»Can somebody tell me what book inspired the Matrix?«

link from another matrix fan site....

neo: "i cant go back can i?"
don juan: "when a man embarks on the warriors' path he becomes aware, in a gradual manner, that ordinary life has been left forever behind"

neo being consumed by agent smith at end of Revolutions
don juan: "death lends the ultimate touch, and whatever is touched by death indeed becomes power" and "a warrior dies the hard way. his death must struggle to take him. a warrior does not give himself to death so easily"

neo realizing he has to save morpheus
don juan: "a warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing"

morpheus: "the matrix is a system...."
don juan: "so in essence, the world that their(humans) reason wants to sustain is the world created by a description and its dogmatic and inviolable rules, which their reason learns to accept and defend"

morpheus: "how do you define real?"
don juan: "warriors say that we think there is a world of objects out there only because of our awareness. but whats really out there are the eagle's emanations,fluid,forever in motion, and yet unchanged,eternal"

neo(cross bursting out of chest)at end of Revolutions
don juan: "warriors who deliberately attain total awareness are a sight to behold. that is the moment when they burn from within. the fire from within consumes them and in full awareness they fuse themselves to the emanations of the eagle at large, and glide into eternity" ....(all material copyrighted by respective owners)


i could find and write hundreds of 'coincidental' similarities.

now,in conclusion,it is evident that castaneda's material is grossly overlooked. one might say that without the ancient knowledge passed down to carlos(his numerous books) from don juan and other nagual sorcerers that the movies just would NOT be the same at all.
one could even say that there was a deliberate attempt to try and block the connections from matrix/castaneda so as to continue to shroud the 'truth' in lies.

Merv would like this thread, I think....

The Wachowskis were assuredly inspired by many books, stories, histories, myths, legends, etc. Maybe Sophia Stewart's work was among them, who knows? But Stewart and Castaneda have come in rather late in our knowledge of the behind-the-scenes of the movies, which leads me to believe that any similarities are just that. The fact remains that there are so many books, stories, histories, myths, legends, etc. that share commonalities with each other, that it is inconceivable that the Wachowski Brothers could have studied them all.

I take all this as support of my (now fairly long-standing) theory: that the Matrix films encode the perennial philosophy of the Mystery schools--whether by serendipity or by design. The fact that we can still find links to other works shows just how the philosophy, which teaches All is One, fittingly permeates all.

jeffshag wrote:

link from another matrix fan site.... zionmainframe.net...

Yo Jeff. I think the flyers' mind is prevalent on this site!

Just wondering- did you ever get a chance to see an old site that's no longer in action:

Plato's allegory of the Cave is noted as an inspiration for the Matrix, that ordinary appearances do not depict true reality and that gaining the truth changes one’s life. In the allegory of the cave are found prisoners who have been bound from infancy in a single place in a dark underground cave. Projected on the cave wall are shadowy images from a fire on the outside. The prisoners however don't know they are prisoners. This is the only reality they know. The life you've lead is not the totality of all that is possible. If you could release yourself from bonds you don't see or realize are bonds you would then be able to see the world as it truly is.
[i](excerpt) Imagine human beings living in an underground, cavelike dwelling, with an entrance a long way up, which is both open to the light and as wide as the cave itself. They’ve been there since childhood, fixed in the same place, with their necks and legs fettered, able to see only in front of them, because their bonds prevent them from turning their heads around. An imprisonment not recognized because we are our own prison-keepers. The prisoner’s chains are removed but who or what removes them is not revealed. “Consider, then, what being released from their bonds and cured of their ignorance would naturally be like. When one of them was freed and suddenly compelled to stand up, turn his head, walk, and look up toward the light, he’d be pained (Neo: my eyes hurt ; Morpheous: You've never used them before) and dazzled and unable to see the things whose shadows he’d seen before” (515c4-d1).
Neo in a sense was unbound, unchained, UNPLUGGED
as was Cypher. Neo even at first showed doubts, uncertainty that he wanted to continue living in the true reality once it was revealed to him (I can't go back can I?). Cypher on the other hand (ignorance is bliss) was more accepting of now that I know the truth...(why oh why didn't I take the blue pill?) Very strong parallels indeed.