Every week for the last 30 years, Alejandro Jodorowsky has sat in a cafe giving tarot readings to anyone who asks for one. Then, using his intimate knowledge of the tarot, he attempts to question the “Consultant” and help them connect with their own subconscious and find their own answers. After using his “Tarology”, as he calls it, to simulate a kind of Psychoanalysis, Jodorowsky may decide that further Psychotherapy may be needed in the form of his own invented “Psychomagic”.
Principles of Psychomagic
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Manual of Psychomagic” takes a look at his 30 years of Psychomagic practice. He presents a long list of recipes that he has used to satisfy the amoral urges of his consultants in an attempt to give them peace. There are four major components or rules to his Psychomagic:
1. Metaphorically fulfill predictions.
Among Iroquoian-speaking peoples in the 16th and 17th centuries, there was an important cultural standard to fulfill any dreams they had1. If they had a dream that they should be given a gift of a pot or cat from their leader then it was given to them. If a person’s dream is not fulfilled then it was considered bad for that person’s health. An old story about Coyote where he dreams about sleeping with his mother in law ends with the community encouraging Coyote to do so, even though it caused distress to his family.
Jodorowsky takes this principle and applies it much more widely. His consultant may be instructed to in some ways carry out a metaphorical version of what is distressing them, using pictures or personal pieces as sympathetic stand-ins for the actual people.
2. Do something you’ve never done before.
The routines of the consultant, which may have roots in childhood, must be broken up in order to separate the past from the present. Each of us contains multiple versions of ourselves. The version that lives in the present must be the one who takes responsibility for their younger selves. By breaking old routines the consultant is forced to exist only within the present self.
3. The more difficult an act is to fulfill, the more benefits gained from it.
Here Jodorowsky uses the idea that by completing the Impossible Quest gives an Impossible Boon as a reward. Many of his spells that he lays out in later chapters include things that may have serious negative consequences for the consultant. He may ask for them to embarrass themselves in public or with their family. They may be very uncomfortable or disgusted. But he assures that if done properly it will create a peace of mind not felt before.
This is the most dangerous aspect of his manual. It permits the psychomagician to request grandiose acts in the name of mental health. It’s also important to note that nowhere in Jodorowsky’s book does he go into detail of failed Psychomagical attempts. He says that after he gives his recommendation to the consultant he requests that they send him a card to tell him how it went. However we rarely see the cards or the results, only the recommendation he has given.
4. Always end the act in a positive way.
Balance is key. The point of these psychomagical actions is to create a balance, nullifying any negative emotions that their subconscious impulses create. Therefore, the dangerous and embarrassing actions offered by the Psychomagician must be tempered with a positive experience that will wrap up the experience.
Psychomagic Cases
Once his basic components are laid out, Alejandro takes us through some of his cases and the Psychomagical therapies he has concocted to remedy them. Jodorowsky inhabits a shamanic role for the people around him. His magic is focused on helping other people. This is a noble role, and the ancient place of the magician in communities throughout the world. The magic he practices is centered not around “what can I do?” but rather, “what can I do for you?”
Because of his focus on real problems brought to him by real people, a lot of the cases that he presents are very shocking. They range from agoraphobia, to incest, to drug addiction. Ecsema, sexual assault, and warts. Jodorowsky has given a plethora of ways he has addressed cases using Psychomagic. But he rarely tells us their results, either good or bad. He only ever gives a vague promise that these spells will solve their assigned problems.
Jodorowsky creates his spells by pulling from lots of magical resources, but his primary source of inspiration seems to be Sigmund Freud. Alejandro pushes that for most problems within a person’s life the root stems from somewhere within the family terrain. He makes frequent use of both the Oedipus and Electra complexes. And although he seems to have left behind ideas of penis envy, like most of the intellectual world in Freud’s wake, he still seems to closely follow Freud’s ideas of Psychoanalysis and discovering the source of a problem and then treating the problem using a form of Psychotherapy.
My own experience with Psychomagic
I bought this book in anticipation of a family wedding I am going to. I have agoraphobia, and was looking for tips that went outside the normal spectrum of help. In anticipation of the book arriving, I imagined what I thought Alejandro would recommend to me.
> You must have a group of people around you as if you were at a party. They will hold knives and follow you around pointing the knives at you, making polite conversation about any topic other than their knives.
I was not aware of the four founding principles of Psychomagic, and so I didn’t consider how the spell would end positively, or his Freudian obsession with family dynamics and how that would color his case. After looking at his case where he tries to solve a consultant’s agoraphobia, I found that I was remarkably close.
> While trapped in a sleeping bag, have four to eight people gather around you with knives and carve you from the sleeping bag as if it were a womb. Then they will pour healing water on you and take you out to a cafe for a nice drink.
This is one of the few cases where Jodorowsky includes the card from his consultant telling how the psychotherapy went. It did not completely eliminate the consultant’s fear, but the experience gave them a jolt of energy that allowed them to run around carefree and they were more confident in going outside afterwards.
Would I feel confident that this treatment would work on me? No. But I find it interesting that both Alejandro and I saw knives and other people as important factors in a therapy for agoraphobia. The symbols that he draws from are certainly powerful.
Final Review
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “The Manual of Psychomagic” is a valuable resource for peering into Alejandro’s shamanic practice of 30 years. It is not a complete look into how his psychomagic has helped people. It would never pass a university evaluation. I cannot recommend trying his spells or recommending them to your own “consultants”. Rather, use it as a point of comparison for how a much older, Chilean, Spanish speaking magician would perform his spells. Invite him into your space and ask him for advice, but do not take him as the ultimate authority. In the end, you are responsible for creating and carrying out your own spells. Even Alejandro’s consultants had to organize and complete their psychotherapies on their own after he had prescribed them. Find your own way and carry that out.
- Graeber, David and D., Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. New York, Picador, 2023. On ‘dream economies’ among the Iroquois see Graeber 2001: 145–9.
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