I'm not a gamer, but I find some of the cinematic sequences fascinating. This one in particular. All of these strange mystical and esoteric memes are recombining and reordering themselves in this popcult environment, a process that could be far more revolutionary than it currently appears.
This is a damn long way from Donkey Kong, that's for sure...
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11 comments:
Yep, LOL, long way from Donkey Kong. I really love playing some of the adventure games. DOOM has some really interesting video's and scenes. I put some video's from that particular favorite of mine and wrote a small piece on it here: http://www.nightghost.ws/2009/11/doom-revisited-or-how-i-survived.html
I'm nowhere near as eloquent as you or the rest of the gang in the synchronicity crowd (love reading your and others work), but it does hit me square in the face a lot, i've noticed. Thanks for your articles and writing, by the way, really enjoy them.
Nightghost
This is quite amazing, It's like the pilot of SGU, where they use a video game player which would be intelligent enough to finish a video game. Then the Army comes and take him because the video game ending is actually a key to unlock the Stargate.
Who knows, maybe those "objects" hovering above the sun are n't just jpg artifacts.
It's much more influential than a movie or other "push" media could ever hope to achieve. The video game landscape has as much esoteric symbolism as cartoons and comics, but with the element of interactive discovery and immersiveness. You are not only presented with esoteric mysteries, but are actively encouraged to seek them out, solve them through puzzles, thus unfolding and integrating its teachings.
There's no other medium in its class. In the future (with the proper writers and creators) it could supplant, possibly surpass, the initiatic path. And once they combine it with VR to a state of flawlessness, there will be evolutionary consequences.
I won't look at the ending cause I'm still playing the game, but the ending sequence (just like the last one) is a consequence of all the things you have uncovered and put into motion during in the game. The storyline - your story, cause you are its protagonist - is directly in line with everything you talk about at Secret Sun.
I started playing video games again with ps1, ps2 (and now ps3) after a long hiatus - Atari was my previous console back when I was kid! Consequently, I have played all of the best offerings on these systems, and have have witnessed its staggering evolution over 10 years or so. It's really something you, in particular, would benefit from investigating.
''Nothing is true,everything is permitted...''Hmmm.
I don't really have the time for gaming, but it's definitely something on my radar- the cinematic sequences, that is. It's interesting to note that William Gibson developed his concept of Cyberspace after watching his kids play very primitive early 80s games.
Hi Chris, greetings from Leiria, Portugal.
That´s a marian apparition, just like in Fátima.
Speaking of mystical and occult themes in video games, ever since finishing Resident Evil 5 a couple of weeks ago I've been wanting to write about it here at one of your Secret Sun blogs. I think it's relevant to some of the themes you've been writing about.
Resident Evil 5 and The Secret Sun
The game takes place in Africa. You play as Chris Redfield, a character from earlier Resident Evil games, and his partner Sheva Alomar. Sheva's name has a lot of Arabic history to it, with Sheva being the name of an ancient Sabean kingdom (where Yemen is today), but it's hard not to associate her name with the Hindu god Shiva as well.
Umbrella Corporation has transformed into Tricell. Tricell is continuing to run experiments on people, this time in Africa, and the result is an outbreak of majini, which is this game's version of the traditional zombie (but with tentacles occasionally coming out of their faces). The word majini "is a plural Swahili word, which can refer to any number of supernatural creatures (i.e. demons, faeries, genies), but can also mean 'wicked people.' It is similar to the Japanese word 'majin,' which has an almost identical definition."
The investigation of bio-weapon smuggling and the majini outbreak leads leads to a Tricell lab, and here is where the symbolism got me thinking about The Secret Sun. The Tricell lab is located beneath a vast, ancient, underground solar temple, which the infected locals, the majini, have decided to inhabit. The are statues in there that are essentially Buddhas (Buddhas by way of Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, but still undeniably Buddhas), and giant glowing orbs like suns or stars place shooting lasers at you.
Beneath all this is a garden, where a plant called The Stairway to the Sun grows even though it is far underground. Tricell needs this plant for their Uroboros project, which is why they chose this as the location of their lab.
(continued. . .)
(part 2)
The uroboros is an alchemical symbol, the snake that eats it's own tail. Uroboros has many meanings to it, including constant rebirth and oneness with the universe.
(It is also another name for the hermaphroditic and immortal Rebis in Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol.)
The purpose of the Uroboros project is to evolve humanity and turn people into superhumans. The villain Excella even compares it to the philosopher's stone at one point in the game.
From here on out it's all about stopping the bad guys. Chris rescues his old partner, Jill Valentine, and then he and Sheva take on Excella and the the main villain, Wesker, in a stealth bomber that could easily be a black triangle UFO, which they then crash into a volcano.
Now here's what takes it from a symbolic analyses to a full on synchromystic experience. After a playing for several hours straight, during the main marathon of game play during which I noticed he symbolism happening in the plot, we decided to take a break. The very first thing that came on when we switched to television was The Fifth Element.
The Fifth Element is already a film that is practically made of synchronicities, and now here was another series of connections being made to it. Milla Jovovich, who stars in The Fifth Element, also stars in the Resident Evil movies as Alice, a woman who is continually evolving greater and greater superpowers as a result of experiments performed on her by Umbrella.
The name Alice was chosen for her as an Alice in Wonderland reference. There are two AI's named the Red Queen and the White Queen who Alice has to deal with during the movies
In The Fifth Element she plays the perfect being, and in the Resident Evil movies she is evolving into the perfect being. Resident Evil 5 is like a perfect dark reflection of the brightness of The Fifth Element. Two paths leading to the same cosmic destination.
It's started me on a lot of Fifth Element synchs.
(The Fifth Element and one of the Resident Evil movies actually came on again while I was writing this the other day, lol.)
Sorry for going off on this for so long, but with the imortality/superhuman lab beneath the ancient solar temple I couldn't resist the urge to write about it.
Oh and as far as video games go, the Final Fantasy games are always very heavy in symbols and mysticism.
There's a new one coming in just a few days.
Thanks, Kirk. Excellent data for the files.
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