Friday, January 20, 2017

The Meaning of Super Mario Bros.

Jay Dyer does a great job of looking at the meaning of the symbols and themes in Hollywood movies at jaysanalysis.com, and the more we thought about it, the more it seemed like that sort of thing could be applied to another pop culture medium:  video games.  It may seem frivolous to look at these kinds of things, but they have become so widespread in society (e.g., http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/10/247521444/do-americans-spend-more-on-video-games-or-movies) that they are now a major tool to condition the masses, to re-engineer them according to the wishes of the Elite.  Some knowledge of them seems necessary now.

So, first up, some of the major recurring symbols and themes from the Super Mario Bros. series, considering its continued popularity and longevity:  Another entry has just been released (Super Mario Run) and another will be released with the new Nintendo Switch (Super Mario Odyssey) later this year.

Super Mushroom

Perhaps the most recognizable symbol is the super mushroom (the mushroom theme runs deeply throughout the series:  the Princess’s name is Toadstool, her servants are called ‘Toad’ and have mushroom hats, mushroom platforms abound, etc.):




And here we run into the first connection with darker forces, for this mushroom is strikingly similar to Amanita muscaria,


amongst whose ‘psychodelic effects’ are ‘[p]erceptual phenomena such as macropsia and micropsia’ (Ibid.), which affects the sight of the user such that he feels he is either larger or smaller in relation to surrounding objects (see e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macropsia, 19 Jan. 2017).  This is a good description of what happens to the Mario character, as he grows when he gets a super mushroom and shrinks without one.

It is important to note as well, ‘The professor also reported that the Lithuanians used to export A. muscaria to the Lapps in the Far North for use in shamanic rituals’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria, opened 19 Jan. 2017). 

All of this comes together as follows:

That scene transpires in a building with a checkered floor like a masonic lodge, only Neo’s “initiation” includes a drug trip (hence the pill) that “awakens” him from the matrix.  In fact, Neo’s experience is remarkably similar to an LSD trip.  At this point the film draws once again on far eastern and shamanic traditions, where the hallucinogenic experience awakens the shaman from the unreality of the dream world of his normal existence.  The “real world” is often there portrayed as the dream of the god(s), and the shaman’s initiatory revelation of the “other world,” or spirit realm is believed to be more real.  . . .


Fire Flower

Mario’s ability to use fire by way of a fire flower is also another long-standing part of the series.  This recalls the myth of Prometheus, who defied the gods and stole fire from them and gave it to men for their use.  So here, beneath the surface, are themes of rebellion against God, the improvement of man according to his own ways apart from God, and the honoring of technology:

Prometheus' association with fire is the key to his religious significance[38] and to the alignment with Athena and Hephaestus that was specific to Athens and its "unique degree of cultic emphasis" on honoring technology.[44]



Star Man

Mario becomes invincible for a short time when he gets a star man, which, as far as we know, is always represented in the games as a five-pointed figure.  This is a very disturbing symbol: 

“ . . . the blazing star of five points . . . represented Sirius . . .” 
Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma

Sirius is emblematic of hidden power and secret allegiance to an invisible empire . . . (Michael Hoffman II, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, 2001, p. 30).

And Sirius is another name for the devil (Ibid., note 15).  In other words, the five-pointed star is a symbol of the devil himself.  Knowing this, one might well ask why this symbol is so widespread in American culture - from the Dallas Cowboys to the [u.] S. Army:


Related to this theme of stars and invincibility is this statement of Arthur Clarke’s about a scene near the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey:

Arthur Clarke called the huge space baby at the end “Star Child.” The meaning is that man has come full circle, and now creates his own universe – he is now God. Existence is a never-ending succession of man’s ascent to godhood and then as a god-child, he creates a new universe and progresses and grows with it, in a blasphemous reversal of Genesis 1, where the seas are separated from the land, etc.  . . .


There is a little left still to cover, but we will stop here for now and finish up another time.

--

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð!

Anathema to the Union!

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