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3 Reasons Why Sims Mobile Misses the Mark: In-depth Analysis
Everyone knows The Sims. The sandbox life simulation has not only defined its own genre but counts among the top-selling game series ever and all major platforms. After four major releases on PC/consoles and countless DLCs, EA and Maxis came with a sequel to a 6-year-old Sims FreePlay, which has racked up close to 300 million installs and over 300 million in IAP bookings (source: Sensor Tower)
The Sims Mobile launched globally in early March 2018 after a long and tumultuous soft-launch, during which massive changes to the game mechanics were made. Yet despite the fantastic visuals, long soft launch and the support of an internal benchmark, Sims Mobile tumbled down. It took less than a month for the 6-year-old Sims FreePlay start outperforming the sequel in terms of revenue despite the fact that Sims Mobile daily installs were over four times higher during the same period of time.
It would be easy to make a case, based on numbers, that launching sequels on mobile is not the way to go about it. After all, there are more than enough warning examples. But the Sims Mobile didn't fail because it's a sequel. The game failed due to much simpler and obvious reason: poor design that didn't deliver to what made the Sims a great franchise in the first place.
*Please remember that we love games. Our goal, as always, is to deconstruct what successful games do right and to understand what keeps other not-so-successful games from reaching their potential. We are all game developers and understand very well how hard it is not only to launch but also to grow a game. Build > Launch > Learn > Repeat!
The genius of the original Sims PC franchise lies in its approachability. It is easy to understand what is expected from the player and the Sim alike: The actions and choices are intuitive, learned from our own life experiences. The metrics of success do not have to be explained, because they are inherently ours: Make more money, get a promotion, get married. The franchise builds on our own fantasies about how we live our lives.
Matt Brown, current studio technical director of EA Maxis, spoke at this year's GDC about emergent narrative in the original Sims, and how the game combines a natural human tendency to nurture for others with the Maslow hierarchy of needs.
These needs create the baseline structure of the game:
- Sim is hungry →
- Sim needs a fridge to make food →
- The player needs to buy a fridge →
- The player needs money →
- Sim needs to get a job!
Furthermore, a Sim has some automated behavior that tries to address pressing needs and loosely following on whatever actions they've been doing before. A Sim who wants to become a chef and has a career in a restaurant is more likely to start cooking on his own. If you have a house with multiple Sims, this is the developers helping you to keep the Sims on the path you've chosen for them without having to control every moment of their lives.
At the same time, the feedback to any action is visible and gives it meaning and progress. Tracking actions reward you for taking them while in real life these are not nearly as gratifying. For example:
- Read a book → See the Sim's "logic" skill go up
- Talk to a person → Watch your relationship level with this person increase
This mechanic also builds an immediate next goal: Read books to level up your logic skill to get a better career. Talk to a person until their relationship reaches a high level, so you can get married and have kids.
All in all, the game is a great combination of actions the player can control and those the player has to respond to. Regardless of your story: freedom, feedback, and intuitive goals are the trademark features of the brand and the design principles on which the narrative is built.
As a shift to F2P, The Sims actually had two previous attempts:
The Sims FreePlay launched 2011 for mobile
The Sims Social launched 2011 on Facebook.
The Sims Social (the Facebook game) ruled the top charts for a bit but then quickly fell off.
Sims FreePlay (iOS, Android) and has been a staple of the top games on mobile since 2011. The mobile version used timers to break up the sessions and provide progress in times of player's absence. These timers break the flow and make the game feel very different from the original, but it keeps its stable audience, presumably because the it stays quite true to the brand's principles, keeping the narrative choices similar as in The Sims.
The new Sims Mobile game was soft-launched in May 2017 in Brazil and launched globally this year in March. From the very first moment, you notice how different the game's visuals are. It walked a long way from the quirky, robotic animations in Sims FreePlay into a very polished, full 3D experience with a wide range of animations and short loading times, resembling the Sims 4 PC game.
So how did the latest Sims Mobile game do? In the past weeks, the old game, Sims FreePlay, kept its position in the Top 100 grossing. The new Sims Mobile hasn't maintained a rank in the top grossing, roughly flattening at $50K/day according to Sensor Tower across Android + iOS.
These metrics are far from stellar for a game with such high visual polish that spent almost a year in soft launch and taps into the faithful audience of the franchise. So what happened? Why didn't the Sims Mobile leapfrog Sims Freeplay?
Instead of controlling an unlimited amount of characters and houses, like in The Sims and Sims FreePlay, in Sims Mobile the player controls only up to four characters that share a house.
However to keep things interesting and let the player live different stories, at some point Sims can retire. This frees a slot for a new generation. If you choose to retire the Sim, they will hang out around the house, offering special actions rewarding Heirloom tokens (family currency), and eventually will be "moved out" to a farm upstate and be permanently gone. If your Sims have a baby, the similar process happens as it grows up.
Heirloom Tokens allow the player to purchase Lucky Charms that unlock and boost traits you can assign to your Sims.
The system works well: Player doesn't get overwhelmed by controlling too many Sims, exploring differently flavored stories comes naturally with new characters, and last but not least there is a tangible heritage from the previous generation, which is a great metaphor. It also serves as a retention mechanic for achievement-focused players. In my opinion, focusing player's attention on a limited amount of characters and creating a heritage achievement system is definitely a good step for a mobile game.
As a player, you can assign your Sims to events, which are basically quests with different duration. Events are part of Stories: Career, hobby, and relationships. For hobbies and careers, only one can be active at a time for each Sim and switching it costs Simoleons. Relationships can be explored in parallel, which keeps the game to one of the most cherished traits of the original. The only limited resource here is player's time.
Each Sim can be assigned to one event at a time, and it will finish itself. This lets you progress without actively playing.
To give the player a chance to act, each Sim also has energy that can be used to perform optional actions within the event to speed up the timer and finish earlier. Player chooses the actions through interaction points that are only available during the event.
The events feed both into the player progression and the Sim progression. It ties the two loops together: Completing an event means XP for the player and a progression in the story for the Sim.
Built on top is the decoration loop, which loosely connects to the overall progression loop described above. There are two progression tracks: Player level and Vanity level:
Player's XP comes mainly from completing events. They unlock new parts of town and careers, furniture, building blocks, and outfits.
Decorating and buying clothes increases vanity level, which serves as a visible comparison between you and your in-game friends and unlocks more space in the house.
Here's how the full game loop looks:
From this graph: the two loops, Sim progress, and Player progress feed into decorating. Therefore the player's motivation should lie mainly there. The motivation to complete the loop is tied to the social driver of comparing houses and clothes with other players.
Clothes and cosmetics for your Sims are different than decorations. These cost Simoleons (soft currency) or hard currency and add to your overall Vanity level. Most clothes and cosmetics do not have a game effect.
To get clothes with in-game effect players have to go to a special design that will generate random - and very unique - clothes. These clothes give a boost for an activity and usually highlighted with a particle effect.
These outfits tend to catch most attention from other players and feed into its own tiny loop of social encounters:
- Being seen by other players can earn you Stickers, which basically like likes from other players in the game
- Stickers are transferred into fashion tokens
- Fashion tokens can be traded in Izzy's studios for different/better designs
To make your Sim visible to other players, you have to attend parties.
You can throw and visit thematic parties (wedding party when you get married, music party when you play guitar as a hobby etc.). These happen in parallel with other players. While the actions you perform are asynchronous (and act same as actions within an event), you do have some option to interact, such as a real-time chat with all the participants.
No Sim game would be complete without all the wonderful strangers you can meet and Sims Mobile take some steps out of the single player by introducing an asynchronous system in which your neighborhood is populated partly by NPCs and partly by other players' Sims.
You are assigned to a group of players and for you, your neighborhood is frequented by the same characters: allowing you to slowly build relationships with them.
This resembles well a lively neighborhood. Sims you befriend will stick around, being more likely to pass by your house. Sims you don't care about you will stop seeing -- and you won't care. It would be interesting to know how these neighborhoods are updated over time; whether new players are added when the old ones churn.
It is here, at the end of the loop, where the real issues with Sims Mobile start to emerge:
The social loop doesn't feed strongly back into the core loop and leaves the player feeling unrewarded
The social loop is way too far from the core to serve as motivation, and as I'll show, it's not sufficient to drive player through the game.
While the first part focused on visible systemic changes that were introduced to streamline the game for f2p and mobile, in this part I will talk more about design under the hood in order to get to the answer for our initial question: Why is the game not performing well.
I want to post a hypothesis: We're seeing the game struggling because it lacks meaningful choices or goals, it mechanizes motivations, and it doesn't reward the player.
It becomes clear soon after few days of playing: The core design of the mobile game is at odds with what made the PC game so successful. Here's what I mean by that:
The nurturing and narrative aspects are suppressed
The progression doesn't validate player's time and investment
The core loop is broken
These issues do not exist in a vacuum, but they are the biggest part of the systemic oversight of player motivation. As I'll show, the lack of meaningful, immediate actions diminishes the ability to care for your Sims. Hard-to-read progression defies a will to grind for better objects. Funneling the core loop into social leaves the player out to dry without feeling rewarded.
The nurturing aspect from the original Sims game was excellent. The needs system in The Sims have three main benefits:
- give players immediate call to actions
- build narrative
- create a need for better items
These combine into the loop I described earlier:
Sim is hungry → Sim needs a fridge to make food → Player needs to buy a fridge → Player needs money → Sim needs to get a job
Through intrinsic motivation (Sim is hungry) comes caring (I need to care) and emotional attachment. Caring for the needs is the building block of the game, like swapping candies in CCS, you'll repeat this action, again and again, driven by curiosity what happens next.
By completing these steps a set of more complex needs emerge such as relationships or and career. Just like in real life, player ponders: How do I afford a better house?
Because Sims need the player, the player cares for the Sims. This is where nurturing builds the narrative: Completing these steps naturally tells the story. Because of the combination of intuitive, human needs, the ability to fulfill them through game mechanics and a clear feedback, the game doesn't need to take the player by the hand.
Originally, setting up your house is finding an intersection of affordability, function and personal expression. Furniture caters the needs or improves skills (learning). Better furniture makes for faster progression, and granular improvements to your house also improve your Sims' overall well-being; Sims want to live in nice houses.
In Sims Mobile, players can still interact with the furniture but since no needs are present, the interaction doesn't provide any feedback, neither for the Sim or the player.
The player is therefore left with limited motivation to purchase furniture. The only game accepted push to decorate comes from the need to improve their vanity. Dropping stats and gameplay impact from furniture for the sake of a simplified experience cuts a major value of the experience.
Without this rewarding loop from furniture, a whole part of the game disappears that could have served as a compelling experience for a casual audience. Watching TV while playing Candy Crush is a good example, however, games with metagame (building on ownership and personalization) are even a better one: Interacting with your game with a slight sense of progress can be a great and rewarding activity. It further fosters the ownership of the space you've built. Having a reason to stick around meaningfully makes you retain better.
In Sims Mobile, this leads to players coming in only for short, effective sessions. The intrinsic narrative of building up your sim and collecting furniture is replaced with the extrinsic motivation of just completing the stories/quests for rewards and progress. Players that are coming in just for extrinsic motivation (rewards and coins) won't stick around for long. They eventually need intrinsic motivation (social proof) to retain for the long haul.
Stories are the building blocks of Sims' lives. Looking at an example of a relationship story: When you meet a new Sim, you choose one of three introductions: Friendly, romantic or confrontational. This determines your whole story with this particular Sim:
Here The Sims Mobile really misses out on what made the PC version of The Sims so successful: it's an accurate portrayal of relationships in real life. Relationships are ever changing and it's unclear where things are going. Locking down a relationship into a pre-set story pushes you down a path with no option to take a side road apart from abandoning the progress in the story.
Through this, the motivation to progress becomes extrinsic since the choice of what happens next has been taken away. There is no surprise, no option to grab the steering wheel and have a fight in a romantic relationship. Pursuing achievements also takes away the option to play freely: Instead of playing what I want, I play what I want to complete, creating a detachment to my Sim.
The removal of the nurture aspect has a huge impact both on the system and the player. It takes away natural onboarding and therefore complicates a relationship you could have built to your characters. It reduces the internal motivation by making the play aspect insignificant.
By attaching story progression to events only, the game builds a pre-set habit of collecting rewards, assigning events and leaving the session. A player never builds up a connection to their Sims which is not healthy for long-term retention.
After playing the game for some time, you may start feeling like you're not progressing. Only after looking closer at the event system it starts to be apparent why. The game features a clear yet highly unintuitive progression, which makes the player wonder if they are making any progress at all.
To recap: Events have varied durations that player can choose from. While in an event, they can use energy to perform actions and speed up the timer.
The energy is bound to the events: Using more energy means the player can finish more events and progress faster. And each Sim has their own Energy.
It all sounds simple and clear: the player can engage with the game with visible progress in the events, which allows them to get more done in the same amount of time. But, it doesn't feel good.
Here's the first problematic part: You can select actions that are meaningful to you, but the result of a story event is the same regardless of the input. You will level up a relationship with your sweetheart whether you are cooking, watching TV, or talking about romantic plans. Or if you leave the game and come back later. Within each event, the relationship between energy and time discount is the same. That further undermines player's choice of actions (from event's perspective they are all the same).
Next to those meaningless Actions that have no game impact (outside of an Event) we now have mechanical actions. You're bound to the result from the start. It's like sitting at a math test, knowing that you can wait it out without writing anything because in the end, you will pass.
The result is: Energy doesn't have story value. Or, to put it differently, energy is merely a means to grind.
Second problematic part is the hidden relationship between energy and Event XP.
While events in different career levels have the same duration, using energy provides a small discount on higher levels as the absolute amount of event XP grows. It's an invisible cost to your progression.
At the same time, it's not clear if your energy will be enough to get through an event as the absolute amount of event XP needed isn't shown. In reality, the game value of energy is determined by the event type (typically family events go very fast), career level and quest duration. As a result, the player has no idea what progress to expect in a session, which undermines their will to plan and set goals.
Even when this behavior is not technically in a way of playing the game, it shows that energy is designed and implemented into other systems only for gating and pacing: It only really starts to matter if you push for event completion in a given time (in live operations for example).
In a quest based game, the reward is usually a function of game progression and duration of the quest. Simple progression can expand rewards: With player's level, the reward grows. Or it can grow the quest timers: Players need to come back less often, which is a common practice in F2P games to lower session amount over time and not wear the retaining player out. In reality, it's usually a mix of both and either of these gives the player a good understanding of their progression since there's always a tangible gain.
In Sims Mobile, the progression works differently, and far less intuitively. Playing events unlocks pieces of furniture that discount the timer on quests: at the same time, regardless of your progression in the game (player level) and in the story (career level), your rewards stay similar:
To display it as above, the progression in Sims Mobile works like this:
The progression comes in a form of time discount. The result then looks like this:
As a result, the player can do more quests and earn more rewards within the same amount of time. This decision is interesting because this is not how we talk about getting a raise in real life. "I'm earning $200 per hour instead of $100 per hour". In Sims Mobile, it's "I'm earning 200 simoleons in 1 hour instead of in 2 hours".
We use time, the most stable, straightforward, linear measure as a comparison. Relating to different time slots doesn't feel as an intuitive progression. The different careers also don't differ enough in earnings (which you would expect with being a barista versus being a top chef) and throughout them, players do not get significantly better off with coins either. This is particularly apparent later in the game when furniture and clothes become gradually more expensive and the player is less and less able to purchase them or complete sets.
From a system perspective, the flattened progression is likely trying to balance leveled up Sims with new Sims at the beginning of their careers. This approach doesn't disadvantage starting new stories, but at the same time also doesn't validate progression. Comparing rewards of two Sims in the same household at different career stages feels frankly demotivating.
Would players keep their old Sims forever if the difference would be more significant? Do players value Simoleons higher than story progression? The combination of predictability of the actions, the lack of a meaningful story and the fact you don't need it to play to progress, makes energy redundant.
The design of events doesn't communicate progression naturally. This seems to be a pattern in Sims Mobile: Instead of asking what player cares about, there's an artificial measurement claiming a player that should care... just because.
When it comes to long-term retention, it's hard not to mention one more substantial shortcomings of Sims Mobile. From a systems perspective, most of the progression feeds into the party loop:
Parties are where other players can see your home
Leveling up in hobbies and careers rewards additional furniture that offers new opportunities at parties and allows the parties to reach a higher level
To be seen and rewarded for original clothes also requires to host/visit parties
Systemically you are rewarded through the parties, but it is anticlimactic. There is simply nothing substantial that you could gain in the party system that you can't gain somewhere else (XP, Simoleons). Everything about a party is mechanical: The number of parties you can visit per day, The number of parties you can host, The amount of energy you have at a party. There is no status to earn, no best-party-host leaderboard. Nothing to push me to become the party master.
Providing social proof at the end of a loop to drive all motivations is a good design. However, in this case, it is executed poorly by not tying it to some kind of ladder or leaderboard.
The party system isn't terrible, but it doesn't justify the existence of all the other loops. Its progress is very far away from day to day activity, and participating in them is optional.
When the game first came out, the gameplay was actually much more similar to Sims: FreePlay. This article is worth checking for an early review. From screenshots and App Store versions we can get an idea how the game looked when first released and what were the major changes.
A Sim had a set of needs that gets refilled when performing actions. Timers, that lasted hours in the Sims: FreePlay were shortened, yet present. This leads me to assume that Sims Mobile didn't start from scratch, but took mechanics from Sims: FreePlay for granted.
Looking at the how the versions evolved, we see several trends:
Most of the design features I described were not present in the soft launch (Events, stories, retirement, Izzy's store)
Core loop kept being updated (Party system tied tighter into the core loop, vanity and player level were decoupled at some point)
The further trickling of the changes (Daily to-do list instead of goals and wishes, adding new currencies)
My theory is that because EA used Sims: FreePlay as a basis, the design was already doomed. They attempted to patch what was there, rather than modernize the design.
Sims Mobile is a Beautiful Soulless Product
I can't help but wonder what would happen if Sims Mobile was instead a port of Sims 4. My designer brain drools with joy over such challenge: Would players enjoy the game? Would the brand be strong enough to rely on vanity only to monetize? Would it be possible to build a system that parallels passive and active gameplay meaningfully?
Instead, with Sims Mobile, we end up with a hybrid that tries to achieve everything and nothing.
The Sims is a brand building on freedom of choice. As Matt Brown mentions in his GDC talk, a Sims' actions and goals are built on improvisation theater's "Yes and" principle: One thing always leads to next, there is no wrong move, there is no end goal to strive for, and things constantly change. Just like life.
Instead of that, EA Mobile's latest take on Sims Mobile is constantly afraid to give players space to act on their free will. Intrinsic motivation is replaced with simple reward structures, likely out of fear of losing players without rewarding their every step. Goals are unclear and sessions unrewarding.
As a result, I believe that EA Mobile lost both the Sims fanbase and casual players alike.
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Portraits of a handful of the growers and vineyard owners we work with. Some well known, some famous even, but some content to stay behind the scenes and create simply great wines.
Photography of UK cellars and wine collections by wine photographer Mark Harvey of Cambridgeshire.
This was the first buying trip HarperWells organised back in 2006. We were blessed with an array of excellent 05s to taste plus a genuinely exciting mix of previous vintages ranging from the lightweight 01s to the uber-ripe 03s.
Snaps from a 2 day visit to Alain Jaume and Jerome Quiot in the Southern Rhone in 2007.
Some pictures that capture wine in moving from the bottle to glass.
In 2009 Dean Harper visited Tuscany at harvest time to taste at some of the most renowned estates of the area; Cecchi, Poliziano & Fattori dei Barbi.
Images from our 2011 tour of Chianti, Vino Nobile de Montepulciano and Montalcino. Notable highlights included Felsina, Fontodi, Isole e Olena, Poggiotondo, Selvapiana. Conti Costanti and Capezzana
Tour of the Dao, Tras o Montes, Bairrada and the Douro Valley in the warm spring of 2006.
Ed Wells was one of 12 British and Irish wine trade professionals selected to attend the prestigious Academie du Champagne program. A week of travel, study and tasting (of course) provided by the 12 Grande Marque houses of Champagne.
HarperWells specialise in bespoke wine tastings designed around your specific objectives. This gallery includes photography from some of our annual 'Showcase' tastings, both Spring and Autumn.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Devil in Our Age of Apostasy
In "The Spiritist Fallacy," a penetrating analysis of the Luciferian Theosophy and Spiritism overtaking Western civilization, the highly respected French traditionalist metaphysician Rene Guenon explained that the theories of William James (1842-1910), the father of American psychology, are examples of unconscious Satanism for two reasons. First, James theory of "religious experience" as a manifestation of the "subconscious" by which man communicates with the Divine "within" is only one step away from "condoning the practices of spiritism" (contact with spirits) with the further consequence of conferring on evil spirits an "eminently religious character."
Second, the notion that the subconscious puts man in contact with the Divine Substance "within" puts God,
"…in the inferior states of being, in feris in the literal sense of this expression. This then is a properly 'infernal' doctrine, a reversal of universal order, which is precisely what we call 'Satanism.' Guenon adds, "The devil is not only terrible, he is often grotesque…" (pp. 258-262)
Building off of James satanically oriented theories, the renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) taught that the psyche (soul) consists of two main systems: a personal unconscious and a deeper more significant layer which he called the collective unconscious with what he identified as archetypes. Jung held that archetypes were innate, unconscious and universal.
Jung's system incorporates Darwin's materialist theory of evolution together with spiritual conceptions of evolution, reincarnation, Gnostic conceptions of Divine One Substance, ancient Egyptian Hermetic magic and various other occult doctrines and psycho-spiritual technologies from around the world.
Jung delved deeply into the occult, practiced necromancy (spiritism) and had daily contact with familiar spirits which he called archetypes because he believed they were manifestations of powers innate in the collective unconscious.
Much of Jung's psychological insight was acquired from his familiar spirits, particularly Philemon and Basilides. Philemon appeared to Jung in humanoid body with wings and the head of a horned bull. At first Jung thought his spirit familiars (demons) were manifestations of his own psyche, but toward the end of his life he realized with horror that Philemon, Basilides and the many other spirit entities that were a common feature of his life were in fact highly intelligent hostile beings independent of human consciousness. Speaking of Philemon, Jung said:
"Philemon represented a force which was not myself…..I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I….Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. At times he seemed to me quite real, as if he were a living personality. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and to me he was what the Indians call a guru." (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Carl Jung, p. 183, cited from PsychoHeresy: C.G. Jung's Legacy to the Church, PsychoHeresy Awareness Ministries)
Jung uses the name Abraxas to describe the impersonal Gnostic pleroma (i.e., impersonal World Spirit, Brahman) out of which mind and then other mental powers emerged. The word Abraxas is found in esoteric Gnostic texts such as the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit and also in the Greek Magical Papyri.
In 1916 Jung received revelations from his demon familiars during the (automatic) writing of a Gnostic treatise called The Seven Sermons to the Dead. This text, which describes Abraxas as a "God" higher than the Christian God and devil that combines all opposites into one Being, has been labeled a core text in depth psychology.
Underlying Jung's demon-derived Gnostic "transpersonal and depth psychology" is the age-old technology of alchemy and its magical meaning: the ancient Egyptian Hermetic Principle of the correlation of the Divine Substance (Abraxas) with the mind of man, "As above, so below." The Hermetic principle is symbolized by the Oroboros---the great chain of being, cosmic tree of life or with Darwin the tree of life. In modern Luciferian theosophical thought for example, the Oroboros "above" (Abraxas) corresponds to a number of different astral planes and sub-planes comprising the habitations of all supernatural entites,
"….the locale of gods and demons, the void where the thoughtforms dwell, the region inhabited by spirits of the air and other elements, and the various heavens and hells with their angelic and demonic hosts…With the help of ritual procedures, trained persons believe that they can 'rise on the planes,' and experience these regions in full awareness." (Beyond the Body: The Human Double and the Astral Planes, Benjamin Walker, 1974, pp. 117-8)
As a powerful occult symbol, the Oroboros is the seething power, creative and/or evolutionary impulse or energy of the serpent (devil) figuratively depicted as either a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.
The serpent's body is depicted as the Great Chain of Being or the Cosmic Tree of life. Thus the serpent's body (Tree of Life) with its' supposed multiple dimensions and life-giving serpent power not only powers the World Spirit or Abraxas (collective unconscious with its archetypes) but reaches into the psyche, or with James the 'subconscious' and with Jung the 'personal unconscious', stirring imagination and conferring psychic powers and divinity (you can be as God).
The Apostle Paul neither speaks of cosmic trees and the gods and demons supposedly dwelling there in their respective heavens and hells nor of the collective unconscious with its archetypes but of fallen angels, the hostile "spirits of wickedness under the heavens" (Eph. 6:12) and their chief, "the prince of the powers of the air." (Eph. 2:2)
According to Paul, fallen angels are dispersed in a multitude throughout the whole expanse of sky which is visible to us---the dwelling place for the host of fallen angels cast down from heaven as well as for the whole host of demons. This means that Jung's Abraxas (collective unconscious with its archetypes) is actually the expanse of sky under the heavens where fallen angels and demons dwell and which supposedly connects the body of the snake to the mind of man and up which he or she ascends upon the occult Path of Life or Western Magical Way (spiritual evolution) through ritual practice of psycho-spiritual technologies (i.e., Reiki, Alpha Course, Silva Method, channeling, yogic trance, musical ecstasy) to reach divine status and gain psychic powers.
This brings us back to Rene Guenon who explained that the theories of William James (1842-1910) and by extension Carl Jung's demon derived theory of collective unconscious with its archetypes (basis of Jung's transpersonal and depth psychology) are examples of unconscious Satanism. The infernal idea that by "going within" the "subconscious" (James) or "personal unconscious" (Jung) man can become one with the Divine "within" is only one step away from "condoning the practices of spiritism" (contact with spirits) with the further consequences of conferring on evil spirits an "eminently religious character" and becoming oppressed and possessed by them.
Today most psychologists, being heavily influenced by Jung's demon-derived theories, insist that what they call "paranormal experiences" (i.e., Ouija board communications, voices speaking into one's mind, terrifying apparitions) are perhaps hallucinations caused by the powers of human imagination or representations of interplay between the left and right hemispheres of the brain and/or the therapeutic release of unconscious repressions.
However, there are increasing numbers of psychologists and psychiatrists who now frankly affirm their belief in evil spirits and their ability to oppress and possess human beings. In his classic, "Channeling," Jon Klimo quotes psychiatrist Ralph B. Allison who says,
"I have come to believe in the possibility of spirit possession….by demonic spirits from satanic realms, and that's an area I don't care to discuss or be a part of…" (Klimo, Channeling, p. 182 from America: The Sorcerer's New Apprentice, Hunt & McMahon, p. 161)
In his bestselling books, "The Road Less Traveled" and "People of the Lie" M. Scott Peck chronicles his odyssey from vague identification with Buddhist and Islamic mysticism to an intellectual assent of "God" and "Satan." Peck refers to two specific cases of exorcism that convinced him of the reality of demon possession. Declaring that he had "personally met Satan face to face," Peck explained:
"When the demonic finally spoke….an expression appeared on the patient's face that could be described only as Satanic. It was an incredibly contemptuous grin of utter hostile malevolence. (In the second case) when the demonic finally revealed itself….it was with a still more ghastly expression. The patient suddenly resembled a writhing snake….viciously attempting to bite the team members." (ibid, p. 162)
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12 "Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day..." Ephesian 6:13-14
The corollary to our age of apostasy is the rapid spread of satanic psycho-spiritual technologies. Many of America's largest, most powerful corporations with branches in numerous countries have redefined occult psycho-spiritual technologies as the latest techniques for creative thinking, speed reading and personal success and business performance. Following on the heels of the mind-altering substances flooding our schools are yoga and channeling. Children are being taught to "go within" and contact their spirit guides. Spiritual formation classes (satanic psycho-spiritual technologies redefined as the traditional contemplative prayer that originated with certain Church Fathers, was practiced by St. Augustine, certain Reformers and Catholics) are taught in Hybels and Rick Warrens goatish mega-churches where earthly bread, yoga and musical ecstasy draped by a limp cross are usual offerings. Then there is the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) that emerged from the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement. Its' Super Apostles (2 Cor. 11:13) channel 'spirits,' thus they are "enlightened elements" who claim that they have been given authority by the Spirit of "God" to build a kingdom of "God" on earth---a unified and/or pluralistic Global Church. All of this spiritual rot is quickly filtering into undiscerning contemporary-minded Christian churches.
The common thread running through all of this is the mind of the same fallen angel who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden with the words, "Ye shall be as Gods" (Gen. 3:5) but now seduces with the words, "go within."
@Linda Kimball


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Robert Downey Jr. is back in the role of Tony Stark in the third installation of the Iron Man franchise. In the latest movie, Stark's work is ripped apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), leaving him on a harrowing quest of rebuilding and retribution. Runs 130 minutes. Directed by Shane Black. Rated 12 and over. In English with Korean subtitles.
The comedy, targeting a generation of moviegoers who grew up watching television reality shows and singing contests, revolves around the intertwining tales of people seeking redemption at a singing contest. Kim In-kwon plays a financially inept, socially awkward man wanting to express love for his faithful wife through song. The female mayor of a city, played by Kim Su-mi, is determined to show the world she is no longer tone-deaf, while a grandfather, played by Oh Hyun-kyung, tries to leave a lasting memory for his granddaughter. Directed by Lee Jong-pil. Runs 112 minutes. Rated 12 and over. In Korean.
Popular Japanese animation series "Crayon Shin-chan'' offers fans its latest movie version. Mischievous 5-year-old boy Shin-chan bolts out of the house after quarrelling with his 1-year-old sister. He then gets kidnapped by aliens, who have no idea who they are messing with. Directed by Soichi Masui. Runs 111 minutes. All ages admitted. In Korean.
An actress commits suicide and the events surrounding her death are a mystery. Journalist Lee Jang-ho (Ma Dong-seok) and female prosecutor Kim Mi-hyun (Lee Seung-yeon) find themselves collaborating to investigate her death and eventually find a link with members of the country's power elite. The movie was inspired by the suicide death of actress Jang Ja-yeon in 2009, amid allegations that her agency forced her to have sex with a string of VIPs, including directors, media executives and CEOs. Directed by Choi Seung-ho. Runs 95 minutes. Rated 18 and over. In Korean.


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I love love LOVE seeing before and after pictures. And without an exception, every time I see one, I have this thought:
"Oh, I could SO do that too!"
Yeah...we all know how that turns out. But that won't stop me from enjoying some great classroom makeover pictures and sharing them with you!
Ashley from Mathastrophe took a desktop organizer (like this one) from simply functional to simply fan-tab-ulous!
Love these ideas? See more Before & After Makeovers!


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New CPS position statement: The prevention of firearm injuries in Canadian youth / La prévention des blessures par balle chez les jeunes Canadiens
This is a guest post submitted by the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS).
The Canadian Paediatric Society's Adolescent Health committee published a new position statement today: The prevention of firearm injuries in Canadian youth (en français: La prévention des blessures par balle chez les jeunes Canadiens).
Firearm injuries are a significant and preventable cause of death in Canada, both in the general population and in youth. This statement reviews the burden of firearm-related injuries in Canadian youth and the elevated risk of completed suicide associated with the presence of a firearm in the home. It also examines the issues of homicide and gang violence, and the risk factors for school shootings. The dangers of non-powder firearms (such as BB guns and air guns), are also reviewed.
News release : www.cps.ca/en/media/release-communique/doctors-should-ask-families-whether-they-have-firearms-at-home
Communiqué de presse : www.cps.ca/fr/media/release-communique/les-medecins-devraient-demander-aux-familles-si-elles-ont-des-armes-a-feu