’s job to literally “direct” the attention of the audience to the appropriate sections of the performance area, even as the previous act was being torn down or the next act was being set up in another area. Most performances were mute by nature, accompanied by resounding brass music. Therefore, the ringleader’s big, booming voice was important as it cut through the clutter and excitement to announce the act.

It is also the ringmaster’s job to create a sense of hyperbole whenever possible while introducing the acts. Declarations of the “biggest”, “most dangerous”, “amazing”, “spectacular” and similar expressions are common, regardless of the actual caliber of the performance.

The ringleader is responsible for maintaining the smooth flow of the show — or at least the appearance of it. He may be called upon to fill time if an act isn’t ready for their entrance in time.

Looked at from the more social perspective of a circus as a group or circle of people (a tribe, if you will), the ring master could also be thought of as ring-leader. He stands at the center, and acts as the head or the focal point of the group’s awareness of itself: a figurehead. The ring-master could be thought of as a CEO, president, king, chief, director, pope, shepherd, front-man or other leader. As in the Tao Te Ching, he stands at the center of the circle or wheel and all spokes radiate outward from him.

The Clowns

If the ring-master stands at the center of the circle, then clowns run rampant every which way as comic relief: in, out, around and across the circle, violating cultural rules and taboos wherever possible.

Modern clowns connect backwards through a rich history of street performance on the part of mimes, medieval jesters, and the over-the-top storytelling of the commedia dell’arte. In order to have an emotion or an action “read” during a live performance in front of a large crowd, it must be exaggerated very heavily. Hence the classic smiling and frowning faces which today symbolize drama and theatre, originally references to exaggerated masks in Greek theatre to convey emotion to crowds in open-air amphitheatres.

Clowns invert social rules and roles in overly dramatic and ridiculous ways, enabling audience members to “blow off steam” and temporarily upset the normal order. “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound those who are mighty.” — 1 Cor 1:27

Alternatively, the stereotypical red nose and outrageous behavior of the clown connects culturally to the flush face and intoxicated antics of the town drunk, the village idiot, the fool - universally reviled, spat upon and shunned: the vagrant or vagabond who can’t or won’t become a “normal” part of society.

The Juggler

Closely allied to the foolish clown is the juggler.

The word juggler today connotes a man who is skillful in throwing and catching balls, knives, and other articles, and understands or practices delicate feats of balancing. It has its root in the Latin word joculator, which meant originally a man who makes the jocus or pleasantry; in other words, a buffoon. The French form, derived from the Latin, is jongleur, which comprehends much more than the idea of a buffoon or trick performer. A jongleur was also a troubadour or singer.

A juggler, in essence, is one who has mastered patterns of motion amongst physical bodies, and can manipulate these patterns through dexterity and hand-eye coordination to work with or sometimes appear to even defy gravity itself.

Juggling, in a certain sense, could be seen as one of the elemental forces which hold the universe together, from the smallest particles swirling around the center of an atom to the mighty orbits of planets around stars:

On a somewhat less cosmic note, respect for juggling as an art form has varied throughout history, though references to the act itself stretch backwards into the history of most early civilizations, including the Egyptians, Chinese, Greek, Indian, Aztec and Polynesian.

According to Wikipedia:

In Europe, juggling was an acceptable diversion until the decline of the Roman Empire, after which it fell into disgrace. Throughout the Middle Ages most histories were written by religious clerics who frowned upon the type of performers who juggled, called ‘gleemen’, accusing them of base morals or even practicing witchcraft. Jugglers in this era would only perform in marketplaces, streets, fairs or drinking houses. They would perform short, humorous and bawdy acts and pass a hat or bag among the audience for tips. Some kings’ and noblemen’s bards, fools, or jesters would have been able to juggle or perform acrobatics, though their main skills would have been oral (poetry, music, comedy and storytelling).

Towards the end of the 18th century, Philip Astley began employing jugglers in the first modern circus - an entertainment combination which would soon spread to variety and music hall theatres.

The Magician

Next up in our revue is the magician, the illusionist, the prestidigitator, the sleight-of-hand artist.

In older French tarot decks, the first card in the Major Arcana, the magician, was originally called “le Bateleur,” the juggler. Medieval jugglers or jongleurs didn’t just juggle balls, as we’ve discussed above, but performed all manner of entertainments - as well as deceptions. The magician proves that the two are often inseparable:

Throughout history, the more mercenary juggler appears as the shell-game con-artist. His success at the shell game depends on his ability to fool the eye and place bets with the suckers who foolishly believe in their own ability to follow the juggler’s sleight-of-hand. In this sport - for the shell game is a gambling sport of hands versus eyes - the juggler use his deft moves, not to amaze and delight, but to deceive.

Shell game aside, Dr. Henry Evans in a 1934 paper explains, “You cannot expose the feats of a genuine juggler, for there is no mystery about them; they are dependent on sheer dexterity.” Meanwhile, Evans explains that the subtle craft of the magician depends entirely on trickery, and that to expose his methods is to ruin his business.

The methods of the magician are the skillful direction and mis-direction of attention. While the ring-master works on a large scale to fill in the blanks between acts, the craft of the sleight-of-hand illusionist is to convincingly bend the appearance of reality. He uses flourishes of the hands, body movements, playful banter and more to make it seem as though impossible things are happening before your very eyes. But his talent lays in the simple fact that the hand is quicker than the eye.

The magician’s craft perhaps descends from that of the thief, shop-lifter or rogue: of palming coins and objects of value, hiding cards up one’s sleeve at the betting table - and moves upward in scale to something akin to modern media and propaganda: to the strategic telling of tales to motivate people to action, to buy a product or vote a certain way. He can make the unreal seem real, or at least long enough to entertain or confound.

In the Tarot deck, the Magician card stands for consciousness, concentration and the action of the Will. The card stands, in some sense, for the self-mastery required of the practitioner of this or any circus art: a singular dedication to study, improvement and self-mastery.

The Lion Tamer

Will-power is what allows mankind to rise above his base or animal nature. While the lion is often associated with concepts such as strength, bravery and royalty, the so-called “king of the beasts” is still just that, a beast, a brute, an un-thinking un-caring creature. The First Labor of Hercules (Herakles), illustrates the other half of this classical attitude towards lions:

The first labor for the hero Heracles, was to rid the Nemean plain of the wild, enormous and extremely ferocious beast known as the Nemean Lion. This huge creature was the son of the monsters Typhon (who had 100 heads) and Echidna (half maiden - half serpent), and brother of the Theban Sphinx, in some legends it is said that the Nemean lion was suckled by Selene the goddess of the moon, other versions say that it was nursed by the goddess Hera.

The arrows of Hercules are unable to penetrate the lion’s thick hide, and he eventually chokes it to death {See also: Samson & the lion}. His knife isn’t strong enough to cut the animal’s hide either, and he must use it’s own claws to skin it.

Romans fed Christians to the lions. Daniel escaped the lion’s den through faith in God’s Grace. In the 1600’s through 1800’s, lions were “baited” to fight against dogs in cage matches. Towards the end of that spectacle, the traveling menagerie caught on in the United States:

At first, entrepreneurs put individual wild animals on display and charged admission. As time went by, exhibitors began adding more animals to their shows. By the early 1820s there were 30 or more traveling menageries touring the eastern US. It wasn’t until the late 1830s that promoters figured out a way to combine the menagerie with the circus.

Cat acts in the US began in 1833, when Isaac Van Amburgh first stepped into a cage occupied by a lion, a tiger, a leopard and a panther. Dressed like a Roman gladiator in toga and sandals, Van Amburgh emphasized his domination of the animals by beating them into compliance with a crowbar and thrusting his arm into their mouths, daring them to attack. When he came under attack for spreading cruelty and moral ruin, Van Amburgh quoted the Bible: “Didn’t God say in Genesis 1:26 that men should have dominion over every animal on the earth?” To enhance his case, Van Amburgh actually acted out scenes in the Bible, forcing a lion to lie down with a lamb and even bringing a child from the audience to join them in the ring.

Lions, of course, were not the only animals to be employed in circuses. Trained animals, especially dogs and horses have been a staple of entertainment since time immemorial, and stand not just for man’s ability to master himself, but also to master his environment, and to bend the very forces of nature to do his bidding.

The Acrobat

Where the lion tamer directs his efforts at mastery outwards, the acrobat learns to master the “animal” of her own body.

The acrobat trains and trains, building muscle memory and pushing the body to feats of flexibility, balance and elegance which to the ordinary person may seem near miraculous. The Ancient Greeks believed in the principle of a “sound mind in a sound body” for which they built elaborate gymnasia, compounds where physical exercise and training took place in the nude.

The gymnasium, originally an area for physical training, evolved into a school for training both the body and the mind. There were three types of teachers in a gymnasium: Grammatistes, who taught reading, writing and other scholarly pursuits; Kitharistes, who taught music; and paidotribes, who were physical fitness teachers. Thus, the gymnasium also became a center for the arts, philosophy and literature.

The Olympic Games are a direct out-growth of this ancient practice, and analogues can be found all over the world. The Romans believed that training in gymnastics led to “idleness and immorality, and [was] of little use for militaristic reasons,” replacing such activities directly with military exercise. In the Middle Ages, jousting, horsemanship and other feats of martial prowess followed in that tradition, though acrobats entertained the courts of kings and nobles - just as they did in Ancient China.

India has its long and rich tradition of yoga, which can be seen as “technologies or disciplines of asceticism and meditation which are thought to lead to spiritual experience and profound understanding or insight into the nature of existence.” Physical exercise utilizing difficult postures and movements to harmonize body, mind and spirit remind one of the rich cultural legacy of the Greek gymnasia. Yoga means, essentially, “yoking” - as in yoking together oxen to perform the hard labor of cultivating the land (ie, the mind/body/spirit).

The Trapeze Artist

Acrobatics is all about finding one’s center of balance and being able to maintain it through all circumstances, total mastery of the body within space and through time:

Most acrobats that are seen in the circus have gone through extensive training programs that have lasted for several years. Even after the initial training, they are required to keep up their training everyday in order to maintain their current difficulty level and increase their level. Many acrobats in the circus are former competitive gymnasts. The acrobats have to have a high level of flexibility, strength, and knowledge of their body relative to the ground. One of the main physics concepts that is taught to the acrobats is the ability for them to find their center of gravity and be able to do so quickly. If they are unable to find their center, they will not be able to hold their current position, either in a handstand or in a pyramid.

The main technique required to become an acrobat is having the ability to know where your center of gravity is at all times. Many know where it is, but the difficult part is actually being able to maintain your stability while upside down or in the air. The acrobat has to be able to equate the sum of the torque on each individual part to the torque at the center of gravity. The upward force of the support, n, has to equal the downward force of the acrobat or acrobats weight, w. The sum of these forces must be equal to zero to be in an equilibrium system. If these two forces are equal to zero, then the acrobat is balanced in her position, or the pyramid formed by many acrobats is in balance.

Flying through the air (aerials) is a relatively new discipline as far as the circus arts are concerned. Jules Leotard invented the flying trapeze in France in 1859, a horizontal bar from which he would swing and perform tricks. But aerial acrobatics are far more elemental on an evolutionary level. Humans, after all, are closely related to arboreal monkeys, for whom swinging from branch to branch was less a matter of performance than of survival:

Taken symbolically, the flying trapeze (along with other aerial circus skills) could be seen as something like: the human mind in flight (flights of fancy, a soaring imagination), thoughts ascending upward towards heaven (the canopy of the Big Top), defiance of gravity. Perhaps something along the lines of Icarus rising up toward the sun:

Dr. Henry A Murray has given this skyward orientation a name, Ascensionism: he associates it not only with he practices of astronomy, but with the general psychal orientation toward brightness, levitation, flying, climbing, upward pointing and moving, perhaps even with hierarchic order in which the highest unit or the highest person represents the utmost in power, intelligence, or numinous authority. But Murray has also pointed out that the actual environment becomes more empty of living organisms as one ascends towards the symbolic mountaintop, and the air likewise becomes rarer and harder to breathe: less capable both physically and figuratively of supporting human life.

The Strong Man

Where the aerial acrobat represents the human spirit as lighter than air, the archetype of the classic “strong man” has a much more down-to-earth focuse.

Among agrarian, labor-based and strong martial societies, physical strength is a pre-requisite to survival and success. A strong back, legs and arms means you can plow the fields and slay your enemies. The muscular male figure was an object of near-worship in Ancient Greece, and the sheer visual fascination still holds sway today.

Feats of strength have strong mythological roots, such as the story of Hercules, outlined above, and the Biblical tales of Samson who slew a lion with the jawbone of an ass, and who tore down a Philistine temple with strength given him by God.

The Rider-Waite tarot deck features “Strength” as the eighth card in the Major Arcana:

The modern interpretation of the card stresses discipline and control. The lion represents the primal ‘id’ part of the mind, and the woman, the ‘higher’ or more elevated parts. The card tells the Querant to be wary of the temptations of the flesh. For example, in The Chariot card, the Querant is fighting a battle. The difference is that in Strength, the battle is mainly internal rather than external.

In the Crowley deck this card is entitled Lust, and there is a sun sign (zodiac) association with Leo, implying a potency that is sexual, creative, and intuitive, which are all attributes of the element Fire. The other Leonine quality of generosity, or mercy, is also an aspect of this power or strength. There is a further connection with the heart chakra in kundalini yoga.

If inverted, the Querant is in danger of losing control to impulses and desires. Pride and unwarranted anger are also often associated with the inverted card.

Once again, as with all the other circus arts, we see a heavy emphasis on control, discipline, and self-mastery which leads one to be able to perform feats of daring, might and magic. The circus tradition seems to hold, in the West, a modern and mostly over-looked line of succession backwards to ancient practices of harmoniously uniting the physical and spiritual elements of human nature.

The Bearded Lady

Though the notion of physical strength is most often associated with masculinity, the Rider-Waite Tarot deck depicts a decidedly female figure as overcoming the brute force of the lion (man’s animal nature). This is a recognition of many kinds of strength, ranging from sheer physical power to “soft strength,” the ability to enact change through more subtle means.

The last circus figure we’ll examine in this survey speaks directly to these sorts of dichotomies: strong and weak, masculine and feminine, positive and negative. S/he is the bearded lady, the alchemical androgyne, hermaphrodite or the more modern term, intersex.

An androgyne is a person who does not fit cleanly into the typical masculine and feminine gender roles of their society. They may also use the term ambigender to describe themselves. Many androgynes identify as being mentally “between” male and female, or as entirely genderless. They may class themselves as non-gendered, agendered, between genders, Intergendered, bigendered or, gender fluid

The bearded lady represents the same thing as the yin yang symbol of Taoism, in which the black swirl has a white dot of potential within its center, and vice versa. The bearded lady says that within each man is woman, and within each woman is the essence of man. Jung observed this in his psychological studies, naming the female essence of man the anima and the male essence of females the animus (in Hinduism, this is the union of Shiva, the male divine element, and Shakti, the feminine). He believed that we project unconsciously this inner essence of the opposite ideal gender onto other people, and that withdrawing such projections allows one to interact with people of the opposite sex as they truly are, instead of how we hope or fear them as being.

The reason the bearded lady is part of the “freak show” is that most people are unaware or unconscious of this hidden inner essence, so to be presented with someone in whom those opposites have been reconciled can be shocking, entertaining, alluring, confusing or even frightening.

In the alchemical tradition, an esoteric and symbolically encoded pre-cursor of both modern science and modern psychology (founded on the notion that the inner is like the outer), the union of male and female polarities was typified by the figure of the Rebis, an androgynous or hermaphroditic figure with both male and female faces and sex organs. It was the ultimate outcome of the Hieros Gamos, the Holy Wedding, in which the Sun King and Moon Queen energies were united into one entity which was fully complete unto itself.

I offer the interpretation that this figure summarizes neatly the underlying esoteric significance hidden beneath the outward weirdness of the circus, which could be seen as a macrosm, a representation of the interior life of the self, the microcosm. The circle represents wholeness, completeness. The various archetypal figures associated with the circus represent the various paths and stages of transformation which the individual undergoes on their way to self-mastery, inner harmony and what Jung called individuation: the ability to direct and control perception, the ability to control the body and overcome the base animal nature of the human biological organism, the upward flight of the human mind and heart toward the divine and the final union of opposites.

And that, my friends, concludes our show.