Ah, good god! I keep forgetting about Zeality's updates and often procrastinate. @_@ I should have written this sooner... Because perhaps, despite its minor significance, it'll help with theories of the Compendium.
Recently I've been studying dark arts of human (and elven) cultures, both in fiction and what "seem" to be real, especially on the miracles that were said to have performed by Johannes Faust himself. But when I looked into CT and RD I spotted some interesting things which made me come to you with...
ZEAL / DARK AGES MAGICAL RELEVANCE TO REAL LIFE / MYTHOLOGICAL SORCERY!Before we begin, allow me to explain a few basic things. I'll only mention things that everyone can understand rather than going in details. For those of you intellectual ones, they'd look up and know what I'm talking about. And as for those squeamish (and perhaps religious) blokes,
DON'T LOOK IT UP!! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!Sephirot (In Hebrew סְפִירוֹת), meaning "enumerations", are the 10 attributes/emanations in Kabbalah, through which God (who is referred to as Ein Sof-The Limitless) reveals Himself and continuously creates both our physical realm and the chain of higher metaphysical realms (Seder hishtalshelus). The term is alternatively transliterated into English as Sephiroth/Sefiroth, singular Sephirah etc.
Description
Keter-"Crown": Divine Will to create/Infinite Light of the Creator/the Hebrew name of God "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh-I am That I am"
Chochmah-"Wisdom": First unbounded flash of an idea before it takes on limitations/male light/Divine Reality/first revelation/creation from nothingness
Binah-"Understanding": the infinite flash of Chochmah brought into the vessel of understanding to give it grasp of breadth and depth/feminine vessel that gives birth to the emotions/reason/understanding brings teshuva return to God
Daat is a central state of unity of the 10 Sephirot, also called the Tree of Life.
Chesed-"Kindness": Loving grace of free giving/love of God/inspiring vision
Gevurah-"Severity": Strength/judgment/intention/witholding/awe of God
Tiferet-"Beauty": Symmetry/balance between Chesed and Gevurah in compassion
Netzach-"Victory": Determination to overcome/Initiative/persistence
Hod-"Glory": Withdrawal/Surrender/sincerity
Yesod-"Foundation": Connecting to the task to accomplish/wholly remembering/coherent knowledge
Malchut-"Kingship": Female vessel for the pregnant nurturing of the male lights of the emotional sephirot into action/becomes the Keter Will source for any subsequent lower level in Creation/accomplishment/realization of the Divine Plan.
So basically, and pseudo-scientifically, our universe is made of a hierarchy or "Realms", each realm working together with the other either directly or indirectly, and affect each other with certain natural and ethereal energies. You can see they're like
Cogs of Fate. We are creatures of the physical world called the "Malkuth/Malchut". There are other realms with entirely different laws of physics and contain different fundamentals of nature. Most Elven power required subtle knowledge on these realms in order to affect the Malkuth as they wish, and because such phenomenon cannot be
explained, thus it was termed "magic".
Secondly, the five elements described in both Kabalah and ancient Greece (where magical practices used to be prominent, along with Egypt) were Earth, Fire, Wind, Water and Light. In terms of of those elements, a pentagram is formed, and each point of that pentagram represents an element. It has been used as the "providence of nature" by many tribes several thousands of years ago. But it is said that when you turn the pentagram upside down its nature turns demonic. How exactly?
You may all have seen Magic Circles, be it TV or novels or somewhere. These circles of power are known as "Pentacles", and in terms of Black Magic (which is much different from ordinary Elven or Elemental magic), it is often used so. When a magician draws a pentacle correctly with accurate runes and calculations of the angles, with correct atmosphere of incenses and candles, and enough power he may be able to summon demons, or
Shadows, from the
Shadow Realms, or most commonly known as
Hell, just to serve them by binding to a contract. The contract is, obviously, essential to sign such a pact because beings from ethereal realm cannot survive in our realm for long, nor we can in theirs.
But do note that summoning is Shadow is different from it seems. For once,
Shadow is not an element! In Black Magic, Shadow represents
Void, or power to contact with it. A Void or emptiness is only created when a person is able to create a path by redirecting/destroying the barriers or "Elements" that make up the Malkuth, so as to let the Demon a temporary haven within an opposite pentacle.
Okay, enough of that! Now how is THAT relevant to Chrono?!Simple enough, but allow me to address them point wise.
- Chrono Trigger/Cross Elements
Apparently, the Elements noted in Chrono only partially contradict the knowledge of Ancient Greece and Kabbalah; The elements Light, Water and Fire exist, but Wind is Light itself and there is no Earth. Instead, a new element called "Shadow" is added. The funny thing is that Magus is a Shadow Master himself, but why does he also know how to use other elements? For one thing, master "Shadow" in Kabbalah means mastering the other elements first, because, as I said, Shadow is not an element but rather a powerful Void left when there is no element. Secondly, he was from Zeal which was the capital of Magic, and thus every person there had the ability to utilize the powers of the Elements from the Malkuth.
- Magus's power-bid at first encounter
You may have seen that when you battle Magus for the first time he uses some really powerful Barriers and Hel-Sap abilities, but unable to use it later. Mostly the Compendium theorizes that "it was probably because Lavos sucked his power", which from IMO is totally ridiculous. Magus obtains even more power than before later on so why can't he use it THEN?!
But then why couldn't he use it? That is because, for some reason, it took him ages to prepare such magic and he CAN'T seem to carry around with him. If you notice, where Magus is standing you'll see what I mean. That's right, a pentacle! A pentacle indeed! And what is he doing? Obviously, summoning! The basis of all Black Magic! There were candles alright, but what was missing were merely incenses (which are of no value in-game). Now what does that have to do with his powers?
Surely enough you've known of the fundamentals of the Pentacle. It represents the five powers of the Malkuth, which is to PROTECT the caster from the "Shadows", and at the opposite side a smaller pentacle turned upside down with slightly different runes where the Elements are redirected to cause the Void. Of course the details of the second pentacle isn't added because there was MUCH left out from actual magic, but such hints were obvious to note. He was going to summon Lavos with his Void, and prepared the Elemental Barrier within the pentacle to protect himself against his power. But alas, he was forced to use it against Crono and co. - Dalton's Golem
Golem is a magical weapon, an earth puppet resurrected by a magician for warfare while keeping himself hidden elsewhere and controlling it. Because Golems do not have lives nor are organic it was an ideal weapon to be used against the demons of a magician's rivals, and also against humans with inferior strength and agility.
However, as I said before, in CT the element Earth is non-existent, and thus it was made multi-elemental instead, combating ANY element with ease and still possessing Gravity-like abilities.
One interesting thing to note is that Dalton ALSO uses the Void to summon the Golem. He doesn't need to use a pentacle because he's the one controlling it anyway so no harm. But because he CAN use the void it would mean that despite merely being a Golem Watcher he was also a Shadow Master AND master of the Elements. Perhaps it was common among the higher ups of Zeal after all. - Radical Dreamers relevance
No surprise there. Each BIT of RD states about Black Magic lurking at every corner. Be it Lilith, souls, Lynx's army of Demons and Spirits, etc.
The Devil's Circle, though a magic circle, is NOT actually a pentacle, but rather a Glyph trap.
Secondly, hints on Ethereal planes/realms are casually applied in RD during the storyline. One of those Realms is the Shadow Realm in the extra scenarios, and the second would be the Realm of the Looking Glass in the original scenario.
Every part signifies that Lynx was a powerful Shadow Master himself. - Chrono Cross
Another funny thing to note about Chrono Cross: ALL the elements from the Kabbalah exist as they are! Except there's an "addition" of Shadow, and the Chrono Cross. Shadow stating Kato was in love with Shadow magic and Magus, while the Chrono Cross stating that it was probably inspired by the legend of Orpheus.
Other than that, there's references to Djinni and Marid, Flea has a magic lamp behind, Spriggans, Lynx summoning Feral Cats out of his armpits (Void, obviously), etc. yet again keeping the reality theme with touches of originality. Also, at Arni where you find Mojo you see a Triforce Pentacle, and at Terra Tower there's a Dragon Pentacle. - Masamune
You may have wandered through the Ocean Palace and ALWAYS finding the monsters there. HOW did the Zealian get past despite the monsters keeping guard? Clearly the monsters were demons of low intelligence from the Shadow Realm and were slaves of those magicians who signed a contract with them. No brainer, the higher ups were already Shadow Masters.
As for Masa and Mune possessing a sword, that has been applied to many stories. In older days the Magicians used to seal demons with specific objects after signing a contract with them in order to utilize their powers. Some became Amulets to protect their wearers from harm while the others became Talismans to give their wearers supernatural abilities (which, in Middle Ages, were termed "Cursed"). Masa and Mune were similar spirits which were to embed themselves into the Sword made by their master Melchoir.
Well, there you have it. I may have missed some points, feel free to speculate. Kato seemed knowledgeable about Kabbalah himself, or perhaps inspired by SOMETHING ELSE that was inspired by Kabbalah and Black Arts.
