30.12: The Mario Mythos

Should we teach with artificial intelligence? In this special episode, Rob takes time to lay out his argument why not. What happens to humanity if all learning and achievement are frozen in time at the moment when the machine takes over?

Has a song you've been thinking about ever come on the radio as you're thinking about it? Have you ever thought of a friend you haven't talked to a long while and then received a message from them out of the blue? Carl Jung detailed a fairly complex theory of synchronous events that have meaning for the subject but no discernible causal connection. These events, for Jung, provide a structure to understand parapsychology in general from the ESP experiments of J.B. Rhine to Phantasms of the Living..

Carl Jung made a fairly extensive study of Western alchemy and came to understand alchemical processes as explorations of the unconscious. The effort to liberate the spirit from the prima materia was a kind of descent into the depths of the mind.

C. G. Jung was a colleague of Freud's before they split over Jung's belief that there was more to the unconscious than Freud's sexual theory. Jung went on to theorize the existence of a collective unconscious, informed by his research in Arthurian legend, Alchemy, Gnosticsm, and Western Occultism. Jung's ideas not only informed psychology but inspired the field of comparative religion.

In the final episode of our Japan series and Rob's mini series on video games, Rob reads the first chapter of "The Mario Mythos" setting out his theory that game heroes have become the protagonists of postmodern mythic systems.

How did the early female heroes and princesses of the first decade of video games follow the paradigm of the goddess journey? In this episode, Rob talks about everyone from Ms. Pac-Man to the Dragon Quest heroes and Princess Peach.

Luke interviews Rob about his research project focusing on the mythology of the first video game heroes. The conversation ranges far and wide to encompass the nature of performance studies, Rob's early work on ghosts and psychic mediums, and the scholar's professional life and creative process.

Church Secrets interrupted our friends at the Goddess Hour during a live performance at our theater. See if you can help solve the puzzles he created to keep them from performing their Moon Bath ritual. To view the full picture and play along, visit our website. https://www.occultconfessions.com/episodes/2026/8/7/309-the-goddess-hour-vs-church-secrets

In the second part of our discussion about Happy Science, we consider the group's doctrine and lore. How did humanity make its way from Venus to Earth and which spirits have manifested when in our midst to guide us on the spiritual path? What is Happy Science's view of the apocalypse and the triggers that might bring one on?

Kofuku no Kagaku or Happy Science was one of the most popular new religious movements in Japan in 1980s and became a major rival to the deadly Aum Shinrikyo organization. Its founder, Okawa Ryuho, claimed to be an incarnation of the Buddha and published volumes of predictions channeled from various spirits from the higher worlds including Nostradamus. These predictions became best sellers in Japan, leading to the group's more famous venture into full-length animated films.