Purgatory

"Every soul here is a monster. This is where they come to prey upon each other for all eternity."

- Castiel

Purgatory is a supernatural dimension created by God to contain his first and most dangerous beasts, the Leviathans. Over time, it evolved to be the destination of the souls of monsters. According to Bobby, it goes by many names, with 'Purgatory' just being the most commonly known.

Appearance and Characteristics
Purgatory appears to be an endless forest in an almost perpetual gloom or overcast. In at least one occasion, it was shown to be dark, as if during dusk. Fog also naturally occurs in Purgatory. Despite its seemingly infinite size, there seems to be certain locations or bodies of water that are fixed, and are used by monsters as reference points when trying to locate something or someone. While it seems devoid of tools and synthetic materials, there are at least basic objects found in it enough to assemble bones, wood and rock to form weapons of differing sizes and shapes. These weapons are crafted and utilized by Purgatory's inhabitants, presumably to fight stronger monsters they encounter. Strangely enough, there was also at least one occasion where a metal chain was featured in it.

According to a high-ranking Leviathan, Purgatory is a worse neighborhood than Hell. Dean describes it as many different kinds of blood and gore. Despite this, he, along with Benny, also describes it as being 'pure', for yet to be disclosed reasons.

Foundation and Recent History
According to Death, when God realized his first beasts, the Leviathans, could threaten the survival of his other creations, he created Purgatory as a prison to isolate them. In Purgatory, the Leviathans were kept to themselves and away from God's younger children and creations. Sometime after, Purgatory began to contain an ancient and powerful malevolent entity called Eve. Exactly how she came to be and if she really originated in Purgatory or was simply sent or imprisoned there is unknown. Eve then gave life to her firstborns, the Alphas of different species of monsters. Eventually, Eve and her progeny became associated with it, becoming the destination of their souls should they die on the mortal plane. In Purgatory, the souls of the monsters are fated to prey on each other for eternity. It is currently unknown where the souls of monsters go to if they die in Purgatory.

There are estimated to be 30-40 million souls in Purgatory. These multitude of souls were actually sought by the King of Hell, Crowley, and the seraph Castiel, who both agreed to work together and use the power of the souls to win their own respective civil wars, after the aversion of the Apocalypse left a power vacuum. The pair attempted to locate Purgatory by way of capture and torture of different monsters, including the Alphas. This attracted the attention of a very angry Eve, who was at first unwilling to break the natural order, but was then convinced that she needed to protect her children and her realm. She began to arrange for her children to create armies of their own and to summon her to earth. This dragged Purgatory into a three-way power struggle, along with Heaven and Hell. Eve planned to turn all human souls into monsters to increase the power of her realm and to deplete Crowley of future resources. However, the struggle resulted into Eve's death.

Castiel later successfully opened a portal to Purgatory and absorbed all the souls in there as well as the Leviathans. He later reopened the portal and returned all the souls to Purgatory, but some of the Leviathans clung onto Castiel's vessel and thus did not return to Purgatory.

After Dean kills the Leviathan leader Dick Roman with the Bone Of Righteous Mortal Washed In the Three Bloods of Fallen, he and Castiel are transported to Purgatory with Dick's essence when it returns here. Castiel leaves Dean to protect him from being chased by the monsters that are after Castiel, including Leviathans and Dean teams up with a vampire named Benny to find an "escape hatch" that Benny knows of that God put in in case humans ever got stuck in Purgatory. The two locate Castiel and team up with him to escape, fighting off monsters and Leviathans that attack them along the way. Eventually they reach the portal out which opens when it senses Dean's presence and Dean absorbs Benny's soul into his arm. However, while Dean makes it through the portal before it closes, Castiel, who may not have been able to make it out anyway as he is not human or a former human, stays behind as he doesn't want to leave. Castiel is later rescued by an incursion of angels sent by Naomi which she says cost many angels their lives.

Access and Location
Crowley describes Purgatory to be adjacent to hell, but implies it is quite difficult to access directly. He believed that the Alphas, and their mother Eve, knew how to locate it and therefore, create a passage to it. Although Purgatory functions as a prison and the final realm of monster souls, there are certain instances when its inhabitants are capable of escape, not unlike demons escaping hell. As mentioned earlier, some spells could summon creatures out of it. H.P. Lovecraft and his friends successfully opened a passage to Purgatory and accidentally set loose one of its natives. It is implied that they also managed to glance through the passage as Lovecraft left in his novel a reference to creatures called the old ones, which presumably pertained to the leviathans.



Eve has, on at least one occasion (two occasions, if she originated in Purgatory), managed to cross over from Purgatory to earth. She arranged for her dragons to find a virgin girl as a vessel for her to manifest on earth, and they recited a spell at the mouth of a deep chamber with lava to summon her. It is unknown how she achieved this the first time she walked the earth 10,000 years ago, but it is presumed that she required the same spell and a similar vessel.

Another spell needed a lunar eclipse and blood from one of Purgatory's natives. This spell was so powerful it allowed the simultaneous release of all of Purgatory's souls. This feat was displayed successfully by Castiel, who then absorbed them to increase his power. This spell could also be reversed to return the souls back into Purgatory.



Conversely, non-monsters may also find themselves transported to Purgatory; the Bone Of Righteous Mortal Washed In the Three Bloods of Fallen is shown and implied to send anyone near a Leviathan the Bone is used on directly to Purgatory with the Leviathan. When this happens, it seems that monsters in Purgatory are aware or alerted of the foreign beings, as word seemed to get fast that a human and an angel have been sighted in Purgatory. Also, because Purgatory was not designed to hold humans, there is at least one way for human souls to breach the barrier and return to earth, indicated to have been put in by God as an "escape hatch". The vampire Benny knew of this and was convinced he could merge with the escaping human soul as he was once human. This was shown to be successful when Benny merged with Dean on his way out of Purgatory, and also resulted to the vampire's rebirth. This portal is located on a ridge and opens for a few minutes when it senses the presence of a nearby human soul as shown when Dean approached it and was able to use it to escape.

Hierarchy
It is unknown how the hierachy in Purgatory is structured or whether there is one, however it seems to be grossly fluid and not strict like that of Heaven, as the monsters in Purgatory seems to be largely on the run from each other, and were never really shown to be organized in groups or in packs like they did on earth. Only the Leviathans were seen to behave in a group mentality so far.

Mythology
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven. This is a theological idea that has ancient roots and is well-attested in early Christian literature, while the poetic conception of purgatory as a geographically situated place is largely the creation of medieval Christian piety and imagination.

Appearances

 * Season 6
 * Like A Virgin (portal only)
 * The Man Who Knew Too Much (portal only)
 * Season 7
 * Meet The New Boss (portal only)
 * Survival of the Fittest 
 * Season 8
 * We Need To Talk About Kevin (flashback of Dean's time in Purgatory only)
 * What's Up, Tiger Mommy? (flashback of Dean's time in Purgatory only)
 * Blood Brother (flashback of Dean's time in Purgatory only)
 * A Little Slice of Kevin (flashback of Dean's time in Purgatory only)

Trivia

 * Even though every soul i n Purgatory is deceased, they can still be "killed" as seen when Dean a nd Benny b ehead two vampires. However, this is disputed as it has been mentioned before that nothing in creation can destroy souls, only damage them. Exactly what happens to the monsters that are killed in Purgatory is unknown. In Blood Brother, Castiel actually points out that this brings up a very good metaphysical question.