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I remember first coming into contact with Super Mario Bros. when I was eight years old. The year was 1989 and my brothers and I went over to the Millers’ house to play with Jim Millers’ two sons. My family was poor, so it seemed to us that the Millers had all the cool stuff. As I recall, their dad was involved in missile design for the Department of Defense and they were living quite nicely out on the edge of the Mojave desert in southern California. They had a computer, a betamax movie player (precursor to VHS and DVD) and a Nintendo game system. I had played Atari at another friend’s house, but the Nintendo was a remarkable step up with its flagship game Super Mario Bros. It was one thing to play Choplifter on Atari, with its bland graphics, and a whole different experience to play Super Mario Bros, which was like entering a completely different world.

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I was never any good at the game, but my brother Jason was amazing. Watching him play was like watching the kid in the movie *The Wizard* (1989), wherein Jimmy Woods (Luke Edwards) wrecks everybody as a child prodigy at video games. In Jason’s teens he entered the 1993 Star Fox championship for the Super Nintendo video game, and destroyed everybody at three different shopping malls in Toledo, Ohio. Jason was “The Wizard,” and to me, video games were nothing short of magic. Although I wasn’t very good at video games, I didn’t realize until recently that Super Mario Bros. connected to me synchronistically—or as some students of the occult say "synchro-*mystically*". Back in 1989 I was going to school at Wrightwood Elementary and turning down recess to write stories in Mr. Tetley’s third-grade class. I was infatuated with a girl named Sarah Peach. Little did I realize that “Sarah” means “princess” and Super Mario was on a mission to save *Princess* Peach. Furthermore, my family name is Martinson, which means “of the god of war (Mars, Ares),” “child of Mars,” or “son of Mars (Amen, Ares, etc.).” What does “Mario” mean? It derives from the Roman god of war, Mars. Super Mario (Mars) is on a mission to rescue Princess (Sarah) Peach. https://i.imgsafe.org/db/dbb2d52d5e.jpegThe story of Super Mario faintly recalls the Greek myth of Orpheus, who descended into the depths of hades to rescue his true love, Eurydice, who had died by a poisonous snake bite. Orpheus, the son of Apollo, was a mere mortal who could not have survived a descent into Hades had it not been for the magical assistance of the gods. Traditionally, Mario and his brother Luigi (Italian, meaning: renowned fighter) are mere human beings who have descended into the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue the princess who has been captured by the evil Bowser. The brothers are able to survive the trials of the Mushroom Kingdom by various power-ups that help them overcome daunting obstacles and an onslaught of enemies. Although there are over fifty different power-ups in the Super Mario franchise, apart from the Super Star, there are three that are significant. ![img](http://i.imgur.com/H0cJ5qb.jpg)The Mushroom power-up turns Mario into Big Mario, which makes him tougher. The *berserkers* (meaning: bear skins) were elite Norse warriors who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury. These is where we get the phrase "going berserk" from. Some historians have proposed that *berserker* warriors were able to bring on their seemingly unstoppable rage by voluntarily consuming the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria, known today on the street as “magic mushrooms.” ![img](http://i.imgur.com/bpyGpyx.jpg) Super Mario is also able to transform himself into a flying raccoon by consuming the Super Leaf power-up. In this form Mario isn’t actually fully transformed into a raccoon, but appears to be wearing part of the pelt of giant raccoon. Similarly, Norse elite warriors would wear