The Dance of Reality: A Psychomagical Autobiography

by Alejandro Jodorowsky

  “Very well, my child, now I know the path of your illness. Choose: either you advance on this path, or you heal.”

  Pachita put a plaster on her arm, and after three days the abscess had healed. Henriette decided to return to Paris and died two weeks later in the arms of Jean Claude. The last gesture she made was to put a wedding ring onto her doctor’s ring finger. When I told the sad news to Pachita, she told me, “Brother comes not only to heal. He also helps those who want to die. Cancer and other serious diseases present themselves like armies of warriors, following a precise plan of conquest. When you reveal to a patient who wishes to destroy herself the path that her illness is taking, she will quickly follow that path. This is why the Frenchwoman stopped fighting instead of suffering for two years. She surrendered to the disease and let it carry out its plan in two weeks.”

  It was a great lesson: before this, I had believed that it was sufficient to make a person aware of their self-destructive urges to save them. Pachita made me understand that this discovery could also hasten death.

  The first thing Pachita did with anyone who came to see her was to touch them affectionately. From the moment they felt this old woman’s warm hands she became the Universal Mother. Pachita knew that in all adults a child sleeps, eager for love—even those most secure in themselves—and that physical contact is more effective than words for establishing trust and putting the subject into a receptive state. This contact also seemed to allow her to make the diagnosis. I remember the day I brought a French friend, Jean Paul G., to her. He had been feeling pain for some time, and it had taken the French doctors six months to find a polyp in his intestine. Pachita ran her hands over his body and immediately exclaimed, “My boy, you have a bad lump in your insides.”

  My friend was stunned! But apart from showing these almost divinatory abilities, the sorceress also gave advice that seemed to me like acts of psychomagic: one day she received a man who was on the verge of suicide because he could not bear the idea of going bald at age thirty. He had tried all possible treatments without success and could not accept that he was bald. Brother asked him, through the old woman’s mouth, “Do you believe in me?”

  The man replied in the affirmative, and indeed he did have faith in Pachita. The spirit then gave these instructions: “Gather a kilo of rat excrement, including the urine, and mix it well into a paste that you will apply to your head. That will make you grow hair.”

  The man protested weakly, but Pachita insisted, saying that if he wanted to avoid baldness, he had no choice. Three months later, he came back to see the old woman and said, “It is very difficult to find rat droppings, but I finally found a laboratory where they breed white rats. I persuaded one of the workers to save the droppings for me. Once I had a kilo, including urine, I made the paste, and then I realized that I did not mind having no hair. So I did not apply the ointment and decided to be content with my fate.”

  Pachita had asked him to pay a price that he was not willing to pay. When he found himself confronting the act, he realized that he could accept his lot perfectly well. Faced by the reality of the difficult act that was required, he discovered that he preferred to remain bald. He left his imaginary world and stared the real world in the face. These instructions, initially seeming absurd, gave him cause to mature, putting him through a process that finally made it possible for him to accept himself as he was.

  I remember one person for whom money posed a serious problem: he was unable to make a living. The old woman prescribed a strange ceremony.

  “You should urinate in a pot every night until it is full. Then leave the full container under your bed for thirty days and sleep above your pee.”

  I witnessed the consultation, and of course, I wondered what her intent could be. Slowly, I began to make sense of it: if a person who does not suffer any physical or intellectual disability cannot earn a living, it is because he does not want to. Some part of him could not tolerate money. Following Pachita’s prescription would expose him to some real torture; it does not take long for a pot of urine, kept under a bed, to start smelling terrible. The patient, forced to sleep above the pot, steeped in his own vapors, would unconsciously establish a symbiotic relationship: urine is yellow, like gold. But at the same time, it is waste. Producing waste is a physiological need, and the need to urinate and defecate is itself a consequence of another necessity, eating and drinking. To provide for this, one must earn money. Money, insofar as it represents energy, needs to circulate. This person was not earning a living because he felt repulsed by money, considered it dirty, vile, and did not want to be involved in handling it. He refused to participate in the movement whereby money goes in and out, turning into food. It disgusted him to acknowledge the rightful place of “gold” in the network that constitutes all existence. Pachita forced him to master that repulsion. When he found himself alone with his urine every night, he had the revelation that money is dirty only when it does not circulate. The problems had begun when he refused to look at money and stuck it under the bed. Moreover, the requirement that he continue the exercise until its end forced him to prove his will, an indispensable quality for earning a living normally.

  On another occasion, a woman from whom Brother had removed lung cancer in a previous operation came back complaining that she still had severe respiratory distress. Pachita told her with great severity, “Your cancer is cured, and you have not understood that. When one thinks one is sick, the body becomes sick. You are well, but you do not want to cooperate. Do not think that you are sick and you will stop feeling discomfort.”

  One must live in a world in which superstition becomes reality in order to be a witch or shaman. For my part, I did not have sufficient belief in primitive magic to become a healer. I was sure those bloody tumors that moved and snorted were just animals, lizards, frogs, whatever. Thus, although I did want to learn from Pachita, I never expected to receive her gift of making me a healer, and I realized that in order to learn from Brother I had to assume that all the miracles were faked. If I had started with the assumption that it was all genuine, I soon would have found myself at a dead end, straining to make myself into a magician with no success, or with only partial or mediocre success, because, in my belief, one cannot change one’s skin, free oneself from rational culture, and play at being a “primitive.” Thus, I found myself mentally disposed to learn something that would later serve me in my own context; for example, how to use symbolic objects in order to produce certain effects in others, or how to address myself directly to the subconscious in its own language, whether through words or actions. Later, thanks to the example of this remarkable woman, I became interested in learning about the role of magic in history. I read a good number of books on the topic, trying to identify universal elements worthy of being used in my own practice in a conscious and nonsuperstitious manner. All ancient cultures believed in the power of incantations, the idea that desires that were expressed in words in the required form would be realized. But the name of the god or the spirit was often reinforced by its association with an image; the ancients also knew intuitively that the subconscious is receptive to forms and objects. They attached great importance to the written word when it was transformed into a talisman. Another universal practice was purification, or ritual ablutions. In healing ceremonies in Babylon the exorcists would order the patients to undress, throw away their old clothes—symbols of the sick “I”—and put on new clothes. The Egyptians considered purification a preliminary prerequisite for the recitation of magical formulas, as this text illustrates: “If a man pronounces the formula for his own use, he should anoint himself with oils and salves, and hold a full censer in his hand; he must have a certain kind of natron behind his ears and a different kind of natron in his mouth; he must put on new garments after washing himself in the waters of the flood, wear white sandals, and have the image of the goddess Maat painted on his tongue with fresh ink.” The ancients also attributed the role of ally to numerous objects: magical texts were recited
over an insect, a small animal, or even a necklace. Linen bands were used, and wax figurines, feathers, hair, and so forth. The mages engraved the names of their enemies in vessels that were then broken and buried; a similar destruction and disappearance was supposed to happen to their adversaries. Effigies of “evil ones” were painted on the soles of royal sandals so that the king could trample on potential invaders every day. Along similar lines, studying the Hittite witches led me to discover the concepts of substitution and identification: the mage does not destroy the evil but takes control of it, discovers its origins, removes it from the body or spirit of the victim, and returns it to the underworld. According to an ancient text, “An object is tied to the right hand and right foot of the patient, then untied, and a mouse is tied there, while the officiant says: ‘I have removed the evil and tied it to this mouse’; then the mouse is released.” Pachita extirpated evil and sent it into a plant, a tree, or a cactus, which would then slowly die. She would substitute the sick person with a lamb or a goat; the patient’s turban would be put on the head of the goat, then she would cut its throat with a knife that had previously touched the patient’s neck. According to Jewish magic it is possible to cheat, deceive, and mislead the forces of evil. Therefore, the person who is attacked by these forces goes in disguise or changes his or her name. If one wishes to purify an object, one buries it in the ground.

  Pachita had told me, “I’ll visit you in your dreams.” It happened that, probably because of an intestinal infection, I had abdominal pains that went on for several days because I wanted to heal myself with herbs and not antibiotics. I slept badly for three nights, but on the fourth night I had a dream: I was in my bed, suffering the same pain that I was having when awake. Pachita came, lay down next to me, and sucked on the right side of my neck, saying, “I will heal you, my boy.” With some effort, she slid her left hand between our bodies and put it on my belly. Then she rose in the air without separating from me. We levitated horizontally for a moment, then returned down to the bed. She slowly faded away. I woke up healed, feeling no pain.

  When Pachita died, Guillermo Lauder told me that the doctor could not immediately sign the death certificate because the corpse’s chest was warm. This warmth lasted for three days. Only then could he declare her dead. Some time later her gift passed to her son Enrique, who, possessed by Brother, began to operate as his mother had done. Claudia, an assistant to the film director François Reichenbach, had been in a car crash during a filming in Belize (known as British Honduras at that time) in which several nerves in her back were severed and nine vertebrae were broken. She spent three months in a coma. When she regained consciousness, she was told that she was paralyzed and would not be able to walk again. As a last resort, she traveled to Mexico and was operated on by Pachita, who, according to Claudia’s account, opened her up from the neck to the tailbone and replaced the damaged vertebrae with others that she had bought from the morgue. The following week, she was walking. This “miracle” changed her life and led her to become interested in Mexican magic. She had a strong desire to help her friends in France, for which purpose she invited Enrique to come to Paris to operate. He agreed to come.

  At that time, my daughter Eugenia was suffering from an almost exclusively French disease: spasmophilia, involving very painful involuntary stomach muscle contractions. She had lost her appetite and was skin and bones. No doctor could cure her. Despite her having a university degree and a rigidly rational education—she had been raised until age sixteen by her German mother in Düsseldorf—I proposed that Brother should try to heal her. Although she did not believe in these “frauds,” she agreed out of sheer desperation. When we arrived at the apartment a Mexican assistant who had come with Enrique opened the door. Placing his finger on his lips, he indicated that we should enter in silence. The rooms were dark, the windows covered with blankets. We groped our way into the living room and sat down. Our eyes adjusted to the darkness. The silence was impressive. Suddenly, the assistant rushed to the bathroom door and opened it. A burning object glowed there, and the man murmured, “It’s an evil. Don’t go in until it is consumed. Otherwise, it can fall upon you.” And he left. Eugenia, with a contemptuous smile on her lips, grumbled, “Stories for mental retards.”

  After a while the back door opened and two people came out carrying a third person who was quite pale, wrapped in a bloody sheet, apparently asleep or dead. They laid her down on the floor next to us. Horrified, my daughter asked that we leave immediately, and trembling from head to toe, she stood up to flee. A strange figure appeared, a man who had stayed hidden in the shadows, and asked Eugenia to come closer. All at once, she calmed down and followed him meekly.

  I witnessed the operation. There was only one bed, as before, and the room was barely lit by a candle. A woman was lying on the floor, covered in blood, with a cheerful expression on her face. Brother, wearing an Aztec emperor’s robe, was a terrifying site. Although he wielded the hunting knife, the healer never stood up. He remained seated in the shadows. All we saw of him was his hands. The “flesh” had become impersonal. He listened to my daughter’s belly, told her that a great anger against her father had accumulated there, and that he was going to cure her of a disease that was not an injury. The knife sank into her flesh, the blood flowed, and he placed his hands in the wound, seeming to put the organs in place. Then he removed his hands, kneaded the skin, and left no trace of a cut. Eugenia never complained. Brother spoke sweetly this time and did not cause pain. As we were leaving, I remarked on this to the assistant, who told me that Brother was progressing from one incarnation to the next and that he had finally learned not to make his patients suffer. Eugenia never had spasms again, returned to her normal weight, and soon after, met the man who would be the love of her life.

  After inventing psychomagic and psychoshamanism I went back to Mexico City several times to study the methods of so-called charlatans and curanderos. They are very abundant. At the heart of the capital there is a large market for witchcraft. All manner of magical products are sold there: veils, devil fish, pictures of saints, herbs, blessed soaps, Tarot cards, amulets. There are some women in gloomy back rooms with a triangle painted on their foreheads who will “clean” your body and aura. Every neighborhood has its own witch or wizard. Thanks to the faith of their patients, they often achieve a cure. Doctors trained at the universities despise these practices. For sure, this medicine is not scientific, but it is an art. And for the human subconscious, it is easier to understand the language of dreams—from a certain point of view diseases are dreams, messages revealing unresolved problems—than to understand rational language. The charlatans develop very personal techniques with great creativity, I compare them to painters: anyone can paint a landscape, but the style in which an individual does it is inimitable. Some have more imagination or talent than others, but all are useful if faith is placed in them. They speak to the primitive human that still lies inside each and every one of us.

  Don Arnulfo Martinez is a soccer player turned sorcerer. I had a hard time finding him. He lives in a poor, chaotic neighborhood. The houses have numbers out of order: eight is next to sixty-two, then thirty-four, and so on. I found him by asking among his neighbors. Don Arnulfo waited for me at the end of a narrow passageway, the walls of which were covered by canary cages. I had to go through a room where his wife, his mother, and his numerous offspring were. Behind plastic curtains shone a little sacred space with shelves full of statuettes representing Christ and the Virgin of Guadalupe, many lighted candles, colored liquids in various types of bottles, and photographs from his soccer-playing days. At the center of the altar reigned a soccer ball, with its black and white pentagons. Rather than hiding the passion of his youth, the healer used it in his magical practices. To diagnose my ailments he first rubbed me all over my body with a bouquet of red and white carnations, then did the same with the soccer ball. He predicted economic problems. He carved my name on a candle with his long fingernails and told me to burn it in
my room until it was consumed. By chance, because he wanted it to happen, or by means of some trick, the canaries began to sing when he placed one of his hands on my forehead and the other on my heart to release me from my preoccupations. Nothing is better than a chorus of canaries for calming the soul. Don Arnulfo tells us, “Everyone should be healed with what he loves most, without worrying about what others think. Objects are receptacles for energy, positive or negative. They are not evil or sacred. It is the hatred or love you place in them that transforms them. A soccer ball can become holy.”

  Gloria is an energetic woman dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. She is tall, muscular, and the mother of three children. Her loyal assistant is her husband, a small, thin man. Gloria does not appear to have anything extraordinary about her. She lives in an apartment and sells dolls in the likenesses of characters from children’s television shows. There is nothing on the bare walls but one large portrait of María Sabina because when Gloria falls into a trance she receives the spirit of this sage of the mushrooms. Her patients then address her as Abuelita (Grandma). She does not have a special sacred place. She receives people in her bedroom, which is almost completely filled by a very wide bed and a wardrobe. She sits on a corner of the bed and has the client stand in front of her. She closes her eyes, bends down, and then straightens up transformed into Abuelita, an old woman who speaks broken Spanish mixed with Nahuatl phrases. She examines the person with her hands, after which she begins to dictate a long series of herbs, flowers, and ancient medicines. Her husband religiously writes down these recipes in a school notebook. Finally, “María Sabina” intertwines her fingers and makes a purifying circle with her arms. The patient puts her legs into the circle, draws them back out as if pulling a sword from its sheath, and then does the same with the arms, head, and torso. “You are cleansed, my grandchild.” While Abuelita says goodbye and Gloria begins to emerge from the trance, the husband makes photocopies of the handwritten notes on an old machine. Here is one that advises fumigation for purifying a house to expel negative spirits: “Put a little oil and twenty-one chiles de arbol (seeds removed) into a frying pan, fry them, and burn them. As the smoke from the pan passes through the house, say ‘I cut, I separate, I remove, I destroy everything that is not in harmony with us and every being of darkness.’ Once the pan has passed through the house, leave it in a secure place outside the house for about ten to fifteen minutes. Return to the house and open the windows. Do this on three occasions as close together as possible, but not on the same day.”