-Caveat Lector- from alt.conspiracy ----- As always, Caveat Lector. Om K ----- <A HREF="aol://5863:126/alt.conspiracy:556494">The Matrix as Shamanic Journey</A> ----- Subject: The Matrix as Shamanic Journey From: Robert Sterling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, 25 September 1999 01:31 AM EDT Message-id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.konformist.com http://www.konformist.com/flicks/matrix/matrix.htm The Konformist wished it could send you the whole film analysis: instead, you must visit the URL listed above due to size. But here is the first part of Jake Horsley's great piece on The Matrix. GNOSTICISM REBORN The Matrix as Shamanic Journey (taken from The Blood Poets, volume 2, Millennial Blues) By Jake Horsley The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heavín Milton's Satan, Paradise Lost The story of The Matrix (1999)óprobably the most elaborately plotted action movie ever madeóis authentically Gnostic. It is in fact, and way beyond ìThe X-Files,î ìGnosticism reborn.î(1) Wherever exactly Andy and Larry Wachowski hatched their demonically inspired and wickedly effective pop parable about the enslavement of modern man to the machine, they have come up with a genuine original. Itís an amazingly coherent blend of Philip K. Dick, H. P. Lovecraft, Jean Baudrillard, messianic prophecy, apocalyptic lore, martial arts mysticism, and technological paranoia. The Matrix may well be the outstanding American movie of the í90s. But it is both less and more than your average great movie. On the one hand, it is slick and vaguely soulless, with all the pumping adrenaline-charged violence that characterize the MTV movies of recent years (it is produced by Joel Silver, after all). On the other hand, it may just be the first fully-realized Surrealist work in mainstream cinema to date. The Matrix is a shamanic journey in dramatized form, fit to stand up alongside Alice in Wonderland and destined, perhaps, to someday overthrow The Wizard of Oz as the ultimate cult-psychedelic movie. The Matrix is all this and a fair bit more, but itís also undoubtedly not for everyone. Unless you are prepared to accept its premiseóthat reality is a dream, controlled by secret forces to enslave us with, and that only through conscious dreaming can we escape our bondage and reclaim our divine nature (a truly Gnostic premise, as I say)óthen the movie will be so much hokum and mayhem and no more. Doubtless, millions saw it and enjoyed it as such. But The Matrix is considerably more than just a piece of first-class entertainment: itís a runaway artistic experiment, an experience that bends our concepts of what is real and what is not, and leaves us in a very tight spot indeed. The plot of the film holds together admirably, even if we may not notice it at the time. The directors donít have the time to take us through their maze step by step, they simply hurl us into it headfirst, and leave us to put things together as we go through. The movie starts off at full tilt, and gives us no time to get orientated; it is already exploding our sense of ìwhat is realî before we have even established the vaguest idea of such, to the point that, for the first half hour or more, we canít be sure if we are watching dream or reality, or something else altogether. This is a perfectly effective disorientation device, since it is the way that Thomas Anderson (played by Keanu Reeves) himself feels, as his existence suddenly goes beyond the bizarreóinto the appalling. But at the same time, this is perhaps the movieís biggest weakness. The fact that we are never given time to settle into Thomasís false reality before we get to see it torn apart, and exposed as the computer simulation fantasy that it is, denies us the full brunt (both the horror and the pleasure) of his initiation. The Matrix might have been more than just a great sci-fi movie, it might have been an authentic masterpiece, if it had eased off a little on the action and given us an extra twenty minutes (at least) to establish the character, his dream world, and the slow, steady encroachment into the dream of a hidden, higher reality, one that will eventually break through and drag him literally screaming back to the Other Side. Despite the intricacy and ingenuity of the plot, the film lacks subtlety, it lacks characters, and as a result it lacks any real psychological depth. Its depthsówhich are truly giddyingóare all subtextual, they arenít textual depths, because there are no shades or nuances to the characters or to their actions, all of which are inevitably overwhelmed by the sheer scope and breadth of the story. As a result, despite being head and shoulders above every other movie of its kind, The Matrix suffers from the same deficiencies: the vacuity and banal surfaces that characterize the í90s blockbuster. Since this may well have been necessary to ensure the movie was a success, howeveróand The Matrix simply had to be a success or it wouldnít have been made at allóthis may not really be a valid criticism so much as a major regret. The miracle is that the movie was made at all; but still, I canít help but imagine a Matrix three hours long, with a muted, toned í70s feel to it and a real actor at its center, the measured pace and attention to scientific detail of Alien, the human depths of Kaufmanís Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and perhaps a little more of the anarchic spirit of Brazil. It might have been a Godfather for the í90s: a sci-fi classic for people who donít like sci-fi movies. As it is, itís strictly for cyberpunks and Gnostics. The story is briefly as follows: Thomas Anderson is a pallid and lifeless employee for a computer firm (ìMetacortexî) who also has a ìsecretî life as a hacker who sells illegal software like it was a psychedelic substance. What he is involved in we can only guess at, since the film hasnít the time to tell us. Somehow, along the way, he has been brought into contact with a man named Morpheus, a notorious ìterroristî whom he has never actually met but has been seeking for some time. Thomas (the doubter[2]) is given hints and clues first of all by the mysterious Trinity, who sends him messages on his computer that predict coming events. Shortly thereafter, Thomas is hurled bodily into ìthe game,î and there left to run, hide, make the leap or plummet to his death. His engagement in this game begins when he is at work and receives a call from Morpheus, warning him that ìtheyî are after him. Sure enough, the sinister men in black (government agents) are at that precise moment being directed to his desk. Following intricate instructions from Morpheus (who appears to be able to see the entire layout of Thomasís world like he is looking at a map, or like a god from on high), Thomas sneaks past the agents into an empty office. There he is told to make an improbable leap to safety. He fails to make the leap, does not even try in fact, and allows himself to be captured by the government agents instead. He is taken into custody and there offered a deal: cooperate in the tracking of Morpheus, in return for a clean slate. When he refuses the deal, his world without warning warps into a Surrealist nightmare, as the agent whose name is Smith literally wipes Thomasís mouth off, leaving him speechless and writhing in horror. The other agents hold him down as a metallic but definitely living parasite-like cyber-organism is inserted into his body, through the naval. At this point, Thomas wakes up, as though from a dream. Little respite is allowed him, however, as he is promptly picked up by Morpheusís team (also dressed in black), held down in the back of the limo, and subjected to another bizarre procedure, as the parasite implant is removed. Thomas yells out in horror: ìThat thing is real?!î He may well ask. By now we have no more clue than he does. As it turns out, it isnít real, but then nothing else in his life is, either. When Thomas finally meets Morpheus, he finds a regal and highly stylish black man (Laurence Fishburne) with soft, seductive tones to match his name. In what is perhaps the most unforgettable part of the movie, Morpheus explains everything to Thomas over the next twenty minutes or so. This is a genuinely deranging, blood-curling sequence, and may well be the giddy peak of sci-fi cinema to date. First of all, following his opening speech, he offers Thomas a choice: blue pill or red pill. Take the former, he will wake up again and all this will be just a dream. Take the red, however, and he goes through the looking glass and finds out ìhow deep the rabbit hole goes.î Of course, he takes the red. His decision is already built into Morpheusís offer, because, if itís only a dream, why not take the red; and if itís not, then why take the blue?! But what Thomas undergoes as a result of the red pill is like every psychedelic seekerís worst trip. As the betrayer Cypher puts it: why-oh-why did I take that damn pill??!! Thomas is torn from not-so-blissful oblivion, and there given the hideous,, literally mind-shattering Truth: that he is a slave to an order of inorganic beings that until this moment, he did not even know existed. Morpheus explains that the year is not really 1999, that it is in fact closer to one century later, and that civilization has in the meantime already been destroyed. That, as a result of the discovery of Artificial Intelligence (AI), somewhere around the start of the twenty-first century, there was a stand-off between man and machineóbetween the creation and the creator (exactly as in The Terminator)óand the machine won. AI discovered a means not merely to destroy civilization and inherit the Earth (a limited prospect at best), but to develop for itself cybernetic, semi-organic bodies, using human beings as its primary energy source. (The machines were solar-powered, but the human-engineered holocaust blocked out the sun.) To this end, human beings were enslaved en masse. They were put into a deep sleep, and a collective dream was engendered to keep them tractable and docile, like babies in their cribs, while their vital life force was sucked from them. Humans are bred and raised directly into these incubators, and fed intravenously with the liquefied remains of the dead. This is pure occultism, and goes way beyond even the best sci-fi cinema, into the murky realms and veiled nightmares of Lovecraft, Heinlein, Kenneth Grant, Carlos Castaneda, et al, with their accounts of ìthe labyrinth of the penumbra,î the inorganic entities that have enslaved humanity and turned it into a food source. Of course modern UFO lore of ìthe graysî adapts and develops the same atavistic beliefs, complete with technological additions such as ìimplantsî and clones, etc. All of which puts The Matrix at the very front-line of modern myth-making; or is that psycho-history? The collective dream that is engendered to keep humanity docile is life on Earth, circa 1999, and this is ìthe Matrix.î Within the Matrix, however, there exist certain possibilities for escape, and this is where Morpheus and his crew (the ìcrew that never restsî) come in. They are the ìawakenedî onesóIlluminati, if you willówho have made it out of the computer-simulated fantasy grid and liberated their bodies from the energy farms in ìthe real worldî (itís hard to taken even this world as real, since we have spent far more time in the other worlds, and since it also happens to be the most bizarre and surreal world of them all). As a result of liberating their bodies, these Illuminati able to enter the Matrixóthe dream worldóat will, and function therein with superhuman potential. For example, any knowledge, information or training required can simply be downloaded, on the spot, directly into their consciousness by computer. On top of this, they have a contact line to their associates up in the real world, like gods or guardian angels, who can monitor and direct the agentsí operations within the Matrix, providing them with a god-like omniscience. Despite such apparently superhuman capacities to navigate the Matrix, however, the ìresistanceî(3) fighters are at a profound disadvantage when it comes to facing off the sinister men in black, who are ìin factî (!) concentrated AI projectionsóenergy fields, if you willósent by the Matrix into the Matrix to maintain a hold over its reality-program. To this end, these agents hunt down and eradicate all potential ìdissidents,î those Illuminati counter-agents hell-bent on disrupting the Matrixís spell, and on breaking down reality as we know it. While Morpheusís crew can leap improbable distances, sustain an inhuman amount of damage, take out SWAT teams single-handed, and so forth, they are not actually (officially) superhuman. They can bend, and even break, some of the rules of the Matrix, but not all of them. They cannot simply override its tyranny and assume their godlike status as holograms within a hologram, because only ìthe Oneî can do this. At present they are all still restricted by the confines of their minds, still working to eradicate the old program imposed upon them by AI. Hence Morpheus's training of Thomasónow Neo, the One, or Eonóis centered around ìfreeing his mind,î on making him realize that he is not in fact restricted by the laws of the body at all, but only by his belief in such. As a rather hokey but touching child-buddha cum Geller-esque spoon-bender explains to Neo: ìDo not try and bend the spoon. Thatís impossible. Instead . . . only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then youíll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.î This is pure Zen, and goes beyond Yoda and his Force, into quantum physics. The AI ìagents,î though still subject to the laws of the Matrix, are not restricted by the same beliefs that dog the humans. They are able to shape-shift, and perform other miraculous feats, yet even these are within certain apparent limits. Obviously, the Matrix must sustain, keep constant, its reality-mirage, otherwise the sleepers will start to awaken. So these agents must move subtly, within restraints, and at least appear to be human. Although the Matrix can change anything it wants within the game, it still has to deal with the living, individual consciousnesses that it has enslaved there. Hence it is limited by its own devices: if it wants to maintain its hold it cannot perform too many overly impossible stunts, because this will only serve in the long run to empower the rebel fighters, by freeing their minds from the ìtyranny of continuityî (Time), upon which the whole program depends. None of this is explained in the movie, but it seems fair to deduce that the Matrix is limited, despite being the creator of reality; and also that there is presumably some reason for this limitation. The above is the only one that seems to hold up. Neoóas the Oneóis expected to turn the tide in favor of the human uprising, the ìawakening,î by shifting the balance, by making the leap, both literally and metaphorically, from game player to game master, from ordinary man to shaman, and to demi-god. And this of course he accomplishes. Whatís so satisfying about the movie is that in the endódespite the its reliance on violence and destructionóit is the power of the imagination that wins the day. Once Neo reaches a certain realization he is able to simply stop the bullets with his mindósince they donít exist in the first placeóand to project himself into the (holographic) body of the Enemy (so fulfilling its own secret will to become real), and explode it from within. Inside the Hollywood action fantasy, there is a far stranger bird, just waiting to break out. It doesnít quite make it with this movie, but the potential is there for the sequels, should they come, and should they prove half worthy of this early promise (a possibility I am forced to doubt, obviously). But in this and other moments, The Matrix achieves perfect symmetry, and offers something akin to shamanic ecstasy. Itís not just a movie; itís an experience. The Konformist: The Internet Magazine Dedicated To Rebellion, Konspiracy & Subversion I NEED 2 KONFORM http://www.konformist.com ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
