>What you have in The Matrix is, for all intents and purposes,
>good ol' fashioned astral travel dressed up with a lot of
>technobabble. When you look past the trappings, the setting is
>steeped in mysticism, some acknowledged, some not. (My thought
>after my first viewing, all those years ago: "it's Mage: The
>Awakening: the Movie.")

By which I deduce you've never read The Invisibles. :)