Primary folkloric issues include:

Liminality

Marginality

Reversal

Interstitiality

Betwixt and Between

Anti-structure

Transition

The works of the following folklorists influenced the book:

Barre Toelken

William Clements

Bill Ellis

Peter Rojcewicz

Linda Degh

    Barbara Babcock’s 1975 article “‘A Tolerated Margin of Mess’: The Trickster and His Tales Reconsidered” (Journal of the Folklore Institute, Vol. 11, pp. 147-186) is the starting point for much of the analysis in The Trickster and the Paranormal.

    Reversal and blurring of binary oppositions characterize both the trickster and the paranormal.  Structuralist and Jungian perspectives help explain those processes.

    William Clements’ articles “The Interstitial Ogre” (1987) and “Interstitiality in Contemporary Legends” (1991) are highly relevant to paranormal themes.  Bill Ellis’ study of legend-trips demonstrated the liminal features of those brief excursions that seek supernatural encounters.

    The trickster’s association with the paranormal has long been recognized.  For instance, Enid Welsford’s classic The Fool: His Social and Literary History (1935) has an entire chapter titled “Origins: The Fool as Poet and Clairvoyant.”

    The paranormal today contains a wealth of material for the folklorist.  It is only beginning to be mined.  The Trickster and the Paranormal contains many case studies and shows how ideas from folklore can be applied.
 

Historical note 

    In the nineteenth century the Folk Lore Society debated psychical research.  Edward Clodd was a debunker, and Andrew Lang, a proponent, served as president of the Society for Psychical Research.
 

Author's background

    In the mid 1990s the author participated in the Belief Interest Group organized by David Hufford at the Department of Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania.