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

III

What do you think is the true aim of language? How do you interpret it or make it useful?

Language is before everything an activity of the body. It corresponds with the nature of the nervous system. From my point of view, we must be able to produce beautiful and poetic language. A healthy language. Mental illnesses, like physical illnesses, are reflected in the way we speak. There are demented words, like sick, tuberculosis, or cancerous: words that are not life-giving but violent and criminal. Illness and the insane language of illness retaliate and are destructive.

Besides, through language, we transmit illnesses, and we access inferior levels of consciousness. The levels of consciousness of language coincide with those of the human being. Just as the human body has been evolving, so has language. If we hold back our language, we use a form and a content that already does not correspond to us, that is outmoded. If we employ a sick vocabulary that is not ours, we undermine ourselves, little by little.

There is the use of the foul, the grotesque, the brusque . . .

If you are referring to curse words, I will tell you that curse words are congenial revolutionary tidbits that are designed to break the familiar molds, social and all other kinds. We have the impression that we are totally free to utter curse words, however, using them reduces the level of consciousness. The curse word is not useful—or if it is, it is only at first—to free oneself. At first it seems revolutionary, but it does not drive us to change. It is like jargon. People go about distorting language through jargon, which, in principal, can be useful for establishing strong linguistic ties with the group, but persistent use of jargon swiftly lowers the level of consciousness. The only language that lifts the level of consciousness is the sublime language: that of art and poetry.

By what you’ve said, to create a new language it is necessary to quit seeing the world in a rigid way. What should we change in our language to change ourselves?

I am working on a book of definitions called Intelectualmente correcto [Intellectually Correct] . All of us think badly and, to change this, we need to exchange some concepts for others. I have begun by changing the following expressions:

Instead of never, very few times

Instead of always, often

Instead of thief, someone who took something that belongs to someone else

Instead of infinite, unknown expanse

Instead of eternal, incomprehensible time

Instead of you are my teacher, you show me how to learn from myself

Instead of I want to do, I am being ineffective

Instead of I want to be, I reject what I am

Instead of give me, allow me to take

Instead of imitate me, I do not respect you

Instead of my wife, the being with whom I share my life

Instead of my work, what I have been given to do

Instead of you are like this, I perceive you this way

Instead of mine, what I have now

Instead of to die, to change form

As I write this book, I am listening to people speak on the street. I am creating paths through language. Also I am contributing definitions that break with the commonly accepted ones. All of these are defined by their own negation:

Happiness is to be each day less anxious

Decision is to be each day less confused

Bravery is to be each day less cowardly

Intelligence is to be each time less dumb

In this way I can understand things differently. I consider it important for me to work with language this way because, for simple lack of understanding, we’re moving toward a catastrophe. We are thinking poorly. As such, in our language we should replace:

I begin with I continue

Beautiful day wi th today I feel good

To fail with change activity

I know wi th I believe

I am to blame with I am responsible

What is the mechanism through which the fine arts can advance our level of consciousness?

The explanation finds itself in its own definition: fine art and artistic creation. Beauty is the maximum limit we can access through language. We cannot reach the truth, but we can get close to it through beauty. In language there is no truth. Beauty is what initiates call “the flash of truth.” It is the maximum a human being can reach.

Ugliness would correspond, on the other hand, with a lower level of consciousness?

To say beauty we talk about ugliness, to say light we speak of darkness. They are opposites. To cite one, we are already talking about the other. If we have to define ugliness, I would tell you that many times I looked for a concept contrary to beauty. With this system of opposites we spoke of good and bad, of beautiful and ugly. I went through all of that and, in the end, I rested on two conceptual tools: useful and useless. Useful is all that helps us to reach higher levels of consciousness; useless is all that lowers our level of consciousness, anything that reverberates through our nervous system provoking depression and self-destruction. Attacking our own health drives us toward destroying others. However, the higher level of consciousness drives us toward a euphoria with life and toward the desire for immortality, eternity, and infinity. Immortality is probably reached—since death is a solitary phenomenon—in a collective way: by exalting and defending humanity. The human race, as a collective, can be infinite. Death is solitary, and knowing this helps us to understand the world. The negation of death is the negation of the individual.

IV

To deal with life, is intoxication necessary?

Getting drunk produces a great emotional happiness, but alcoholism is horrible. It can happen that we drink sporadically as an escape or diversion, but it is not necessary. I think intelligent people have to open the doors of perception, but it is not necessary to do it like Timothy Leary, who turned his whole life into an intoxication; he became an addict and died drugged without ever knowing himself.

It is one thing to break free of your own limitations, but avoiding yourself is another thing. I do not recommend that anyone avoid himself. I do not make apologies for this escapist intoxication. Neither do I recommend marijuana, because it is a strong Prozac, a tranquilizer; it is not good to be sedated all day.

And take mushrooms at least once?

The experience produced brings you nearer to the metaphysical and to the mystical. When one smokes marijuana for the first time, it also opens the senses: it teaches us to eat well, to breathe well, to feel music well. But once or twice is enough to learn! Otherwise we end up creating an army of sensual fools and loafers who believe themselves to be geniuses. In a similar way, alcoholism ends up turning people violent, and this serves very little.

Would you have become the way you are without having used hallucinogenic substances?

I have not become anything. What have I become? (He stands and turns himself around.) To where have I arrived? One does not arrive. In my case, I needed to take them at a certain moment, forty years ago, when I was going to make The Holy Mountain and had to play a master. I needed to understand the mind of a sage. I did not have this mentality, and I was aware of my limitations. So I hired a guru, Oscar Ichazo, who was one of the creators of the Enneagram of Personality and Claudio Naranjo’s teacher. I paid him seventeen thousand dollars to give me LSD and to guide me. It was a pure acid, a powder he dissolved in orange juice. One hour later, he gave me a marijuana cigarette. The first trip lasted eight hours. After some time, we took more. There were two sessions in which I learned a lot, and I broke my own boundaries. I believe these experiments should not be made in a festive spirit, nor in the company of people who have not attained a higher level of consciousness. It can happen that, during the experience, these people appear to be demons.