MAGIC THEATER AND MATRIX
SEPTEMBER 22, 2011. The September nomorefakenews fund drive continues. See the end of this article for how you can help.
What is popularly called The Matrix, which is physical reality plus schemes of human organization, is dependent on how we perceive.
And that perception naturally fans out from each one of us. You look out on reality, and you are the starting point and the center. What could be more obvious?
But, over time, this individual-centered perception tends to harden into a central point of view for each person. A limiting point of view.
A point of view that contains many fixed ideas or filtering lenses.
Yet, you are you. What are you supposed to do? Abandon selfhood and become somebody else?
On the contrary, your power and strength depend on you being more and more of you.
Still, when you-being-you entails repetition and routine and ingrained habit, when you become bored by continuing to “see things the same way,” you look for a way out.
In fact, this repetition and routine and boredom acts as a confined space that locks you tighter into ordinary reality, or Matrix.
It seems like an unsolvable puzzle.
Which is where most people stop. They accept their fate. They give in. They come to believe living in ordinary reality and seeing ordinary reality and dealing in an ordinary way with ordinary reality is the best they can hope for.
Every person, creature, process, and thing inside Matrix faces this situation. It wants to be itself, it wants to gain power from being itself, and it discovers that, in the course of being itself, its habitual perception of reality hardens and narrows. Overall, this is the mechanical structure of Matrix.
In fact, even geniuses face this problem. Over time, they tend to see reality, even if it is heightened, in habitual—and to them—boring ways.
Enter the Magic Theater.
The basic premise of Magic Theater is revolutionary: you can become more you by being others. Rather than losing your sense of self in the process, you become more you, expanded you. And those fixed ideas and limiting filters dissolve.
But “being others” is not simply an act of fantasy. You SPEAK as others. You take on various roles, in dialogue, and you speak from those roles. This is done as improvisation.
If you took a person and asked him to make a list of roles he might play, he would tend to produce a recognizable list. The roles would be familiar. That’s fine. As far as it goes. But the idea is to go much farther.
Because, in theater, anything can happen. It isn’t just mother, son, father, daughter. It can be “the ant that runs the universe.”
What?!
Why would anyone want to play that role? What possible benefit could it confer?
Let me answer that by putting it starkly: THE POWER OF MATRIX DERIVES FROM THE PERCEIVED LIMIT ON WHAT ROLES CAN BE PLAYED.
That’s the bottom line.
Think of self as a circle. The circle represents what a person considers possible for himself. When he plays a role that falls outside the circle, the circle expands. It expands, not because Matrix permits it, but because self permits it.
And gradually a new truth emerges: self, not Matrix, is the determining factor.
Matrix presents an illusory limit on what roles can be played.
In the Magic Theater, that limit is shattered.
From the point of view of Matrix, playing “the ant who runs the universe” is absurd and ludicrous. Not only doesn’t an ant run the universe, “who in his right mind” would play that role?
From the point of view of self, why not play the role?
Who is the ant talking to? Well, let’s try “your mother.” That’s right. Your mother is talking to the ant who runs the universe. You’ll play the ant and I’ll play your mother. And we’ll talk for an hour or so. Then we’ll switch. You’ll be your mother, and I’ll be the ant.
The typical reaction to such a set-up might be something like this (I include the subconscious responses as well):
“That’s crazy! Why should I waste my time doing such an insane thing. It’s impossible. I’m not an ant, and I’m not a mother. I’m certainly not your mother. Besides, if I did play those roles, I might feel weird. If I told my friends about it, they’d think I was nuts. I’m me, and that’s all there is to it. If I played an ant, I might turn into an ant. If I played an ant, I might discover I CAN play an ant, and that would be very disturbing. Ants can’t talk. So that’s the end of that right there. Pretending is for children. I’m an adult, and I know everything worth knowing. I have a master’s degree. Why should I stoop to playing an ant? If it turned out I actually enjoyed it and felt liberated by it, that would be a sign I have some kind of mental illness. Feeling liberated, as opposed to thinking about being liberated, is not something I’m interested in. It would rock the boat. I admit the idea of an ant running the universe is vaguely amusing, but it certainly doesn’t contribute to my store of knowledge. And that’s what I’m all about. Increasing knowledge. My status and reputation are dependent on gaining more real knowledge. And since I know everything worth knowing already, I have to accumulate more knowledge wherever I can find it, so I can continue to say I know everything worth knowing. Do you see? Besides, I’m a spiritual person. I have gained great wisdom from following the path of certain meditations that open the door into cosmic understanding, and if I somehow got something out of playing an ant who runs the universe, that would be tantamount to admitting my spiritual path didn’t contain everything worth having. Spiritual knowledge, or metaphysics, is ultimately a mirror of Higher Reality, and it’s very clear and exacting. Introducing AN ANT into all this is absolutely absurd. It would be like saying I found wisdom and truth from, well, a damn ant who runs the universe! No way! It’s sacrilegious! Of course, I have to confess it might be fun. To play the ant just for a minute or so. The idea that I, even if I’m an ant, run the universe—that’s appealing. I’ve always wanted to run the universe and put things the way they should be. And the sense of power—people can’t tell me what to do, I tell them what to do. I mean, I am rather…I mean, I deserve to have that power. People are so crazy. They need someone like me to tell them how to behave. It’s frustrating, you know, to walk around with so much understanding about things and yet not have a position from which I can call the shots. And if I were talking to a mother, that would be interesting. Mothers always get things wrong. They react from instinct, they over-protect, they need control from an external source. Of course, if you want me to play the mother, too, forget about it! No chance in heaven I’d do that! It would be demeaning…”
And so on and so forth. For a few thousand pages or so.
Within that circle of self are the roles a person would consider playing. But there is open territory beyond the circle, and there you’ll the find the roles a person might possibly play, and there is a wider circle and then MORE territory—and there you’ll find the roles a person would really not consider playing….and then more open territory, and on and on it goes…and each time a person moves out into wider territory and plays roles, he finds more energy and power and freedom…and he is still very himself, and in fact is more and more himself, expanded…
And Matrix doesn’t look like Matrix anymore. Which is to say, it was always an illusion.
I have found a location to hold the first Magic Theater workshop. Details to follow as soon as I have them.
Jon Rappoport
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