Manual of psychomagic The practice of shamanic psychotherapy

Paris-based filmmaker (El Topo), comic book author, and psychotherapist Jodorowsky returns to "psychomagic," a neo-Freudian technique of his own invention first explored in Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy. It aims to heal the mind from childhood trauma via symbolic acts that satisfy amoral, unconscious urges for incest, cannibalism, matricide, coprophagia, and the like. The resulting compilation of over 200 examples of sympathetic magic that Jodorowsky has used with individual practitioners proves wildly creative and boldly cinematic. The unifying factor is a bizarre sense of whimsy-one particular ritual has a person pursue a promotion by writing "I am worthy! I can do it!" on a piece of paper and then carrying it around inside her vagina. The cure for claustrophobia involves being placed nude in a coffin and buried by "six charitable people," who later cover the patient with honey and lick it off; achieving "happiness of living" requires covering yourself in excrement and begging for three hours, then showering in your mother's home. Even the most adventurous veteran of self-help literature will likely demur. But for the armchair student of human psychology, imagining Jodorowsky's vibrant, visceral, and entirely unapologetic paths to the unconscious should be an absolutely delightful exercise. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Chapter One Psychomagic Tips to Heal Your Life Authenticity, Health, and the Influence of the Family Terrain In my long activity as a Tarologist, each time I analyzed the consultants' problems I always ended up discovering that the roots of the problem were found in the family terrain. Childhood influences one's entire life: if there is no balance, the "trio" (mother-father-son/daughter) will create in the individual a destiny sown with multiple failures, depressions, and illnesses. This is why the first tips or pieces of advice in this manual introduce the reader to the basic aspects of his or her genealogy tree then stroll through a wide range of psychological, sexual, emotional, material problems and end with a description of a birth massage (a ceremony intended to give information about the balanced family to which every human being has the right to be born). All illness is accompanied by spiritual suffering. The tips that follow do not, in any way, intend to replace medical treatment. They only propose solutions for the psychological distress that no pill or surgery can calm. 12. Mothers Who Criticize by Telephone There are mothers who, living separated from their daughters, often call them by telephone. Suffering from perfectionism, they develop an egotistical spirit. They feel themselves right about everything, projecting onto their daughters the defects that they cannot accept in themselves. Each time these mothers communicate with their daughters, the mothers cannot stop criticizing them. If an absent father is added to this, and the child can only count on maternal love, every harsh word wounds the child in a most intimate way. In this case, I recommend: Make a heart out of red cork to put next to the telephone. (The consultant must prohibit the mother from calling the cell phone.) Each time the consultant receives one of the mother's verbal assaults, the consultant must stick a dart into the cork. When the heart is full, the consultant should count the darts without removing them and buy an equal number of chocolates wrapped in metallic red paper. If there are fifty darts, there will be fifty chocolates. Circle the heart pinned with darts with chocolates and send in a gift box together with a pink card on which will be written, "For you, dear Mother, because I love you, I forgive you for the pain your criticism has caused me." 13. Mourning an Abortion However much an abortion is justified, it leaves painful marks on the woman's soul. To the organic wound, the shock of the operation is added, which has been suffered without the presence of the man who is responsible for the fertilization. An abortion, in our masculine society, which generally aids the male in eluding responsibility, basically involves the woman and her fetus. Many times, in the deep recesses, the woman hauls around an abysmal sadness for this child who she will never see grow up. In order to perform bereavement so that the consultant feels relief, I recommend this act: Concentrating deeply, the consultant should choose a small fruit (to represent the fetus). Remove all clothing and then place the fruit atop the stomach and wrap a flesh-colored bandage around the body four times--holding it in the place where the abortion was suffered--ask a good friend or lover to, little by little, cut the bandage with a scalpel and remove the fruit. During this metaphysical operation, the consultant will let her grief and rage surface in the form of complaints, cries, or insults. Then put the fruit in a pretty box that the consultant herself has decorated. Accompanied by her associate, the consultant, with a black pebble (a mortuary symbol of accumulated pain) in her mouth, will go to a nice spot to bury this symbolic casket. Digging in the earth with her hands, helped by a man--a collaboration she did not have in the past--she spits the black pebble into the hole. The man, who will have put a red candy in his mouth, kisses the consultant and slides the candy onto her tongue (the symbol of rebirth of life). They put a plant on the little grave and, if it is possible, they make love together. If this companion is only a good friend, they go to a caf頦or something nice to eat. 16. Separated Parents So that a child's character can grow in a balanced way requires having lived with parents who understand the child intellectually: that is to say that the parents do not express contradictory concepts of life in front of the child; that the parents are united emotionally--they treat one another with respect, care, and admiration; that the parents desire one another sexually, and they express satisfaction in this regard; and that they do not make the child a participant in the financial anxieties, making sure that they will always be able to give the child what he needs without anything essential missing. The children of parents who do not love them, who argue constantly, who divorce, or who turn the children over to the care of an aunt or the grandparents, feel that their personalities are divided, without a united goal. Even if they live at a good economic level, they live devoid of protection, without the ability to believe they are loved by their partners. For this kind of consultant, I advise: Tattoo a sun on the sole of the right foot (symbol of the cosmic father) and a moon on the sole of the left foot (symbol of the cosmic mother). That way, each time the consultant walks, he feels parental support. Another way to have the experience of the mother-father unity is to walk with headphones listening through the left ear to a song sung by a woman and through the right, a song sung by a man. Excerpted from Manual of Psychomagic: The Practice of Shamanic Psychotherapy by Alejandro Jodorowsky All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.