The Usurper Within

There is a story which is being told and retold, in many different forms. It is the story of the usurper-king and the fool who is the real king. Philip K Dick has caught on to this story, and writes of it in the following words:

“A usurper is on the throne. The rightful king (who is younger) appears as a madman, criminal, or fool; he is mysterious; his nature and origins are uncertain. He is arrested and tried. (I should say falsely arrested). Interrogated by the old king (usurper). He is charged with a crime he did not commit. The resolution varies; sometimes he is acquitted and assumes the throne; sometimes he is killed. The white-haired old king on horseback may be the murdered father of the young man who is the rightful heir to the throne; he returns to seek justice: punishment of the usurper; the son placed on the throne. The story is told and retold. Why? What are we supposed to learn? That the ostensible ruling power of this world is illegitimate? The ‘King’ is not in fact the true king? And the ‘fool’ is not mad or a fool or a criminal but is the rightful king? My analysis: everything we see is a 180-degree mirror opposite of the truth. The ostensible ‘king’ is not only not the true king, he also has no actual power: despite appearances his power is illusory. All true power belongs to the ‘fool’ who is the true king (vide The Bacchae). This is all some sort of play – which Hamlet clearly alludes to. We are to guess the riddle. Who is the true king?”[1]

We are living in this play, the Theo-Drama.

Philip K. Dick saw a part of it, but he did not understand that all these variations of the story are reflecting the true play, the play where the foolish-king is both killed and put on the throne, where he is the one who seeks justice and the one who is acquitted. This is the Christ drama; the stories which reflect this drama draw us in because they point to the truth behind the apparent reality we live in. The fool participates in Christ and contains more wisdom than those who proclaim themselves to be wise; the powerless accused is the one who has true authority to judge. It is the death of the true king which raises him in glory and brings him to the throne of judgment. The usurper, the king who is no king, is each and everyone one of us so long as we try to live in the world of our own creation, in the world where we believe our dictates and claims have any merit. We must let that king within, the self, be judged instead of judging others. In the judging of others, we take on the role of the unjust usurper and Christ takes the role of the accused. Everything we do to the other, including the judgment we make, is done to Christ. We must step down. We must overcome the self. We must die so as to let the holy fool lead us to glory. Hamlet, Life is a Dream, The Princess Bride, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars – they draw us in because we feel their connection to the true Story, the Story from which all other stories flow. And yet, to learn from them, we must recognize that we are Claudius, Basilio, Humperdink, Sauron, Voldemort, and the Emperor, that we are the one who creates the conditions in which the suffering are led to their perdition. We must take part in the play, we must recognize the falsehood we have taken for ourselves – and let it go. Star Wars has it right with Darth Vader. He had to let go, to see the falsehood he had established, to see the authority he took was only destructive and harmed himself every time he exercised it. He was on life-support because he was weak, and yet he pretended to be strong.  He had to accept his weakness in order to truly live. And so we must become fools for Christ, no longer trying to control or manipulate the world, no longer living in the delusion of grandeur, but accepting  our inherent weakness. Then we can be the fool in Christ, and die and reign with him, showing that to die to the world is to live in true glory.