hailourtruegod said:
There are many of the Pokemon that I feel represent pagan themes too. One of my favorites of the new generation is called Hakamo-o. The Haka dance is an old pagan war dance of the people of Hawaii if I'm correct. I've seen whites doing this as well in the start of rugby games when I was looking up Haka dances on the web. This Pokemon is a dragon and fighting type and has a specific dragon type move called clanging scales that attacks it's opponent with vibrations..
I will have to correct something, but kudos to you for finding clues and messages even in Poketto Monster. The Haka is not Hawaiian per se, but it's used by the All Blacks rugby union team, which is from New Zealand and like really strong. I'd also like to add that the 8 gyms may also be seen as 8 of the 14 major chakras: the seven central ones and the third eye. Going through the gyms could be like opening and empowering every one of them, so they are powerful and unobstructed when the kundalini finally rises to fully open and transform them. For the League things, I'd like to add that in the first two generation, the Champion Lance had Dragon-type pokemon, a possible allegory to the kundalini.
That being said, without further adue, since nobody did it on this new forum, I'd like to speak about one anime that I personally love. It's not like Fairy Tail that it's my favourite, but yet holds much spiritual allegories, in my opinion. Ladies and gents, let me introduce you to Saint Seiya.
The protagonist of this anime is Pegasus Seiya, a Saint of Athena. Saints are here knight-like figures who serve the goddess Athena (or Eris in the case of Black Saints, Hades in the case of Spectres, Apollo in the case of Corona Saints, etc). These Saints are picked at young age and trained with highly-demanding routines that can potentially kill you if you're not motivated enough. Their masters then put them through even more impossible trials with the goal of awakening their Cosmo, a mystical energy possessed by every living creature. We could see this energy as thir spiritual power. This cosmo can be used to literally split atoms and destroy things as it can be used to heal people. Thus it holds both the creative powers of Brahma, the destructive/transformative ones of Siva and preservative powers of Visnu.
After being put through this strenuous training that lasts years, from their childhoods into their adolescence at least, they compete with other equally-trained people to gain a Cloth and thus become a Saint. These Clothes are made from stardust and effectively represent each of the 88 constellations (those that belong Athena's Saints). The strongest ones are the Gold Clothes: they are 12 in number and represents the 12 Constellations of the Zodiacs. Descending in power, we have 24 Silver Saints and 48 Bronze Saints. Each Saint have their own territory to guard, which corresponds to one area in the world. The 12 Elite, the Gold Saints, guard the houses of the Zodiac, which are arranged in ascending fashion in the mountain next to the holy city of Rodorio in Greece. Nobody can rise through the 12 houses without having the permission granted from the keeper. This could be seen as an allegory for the fact that you can't advance further in the Magnum without completing the steps in order. After the 12 temples (after you complete the 12 steps of the Magnum Opus), there is a 13th temple, the place where the High Priest and Athena reside (you reach godhood). The high priest is a figure that has abandoned his role as Saint/Knight, because the former high priest recognised their power and chose them to replace them.
Saints usually move at different speeds during combat: Bronze Saints moving at the speed of sound, Silver Saints moving at ultrasonic speeds and Gold Saints moving at light speed. Athena moves at the speed of thought. This could be allegorical of the average frequency at which their soul and aura vibrate or the spinning speed of their chakras. Furthermore, the "power levels" are not absolute, as there can be Bronze Saints that are as powerful as Gold Saints or even more. It's not absolute. Note, however, the energy of Gods and Gold Saints being golden in colour, unlike lower-ranking people.
Senses
When Saints use their cosmo, they are enveloped in a coloured light that could be their aura and the representation of how they raise their energy. In the series they also mention senses, initially recognising 7, then going as far as 9. Everything past the 5 conventional ones are related to awareness and understanding of cosmo and related abilties that this shows. The harnessing of cosmo is referred to as "burning" one's cosmo.
These senses are possibly intended in a either Buddhist or Hindu way.
The Sixth Sense
The sixth sense. Intuition is the sense that represents the strength of Athena's saints, and is inherent to all who can feel their own cosmo and/or that of others. Its basic use is what differs cosmo-awakened fighters from regular ones, as things like feeling and using spirituall energy, moving at superhuman speeds and predicting movements without the use of other senses is impossible without it. With this sense, supplementary abilities such as the sekishiki (the ability to see and interact with disembodied souls), telekinesis, teleportation, crystal manipulation, mind reading, atomic destruction, temperature manipulation, nature manipulation and communication and the elements may be developed. Such skills are often even seen as sub-senses of the sixth, and may be heightened (or, as with sekishiki and teleportation, impossible without) certain characteristics of the individual's biology. The way I see it much of this sense is like the sixth consciousness (mental consciousness or mano-vijñāna) in Mahayana Buddhism. I'd associate it with the sixth/soma chakra and its full opening.
The Seventh Sense
The Seventh Sense is called miraculosity and gives its user access to the essence of their cosmo. In short, it can be described as the "true" cosmo, and its use brings about what could be considered impossible (called a miracle in the series). This sense is extremely rare even among cosmo users (such as saints and spectres), and is considered the power that separates the gold saints from all the others. The term "miracle" is used to refer to the acts that go against nature, such as moving one's body at the speed of light, taking off all of the heat in a particle (and thus approaching and even generating the absolute zero) and opening gaps in space-time. In fact, in the anime/manga, even if a mortal fights against a god or otherwise incredibly powerful being, they may become equals with them through the use of miraculosity, even if for only a second. The same goes for all those capable of this sense, regardless of rank. Its use can replace that of any previous senses, and only extremely powerful beings can take it away from a person. In the film Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary, the sense is also referred to as the "power of the gods". In the age of myth of this anime/manga, in which distinction between gods and humans was unheard of (see "ninth sense"), humans in general had access to the seventh sense, which in fact was originally theirs (much to the dismay of many of the gods). With the development of civilisation by the majority of humans and ascension of the gods, miraculosity was forgotten by most, although it exists in a subtle form in the very life sources of Earth. Doesn't this Age of Myth sounds exactly like the world before it was fucked up by the Jews? In Yogachara this sense/consciousness is referred to as manas or kliṣṭa-manas. I'd associate it with the crown chakra and its full opening.
The Eighth Sense
Arayashiki, the eighth sense, is, primarily, the sense which allows the dead to perform basic tasks, and feel pain and suffering while in the underworld. It is linked to reincarnation, dead consciousness and the first steps of godhood (so much that the ones who approach it are often referred to as "close to the gods"). Naturally, this sense would only awaken after death, when all other senses are lost, and wouldn't allow human consciousness to remain while in the form of a soul. However, it is possible to achieve the eighth sense while alive, in which case the user can even keep their consciousness after reaching the underworld. Additionally, the early awakening of the arayashiki can give its user even greater reserves of cosmic energy (as shown by Sagittarius Sisyphus). Virgo Asmita was the only being shown to be capable of removing the eighth sense, which he did to Atavaka, effectively destroying his capacity to reincarnate as a spectre. Rarely, human souls may keep their consciousness even dead, and that is linked to an inherent capability to reach this sense. Such an ability is poorly explained in the series, but the status of the Virgo saints as reincarnations of Buddha himself is connected to it. This is related to the eighth consciousness in Yogachara (ālāya-vijñāna or bīja-vijñāna). ,Following the trend of thought started with the other senses, I'd associate it with the golden chakra right out of the body, above the head. Though, this is merely speculation as not even us SS currently have enough information on the chakras above the head, but I somehow think senses are all related to the central chakras along the spine and then out above.
The Ninth Sense
Godhood or divinity is the "supreme virtue", and the sense that separates a god from lower beings. To awaken such sense, a mortal must reach true enlightenment, of the likes of which rarely ever happened after the age of myth. In those times, in which all of humanity possessed the power of miraculosity (see "seventh sense"), some managed to awaken their ninth sense, becoming the deities known to men in modern times (all of them, with the possible exception of Chaos, Chronos and other primordial gods, were said to be originally humans). Very few mortals can approach the power of godhood in modern times, and most possess special circumstances or abilities (whether acquired, such as Virgo Shaka's training and the bronze saints' god cloths, bathed in Athena's ichor; or inherited, such as the presence of Kairos' genes in Pegasus Tenma's body). The miracles generated by the cosmic energy of a god are capable of not only breaking laws of physics, but also completely ignore them. An example of this was shown when Poseidon could stop the absolute zero-enhanced blast of the Aurora Execution of Cygnus Hyoga and bounce it back, when no particle should be able to retain energy within it. In the occasion, his cosmo was yet to be completely awakened, and when it did, it was noted by Pegasus Seiya to multiply itself at an alarming rate, quickly enveloping all of his Underwater Sanctuary. His power was also capable of literally "ordering" the golden arrow of the Sagittarius Cloth to obey his will, until it was surrounded by the combined cosmic energy of Pegasus Seiya, Cygnus Hyoga, Andromeda Shun and Dragon Shiryū.
Immortality (such as the ability bestowed upon Nasu Veronica by Thanatos[2]), resurrection (demonstrated by Eris, Abel, Hades, Athena and Odin), time control (used by Chronos and Kairos) and planetary control (such as Dimension Iapetos' ability to control a planet and its life and Hades' Greatest Eclipse, to which manipulating the entire solar system was needed) are also highly related to godhood. Demigods, such as Pegasus Tenma, and those who receive ichor, such as Libra Dōko and Wyvern Rhadamanthys, are a step closer to godhood than most, but were not shown to go beyond the eighth sense.
This is called amala-vijñāna in the Yogachara. I'd associate it with the silver chakra above the golden one, but there's not much to discuss on this. It's called godhood, which is obviously the completion of the Magnum Opus.
The path of the Saint
This is a really quick exploration, nothing major. Let's take the character of Seiya and explore it allegorically. He's trained from a young age at an orphanage, then shipped to train under Eagle Marin. She teaches him how to open his chakras (up to the sixth/soma) and strengthens his body to provide a strong foundation for heightened spiritual power. Physical, mental and spiritual training is what Seiya gets from her. Once his sixth sense has been opened, his spiritual training then includes mastering his own spiritual energy, his cosmo. He is tested by the gods and receives his approval in the form of the Pegasus cloth. Sometimes later, he is forced to go through all the 12 steps of the Magnum Opus (climbing the 12 temples and defeating their keepers) in order to save Athena, which in this case could be his soul. He opens his crown chakra in the process (awakening the seventh sense) and thus ascends his kundalini (gets further recognised by the Gods by getting the Sagittarius Cloth for himself). This is the classic series and I stop at the Temples' saga.
Further reading:
• http://saintseiya.wikia.com/wiki/Sense (where I copy-pasted the senses explanation from)
• http://saintseiya.wikia.com/wiki/Cosmo (more on Cosmo, disregard the Omega nonsense)
• http://saintseiya.wikia.com/wiki/Saints (on Saints)
If you want to watch it: https://ww3.gogoanime.io/category/saint-seiya-
If you want to fall in love with the graphic design, you should watch the Lost Canvas (it's a prequel): https://ww3.gogoanime.io/category/saint-seiya-the-lost-canvas-
