The Dance of Reality: A Psychomagical Autobiography

by Alejandro Jodorowsky

  8. A thirty-year-old man cannot achieve success as a musician. As a child he studied piano, but his father, a garage mechanic, made fun of his hobby, considering it gay. He has a sister who lives symbiotically with their mother, both of them hating men. The two worlds, masculine and feminine, are separated by an abyss in their home.

  Response: You must take on your feminine sensibility in order to express yourself artistically. Cover your body with auto grease and play the piano naked, dirty like your father. Of course you will get grease on the keys. Furiously play all the melodies that you fancy then clean the keys. After this massage the piano as if it were a woman, for exactly one hour. Stick a picture of your mother on the sole of your left foot, one of your sister on your right foot, and start playing again. You will see the anger converted into creative pleasure. To thank me, bring me a white rose.

  9. A fifty-year-old man cannot bear the process of divorce from his wife. Three months earlier, after living with him for eight years, his wife expressed her deep desire to become pregnant. He rejected the proposition outright. She thought it over, then suggested divorce, which he accepted calmly. But after three months he suddenly repented and proposed to his wife that they have the desired child. She was inflexible and told him she would have it with someone else. The Tarot reveals that this man has a twin brother. When asked how his relationship is with this brother, he stammers a bit and answers laconically, “Okay.”

  Response: Call your wife and tell her you do not want one child, but two. That being a twin, you could not imagine having an only child, and that was the reason why you refused to get her pregnant when she asked for “a” child. This will require you to consider: would you really want to be a father of two children? If you want that, call her. She is very likely to accept.

  10. A brunette woman with large black eyes, about forty years old, has a very conflicted relationship with a coworker in the office where she works. He refuses to resolve the conflict, despite the pacifying efforts she makes.

  Response: We see in the Tarot that your relationship with your older brother was disastrous. You project this original conflict, which is very much part of you, onto your colleague. You need him to hate you, to reproduce your childhood love/hate relationship. He, in turn, must project his sister onto you. You must destabilize his view. If you see yourself differently, you will not be the object of his rage. You must go to the office as soon as possible with a different appearance: a new haircut, dyed blond, with contact lenses that make your eyes light, and a different style of clothing.

  11. A woman who has moved to a new house does not feel good in her new territory; it seems alien to her. What should she do?

  Response: Put your urine in a bowl, fill a dropper with it, and put a drop in every corner of the new house.

  12. A forty-year-old therapist is in a passionate but troubled relationship with a woman who feels a great aggressiveness toward men due to her having seen her father kill her mother with a hunting rifle that had been given to him by his grandfather. How to calm this hatred of men that she constantly projects onto him?

  Response: Go to see your partner carrying a hunting rifle loaded with blanks and ask her to shoot at your chest. Keep a plastic bag filled with artificial blood hidden there. When she fires, break the bag to spill the blood. Before this, you will have told her that the bullets are blanks, but will have kept the blood effect secret. You’ll see, she will burst into tears and embrace you. From that time on the relationship will improve.

  13. A twenty-year-old woman consults the Tarot to see how relations are going with her lover. It seems that nothing is wrong; he has agreed to marry her and have children. But she suffers from not knowing what she wants, what she likes, what she truly feels. The Tarot reveals the strong influence of her mother, who she feels is like a vampire. How can she tell if it is really she who is seeing and thinking, or if it is her mother taking over her mind?

  Response: Enlarge a picture of your mother’s face to actual size. Cut holes in the eyes and make it into a Venetian-style mask on a stick. When you find yourself in a situation where you want to dissociate your view from that of your mother, put the mask over your face and become aware that you see and feel like her. Then take the mask off and observe how you see and how you feel things as yourself.

  14. A thirty-year-old woman is still suffering as an adult from her father’s rejection of her as a child. This attitude was the result of her younger brother’s dying three weeks after being born. The father, who wanted to pass on his name, considered it unfair that his son died and not his daughter.

  Response: When your brother died, he must have weighed about three kilos. Buy a calf ’s head and, if necessary, some meat and bone to make it up to three kilos. Put this in a waterproof, airtight bag and then into a black backpack, which you will wear on your back for three full days (symbolizing the three weeks for which the boy lived). Then go to your father’s house, without him knowing, and bury your burden in the garden. Afterward, offer your father a sausage, watch him eat a few slices, and ask him to give you a box of chocolates.

  15. A well-dressed lady, sixty years old, cannot get over her deep resentment toward a doctor who misdiagnosed her with Alzheimer’s disease and kept her in anguish for two years. During those years, her relationships with her children completely deteriorated. The Tarot reveals that she projects her own paralyzing parents onto this doctor who predicted the paralysis of her mental functions.

  Response: You must protest in a childish manner. Put some of your excrement in a cookie tin and mail it to the doctor. The box must be wrapped as a Christmas gift.

  16. A young man with a childlike face, voice, and gestures says he has “existential suffering.” According to him, the reason he cannot leave childhood and become a man is his mother, who conceived him out of wedlock with a stranger.

  Response: You are right. If your mother hates men, you must remain a child in order not to lose her love. Dress as you imagine this father you have never seen would dress. Over these clothes, put on women’s clothes, stolen from your mother. Go out and wander the streets dressed like that. As soon as you find a woman whom you like the look of, begin to stare at her while taking off the women’s clothes to expose your male suit. When you’ve made the change, go to the woman and tell her that you like her. She may reject you; she may accept. Experience the situation with pleasure. Later, paint an apple black and wrap your mother’s clothing around it, then wrap your “father’s” clothes around those. Then bring the package to your mother, giving it to her without explanation, saying only, “I am returning what you gave me.” The black apple symbolizes your existential angst.

  17. A woman of seventy, who suffers from deafness, comes for a consultation to solve a problem with her forty-eight-year-old daughter, who complains that she has never listened to her.

  Response: In the presence of your daughter, wash each ear seven times with rose-scented soap. Then anoint your ear canals with acacia honey, using the middle finger of the right hand for your left ear and the middle finger of the left hand for your right ear. Then ask your daughter to lick the honey while whispering everything that she wants to tell you.

  18. An alcoholic woman who is about forty years old complains of being “nothing” and that she “cannot achieve.” She was raised Catholic and now practices Buddhism. When I ask her what her favorite drink is, she replies “red Bordeaux wine.”

  Response: Buy a bottle of red Bordeaux wine. Go to church with it, sit on a bench, put it in front of you, and pray to it as if it were a saint. Then go to your Buddhist temple and meditate with the bottle between your legs to consecrate it. Then make a small altar in your home with flowers, incense sticks, and two lamps, one obtained from the church, the other from the temple. Thus you will have your own sanctuary in your home, and wine will become a magical elixir. At night, before going to sleep, rub your chest with it. This sacred wine will protect and heal you.

  19. A very fat woman wants to lose weight. “M
y mother began to gain weight after giving birth to me. I carry with me the responsibility for her incessant diets, her ‘body drama.’ I weigh ten kilos more than she does.”

  Response: Buy any object that weighs ten kilos, for example a TV, a vacuum cleaner, a collection of pots, and so forth. Put a picture of yourself on the package, naked and sad, and offer it to your mother, saying: “This is yours. I’m returning your gift to you.”

  20. A painter of fifty years old who is a well-known artist confesses with shame that he hates his younger brother, born late to his parents. The baby came when he was twenty-two years old and “stole” his mother’s love.

  Response: Buy a wooden bassinet, a life saver, and a large melon. Put the melon in the bassinet and the bassinet on top of the life raft. With an automatic pistol, shoot the fruit twenty-two times. Then pour a bottle of gasoline over its remains, set fire to it, and send the flaming melon and bassinet floating down a river on the life-raft. Then, to change the rage into acceptance, give twenty-two white roses to your brother.

  21. A woman dressed in Hindu garments has spent twelve years in an ashram. Her guru, Muktananda, baptized her daughter with the name Krishna. There is something about this that makes her feel bad. In light of the Tarot, she realizes that this act reveals her unconscious desire to sleep with her teacher, elevated to the status of God the Father, in order to create a Christ (a Krishna), a perfect child.

  Response: Buy a plaster figurine of Jesus Christ and paint it entirely blue to transform it into the god Krishna, who is of that color. Tie several orange balloons (Muktananda’s color) to the figurine’s feet and release it to the sky. Carry out this ceremony accompanied by your husband and daughter. When you see the Jesus figurine disappear, give the girl a Western name. Thus you will free her from the obligation to be a demigod and will restore her identity and her femininity.

  APPENDIX II

  Brief Psychomagical Correspondence

  1. STEALING TO HEAL

  When people say they cannot love, it is not because they have empty hearts. The anesthetized feelings build up like ice in a freezer. In this psychomagical act, instead of trying to give what is desired, a succession of dangerous situations provokes the awakening of the fundamental positive feeling: the love of life itself.

  I wrote to you from Chile: “There are days when my vision becomes cloudy and I do nothing but lament being alive. I would be infinitely grateful to you if you would prescribe me a psychomagical act in order that I might be able to love without asking for so much in return.” You answered me: “Steal a raw heart from a supermarket on the sixth day of every month for a year. Cook the hearts, cut them into pieces, and give them to friends and hungry animals. Then you’ll be able to love.” From April 1997 to March 1998, I stole one heart each month from a different supermarket in Santiago. I was never caught, and each time completed the task of cooking it and then distributing it among friends and to animals. (It was hard to find hungry animals in my neighborhood, so I went out walking and generally gave them to the first dogs I saw.) Since the date indicated was the sixth (I suppose because card VI of the Tarot is the Lover), I was very nervous, terrified, at the beginning of every month. I used various strategies to steal the hearts: hiding them in my jacket pocket, in my underwear, under my cap, and so forth. During the summer it was even harder, because the weather was too hot for me to wear a jacket. Fortunately by then I was well experienced at shoplifting in supermarkets, so I was always highly successful. Another difficulty was that not all those large stores sell hearts. I had to visit several different ones to find them. As for the friends with whom I was supposed to share the cooked pieces, I mostly shared them with my family. Once in a while I shared them with someone I knew who happened to be in my house. In the last month, with the last heart, I invited a group of young neighbors. This social communion was a way of celebrating the fact that I had completed my task and had done well. Soon after, an uncle died, my mother’s brother, who I was very close to. The inner strength I had acquired allowed me to act with resolution with my family: this was something that surprised everyone. This strength was not a tough attitude, but rather meant that I had the appropriate attitude for the situation. Now, three months later, I’m learning a form of Brazilian dance that is also a martial art. The energy that I use in this activity, an energy that continues to grow, gives me a self-assurance that I had never experienced. I have just turned twenty-five, and I feel that I have great strength to love without asking for so much in return.

  2. SYMBOLIC CONVERSATION

  Thanks to symbolic acts one can enter into profound, cathartic relationships without reason intervening.

  This was my question: “My brother hanged himself on the day of his twenty-eighth birthday. In a certain manner, I have carried the burden of my mother’s guilty suffering for this brutal death. How can I rid myself of it?” You answered me: “Carry a bocce ball that you have painted black in a white bag on your back for twenty-eight days. Afterward, offer it to your mother, saying, “This ball is yours, I am returning it to you.”

  I went to see my mother, and just before I took out the ball and gave it to her, she said to me, “I’d like to make you a black shirt,” and began to take the measurements. I was very surprised, I let her measure me and then gave her the ball. She looked at it, scratched it with a fingernail and smiling, said, “The paint comes off easily.” I answered her, “The black goes away, but the weight remains.” She began to cry. I held her in my arms for a long while. Today I am breathing much better.

  3. THE LOST COLOR

  A tiny painful detail hinders overall development. I have often compared a problem that is considered small to a nail in the shoe. Although small in size, it affects one’s whole gait. This is the testimony of José Zaragoza, a Mexican poet living in Paris.

  Knowing the work of A.J., I went to have him read the Tarot cards for me. At that time I was obsessed with the idea that I caused fear in people, an idea reinforced by the fact of my being a foreigner. Without further ado Mr. J. said, “The devil should be dressed in red,” and advised me to get dressed from head to toe in clothes of that color. I simply refused, because I had a strong fear of the ridiculous. But the next day, out of pride rather than conviction, I decided to carry out the prescribed treatment, adding on a scarf in the style of the Tarahumara people, which, as we know, is red and is worn on the forehead. The experience was terrible. At the corner by my house I encountered a group of people who looked at me, surprised. “I’m going to a costume party,” I stammered. In the metro things became almost unbearable. Everyone stared at me, from head to toe. I felt bad because I have always wanted to pass unnoticed, and this was impossible for me under such circumstances. Back at home I felt extremely tired and dirty. I took a shower and felt better. The next day I noticed that my perception had changed significantly. I felt as if I had taken a dose of medicine. I saw red as orange, orange as yellow, and so forth. I went out into the street and found that indeed my perception had changed and that I must be getting used to seeing the whole range of warm colors differently. Although this situation was somewhat embarrassing, I did not feel at all bad, and was able to perform my normal activities. Dressed in red, I went to all the places I normally go, saw all the people I usually see. A week later I had integrated myself into the prescribed color. It was then that I remembered a definite event in my childhood: one day, my mother had ferociously reprimanded me for a small fault saying, “You’re a devil.” This irritated me profoundly and made me blush. She insisted: “You see, now you’ve even turned red!” I then had a fit of inexpressible anger; once this passed over, I became extremely sad: I realized that my mother did not like the color red. From that moment on I removed it from my clothes and, as is obvious from my appearance, got rid of the smallest details relating to red, even though it was my favorite color. When I got that color back, thanks to the act of psychomagic, I regained the world. My trouble was resolved.

  4. MILK IN THE EYES

  So
me physical diseases can be cured with symbolic elements.

  The day after my mother died, my eyes began to hurt. The pain lasted eight years and no medicine could alleviate it. You gave me the following advice: “Go to your garden on a moonlit night accompanied by your husband and boil a liter of milk. Let it cool down, bathed in the moonlight. Then repeatedly rinse your eyes with the milk, until dawn.” I did this. The pain disappeared.

  5. A DEVOURER OF DENIALS

  The whole is present in every part. More often than not, when we get angry it is for reasons other than what we think, and what we demand is not what we really want.

  I came to consult you because my son was having fits of anger, demanding things, kicking and screaming. You advised me to give in to his demands, but to satisfy them partially, not completely: “If he wants chocolates, give him one. If he wants cake, give him a small piece, and so on.” I wondered how this could make the child stop throwing one fit after another. Well, for the first few days it was the same as always: he ate up the first chocolate then howled for the second. One day he ate a whole packet of chocolates and ate five gumballs (which I had badly hidden) in one bite. And of course, as usual, he had a fit of rage.