The Nature of Purgatory

       "In any case, you must first of all be told that this holy planet, which is called 'Purgatory,' is the heart, as it were, and place of concentration of all the final results of the pulsation of everything that functions and exists in the whole of our Great Universe.

"Our Common Father Creator Endlessness appears there so often only because this holy planet is the place of existence of the most unfortunate of 'highest being-bodies' who obtained their coating on various planets of the whole of our Great Universe.

"The 'highest being-bodies' who have become worthy to dwell on this holy planet suffer as perhaps no one and nothing suffers in the whole of our Great Universe.

"In view of this, our All-Loving, All-Merciful, and Absolutely Just Creator Endlessness, having no other possibility of helping these unfortunate 'highest being-bodies,' often appears there, so that by these appearances of His, He may soothe them, if only a little, in their terrible yet inevitable state of inexpressible anguish.

"This holy planet began to fulfill its aim long after the period of the flow of time when the process of 'creation' of the now-existing 'world' had been finished.

"In the beginning, all the 'highest being-bodies,' like those who now have the place of their existence on this holy planet, went directly to our Most Most Holy Sun Absolute, but later, when that all-universal terrifying calamity which we call the 'chootboglitanical period' occurred in the Megalocosmos, similar 'highest being-bodies,' having lost the possibility of blending directly with our Most Most Holy Sun Absolute, began to dwell on this holy planet.
"Only after this 'chootboglitanical period' did the necessity arise for that order of universal functioning which this Holy Planet Purgatory fulfills at the present time.

"And from then on, the whole surface of this holy planet was organized and adapted for these highest being-bodies as the place of their subsequent unavoidable existence.

...

"And from that time on, these sacred arisings contained special properties in their presences, due to the fact that certain manifestations of the other parts of the being in whom these sacred arisings were being coated began to enter and be assimilated in the composition of these higher parts, producing very unusual results which came to be called, and are called even now, 'sins of the body of the soul. '

"It was just on account of those unusual results that these cosmic formations, even if perfected to the required gradation of Objective Reason, ceased to correspond in their common presences to the conditions of existence in the sphere of the Most Most Holy Protocosmos, and from then on lost the possibility of being deemed worthy to unite themselves with it.

"Well then, as soon as the facts became known about the helpless position of these highest being-bodies who had become 'independent cosmic Sacred Individuals,' perfected in Reason, but whose presences no longer corresponded to the Most Most Holy Sun Absolute, our All-Loving Creator, in His infinite justice and mercy, at once took all the corresponding measures demanded by this unforeseen and sorrowful phenomenon.

"This grievous phenomenon indeed placed these Sacred Individuals in a desperate situation because they had no possibility, on account of those 'sins' in their presences, of uniting with the Bosom of the Prime Source of the Great Whole, yet at the same time, having attained that gradation of the sacred Scale of Reason which subjects them to the second-order cosmic law named 'tetetzender,' they had lost the possibility of free existence on the surface of ordinary planets.

"Among the various divine measures undertaken was the issuance of His decree to choose the very best planet in the whole of our Great Megalocosmos, to adapt its surface in a special manner, and to reserve it for the further free existence of these highest being-bodies that were perfected in Reason, so that they might have all the possibilities of purifying themselves from the undesirable elements in their presences.

"It was then that for the first time this holy planet received the name of 'Purgatory,' and its chief organization and government were undertaken at his own wish by our All-Quarters Maintainer, the Great Arch-Cherub Helkgematios, that same great Helkgematios who after the creation of the world first merited the sacred Anklad, that is, first attained that degree of Reason which is the highest that can be attained by an independent Individual, whatever his nature, and which is the third degree below the Absolute Reason of our Endlessness.

"Although this holy planet is indeed the very best in every respect, as you have seen for yourself, and everything on its surface is of such a quality that it is always perceived, as I have already said, 'iskoloonizinernly,' in other words, 'bliss-fully-delightfully,' by each independent Individual, yet for these perfected highest being-bodies who exist there this is of no account, since they are always deeply absorbed in their intense work of purifying themselves from those undesirable elements which have entered their presences for reasons totally foreign to their individuality.

 excerpts from "The Holy Planet Purgatory, pages 683 and 733-34

Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, G.I. Gurdjieff, Viking Arkana Edition, 1992