Matrix Warrior: Being the One

by Jake Horsley

Overview

Finally comes the ultimate book for all those seeking to know more about the philosophy behind The Matrix and its sequels. Suppose that this world is not what it seems, and that humanity is actually just a food source supplementing a reign of machines. Welcome to the premise behind the world of The Matrix: the movie phenomenon and massive box-office series that has also produced some of film's most intelligent and thoughtful moments in the last ten years.
In the Matrix movies, "reality" is just a dreamscape, a representation that six billion points of view agree to agree is "real." So if the only reality we know is a cunning and elaborate façade, what then does that signify for us? Matrix Warrior gives us the means to understand this premise and its implications on our knowledge of self and place. Combining an in-depth examination of the film with philosophical inquiry and the teachings of Castandeda, Jake Horsley has produced in Matrix Warrior a profound yet witty analysis-and all readers need to get "unplugged."
"This accessible, entertaining book will be an enjoyable companion for those who want to dig deeper into the movies' rich universe."- Booklist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250096234
Publisher:	St. Martin's Press
Publication date:	08/06/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	238
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jake Horsley is a world traveler, film surgeon, moviemaker, fledgling sorcerer, and agent provocateur, currently at large somewhere in the matrix.

Read an Excerpt

Matrix Warrior

Being The One

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By Jake Horsley

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2003 Jake Horsley
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-09623-4

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CHAPTER 1

First Variable:

Living in a Dream World

i) Reality as a Snare: Postmodernist Twenty-First Century Fragmentation

2003. The millennium has come and gone, leaving Y2K just another failed prophecy, and the end of civilization, postponed again. Yet, in the two and a half years since that monumental let-down, everything has indeed changed.

The collapse of the Twin Towers cancelled forever the collective illusion that some things are built to last, and that any civilization is immune to the backlash of its acts. Human cloning commenced at a public level, forever destroying the fond human conceit of our uniqueness and specialness, while throwing into confusion, maybe even irrelevance, the once central question of "the human soul." (Can souls be cloned along with bodies? Science has refrained from exploring this thorny question.) And last but not least, with the implanting of humans with microchips (starting with children and Alzheimer's patients), the long-awaited fulfilment of the Book of Revelation has finally commenced. Artificial intelligence has at last successfully infiltrated the human organism. Microchip implants, they say, are the investment of the future. Soon everybody will have one, since we won't even exist in a computerized society unless the electronic superstructure can recognize and identify us via this chip. Just as food at the supermarket can't be purchased without getting its bar codes scanned, and just as no one gets back into the dance club without that little black stamp, so no one will buy or sell without their own personal "mark of the beast." Welcome to the millennium.

The microchip has the special distinction of being the first product ever to be advertised in the Bible (chapter 13, verse 17 of Revelation). At long last, God-fearing people everywhere have the opportunity to invest in the Antichrist. Yes, friends, these are peculiar times, times in which it seems as if anyone who isn't paranoid may just as well be dead, and probably soon will be. Or as good as.

The assumption of technology to the throne of all human endeavors, its complete and utter centrality and indispensability in our daily lives, is now an accepted fact of twenty-first–century life. We shall term this the externalization process, referring to a worldview in which everything of value is found outside of ourselves. It has also, rather quaintly, been termed materialism. Accordingly, all inner, abstract, or "spiritual" values have been demoted to peripheral and inessential status: they are trimmings or perks, luxuries which we use only for relaxation and entertainment (the same function TV once had, before it became essential to our sanity).

Materialism began to take over our lives completely during the Industrial Revolution, back when people still believed that science and technology were the means to establish a new covenant with God the Father, and to create Heaven on Earth in their lifetimes. By the time the atomic bomb had incinerated several hundred thousand Asian bodies, however, and TVs were turning everyone into zombie consumers, this happy illusion was strictly for flat-earthers and fundamentalists. Realism was taking over. It became clear that technology would never improve the quality of life but only help grease the wheels on our way to species annihilation. That seemed like a valid enough function, however: if we were headed for destruction, let's at least make it as fast and painless as possible.

But humanity is nothing if not gullible, most especially when it comes to believing its own lies. Over time, the spell of technology became so pervasive that people began believing in the Heaven-on-Earth model again (even if, by now, God the Father had definitely been removed from the picture). The sheer power and scope of our machines was so intoxicating that we once again began to believe (just as H.G. Wells and the utopians had believed) that we could literally accomplish anything. If the planet is being destroyed, that's okay. We'll just move to another one. If society is being overrun by crime and insanity, that's okay too. We'll just build bigger, better prisons and figure out which gene is responsible. Or if that fails, we'll just restructure society and make it one big prison, and make sure all the defectives are tagged and marked with microchip implants to keep them in line, while the law-abiding citizens can abide by the law and walk the line. Even if death threatens, as it must, to spoil all our fondest plans for the future, there's still a solution! Immortality pills, organ transplants, human cloning, transference of consciousness to computer drives. Death is no longer a downer for the men who would be gods.

The laws of nature were made, like all rules, to be broken. Man, the scientist, the rational being determined to improve on all the parts of existence he found personally inconvenient, was, as Mary Shelley put it, "the modern Prometheus." And Prometheus is another name, in another, darker myth, for Lucifer.

So now we live in postmillennial, postmodernist times. We live in a consumer culture in which everything that exists outside of ourselves is there to be either hunted, killed, bagged, shelved, bought, sold, reformed, consumed, seduced, or if necessary, destroyed completely. The world is our oyster, and it exists solely to be cracked open by force and devoured, preferably in one big, messy gulp. If it turns out there was a pearl in the shell, then we may never even know. Or possibly only in the moment when we choke on it.

The desire to dominate and control our environment is a desire that humans alone of all the animals possess. It is at base a schizophrenic desire, since it assumes a separation between ourselves and our environment. The Earth created humans and all other living creatures, presumably for its own good reasons, but it is humans who made the world. And since the world as we have made it is at odds with the environment, then humanity has been forced to choose where to pledge its allegiance. By the evidence at hand, it has chosen the world — possibly out of a mixture of pride and ingratitude — and to all appearances, it has made the wrong choice. But who are we to judge? The catch in this choice is that the world which we have created, having no corresponding reality within ourselves — no organic vitality or substance as such — cannot physically sustain us. The longer we remain plugged into this world, the more deeply immersed in it we become, the further from our natural environment and our biological nature we stray, the more at odds with it we are, the more schizophrenic we grow, the weaker, more desperate and alienated our lives become. Hence, what we have called the postmodernist consumer society is a psychotic dream world in which the human spirit and body have trapped themselves. And we have become unwittingly enslaved to the dark, destructive agenda of this world. Exactly as in The Matrix!

Once again, the crux of the error here, the nature of this rebellion, and the essence of our damnation or fall from grace (if such they are), lie in the strange capacity of humans to project their desires, hopes, fears, and beliefs outward, to seek meaning outside of themselves rather than in the only place where meaning might logically be found — within. By neglecting and denying the inner processes of the psyche and soul, and focusing exclusively on the outer achievements of mind and body, we have effectively stripped existence of all meaning, purpose, value, and yes, reality.

Native Americans (and shamans from all cultures) have a particular view of reality that may be pertinent here. First off, they are animists, which is to say they believe that all of nature, from the lowest grub or pebble all the way to the most distant star, is imbued with life, with consciousness. They believe it is possible to communicate and interact with this life or consciousness, via the medium of spirits residing inside every molecule of physical matter. Through communication, they might thereby discover the true nature and purpose of existence. To them, all life is one life, a New Age platitude that nonetheless has a most practical application.

Animism posits a universe that is a living organism, making all beings that exist within this universe parts of that organism — just as the cells and organs of the human body exist within it — separate and individual (and even conscious) entities, and yet obviously wholly dependent upon and subservient to the greater body. To the animistic Native Americans, Mother Nature is a matrix, but a matrix that nurtures and sustains us like a womb, until, at a given point, when we are ready, it gives birth to us. Shamanically speaking, this is the birth of the Spirit, often coinciding with the moment of physical death. To Christians, it is the Resurrection.

The second point I want to mention is the Native American belief that all technology, even the good kind, has a debilitating effect on the spirit of man. Take the simple example of an electric heater. Very convenient, seemingly indispensable on a cold evening, if we are not to be condemned to a restless night of shivering, stamping our feet, and rubbing our hands together, cursing the ruthless power of the elements. Yet for the Native American, and indeed for the warrior of any caste or creed, the elements are there to test and prove him, to force him to grow in stamina and resilience, and to develop his inner resources: A warrior faced with a night in the cold and no heater must use his wits, and above all, his will (see Glossary), in order to turn the situation to his favor. Maybe he smashes a chair and builds a well-contained fire in the corner. Or maybe, like Han Solo saving Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, he cuts open a large biped and takes shelter in its entrails. At worst, the warrior must stand his ground and face the cold without fear, bitterness, or regret. He must give in to it and allow it to teach him. He may listen to his body's internal responses and, if sufficiently detached and resourceful, he may summon the necessary heat from within his body to counter the cold without. If all else fails, he will certainly learn something through failing.

The mind can alter the temperature of the body; anyone who's suffered intense embarrassment can testify to that. But our warrior might never learn this — never even have the opportunity to consider it — while he has his electrical heater to simplify things. Certainly, it's convenient. But is it really helpful? Native American belief goes even further than this, however. Just as a Native American may decline to have his photograph taken, believing that, by making an image from the light of his body, he is losing some small part of his soul, so it follows that any technological device upon which he depends is subtly robbing him of his vital essence, his power. Because the world of technology and manmade objects, unlike the world of Nature, is devoid of life force, these objects, in order to animate themselves (perhaps in imitation of the organic universe), must steal life force from those who make them and, above all, those who use them.

A musician knows this intuitively: he puts his soul into his instrument until it becomes a part of him. A warrior knows that this is true of everything we touch, and that the manner in which we touch and use the items of our lives, how we think and feel about them, determines the kind of spirit with which we imbue them. And he knows that eventually, once enough power has been transferred to them, for good or for evil, these objects will become living things.

Most of the world as made by humans is a fairly ugly and ungainly affair. It lives but it does not know why. Like Shelley's creature, it has been built for all the wrong reasons, then cruelly rejected, or at best mistreated, out of shame that it did not turn out as we had hoped it would. And so it turns against us. The organic matrix of shamans and sorcerers is a reality (that is, an interpretation) full of mystery, power, and magic. It is a world built consciously, as an act of love and will. As such it is a garden of earthly (and unearthly) delights and offers perhaps an infinite variety of pleasures to those who live within it.

The mechanical matrix of postmodern consumer society, built by ordinary men and women, is a reality that is indeed a snare, serving only to isolate its inhabitants from a truer, wider, and richer interpretation in which all things are interwoven and cooperative. The matrix we live in, and which we uphold with each and every one of our thoughts (though as we shall see, these thoughts are not our own), is a world built blindly, through fear and rationality, a prison pervaded by misery, hostility, confusion, resentment, and despair. It ain't no playground. And if it's a game, then it's one which few of us ever get to enjoy playing — perhaps because no one ever told us the rules.

ii) We Are Not Amused: Rules for Beginners

First rule: Plugged-in humans are defined above all by externals

Be transparent. Make sure your goals are common goals that all others share. Ensure your opinions are not your own but come from other people. This way you may avoid confusing people. By the same token, it is preferable never to say what you mean. Also, try not to mean what you say. Genuineness is considered to be threatening within polite matrix society. Therefore, a functional but rigid and unchanging façade is essential to good relations.

Second rule: You are what you own

Plugged-in humans are collectors. The more objects you can acquire, the higher your status will become in other people's eyes. Most especially if they are useless objects. Possessions are extensions of the personality, ergo the more accessories you can gather, the larger and more complex your personality becomes. Above all, black shiny objects, such as sleek designer shades and swishy cell phones, serve to augment individual cool. It is important to remember, however, that these items are not meant to obscure the personality, but rather to replace it entirely with an effectively shallow façade. With enough accessories in your BMW, who cares if it doesn't run so good, or how much gas it consumes?

Third rule: What people say and think about you is all-important

The primary motivation of all matrix-aligned humans is to be liked. The more people who like you, and the more those people like you, the more important you become to them, and so to yourself. Since plugged-in humans don't like what they don't understand, it is essential to be straightforward, simple, predictable, and to avoid unusual acts or original thoughts whenever possible. Since plugged-in humans have little or no interest or concern besides themselves, it is important also never to infringe overly on such a person's "space." In conversation, avoid eye contact that lasts for more than a moment. Any direct or personal questions should be kept to a minimum, and generally reserved for extreme circumstances, i.e., when it would be impolite not to ask them. Listening is not mandatory. Plugged-in humans do not as a general rule listen, but rather await their turn to speak. Therefore it is only polite to do the same, and to refrain whenever possible from paying too close attention to the other person's feelings or needs, since this will only make them self-conscious.

Fourth rule: Extreme emotions should be repressed

Plugged-in people, since their primary concern is to be liked, endeavor to maintain an appearance of mildness, consideration, and civility at all times. Any acts or words that might cause offense must be scrupulously avoided. Plugged-in people are easily offended, for they are extremely sensitive to their own feelings; in fact, this is all they think about. Hence, one must maintain a healthy façade of politeness at all times — until, that is, one's own feelings have in some way been affronted. Under such conditions, direct confrontation is to be avoided whenever possible since this would entail emotional engagement with the other, and as such cause discomfort to both parties. Anger should be repressed and rechanneled into more subtle, covert, and petty acts, so that the offending party may never become fully aware of having offended; instead he or she will dimly sense that something is amiss in the relationship, and so be tormented by guilt and uncertainty. Plugged-in people rarely allow themselves to experience strong emotions, such as rage or grief, and if they do, they invariably ensure that its expression is indirect, and convenient, for example, with complete strangers or in wildly inappropriate circumstances. This way they can emote without revealing anything or in any way compromising themselves. Indignation, resentment, bitterness, arrogance, self-pity, contempt, and a thinly veiled hostility are the preferred emotional responses of plugged-in people, and the marks of true character within social matrix.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Matrix Warrior by Jake Horsley. Copyright © 2003 Jake Horsley. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Acknowledgments,
Preface: "Not Just a Movie, It's an Experience!",
First Variable: Living in a Dream World,
i) Reality as a Snare: Postmodernist Twenty-First Century Fragmentation,
ii) We Are Not Amused: Rules for Beginners,
iii) The Seven Deadly Virtues: Primary Motivating Factors for Plugged-in Humans,
iv) Automatons 'R' Us,
Second Variable: There Is No Spoon,
v) Hologram Ethics: Reality as Game Plan,
vi) Rules of Empowerment: DIY Unplugging,
vii) Sins Against the State: Eight Cardinal Virtues of the Matrix Warrior,
viii) The Vale of Soul-Making: Understanding the Matrix,
Third Variable: You Think That's Air You're Breathing?,
ix) Do You Believe in Fate? The Sorcerer's Will to Freedom,
x) Life in the Matrix: Appropriate Responses to Illusory Stimuli,
xi) You Are Not You: Life as Simulacra,
Fourth Variable: Walking the Path,
xii) The Lucid's View,
Fifth Variable: The Desert of the Real,
xiii) Armageddon Outta Here: The Great Unplugging,
xiv) The Sound of Inevitability: Planning Around the Apocalypse,
xv) The Nightmare of History: Information Age and Eschaton,
Sixth Variable: My Name Is Neo!,
xvi) Lucidity as Destiny: The Double Life of the Matrix Sorcerer,
xvii) Reading the Code: Everything Is Energy,
xviii) Becoming God: Life Beyond the Matrix,
Afterword: So You Still Say It's Only a Movie?,
Appendix One: Philip K. Dick's Divine Invasion,
Appendix Two: Carlos Castaneda: May the Myth Be with You,
Appendix Three: The Cooperation of Archetypes,
Glossary,
About the Author,
Copyright,

Editorial Reviews

"This accessible, entertaining book will be an enjoyable companion for those who want to dig deeper into the movies' rich universe."

- Booklist

From the Publisher