 Final Fantasy VII, heralded by millions today as one of the greatest video games ever made. There is just no describing how potent this game is. No way to truly express the sheer impact it's had on the landscape of video games and culture. And how this game single-handedly transformed the art of storytelling and gaming forever. This video is intended to be an exploration of the hidden spirituality within Final Fantasy VII, but to make it accessible for people who might not have heard of it, allow me to provide an incredibly brief overview of the plot. Fair warning, this will basically spoil everything. The game begins as a humble story of an ex-soldier named Cloud Strife, whose disposition towards the world gets him a job as a mercenary, running a bombing run of a large reactor within a giant city which is literally draining the planet's life force energy. The city is owned and operated by the Shinra Corporation, using the energy to fuel the city, make bank, and support the evil corporatocracy in generally ruling the world. Cloud doesn't really care about any of that stuff though, he just wants to get paid. Joining Cloud in his adventures at first are Barrett, the gun-armed leader of the rebel faction called Avalanche trying to destroy Shinra, Cloud's old friend Tifa who just kicks ass, and Eryth, a mysterious yet beautiful flower girl who is later revealed to be the last living descendant of an ancient race of super-spiritual humans called the Cetra. Over the course of the game, fighting the corporatocracy, it is revealed that there is a deeper, more significant evil in the world. It began a long time ago when a meteor crashed into the planet which had a parasitic life form on it called Jenova, which was responsible for wiping out the ancient Cetra. Later in time, Jenova was captured by the corporatocracy and they did bio-experiments with it and created a half-human, half-Jenova clone being named Sephiroth. Along the journey we meet Red 13, a talking wolf with a charmander tail who introduces us to his grandfather, a floating wise man who reveals to us that the entire planet whose name is Gaia is a giant living organism that shares its energy freely with the life forms on the planet. He explains that we're all intimately connected with each other and that when we die, our soul energy returns to the planet and becomes one with the energy called the Lifestream whereby after which we can return again in another body and live out more lifetimes as the great energy naturally flows through us to do so. Meanwhile, we also discover that Sephiroth over his life has come to awaken the Jenova DNA within him and recognizes himself as Jenova's child and fuels this evil Jesus complex within him. He sets out on a mission to use magic to summon another meteor to crash into the planet which will release a massive amount of Lifestream energy then to be absorbed by Jenova and fuse Jenova's consciousness with the planet. So the goal of the villain of FF7 is basically to become the villain from Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Jenova would become a planet and then can create anything that it wishes, master of the evil reality matrix. Part of the journey to make this happen involves going into this ancient pyramid with a mind-bending reality labyrinth inside and we'll talk more about this later. As mentioned, we also learn of the Cetra, the ancient super-spiritual civilization that once thrived on the planet and who had the ability to communicate with the planet itself but have all but disappeared leaving behind only a few remnants of its civilization and Eryth, a mystical girl with magical healing powers who is instrumental in saving the day at the end through the power of prayer and a deep intimate connection with nature and the Holy Spirit. No joke. There are legends of the ancient Cetra homeland called the Promised Land, a place where the life-stream energy flows like milk and honey and this fuels the plot because the Shinra Corporation are looking for it so that they can extract more energy because their other wells are drying up. At one point, in what is perhaps one of the most legendary turning points in a video game ever, Eryth leaves the party and goes to the Forgotten City, a particularly magical city of the ancient Cetra where she is found in deep mystic prayer. Moments later, Sephiroth descends from above and kills her, creating a huge turning point for the game and the emotional well-being of the characters. Cloud 2 goes on a journey of self-discovery through this game as he first discovers that he is not even himself but that his memories were a clone of another soldier named Zac who had black hair and a really big sword. But through the reconciliation of this inner paradox of who am I, it helps him to realize who he truly is and ultimately leads him to courageously confront Sephiroth at the end of the game. The game ends with the colossal meteor that Sephiroth has summoned coming to smash the planet but thanks to Eryth's sacred prayer just before she died, she was able to summon the lifestream to awaken to the threat and stop the giant space rock from smashing into the planet. And of course, Cloud and his friends beat Sephiroth. After the credits, we see the world many, many years later and find that new life has taken over the old Shinra City and is now covered in moss and plant life. So, off the bat, let me just ask, did you notice any hidden spirituality in this game? Literally every aspect of this story we could probably go deeper into. The Shinra Corporation personifies the current economic and business systems of the world, draining the planet of her life force through the extraction of her natural resources with reckless abandon. We see references to an ancient civilization that thrived in connection with the planet. Today in our world, we see scientists and historians are now beginning to acknowledge sites like Gobekli Tepe and that there must have been some ancient civilization of some kind on this planet over 13,000 years ago. We even see a deep psychological reference to exploring our true nature with the spirit of the planet when Cloud falls into the lifestream. But yet, with a game like FF7, the real hidden spirituality goes way deeper through its unique reflection of cabalistic wisdom. Just as a side note, if this next bit doesn't make total sense, go and check out our Spirit Science Tree of Life series afterwards and then come back. It'll blow your mind a thousand times more. The first clue we see to this is through the name of the main villain, Sephiroth. In the cabalistic Tree of Life, each sphere is called a Sephirot, the exact same spelling and everything. We see further connections to the Tree of Life with the characters Aerith, Barret and Tifa, some of the initial characters we meet in the game. Aerith connects to Chesed, which stands for the archetypes of love, grace and benevolence. Barret opposes her with Gevara, the force of power and purposeful destruction in order to refine the creative process. It makes sense because he's the one who organizes the bombing run on the reactors that are draining the lifestream for profits. Then we have Tifa, whose name relates with Tifaret and stands for the harmony and goodness of the spirit of humanity. This is only scratching the surface though because it seems nearly everyone has some sort of spiritual or religious reference. Even Hojo, the evil scientist who basically created evil Jesus, has a mutated form later called Heletic Hojo, a mis-romanization of heretic Hojo, referring to heresy, a concept in many religions about going against the norm of their belief system. But on top of this, FF7 goes even deeper. You see, there is an idea that comes from ancient Gnosticism and Kabbalistic lore about the creation of the universe. Essentially, it's the idea that the Supreme Oneness created this first layer of creation, a dimension called an Aeon, which had supreme knowing and understanding from the wisdom of the Godhead. Creation then extended further, creating more dimensional Aeons, but which had less knowing and connection to the supreme source. Eventually, an Aeon was created that was entirely disconnected from even knowing that there was anything higher, which the Gnostic called the Demiurge. It thought that it was the supreme all-powerful benevolence, and this Demiurge was what created the universe and inhabited it with all of life. However, the powers that it used were still from the supreme Oneness, and so the seeds of benevolence and goodness were hidden within the created life on the planet. Now, FF7 demonstrates this story in several ways. The first is that it describes how some people can choose a life of goodness and striving, and others walk a path of evil and corruption. It also shows that sometimes pain and conflict are thrust upon us, and we must transmute and transform the energy within us if we are to become who we are born to be. This is why Cloud's last name is Strife. It is through his strife that he both finds himself and saves the world. But the true hidden spirituality here is this. Regarding the story of the Demiurge, we actually see it told through Genova. The name here Genova is not at all dissimilar from the Jewish Jehovah. Their name for God fused with the Greek Nova, meaning new, essentially giving Genova a name that means new God. FF7 uses this name as a commentary on the way that God was described in the Old Testament. It's said that God is a jealous God with a number of other very humanly qualities. The game here presents the idea of the false God, the Demiurge pretending to be the supreme Oneness, which it cannot be. This goes further with the relationship to Sephiroth, giving us an idea of a sort of evil Jesus figure. He is, for all intents and purposes, the Son of God and the Word of God made manifest in a human body and performs, well, you know, evil miracles. For example, where Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead, Sephiroth killed Aerith so hard that no amount of Phoenix Downs could ever bring her back to life. I'm sorry, I need a sec. It's just so sad. By the way, Cloud, how is it you're standing here when this shot plays immediately after? I mean, where are your feet, bro? Anyways, here's a few other cool things. The game features the use of magic through crystals called Materia, and Materia is both Spanish and Latin for matter and material. There are seven types of Materia, which sort of correspond to the Chakras, but it's more likely that they were designed based on the five elements and then the forces of good and evil beyond the elements. The red Materia used for summons is notably interesting. Summons are spells cast in battle that allow you to draw upon some deity to come and assist you in some way, but what's amazing is that almost every single summon is based on a mythological God in history, and then there's the one for the giant chickens. I won't go through all of them, but here's a few key ones. There is Shiva and Rama relating to the Hindu gods of the same name. We have Ephrit from Islamic mythology, Odin from the Norse mythology, we have Hades from Greek mythology, and Knights of the Round, who is by and far the most powerful summon and is literally King Arthur and his twelve knights coming to your rescue and kicking some ass. In addition to the main five Materia that are usable by the player, there are also two more types, White and Black Materia. The Black Materia is the force of chaos for destroying anything and everything you want. In the game, it's used to summon meteor to smash into the planet. The White Materia is called Holy, a force of divine sacred benevolence which can be used to cleanse the planet of threats. I guess I should mention there's also huge Materia, which is kind of like giant chunks of unrefined crystal matter. Now, earlier in this video, I mentioned that there was this ancient pyramid. You might remember in the Spirit Science Human History movie, we talked about how there's this story about the true capstone of the great pyramid in Egypt being sealed away somewhere deep underground beneath the pyramid itself in a secret chamber and that the little capstone is a perfect image of the great pyramid made of solid gold with little passageways and everything. This idea was encoded into FF7 because when you make it to the end of the labyrinth inside of the pyramid, you enter into the secret chamber and literally find a tiny version of the whole pyramid that you're standing inside. What's more amazing is that as your character goes to take it, the great pyramid around you begins to shake and tremble. If you remove it, you get the MacGuffin, but the pyramid will collapse upon you. Oh, no! Anyway, one of the most valuable aspects of the game is that it not only loads us up on hidden spiritual symbolism, but it grabs us emotionally, too, which is why the game has weaved such tight emotional memories with nearly everyone who's ever played it. We see all of the characters get very existential throughout the game, dealing with death in their own ways, dealing with isolation, pain, loss, sadness, and struggle against their seemingly inevitable demise. And remember, all of these characters exist within us as we play. And so as you progress throughout the game, you are put in the driver's seat of experiencing those emotional states yourself. You become the characters, and the struggle is real within you, and you grow and evolve with them. Many people who began playing FF7 might have connected with Cloud, not really caring about the world or that the planet is dying, whatever, you know? But by the end, you see the bigger picture. You see the necessity for changing the world. And maybe, just maybe, you embody your own inner team avalanche, your own inner Cloud, Tifa, Barrett, Aerith, or Red 13, and set out on a quest to save the world. But maybe just don't blow up anything. I'm certain we can find a better way to move humanity forward. Anyway, Final Fantasy VII will stand forever in the hearts and minds of millions around the world as a testament to gaming and storytelling. And for those who are able to see deeper into the fabric of the reality matrix, it stands as an encoded language of ancient mysticism that speaks to the human soul about the nature of life, love, and our connection to the world. The game asks us if we're willing to stand for what we believe in. Are we willing to go inside ourselves and do the inner work to discover who we really are? Are we willing to look deeper past the surface level of a story, any story, and find the hidden spirituality? Thank you again so much for watching. I'd like to give some mad props to the writers at FinalFantasyFandom.com along with Peter from Kotaku, whose notes and articles provided some excellent support in making this episode. You'll find links in the comments to check out their writings, and of course, to everyone watching, enjoy the Final Fantasy VII remake.