Jodorowsky, Alejandro - Psychomagic - The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy

“And why not?” he asks.

“Because I am too little for your delusions of grandeur.”

Indeed I know this madman, obsessed by his own spirit, cannot truly be interested enough in me to seek to annihilate me. I wake up happy. This, which could have been a nightmare, did not scare me.

Another dream in which I tame my monster:

I walk upon unknown territory and reach a hole like the mouth of a huge sewer. A horrible, giant monster about twenty meters high springs up. I immediately subdue my distaste, because I know this hideous creature is part of me, an obscure energy of my spirit. I decide not to destroy it but to transform it. So it covers itself with white feathers, turns luminous, deploys six wings, and rises. Turned into a very beautiful angelic entity, he proposes to take me along with him into the cosmos. I overcome the temptation. The angel is the luminous energy of my spirit that I must absorb. I arrange for him to cover me as I sweat from all of the pores in my skin. Now it is I who has turned into a being of light and energy. I rise calmly. I wake up full of joy.

Now, listen to this very poetic dream where I see myself entering, eyes big and open, the kingdom of the dead:

I am in the anteroom of death. Seated in front of me on a bench is the singer Carlos Gardel, deceased for forty years. I say hello and he says, “Go ahead, have courage, decide to die.” We pass into another room where a door going directly to death is found. A gloomy doorman touches everyone present and decides who will go through the last door and who will not. Before us, two adolescents arrive. After they are frisked, the doorman forces them back, and they go, sorry to still have to live. Gardel is declared dead; it is now my turn. The doorman touches me and declares me deceased. Carlos Gardel hesitates, he is afraid, and I tell him, “What does it matter! Good! Now we are going to truly know what is behind this door!” Firmly decided, I push him so that he passes into this dimension with me. Upon passing through the door, the singer disappears into an explosion of light. Having barely crossed the border of death, I find myself in a green landscape. I am in the company of very agreeable people. I throw blank paper envelopes into the air. They fall down again full of sweets and precious objects. I can perform miracles as I dominate this dimension, and I know that the tossed envelopes will always fall back down full. I offer the gifts to the people who accompany me, and I wake up feeling very content.

Finally, a last dream among many others where I find myself once again confronted by monsters:

I must cross the dark underground on a dirt floor. A stranger waits to let me pass. I divine in the shadows the presence of an animal. I know that it acts like a black panther and that the unknown is the trainer. He signals me to cross directly, without fear. I follow his instructions, but the panther jumps on me, throws me to the ground, and, with his claws, first immobilizes my head. It nibbles at my cranium without hurting me, the way a cat does playing with a mouse. I see the decomposed face of the trainer who watches me at the mercy of his big cat; he feels powerless. The animal never frightens me. Without moving, I let it caress my hair with its mouth. I know I must abandon myself, become one with her, accept the situation with love, dissolve into the panther. I begin to vibrate with love, and I become one with her. At this instant, the panther disappears. I get up, cross the underground, and go on my way. I wake up full of joy.

If I understand right, you have applied what you’ve learned in your dreams to the course of your daily life, and you have afterward integrated these lessons into the practice of Pyschomagic.

Exactly. I have forced myself from day to day to be faithful to what has been given to me to understand in the dream. For what good is it to receive the lessons without applying them to the core of daily troubles? A lesson doesn’t become operative, does not acquire its transformative force, until it’s applied.

Can you give me an example of application in daily life of a principle perceived in a dream?

Well, as I have said, the lucid dream taught me to confront the monster. It’s okay to run away if one does not feel strong enough to face it; but the moment comes when one must look it in the eyes. Sometimes, the disguised monster turns into an ally. Our fear nourishes the adversary’s hostility while our will to face him with love disarms him, causing his purpose to change. While I shot The Holy Mountain in Mexico, there were two scandalous rumors. Because I was shooting in front of a cathedral, they said I celebrated black masses. They also whispered that I ridiculed the army and the Mexican police . . . One day, two police officers called out to me and said, “Such and so minister wants to see you.” So they brought me to the office of this minister, who said, more or less, “Listen, Jodorowsky, the president knows you very well. He admires what you do; you have a friend in him. But be careful: Just as a government can be a very good friend, it can, if you displease it, turn into a formidable enemy. Do not show any uniform in the film, erase all of the religious symbols, and you will live in peace.” In Mexico, such remarks by the minister were the equivalent of a death threat. Upon returning home that evening, I heard voices in the garden, “Attention, Jodorowsky! We are going to skin you.” There was at the time in Mexico a paramilitary group of young people called “the Falcons” who were in charge of the dirty jobs. I understood that all this could turn out badly, so the next day I took all my family to the United States and decided to finish shooting there. However, I did not want this minister to become an enemy, nor did I want the ghosts of any death threats on my conscience. Once the film was finished, I assembled all of The Holy Mountain ’s good reviews from Europe and the United States. I went back to Mexico, and I asked for a hearing with the minister who remained angry with me for having taken my team and left Mexico. Offering the press clippings, I told him, “See what my film did for Mexico? They talk about it around the world.” Aware that I had again put myself in the mouth of the wolf, he smiled and gave me a pat on the back. “It’s good, Jodorowsky. You are brave. I applaud you.” Not only did he not present any more problems for me, but he even gave me presents! So there is the true antidote, which shows to what point it is sometimes beneficial to dare to brave the monster. The essential principle is, as often as possible, never leave an account unsettled with an enemy. Because, the more things stay at the latent stage, the more hate nourishes it, at the risk of growing. A bomb with a long fuse can be lit years before it explodes, but the day when the detonation occurs, the harm is considerable. It’s better to defuse the bomb, to not let the threats of death linger around us or in the unconscious. One never needs to kill the adversary; it works better to transform it, to make it an ally.

Another principle of the lucid dream consists in consciously changing the content of the dream. How have you applied this in the course of your daily life?

Well, for example, I have told you that in my dreams I loved to change the scene, to go from Africa to the United States, for example, to transform the environment . . . In the same way, I understood that I should not, in any way, allow myself to be a prisoner of my surroundings in my everyday life. Daily reality is not rigid, or no more so than the conceptions we have in our heads. If we feel ourselves pressured, we can always evolve within the given environment—we’re free to change! Who says it is impossible? The lucid dream taught me to move within a subtle reality, where all the mutations, all the transformations can serve at every moment. That depends entirely on my intention. In the lucid dream, the single intention of finding myself in Africa among a herd of elephants transported me there. In this other dream mode—which is “reality”—it is also my brain, the representation that I make in the world, which controls the game. “Reality” does not exist in itself, instant after instant. I create my reality, happy or nightmarish, monotone or passionate.