Alejandro Jodorowsky: Soccer, on the one hand, channels the gregarious
nationalist instinct, serving as catharsis to the primitive war
impulses. This satisfies the competitive instinct of men with a
scarcely developed consciousness. However one must ask oneself about
the cause of this immense attraction towards soccer, greater than
other sports activities’. I believe I can explain: the human being,
while attracted to spelean impulses, is also the object of a
fascination for that which is sacred. And soccer gathers both of these
aspects. It was created by an English esoteric society, applying
principles of high magic in its scheme. It is played on a green
rectangle, green being the color that symbolizes eternity. The double
square is an initiatory sign where the divine or auric section is
recorded, so used by painters such as Leonardo Da Vinci. The cards of
the Tarot of Marseille are rectangles. Sacred languages, such as
Hebrew or Sanskrit have 22 principal letters. The players in a soccer
match are 22, as many as the 22 major Arcana of the Tarot or the 22
regular polygons. In the middle of the field there is a circle with a
dot in its center: the symbol of gold, in alchemy, or of the sun or of
the esoteric God. In the green field, at the corners, four areas
identified by a quarter circle are defined. They correspond to the
four symbols of the minor Arcana of the Tarot: swords, cups, staffs
and coins. In front of each goal, which is a vertical half-square, two
horizontal half-squares are extended. If you add the two goals you get
three squares, a small one, a medium sized one, and a large one: they
are the three square fences, body, soul and spirit, symbols of the
temple, that go from the exoteric square, to the inner esoteric
square, where the ball, which is to say the Christ, comes to nest. Is
the ball a symbol of the Lord? Yes. The official ball is composed of
black pentagons and white hexagons. Five + Six. Jesus (five letters) +
Christ (six letters). We start from the big circle with the central
dot, the exterior god (Jehovah, Brahman, Allah) and we struggle to
take God to the center of the temple. Scoring a goal, man symbolizes
the interior God, (Christ, Atman, Buddha)… These competitions where
goals are to be scored, existed amongst the Mayans and the Mexican
Aztecs, the Chilean Mapuches and a great amount of primitive tribes.
It doesn’t surprise me that sometimes deaths occur in soccer matches.
In them, violence is united to the sacred. Amongst the Mayans, the
winners of the match were granted the immense honor of being beheaded
for the gods to feed on their blood.
Creative Realm 