As you look around you, do you ever get the feeling that something is going on? Have you ever suspected that some gargantuan joke is being played, and that there are some people who are having a great laugh at our expense?

Think of it as an invented reality, a parallel world in which our naturally chaotic lives are regulated according to some unseen rules. Now imagine that these rules are not the work of God but of man - and very ordinary man, come to that. Reality is regulated by those people who have gained control over what it is that makes our fellow man get up in the mornings. They are the ultimate manipulators, with a unique insight into the human psyche.

We exist within a matrix, a structure which encompasses and gives shape to all our lives. What is remarkable is not so much that such a structure can exist, but that it has existed for thousands of years, surviving the rise and fall of many a civilisation and the seemingly unstoppable advance of technology and discovery down the years. How is this possible? Because the matrix in question relies on three basic aspects of human nature which have always been with us.

The first is a primal need for authority. Though every human being is born with an innate capacity to think, thinking for ourselves is something we only do as an absolute last resort. Most of the decisions that we make day to day are nothing more than automatic responses. This relates to our morning bathroom routine, our selection of routes to take to work, the choices we make during the workday. It even relates to the way we interact with those around us.

We live life exchanging one trance for another. Each activity, each environment, is associated with a different set of conditioned responses. The moment we encounter anything out of the ordinary, it forces us to wake up out of our trance and fully engage our minds. This requires effort, and we only do it when we have to. This innate tendency towards parking our minds in one trance or other is critically important in understanding how we are seduced by the players into buying into the grand illusion that conceals the game.

In the absence of original and independent thought our minds have become empty, and the Players have taken advantage of this state by hypnotising us to think in a particular way. They have achieved this through the medium of suggestion, since any more direct assault on our minds would surely provoke a response. As it is, we have been lulled into a false sense of security which forces us to open our minds to their manipulations and accept their mythology for our reality. All the myths designed by the Players are bound together under the auspices of one great meta-myth: the Linearity myth. This prepares the ground for a mental takeover of society which has occurred on so fundamental a level that most people go about their lives having not the slightest inclination that it has taken place.

If we are to understand this artificial reality we must accept that it is impressively intricate. So closely are the myths connected that it is almost impossible to isolate and discredit a single one without dealing with all the others at the same time.

As individuals we are all held in check by our own narcissism. This allows us to accept the myth that the world revolves around us - that we are entitled to view ourselves as the be all an end all of our existence, rather than members of a community of equals. That community becomes a tool - a way of adding to ourselves, rather than a self-sustaining end in its own right. For the Players, the ultimate narcissists, this is how the view reality the whole time. For the rest of us it is a myth which we accept only subconsciously, and only some of the time. Nevertheless, the fact of this narcissistic inclination has a profound impact on our contribution to and vision of society.

Today's world is characterised more than ever by this trend towards narcissism. Whereas past generations are remembered by other traits - from bravery to cruelty - we are narcissists, and our world is conditioned accordingly. Narcissism exists across the spectrum of race, creed and colour, to the extent that we have come to accept it as the norm and never question its fundamental status as part of our society.

We may go further. Where in the past narcissism was rejected as a failing, today it is almost venerated to the status of an ideal. Adam Smith the celebrated philosopher and economist wrote of an "enlightened selfishness", and this same philosophy is now used to justify a society built on greed and ambition.

Besides our individual tendency towards narcissism, we are also inclined towards tribal behaviour. How ever individual we may be, all human beings are essentially reliant on each other for social contact, and will naturally tend to gravitate towards one another. The groups to which we belong will exert considerable influence on how we think and on how we live our lives. If we are not careful we will be homogenized - trained to think and act like those around us.

Finally we are all caught up in a societal trance, conditioned by a series of myths such as the myth of scarcity, law and order and the sanctity of science. Whereas we might challenge any one of these myths in isolation, the truth is that together they represent a daunting phenomenon.

The Myth of Linearity, which claims that sequential logic is the ultimate authority in world affairs, predominates over all these other myths. This is the basis for the web of myths which stifles our society, and it argues that everything can be accounted for by an endless cycle of cause and effect.

It is time to bring about the end to this trance and reject the myths surrounding us. We cannot know what society will look like when freed from these myths, but I for one would like to find out.