Omnimancer Public Consumption Tutorial

Rules, Rules, and More Rules

There are a few basic rules to keep in mind when spellcasting as general guidelines. And these three basics are:

1. - Anything that you cast can be dispelled at your will.
2. - Anything that you cast can be altered at your will.
3. - Don't cast while sick.

Rule #1: This means that anything you cast you should automatically be able to cancel at ease. If you aren't used to these rules, say them to yourself when casting. Rule #1 is set up to avoid those moments when someone's cast a really wonderful shield...and they realize after a while that they're effectively trapped inside their own shield because they can't take it down other than by brute force or by asking for help from another practitioner. This has happened before. Don't be that person.

Rule #2: By putting in the stipulation that anything casted can be altered at will, one can make minor or major changes to the spell's definition without actually having to recast the spell. This can be useful when you want to tweak a spell quickly and efficiently. Otherwise, one would have to dispel a spell, regather the energy and reform the spell from scratch just to do a change, possibly loosing the original spell in the process and certainly loosing the time invested in it.

Rule #3: By default, your body uses your own energy to heal you. It understands better how to heal you than you do. When you cast, you use your own energy, even if it is just to gather outside energy. If you try to create a healing spell for yourself while sick, the energy you "burn" to create the healing spell is more than the energy you'd get out of the healing spell, in comparison to what your body can do to heal on its own. It is normally safe to cast when you are just starting to feel the effects of being sick, but not afterwards.

Energy is everywhere. People, animals, trees, entities, etc. generate their own energy. Energy can also be generated from releases of energy such as flame, gravitational fields (poles of planets), stars (big reactors), etc. Energy is normally ambient, similar to perfume on the air, but also naturally pools in things called ley lines where it is often quite dense. These streams of energy can be used as "alternate power sources" mentioned below and are much more difficult to deplete than ambient energy. They normally run along natural topography lines (i.e. rivers, tops of mountains), but they also seem to run other places. Wherever you are, it's still fairly easy to find a good energy source in things like parking lots and supermarkets if you take the time to look. If there is one thing energy is not, it is not scarce, though it may take time and patience to collect it the first few times.

Energy Balls

This energy can be harnessed by willpower and shaped to do various things, one of the simplest of which is making an energy ball. An energy ball is simply a ball of energy, and like a ball of Play-dough it can be shaped to do and be different things or simply left as-is. Once collected, it can be turned into a specific type of energy, such as healing energy, or a spell, desire, idea, or information can be put inside it. Telling an energy ball to do something is one of the most basic forms of spell-casting.

Forming an energy ball usually involves visualization, and how you choose to see it is up to you. The first step is to gather energy. This visualization can be something like seeing a still pond with a water drop hitting the center, but instead of seeing the ripples go out, see them come in (the center being the person or more importantly, being the place they are trying to gather the energy to). Another way is to see tree roots go down into the ground and "suck" up the energy into the trunk of the tree. Once the energy is gathered, one can see the energy form into a ball. Imagine shaping a lump of clay into a ball, or visualize the energy swirling inward to form a sphere, like a mist swirling around and gradually becoming solid. Most people are comfortable working with energy balls in their hands at first, but there is no reason for this to be the only place an energy ball can form. They can be formed wherever your imagination can go.

Be careful NOT to pull energy from yourself when forming an energy ball. While this is okay at basic levels, it does deplete your own energy after a time and it can also become habitual. It's far better to draw off outside sources. Also, do not get in the habit of pulling energy through your own body to form a ball. The reason for this is that running energy through your body can become a spellcasting crutch you need to unlearn later, and also, running too much energy through a body at once can have some unpleasant side effects. A low levels, running this much energy through the body isn't a problem, but at high levels, it can be a great issue. While it is OK to pull energy into one's self for restoring one's own energy, it shouldn't be used as a method of casting.

Energy will respond to commands. You can tell the energy to "stay" and it will. If you don't, as soon as the concentration holding it there is removed, the energy ball will dissipate. Similarly, when gathering energy you can state aloud or to yourself other tips, such as not to use energy from yourself and to gather from acceptable sources. With the concept of telling the energy to stay is the concept of putting other commands into the energy ball. These series of commands is what makes up the basis of energy magic.

So what can you do with energy balls? Here are a few ideas to start you off.

• make an energy ball to give you a string of green lights on the way to work
• make an energy ball to hold off a storm until you can get to your umbrella
• make an energy ball to help you find something lost
• make an energy ball to call a bus or taxi can when you need it

All of these can be done by simply inserting the desire into the ball, keeping in mind the rules of spellcasting, and letting the energy ball do its work. Make sure the energy ball has enough energy to do the task you want it to, and have patience. While a fairly easy concept, they don't work 100% of the time or always in the ways that might be expected. If they did, we wouldn't call it magic.

Tethers

All the energy in the world does no good if spells can't access it. One way to give spells a relatively constant supply of energy is to use tethers. Tethers are the name for the hose-like construction that can connect two or more items together. In addition to hooking up a spell to an energy source, they can be used for informational purposes. They can connect people to each other and spells to their caster/energy source, making it possible to track people and find out where a spell originated.

Tethers are conduits made of energy that are hollow and work as a hose. They can stretch infinitely. They can be used to power spells, as well as maintain concentration. There are also tethers/lines between everyone a person has met. One can trace these tethers/lines to other people even if they are not know personally by following the tethers from a known person to the target person. One can also trace power tethers or concentration tethers to their source, either the energy source or the caster.

Tethers can be viewed as a line going between on place and another. To trace from person to person, you can "view" what the person looks like in your mind's eye, seeing thousands of lines coming from the person. Have the line that goes to the person you wish to get to glow brighter (or flash) to distinguish it from the others. Follow the line mentally. Since the line goes "forever", tell yourself to go to the end. You will find the person on the other end (their inner self...see below). Spells will have a power tether powering it, or at least the concentration tether, to who cast the spell (or to who is powering it). Same technique to trace to source.

Alternate Power Sources

Obviously, depleting your own energy supply making energy balls isn't very useful. Internal power is precious and though it does regenerate, the body needs it for other things. So where can it be found, other than the weak ambient energy? The answer is ley lines. A cornerstone of omnimancy, is using external power. The first fundamental is tapping on ley lines to power spells instead of one's self. Instead of just using ambient energy for a one-shot endeavor, it's possible to "tether" to a ley line and set up your spells with a fairly constant source of power.

Alternate power sources simply means any power source other than yourself. Typically, one uses anything as small as trees, although normally at low levels, ley lines are used due to convenience and size. Later, stars and bigger things are used. Tethers are used to connect a spell to a power source. By not powering a spell off on one's self, one can maintain MANY more spells than otherwise possible. Also, much more power is normally available when using alternate power sources than is available from powering purely off yourself.

Power sources such as ley lines can act like water balloons. There is a natural pressure within the power source but it has nowhere to go. When you tether to it, it now has a place to go. Sort of like when you prick a water balloon with a pin, the water inside wants to come out. Because of this effect, one does not have to spend energy to "pump" the energy from the power source into your spell. Normally, pumping energy would waste more energy than the extra energy one would get from pumping. This extra energy being pushed into a spell will normally drastically increase the power of the particular spell, since the power source will push more power into it naturally than if it was powered off yourself.

Ley Lines can be found all over the place, but tend to go across tops of mountains and bottoms of valleys (normally waterways). There are some that go across the sky and beneath the ground. Power can also be obtained from poles of planets and stars.

Close your eyes. What do you see? If you are like most people, you see the insides of your eyelids. This can make magic fairly frustrating. After all, how can you shape energy if you can't see it?

Senses don't come easily. The best, and only, way to improve them is to practice. Use your senses (often thought of as the third eye, mind's eye or astral senses) to look at anything at hand including people, animals, entities, and spells. While women often have slightly better senses than men to begin with, anyone can get better senses through practice. When first working with energy, instead of struggling to sense it, simply let your mind fill in the blanks. Take a guess, go with a hunch. Often, mental "sight" is one of the last things to develop. People often have a much easier time "feeling" energy around as a texture, motion, smell, or sound. Even people with very good senses may never have an astral movie running through their heads when they sense. Often, the way people recognize that they are holding an energy ball for the first time is by a feeling of very slight warmth, tingling, or pressure in their hands. It's very slight, and it often seems like it isn't there at all. Senses do not usually come through normal channels such as physical sight and touch. Rather, they come through imagination. In order to be able to see anything in your head, you need to be able to imagine it. Naturally then, senses at first may seem like you're faking it or only imagining something that really isn't there. Have confidence, and if possible, work with other people to get confirmation for what you are seeing or doing. Practice is the only way to get better senses and establish confidence in them.

Auras

One thing to look at as a practice for sensing, and as an application in and of itself, is the aura. The aura is simply the energy surrounding people, the energy they give off just like exhaled air. Normally this is seen as colors, or a mix of colors, shifting around a person. These colors can represent many things, but the most basic method of aura sensing described here deals with temperament, or how someone is feeling at the moment. The aura naturally shifts as someone's mood changes.

Shields are a fairly common construction used to keep out negative energy, and to give casters a little protection when experiments go awry. They are by no means meant to be the sole protection if you are ever actually attacked; rather, they give stalling time for the caster to figure out what's going wrong. Shields should never be relied upon as an only defense, but they are very useful for what they do.

What do they do? Keep things out! Casting a basic shield is simple. First, gather energy and create a large tethered energy ball. Will it to be hollow, and imagine it to be large enough to fit around you. Either cast it around you, or "step into" it when done. Then, will it to keep out things that are harmful or unwanted. Remember, shields are not the real-world equivalent of walls. They should not be solid and keep everything out, like useful energy. Rather, they should be selective and simply buffer out things the caster does not want to contact them. Be specific when wording the intent behind shields. Don't tell them to keep out everything, but rather specify what is acceptable and what isn't when it comes to passing through a shield. That is the most basic type of shield, but it's easy to think of ways that shields could be made more refined.

People often talk about an astral self, or an astral body. In fact, there are several different "bodies" to be aware of, each having it's own special properties. By knowing all the bodies, casters can take advantage of all that's available. Usually people can see these different bodies by visualizing a cord starting at their center and following it up, out of their body. The other selves will be located on this line.

Higher Self

The higher self is the equivalent of the Judeo-Christian guardian angel. This is an entity assigned to a person, usually for one lifetime only, to watch over and guide them. Highers take some responsibility for their ward, and they may or may not interfere with their charge's life to help avoid or bring about certain events. These guardians tend to be very distant, rarely taking an active role or even speaking to the person they watch over. Most people are never aware of their higher and never see their higher influence them, though magically active people tend to have more encounters with their guardians. Be aware: if you do manage to contact your higher, he or she may not have the same opinions, likes, and dislikes as you, or even the same goals. Of the various selves, this is the only one that is a separate entity. The rest are versions of one person.

Inner Self

Inner selves are rather like inner children, or the wiser self some people attempt to contact for guidance when they meditate. Your inner and you are the exact same person, with a few critical differences. The inner is the version of a person who has full memory of all their past lives and interactions. Accordingly, they are usually a bit different in personality and often more knowledgeable than the conscious person. This is the unconscious self, though it's quite possible to talk to your inner. Many people do this when they meditate, and a "voice" answers their questions. In reality, this is just a form of talking to yourself. Your inner and you are the same person, not two different people. This is not multiple personalities, it is simply a way of accessing parts of you that most people aren't aware of. Your inner self is not another personality that comes out and takes over your life. It's just another part of you, the unconscious part. To talk to your inner, relax and try holding a conversation with yourself. It will most likely feel forced and strange at first, but it can be a useful tool for gathering information. The same technique can be used to contact entities. Just talk, and imagine a response. At first it will seem like you are imagining or making up the response, but in time the responses are likely to become distinct enough that a personality will emerge and it's impossible to say that you are merely talking to yourself. Your inner and you are the same person, but often with slight differences in personality. Whether talking to your inner or another entity, these differences help emphasize that the caster is actually doing something other than holding a private one-sided conversation.

Lower Self

The lower self is you. Lowers are the part of a person that thinks, goes to school, holds down a job, and is generally active in this world. Lowers do not usually remember past lives at first, though they can. Lowers are a facet of the inner self that has "amnesia" and doesn't remember his or her entire history and who she or he really is. Usually, this is so people can concentrate on this life, not times past. The lower is the conscious self. When someone says "I", this is usually the self they are referring to.

Astral Self/Body

The "astral" is essentially where most magical activity takes place. It's the spirit world and the place where spells are energy are present and active. It can be easily imagined as a thick mist that overlays and goes through this reality. It's ever-present and easily accessible. Every time you gather energy, you are dealing with the astral as it interfaces with reality. When you sense something with closed eyes or feel something that is not there, you are seeing with astral senses.

There are other things in the astral besides raw energy and other people's spells. This is where you will find entities, from simple tree-spirits to ghosts, spooks, and high-end spirits. The astral is also somewhat like a large city in that you never really know who you're dealing with. Do not assume that every entity you meet is out to help you, but also do not think that they are all out to harm you either. Just like people, entities generally have their own agenda and will leave most things alone if nothing interferes with them. Remain alert and cautious in your dealings with entities you do not know. Do not take "gifts" from them if you don't know what it is, just as children do not take candy from strangers. Be polite, but use common sense. Most entities aren't out to harm people, but that can't be said for all of them.