In many indigenous traditions, the sacred clown is a ritual figure whose holy function is to disrupt the ceremony at its most solemn moment — to remind the gathered community that the sacred and the serious are not the same thing. This is not irreverence; it is the most reverent act available to someone who takes the sacred seriously. Nasreddin is the Islamic world's sacred clown, and his work, seven centuries on, is still being done.
Each step builds on the last.