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

It is said that power is locked between the walls of the skull. But where would you place consciousness?

Outside of the body. The body is like the stone of a peach, however, the consciousness does not have limits and it is in constant expansion.

You suggest that by an effort of the imagination we can free ourselves from the obvious, in the same way listening to music and playing with the memory could transfer us to another place. However, it is not enough to play with a handful of images, we must change to improve, change the subjects we imagine, isn’t that right?

There is a kind of imagination that is almost industrial: this is delusion. One must not confuse the imagination with constant delusions. I can imagine myself as whatever I want to all the time without going into any depth at all: stories and stories and stories without any deeper meaning. Or we can, like Kafka, submerge ourselves to a certain level, then stand still. He never achieved happiness. He rooted himself in neurosis.

Strength is always necessary, but why is this constant effort of existence demanded of us?

In life it is necessary to always be alert but not tense. I observed that when you say “strength” you feel it like something unpleasant, but I do not believe it necessary to make things detestable when we could make them likable. When I speak of “strength” I speak of agreeable strength: to paint, to dance, to live, these are totally pleasant strengths. We should do what pleases us in life and try very hard at it.

Life is a test, a trial?

No. Life is an initiation school. Or as Castaneda said: a challenge. For the warrior, this is important.

Is it at all useful to theorize about life?

He who theorizes about life does so because he knows nothing about life. But he who knows life should communicate his experiences, teach what he has lived.

We return once more to the old and obstinate question: why does what exists exist?

A woman who was very sick from cancer called me from the hospital and asked me, “What is the purpose of life?” I thought. And I responded with what she hoped, “Life doesn’t make sense.” She sighed and said, “This is what I hoped to hear.” The next day, she died. I answered like that to console her because this woman could not be cured. Although I believe life does make sense, we do not have to know what that sense is. It is a mystery. The idea that all things have a purpose is very idealistic. Of course we have an end, but we do not know what it is. If this were not so, I would not be here. We have a purpose as humanity in the universe. We have a destiny, however we do not have to know it rationally. And it is necessary to accept this in the healthiest way possible. To convert our planet into a garden. Enrich it and enrich ourselves.

What does it mean to be yourself? Can we ever know who we are?

Knowing yourself really means that you are the universe. I do not have limits because I am united with the universe like an organism: time is my life, what happens is my life and is life. If I know myself, I am the actor and the spectator: the known and the knower at the same time. Up to a certain point I can go from actor to spectator, but there is a supreme moment in which the actor and the spectator melt together. This is not just knowledge; it is pure consciousness, a state of knowing.

What does it mean to be realized through the transpersonal? Hasn’t this word been overused?

It is not hot air; it is simply a useful construct. What we understand to be personal corresponds with the attitude of enclosing yourself in your own psychology and analyzing everything from your own perspective. The transpersonal means to accept that the other exists, and to keep that in mind when perceiving the world and figuring things out.

In this sense, the transpersonal transcends the boundaries. We would have to, on this path, get to the androgynous thought. If you were a common person, you would be thinking first as a Spaniard, then as a man, then as an earthling. The ideal is to think without nationality, without sexual definition, and without being deformed by the solar system.

Can we believe that one day we can fulfill ourselves?

This is a trap, because no one fulfills himself fully. What is fulfilling oneself? Advancing as one can. For example, today, all day, I have written for Los Technopadres, a series presented as a comic strip, which I love. I am happy because I like the scene I invented. I am euphoric because I am creating. Although it will be a story for children or for young people, it fascinates me. And each morning I write a poem of four or five lines—I do not have time for more. These are little things that I do and that I like:

Abandoned roo m

ownerless hom e

emptiness lies in wai t

under my words .

Like a blind ma n

who would fin d

a treasure in the garbag e

I let winter pass .

Do not thank me .

What I have given yo u

was given to m e

for only you .

I do not want you to love me ,

I want you to love :

flames are ownerless .

Hearing that, I have the impression that our happiness comes from looking at the world in a certain way.

It is not a question of perception. It’s about being yourself. When you advance, you perceive yourself in your totality. It does not have to do with defining reality. If we say, “I would like to know,” we are projecting the illusion of having an I and, further, that we can know it. I don’t have anything to do with that. Since classic antiquity, we’ve honored the expression “Know thyself,” but it is really confusing. People think that it is similar to going looking for something. But when we say “know thyself,” this “thyself ” is really the universe. The universe knows itself. “Know me,” says the universe. In the voice of God, know yourself means: know me. But be careful with this: do not think, “You are me, and I am you.” In truth, “You are not me, but I am you.”

The greatest teachers say we have to learn to die in peace. But to do that, is all of this journey necessary?

Yes, of course. The purpose of life is to learn to die in peace, “play dying,” say the Chinese. But to die is to enter into a process, like when childhood slowly passes into puberty: the hair, the hormones . . . You live as a change. You move forward in life, and old age begins, which is another period. The hair begins to turn white, the teeth yellow. If you fight against old age, you age with anxiety. If you fight against puberty, you traumatize yourself. At a given moment, we all enter into a process of death, which we can and should live exactly as all the earlier changes.

Death is nothing more than a state. No one is dead! No one dies! We all enter into a process of death, and it is marvelous to accept it with the same tranquility as when we enter into puberty or into maturity.

TWELVE

VISIONS

I

What do you think of the intermediaries of the soul? Of those who have organized themselves in order to teach us the mysteries of life?

Ultimately, I have divided the world—although these divisions are arbitrary—into beings and paper dolls. The word “paper doll,” which has stuck to my tongue, helps me to distinguish all the mental constructs. There are, of course, useful paper dolls and useless paper dolls. And the usefulness of either varies according to the passage of time or a change in our particular circumstances. At a certain moment, a formerly useless paper doll can become useful.