I want to liberate my imagination and my mind with every kind of

When Alejandro Jodorowsky declared, “I want to liberate my imagination and my mind with every kind of movie. That is what I wanted to do all my life,” he was not merely speaking as a filmmaker, but as a philosopher of the spirit, a seeker of truth through art. His words are a declaration of freedom—the freedom of imagination, that most sacred of human powers. For to Jodorowsky, cinema was not a mere craft of images and sound, but an alchemy of the soul, a way to awaken consciousness and unbind the mind from the prison of habit and fear. Through his art, he sought nothing less than liberation—the liberation of the self through the boundless expanse of creativity.

To liberate the imagination is no small task. The imagination, though infinite in its nature, is often shackled by the walls of conformity, by the rigid patterns of society and expectation. The ordinary man dreams, but within limits. He dares not cross into the realm of the impossible. But the artist, the visionary, the mystic—these are the ones who tear the veil and walk freely between worlds. Jodorowsky, through his surreal and spiritual films, such as El Topo and The Holy Mountain, sought to dissolve the boundaries between reality and dream, between flesh and spirit, between the sacred and the profane. He believed that the mind, like the body, must be exercised and stretched until it transcends itself.

The origin of this quote lies in Jodorowsky’s lifelong struggle to defy the cages of culture and industry. He was born in Chile, raised among exiles and poets, and spent his life wandering the paths of art, theatre, philosophy, and mysticism. He entered cinema not to entertain, but to transform—to heal the human psyche through symbolic language. When he speaks of “every kind of movie,” he does not mean merely genres, but dimensions of expression. To him, art was not to be confined by convention—it must be an ever-changing mirror of the human condition. His films, strange and visionary, were not made to please, but to awaken. They called upon the audience to feel, to think, to question, to imagine freely.

This hunger for mental and imaginative liberation can be seen throughout history in the lives of the great creators who refused to be bound by their times. Consider Leonardo da Vinci, whose curiosity knew no walls. He painted, invented, studied anatomy, and designed machines that would not be built for centuries. He refused to live as one thing—painter, scientist, or engineer—and thus became all things. His genius was not in talent alone, but in the freedom of his imagination. Like Jodorowsky, Leonardo’s art was not confined to a single form—it was the flowering of a liberated mind that dared to see what others could not.

To liberate the imagination, however, requires courage. It means standing apart from the crowd, enduring misunderstanding and rejection. Jodorowsky’s own visionary film project, Dune, was famously never completed—not because it lacked genius, but because the world was not ready for it. Yet its dream lived on, inspiring generations of filmmakers. This is the paradox of all visionaries: though they may not see their creations fully realized, their ideas ripple through time like echoes of an unseen truth. The liberated imagination, once set free, cannot die—it becomes part of the eternal conversation of the human soul.

But Jodorowsky’s teaching is not only for artists. It is for every human being who feels the weight of limitation upon the heart. To live without liberating the imagination is to live half-asleep. The imagination is the doorway to possibility, the bridge between what is and what could be. Whether one paints or writes, loves or leads, the act of imagining beyond the known is what elevates life into meaning. It is how humanity evolves, how civilizations are born, how dreams become destiny. To imprison imagination is to imprison the divine spark within us all.

Therefore, let this truth be carried forward: Free your imagination, and your mind will follow. Do not fear the strange, the unorthodox, or the unknown. Let your creativity be vast, your curiosity unending. Read widely, dream boldly, create without apology. The world may call you mad, but madness, in the service of truth, is the beginning of wisdom. As Jodorowsky’s life teaches, the liberation of the imagination is the liberation of the soul itself.

And so, the sage’s words resound through time: “I want to liberate my imagination and my mind with every kind of movie.” To live by this creed is to live as an artist of existence itself—to turn each act, each moment, into a work of creation. The films of Jodorowsky may fade, as all art does, but the spirit of liberation he embodied endures, calling each of us to awaken, to imagine, and to make of our lives a masterpiece.