Alejandro Jodorowsky - Psychomagic - The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy

The ex-actor, panic man, does not act a performance and has totally eliminated the character. In the “ephemeral,” this panic man tries to bring to the person what he is trying to be.

Playwrights love to force a performance. It often happens that atop one stage another stage is staged where other actors perform before the first actors. Panic man thinks that in everyday life the “majestic” go around disguised, interpreting characters, and that the mission of the theater is to quit interpreting characters facing other characters, to eliminate that in order to ultimately get closer, little by little, to the person.

It is the inverse path of the old theater schools: Instead of going from the person to the character — as the old schools believed — panic man tries to begin with the character, which is (according to the anti-panic education implanted by the “majestic”) the person he carries inside himself. This “other” who wakes up in a panic euphoria is not a puppet made by definitions and lies but a being with fewer restrictions. The euphoria of the “ephemeral” drives the totality, to the liberation of superior forces, to a state of grace.

To conclude: Panic man does not hide behind “characters” but tries to find his mode of real expression. Instead of being a lying exhibitionist, he is a poet in a trance state. (We understand by poet, not the office writer but the athlete creator.)

How did you put this program-manifesto together?

I promoted among the spectator-actors the practice of a radical theater act, which consisted of interpreting one’s own drama, exploring one’s own intimate enigma. It was for me the beginning of the sacred theater and was almost therapeutic. Then I came to realize that if I had, in my theatrical expression, shattered form, space, the relationship between actor and spectator, I had not yet attacked time. I was still a prisoner of the idea that the show must be repeated, performed many times. At the time when “happenings” were taking place in the United States, on my part in Mexico, I had invented what I called the “ephemeral panic,” which consisted in staging a show that could be presented only once. It had to be accomplished by introducing perishable things: smoke, fruits, jelly, live animals. . It had to do with accomplishing acts that could not ever be repeated. In summary, I wanted the theater, instead of tending toward the fixed, toward death, to return to its uniqueness: the instantaneous, the fugitive, the only moment forever. This way, theater is made in the image of life where, according to a saying by Heraclitus [of Ephesus], one never bathes in the same river. Thus, to conceive the theater was to carry it to the extreme, to go to the paroxysm of this art form. Through the happenings, I rediscovered the theatrical act and its therapeutic potential.

How did you pull it off? What were the ingredients for the happening?

Well, I would rather choose an ordinary place than a theater: the School of Fine Arts, a psychiatric ward, a sanatorium, a school for people with Down’s syndrome. . I chose existing places and placed the action there.

You really wanted to set up the “ephemeral panic” in these places?

Yes, that’s the marvel of Mexico! Discipline does not exist; they let you do this kind of thing. One day, we performed a large ballet in a cemetery. It was a strong act, the dance of the living among the dead. . So then, once a place was selected, I made calls to a group of people who wanted to express themselves. In no way did I direct actors. These people came to carry out a free, public act. All the conditions were thus brought together for the coming of the ephemeral.

The ephemeral, such as what you practiced, had, if I’m not mistaken, something impressive: it had all the ingredients of a sumptuous party. How did you find the means to finance such events?

I always found the money. For me the ephemeral panic had to be precisely a party. Now, when one throws a party, one does not charge his guests for the drinks or food they consume. I always gave that free. I received money from royalties, from staging more classical pieces, many times under another name. The fact is that, like [Ivanovitch] Gurdjieff, I never had financial problems, which, seeing as it always worked out, is truly a miracle! Apart from that, I believe in miracles, or rather in the existence of a law that if my intentions are pure and I do what I must do, the money will follow, in some way or another. Maybe I will never be what a person calls rich, but I will always arrange the financial means that are required each moment. When I had money in my safes, I would invest it in a happening. I asked acquaintances if they wanted to express something, then I gave them the means to do so. This method of approaching the happening already had a therapeutic value. It was also a way to continue in line with the poetic acts we have talked about.

What lessons did you extract from your happenings?

I realized that many people carry an act inside, which ordinary conditions do not let them materialize. When someone is offered the concrete possibility and favorable circumstances to publicly express the act asleep inside him, it is very rare that the person hesitates. If I asked you what act you would like to carry out in public, I am sure that an answer would occur to you immediately, and if I brought together the favorable conditions for actualizing this expression, you would treasure participating in the game.

Okay. .

I’m going to give you some examples. In the 1960s, I founded a panic group in Mexico, not with actors and other artists, but with enthusiastic people in search of an authentic way to express themselves, far from conformity. I had obtained the main playground of San Carlos school. I proposed that my friends envision an act that they would like to carry out, and I would find the means to make it happen. The celebrated painter Manuel Felguérez joined the panic demonstration and decided to execute a chicken publicly and make an abstract painting with the animal’s guts and blood, while his wife, dressed in a nazi uniform, devoured a dozen chicken tacos at his side.

What a good show. . Really delicious. Are there more?

Hundreds! A young woman wanted to dance naked to African rhythms while a bearded man covered her body with shaving cream.

Another wanted to be a classical ballerina, with a tutu but without underwear, and urinate while interpreting Swan Lake.

An architectural student used a mannequin and hit it violently with an ax in its stomach and privates. Once the mannequin was destroyed, he took from its insides various casings of sausage and hundreds of crystal balls.

Another student appeared dressed as a math professor with a big bag full of eggs. As he recited his algebraic formulas, he broke one egg after the other on his forehead.

Another arrived with a tin bowl and several liters of milk. With a foot in the bowl, he began to recite a classic Mother’s Day poem while he emptied the milk over his head.

A woman with long blond hair, dressed in black stockings decorated with pearls on the ankles and walking with crutches, yelled at the top of her voice: “I’m innocent! I’m innocent!” while she took from between her breasts slices of raw meat and lanced them at the public. Then she sat in a child’s chair and a hairdresser completely shaved her head. In front of her was a baby carriage filled with doll heads of all sizes, without eyes or hair. Once shaved, the woman began to throw the heads at the public while screaming, “I am me! I am me!”

A young man wearing a tuxedo jacket pushed a bathtub covered by a towel toward the center of the stage. By its weight, one could guess it was full of liquid. He left the stage and returned carrying in his hands a young woman dressed as a bride. Without putting her down, he removed the towel from the tub. It was full of blood. Without letting go of the woman, he began to stroke her breasts, her crotch, and her legs, becoming more and more excited about submerging her in the blood. Then he started to rub her with a live viper while she sang an opera melody.