The Trickster Cards
Life has no limitations, except the ones you make.
~ Les Brown
Excerpt from the Bogata Biblioteca
The discovery of the Trickster Cards undoubtedly was unexpected, subsequently was acclaimed, yet has remained disconcerting. There was no precedent. The lack of substantiated origin was unsetting to the professional community. La Rochelle dismissed the cards as a sophisticated forgery originating from Buenos Aires. Perugino said the cards were genuine but offered no explanation for their unexpected appearance and their provocative departure from classical designs. Perhaps the most creditable account comes from C. Orantes who alluded to the cards “ having been spirited from the Library of Remarkable Paperbacks.” Yet this too remains largely speculative.
The cards themselves are puzzling, in part because the sum of those currently available for scrutiny constitutes a mere fragment of the total work. They clearly are the most arcane creation of the Raven, and they lend themselves to no singular conceptual framework. Needless to say, their popular appeal, especially in the third world, has handicapped scholarly research, if not due to the widespread belief that they promote paranormal realities, then at least as a result of the incisive contradiction they bring to Aristotelian thought.
The authenticity of the cards remains indeterminate. As noted, many scholars doubt that the cards originated from the hands and mind of the Raven — no doubt due to the nuance of design that, paradoxically, is Chinese. But the masses have not been dissuaded. Koblenz the German popularized the myth — which since has been totally discredited — that a Catholic priest found the cards, in a leather sheath bearing stigmata, in an abandoned Aymerian village in Puerto Ayacucho. The lack of any Christian icons in the cards created immediate doubt which ultimately was confirmed by the priest’s confession only hours before his most unpleasant death from advanced syphilis.
Regardless of the place of origin and author, the cards continue to be the quintessence of Gnostic thought and the embodiment of Native American pantheism. That the cards are so readily found among children (in spite of the prohibitive cost) defies logical explanation. Similarly, there are sworn testimonials from Yaqui Indians that the cards have reanimated dead cows, restored withered limbs and brought abundant harvests.
The introduction of the cards has brought a gravitational shift, in mind, if not in physical reality. The full significance remains to be seen.
— A.F./Bogata