The Dance of Reality: A Psychomagical Autobiography

by Alejandro Jodorowsky

  Recalling my youthful experiences, I began to work on massage teaching the imitation of holiness. The greatest desire of a patient in search of consolation is to be taken in the arms of a saint or a Buddha. However, one who surrenders to such contact must be cleansed, like a sacrificial animal, of all egotism. Someone who can give everything is powerless before someone who can receive nothing. In many cases, the patient suffers from inhibitions or irrational antipathies. Then he or she must be touched like a son or a daughter. That is the secret of the Christlike laying on of hands. If it is difficult to give and the person pushes us away with her hands, we love those hands and start our massage by caressing them. We must respect the defenses and advance with parental love, starting at the fingertips, millimeter by millimeter, with extreme delicacy and total attention, into the heart of the other person, dissolving the tension muscle by muscle, giving sturdy support to each limb so that the patient will never have the impression that a part of her is being neglected, however small that part may be. In order to massage in this way, one must breathe deeply and calmly; one must be at the service of the other person, completely attentive. One must act as an empty vessel with nothing to seek and nothing to impose. One must be a refuge without limits, an infinite and eternal companion, not invasive but discreet, a companion who becomes invisible at the slightest movement of rejection.

  However, although this massage is effective at calming, it does not heal the essential wound. In the depths, the patient guards his suffering like a treasure. I thought to myself, “It isn’t fair to abandon someone who can’t receive. As a society, we are all responsible for their ills. Not only the tree is sick, but the entire forest. This string of diseases, this reproduction of harm from generation to generation, has to stop someday. There must be a way to make those without eyes see, to make those without ears hear, to communicate love to those whose hearts are closed.”

  Just at the moment when I was in need of some valuable new information, dancing reality put a book into my hands by psychotherapist Catherine Lemaire titled Membres fantómes (Phantom Limbs, published in 1998), with a preface by Gérald Rancurel, a professor of neurology at the hospital of Salpêtrière. The subject of this book is one of the most fascinating mysteries of clinical neurology: the “phantom limb,” a phenomenon whereby the patient continues to perceive the presence of a limb that has been lost. However imaginary it may seem, the phantom limb is very real, practically flesh, insofar as it can be felt and described. Even if it does not exist, it can cause pain. Even an amputated limb imposes itself on the consciousness, continuously or intermittently, for many years in some cases. The subject feels his or her leg or arm as if it were actually there. The eyes see through the phantom, but in the dark it is there again, sometimes larger than ever. Touching it is impossible. The missing part is there, perceived but invisible and untouchable. Not only legs and arms produce phantoms, but also the breasts, nose, penis, tongue, jaw, and anus. Jean-Martin Charcot observed a patient who felt not only the phantom of his hand but also the wedding ring on his finger. Some people who were born without certain limbs, and therefore have no sensory experience of them, also develop phantoms. How? I found the answer in another phenomenon observed by neurologists: some people, when they relax their muscles and lie still with their eyes closed, sometimes feel an immaterial limb in a position different from that of the physical limb. Phantom limbs can exist without amputation!

  It appeared to me that the scientists spoke mostly of phantom parts of the body, such as limbs, and never of a whole phantom body. I allowed myself to consider that we might have a whole phantom body: an immaterial body veiled by the flesh that exists before any amputation takes place and that has sensations. The experimenters had also encountered blind patients who saw phantom sights and deaf patients who heard phantom sounds.

  Some amputees feel excruciating pain in their absent limbs. The neurologists, thinking that the perceived but intangible body parts were not real, could not alleviate these pains, even though they performed operations, desensitizing the cutaneous areas over the stump and also on the torso, where they believed the topological sensations creating the phantom limb originated. I wondered, “What if we were to accept the phantom limb as real and soothe its pain by operating on it? If the limb can feel the presence of a ring or a watch, could it not feel the touch of a scalpel?” I understood the aspect that was missing from my initiatory massages: we do not perceive the body as it is; we are only aware of a material representation of it that is adulterated by the views of others. We do not feel everything we feel, we do not see everything we see, and we do not hear everything we hear; there are tastes and odors that are captured by the tongue and sense of smell but not by the consciousness. With the initiatory massage, I had dedicated myself to cleansing the tangible body without acting on the phantom body. I concluded that Pachita and other witches, when they operated, did not do so on the material body, but acted on the intangible phantom body. Except that with their tricks, they added visible elements such as blood, entrails, and so on, so that the patients would believe that they were operating on their “real” bodies.

  I decided to eliminate everything that was intended to deceive the primitive, superstitious spirit and to proceed to operate in all honesty without any kind of gimmick. In the same way that a state of mind changes the body’s attitude, a bodily attitude modifies the state of mind. Moreover, just as what happens to the material body affects the phantom body, what is done to the phantom body affects the material body. Based on this belief, I imagined a psychoshamanic ritual. The shaman acts in his medium, using his surroundings, plants, and animals as elements of power. But the psychoshaman, not imitating that which he is not and which belongs to a different culture, uses the elements provided by his environment, namely the city. A mobile phone, a vacuum cleaner, a car, or supermarket products are as magical as a snake, a fan of feathers, or a mushroom. The psychoshaman does not wear exotic clothes, necklaces, or other ornaments. A typical suit, preferably black for neutrality, will suffice. He does not operate in the shadows, lit by a single candle. He appropriates the words of the poet Arthur Cravan: “mystery in broad daylight.” And, since the act is metaphorical, he does not wield any knife; if it is necessary to symbolize one, a wooden ruler suffices. He never operates in his own name, an attitude consistent with psychoanalysis. Lacan told his students, “You can be Lacanians, I must be a Freudian.” Pachita operated in the name of Cuauhtémoc, Carlos Said in the name of Doña Paz. Every shaman is inhabited by mythical allies, and a psychoshaman can choose his allies from his own familiar urban mythology: He can operate in the name of a famous singer, a film star, a boxing champion, a prominent politician, a dead relative, or a children’s character such as Pinocchio, Popeye, or Mandrake the Magician. He can choose to be assisted by a person of his religion such as Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Pope, Stalin, Gandhi, Moses, Allah, and so forth. To create a magical setting, it is enough for the psychoshaman to simply pass his palm over the floor drawing an invisible circle and then, indicating the four cardinal points, the nadir, and the zenith with precise gestures, to say, “There is the north, there is the south, there is the east, there is the west, there is the upper world, there is the lower world, we are in the middle. All paths arrive here, and all paths depart from here.”

  After having the patient stand barefoot in the middle of this imaginary circle, he proceeds to fortify it. Witches rub the body with an egg or two, sometimes three, because eggs are considered to be seeds that contain great power. The psychoshaman, bending his thumb inward and enclosing it with the other four fingers, makes a fist symbolizing the seed, a hand position that can be observed in the human fetus. He rubs the patient with this fist, giving him or her energy. Then the patient lies down, prone or supine, on a table, on a cot, or on the floor. Some patients can be operated on while sitting or standing. With an open hand held rigid, wielded like a knife, the psychoshaman slices the air around the patient, cutting away hostile influences. />
  (To prepare our spirits for the intensity of the operations, my son Cristóbal—who worked with me on many occasions—decided that we should recite in our minds, “There is no being here and now, because here is all space, now is all time, and being is all consciousness. Being, space, and time are the same thing.”)

  Thus, without any decorative objects, without any conjurer’s tricks, with the patient aware that it is her phantom body that is being operated on and not her material body, aware that we are undertaking metaphorical actions, and aware that as psychoshamans we do not have supernatural powers but are imitating such powers in a form of sacred theater, we can achieve the “miracles” performed by Pachita and all manner of saints and primitive healers. We can metaphorically extract tumors, cut bones, implant new limbs, cleanse the heart of its sorrows, change the negative ideas in a brain, purify the blood, and so on.

  I applied this new technique in my psychomagic courses, and amazing healings took place. As usual, I began cautiously with small operations. Then, as they became complicated during the last three years I enlisted the help of my son Cristóbal, who put his youthful energy at the service of psychoshamanism.

  Knowing how anxious sick people can be to find quick solutions, we never operated in a professional manner and never charged fees. All the examples given below were performed during courses for therapists who proposed to their patients that they try these experiments.

  The first operation was practiced on an Algerian woman of about forty years old who was suffering from eye pain for which doctors had been unable to find any organic cause, and thus had been unable to find a cure. After the ceremonies described above, I had her close her eyes. I put a small bandage over each eyelid. With a voice full of authority I said, “These are the terrible things that you have seen and that have damaged your eyes. I am going to remove them forever.” Acting as if it took a great effort, I peeled the bandages off. She surprised me by screaming with intense pain, as if something glued to her body were really being ripped off. Then, with great care, I pressed my fingers into her eye sockets and, with calculated pressure, gave her the impression that I was holding her eyeballs. “Now I’m going to take out your eyes, wash them, and put them back.” I pretended that it took a great effort to take her eyes out, and she cried again, in real pain. I stuck my fingers in a glass of water and made a noise as if I were washing her eyeballs. Then, with wet hands, I pretended to return her eyes to their sockets. “Now you can lift the eyelids. Your view is clear, finally free of your painful memories.” She opened her eyes and wept: the pain that had tortured her for so many years had ceased.

  On another occasion I was introduced to a young man with a stutter. His family tree revealed his father to be indifferent, selfish, childish, capricious, and unjust. The boy, not being loved by him, felt that he had no virile strength. I told him to take down his pants and sit on the edge of a chair. “I’m going to inject the energy of the Father. Breathe deeply.” Then, with my right hand, I took his testicles, and without squeezing but exerting a very solid contact, I made him feel that I was injecting an immense paternal strength. I imitated this injection with my lips narrowed, blowing out a long and intense jet of air. Without releasing him, I said with complete conviction, “You are cured. Breathe deeply, relax, think of your voice coming from your powerful testicles, and speak.” The young man spoke correctly. His stutter was gone.

  With Cristóbal’s aid, I then began to perform more complex operations. Our years of theatrical practice were essential: the psychoshaman must use a voice that is never for an instant tinged with doubt or weakness. The feigned certainty must be total. To exorcise a “possessed” person, the cries must be impressive. It is very helpful to imagine a mythical ally acting through us. Whenever we encounter an invading spirit, we imitate the authority of Jesus Christ in Mark 9:25: “When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.”

  A thirty-five-year-old woman who suffered because she was six kilos overweight showed us her thighs, affected by cellulite. For fifteen years, despite all sorts of treatments, she had not been able to get rid of it. Examining her family tree, we understood that this affliction of the cellular tissues symbolized her possessive mother. The woman felt that her mother, with her hatred of men, had prevented her from having a satisfactory sex life. We propose to operate to remove these six kilos of material and also to liberate her from her mother. We proceeded to wrap each thigh in a large sheet of paper, which symbolized the cellulite. Then we told her to choose a woman to represent her mother from among the course participants. She chose one. We asked the chosen woman to cling to the patient’s body and put up as much resistance as possible. We began to give orders, demanding that the impure spirit leave the body of her daughter. We tried to detach her, and she clung tight. Finally we tore her off the patient, who during this theatrical scene had wept, shouted insults at her mother, and let out her anger. Once liberated, she calmed down. We then had her lie down, simulated the opening of a channel in her thighs, and with great effort, tore off the paper that surrounded them. The woman screamed with authentic pain. We gave her the paper, crumpled into a ball. “Here’s your cellulite. Go to the bathroom, burn it, throw the ashes in the toilet, and flush it.” She did. Four months later, I received a letter from her telling me that she had entirely lost those six kilos.

  In some operations in which a patient felt devalued or not accepted by his or her parents—for example, because the parents wanted a child of the opposite sex or told their child that he or she was ugly—we used a special powder to color the patient’s entire body gold or silver after the operation. We would then ask the person to go home, painted like this, for others to see. It changed the patients’ perceptions of themselves and made them feel worthy of admiration.

  For a woman whose lover had left her and who could not stop suffering because of it, we ripped a piece of paper off her chest on which the man’s name was written, then simulated sinking our hands deep into her and exchanging her heart for a new one. While we were simulating pulling out the old heart with enormous strength, she cried from immense sadness combined with physical pain, which was alleviated as soon as we pretended to put in the new heart. Before closing the imaginary wound, we told her that we were going to tattoo a word on her new heart. Poking her chest with a finger dipped in gold paint, we wrote “Love.” She felt relieved and now had the energy to resume her love life.

  For a fifty-year-old man who had undergone a surgical intervention to remove a tumor from his left ear and who now needed surgery on his right ear because it had also developed a tumor, we tried a psychoshamanic operation to see if we could bring about healing without the intervention of surgeons. We symbolized the growth with a ball of cotton soaked in condensed milk, which we inserted into his ear canal. Then we seated the patient on a chamber pot. Next, twelve women lined up on his right-hand side. One by one, they put their lips to his ear and whispered in a sweet voice, “My son . . . I love you.” When they had all spoken these words they gathered around him, and while Cristóbal extracted the symbolic tumor with a pair of tweezers, pretending that it took great effort, the women sang a lullaby. Some time later we received a letter of thanks: the tumor had disappeared.

  A sixty-year-old man had a sore right knee that gave him a limp. X-rays had not revealed any anomalies. Thinking that the right leg could be associated with the father and noting that the French word for knee is genou, a word that can sound the same as je-nous (“I-us”), we asked him what kind of relationship he had with his father. The patient was deeply moved. His father had always rejected him, staying shut away in his problems. Only when he was in the hospital, suffering from a terminal illness, did the father consent to call his son in order that they might disconnect him from the machines and thus finally let him die. Our patient felt obligated to comply with his father’s wish. It was for this reason that
he carried the guilt of having killed his father, which caused him to feel a rage that he repressed. This was when the pain in his knee began. Before operating on him we stuck several layers of tape onto his knee to symbolize the knee bone. We laid him down on his back, placing a participant whom the patient had previously chosen to symbolize his father on all fours on the floor on his right side, with a cushion on his back to protect him. While we “opened” the flesh and “extracted” the bone, acting as if it took a great effort to tear off the mass of tape, we asked him to express his anger by hitting his “father” on the back. He did, and amid cries of pain from the operation and insults shouted at his progenitor, he let loose his fury while dealing tremendous blows to the cushion. I put in a “new” bone and painted the knee gold. After the operation, the patient went to the participant who had received the beating and, weeping, embraced him for several emotional minutes. From that moment on, his pain was gone.

  A young man was attending the course along with his wife. He loved her deeply, but had a problem: when they made love, his penis only became semierect, halfway between hard and soft. This defect was ruining the couple’s sex life. Luckily, the man’s father and mother were also attending the course. Looking at the family tree, we saw that all the men were childish and committed the sin of being absent and that the women were invasively possessive and considered sexuality sinful because of the religious prejudices of their upbringing. We also saw that there was tension between the man’s wife and his mother: the wife thought that the mother had not loved her son, causing him to be stuck at a childish level and, as her husband, to be dependent on her. The four participants, in a genuine search for a balanced life, let down their defenses and became conscious of the root of the problem. We then proceeded with the operation: the man lay down on a table, naked, on his back. I held one leg, Cristóbal held the other, and two other participants held his arms; his mother lay on top of him, clinging to his body. Outside the room, behind a closed door, his father waited. His wife, leaning near to his left ear, whispered constantly, over and over again, “I love you.” The patient’s task was to try to shake his mother off, but the people holding his arms and legs would not let him move. Then he was to shout for his father to get help. The father struck the door with great violence, then opened it, rushed at the mother, and after simulating an intense struggle, removed her. The mother then had to blow as if inflating a balloon, with all her affection, on the region of her son’s heart, and the father had to blow similarly on his perineum, to breathe new manly strength into him. Meanwhile I pretended to cut off his sex organs, placing my fingers around the penis and testicles. I held the sex organs and gave the impression of pulling them off. I then implanted new imaginary sex organs. After the procedure we sprinkled the operated area with holy water, then had the father and mother take their son and place him in his wife’s arms. At that moment, the four of them burst into tears and embraced each other in relief and affection. The next day the couple happily came to tell us that the erection was now perfect.