Carlos Castaneda
Voltar

This text was originally found on matrixcastaneda.com
The site is defunct; all content in this document, however, remains the property of Paul Holmes

An open letter to the Wachowski Brothers
21/1/2003

Hey Larry and Andy,

With the release of 'Matrix Reloaded' imminent, I thought it time to point out the similarities and contrasts, intended or otherwise, between the original film and the works of Carlos Castaneda.

No one seems to have made the connection well known, and even the essays on the official Warner Brothers site don't seem to have a clue.  Creatures of inventory and all that.

So on the next page is my thesis linking 'The Matrix' to Castaneda.  'Agents' are 'flyers', the amazing feats Neo performs are manipulations of the assemblage point, and the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar is a sorcerer's party operating from an unobtrusive hacienda in the hills of Mexico.

Like Neo freeing his mind and mastering the Matrix, Carlos finally tempers his will and learns to 'see'.  As does Neo defeat the Agents, Carlos attains the inner silence needed to ward off predatory inorganic beings.  The 'desert of the real' is the solidity of the assemblage point that makes our world seem to be the only one, while omens occur in books and film.  The underlying code of the Matrix finds its equivalent in the sorcerer's world as the lines of awareness selected by the assemblage point.

I've got an idea for Matrix 3 that would be pretty easy to implement.  This is my attempt to be noticed.

For anyone who isn't a Wachowski brother, a dire warning:

Do not read on if you are unfamiliar with the motion picture 'The Matrix' or the collective works of Carlos Castaneda.  I'm not telling any thrilling story below and you'll only ruin the surprise of the best plot twists ever made.

Imagine if someone had told you Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father.  That's what I'm doing here, so please leave if you haven't read the books or seen the movie.

Or don't.

In the sorcerer's tradition, only what is necessary is implemented.  In the movie buff's tradition, only what is insignificant is examined.

Here goes...

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Do you ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're awake or still dreaming?' --Neo

In Castaneda's world:
'Dreaming is real when one has succeeded in bringing everything into focus.  Then there is no difference between what you do when you sleep and what you do when you are not sleeping.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'All the time: it's called mescaline.  It's the only way to fly.'   Choi

In Castaneda's world:
Peyote, or 'Mescalito', when administered by a sorcerer helps the user perceive other worlds, or non-ordinary states of reality.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The white rabbit on Dujour's shoulder is a sign from an inexplicable source.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers find similarly guiding omens, the random thought that it was time to find a new Nagual and a whirlwind of dust signaling to the Nagual Julian the arrival of his new apprentice.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo begins to accept the possibility that he doesn't have all the answers, takes a chance and follows the White Rabbit.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos eventually loses some of his self-importance and considers don Juan's proposal that 'man can get agreements from everything around him.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo is watched constantly in daily life within the Matrix by a rotating shift of crew.

In Castaneda's world:
We are all observed silently by the spirit, an unseen presence.  Female members of Don Juan's party were tracked covertly for years by other members of the sorcerer's party. Death watches from a position behind one's left shoulder 'until the day it taps you'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'What is the Matrix?'
'The answer is out there, Neo.  It's looking for you, and it will find you, if you want it to.' --Trinity

In Castaneda's world:
Most people retreat when the spirit shows itself.  Sorcerers speak of the bird of freedom that, once rejected, never comes back.

In the film 'The Matrix':
In the nightclub, Trinity knows seemingly impossible details about Neo's life.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers can 'see' a person's inner being, gleaning details of that person's private memories and thoughts.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo, in the nightclub, is enchanted by Trinity's vast knowledge.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos cannot begin to comprehend the scope of don Juan, nor can he explain the look the old man uses to stop him in his tracks.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Trinity can only give a vague warning of danger.  As Morpheus says later, 'Time is always against us.'

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan cannot convey the infinity behind the world we observe, instead warning Carlos that every moment counts. 'One of us has to change, and you know who,' referring to Carlos' complacency.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'They're watching you Neo.'

In Castaneda's world:
Mud Shadows, or flyers, are observing us undetected.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'It's the question that drives us, Neo.'
'What is the Matrix?'

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan makes Carlos question existence and reality.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Mouse delivers the mobile phone to Neo incognito.

In Castaneda's world:
'Wait a minute, this is getting too bizarre.  How could I follow her suggestion when I don't even remember meeting her?' --Taisha asks Emilito. 'Believe me, she kept telling you to live in Arizona, and you did, but of course you thought you were deciding it yourself.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo is then required to escape the ensuing Agents.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos must also jump through hoops to locate Don Juan after first meeting him at a bus stop, Don Juan telling him to visit his house sometime and then Carlos having to go to great lengths to find said house.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I don't know if you're ready to see what I want to show you, but unfortunately you and I have run out of time.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'There is a threshold that once crossed permits no retreat.  Ordinarily, from the moment the spirit knocks, it is years before an apprentice reaches that threshold.  Sometimes, though, the threshold is reached almost immediately.' --Don Juan.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo leaves the 9-to-5 grind behind for existence in a shocking new world.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos leaves his safe, secure world behind and plunges into the unknown, experiencing alternate realities firsthand.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Trinity and Mouse work together to create circumstances that will lead Neo to their party. 

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan and others lure Taisha Abelar to Mexico over a span of five years.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo asks 'Why is this happening to me?'

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos asks himself the same question.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I can't do this.'
Neo is arrested, failing to heed the call-to-action at the office.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos also finds it difficult remaining in the new world. 'It would be infinitely easier if you were compelled to stay.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Agents dress in black suit and sunglasses.

In Castaneda's world:
The flyers are dark, ominous shadows (but then again so is Neo, so I suppose it's a moot point).

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agents interrogate Neo and offer the easy way out - to snitch.

In Castaneda's world:
Attractions of a normal life are a constant lure, 'normal life' being defined by the flyers.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agents can alter the fabric of reality, closing the skin over Neo's mouth.

In Castaneda's world:
The inorganic beings project illusions between worlds

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agents track Neo by inserting a robot bug into his stomach.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan hits Taisha Abelar with a broomstick, leaving behind a portion of his energy for tracking purposes.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Agents program Neo to wake up in bed after the interrogation, a split second transition over many 'miles'.

In Castaneda's world:
The inorganic beings can hurl anyone into new worlds at any time.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo sharply exits from a dream, not sure if he was awake or only imagining the interrogation by Agent Smith.

In Castaneda's world:
Consumate dreamers, in particular Florinda Donner-Grau, experience waking and sleep state with equal clarity.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agents underestimate Neo's role, not realizing that Morpheus has been searching for 'the one' his entire life.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos at first underestimates the importance of his own role, not realising don Juan's only goal is to find an heir to his lineage thus permitting his own eventual flight to freedom.

In the film 'The Matrix':
All pleasantries are dispensed with by Switch.  Neo has to fight self-importance to remain in the car.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos has to free his ego from the impact of Don Juan's directness. 'In those days I thought of Don Juan as an intransigent old man who delighted in insulting me.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Please Neo, you have to trust me.'
'Why?'
'Because you have been down there Neo.  You know that road - you know exactly where it ends.  And I know that's not where you want to be.'

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos faces a choice between Don Juan's world and a normal life, breaking off the apprenticeship for a number of years before being presented with a similar ultimatum at the door of his motel room.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Switch stares at Neo ruthlessly:
'We don't have time for games.'

In Castaneda's world:
The 'look of no-pity' is the first step to entry into the world of sorcery.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Jesus Christ!  That thing's real?' --Neo referring to the 'bug'

In Castaneda's world:
Taisha Abelar's confusion as to whether the nagual actually visited her while recapitulating in the cave.
'Were you really there, or was I just imagining it?'
'Sooner or later you will realise that there is no 'real' or 'imaginary', there is only perception,' replies Clara

In the film 'The Matrix':
Trinity takes Neo to Morpheus' door.

In Castaneda's world:
Lucas Coronado leads Carlos to Don Juan's house.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Circumstances allow Neo to meet Morpheus.

In Castaneda's world:
A seemingly random series of events places Carlos in the presence of don Juan Matus, a nagual, or head sorcerer.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'The matrix is everywhere.  It is all around us.  Even now in this very room.  You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television.  You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes.'

In Castaneda's world:
'She said that what frightened her was to realize, at a body level, that perceiving is an all-inclusive act when the assemblage point has been immobilized on one position.  She reminded me that don Juan had told us that the power our daily world has over us is a result of the fact that our assemblage point is immobile on its habitual position.' --Carlos
'The spirit cannot be understood, but it can certainly be manipulated.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo is scanned for a 'bug' before being allowed to continue.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos must find his 'spot' to be allowed to enter Don Juan's world.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo survives test.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos finds his spot.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Be honest.  He knows more than you can possibly imagine.'

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan is able to answer questions before Carlos asks them.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I imagine' says Morpheus, 'that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole.'
'You could say that,' replies Neo

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos is forever asking himself - 'What if all Don Juan says is true?'

In the film 'The Matrix':
'You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
Under the influence of 'dreaming' (not mere dreams), reality suffers a metamorphosis.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Do you believe in fate, Neo?' 'No, because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.'

In Castaneda's world:
'You bid for power once and that bidding is irreversible.  I won't say that you're about to fulfill your destiny, because there is no destiny.  The only thing that one can say then is that you're about to fulfill your power.'   Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'You've felt it your entire life - that there's something wrong with the world.  You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'Down in the depths of every human being, there's an ancestral, visceral knowledge about the predator's existence.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.' 'What truth?' 'That you are a slave, Neo.  Like everyone else, you were born into bondage.  Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch.  A prison for your mind.'

In Castaneda's world:
'The sorcerer's revolution is that they refuse to honor agreements in which they did not participate.  Nobody ever asked me if I would consent to be eaten by beings of a different kind of awareness.  My parents just brought me into this world to be food, like themselves, and that's the end of the story.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'No one can be told what the Matrix is.  You have to see it for yourself.'

In Castaneda's world:
'I told you there is no way to talk about the spirit because the spirit can only be experienced.  Sorcerers try to explain this condition when they say that the spirit is nothing you can see or feel.  But it's there looming over us always.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'This is your last chance.  After this there is no turning back.  You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.  You take the red pill - you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'We choose only once.  We choose either to be warriors or to be ordinary men.  A second choice does not exist.  Not on this earth.' --Don Juan.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Remember - all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'There is nothing warm or comforting about the sorcerer's world.  Your new surroundings are less cosy, but infinitely more spacious.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo takes the red pill.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos finally meets Mescalito (peyote).

In the film 'The Matrix':
The red pill disrupts Neo's input/output carrier signals.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan subjects Carlos to an onslaught of psychedelic plants in an attempt to give his assemblage point a degree of fluidity.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus, in conjunction with the rest of the crew, works to free Neo from his captive state.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan and Don Genaro work simultaneously on different facets of Carlos' awareness in an attempt to free him from the tonal: the attention of daily life.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo discovers a world beyond what he knows to be real.

In Castaneda's world:
'I can say that it appeared to be a world as real as any dream can be real.  Or I can say that it appeared to be as real as our daily world is real.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo discovers that, up until being freed from the Matrix, he had dealt only with a digital representation of Morpheus.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos learns that he had only ever encountered the 'real' Genaro twice, all other occasions involving his dreaming 'double'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real?  What if you were unable to wake from that dream?  How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?' --Morpheus.

In Castaneda's world:
'Perhaps this is exactly what is happening to all of us in the world of daily life.  We are here, and the fixation of our assemblage point is so overpowering that it has made us forget where we came from, and what our purpose was for coming here.' 'Under the process of 'dreaming', the real world and dreams lose meaning, and become what they are - perception.' --Don Juan.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The mirror that runs up Neo's arm is deathly cold.

In Castaneda's world:
Infinity gazes back at Carlos with icy indifference.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo sees the real world for the first time: eternal blackness punctuated with the view of towers stacked with humans.

In Castaneda's world:
With Don Juan's blow, Carlos sees the universe at its barest level: lines of infinite length that possess awareness, stretching in every direction and unlike anything that had ever entered his thoughts.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo discovers that life within the Matrix had been unreal, the A.I. having tricked the population into believing they were truly living.

In Castaneda's world:
'Don Juan said that the nagual Elias had explained to him that what distinguishes normal people is that we share a metaphorical dagger: the concerns of our self-reflection. With this dagger, we cut ourselves and bleed; and the job of our chains of self-reflection is to give us the feeling that we are bleeding together, that we are sharing something wonderful: our humanity. But if we were to examine it, we would discover that wee are bleeding alone; that we are not sharing anything; that all we are doing is toying with our manageable, unreal, man-made reflection.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo is no longer under the spell of the A.I.

In Castaneda's world:
'Sorcerers are no longer in the world of daily affairs because they are no longer prey to their self-reflection.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
A robot automatically descends, releasing Neo from his neck plug and allowing him to continue on his journey down the chute.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos' assemblage point somehow renders new worlds perceivable.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The same robot resembles a living creature.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos must face a giant gnat before progressing to a different world.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo's eyes hurt upon seeing the world for the first time, until then only artificially manipulated electrical signals reaching his optic nerve.

In Castaneda's world:
'It had been the most shocking thing imaginable for me to realize that I had perceived energy directly all my life.  How in the world could it have been possible that I hadn't known?' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo enters the real world for the first time.

In Castaneda's world:
 'Sorcery (is) a going back to the beginning, a return to paradise.' 'Shamanism is a journey of return.  A warrior returns victorious to the spirit, having descended into hell.  And from hell he brings trophies.  Understanding is one of his trophies.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus is sure that Neo is 'the one'.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan is sure that Carlos is 'the one'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo's muscles have atrophied.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos' glowing coat of awareness is drained after a lifetime of being eaten by flyers.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The many metal plugs placed on Neo's body by the A.I. must first be removed.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos strives to eject the ugly foreign mind from his energy body.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo's muscles are rebuilt.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos restores his coat of awareness to its original state.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Nebuchadnezzar is a cold machine. 

In Castaneda's world:
The rooms of the sorcerer's house lack any human warmth.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'More important than 'what' is 'when'.'

In Castaneda's world:
'Sorcerers have a rule of thumb: they say that the deeper the assemblage point moves, the greater the feeling that one has knowledge and no words to explain it.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Nebuchadnezzar is the core 'where we broadcast our pirate signal and hack into the Matrix.'

In Castaneda's world:
The sorcerers inhabit an obscure hacienda where they conduct forays into unknown worlds through the practice known as 'dreaming'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Most of my crew you already know.'

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos knows the other sorcerers in the party through prior meetings in the second attention, not ever having met them in 'real life'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The 'construct', or loading program, is an empty white space.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan takes Carlos to the 'lull of perception', a featureless place between worlds.  On another occasion: 'I noticed then that I was lying on my back and yet I had not been aware of a change in perspective.  I had thought all along that I was looking at Don Genaro from a standing position.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
In this 'construct' Neo experiences the 'residual self image' - the mental projection of the digital self.

In Castaneda's world:
Under Don Juan's tutelage Carlos strives to clear the idea of self and move into the abstract.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'What is 'real'?  If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'There is no 'real' and there is no 'imaginary' - there is only perception.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Matrix engenders perception using computer hardware and software.

In Castaneda's world:
Human perception is a result of our assemblage point highlighting a select few zillion of the universes' lines of awareness, which are infinite in length and number. 'He emphasized over and over that the most sophisticated knowledge sorcerers possessed was of our potential as perceiving beings, and the knowledge that the content of perception depended on the position of the assemblage point.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Welcome to the Desert of the Real.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
The solidity of the assemblage point makes this world seem final and absolute.  The masquerade of 'self-pity' disguised as 'self-importance' forces us to construct a world of sham compassion, but of very real cruelty and pain. 

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus explains that, 'sometime in the 20th century, mankind gave birth to A.I., a singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines.'

In Castaneda's world:
'The sorcerers of ancient Mexico were quite ill at ease with the idea of when 'it' (the flyer) made its appearance on earth' 'Man, once a mythical creature, is now barely alive.  We are the only awareness that stores energy on the outside of the energy body, making us easy prey for creatures of a different awareness. But,' Don Juan says, 'they are an integral part of the universe, for they are the means by which the universe becomes aware of itself.' 'The flyers must be taken for what they are - awesome, monstrous.  They are the means by which the universe tests us.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
'After we 'scorched the skies' in an attempt to cut off the machines power supply, the A.I. imprisoned man to harness his bio-electricity production.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'What I'm saying is that what we have against us is not a simple predator.  It is very smart, and organized.  It follows a methodical system to render us useless.  Man, the magical being that he is destined to be, is no longer magical.  He's an average piece of meat.' 'There are no more dreams for man but the dreams of an animal who is being raised to become a piece of meat: trite, conventional, imbecilic.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The CGI sequence shows a baby in a gelatinous sphere, much as Don Juan describes our original, fully topped up energy body.

In Castaneda's world:
'Sorcerers see infant human beings as strange, luminous balls of energy, covered from top to the bottom with a glowing coat, something like a plastic cover that is adjusted tightly over their cocoon of energy.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'For the longest time I wouldn't believe it, and then I saw the fields with my own eyes.' --Morpheus, discussing the Fetus Fields.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos shakes uncontrollably at Don Juan's description of the Mud Shadows (flyers), afraid to consider the possibility that they exist. 'You are feeling the wrath of God, aren't you? he said.  'Rest assured, that's not your fear.  It's the flyer's fear, because it knows that you will do exactly as I'm telling you.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Throughout human history, we have depended on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'The foreign installation comes back, I assure you, but not as strong, and a process begins in which the fleeing of the flyers' mind becomes routine, until one day it flees permanently.  A sad day indeed! That's the day when you have to rely on your own devices, which are nearly zero.  There's no one to tell you what to do.  There's no mind of foreign origin to dictate the imbecilities you're accustomed to.'  Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'The Matrix is a computer generated dream-world, built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this - a battery.' --Morpheus  

In Castaneda's world:
'Just as we rear chickens in chicken coops, gallineros, the predators rear us in human coops, humaneros.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The baby shown being hooked up to the power plant moves its arms and legs whereas the adults lay perfectly still.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers see the assemblage point of infants moving freely whereas those of adults inhabit the same position.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Just breathe, Neo.  Breathe!'

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers view breathing as a magical, life-giving act.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'A computer generated dream-world…' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'From the moment of birth, this world has been described for us.  What we see is just a description.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo wakes up alone in his cabin.

In Castaneda's world:
Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner Grau spend extended periods alone at different times in the sorcerer's large house. 'When seers see the human energy shape, they see one single ball of energy.  If there is another ball next to it, the other ball is seen again as a single ball of energy.  The idea of a multitude of luminous balls comes from your knowledge of human crowds. In the universe of energy, there are only single individuals, alone, surrounded by the boundless.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'We have a rule - we never free a mind once it's reached a certain age; it's dangerous, the mind has trouble letting go.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan frees a fat, smelly, middle-aged woman.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'When the Matrix was first built there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted - to remake the Matrix as he saw fit.  It was he who freed the first of us.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
The Eagle put the first Nagual man and woman on earth and provided the rule, allowing others to follow. Several thousand years ago, after consuming psychedelic plants due to hunger or curiosity, some men developed the ability to see the essence of things.  These men passed on their knowledge to others, becoming known as the 'sorcerers of antiquity'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
Asked why sorcerers don't do anything about the predators, Don Juan replied: 'There's nothing that you or I can do about it.  All we can do is discipline ourselves to the point where they will not touch us.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agents can inhabit any host body within the system

In Castaneda's world:
Mud Shadows leech off every human in existence.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo's brain is upgraded with new software.

In Castaneda's world:
'His superior strength and a new and unaccountable cunning enabled him to find jobs even where there were none to be had.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
Zion offers freedom.

In Castaneda's world:
The sorcerer's flight to freedom is the intended destination.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I know Kung Fu.'

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan recommends all his ward train in martial arts, many of them 'undisputed masters' of eastern combat styles.

In the film 'The Matrix':
At the crew's disposal is a virtual dojo in which some rules of physical existence can be broken.

In Castaneda's world:
Clara regularly uses the hacienda's dojo to train not only in Kung Fu but also in 'dreaming', entering other realms of existence on a daily basis.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I'm trying to free your mind, Neo.  Tank, load the jump program.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'He said that he was going to jump with me; he grabbed me, or pushed me, or embraced me, and plunged with me into the abyss.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus takes a running leap between two skyscrapers.

In Castaneda's world:
'Don Genaro had not really jumped.  Something had pushed him as if from behind and had made him glide on a parabolic course.  The branch where he had been perched was possibly a hundred feet high, and the tree was located about a hundred and fifty feet away from me; thus his body had to trace a parabola to land where it did.' 'But the force needed to cover that distance was not the product of don Genaro's muscles; his body was 'blown' away from the branch to the ground.  At one point I was able to see the soles of his shoes and his rear as his body described the parabola.  Then he landed gently, although his weight crumbled the hard clumps of dried dirt and even raised a bit of dust.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
Impossible physical feats performed by Neo.

In Castaneda's world:
Impossible physical feats performed by those who awaken their dreaming body, the counterpart to the physical body.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I thought it wasn't real.' 'Your mind makes it real.'

In Castaneda's world:
The immobility of our assemblage points makes our world seem solid and finite.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'If you die in the Matrix...' 'The body cannot live without the mind.'

In Castaneda's world:
'Dreaming' endeavors have very real consequences.  It is possible to die while dreaming .

In the film 'The Matrix':
Trinity lives with and covets Neo.

In Castaneda's world:
Florinda Donner Grau lives with and covets Carlos.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I just keep wondering: if Morpheus is so sure, why hasn't he taken him to see the Oracle?' --Cypher

In Castaneda's world:
Taisha Abelar must build up her energy level before she can survive an encounter with the Nagual.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus takes Neo into real-life 'training programs', such as the 'Woman in the red dress' program.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan uses real-life lessons instead of lecturing Carlos.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'If you are not one of us, you are one of them.' 'What are they?' 'Sentient programs.  They can move in and out of any software still hardwired to their system.  That means that anyone we haven't unplugged is potentially an agent.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'Our fellow men are black magicians.  And whoever is with them is a black magician on the spot.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Inside the Matrix, they are everyone, and they are no one.'

In Castaneda's world:
'Upon learning to see a man becomes everything by becoming nothing.  He, so to speak, vanishes and yet he's there.' --Don Juan 'Don Juan Matus did not exist as a person.  But what existed instead of his person was a collection of stories, each of them apropos to the situation he was discussing.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
'They (Agents) will never be as strong or as fast as you can be.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
The flyer's mind has no persistence and gives up easily.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'They are the gatekeepers, they are holding all the keys.'

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos must overcome the giant gnat, the gatekeeper of a different world.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Nebuchadnezzar transits endless sewer tunnels with squiddies chasing.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos visits the 'labyrinth of penumbra', the world of the inorganic beings.  This is a static world comprised of tunnels that have awareness, their intent to entrap Carlos.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The crew stares unflinchingly at the searching squiddy.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos must gaze into the boundless, meeting its cold indifference directly.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Do you always look at it in coding?' 'Well you have to - the image translators work for the construct program.  But there's way too much information to decode the Matrix.'

In Castaneda's world:
The assemblage point selects a portion of the lines of awareness, which are infinite in number, in order to create a reality.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Cypher drinks alcohol.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan gave up alcohol.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo finds out he is responsible for the fate of the world.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos finds out he is responsible for the fate of Don Juan's entire lineage.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Ignorance is bliss,' says Cypher.

In Castaneda's world:
'The weird idea is that every human being on this earth seems to have exactly the same reactions, the same thoughts, the same feelings.' 'They seem to respond in more or less the same way to the same stimuli.  Those reactions seem to be sort of fogged up by the language they speak, but if we scrape that off, they are exactly the same reactions that besiege every human being on Earth.' --Don Juan
And,
'Sorcerers say that the fourth abstract core happens when the spirit cuts our chains of self-reflection.  Cutting our chains is marvelous, but also very undesirable, for nobody wants to be free.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
Cypher sells out Morpheus to Agent Smith for a comfortable existence.

In Castaneda's world:
'They (inorganic beings) are capable of imprisoning any one of us by catering to our deepest desires.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Cypher makes a deal with a being of a different awareness, a life of luxury in return for the future enslavement of humans.

In Castaneda's world:
The original sorcerers made a deal with the inorganic beings, receiving petty trinkets of knowledge and reprieve from the dark days ahead while inexorably altering the course of human evolution into the depths of mediocrity.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.' Neo then abstains from a personal meeting with 'the woman in the red dress'.  Mouse, the 'digital pimp', is the first to die.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan advises celibacy in order to gather enough energy to 'see'.  Toltecs, the ancient group of which he is a member, emphasized self-denial of pleasure to allow the loss of the human form.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo and the crew enter into another realm of existence - the Matrix.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos explores the counterpart to normal awareness - the second attention.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The crew put on their Sunday best when making forays into 'society', their threads of the highest quality.

In Castaneda's world:
One must develop the 'tonal', or attention of daily life.  The entire party have tailor-made suits and dresses that they wear at important times.  Don Juan, an Indian peasant, has in reserve several items of high-quality apparel, shocking Carlos by wearing a three-piece suit with aplomb.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus takes Neo to the Oracle.  On the way there Neo observes people on the street.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan takes Carlos to another realm of human existence (of which there are 600), where Carlos observes an unfamiliar city street 'almost like Lithuania'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Mirrors appear frequently within the Matrix itself - the rear-view mirror of Trinity's motorbike, Neo reflected in Morpheus' glasses, the cracked mirror that fixes itself, the spoon-bending scene, and the chopper approaching the government building from directly above.

In Castaneda's world:
'…instead of looking outwardly at the world, they have turned inwardly to gaze at that which is not present.' --Clara

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo and crew enter the Matrix through a cortex connection.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos and crew enter different worlds together in pairs through 'dreaming'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Tank stays behind to ensure safety of others.

In Castaneda's world:
One sorcerer known as a 'stalker' holds the new world in place, while the other of the pair reaches the new world through dreaming prowess.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I have these memories from my life.  None of them happened.  What does that mean?' 'That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are.'

In Castaneda's world:
Erasing personal history is advisable. 'You see, we only have two alternatives; we either take everything for sure and real, or we don't.  If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second and erase personal history, we create a fog around us, a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out, not even ourselves.'  Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The man on the ground floor pretends to be blind while surreptitiously guarding the elevator entrance.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers are taught 'stalking': furtive behavior designed to achieve a goal.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Oracle is 'very old.  She's been with us since the beginning.'

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan is 'a few hundred years old', according to Don Genaro (though not actually this old, referring instead to the 'intensity' of his life).  The 'death defier', a sorcerer of antiquity still alive after several thousand years, could be said to have been there since the beginning.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Try not to think of it in terms of right or wrong.' --Morpheus

In Castaneda's world:
'In the sorcerer's path, if one thing doesn't work, another will.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'She can help you to find the path.' --Morpheus referring to the Oracle

In Castaneda's world:
'There is no game without the Nagual.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
A bunch of rabbits is shown on the Oracle's television.  Later Agent Smith muses 'You move to an area and you multiply and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed.'

In Castaneda's world:
Humans breed like rabbits, as instructed by the flyers in order that a steady supply of food be forthcoming.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Oracle told Morpheus that he would find 'the one'.

In Castaneda's world:
Each nagual (head sorcerer) must locate and train a successor.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Oracle sees Neo in her apartment, situated in a drab, run-down building.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan at first only allows Carlos to meet him at his meagre peasant shack, reflecting Carlos' level of awareness at the time.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The other 'potentials' are all children.

In Castaneda's world:
When sorcery was first discovered, a select few children were given to sorcerers at birth.  This allowed them to be steeped in training, never having to know the 'real' world.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Do not try to bend the spoon,' offers little Buddha. 'Instead, only try to realise the truth: there is no spoon.  Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends; it is only yourself.'

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos must defeat the 100-foot-high gnat.  This can only be done when he can stand face-to-face with it and realize it doesn't exist.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I said don't worry about it.' --Oracle

In Castaneda's world:
'Worrying is only placing undue importance on any one thing.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Know thyself,' in Latin above the kitchen door.

In Castaneda's world:
Clara knows Taisha so well only because she knows herself thoroughly.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Oracle smokes a cigarette.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan has a special pipe used to smoke his plant mixture.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Oracle acts out her inspection of Neo, letting him in on the charade as it happens.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan delights in the humour of interactions with Carlos.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo believes the Oracle when she says he isn't 'the one'.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos retreats from Don Juan's world for a while.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'You're waiting for something - your next life maybe,' the Oracle muses.

In Castaneda's world:
The sorcerer's experience can only be shocking because we have lived an eternity of normal lives.  Without this groundwork there would be nothing to appreciate in escaping the drudgery.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Oracle takes the pressure off Neo, telling him he's not 'the one' and therefore doesn't have to sweat it.  This allows Neo to take action later.

In Castaneda's world:
'If one is to succeed in anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Without him (Morpheus), we're lost.'

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos dreads don Juan's permanent departure into infinity.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Oracle devises a scheme to make Neo act - the choice between sparing Morpheus' life or his own.  Later, Neo believes he is trading his own life for Morpheus'.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan devises a scheme to retain Carlos as an apprentice, making him think only Carlos' intervention will save don Juan from the attacks of a rival sorcerer. And, 'Don Juan had said that the worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who have lost everything no longer have anything to fear.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo only acts once the odds are stacked against him, daring to rescue Morpheus from deep within an Agent-controlled building.

In Castaneda's world:
'I would say that the best of us only comes out when we are against the wall, when we feel the sword dangling overhead. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way.'
'Forget the self and you will fear nothing.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus and crew behave how people expect sorcerers to behave - formal and proper.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan and Don Genaro make numerous fart jokes, more like a Farrelly brothers movie.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Agents, beings of a different awareness, are cold and empty underneath.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan is so appealing because of a complete lack of pretense.  Underneath he is empty, combining the essence of an Agent without the associated malevolence.

In the film 'The Matrix':
One's physical body remains immobile whilst traversing the Matrix.

In Castaneda's world:
We live our entire lives with our assemblage point hovering at the same spot, giving the illusion of movement but in fact going nowhere, as if caught in an eddy.  It (the assemblage point, and by proxy, us) could instead be visiting other realities.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus and crew take notice of deja vu.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers are in tune with seemingly meaningless events - omens from the spirit.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The crew engages in an extensive, exciting battle.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers plunge into infinity daily.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The crew kills lots of people.

In Castaneda's world:
'A warrior doesn't know remorse for anything he has done, because to isolate one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The crew appears asleep (in real life) while in the Matrix.

In Castaneda's world:
The double dreams the self.  Sorcerers enter other worlds through dreaming.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Cypher falls prey to the lure of a more comfortable life in a dream world.

In Castaneda's world:
Each and every sorcerer of antiquity fell prey to the manipulation of the assemblage point, and associated perks.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Various members of the crew are killed in a darkened room filled with junk.

In Castaneda's world:
One of the mysterious rooms in the sorcerer's house is filled with puzzling artifacts.  It is here that Taisha Abelar peers into infinity.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Cypher's 'love' for Trinity is a factor in his undoing.

In Castaneda's world:
'Don Juan said that it took him about a year of unrelenting abrasion to make him lose every vestige of the new personality he had acquired at the nagual's house.  He had begun with a profound yet aloof affection for the woman and her children. This detached affection allowed him to play the role of husband and father with abandon and gusto.  As time went by, his detached affection turned into a desperate passion that made him lose his effectiveness. Gone was his feeling of detachment, which was what had given him the power to love.  Without that detachment, he had only mundane needs, desperation, and hopelessness: the distinctive features of the world of everyday life.' --Carlos 'I experienced moments of sublime happiness as a husband and father,' Don Juan said.  'But it was at those moments when I first noticed that something was terribly wrong.  I realized that I was losing the feeling of detachment, the aloofness I had acquired during my time in the nagual Julian's house.  Now I found myself identifying with the people who surrounded me.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Don't hate me, Trinity, I'm just a messenger.' --Cypher

In Castaneda's world:
We are all commanded by intent, a force not of our control.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'All I do is what he tells me to do,' Cypher says indignantly, referring to Morpheus.

In Castaneda's world:
Society is too self-important. 'Sadly, the Yaqui are not unique (or alone) in their pettiness,' says Don Juan.  'The thrust of the warrior's way is the dethronement of self-importance.' On another occasion, discussing warriors: 'What restrains their self-importance is that they have understood that reality is an interpretation we make.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
Cypher attempts to destroy Neo in order to live his remaining days in a paradise.

In Castaneda's world:
The previously 'fat, smelly old woman' now attempts to kill Carlos to be allowed to proceed on her 'flight to freedom'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Have you ever stood and stared at it?  Marvelled at its beauty, its genius?' asks Agent Smith.

In Castaneda's world:
'For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'The original Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered and everyone would be happy.' --Agent Smith

In Castaneda's world:
'They reasoned that man must have been a complete being at one point, with stupendous insights, feats of awareness that are mythological legends nowadays.  And then everything seems to disappear, and we have now a sedated man.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agent Smith believes that 'as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering.'

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan says this suffering is at least familiar and comfortable. 'My mother felt sorry for herself every day of her life.' --Clara

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agent Smith explains how the Matrix was re-designed around 'the peak of your civilization.'

In Castaneda's world:
'He explained that sorcerers had discovered that any movement of the assemblage point meant a movement away from the excessive concern with that individual self which was the mark of modern man. He went on to say that sorcerers believed it was the position of the assemblage point which made modern man a homicidal egotist, a being totally involved with his self-image.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
The three agents have a 'conversation' in which one vast consciousness (the A.I.) muses over its plan of attack, with each Agent finishing the others sentence flawlessly, as if of one mind.

In Castaneda's world:
Conversation in 'real' life is equally contrived - we are one consciousness that has designed these 'interactions', giving the illusion of many people by placing its (your) point-of-view in one body after another, experiencing all perspectives just for the hell of it.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Tank is devastated by the death of Mouse and Dozer.  Trinity comforts him without showing excessive concern, the differing attitude a result of knowing the A.I.'s ruthlessness first-hand.

In Castaneda's world:
'Warriors are incapable of feeling compassion because they no longer feel sorry for themselves.  Without the driving force of self-pity, compassion is meaningless.' 'The eye that gazes inwardly is immovable.  It reflects not human concerns or fears, but the vastness.  Seers who have gazed at the boundless have attested that the boundless stares back with a cold, unyielding indifference.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The crew holds Morpheus in high esteem.

In Castaneda's world:
Naguals are revered as 'magical creatures'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Tank spells out the futility of a rescue attempt: 'Neo, this is loco.'

In Castaneda's world:
'Sorcerers understand discipline as the capacity to face with serenity odds that are not included in our expectations.  For them, discipline is an art: the art of facing infinity without flinching, not because they are strong and tough, but because they are filled with awe.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The crew is comprised of various races of people.

In Castaneda's world:
The sorcerer's party is not purely Indian.  The spirit picks out random people from all over the globe.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agent Smith likens humans to a virus.

In Castaneda's world:
We are defined by Mud Shadows in every respect, the parasites that live off our energy bodies.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Neo - no one has ever done anything like this.' --Trinity.

In Castaneda's world:
'The sorcerer's teachings are available to anyone,' says Don Juan, aware that most people choose not to pursue them.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'It's the smell…if there is such a thing.  I feel saturated by it.  I can taste your stink, and every time I do I feel that I have somehow been infected by it.  It's repulsive.' Agent Smith, although he finds 'existence' unpleasant, would otherwise be a blank mind if there weren't a virtual arena to inhabit and explore.

In Castaneda's world:
We are all one giant consciousness that, by the sorcerer's definition, selects a thousand or so facets of personality and clumps them into one human mind, allowing the single consciousness to think as an individual separate from the vast surroundings. At death we expand infinitely, encompassing all things but unable to appreciate them, the concept of 'thinking' lost.  So then 'it' (or 'you') starts over in a new life to have another crack at eternity.  Sorcerers who succeed in sneaking past the Eagle do not die a normal death.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I must get out of here - I must get free,' growls Agent Smith

In Castaneda's world:
'To seek freedom is the only force I know.' --Don Juan.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'and in this mind is the key.'

In Castaneda's world:
The most coveted state for sorcerers is inner silence, where the incessant chatter of the mind has been silenced. 'When sorcerers see a human energy body, they notice an ugly, wavy form of energy above the head, quite unlike the other energy centers of the body.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
'You're going to tell me or you're going to die.'

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan needs Carlos' assistance to make the flight to freedom.  If Carlos succeeds in helping him by also making the flight to freedom, Carlos will have avoided a normal death.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'There is no spoon.' Neo zooms up the elevator shaft at an illogical speed.

In Castaneda's world:
'To climb that world in darkness required you had to hold yourself and let yourself go at the same time.  That's what I call the mood of a warrior.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Bullet-time slows everything down.

In Castaneda's world:
'Warriors compress time.'  Don Juan 'Don Juan whispered in my ear that if I wanted to, my eyes were capable of slowing down everything they focused on.'  Carlos while seeing

In the film 'The Matrix':
Under pressure, Neo dodges the Agent's bullets without comprehending how he survives.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos is frequently amazed that he succeeds in don Juan's outlandish endeavors, don Juan describing him as possessing a 'baffling good luck'.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Trinity proves the most adept at combat, boasting a high kill rate and also holding the distinction of being the first to execute an agent.

In Castaneda's world:
Women have a natural advantage over men.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'You move like they do.' --Trinity

In Castaneda's world:
Naguals are fluid if nothing else.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I've never seen anyone move that fast.' --Trinity

In Castaneda's world:
'I was not fully aware of what I had done or how I had done it.  Suddenly I found myself again at don Juan's house.' --Carlos

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo can do things in the Matrix that he can't do in real life.

In Castaneda's world:
'In dreaming you have power; you can change things; you may find out countless concealed facts; you can control whatever you want.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Trinity downloads the attack chopper flight program, her eyes flickering as the information is transmitted.

In Castaneda's world:
'His eyes were closed but his eyeballs moved.'  Carlos describing don Juan seeing the essence of a topic.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus recovers from his stupor once the rain starts falling.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan advises taking a shower to lift one's mood, the movement of water beneficial.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'The Oracle, she told me…' 'She told you exactly what you needed to hear.'

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan uses fear of La Catalina to spur Carlos on.  Only later does Carlos find out he had been deceived.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'There's a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.' --Morpheus.

In Castaneda's world:
'I don't teach you all this in the hope that you will memorize it, rather, that you will put it into practice.' --Don Juan.

In the film 'The Matrix':
A 'bum' appears in a crucial scene near the end of the movie (soon to be possessed by Agent Smith).

In Castaneda's world:
Homeless 'bums' have more freedom than someone with a family, having erased personal history.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Morpheus, being uploaded through a hard-line, appears as a set of glowing green lines before disappearing.

In Castaneda's world:
A dog appears to Carlos as a network of translucent veins.  Don Genaro also fades out of sight in front of Carlos.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agent Smith cracks the joints in his neck before engaging in combat with Neo.

In Castaneda's world:
A peculiar talent of don Juan's - 'cracking his joints' - is a subterfuge for teaching Carlos the 'magical passes'.  Magical passes are certain movements of the body that help to expand perception.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo and Agent Smith twirl through the air together at the showdown in the train station.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Genaro battled with his equivalent: the ally.  Demonstrating to Carlos, don Genaro 'suddenly lunged forward in one stupendous leap.'  Genaro continues the tale: 'After I grabbed it we began to spin.  The ally made me twirl, but I didn't let go.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
'You're empty.'  Agent Smith 'So are you.'  Neo

In Castaneda's world:
We are all empty underneath

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo's body shakes in real life as Agent Smith pummels him.

In Castaneda's world:
'What happened when you grabbed your ally, don Genaro?' 'It was a powerful jolt.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
Thomas Anderson prefers to be known as 'Neo'.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers are known by many names.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Time is running out on the Nebuchadnezzar, with 'squiddies' fast approaching.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan strives to teach Carlos as much as possible before departing forever on his own definitive journey.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'What happened?' 'I don't know, I lost him!' --Tank, as Neo's presence within the Matrix diminishes.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan leads Carlos to become less earth-bound.  Sorcerers can move to their dreaming bodies within daily life, consequently not grounded by the laws of physics.  'Warriors of total freedom, ... such masters of awareness, stalking, and intent that they are not caught by death, like the rest of mortal men, but choose the moment and the way of their departure from this world. At that moment they are consumed by a fire from within and vanish from the face of the earth, free, as if they had never existed.'  Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo steals the mobile phone, the owner's indignant response the trigger for subsequent possession by Agent Smith.

In Castaneda's world:
Self-reflection is the epicenter of standard awareness, the inorganic beings having consumed all other facets of our awareness.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'Mr Wizard, get me the hell out of here.'

In Castaneda's world:
Naguals lift an apprentice out of the normal world.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo runs blindly along corridors in the final chase sequence, Agents on his tail.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos zooms along the tunnels in the labyrinth of penumbra completely lost, the inorganic beings wearing down his strength.

In the film 'The Matrix':
'No, your other left!' --Tank telling Neo which way to turn in the hallway.

In Castaneda's world:
The idea of there being only one true perceiver (solipsism) is reflected in Tank's directions.  Neo initially turns to camera left, the theme being that the camera, at the time, is really the only one perceiving.  And therefore 'camera left' is his left.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agent Smith 'kills' Neo by shooting him in the stomach, a trickle of blood escaping.

In Castaneda's world:
Death occurs when the gap located at the center of the energy body opens and the dormant emanations inside flood out.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The 'squiddies' are emissaries of the static A.I.

In Castaneda's world:
Dreaming emissaries do the bidding of the similarly immobile inorganic beings.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo postpones dying in order to fight another day.

In Castaneda's world:
Death must wait for a warrior to dance his final dance.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo gets up off the floor, unperturbed by thoughts of vengeance.

In Castaneda's world:
'You experienced something which the sorcerers of ancient Mexico called the clear view, or losing the human form: the time when human pettiness vanishes, as if it had been a patch of fog looming over us, a fog that slowly clears up and dissipates.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo confronts Agent Smith in the hallway, giving him the sorcerer's 'look of no pity' - not hatred or anger, but the look of a fighting crow: vastly empty underneath.

In Castaneda's world:
'When a warrior encounters his opponent and the opponent is not an ordinary human being, he must make his stand.  That is the only thing that makes him invulnerable.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The remaining two agents give up and run away.

In Castaneda's world:
'Don't worry,' don Juan said calmly.  'I know for a fact that those attacks wear off very quickly.  The flyer's mind has no concentration whatsoever.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo stops the bullets using his will.

In Castaneda's world:
'Will' allows a sorcerer to feel and manipulate objects without touching them physically.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo overcomes Agent Smith, discovering a latent power of unimaginable scale.

In Castaneda's world:
If Carlos wrestles with the ally and loses, he will, according to Don Juan 'be snuffed out.'  But if he wins, his reward is 'true power, the final acquisition of sorcery membership, when all interpretation ceases.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo 'stops the world' when he halts the Agent's bullets mid-air.  He then sees the underlying code of the Matrix.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan helps Carlos to stop the world, now on his way to seeing.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Prior to the final battle with Agent Smith, Neo perceives a deeper level of energy in his surroundings - the underlying green code of the Matrix.  He is not merely 'looking' but instead experiencing the essence of the surrounding world without interpretation clouding his vision.

In Castaneda's world:
This is also the sorcerer's aim.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo gains complete and utter equanimity by the final scene, leaving the Agents powerless.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos achieves inner silence, forcing the flyer to flee his mind.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Agent Smith's death is an explosion, his outer layer giving way to the energy inside.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers see death as the moment when the 'crack' in our luminous shell finally enlarges sufficiently that the mass of energy inside us bursts out in a rush, much like a balloon popping effect disintegrating the container.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo stands as a glowing white figure after 'exploding' Agent Smith.

In Castaneda's world:
'The double is white, yellowish white, like the sun.' --La Gorda

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo flexes his muscles in the hallway causing a disturbance in the fabric of reality.

In Castaneda's world:
Although the 'real world' cannot be altered like the worlds of 'dreaming', the sorcerer can modify his awareness to allow the discounting of normal physical effect - walking through walls, flight, etc.

In the film 'The Matrix':
From the time he makes the decision to rescue Morpheus, Neo's power slowly grows until he is able to fight Agents with ease.

In Castaneda's world:
'By reason of their activities, at a given moment the assemblage points of warriors drift toward the left.  It is a permanent move, which results in an uncommon sense of aloofness, or control, or even abandon. That drift of the assemblage point entails a new alignment of emanations.  It is the beginning of a series of greater shifts.  Seers very aptly called this initial shift losing the human form, because it marks an inexorable movement of the assemblage point away from its original setting, resulting in the irreversible loss of our affiliation to the force that makes us persons.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The agents are inherently weak, Neo able to defeat them.

In Castaneda's world:
'They (the sorcerers of antiquity) found out that if they taxed the flyer's mind with inner silence, the foreign installation would flee, giving to any one of the practitioners involved in this maneuver the total certainty of the mind's foreign origin.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo finds love.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers gain the energy to 'see' by abstaining from sex. 'You always think I'm talking about morals, when in fact it is a simple matter of energy.' -- 'You either make love with your sexual energy or you dream with it.  There is no other way.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I know you're out there.  I can feel you now.  I know that you're afraid.  You're afraid of us.  You're afraid of change.' --Neo to the A.I.

In Castaneda's world:
'I know that you've never gone hungry in your life, yet you fear starving.  That's the flyer's fear, afraid that his source of food is about to be taken away.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
'I don't know the future.  I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end.  I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.  A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries.  A world where anything is possible.  Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.' --Neo

In Castaneda's world:
'We are men and our lot is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.  A warrior who sees energy knows that there is no end to the new worlds for our vision.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
In the final dialogue we see a screen full of code flashing past.  Suddenly it freezes, the words 'system failure' prominent.  Neo has succeeded in disrupting the core of the Matrix.

In Castaneda's world:
The sorcerer's first step to seeing lies in 'stopping the world', a moment when the normal flow of interpreting the familiar comes to a halt, collapsing the world in the process.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo stands on the street corner calmly, a contrast to his earlier experience with the Agent training program wherein pedestrians tackled him.

In Castaneda's world:
Carlos was clumsy at the beginning of his association with Don Juan. 'Naguals in particular shouldn't bump into anyone.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo flies up into the sky.

In Castaneda's world:
Sorcerers, through use of their dreaming body, can fly.  They can also fly in their physical body by tapping directly into intent.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo flies up out of a crowded city street without concern for the closed minds witnessing.

In Castaneda's world:
Invisibility is a corollary of having acquired indifference.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Wachowskis work behind the camera.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan denies Carlos permission to take photographs and recordings.  When Carlos protests that 'photos are necessary,' Don Juan admonishes 'All that is necessary is the spirit.'

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Matrix is seen in dour tones of green, whereas blue is the prominent colour of 'real life'.  

In Castaneda's world:
Through the application of 'magical passes' it is possible to cross to another phylum, rendering the world in gelatinous tones much brighter and vibrant than normal.

In the film 'The Matrix':
Neo had to die before gaining the ability to see.  The crew's digital selves die within the Matrix, previous life left behind forever.

In Castaneda's world:
'My benefactor told me then that a sorcerer's ticket to freedom was his death.  He said that he himself had paid with his life for that ticket to freedom, as had everyone else in his household.  And that now we were equals in our condition of being dead.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The name 'Morpheus' suggests 'morphing' abilities.

In Castaneda's world:
Don Juan can also 'morph', a crow being his specialty.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The A.I. controls mankind's alternate thinkers.

In Castaneda's world:
'Think for a moment, and tell me how you would explain the contradiction between the intelligence of man the engineer and the stupidity of his system of beliefs, or the stupidity of his contradictory behaviour.'

'You see, the flyers' mind has no competitors.  When it proposes something, it agrees with its own proposition, and it makes you believe that you've done something of worth.

The flyers' mind will say to you that whatever Juan Matus is telling you is pure nonsense, and then the same mind will agree with its own proposition, "Yes, of course, it is nonsense," you will say.  That's the way they overcome us.'  Don Juan

And from the author of Catch-22:

'Possibly it's my cynicism, the feeling that we are much more proud of ourselves than we have a right to be and that almost everything that happens to us physically is pre-determined. And there is now another field that interests me, not to the extent that I'll ever understand it, and that's called evolutionary psychology.

The fact that how we feel, how we think, even what we do is out of our hands, including our character, our personality. And there's an interesting chapter in the book 'Conciliance' by E.O.Wilson where beyond my understanding but chapter three fascinated me because he deals with the conclusions of people who specialise in the brain, and he points out what seems to be obvious:

That we have no control of our own brain and the brain exists before we do, and everything in the brain comes as a result of your genetic inheritance and experience.

The brain processes in ways we can't control and everything you and I do is a brain expressing itself and we've had no control over it.' --Joseph Heller

In the film 'The Matrix':
The virtual world, in all its spatiality and dimension, exists only in the user's head.

In Castaneda's world:
An infinite number of worlds are right in front of us, positioned side by side like layers of an onion.  The idea of the world being 'out there' seems less certain as energy levels rise.

In the film 'The Matrix':
The greatest threat humans face is revealed in a Hollywood action movie resplendent with hip references to 'Simulacra and Simulation' and 'Alice in Wonderland', both relevant but a diversion to the core issue broached under the scientific heading of 'evolutionary psychology'.

In Castaneda's world:
'We went for a hike today, we talked, because the mystery of sorcery must be cushioned in the mundane.' 'We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives.  Human beings are its prisoners.  The predator is our lord and master.  It has rendered us docile, helpless.  If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest.  If we want to act independently, it demands that we don't do so.' 'But don't worry.  I know for a fact that the flyer has no persistence.  Attain inner silence and he will flee.' --Don Juan

In the film 'The Matrix':
The Wachowski brothers have packaged sorcery for a wider audience.

In Castaneda's world:
'His benefactor had made him experience countless sorcerers' options, more than the number that would normally be necessary, because he knew that don Juan's destiny would be to be called upon to explain what sorcerers were and what they did.' --Carlos

In summary:

Something as abstract as the contrasts between 'The Matrix' and sorcery has all boiled down to ego gratification: I have a half-page script alteration (not so much alteration but addition) for Matrix Part 3, so if Larry or Andy have read all this I'd appreciate hearing from you. 

For anyone else who would like to know more about the works of Carlos Castaneda, I recommend starting with Journey To Ixtlan - the third in the series.  Last time I checked it cost around $14, a ridiculously low price considering the content, and having read all titles numerous times this is the one I would pick first cab off the rank.

To anyone who still hasn't seen the Wachowski's masterpiece, you should add The Matrix to your personal collection.  Frankly it's that good, and I can hardly earn a referral fee from Amazon if you go to Blockbuster.

Okay, by now you know I didn't do all this for enlightenment alone.  But the movie and books changed my life and now I'm about to start full-time Wing Chun Kung Fu training.  Unfortunately my financial resources are not flush and any help would be greatly appreciated.  So if you (curious reader/film buff) were going to buy either the books or film in question, why not help me on my way? 

Even if you aren't planning on buying these particular titles, make a point of using the generic link at the bottom of this page whenever you go shopping.  It won't cost anything and you'll be putting 'solipsism' to good use.  You'd be diverting a portion of dotcom money to a worthy endeavor and if you happen to be Larry or Andy then a big fat 'script consultant' payment would be cool too.

Phew!  What a pitch.  Continuing on the theme of gaining freedom I've included an interview with Corey Rudl, my own personal saviour.  I dare you to bookmark this page - let's see if the flyer is in charge.

Cheers,

Paul Holmes

 
Neo:  'I can't go back, can I?'

Don Juan:  'In your next meeting with the ally you will have to wrestle with it and tame it.  If you survive the shock you will find yourself alive in an unknown land. Then, as is natural to all of us, the first thing you will want to do is to start on your way back to Los Angeles.

But there is no way to go back to Los Angeles.  What you left there is lost forever.

By then, of course, you will be a sorcerer, but that's no help; at a time like that what's important to all of us is the fact that everything we love or hate or wish for has been left behind. Yet the feelings in a man do not die or change, and the sorcerer starts on his way back home knowing that he will never reach it, knowing that no power on earth, not even his death, will deliver him to the place, the things, the people he loved.'

All quotes from the motion picture 'The Matrix' and the works of Carlos Castaneda are the property of their respective owners.  Any similarity between the two is possibly intended.  Joseph Heller quoted from an interview with ABC Australia. This work is copyright © 2003 Paul Holmes.