In the last thread we established that Enlil's realm was able to contain the 2-A persona multiverse within it so much so that it appeared film reel that could be played in her realms' theatres. But Enlil's realm is but a single realm in the "deeper" collective unconscious. You see as established in the last thread, the CU is like an ocean. There are layers that are formed in a hierarchy based on their "depth" which in turn is a metaphor for
how abstract the realm is. The Velvet Room, for instance, is an ephemeral subjective realm that materializes to the current user's vision
and exists in an
infinite void between consciousness and sub-consciousness. It's stated to be a
"deep" realm itself,
but exists lower than the realms created by various deities throughout Persona's history (chronos, Enlil, etc). We know that Enlil's realm was 5-D based on our previous thread, and so with her, we get a standard, for the purpose of this thread I will refer to it as Diety level (5-D).
The next level of existence we know is the realm of Kadath Mandala. A realm of
concepts housing the archetypes (primordial images) of demons (which includes shadows), and persona. It not only houses these conceptual beings but is also responsible for housing other concepts, this being proven by the persona 2 Team only traveling to Kadath in order to save Shiori's psyche by collecting the
conceptual aspects of her wisdom, drive, perception, ability to differentiate herself, her shadow, etc. The Kadath itself is split into sections each named after different concepts,
is a world of "divine". With that context out of the way, the most important thing here is the narrative background behind getting to Kadath, its name, and overall function in the verse.
In Persona 2: Eternal Punishment remake for PSP the game added in an additional scenario called "Tatsuya's scenario". This scenario had Tatsuya teaming up with
Randolph Carter (posing as Chandraputra) in order to enter the Kadath so he can save his friend's psyche from possession. Upon entering he is guided by an Ulthar Abyssinian cat general who guides the crew as they fight various monsters in archetype form such as
Umr at Talwir,
Cthulu, Faceless God, Nodens, Izanami, etc. In exchange, the crew must return an aspect to Randolph stolen from him by Nyarlathotep from an earlier run-in with each other in the dreamlands. If this all sounds familiar, well it's because you've read Lovecraft. The persona team literally crafted the verses lore into it's own. Mind you this is a very consistent thing in verse, as Randolph is going through his
nigh canonical instances, in a world similar to Lovecraft's own. There is even a passing quote from one demon among the Kadath which states he hadn't seen a human since he ran into
Randolph Carter 25, 940 days ago. Which would equate 70 years which at the time of the persona would date back to the 1928 date in which
Randolph gets into the events of "Through the Gates of the Silver Key". Now, where am I going with this? My bringing this up isn't to suggest cross scaling persona and Cthulu. However, I do feel the extent of narrative push on shared worldbuilding is enough to make certain functional analogies between the two. When attempting to enter Kadath Mandala, Tatsuya is told that as gifted a persona user that he is,
he would not be able to enter Kadath without
Nyarlathoteps blessing. He states only Nyar and Philemon (two archetypes of the Collective unconscious itself),
gifted Persona users of the past, and
Randolph Carter with the silver key can open the Ultimate Gate. The
ultimate gate represents, in Cthulu mythos, the barrier between lower realities and the void that exists outside the concepts of space and time completely. While I'd love to sit here and argue for 1-A persona based on Jung's archetypes being synonymous with Platonic concepts, that isn't the aim of this thread. I bring up this point is to illustrate that the gate represents an inaccessible space that can only be accessed by transcendental beings. The game goes out of its way to set up this illustration of analogous world-building. This would mean at the bare minimum Kadath Mandala should be one level of infinity higher than Diety Realms like Enlil, which would make them 6-D. Stay with me here though.
Now we know that Kadath Mandala is an inaccessible higher "divine" realm of concepts that exist beyond "Diety Realms", how exactly is it comprised? Well first of it is compared to an abyss. Given what we know of where the velvet room resides (a limitless void between consciousness and sub-consciousness, which is but a sliver of the CU) we can assume this isn't flowery language. Well as a realm it is connected by various
ethereal pathways that lead to various portals to other realms. The realm is divided into reason, instinct, judgment, intellect, feelings, and decency. However, inside of these realms are separate realms that exist with their own abyss.
This is the setting for each demon fight in Kadath. A stage lit up by glyphs from the demon in question existing as the only material suspended in void. Because this occurs in all fights it is implied that each conceptual demon exists in its void where it is responsible for all changes. This is also backed up by Zula's description for
Faceless God calling the doorway his temple resides on both cosmic and abyssal. Based on the last thread we know that there are infinite archetypes, which would make Kadath Mandala an infinite void containing separate infinite voids within itself for each archetype it houses.
But we aren't quite done yet...Bear with me. There exist one more layer in all of this and it is also inaccessible to all but the invited. That is the realm of Nyarlathotep and Philemon. This realm is described by
Igor as being one level deeper than Kadath Mandala itself. Igor specifically refers to each realm in the hierarchy as "levels" indicating superiority between the stages. Given the gap from 4-D infinite 2-A into Diety Realms was inaccessible, and given that the jump from Diety Realms to Kadath Mandala was inaccessible (thus giving us the "levels" Igor refers to) it is safe to assume that Phil and Nyar's realm transcend the lower realms in a similar way. This too is heavily implied by the game mechanics team. The first piece of evidence is the usage of avatars by Philemon. When traveling in the lower realms of existence Philemon takes the form of a
butterfly. This is seen in realms existing in the 2-A multiverse of physical and spiritual worlds comprising the Akashic Record, in addition to Diety Worlds such as
Chronos's world (who holds the same rank as Enlil whose 5-D realm trivialized the 2-A akashic records). However this changes in Kadath. Here Philemon takes on the form of a lesser archetype in the
god of Nodens. Nyar similarly has
his own avatar in the Kadath called
"Faceless God". These two gods and the various other demons protect Kadath. Another very interesting thing highlighting Philemon and Nyar's transcendent existence is seen in the first Persona game where Philemon transports the protagonist through time and space to his realm. In the below video you can see how the design team chose to animate this with the protag passing through various cubes filled with gears (representing time) and grids of squares (representing space) that exist inside continuous layers of reality
00:00 - 00:30
As you can see while traversing through the lower dimensions Philemon is in butterfly form, until he reaches his realm and materializes in his true form.
In summation: Velvet Room exists in an infinite void between consciousness and sub-consciousness which itself is a small layer between consciousness and unconsciousness. It shows us that abyss's exists in persona and isn't just metaphorical.
Kadath transcends all realms of the CU including other higher dimensional realms created by deities who exist Kadath to exert their influence in lower realms. Combining this with the usage of the Ultimate Gate and the Silver key indicates to us it is inaccessible to lower realms, and exist as a transcendental "divine" realm of infinite concepts, each containing their own infinite void.
Phil and Nyar exist on a level even above this, where they no longer need any false archetype to represent themselves as they did in Kadath Mandala, this level of existence being a "level" deeper than Kadath itself.
Based on these conclusions at a bare minimum I perceive these feats as 6-D (Kadath) and 7-D (Phil/Nyar realm). I also think that given the precedence of archetypes being synonymous with
platonic concepts and the
CU being both the ideal and material world, the usage of
platonic concepts as weapons in multiple persona games, the narrative analogy to the Ultimate Gate function between persona and Lovecraft work, The CU being an
infinite-dimensional qualia space, that a case for 1-A could be made. I am far more interested in the former due to expected pushback but just thought I'd be thorough with this one and just present the evidence.
