Barbelith Underground > Temple > Film as Subversive initiation.

Look at the inordinate amount of fuss that was made--still is--about the amazing magical truths that could be gleaned from a careful scruitiny of The Matrix. (I do wish there was an HTML tag for "a tone of deep aching melancholia and desperate weariness.")

Oh to be so wise, oh to be so jaded. Don't you think that it's ironic that this conversation is taking place on a board originally created to discuss The Invisibles in all it's awesomeness?

One crucial thing about skilled writers, artists, filmmakers etc being the ability to put down the spliff, walk to the library and read a couple of books. To conduct the tiniest most minimal bit of bloody research without immediately crowning themselves Adeptus Major With Fucking Knobs On and spending the rest of their "careers" making up shit founded upon a knowledge base that one could write down on the back of a fucking fag packet and still have room to make a shopping list.

So all artists smoke spliffs, or is it the magicians? I find your whole statement so dismissive and insulting... I don't know any real life magicians who would call themselves such: I know artists, athletes, and savants who I would term "Magicians", though. My boss, who uses visualisation techniques to be successful, would laugh his ass off at my reading Crowley or Grant or Carroll, yet I think of him as one of the more powerful magicians I've known... I have never met anyone who would "crown themselves" anything.

In this thread I wish to discuss what initiatory themes or magickal thinking we may "see" running through different films. I also want to discuss whether these themes or messages may have been placed there purposely or is it the audience who reads to much into things? It may be like the 23 enigma: Is it us noticing things because we look for it, or because it's there?

What people say about films like The Matrix and what the filmmakers were trying to say are probably very different.

Personally I believe that the Wachowski Brothers created The Matrix as a showcase for everything they thought was cool: Comix (esp. the art of Geof Darrow), kung-fu, and Philip K. Dick styled Philosophy (Among many things). It was a huge mosaic of styles and influences. For every influence that they placed in the film, they gave a wink to the people they knew would "get it".

And yes, there are those who looked too deep and their discussion and dissection of the film is what got on your nerves. I'm willing to bet that the first time you saw it you thought it was pretty cool (unless you had already been tired of the people who were raving about it to the point of being rabid) and it was only afterwards, when enough people were saying, "But you didn't really get it, the meant this:..." that you probably started to truly dislike it. People that embraced the film as a "truth" or "revelation" or "Most-friggin'-awesomest-thing-in-the-whole-friggin'-universe" will tend to spoil it...

But I know a lot of people who were slightly shaken out of their comfort zone by that film: It was the first film that made them question the nature of reality (While not as good as Blade Runner, the premise behind Matrix was more succinct) In that respect, the film was an initiation for some... My wife told me that it really hit a nerve for her because she had a vague sense of the unreality of this life and seeing the film was like making a connection because she only knew then that there were others who felt a similar way.

Look I know that the acting was wooden, and the whole movie is a triumph of style over substance, but there was just enough pop-philosophy, more than many many people were previously exposed to, to have a large cultural impact. Enough of an impact that when the story of the Oxford Professor who came out with a thesis that there is a mathematical probibility that reality may be a part of a computer simulation, people took notice. They had a prior frame of reference. Say what you want and turn your nose down at films like What the bleep..., but they can be potent "primers" for people who may know zero about quantum physics and can serve to inspire people to look deeper. Sometimes people watch these films and figure they know it all: that's their problem. It's like Leary: he pointed the direction, the listener needs to start walking. Or like Neo said, "Where we go from here, I leave to you...".
(Had to...)

I've been accused in other threads of looking on majorities and seeing them as Sheeple, and I admit that sometimes I do. And sometimes I'm a sheeple myself: It is a very wise and successful artist (or salesman) who can make a person feel smart. By not dumbing down their work and letting the customer figure stuff out themselves he/she will make their point (or sale) each and every time. We all like to figure stuff out, and sometimes we become impatient when others are slower at it. I never had the opportunity to make it to university and have always researched things like science and philosophy for myself. In many cases it was fiction, either books or film, which introduced me to themes I wanted to explore. It's always been the fiction which made me think which made me explore things further.

The Matrix and other recently popular things like Harry Potter succeed greatly at this. The audience needs to think for themselves and guess at what might happen, if not completely draw their own conclusions.

These "fluff" bits of "Seekrits" become familiar to the audience through pop vehicles. Maybe the artists have a deep and sincere interest in these things themselves and want to either reach out to, or turn-on others. You can't dismiss these works or the analyzing of these works just like that.