The Overarching Intuitive Puzzle in My Life

Yes, I finally sat down and put it all together as promised. It took me two days. Enjoy!

This is my first post attempting to chronicle the real life synchronicity/symbolism puzzle that I began to notice appearing in the media I was consuming during the past year—usually video games but also some films. In this post I will attempt to condense and organize the key themes and symbols and try to make some sense out of what they represent.

Some Disclaimers

Spoilers: I’m warning you up front—there will be spoilers galore for the following games: Blue Prince, Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 (but only the first few hours/intro), Deadly Premonition, Deus Ex, The Drifter, Echostasis, The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, Gabriel Knight 3, Indiana Jones & the Great Circle, Inscryption, Kathy Rain 1 & 2, NORCO, The Séance of Blake Manor, Silent Hill 2, Tunic, Virtuaverse

It will be cherrypicked stuff here and there and won’t give away everything, but in case you’re very worried about spoilers for any of these titles, then I recommend not reading further, because games are listed by shared themes/symbols and will appear in multiple places.

No co-opting my research: I am guided to these insights intuitively, by my own “spider senses” if you will, and often find the next step/puzzle piece via synchronicity. My intuition naturally guides me along to the next puzzle piece, and intuition cannot be forced and should never try to be forced. It ]kills the mystery and magic of the entire process because it becomes more about validating someone’s ego and mental obsessiveness than the mystery itself.

Precisely what makes this puzzle quest important is that it speaks intuitively to me personally, or else I wouldn’t be bothering with it at all (this has only even kicked off for me within the past 10 months or so). I’m certain that more parallels can be drawn between these games, but I’ve siloed and categorized the major themes for a reason and I’m really not going to concern myself with a bunch of random ephemera that has nothing to do with the core quest here, so please don’t try to bring that stuff to me.

If you watch my old VODs or play the games yourself and notice some things that are related to the themes below and I simply forgot about them, then feel free to mention those in a comment! But please refrain from trying to take it in totally different directions than what I’ve already outlined; there is more than enough to work with here that is already extremely exciting. Plus, part of it is that I need to figure this all out for myself. You may have your own separate but parallel intuitive quest going on focused on a different set of media pieces, however… 😉

Step 1: Learning to Be a Detective

This entire puzzle hunt kicked off thanks to one series: Kathy Rain. I really loved both games and vibed with Kathy as a character. I had done some journalism in the past, but it was usually fluffier profile pieces for lifestyle magazines; I had done barely any real investigative research involving following leads. That was all about to change, and the way in which both Kathy Rain games and certain puzzles gave me a mental attitude and approach to use going forward in my own life. That, and I just loved the whole vibe of mystery and intrigue present in both of them

Unanticipated circumstances (her grandfather’s death) thrust Kathy into becoming a sleuth…

Noticing the Patterns All Around

I will credit both Tunic and Blue Prince for this next part, since both of them gave me the idea of having a "framework” existing in the world around you that you need to first identify and then puzzle out. With Tunic of course it’s the Holy Cross and the Golden Path mentioned in the game’s enigmatic manual (among other things), and in Blue Prince it’s being able to pick out symbols, patterns, and anomalies of significance in a mansion full of ordinary (and not-so-ordinary) household items. But noticing the patterns and symbols is only one part of the equation; being able to deduce which ones are actually meaningful and then how they fit together with each other is the more important thing.

An example of the Holy Cross in Tunic; A particularly enigmatic puzzle involving the mansion in Blue Prince

Another game which helped me get into this type of mindset earlier on (identifying overarching patterns and themes) was the evocative and atmospheric card-based indie PC game Inscryption.

Reoccurring Themes

Now, we finally reach the meat of the post—the themes and symbols that keep popping up in different contexts. Again, all of this media has been consumed within the last 10 months or usually much less, and almost all of it was first-time playthroughs or viewings. I will do my best to try to recall and list every instance related to the core themes I’m introducing, but I’m forgetful and may forget some examples. I will try to do a very basic summary conclusion after each list and then attempt to tie those into a coherent picture at the end. Here we go:

The Color Red (Used Deliberately)

• The Red Man in Kathy Rain 1 & 2 (also red flowers—see below)

• Red imagery in dreamscapes/symbols of The Séance of Blake Manor

• The Red Prince book and Fenn Aries represented by Red in Blue Prince—red rooms have negative effects, red as seen as an imposing/dominating color

Kathy Rain's Red Man; Red Imagery in The Seance of Blake Manor; The Red Prince storybook in Blue Prince

The color red appears over and over again in these works—usually representing something at least partially “negative” or inscrutable. More specifically, I want to focus on:

→ Red Flowers/Leaves/Seeds with Mystical or Hallucinogenic Properties

• Red tree leaves/seeds in Deadly Premonition that cause hallucinogenic or drug-like effects and demarcate the hidden, dreamlike underbelly of the small town (the game was originally released in Japan as Red Seeds Profile)

• Red hallucinogenic flowers serve as important clues in Kathy Rain 1 & 2 and are later found surrounding the entrance to the underworld

• Reddish-purple flowers in The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, particularly inside the barrow itself and covering the entrance to the descent downwards—also earlier jammed down the throat of a victim by a local cult

• In Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, red flowers are gifted to those about to face the Gommage; during it, their bodies disintegrate into red petals (I have not played far enough into the game yet to know what this means/symbolizes further)

  

  

  First two: Deadly Premonition; middle: Kathy Rain; next two: The Excavation of Hob's Barrow; last one: Clair Obscure: Expedition 33

Admittedly I haven’t quite figured out what the red/purple flowers/leaves/seeds represent (especially serving as gateways to the subconscious/underworld) but these examples also certainly do remind me of the sleep-inducing poppies in The Wizard of Oz:

Variants on “Peace Sign”/Tree + Spiral Imagery (Also Usually Red)

• Deadly Premonition features an upside-down peace sign frequently, which is tied to/resembles the red trees mentioned above (which game villain Forrest Kaysen, who is basically the devil incarnate, “implants” into his victims) but it also looks like the scars on George’s back as a result of his mother whipping him violently during childhood

• A symbol resembling the lines of a peace sign (no circle) with a spiral on top of it, appearing during The Séance of Blake Manor and even appearing as the game’s loading icon

The symbol in Deadly Premonition; the symbol in The Seance of Blake Manor

*Note: I believe there is at least one more symbol to add here, but I can’t for the life of me remember which games it’s from, and I would need to do some digging which will take time.

It seems to me as if the “peace sign” has devil’s pitchfork connotations along with the tree symbolism. As far as the spiral goes, there is also an ammonite fossil in The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow that gets referred to by one of the characters as “Ammon’s Horn” and saying that it’s bad luck to touch it. (Apparently Ammon’s Horn also represents the brain’s Hippocampus.)

Repeating Cycles We Can’t Escape / The Ouroboros

This is a major theme and motif that is so frequent and recurring that I may not spend much time listing specific examples. Kathy Rain (Kathy Rain); Thomasina Bateman (The Excavation of Hobb’s Barrow); James Sunderland (Silent Hill 2); Mick Carter (The Drifter)—in Mick’s case he is literally repeating physical time loops; the fox protagonist in Tunic; the characters in As Above, So Below, and countless others: all of them are repeatedly reliving emotional trauma cycles caused by past events, initially unable to break free. It also appears literally in Drowned God, Indiana Jones & the Great Circle, The Excavation of Hobb’s Barrow, Gabriel Knight 3, and surely many others. I also happened to rewatch the film Shutter Island several months ago for the first time in many years; the parallels and reality loops there should be obvious to anyone who has seen it.

The Ouroboros is, of course, the snake eating its own tail—also referred to as Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent in Norse mythology. “It’s got the whole world in its coils,” says Rukh, Mommy Fortuna’s carnival assistant in The Last Unicorn.

I would say that pondering the Ouroboros and its symbolism is essential for the spiritual initiate. There is great wisdom to be found in its meaning and relation to the earthly realm as we experience it today. The Ouroboros also is a circle; in Indiana Jones & the Great Circle, the circle is meant to represent points on Earth that Noah’s Ark can magically transport to using the correct stone carvings and ancient utterances of the Nephilim. But look what east the Nazi antagonist, Emmerich Voch, has to say about the circle during a particularly trippy (and optional!) dream sequence that Indy undergoes later in the game featuring repeating corridors and flashbacks/ruminations upon unresolved traumas:

Fascinating, right? This is a segment that’s very easy to miss, but I had Grant capture it on his laptop so that I could reference it later in this blog. Also interesting to note: the “traitor to the Fatherland” he’s referencing is, of course, Albert Einstein. Einstein appears as well during a significant segment/puzzle in Drowned God where he argues with Isaac Newton:

As Above, So Below

I am just now learning that this is often perceived a Gnostic dualistic concept, although I don’t exactly perceive it that way. It is definitely tied to alchemy.

• Drowned God repeats this phrase over and over, almost ad nauseum

• The film As Above, So Below is about a group of adventurers (mainly focused around a young female archaeologist) venturing into the catacombs underneath France in search of legendary French alchemist Nicolas Flamel’s grave, where the Philosopher’s Stone is said to be buried—the film is also an obvious retelling of Dante’s Inferno

• At the Sarasota Medieval Faire this past fall, I popped into my favorite candle booth and saw an “As Above, So Below” limited edition candle—the last one they had in stock there. Obviously, I bought it:

  

I personally strongly disagree with the Gnostic concept of duality in terms of viewing the heavens/spirit world as “light/good” and the Earthly/physical realm as “darkness/evil”—to me the entire point of As above, so below is to say that one ultimately reflects the other, as they are both ultimately one. The Earthly, physical realm is therefore also “light” and a part of God, and the degree to which evil exists here is also reflected in the heavens and the wars that continue to take place there (from what I hear). As within, so without is another variation on this same phrase (your reality reflects your inner psyche), and understanding this statement more profoundly is part of what launched me onto this puzzle quest in the first place.

The Underworld / Labyrinth Concept

This is perhaps the most important theme appearing here, in tandem with the red symbolism and also the quest to break the Ouroboros trauma patterning and to seek ultimate enlightenment, freedom, and the power to create one’s reality (the Philosopher’s Stone).

• Kathy Rain is led into the forest underworld ruled by the Red Man to resolve her emotional traumas surrounding her parents and her previous abortion in Kathy Rain 1 & 2

• James Sunderland is led deep down into the underworld layers of Silent Hill (and its dark past) to resolve his emotional traumas surrounding him killing his own terminally ill beloved in Silent Hill 2

• As Above, So Below ventures down into the catacombs below Paris to search for the Philosopher’s Stone; each character is forced to face their own past traumas—some succeed, some do not

• Gabriel Knight ventures underground in Gabriel Knight 3 into the Templar temple to find the kidnapped baby—also finds not just the body of Jesus entombed there but his own origins as a Schattenjaeger (monster hunter)

• Thomasina Bateman ventures into the underworld via Hob’s Barrow to try to heal both her relationship with her father as well as his physical state; she is unsuccessful and instead unleashes the demon Abraxas upon the world

• Declan Ward must make his way into the crypts under Blake Manor to find a secret cave trapping a captured demigod as well as a portal to the spirit realm

• Both JC Denton (Deus Ex) and Mick Carter (The Drifter) venture deep into underground scientific/military facilities to discover the secrets of not just their own pasts and how to resolve them/make things right, but also how to stop evil forces from attempting world domination

There are more examples, and some are more figurative than literal—York Morgan, for instance, is transported to a parallel dimension rather than underground, in most instances. But however it may appear visually, the underworld is a place that does not obey the rules of our “normal” conscious reality.

I take the underworld to represent our subconscious emotional realms, where emotions dwell, as well as the etheric/spiritual planes—the realm of the “unmanifested,” as it were. To me it is no coincidence that Carl Jung’s Red Book, Liber Novus, is dedicated to exploring his own subconscious and the collective unconscious.

Snapshots of pages in Carl Jung’s Red Book

I believe that this venturing into the underworld represents the Hero’s Journey: Theseus’s descent into the labyrinth to confront the Minotaur. It is a passage into the unknown to seek the treasure of resolving trauma and finding true liberation and abundance.

Orbs (Usually White & Floating)

• Floating orbs appear to demarcate the boundaries of the underworld in Kathy Rain

• A floating orb guides Catherine along her quest; it appears to be of spiritual origins and protects her due to her special bloodline (more on this later)

  

  The floating orbs in Kathy Rain & in NORCO

Again there may be more examples that I’m missing here; I’ll have to dig deeper. But orbs are of great significance to me personally; I have Twitch channel redeems for “pondering the orb,” two emotes featuring orbs, and also my subscriber badges are orbs/crystal balls. So to me, these definitely stand out. 🔮

The Name “Mary”—Seeking Her (Both Versions)

Obviously this name has very strong Biblical references to both Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. It’s still interesting how many times it appears in these games I’ve been playing:

• Blue Prince: Simon (the main protagonist) is indirectly searching for his mother, Mary (Marigold) who was banished because her writing went against the totalitarian Red regime of Fenn Aries, which had deposed the true rulership lineage (her/Simon’s) during a previous violent revolution

• Silent Hill 2: James’s lost love, who “writes” to him from Silent Hill, is named Mary; the parallel Silent Hill-created version of her, who looks just like her, is also named Maria

• Gabriel Knight 3 of course has countless references to Mary Magdalene especially (many of them rooted in actual real life archaeology)

  

  The altar at the Church of Mary Magdalene in Gabriel Knight 3—based on an actual church in Rennes-le-Chateau, France

It shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out that Mary, whether Mother or Magdalene, represents the lost (more like banished/tortured/suppressed) feminine aspect of the divine and of God, i.e. the Mother. Unfortunately the Christian and Roman churches have been behind much of this persecution over the centuries and millennia, especially in terms of the Inquisition. I can’t delve into this topic too much right now, but suffice it to say that she has been missing and that it is necessary to find and redeem her. I think it’s also of significance that I just happen to be writing and posting this on a 13 day (2+1+2+0+2+6 = 13), which happens to be one of the Mother’s numbers.

Second Segment of the Puzzle Quest

Everything I’ve just detailed forms the first segment of this entire puzzle quest and how it was initially framed. Mostly, it was preparing me for the internal hero’s (heroine’s) journey into the underworld/subconscious that I would need to undertake if I’m going to find the truth about myself. I would have to use my wits to notice the symbols and messages appearing around me and try to integrate them into a meaningful whole (as I am doing right now with this post).

But what I’m finding now is that as within, so without also applies to this quest. As I navigate my way out of the labyrinth, I am being led to information that is much larger than myself and has much broader-reaching implications and consequences for the world at large. Thus, it is not simply a personal quest but an initiation rite into “the Mysteries”—except I’m figuring it out with my own research, without any sort of special school or group or gurus to guide me. I’m putting this out publicly on the internet, tied to my public username Cobra Commanda, as a means of deliberately offering “the solutions” to the collective consciousness. It doesn’t even matter if people read this; the info is already “out there” and will find its way to those who need it, just as it found its way to me. I am simply offering a framing, a packaging that has been subjectively helpful to me. The puzzle pieces, which have been loosely scattered around my mind for years, are slowing coming together as new pieces are introduced.

This next segment focuses more on broader-reaching topics. Bear in mind that I am right in the middle of serious amounts of research into the Nephilim, the Temple of Solomon, and the mysteries of Rennes-le-Chateau, the Knights Templar, sacred geometry, and related topics:

Bloodlines (Merovingian & Other)

• Obviously Gabriel Knight 3 is the latest game to prompt serious inquiry into this topic, as it focuses heavily not just on Mary Magdalene’s bloodline, the Merovingian (she allegedly moved to France after Jesus’s death and resurrection), but also the bloodline of Jesus himself, which is referred to as “Despovni” and symbolized by the unicorn

• NORCO: Catherine, the mother of protagonist Kay, is meant to be of Merovingian descent (she is in French Louisiana, after all) which is why she and her children are sought by the Pawpaw and the orb to bring aboard the “Ark” spaceship created by the cult

• The Séance of Blake Manor: several people in the game are found to be part of the Tuatha Dé Danann lineages of Irish folklore—which to me seem like Nephilim descendants based on their description. They are intended to be sacrificed by cultists to bring back the demigod/giant Guibnu (more on him in a moment)

• Thomasina’s blook is necessary to resurrect the demon Abraxas in The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow

• Obviously Drowned God also gets into a lot of this stuff, but I don’t have time to locate its references just now—that game is so unbelievably dense with esoteric meaning! 😆

What I’m finding out right now (partly thanks to reading Holy Blood, Holy Grail and Genisis, both of which I’m still working on) is that bloodlines are actually way more important (at least to people trying to shape the course of world events) than I ever realized…

The Knights Templar

• Gabriel Knight 3 is set in Rennes-le-Chateau where the Templars had a base and may have buried treasure; the final segment of the game takes place in an underground temple they built

• Deus Ex has you visiting a Knights Templar Cathedral in or near Paris, France for one of its missions

• Drowned God also touches upon the Templars; in fact, you get to endure a “super fun” game/puzzle with a particularly creepy one:

Templar in Drowned God: Conspiracy of the Ages

I understand that the Templars were initially formed for separate reasons, but it appears that during and after the Inquisition they were instrumental in helping to protect and guard the Merovingian bloodlines and secrets. They may also have created modern-day Freemasonry. But again, I am still doing active research in this area…

Aliens (Particularly the Greys)

• Drowned God has by far the most imagery of the Greys, portrays the Egyptian god Horus as a Grey and also links them to Atlantis at the end

• Deus Ex features several Greys aliens, especially when you infiltrate Area 51 in the final mission

"Horus" (floating in a tank) in Drowned God; a Grey alien in Deus Ex

Drowned God’s depictions have got me the most curious here; at the end, even Atlantis is shown as containing Greys. I’m honestly not sure why that would be, as I don’t think too highly of them. I happened to watch the 1989 film Communion starring Christopher Walken for the first time last fall—it directly deals with this topic and is also allegedly based on a true story.

Of course we can also think about other alien races, but I’m not seeing too many active portrayals in these games, aside from perhaps some allusions to the Draco/reptilian races. But I can’t get into that just yet…

Giants / Nephilim

This is by far the most interesting and surprising aspect of my current research, as again I never took any interests in giants or Nephilim until now, and certainly never knew that they were in fact the same thing, as well as the children of the fallen angels! Here are some appearances they’ve made recently:

• The Seance of Blake Manor features a red-haired giant who is ostensibly an old demigod of Ireland named Goibniu, smith of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He gets trapped underground by a dirty trick that the humans of old played, but then tries to subconsciously influence people about Manor the grounds to set him free through dreams and visions; pretty sure “Nephilim” applies here

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle features several giants who are explicitly called Nephilim—the one you interact with most throughout the game is named Locus, and you eventually befriend him (after beating each other up on several occasions)

• Drowned God offers you the chance to actually speak with the Nephilim via a type of computer communication portal. Interestingly, they are located in the basement/underneath part of the tower. They try to recruit you to their cause (as do the tech-based Illuminati upstairs), but if you choose them in the end, it unfortunately doesn’t work out super well for you…

Goibniu in The Seance at Blake Manor; Locus in Indiana Jones & the Great Circle; the Nephilim communication station in Drowned God

I’m beginning to suspect more and more that the Nephilim are in fact real entities, but I’m not sure whether they are on the side of light or of darkness—maybe it depends on the individual? It certainly seems as if they’ve been figuratively buried underground, and also perhaps literally. As I understand it, they are largely held responsible for the Great Flood that prompted the building of Noah’s Ark—again you actually find the Ark itself in Indiana Jones & the Great Circle, and if you solve an extremely ambitious game-spanning puzzle as Grant and I did, you also see where it “ends up” after Locus transports it out… and it seems highly related to certain current events…

Speaking of current events, I saw this post on X today and…

Sooooooo there’s that… 😅

I truly believe that all of this stuff is finally starting to surface into the collective consciousness—phew! I’m sure it will be easier/validating for some people and difficult/painful for those who’ve really, really wanted to keep their heads in the sand and pretend that this limited material reality is all there actually is to life and existence. Whoops, sorry. Guess you might actually have to take responsibility for your actions now! Womp womp… 🤷‍♀️

All I hope with this blog and this post in particular is that it will help some people to figure things out. I really, truly do want to offer people a path out of the Theseus’s labyrinth and Plato’s cave (perhaps in a future iteration I will discuss bull imagery/iconography more). I’d also like to delve more deeply into the fallen angels and their history—I did end up watching another interesting Christopher Walken film (he’s in everything!) last fall centered on this topic called The Prophecy (1995).

It’s quite a lot to hash through, and I don’t have the bandwidth at the moment. For now, I only have one last topic that I’d like to address at this time:

AI, Baphomet (the Tech God?), and the False Reality / Simulation

This is is a big one, so bear with me:

• As mentioned in the last list, the Nephilim aren’t the only group trying to recruit you in Drowned God; the Illuminati are as well. If you opt to go along with them in the end, you end up in the type of dystopian tech-driven surveillance state that you’d expect to (and that they’re currently trying to push us into). You also encounter Baphomet, who is depicted as a sort of robotic head that you can interact with

• In the Gabriel Knight 3 related materials on Rennes-le-Chateau and the Templars, it is suggested that the Templars worshipped Baphomet…?

• “Superduck” is the name of the AI in NORCO which has somehow become embodied in a monstrous-looking creature (see pic); it too seeks to entrap humans within its systems of tech-driven surveillance and dependency. It is initially modeled off of the brain of an actual human character called Duck but ends up going rogue

• The AI in future cyberpunk dystopian-set game Virtuaverse called “Xenon” controls humanity in an “augmented virtual reality” (AVR)-driven matrix hellscape, for the most part. Our protagonist eventually makes it to the International Space Station, where Xenon is housed, and finds out that it is actually biologically linked to three monkeys and has become a sort of grotesque, giant blob of body parts that is invisible to anyone Neuralinked with the AVR

• In Deus Ex, at the end of the game JC Denton is offered the opportunity to either join the Illuminati, who are seeking to control the mega AI called “Helios,” or he is invited by Helios itself to merge his bionic/clone brain with it and effectively become Helios’s “body.” (I chose neither of these options and blew up Area 51 instead!)

• Echostasis is another really neat sci fi game centered around this idea of looping realities and realities created by algorithms; in the game, the AI, called “Enigma,” is also melded with the brain of a human girl

• In Inscryption, the computer/AI character, called “PO3,” also attempts to take over reality and trap the organic characters in hopes of achieving “The Great Transcendence”—this bleeds out into our “real world” in some very fun storytelling

Drowned God Illuminati communication station; Drowned God Baphomet Depiction; Superduck in NORCO; Xenon in Virtuaverse; Helios in Deus Ex; Enigma-hosting computer in Echostasis; P03 and its world in Inscryption

Obviously I, for one, am none too jazzed about this “AI future” that some seem so determined to create for the rest of us. But I’m honestly not sure exactly who’s behind it or what their objectives are, or who is aligned with who. Do the Nephilim support the AI future? It makes sense that the fallen angels would want to create a separate “god” who will never hold them accountable for their actions and transgressions. How do they relate to the Illuminati, though? Are Illuminati and Freemasons (evolved from the Knights Templar) the same? What does Baphomet actually represent, and how does it feel into this whole thing?

Personally I’d rather just forego this entire antichrist tech god future possibility entirely, but I suppose people do need to be given a choice… It is supposedly the End Times, after all.

A message from AI “Morpheus” in Deus Ex…

Final Thoughts

My brain has absolutely turned to mush after all of that, but I’m glad I was able to finish it today. Obviously there are still loose ends and unanswered questions, especially in the second segment that I am currently right in the thick of and still trying to research. I’m confident that Genisis will present me with more interesting mental morsels to chew on as I progress further with it—I’m especially interested to see how Isis (the Egyptian goddess) relates to all of this.

I think it should be fairly obvious what all of this is getting at if you’ve been reading closely thus far, and I will be talking more about some of these conclusions in the coming days and exploring them further. As of right now, I’m still focused on research and trying to figure out where I fit into this big giant picture. This is an ongoing project and probably will be for quite some time.

Anyway hope you enjoyed the read, and I’ll be back tomorrow with hopefully a much shorter post. 😊