"Play for the Peace of Jerusalem"

- God Games @ the Sacred Global Cross-road.

Dr. Yitzhaq Hayut-Man, cyber-architect

Note: This article was written for a conference on "God Games" in Kingston Jamaica, back in 2008. Finding I could not afford the journey, a colleague was going to present it, but then could not make it either. It was touched up a little towards meeting with the faculty of the Copenhagen IT University, center for Computer Games Sept. 2010.

Presenting this article in Kingston Jamaica, we would first like to give homage and acknowledge our debt to this place. It was exactly 500 years ago, in 1508, that the propriety rights for Jamaica by Columbus' family were recognized. Thus the inquisition was never enforced in Jamaica (http://www.sephardim.org/jamaica), which became a safe haven for fellow converted Jews of Spain to escape to and establish their synagogues, where they could sing the songs of the return to Zion. A generation ago, in the 1970's, Kingston Jamaica became a world cultural leader with the combination of Rastafari religion and Roots Reggae music, amplified by the recording studios and audio cassette technologies. With these, the name and Biblical theme of Zion came to renewed prominence. For the Rastafarians, "Zion" stands for a Utopian place of unity, peace and freedom, as opposed to "Babylon," the oppressing and exploiting system of the western world and a place of evil. This association of Zion came as a counter dot to the Moslem-Arab derogation of (Jewish) Zionism, portrayed by the Arabs just as what Rastafarians regarded as Babylon. At the independence of Zimbabve, an audience of one million people heard Bob Marley sing his "Redemption Song" and all about Zion.

A current Rastafarian website[1] features the prophecy of Micha (4:1-3)[2]: "But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the Law (Torah) shall go forth of Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more."

Nowadays, with Internet Games appearing as the new global cultural influence, we are promoting a concept of Universal Zionism entailing cyber-pilgrimage through the medium of computer games. The mission of our U.N.I.T.Y Project[3] is to help fulfill the ancient prophecies of the redemption of the Israel and the whole world - and to counter the dire threat to world peace issuing from the "Clash of Civilizations" coming to head in and about Jerusalem.

Our starting point is that the rich historical and cultural heritage of Jerusalem makes it (or rather "Her") an ideal scenary for truly exciting games. The truly startling point, however, is that these virtual games could very well change the real world history. The proposed UNITY/Jerusalem-Games System might well be the counter-dot both for Islamic Fundamentalism that threatens a global conflagration, as well as for the Christian Fundamentalism as expressed in the Left Behind: Eternal Force game (discussed in other presentations in this conference session). They could transform the perception of Jerusalem from that of global threat and crisis to the great opportunity that it also represents. Currently the most lucrative game on the market is "World of Warcraft (WOW)". We are developing a kind of “World of Peace-craft” massively multiplayer role playing games, with which we intend to make peacemaking truly exciting.

Rather than personifying simplistic pagan world-making gods, this games system is based on classic mystical concepts of pilgrim’s progress and divinity of participant's immortal souls in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Passing through levels that correspond to actual features of the Old City of Jerusalem in its different periods, participants pass from tasks for their egotistical “animal souls” to compassionate tasks that reveal and exercise their “Divine Souls”. These include team-development procedures and “Human Reconstruction” tasks based on 4D and 5D geometry as means for higher/divine consciousness.

The games feature several roles: Tourist, Fighter, Pilgrim-Peacemaker and Prophet.

Tourists (who might be scared of the actual Jerusalem) would use the game as a social networking tool (as would pilgrims and prophets, albeit in a much refined manner).

For Fighters, Jerusalem Old City offers the best opportunities for excitement. Their interactions may trigger world calamities. Their moves, however, may become at times constrained by the pilgrims who have reached to the Dome of the Rock/Temple, arriving thereby to a position of controling game biases. Fighters may also become converted into pilgrims. It is expected that with sufficient investment consistent with the whole games concept, these games could beat any war game on the market.

The Cyber Pilgrims-Peacemakers are assigned each to one of "The UNI Tribes"[4] (tribes of the 'Universal New Israel'). They pass through the Seven Gates System™ of the Heavenly Jerusalem that is embedded inside the existing Jerusalem Old City. While they may come with much friction with pilgrims and fighters of the other U.N.I tribes, they learn to smooth and lubricate[5] their passages.

The Prophets are those who attained to the inner circles, where they work, seeking Divine influence on forming interfaith understandings and harmonizing the world scriptures.

The Action

For milennia, Jerusalem has been considered as the real (and now also possibly VR) place connecting Heaven and Earth. Thus, over all, the action in the games is made of two directions of movement:[6]

Earth-to-Heaven movement

Our research has established that the scheme of the Heavenly Jerusalem is of a place surrounded by seven concentric walls, one within the other, where there are gates with gatekeepers who judge whether the aspiring soul can be admitted – and we discovered that the actual present Old City is actually built right in this way, and there are indeed walls and gates system of seven grades. According to Moslem belief, the Prophet Mohammad made a double journey of (1) Isra': horizontal movement towards Jerusalem and (2) Miaraj: a vertical rise from the place of the Temple of Jerusalem and up through a system of "Seven Heavens".

Based on this discovery, the games concept offers an experience of the classical "Ascent to Heaven", or the "Journey out of this world"[7] – yet all these right within the actual Jerusalem Old City! The Ascent is achieved not by supernal forces (as in Left Behind) but the game itself rewards the participants: the Fighter when he finds more ethical ways to solve a situation; the Pilgrim when she finds a better cooperation with other parties of different creed or perspective. These movements are detailed and illustrated in a Powerpoint slide show authored by Yiẓḥaq Ḥayut-Man and Tirẓah Arzi.

Heaven-to-Earth Divine Influence

In the lower grades, the influence from "above" is excercised by the pilgrims and prophets twiking and changing parameters and biases in the system that administers these lower grades.

Inside the Dome, the influence from above comes by the opening the perception to behold the fourth dimension and even higher dimensions.

The Cloud bound to the Temple Mount will be able to make an event much like the description of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai with clouds illuminated by lightenings. There would appear in it projected holographic patterns that represent the results of the interactions of the players in the simulated Jerusalem available everywhere. These would be modeled into apparitions of the Divine – and there may even be produced sounds and speech, citing the new Torah insights arrived by the participating prophets.

Props

There are many unique features to the games, based on original designs and discoveries of members of our little club we like to call The Academy of Jerusalem and by kindred people. Some of them cannot yet be devulged for proprietary reasons relevant for investors. But let's give one small example, concerning those intended "pruning hooks" mentioned by both Isaiah and Micha.

The function of prooning hooks[8] is to aid the healthy growth of the plant (here, a Tree of Knowledge) by removing some overgrown and/or degenerate branches. In the knowledge engineering tools of the cybernetic Conversation Theory (CT), "pruning" operations are employed to render a messy mesh of interconnected and convoluted concepts into a coherent 'Entailment Structures'. Such operations would be employed in the playful co-editing work done on the contending scriptures of the various parties. In turn, those new Torah formulations co-produced by the game Prophets will be processed into songs, much like the original Psalms, much like the reggae songs, and be played out, as if coming from the Luminous Cloud.

The Heavnly Jerusalem Temple

The greatest prop of these games, however, is a whole heavenly Temple apparatus hovering over the Temple Mount.[9] Our design consists of a giant transparent cube supported over the Temple Mount, in which there will be kept an artificial cloud of "The Temple Incense". This will provide a 3D display medium for projecting holographic images that represent games' results. This will provide the "Luminous Cloud" much like through which the prophet Ezekiel saw the Divine Chariot (4:4-28) and the future Temple (43:1-12), and the Luminous Cloud by which Jesus instructed Judas in the divine mysteries in the newly discovered old Gnostic "Gospel of Judas Iscariot".[10]

Some early images can be seen on the Internet at www.thehope.org/artgall.htm, whereas a more mature design appears in a Wired Magazine article[11] (April 2004) about this design.