The King & The Fool

There once was an all-powerful King. He ruled over his kingdom with wisdom, clarity, and honesty. He ruled with his mind and heart, but never managed to enjoy it.
He thought that joy and pleasure were not for him, because his Duty was more important than anything else.

All these people depend on you, kids, women, elderly. And the brave warriors that give their lives to defend the realm against pirates, monsters, and brutal invaders.

His realm prospered and grew and grew. All his subjects loved him. His wife and children adored him like nobody else. Nobody ever complained to or spoke against the King, because for all people, the King was beyond reproach.

All except one, and he was called 0 (Zero).

Zero would wake him in the morning with a prod into his side and tell him: “Make them starve! Your people are too fat!”

He would show up by surprise in the corridor and whisper: “Your truth are lies and lies are truth, never will you find the turtle without a tail.”

And when the King announced his grand and wise decisions in the throne room, Zero would sit by his side and laugh.

The Fool would criticize the King’s every move, even though it was the best and only option available to the Graceful King at that time.

You would think the King would hate or detest this impudent and annoying figure, destroying his peace and tranquility, and at crucial moments deploying his madness into the tightly controlled and contracted realm that he so wisely created.

But no… the Fool was his favorite.

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The Mad (in) Society

The Fool – the archetypical madman – is the breaker. The chaotic whirlwind that slashes through our heads. The untamed, wild, and insatiably curious mind.

The Fool is needed.

In a world where we live by the rules or become poor outcasts of wealth and prosperity, we need a way to break out. To leave the box of identity, community, and righteousness, and become something else, for a while.

When Reality meets Madness

I cleaned isolation cells in an old-school psychiatric hospital when I was 18.
The clients were called patients, and sedation, electroshocks, and medicine were the accepted “go to” treatments for people in full-blown delirium.

You can’t tame madness.   You can’t dispose of it or rule it. But maybe we can see the Merit and become a part of their world, understanding the genius and gifts that come with this ‘state of mind’ 

You know what people mostly did in these closed wards, shut off from society because they were (and they really are!) a danger to themselves and the environment?

They wrote.
They drew.

They needed to express all the knowledge, words, pictures, and ideas that were streaming through the sub-, un-, middle-conscious minds without checking. They needed to be heard and seen.

The pictures and texts were, nine times out of ten, of a spiritual or religious nature.
Insanely repleted with symbolic meaning and mixed up with all kinds of ancient and present-day languages.

I loved reading them, seeing them, and listening to them.

And when I arrived in the spiritual scene, I recognized the path that they must have taken to get to this point: overflooded with information, meanings, feelings, stories, and ideas that make it impossible for us to make sense of anything anymore. Being in daily close and personal contact with people within the full flow of madness, I experienced what it truly feels like to question all of reality. 

¹Madmen throughout this article are meant as Man in general which can be female or male. There is no gender connected to this word.

²We can, and always should,  help people that are paranoid, afraid and really harmful. But often that label is used too fast and without looking at the whole (holistic) range of reasons this person is ‘crazy’ and afraid. 

And I liked it.

It made me feel free, curious, and inexplicably grateful about the mystery of life.

Yes, we must support and heal anybody struggling with severe mental illness.
And always protect the vulnerable of society against people that harm them, whether it’s because they are crazy, poor, or otherwise.

But I am not talking about treating all madness as a gift, and all schizophrenics as healing shamans…

I am talking about the unseen side of madness:
The useful.
The Merit of Madness.

So that we can differentiate between the scary and harmful parts, and the beautiful, wise, and completely necessary parts of madness.
In our own minds and in society.

The Reasons For Madness

We need Madmen in society for many reasons – here are a few. 

Madmen can:

• Speak truths polite society refuses to acknowledge.
• See what others cannot or will not see.
• Warn of dangers or collapse before others believe it’s coming.
• Imagine possibilities that seem impossible until they become reality.
• Break illusions and refuse to play along with collective lies.
• Disrupt stagnant order so renewal can happen.
• Keep a culture connected to uncomfortable truths and deeper realities.
• Challenge the idea that “sanity” always equals wisdom.
• Prevent society from drifting into complacency or sleep.

A few of these might be accepted with ease while others are less comfortable to come to terms with. Do we really need crazy people to prevent us from ‘falling asleep’ and refusing to play along with collective lies? Yes, we do. Collective lies and the sleepy following of leaders are very dangerous spells and they should be broken time and time again. 

Let’s look at a simple and present day lie that is being broken time and time again but still doesn’t seem to be letting go of our collective minds – and see how the madmen have attempted to break this voluntary chain around our necks.  

The Mad (and the) Lie of Linearity

In human society, there are no set norms, no laws, no scientific facts that always stay true and similar over time  – even the idea of a round earth and gravity has shifted throughout the ages. The fact is that humanity is in a constant state of flux and dynamic changes are always occurring – and not always for the better.

We devolve and turn around many times, as societies, cultures, and languages change constantly. Cultural and social sciences now understand that humans are not linear creatures, yet we have been made to believe that we are.

How & Why Are We Lied To? 

The core believe that is being pushed by rulers throughout centuries is this: “Things are getting better. If you just wait, work harder, and follow the rules, your life will improve… forever.”

Does this ever really happen? Yes… sometimes. We have seen many improvements in society over the past centuries in healthcare, science, safety and education in the world, and in certain areas of these fields of human wellbeing. 

These advances are constantly being put into focus, technological and economic progress can be called the ‘new religion’. But the disadvantages – the parts of society where we are devolving and turning downwards – are being ignored at best or being pushed into the collective minds as conspiracies at the worst. Some examples of these disadvantages are the degradation of humanistic, social and spiritual values, mental wellbeing, family and community structures, ecological and natural health and spiritual connection. 

From a feminist point of view, the language and ethics of progress in political and technological speeches mostly will reinforce a patriarchal hierarchy that elevates  masculine ideas – control, expansion, domination, and rationality – while devaluating those associated with the feminine, such as care, emotional intelligence, ecological balance, and community cohesion. These concerns are then dismissed and mansplained as “soft” or secondary to the “hard” priorities of economic growth and technological conquest. This framing doesn’t just sideline traditionally feminine spheres – no it does much more – it actively casts them as obstacles to progress, sustaining a power structure that will always put rule, dominance and profit over nurture, embodiment, wellbeing and life.

This lie is perpetuated throughout history in educational programs, politics, media, poplar culture etc etc.

The Lie of linearity is a relentless and ever returning myth that tries to convince us that progress (more, faster, always upward) is crucial to happiness and survival of our species, culture and way of life.  This myth is (almost) never challenged by those in power but (almost) always by those brave enough to speak out and then be banished to the fringes to the realm of madmen and conspiracy thinkers. Take Greta Thunberg, for instance. The young person that, at the height of her influence was labeled a  “deeply disturbed” and “freakishly influential,” person. Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun was later found to have breached journalistic standards by the Australian Press Council. 

But these, after the fact, recalls don’t matter. We, the public, are happily and easily told that people speaking against the reigning powers are mad freaks who should not be listened to. Maybe only for entertainment and fun. So that is what ‘they’ do. 

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Panem et Circenses

“Give them bread and circuses.”

To keep humanity’s ‘mad’ and unruly urges in check, the instinct to question authority, speak uncomfortable truths, break rules, or simply be too loud, rulers have always relied on distraction. The Romans perfected it: public bloodbaths in the arena, lavish feasts, and theatrical indulgence served up not just as entertainment, but as a tool. A way to smother uprising. A way to hush the Fool.

Today, we don’t need lions and emperors. We have football, reality TV, and multi-stage music festivals. Places where we can scream, sweat, release, and forget. We’re handed election debates like WWE matches, convinced we’re participating, when really we’re being sedated. While real suffering – war, famine, injustice, systemic neglect – goes ignored or spun into spectacle.

And so, the madman is pacified. The Fool – our inner breaker of illusions – is lulled into submission with cheap thrills, synthetic sugar, and six-second videos. You’re angry? Great. Tweet about it. Feel disillusioned? Buy chips on sale and scroll until it fades. You’re allowed to express, but not act. You’re allowed to complain, but not change.

This is how the hero, the madman, the truth-teller is silenced. Not with chains, but with entertainment. Our soul’s wildest impulses – those fiery, sacred rebellions – are boxed up and numbed out. The love we carry for the world, the chaos of our divine madness, the urge to shatter the lie – it’s all gently, expertly, quietly suffocated.

The Merit of Madness: A Portal to Transformation

Madness – whether it’s triggered by trauma, psychedelics, or just the deep currents of existential confusion – can be a gateway. Not to destruction or chaos for its own sake, but to change, creativity, and healing.

You see, madness often becomes a liminal space, a sort of magical middle ground between who we were and who we are about to become. It is like the in-between phase of a ritual: a messy, wild stretch where we lose one identity, and the next one isn’t quite in focus yet. This idea is deeply rooted in the work of anthropologists like Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, who framed rituals in three stages: separation (where we break away from the familiar), liminality (the unknown, strange middle ground), and incorporation (where we emerge transformed into a new life).

In the liminal space, boundaries blur. The ordinary rules of the world don’t apply. The lines between what’s real, what’s imagined, and what’s possible begin to twist and dissolve. And that’s where the magic happens: when we are disoriented enough to stop clinging to the old identity and open enough to explore what could be. It is in these wild in-betweens that change is most alive, and often, it is only by embracing this “madness” that we can break free from old, constrictive patterns of being.

This liminal phase does not just apply to life’s big milestones like starting a new job, ending a relationship, or changing cities. It is something we are constantly navigating. Take Ibiza, Spain, for instance: a place where both the party scene and spiritual rituals exist in this tension. The parties, the wild energy, the mind-bending substances… all of these invite people to step into this liminal zone where time warps, identities shift, and reality becomes slippery. The very nature of these spaces encourages a break from normality. In some cases, it is a temporary escape; in others, a profound transformation.

The difference between the Roman “forgetting” games and true transformational experience is that in transformation you genuinely step out of your existing identity. You feel unhinged, unsafe, and outside the “normal” way of life. Clubs, football, reality TV, and election debates do not function that way because they only serve to reinforce and stabilize your old identity. They do not give you anything shocking, new, or otherworldly enough to push you out of your old way of being. They do not leave you questioning the state of yourself, your world, and reality, nor do they give space for the Fool – the madman – to arise and awaken you with their madness.

We often forget that madness, in all its messy forms, is a space – a portal, even – through which we can pass. It is not the breakdown that is the problem, but the breakthrough. Whether it is through psychedelics, ecstatic dance, breathwork, or moments of deep emotional or psychological rupture, the madness that comes is not the enemy. It is a space where we lose the old, known version of ourselves, and there is no telling yet what we might become. It is chaotic, yes, but within that chaos is the possibility of reinvention.

This is the merit of madness. It is not a breakdown, but a space of potentiality. A liminal phase where we can shed our old skin, lose ourselves, and find ourselves in the mess of it all. When we open gently to this madness, not as something to fight or fix, but as something to explore and navigate, it becomes not only a portal to creativity and change but to healing too. Because sometimes, in order to heal, we must first get lost in the wildness of not knowing who we are.

Your Personal Madness

My mind, body, and soul are my realm. I keep them purposeful, moving toward my highest self. But I love my inner Fool. My madness. My delirium.

The Fool whispers when the path turns left, “Go right.” Outside the box of identity, I meet truth, creativity, and divine connection.

Sometimes life feels too flat, too ironed smooth. That’s when a small disruption can wake the pulse again:

• Wear mismatched colors. 
• Take an illogical route home. 
• Eat cake for breakfast. 
• Dance without music. 
• Speak in poetry. 
• Make art without a plan. 

When you tilt your world even slightly, something inside shifts. It’s not chaos for chaos’s sake, it’s loosening the grip of routine so possibility can slip in.

The question is: when was the last time you let your Fool lead?

ODE TO MY Jokerman,

I entered your palace of extremities, 

Bubble and rip,

With the mad flow of brilliance,

That distorts and extrapolates 

Through blissful grace 

and unearthly rumblings.

You split the earth underneath my feet and the sky above my head.

Impregnated it, over and over and over again.

With dreams, visions and fears, 

Until I begged for more,

And that meant the end.

Now, with my blown and heart opened I ask you

” 0, 

When can I visit again?”  

Go Deeper

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