Alejandro Jodorowsky - Psychomagic - The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy

He is not a sacred trickster simply because he claims to be; under the excess and the apparent ease of this unconventional artist is a lot of rigor (a particular rigor, but rigor all the same), an inexhaustible creative potential, a profound poetic vision, and, I believe, a lot of kindness.

Our man has a pure heart. If he is king, Jodo doesn’t abuse his absolute power, which some of his subjects have granted him. His Majesty is his own fool, never hesitating to put his teachings on trial and through a good measure of buffoonery. Although he doesn’t disregard homage from his disciples, he also has no desire to become an idol. Fundamentally disinterested — as I myself have had numerous occasions to verify — Jodorowsky remains, in my opinion, a lucid being, made of his talents as well as of his limitations.

Having had the chance to be in contact with some true masters, such as the Japanese Ejo Takata who marked him with the red iron of Zazen, he knows not to be a guru in the strict and noble sense of the word but rather to be a kind and disturbing genius with whom anyone can walk a stretch of the way.

“Grow up a little,” Jodorowsky yelled one day to his daughter Eugenie, aged twenty; and she replied: “Why don’t you grow down a little!” The fact that Alejandro himself, not without pride, related this to me — his progeny’s fine response — says a lot about his character.

Servant of the truth, although at times with the air of an impostor, a brazen acrobat who asks no more than to be silent and bow down before those who surpass him, Jodorowsky is very much a crazy shaman. If the mystical clown indeed has what it takes to immediately inspire fascination or repulsion — and sometimes both — there is much to be gained by knowing him in all of his interior richness.

Even though he has published several novels and countless comic strips, Jodo waited for retirement age to put down on paper what he holds closest to his heart. Following the thread of our conversations, Alejandro took me on a magical journey with all the art of a Castaneda writing for the theater. It is this journey to which you are now invited. This book is as much an artistic-spiritual autobiography as it is a guide for a new therapy. As an open window to a world in which poetry embodies riots, in which theater transforms into ritual sacrifice, and in which a real witch, armed with a kitchen knife, cures cancers, transplants hearts, and nourishes dreams, it is my hope that this book will remain as the legacy of a far from ordinary individual’s journey among us.

GIILS FARCET

PARIS, 1989–1993

THE POETIC ACT

I suppose the birth of what you call Psychomagic responded to a need. .

Exactly. During the time of my life that marks my activity as a tarologist, *3I received at least two people per day to read their cards. .

You predicted their future?

Not at all! I do not believe in the real possibility of predicting the future, insofar as from the moment you see the future, you modify it or you create it. To foretell an event is to provoke it; in social psychology this is called “self-fulfilling prophecies.” I have here a text by Anne Ancelin Schutzberger, professor at the University of Nice, which evokes precisely this phenomenon:

If one carefully observes the pasts of a certain number of terminally ill cancer patients, one will notice that many times it has to do with people in infancy predicting something about themselves, which developed into an unconscious “life script” (of themselves or of their families) related to their life and death, at times including the date and time, their age, the very moment that they actually find themselves in the position of dying. For example, at thirty-three years (Jesus Christ’s age at death) or at forty-five (the age of the person’s mother or father at the time of their deaths) or when his son turned seven years old (because this person was orphaned at seven). . These are examples of a kind of automatic realization of personal or family predictions.

In the same way, according to [Robert] Rosenthal, if a professor predicts (in his own head) that a poor student’s performance will remain so, it is certain that it will not change. By contrast, when the professor considers that the student is intelligent but timid and predicts (again, only in his own head) that the student will make progress, the student begins to progress. It is a surprising discovery but verified often and sufficiently enough to inspire a serious distrust of those who, under the pretext of possessing supernatural gifts, take the liberty of predicting events that their client’s unconscious will translate into personal desires with the purpose of obeying the soothsayer’s orders. As a result, the client assumes the work of realizing these predictions, many times with fatal consequences. All predictions are a seizing of power whereby the soothsayer takes pleasure in writing destinies, thus high-jacking the normal course of a life.

But why does this phenomenon have to have necessarily harmful consequences? What do you think then about those soothsayers who predict happy things, prosperity, fertility, and other wholesomeness?

In any case, there is a seizure of power, a manipulation. Moreover, I am firmly convinced that under the label of “professional fortune-teller” hide, with rare exceptions, unstable, dishonest, harebrained individuals. At heart, only the predictions of a genuine saint would be deserving of trust. This explains, for example, why I refuse to dedicate myself to clairvoyance.

Let’s go back to the origins of Psychomagic and your activity as a tarot reader. What was your practice?

I considered the tarot as a projective test to facilitate locating a person’s needs and knowing where his or her problems reside. It is well known that the mere recognition of an unconscious or poorly understood problem already holds a key to the solution. Working with me, people become aware of their identity, of their difficulties, of what causes them to act. I make them walk through their genealogy tree to show them the ancient origin of some of their discomfort. Nevertheless, I realized immediately that no true healing could take place if one did not take some concrete action. For the consultation to have a therapeutic effect, a creative action accomplished in reality would have to come out of it. To manage this, I had to suggest to those who came to see me one or two specific acts to carry out. The person and I had to, by common consent and with full awareness, figure out a very precise program of action. This is how I came to practice Psychomagic.

You practiced this therapy for a decade and achieved quite convincing results. How did you invent it?

Something like this is not invented; one sees the birth through oneself. But this birth has deep roots.

Before going into detail about Psychomagic, to examine its relationship with psychoanalysis, to mention precise acts, to look into the letters written to you by your clients, it would be interesting to return to those roots.

The first thing that came to help me was poetry, my contact with the poets.

At the occasion of our interviews for La Trampa Sagrada [The Sacred Trickster], you told me you saw a lot of the grand poets of your native country, Chile.

Yes, it was during my youth, in the 1950s. As it happens, I had the luck to be born in Chile. After all, I could just as easily have been born elsewhere. If it had not been for the Russo-Japanese war, my grandparents would not have emigrated and I would have surely been born in Russia. The flip side of this is: “Why did the ship on which they embarked bring them to Chile?” I would like to believe that we choose in advance our destiny and that none of what happens to us is the fruit of coincidence. Yet, if there is no coincidence, everything makes sense. For me, it is my introduction to poetry that justifies my birth in Chile.