Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Creator of El Topo

Later, the Tigress produced a performance of Lucretia Borgia in competition with my own. She was naked on stage with her pubic hair painted green. This performance ran successfully for two years.

A poster for my own production, which ran for only four months

The only known photo of doña Magdalena

In my film El Topo, I played the title role.

“I am the daughter of Gurdjieff,” Reyna D’Assia told me. Here, as a child, she is pictured with her father.

I went with Reyna to Monte Alban, a Zapotec ceremonial center built on a plateau more than sixty-five hundred feet high that was located on a mountain that had been leveled to build the center.

In an envelope sent from Bali by Reyna D’Assia, I found this photo with these words: “Me and my daughter, Ivanna. I don’t know whether her father is you or don Prudencio.”

I played the title role in my theater piece Hamlet Gonzalez — an apocalyptic version.

Me and producer Allen Klein, after our reconciliation.

“OK — and by the way, why do you talk so much, you son of a bitch? I told you to shut up! I may get so tired I’ ll put a bullet through your balls!”

SILVER KANE, MADISON COLT

Ana Perla, as the head of the group of disciples, received the master at the airport. He was accompanied by a sweet nun named Michiko (who would later become his wife) and her ten-year-old adopted daughter, Tomiko, an orphan. Exhausted and irritable from lack of sleep on the long trip, Ejo cut short any talk with a brief bow and asked to be taken directly to the zendo to rest. Ana complied with this but decided that while the family was sleeping all the disciples must meditate until the master awakened. This lasted for about two hours, but then we all began to fall asleep. In the early hours of the morning, everyone was awakened by a piercing shout of “Kwatzu!”

The master was standing before us, indignantly pointing his finger at the cat. The disciples had decided to shave the top of its head to imitate a monk. They had also dressed it in a brown robe and had trimmed its ears and its tail. Ejo Takata stood frozen in the center of the zendo, which was now decorated in a kind of hippie-Aztec style. It was clear that he was barely able to control his rage. The disappointment of witnessing this grotesque perversion of his teaching was soon to be amplified by the humiliation that would be inflicted upon him by Fernando Molina.

I had been meditating with Ejo for about two years. Very late one night, someone rang my doorbell, which made me nervous. My cottage, though in a central part of the city, had no near neighbors. In front was a vacant lot where pitched battles between cats and huge rats took place. The buildings next to mine formed a solid, connected row of tottering, ruined houses that were barely held up by rotten beams. They were home to so many scorpions and spiders that even the most desperate alcoholics dared not sleep there.

Mastering my fear, I unlocked the chain and opened the door. Before me was a slender youth with tiny eyes that glittered like coals and teeth so large he looked like a horse. He held a bouquet of sunflowers. It was Fernando Molina, a standup comedian who worked in variety theaters, appearing between striptease acts with a stream of salacious jokes and stories. I invited him to enter.

After giving me the bouquet, he raised a fist in front of my face and, with an extreme disrespect indicating madness, said: “If you tell me, I’ll punch you in the mouth! And if you don’t tell me, I’ll punch you in the mouth!. . What?”

A multitude of thoughts raced through my mind at the speed of light. This guy was clearly a raving barbarian who learned vaguely something about koans and wanted to test me in a stupid and vulgar way. If I was to give him the correct response to this koan, which I happened to have learned from Ejo, he wouldn’t understand and he would try to punch me anyway, so I decided to apply the deeper lessons I had learned from the master. Conquering my fear, I relaxed my muscles and emptied my mind of all thoughts, looking deeply and steadily into his eyes, asking nothing, offering nothing, simply being there, like a stone or a bird.

With churlish contempt, Molina drew back his arm to hurl the punch. Without blinking an eye, I stood with perfect Christian mildness, ready to receive the blow.

And then the unthinkable happened. It was one of those incredibly precise synchronicities that arrive exactly when they are needed: the entire row of dilapidated neighboring houses collapsed! It resounded like an explosion, and a cloud of dust billowed in through the window, covering us. I took advantage of the shock, pushing Fernando away from me, and shouted:

“ There is your answer to your ‘What?’”

The comedian was so agitated that his horselike teeth were chattering. He then burst out laughing, hesitated for a few seconds, and finally kneeled before me.

“Tomorrow, I was supposed to take a plane to Peru to see a master who lives there. But tonight, I dreamed about you. You were seated in meditation like an ancient sage. I prostrated before you, gave you a bouquet of sunflowers, and begged you: ‘Save me! Give me the teaching that I lack. Enlighten me!’ And you answered: ‘Wake up and come see me immediately.’ So I did. On the way, at Rio de Janeiro Plaza, I noticed a large bed of sunflowers planted around a copy of Michelangelo’s David . I stole eleven of them and brought them to you. Do you understand? Eleven sunflowers plus myself makes twelve disciples turning around the central sun. That sun is you, who are able to make a whole street collapse!”

“Hold on there, Fernando! Those houses have been in ruins and ready to collapse for a long time. It’s an accident that it happened now. Your dream was corrrect in telling you to come see me — but not because I am your master. Instead, it told you to come so that I can introduce you to a real master, which will make your trip to Peru unnecessary. His name is Ejo Takata. He’s an authentic Zen monk who can give you the teaching you desire. Now it’s two o’clock in the morning. In three hours, Ejo will begin his meditation. Let’s have some coffee, and then I’ll take you to the zendo.”

Sadly, the comedian pointed to his teeth. “I broke all of them in a motorcycle accident. They gave me these huge false teeth, which make me look like a horse. No master would take me seriously.”