What is Virtual Reality?

Restore Reason "Truth, Freedom, Beauty, Romance"

"We have not even to risk the adventure alone for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known ... we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a God. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outwards, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.” - Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces

The Question:

What is Virtual Reality?

Our Response:

The purpose of Virtual Reality is to employ the functions of mythology and ritual to allow a man, woman, couple, or group to experience their own personalized adventure - using the sensory experiences they find the most aesthetically pleasing - as a context for their life or as an escape from the harshness of the real world.

Mythology is the collected stories of heroes and heroines, and how the lives of these heroes and heroines intersect with the stages of our own lives, and become the model of behavior for ourselves and our community. Throughout history, rituals and ceremonies were used to enact these mythological stories for the purpose of moving an individual through the stages of throwing off an old role, moving into and identifying with a new role, and entering into a state of personal responsibility.

Mythology serves four functions in the life of a human being:

1. a mystical function: aiding the human in his or her experience of a higher or transcendent reality;
2. a cosmological function: providing an order to the world and the hierarchical relationships between the cosmos and society;
3. a sociological function: giving order to the members of a group, especially laying down behavioral norms;
4. a psychological function: aiding the individual in personal growth and coming to grips with a personal reality.

Virtual Reality is the creation of sensory experiences (including tastes, sight, smell, sound, and touch) that simulate the physical presence of real or imagined characters, locations, settings, and props. These sensory experiences serve as a pressure relief valve by unleashing pure ecstatic emotion in a controlled but intellectually free environment, thereby allowing the psyche free reign to focus on the pursuit of happiness without the burden of pent up emotion.

The experiences we encourage members (and non-members) to participate in, either alone or with others, can be summed up in the following three statements:

• to know peace, one must first experience courage (i.e., aggression, heroism, competition, sacrifice, conquest - the warrior dynamic);
• to know liberty, one must first experience discipline (i.e., authority, militarism, obedience, abstinence - the dominant/submissive dynamic);
• to know rationality, one must first experience passion (i.e., carnality, instinct, rebellion, inspiration, hedonism - the romantic dynamic).

Virtual Reality should be recognized as a theatrical performance, with the participant or participants knowing full-well that they are practicing a form of contrived ignorance in order to expand their will. Restore Reason promotes this as one of humanities best defenses against all forms of self-deceit that forbid such recognition, or that even allow others to admit such a thing as self-imposed ignorance!

For more information on how to become a member of Restore Reason, click on the following link: