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

Like a miracle.

I can give you the name and address of the person if you want to verify the story. I told you this to show how the act follows its own logic. One does not foresee how it is going to unwind nor what the effects are going to be. But it is prescribed on the basis of a good knowledge of the situation. The result, whatever it may be, cannot be anything but positive.

You then went from tarot readings to prescribing psychomagic acts.

I quickly had to face a big demand: people who came to consult me as a tarologist, those who had followed my massage training, and those who attended my weekly conferences at the Mystical Cabaret—it was mad. So I adopted three formulas for work: individually, in groups of thirty or forty, and in the framework of the Mystical Cabaret, where there are between four and five hundred. The essential procedure, however, does not vary: someone explains a problem to me, and I prescribe an act. But it was in private interviews that the majority of acts were prescribed.

In prescribing an act, you make a contract with the person . . .

Yes. And this mutual agreement is very important. First of all, the person promises to complete the act in the exact way that I prescribe it, without changing one iota. To avoid any misunderstandings and due to the betrayal of the memory, the person must immediately write down the act and the procedure to follow. Once the act is accomplished, she must send me a letter in which, first, she transcribes the instructions received from me; second, she tells me in detail how she applied them, the circumstances, and the adventures that arose during the process; third, she describes to me the results. The sending of this letter constitutes my only fee for prescribing the act.

Then you do not receive money as a psychomagician?

I have always held that the acts be prescribed for free, at least from the strictly financial point of view, the writing and sending of the letter being a form of payment. In making the effort to write to me at length, the person pays the price that I receive.

How do your clients react when faced with these demands?

There are, of course, so many different reactions from my clients, but it is possible to distinguish certain types of attitudes: there are people who take a year to send the letter; others who do not want to do exactly what I tell them and haggle . . . They find all kinds of excuses to not follow the instructions to a tee. Yet, if the prescription is changed in any way, the necessary conditions for the success of the act are not respected, and the effects can even prove to be negative. It must be said that to speak in such a direct way to the unconscious amounts to, in some way, exerting on it a kind of pressure: one seeks to make it obey. Now, we only have the problems we really want to have. We are attached to our difficulties. Nothing comes as a surprise. So, those who pussyfoot around and arrange to sabotage the act do not truly want to cure themselves. To get out of my difficulties implies that I deeply modify my relationship with myself and with all of my past. Under these conditions, who is truly ready to change? People really want to cease suffering but they are not ready to pay the price, that is to say, to mutate, to no longer define themselves by their precious suffering. As to my advice, the less I accept the haggling, the more I render a service to others. It is up to my client to position herself to accept or refuse my conditions.

That your yes be yes, that your no be no . . .

Exactly!

One knows that the psychotherapist authorizes himself to see patients. What happens with the psychomagician? How are you authorized to prescribe acts that address the unconscious?

I am going to give you an irrational response: in the moment when I prescribe the act, if I don’t doubt it, I am justified.

That you feel justified I don’t doubt, but how can you be so sure of it? At the end of the day, there is a lot at stake.

In this regard, there is, in fact, but one and only one question to ask: who prescribes the act? I have worked so much to disidentify myself from my “I,” that in dispensing psychomagic advice, it is not I who speaks, but my unconscious.

Everyone is like that! We all react, just like marionettes lead by unconscious drives.

True, but in the case of the person acting automatically, there is not any disidentification. I do not claim to have reached wisdom, because I am not disidentified twenty-four hours a day; but while I’m prescribing an act, that is, playing my role as psychomagician, I find myself in a trance or in autohypnosis—whatever you wish to call it—this is no longer my little “I” who speaks. I feel that what has to be said is raised from the depths. I feel that I have worked enough with myself to be capable of this timely disidentification. Of course, we move in a subtle and subjective domain, one that no longer has any relationship to reason but only to faith. A saint knows that he does well; deep within himself, he knows it authentically, and he is lead by a positive force—even if some people criticize him or see something harmful in him. Each time I give psycho-magic advice, I am convinced that it is the appropriate response to the person’s problem. It is only in the second phase that I lay it open and explain it in a rational manner. The advice rises from just one stroke of my unconscious in direct contact with the unconscious of the client.

This aptitude of speaking from the depth is not given to everyone.

In my case, it is the fruit of the work of my whole life! I spent a good part of my existence meditating and studying traditional teachings to, little by little, find in myself an impersonal space. I’m not speaking of saintliness but rather of impersonality, of a state situated beyond or below my little “me.” So that it is not Alejandro but the nonperson in me who prescribes the appropriate act. I feel myself, then, animated by a totally positive and disinterested feeling. It is the nature of the “psychomagician” that I look to do only good. Of my patients, I do not ask for their money but their effort. The will to change constitutes my compensation, and that is why Psychomagic has not become an industry. Believe me, it would have been easy to live abundantly from my consultations, so strong was the demand. People are more ready to pay, to take out their wallet, than to give a little bit of themselves. My living came through cinema and comic books; I prefer, for my services as psychomagician, that my clients remunerate me other than in dollars.

Isn’t this activity gratifying? At least, you feel recognized.

I do not use Psychomagic to become recognized!

In that case, why have you hoped for a publication of the consecrated book in this discipline?

My motivation in this respect is something else. Though I write books and screenplays or comics, I do not feel that I must, myself, compose a draft for Psychomagic. On the contrary, it would be too bad if this method disappeared after my death—that no trace would remain. It seems to me that the time has come to put this to paper and to disseminate it a bit further. More and more people talk about Pachita; they write, with more or less talent and sensibility, books and relevant articles, inspired by me, by these energies with which I find myself directly in contact. Also, I feel I need to tell how I went from the poetic act, the theatrical act, the oneiric act, and the magic act to Psychomagic—in the first place, to give testimony to a certain approach focused on reality which results from the practice of Psychomagic, and second, to give interested people some bearing, a text to reference. After all, it was you who came to find me for La Trampa Sagrada! I never asked.