Gardnerian Initiation and The Matrix

The Matrix is a metaphor I use frequently to talk about Gardnerian Initiation. There are three important parallels between the two: proactive choice despite ignorance of the outcome, trust in the team that is bringing you through to the other side, and an inability to unlearn or unremember that experience.

Preparing a person for initiation is a difficult task. By definition, there’s no possible way to prove to someone that the Matrix exists without taking them out of it. Likewise, initiation is experiential. I can’t tell how it will affect a man (I’m a girl, so I can only initiate boys!) before he goes through it. My job as his initiator is to guide him through the basic concepts of energy, shielding, and grounding, to make sure he has a firm grasp of magical symbolism so he knows the landscape into which he is being thrown, and to assess his personality and the stability of his body, mind and soul. He has to choose whether he is ready without knowing what he needs to be ready for.

That requires trust. Lots of trust. My high priest and I will be bringing him through an experience that affects his whole self. Many people change after initiation. In fact, most people change after initiation. It’s a radical mind shift, but it also seems to effect people on a different level. I don’t know exactly how to explain it. I’ve seen hardcore smokers suddenly disgusted by cigarettes. I’ve seen people who were afraid of spiders or bears take the power of that fear into themselves and become one with that animal. A candidate for initiation must trust his initiator to decide whether he is a good fit for this tradition and this experience.

One of our requirements for initiation is that the preinitate write an initiation ritual before he experiences one. It’s important to get these thoughts down because it’s hard to remember how you thought something would be before you experience it. It’s hard to remember what it felt like to live in the world once you know about the Matrix. It’s also important because it lets the initiator know what the preinitiate suspects, even subconsciously, might happen. This can give me a clue as to how prepared he is.

This metaphor breaks down when we talk about age. In the movie, old people can’t be brought out of the matrix because their mindset is too cemented. It would be too traumatic. We’ve found that’s not true. While young people do tend to have a more flexible view of the world, old people have seen many more things they can’t explain, the mysteries of the universe seeping in through the cracks. What better mindset is there to leave the matrix? In the words of Hamlet, “And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”