#psychomagic

When I was a teenager, I discovered the world of neopaganism through my fascination with anything related to witchcraft.

Witchcraft was what interested me the most, and my attraction to paganism came later.

Today, it's the opposite...

When I returned to paganism after about 15 years, it was mainly because of paganism itself.

This time, witchcraft is the secondary part...

welcome friends + visitors to #my awesome blog 🎉

mildly unhinged transsexual here for a good time and hopefully a long one too. you can call me whatever name you like and I use ze/he/she pronouns

I mainly post about Oz HBO, but I like a bunch of other random stuff that will come up from time to time

check out my writing on Ao3 and Dreamwidth and go here for a peek behind the curtain

I also compile/archive various things over on Neocities and make playlists on Spotify and Deezer (X X X)

enjoy! :3

Not using magic today is basically a crime. Ever since Jung decided psychology didn’t need to be a cold hard labcoat discipline and gave it a warm blanket and some archetypes, we’ve basically had spellcraft wearing the cosplay of clinical terms. Trauma work? Shadow integration? Bro, that’s just banishing rituals with extra steps.

But here’s where the crime starts: With that good old “patchouli = money” logic. Like... really? If blind trials don’t work, we get the expected placebo-flavored zero. But take away the blindfold, stir in a little intention, and boom—magic happens.

Me? I’m a fully unhinged New Age potion of China, Africa, and Europe. I write calendars based on Ze Ri, hoard hoodoo oils like they’re rare Pokémon cards, and have full-on Ifá initiations, with my daily rituals involving Ebo, Ibori, and more liturgical drama than your local cathedral on Easter. And yet... I stay Thelemic-level skeptical. I know this might all just be a delusion wrapped in symbolic system updates from my overclocked psyche. Maybe the Orisha are nothing but highly aesthetic user interfaces to the universal API. And that’s not even the weird part.

Still, if something calls you in this world? You answer. You challenge the unknown. You dive in and pry your own pearl out of the void. Otherwise, you’ll be grinding your teeth to the soundtrack of your own confusion, endlessly doubting what the hell your life even is.

“At 95, the Chilean-born cult director rejects being tied to a physical location or nationality, not even to this planet or to his own body. The concept of a city seems irrelevant to him. And when I ask him what he thinks of Los Angeles ahead of his upcoming visit, he replies with a cheeky query of his own.

(…)

Talking to Jodorowsky is a metaphysical experience. His brain-expanding remarks about humanity’s status in the cosmos often require some contemplation to digest. For example, take his lyrical musings on why film continues to entice us.

“Cinema is an opening to creation,” he says. “We are tired of being locked in a physical body. We want to open ourselves up because we see free bodies everywhere, in the seagulls flying or in a gram of dust that the wind carries.”

(…)

His heady statements match what he’s put onscreen and on the pages of his comics over the last 60 years. As esoteric in meaning as they are mesmeric in their imagery, the films of Jodorowsky are modern-day fables. To enter them is akin to walking in a dream where one must accept a bewildering logic.

(…)

Hallucinogenic cornerstones of the original midnight-movie scene, Jodorowsky’s work has long been an expression of countercultural transgression, the kind that could be called a trip. There’s always a visual dialogue between carnal desire and enlightened thinking.

Why does he think his movies have endured over the decades?

“Because they are true,” Jodorowsky says, with stark conviction. “They were not made by producers. They were made by people who love art. When they watch them, people always say, ‘These films are more modern than what’s currently out.’”

Still artistically active, Jodorowsky has a full schedule in Los Angeles. Apart from doing Q&As at his screenings, he will present an exhibit titled “Another World,” featuring paintings co-created with Montandon-Jodorowsky (under the joint moniker pascALEjandro) at Blum Gallery.

And to top it off, he will host a screening of his 2019 documentary “Psychomagic, a Healing Art,” accompanied by a masterclass on the therapeutic practice he devised using creativity as a vehicle to heal both emotional and bodily ailments. Jodorowsky’s book on the subject, “The Way of Imagination,” hits shelves later this year.

“It is a free healing that comes out of my love for humanity,“ Jodorowsky says of psychomagic. “A human being cannot achieve what he wants in this world or in others if he does not do acts of love.”

(…)

Never one to mince words, Jodorowsky declares that movies are in a period of decline, especially what’s coming out of Hollywood, a system he calls a “prison” and one he would never subject himself to.

“I’ve made 10 films, which for a film director is few,” he says. “Another may make 100 movies because he makes fairy tales. He can repeat himself. There is no huge mystery to discover in those films. Real art is not about totally entertaining the viewer but about changing their life.”

(…)

He cares little about materialistic notions of success. “Look at me, I am 95 years old and I’m here talking so much stupidity,” he says with an infectious smile. “I’m having fun. And if I can have fun, I succeeded. I’m not suffering. I’m happy to be creating in every possible way.”

At his age, Jodorowsky’s thoughts often turn to what’s next for him — not professionally but when he transitions from this plane of existence and ascends into something greater.

“I am condemned to spend less time on Earth,” he tells me matter-of-factly. “I have fewer years left than you. Because you have a black beard and I have a white beard. White indicates less time alive. I have to accept that, but I’m not in decline yet.”

Even when his mortal body no longer shares this space with us, he plans to refuse to disappear.

Psychomagic: The Healing Wisdom of Alejandro Jodorowsky

“Psychomagic” is an approach to self-change that teaches you how to use the power of your imagination, creativity, symbolism, and rituals to transform yourself.