By Alejandro Jodorowsky
Filmmaker and author Alejandro Jodorowsky has been prolific lately. His most recent film, Poesía Sin Fin (Endless Poetry), will debut at Cannes, for which he conducted very successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns, becoming a bit of a YouTube sensation. He has somehow found time to also write a fascinating and wideranging book about his career, art, life, and the development of his spiritual path. Sacred Trickery and the Way of Kindness, with Gilles Farcet, is an eye-opening accomplishment on its own.
Known for his ’70s surrealist films, his unique approach to tarot, his symbolic comics, and his therapeutic method called psychomagic, Jodorowsky has accomplished an extraordinary amount in his more than 80 years. In this book, the spiritual thoughts of the constantly evolving cult figure “Jodo” are unveiled on a long journey spanning from the ’60s and ’70s, when he made the groundbreaking films El Topo and Holy Mountain, to his current incarnation as spiritual trailblazer. Of special interest to film buffs will be Jodo’s recollections on the initial failure of the Dune movie project, which brought together cultural creatives of the day like Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, and Mick Jagger.
The thrust of the book comes from Jodorowsky’s time studying with Buddhist master Ejo Takata, whose Zen training featured strenuous physical and mental ordeals. There’s a captivating story of a chance meeting in Mexico between Jodorowsky and the elusive Carlos Castaneda, whose well-known sacred trickery heavily influenced Jodo and his spiritual path.
Discussing the Way of Kindness that he now follows, Jodorowsky 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. Jodo’s radical wisdom discerns the timeless within the immediate and gauges the everyday by the measure of eternity.
—SARAH CIRILLO