#written after tmagp36

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP 22 analysis: The sea is Mercury

I reread the transcript for TMAGP 22 (Mixed Signals) for research purposes, and found some interesting symbolism in the incident.

I've been looking deeper into Carl Jung's psychology because of how closely he links the human psyche with alchemical principles and symbology. In this incident, we get Hans Berger (who developed EEG) writing to Richard Caton (whose work Berger based his theory on) about the first patient he demonstrated the concept on. In doing so, he inadvertently discovers something that's stuck deep inside the brain and longing to get out. (I love alternative history.)

Before Berger has an epiphany and modifies his equipment to be able to capture this emergent consciousness, he has a dream of a deep, dark ocean full of secrets, and the electric brainwaves floating on top of it, never meeting it. This is unapologetic Jungian symbolism for the conscious mind (the electricity) and the vast personal and collective unconscious (the sea) filled with all human experiences, especially the ones we don't want to face. An ocean is specifically the metaphor Jung uses the most, and he ties it to the alchemical Mercury, which he considers the spirit that unifies everything and holds within it the entire potential of humanity (both past and future). It's also very Jungian that this all came to the scientist in a dream.

I think the ocean symbolism that many in the fandom seem to have attributed to a new fear (the Deep) is actually all symbolic of Mercury.

Jung adopted the concept of the Magnum Opus and applied it to the process of psychological individuation, by which he meant reconciling different aspects of the human psyche into a unified self. This process required one to dissolve the conscious ego into a black mass of chaos and descend into the unconscious, accept and reconcile with what you find in there, and emerge as a new, whole being.

This is the relevant part (at least for this episode): In the unconscious, the person would meet the representation of the opposite sex in themself, Anima (the feminine principle) in men and Animus (the masculine principle) in women. These terms carry some unsurprisingly sexist connotations, but humor me. Animus comes in the form of a variety of traditionally masculine qualities, most notably activeness (or sometimes aggression) and rationality (Logos). Anima is associated with traditionally feminine qualities like sensitivity and the desire to connect (Eros).

In the incident, the patient seems to be a very simple guy with simple, material needs such as food, drink and toilet. Meanwhile, the voice trapped deep within him is screaming for connection and acknowledgment. We are hearing Herr Schmidt's Anima. He has obviously not integrated Anima into his self, which is why his needs are so... "rational". What's even more interesting is that the rationally minded scientist Berger can't outright decipher or "hear" the screams, but his wife, who was always the "better communicator", can hear them.

TLDR; I think the pervasive sea symbolism points both to the principle of Mercury (as per my Tria Prima theory) and, interestingly, to the Jungian idea of the collective unconscious. I'm not sure if Animus and Anima are universal principles at work, or if they exist here because people like Jung have planted them into people's minds (Jung is not the first, the concepts align pretty well with yin and yang and other similar dualities).

[magnus-marmot]

(TMAGP episode 3)

Kind of scared for Alice and her role in the show. She's always there, she's been there forever, and she's been adamant about keeping things the way they've always been. People have been coming and going, shaking things up and looking too deep into things they shouldn't have, but Alice has been the one constant. The way things are going, she's the last pillar of Salt or stability in the OIAR. The way the writers keep hinting at that is not lost on me. And these ominous death flags aren't lost on me either, though they could just as well be red herrings.

This could go one of two ways. One: The OIAR are doing what it looks like (ie. keeping the balance for the sake of the world), and Alice's presence is helping the organisation to maintain its stability, in which case her death/removal would be a catalyst for some monstrous change. Two: The OIAR is not some utilitarian organisation, and the balance is necessary for some evil time-taking process that's been simmering for a long time. In which case Alice's presence might be helping it by resisting change. Either way, it's not looking great for our girl.

[magnus-marmot]

The OIAR embodies Salt

If confused about what I mean by that, read my pinned post

The OIAR is a government organisation seemingly stuck in the past. They're all about needless bureaucracy, rigid organisational structures and obsolete tech that downright rejects any attempts to update it. If technology and innovation are feeding the humanity's ideas of change and mercurial adaptation, then the OIAR (and most government agencies tbh) are antithetical to that. This must be intentional on the writers' part, but is it intentional on the fictional level?

Salt as a principle has a very grounding effect, and we are living in a world where everything and everyone must keep evolving, the world is rapidly changing (for better and for worse), things that happened a week ago are old news, and social media is feeding our constant need for validation and self-expression. So if both Sulfur (fiery, personal drives) and Mercury (the fluctuating, ambient transformation) are in abundance, the agency that's dedicated to balancing them must be grounded with Salt, with stagnancy and rigidity. Which is why I find it especially worrisome that the “Salt config manager”found an “unmonitored orphan process” (whatever that means).

Here's some wild speculation: What if the entity that lives in Freddie is actively trying to disrupt the Salt? The OIAR was stuck doing pretty much the same thing they've always done, but recently things have been kicked to motion, thanks to some incidents targeted at the right people and some anonymously sent emails. There have been significant changes in the inner workings of the agency. And it feels like technology is particularly prone to some Mercury-based tamperings, what with it both representing change and providing us with the weird liminality of the cyberspace.

I don't know what this means yet. I don't even know if the OIAR are really doing what they say they are. Their logo having the inverted Magnum Opus in it seems really damn ominous to me. Still, what happens if the agency that swears to keep the balance loses the carefully maintained balance it's been crafting for itself?

[magnus-marmot]

Does the Magnusverse have a world soul?

Disclaimer: This post is pure rambling and esoteric concepts and has little to do with anything concrete in the show.

After I found an obvious link to the collective unconscious in this post, I started to wonder about its wider implications for TMAGP universe. Some alchemists and secret societies (such as the Rosicrucians) have a concept of a world soul (anima mundi), a higher state of being, the One Mind or Monad. This is a state of perfect unity that exists beyond our physical reality, the origin point of our world. It's usually symbolized as a circle with a dot or a smaller circle in the middle of it (which are similar to the alchemical symbols for sun and the Philosopher's Stone). It's closely related to aether or quintessence, and aligning with it is the goal of spiritual alchemy. It also aligns with the Jungian idea of collective unconscious and Platonic idealism, as it contains every concept, spirit and soul, detached from their physical reality. I even found some texts implying that some Rosicrucian orders considered it their ultimate goal to unite humanity with it:

On one level this can be seen as the Fraternity’s Greatest Work of alchemy, to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone (which is a metaphor for spiritual attainment) with which the “General Transformation of the Whole World” may be accomplished. [Source: The website of S.R.I.A]

Incidentally, this is what I postulated to be the final goal or Magnum Opus of the Magnus Institute. It's starting to feel more and more likely now. In this universe, the Institute is basically an alchemical fraternity. Full-Fear Alchemist: Brotherhood.

In the season 1 finale QnA, Alex talked about sending Jonny a video on fifth dimensional vectors as a part of his initiation, for lack of a better word. This is the fifth dimension. We have the usual three dimensions, then the fourth dimension of time, and then the fifth dimension of endless possibility, which holds within it everything. Every universe, all sets of physical laws, all realities, all archetypes, everything. And sometimes it bleeds through to our specific reality. Like a canvas of quantum particles that sometimes get tangled and travel to the same direction (across universe lines, like the Magnus Institute being built everywhere), until a conscious observer collapses them into distinct realities.

How does this track with my Prima Tria theory?

Some alchemists seemed to think that Mercury is how the Monad manifests in reality. In other words, we have the possibility or representation of something in the Monad, and then we have an echo of it in the physical reality, manifested as Mercury. It sort of works as an intermediary or a liminal agent between purely ideal and purely physical. I have come to view it as a kind of solution that dissolves into itself both the archetypal ideals and humanity's own perceptions. I also still consider it to be the principle that dissolves boundaries and reality itself. If the Unity or Monad contains all the different realities (including the TMA one and whichever one Sam's in), then the Mercury that's abundant at the Hilltop Centre is dissolving a hole into the fabric of reality, like a slowly working acid. The important distinction would be that Mercury doesn't only "cause things to go weird", but it allows for people's fears, thoughts, ideas and attitudes to manifest. It's like a mirror that reflects what people are expecting or fearing the most.

It's a bit more difficult to slot this in with Salt and Sulphur. Salt is the physicality and stability, so theoretically it should be able to slow down the dissolution. And yet we have cases where concrete buildings (arguably the embodiment of stability) become liminal spaces. There are other interesting cases where people who are metaphorically locked in place interact with what I consider Mercury (like the guy trapped in a Zoom call or the old married couple being trapped in a flooding lock museum), but I might get into those later after I've got my head straight. Then again, we do get a Hilltop custodian (who embodies being stuck in one place and metaphorically becoming part of the place itself) keeping the mercurial fluctuations in check. Until he becomes a not-so-metaphorical part of the Hilltop Centre.

I feel like I'm still missing an important piece of the puzzle. I'll keep mulling it over and filling my head with tons of unnecessary research into alchemy until my computer finally eats me too.

[magnus-marmot]

I absolutely love this train of thought, and alchemists (somewhat paradoxically) also really loved their religious iconography. So I'll run with this for a bit, bear with me.

I have personally come to believe that Mr. Bonzo is a marriage of all the principles, a Jungian actualisation of a concept. The Bonzo character had a wide spread of influence over his appearances on television. Crucially, his appearance inspired at least some unease and was associated with violence. So a widespread idea of Mr Bonzo took form in the collective unconscious, or Mercury. This is your Holy Spirit, if you will.

Mr. Bonzo also had a body, ie. the suit, which was an accepted concrete symbol, almost synonymous with the concept itself. This is Salt, or the Son.

Over time, the people wearing the suit started getting hurt for seemingly no reason, which was probably both a metaphysical answer to the audiences expectations (or prayers) and served to strengthen the link between the idea of Bonzo and bodily harm. The real catalyst was the singularly violent act of Menke killing someone while wearing the costume (a bastardised version of it, but evidently the collective idea was too strong for it to matter). This is the Sulphur, the violent spark of life that finally transmuted Mr. Bonzo from an idea to reality. It's the Father, who breathed life into the world.

Conclusion: Not only is Mr. Bonzo a Christ figure, he's the unity between the entire Holy Trinity. Born from the Holy Spirit (Mercury), given form by the Son (Salt), and brought to life by the Father (Sulphur).

ALEXANDER J. NEWALL, DID YOU BUILD AN ALCHEMICAL JESUS CHRIST AND NAME IT FUCKING

MR. BONZO.

Give me a minute I can explain.

So the theory I am building this off of is the Tria Prima Theory (@magnus-marmot is whom I first heard about it from), basically defining three alchemical primes (salt, sulfur, and mercury) as the basis for Protocol’s classifications of terrors. What strikes me is that the symbol “W” is a symbol for water, is also affiliated with “The Son” in the Christian Holy Trinity as it pertains to solidity, the physical presence, and the body (all fall under the prime of salt). And “W” is directly fucking related to Mr. Bonzo in Freddie’s backend code. Furthermore, I would bring to light MAGP 35’s Terrence Menke and his deification of Mr. Bonzo, literally stating he, “used to be everywhere growing up, like God. He was like God in a lot of ways really.”

So, alchemically linked by a particular alchemical symbol to The Son, Jesus Christ, deified and made manifest in an actual flesh, blood, and bone body (but there are multiple references to him being “wet” and his teeth being “not soft” in the transcripts as you might expect from a mascot suit), and main focus of the series; they made Mr. Bonzo The Anointed One, only much more so anointed in blood than in oil it would appear.

So this begs the question; who are the Father and the Holy Ghost? While I do not have definite evidence for this yet, there is a strong case to be made for Freddie and The Archivist, however I am not confident in which is which. If we follow the trend of “Father begets, Son is begotten, Ghost proceeds,” then in chronological terms the Archivist is the Father (presides over alchemical processes and the stories of them, presumably created in 1999 when the Magnus Institute was razed), the Son is Mr. Bonzo (presumably made manifest through some alchemical process of fear and reverence in February of 2000 by Terrence Menke) and the Holy Ghost is Freddie (classifies the fears and the newest entity*, it basically acts as a receptacle for prayer via the statements. One is meant to pray “In the Spirit” after all [Ephesians 6:18]).

*newest by virtue of Johnathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, and Jonah Magnus being inside Freddie, yet another “Three Entities in One Being,” reference I might add.