The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Jay Dyer has said on a number of occasions that Hollywood/the entertainment industry is giving modern man a new mythology to believe, or rather giving him back his pre-Christian heathen beliefs.  The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is a very good illustration of this.  Its central theme is Link’s quest to awaken the Wind Fish, which lives in a giant egg atop a mountain, so that he can escape the island.

--https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gbc/197769-the-legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-dx/images/22

The island world of Koholint in which all the action takes place is said to be a dream of the sleeping Wind Fish, its unconscious creation.  All this has much in common with the creation myth involving the serpent and the egg.

--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphic_Egg

The Orphic egg is usually represented as an egg surrounded by a coiled serpent. The egg symbolizes the belief in the Greek Orphic religion that the universe originated from within a silver egg. The first emanation from this egg, described in an ancient hymn, was Phanes-dionysus, the personification of light:

“ineffable, hidden, brilliant scion, whose motion is whirring, you scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and through this world you brought pure light.”

--http://symboldictionary.net/?p=3234

The serpent represents the male principle and the egg the female.

Pythagoreans identify the Monad with the Male Principle and the Dyad with the Female Principle, at all levels of Being. 

 . . .

The Dyad is the number Two, but the Female Principle is a transcendent form of Two called the Indefinite Dyad, where "Indefinite" must be understood to mean indeterminate, unlimited, boundless, and infinite, all of which are relevant to the Indefinite Dyad. First I will focus on Her property of being Unlimited or Indeterminate, which makes Her the opposite of the Monad, who is the principle of Limit, Determination, and Definition. Thus the Monad and Indefinite Dyad are the Principles of Limit (Peras) and the Unlimited (Apeiria), who operate at all levels of Being, but in a different way at each level.

At the most fundamental level, the Monad is the Primordial One and the Indefinite Dyad is Primordial Matter, because Prima Materia is the indeterminate, formless, quality-less foundation of all being; She is Sub-stance -- She who stands underneath. 

--John Opsopaus, http://opsopaus.com/OM/BA/ETP/II.html

The sleeping egg in Link’s Awakening functions similarly to the female dyad, being the source of being for all that exists on Koholint.  Link is the male monad, the lone adventurer, who imparts limits/wakening to the Wind Fish/dyad.

On one level, the wakened Wind Fish freed from the egg is Phanes, mentioned briefly a little earlier:

--https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gbc/197769-the-legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-dx/images/2885

The first emanation from this egg, described in an ancient hymn, was Phanes-Dionysus, the personification of light. In Greek myth, particularly Orphic thought, Phanes is the golden-winged hermaphroditic primordial being who was hatched from the silver shining cosmic Orphic Egg. Called Protogonos (First-Born) and Eros (Love) — being the seed of gods and men — Phanes means manifestor or revealer, and is related to the Greek words “light” and “to shine forth.”

--https://gnosticwarrior.com/serpent-and-egg.html

Malela and Cedrenus, in the passage referred to under 'Night', add that Orpheus tells us that: 'Light [Phanes, "Bright Space Son of Dark Space"] having burst through the Æther [the Âkâshic Eggl illuminated the Earth [the First Earth--or Cosmos]; meaning that this Light was the Light which burst through the highest Æther of all--[and not the sensible light that we see]. And the names of it Orpheus heard in prophetic vision, and declares them to be Metis, Phanes and Ericapæus, which by interpretation are Will, Light and Light-giver [or Consciousness, Light, and Life]; adding that these three divine powers of names are the one power and one might of the One God, whom no man sees--and from his power all things are created, both incorporeal principles, and the sun and moon and all the stars.'

--GRS Meade, http://www.piney.com/Orphic.html

On another level, Phanes is Link (and through Link the game’s player), the one who has completed the initiatic quest and has been transformed by it.  Shadows, illusions, and dreams are dispelled; light and liberation are attained:

Early on, Link encounters the Wind Fish's Egg sitting on top of Mount Tamaranch in the Tal Tal Heights region on the northern section of the island. Link is to gather eight instruments found in each of the dungeons and play the "Ballad of the Wind Fish" in front of the egg. This egg also serves as the final dungeon, with the Shadow Nightmares featured as the entity keeping the Wind Fish in its eternal slumber.^[16]

Upon completing the game, Link is sent upward into the heavens via a staircase created by the Wind Fish. The Dreamer, who has now awakened, reveals himself to be a giant whale lavishly endorned with cloth, metals, and precious stones. He explains the peril of the island, but ultimately tells Link that all dreams must end.^[5] With this statement, the island begins to disappear and Link is seen floating on a piece of his wrecked ship. While contemplating if it was only a dream, he looks up to see the Wind Fish flying off into the distance with a flock of seagulls.

--https://zelda.gamepedia.com/Wind_Fish

Manly P. Hall had said about the serpent and egg, “The ancient symbol of the Orphic Mysteries was the serpent-entwined egg, which signified Cosmos as encircled by the fiery Creative Spirit. The egg also represents the soul of the philosopher; the serpent, the Mysteries. At the time of initiation, the shell is broke and man emerges from the embryonic state of physical existence wherein he had remained through the fetal period of philosophic regeneration.”

--https://gnosticwarrior.com/serpent-and-egg.html

Jung explains that the serpent and spiral are symbols of psychological growth, the unconscious mind circling and drawn ever closer to the integrated Self, which is the monad at the center of the quaternity. The serpent circles the egg, because the center will become the seed of rebirth. As Jung says, ``Out of the egg -- symbolized by the round cooking-vessel -- will rise the eagle or phoenix, the liberated soul.'' The liberated Self is often symbolized by an hermaphroditic amalgam of the Sun and Moon, that is, a synthesis of the most exalted states of Fire and Water. In some Orphic myths the cosmic egg produces Phanes, who is winged, bisexual and self-fertilizing, a symbol of the liberated, balanced, self-regenerating psyche. 

--John Opsopaus, http://opsopaus.com/OM/BA/RE.html

Such are some of the main symbols in this game, and such are the ideas to which they connect the players.  With a re-make for the Nintendo Switch on the horizon, one ought not to let his guard down too much if he wishes to walk through it.  Screen viewing is well-known to make one susceptible to suggestion:

In an experiment in 1969, Herbert Krugman monitored a person through many trials and found that in less than one minute of television viewing, the person’s brainwaves switched from Beta waves – brain waves associated with active, logical thought – to primarily Alpha waves. When the subject stopped watching television and began reading a magazine, the brainwaves reverted to Beta waves.

One thing this indicates is that most parts of the brain, parts responsible for logical thought, tune out during television viewing. The impact of television viewing on one person’s brain state is obviously not enough to conclude that the same consequences apply to everyone; however, research involving many others, completed in the years following Krugman’s experiment, has repeatedly shown that watching television produces brainwaves in the low Alpha range.

Advertisers have known about this for a long time and they know how to take advantage of this passive, suggestible, brain state of the TV viewer. There is no need for an advertiser to use subliminal messages. The brain is already in a receptive state, ready to absorb suggestions, within just a few seconds of the television being turned on. All advertisers have to do is flash a brand across the screen, and then attempt to make the viewer associate the product with something positive.

 . . .

--http://www.iamawake.co/your-brain-waves-change-when-you-watch-tv/

--https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gbc/197769-the-legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-dx/images/114113

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

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘The West’s Legacy of Violence against Children’

It is unsurprising to see Evangelicals at the forefront of the opposition to New York State’s recent law loosening restrictions on child murder within her borders (as well as similar proposed laws springing up in Virginia, Vermont, etc.).  After all, they have been amongst the most active in trying to foster a culture of life in all the States since Roe v. Wade.  And for that they are to be commended.

Furthermore, their assertion, together with conservative Roman Catholics’, that callousness towards the unborn is a sign that the States are living within a post-Christian phase of their history is certainly true.  What is not going to be so obvious to them, however, is that Western Europe and all her children the world over entered into post-Christianity not 46 years ago with Roe, nor 56 years ago with Abington Township School District v. Schempp (which removed Bible reading from public schools), but nearly 1,000 years ago when the West was torn away from the apostolic faith of the Orthodox Church by the Bishop of Rome (1054 A.D., the Great Schism).  And, strikingly, it is precisely in the teachings about children and salvation of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant sects that emerged from this schism that proves that point (thanks to Jay Dyer for mentioning their teachings in one of his lectures, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZCgJOjHTzs).

The Roman Catholic teaching has developed this way:

In response to Pelagius (d. 425), who taught that the heresy that baptism is not necessary for salvation (called Pelagianism), St. Augustine (d. 430) contended that unbaptized children who die are condemned to hell. They do not suffer all its pains because they are not guilty of personal sin, but because baptism is necessary for salvation, they will not enter heaven.

--http://www.aboutcatholics.com/beliefs/do-unbaptized-babies-go-to-limbo/

In the 14th century, the poet Dante described limbo as the "first circle of hell" in The Divine Comedy, where such souls were not punished but grieved for their separation from God.

Later, theologians surmised that the "limbo of infants" was a state where they were deprived of the vision of God, but did not suffer because they did not know what they were deprived of. 

--Nick Pisa, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1549439/The-Pope-ends-state-of-limbo-after-800-years.html

Today, the official Roman Catholic position seems to have become a murky sort of optimism - ‘We hope the babies will be okay’:

The Church does not accept or officially condemn the theory of Limbo because it is a theological theory. Theological theories usually don’t result in official responses by the Church unless it becomes clear that these theories are either excellent ways of explaining doctrine or that they explicitly go against such doctrine. The Church may also reject some theories as heretical if it becomes clear that they are not in accord with the truth found in Scripture and Tradition.

The theory of Limbo is not heretical because Scripture and Tradition do not explicitly say what happens to unbaptized babies. However, due to the problems with the theory of Limbo, this theory plays almost no role in current Catholic theology. Instead, modern theology and church practice stress the fundamental solidarity of redeemed humanity and God’s will that all may be saved.

--http://www.aboutcatholics.com/beliefs/do-unbaptized-babies-go-to-limbo/

The Protestant attitude toward children is not much better.  John Calvin’s system of the total depravity of human nature and double predestination, in which God before the creation of the world assigns some men to Heaven and some to Hell irrespective of their actions, implies that it is possible for babies to be sent to Hell.  And this is indeed what one finds among some Protestants:

The Westminster Confession of Faith uses very precise wording on this matter: "Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth: so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word" (WCF 10.3). Note, however that the WCF does not say that "all" infants dying in infancy are regenerated, but that the Holy Spirit works as he pleases in elect infants (cf. Luke 18:15-16; 1:39-44) and those "who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word."

--Dr Joseph R. Nally, Jr, http://reformedanswers.org/answer.asp/file/40610

Dr Joseph P. Farrell makes a controversial statement on the modern Evangelical teaching about salvation, but it needs to be stated nevertheless.  He writes,

But the most obvious, and yet, unappreciated fact of the American Baptist culture is its link between “believer’s baptism”, a kind of spiritual abortion, and the actual practice of abortion, the murder of the unborn itself. With this, the moral confusion and persisting (nay, galloping) theological illiteracy of the American version of the religion of the Second Europe is evident:

The greatest damage to the home of Baptist theology has been the change it brought in the status of children. The exclusion of children from the covenant completely alters how they are approached. One, since they are outside the church they should not be prayed with. John Bunyan is an example of one who pressed his theology to consistency at this point. Second, they should be preached to as lost. Thus the child is pressed to have an experience. Jesus said that the standard of faith was that of a little child (Luke 18:15-17). The Baptist makes it the opposite. The child must become like the adult. 1117

The moral inconsistency of the position of most American evangelists on this point does not even seem phase them, perhaps because of the confusion within their ranks over baptism itself. The insistence upon a mentalist “conversion experience” deepened what was already in evidence long before within the Second Europe, the division of the physical and spiritual dimensions of a sacrament in a kind of “sacramental Nestorianism”. Thus, for the “traditional” Baptist, the water of Baptism and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit are separate, the former being administered only after the “decision” for Christ is made, which constitutes the latter.

--God, History, and Dialectic, Volume 3, pgs. 622-3, from the e-version available at https://godhistorydialectic.wordpress.com/read-this-first/

Both Roman Catholics and Protestants, despite their good works to end physical abortion, are nonetheless guilty of great spiritual violence towards children.  It is not so surprising, then, that abortion has been able to rise to the proportions that it has in the post-Orthodox West.

 . . .

The rest is at https://usareally.com/2645-the-west-s-legacy-of-violence-against-children

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

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Food Wars’

Author and blogger Dr Joseph P. Farrell has an hypothesis:  Food has become a geopolitical issue.  That is to say, nations are beginning to fall into two broad blocs, those favoring genetically engineered (GE) crops and livestock and those favoring traditionally-grown, non-GE vareties.  And whichever bloc wins out, that will have grave effects for humanity the world over.

The first context we may see this in is the recent United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA, or New NAFTA) trade agreement, which contains a number of provisions that are helpful for the transnational biotechnology corporations specializing in GE ‘food’ like Monsanto.  Mexico has especial reason to be worried:

Last week, after the Trump administration struck a deal with Canada and Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, the White House declared victory for US farmers, who gained greater access to Canadian dairy, egg, poultry, and wheat markets. Unfortunately, the new deal called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, also includes lesser-known provisions that could allow agribusiness corporations to patent Mexico’s native corn varieties and challenge the country’s ban on genetically modified (GM) corn cultivation.

“I think it’s going to open up Mexico to an invasion of biotech seed companies that will try to push patented seeds on farmers and patent traditional corn varieties in the birthplace of corn genetics,” says Patrick Woodall, Research Director for Food & Water Watch.

Such an opening could further harm Mexico’s corn farmers, who lost much of their market after the original NAFTA in 1993 opened Mexico to imports of U.S. corn. The deal may also reduce the diversity of Mexico’s native corn strains, which are vital to the health of the world’s corn crop.

Over 8,000 years ago farmers in present-day Mexico first domesticated corn from a wild grass, teosinte. Corn holds incredible cultural, economic, and ecological significance in Mexico to this day. Mexico has maintained a vast array of diverse corn species, with 64 recognized strains, called landraces, and over 21,000 regionally adapted varieties. Over two-thirds of Mexican corn farmers still save their own seeds and plant native strains.

This diverse genetic trove is “absolutely critical to modern crop breeding,” says Tim Wise, the Director of Policy Research at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. “It’s a critical natural resource for the modern world,” he says. When researchers look for drought-resistant strains or corn that can requires less fertilizer, they turn to Mexico’s native corn gene pool.

In 2011, Monsanto and Syngenta requested the first permits to plant GM corn in northern Mexico. But introducing GM corn leads to natural cross-pollination, or gene flow, between native and GM crops, threatening the genetic diversity of Mexico’s indigenous corn. In October 2013, a federal judge ordered a temporary halt on GM corn permits after a group of 53 farmers and consumers filed a class action suit claiming GM cultivation violated Mexicans’ constitutional right to a clean environment. In the years since, courts continue to uphold this decision, calling for further study and extending the ban.

Today, only thirty percent of Mexican farmers use commercial hybrid single-use corn seed.

While the new NAFTA does not repeal Mexico’s GM corn ban, it includes industry-friendly language, as well as new tools for governments to challenge or deter regulations. “There’s no smoking gun in the text that says Mexico must allow planting of GMOs,” says Karen Hansen-Kuhn, the Director of Trade and Global Governance at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. ”But there is whole a series of factors, in different parts of the agreement, that would make it harder to implement new rules and put existing rules under new kinds of scrutiny.”

 . . .

--Claire Kelloway, http://www.foodandpower.net/2018/10/10/mexicos-native-corn-varieties-threatened-by-new-nafta/

Canada, too, has reason for concern:

 . . . “President Trump touts USMCA as a big win for US farmers, but it is a huge loss for dairy farmers on both sides of the border. Canadian family farms will go out of business and Canadian dairy farmers will see their incomes fall due to increased US imports. While the slightly expanded market will offer small benefits to some US dairy farmers, it does nothing to reduce the overproduction at the heart of our dairy crisis – rather, it increases the false idea that exports will save us. We must solve the problem of our overproduction through common sense farmer-led supply management programs, not by dumping our excess milk into the Canadian farmers’ market,” said Wisconsin dairy farmer Jim Goodman, board president of NFFC.

The Canadian government has suggested it may implement a subsidy program to offset farm losses. US farmers have fared poorly in the decades since farm subsidies have replaced supply management in this country, with small farms closing and large farms getting ever larger, reducing the population and prosperity of rural areas. Producing as much as possible is now the only way for farmers to survive, leading to widespread chemical use and “fencerow to fencerow” planting, even in environmentally sensitive areas.

Farm subsidies, intended to make up farmers’ costs when overproduction causes farmer prices to drop, cost billions to taxpayers, but often only cover a fraction of farm expenses. The changes in the USMCA appear poised to shift Canada’s farmers out of a system that provides a fair income to farmers and ensures consumers an affordable supply of locally produced food into a production-oriented farming free-for-all like that of the US, with all of its negative economic, social, and environmental consequences.

NFFC is additionally concerned that the USMCA will pave the way for unregulated gene-edited genetically modified organisms (GMOs), further consolidating the control that seed and agrochemical companies hold over farmers. The deal also allows these companies to withhold important information on pesticide safety, with potentially dangerous consequences for farmers, farmworkers, and farming communities.

 . . .

--https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/opinion/2018/10/02/national-family-farm-coalition-new-trade-deal-more-same/1502709002/

But the consequences are likely to be negative for all three participants, as the USMCA allows the biotech giants to create beachheads in other areas as well:

 . . .

The rest is at https://usareally.com/2603-food-wars

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

Anathema to the Union!