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I hope Ford dismantles this thing. Or Bob turns it into a planter.

–Raz

The Astralathe is a mechanical device that allows one to permanently modify a mind. It was invented over 20 years before the events of Psychonauts 2 by Otto Mentallis, during his time researching the human mind at Green Needle Gulch with the other members of the Psychic Six. The only known Astralathe known to exist is currently still located in the center of the Heptadome, where it was originally invented.

Description[]

The Astralathe is a large machine reminiscent of an oversized industrial lathe, which are typically used in wood-, metal-, or glass-working among others to carve a work piece into the desired shape while rotating it. Like a lathe, it consists of a bed and two stocks, one on either side, which normally hold the piece in place. In this case, they are drill-shaped and don't actually hold anything while spinning. The device also features several levers and screws, presumably for adjusting its position. Finally, unlike an ordinary lathe, the Astralathe has a third stock with a science-fiction-like design that's pointed down. Its top ends in a funnel shape that takes in psychic energy.

Instead of wood or metal, the Astralathe is designed to reshape the human mind as desired, and it can supposedly make direct and permanent alterations to a subject's mental world, their personality and their memories. When it is used, the subject sits in the middle, on the device's bed, with their head in between the two drill-shaped stocks. The third stock is then positioned above them. Ideally, several psychics then focus their powers on the machine to keep it stabilized.

It's important to note that, so far, nearly every known use of the Astralathe to make permanent alterations to the psyche has not in fact been permanent. While the mental constructs and altered memories seen in Psychonauts 2 did hold up for 20 years, Razputin was able to reverse its effects on Ford Cruller by himself, and the alterations made to Lucrecia (and possibly Augustus, by proxy) could have apparently come undone organically by virtue of Lucrecia entering the Green Needle Gulch and remembering her old life, or, as Ford Cruller warns Raz, by being overwhelmed by strong feelings of persecution. The mental construct seen in Lucrecia's Lament is also not noticeably more inescapable than for instance the one seen in Loboto's Labyrinth that's simply constructed on the fly by Sasha Nein, as Lucrecia was able to find a way past it and organically develop new sections of her mental world. This may be a result of Ford making all of these alterations by himself, without his colleagues to help him. The final alteration, which opens a portal to Lucrecia's deepest subconscious and closes it up again to seal Maligula away, does appear to be a more successful procedure.

Background[]

20 years before the events of the Psychonauts series, the Psychic Six (though there were seven of them at the time) built the Astralathe and used it to study the potential and limits of the human mind, to try and "open every closed door in their minds", as Ford would later put it. To them, their time at Green Needle Gulch was an age of exploration, but they were tampering with things they didn't fully understand. The process left them all very vulnerable to outside factors, and so when Lucrecia Mux, one member of their group, went back to her homeland to defend it from invaders, the war's brutality changed her. Finally, the hydrokinetic powers she used in service to the Gzar after the war led to a disaster involving a burst dam, which killed many peaceful protestors including her sister Marona. The resulting trauma caused a part of her natural survival instincts, normally buried in the subconscious mind, to take over her consciousness, resulting in the force of indiscriminate destruction known as Maligula.

The Psychic Six are contacted by world leaders to stop Maligula. After the battle, Ford Cruller captures Lucrecia and returns to the Heptadome alone, where he uses the Astralathe to bury Maligula behind a dam of Emotional Baggage in Lucrecia's mind. To make sure she could live a safe and happy life, he then uses the device to alter the memories of both Lucrecia and Marona's son Augustus, making them believe Lucrecia was Marona, who survived the "Deluge of Grulovia". Finally, he gives Lucrecia an unnatural water phobia, to make sure she doesn't end up accidentally rekindling her Hydrokinesis. To keep the secret from ever getting out, Ford then tries to use the Astralathe one final time to erase his own memories, but this procedure fails spectacularly and fractures his mind into various aspects. Ford does forget about what happened, but he is now also unable to live a normal life.

Psychonauts 2[]

The Astralathe first comes up in Psychonauts 2 while Razputin is hearing the truth directly from Ford Cruller's own mind, inside the Tomb of the Sharkophagus section. A memory version of the device is inside a velvet-lined coffin-tunnel, surrounded by stained glass windowpanes that represent the Heptadome. Ford explains that he used the device on Lucrecia. Razputin, terribly alarmed by what he's learned, runs off, but Ford catches up to him and convinces him they need to work together to restart the Astralathe and perform another procedure on Lucrecia, to make absolutely certain that Maligula doesn't come back.

At Green Needle Gulch, Raz finds the Astralathe in the Heptadome, but it is surrounded by strong vines and angry bees. After Cassie O'Pia and Bob Zanotto help Raz with his dilemma, the Psychic Six all reunite to power the Astralathe, allowing Ford and Raz to enter Lucy's mind and break open the dam, in hopes that they can hold Maligula back long enough to use the device to open a hole to the very depths of her mind and cast her back to the subconscious, where she belongs.

Raz is pulled out of Lucrecia's mind right before Maligula comes out, and Ford by himself is not strong enough to fight her off. Maligula comes out again in full force. Razputin returns to her mind soon after, however, and after an extended final face-off, he is able to push Maligula down into the hole, which fortunately had already been prepared.

At the end of the game, Raz expresses his discomfort with the Astralathe for the atrocities it enabled. Otto, meanwhile, casually mentions that he thinks of creating mini-astralathes that can be mass produced and sold to the public, for the purpose of allowing people to make small, "cosmetic" alterations to their personalities. Raz is horrified by this idea, but Otto laughs off his criticisms, as he figures it would bring in a lot of money to fund the financially struggling Psychonauts.

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