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

This promise won me over, and I agreed without protest to this adventure. An amiable chauffeur, don Rodolfo, agreed to drive us all night in his gray Cadillac. In the shadows of the backseat, Reyna showed me how the larynx can perform astonishing movements if it is vibrated simultaneously with the aid of certain Tibetan mantras. After being subjected to this ecstasy several times, I was overcome by a sensation of intense, organic emptiness. I fell asleep like a log in the arms of my lovely torturer.

The day was under way when the car finally arrived at the foot of the mountain. We declined don Rodolfo’s offer to accompany us on foot. Hiding a yawn, he settled himself in the Cadillac for a well-deserved siesta.

As we climbed, Reyna told me: “It is called the white mountain — white in the sense of being sacred. Five centuries before the birth of Christ, the Zapotecs were able to cut off the head of a mountain. You understand the meaning? We must dethrone the intellect, transform the brain into a field, in order to see the totality of the horizon. When you live down below, you see only in fragments what confines you, giving a limited image of yourself and the world. From above, you live in communion with all of nature, a circular horizon that is the wedding ring that unites earth and heaven. These pyramids — labeled as tombs or temples by those necrophiles who call themselves archaeologists — are observatories. They have a dual meaning: god-demon entities that the initiate must climb — in other words, master — in order to dance freely at the summit in communion with the stars. Here, there are nine principal constructions, which refer to the nine points of the enneagram: *24acceptance — criticism; humility — pride; sincerity — vanity; contentment — craving; detachment — greed; courage — fear; sobriety — gluttony; innocence — luxury; and conscious action — self-forgetfulness. . Come! Let us climb to the highest part. It is there where, as they say, thousands of human hearts were torn out!”

It was early enough in the day so that there were no tourists. Once at the level top, Reyna led me to the pyramid built upon one side of it and had me kneel with her at the base.

“Help me dig. We must free a stone.”

Plunging our hands in the earth, we touched the stone foundations of the pyramid. By exerting all our strength together, we were able to pull out a stone. With a handful of grass, Reyna cleaned the rectangular stone. Its surface was covered with some light fissures. Deeply moved, Reyna placed the open palm of her right hand next to the stone’s surface.

“In this life that is a continuous miracle, how can we speak of accident? Compare the cracks in this stone to the lines of my palm. They are identical. This stone has been waiting for me for more than two hundred centuries. Destiny had already chosen me to bring it out of darkness. Without me, it would have remained down below for thousands of years. Now we are going to allow this stone to be placed at the very summit of the pyramid. This is a symbol of all my blessed father’s teachings: if we make the effort, we can take a leap through time, accelerate our evolution, reach the highest consciousness, the meeting point of earth and cosmos, matter and spirit, the sacred space that is an eye of God.

“Climb with me now. Slowly, very slowly, with small steps, in a ceremonial ascent. Support me from behind, holding my shoulders while I carry the stone against my belly with the feeling of gradual gestation. When we arrive at the top, we shall put it in the center of the platform. It shall be the ruler of all the stones that support it from below. When the sun becomes hot, perhaps it will even open and release a phoenix. . Yes, I fervently believe that these pyramids are life-generating monuments. That is why they have platforms instead of points at the top: so that there will be a space for a conscious being to take wing, a being to which this space will someday give birth.”

We climbed extremely slowly, step by step. Chanting as if it were a magic mantra, she recited an exercise: 2; 4; 8; 16; 32;. . 128;. . 512;. . 134,217,728;. . 8,589,934,592;. . and so on, arriving at an incredible series of figures recited with dizzying speed.

Finally, we were at the top. It was square, about six feet on each side. The stones were covered with a sort of mortar. Silently, with tears in her eyes, Reyna went to the center of the square. There, she tossed the stone upward as if she wanted to dip it in the sky. Then she kneeled and tried to place it, saying: “After so many centuries, you reach the central place to give your life to the pyramid. . You are the chosen one. . May our souls do as you do. .”

She was about to prepare a place in the center for the stone when I suddenly grabbed her arm, preventing her from doing this.

“What are you doing?” she said. “Why do you interrupt such a beautiful act?”

“Look carefully — there is something even more beautiful!” Through a crack in the very center of the earth, a tiny flower was blooming. “You see, the pyramid doesn’t need your help in order to produce life. A stone opening to release a phoenix is only a poetic vision — but this little flower, so real, so pure, so fragile, it gives meaning to the entire monument. Reyna, I remain convinced that you give too much importance to effort. Stop carrying so many heavy stones! Allow something to be born in you that is not a product of your will. .”

She threw the stone straight at my head. If I had not ducked, it would have fractured my skull. Then she let herself collapse slowly into a sitting position, as if she was an ice-sculpture melting. Finally, she spoke.

“What monstrous vanity. To believe that I, this ephemeral little earthworm, am capable of helping a pyramid! And the pyramid, with the almost imperceptible gesture of producing that little flower, has shown me that I am like a mosquito perched upon the horn of an ox, believing it is helping the ox to pull the cart. I see it now: the very foundation of my theoretical edifice is rotten. I have taken a wrong path. In order for my efforts to bear fruit, I must find another way.

“It turns out that someone told me about a curandero, don Prudencio Garza, who lives in a small village only a few miles from here. I had been afraid of undergoing the terrifying experience that he offers, but after this miraculous sign, I must do it if I am serious about dismantling the castle of illusions that I have taken so long to build.”

“What experience are you talking about?”

“He is a sorcerer who has pupils eat little mushrooms that produce real, physical death. In the beyond, if you succeed in crossing the river of acid without your essential consciousness dissolving, you come to life again. If not, you actually die. No, stop shaking your head — no one can stop me from undergoing this definitive trial. I am taking the limousine. Either you accompany me there or you leave me and walk six miles to Oaxaca, where you can catch the train back home.”

“You are engaging in madness. I feel obliged to accompany you.”

We descended the mountain fast, almost running. When we reached the limousine, we were shocked to see that all its wheels were gone! Don Rodolfo was snoring loudly in the front seat. When we woke him and showed him the disaster, he lost all his aristocratic demeanor of tourist chauffeur. “Sons of whores!” he shouted over and over. Finally, he knotted his large handkerchief to make a headscarf to protect him from the sun and walked off toward Oaxaca, still railing against the thieves and the hot sun.

Reyna, as stubborn as her blessed father, was determined to walk however many miles it took to find the sorcerer. Trying to conceal my own anxiety that the village might be much farther than she thought, I asked her its name.