Power in The Cthulhu Mythos

[Hat_mchat]

Why do you assume the obstacles are gates to higher realms and aren't simply well obstacles (like a wall in real life)?

EDIT: You also mention how there are archetypal infinity/levels of beings beyond dimensions, however i thought this simply refers to how every lower dimensional being is cut from a higher dimensional archetype and so forth up to infinite dimensions and beyond, rather than levels of dimensionless beings.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

It doesn't have to be a gate specifically, but is likely an analogue. These are not material objects, but metaphysical obstacles in an even more remote gulf of existence.

"Viscous obstacles were clawed through in rapid succession, and at length I felt that we had been borne to realms of greater remoteness than any we had previously known."

^proceeding to realms of greater remoteness

"Suddenly that face became dim and quickly disappeared, and in a brief space I found myself projected against an obstacle which I could not penetrate. It was like the others, yet incalculably denser; a sticky, clammy mass, if such terms can be applied to analogous qualities in a non-material sphere."

^The barrier is not an actual object, but something non-material the narrator is trying to equate vague material notions to based on his experience.

"I had, I felt, been halted by a barrier which my friend and leader had successfully passed."

^Hypnos is stated to have successfully passed through this same barrier while the narrator had not, further suggesting they are not physical analogues being permanently broken through to make an entrance.

 

[Hat_mchat]

Ah yes that's much clearer.

Ok now onto the idea that the outer gods command all angles: Do angles refer to perspectives of reality (including concepts as well as dimensions) or do they merely refer to different dimensions?

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

EDIT: You also mention how there are archetypal infinity/levels of beings beyond dimensions, however i thought this simply refers to how every lower dimensional being is cut from a higher dimensional archetype and so forth up to infinite dimensions and beyond, rather than levels of dimensionless beings.

Sort of. We know there are levels of dimensionless entities from the fact that the realm of 'Umr at-Tawil is merely an extension of Earth's gate, and yet is already transcendent of normal reality.

"Memory and imagination shaped dim half-pictures with uncertain outlines amidst the seething chaos, but Carter knew that they were of memory and imagination only. Yet he felt that it was not chance which built these things in his consciousness, but rather some vast reality, ineffable and undimensioned, which surrounded him and strove to translate itself into the only symbols he was capable of grasping. For no mind of earth may grasp the extensions of shape which interweave in the oblique gulfs outside time and the dimensions we know."

Notice also that, as shown below, the regular universe is being described as an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing. Said infitesimal thing is the undimensioned world of 'Umr at-Tawil.

"The world of men and of the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing—the three-dimensional phase of that small wholeness reached by the First Gate, where 'Umr at-Tawil dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones."

This would suggest that all dimensional extensions of our universe spiraling upwards into archetypal infinity are infinitesimal phases of the "small wholeness" guarded by 'Umr at-Tawil. The whole universe as we know it is merely the phase of three spatial dimensions.

And yet, this small wholeness is still an infinitesimal thing next to the true ultimate void. It is still a local conception, and thus nothing next to the ultimate void.

"Even though they lay almost beyond his comprehension, he felt that they must be true in the light of that final cosmic reality which belies all local perspectives and narrow partial views; and he was familiar enough with profound speculations to be free from the bondage of local and partial conceptions."

There's some more reasons, but these are the basics.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Whoops was typing up the above reply and didn't see that. Anyway, it should answer your question.

 

[Hat_mchat]

How do you know that there are beings in the dimensionless realm beyond the first gate and in realms of subsequent gates? What are "ancient ones"? Also: angles.

Thank

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

We know because we're told; the ancient ones are the denizens of the "small wholeness" beyond the first gate.

"A second sign followed, and from his well-learnt lore Carter knew that he was at last very close to the Ultimate Gate. The light now changed to another inexplicable colour, and the Shapes on the quasi-hexagonal pedestals became more clearly defined. As they sat more erect, their outlines became more like those of men, though Carter knew that they could not be men. Upon their cloaked heads there now seemed to rest tall, uncertainly coloured mitres, strangely suggestive of those on certain nameless figures chiselled by a forgotten sculptor along the living cliffs of a high, forbidden mountain in Tartary; while grasped in certain folds of their swathings were long sceptres whose carven heads bodied forth a grotesque and archaic mystery.

Carter guessed what they were, whence they came, and Whom they served; and guessed, too, the price of their service. But he was still content, for at one mighty venture he was to learn all. Damnation, he reflected, is but a word bandied about by those whose blindness leads them to condemn all who can see, even with a single eye. He wondered at the vast conceit of those who had babbled of the malignant Ancient Ones, as if They could pause from their everlasting dreams to wreak a wrath upon mankind."

 

[Hat_mchat]

Yeah that was quite an obvious thing i missed. Could you explain whether angles is limited to just dimensional perspective, or complete conceptual perspective?

 

[Hat_mchat]

Also, how many layers of 1-A realms are there before the ultimate gate? I get that hypnos clawed through multiple obstacles to reach higher planes, but was it an infinite number of layers? If not mentioned in hypnos is it referenced elsewhere?

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Unknown, unless there's some quote I've forgotten about. The most likely answer would be "It doesn't matter". You cannot reach the level of those beings in the Ultimate Void via power alone, nor by progressively increasing dimensionless infinities. This is simply because they are unbound by perspective as a whole, so increasing yours is meaningless (as is "increasing" anything, since their state of existence is eternal and absolute).