FINISHING THE GAME OF SIN
A digital closeup on the faces of evil
This two part post is about a digital closeup of the faces of evil, from a 500 year old painting to the presentation of sin-as-liberation today.
Part one is presented by a free online game which may appeal to jaded eyes young and old, because it shows you the difference between looking and seeing.
As a bonus for my paid subscribers I also include a second part.
Part two contains two voice recordings I have made about cultural production, the rule by media in liberal democracy, and the most honest definition of woke you have never heard before.
As you will discover, our mass produced culture is itself a sinful game played at your expense - and at the loss of all the values of Christian civilisation.
I also explain what an intellectual is, and why Jordan Peterson isn’t one. lol.
PART ONE: ST ANTHONY AND THE FACES OF SIN
Today I bring you a game, which is also a story, and it is about the modern mind getting lost and found.
The moral of the story is the example of St Anthony, and the method is to recognise the faces of sin which are hidden, in plain sight, in the depths of a 500 year old masterpiece.
BEWARE! BEWARE! GOD SEES
I started last week’s post on sin and porn long before last Friday, which was the feast of St Anthony Abbot. Also called the hermit, or St Anthony the Great, he featured in another of Hieronymus Bosch’s striking paintings.
I ended that post with a video which beautifully explained The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things - a famously odd painting by Hieronymus Bosch.
I found that video by accident.
I find a lot of good things by accident these days. Not all accidents that will happen are bad.
Being a scatterbrained lettuce, my skull crowded with kids on holiday and the Serious Business of the News, I lost the video. All I could do was remember a phrase from the central image of Christ.
“Cave, cave - Deus Videt”.
It means, “Beware - God sees”.
So I searched for that.
Though I found it in the end, I did not find the video straight away. What I did find first, in another happy accident, was a little digital gem.
This turned out to be an award-winning game, styled as a (rather stylish) visual novel. It was made in 2013 as an entry in a competition. It won.
I am suspicious of all things I do not already know and like, but overcame my pooh-pooh reflex in the spirit of finding out.
And what I found out was wonderful.
This “visual novel” starts off strange, but bear with it and it becomes a marvel.
It is a game which is also serious. It is a pathway to beauty through the depiction of sin. The lesson you learn, of course, is that God is watching.
If you know where to look. And if you know what you are seeing.
By playing to the end I discovered it was a clever way of engaging your attention - and that of young men in hoodies with music blasting in their ears - with the story of St Anthony, his temptation, and the Seven Deadly Sins.
It is a mystery which has to be solved to escape, back into the world.
And the only way is through the recognition of the faces of sin.
I do not want to spoil the enchanting mystery of this little masterpiece, but I will say this: I have never seen so much in Bosch’s painting before.
I now understand those grotesques he painted were not simple variations on a theme of 16th century hipster weirdness.
I know more about Bosch, too - and about St Anthony - whose temptation is explained in a way I had looked at before but never really noticed.
The Marxist art critic John Berger (an anti-Zionist Jew) wrote a short and valuable book about art called Ways of Seeing.
It is remarkable. You can see it here.
Despite having seen this, as well as a lot of paintings - despite, in short, thinking I knew about pictures and what they pictured - in spite of myself I found out.
I found out through this free game that I did not know what I was looking at.
You can play through the story of a young man lost in a strange old painting by downloading it, for nothing, here.
I suggest you do. It is the sort of treasure I had given up on finding, buried in the shopping channel of processed product that the internet has become.
It is the sort of thing which might capture the jaded eye of youth, too. And turn it inward as much as outward afterwards.
To get to the end might take you an hour. It all depends on what you think you can see, and how well that matches what is actually there.
It will change the way you see the world, this painting that you know or heard of, but never really understood.
In a way this tale and mine in finding it have shown that the digital world can be delightful. It can show us old meaning that has been lost in the new.
It can remind us to look out, not only because God sees us, but because we might otherwise not notice what is there.
And what is there is life and all its choices. Beware. We live by them, after all.
But only once. Look closer.
I paywall my Monday posts to repay subscribers who kindly pay for my work.
Substack has warned me my revenue is going down. It has told me to harass you all with “chats” to drive paid subscriptions.
I am not going to do this - because I think you should spend less time on the internet.
If you can pay me, please do.
If you cannot pay for my work and would like to read it, email me and I will let you in. frankwrighter@pm.me. Put “free sub” in the title.
Now for part two - where we look closer at the production of our “woke” culture of sin-as-liberation.
What can we see about the values of those who produce it for our consumption?
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