A Lithuanian painter M.K. Ciurlionis on his work “Fairytale Kings” in images of the material world shows one of the versions of relations between a man and a woman in the reality of matrices — relations impossible with animal psychetype. The opportunity, shown by Ciurlionis, however, is not realized in relations of the majority of people, who prefer to stay in the “stone age”, like it shown in the cave drawing above.
| M.K. Ciurlionis “Fairytale Kings” |
It should also be noted that majority of characters’ names are associated with the biblical project: “Trinity”; Neo — New (who, Christ?); Morpheus — Sleepy, although he lives in the reality allegedly free from dreams fabricated by the machine-“Matrix”; Dozer — Dormant; “Judas”-Cypher — Cipher, protection. As it can be understood from the plot, the matrix-predetermination, alternative to the machine one, is held by the modest, inconspicuous “Oracle”, who controls the world by accessible to her means of forming matrices of transitions from one state to others, within limits imposed by higher order matrices-predeterminations in the order of their mutual nesting, bypassing all democratic procedures, directly from her kitchen.
The Earth has many kitchens... And there is not one such “Oracle” in the real world, and each one of them wants to control the world and fates of other people from their kitchens in their own way, and most of the time, without agreeing with other “Oracles” or common people... It is appropriate to remember Lenin’s notorious phrase about the housewife who SHOULD LEARN how to control a state. Is not the essence of true democracy (people’s power) in the autocracy of conceptual power, accessible to everyone?
The peculiarity of the film is that the clairvoyant Oracle, who “knows it all”, by consulting the crew of the “Nebuchadnezzar” (Morpheus, Trinity and Neo) in questions of their probable future, carries out matrix control in relation to them, while being a part of the neuro-interactive model of the world fabricated by the “Matrix”, against the oppression of which heroes of the film fight. But the question about what is coming from the Oracle herself, and what is being translated through the Oracle by the “Matrix”, is not asked by the heroes. This peculiarity of the plot introduces a possibility that the “Matrix”, with which Morpheus and the “Nebuchadnezzar’s” crew fight, in relation to supporters of “Zion” is an enclosing matrix of higher order, which means that:
The film shows not the people’s fight for freedom against the almighty bad “Matrix”, but a transition of the bad “Matrix” into a different state of self-control, where the same old power will be wrapped in new forms. In other words, the film shows mutual overlapping of individual matrices with mutually antagonistic conceptions of control, even though both of these matrices remain within an enclosing matrix of higher order.
At the end of the film, Trinity says to Anderson-Neo: “the Oracle said, that I will fall in love (from the context: with the chosen one, the Savior), but my chosen one is you. So you can’t be dead”. And he actually did not die, but the question is who did Neo become after he was killed by the “Matrix” “agent” Smith? By jumping into Smith after his “Resurrection” did he not himself become a new “super agent” of the same “Matrix”, which is shifting control into another mode? In this context, Morpheus’ explanation about the purpose of “agents” in “Matrix” should be remembered: “Sentient programs. They can move in and out of any software still hard-wired to their system”. Or are Anderson and the Oracle agents of the enclosing matrix-predetermination, where the bad “Matrix” exists? — this question could not be answered within the film’s plot, since its authors do not distinguish the “Matrix”, created by self-possessiveness of the civilization with dominant inhumane psychetypes, from the all-enclosing matrix — God’s Predetermination.
Apart from meaningful names in the “Matrix” plot, there are other parallels with the Bible: functionally Neo — Thomas Anderson — shows a caricature similarity to Christ; Morpheus does the same as John the Baptist — waits, looks for, and finds the “Savior of the world”, reveals him to people and clears the way for him. A warrant of the eventual rescue of humanity and of its freedom from the oppression of the “Matrix” in the film is the stable and protected existence of the system, although not shown directly, but called “Zion”: “Sion”, “Cion”, “Zion” are different pronunciations in different languages of the same word, related to the well known fact in the real history of the current global civilization.
It should be recalled, that the fighters against the “Matrix” in numerous stress situations curse calling hell and devil, which brings the audience to an idea that they are fighting against God’s Predetermination, disguised as a fight against the “Matrix” machine: “The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us... It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth...Unfortunately, no one can be...told what the Matrix is...” In the perverted by “I-centrism” worldview of an individual, living his life out of tune with God, the same word could be characterised as the all-enclosing matrix of God’s Predetermination of life.
What if the truth is that the matrix, which is so disliked by authors of the film, is nothing but God’s Predetermination of life in its completeness and variety, in relation to which they are attempting to make a forgery, replacing it by their own self-possessiveness, inspired by narcotic delirium, what then?
It is much better to address directly, without any middlemen, Almighty God, who knows for sure what is the “Matrix” of self-possessiveness and what is His Predetermination. God answers to everyone who wills to hear His answer. But not everyone, after hearing the answer given to them from Above in the “Language” of significant life circumstances, or directly in his innermost world through conscience, agrees to put his will into his own transformation and follow the lead of God... When living in humanity, from all possible and actually working matrices, the human closes his psyche directly onto the All-Enclosing Matrix — God’s Predetermination — avoiding all matrices-intermediates created by other subjects within the Predetermination by the direct kindness of God or His degree of allowance.
All this says that neither the creators of the film “Matrix”, nor its heroes, have managed to break free from the oppression of the biblical project’s matrix, although an attentive thinking spectator watching the film can be brought closer to discovering the meaning of the allegorical narrative. After that, his own life will cease being a thriller, where he is the slave and victim of a matrix. Then he will attain harmony with God and will live in His Providence.
1st July - 18th August 2000
Clarifications: 7 - 8th October 2001