If you can find an old copy of it, it’s worth taking a look at (though I’m not sure if it runs on XP, you might need to try a Win98 or Win95 box)…

Cloud Strife, a man who has forgotten himself, sucked out of a pastoral small-town existence (Niblheim- the land of the dead) and into the world of man, a polluted, cyberpunk-ish cityscape where a rich, all-powerful, earth-destroying corporation controls everything (Midgar-from Midgard, the world of men, “middle earth). Throughout the game, the main character encounters various archetypal allies, tries to recover his memories, encounters formidable (if often bumbling) archon-esq servants of the Shinra (God’s network) corporation… and tries to save the world from having it’s lifeforce sucked out by either the corporation, or the entity Sephiroth, a supersoldier designed from alien DNA who is trying to destroy the world in his quest for apotheosis. Along the way, Sephiroth tries to convince Cloud that Cloud is merely a clone of him, that all the memories that he is regaining are merely fictions, and that he needs to join him in his quest. As far as gnosticism goes, Shinra is the Demiurge- basically an avatar of dumb, blind human growth and greed, whereas Sephiroth is more like a Thelemic Choronzon/Black Brother figure, who would try to exploit the world in order to make himself a deity.

There’s much more to it than that, I could write a whole essay explaining everything that I saw in that game, but that’s for another day… definitely one of the most memorable computer game plots I’ve ever experienced though…

Yeah, I was playing the original Zelda on the Gamecube and thought about a Gnostic interpretation of the Triforce.

And I’m pretty sure that The All-Seeing Eye in Tomb Raider was stolen from the Legend of Zelda series. I mean, didn’t she essentially run around adventurously, find the parts in different temples, reconnect them, alter time and have the ability to control the universe? Yeah, it was totally stolen. Not really sure where the whole “Illuminati” thing came from though…

Ah, hello Reason-to-buy-a-Gamecube…

As for what it taught me… To walk into peoples houses and take whatever I want after throwing some pots around, perhaps?

Also, I think the spiritual content of Zelda is not in some kind of symbolic allegory, but in the whole aura of the game. It’s like a taste of what Mythic Reality feels like. Also, I think there’s something profound in the two types of monsters. One type (the jumping spiders for example) is just a distraction, and you can fight it forever and get nowhere, and another type, you have to fight, but only once.

Link, the hero, has the task of collecting the scattered fragments of a broken Triforce to once more unify them before Ganon can do so. All this to save Zelda (wisdom) from the captivity of Ganon (power). So even though there’s not necessarily anything “occult” going on there, there’s still a coherent mythos with a message about what happens when wisdom is yoked to unchecked power and how it takes courage to balance these archetypal forces and forge a unity out of their fragmentation.

Zelda is my favorite video game series by far, so I don’t know much about any others. It may be an exception to the rule.

but on the downside, it wouldn’t survive peak oil/industrial meltdown…

It wouldn’t need to. It would simply be a timely device designed to teach people the mental skills TO survive the meltdown.

It would certainly have more of a participatory element than most esoteric works, but on the downside, it wouldn’t survive peak oil/industrial meltdown…

Have you ever looked at Zelda from the viewpoint of esoterism? Searching for the lost tri-partite golden Triforce, which redeems the Dark World (Waste Land)… in the dark world, too, all people are seen in their true natures (Link was a Bunny), until you get a magic mirror or some such…

I remember one of the Gameboy Zeldas took place on an island that was just the manifested dream of a giant fish…

Dan, I bet an oracular RPG would be VERY popular. It sure is a cool idea.

I like the idea. Imagine a game where you could interpret future events by watching signs. Like, maybe a crow would caw three times before your character gets ambushed, or by reading the clouds you’d always know your next destination.