In Reply to: Could you be specific? posted by Curious on March 11, 2003 at 17:29:04:
I would like to point out that I am no expert on this subject but a couple of years ago I checked this stuff out and some of the things that I seen weren't too reassuring that Pokemon was just a harmless childrens game. But aside from the obvious elements of witchcraft poking through into normal childhood fantasy role playing games the objective behind Pokemon appears to be one of gradual desensitization toward participation in real magical practices. The characters are quite cute thats true but remember that this game is designed to attract children. The main character in this game, the young boy, I saw in one ad flashing the two fingered salute to Satan. The problem as I see it is how to educate young people so that they will realize that this game contains practices belonging to, *'Wicca' a religion based on spiritism. (* Contact and fellowship with so called, 'nature spirits' that in Christian terms are called, 'demons'.) Children from Christian homes may recognize parts of the game as being evil, (the violence, the mental powers, evolution, etc.) but what of children who have formed no strong personal adversion to such and are conditioned to think that real life participation in such things is OK? Children usually do not have the same degree of discernment as adults and look at how many adults get sucked into the occult. One strange thing I noticed, (which could be nothing more than just a narrow viewpoint based on my limited personal observations) is that while the children can be quite involved in playing with the cards around adults they tend not to discuss the actual demands made on them by the game. (Caring and nurturing, feeding, loving, managing, etc. these Pokemons.) How many parents actually know what all is involved in this game? (I don't see any warning label on the Pokemon packages that could help parents in deciding whether they want their kids playing with this.)(Here we have a company making all kinds of money on a very addictive children's game that was promoted by mass advertising directed toward children with parents standing passively by (for the most part)paying the bills.) (I hope they don't come out with a game where the kids have to snort different colored powders off a game board with a magic straw because that could get really expensive, especially when they get older.)