Am I awake yet? Leaving a cult: Matrix or Inception?

For many of us who have left a cult, the film ‘The Matrix’ is very special. The concept of being manipulated and controlled by a malevolent force by keeping you asleep, feels incredibly poignant to many of us. The metaphor of waking up is one that many of us use in our exit stories. At some level the movie also provides a buzz of self-congratulation. Sure, we’re not quite Neo but we have been through a similar journey, and we did it ourselves. I often say it’s one of my greatest achievements and I’m proud that I managed it.

As great as the movie is, it’s a fairly simple plot; man is dreaming away his life, completely unaware he’s living in a simulation, he gets woken up, gets welcomed to the “real world”, joins the resistance and fights evil machine overlords. But what if Neo, at some point had asked the question, “how do I know that I’m not still asleep?” It’s a question only hinted at by the Matrix reboot, but there is a movie that grabs hold of this question and bashes you over the head with it, and that is “Inception”, the 2010 masterpiece from writer/director Christopher Nolan.

The movie is set in a world where agents can enter business-people’s minds while they are put into a drug induced sleep, in order to steal trade secrets. This is called “extraction”, and with skilful architects to build a convincing dreamscape, and talented agents to operate within the dream it is relatively easy. More difficult, and some say impossible in the film, is the act of “inception”, of planting an idea into the unconscious, and then the person acting upon it back in the real world. Central to the plot is the concept of dreams within dreams, and during the film we see characters going deeper and deeper down the levels of dreamscapes. Waking up, in this story requires waking up numerous times, until you reach the top-level reality. Time in the dream world passes much more quickly for the dreamer and at every level the effect is multiplied meaning dreamers can lead many lifetimes within this state. One of the stories in the movie involves the protagonist Cobb’s wife, Mal, with whom he had travelled down multiple dream levels. She is given an idea (inception) by Cobb, in order for them to return to the real world. That idea is that “this is a dream”. Mal had become so lost in this dream of dreams that she had forgotten this most basic truth and Cobb wants her literally to wake up.

He is successful and eventually she accepts this idea. When they get back to the real world, though, she still has this belief in her head, planted by her husband, and becomes obsessed by waking up again to the real world. Despite his protestations she jumps from a high rise building in order to wake up, from what she believes, is just another dream. This is really the B plot of the film. Most of the important action revolves around a sort of heist plot, to plant the idea into a grieving son’s mind to break up the family business he is inheriting. It is, however, central to the troubling conceit at the heart of what the film is all about. The big question Nolan leaves hanging for us to argue and think about is, is Mal right? Is this just a dream that we’ve been watching? Is there another level above?

The question of “how do I know if I’m dreaming?” is ancient and I’m definitely not getting into that one today. But if we’re using the waking-up metaphor to describe leaving a cult, and importantly also leaving behind the mentality, the question of knowing whether you’ve actually done so, is important. In the Matrix, Neo wakes up into the real world and gets heavily involved in it. He becomes a freedom fighter to try and help others, ultimately hoping to bring down the entities that still mislead billions into living out their lives in a dream. Although grim, he knows he is now experiencing reality. In Inception, Mal believes she has not actually woken up, and that more, what I’m calling “reality work”, needs to be done.

I left the highly controlling religious group into which I was born, over twenty years ago. Upon leaving, I tried to adjust to my new understanding of the world. I had formerly believed that Satan the Devil was the real ruler of the world, pulling the strings, controlling people through education, entertainment and media, politics, other religions etc. These malevolent invisible forces were being allowed a limited time to mislead people into disobeying God but shortly Jesus would bring Armageddon, the destruction of all the wicked. This worldwide slaughter would mean the deaths of billions — basically all who failed to worship God in the right way — our way. I was discouraged from getting a good education and a career because the world offered nothing. Instead, I was to listen exclusively to a small group of men in another country who would tell me what to think and how to live my life. I was indoctrinated from infancy through a series of meetings and Bible studies, encouraged to become a window cleaner so I could dedicate more time to the evangelising work and not get side-tracked into pointless activities, like earning more money or developing a satisfying career.

Waking up from this life meant questioning what I had been told from the only authority I had ever really known, and I mean authority in more than one sense. The organization was the final word on right and wrong. Sure, they would quote Bible verses but it was their interpretation and no others were available — certainly not my own. They were also the authorities on everything else. Want to know about History? Here’s the book you should read. What about archaeology? Here’s the magazine to tell you what to think. What about the best way to raise your kids? You guessed it, they have a book for that too. Unlike Neo or Mal many of us didn’t have a guide to help wake us up. It’s a slow process that for me took decades, of increasing doubts, of discomfort, trying desperately to hold onto my faith. Eventually I started to force myself to open my eyes. A little at first, I was terrified that I would learn what I didn’t want to learn, that I’d been misled all this time — yes that I’d been living in a dream-world. No Christ had not been ruling invisibly since 1914, no God was not going to destroy everyone apart from a faithful few to live forever on a paradise Earth. No millions of long dead people were not going to be resurrected as human beings still in their ancient clothing.

The realisation that you have been lied to all your life is hard to take. It makes you cautious and vigilant to other people who claim to be able to give you answers, or who try to have control over you, who might claim to be an authority about something, who ask you to accept something as “The Truth”.

I had been told to avoid “The World”, that it was dangerous, full of wicked people, and that there was nothing there for me. When I left, I realised this was a lie. Yes, there are some bad things that happen in the world — far too many — but there are also opportunities. There are opportunities to actually do some good, to make the world a bit better, there are opportunities to develop and learn, I still had time to learn a new career. I became a corporate trainer and then went to university as a mature student and got a psychology degree. I then did my master’s in organizational psychology, working in an interesting and satisfying career. I also have the pleasure of being able to do a podcast with my adult daughter who has never had to wake up from the dream-world, thousands of young cult members will.

In the early days of leaving, I dabbled with alternative ideas. I read the books of Graham Hancock, and I attended a seminar at London with a number of writers and self-styled ancient Egypt experts, some of whom went on to appear on the infamous Ancient Aliens TV show. At the seminar they had somehow convinced an official in charge of the Egyptian antiquities to attend, to say a few words and take a few questions from the floor. I raised my hand and was picked. I waited for the microphone and asked why the authorities in Egypt had refused to engage with the question of whether there was a hall of records buried somewhere within the complex at the Giza Plateau. The audience around me clapped.

There was something intoxicating about it. My experience of leaving my cult had taught me something. I had learned how to fight “The Man”, how to challenge the only authority I had known. And here now was this guy, a representative of the new “Man”, the new authority and I had the skills to push back and to make a difference.

I mention this because I have noticed an apparent tendency for leavers of fringe groups with cultic practices to become passionate believers in wide ranging alternative belief systems. Like the theories about ancient advanced hidden civilisations, these systems provide another opportunity to challenge the authority, the accepted worldview. For those of us who’ve done this once already, it’s another opportunity to realise a new truth. In fact, whenever I’ve engaged with people who hold these types of worldviews, that claim a hidden cabal of demonic, maybe alien, but certainly highly competent ‘string-pullers’ the cry to me is “Wake up!” Don’t get me wrong, are there shady, powerful figures in networks of power who try to stack the cards in their favour? Of course, if you’ve been to the right school or university, if you move in the right circles, if you’re willing to cheat and exploit the system you have a massive advantage. In the UK, out of the 56 Prime Ministers we have had since the 1700s, 30 of them went to a single university — Oxford and 27 were schooled at Eton or Westminster. One of my frustrations is that while people are busily looking for secret societies that have control over world affairs the most obvious examples of undue influence are right there in plain sight.

Anyway, I digress, the question I’m asking in this piece is: When we leave do we become a Mal or a Neo. It’s ironic because the so called “Red Pill” movement uses the imagery of the Matrix, but Neo woke up, knew he was awake and lived in the real world. Sure, he fought the injustice he saw but he was engaged in the world in which he lived. Mal on the other hand could never accept she was awake and the world in which she was living was real. At the end of the movie we are left watching the spinning totem, if it keeps spinning we are still in the dream, if it falls we’re in the real world. Of course, Nolan keeps us guessing and cuts to the credits before we know for sure, but it doesn’t really matter. My assertion would be that for Mal she would never accept that she was in the real world. Inception had worked too well; it was as though she was addicted to this way of thinking. She had to carry on looking for more and more levels, for more dreams to wake up from.

I find it sad that so many people leave high control groups and then get sucked into a new all-consuming fringe belief system. Contrary to a popular opinion that such people have not left behind their cult mindset, I believe that it’s a case of learning the wrong lesson from the experience. Instead of being a Neo and embracing the reality of the world, trying to make it a better place, they become a Mal, obsessed with waking up again and realising another level of reality and existence.

After my dalliances with fringe archaeology and ancient aliens I realised that the best thing I could do was get a good education and engage with the world into which I had emerged. This world has a lot wrong with it. As I write there are multiple wars, claiming thousands of lives, we still have hunger in the world, we have authoritarian governments denying people basic freedoms, we have massive inequality and people’s lives cut short by treatable diseases. There’s plenty to put right, plenty to challenge those in authority about, but putting these things right requires engagement with the individuals and institutions of the world, not imagining a different one, where lizard people control world events and where every person in every institution is somehow part of a grand conspiracy, or where the Earth is flat and Nasa (along with every other space agency or company) has been lying to us all along.

My waking up process took years and spanned the start of the new millennium. It was my most important achievement. I don’t need to do it again. I understand that politicians lie, they want to hold on to power. I know that many in big business are corrupt, that they dodge their taxes, that powerful people scratch each other’s backs. I understand that some scientists don’t always follow the scientific method and that they may even at times lie. I hate that drug companies make so much money and seem to care less about actually helping people than their profits. There have been, and will be scandals that reveal the selfishness and heartlessness of some people. But these are things happening in the real world. We need more independent journalists, more holding politicians to account, more asking awkward questions of those in positions of power and authority. What we don’t need is more people believing that there is another reality and that we just need to wake up and it will all be okay. No this is it. This is the world we have so let’s make it a better one.

Stephen Mather GMBPsS is a Podcaster and Corporate Leadership and Management Trainer & Coach with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and a Masters in Organizational Psychology. He was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and studies cults and high control groups.

Podcast ‘Cult Hackers’ pod.link/1540824671