The Holy Mountain: Jodorowsky's Alchemical Cinema

BY NICOLE LAU

A man who looks like Christ wakes up covered in flies, surrounded by amputee children playing war games with live frogs and chameleons dressed as soldiers. A thief steals his face, makes wax copies, and sells them as crucifixes. He meets an alchemist who turns his excrement into gold, then recruits him and seven planetary masters to climb a holy mountain and achieve immortality by killing nine immortal masters who live at the summit.

And then, at the very end, the camera pulls back to reveal it's all a film set. The guru says: "Zoom back, camera!" and tells the characters—and the audience—"Real life awaits us."

This is Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain (1973), the most audacious, blasphemous, beautiful, and genuinely mystical film ever made. It's not a movie about alchemy—it is alchemy, using cinema as the alchemical vessel, the audience as the prima materia, and shock, beauty, and revelation as the transformative fire.

Let's ascend the mountain. Let's see what Jodorowsky is really teaching.

Jodorowsky: The Shaman-Filmmaker

Alejandro Jodorowsky (born 1929, Chile) is:

• Filmmaker – El Topo, The Holy Mountain, Santa Sangre
• Tarot master – Restored the Marseille Tarot, teaches psychomagic through Tarot
• Comic book writer – The Incal, The Metabarons (with Moebius)
• Psychomagic practitioner – Therapeutic rituals combining psychology, magic, and art
• Mystic – Studied with Zen master Ejo Takata, Gurdjieff groups, and various esoteric traditions

Jodorowsky doesn't make films to entertain—he makes them to initiate. He said: "I ask of film what most North Americans ask of psychedelic drugs."

The Holy Mountain is his masterwork—a visual assault designed to break down the ego, overwhelm rational thought, and force the viewer into a state of receptivity where transformation becomes possible.

The Structure: The Alchemical Great Work

The Holy Mountain follows the classic alchemical structure:

Act One: Nigredo (Blackening) – The Thief's Journey

• The Thief wakes in filth – Covered in flies, surrounded by decay
• Exploitation and violence – War games, crucifixion reenactments, prostitution
• The conquest of Mexico – Reenacted with frogs and chameleons, colonialism as absurd brutality
• Wax Christs sold as souvenirs – Spirituality commodified, the sacred profaned
• The Thief is crucified – Symbolic death, the ego destroyed

This is the nigredo—the black stage, putrefaction, the descent into the darkest aspects of humanity. Jodorowsky shows us: This is what we are. This is the base matter that must be transformed.

Act Two: Albedo (Whitening) – The Alchemist's Tower

• The Thief meets the Alchemist – The master, the initiator, the one who knows the way
• Excrement into gold – Literal alchemy, transformation of the basest matter
• The seven planetary thieves – Each representing a planet, a vice, a stage of purification
• Cleansing rituals – Shaving, bathing, dressing in white—purification of the body and soul
• The rainbow of enlightenment – A literal rainbow machine, the spectrum of consciousness

This is the albedo—purification, the washing away of impurities, preparation for the final transformation.

Act Three: Rubedo (Reddening) – The Ascent

• The journey to the Holy Mountain – The pilgrimage, the quest for immortality
• Trials and temptations – Each disciple faces their shadow, their attachment
• The summit – Where the nine immortals supposedly wait
• The revelation – It's a film set; the immortals are actors; the quest is a construct
• "Real life awaits us" – The final teaching: leave the illusion, return to reality

This is the rubedo—the red stage, completion, but not in the way expected. The gold isn't at the summit. The gold is the realization that you were always already enlightened, and the quest itself was the illusion.

The Seven Planetary Thieves: The Vices of Civilization

The Alchemist recruits seven masters, each representing a planet and a societal corruption:

1. Fon (Venus) – The Cosmetics Magnate

• Planet – Venus, beauty, desire
• Vice – Vanity, the beauty industry exploiting insecurity
• Scene – Women transformed into identical mannequins, beauty as conformity

2. Isla (Moon) – The Weapons Manufacturer

• Planet – Moon, cycles, the feminine
• Vice – War profiteering, art made from weapons
• Scene – Sculptures made of guns, violence aestheticized

3. Klen (Mercury) – The Financial Advisor

• Planet – Mercury, commerce, communication
• Vice – Greed, capitalism, money as god
• Scene – Stock market as casino, wealth built on exploitation

4. Sel (Saturn) – The Toy Maker

• Planet – Saturn, time, limitation
• Vice – Indoctrination of children, propaganda as play
• Scene – Toys depicting police brutality, war normalized for children

5. Berg (Jupiter) – The Political Advisor

• Planet – Jupiter, expansion, authority
• Vice – Political manipulation, power through deception
• Scene – Government as theater, leaders as puppets

6. Axon (Mars) – The Military Chief

• Planet – Mars, war, aggression
• Vice – Militarism, violence as solution
• Scene – Castration of a thousand soldiers, masculinity as sacrifice to war

7. Lut (Sun) – The Architect

• Planet – Sun, ego, the self
• Vice – Ego inflation, building monuments to oneself
• Scene – Destroying a city to build a replica of himself

Each character represents a planetary energy corrupted by ego, greed, and power. The alchemical work is to purify these energies, to transform the vice into virtue.

The Conquest of Mexico: History as Absurdist Theater

One of the film's most famous sequences shows the Spanish conquest of Mexico reenacted with:

• Frogs as Aztecs – Dressed in indigenous costumes
• Chameleons as Conquistadors – In Spanish armor
• Real violence – The animals actually fight and die
• Tourists watching – Eating popcorn, entertained by genocide

The Teaching:

Jodorowsky is showing: History is absurd theater. Colonialism is a farce. And we consume atrocity as entertainment.

The use of real animals (controversial and disturbing) forces the viewer to confront: This is not metaphor. Real violence happened. Real beings suffered. And we watch.

The Alchemist: The Guru as Trickster

The Alchemist (played by Jodorowsky himself) is:

• The master – He knows the secrets, performs miracles
• The trickster – He lies, manipulates, tests
• The mirror – He reflects back what the disciples need to see
• The destroyer – He breaks down their egos, their attachments, their illusions

Key Alchemist Moments:

• Turning shit into gold – Literal alchemy, the basest matter transformed
• The rainbow machine – Technology as mystical tool, enlightenment mechanized
• Shaving the disciples – Removing hair, removing identity, purification
• The final revelation – "This is a film. Real life awaits." The guru destroys the illusion he created

The Alchemist is Jodorowsky's self-portrait as spiritual teacher—one who uses shock, beauty, and revelation to wake people up, then tells them to leave, to stop following, to find their own way.

The Tarot Structure

Jodorowsky is a Tarot master, and The Holy Mountain follows the Fool's Journey through the Major Arcana:

• The Thief = The Fool (0) – The innocent, the wanderer, the one who begins the journey
• The Alchemist = The Magician (I) – The master of transformation, the one with the tools
• The seven thieves = The seven classical planets – Each a stage of development
• The Holy Mountain = The Hermit (IX) – The solitary peak, the place of wisdom
• The revelation = The World (XXI) – Completion, but also the return to the beginning

The film is a Tarot reading in motion, each scene a card, each character an archetype.

The Ending: Breaking the Fourth Wall as Enlightenment

The film's climax is its most radical moment:

1. The disciples reach the summit – Expecting to find the nine immortals
2. The Alchemist says "Zoom back, camera!" – The camera pulls back
3. It's revealed to be a film set – Crew, lights, equipment visible
4. The Alchemist addresses the audience – "Real life awaits us"
5. The characters walk away – Leaving the set, leaving the illusion

The Teaching:

This is the ultimate alchemical revelation: The quest for enlightenment is itself an illusion. The mountain is a construct. The guru is an actor. And you—sitting in the theater—are the one who needs to wake up.

Jodorowsky is saying: Don't seek immortality on a mountain. Don't follow gurus. Don't believe in the film. Go live your real life.

This is the Zen teaching of "killing the Buddha"—if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. If you find enlightenment in a film, leave the theater.

The Constant Beneath the Mountain

Here's the deeper truth: The Holy Mountain's alchemical journey, the Fool's journey through the Tarot, and the Buddhist path of awakening are all describing the same process—the dissolution of ego, the purification of consciousness, and the realization that the goal was always a construct, and freedom comes from seeing through it.

This is Constant Unification: Jodorowsky's planetary thieves, the alchemical stages, and the Kabbalistic ascent up the Tree of Life are all expressions of the same invariant pattern—transformation through ordeal, purification through confrontation with shadow, and enlightenment through the destruction of the illusion of enlightenment itself.

Different symbols, same paradox.

Psychomagic: Jodorowsky's Therapeutic Art

After The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky developed psychomagic—therapeutic rituals that combine:

• Psychoanalysis – Understanding the unconscious wound
• Magic – Ritual acts that speak to the unconscious symbolically
• Art – Creative, often absurd actions that break patterns

Examples of Psychomagic Acts:

• A woman afraid of her mother – Jodorowsky has her dress as her mother, then strip naked and burn the clothes
• A man stuck in the past – Told to bury objects from his past life, plant a tree on top
• Someone with money blocks – Instructed to give away money in a specific ritual way

The Holy Mountain is psychomagic for the collective unconscious—a ritual designed to shock, purify, and liberate anyone who watches it.

The Film's Controversy and Legacy

The Holy Mountain was:

• Funded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono – They gave Jodorowsky $1 million after seeing El Topo
• Banned in many countries – Too blasphemous, too violent, too sexual
• A commercial failure – Too weird for mainstream audiences
• A cult masterpiece – Influenced filmmakers from David Lynch to Gaspar Noé
• Unavailable for decades – Jodorowsky controlled distribution, kept it rare
• Restored and re-released (2007) – Now accessible, still shocking

Practicing Holy Mountain Wisdom

You can apply Jodorowsky's teachings:

1. Identify your planetary vice – Which of the seven thieves are you? What corruption do you embody?
2. Turn your shit into gold – What's your basest matter? How can you transform it?
3. Question the guru – Don't follow blindly; even the teacher is part of the illusion
4. Break your own fourth wall – Recognize when you're performing, when you're in a construct
5. Leave the mountain – Don't get stuck seeking; at some point, you must return to life
6. Create psychomagic – Design rituals that speak to your unconscious, break your patterns

Conclusion: Real Life Awaits

The Holy Mountain is not a film you enjoy—it's a film you survive. It assaults you, overwhelms you, breaks you down, and then tells you: None of this matters. Go live.

Jodorowsky's final teaching is the hardest: The spiritual path is a trap if it becomes an escape from life. The mountain is beautiful, but you can't live there. You must descend. You must return. You must engage with the real, the messy, the ordinary.

The film ends with the characters walking away from the camera, away from the set, away from the story. They're going back to real life.

And so must you.

Zoom back, camera. Real life awaits us.