Mysterious Library #53 The Matrix: Sci-Fi or Truth

Your hosts Dr. Dean Bertram and Jason McLean venture into the sci-fi section of the Mysterious Library's AV wing tonight. They'll be chatting about the hit 1999 film, and Keanu Reeve's vehicle, THE MATRIX. But should the film be considered simple fiction? Or is it blasting us with secret, divine messages, the way P. K. Dick suggested some enlightening pop culture did in his seminal and reality-bending novel VALIS? Or perhaps THE MATRIX just follows the long and ancient strain of Neoplatonic and gnostic thought which posits we exist in a baser reality, beneath higher spiritual truth; today a concept which has been modernized, technologized and popularized in "simulation theory." Your Mysterious Librarians will be pondering these questions, and more in what is going to be a wild ride, to the furthermost boundaries of this reality.... and beyond!