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

And there is another form of imagination, which is imaginary time. Time travel. On this trip, I can go into the past. But the problem is that, if I modify the past, I modify the “present” point from which I departed. This is called temporal paradox, and it has been developed extensively in science fiction. It is one of the great themes. If I go into the past and kill my mother, then I would not have been born, because she could not have had me. Time travel is a main theme in many films, popular films, like the Back to the Future series. In these, the imagination plays with time. But this has a very strong oedipal foundation, because if I go into the past, I can seduce my mother and make her my girlfriend, and in this case I could father myself with my mother. Or I can seduce my father in the past. This is one purpose of time travel imagery. Interfering with the past signifies interfering with our parents.

Then there is eschatology, which is the imagined end of the world. In what shape does the world end: fire, water, epidemic, or ascending into another dimension? There is a large part of the imaginary that has to do with the end of the world. This I am not recommending to you, although I do it intensely: I imagine various ways to die. I have imagined myself dying in a drowning suicide, being thrown from a building, being cut in two. I have projected myself a lot in suicides, in death, to free myself a bit from myself. I repeat to you that I do not recommend this to you. If you are distressed, do not do it. It is hard. Above all, imagine the death of loved ones. It is hard, because the possibility of a loved one disappearing always exists, and also we fear the possibility of our ceasing to exist.

To eliminate this, I have imagined a lot. I have turned myself into nothing: that is what happens when one enters darkness. I have made myself imagine the blackness, deep blackness that dissolves my I into emptiness. And then, the emergence toward existence and light.

SEVENTEEN

THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS

We are going to work with feelings. Think about how you feel. What feeling do you have of yourself? Well, we live with feelings that sometimes are a little distressing. That is why I am going to show you how to work with feelings of distress. Does anyone here have a feeling?

“I feel as if I had a wall in my chest.” Listen hard, this is imagination. What is this wall like: made of stone, metal, cement? Concentrate, try to tell me what it’s like. Red bricks? Imagine that there are bricks at your disposal. It is a material that is yours; you can do what you want with this material. In the first place, it defends you: a wall can defend. Against what do you need to be defended? Look for the feeling. No need to think; just feel the feeling. This wall is completely useful. Now meditate on the red bricks. They are pretty. Think that they are pretty. Instill beauty into the bricks. Each time put more beauty into the wall, okay? It is yours; it pertains to you. You can do what you want with it. Build with it whatever you want. Make a walled-off place. But imagine it completely. Imagine what this place is like, with those bricks. See it as a friendly place. You can go inside. There, you have created a door. I have a solution: there is no need to eliminate the wall, only to open the door. And now, imagine the wall inside you, with a little door by which you can exit and enter. It is a part of you that preserves your individuality. This wall preserves your individuality because, for the moment, it is still weak. Okay? Now fortify your individuality. The red bricks are going to give you strength. If you make yourself strong, you will lose your fear. No one will be able to invade you. Do you understand? You must take the imaginary and incorporate it, work with the feeling. Because feelings that present themselves to us are like symbols, we can work directly with them.

A person told me that he feels that he has excrement in his heart, and I answered that the excrement is fertilizer, that he should think of adding earth to it and that anything can grow there. If the person can make something grow there, then the feeling changes.

“I feel like I have something on my shoulders, something that is crushing me.” Okay, someone feels like something is crushing her. Let it come. Do not defend yourself, okay? Change the feeling. Think that this comes from the interior and goes toward the exterior. Modify yourself. This emerges from your interior. Do you know what it is? Growing wings. So, let them grow. Push them! Push the wings that are going to allow you to go where you want to go. Create your wings and move your wings. Go where you like. Toward the earth, toward your territory, toward yourself, toward your fulfillment. This is how feeling works.

“I feel like there’s a ball of lead in my solar plexus.” Wonderful. Imagine that your body is an oven, an alchemist’s cauldron. Imagine: in another incarnation you are an alchemist. The ball of lead is the first material that is going to change you into gold. So, let this fall so it gets to the fire in the belly. The belly is the seat of the Great Work. Work, let the ball descend, instead of defending yourself, let it heat the fire of your sexuality, okay? Little by little, go about making it rise toward where it was, and as it is rising make it change colors, until it changes to golden, and gets to the center of your chest. And then, let it shine—project its rays to all sides. Make it rise. And this way you make gold. What will you do with the gold? Currency, money. It is the acceptance of money in your heart. The negation of money turns into a knot. Do you have problems with money? Yes? Well, now you are going to have to make your money. If, upon making this ball rise, that weight, you feel too materialistic, convert the money into love. Love is the only creativity that gives you this kind of currency. Through the use of creativity, the feeling of distress will go.

“I have an itch in my head, thorns that plunge into me.” We are not going to ask what the thorns are. Simply accept the feeling, but without asking yourself why or what it means, because it can be the critical thoughts that they threw at you when you were a child, things like that. You are going to think that this leaves your head, not that it enters into your head. But you still need to really work with this feeling. And what leaves from your head is going to change into roses, because roses have thorns. And when you imagine that you have roses coming out of your head, imagine that insects come to pollinate them. And with the pollen, you are going to pollinate other plants in the world. And then you can write poems; you can do what you want.

All of us have to stop with this game of “Look what you did to me” or “You don’t love me.” It is a lack of creativity. We should not delight ourselves in the feeling of not being loved. Precisely, if I have a feeling of not being loved, I must change this feeling and feel myself loved. And what can I do? Well, to begin with, stop asking. If I stop asking for love, I am in a position to give it. So we say: “You do not love me, but I adore you.” And instead of spending my life angering myself and annoying others and suffering, I will say “Enough,” and the problem ends. I love you. I am not going to live as a victim all of my life. No. I love you, and this stops. If you do not love me, it is your problem not mine. There is the cure. When we are creative, we are not centered on asking for something; on the contrary, we make it ourselves. We should put love there where there is not love, and we will find it. Because, if you use another like a mirror of your lack of capacity to love, it is because you have looked to someone who does not love you, and this is because you cannot love. You are incapable of loving, and your problem of not loving you deposit on another, you project it like a mirror. Love. And if you love, the other is going to love you, because you are going to project your love to him.