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

Burn my four projects that followed the third novel, those that I never could conclude. Which must take place in the room where I write.

Use an alcoholic drink to light the fire, this in order to remedy my excessive consumption of alcohol.

Since the room is on the first floor and since I had used the metaphor of the writer jumping from the top of a building, that is to say, giving his whole self to his book, you suggested, once the act was completed, to exit through the window rather than taking the stairs.

You specified other details, which will appear as we go through the description of my act. I gathered all the necessary material, and I put it in a cast iron cauldron: samples from the four incomplete manuscripts, a liter of vodka, the green string to attach the sheets of paper, a needle to prick my finger and then put a drop of blood on each of the manuscripts . . . I set it all ablaze. Immediately the room became horribly smoky. I took the cauldron—although it was really hot—and put it in the bathroom for fear that soot would cover the room and because I did not want anyone to see the smoke and call the fire department. I closed the door in the bathroom, putting the cauldron on the basin, and I began to cough and to suffocate. I ran out, I closed the door behind me and, for the next fifteen minutes, I went back from time to time to make sure it was still burning. Meanwhile, I began to prepare the window for my exit. Like all windows in this tropical country, it had glass, shutters, and a screen. First of all, I unscrewed the screen and glass, then I took down part of the shutter so I could pass through, a delicate operation that necessitated removing the metal supporting the glass. Finally, once the manuscripts were burned and the door opened, another thick smoke cloud surrounded me. Unable to take anymore, I took the cauldron and put it out the window. I placed it on the ledge just outside the window, then I ran to close the bathroom door to avoid the smoke spreading into the whole house. I went out through the window, crossed over the roof, and got down into the courtyard. I threw what was left of the manuscripts into the garbage. The next day, when I entered the bathroom, I noticed that, for some mysterious reason, a leaf of paper remained on the basin lid. Smoke remained in the bathroom and the walls, originally white, had turned black. When I picked up the sheet of paper, I saw that underneath it, the basin lid remained very white. I cleaned the bathroom but even today, six months later, one can still smell smoke and see the difference in the white rectangle on the basin top. Results of your Psychomagic: I have written an article about Panama, and I write with great success about Panamanian events. It seems that your magic concerns itself little with the genre and is only guided by the theme.

I sent Koster a postcard to congratulate him, pointing out that he did not burn the remaining sheet of paper. I also told him that if he wanted to write fiction, I could propose another psychomagic act. And he responded, “For now, I do not desire another act because I have a lot of work: a lot of ideas bustling in my head, cinema, and so forth. One knows when one is empty. Right now, I am full. Thank you.”

Whether or not one has faith in this “Psychomagic,” you give verifiable facts here, which, I have to say, is really impressive. Do all your clients respond by letter in such detail as R. M. Koster?

In general, yes. But it sometimes happens, within the framework of a friendly conversation that I propose an act without having been asked. In these cases, I almost never get a response, simply because it is rare that the act is completed. The person did not solicit it, the person heard it in passing, maybe with an amused curiosity, but without attaching any importance to it.

Let’s return to the importance of motivation, central to all kinds of therapy. It is important that the person truly desires to change.

Of course. From the instant when the desire is truly there, and also the trust, everything becomes possible. I am going to read a long letter that illustrates well the principle that an extremely simple act can take a miraculous dimension if it is accomplished with faith:

My name is Jacqueline. I told you my father committed suicide when I was twelve years old, overdosing on pills. I also told you that with all my problems with money for so many years, I have had suicidal thoughts. You explained to me that my father committed suicide in a calm way and that I was, myself, slowly committing suicide, following my father’s footsteps. I also told you that my mother died three weeks after my father’s death, after several years of cerebral degeneration. I needed to express, in an act, something that was certainly suppressed for a long time. I needed liberation and, I believe, a miracle.

You assigned me the following act: buy a dozen beautiful oranges (firm, heavy ones), go to a nursing home, and give the oranges as gifts to a dozen residents. For twelve minutes each, chat with these twelve people. Then to remember to tell you the effect I felt. My father died on a Saturday, so you told me to complete the act on a Saturday. I tried to understand this task that you gave me. I thought that the nursing home would make me reflect on my father’s age (at first, I did not dream about associating this act with my mother), that the oranges were a symbol of fertility and that in going to see people roughly the same age as my father, I would no longer reject him. If, on this occasion, I gave him life, I equally authorized myself to live and to no longer feel pressured to reproduce his act. Besides, twelve oranges, twelve people, it was for me the symbol of the twelfth arcana, the Hanged Man, in the tarot. It was necessary then that I follow through, that I go to the extreme of my pain in order to find joy; maybe it is necessary that I die one good time to be reborn and occupy my true place.

The days before I performed this act were not very agreeable. I felt bad in my body, I had palpitations, anxiety, I felt I was suffocating. I looked for a public nursing home, thinking the people I would find would perhaps be more needy, less enclosed than the elderly living in private institutions. So, I found myself forty-three kilometers away from the city where I reside, in a city sharing a name with my husband! To gain access, I had, under the advice of my friend, called the director to explain that I was a psychologist doing work on the loneliness of the elderly and that I wished to speak with a dozen people.

Arriving at this place, I quickly understood that I faced something for which I was ill-prepared. All the people I met seemed to have, in effect, curious, abnormal behavior. They were all, for the most part, “mentally insane.” I had a closed heart as I found there an element of my past, which had made me suffer a lot: my mother, some years before her death had also “lost her head,” and I had always rejected her, though I was never able to admit it. I found there something very painful. I had not chosen this place by coincidence. In spite of the pain, there was no question of turning around. I needed to do this; I had to do it. The pain clenched me; there had been so much suffering in these people’s lives . . . I had the impression that they had thrown me a cry for help. I felt a lot of love for all these “elders.” It was difficult for me to pay attention to the time that passed with each person. I know that the whole psychomagic act must be scrupulously respected, under penalty of “rotting.” You prescribed me twelve minutes per person; in consultation, I spent about five hours with the first person who came to see me and I did not look at my watch; there, it was necessary to concentrate (like a hanging) but it was good, without a doubt, indispensable, for me. That forced me to place myself in the present moment, to be vigilant, for me to realize that love given is felt by the other, that transmitted messages are not necessarily stronger because they are longer.