Who is Dr. Jason Fox?

What-ho, yes. Few know for sure. That’s the charm. Come, hearken unto me. Take a seat. {lights wizard pipe}

They say I consort with the fae and dance with trickster gods, that Hermes (the thrice-great) is my teacher, and that Odin’s ravens both hold me in fond regard.

Rumour has it I traversed the stony Labyrinth of Reason with but wit and rhyme to guide my way, venturing deep into the cold darkness of The Abyss that lies below—and back again. (And then back again, for solace and tea.)

They call me a dark wizard and a rogue, and some whisper that I am secretly a field kitsune with three (maybe four) tails, and that my skyship—The Cleverness—is actually an allusion.

I am a bane to all who claim certainty;
a boon to all who live in doubt.

I am many things, and not.

{stage-wink}

Actually no one really says any of the above. More’s the pity.

Nevertheless!

I am a wizard-philosopher on a quest to co-create a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim)

And I am not alone—many fellow characters share this horizonal disposition, though our methods and means may vary. It’s easy to spot kindred spirits in this infinite game, if you know what to look for. (Hint: it’s in the glint).

You might be one of us.

ANYHOO, in this irksome domain I must clad myself in the trappings of conventional achievement, so as to be recognisable to finite players.

What follows is a kind of ‘official’ bio for you. My glittered trojan horse, if you will. Use this to help me slip past the gatekeepers of your organisation—and capitalism at large—so that we can better work our quickening magics together.

Ahem.
<lights, places; serious voice now>

The Official Bio of Dr. Jason Fox

<and: cut! good take, team>

Ahem. As I say: it’s a costume. A useful aspect; and true.

Being “Dr. Jason Fox” does genuinely allow me to manifest in all kinds of events and contexts, including unlikely scenarios—like keynoting at conferences for prime ministers and heads of government, working intimately with university vice chancellories, hosting conversations with executive teams and boards responsible for portfolios worth billions, etc. This is how I work with fellow infinite players to smuggle complexity savvy and wisdom-in-service-to-Life to where it is very much needed, as a speaker-catalyst and liminal consultant. But whilst this is apt for the warped world of professional speaking—it is perhaps a bit over the top for most other things.

And then there’s this whole ‘wizard’ thing...

Liminal: Fox, Wizardry, and Magic

I’m an Elder Millennial. I grew up before the internet, once upon a time in which awe and wonder were less threatened by ready answers and reductive explanation. A world very much animate and alive.

And for as long as I can remember I have had an affinity for liminal ecosystems; estuaries, wetlands, riverbanks, rockpools, and anywhere ‘conducive to moss’. Zones of elemental confluence, and ecotones of in-between-ness. Places that are neither this-nor-that, but both-at-once.[^ The quintessential state being that which is both-‘both-and’-and-‘either-or’-and-‘neither-nor’.] Some we might even call ‘thin places.’[^Locations where the membrane between this world and the otherworld is, as the name suggests, thin. An enlivened animacy is present at such places; the subtle realm is all the more present.] Even during my academic chapter—teaching complexity science, living systems and eco-philosophy at different universities—I would meditate in hidden swamps where long-necked turtles dwell, sit amongst cawing ravens in trees at dusk, and stargaze by waterholes in desert gorges at night (with frogs). Life was ecologically rich.

And always, always, throughout all of this was Fox.

Fox

Now, I will admit: nominative determinism might well be a thing—from a very young age I was drawn to any folklore, fairytales and myths within which Fox featured.

Fox is a liminal creature, oscillating betwixt field and forest (the domesticated and the wild; the established defaults and the emergent possibility).[^ Fox is not a popular character in Australia, where introduced foxes have gone feral. But the animist within me still holds a kinship, and a hope that Fox (and foxes) may one day become redeemed and live in right-relation with all kin of this land.] Fox’s cunning also represents a kind of adaptive consciousness and fluid competence; more-than-rational qualities apt for times of flux.

Fox also plays the role of trickster. Therefore: Fox is not necessarily on your side, nor mine (or anyone else’s). Fox plays to continue the play.[^ I’m alluding to Jame P. Carse here, one of my favourite philosophers and the author of Finite and Infinite Games: a vision of life as play and possibility. “Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries,” Carse writes. This boundary-crossing is very fox, very trickster, and very Hermes/Mercury (god of boundaries, roads, travellers, merchants, thieves, commerce, speed, cunning, language, oratory, wit, messages, etc).] Ergo: we must keep our wits about us.

I share this with you so as to say: the fox-like disposition has been an advantage to me (and my clients) in much of my profession. It’s the stance and lens I take in my orientation to life, and much of the work I do.

Rather than staying locked within the established—or becoming lost in the emergent—Fox embeckons the wiliness to walk the path betwixt.

“Better to operate with detachment, then; better to have a way but infuse it with a little humour; best, to have no way at all but to have instead the wit constantly to make one’s way anew from the materials at hand.” – Lewis Hyde, from Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art

Wizardry

Aye: I’m a wizard[^ Technically draíodóir—druid, magician, rogue, trickster—is the more apt term. Or wondermancer, if we are feeling twee.] (he says, with the sincere irony and humble arrogance of a metamodern-adjacent complexity practitioner).

I first started calling myself a wizard at a time in which I needed an honest-seeming answer to the horrid question: “so, what do you do?” Wizard was (and remains) a much better alternative to ‘expert’[^ I’ve always found the term ‘expert’ to be finite and tragic. Expertise sure; but ‘expert’ implies a kind of finality to the knowing. A time in which conviction eclipses curiosity, and the epistemological humility that comes with true knowing. It calls to mind what the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska who, in a Nobel Prize lecture, said: “{...} any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.”] and ‘thought leader.’[^ This was once akin to the role a public intellectual might play. But, as with many good things, it has become corrupted by the commodifying forces of capitalism.] This was over fifteen years ago.

The term ‘wizard’ didn’t come from nowhere; I already had the proclivity. Back then I more fancied myself a rogue. But who would trust a rogue? Besides, calling oneself ‘wizard’ attract those who can operate with imaginal dexterity, which makes for much more efficacious collaborations. And so: the archetype served.

But then, as Bast (of the Fae) says in The Name of the Wind:[^ A wondrous novel by Patrick Rothfuss.]

“We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.”

In time—along with more than half a dozen years questing in the dark forest[^ Sparked by bushfires and sustained by the pandemic, there was a point in life in which I finally succumbed to the meta-crisis insight-cascade and confronted the ecological world-grief that had been suppressed for so many years. A deep, protracted and necessary reckoning ensued—a period of profound disillusion and disenchantment that serves as a precursor to renewed vision. This chapter had me descend into the underworld and finally to cocoon. It was poetry, myth, magic, nature and Life Itself that saw me trough to the other side. An awakening to the wyrd along with a ‘surrendered participation’ to whim and heart’s discernment. And with that—a much greater acuity and attunement to magic.]—I came to know myself as an ‘actual’ wizard.[^ Not necessarily a good wizard. But one who is on the path, if such a path were to exist.]

But just as any true shaman would hesitate to call themselves shaman[^ Such proclamations ought evoke suspicion, as many—but most certainly not all—are shams.]—it is also a bit odd to call oneself a wizard.[^ O RLY? Is the correct response.] Particularly in this age of social media spectacle and theatre.

And yet, here I am.

In the words of Gandalf the Grey, “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” We each have a half a dozen or so decades to work with in this life, along with the relationship we cultivate and a few resources in our pocket. What are we each to do with this?

I’m here to partner with kindred spirits to work magic (in service to Life).[^ Which is another way of saying ‘in service to that which orients for autopoiesis at higher orders of complexity.’]

Magic

Magic can mean many things, naturally. I generally use the term to describe emergent phenomena operating at a level of complexity beyond our ken (‘ken’ being a Scottish word referring to the range or scope of one’s knowing and perception).[^ But if we want to get fancy, mine is a kind of wyrd fae estuary magic; a syncretic and relational bastard bricolage of resonance, emergence, and ‘whatever works’ (though quite not to the point at which we would call it “chaos magick”).] It’s a definition that serves to mollify hyper-rationalists without also reducing what magic is.[^ This in itself is a kind of cantrip; cognitive sleight-of-hand. The misdirection won’t last long, but it will perhaps last just long enough for wonder to sneak in.]

Working magic requires a participatory attunement (a feel for ‘the field’) coupled with the acuity and wit to recognise and work with anomaly. This cannot easily be reduced to explanation, ha—hence why poetic, mythic, and more-than-rational modes of perception are so vital to this work. Magic is a humbling and enlivening shorthand reminder that there is always much in affect—above and below and beyond what we can know and perceive.

Lower the threshold of what you consider magic to be, and you will come to see: magic is everywhere.

And so we have it. As you see, I play the role of liminal fox wizard masquerading (quite convincingly) as a complexity practitioner and leadership advisor. But that’s quite enough about me. Thanks for reading.

We are living in a time betwixt worlds. The great unravelling is upon us. Economies, governments, societies, and ecologies are in flux. This is a disorienting, messy and tragic time to be living within. But this is also where the magic and potential are to be found. We are in the midst of what could yet be a great quickening—a realisation of hidden potential and catastrophic success—and: we each have a role in shaping what is to become.

And so, I say again—let us together quest to co-create a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim)

I am—how to put this?—not for everyone.
But I might be for you.

𓃦

Contact details

For all business, media and event enquiries, please email my wonderful partner kim@drjasonfox.com and we will get back to you swiftly(ish).

Otherwise: try your luck with fox@foxwizard.com*

_{* Note: I can be stupendously slow to respond.}

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