Pinch of Salt

This is where I post my wild TMAGP theories, reactions and random shower thoughts. Expect a lot of alchemy. Main blog @masochist-marmot

[magnus-marmot]

Needed a sideblog

Spoiler warning: You can generally expect spoilers for all of the Magnus Archives and however much of the Magnus Protocol is out at the time of writing. Each post will be tagged with "written after TMAGP[xx]" to give context for the general timeframe.

I have also started to tag posts with #tmagp salt, #tmagp mercury, #tmagp sulphur, #tmagp luna and #tmagp sol to mark which principles are relevant to the post.

Frequently referenced posts:

Transmutations in TMAGP

Sulphur and Mercury

Some of my working theories are summarised under the cut.

My original Tria Prima theory in a nutshell

(original post here, but the ideas are ever-changing)

The metaphysics of TMAGP aren't based on fears but on the three principles: Salt, Sulphur and Mercury. When balanced, it's business as usual. If unbalanced, weird things start to happen.

Salt 🜔 (Corpus, Body): The principle of stability, rigidity and stagnation. The physical, concrete body of a human or any matter. It's what remains after putrefaction. Vulnerable to corruption. Too much salt could lead to both literal and metaphorical stagnation, rigidity or crystallisation. Getting stuck or locked in place. Infectious corruptions, decomposition, death and preservation of bodies. TMA connections: Buried, Flesh, Corruption, End, maybe Dark (as per nigredo or the putrefying stage).

Mercury ☿ (Spiritus, Mind): The principle of volatility, solubility, dissolution, liminality and dualities. Water, air and things that flow. The human mind, or thoughts, knowledge, ideas and rationality. The collective unconscious that holds within it all concepts, ideas and collective feelings. Represents change and infinite possibilities. Too much mercury leads to general weirdness, confusion, physical and mental limits being blurred and dissolved, fluid transformations, people losing their identities and becoming mass. TMA connections: Spiral, Stranger, Vast, Lonely, Eye, parts of Web.

Sulphur 🜍 (Anima, Soul): The principle of combustion, burning (literally and figuratively), transformation and change. The consciousness that bridges mind and body. The emotions, feelings and passions, the driving force. Too much sulphur (or if sulphur corrupts), and it becomes an agent of destruction. Passions become obsessions, yearning becomes an insatiable hunger, people are driven to violence and destructive acts. Catalyses transmutations, actualises mercurial concepts into the physical reality. TMA connections: Hunt, Slaughter, Desolation, other parts of Web.

Additional forces: Sol and Luna

Not yet sure how these fit, but the symbolism is clearly present.

Sol ☉ (Sun, Gold, Celestial Niter): The active principle, associated with fire, light, reason, passion, the Animus archetype, and both the noble ideals and the destructive qualities of humanity. Governs over the heart. It's the source of life and growth, but also the source of destruction. Gold is the purest and most perfect metal, and discovering the solar fire within oneself is often the goal of spiritual alchemy. Also seen as the pure form of sulphur. Should be balanced by the forces of the moon lest it consume everything.

Luna ☽ (Moon, Silver, Celestial Salt): The passive principle, associated with water, coldness, reflectivity, darkness, secrets, motherhood, the Anima archetype, emotional needs and sensitivity, the unconscious, and the dark, suppressed thoughts and desires. Governs over the brain. Often seen as a mirror into the personal and collective unconscious. Silver is the pure form of mercury, and it needs to be unified with gold to produce the Philosopher's Stone. Personally, I associate Luna with the recurring themes of Hunger and internal voids that are reflected on the reality.

My model for DPHW (debunked)

This was my original model for DPHW, but it's now been proven wrong. I'm leaving it up anyway, for future reference or whatever. I based this model on the quaternity in the middle of the OIAR logo (which I still think must be relevant):

D = Death/Tod ?? = Salt: A passive force, perhaps measuring the prevalence of physical remains where the volatile elements have been separated. This is still the biggest question mark in the theory.

P/S = Power/Stärke = Sol: An active ego-driven force that exposes secrets and makes people go mad with power or the need to be seen. (Kind of like a monkey's paw where you're actively making the wish.)

H/H = Hunger/Hunger = Luna: A receptive force, perhaps representing the personal unconscious, that manifests your inner/secret/unconscious thoughts into reality. (Like a monkey's paw where you don't even know you're making a wish.)

W/U = Weird/Unheimlich = Mercury: A liminal, omnipresent and intangible force that reacts to collective thoughts and dissolves boundaries between realities (including between material/immaterial). Represents the collective unconscious. (Like an AI that reflects its training data but in the most unsettling ways.)

The four Sulphur signs at the corners could symbolise the consciousness/perception of ordinary people, and how they affect each of the four variables by manifesting reality. (I'll have to thank @thanatos-zagreus-shagreus for this idea)

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP 51 Thoughts

We're back, baby. And what a start for the third act. My crime board is a little dusty after such a long hiatus and I'll have to revisit the older episodes at some point to get my bearings, but here are some initial thoughts anyway.

As always, spoilers under the cut.

First of all, I am very afraid for the wellbeing of everyone. Especially Teddy and Luke. The water imagery in Luke's band names is still giving Mercury to me, and I fear he's going through something bad off-screen. Teddy is clearly going through something bad on-screen. More old technology, huh. I'm dying to know who his employer is.

Then Gwen and her attempts at finding archived documents. Gone since 2021. I can't remember if anything happened around that time, it would've been between podcasts. So who got rid of them, and why? Starkwall? Fr3d1? William Price? Lena, for some reason? Trevor Herbert, who's actually secretly the villain? Someone really wants to keep the OIAR workers in the dark of what they're actually doing, which still makes me think that the audience is also being kept in the dark. I maintain that the secret goal is Fr3d1's Becoming, but I don't have a coherent idea of who's behind it.

Okay, casement time. Tasty, tasty alchemy. If by alchemy you mean Amnesia: The Dark Descent. A man building a torture device to catalyse his own human transmutation. Curiously, the DPHW is 3456 (suspiciously sequential but brushing past that), placing both Death and Pain rather low. Which makes me wonder if it's actually measuring Boyle's dread rather than W's. Maybe a combination of both, like a general output . Also curious that Augustus would choose to show this case to Gwen. It illuminates the metaphysics, but to what end? "To write them is to give them form they should not have, for form is what they desire most of all." Words have power, thoughts doubly so.

So obviously dark quintessence is not a real concept. Quintessence is the purest, most perfect matter born from perfect balance. What Boyle is talking about seems to be a perversion of it, some sort of unholy unity born from a spiritual imbalance. Mutare Materia, famous from Dr. Welling's research project by the same name. So they might have actually named what I have so far been calling Mercury, ie. the morphing concepts that can be forced to take form. It would make sense why the Institute had their Outreach Centers near the rifts, where reality seems to be the most malleable. I'm still holding onto Colin's outburst about Sulphur and Mercury as a meaningful part of the puzzle, but I'm also acknowledging that it could have been random. Although I will be disappointed if none of the alchemical concepts amount to anything.

Anyway, this also makes it crystal clear to me that Dr. Welling never intended for the Millenial Dome to produce a balanced output of positive and negative energy. He wanted to bring out the fear and see a worldwide transmutation similar to the Eyepocalypse. He was thoroughly Magnus-pilled, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's still around somewhere and becomes relevant later. Wouldn't it be funny if the W from the case was him all along.

That's it from me, I will continue to mull over stuff in my overactive head while I shirk my adult responsibilities.

[magnus-marmot]

With the hiatus stretching on, I've been mulling over this line by Celia (ep. 30). It seems straightforward enough, except for the fact that "dua prima" isn't actually a thing.

You see, it was Paracelsus who introduced this idea of principles or primes when he came up with his Tria Prima. Before that, alchemists went by what's known as the Sulphur-Mercury theory of metals. But that theory views sulphur and mercury as actual substances born from the circulation of the four elements, rather than the more philosophical principles that Paracelsus talks about. I have never seen them referred to as the Dua Prima. So where is Celia getting it from?

The way I see it, this must be an intentional choice made by the writers. If it was simple flavour text, there would be no reason to swap the commonly known and googleable Tria Prima with this apparent shorthand for Sulphur and Mercury, especially since the average listener wouldn't know the difference either way. Which means that there must be a significance to it. But what does it mean?

Option A: It's a misdirection, and for some reason Celia's research into alchemy led her to gloss over the third prime (Salt). The invention of "dua prima" would then be a subtle way to convey that Celia is missing something important, which could explain why her attempts to restore the balance appear to be failing. I find his somewhat unlikely, since we're over half-way through the show and nobody's even mentioned the Tria Prima. If the twist was that the important part was actually the overlooked Salt, then the audience would have to be primed with some basic alchemy knowledge first. You can't subvert expectations if you don't first set them up.

Option B: The mention of the Dua Prima hints at the actual truth. Perhaps in the MAGP world Salt is not one of the primes, or its role is less significant. We could actually be dealing with two opposing metaphysical forces, ie. Sulphur and Mercury. In fact, I have written some posts claiming just that (here's an example, though I don't know how comprehensible it is). This is also supported by Colin's rant about sulphur and mercury, which doesn't mention salt. Since the seeds for this have been sown in season one, it's also easier to explain once we get there.

Option C: It's not that deep, bro. Just to cover all my bases.

In conclusion, this post was basically me trying to provide evidence for my outlandish Sulphur-Mercury theory, which I will henceforth refer to as the Dua Prima theory.

[magnus-marmot]

Sheeple Chase 6: Random Thoughts

I said I'd stay away from theories (plus I'm actually swamped with other projects) but there's some juicy lore in this one, so I'll just briefly lay out my thoughts on the new info. These are just going to be some unstructured and scattered thoughts.

Spoilers for the Sheeple Chase episodes plus TMAGP.

Weirdly enough, this is the first mention of TMAGP Magnus's first name. So alternate Jonah finally confirmed. He's also said to have died in 1848 in the hands of pissed off workers, and his death assumedly had nothing supernatural to it. Notably, this was three years after his scientific vigor was reignited by the Growler incident in 1845. Something feels odd about that. He didn't have much time to refine his research methods and Georgie would definitely have brought up any suspicious circumstances relating to his death. So this actually makes me wonder if TMAGP Jonah is relevant to the plot at all, other than having founded the Institute. I think it's more likely that this time it's someone else carrying on his legacy.

We get a general overview of the Institute's history. The early connections to the Royal Society make sense. Many of the members were similarly concerned with alchemy, although by 1818 it would've fallen out of favour as a legitimate science (at least in our world). By the mid-nineteeth century they were asking for occult objects, which later became supernatural abilities and then any experiences with the supernatural. This was probably prompted by Jonah's experience and their growing understanding of the metaphysics. I also like it that in the 60's and 70's they became interested in gifted children and latent paranormal abilities. I'm a complete sucker for stories dealing with the parapsychology paranoia (like Control, Stranger Things, and a half of Stephen King's novels). Though it's still completely ambiguous what they specifically needed the kids for.

The bit about Jonah listing "other" as the Institute's purpose is interesting. It could be about him being purposefully vague about his intentions, and the Jonah we know from TMA was certainly very cheeky about stuff like this. But I wonder if it's meant to convey the idea of "the Other". Like research or contact with some Other, which has been a prevalent element in the podcast so far.

I love the idea that Aleister Crowley worked for the Institute. He was deeply influential in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (which, as the name would suggest, was built on the hermetic worldview and concerned with alchemical ideas), and later went on to establish an occult order of his own (A∴A∴). Very much into ritual magick and different planes of existence, too.

The 1884 burning man incident sounds like something we might learn more about later. First of all, there's the element of fire again. Second of all, his body seemed to be twisted beyond recognition, and nobody could pin down his exact features. Almost like he was in flux, a sort of mercurial state. This happened at the Institute itself, and not at any Outreach Centre, so it was probably an experiment that took place there (rather than a breach in dimensions). I wonder if his identity will be important.

We also got a tiny clarification that the Institute was blown up rather than set on fire (with the result still being that it burns down). Probably not relevant, but I'll file it away anyway. Sounds a bit like a lab accident, but most likely still Starkwall's doing. The Response team also made sure that the fire department didn't get to the site in time. Which they can do, because they're government. Which is scary.

Georgie theorises that the Magnus Institute was straight up working with the government. Which could be true, given what we know about the OIAR and their External work. So far there haven't been many direct links between the two, other than the enactment of the Protocol. But if the Institute was directly influencing the Dread levels, the OIAR would have wanted to hold a tight leash on them. So it could be that they were much more involved than we know.

It also looks like this episode takes place right before Celia applied for the OIAR, and this is what pushed her towards it. Which makes sense, if it was her only lead on the Magnus Institute and what to do about her predicament.

Also: They finally made the Magnus Opus pun. It's been there all this time, and they finally got to use it. Even if it leads to grammatically incorrect Latin.

No conclusions here, just random musings. Probably missed something, too.

[magnus-marmot]

I'm not buying the popular JMJ theory

Hear me out!

Spoilers for all of TMAGP and TMA

My grievances

So by now everyone and their uncle knows about the theory that the .jmj error stands for Jo(h)n, Martin and Jonah, and that Fr3-d1's voices correspond to them as well. This would imply that the three got trapped inside Fr3-d1 after they got sucked out of their own world. And yes, the theory does seem to hold water. Celia clearly recognises Chester's voice, Sam was getting emails from someone called John, the cases seemed to be guiding him towards the Magnus Institute, and now Gwen is being manipulated by the mysterious Augustus (though it's still unclear why she thinks it's him specifically who's trying to communicate), which really would be a nice mirror to how Jonah will always find a Bouchard to puppet. So I'm not saying that the theory is bad, there's actually a bunch of stuff supporting it. But I'm personally finding it really difficult to buy into.

My biggest issues are on a more meta level. It feels like we were given the obvious clues too early, and everything seems to be pointing to it too neatly. In a mystery story, if it looks like you're being lead to a conclusion too easily, it's usually a red herring. Given that the writers have already written a very successful mystery story, it would feel like an odd choice to make. But obviously I can't see into their minds. Perhaps the real red herring is that this easy answer is supposed to guide us away from some bigger mystery lying underneath.

My other big issue probably comes down to preference. I just don't think it would be narratively satisfying to bring back John and Martin. Their fate was left ambiguous, and it would feel really flat to push them into the computer to be ever-present ghosts in the story. I obviously see that there could be some thematic exploration of forcing them to watch everything go wrong again without being able to interact with it. But they clearly can interact with it to some extent, if the emails and the cases come from them. And it simply doesn't make sense that John would push Sam towards the Magnus Institute, when it ended so poorly for him. It would undo a lot of his character growth.

Jonah pushing everyone's buttons would make more sense, and it's still somewhat likely that TMAGP Magnus is again the big bad of the show. But it would again feel narratively unsatisfying if it was the same Jonah, the one who already got what he wanted, then found himself in a new reality and immediately hatched a plan to bring on another apocalypse. It would make sense for that Jonah to try and get a physical form again, but then what? What could he do in a world that does not work with the same rules he learned to master?

Alternative interpretation

The way I have viewed the JMJ for a long time is that if it's indeed them (and that remains an if in my mind), they are not conscious. They only exist within the cyberspace in Spirit, not in Soul. And now that I've refined my theories on the metaphysics and the astral plane between realities, I've come to the conclusion that they might only exist as fragments. As projections. Let me explain.

We now know that there is a "space between places" that divides the different realities. I've been calling this the astral plane, but the show may come up with its own term. When the Fears (and the Eye boys) were banished from their reality, this space is where they ended up. And the thing about astral planes (according to many occult traditions) is that they are not entirely separate from our material world. There are invisible correspondences between the realms. Which means that things in the astral plane will cast projections in the material reality (think Plato and his cave allegory).

I believe that the JMJ boys might exist as this kind of projections. They're not fully present, they're just echoes. And they probably exist in this form in many other universes. They've also probably dissolved into one entity, as per alchemy logic. The cyperspace is an incredibly mercurial liminal space, so there's no way they wouldn't have dissolved. But this doesn't mean that they couldn't try to reach out, it's just that they wouldn't have a particular goal in mind. They're mostly just repeating the actions they might have taken in life. Literal ghosts in the machine.

Conclusion

I know that this theory is a bit of a downer, but I find it more palatable, and it fits with the wider themes of the show. But like I said, there is no actual evidence against the popular theory, and it could very well turn out to be true. Though I might actually be a little salty if John and Martin are given their own voices back. I don't think I want to hear from them anymore. Not because I don't love them, because I do, but I feel like the writers made a point in killing both TMAGP versions of them off way earlier. Their story is done, let them rest.

Also there's still a possibility that JMJ stands for something entirely different. Fr3-d1 continues to be one of the key pieces to the overall mystery. I'm fine either way. I just wanted to put my take out there, if only to explain to all of my five faithful readers why I never reference this theory in my posts.

[magnus-marmot]

Trapped memories, huh?

Not sure if the live show adheres to the continuity in any way, but I'm just saying.

[magnus-marmot]

Sheeple Chase 3 made me more convinced that there really is an organisation or a conspiracy behind the constant surveillance, rather than it just being Fr3-d1 listening in. And Teddy's probably a spy for them.

[magnus-marmot]

I feel personally called out by the Sheeple Chase episodes, since most of my posts make me sound exactly like Georgie... Which is why I refuse to bring out the conspiracy board for these. For my own sanity.

So I'll just appreciate the thematic parallels to what's going on in Celia's life. And I'll be rooting for Georgie in her quest to find her soulmate in every universe, regardless of the state of said soulmate's eyes.

[magnus-marmot]

Online spaces in TMAGP

I got to thinking about the cryptic messages Red Canary got in episode 1. He told the mods to "call off the dogs, implying he was harassed in the DMs, and then there was obviously the ominous message "Canaries should stay above ground". It's not an isolated incident of ominous online messages either, since we get "Voyeur needs to be seen to be believed" (ep. 5), and the entire forum for growing a new you (ep. 23).

Magical or mundane?

My question is: are these messages and posts supernatural in nature, or is there someone/some organisation leaving them? Since we know that there are several different parties interested in both furthering and containing the supernatural incidents, I could definitely see there being a person on the other side of the messages. Red Canary could have been tracked down by Starkwall or another party interested in preventing any dangerous things from spreading, and whatever happened to them was either caused by Starkwall as a warning, or they found him like that and used it as an opportunity. The Voyeur incident feels like a honey trap luring in specific kinds of people, which could either be an Elric Capital venture or an OIAR external bumping up Helplessness and Wrongness.

Alnewman's forum thread is an interesting case. Her posts keep getting several likes but 0 comments, and yet she addresses people as though she'd received direct feedback. This seems to imply that either someone's deleting the comments, or she's receiving them through another means (like direct messages, other posts, telepathically??). The 0 comments is consistent until her very last (non-deleted) post, which suddenly has a whopping 515 likes and 37 comments. And then her last post expressing regret gets removed (possibly by Alesis's double) before any likes or comments. What is this community? Since the original hosts get paralysed and probably die, is the site kept going by the grown doubles? Who's modding the site? Tbh it could all just be some weird online cult that only accepts positive messaging, but the repeating "0 comments" feels odd and intentional.

I'd also buy that the online strangeness is partially or entirely supernatural, but in that case it would have to adhere to the established rules somehow. In TMAGP, the supernatural forces respond to personal or collective thoughts and feelings, but these cases have a clear external intentionality.

Cyberspace

The cyberspace is inherently liminal, incorporeal, and (sorry if you're getting sick of this word) mercurial. It's almost like another plane of existence, interacting with but not properly touching our physical reality. A plane of information, data, ideas. Us regular people don't really understand how it works, and yet we interact with it every day.

If you've been reading my posts, you probably noticed that this is how I also describe the astral plane, which I've equated with the in-between space between magnusverses. The plane of quintessence that projects ideals onto physical realities. I think the cyberspace is very close to this in-between space, if not the same. This is where we, the audience, are taken whenever we're listening to the casements. It could also be a neat in-universe explanation to why the Fr3-d1 voices sound more human once we're drawn in. The physical voices heard through the computer are merely approximations, projections of the real deal. Which might or might not be the JMJ boys.

Additionally, this could thematically tie together the threads of the multiverse and the technology stuff, which have seemed weirdly separate so far. Though I still have no clue how they will tie together on a plot level. There are currently so many pieces scattered around that I can't begin to predict the big picture. All I know is that Fr3-d1 is sitting in the middle of it all.

[magnus-marmot]

My partner sent me this cryptic message and never responded to my inquiries. I brought it up in person when they got back from work.

It was. A Freddie Mercury joke. Because Fr3-d1 is basically mercury. Not sure if I should be mad for being misled or if this is actually ingenious.

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP 50 Thoughts

What a send-off for the hiatus. I might need a while to digest what just happened and what it all means, but at least we'll be sitting with this for the foreseeable future. I guess in this post I'll just stumble through some of my initial thoughts and theories, so this might be even more incoherent and rambly than normal.

Spoilers under the cut.

A moment of respect for Alice

Poor Alice. It was a sad way to go, but her death was flagged very thoroughly. Plus it doesn't look like she was living a very happy life. I don't know what happens to Dreamers, but Georgie made it sound like they become completely detached from reality. Sam's right that she didn't deserve this, but I'm not sure if she would've made it back from the brink once he's gone.

What's up with the Square Mile?

It looks like reality (or at least the perception of it) has been unstable within the zone for a while, and it's been getting worse since the Archivist arrived. This raises several questions in my mind. 1. Is the reality physically shifting, or is the effect purely an illusion? 2. Is the Archivist causing it intentionally, or is its very presence merely enhancing the effect? 3. What exactly are the Archivist's current powers?

Question 1

This feels like an important distinction. The idea of objects and features being in constant flux is a very mercurial concept, and it's also something we've seen a lot on the TMAGP side of things. Most notably we've seen this at the Hilltop Shopping Centre, which is directly on the other side of the portal. Remember, when the custodian describes someone asking to buy a lighter, only to have a new shop appear? But this would be more than just a visual illusion. My working theory is that these are projections, and that this close to the in-between astral plane things have a hard time taking coherent form. They're susceptible to people's thoughts (such as the need for a lighter), but they're not really settling.

It reminds me of the game Outer Wilds, where a game mechanic revolves around macro level quantum effects. Quantum objects and the things that are directly touching them keep teleporting around until you observe them and fix them in place. But they're not really teleporting, they just exist in multiple places at once until a conscious observer collapses the endless possibilities into one reality. (Don't come at me with your quantum knowledge, this is just how the game presents it.) Similarly, the astral plane is a place of endless potential that manifests as countless different realities, but at these liminal zones all the realities are merging together. Too much dissolution, too much Mercury. So perhaps the real reason Melanie isn't affected has nothing to do with the Archivist using their eyes, but instead her perception of the reality is not affected by visual cues. She can't fix something in place if she can't observe it. If that makes sense.

Question 2

Georgie seems very certain that the Archivist is intentionally using its powers to confuse them, and it also sounds like they're blaming it for the zone's expansion. I'm personally not sure if it's doing either of these intentionally. It sounds like the fluctuation was happening before it arrived. Georgie just somehow jumped to the conclusion that it must be using Eye based powers, even though illusions were always Spiral territory. And even that's assuming it has anything to do with the Eye at all. No, I assume it has to do with the Archivist's extended stay in this universe.

My mind is currently weighing three possibilities: 1. Whatever tether is pulling Sam and the Archivist (and Celia) back is not only keeping the rift open, but is also widening it. Like if you put a thread through a hole in fabric and move it around. 2. The Archivist doesn't have a physical form (the transcript doesn't mention anything about coagulating, it just keeps being all gaseous), which makes it very mercurial. It could be dissolving the boundary further by simply existing near it. 3. Perhaps the lack of physical form means it can't be pulled back. In that case, what if it's drawing power from its home world instead? I know this is all baseless speculation, but it's where my mind goes.

What is up with the Archivist?

I decided question 3 required its own section. Because what even is the Archivist right now? We've seen the formless mass before, but it used to at least take a humanoid figure for the statements. Now it "engulfs" Callum, and Olivia is "bitten by fog with teeth". It then somehow "breaks" Alice and discards her corpse. It's very difficult to paint a picture based on either the audio or the transcripts. At least we finally got confirmation that it's not John, although I feel like we knew this already.

Speaking of John, what does the Archivist mean that it "has his story"? Where did it get it? John is dead in both universes, so not from the source. Does it mean that it construed it based on other people's statements? Doesn't look like it's becoming John either, so that theory was probably off. Also, why is it so obsessed with Sam? It let Sam live after their first encounter. I mean, Sam seems to be a walking archive of fear, so perhaps it's just curiosity. But it seems to have it out for the entire OIAR (since when encountering Gwen it told Ink5oul: "all of them, mine"). It identifies as the Archivist, not as any person. So if we assume it was born as an alchemical entity from the Institute's quest for knowledge (and fear in particular), it could also be driven by revenge against the OIAR for burning the Institute down?

Where does the compulsion power come from, if not from the Eye? I've mentioned before that many alchemists (such as Agrippa and Dee) considered language to have special magical properties. After all, words are symbols for whatever they represent on the ideal (astral/celestial) plane, and they can be used to access those ideals. We even know that Dr Welling used an incantation in his transmutation before his skeleton got rudely extracted from him. So perhaps the Archivist's power is based on the command of the symbols, especially since it can then use them to manifest fears into reality. Similarly to how Ink5oul can use ink and tattoos to manifest and command whatever they symbolise. Just a thought.

What's up with this casement?

The casement was effective horror writing, that's for sure. Beyond that, I don't know what to make of it. You'd expect it to be a domain statement, but it fails to properly represent any Fear. It's got elements of the Web, Buried (very dominantly), Dark, Vast, Slaughter, Flesh, Desolation, and probably more. It doesn't sound like he was describing a domain dream, in which case I would be happier to ascribe additional alchemical meaning to it. Although...

In his statement, Callum mentions being in a bed, in a cell, in a ship (the submarine, which he describes as his iron tomb), in the deep, dark ocean. Not to mention the oven that burns some them alive. I would actually struggle to insert more symbolism for the alchemical vessel (during the nigredo stage) in such a short space if I tried. He and his crewmates are also falling apart and becoming parts of the ship, in a beautiful display of putrefactio, separatio and coniunctio.

But while the Fears feel all scattered and the alchemical imagery seems strong, I'm hesitant to give it too much meaning. I'm lacking the sufficient context. So for now I'm just contented to read it as the more obvious allegory for the war machine. Like I said, it's effective writing.

Final thoughts

An additional thought I had was about the Archivist calling Sam lucky for escaping again. This reminded me of when Sam first arrived and told Georgie that the only special thing about him was his bad luck. But that's clearly not true, given how many encounters with the supernatural he's already survived. He even outlived his PL self. I wonder if these mentions are gently nudging us toward some conclusion where Sam is in fact unnaturally lucky. There's been some repeating themes of fate and luck in the cases as well.

I'm sorry if this post felt very scattered. It was more about me talking myself through my thoughts anyway. Edit: I can truly feel myself unraveling under all my thoughts and theories. I think the hiatus will be a good moment for me to take a step back and breathe for a bit.

[magnus-marmot]

I'm not buying the popular JMJ theory

Hear me out!

Spoilers for all of TMAGP and TMA

My grievances

So by now everyone and their uncle knows about the theory that the .jmj error stands for Jo(h)n, Martin and Jonah, and that Fr3-d1's voices correspond to them as well. This would imply that the three got trapped inside Fr3-d1 after they got sucked out of their own world. And yes, the theory does seem to hold water. Celia clearly recognises Chester's voice, Sam was getting emails from someone called John, the cases seemed to be guiding him towards the Magnus Institute, and now Gwen is being manipulated by the mysterious Augustus (though it's still unclear why she thinks it's him specifically who's trying to communicate), which really would be a nice mirror to how Jonah will always find a Bouchard to puppet. So I'm not saying that the theory is bad, there's actually a bunch of stuff supporting it. But I'm personally finding it really difficult to buy into.

My biggest issues are on a more meta level. It feels like we were given the obvious clues too early, and everything seems to be pointing to it too neatly. In a mystery story, if it looks like you're being lead to a conclusion too easily, it's usually a red herring. Given that the writers have already written a very successful mystery story, it would feel like an odd choice to make. But obviously I can't see into their minds. Perhaps the real red herring is that this easy answer is supposed to guide us away from some bigger mystery lying underneath.

My other big issue probably comes down to preference. I just don't think it would be narratively satisfying to bring back John and Martin. Their fate was left ambiguous, and it would feel really flat to push them into the computer to be ever-present ghosts in the story. I obviously see that there could be some thematic exploration of forcing them to watch everything go wrong again without being able to interact with it. But they clearly can interact with it to some extent, if the emails and the cases come from them. And it simply doesn't make sense that John would push Sam towards the Magnus Institute, when it ended so poorly for him. It would undo a lot of his character growth.

Jonah pushing everyone's buttons would make more sense, and it's still somewhat likely that TMAGP Magnus is again the big bad of the show. But it would again feel narratively unsatisfying if it was the same Jonah, the one who already got what he wanted, then found himself in a new reality and immediately hatched a plan to bring on another apocalypse. It would make sense for that Jonah to try and get a physical form again, but then what? What could he do in a world that does not work with the same rules he learned to master?

Alternative interpretation

The way I have viewed the JMJ for a long time is that if it's indeed them (and that remains an if in my mind), they are not conscious. They only exist within the cyberspace in Spirit, not in Soul. And now that I've refined my theories on the metaphysics and the astral plane between realities, I've come to the conclusion that they might only exist as fragments. As projections. Let me explain.

We now know that there is a "space between places" that divides the different realities. I've been calling this the astral plane, but the show may come up with its own term. When the Fears (and the Eye boys) were banished from their reality, this space is where they ended up. And the thing about astral planes (according to many occult traditions) is that they are not entirely separate from our material world. There are invisible correspondences between the realms. Which means that things in the astral plane will cast projections in the material reality (think Plato and his cave allegory).

I believe that the JMJ boys might exist as this kind of projections. They're not fully present, they're just echoes. And they probably exist in this form in many other universes. They've also probably dissolved into one entity, as per alchemy logic. The cyperspace is an incredibly mercurial liminal space, so there's no way they wouldn't have dissolved. But this doesn't mean that they couldn't try to reach out, it's just that they wouldn't have a particular goal in mind. They're mostly just repeating the actions they might have taken in life. Literal ghosts in the machine.

Conclusion

I know that this theory is a bit of a downer, but I find it more palatable, and it fits with the wider themes of the show. But like I said, there is no actual evidence against the popular theory, and it could very well turn out to be true. Though I might actually be a little salty if John and Martin are given their own voices back. I don't think I want to hear from them anymore. Not because I don't love them, because I do, but I feel like the writers made a point in killing both TMAGP versions of them off way earlier. Their story is done, let them rest.

Also there's still a possibility that JMJ stands for something entirely different. Fr3-d1 continues to be one of the key pieces to the overall mystery. I'm fine either way. I just wanted to put my take out there, if only to explain to all of my five faithful readers why I never reference this theory in my posts.

[knowthevoidisscreamingmad]

I was looking into the alchemical idea of aether or quintessence, the idea of a fifth element that " fills the region of the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere" as I think it correlates with the idea of the hilltop "portals" as being more like , I think the expression was bubbles, going random places and stuff.

Looked into it more and found a symbol for Aether is three dots forming a triangle with another dot in the middle a symbol which is ON THE OIAR LOGO

And there are even more connections….. IT was alleged to combine Mercury and Sulphur Aka the two alchemical elements Colin talked about too much Mercury was correlated by him to the world ending and too much Sulphur aand " we all go mad"

The term quintessence has over time become synonymous with Alchemy , Elixirs and THE TERM PHILOSOPHERS STONE ITSELF which we know the OIAR logo encorperates upside down.

ISSAC NEWTON used it when modelling the laws of Physics and a bunch of other stufd

AND ROBERT BOYLE AKA THE GUY WHO HAD THE PROTOCOL ENACTED ON HIM got sent a letter from Newton explaining his idea.

THIS IS WAY TOO MUCH TO BE A CO-INCIDENCE !

(I have posted this exact thing on other social media accountsI have so if you see this somewhere else chances are it's just me from another acc)

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP 49 Thoughts: WHAT

Oh my god this episode was amazing. I don't have the time or energy to properly look into any of this or build new theories, so I'll just write out some first impressions and the usual alchemy thoughts. I might miss something, though.

Spoilers under the cut.

General thoughts (mostly about Gwen)

Lots of interpersonal stuff, it's great to have the girls back together again. Even though Gwen is in way over her head. Girl, you know what happens to every person in these podcasts who tries to control the mysterious powers? It doesn't end up great for them or the people around them. Power corrupts, no matter the source.

Also, what do you mean Gwen's been talking to Augustus?? And how does she know? Does he sign his emails with "Love, Augustus", like he just accepted the name given to him by Alice? Or does she only think she's talking to Augustus because his voice keeps reading out relevant cases to her? Is this why we haven't heard cases read by him in a while? And surely I don't have to tell anyone what a massively horrendous idea it is to trust anything that comes from the computer? Have we learned nothing from the dangers of AI? She is so deluded into thinking (or probably wants really badly to believe) that she's in control, that she doesn't realise how obviously she's being manipulated.

Anyway. I liked the reference to the artefact storage. Obviously the OIAR desk workers wouldn't need one, but I bet that the Response team at least used to have one (since one of the steps of the Protocol was extracting what's useful). I wonder if one still exists somewhere. And if someone at Starkwall would have access to it. Speaking of, fuck Starkwall. They're going to be a big problem, I can feel it.

Casement thoughts

I was really happy to hear from OG Elias (or at least the parallel version of him). You won't believe how much joy I got from [email protected]. Too bad he got himself mixed up with an Elric Capital investment. I saw some people in the episode comments point out it was karmic retribution for the brutal pipe murder. I guess karma doesn't care about whose mind is inhabiting your body.

Straight into the transmutation stuff, then.

The water element is prevalent, and once again I think it's connected to Mercury and dissolution. Elias is trying to establish a bath house, and in alchemy bathing is a metaphor for the mercurial waters used to wash matter from impurities. The alchemical vessel is also sometimes pictured as a bath. But most of the imagery in the episode is pointing towards the nigredo stage. Lead (sometimes even referred to as "black mercury"), darkness and flooding are all symbols for the nigredo. On top of that, the chimeric pictures on the walls feel like they could symbolise how the matter is all dissolved and mixed together into a massa confusa. But lead feels like the most important clue, since it's also literally the matter alchemists would often use for their prima materia.

At the end of the transformation passages Elias finds a door, and wants to "open it, to find another living treasure inside, to pull it out into the light and let it shine for everyone to see, to let them feel its power the way I did". He's describing the (symbolic) Philosopher's Stone, the essence of power, the light in the darkness that emerges during the albedo stage. And at the end, when he ventures further, he finds himself surrounded by burning lead pipes. He's being calcinated by the heat and is becoming part of the transmutation. The lead pipes are also moving, which reminds me a bit of snakes, another common symbol for Mercury. But that last bit is total conjecture, and this entire case has enough alchemy symbolism even without it. As expected from a case written by Alex.

As a last bit of conjecture, I believe this locus (and perhaps all of the supernatural loci) are being dissolved by Mercury to the point that the boundaries of reality (including time and thought) are blurred. So the whispers he's hearing and the presence he's feeling could be literally the past being merged with the present, or it could be his own expectations and wishes being reflected back at him. Or maybe another reality seeping in. The preface makes it seem like this was never an actual Roman site, so it's unlikely that he's actually feeling ancient Romans.

[absolxguardian]

Do you think there's anything alchemical in how Elias couldn't sense any energies from the ruins of Pompei, but could from Hercalum? That the pyroclastic flow seemingly burned away that echo, while the mudslide preserved it. In my more amatuer knowledge I feel like I'm almost putting something together. Since the burning would be calcination, but burying is also an alchemical trope. Like there's one famous recipe that says you need to bury your reagents in horse dung and come back a year later (I think it was a magnum opus step, but I could have also heard it repeated multiple times as an example of "practical" alchemy. Where you got the actual chemical reaction through long and slow fermentation and the horse dung just meant no one messed with it). The specific details just keep fleeing from me when I try to pin down my memory.

[magnus-marmot]

An interesting point! Both of these processes actually fall under the nigredo stage of the magnum opus. It's all about putrefaction, or breaking matter into its base components by using heat. Temperature and time really were key factors, and most alchemists would actually recommend a subdued heat source, such as a sand bath, horse dung or a similar method of controlling and isolating the heat (they might actually write about horse dung but mean any method where you encase the vessel for an evenly distributed heat). They thought that too high a temperature would spoil the process.

All that is to say that you might be onto something here. Burying people in mud and letting them putrefy might be an alchemical source of life, while calcination might require liquids to dissolve the ashes first (which is how I still think the Archivist was born). Though I have no idea how to tie these into the metaphysics.

[absolxguardian]

Wait, what if Elias got calcinated? The intro of the casement says that the baths are suffering from flood damage, but his last message speaks of the pipes burning him. He would burn to death, but it wouldn't be the smoke inhalation that killed him, like usually happens from a fire. Its from heat being conducted by lead pipes containing supernaturally boiling water. He's being encased by a structure that distributes heat, instead of what usually happens when someone says "burnt to death". Then the pipes burst. And since this is a recreation of a roman bath house, they'd have a frigidarium, with cold water. Elias was in a reflection of a caldarium, he even says the passage he goes down likely leads to a hypocaust (which is what wikipedia says was usually the source of heat in a caldarium, when I double checked I had the right terms). So Elias' body could have also experienced thermal shock, which in actual chemistry is a very useful tool for breaking down materials. And I won't be surprised if you know its also something alchemists used.

I just don't know what the next step would be here. It could just be one of the many failed metamorphoses we find casements on so often, but this theory implies that some being/force was manipulating the bathouse so that Elias would be calcinated. Or maybe he just stumbled into an automatic process meant for someone else. Per elliesteele2027 in the youtube comments on this episode, the irl version of this building was connected to Somerset House...which was partially designed by Robert Smirke! I could see it being that Elias stumbled into this universe's version of the Panopticon, a series of underground constructions to do the magnum opus to people. But it was either left unfinished, fundamentally flawed, or required an operator to move Elias to the next step. So unlike the Archivist, he just died.

[magnus-marmot]

Calcination is absolutely what happened to Elias, which is something I alluded to in my original post too! As for the next step, it's a good question. It was one of Eric Capital's failed ventures, so they might have had something in mind, but maybe not. They seem to just throw money around and see what comes of it. Very hands off. I also think these processes are sort of naturally occurring in the world, and they only complete if the circumstances allow it or if there's an active participant guiding them. So maybe his transmutation would have been completed if his body hadn't been recovered. Or maybe there's no intelligence behind it at all, and sometimes the circumstances for the next steps just don't align naturally.

The Robert Smirke connection is super interesting, though. I wonder if in this timeline he ended up getting into alchemy instead, and his designs reflect that somehow. Smirke was also involved in designing Royal Mint Court, where the OIAR offices and Teddy's mystery workplace are located. Definitely something suspicious going on.

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP 49 Thoughts: WHAT

Oh my god this episode was amazing. I don't have the time or energy to properly look into any of this or build new theories, so I'll just write out some first impressions and the usual alchemy thoughts. I might miss something, though.

Spoilers under the cut.

General thoughts (mostly about Gwen)

Lots of interpersonal stuff, it's great to have the girls back together again. Even though Gwen is in way over her head. Girl, you know what happens to every person in these podcasts who tries to control the mysterious powers? It doesn't end up great for them or the people around them. Power corrupts, no matter the source.

Also, what do you mean Gwen's been talking to Augustus?? And how does she know? Does he sign his emails with "Love, Augustus", like he just accepted the name given to him by Alice? Or does she only think she's talking to Augustus because his voice keeps reading out relevant cases to her? Is this why we haven't heard cases read by him in a while? And surely I don't have to tell anyone what a massively horrendous idea it is to trust anything that comes from the computer? Have we learned nothing from the dangers of AI? She is so deluded into thinking (or probably wants really badly to believe) that she's in control, that she doesn't realise how obviously she's being manipulated.

Anyway. I liked the reference to the artefact storage. Obviously the OIAR desk workers wouldn't need one, but I bet that the Response team at least used to have one (since one of the steps of the Protocol was extracting what's useful). I wonder if one still exists somewhere. And if someone at Starkwall would have access to it. Speaking of, fuck Starkwall. They're going to be a big problem, I can feel it.

Casement thoughts

I was really happy to hear from OG Elias (or at least the parallel version of him). You won't believe how much joy I got from [email protected]. Too bad he got himself mixed up with an Elric Capital investment. I saw some people in the episode comments point out it was karmic retribution for the brutal pipe murder. I guess karma doesn't care about whose mind is inhabiting your body.

Straight into the transmutation stuff, then.

The water element is prevalent, and once again I think it's connected to Mercury and dissolution. Elias is trying to establish a bath house, and in alchemy bathing is a metaphor for the mercurial waters used to wash matter from impurities. The alchemical vessel is also sometimes pictured as a bath. But most of the imagery in the episode is pointing towards the nigredo stage. Lead (sometimes even referred to as "black mercury"), darkness and flooding are all symbols for the nigredo. On top of that, the chimeric pictures on the walls feel like they could symbolise how the matter is all dissolved and mixed together into a massa confusa. But lead feels like the most important clue, since it's also literally the matter alchemists would often use for their prima materia.

At the end of the transformation passages Elias finds a door, and wants to "open it, to find another living treasure inside, to pull it out into the light and let it shine for everyone to see, to let them feel its power the way I did". He's describing the (symbolic) Philosopher's Stone, the essence of power, the light in the darkness that emerges during the albedo stage. And at the end, when he ventures further, he finds himself surrounded by burning lead pipes. He's being calcinated by the heat and is becoming part of the transmutation. The lead pipes are also moving, which reminds me a bit of snakes, another common symbol for Mercury. But that last bit is total conjecture, and this entire case has enough alchemy symbolism even without it. As expected from a case written by Alex.

As a last bit of conjecture, I believe this locus (and perhaps all of the supernatural loci) are being dissolved by Mercury to the point that the boundaries of reality (including time and thought) are blurred. So the whispers he's hearing and the presence he's feeling could be literally the past being merged with the present, or it could be his own expectations and wishes being reflected back at him. Or maybe another reality seeping in. The preface makes it seem like this was never an actual Roman site, so it's unlikely that he's actually feeling ancient Romans.

[absolxguardian]

Do you think there's anything alchemical in how Elias couldn't sense any energies from the ruins of Pompei, but could from Hercalum? That the pyroclastic flow seemingly burned away that echo, while the mudslide preserved it. In my more amatuer knowledge I feel like I'm almost putting something together. Since the burning would be calcination, but burying is also an alchemical trope. Like there's one famous recipe that says you need to bury your reagents in horse dung and come back a year later (I think it was a magnum opus step, but I could have also heard it repeated multiple times as an example of "practical" alchemy. Where you got the actual chemical reaction through long and slow fermentation and the horse dung just meant no one messed with it). The specific details just keep fleeing from me when I try to pin down my memory.

[magnus-marmot]

An interesting point! Both of these processes actually fall under the nigredo stage of the magnum opus. It's all about putrefaction, or breaking matter into its base components by using heat. Temperature and time really were key factors, and most alchemists would actually recommend a subdued heat source, such as a sand bath, horse dung or a similar method of controlling and isolating the heat (they might actually write about horse dung but mean any method where you encase the vessel for an evenly distributed heat). They thought that too high a temperature would spoil the process.

All that is to say that you might be onto something here. Burying people in mud and letting them putrefy might be an alchemical source of life, while calcination might require liquids to dissolve the ashes first (which is how I still think the Archivist was born). Though I have no idea how to tie these into the metaphysics.

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP 49 Thoughts: WHAT

Oh my god this episode was amazing. I don't have the time or energy to properly look into any of this or build new theories, so I'll just write out some first impressions and the usual alchemy thoughts. I might miss something, though.

Spoilers under the cut.

General thoughts (mostly about Gwen)

Lots of interpersonal stuff, it's great to have the girls back together again. Even though Gwen is in way over her head. Girl, you know what happens to every person in these podcasts who tries to control the mysterious powers? It doesn't end up great for them or the people around them. Power corrupts, no matter the source.

Also, what do you mean Gwen's been talking to Augustus?? And how does she know? Does he sign his emails with "Love, Augustus", like he just accepted the name given to him by Alice? Or does she only think she's talking to Augustus because his voice keeps reading out relevant cases to her? Is this why we haven't heard cases read by him in a while? And surely I don't have to tell anyone what a massively horrendous idea it is to trust anything that comes from the computer? Have we learned nothing from the dangers of AI? She is so deluded into thinking (or probably wants really badly to believe) that she's in control, that she doesn't realise how obviously she's being manipulated.

Anyway. I liked the reference to the artefact storage. Obviously the OIAR desk workers wouldn't need one, but I bet that the Response team at least used to have one (since one of the steps of the Protocol was extracting what's useful). I wonder if one still exists somewhere. And if someone at Starkwall would have access to it. Speaking of, fuck Starkwall. They're going to be a big problem, I can feel it.

Casement thoughts

I was really happy to hear from OG Elias (or at least the parallel version of him). You won't believe how much joy I got from [email protected]. Too bad he got himself mixed up with an Elric Capital investment. I saw some people in the episode comments point out it was karmic retribution for the brutal pipe murder. I guess karma doesn't care about whose mind is inhabiting your body.

Straight into the transmutation stuff, then.

The water element is prevalent, and once again I think it's connected to Mercury and dissolution. Elias is trying to establish a bath house, and in alchemy bathing is a metaphor for the mercurial waters used to wash matter from impurities. The alchemical vessel is also sometimes pictured as a bath. But most of the imagery in the episode is pointing towards the nigredo stage. Lead (sometimes even referred to as "black mercury"), darkness and flooding are all symbols for the nigredo. On top of that, the chimeric pictures on the walls feel like they could symbolise how the matter is all dissolved and mixed together into a massa confusa. But lead feels like the most important clue, since it's also literally the matter alchemists would often use for their prima materia.

At the end of the transformation passages Elias finds a door, and wants to "open it, to find another living treasure inside, to pull it out into the light and let it shine for everyone to see, to let them feel its power the way I did". He's describing the (symbolic) Philosopher's Stone, the essence of power, the light in the darkness that emerges during the albedo stage. And at the end, when he ventures further, he finds himself surrounded by burning lead pipes. He's being calcinated by the heat and is becoming part of the transmutation. The lead pipes are also moving, which reminds me a bit of snakes, another common symbol for Mercury. But that last bit is total conjecture, and this entire case has enough alchemy symbolism even without it. As expected from a case written by Alex.

As a last bit of conjecture, I believe this locus (and perhaps all of the supernatural loci) are being dissolved by Mercury to the point that the boundaries of reality (including time and thought) are blurred. So the whispers he's hearing and the presence he's feeling could be literally the past being merged with the present, or it could be his own expectations and wishes being reflected back at him. Or maybe another reality seeping in. The preface makes it seem like this was never an actual Roman site, so it's unlikely that he's actually feeling ancient Romans.

[magnus-marmot]

(TMAGP 18: Solo Work)

Wild speculation time. What if Georgie's onto something, and Celia is in fact spying on her for a secret society or another organization? But like, unknowingly.

I know this looks like a throwaway joke about Georgie being paranoid because of her line of work. But it's juxtaposed deliciously with the fact that the OIAR gang are actually being spied on by something or someone with unknown intentions. And there are currently a lot of unconnected threads on the board, including Teddy and his mystery job, and the fact that Teddy is both aware of and compliant with whatever's observing him through the cameras.

I once toyed with the idea that the OIAR could have originally been a secret alchemy society that was repurposed into a government agency. I'm now retracting that idea and proposing that maybe the actual secret society is what Teddy's working for, and they're using the OIAR to push their own agenda from the shadows. The OIAR could truly exist to just monitor and balance the dread levels, and an outside force could use all that data for their own magnum opus.

I won't refine this theory too much, it's just a thought I had when relistening. We've passed the halfway point and there are so many pieces on the board that need to be connected for some eventual conclusion. (The OIAR, Stasi and Klaus, the Externals, the Magnus Institute, the Archivist, Starkwall, Teddy and his mystery work, whatever's up with Fr3-d1, the other dimensions, alchemy, potentially the Fears... oh, and I have not forgotten Luke and his bands.)

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP 48 Thoughts: Let's talk astral travel

This episode was as illuminating as it was ominous. The explanations given also somewhat support my other postulations, so I'll dive right into it.

Spoilers under the cut.

General thoughts

Edit: I did not remember that Anya had a statement in TMA, but luckily it changes nothing about this post. This is what I get for refusing to look at other people's posts before writing these lol

I like the idea of Anya ending up as a domain tourist because she has no prior connection to the entities. The Fears are passing her around like "I don't know what to do with this one, she won't play with the other kids and doesn't generate the right types of fear". Like an orphan child or a homeless cat in foster care limbo. It's actually pretty sad, the more I think about it.

It's revealed that Sam is indeed being pulled back, and in fact everyone who enters the hole will be pulled back eventually. Except for Anya. She gives some speculation for why this might be, but one thing she didn't consider is that there was no prior version of her in this universe. While Sam's Primeline self has already died, he did once have a double here, which could lead to a sort of energy imbalance. Then again, Darrien in ep. 17 is able to comfortably take his double's place. So perhaps it's linked to other people's perception? PL Sam still lives in Alice's mind, but Darrien was able to replace his double seamlessly because everyone kept thinking he was the same guy. I don't know if this is relevant, though it does have implications for Celia's fate.

Okay, on to bigger speculations.

Astral planes and travel

So we learn that there is some space between places that works as an intermediary between realities. To me, this confirms the existence of an astral plane, which I've alluded to in some other posts. The concept exists in so many esoteric traditions that I don't even know which one to draw from, but the basic gist is that it exists alongside our physical reality and has some invisible but tangible sympathies or correspondences with it. It's the realm of quintessence, of astral bodies (the classical planets), and of spiritual entities (whether demonic, angelic or something else entirely). Back in the season 1 QnA Alex mentioned 5th dimensional vectors, and I've been convinced for a while that this is the fifth dimension. Occurrences in this plane will cause similar occurrences in all other planes, kind of like quantum entanglement, or like the Jung's Synchronicity. For example: Something prompted the foundation of the Magnus Institute, and thus it was founded in every reality where the conditions allowed it.

In neoplatonism, there's a concept of a "subtle body" or "body of light", which is like a semi-physical but mostly spiritual part of a person. This is the vehicle that allows a soul to ascend to the afterlife, but it's also what allows astral projection (apparently sometimes called "transference of the soul", though I don't have a reliable source for that), particularly during dreams and meditation. And we obviously know that both Sam and Celia are teleported in their sleep, and we know that Darrien was transferred during meditation. We also know that the travellers arrive on the other side severely malnourished, which makes sense if we consider that their travel form is not entirely physical. Parts of the body must be left behind, although we don't know where it ends up. Perhaps it's dissolved into the astral plane itself.

As a side note, the magician/alchemist Agrippa thought that the astral (or celestial) world was the way that all magic and alchemical transmutations are made possible. By aligning your mind with the celestial (and with the use of symbols), you can tap into the correspondences between the astral and natural worlds and guide them to do your will.

Tying it to Mercury just because

The entire idea of an astral plane is very mercurial, but it's clear that the in-between space exists for all universes, so I won't ascribe too much alchemical significance to it per se. But I have come to view it as kind of like a semi-permeable membrane, like what we find in cells. By which I mean that it usually keeps the realities separate, but sometimes a person/element is allowed through either by directly dissolving into the membrane or by being guided through an open channel (like a portal). And in this analogy, the law of diffusion would naturally keep up a balance on both sides. Though in this case there are multiple realities sharing an intermediate space and probably having their own membranes.

On TMAGP side, I imagine this transportation to be facilitated by Mercury. The symbolical and literal dissolution is just too pervasive to be meaningless. (Note: I acknowledge confirmation bias and am prepared to be proven wrong, just let me have my fun.) So how I see it is that in places and states where the physical reality is weak (ie. liminal spaces and mental states), the metaphysical Mercury dissolves the bounds enough to let a person pass through. We don't know if Anya is from the TMAGP-verse (probably not), but it's of interest to me that she mentioned descending into a basement. We've seen a lot of that in the show already, and in alchemy descent often symbolises dissolution. But maybe Jonny just finds basements especially spooky.