Enter the mind of Jodo and follow his initiatory saga from Zen disciple to revolutionary filmmaker to spiritual teacher • Explores the sacred trickery of shamans he encountered, including Carlos Castaneda, and how intention and action matter more than notions of “true” and “false” • Explains the Way of Kindness and how small acts of generosity and goodness can have a profound effect on your spirit, infusing life with a wealth of happiness • Includes contributions from friends and students of Jodorowsky on their experiences with him, including his son Adan Jodorowsky Known for his surrealist films, his unique approach to tarot, his symbolic comics, and his shamanic therapeutic method of psychomagic, Alejandro Jodorowsky has accomplished an extraordinary amount in his more than 80 years. In this book, we get an intimate look into the inner workings of the cult figure of Jodo. What is revealed is a man who has evolved since his groundbreaking films of the 1970s, El Topo and The Holy Mountain, a man who has grown from a sacred trickster, a shaman of psychomagic, into a brilliant spiritual maverick of the 21st century. We get to see Jodo’s own reflections on the rich tapestry of his remarkable life, including the initiatory failure of the Dune film project, which combined the talents of a multitude of creative greats, including Moebius, Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, and H. R. Giger. We learn about Jodo’s years with Marcel Marceau and with great masters such as Ejo Takata, whose Zen training featured strenuous physical and mental ordeals; the sorceress Pachita, who performed psychic surgery on Jodo; and the mysterious Carlos Castaneda, whose sacred trickery reveals how intentions matter more than notions of “true” and “false.” Discussing the Way of Kindness that he now follows, Jodo reveals how intentionally practicing small acts of generosity and goodness can have a profound effect on your spirit, infusing life with a wealth of happiness. From sacred trickery to the path of kindness, Jodo’s radical wisdom discerns the timeless within the immediate and gauges the everyday by the measure of eternity.

• Explains the theoretical basis behind psychomagic, Jodorowsky’s shamanic healing technique • Details the author’s technique of “psychotrance” to access his subconscious mind to discover the most suitable psychomagic remedy • Shares passionate correspondence between Jodorowsky and patients and admirers who have successfully used psychomagic methods for personal healing Through films, books, comics, and art spanning seven decades, legendary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky has offered his singular surrealistic perspective on the fundamentally dreamlike nature of reality. This perspective also underlies his healing technique known as psychomagic, which uses the symbolism of the unconscious to understand and mend reality as if it were a dream. In The Way of Imagination, the master offers a detailed exploration of the mechanisms by which psychomagic works to heal our most pressing emotional and spiritual wounds. He examines the development of this magical form of shamanic healing and its roots in the work of René Daumal, Éliphas Levi, filmmaker Luis Buñuel, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, Mexican curanderas, and others. He describes the four maladies of the soul, the initial stages of psychomagic’s development into a practice, and how he crafted the first psychomagic prescriptions to speak directly to the subconscious through the language of dreams. Above all, Jodorowsky explains, psychomagic is a therapy of action, rather than one of words. Sharing passionate correspondence between himself and patients and admirers, the author demonstrates how people have successfully used psychomagic to make profound changes in their lives. He shares detailed accounts of how he uses Tarot readings to determine a diagnosis as well as how he uses a trance state—what he calls “psychotrance”—to access his subconscious mind to discover the most suitable psychomagic remedy. Presenting a complete immersion in the techniques of psychotrance and psychomagic, this guide allows you to work with the dreamlike nature of reality and move forward on the path to healing.

The complete series of filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s spiritual comics, translated into English for the first time • Contains all 284 of Jodo’s Panic Fables comics, published weekly from 1967 to 1973 in Mexico City’s El Heraldo newspaper • Includes an introduction describing how the Panic Fables came to be • Explains how he incorporated Zen teachings, initiatory wisdom, and sacred symbology into his Panic Fables, as well as himself as one of the characters In 1967, in response to theatrical censorship rules that put him on the political “black list” in Mexico City and caused his plays and his pantomime classes at the School of Fine Arts to be cancelled, Alejandro Jodorowsky decided to pursue a new form of artistic expression to earn his living: comics. Working with his friend Luis Spota, the editor of the cultural section of the newspaper El Heraldo de México, Jodo initially planned 3 months’ worth of weekly comics, which he would draw himself. However, his “Panic Fables”--named after his early ‘60s avant-garde theater movement in Paris--were met with such insatiable popularity that he continued the series for six and a half years, from June 1967 until December 1973. Appearing for the first time in English, this book presents all 284 of Jodorowsky’s Panic Fables in full color, along with an introduction by the author. He reveals how his first comics reflected his pessimism about the future and the meaning of life, the negativity of which soon exhausted him. He realized he needed to show the positivity that he encountered in life, and thus, little by little, he began incorporating Zen teachings, initiatory wisdom, and sacred symbology into his Panic Fables. Through this transformation and the outpouring of support from his devoted readers, many of whom cite the Panic Fables as providing pivotal guidance during their adolescence, Jodo discovered that art can serve to heal as well as raise consciousness. Writing himself into his comics, Jodo can be glimpsed as the character of the disciple who talks with his master and, as the series progresses, gradually grows to assume the role of master, providing psychomagic solutions to the problems of everyday life. In reading the complete Panic Fables in chronological order, much like his film The Dance of Reality, we witness in colorful detail Jodorowsky’s own path of spiritual growth.

A glimpse into the mind and life of one of the most creative and enigmatic visionaries of our time, filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky • Retraces the spiritual and mystical path Jodorowsky has followed since childhood, vividly repainting events from the perspective of an unleashed imagination • Explores the development of the author’s psychomagic and metagenealogy practices via his realization that all problems are rooted in the family tree • Includes photos from Jodorowsky’s appearance at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and from the film based on this book, which debuted at Cannes Retracing the spiritual and mystical path he has followed since childhood, Alejandro Jodorowsky re-creates the incredible adventure of his life as an artist, filmmaker, writer, and therapist--all stages on his quest to push back the boundaries of both imagination and reason. Not a traditional autobiography composed of a chronological recounting of memories, The Dance of Reality repaints events from Jodorowsky’s life from the perspective of an unleashed imagination. Like the psychomagic and metagenealogy therapies he created, this autobiography exposes the mythic models and family templates upon which the events of everyday life are founded. It reveals the development of Jodorowsky’s realization that all problems are rooted in the family tree and explains, through vivid examples from his own life, particularly interactions with his father and mother, how the individual’s road to true fulfillment means casting off the phantoms projected by parents on their children. The Dance of Reality is autobiography as an act of healing. Through the retelling of his own life, the author shows we do not start off with our own personalities, they are given to us by one or more members of our family tree. To be born into a family, Jodorowsky says, is to be possessed. To peer back into our past is equivalent to digging into our own souls. If we can dig deep enough, beyond familial projections, we shall find an inner light--a light that can help us through life’s most difficult tests. Offering a glimpse into the mind and life of one of the most creative and enigmatic visionaries of our time, The Dance of Reality is the book upon which Jodorowsky’s critically acclaimed 2013 Cannes Film Festival film of the same name was based.

A workbook for using symbolic acts to heal the unconscious mind • Provides several hundred successful psychomagic solutions for a wide range of specific psychological, sexual, emotional, and physical problems, from stuttering, eczema, and fears to repressed rage and hereditary illnesses • Details how practitioners can develop unique psychomagic solutions for their patients • Explains how psychomagic bypasses the rational mind to work directly with the unconscious for quicker and more enduring change Traditional psychotherapy seeks to unburden the unconscious mind purely through talk and discussion. Psychomagic recognizes that it is difficult to reach the unconscious with rational thought. We should instead speak directly to the unconscious in its own language, that of dreams, poetry, and symbolic acts. By interacting on this deeper level, we can initiate quicker and more enduring change to resolve repressed childhood trauma, express buried emotions, and overcome deep-seated intimacy issues. Through the lens of psychomagic, illness can be seen as the physical dream of the unconscious, revealing unresolved issues, some passed from generation to generation. In this workbook of psychomagical spells, legendary filmmaker and creator of psychomagic Alejandro Jodorowsky provides several hundred successful psychomagic solutions for a wide range of psychological, sexual, emotional, and physical problems from stuttering, eczema, and fear of failure to repressed rage, hereditary illnesses, and domineering parents. Each solution takes the same elements associated with a negative emotional charge and recasts them into a series of theatrical symbolic actions that enable one to pay the psychological debts hindering their lives. Explaining the shamanic techniques at the foundation of psychomagic, the author offers methods for aspiring practitioners to develop solutions for their own unique patients. Jodorowsky explains how the surreal acts of psychomagic are intended to break apart the dysfunctional persona with whom the patient identifies in order to connect with a deeper, more authentic self. As he says in the book, “Health only finds itself in the authentic. There is no beauty without authenticity.”

Jodo’s interpretations of the stories and koans of Zen master Ejo Takata • Offers more than 60 Zen teaching tales, initiatory stories, koans, and haikus for self-realization and spiritual awakening • Each story or koan is accompanied by the author’s lucid and penetrating commentary, blending the same burlesque slapstick and sublime insight that characterize his films • Explains how one must see beyond the words of the story to grasp the spiritual insights they contain Before he became the film maker and graphic novel author known throughout the world today, Alejandro Jodorowsky studied with Zen master Ejo Takata in Mexico City. In The Finger and the Moon, Jodorowsky recounts how he became Takata’s student and offers his interpretations of the teaching tales, initiatory stories, koans, and enigmatic haikus he learned at the feet of his great and humble teacher. Blending the same burlesque slapstick and sublime insight that characterize his films such as El Topo and The Holy Mountain, each story is accompanied by the author’s lucid and penetrating commentary, as well as insights from ancient Zen teachers. Yet their most significant gift to the reader is the sudden shock of realization they impart that can lead to spiritual awakening. Jodorowsky notes that most people are incapable of self-realization because of their fear of the void within, an emptiness they seek to fill with noise and chatter. He shows that Zen teachings can be compared to a finger pointing at the moon, directing you to awaken to your true nature--the Buddha within. The danger lies in mistaking the pointing finger for the moon, mistaking the words for the essential enlightenment, which can only be grasped once words have been surpassed. Unlike most tales, these stories are intended to evoke silent illumination--as true awakening and self-realization cannot occur until the mind has been stilled.

Women have shared breast milk for eons, but in White Gold, Susan Falls shows how the meanings of capitalism, technology, motherhood, and risk can be understood against the backdrop of an emerging practice in which donors and recipients of breast milk are connected through social media in the southern United States. Drawing on her own experience as a participant, Falls describes the sharing community. She also presents narratives from donors, doulas, medical professionals, and recipients to provide a holistic ethnographic account. Situating her subject within cross-cultural comparisons of historically shifting attitudes about breast milk, Falls shows how sharing “white gold”—seen as a scarce, valuable, even mysterious substance—is a mode of enacting parenthood, gender, and political values. Though breast milk is increasingly being commodified, Falls argues that sharing is a powerful and empowering practice. Far from uniform, participants may be like-minded about parenting but not other issues, so their acquaintanceships add new textures to the body politic. In this interdisciplinary account, White Gold shows how sharing simultaneously reproduces the capitalist values that it disrupts while encouraging community-making between strangers.