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

The same individual asked his victims to identify themselves with a doll, to transfer to them all of their pain, then deposit them at his house in a big bag. One of these women soon came to me in a panic, prey to psychosis, persuaded that the man held a power over her . . . Besides, he could not even reassure her by returning the doll because, once the people left, he threw them all in the garbage. Briefly, he is a retailer who makes money by exploiting my work and the credulity of some women. So I take advantage of our dialogue to denounce publicly all those who claim to practice Psychomagic.

It is a serious pitfall. How can these kinds of corruptions be avoided?

The solution may be to train some people in whom I truly trust, whom I have known for a long time. Maybe I will do it. I have trained some people in massage, tarot, and even in psychogenealogy, among others psychologists and psychoanalysts. But it seems trickier to teach Psychomagic. To exercise this discipline, one must have conducted truly profound spiritual work, to be detached from one’s passions, at least not be at their mercy anymore. Once again, it has been the work of my entire life.

SIX

EXAMPLES OF PSYCHOMAGIC ACTS

This will be the last segment of our dialogue, and I’d like for it to be a bit more relaxed. Let’s dedicate it to a description of some psychomagic acts.

That’s fine with me, but a warning: to describe a psychomagic act is to enter directly into the language of the unconscious. It is not an innocent walk. You might be shocked—not to mention our readers . . .

Well, I’ ll cling to my chair so I won’t be blown away by the power of the descriptions.

Go ahead and laugh, but I’ve warned you! Not that, by these acts, I tried to solve extraordinary enigmas; I am satisfied dealing with small, simple human problems. But what is more mysterious, more irrational, than our little problems? Our daily difficulties conceal an abyss; they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

I agree. Give some examples.

Okay. We take the case of a dancer friend of mine. She had a child with a man who has the same name as her father. That is already very significant. Yet, it turns out that this dancer has the same name as her lover’s mother!

It’s as if each one of them was searching for their father and mother, respectively, in the other.

Curious, huh? In fact, people often fall in love with a name or a profession that reminds them of their mother or father. In her childhood, this dancer was left alone with only her mother at an early age and never had any more contact with her father. Not only did she find a man with the same name as her father, but she also arranged for him to abandon her and disappear, so she arranged for her daughter to have the same kind of relationship she had with her own father. Of course, she did not scheme all of that consciously; it has to do with a completely crude, unconscious strategy. Beginning to understand the extent of her havoc, she came to ask me to prescribe an act that would allow her to forgive her father and thus overcome her hatred of men. I asked her to tell me at what moment her father had broken off relations with her. “When I started menstruating,” she responded. It is common for a father to break relations with his daughter when she becomes a woman. He feels that he’s lost his little girl who sat in his lap, and he has a hard time giving up that kind of intimacy, that contact. Right away I asked her where her father was buried; then I suggested that she go to his grave. “There,” I told her, “you bury, as close as possible to the body, cotton soaked in your menstrual blood, as well as a jar of honey.”

Blood and honey . . .

The honey is there to breathe in life with sweetness, to signify that it is not an aggressive act but rather a loving one, an attempt at communication. There! An example of a very simple psychomagic act that allowed the reactivation of a brutally broken relationship and at the same time the resumption of an emotional evolution interrupted by a shock. Although an adult, this woman remained at the emotional stage of the young girl confronted with her first menses and the divorce from her father.

Another example.

A young Chantal, at four years old, found herself placed in a school directed by the sister of the mother of her mother.

In other words, her great-aunt.

Precisely. This great-aunt sadistically tyrannized the child. In working with me, Chantal discovered all the hate she held toward this woman. She could not forgive her, and she had no way to avenge her because the torturer was no longer in this world. So I advised her to go to the grave of this woman and, once there, give free reign to this hate: that she kick, scream, piss, and defecate on the tomb, but provided that she dedicate herself to paying close attention to her subsequent reactions to her demonstrations of vengeance. She followed my advice, and after letting off some steam atop the sepulcher, she felt a deep desire to clean it up and cover it with flowers. And, little by little, she couldn’t help but surrender to the evidence that she, in fact, felt love for her great-aunt.

Had you expected that?

Of course. It was evident that all this hate was nothing but the deformed face of a scoffed-at affection. I knew that Chantal still held the long bottled-up love toward this woman who, even as the sinister headmistress, had represented Chantal’s only link to her family. Following the expression of her hate-filled urge, Chantal would have to allow this long-contained love to come out.

Another example.

A woman had persistent vertigo. Simply drinking a bit of water made her feel bad. I advised her to place her feet between the thighs of another woman and rub the sole against her vulva.

Ahem . . . What was the result of this shock treatment?

The execution of this act provoked a crisis of tears followed by a saving awakening. There was a symbolic significance of her vertigo: fear of being swallowed by her mother, fear in relation to the female sex, and so forth. As you can see my technique is somewhat bizarre.

To say the least, yes. How do you get such crazy ideas?

They come. That’s all! The truth is that I am an artist. That is indeed why I have taken the pain to explain my journeys. The diverse creative stages of my existence shaped me and developed my imagination.

Has it ever happened, facing a patient, that nothing comes?

Up until now, this has not happened to me. A response has always come. I suppose that my advice varies in quality and effectiveness; but that, I cannot say. It is up to the people who come to consult me to carry out the act and judge for themselves. But, in fact, I can hardly imagine myself mute in front of someone. Either it is magic or it is not! If you address me, I will inevitably have something to tell you. My prescription will always be well intentioned and will never be totally lacking in efficacy. To say what my accuracy rate is would be impossible. One thing must be clear: I do not place myself on scientific ground but on an artistic map. Psychomagic wants nothing of science but a kind of applied art possessing therapeutic virtues, which is absolutely different. Picasso produced more than ten thousand drawings. All of them more or less good. None is totally devoid of value; still not all of them are masterpieces. But, at the same time, each one is by Picasso, in other words, a product of the talent of a whole artist. “I do not look for, I find,” said Picasso rightly; to find is a habit, a second nature. Anyone who has not developed the habit “To Find” has not felt this spontaneous spurt coming from the depths, but anyone connected to the creative fountain lets it flow, simply. Imagine a Zen master who does not accept a challenge posed by a student’s question. Such assurance is rooted neither in science nor in megalomania but in faith, in the obvious.