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his real body inside the hovercraft (i.e., in the real world) writhe in agony and bleed
profusely out of the mouth. The same applies to Neo whose physical body in the
Nebuchadnezzar dies (before his Christ-like resurrection) after his residual image is shot
within the Matrix. Therefore, Zach Staenberg and John Gaeta are wrong in their
assumption that "all these people are virtual" and so "nobody actually dies" (see above). If
the real Mouse dies after being shot, then so do the real bodies of all the security men shot
by Neo and Trinity in the government building.
In this connection Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel Wagner wonder why the Wachowski
brothers make the violence so real in the film:
Indeed, the "violence" which takes place in the Niko Hotel could still be portrayed, with the
reassuring belief that any "deaths" which occur there are simply computer blips. The fact
that the writers so purposefully insist that actual human beings die (i.e. die also within the
power plant) while serving as involuntary "vessels" for the agents strongly argues for The
Matrix‘s direct association of violence with the knowledge required for salvation (53 also
see Peter X Feng: 151).
I would suggest that a shift in semiotic perspective occurs when we read The Matrix in this
light. Instead of seeing the cyberworld as analogous to the Buddhist samsara — a world of
illusion that every human must strive to overcome in order to access a higher reality
(Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel Wagner: 26), instead of interpreting Morpheus's rebels
as the enlightened ones of Mahayana Buddhism who give of themselves in order to guide
the "blind" out of samsara and toward enlightenment (Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel
Wagner: 30), I would propose the model of a modern aggressive, violent cult.
The story of destructive fringe religious movements begins with the Book of Revelation in
the New Testament. The author, John of Patmos, offers a reading of the Roman Empire not
as a sociopolitical network that offered peace and relative prosperity to most of the world
for the first time in human history. Instead, feeling disenfranchised as a member of a new
religious movement that did not fit into any religious system of the times, John presents the
entire world as an instrument of cosmic evil slated for destruction (cf., Adela Yarbro Collins:
141-142). The only exception is a small group of "saints" that follow John's understanding
of Christianity. The method for legitimizing this stance is the projection of the social
conflict in question to the transcendental plane where the in-group (John's Christians) are
agents in the hands of God while the out-group (the rest of humanity) are representatives
in the hands of Satan (cf. Adela Yarbro Collins: 148-150). This model went on to inspire
various millenarian sects throughout the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, e.g., the
Anabaptists. As Norman Cohn points out, one can recognize the paradigm of what was to
become and to remain the central phantasy of revolutionary eschatology. The world is
dominated by an evil, tyrannous power [...]until suddenly the hour will strike when the
Saints of God are able to rise up and overthrow it. Then the Saints themselves, the chosen,
holy people who hitherto have groaned under the oppressor's heel, shall in their turn inherit
dominion over the whole earth (4).
The pattern of social turmoil which emerged as a result of this thinking worked as follows:
A marginalized group (often consisting of peasants that flocked to medieval cities but could
find no work or a social niche) dealt with its frustration by isolating itself from mainstream
society exactly as John demands in Revelation.
The group argued that society was part of a cosmically evil enemy deserving of utter
destruction.
Often violent acts (including the massacre of local Jews [Norman Cohn: 49-50, 61-2]) would
be committed against society on the assumption that a divine agent would intervene and
usher in the end of the unjust world (cf. Norman Cohn: 29-32, 253, 314).

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 73
When we consider modern cults, the same logic appears to be operating time and time
again, with Jim Jones's People's Temple in Guyana or David Koresh's Branch Davidians in
Waco being two striking examples (cf. David G. Bromley and Edward D. Silver: 58). John
W. Morehead points out that the cosmic struggle element is standard in today's aggressive
religious sects (article), and so is the need to refer to a sacred text:
Their role in battle is symbolized by various scriptural or authoritative imagery that confirms
for them the nature of the divine struggle. The ideology then provides the appropriate moral
justification for violent acts against civilians who would not ordinarily be seen as combatants
and appropriate targets for destruction.
Let us recall in this connection the above-cited passage from The Matrix where Morpheus
tells Neo that everyone in the out-group is the enemy. The scriptural equivalent in this war
is the prophecy that drives Morpheus. Since there was a godlike individual who woke up
from the Matrix and predicted his own return in the guise of The One (Neo), the struggle of
the rebels in the Wachowski film shifts from the political sphere to the
transcendental/cosmic one. Thus, anyone standing in the way of the rebels is preventing
something sacred from being accomplished, which justifies all violent acts against innocent
people in the out-group.
Two attitudes toward the out-group seem to be combined in The Matrix. On the one hand,
the unawakened population of the Matrix is the unquestionable enemy, a threat that must
be dealt with decisively. This would be epitomized by Neo's well-known request that Tank
provide him and Trinity with "guns, lots of guns." Such a position corresponds to that of
the Japanese Aum cult, for example, regarding which John. W. Morehead writes:
From within the mindset of terrorist ―cultures of violence‖ the world is already a hostile
place, and the groups themselves, and those they represent, are the ones under attack.
What those on the outside view as terrorism and unprovoked aggression, those perpetrating
the acts consider self-defense.
This difference of perspective is well illustrated by agent Smith who asks Neo to help in
bringing "a well-known terrorist to justice." To Smith, Morpheus is a terrorist while to the
rebel group Morpheus is a heroic liberator.
The other attitude toward mainstream society is a paradox inherent not only in aggressive
religious cults but also in many 19th and 20th century revolutionary movements. This is
well illustrated by the lyrics of the Russian version of the Communist International: "The
whole world of violence shall be destroyed by us down to its foundations, and then we shall
build our own world..." (my translation:
http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/html_pages/internatsional.html). As Herbert L.
Rosedale indicates with respect to the Aum cult,
In a recent work dealing with Aum Shinrikyo, Robert Lifton has commented on how the view
of that cult was manifested in the apocalyptic goal of ―destroying the world in order to save
it,‖ and the group‘s action in killing innocent non-believers was viewed as altruistic murder
that benefited both the victims and their perpetrators.
Morpheus's position is similar in that he too seeks to save the deluded population of the
Matrix but considers every sleeping individual as a foe at the same time (see above).
The disdain with which the out-group is viewed by the rebels in The Matrix is suggested by
the term "coppertop." This is how Switch calls Neo in the car when she points a gun at him
and tells him to lift up his shirt for debugging. Unawakened humans are treated like
batteries by the machines, and the evil of that attitude is indisputable. But Switch seems
to share in this dehumanization, demonstrating not compassion for the enslaved but a
sense of haughty superiority. This social exclusivism can be traced back from the modern