The Matrix

Well, if you’re reading this page, you’re almost certain to have already seen the movie, and I won’t rehash it here. What I want to talk about is the movie’s analogies to spiritual truths. I did a search to see if this topic had already been analyzed and found that it was and it wasn’t. It turns out that there are a lot of similarities between Neo and the figure of Christ that I had not even considered. However, my viewpoint is broader than those kinds of historical or literary similarities. I guess the reason that these other pages I read missed the larger point is that most people haven’t seen the true spiritual nature of this life, and therefore can’t see the truths of this existence played out in the movie.

The main issue is this: we all are caught up in living our lives, not realizing that what we are experiencing is a sort of shared hallucination, a pseudo-real life that merely echoes the real existence going on just outside of our perceptions. In the movie, what people experienced as life was actually a computer-generated reality that was directly input into their minds. It hid the real world from their perceptions. In what you and I call the “real world,” our perceptions are similarly limited from sensing the truth of this existence. And it’s an irony that I’m not sure was lost on the makers of the movie. See, what we call real, isn’t. The real real is the spiritual, not the physical.

What we feel, see, taste, hear, and smell are very real to us, but they aren’t the definition of this life. Though we are caught up with these senses every day, they aren’t the important thing about our existence. There is another world, a spiritual world, that lies just outside of our everyday senses. It can be seen, felt, and heard, but only by our spirit, and then only after it’s been trained to be sensitive to these things by prayer, fasting, reading the bible, and being around others that have also become sensitized to it.

We breathe, eat, sleep, and use the restroom every day. In our quest to satisfy these needs, it becomes easy to confuse them with our desires. This leads to being “in the flesh,” (2 Co 10:3) as opposed to being in the Spirit. And being in the flesh causes your spiritual senses to become dulled. It also causes your spiritual judgment to become impaired. In fact, by living your life purely for your own satisfaction, and not for God’s, your conscience itself can become “seared” (1 Tim 4:2) to the point of no longer being functional.

The truth of this life is all around us. Just like those that escaped the clutches of the sentient machines in The Matrix, so too do people that have been filled with the Holy Ghost realize this. We have taken the “red pill” and awakened to the reality outside of our natural senses. In not quite so serious a way, and yet still analogously, we walk among those that don’t know God in the fullest way, or even at all, and realize also that “the devil” – i.e. forces against us – could be in anyone of them, much like the sentinels from the movie. And, like the end of the movie, where Neo is surmising the hapless plight of those around him, we stand looking around at those we are among and wonder, how do we get them to wake up too? How will they react when they do? Will they reject it and go back, like the traitor Cypher wanted to do? Or will they carry on the war against the machine – the reality that confounds the Truth – and fight to help save others from its grasp?

Take the “red pill” before it’s too late.