The Matrix as Archetype

Appendix 2 — The Matrix

A Film portraying a psychological transformation of an individual!

> All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes. > — Carl Jung

The first Matrix movie has much to teach us. The film is a lot more than a simple, shoot-em-up-bang-bang-good-guy-versus-bad-guy, film. It features Keanu Reeves as Neo, a character in search of truth in a society controlled by black-suited, dark, ominous looking, sunglass wearing, heartless, soulless, automaton men, with superhuman powers. These suits are out to crush all forms of independent, thoughtful, self-actualized individuals.

When the movie begins, we find Neo to be a confused, tired, and basically lost computer hacker, with little confidence and belief in himself or anything else. The suits are after him for not being a team player. Neo is befriended by a small group of about 10 revolutionaries fighting for their freedom against this group-think society. At the beginning of the film he is alone, sleeping at his computer station in a dingy apartment. He joins the group of revolutionaries through his free-will-choice in taking the truth pill, becomes involved in a fight for his life, succeeds, and is alone again in the last scene in the movie.

Enter Carl Jung, the famous psychological theorist, chosen by the father of psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, to be his successor in psychoanalytic theory. They parted ways and became rivals over Jung's insistence on including the spiritual realm in understanding human nature, which atheist Freud would have none of.

Jung developed his theories around his belief that every person, in order to be a happy, healthy, self-fulfilled individual, must incorporate different archetypes in his or her psychological maturation process. These archetypes are human personality

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does, or unwillingly, as most losers do, during their own lives. All the other characters in The Matrix, represent both good and bad archetypes within himself.

He falls in love with the beautiful, confident, and strong woman, Trinity, played by actress Carrie-Anne Moss. She represents his integration of the feminine yin characteristics, to balance his natural masculine, yang energy. If she were real as his lover, she would have been with him in the last scene when he is once again on the streets of the city.

Another character, Cypher, played by Joe Pantoliano, represents the self-defeating, nihilist, traitor, who 'souled-out' for material pleasures, because he did not want to do the necessary psychological and spiritual internal work, essential to all truly successful people. Cypher says to the leader of the suits, "I don't want to remember nothing, nothing," in his wishful, and willful, decision to deny what he is doing. As we all know, each of us have been tempted at times to take the easy way out and become our very own traitor in one form or another.

Another character, Tank, played by Marcus Chang, represents the immature, naive child, and is killed in the movie, just as each of us has to let go of the immature child within us if we are to mature in our manhood or womanhood.

The leader of the group, Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, represents the inner voice of the Holy Spirit in Neo. Morpheus totally believes in Neo and his ability to become the one--the one who overcomes the restrictions imposed by the suits who demand that we all be the same, follow the dictates of society and give up our spiritual identity and free will for the good of the state.

Like Neo, each of us has our own inner voice. This universal essence, the Holy Spirit of God Himself, totally believes in the good in each of us and is always, with eternal patience, urging us onward in becoming the very best we can be in the full actualization of our potential. Winners succeed in this developmental process while losers succumb to the negative archetypes within themselves.