ABSTRACT
Anam Caras and Counselors as Masters of Ceremonies have to be radically different from campers. Mimesis in early child development reprises Merlin Donald’s suggestion that mimetic cultures preceded genesis of speech in early hominids. It also suggests how mimetic transformations can happen in Serious Fun camps. All staff of Serious Fun camps are aware that the experience has a profound effect on children, but the nature of ‘the magic’ has remained a mystery. The campers’ memories of their Caras and Counselors resonate with Rene Girard’s mimetic theory. Mimetic behaviour has been promoted from the kindergarten to the academy as implied by the opening quotation from S. Hurley and N. Chater. Rites of passage are optimal circumstances for mimetic lifestyle transformations as they provide a means of staging transient liminality. Fossils store hints of evolutionary change, but more dynamic insights may be obtained from ontogeny by observations during child development.
