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

I don’t doubt it, Alejandro, but how does this relate to his money problems?

First, a symbolic relationship: pee is yellow, like gold. But, at the same time, it is waste. Producing waste proceeds from a natural need; the need to urinate or to defecate is a consequence of another need: to eat and to drink. Yet, to sustain these needs, one must earn money. Money, because it is a form of energy, must circulate . . . And that person could not earn a living because he felt a repulsion toward money, considered it dirty and vile . . . The money energy was, in this case, blocked. It was a necessity, but he did not want to be involved in its manipulation. A part of this person refused to take part in the movements of money, its coming and going, its transformation into food or other necessities of life. He was averse to recognizing the legitimate place of “gold” in this web that constitutes all of existence. Pachita forced him to domesticate this fear. Finding himself each night alone with his stagnant pee, the patient subtly understood that nothing becomes “dirty” unless it does not circulate. If one refuses to see it and puts it under the bed, the troubles begin . . . “Gold” stinks only because it was allotted a disgraceful place. Finally, as I have already mentioned, the sole fact of practicing the exercise from the beginning forced him to show will, an indispensable quality for earning a living, normally.

By the way, Pachita asked her patients to pay her?

No, she did not ask for fees, but the people made donations. When she operated, there was always a nearby basket with a deep pouch in which the patients deposited what they wanted. One could not accuse her of running a “business.” It happened that those who had the means to pay, paid her well; it was, in effect, an invaluable experience to be healed by this woman. She didn’t heal people to earn money; she earned money because she healed people.

Let’s go back to your experience and to what this encounter provided, from the viewpoint of Psychomagic.

I’ve already recounted the operation that I myself underwent. So I won’t go back there. In fact, Pachita deserves a book devoted entirely to her.

Her contribution to Psychomagic is as simple as it is essential: observing her, I discovered that when one goes through the motions of operating, the human body reacts as if it underwent a true operation. If I tell you that I am going to open your stomach to take out a piece of your liver, and I put you on a table and exactly reproduce all the odors and all the maneuverings, if you feel a knife on your skin, if you see blood spurt, if you have the feeling that my hands rummage through your entrails and take something out, you are then “operated on.” The human body accepts directly and naively the symbolic language, in the manner of a child. Pachita knew this and was accomplished in the art of using this vocabulary in an operational—no better way to say it—an operational manner.

So, to you, she was above all an expert in symbolic communication?

Absolutely. She was, moreover, very attentive to objects, to the jewelry a person wore, for example. I remember a woman wearing an oval bracelet. On the inside of it, in a little hole, also oval-shaped, a watch was inset. It was evidentially a gift from her mother, and Pachita quickly saw that this woman would not settle her problems as long as she was not disengaged from the influence of her mama. It’s important to note that the hole symbolized the mother; in the sense that it was still the mother that made the daughter-watch tick . . . Pachita instinctively deciphered the symbolic message and recommended a complete ritual to get rid of the object. For her, nothing was innocent; the world was truly a forest of symbols in constant interaction. It is through this contact that I was opened to the language of objects, to the significance that they take on. For example, the gift: anything given has an essence, registered in the dynamics of possession and communication. In the same way, leaving something behind at a friend’s house or in a public place is not an accident. Primitive sorcery knows the mechanism of these interactions and has more or less mastered them. But, of course, it has to do with an intuitive wisdom, not an intellectual or a scientific one. The sorcerer or shaman would probably be incapable of having an elaborate discussion on his own practice; for that, it would be necessary to be positioned on the outside, to watch oneself acting and decipher one’s own performance.

The sorcerer or shaman is not the unconscious “objective” spectator but an integral part of the subjective universe in which everything is alive. Pachita, too, saw ailments as animated beings: the tumor was an evil creature that deserved to be burned alive—and right away you hear birds chirping. At times, she removed from a sick body a moving shape that seemed to fidget like a marionette in the half-light. She materialized the sickness, which thus lost its status as an invisible enemy—which had made it seem all the more menacing—to embody a vaguely grotesque figure that deserved to die. From the stomach of a homosexual patient, a black phallus blowing like a toad was removed.

Worthy of your happenings! They are “panic” scenes that you describe.

Worthy of Goya! I do not know how she succeeded in leading us to that baroque world . . . Trance, collective hallucination, brilliant conjuring? Anyway, if there was a trap, it was a sacred trap. I want to say that her magic acts proved effective. She actually relieved the majority of those who came to her. That is why I wanted to observe her and learn from her.

You position yourself, though, somewhat differently; unlike Castaneda, who, having received the teachings from Don Juan, became himself a shaman, you do not claim to be a sorcerer. You content yourself in assimilating fixed universal principles, making them not magic but “Psychomagic.”

Yes, for I am not, in the end, from a culture called “primitive.” In my opinion, with few exceptions—and I do not give an opinion in the case of Castaneda, whom I met in Mexico during this time—one cannot become a shaman or sorcerer if one is not born into a primitive context. Even with the strongest will and the biggest opportunity in the world, one does not disconnect so easily from all of the rational mainstream baggage.

Castaneda is an elusive character whom few can boast of having seen. Under what circumstances did you meet him?

At that time, in the seventies, I was well known in certain circles, thanks to the film El Topo, which, to many, was an example of film magic. Castaneda had seen it twice and liked it. I found myself in Mexico in a restaurant at which they serve a splendid steak and good wine. Castaneda was there in the company of a Mexican actress whom he had met in the dive of a lady friend who was also there with a man. Castaneda—for it couldn’t have been anyone else—upon learning who I was, sent his friend to our table. The woman asked me if I wanted to meet Castaneda. “Of course,” I replied, “I am a great admirer of his!” She said that he would come sit at my table, but I insisted on going to his.

A fantastic coincidence . . .

Life is fantastic! I proposed to Castaneda that we go to his hotel, but he wanted to come to mine. We were like two Chinese, competing in politeness. He did not cease to give me preference, and I did the same, of course.

And you didn’t wonder if in fact you really were in the presence of Castaneda?

Not for an instant. Later, in the United States, he published a book in which a portrait appears, a drawing. And it is the portrait of the man I met.