Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky: The Creator of El Topo, Trans. by Joseph Rowe (Inner Traditions/Bear & Company, 2008)"Jodorowsky’s memoirs of his experiences with Master Takata and the group of wisewomen—magiciennes - who influenced his spiritual growth
• Reveals Jodorowsky turning the same unsparing spiritual vision seen in El Topo to his own spiritual quest
• Shows how the author’s spiritual insight and progress was catalyzed repeatedly by wisewoman shamans and healers
In 1970, John Lennon introduced to the world Alejandro Jodorowsky and the movie, El Topo, that he wrote, starred in, and directed. The movie and its author instantly became a counterculture icon. The New York Times said the film “demands to be seen,” and Newsweek called it “An Extraordinary Movie!” But that was only the beginning of the story and the controversy of El Topo, and the journey of its brilliant creator. His spiritual quest began with the Japanese master Ejo Takata, the man who introduced him to the practice of meditation, Zen Buddhism, and the wisdom of the koans. Yet in this autobiographical account of his spiritual journey, Jodorowsky reveals that it was a small group of wisewomen, far removed from the world of Buddhism, who initiated him and taught him how to put the wisdom he had learned from his master into practice.
At the direction of Takata, Jodorowsky became a student of the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, thus beginning a journey in which vital spiritual lessons were transmitted to him by various women who were masters of their particular crafts. These women included Doña Magdalena, who taught him “initiatic” or spiritual massage; the powerful Mexican actress known as La Tigresa (the “tigress”); and Reyna D’Assia, daughter of the famed spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff. Other important wisewomen on Jodorowsky’s spiritual path include María Sabina, the priestess of the sacred mushrooms; the healer Pachita; and the Chilean singer Violeta Parra. The teachings of these women enabled him to discard the emotional armor that was hindering his advancement on the path of spiritual awareness and enlightenment."
"So it was with great excitement that I read the recent translation of Jodorowsky’s spiritual autobiography, entitled - hold onto your hats - The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Like his films, it is a puzzling, wonderous, grotesque, and sometimes tedious book, but it does confirm the sense I get from his films that he is not fucking around with the mysteries. In the Sixties and Seventies, Jodorowsky was a serious practitioner of Zen, studying and meditating with a Japanese priest in Mexico City named Ejo Takata. Their koan combat is the most steady thread of this book, a male-buddy-cognitive conversation that forms a counterpoint with the other figures in the book, all of whom are women who offer Jodo various modes of initiation - artistic, sexual, magical, energetic. These women include the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, who sounds as wacky brilliant as Dali, and a goat-killing silicone-implanted Mexican actress known as La Tigress.
The strongest aspect of the book are the tales themselves. Jodo is a great story-teller, and the details he provides about his fascinating life - a Chilean expat in Mexico, a renegade theatre director turned filmmaker, a celebrity in Mexico City’s hothouse creative environment - make me pray that someone chooses to translate his autobiography La Danza de la Realidad as well. His stories are rounded out with remarkable and sometimes hilariously bizarre details about random encounters with street urchins and strange synchronicities involving firing squads and singing vulvas. Late in the book, he visits a brujo, and the setting tells you all you need to know: ‘A black dog gnawed the remains of an iguana and a pig was snuggling its belly comfortably into a freshly dug hollow in a humid patch of ground.’" - Erik Davis
"Can a book have “Buddha nature”? Since The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky: The Creator of El Topo is about the spiritual journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky, the director of the cult movies El Topo, The Rainbow Thief, and The Holy Mountain, and since part of his spiritual journey involved his experiences with the Zen Buddhist monk Ejo Takata, the question of whether or not a book can have Buddha nature is not perhaps an irrelevant one. Asking it is paraphrasing one of the koans (questions designed to provoke deep inner introspection and ultimately a state of enlightenment) which Zen masters often ask their students. The one it paraphrases is: “Does a dog have Buddha nature?” The answer I would give is: “It is what it is.” Which, if correct or not, might be all that would be required and the rest of this review would be a blank space. Words are just words, after all, not the essence of what they represent.
But I will take the possibly perverse view that since words are, for better or worse, what we generally use to communicate thoughts and ideas with, I will use words and give a somewhat more in-depth idea here about what Jodorowsky’s book is like.
It is a memoir of his experiences with Master Ejo Takata and the group of wise women magicians who influenced his spiritual growth. As such, it is a true and accurate portrayal - at least, relatively speaking, as everything is more or less relative. The author experiences the events in the book and relates his interpretations of them, so the things he sees and reports are “true”. To someone else experiencing the same things, his/her interpretations and conclusions would likely be different, though also “true”. In this way, and also in that some of what Alejandro experiences during his spiritual journey - though revelatory - are alcohol and/or drug influenced, this book reminds me a lot of the books of Carlos Casteneda.
Each of us follows a spiritual path of some sort, and makes choices concerning our beliefs - or, making the choice of not believing in any other explanation of reality than that which science provides. So, whether or not you have gone through or felt the sorts of things Jodorowsky has, involving illuminating revelations and insights due to the profound wisdom of the Zen monk Takata and the seemingly magical powers of the influential women he encountered, the memoir is still a fascinating read.
One of the women who influences his spiritual journey is Leonora Carrington, a poetess/artist he’s directed to by Takata while living in Mexico City. The woman is intelligent and witty, had been the mistress of the painter Max Ernst, and has also undergone “a crisis of madness.” But, just as indigenous peoples worldwide have often respected and believed in the visions of shamans, many of Leonora’s friends and acquaintances find a profundity in her poems, art and life. In a letter to Jodorowsky, she writes:
'I have discovered the marvelous qualities of my shadow. Lately it has been detaching itself from me by virtue of its powers of flight. Sometimes it leaves wet footprints. But I confess: I constantly sleep wrapped in it, and the moments when I am able to awaken are rare.'
This book might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for anyone who enjoys reading memoirs about truly interesting and influential people, this is definitely a book to check out. Jodorowsky’s surrealist films have stood the test of time, like all good art does, and among his other interests, he is a playwright, composer, mime, and a psychotherapist. If you like books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the Carlos Casteneda books, and Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, or any other books about a person’s search for enlightenment and the meaning of life, then likewise, this book is sure to appeal to you." - Douglas R. Cobb
"One of several autobiographical volumes written by the Chilean-born, Paris-based writer/filmmaker/spiritual guru Alejandro Jodorowsky, and presently the only one to be translated into English. THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY OF ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY focuses on Jodorowksy’s initiation into Zen Buddhism, and you can be sure the contents, incorporating hallucinations, surrealism and perverse sexuality, are very Jodorowskyian. In other words, this is a wild, kaleidoscopic memoir that’s far from the dry and conservative account you might expect from anybody else. It’s a valuable resource for adherents of Eastern spirituality, but is also indispensable for Jodorowsky fanatics like myself.
There’s scant detail here on Jodorowsky’s films or graphic novels, much less his childhood and adolescence. It begins with Jodorowsky meeting the Japanese master Ejo Taketa in late sixties Mexico and becoming his disciple. The relationship lasts for years, with Taketa teaching Jodorowsky the importance of Koans - for the uninitiated, Koans are enigmatic questions posed by Zen masters for their disciples to meditate on (sample: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”).
But that only covers a portion of the book, which also contains a chapter on Jodorowsky’s encounters with the surrealist painter/writer Leonora Carrington, who speaks in (seemingly) nonsensical riddles. Another covers his brief dalliance with a Mexican actress known as The Tigress, who initially befriends but then inevitably turns on him. Most memorable is a recollection of his sexual courtship with Reyna D’Assia (the daughter of the famous spiritualist Gurdjeff), who’s mastered the art of bringing men to orgasm by contracting her vaginal muscles, and who claims Jodorowsky’s problems stem from “the pain of having a mother with a mute vagina.”
Other highlights include an arrogant American motorcycle rider who gets his ass kicked by Taketa for disrespecting the power of Koans, a recollection of how Ms. Carrington pissed off the late Luis Bunuel by decorating the white walls of his bungalow with menstrual blood handprints, and a sustained meditation session that becomes a torturous hallucinatory journey.
The concluding chapter consists of various anecdotes that illustrate how Jodorowsky has used the teachings of his Zen masters in his day-to-day life. They include brief accounts on the making of EL TOPO, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, SANTA SANGRE and a never-filmed adaptation of DUNE, as well as a summary of Jodorowsky’s decades-long conflict with producer Allen Klein, who withheld Jodorowsky’s early films from circulation until the two finally reconciled in 2004. The final page, appropriately enough, is an advertisement for Jodorowsky’s films on DVD.
What’s never in doubt here is Jodorowsky’s intense commitment to his spirituality. It’s an integral component of all his films and graphic novels, and this entertaining book proves that this spiritual content, in opposition to those critics who claim otherwise, is pure and genuine." - www.fright.com
