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

Psychomagic

“Jodorowsky is a brilliant, wise, gentle, and cunning wizard with tremendous depth of imagination and crystalline insight into the human condition. His work is a source of inspiration for me and for many of the most important and innovative artists of our time. Psychomagic is necessary reading for all who long to shock the world into awakening and remembrance of what has always been and what is still to come.”

DANIEL PINCHBECK, AUTHOR OF 2012: THE RETURN OF QUETZALCOATL

“Currently there are books that have become essential to winnow out established ideas and open new horizons. The texts brought together here have that special ability to contemplate old problems from perspectives that were not thought to exist.”

EL MUNDO

“Alejandro Jodorowsky seamlessly and effortlessly weaves together the worlds of art, the confined social structure, and things we can only touch with an open heart and mind.”

ERYKAH BADU, ARTIST/ALCHEMIST

“The best movie director ever!”

MARILYN MANSON

CONTENTS

Title Page

Epigraph

Prologue

PART ONE

PSYCHOMAGIC: SKETCHES OF A PANIC THERAPY

A Portrait of the Artist in Panic Character by Interviewer Gilles Farcet

ONE—The Poetic Act

TWO—The Theatrical Act

SACRAMENTAL MELODRAMA

THREE—The Oneiric Act

FOUR—The Magic Act

FIVE—The Psychomagic Act

SIX—Examples of Psychomagic Acts

SEVEN—Psychomagic Letters

EIGHT—From Imagination to Power

PART TWO

LESSONS FOR MUTANTS

A Synthesis of Experiences by Interviewer Javier Esteban

NINE—Keys to the Soul

TEN—The Trail of Life

ELEVEN—The Invisible Bridge

TWELVE—Visions

THIRTEEN—The Art of Healing

FOURTEEN—Understanding Life

PART THREE

AN ACCELERATED COURSE IN CREATIVITY

Introduction

HISTORY OF THE IMAGINARY

LEAVING OUR PRISONS

BE CREATIVE

FIFTEEN—Exercises for the Imagination

GROW

EXPAND

SHINE

BE WEIGHTLESS

THE GAME OF TIME AND SPACE

BLESS THE WORLD

DISSOLVE THE I

BE A DOT

FINE ARTS

HAVE TALENT

DRAW

SCULPT

FASHION DESIGN

THE RAINBOW

YOUR SPACE

FREE YOURSELF FROM LANGUAGE

SIXTEEN—Techniques for the Imagination

SEVENTEEN—Therapeutic Applications

Footnotes

About the Author

About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company

Copyright & Permissions

PROLOGUE

Having lived many years in Mexico City, I had the opportunity to study the methods of those called “witches” or “folk healers.” They are legion. Every neighborhood has one. Rising up in the heart of the city is the great Sonora market, which sells exclusively magic products: colored candles, dissected fish shaped like the devil, images of saints, medicinal plants, blessed soaps, tarots, charms, plaster sculptures of the Virgin of Guadalupe turned into skeletons, and so on. In some back rooms, plunged in semidarkness, women, each with a triangle painted on her forehead, rub bunches of herbs and holy water on those who come for consultations; they practice “cleansing” the body and the aura . . . Professional doctors, being faithful sons of the university, despise these practices. According to them, medicine is a science. They would like to find a precise, ideal remedy for every illness, with each treatment distinct from all others. They want medicine to be one official method, with no variations, to be applied to patients who are treated only as bodies. None of them proposes to cure the soul. To folk healers, on the other hand, medicine is an art.

It is easier for the unconscious to understand dream language than rational language. From a certain point of view, illnesses are dreams, messages that reveal unresolved problems. “Folk healers” develop personal techniques with great creativity: ceremonies, spells, strange medicines such as café au lait laxatives, rusty screw infusions, mashed potato sanitary napkins, animal excrement tablets, or moth eggs. Some have more imagination or talent than others, but all, if consulted with faith, are useful. They speak to the primitive and superstitious individual, whom we all carry inside.

Watching these popular therapists operate, often performing miracles using the honorable tricks of a skilled magician, I came up with the notion of the “sacred trap.” For the extraordinary to occur, it is necessary for the sick to firmly believe in the possibility of a cure and to accept the existence of miracles. To be successful, the healer is forced to employ tricks during the first meetings, which convince her clients that material reality obeys that of the spirit. Once the sacred trap tricks the person seeking consultation, he experiences an interior transformation that permits him to capture the world by way of the intuition rather than by reason. This is the only way that a true miracle can take place.

But I ask myself: without the sacred trap of this artistic therapy, could a person without faith be cured? On the other hand, although the rational mind guides each individual, can we say that anyone lacks faith? At every moment, the capacity of the unconscious exceeds the limits of our reason, whether by way of dreams or by involuntarily acts. With that in mind, shouldn’t there be a way to make the unconscious behave voluntarily, like an ally?

One incident that occurred in one of my psychogenealogy courses gave me an idea: When I described the causes of neurosis, a medical student suddenly fell on the floor twisting with painful spasms. It seemed like an epileptic seizure. Amid general panic, without anyone knowing how to help him, I went over to the afflicted student and—without knowing why and with a great deal of trouble—I removed his wedding band from the ring finger of his left hand. Immediately, he calmed down. I realized that the objects that surround and accompany us form part of the language of the unconscious. In this way, putting a ring on a person can imprison him, while taking the ring away can relieve him . . .

Another experience, which had very revealing results: When my son Adan was six months old, he was ill with a very bad case of bronchitis. A doctor friend of mine, an herbalist, prescribed drops of essential oils. My ex-wife Valérie, Adan’s mother, was to pour thirty drops into his mouth three times a day. She quickly complained that the boy was not getting better.

I told her, “The problem is you don’t believe in the remedy. What religion were you brought up in?”

“Like every Mexican—Catholic!”

“Then we are going to incorporate faith into these drops. Each time you administer them, say an Our Father.”

So that’s how Valérie did it, and Adan recovered quickly.

After that, I began—very prudently—to incorporate this method in my tarot readings. When a client asked me how to solve a problem, I would prescribe what I called “Psychomagic.” Why didn’t I just call it “magic”?

For a primitive therapy to function, the witch doctor, supported by the spiritual superstitions of the patient, must maintain a mystery, present himself as the possessor of superhuman powers obtained through a secret initiation and relying on divine and supernatural allies to bring about a cure. The remedies they provide are mysterious to their clients, and the actions they recommend are intended to be performed without knowing why. In Psychomagic, to the contrary, we need the individual’s understanding instead of his superstitious beliefs. The patient should know the reason for each of his actions. The psychomagician makes the transition from witch doctor to adviser. Using psychomagic prescriptions, the patient becomes his own healer.