Given the fact that my previous guide for Psychopomp was met with wide appraisal, turning out to be quite popular, I have decided to write a sequel to clarify additional elements of the game's story (or at least my interpretation of them) so that you, the reader, can understand the paralells that there are between some of the game's concepts and ideas that truly exist - or existed - in the realms of philosophy, eschatology and overall mystical thought.

Again, just like before, this will be focused on the less obvious aspects and creative choices that permeate the game. For this reason, I won't mention that the representations of the Queen of Venus and the King of Mercury are alchemical symbols, nor discuss how that one thrait's comment about people being made of ash and clay relate to several distinct cosmogonies which would have the gods create humanity out of these and other, similar materials. I won't do anything of the sort. Instead, let's talk about Plato and the stars (or lack thereof).

Having discussed Plato before, I nonetheless still find his presence in the game intriguing. Have you ever taken the time to understand Plato's theories, dear reader? to do so we must first remind ourselves of Socrates' dialogues in the Athens of the Century of Pericles. These have been collected and recorded by the broad-shouldered philosopher and generally feature the Athenian as their main character.

Initially, Plato transcribed Socrates' dialogues (or so we believe) as they really happened or, at least, maintaining a high level of fidelity to the historicity of events. These dialogues generally end in a state of doubt pertaining to what was discussed, and neither side can successfully formulate their own thesis unequivocally. For this reason, they are called aporetic, that is, there's an inclination towards doubtfulness in them.

Later, Plato starts using Socrates as a mouthpiece for his own ideas. These later dialogues will have the Athenian develop and express Platonic thinking, hiding the true authorship of the philosophy exposed.

A typical aporetic Socratic dialogue goes like this:

*Socrates goes to the market to buy 2 bananas*

(Nevermind the fact that there were no bananas in Ancient Greece)

SOCRATES: Hello, merchant, my dear friend! would you please hand me 2 bananas? Also, what's virtuousness? what is the definition of virtuousness?

MERCHANT: Here they are *hands Socrates 2 bananas*. Socrates, virtuousness is to follow the laws of the city.

SOCRATES: But you're such a simpleton, merchant! I asked you for the definition of virtuousness, I didn't ask you to give me an example of it!

MERCHANT: Oh, right... Um... it's... uh...

And it turns out no one can define what virtuousness is, not even Socrates.

Socrates died without being able to define what things are (that's so sad!), but Plato, being his student and pupil, was determined to find out what virtuousness and other things truly are.

Plato was helped in his quest by the knowledge of mathematics and geometry. He realized that the objects of mathematical and geometrical knowledge are much easier to define than abstract and metaphysical things like virtuousness and even physical objects like chairs and trees. For instance, what is the definition of a triangle? a triangle is the shape formed by three angles and three straight lines. What is a line? it's the shape formed when 2 points in a bidimensional space are connected. What is a point? it's a specific location on a bidimensional plane etc.

As such, Plato thought that geometry and mathematics were the key to understanding what things truly are. He believed this so much that it's even said that he wrote on the entrance to his Academy the following words: "only those who understand geometry can enter here!".

The broad-shouldered philosopher then looked at nature and asked himself: "where, in nature, can I find this perfection of mathematics and geometry?". He then looked up into the sky and saw the stars, there he found perfect geometry and an almost pure realm of mathematics and numeric proportions, there he found peace and certainty. In a world where things are always changing, always dying and being born, again and again, an existence in which barely anything ever stays the same, the stars offer us a recomforting permanence, their movements are predictable and since time immemorial they've been there, doing their thing, always going about in the very same way.

Fig. no. 1, the Ptolemaic model of the universe. Note how the movements of heavenly bodies are determined by perfect geometry.

Plato believed that this stellar reality contained within itself the "real" world, the world of things as they truly are. All ideas, all concepts, all realities exist immaterially in the heavens in a chrysalis state. This world that we can feel and see is only a frail copy of that world, and our souls come from that world just as well, their place is amongst the stars, from there they come and there they'll return once we die.

The soul in her totality has the care of inanimate being everywhere, and traverses the whole heaven in divers forms appearing - when perfect and fully winged she soars upward, and orders the whole world; whereas the imperfect soul, losing her wings and drooping in her flight at last settles on the solid ground - there, finding a home, she receives an earthly frame which appears to be self-moved, but is really moved by her power; and this composition of soul and body is called a living and mortal creature (Plato, Phaedrus, p. 21).

Now we can finally understand the meaning of Plato's famous allegory of the cave as it appears in his Republic. The shadows, which we can feel and see, are nothing less than the material world that surrounds us, while the things that cast the shadows in the first place, the things as they really are (the noumenon), are identified with the intellective properties of things, above all the things found up in the heavens, where everything of superior value resides, including the soul, the gods, the quintessence of ether etc.

In the game, Plato says that he was wrong about the "cave", and we also learn that the stars are missing from the night sky. Coincidence? I don't think so! Plato says he was wrong about the cave because there are no stars in the night sky, or, at least, it doesn't seem far-fetched to suggest that there is a connection between these two things.

Fig. no. 2, note found in the factory. Note how the association between the dead and the stars unmistakably refers us to a mysticism of a Platonic-Pythagorean character.

We also learn in the game that, beyond the normal Earth, or what used to be Earth, there's also a "Bloody Earth", and this, I suggest, is akin to the Pythagorean Counter-Earth first theorized by Philolaus of Croton. Here's the description of the theory according to Aristotle:

But the Italian philosophers known as Pythagoreans take the contrary view. At the centre, they say, is fire, and the Earth is one of the stars, creating night and day by its circular motion about the centre. They further construct another Earth in opposition to ours to which they give the name Counter-Earth. In all this they are not seeking for theories and causes to account for observed facts, but rather forcing their observations and trying to accommodate them to certain theories and opinions of their own. But there are many others who would agree that it is wrong to give the Earth the central position, looking for confirmation rather to theory than to the facts of observation. Their view is that the most precious place befits the most precious thing: but fire, they say, is more precious than earth, and the limit than the intermediate, and the circumference and the centre are limits. Reasoning on this basis they take the view that it is not earth that lies at the centre of the sphere, but rather fire (Aristotle, De Caelo, II, 13, 293).

Fig. no. 3, representation of the solar system with a Counter-Earth.

When the protagonist reaches the "Center of the Earth", upon completing several prior tasks, she receives an item called the "Meat of the World". That, I posit, is anologous to the idea of the anima mundi, the soul of the world or world-soul in ancient thinking. The soul is the mobile metaphysical principle of all things, but all souls are connected because they owe their existence to the divine reason that permeates the whole cosmos, the logos spermatikos. Therefore, the anima mundi works as a connection and a transitory concept that exists between God and all material things. That the item is called "meat", as in "flesh", is obviously a play and an inversion of the spiritual nature of this concept which is turned, then, into an evidently carnal and material one.

The Secret Poem offers us some hints that, in light of what we have seen in this guide, can help us better understand the game's mystical side.

FIg. no. 4, the Secret Poem.

Evidently, here we have depicted the Queen of Venus, the King of Mercury, the King of all Dogs and the Queen of Venus' child, created upon the aquisition of the item called the "Meat of the World". The poem tells their story, and they look pretty much like an ordinary family, don't they? They're what has been referred to by scientists, according to that one note found in the library, as "Caldmen Four". They're also what we could call gods, travelling through space and the stars (because that's where the gods reside, remember?) on an auspicious and divine journey. The poem also implies that these gods have the ability to create and recreate the world. Hence why I see the queen and the king as being the two fundamental principles of reality, one male, one female. The Queen of Venus represents the chaotic, irrational, feminine principle of reality, Chaos; the King of Mercury, the ordered, rational, masculine principle of reality, Logos. Together they create a child, the "Meat of the World" or anima mundi, which came to be through the fertilization of inert matter by the logos spermatikos, the spermatic logos, and which acts as a mediator between the world of the gods and our human world.

And that's it! To conclude, allow me to state that I believe the game is a story about the protagonist's liberation and later reconciliation with the world in which she lives. In this sense, both the mystical and critical aspects of the game unite to form a cohesive whole.

I would like to thank K367 for their guide, it was instrumental in elaborating my own and, obviously, I would like to thank you, the reader, for having the patience to read all of this until the very end!

As before, feel free to leave comments, they are much appreciated.