OT: Gnosticism and The Matrix

[Braden]

http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/new_phil_wakeup.html

Also Buddhism. I know there's a few people here interested in this. The Buddhism's just to appeal to our moderator so he doesn't think I'm a jerk. :D

I disagree with a few of his remarks about gnosticism, but I'm glad to see legitimate remarks about it becoming more popular.

[yenhoi]

:cool:

[FatherDog]

A fairly thorough article. Although I think the bit about violence as tied to victory is overanalyzing a bit, I think; I fully agree that the Wachowski brothers obviously consciously placed Gnostic and Buddhist themes int heir work, but I would tend to think that including the violence is less of a philosophical statement, and more of a "This movie ain't gonna make much money without some fight scenes" statement. :D

I've a reasonable grasp of the actual tenets of Gnosticism, but I really don't know much of the history of it; how and where were the Apocrypha discovered, and how did the sect form?

[SanHeChuan]

They forgot Trinity as god kissing/breathing life in to neo/man.


This twin tradition was especially popular in Syrian Christianity. See also Pagels, p. xxi, where she wonders if the tradition that Thomas, Jesus' twin, went to India points to any historical connection between Buddhism and Hinduism on the one hand and with Gnosticism on the other.

This was cool where are these pages they are referring too?

[Chang Style Novice]

"This was cool where are these pages they are referring too?"

Probably in one or another of these. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/002-9596689-8102415)

And the gnostics can gnaw my stick. The physical, phenomenological world is the only world worth studying.

(snotty attitude subject to future revision.)

[SevenStar]

good read. When I first saw the matrix, some friends and I pointed out all of the orthodox christian and some of the buddhist elements in the movie. Most of them were listed in that article, except cypher's role as judas iscariot and Agent Smith's role of pontius pilate, Jesus' persecutor who thought rome would be a better place if he were dead. The Nebuchadnezzar is the ship used to aid them in destroying the matrix. in the bible, nebuchadnezzar destroyed the holy city, and trinity's role as mary magdalene.


I think some of that was over analyzed though:

"It appears as if the filmmakers deliberately chose to link violence with salvific knowledge, since there seems to be no way that the crew could succeed without the help of weaponry. When Tank asks Neo and Trinity what they need for their rescue of Morpheus "besides a miracle," their reply is instantaneous: "Guns -- lots of guns." The writers could easily have presented the "deaths" of the Agents as nothing more than the ending of that particular part of the software program. Instead, the Wachowski brothers have purposefully chosen to portray humans as innocent victims of the violent deaths of the Agents.52 This outright violation of ahimsa stands at direct odds with the Buddhist ideal of compassion."

How exciting of a movie would it be it the program was simply changed? There has to be action, it's a movie for goodness sake.

[Braden]

Don't forget Morpheus as Moses.

FatherDog

I believe he mentioned the Nag Hammadi library in the article, which you can access here: http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html . The Nag Hammadi library were found relatively recently in clay vases in Egypt. Although they're often called this, they're not a 'gnostic bible', but rather, likely a collection compiled by someone with strong interests in gnosticism. The library itself contains many of what people think of as the classic gnostic texts (as mentioned in the article), but also contain some somewhat less gnostic material.

This isn't the only source about gnosticism. For a long time, most information about it came from the writings of the [Christian] heresiologists. There have also been other archeological finds, most of much less stature than the Nag Hammadi - for instance, many of the books in the Nag Hammadi collection have been found (often in less complete form) at other sites.

The webpage I listed above also has some of texts from these other findings online, as well as a variety of other texts that might be of interest. It also has alot of good information about gnosticism in general.

Gnosticism was probably never a unified sect; this is more the case of looking back at a trend in a way of looking at things and categorizing it. Of course, many of the gnostics related and collected texts of mutual interest - and so we have these collections. Gnosticism seems mostly to have been a movement within the Christian movement, although there are some purely non-Christian gnostics; as well as quasi-Christian gnostics (like those who consider Seth the messiah); and of course they influenced other cultural trends - most notably, so-called orthodox Christianity, which has always contained the gnostic elements. Valentinus, an important early Christian figure, was also one of the central gnostics, for instance.

In general one could say that there was a sudden cultural explosion around two thousand years ago resulting from increased cultural interaction, particularly between the Greek philosophical traditions and eastern religious traditions; the fruit of which was gnosticism, along with christianity, neoplatonism, and perhaps hermeticism. All of these exerted very strong influence upon one another, and were more interwoven than distinct.

The clash between some gnostics and some christians caused the former, at least as an overt culture, to fade as quickly as it appeared; largely due to allegations that gnostics were pantheistic and dualistic. I don't think that they were, but it's very difficult to tell looking back.

Chang Style Novice

Are the physical and phenomenological worlds the same? :D

The neoplatonists (a related movement) generally lacked the gnostic pessimism you're finding distastefull.

Remember though that these myths are not necessarily literal. A complex story might unravel if you took the myths of the four movements listed above and read them each in terms of the others.

[SevenStar]

moses? I had him as more akin to john the baptist.

[Braden]

Well, Morpheus' tribe are all people who he freed from enslavement, then they ran off together to the badlands, and Morpheus told them all to one day expect the messiah.

[yenhoi]

baptism is not freedom from slavery?

I dunno, a question. Well i dunno, but I had him tagged as John too.

[Braden]

Well, Moses leading his people from Egypt is certainly freedom from slavery.

If Morpheus is an enlightened soul returning to the world and offering salvific gnosis through his metaphorical baptism, then it undermines Neo's position. For the analogy to hold, there has to be a difference.

There's certainly baptismal imagery - being drawn from the waters in the real world. But for a good analogy, you have to consider more than one point. Morpheus is telling the story, this is important; Moses foretold the story of Jesus. Morpheus tells everyone a prophet will come; ditto Moses. Morpheus lives with his outcast tribe in the badlands; ditto Moses; but not John.

Baptism isn't salvation, it just puts you on the road to salvation. But being awoken from the Matrix is salvation. What put Neo on the road to salvation? This concerns the problem of the divinity of Neo - why is he special? He is 'baptized' with something, like the children he meets at the Oracle, and like the Oracle herself: something coming from beyong the Matrix, but manifesting itself in the Matrix; a paradoxical saving grace upon an unsaved body. What is this? This is the question of God in the Matrix. The article mentions this, particularly in how it was more developped in the original screenplay.

[@PLUGO]

heheheh...

funny that this topic is up and about... could it be thoughts of the sequel?

Read alot about this stuff when the movie fist came out,
Also consider this (http://metaphilm.com/philms/matrix1.html) and that. (http://www.simulation-argument.com/)

I'll post some opinion later...

[KC Elbows]

Moses would be the one in his first form, the one who formed the city. I don't know if they named him, but Morpheus talks about him.

[Former castleva]

Well my crude opinion is that someone had plenty of time on one´s hands.For sure I dislike the movie though...
I could expect such from a practitioner of analytical psychology (maybe :) ) but it would seem that someone is trying to twist wine out of water.
I wonder if someone could make such a story out of,say "Ghostbusters"? What I saw was special effects,plenty of violence and people wearing sunglasses without need for such.
Just an onion. :)