By Fletcher Munsen
“I think the art of filmmaking is something you learn through actions, by doing it, not by learning theories. And as you do it, your mind starts to change.”
- Anarchy and Alchemy: the Films of Alejandro Jodorowskyby Ben Cobb
“The people with low level of consciousness look for someone else to affirm their value, but people with higher levels of consciousness, what they seek is someone to point out their defects so they can become better.”
- Alejandro Jodorowsky, Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy
Even within the rich climes of esoteric culture rarely do we ever see individuals whose lives have become so inextricably linked with the Great Work that any mention of them, their Art, their milieu is always perceived as some expression of Gnosis. Yes, we have our accomplished musicians (Jimmy Page, John Zorn, David Tibet, etc) but in contemporary filmmaking we have only two real remaining Magi – the Thelemic enfant terrible of American underground cinema, Kenneth Anger, and Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Born in 1929 e.v. in Chile, Alejandro Jodorowsky is, without a doubt, one of few living seminal figures in independent cinema, having directed such iconic examples of celluloid canon as El Topo, The Holy Mountain, Santa Sangre, and now his newest film, The Dance of Reality. However, for most of his life, his artistry as a surrealist filmmaker has been dwarfed by his work as a spiritual teacher — and I don’t mean that he’s written oodles of books on spiritual subjects,per se (he has, in the form of comic books and treatises on his own system, quoted above) but with students, one on one, for over a quarter of a century in the intellectual insularity of the French Café scene, via Tarot and his own initiatory system, Psychomagic.
For free.
Today, such meetings have dwindled to about once a month, but, nevertheless, his tireless approach to life, magick and mysticism continues to have an increasing impact on the world.
His first cinematic works had explored the esoteric western mystery tradition via surrealism in El Topo and The Holy Mountain; now, modern audiences are becoming acquainted with his work through the autobiographical The Dance of Reality and the award winning documentaryJodorowsky’s Dune, wherein the ultimate cinematic “what if” is finally brought to life beyond the awe-inspiring concept art conceived by Moebius and H.R. Giger that fans had been speculating about for decades. Perhaps now, as his films become more integrated into modern popular consciousness, so to might his spiritual work come to be recognized.
“We need to work in a job that we like and always be peaceful people, to do what we like. We must be what we are and not what they want us to be. To love what we love without obligation, without neurotic knots that we cannot untie. To desire what we want and to create what we are capable of making. To live with a certain prosperity, without wasting. But a prosperity for everyone, not a prosperity based on exploiting others. And, of course, it is necessary to become immortals and for this we have to live as if we were immortals thinking that we have a thousand years more to do what we want but without forgetting that in ten seconds we can die.”
- Alejandro Jodorowsky, Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy
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