The Dance of Reality: A Psychomagical Autobiography

by Alejandro Jodorowsky

  I was pulling my puppets out of my suitcase, one by one. Racz, his attention consumed by the beauty of his girlfriend, was barely looking at them. Luz, without seeming to notice this embarrassing situation, smiled as if waiting for a miracle. And a miracle occurred! One puppet to which I had given the supporting role of a drunken bum, wearing a patched coat, long hair, and abundant beard, revealed his true personality upon emerging in this environment full of religious paintings: he was Christ. And the most surprising thing of all was that his features were very similar to those of André Racz. The painter moved the puppet with the enthusiasm of a child, engaging in dialogue with it. Luz took the puppet’s hands and began to waltz with it. Racz followed her like a shadow all around the studio. I saw in his dog-like glances that he wanted my puppet to be his own so that he could give it to her. I immediately told him, “It’s a gift. Take it.” He answered me with great emotion. “Young man, you are a divine messenger. You did not arrive here by chance. Without knowing me, you made my portrait. I have just bought a plane ticket to go to Europe. I need to put an abysmal distance between Luz and myself. I’m old enough to be her grandfather. I’m chaining her to an old man. I know she will sleep with the puppet as she is remembering me. It will make the breakup easier. This is my studio; we have spent unforgettable moments together in it. I will give it to you. I do not want to abandon it to vulgar hands. Now go, I want to say goodbye alone to my Virgin.”

  I left the room as if emerging from a dream. It seemed impossible that someone would so suddenly give me a studio in which I could live as I pleased. But it was true. The next day Luz came to get me, accompanied me to the studio, and said rather sadly, “André gave me all his paintings but didn’t want to give me his new address.” She handed me the keys to the studio and left. I never saw her again.

  Thus, overnight I found myself the proprietor of a huge space at 340 Villavicencio Street, perhaps the site of an old factory, which, being at the end of a hundred-meter-long tunnel, was isolated from the neighbors. There I could freely make all the noise I wanted. I believed that the ultimate achievement of an artist was to become a creator of parties. If everyday life seemed like hell, if everything boiled down to two words, permanent impermanence, if the future that was promised us was the victory of the persecutors, if God had become a dollar bill, then I had to abide by the words of Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing better for man than to eat, drink, and make his soul merry.” My weekly “studio parties” became very well known. People from all walks of life attended. A phrase from Hesse’s Steppenwolf was written on the door: “Magic Theater. Price of Admission: Your Mind.” By the door a former mendicant, Patas de Humo (“Smokey Paws”), who normally slept in the tunnel and whom I had taken on as my assistant, gave out a quarter-liter glass full of vodka to each guest. For those who did not gulp it down, there was no getting in. Those who accepted this hefty drink, which would get them drunk immediately, were admitted by Smokey Paws with an affectionate kick in the rear, whether man or woman, young or old, laborer or legislator. Once inside there was no more drinking, just conversation and dancing, but no popular music, only classical. The biggest hit was Swan Lake. In that space, as full as a rush-hour bus, groups of people improvised, imitating the mechanical gestures of the Russian ballet with tremendous grace. The mingling of artists with university professors, boxers, salesmen, produced an explosive mixture. As the drink was limited to that initial quarter liter, there was no violence and the party became a paradisiacal game. Naturally now and then, almost without intending to, someone would climb up on a chair and become the center. These interventions were short, but their intensity made them unforgettable. A young law student once loudly declared that his father, a famous lawyer who lived secluded in his immense library, had never permitted his son to read a single one of his precious volumes, always keeping his library locked.

  “Well, before coming to this party, I saw my father asleep at his desk, face down on some papers. I entered into this sacred enclosure for the first time ever, with intense emotion I picked up one of his books, and then . . . look at this!” And the young man produced the spine of a book out of the backpack he wore. “All volumes were false: a collection of spines, nothing more, hiding cabinets filled with bottles of whiskey!” Then he started screaming, “Who are we? Where are we?” and let himself fall, arms outstretched, amidst his audience.

  Another time, an older man got a seductive young lady to get up on the chair with him. He said, with tears in his eyes, “I waited all my life. Finally I found her. I would cover her with caresses, but . . .” With his left hand he removed his right hand, which was artificial, and shook it: “I lost it as a child. I got so used to my false hand that I grew up without thinking about how it was missing. Until the day that Margarita offered her body to me. And I, only half-caressing her, wished that I had two, three, four, eight, infinite hands to slide over her skin for eternity.”

  Twenty men raised their hands and, standing in a compact group behind the man with the missing hand, became one with him. The woman let the two hundred and five fingers run over her body . . .

  Another man, of a neat appearance, with a deep voice and measured gestures, giving an unexpected shout, climbed onto the shoulders of a young man and asked for everyone’s attention. When he had it, he tore off his tie and cried out, “I’ve been married twenty years; I have a wife and my two children! I’m tired of lying! I’m gay! And the young man carrying me on his back is my lover!”

  Without knowing it, by considering the creation of parties as the supreme expression of art, in 1948 I was discovering the principles of the “ephemeral panic,” which artists would later call “happenings.”

  On one occasion a young man of my age, nineteen years, with an intelligent face, a tall and thin body, an African baritone voice, and the hands of an aristocrat, climbed onto the confessional chair and swaying like a metronome put an oval mirror in front of his face like a mask and began to recite a long poem. This was Enrique Lihn. Even at that young age the genius of poetry dwelt within him. His talent awakened great admiration in me. I obtained his address through some mutual friends and went to look for him at the house in the Providencia neighborhood where he lived with his parents, which in those days was considered a very long distance from the city center. The streets were lined with lush trees, and the houses were small, single story, with porches where fruit trees grew. Nervous, I moved the copper ring that served as a door knocker. The poet opened the door. Frowning, he growled, “Ah, the party planner! What do you want?”

  “I want to be your friend.”

  “Are you a homosexual?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you want to be my friend?”

  “Because I admire your poetry.”

  “I understand, it’s not me, my verses are what interests you. Come in.”

  His room was small, his bed narrow, his closet tiny. But it had been converted into a palace: Lihn had covered the walls and ceiling with poems written in small, angular letters; he had also covered the shutters and windowpanes, furniture, door, floorboards, and parchment lamp. In addition to this there were mountains of handwritten pages, verses covering the white spaces in the books, train tickets, movie tickets, paper napkins, all barely containing his poems. I felt immersed in a compact sea of letters. Wherever I rested my gaze, I saw the words of a tortured but beautiful song.

  With Enrique Lihn in our puppet theater, 1949. Photo: Ferrer.

  “What a shame, Enrique, all this wonderful work will be lost!”

  “It doesn’t matter: dreams are also lost, and we ourselves dissolve, little by little. Poetry is the shadow of an eagle flying toward the sun; it cannot leave traces on the ground. The prayer most pleasing to the gods is sacrifice. A poem reaches its perfection when it burns, like a phoenix . . .”

  On the verge of vertigo, I began to see the letters walking through the walls like an army of ants. I suggested to Lihn that we take a walk.

  The poet took two
of his father’s Maurice Chevalier–style hats and a couple of sticks, just in case robbers assaulted us, and thus armed and hatted, marching briskly, we descended on the Avenida Providencia. I cannot help thinking that the names chance offers contain a profound message. We came across a robust tree that grew in the middle of the sidewalk. Without discussing the idea, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, we climbed up the trunk and sat side by side on a thick branch. There we sat, chatting and discussing things until dawn. We began by finding out that we both agreed that the language we had been taught carried crazy ideas. Instead of thinking correctly, we thought distortedly. Concepts had to be given their true meaning. We spend a lot of time doing this. I remember a few examples:

  Instead of “never”: very few times. Instead of “always”: often. “Infinite”: of unknown extent. “Eternity”: with an unthinkable end. “To fail”: to change activities. “I was deceived”: I imagined wrongly. “I know”: I believe. “Beautiful, ugly”: I like, I do not like. “You are like this”: I perceive you to be like this. “Mine”: What I currently possess. “Dying”: changing form.

  Next, we reviewed definitions and concluded that it was absurd to define things with a positive assertion. Instead, the correct thing was to define by negating. “Happiness”: to be less distressed each day. “Generosity”: to be less selfish. “Courage”: to be less cowardly. “Strength”: to be less weak. And so on. We concluded that, because of this twisted language, all of society lived in a world plagued by grotesque situations. The word grotesque, beside its definition in the dictionary as meaning ludicrous, prodigious, or outlandish, was also taken to mean unconscious noncommunication. For example, the Pope believed himself to be in direct communication with a god who was actually blind, deaf, and dumb. A citizen, while being beaten by the police, believed that the state was protecting him. Two people remained married for twenty years without realizing that they were speaking to each other in different languages. The worst grotesque situations: believing one knows oneself, believing one knows everything about some topic, believing one has judged with absolute impartiality, believing one will love and be loved forever. In conversation, people think one thing and, in trying to communicate it, say something else. The interlocutor hears one thing, but understands something different. When answering, one does not respond to what the other person initially thought, nor to what the other person said, but to what one has understood. The final result: a conversation between deaf people who do not even know how to listen to themselves.

  I proposed the poetic act as a solution to this grotesque communication. A heated discussion followed, which ended with the dawning of the sun’s first rays. There were two forms of poetry: written poetry, which ought to be secret, a kind of intimate diary created solely for the benefit of the poet, which should only have a minimal number of readers; and the poetry of action, which should be performed as a social exorcism in front of numerous spectators. Discussing these subjects while sitting on the branch of a tree gave them paramount importance. From that day on Enrique and I frequently saw each other, and over the course of three or four years performed a large number of poetic acts that, unknown to me at the time, would form the basis of psychomagical therapy.

  In that city where many streets are at whimsical twisted angles, the first thing we proposed was to choose a destination point and get there by walking in a straight line, without deviating for any reason. This is not to say that we always succeeded. We sometimes found insurmountable or dangerous obstacles; one example is the time when we used the exit to a parking lot as our route. We paid no heed to the sign reading “Private area, entry prohibited.” We were advancing in a poetic ecstasy through the damp gloom when a pack of wild dogs came lunging toward us, barking ferociously. Throwing aside all dignity, we fled, certain that we would leave with our pants ripped off. I do not know what divine inspiration led Lihn to bark more ferociously than the dogs, while also galloping on all fours. Terror lent a prodigious volume to his voice. I quickly began to imitate him. In an instant, we switched from being pursued to being part of the pursuing group. The dogs, confused, made no attempt to bite us. We left the dark underground area shaking with nervous laughter, but with a sense of triumph. This adventure made us realize that by identifying with the difficulties we faced, we could make them into our allies. Rather than resisting or fleeing a problem, by entering it, making oneself part of it, one can use it as an element of liberation.

  Sometimes we were attacked because if there were a car in our path we would climb onto it and walk over its roof. One furious owner chased us, throwing stones. However, there were many times that we had the joy of achieving a straight line. At houses we would ring the bell, ask for permission, enter through the door, and leave by whichever way we wanted, even through a narrow window. The important thing was to follow the straight line with the precision of an arrow. Luckily for us, Chile was a poetic country in that era. Saying, “We’re young poets in action,” would bring a smile to the severest of faces. Many kind ladies would accompany us on the journey through their homes and show us out the back door. We were often offered a glass of wine. This crossing of the city in a straight line was a fundamental experience for us because it taught us to overcome obstacles by getting them to participate in the work of art. It was as if all of reality danced with us once we had decided on the act.

  Little by little, we were carrying out acts that involved more participants. One day we put a large quantity of coins in a perforated cookie tin and walked around the city center, letting them fall. It was extraordinary to see well-dressed people forgetting their dignity, bending down feverishly behind us—a whole street of people with their backs bent! We also decided to create our own imaginary city parallel to the real city. To accomplish this we conducted inaugurations by gathering at the foot of some statue or famous monument, covering it partly or entirely with sheets, and conducting an inaugural ceremony according to the dictates of our imagination. We would applaud when we pulled off the fabric and then give the statue a meaning that was different from its real history. For example, we applauded the naval hero Arturo Prat because, in his agony after jumping to board a ship and receiving a machete blow on the head dealt to him by an enemy cook, he had been struck by inspiration and invented the recipe for baked empanadas. On another national hero we bestowed the story that he had conquered the enemy army using love as a weapon by sending in an invading horde of expert prostitutes, which thanks to patriotic idealism included his sisters, mother, and two grandmothers. Thus, with these humorous nighttime inaugurations, fueled by abundant wine, we gave new significance to banks, churches, and government buildings. We changed the names of a large number of streets. Lihn decided to live on “Lovesick Street” at the corner of the “Avenue of the God Who Does Not Believe In Me.” When other friends joined in our poetic acts we presented a great exhibition of dogs, replacing any given object with them. For example, a poet walked in dragging a suitcase while claiming, in order to validate his “animal,” that it had no legs and so could not get thorns in its paws, which meant fewer vet bills. The parade included the dog-lamp (you can read all night by it without it urinating on you), the dog-long underwear (better than a greyhound), the dog-wastebasket (collects waste instead of producing it), the dog-rifle (a very good guard dog), the dog-banknote (very nice and makes you lots of friends), and so forth. Another time we decided that money could be transformed. Instead of coins, we would use boiled shrimp. When we put these red creatures into the hands of the conductor selling bus tickets, he did not know how to react and let us board without a problem. We paid the cover charge to get into a dance hall with a seashell. Many times we went to the Museum of Fine Arts, stood before the pictures, and imitated the voices of the subjects portrayed, attributing all manner of absurd speeches to them. We attained such perfection in this activity that we were finally able to perform it with abstract paintings as well. Sometimes Lihn and I set ourselves goals that were strange due to their simplicity
: when we were fed up with university life, we took the train to Valparaiso and determined not to return until an old lady invited us for a cup of tea. In search of our hostess, whom we likened to the magicians in fairy tales, we walked around the jumbled streets of the port district. Feigning extreme fatigue, we recited poems while walking and bumping into each other. Soon a lady offered us a glass of water. We convinced her that it would be better to give us some tea. Having achieved our goal, we triumphantly returned to the capital.

  On another occasion I went to a French restaurant accompanied by four very well-dressed poets. We all ordered steaks with pepper. When the steaks arrived, we rubbed them all over our clothes, soaking ourselves in sauce. Once this was accomplished, we ordered the same thing again, and repeated the act. And so on, six times over, until everyone in the restaurant was trembling, seized by a kind of panic. Then each of us, pulling a rope from his pocket, made a six-steak necklace. We paid and left quietly, as if what we had done was the most natural thing in the world. One year later, when we returned to the same establishment, the headwaiter told us, “If you’re planning to do what you did the other day, we can’t let you in.” The event had made such an impression on him that, despite its having been quite long ago, it seemed to him as if he had seen us last week. Another time we decided to announce the arrival of a Sufi sage, whom we named Assis Namur. We distributed leaflets that read, “Tomorrow at 5:00 p.m., at the feet of the Virgin of San Cristobal Hill, the holy Assis Namur-the-poor, after a supreme effort, will achieve indifference.” We took the cable car up the hill and sat at the feet of the enormous statue of the Virgin. Lihn, wrapped in a sheet and in a meditative pose, used an eyebrow pencil to write a bold “No!” on his forehead. We waited for hours. No one showed up. However, the next day there was a brief article in the evening paper, the Diario de la Tarde, reporting that the famous sheik Assis Namur had visited Santiago de Chile.