Various Inquiries

[Psychokinetic Wannabe]

I contemplated putting this as separate topics, but decided it probably wouldn't be necessary to split up my questions into separate threads based on topic. However, if anyone here feels like that should be done, by all means, split this post up if you have the ability to do so.

I'll break it down in categories though:

- Black Astral -

I realize based on the few forum posts that a search for those terms found that apparently it's largely a internal-to-Omni topic - or, at least, the details and in-depth stuff seemed to be, so that's fine if anything I ask can't be answered. If I'm sufficiently omnimancy-worthy and get accepted at some point in the future, I'll find out soon enough, and if not, if it was something I needed to know, I'll start to figure it out on my own as my perception abilities get better. (Same goes for everything else I'll be asking about.)

So, what I have gotten so far is that it's the stuff/regions/space/realm(s?)/dimensions outside the various universes themselves. Sorta like a void between the actual astral realms of each universe out there. Well, the metaphor I read on here was something to the effect that it was like oil vs. water, with water presumably being normal astral, or normal universes in general.

Apparently it is used for travel, in the astral anyway, and there's plenty of entities that "set up shop" in the black astral, presumably operating from there or whatever.

My questions on that are: Is travel in the black astral specifically a way to get between various universes? Is that all it goes to, or are there other things/dimensions/areas/whatever within this universe that can only be accessed through the black astral?

Does the black astral feel different, either when actually projecting/traveling in it during full astral projection, when projecting/traveling through it with what I think I noticed being called "mental projection" on here, or when sensing it in some other, more general way?

Are there energies or "materials" that exist in there different than what naturally occurs in universes, and if so, are there any energies or materials that can only be found within the black astral, or at least have only been detected by omnimancers within the black astral (Since I doubt, realistically, you can say you've observed all universes ever) - meaning, are there any materials that can only be created and/or are only stable in, the black astral? As a converse, are there any materials that work fine here but degenerate in that environment? (My guess would be that I won't get any specific answer for this, primarily because it seems like the kind of thing that would be considered too specific of knowledge to be spoon fed to some random poster. That, and it's probably something I could figure out on my own from simple observation if I actually did anything in the black astral and experimented a little.)

By extension, are there any conditions which occur within the black astral that do not occur anywhere else you've observed in detail? Things which either inhibit or augment one's ability to use magic within it, or whatever?

- Amps -

Does performance of high level tech necessitate amp use? I understand that amps are basically spells which make it possible to do things a caster wouldn't naturally be able to do, but does that imply that it is completely impossible for a normal human's abilities to get to the point that amps bring people to? Going with the conception of the astral body that was put forth in some thread around here by LordArt, we feel things based on extending tendrils of our astral self - pretty much a standard and not-omni-exclusive view.

I guess what I am asking is: In Omnis' experiences, has it been found that the astral body of a typical human (or comparable/similar sentient entity) has certain limits beyond which it absolutely cannot progress? A limit to the resolution with which one can sense fine details, a limit to the force it can control or wield, etc?

On a similar vein, is there a set, discovered amount of concentration tethers a human can maintain? Is it in the tens, hundreds, thousands? Millions? (I was dealing with a certain problem, so to speak, yesterday - this post would've been up over 24 hours earlier if it were not for that, and I thought I found that I seemed to have difficulty concentrating when running merely around 7-8 different shields/other...stuff. I may have done some energy-intensive things though, and the slight focusing difficulty may have been linked to that.)

That reminds me - I wanted to say that even though I only figured out what you guys were referring to as concentration tethers only yesterday, I realized that as a psion, I've been using something similar for a very long time. Basically, for anything more long term than a few hours, or anything that might end up being used up in-between conscious maintenance, I try to include the provision that the entire spell (to use your terminology) is "restored" from my own mind. My own conceptualization of it was somewhat different (no actual 'link/tether/whatever' was imagined - merely that this automatic-restore-and-programing-correction was thought of.)

That actually takes me on a tangent-of-a-tangent: I suspect that "programming" needs to be elaborated on - the way programing is defined here, it seems to be seen as mere "software" running on an energy. What I think needs to be realized is that in context of much of energy-working online, especially when dealing with psions, it should be considered a very likely possibility that some, especially the more experienced and/or advanced ones, might actually mean things like material tech under the broad term of programming. It's just that when you enter magic from something like a psionics angle, the only term you have to work with is "programming". When you start to do things like make materials (which I suspect I have been starting to do, and which I suspect many a psion has done while still thinking of the energy they are working with as "psi"), your only label to put on what you're doing is 'programming'. Same with "psi". I think many people who are currently psions, who don't recognize other energies (and there are some), are merely not recognizing other energies because they conceptualize all energy as 'psi' at a fundamental level. So the point of this tangent, really, is to point out the possibility that above, when I say "automatic-restoration-and-programming-correction", I actually suspect that what I am doing nowadays, and have been for a while, is making what is here called materials (crudely perhaps, but eh), or at least doing more than mere 'programming' as it is termed here, and merely lumping it all as programming. So when I say "programming correction", when converted to terminology here.... well, I don't know exactly what it would be, but it wouldn't be programming, so much as over-all restoration.

I SUSPECT that because of how tech is very much linked to use of materials in creating spells, tech spells are less prone to being 'corrupted', like a psion's 'spells' might be corrupted by another psion exerting their own will on the energy used (though, I suppose, you could always have another caster pick apart a basic tech spell and/or change the very nature of its materials to cause the spell to break down... however, I find it doubtful that all but the most rudimentary tech spells would have no preventative measures against that).

Alas, I am badly off topic: Amps... Well, I pretty much asked the only questions I had - the central concept of the inquiry is whether or not it is necessary to use Amps to progress beyond a certain point. On that note, even if there is a point beyond which the astral body cannot improve it's own capacities - is that the point at which you start handing out amps, or are you giving them out earlier than the maximum limit of the caster's own abilities? I would assume it is not the latter, but might as well ask.

I guess the only other question I can ask on the subject is: Has anyone tried to push forward without an amp? Even for, say, G1 or G2 levels, where things are relatively simple? (in comparison to Omnimancy's tremendous knowledge base, rather than in comparison to the energy working community in general.) If at all possible that a person could progress with higher level omnimancy material without amp use at all, is it possible in a practical, conceivable sense, or merely in a "could hypothetically happen but realistically speaking never will" way?

- Influencing the Physical -

Since I personally have a very high interest in the more blunt manifestations of magical ability, such as psychokinesis as my name would suggest, I am curious, how much research/observation has been made in terms of the interaction between the physical and astral? I know what has actually been done by omnimancers as far as things like PK go has been mostly accidental/anecdotal/unrepeatable, and I'm not asking for the specific knowledge itself, if any exists. I'm merely wondering if it exists at all. I know in the thread about the movie Jumper you guys discussed rifting at length, and how there are many more factors and variables that start to matter the closer you get to influencing the physical, that were perfectly ignorable in the astral.

But has anyone within Omni spent much time observing things like PK? Any interactions occur between naturally psychokinetic people and Omnimancers to observe and glean info on such things? Has anyone really learned of anything between energy and/or actions by the astral body on the astral and physical reality? Is there anything akin to an understanding of what it is that actually happens when a 'spell' on the astral results in psychokinesis here? And, a thought that I entertained for a day or two but haven't tested on my own (and wouldn't trust myself as reliable after testing anyway, as I am now): Any chance specific materials have to do with it? Perhaps materials that as part of their nature facilitate interaction between the physical and astral?

Again, sorry if I'm probing too deep into omnimancy-only material.

I recall I had other concepts I had some questions (or maybe just thoughts) about, but I'll save that for when I actually remember what they were.

[LordArt]

Ah...Big long post...

- Black Astral -

So, what I have gotten so far is that it's the stuff/regions/space/realm(s?)/dimensions outside the various universes themselves. Sorta like a void between the actual astral realms of each universe out there. Well, the metaphor I read on here was something to the effect that it was like oil vs. water, with water presumably being normal astral, or normal universes in general.

Actually, it's the reverse. The oil droplets being the normal universes/realms. The water between all the droplets being the black astral. Not to be confused with the "astral" of any realms that are physical (including the one we are in).

My questions on that are: Is travel in the black astral specifically a way to get between various universes? Is that all it goes to, or are there other things/dimensions/areas/whatever within this universe that can only be accessed through the black astral?

When you say "this universe", are you referring to the black astral or the physical universe we are typing to each other in?

If you are asking, are there areas that are technically part of the physical universe we are in, that are only accessible via the black astral, I would say technically no, but practically yes. Meaning, if you stayed within the physical universe, it might take far more time and effort to get somewhere than if you simply got out of the universe completely and came back in at a different location.

Does the black astral feel different, either when actually projecting/traveling in it during full astral projection, when projecting/traveling through it with what I think I noticed being called "mental projection" on here, or when sensing it in some other, more general way?

Does it feel different? For me yes. But most don't give it that much thought or aren't use to sensing the differences between realms. So YMMV.

Are there energies or "materials" that exist in there different than what naturally occurs in universes, and if so, are there any energies or materials that can only be found within the black astral, or at least have only been detected by omnimancers within the black astral (Since I doubt, realistically, you can say you've observed all universes ever) - meaning, are there any materials that can only be created and/or are only stable in, the black astral? As a converse, are there any materials that work fine here but degenerate in that environment? (My guess would be that I won't get any specific answer for this, primarily because it seems like the kind of thing that would be considered too specific of knowledge to be spoon fed to some random poster. That, and it's probably something I could figure out on my own from simple observation if I actually did anything in the black astral and experimented a little.)

Generally, all the "astral" realms, including the black astral share enough similar physics that any spells or materials are rather universal between them. So if it works on one, it works on all of them. I am not saying that once you get deeper into a realm/universe that you can't make things more specific to that realm, but we don't bother. It is hard enough getting all the physics right in a more all encompassing sense than worrying about specific advantages a single realm might have, but can only have those advantage there. There is one exception, but I won't get into that here.

By extension, are there any conditions which occur within the black astral that do not occur anywhere else you've observed in detail? Things which either inhibit or augment one's ability to use magic within it, or whatever?

Not in the way you are trying to seem to mean it, no. Ambient energy means something rather different there than in earth astral for example. Omnimancy is energy agnostic, so we don't really notice the difference, since we are use to using rather esoteric energy sources, but the energy certainly has a very different "flavor". But that can be said to be true of any realm from each other.

- Amps -

Does performance of high level tech necessitate amp use? I understand that amps are basically spells which make it possible to do things a caster wouldn't naturally be able to do, but does that imply that it is completely impossible for a normal human's abilities to get to the point that amps bring people to?

Depends where you draw the line of "high level tech". But in any case, I would certainly say that the high level tech as I would define it would certainly require amps, yes. Not as much for the power but the resolution the higher amps give. You aren't going to make a swiss watch with a hammer and chisel. You have to have the right high grade and fine tools to make detailed work, and there is no way around that.

That being said, anything before g7a tech is possible without amps with varying difficulty (little to a lot depending). G7a tech and higher becomes impossible, which I don't like, but it's the way it goes. That is why I say it's almost like starting over when one gets that high.

Can a human spiritual body evolve naturally to be able to do the higher level tech on it's own? Yes, but it would take many lifetimes (read 100s to 1000s). Even the gods aren't that patient.

I guess what I am asking is: In Omnis' experiences, has it been found that the astral body of a typical human (or comparable/similar sentient entity) has certain limits beyond which it absolutely cannot progress? A limit to the resolution with which one can sense fine details, a limit to the force it can control or wield, etc?

One does plateau, yes. Think of body building. One can make oneself quite strong, but constant lifting eventually will get you to a certain max. Move energy around, while making you more proficient to be sure, has an upper limit of what it will achieve. At least naturally.

Using artificial means like Amps to either externally empower, or internally evolve are a mean to get around the issue. There are other things that I wouldn't call amps that can help too, but one is still using non-natural means to enhance one's abilities.

On a similar vein, is there a set, discovered amount of concentration tethers a human can maintain? Is it in the tens, hundreds, thousands? Millions? (I was dealing with a certain problem, so to speak, yesterday - this post would've been up over 24 hours earlier if it were not for that, and I thought I found that I seemed to have difficulty concentrating when running merely around 7-8 different shields/other...stuff. I may have done some energy-intensive things though, and the slight focusing difficulty may have been linked to that.)

Becomes a pain in the ass doesn't it? Have we discovered a limit? No. But we certainly have felt the strain and limitations. Have we discovered a way around it, yes. An amp, even a lower level one, because it ups your power abilities, ups how much you can maintain at once. Even that catches up with you eventually (or can), so we developed a spell to off-load the concentration tethers too. That is usually an issue around g4 or so, but once one even hits UG4 the power of the amp drastically over-shadows the need for the spell the does the off-loading.

That reminds me - I wanted to say that even though I only figured out what you guys were referring to as concentration tethers only yesterday, I realized that as a psion, I've been using something similar for a very long time. Basically, for anything more long term than a few hours, or anything that might end up being used up in-between conscious maintenance, I try to include the provision that the entire spell (to use your terminology) is "restored" from my own mind. My own conceptualization of it was somewhat different (no actual 'link/tether/whatever' was imagined - merely that this automatic-restore-and-programing-correction was thought of.)

Every groups has their own terms because of a lack of standardization in this area. But I wouldn't say it's an Omni-exclusive view by any means. In some cases, we just put words to what people already have seen (and perhaps gave no thought to in some cases) It's nice to see revalidating some of the stuff we do outside of Omni.

That actually takes me on a tangent-of-a-tangent: I suspect that "programming" needs to be elaborated on - the way programing is defined here, it seems to be seen as mere "software" running on an energy. What I think needs to be realized is that in context of much of energy-working online, especially when dealing with psions, it should be considered a very likely possibility that some, especially the more experienced and/or advanced ones, might actually mean things like material tech under the broad term of programming. It's just that when you enter magic from something like a psionics angle, the only term you have to work with is "programming". When you start to do things like make materials (which I suspect I have been starting to do, and which I suspect many a psion has done while still thinking of the energy they are working with as "psi"), your only label to put on what you're doing is 'programming'. Same with "psi". I think many people who are currently psions, who don't recognize other energies (and there are some), are merely not recognizing other energies because they conceptualize all energy as 'psi' at a fundamental level. So the point of this tangent, really, is to point out the possibility that above, when I say "automatic-restoration-and-programming-correction", I actually suspect that what I am doing nowadays, and have been for a while, is making what is here called materials (crudely perhaps, but eh), or at least doing more than mere 'programming' as it is termed here, and merely lumping it all as programming. So when I say "programming correction", when converted to terminology here.... well, I don't know exactly what it would be, but it wouldn't be programming, so much as over-all restoration.

Nice mouthful. There are many psions and magicians that use tech and they don't realize it. It is just something they do, and they don't see it in such terms, and that can include materials. Usually that only occurs in more advanced psions or magicians (or naturally gifted of either side). To a certain extent, it is world view thing to see things in such terms. Meaning, the systems in question aren't built around recognizing when something is tech or not, so it's glossed over or simply not understood for what it is. And that is fine, because the other systems have different goals, so what works for them works for them. They may not be as interested in why something works on a low level, they just care it works. Or their low level explanations are too simplistic (again, this is generalization).

I will say, raw will (which is most common) certainly DOES feel and act VERY differently than tech casting. Raw will is the most natural means of casting, and because of that, is the default of most people (regardless of the system).

I SUSPECT that because of how tech is very much linked to use of materials in creating spells, tech spells are less prone to being 'corrupted', like a psion's 'spells' might be corrupted by another psion exerting their own will on the energy used (though, I suppose, you could always have another caster pick apart a basic tech spell and/or change the very nature of its materials to cause the spell to break down... however, I find it doubtful that all but the most rudimentary tech spells would have no preventative measures against that).

Tech spells break down if they don't have enough energy to work and maintain itself. But that is true of all spells. They don't corrupt on their own, no, that is correct. I guess consider it digital to raw-will's analog (which actually is a rather good analogy).

Taking over a tech spell can be simular to taking over any other spell. It can be more difficult, but it can be done. To actually change a running spell by simply replacing parts wouldn't work too well. It would be like replacing an engine piece while the engine is running. It would just end up destroying the spell. Taking over "command" of the spell is different, and that is what I'm referring to above, and then one can modify the spell "in step" as not to disrupt the timings, but honestly, one would normally simply take the spell "offline"/put on stand-by and do the changes in it's dormant state.

As far as picking apart an active tech spell, most people don't encrypt their tech, so that is easier than it might seem to copy someone else's spell. Omnis DO encrypt our stuff, as do a lot of the bigger things for obvious reasons. But it again depends on whose stuff you are looking at.

Alas, I am badly off topic: Amps... Well, I pretty much asked the only questions I had - the central concept of the inquiry is whether or not it is necessary to use Amps to progress beyond a certain point. On that note, even if there is a point beyond which the astral body cannot improve it's own capacities - is that the point at which you start handing out amps, or are you giving them out earlier than the maximum limit of the caster's own abilities? I would assume it is not the latter, but might as well ask.

Yes, it is needed to have amps to progress beyond a certain point, but it takes a while to reach that point. Amps are handed out early because it makes learning far easier, between the power and the sense increase they give. Keep in mind, newbie students aren't going to be as efficient and masterful with their spell casting initially, so will be rather wasteful with their power, so having extra helps a lot.

That doesn't mean they get the best stuff right off the bat, they work their way up, but the topics keep with their power level for the most part. So things keep in pace. They are tested to make sure they know and can do what they should and then they get the next amp.

I guess the only other question I can ask on the subject is: Has anyone tried to push forward without an amp? Even for, say, G1 or G2 levels, where things are relatively simple? (in comparison to Omnimancy's tremendous knowledge base, rather than in comparison to the energy working community in general.) If at all possible that a person could progress with higher level omnimancy material without amp use at all, is it possible in a practical, conceivable sense, or merely in a "could hypothetically happen but realistically speaking never will" way?

No one has, mostly because no one really has wanted to. Pre-g7a stuff can be done without amps, as I mentioned before. The scale of things would have to be smaller of course, and it would be far more difficult to learn without them. Only a few of the topics really expect you to have more raw force behind them to make them practical. Some of the stuff would require a lot of practice without the amps to make them work, but it technically should be able to be done.

G7a+ and higher it is simply not possible. We've done lots of experiments to show that. G7a materials/spells/tech requires what G7a gives you resolution and power wise. UG4s can do the lessor G7a stuff in group. When you get to G7b or higher, then that isn't even in the same ball-park. Even G7a can't do G7b things, which is true of G7c, and so on. Much of the high level stuff is specifically geared around the power level that one is at at the time and how to push one's limits.

- Influencing the Physical -

Since I personally have a very high interest in the more blunt manifestations of magical ability, such as psychokinesis as my name would suggest, I am curious, how much research/observation has been made in terms of the interaction between the physical and astral? I know what has actually been done by omnimancers as far as things like PK go has been mostly accidental/anecdotal/unrepeatable, and I'm not asking for the specific knowledge itself, if any exists. I'm merely wondering if it exists at all. I know in the thread about the movie Jumper you guys discussed rifting at length, and how there are many more factors and variables that start to matter the closer you get to influencing the physical, that were perfectly ignorable in the astral.

A lot of research has been put in for how the astral interacts with the physical and vice versa. There is a lot of it, including the thermometer experiments you've probably seen mentioned before.

But has anyone within Omni spent much time observing things like PK? Any interactions occur between naturally psychokinetic people and Omnimancers to observe and glean info on such things?

No and there won't be. At least until someone royally screws up and lets us(or me) have access to such an individual to observe.

Has anyone really learned of anything between energy and/or actions by the astral body on the astral and physical reality? Is there anything akin to an understanding of what it is that actually happens when a 'spell' on the astral results in psychokinesis here? And, a thought that I entertained for a day or two but haven't tested on my own (and wouldn't trust myself as reliable after testing anyway, as I am now): Any chance specific materials have to do with it? Perhaps materials that as part of their nature facilitate interaction between the physical and astral?

We've seen how spells interact with the physical environment. We've even caused several reliable results based on this. Not in the PK field however. One conclusion we have come to, is power is NOT a factor beyond a certain point (like G3 level). Materials per se have nothing to do with it, it's technique. I'm not saying one can't develop materials to help to do it, once one understood what was needed, but materials is a means of perfecting, not accomplishing in this case.

Keep in mind, it is something we want, so have dedicated quite a bit of resources to it over the years.

[Psychokinetic Wannabe]

Ah...Big long post...

Yep. Just the way I almost always post 'em. Long and verbose. Though I like to think my word use isn't particularly pedantic or redundant.

Actually, it's the reverse. The oil droplets being the normal universes/realms. The water between all the droplets being the black astral. Not to be confused with the "astral" of any realms that are physical (including the one we are in).

Makes sense. On that note, should I extend that analogy to certain properties of the universes vs. the black astral, such as that the black astral has less dense or less viscous energy? Or is the analogy confined to merely the natural resistance to mixing those two liquids have?

When you say "this universe", are you referring to the black astral or the physical universe we are typing to each other in?

Well, you already answered what I was asking, but for future reference, I was referring to this physical universe in which we are typing AND it's astral counterpart + any and all other realms/dimensions/whatever-you-wish-to-call-them that are part of this "oil-bubble". If referring to subsets of the universe, I would probably preface it with "physical" or some other adjective, or use the term I notice it typically being referred to by - with more or less elaboration/clarification on what I am referring to depending on context, naturally.

I would also refer to the black astral AND the universes within in as "multiverse", unless you inform me or I personally learn through other means that there are other things that constitute the multiverse, such as universes or other 'stuff' outside the black astral, or otherwise not part of the black astral or universes within it. Have you had experiences suggesting that there is stuff beyond the black astral and the "oil bubbles' of universes within it?

If you are asking, are there areas that are technically part of the physical universe we are in, that are only accessible via the black astral, I would say technically no, but practically yes. Meaning, if you stayed within the physical universe, it might take far more time and effort to get somewhere than if you simply got out of the universe completely and came back in at a different location.

Should I take that to implicitly mean "until rifting (in the physical, as opposed to on the astral, though I am unsure if you call the astral equivalent "rifting") is perfected to a practical level", at which point it would be an effective means of travel?

Speaking of which, are there limits to the distances one can rift (in the physical or astral), in your experiences, whether in terms of power consumption (seems unlikely since it seems it really comes down to technique for a lot of things) or in terms of increased concentration load proportionately to, or even exponentially increasing in relationship with, distance between the rift 'entry/exit points'? Perhaps due to difficulty in maintaining a stable rift? Or perhaps a limit caused by a lack of accuracy in targeting the 'exit' rift's location beyond a certain distance? Which brings up another question - is there a limit to how far the astral/spiritual body can stretch out it's tendrils? I would like to think that there is no such limit, but alas, we live on a world so infinitesimally small that there's no real reason to believe that we can reach across the entire universe, or even the gaps between galaxies.

Also, should I take it to mean that one cannot move 'instantaneously' through the astral? I've seen it mentioned plenty of times that when astral projecting, you are essentially able to instantaneously move from one location to another. Are the people who do instantly travel in the astral actually subconsciously popping out into the black astral momentarily to get to where they wish to go? (Can you put a portion of your astral self out into the black astral, while remaining in the normal astral? Is that how you would go about bypassing more conventional 'shields', by merely going through the black astral? Or is just 'rifting' in the astral spacial fabric, and/or using other spacial dimensions beyond the three we consciously feel here to send stuff through them?)

That actually makes me curious if 'rifting' is possible within the black astral? Does the black astral have a spacial fabric in the sense that we experience it here? Or is it something more 'dimensionless' in so far as we have spacial dimensions here?

Not in the way you are trying to seem to mean it, no. Ambient energy means something rather different there than in earth astral for example.

In what ways would you say it is different? My intuitive guess would be that ambient energy there is far more homogeneous and sparse, due to a lack of concentrated areas of 'life' forms inhabiting specific 'spots' in correlation to where physical bodies exist, and, for that matter, a lack of any astronomical bodies in general which probably contribute to high energy output here - like stars, and presumably other bodies of similar magnitude and greater, like black holes (speaking of which, you've mentioned on this forum that stars are often used for energy sources, but what of physically bigger things, black holes or perhaps objects like neutron stars?).

That in turn brings up: In your experiences, can physical matter exist in the Black Astral? Naturally, or does it need to be maintained? Perhaps requiring a concentration tether for every sub-atomic particle? Actually,I would think that if the base energy from which all is technically made is able to maintain its patterns in the black astral, then particles at a sub-atomic level wouldn't be effected. The strings that are electrons would still oscillate the same way there as here, for instance, but the same vibration might not naturally result in a -1 electromagnetic charge, etc, or, indeed, anything at all. Similarly, particles like Up and Down Quarks might still exist but might not naturally combine into Neutrons and Protons... But, alas, on my end for now it is all speculation, and will probably continue to be such for a while.

I suspect that whereas in our little 'oil bubble' use of surrounding ambient energy will eventually drain an area and leave it 'emptier', the black astral might either naturally completely even out the unused/ungathered energy across its presumably near-infinite expanse, or might actually re-fill the area drained in a less word-able way... Perhaps from some multiversal hypothetical reserve of energy. Or is it more like the black astral 'is' the ambient energy around those in it, where-as in the "oil bubbles" the astral is merely a location/surface/bowl/whatever upon/inside which ambient energy collects?

That being said, anything before g7a tech is possible without amps with varying difficulty (little to a lot depending).

I actually thought you'd say the cap was lower. I suppose that works out nicely since even if I am ever accepted into Omnimancy, it would be as an OmniCyber student - ergo, G7a is my power cap unless I do something amazing and get rewarded, which I won't say is impossible but isn't something I'd count on either. Though I just realized 'power cap' might be just an amp cap rather than a technique cap. Though it sounds like if anything, it's the technical know-how that the most experienced Omnimancers keep tighter wraps on than amps, at least for the higher level stuff.

G7a tech and higher becomes impossible, which I don't like, but it's the way it goes.

I suspect we are rather like minded in that sense - meaning the general dislike for needing an external aid.

Can a human spiritual body evolve naturally to be able to do the higher level tech on it's own? Yes, but it would take many lifetimes (read 100s to 1000s).

Do you know if this evolution occurs during both the act of being incarnated and during the in-between processes, and whether it occurs at the same rate? Would it be hypothetically equal for an entity incarnated as a physical life-form to die and be reborn all those times, or to find a way to sustain it's body, ideally in a way that keeps its brain in a state that retains the plasticity it has in youth, and live the equivalent time duration? Any research or observations to indicate which - living, evaluation and conciliation of one's life after death, or some other state/process that happens in 'undeath' - causes the spiritual body to evolve in the manner relevant to this?

Even the gods aren't that patient.

Is this something said for emphasis, or something you have either had conveyed to you by any deity, or have gleaned from what they do? If the latter, what exactly indicates such impatience? Do they themselves use amps, or in some way seem to use either amps or things that would actually be 'above' amps in terms of their capabilities-improving-capacity?

Using artificial means like Amps to either externally empower, or internally evolve are a mean to get around the issue. There are other things that I wouldn't call amps that can help too, but one is still using non-natural means to enhance one's abilities.

Perhaps I need to rethink my conceptualization of an amp. Up until now, I conceived every amp as being a sort of passively waiting spell or system of spells that, on an astral level, functioned much like an 'exo-suit' or 'power-armor' for the spiritual body. They would perhaps wait until a caster began to perform any sort of action with a tendril of their astral self, and then jump in in a way that augmented the natural action one performed. In the case of increasing resolution, I suppose they would perhaps interpose themselves between the spiritual body and the subject, take in the data, and then relay, say, a magnified version of the stimulus, for the astral body's own hard-ware to sense normally. A crude analogy, but one which conveys the general idea of what I thought of them as quite well. But your comment suggests some of them contribute to internally modify or propagate development/'growth' of the spiritual body. Does that mean that some of them actually interpose themselves into or somehow alter the spiritual hardware of the astral body? Or does it forcefully stimulate growth and development of the entity's astral body? Do some amps function like the former while some like the latter? Also, going with the first mentioned conception of amps, the above amp would consist of (a) tech spell(s) that would require a concentration tether and/or a source of power to continue existing. I will suppose that given what you're mentioned on here about "hard magic", in particular in regard to materials, there are probably amps you can make that require no concentration tethers, and possibly highly condensed things you can make that ultimately allow the amp to run for so long that by the time it runs out, the user will quite possibly be long dead due to natural causes. But either way, that conception of an amp assumes that the amp is a constantly existing thing, something a caster puts on, either themselves or someone else, and which remains on/in/around/otherwise-linked-to them. But is that how all amps work? Because if there are amps that "internally evolve" then there's good reason to think that some, or maybe even all (though I doubt that), amps, are more like a one-time upgrade, which performs its effect and has no other task to finish at that point.

Becomes a pain in the ass doesn't it? Have we discovered a limit? No. But we certainly have felt the strain and limitations.

Oh yes, a pain in the ass it indeed becomes. I think in part it may have been because as I found out the evening afterwords, I was sick. Usually it doesn't take as much concentration. Though the fact that some of the stuff I was doing was something I had never personally done before was probably a contributing factor. I suspect in your experience feeling strain doesn't come with merely ten or so spells running? I'm assuming with amps certainly not, but even naturally and without them would it be safe to assume that only with the inclusion of particularly complex tasks you would feel strain from only 10 different things running? Or do some spells by their very nature require multiple concentration tethers? I suspect that since you have spells that can off-load said concentration load, you have the ability to make spells that incorporate that mechanic to, perhaps, maintain the remaining concentration tethers that would normally be something you would have to maintain yourself. On that note, can you apply the spell that off-loads concentration tethers to the concentration tether that is required by that very spell to maintain itself, or take two of them, and after loading them up with other spells' concentration tethers, off-load those two 'off-loading' spells onto each other? Basic understanding of physics and how life tends to be imperfect like that would suggest that while maybe possible in theory the end result in practice would end up degrading if left without concentration tethers for the caster at all, but perhaps you've tried? Or does the spell work in such a way that downright precludes the possibility of it having its concentration off-loaded onto something else?

And that is fine, because the other systems have different goals, so what works for them works for them. They may not be as interested in why something works on a low level, they just care it works. Or their low level explanations are too simplistic (again, this is generalization).

This makes me wonder how many other people out in the psionics community care about the how and the why behind these things. I certainly did, which was one of the reasons I went for psionics head first and ignored almost all other 'psychic' stuff while not even giving 'magic' a passing glance for a while specifically because the terminology and online culture of psionics as I knew of it, through PsiPog to start with, seemed to me the most scientific and most capable of showing us how to actually understand these things.

It's kinda sad, too, how many individuals do want to understand how and why the magic/psionics/whatever they do works, but can't because their sources of information lack the experience and organized pursuit of understanding like this group has. Come to think of it, it's probably sadder that there's probably more people content with not knowing the hows or whys, or who don't even think about it enough to realize that there are underlying hows or whys....

Taking over a tech spell can be simular to taking over any other spell. It can be more difficult, but it can be done. To actually change a running spell by simply replacing parts wouldn't work too well. It would be like replacing an engine piece while the engine is running. It would just end up destroying the spell. Taking over "command" of the spell is different, and that is what I'm referring to above, and then one can modify the spell "in step" as not to disrupt the timings, but honestly, one would normally simply take the spell "offline"/put on stand-by and do the changes in it's dormant state.

Well, I was actually referring to specifically destroying/breaking the spell rather than actually taking it over, because that's often the practical approach to taking out a psion's spells as a psion yourself - you feel the programing itself and you remove it or whatever, merely imposing your will on top of the energy after another psion has left the construct to do it's own thing. I wonder if psions actually naturally make a concentration tether when they think about making programming resistant to corruption/tampering, or if making programming resistant is more or less just adding more programming to the already programmed energy...

But at any rate, you addressed that within your answer anyway, and then some. I'm curious now, how would you describe 'taking over' a spell? Is it a severing of the concentration tether leading to the caster and replacing it with your own, or is it more subtle than that? Because while I might be the type of person not to notice for a while, I doubt more experienced mages would have their spell taken from them like that and not notice.

Speaking of which, that bring up another inquiry that just popped into my mind: Would you be, or do you know of many magi that, are energetically sensitive enough to, say, be able to feel a concentration tether sending back unexpected feedback or being un-carefully broken in your sleep? Would that be something that could wake a particularly experienced / energetically sensitive mage?

I myself sometimes think I lose concentration tethers in my sleep on a regular basis, or maybe even during waking moments, quite easily. I don't know if it's that I grow used to them, which results in me not feeling them as well (at which point if I look for them I don't trust myself because I suspect I am experiencing AOL - this happens less nowadays though), or if it's not being used to using them, which causes me to 'drop' them like a young child might drop a toy or something because they get distracted and their minds don't have that wired-by-experience-into-the-brain ability to relegate perpetual grasping/holding to their subconscious thought processes.

Speaking of which, do you have any experiences with souls being fundamentally different? Some places (PsionGuild being one of them, but I'm sure there's others) tend to have large lists of various 'types' or people that are somehow abnormal in the magical, like "phoenixes" that put out shitloads of psionic/magic/whatever energy automatically, or people who seem less effected or entirely not effected by magical effects/psionics. (There's a list, but I don't want to bore you, though if you're interested I'll gladly find it again.) The point of the question is if you've ever seen souls/astral bodies in humans that are somehow ridiculously out of the norm for humans? Like having ridiculously greater soul-reactor output, or perhaps having less innate ability to manipulate magical energy, and/or a greater natural predilection towards somehow staying 'immune' to certain types of energy or spells that should normally effect people? Any detailed research in this field?

As far as picking apart an active tech spell, most people don't encrypt their tech, so that is easier than it might seem to copy someone else's spell. Omnis DO encrypt our stuff, as do a lot of the bigger things for obvious reasons. But it again depends on whose stuff you are looking at.

Well, I personally consider Omnis as some of "the bigger things" relative to myself and the average energy worker, but whatever. I've been curious, I know you interact with what's seen as deities here, but how big as the current deities in the grand scheme of things? Are they really that big, or are we looking at more of medium sized things? Or is it perhaps like that fish in Star Wars Phantom Menace that tries to eat their submarine only to be swallowed whole by the giant dragon-/Godzilla-like thing? Or are we talking even smaller relatively? Like they are just the biggest fish in the local area, or just the largest thing that gives a damn about what happens here? Or perhaps they are even smaller, relatively to things that do things here on earth, and conventional people only notice them because the bigger things that do stuff here do things so well that we don't notice them unless we really look?

As a follow up, what're some of the 'biggest' things you've observed, interacted with, or know of?

Yes, it is needed to have amps to progress beyond a certain point, but it takes a while to reach that point.

How close would you say you were to that point before you invented amps? Before you used them as standard tools? (Or, if you didn't invent them, before you were taught, or observed, how to make them.) Did you have lower level ones, or things that functioned like incomplete or temporary or less efficient versions of modern low-level amps that you give out? I presume after getting the basics down, your knowledge would cause a rather exponential increase in skill with amps, much like technology propagates greater and greater strides in advancement. At any rate, were the early steps, if taken on your own or with a group, slow and incremental, or was it a sort of leap into a well-developed first attempt at applying knowledge and understanding that you had accumulated by then?

G7a+ and higher it is simply not possible. We've done lots of experiments to show that. G7a materials/spells/tech requires what G7a gives you resolution and power wise. UG4s can do the lessor G7a stuff in group. When you get to G7b or higher, then that isn't even in the same ball-park. Even G7a can't do G7b things, which is true of G7c, and so on. Much of the high level stuff is specifically geared around the power level that one is at at the time and how to push one's limits.

I've also been meaning to ask: 1 - what's the meaning of the G in the amp designations? I know U is for Uber, but I don't remember reading a definition of the G anywhere; 2 - Are amps cumulative, or do they supercede one another? If a person does not use any amp until G7a, are they still going to get the same result from the G7a as someone with G1 through UG4/G6? (I assume the students are taught how to make each amp, so it's not a problem if amps have to be stacked and someone doesn't use them until that point?)

No and there won't be. At least until someone royally screws up and lets us(or me) have access to such an individual to observe.

I have to ask, how would giving you (either in the plural sense of Omnis or singular sense of you) access to such things be a royal screw up? What exactly do you do to your test subjects? Have you been known to break your magic guinea pigs before? How bad are we talking about here?

A lot of research has been put in for how the astral interacts with the physical and vice versa. There is a lot of it, including the thermometer experiments you've probably seen mentioned before.

Yep. I've seen it mentioned. There was something some people in the psion communities, I think from PsiPog, did involving PK and a geiger counter... IDK if you've heard of it or not, but I'm assuming someone's run it by your attention before? I don't think they did anything too detailed. Just did PK on an object with the geiger counter right next to it and the readings jumped up, but that's about it.

We've seen how spells interact with the physical environment. We've even caused several reliable results based on this. Not in the PK field however. One conclusion we have come to, is power is NOT a factor beyond a certain point (like G3 level). Materials per se have nothing to do with it, it's technique. I'm not saying one can't develop materials to help to do it, once one understood what was needed, but materials is a means of perfecting, not accomplishing in this case.

So is the actual "how" Omni-only information? Any aspects of it that aren't?

I'm curious, could you give an example of what constitutes G3 level power? Because that feels rather reassuring off the top of my head, but when dealing with Omnis I have to remind myself that even though G3 is below the half-way mark to the point on your ranking system where power requirements are beyond those feasible for people naturally, that still doesn't necessarily mean that G3 power output is particularly accessible or even likely to be within my ability to reach any time soon.

Keep in mind, it is something we want, so have dedicated quite a bit of resources to it over the years.

I can imagine. For one, it's part of your prerequisites for going public it seems, based on what's written around here somewhere - being able to stop the zealous fanatics of the world from gunning you down. And, of course, I sure as hell have for years, still do, and will continue to, probably indefinitely, maybe even more so after I actually start to move stuff. I actually think my hopes for eventual psychokinetic achievements are loftier than most people dare to think of as feasible. And, well, I don't know personal motivations of any in the Omni groups, but it's the sort of empowerment that magic in it's more astral-confined form can't give, and there are many hypothetical things people may wish to achieve, but be unable to do so without practically reliable ways to get concrete stuff happen in the physical. Whether all of those hypothetical things are morally/ethically good or even morally/ethically permissible...

One can always hope though. And you sure as hell seem like the person who understands the significance of having so much power, and the need to limit its use to those responsible with it. That is, after all, one of the main reasons for keeping most of your knowledge limited to accepted Omnis.

[Oyama]

Well I can answer at least a few of these long queries and lessen the load a bit on Art.

Are the people who do instantly travel in the astral actually subconsciously popping out into the black astral momentarily to get to where they wish to go? (Can you put a portion of your astral self out into the black astral, while remaining in the normal astral? Is that how you would go about bypassing more conventional 'shields', by merely going through the black astral?

In general you can get to a place in the astral by just willing yourself there, and this is done by rifting, but it's not necessarily via the black astral (and in fact, in my experience, it almost never is).

Yes, you can put a portion of your astral body into the black astral while remaining in other astral areas, such as the Earth astral ("normal" astral). You can bypass defenses by exiting and re-entering via the black astral, but if the target is aware of the black astral, they will probably have their defenses covering that route, and so it wouldn't really make any difference.

That actually makes me curious if 'rifting' is possible within the black astral? Does the black astral have a spacial fabric in the sense that we experience it here? Or is it something more 'dimensionless' in so far as we have spacial dimensions here?

Yes, rifting is possible within the black astral. The black astral has similar fabric as other astral areas, but specific differences are hard to put into words, at least for me. You'd have to study it yourself to get it.

I actually thought you'd say the cap was lower. I suppose that works out nicely since even if I am ever accepted into Omnimancy, it would be as an OmniCyber student - ergo, G7a is my power cap unless I do something amazing and get rewarded, which I won't say is impossible but isn't something I'd count on either. Though I just realized 'power cap' might be just an amp cap rather than a technique cap. Though it sounds like if anything, it's the technical know-how that the most experienced Omnimancers keep tighter wraps on than amps, at least for the higher level stuff.

The "Power Cap" is the point at which you stop learning things simply because you showed up to class. Up until your power cap, you go through a graduated training course where you learn the things in the Omni curriculum. As long as you put in the effort and pass your tests, you will continue to progress as long as you show up. Once you hit the power cap, you no longer get free hand outs. You have to earn advancement by doing your own research. If you take the initiative and actually make your own progress, and show it to your teachers, they will help you and your progress will be accelerated. If you get to a point where further amps will actually benefit you significantly in your research, and the teachers trust you, they may teach you the next amp. If you just show up and say "I got G7a and mastered all the topics within G7a, now give me G7b please," no dice. By G7a (and well before that, really), you have the tools to do your own research and come up with some really cool stuff. You have to show that you deserve further amps by actually doing this. Many people reach a point where they no longer wish to receive further amps or tech, and this can easily happen even before 7a.

I've also been meaning to ask: 1 - what's the meaning of the G in the amp designations? I know U is for Uber, but I don't remember reading a definition of the G anywhere; 2 - Are amps cumulative, or do they supercede one another? If a person does not use any amp until G7a, are they still going to get the same result from the G7a as someone with G1 through UG4/G6? (I assume the students are taught how to make each amp, so it's not a problem if amps have to be stacked and someone doesn't use them until that point?)

1. G means Generation. It reflects the order in which the amps were developed in Omni history.
2. The tech concepts can be cumulative, but the amps themselves supersede each other. Technically, once G7a is fully applied, there would be no difference. But if you never spent any time doing magic with the previous amps, you probably would have a hard time building the thing, because you wouldn't know how to use your amps effectively. You don't just learn amps, you learn concepts, spells, techniques, and technology with every amp level, and these help you learn what each amp allows you to do, aside from being useful in and of themselves. G7a is fairly difficult to build, so in practice, someone who never wore the previous amps, then just stuck a UG4 on themselves probably wouldn't be able to build it, even if they technically had the magical capacity to do so. They just wouldn't be a good enough mage, or at least not good enough at Omni-style magic.

So in practice, it is a problem if someone doesn't use them until that point, for the aforementioned reason plus the fact that they'd never pass the tests to get up to that point.

I'm curious, could you give an example of what constitutes G3 level power?

In terms of raw astral energy movement capacity over time (power-per-second), the best approximation I can think of is that if a lay person (Joe Blow down the block) is a match flame, G3 would be a large bonfire at a Halloween beach party, or something like that. Keep in mind that I'm comparing it to a lay person, meaning someone who does not actively and consistently practice any sort of metaphysics. Magicians from more traditional systems who practice diligently can and do reach and exceed G3 levels, given some time, in my experience.

Not that they all do, in fact most don't, after all many magic practitioners in modern times are not really concerned with gaining personal energetic power, or practice systems that don't provide ways to do it. Many systems use external spirits to accomplish their goals, so personal energy capacities become somewhat irrelevant, but G3 levels of energy control are very feasible for non-Omnis. It just takes them longer, and requires serious dedication. I've never seen anyone reach G4 levels, but then I've never seen them need to either. Practical magicians move away from exponentially increasing raw energy levels because it isn't necessary to accomplish physical results, and religiously oriented practitioners have no need for it to begin with.

[LordArt]

@Psychokinetic Wannabe

I'm not ignoring your post, I've just been busy, and I know it will require a lot of time to answer your post. I WILL get to it!

[Psychokinetic Wannabe]

Well I can answer at least a few of these long queries and lessen the load a bit on Art.

I assume LordArt appreciates the fact. As for myself, I certainly respect it from an ethics standpoint. ...now that I think about it, I just appreciate you answering my questions in general, so thanks for that too.

In general you can get to a place in the astral by just willing yourself there, and this is done by rifting, but it's not necessarily via the black astral (and in fact, in my experience, it almost never is).

My main reason for asking the above was wondering whether or not there was any point to jumping into the black astral and back in so far as traveling in the 'astral' was concerned. It seems that if you can get from one point to another by normal rifting, that this would seem to eliminate the practical aspect of getting from one point of the universe to another by hopping to the black astral. Unless, of course, there are exceptions - or if rifting in the physical seems to be currently a more 'difficult' task than transferring physical stuff into the black astral and back again.

You can bypass defenses by exiting and re-entering via the black astral, but if the target is aware of the black astral, they will probably have their defenses covering that route, and so it wouldn't really make any difference.

I suspected as much. But when I said "conventional shields", I was specifically referring to shields that lack such defenses. I guess I assumed knowledge of the black astral was limited, but I guess when you think about ALL entities out there, rather than just us humans, it becomes more reasonable to think that knowledge of the black astral is not only common but intuitive and self-apparent. Presumably it would feel about as reasonable to an astral-bound entity, as well as our 'inners', to make a shield that doesn't cover black-astral entry, as it does for a person to build a house with no roof for protection against the elements.

Fortunately for me, nothing that I've ever had to deal with confrontationally on a magical level ever used shielding, let alone stuff complex enough to make me have to look for ways to by-pass it. Life seems to insist on throwing another entity or two my way when I start getting complacent about having successfully dealt with one, and I may indeed be pissing off things higher up the latter, in a slow chain of succession, by how I deal with the things I deal with, but fortunately, nothing out of my league yet that I've noticed. Of course, I'd prefer to be better, or at least more sensitive, because then I could afford to be more forgiving and less destructive in my dealings with problematic entities....

Once you hit the power cap, you no longer get free hand outs. You have to earn advancement by doing your own research. If you take the initiative and actually make your own progress, and show it to your teachers, they will help you and your progress will be accelerated. If you get to a point where further amps will actually benefit you significantly in your research, and the teachers trust you, they may teach you the next amp. If you just show up and say "I got G7a and mastered all the topics within G7a, now give me G7b please," no dice. By G7a (and well before that, really), you have the tools to do your own research and come up with some really cool stuff. You have to show that you deserve further amps by actually doing this. Many people reach a point where they no longer wish to receive further amps or tech, and this can easily happen even before 7a.

So it's less an internal Omni taboo against giving people higher amps barring extreme exceptions, and more a point at which you just have to earn your amps in a more general way? Ergo, more like a grad student having to do self-directed research work to get the degree, rather than a military "classified" designation to which only select few are given clearance?

2. The tech concepts can be cumulative, but the amps themselves supersede each other. Technically, once G7a is fully applied, there would be no difference. But if you never spent any time doing magic with the previous amps, you probably would have a hard time building the thing, because you wouldn't know how to use your amps effectively. You don't just learn amps, you learn concepts, spells, techniques, and technology with every amp level, and these help you learn what each amp allows you to do, aside from being useful in and of themselves. G7a is fairly difficult to build, so in practice, someone who never wore the previous amps, then just stuck a UG4 on themselves probably wouldn't be able to build it, even if they technically had the magical capacity to do so. They just wouldn't be a good enough mage, or at least not good enough at Omni-style magic.

So in practice, it is a problem if someone doesn't use them until that point, for the aforementioned reason plus the fact that they'd never pass the tests to get up to that point.

I'm curious what both you and LordArt would say about this in relation to LordArt's previous answer that he thinks everything up to 7Ga is doable without amps (with greater constraints and limitations on scope and power, presumably)? Does that apply to all the other Omni tech, but not to Amps specifically? If it is a matter of technique only, couldn't that be something that can be learned without amps just like the rest of Omni material until then, or is there something specific to casting with(/'through?') an amp that makes it different/more complex, necessitating experience in using amps specifically (Or amp-exclusive tech)?

In terms of raw astral energy movement capacity over time (power-per-second), the best approximation I can think of is that if a lay person (Joe Blow down the block) is a match flame, G3 would be a large bonfire at a Halloween beach party, or something like that. Keep in mind that I'm comparing it to a lay person, meaning someone who does not actively and consistently practice any sort of metaphysics. Magicians from more traditional systems who practice diligently can and do reach and exceed G3 levels, given some time, in my experience.

Not that they all do, in fact most don't, after all many magic practitioners in modern times are not really concerned with gaining personal energetic power, or practice systems that don't provide ways to do it. Many systems use external spirits to accomplish their goals, so personal energy capacities become somewhat irrelevant, but G3 levels of energy control are very feasible for non-Omnis. It just takes them longer, and requires serious dedication. I've never seen anyone reach G4 levels, but then I've never seen them need to either. Practical magicians move away from exponentially increasing raw energy levels because it isn't necessary to accomplish physical results, and religiously oriented practitioners have no need for it to begin with.

I am tempted to ask for someone to take a look at me and see where I happen to be on that scale between match-flame and bonfire, but, frankly, I realize that it is very out-of-the-way for someone to do so. Of course, if it actually gives you no trouble what-so-ever and takes mere seconds, great, but I won't assume that it does, or ask you to go out of your way even if it does. I guess I am curious because having hit a wall at all things psychokinetic a while ago I wanted to learn more about how it works and why it doesn't for me, as well as what I happen to be missing/doing wrong. And in general because it would give me a more precise ability to gauge the "raw-astral-energy-movement-capacity-over-time", since I'd be able to compare it to something directly relevant to my life.

However, I do realize that you are all busy with more important things than checking for me that which, honestly, I could very well have learned to check myself, so unless somebody personally wants to, I'm going to refrain from actually requesting or otherwise pushing for it.

I am also curious: Does psychokinesis, of the moving books/chairs/cups kind, not that wimpy psi-wheel stuff people like me do (unless they are nearly one and the same in terms of power-use/technique-difficulty), happen to require G3 power, or less? Is it after or before the point at which power output no longer matters and technique takes the foreground as the main requirement? Or is this something not yet accurately discovered? If it is discovered, any chance of it being placed on the match-light/bonfire scale?

Also, is the power scale linear, geometric, exponential, or logarithmic? My guess would be the second or third? So while G3 might be a bonfire those up in the G7 or G8 are more like small stars?

LordArt:

I figured that was the case. You definitely don't seem the type, from what little I can deduce about you based on posts here, that would leave posts un-answered, at least not when they contain valid intelligent inquiries.

I've heard you mention here that all your time online is usually used up with the OmniCyber group, so if there are waits between questions and answers, that's understandable, and the mere fact that you find time to answer things in general is something commendable.

- EDIT -

The sad part? This was my attempt at making a short post.

[LordArt]

I realize this is a month late, but my free time has been killed between work REALLY ramping it up for end of year deadlines and my personal life. I had a free-ish few days to write this…

Actually, it's the reverse. The oil droplets being the normal universes/realms. The water between all the droplets being the black astral. Not to be confused with the "astral" of any realms that are physical (including the one we are in).

Makes sense. On that note, should I extend that analogy to certain properties of the universes vs. the black astral, such as that the black astral has less dense or less viscous energy? Or is the analogy confined to merely the natural resistance to mixing those two liquids have?

Astral realms (including the black astral) would be best considered realms where the magical energy can be controlled by thought (via your typical spiritual hardware). Physical realms would be those that cannot be. It’s a quick and dirty definition. The physics of each realm and layer(s) within those realms can also have tweaks to their physics. Some physics are more “universal” (pardon the pun), others are more localized. So to answer your question, the analogy is confined to merely the natural resistance to mixing the two liquids have. I would also say, the term “astral” is normally used to describe any realm that isn’t earth physical realm (which is why sometimes I say there are physical astral realms).

I think a good analogy as to why things form that way is to consider the planet earth versus outer space. Earth has a gravity field because of the mass. It pulls us down to it. Outer space does not, and generally isn’t pulling you anywhere (other than the microgravity one could detect with instruments depending on which point in outer space you were). Earth has an atmosphere we find breathable. While the reason why that atmosphere stays is because of gravity, there are a lot of other planets (or other masses) that have a significant amount of gravity, but that doesn’t give them an atmosphere necessarily, let alone one we find breathable. My point is, each realm has it’s own properties because of how it’s put together/what it’s made up of. My current running theory is different realms have the effect of having different dimensional elements (which really should be called realm elements) that determine it’s physics. While I’ve observed these elements, I couldn’t classify them since I haven’t spent that kind of time to really map them out nor name them. But it becomes rather obvious once you’ve looked at such things and then why to bother in the first place.

When you say "this universe", are you referring to the black astral or the physical universe we are typing to each other in?

Well, you already answered what I was asking, but for future reference, I was referring to this physical universe in which we are typing AND it's astral counterpart + any and all other realms/dimensions/whatever-you-wish-to-call-them that are part of this "oil-bubble". If referring to subsets of the universe, I would probably preface it with "physical" or some other adjective, or use the term I notice it typically being referred to by - with more or less elaboration/clarification on what I am referring to depending on context, naturally.

Sounds like you are talking about realm layers then.

I would also refer to the black astral AND the universes within in as "multiverse", unless you inform me or I personally learn through other means that there are other things that constitute the multiverse, such as universes or other 'stuff' outside the black astral, or otherwise not part of the black astral or universes within it. Have you had experiences suggesting that there is stuff beyond the black astral and the "oil bubbles' of universes within it?

Yes, there is something(a lot) outside the black astral. But it requires going in a different dimensional direction(s). Yes, evil astral math again. But honestly, this is WELL beyond scope of simply pushing energy balls. This kind of thing DOES come into play with making high-end tech, but for now it’s just informational.

If you are asking, are there areas that are technically part of the physical universe we are in, that are only accessible via the black astral, I would say technically no, but practically yes. Meaning, if you stayed within the physical universe, it might take far more time and effort to get somewhere than if you simply got out of the universe completely and came back in at a different location.

Should I take that to implicitly mean "until rifting (in the physical, as opposed to on the astral, though I am unsure if you call the astral equivalent "rifting") is perfected to a practical level", at which point it would be an effective means of travel?

It most certainly would be. At least long distances. Think of the movie “jumpers”. They opened mini-wormholes. That’s rifting. The astral equivalent is teleportation, which depending on how it’s implemented might be considered dimensional tunneling. This works because it’s surprisingly easy to connect up a point with any other point of a realm from the outside. (I should put that into context, easy-ish at g7a level, but possible below that with enough skill/understanding/power. But think about what you are actually doing).

Most people think of a realm’s fabric as being laid out flat, or perhaps even in some sort of sin wave. The reality is take a piece of paper and crumple it up into a ball. That is how the fabric is laid out. But unlike paper that isn’t stretchable, realm fabric is, so it’s more like a rubber sheet in that respect. (To be completely honest, it’s more like goo (realm fabric) and water in a floating ball, probably kept together by it’s own gravity. While the goo keeps itself touching what it wants to, it is technically floating in the water. The goo is flexible enough to stretch and bend and squash quite easily without actually disconnecting from the other parts of the goo it was originally connected to). If you take a point of the realm fabric and add energy, it increases the external distance from other points of the realm, and vice versa is true. Things within the realm don’t notice because everything scales with it. The extra distance spills over into other dimensional directions that it wouldn’t otherwise occupy. Now that you have these extrusions (think pseudo pods of point A and Point B) with nothing now blocking them from connecting, so any point can touch any other point you wish. Breaking through the barrier that keeps the realm fabric connected to itself is a whole different matter (ie. Actually creating a rift). Moving it is easy, punching a hole is hard. Doing this to astral realm fabric is far easier, obviously, hence instant travel there IF you know where you are going in the first place.

Speaking of which, are there limits to the distances one can rift (in the physical or astral), in your experiences, whether in terms of power consumption (seems unlikely since it seems it really comes down to technique for a lot of things) or in terms of increased concentration load proportionately to, or even exponentially increasing in relationship with, distance between the rift 'entry/exit points'? Perhaps due to difficulty in maintaining a stable rift? Or perhaps a limit caused by a lack of accuracy in targeting the 'exit' rift's location beyond a certain distance?

Theoretically, there is no limit. The practicality says there is a limit based on personal skill, power, understanding and technique. How quickly do you need to establish the link? How large of an opening are you going for? Distance is still distance, so do you really have the power to keep both ends extruded (if you are using that method)? The more powerful you are, the quicker and farther you can move, and therefore the further you can establish a rift or any other spell effect for that matter.

Which brings up another question - is there a limit to how far the astral/spiritual body can stretch out it's tendrils? I would like to think that there is no such limit, but alas, we live on a world so infinitesimally small that there's no real reason to believe that we can reach across the entire universe, or even the gaps between galaxies.

The limit is based on personal power and skill. The more powerful you get, the further out you can affect and the further out you can “see”/sense. You might be surprised at how far you can get, but equally surprised at how much further there is to go. I suppose I’m caught up in the same problems that I tell my students that one gets too use to what one can do, and therefore thinks it’s easy for everyone else to do the same thing. We all are like that and we only understand the world through our own eyes, and figure that everyone else does too in the same way. Of course they don’t, but we act like they do sometimes. You are asking good questions, so I’m giving honest answers, but by the same token, most of this information will do you little good until you have more power at your fingertips. Most beginner mages can barely get off planet, and I’m talking about manipulating realm fabric of different universes.

Also, should I take it to mean that one cannot move 'instantaneously' through the astral? I've seen it mentioned plenty of times that when astral projecting, you are essentially able to instantaneously move from one location to another. Are the people who do instantly travel in the astral actually subconsciously popping out into the black astral momentarily to get to where they wish to go?

You are still traversing distance, just most astral travel is using dimensional tunneling, but not necessarily going into the black astral to do it, just using a different dimensional direction. If you know where you are going, you can get there effectively instantly. You are simply taking a path (without even moving fabric) to skip the in-between distance. So instead of moving the fabric, a tunnel is formed with zero perceived distance is formed. If you look at it externally, you see the arc of the tunnel. If you are in the tunnel, you are in then immediately out to the point that you don’t notice the tunnel at all. When you get into astral fights where the other person is constantly “teleporting” and you have to track them, this kind of thing starts to make more sense. Meaning, one has to understand how it actually works to come up with a means of tracking such a thing. In really bad layman’s terms, it’s like creating a tunnel with no dimensional representation of time (which strictly isn’t true but I have no better point of reference to give you), so you traverse the distance instantly it seems. (The actuality is there IS a time component, but you’ll only likely see it at great distances or moving great mass while inside the tunnel. Sort of like talking about throwing a baseball and using the particle/wave equation to perceive the wave aspect of the baseball’s motion as it’s going through the air.).

(Can you put a portion of your astral self out into the black astral, while remaining in the normal astral? Is that how you would go about bypassing more conventional 'shields', by merely going through the black astral? Or is just 'rifting' in the astral spacial fabric, and/or using other spacial dimensions beyond the three we consciously feel here to send stuff through them?)

You are multi-dimensional by nature. Even when you travel to the black astral, part of you remains anchored to the earth astral because you are incarnate here. You simply extend yourself. As far as bypassing conventional shields, you don’t need to go into the black astral to do that, you just use a dimensional direction that the opponent isn’t covering. Rifting is always about moving through spacial dimensional directions that aren’t the norm, but that doesn’t mean you enter another realm to do it.

That actually makes me curious if 'rifting' is possible within the black astral? Does the black astral have a spacial fabric in the sense that we experience it here? Or is it something more 'dimensionless' in so far as we have spacial dimensions here?

You can rift in the black astral. See above for why. Since there is stuff beyond the black astral, and the black astral itself has a fabric to it.

Not in the way you are trying to seem to mean it, no. Ambient energy means something rather different there than in earth astral for example.

In what ways would you say it is different? My intuitive guess would be that ambient energy there is far more homogeneous and sparse, due to a lack of concentrated areas of 'life' forms inhabiting specific 'spots' in correlation to where physical bodies exist, and, for that matter, a lack of any astronomical bodies in general which probably contribute to high energy output here - like stars, and presumably other bodies of similar magnitude and greater, like black holes.

I was mostly referring to the fact that ambient energy in earth astral (around our planet anyways) is mostly made up of auric run-off rather than something that is a process like a star or other naturally occurring power source. The black astral is so vast that the energy there is mostly from how the universes play off each other, rather than living energy. So it has a very different flavor.

(speaking of which, you've mentioned on this forum that stars are often used for energy sources, but what of physically bigger things, black holes or perhaps objects like neutron stars?).

Black holes and neutron stars aren’t physically bigger. They are MUCH smaller physically actually than a star volume wise. A black hole by definition is a point. We think of black holes as a sphere because the sphere is defined by it’s event horizon, but the black hole itself is REALLY tiny. Stars put out power as a side effect of their reactions. There are no more reactions in a neutron star (to speak of) or a black hole. We do eventually use stars as anchor points for a larger means of power generation, but that’s a different discussion.

That in turn brings up: In your experiences, can physical matter exist in the Black Astral? Naturally, or does it need to be maintained? Perhaps requiring a concentration tether for every sub-atomic particle?

Yes, physical matter can exist in the black astral. It doesn’t need to be maintained. You only need a concentration tether if the material is magically created and isn’t stable enough to stand on it’s own. Most people when they create an astral object aren’t trying to create physical matter, but a representation of physical matter. If I make a hologram, is that physical matter, or a representation of physical matter made of light? Most people are making representations of physical things from magic energy (if they even try to go that far). Very few have means to create physical matter there, or really care to. Close approximations still isn’t good enough and it will degrade (admittedly slower). And to cut off the next question, yes, that means you can have physical matter moved to the black astral and vice versa (as long as the matter is built with the physics of the realm it’s being moved to in mind it will be stable). I have seen matter from “elsewhere” come here. Not live unfortunately, and it is it’s own story from when I first got into magic, but was very important for my magical development.

I suspect that whereas in our little 'oil bubble' use of surrounding ambient energy will eventually drain an area and leave it 'emptier', the black astral might either naturally completely even out the unused/ungathered energy across its presumably near-infinite expanse, or might actually re-fill the area drained in a less word-able way... Perhaps from some multiversal hypothetical reserve of energy. Or is it more like the black astral 'is' the ambient energy around those in it, where-as in the "oil bubbles" the astral is merely a location/surface/bowl/whatever upon/inside which ambient energy collects?

Our “oil bubble” actually has far MORE energy than the black astral does (per capita). Or at least unclaimed sources (ie. Stars and the like). Because we are incarnate, we have good access to it, which is a GOOD thing. Black astral gets stuff from run-off of spells and living things, but it is dispersed. You also can get energy wells from how the universes play off each other, but most of the time those wells form within the universes, not in the black astral. But energy leaks in from many sources, so it isn’t like it’s empty.

That being said, anything before g7a tech is possible without amps with varying difficulty (little to a lot depending).

I actually thought you'd say the cap was lower. I suppose that works out nicely since even if I am ever accepted into Omnimancy, it would be as an OmniCyber student - ergo, G7a is my power cap unless I do something amazing and get rewarded, which I won't say is impossible but isn't something I'd count on either. Though I just realized 'power cap' might be just an amp cap rather than a technique cap. Though it sounds like if anything, it's the technical know-how that the most experienced Omnimancers keep tighter wraps on than amps, at least for the higher level stuff.

Not everyone gets g7a. If you put the effort in, UG4 will be achieved, but g7a is only given out to ones that we feel are ready for that kind of power. There are some that refuse g7a because they have enough power. Ug4 to G7a is the “long walk” for 6 months to see what kind of mage you’ve become. People have gone higher, even in Cyber with the cap, but it is a matter of their own abilities and effort. Simply wanting it and showing up isn’t enough.

G7a tech and higher becomes impossible, which I don't like, but it's the way it goes.

I suspect we are rather like minded in that sense - meaning the general dislike for needing an external aid.

No, it’s not a dislike for an external aid at all. It’s a matter I like to show and teach everything I know if it’s appropriate, but post g7a stuff isn’t practical (or possible in most cases) before then, so even if I have a good solution to a problem higher up, I can’t give the solution out because it won’t work for them since they wouldn’t be able to cast it. Besides, g7a and higher really aren’t “external aids”.

Can a human spiritual body evolve naturally to be able to do the higher level tech on it's own? Yes, but it would take many lifetimes (read 100s to 1000s).

Do you know if this evolution occurs during both the act of being incarnated and during the in-between processes, and whether it occurs at the same rate? Would it be hypothetically equal for an entity incarnated as a physical life-form to die and be reborn all those times, or to find a way to sustain it's body, ideally in a way that keeps its brain in a state that retains the plasticity it has in youth, and live the equivalent time duration? Any research or observations to indicate which - living, evaluation and conciliation of one's life after death, or some other state/process that happens in 'undeath' - causes the spiritual body to evolve in the manner relevant to this?

Evolution occurs when it can. It’s not a static process nor steady one. Some get through it very quickly, others don’t. Evolution isn’t about time in or number of rebirths. It’s about evolution of understanding. And not in a fluffy bunny kind of way. You incarnate until you’ve learned all your lessons and actually get it. That takes however long that takes you to get it. Repeats will be done until you get it. Your evolution has nothing to do with your magical power. Magical power is a pursuit, like anything else. To become good at it/powerful, that has to be what you strive for. As the process of the evolutionary stages happen, you can become more powerful magically, but it is very slow. Sort of like a child trying to lift something versus an athlete. A child simply by growing will eventually gain a certain level of strength while an athlete child will get there much sooner for THAT specific purpose. But they both still grow regardless of how much either can benchpress.

Even the gods aren't that patient.

Is this something said for emphasis, or something you have either had conveyed to you by any deity, or have gleaned from what they do? If the latter, what exactly indicates such impatience? Do they themselves use amps, or in some way seem to use either amps or things that would actually be 'above' amps in terms of their capabilities-improving-capacity?

I know damn well they use amps. They can’t afford not to. You think if they didn’t, and one all of a sudden did, that the latter deity wouldn’t trash the rest? It’s military escalation, like anything else. They have to keep up, or get shut out, and they didn’t get to where they are by being stupid. They hand out lesser amps to those that do their bidding as boons or as means to accomplish their own goals via someone else. Even as high as g7a or higher. I’ve seen a LOT of g7a designs in my time, but we only teach one type in Omni. It scales well long term.

Using artificial means like Amps to either externally empower, or internally evolve are a mean to get around the issue. There are other things that I wouldn't call amps that can help too, but one is still using non-natural means to enhance one's abilities.

Perhaps I need to rethink my conceptualization of an amp. Up until now, I conceived every amp as being a sort of passively waiting spell or system of spells that, on an astral level, functioned much like an 'exo-suit' or 'power-armor' for the spiritual body.

No comment.

They would perhaps wait until a caster began to perform any sort of action with a tendril of their astral self, and then jump in in a way that augmented the natural action one performed. In the case of increasing resolution, I suppose they would perhaps interpose themselves between the spiritual body and the subject, take in the data, and then relay, say, a magnified version of the stimulus, for the astral body's own hard-ware to sense normally. A crude analogy, but one which conveys the general idea of what I thought of them as quite well. But your comment suggests some of them contribute to internally modify or propagate development/'growth' of the spiritual body. Does that mean that some of them actually interpose themselves into or somehow alter the spiritual hardware of the astral body? Or does it forcefully stimulate growth and development of the entity's astral body? Do some amps function like the former while some like the latter? Also, going with the first mentioned conception of amps, the above amp would consist of (a) tech spell(s) that would require a concentration tether and/or a source of power to continue existing. I will suppose that given what you're mentioned on here about "hard magic", in particular in regard to materials, there are probably amps you can make that require no concentration tethers, and possibly highly condensed things you can make that ultimately allow the amp to run for so long that by the time it runs out, the user will quite possibly be long dead due to natural causes. But either way, that conception of an amp assumes that the amp is a constantly existing thing, something a caster puts on, either themselves or someone else, and which remains on/in/around/otherwise-linked-to them. But is that how all amps work? Because if there are amps that "internally evolve" then there's good reason to think that some, or maybe even all (though I doubt that), amps, are more like a one-time upgrade, which performs its effect and has no other task to finish at that point.

Lesser amps are generally external and operate like your first analogy. There can be internal amps that effectively operate like external ones, in the sense that they are always there and external to normal operations of the spiritual hardware, and can simply be removed. The truly internal amps that evolve you, are as you said, one-time upgrades that become a part of you permanently. Genetic upgrades if you will after a fashion.

I suspect in your experience feeling strain doesn't come with merely ten or so spells running? I'm assuming with amps certainly not, but even naturally and without them would it be safe to assume that only with the inclusion of particularly complex tasks you would feel strain from only 10 different things running? Or do some spells by their very nature require multiple concentration tethers?

If power is off-loaded so only the concentration tether remains, then 10 should be fine. If you are powering any (or especially all) of them off yourself, then yes, there is likely to be a strain. It may be why some groups only meet once a month to do their workings. Keep in mind any spell will be powered off you by default. And with amps, the issue becomes moot. We really only experience the strain in the G3-G4 range. UG4 or higher, the power output of the amp is such that you don’t feel it anymore. You just aren’t going to have that many spells running that it will matter in comparison to what you can handle.

I suspect that since you have spells that can off-load said concentration load, you have the ability to make spells that incorporate that mechanic to, perhaps, maintain the remaining concentration tethers that would normally be something you would have to maintain yourself. On that note, can you apply the spell that off-loads concentration tethers to the concentration tether that is required by that very spell to maintain itself, or take two of them, and after loading them up with other spells' concentration tethers, off-load those two 'off-loading' spells onto each other? Basic understanding of physics and how life tends to be imperfect like that would suggest that while maybe possible in theory the end result in practice would end up degrading if left without concentration tethers for the caster at all, but perhaps you've tried? Or does the spell work in such a way that downright precludes the possibility of it having its concentration off-loaded onto something else?

As long as the off-loading spell is well enough constructed, the copy of a copy effect shouldn’t be that bad, but it does degrade. I guess what is taught can handle about 4-5 tiers, but most never need it to that degree (ie. The most I’ve heard people do is a 2 tiered run). By the time you have the skill to do more than 5 tiers, the need to has gone away.

It's kinda sad, too, how many individuals do want to understand how and why the magic/psionics/whatever they do works, but can't because their sources of information lack the experience and organized pursuit of understanding like this group has. Come to think of it, it's probably sadder that there's probably more people content with not knowing the hows or whys, or who don't even think about it enough to realize that there are underlying hows or whys....

In the end, everyone thinks they know why. There is nothing to say 100% that we are correct. I can only say our results and advancements from our experiments should show we are on the right path (at least as far as we are concerned). But there is a lot we ignore because we don’t find it personally interesting. A good example is we don’t really care if a yew wand is better for something than an oak one. We don’t use either, so such explorations are pointless to us. If a yew gives +5%, and an oak gives +3%, but a tech spell gives +500%, where is our time best placed in exploring and researching? But because we do ignore certain paths completely, one can’t say we aren’t missing something because it wasn’t worth our time. In the end, you have to pick your battles and your path, and make the most of what you have.

I'm curious now, how would you describe 'taking over' a spell? Is it a severing of the concentration tether leading to the caster and replacing it with your own, or is it more subtle than that? Because while I might be the type of person not to notice for a while, I doubt more experienced mages would have their spell taken from them like that and not notice.

It’s more subtle. If you simply cut the concentration tether they’d know. It’s more akin to a computer virus taking over command code authority to each piece via brute force or technique/tech. Would they notice this? Depends on how quickly you did it. You can take something over without locking out the original caster, so they may not notice. If you do that quickly, they might just feel a ignorable glitch at best. Once taken over, you can just leave your backdoor access, or slowly change it, or do whatever.

Speaking of which, that bring up another inquiry that just popped into my mind: Would you be, or do you know of many magi that, are energetically sensitive enough to, say, be able to feel a concentration tether sending back unexpected feedback or being un-carefully broken in your sleep? Would that be something that could wake a particularly experienced / energetically sensitive mage?

Oh certainly. Just because you are asleep doesn’t mean your inner isn’t aware and alert you as a lower. Or however that feedback is routed. Depends if it’s a security issue or just negligence.

I myself sometimes think I lose concentration tethers in my sleep on a regular basis, or maybe even during waking moments, quite easily. I don't know if it's that I grow used to them, which results in me not feeling them as well (at which point if I look for them I don't trust myself because I suspect I am experiencing AOL - this happens less nowadays though), or if it's not being used to using them, which causes me to 'drop' them like a young child might drop a toy or something because they get distracted and their minds don't have that wired-by-experience-into-the-brain ability to relegate perpetual grasping/holding to their subconscious thought processes.

Concentration tethers are just background stuff really. They don’t need active concentration on them at all. It’s automatic, so you wouldn’t feel them unless you were specifically looking for them. If they are being cut, then either the spell isn’t be properly powered, or it’s set to drop like that, or they are being cut.

Speaking of which, do you have any experiences with souls being fundamentally different? Some places (PsionGuild being one of them, but I'm sure there's others) tend to have large lists of various 'types' or people that are somehow abnormal in the magical, like "phoenixes" that put out shitloads of psionic/magic/whatever energy automatically, or people who seem less effected or entirely not effected by magical effects/psionics. (There's a list, but I don't want to bore you, though if you're interested I'll gladly find it again.) The point of the question is if you've ever seen souls/astral bodies in humans that are somehow ridiculously out of the norm for humans? Like having ridiculously greater soul-reactor output, or perhaps having less innate ability to manipulate magical energy, and/or a greater natural predilection towards somehow staying 'immune' to certain types of energy or spells that should normally effect people? Any detailed research in this field?

Don’t get me started on the phoenixes. It’s just a soul mod, and not that technical at that. I could give you the phoenix mod right now if you wanted. Part of the problem is most of those people don’t have it set right so it creates so much problems for them. But it’s an external mod that is internal, versus a genetic thing. They just bought it before this incarnation that’s all. We’ve had lots of experiences with that one over the years. Use to run a “clinic” to fix the mod (or more accurately just reset it to their energy sig rather than “psi”). Helped them GREATLY. Removed all side effects and gave them even more power.

Any time an individual has power out of the norm it is because of something that happened previously. I personally have a pet peeve about soul races. They do exist, but fundamentally they are all the same. So unless you can physically breathe fire or fly, you’re as human as the rest of us, get over yourself. No such thing as a human soul race from my experience. Everyone is something else. Admittedly, not everyone has a cool mythos about them. But it’s not relevant. People try to blame how they are, how they act because of some soul race. It doesn’t work that way. There aren’t predispositions because of race. There might be pre-dispositions because of environment, but that is different. People are individuals and should be who they are, rather than worrying about how cool they are because of one thing or another. Every person is unique, as is there internal layout. Overall however, to be able to incarnate here, there is a LOT of similarities. Most of the local entities even up to deities have similar layouts. You go far enough away, yes, things get more off the norm.

As far as power output or ability, that has far more to do with your inner, who you are, and what connections they have (and even your purpose this lifetime). But this is on an individual basis, not a race basis.

I've been curious, I know you interact with what's seen as deities here, but how big as the current deities in the grand scheme of things? Are they really that big, or are we looking at more of medium sized things? Or is it perhaps like that fish in Star Wars Phantom Menace that tries to eat their submarine only to be swallowed whole by the giant dragon-/Godzilla-like thing? Or are we talking even smaller relatively? Like they are just the biggest fish in the local area, or just the largest thing that gives a damn about what happens here? Or perhaps they are even smaller, relatively to things that do things here on earth, and conventional people only notice them because the bigger things that do stuff here do things so well that we don't notice them unless we really look?

Deities are the biggest fish in the local area, and the largest thing that gives a damn about what happens here. That doesn’t change how powerful they are and what they can do (which is quite considerable), but it does mean there are things bigger than them (there is always a bigger fish). Even entire societies that you REALLY REALLY don’t want to get noticed by (because then you’re interesting). Nothing creepier than realizing that this batch of uncountable universes is nothing more than an ant hill in some much larger society. Imagine being a smart ant, sticking your head out of the ant hill, and realizing you are just in a park in some larger city. The only constant that I have found is things keep going. Things just keep getting bigger. As your limits recede, what you thought was the end isn’t. A fractal view of existence is probably accurate based on what I’ve seen. Each “level” might have different rules and implementation, but abstracted they are the same.

As a follow up, what're some of the 'biggest' things you've observed, interacted with, or know of?

Umm…Yeah…Big enough to know not to get noticed. Big enough to know that as cool as it might be to build the bigger boomie, that the upper limit isn’t so much a matter of technology, but a matter of not having it act like a beacon to the bigger stuff. “Oh Shiny”

Interaction has been on the big entities that aren’t the BIG(tm) entities that you don’t want to get noticed by. They are very interesting. Different mind sets, very ancient. Amused at such an upstart like myself. They got to their power simply by the experiences and knowledge they have versus trickery. Older than this cycle at the very least. They are fun. VERY scary if you get on their bad side. If a deity is about 3 to 4 orders of magnitude over your average person, then these guys are like 3 to 4 orders of magnitude over deities. The BIG(tm) things are that kind of scale over them. Scary shit.

Yes, it is needed to have amps to progress beyond a certain point, but it takes a while to reach that point.

How close would you say you were to that point before you invented amps? Before you used them as standard tools? (Or, if you didn't invent them, before you were taught, or observed, how to make them.) Did you have lower level ones, or things that functioned like incomplete or temporary or less efficient versions of modern low-level amps that you give out? I presume after getting the basics down, your knowledge would cause a rather exponential increase in skill with amps, much like technology propagates greater and greater strides in advancement. At any rate, were the early steps, if taken on your own or with a group, slow and incremental, or was it a sort of leap into a well-developed first attempt at applying knowledge and understanding that you had accumulated by then?

Amps where there almost at the beginning. I’ll take that back. Initially it was just pushing energy balls like anyone else. Admittedly it was doing runic spells when I first started out (drawing runes with energy). But quickly I figured there had to be something more and why did this do what it did? I knew about the “g1” before I even got ley lines to power it. I would get a LOT of dreams about how to do things. Use to piss off the guy that got me into magic (who showed me the g1) since he didn’t like the idea I was getting, as he put it, a level 1 mage getting level 15 spells. I think he was exaggerating even now, but I think he knew where I’d end up going with all of this and wasn’t in a position to follow and certainly didn’t WANT to follow me (his ego was too big). G1 I got from him. Ley Lines (which I consider G0) I got from a different “teacher” who told my to be wife(now ex) to get me to stop thinking. G2 was outright handed to me by my inner (or technically my ex-wife’s higher, but that’s a long story). G3 was my own exploration into a more classic view of magic. G4 was a logic problem. (G3 and G4 are based on G2 technologies) G5 was me trying not to stall out my soul reactor. G6 was the conclusion of those experiments, but honestly, the safeties on that were told to me. UG4 was done by a student of mine (LordFeh on the forums). G7a+ was all epiphanied (ie. Handed to me by my inner). Keep in mind to get to G7a it took like 10 years, and I would have never come up with the G7a on my own. It makes sense why it works, but I wouldn’t know how to implement it with what I knew at the time.

Over the years, there have been different versions that students have come up with that improve upon the base model. We still strictly teach the base versions so that it encourages people TO innovate, even early on. Most don’t though.

The Amps DO makes things MUCH easier, so it becomes easier to work on things and experiment rather than fighting against the lack of power and control.

I've also been meaning to ask: 1 - what's the meaning of the G in the amp designations? I know U is for Uber, but I don't remember reading a definition of the G anywhere; 2 - Are amps cumulative, or do they supercede one another? If a person does not use any amp until G7a, are they still going to get the same result from the G7a as someone with G1 through UG4/G6? (I assume the students are taught how to make each amp, so it's not a problem if amps have to be stacked and someone doesn't use them until that point?)

1 – G=Generation
2 – Generally amps supersede each other. G5 still needs the G4s though, but that is the only exception.
3 - When getting the g7a, it didn’t matter if you had no amps before then. However, you wouldn’t be able to construct the g7a yourself without having UG4 implemented. You can’t construct the UG4 without having G4, G5 and G6 (or at least the knowledge to build them). Before that it doesn’t matter. If someone cast the g7a on another person with no magical knowledge, the end result would be the same as if they had said knowledge to construct it themselves. They wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it once they had it, but the power and resolution would yield the same. This actually isn’t uncommon. As I said before g7 amps have been handed out before as boons, but that doesn’t mean that the individual was told how to cast them, just that they had it placed on them. Sometimes they were taught/given instructions how to cast it. Sometimes people stole the plans and killed themselves in the attempt because they didn’t read the instructions all the way through before starting it(ie. Stalled out their soul reactor).

No and there won't be. At least until someone royally screws up and lets us(or me) have access to such an individual to observe.

I have to ask, how would giving you (either in the plural sense of Omnis or singular sense of you) access to such things be a royal screw up? What exactly do you do to your test subjects? Have you been known to break your magic guinea pigs before? How bad are we talking about here?

It’s not a matter of what we’d do to the “magic guinea pigs”. We are actually rather safe with that kind of thing. The point is, if we see it, we will have it. Or at least, if I see it directly. Other Omnis have seen such events, but they weren’t the heavy duty researchers to take advantage of it. The screw up would be letting Omni or me have physical magic without a proper balance in place. I can enforce law on the rest of my students through out the order, but there isn’t such a force against me currently. Do you really want the physical world under Omni domination? It wouldn’t be immediate, but if no other opposing force emerged to keep the balance, it would be eventual. I don’t believe I’m incorruptible. Even if there was an opposing force, it would have to be similar, so instead of elected presidents you have “demi-gods” going at it. So much for democracy. (Although there are other means of control I guess) I know, how do you go from “I can light a candle” or “move a psi wheel” to world domination? Do you really think it would stay at such a low level in Omni hands forever? We’d figure out WHY it worked and improve it. Amp it. May take months, may take years, but we’d keep pushing it, as we’ve always done. The result will be inevitable. We are pushing that way anyways, but are actively worked against, so the balance is kept and the status quo remains.

I think from PsiPog, did involving PK and a geiger counter... IDK if you've heard of it or not, but I'm assuming someone's run it by your attention before? I don't think they did anything too detailed. Just did PK on an object with the geiger counter right next to it and the readings jumped up, but that's about it.

No, but it doesn’t surprise me. We’ve developed something that supposedly can push around particles, but it’s hard to prove stuff like that, and even so, big deal, it’s a particle. Not very practical. It’s good as a sensor (think electron microscope), but beyond that.

We've seen how spells interact with the physical environment. We've even caused several reliable results based on this. Not in the PK field however. One conclusion we have come to, is power is NOT a factor beyond a certain point (like G3 level). Materials per se have nothing to do with it, it's technique. I'm not saying one can't develop materials to help to do it, once one understood what was needed, but materials is a means of perfecting, not accomplishing in this case.

So is the actual "how" Omni-only information? Any aspects of it that aren't?

We beat each other with pool noodles in the next room. It made the thermometer spike. It was repeatable. We did find however, that the spike had a lot to do with the guy manning the computer watching the read outs. (I wrote a program to graph and record the data in real time). The probe itself was in a big cooler, packed in foam to insulate it as much as possible, so even that was a good 6 feet away from even the guy monitoring, let alone the 20-30 feet from the beatings.

We were able to create a permanent magnetic field on a compass. Trashed the compass, but it worked. Using a technique called emitters, but I won’t go into the theory behind all that here. Most of the other stuff is Omni only. Much of this was done a while ago and should be revisited.

I'm curious, could you give an example of what constitutes G3 level power? Because that feels rather reassuring off the top of my head, but when dealing with Omnis I have to remind myself that even though G3 is below the half-way mark to the point on your ranking system where power requirements are beyond those feasible for people naturally, that still doesn't necessarily mean that G3 power output is particularly accessible or even likely to be within my ability to reach any time soon.

No, the G3 is below the half way mark of what is officially taught and shown publically. The Gs go much higher than 7, and then we just don’t even number them anymore past where it does end of the G series. Very few are that far. 4 original pioneers (myself included), 2 closely behind, and two more recently. The rest of the trained Omnis are either at their cap or slightly above. This also creates a research problem because the elders aren’t even where the trained people are anymore.

But to your question, G3 is about the power scale of a decent sized coven I guess combined. People who know what they are doing, but not 15 year+ veterans. I’ve seen magicians get to that level on their own, and past it in effectiveness. We are just talking about force of power here.


Again, I’m sorry it took so long to reply but I simply didn’t have the time I needed to answer this…And this is only to your original message. I’ll see if I need to chime in with your other post. (Plus, I have to hit your other threads).

[LordArt]

Thanks Oyama for helping out! It IS greatly appreciated! (As always!)

So the below is a reply to your second post...

My main reason for asking the above was wondering whether or not there was any point to jumping into the black astral and back in so far as traveling in the 'astral' was concerned. It seems that if you can get from one point to another by normal rifting, that this would seem to eliminate the practical aspect of getting from one point of the universe to another by hopping to the black astral. Unless, of course, there are exceptions - or if rifting in the physical seems to be currently a more 'difficult' task than transferring physical stuff into the black astral and back again.

There is little point in going that far out to just astral travel. If you are trying to get to other realms, that is different, but if you are staying in earth astral, then there is no real point in going into the black astral to get to places. There are other means as I mentioned in my previous post.

Fortunately for me, nothing that I've ever had to deal with confrontationally on a magical level ever used shielding, let alone stuff complex enough to make me have to look for ways to by-pass it.

That is surprisingly common for lower level entities and mages. But it is also about technique. I remember asking an OTO guy to shield a soda can as a test of relative power, and he didn’t quite understand the suggestion. His idea of protecting something was to summon an enochian angel to protect the can versus putting up an energy barrier. It is just how magic is approached by people.

So it's less an internal Omni taboo against giving people higher amps barring extreme exceptions, and more a point at which you just have to earn your amps in a more general way? Ergo, more like a grad student having to do self-directed research work to get the degree, rather than a military "classified" designation to which only select few are given clearance?

It’s about not being a rank amateur which many Omnis end up being. It’s about earning the power they get as well as being able to handle the responsibility of what that power gives them. If they are able to handle more, they’ll find a way to get more. We WANT people to continue up the power chain. However, it won’t be done simply because they showed up to class. They have to show their prowess, they’re ability to think creatively, and their wisdom in handling the power they already have. Even the courage to do what is needed to be done with the power they do have.

I'm curious what both you and LordArt would say about this in relation to LordArt's previous answer that he thinks everything up to 7Ga is doable without amps (with greater constraints and limitations on scope and power, presumably)? Does that apply to all the other Omni tech, but not to Amps specifically? If it is a matter of technique only, couldn't that be something that can be learned without amps just like the rest of Omni material until then, or is there something specific to casting with(/'through?') an amp that makes it different/more complex, necessitating experience in using amps specifically (Or amp-exclusive tech)?

Certain techniques require the power the amps give you, or the resolution the amps give you. Certainly some tech requires it. You just aren’t going to construct a 3” swiss watch with a sledge hammer and Chisel. You need the right tools for the job.

I am tempted to ask for someone to take a look at me and see where I happen to be on that scale between match-flame and bonfire, but, frankly, I realize that it is very out-of-the-way for someone to do so.

Not really. 17-20 ASU at least in terms of raw energy movement strength. (Once I have a magical lock-on it just takes seconds) Not that that helps you too much. If 1 is joe blow on the street, 5-10 is your average beginner pagan, that should give you an idea. As a psion, you work exclusively with energy, so you develop those skills over other ones. If G3 is supposed to be a bigger than a decent sized coven of 12-20 non-beginner (but not heavy veterans) members, you can do the math. Giving exact ASUs for a G3 isn’t relevant because it’s based around the individual, meaning, it multiplies the individual’s abilities, so the end yield it gives is different per individual, as well as where they are in their own training. So as the individual gets stronger, so does the yield of the G3 (which is also true of the G2 and G4). A stronger individual will go well past a coven with a G3 if implemented correctly (ie. Stacked).

To be fair, most psions plateau around 30 ASU. They can get higher of course, but it is VERY slow going (read years). And that is assuming they keep in practice. Mind you, this is just my observations of the psions I come across. YMMV.

I am also curious: Does psychokinesis, of the moving books/chairs/cups kind, not that wimpy psi-wheel stuff people like me do (unless they are nearly one and the same in terms of power-use/technique-difficulty), happen to require G3 power, or less? Is it after or before the point at which power output no longer matters and technique takes the foreground as the main requirement? Or is this something not yet accurately discovered? If it is discovered, any chance of it being placed on the match-light/bonfire scale?

I honestly don’t know. For standard stuff, G3 or higher is optimal. Meaning, you are no longer fighting a power deficiency to do normal things (like moving books, etc.). Because I don’t know how physical magic works, I couldn’t tell you why. This information is from a reliable source. But I was also told that at G8 you could flash vaporize a tractor-trailer truck if you knew what you were doing. I still can’t do that either, and I’m far higher. So take the information for what it is, which is unconfirmed. I will say if it was simply a power issue, the elder Omnis would have had it a LONG time ago. Personal theory is the secret is likely in one of the paths we didn’t explore.

Also, is the power scale linear, geometric, exponential, or logarithmic? My guess would be the second or third? So while G3 might be a bonfire those up in the G7 or G8 are more like small stars?

I had to graph it. I would say roughly exponential even in ASUs, which themselves as a unit is a bastardized exponential (the lower parts are linear, the higher parts start to accelerate). Part of the problem is what is being tracked isn’t the same. Raw energy movement really only is relevant G4 and below. G5 and higher deal with the resolution issue which eclipses the power movement issue so you start to use ASUs to describe the resolution, not the power movement. Where myself and some of the elder Omnis are, resolution has somewhat become irrelevant in favor of something that I’ve had a hard time defining. Tech knowledge I guess. How things work? Honestly, I think why I’m having a hard time defining it is because I’m a rank amateur for the level I’m at, so I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m not saying resolution and power aren’t important, but has become like a commodity rather than something you strive for. I (and others) have spent too much time in getting more power than learning what can actually be done with it. I could easily go much stronger very quickly, but I don’t understand the level I’m at well enough so it would simply cause more problems to go higher without that understanding. Like I said, rank amateur. (Mind you that doesn’t change what I CAN do, it just means I’m still exploring and I know there is a LOT left to learn)

[Psychokinetic Wannabe]

I realize this is a month late, but my free time has been killed between work REALLY ramping it up for end of year deadlines and my personal life. I had a free-ish few days to write this…

No worries. Technically I'm supposed to be busy too...

Astral realms (including the black astral) would be best considered realms where the magical energy can be controlled by thought (via your typical spiritual hardware). Physical realms would be those that cannot be. It’s a quick and dirty definition. The physics of each realm and layer(s) within those realms can also have tweaks to their physics.

Have you ever run into realms where that distinction is blurred? Perhaps where the physical 'equivalent' of a realm also lends itself to interaction with spiritual hardware? More so than this one at any rate? Or perhaps realms were they are so overlapped where for all intents and purposes there is only an astral, though possibly one more 'resistant' to energy manipulation? Or, if you haven't bothered to look that closely, have you found that to seem possible, or does it seem like it's inherent in the multiversal 'elements' that when universes form out of them, they have to form in a certain way, in this case in a way that results in a physical/astral arrangement?

Earth has an atmosphere we find breathable. While the reason why that atmosphere stays is because of gravity, there are a lot of other planets (or other masses) that have a significant amount of gravity, but that doesn’t give them an atmosphere necessarily, let alone one we find breathable. My point is, each realm has it’s own properties because of how it’s put together/what it’s made up of.

This makes me want to ask if you've had any experiences which lead you to think that the realms change over time? In the above planets analogy it's relevant to note that planets very drastically change over long-term periods. Venus is believed to have an atmosphere like ours, but underwent a runaway greenhouse effect. Mars supposedly lost its atmosphere due to a magnetic field that died a lot quicker, which made the atmosphere open to slowly being blasted away by solar wind. Similarly, planets have internal processes that result in changes, sometimes very fleeting ones - such as our climate now - the default for this planet is ice-age, and we're at the end of out interglacial period currently. (The average time between glacial periods is 10,000 to 15,000, and we're at ~13,000) So does your observation of universes suggest that this can be the case too, at least for some universes, or is there something about them intrinsic to multiversal physics that forces universes to stay relatively stable?

My current running theory is different realms have the effect of having different dimensional elements (which really should be called realm elements) that determine it’s physics. While I’ve observed these elements, I couldn’t classify them since I haven’t spent that kind of time to really map them out nor name them.

Are these realm elements also things that you can manipulate just as easily as other astral energies? Are they just as transmutable into other energy types?

But it becomes rather obvious once you’ve looked at such things and then why to bother in the first place.

Well, I would argue that there is quite a lot to be gleaned from how the world works, and by extension lots of magical understanding and power to be gained, from classifying things like this. But I suspect I don't really need to tell you that.

Yes, there is something(a lot) outside the black astral. But it requires going in a different dimensional direction(s). Yes, evil astral math again.

Well, I wouldn't call it evil. While it IS beyond me (currently anyway) to truly 'visualize' things in more than 3 dimensions (I feel like I'm getting closer, and I think the human brain has the capacity for it, but I have nothing to compare my vague mental attempts at imagining a 4-dimensional expanse to...), I'm still someone who did calculus in high-school as a recreational activity (well, it WAS a class I had junior year, but the point is I went ahead of the class. By about a year's worth of material - I must sound rather egotistical sometimes...), so while I might not be able to naturally grasp it, I can certainly abstract what you're saying, and no matter how bastardly large the number of existing dimensions happens to be, that's not gonna really turn me off from the idea.

Anyway, the magic-relevant question: Is this another one of those mind-blowing multiverse-is-fractal things where you take your multidimensional black astral, look out in a yet unnoticed batch of directions, and realize that the entire 'black astral' with all of the universes it contains is an even bigger oil bubble in a giant expanse of water containing even more of these black-astrals? Or does it so far seem more mundane? Like you aren't going to see any more black astrals, but that this black astral was just the directions of extra-universal space you had detected until whenever all these other directions popped up?

On that note - does this extra stuff 'outside' the black astral have its own name? Is it actually different than the black astral in properties? Is there a boundary of sorts (or a predisposition towards not mixing) that the black astral has with the spacial expanse in these other directions, like the universes have with the black astral? Or am I running into things that aren't really researched yet, or things you don't want to share with non-omnis?

But honestly, this is WELL beyond scope of simply pushing energy balls. This kind of thing DOES come into play with making high-end tech, but for now it’s just informational.

For what it's worth, I don't really entertain the idea of doing this any time soon. But I still love learning about it, and I find that quite often, even without first hand experience, being a particularly good repository of knowledge can be quite useful, both to yourself and others.

My curiosity just reared its head again: I think I mentioned this but didn't ask this specifically in my latest post in the energy types thread - how many dimensions does our soul reactor occupy (like, how many dimensional directions does it take up space in - I suspect it must be more than three)? Is it all available dimensions, just all dimensions available in this universe, or in our black astral, or what? If it's less than that, then do higher, more evolved/bigger souls have soul reactors (and souls in general) that aren't just 'bigger' but take up more dimensional directions?

They opened mini-wormholes. That’s rifting. The astral equivalent is teleportation

Is there any reason you called the two different things (I'm guessing because first you just did and knew of teleportation, and you called it that because that was the most readily available word, and then later on you and/or other omnis realized how it worked and came to see it could be applied to the physical world, at which point the term rifting was more naturally fitting for the actual process you discovered)? If the mechanism is the same, just applied to different - um, 'realm layers', I think, is the proper term you use here - wouldn't a formalized vocabulary aid understanding in the long, long term? I suppose it doesn't matter, since you're going to be teaching everyone who goes through your system anyway... Or am I misunderstanding and the mechanisms are actually different?

Most people think of a realm’s fabric as being laid out flat, or perhaps even in some sort of sin wave. The reality is take a piece of paper and crumple it up into a ball.

I typically like to think of the universe as a 3-dimensional surface of a 4-dimensional sphere, but that's just thanks to reading The Elegant Universe in 8th grade (or maybe it was Brian Greene's other book... I don't remember)... Since then more indication arose that the universe is actually 'flat' - at least for us physical incarnates from our obviously limited vantage point of being inside the damn thing. I gotta ask though - is that what the objective shape of our realm's fabric is, all crumpled up, or is that just how it abstracts when you start considering all the other dimensional directions? Any indication for why realm fabric 'crumples'? Is this due to those realm elements as well? Have you ever observed universes where the realm fabric was sufficiently straight/flat/not-crumpled-in-some-weird-multi-dimensional-way that made rifting of limited or not possible? Or can you still theoretically make the realm fabric contort enough to rift, with just a greater energy expenditure, under circumstances like that? On further thought I'm leaning towards the latter. It seems like merely 'moving' in a different dimensional direction would be less useful/time-saving, but stretching the realm fabric to rift would still be just as useful, cuz everything still stretches with it, like you explained earlier.

But unlike paper that isn’t stretchable, realm fabric is, so it’s more like a rubber sheet in that respect. (To be completely honest, it’s more like goo (realm fabric) and water in a floating ball, probably kept together by it’s own gravity.

That makes me think of something else - can you feel gravity, in so far as magical senses go? I presume by the thing you mentioned about 'emitters' that you can interact with at least the electromagnetic force, since you perma-screwed a compass, but does the same apply to gravitational, and the strong/weak nuclear forces?

So that said, is the idea that it's kept together by gravity as opposed to some other force (I'm thinking some weird manifestation of the strong-nuclear force on a multi-dimensional level is a good candidate) conjecture on your or someone else's behalf, or is this something confirmed or hinted at by things you've observed?

While the goo keeps itself touching what it wants to, it is technically floating in the water. The goo is flexible enough to stretch and bend and squash quite easily without actually disconnecting from the other parts of the goo it was originally connected to).

Is this goo the same between all realms, or does it have different properties, like different degrees of viscosity, greater or lesser ability to stretch before ripping, etc, much like universes can have other properties too, based on 'realm element' composition? For that matter, is this goo transmutable into other energy types? If there are different 'goos' are they compatible? AKA can I transmute a chunk of good into more easily-stretchable-goo before rifting in a realm where the goo is more viscous, or more importantly, into less 'rip-able' goo in a realm where the goo can't stretch as much without tearing? Or would transmuting the goo 'disconnect' it from the rest of the spacial fabric of that realm?

On that note, is there any indication the realm fabrics can be torn? Is it even possible, or is it just going to pull an 'acceleration to the speed of light' sort of phenomenon on you, where making something accelerate to that point requires more and more energy, until eventually you need infinite energy to make something go up to light speed (or infinite energy to decelerate it from that point). Meaning, is it going to be impossible to tear because there's going to be a point beyond which you just can't make it stretch further because of the energy requirement, or - if it doesn't hit infinite energy need - just keep scaling up with how much more you need to stretch it, so that it is still infinitely stretchable, it just requires more and more energy to do so? If it can rip, regardless of whether the former possibilities apply, any indication of what happens when that happens?

Also, is there a 'distance' you can give in terms of scale between one universe 'oil droplet' and another? Like, is this like galaxies inside a universe, where each universe is many universes-across worth of distance away from each other, or are they reasonably closer - if not 'right on top' of each other as the saying goes? Would rifting from one dimension to another be feasible, or is it always going to be more efficient to pop matter into the black astral, rift it from next to one universe to next to another in the black astral, and then pop it into the destination universe?

Breaking through the barrier that keeps the realm fabric connected to itself is a whole different matter (ie. Actually creating a rift). Moving it is easy, punching a hole is hard. Doing this to astral realm fabric is far easier, obviously, hence instant travel there IF you know where you are going in the first place.

What differences have you observed in astral and physical realm fabrics? Obviously their barriers are harder to puncture, but is there anything else? Are there differences in how rifts act (or you believe would act) in between the two? Speaking of which, how much energy is required to keep a rift going? Do they actually destabilize themselves, or no? (For that matter how much of general relativity and quantum mechanics seems to apply to the astral side of things in our universe/realm/'oil-bubble'?) If you make a rift, will it naturally tend towards keeping itself open, or towards sealing up again (which ultimately leads to does realm fabric seem to tend towards staying 'stretched' or reducing once energy is no longer applied)? If it does close naturally, is it likely to be a 'violent' sort of event, with the two ends snapping apart, or a more gradual and unnoticed occurrence? Since you probably haven't actually made any physical rifts, any reason to think that that's the case?

Distance is still distance, so do you really have the power to keep both ends extruded (if you are using that method)?

Are there other methods? Other than, say, merely extruding one end all the way to the other? Would that be more energy efficient?

By the way, a long time ago (not too long, couple of years) I was thinking of how I would psionically teleport, and I was thinking of something very much like this. Only my idea was this - because our particles have, as part of their quantum state, something that determines their location, there's probably some degree of 'attachment' matter has to the space it is currently at. So, you stretch out the 'destination' point (technically area) of space all the way to where you are, and over-lap it with where you are currently. You then 'transfer' yourself from the departure space to the destination space, which shouldn't require much energy at that point since the two things of space are basically right there and together. I don't even know if transfer would be the right word. Perhaps re-attach, or whatever term more accurately describes the actual phenomena, and then let the destination space snap back into place. Now, at the time this was of course mostly just flights of fancy based on theoretical physics based understanding, and I thought it might actually be a shitload harder than you seem to suggest (but at the same time it seems like G7a level power is a shitload beyond anything reasonable, so maybe I wasn't over-estimating how much energy would be needed). Now the main problem for me was that spacial curvature tends to cause gravitational effects, and such extreme spacial curvature would cause very extreme ones. And due to general relativity extreme gravity tends to fuck with a whole lot of other things. I forget how, but at the time I thought of something very similar to this pushing stuff out in different directions than are normally occupied to explain why this shouldn't be a problem - but perhaps this is linked to what makes physical rifting a problem? Especially since gravity gets progressively more powerful relatively speaking the more dimensions it has to spill over into, at least under our laws of physics. In either case, my idea doesn't work on its own if for no other reason than that there's still this barrier you have to puncture...

The limit is based on personal power and skill. The more powerful you get, the further out you can affect and the further out you can “see”/sense. You might be surprised at how far you can get, but equally surprised at how much further there is to go.

Any chance you could give me a ball park estimate of how far an average person can reach? And/or how far someone with the 17-20 ASU number that you gave me earlier can reach?

For the longest time I didn't like the idea of using either leylines nor the sun for energy, BUT reading your forums around a year ago made me decide that they probably WERE there. You also mentioned somewhere that most mages, when aiming to pull energy from the sun, subconsciously end up pulling from somewhere else, so I've been trying to be very conscious about my few recent attempts to pull energy from the sun and see what I'm actually pulling from. And this last post about moving in different dimensional directions without necessarily even rifting made me wish to try that as well, and see if I could reach the sun that way... In either case, if I just can't reach our sun right now just due to raw lack of reach, that would be a useful fact to know, since it would save me some pointless effort (though arguably there may be something not pointless in learning how to feel when you're thrusting out into the spacial void and failing to reach your target, getting stuck somewhere in the emptiness).

On that note, does the magical energy the sun puts out have a corruptive effect on power tethers? Not necessarily due to its properties but due to the sheer volume of emanating energy? (What you mentioned about blasting apart the best shield someone put up by channeling power from the first omni-invented power source through a power tether suggests otherwise, but hey, knowing you your power tethers are probably better in every way than a normal power tether is.)

You are asking good questions, so I’m giving honest answers, but by the same token, most of this information will do you little good until you have more power at your fingertips. Most beginner mages can barely get off planet, and I’m talking about manipulating realm fabric of different universes.

Well, I might as well incorporate what ideas I can get now. Sure it won't do me practical good, but hey, it's still information that furthers my understanding of the world. And in the unlikely event I get to that level, I may very well have thought of something new based on this information by then. Unlikely as that may be.

If you know where you are going, you can get there effectively instantly. You are simply taking a path (without even moving fabric) to skip the in-between distance. So instead of moving the fabric, a tunnel is formed with zero perceived distance is formed. If you look at it externally, you see the arc of the tunnel. If you are in the tunnel, you are in then immediately out to the point that you don’t notice the tunnel at all.

What's the energy use when it comes to things like this? And are you actually creating a 'tunnel' per se, or no? It seems the way you're explaining it is no, you're not, but at the same time saying you're 'tunneling' suggests actually creating a passage. Because I was trying this for a couple of days, and while I felt like I was doing something like it, I have no idea whether or not I did. I also felt slightly more tired than normal after doing this to try to reach the sun (though I also thought about trying to reach another star, just to see if I could, though I doubt I succeeded - not like I'm sensitive to be certain either way, so might as well assume no).

Meaning, one has to understand how it actually works to come up with a means of tracking such a thing. In really bad layman’s terms, it’s like creating a tunnel with no dimensional representation of time (which strictly isn’t true but I have no better point of reference to give you), so you traverse the distance instantly it seems.

Actually, I got it from your earlier explanation. Though the additional attempt at explaining it in "really bad layman's terms" helped confirm for me that I was understanding it correctly. I spent quite a lot of time in my life contemplating how a wormhole would work, all technical aspects included, so it kinda made sense. Even if it's not necessarily a wormhole, the general idea is the same - except it requires even less mental gymnastics since you preset the discussion by mentioning that in reality the universe's realm fabrics are all crumpled up from an external perspective anyway.

You can rift in the black astral. See above for why. Since there is stuff beyond the black astral, and the black astral itself has a fabric to it.

Which naturally leads to: Can you rift in the stuff beyond the black astral? Or is that not fully known yet? In fact, how much is known about the stuff beyond the black astral? Does anything "set up shop" out there? Are the physics different? Or is it just more of the same at this point?

Actually, I'm curious because of this, is there a count to how many dimensional directions you guys have found so far? Things you've said suggest you keep finding more, but is there a count, or have you just not bothered to actually figure out specifically how many there are? Or does the inherent difficulty the human mind has in thinking that way make it difficult to count up?

I was mostly referring to the fact that ambient energy in earth astral (around our planet anyways) is mostly made up of auric run-off rather than something that is a process like a star or other naturally occurring power source. The black astral is so vast that the energy there is mostly from how the universes play off each other, rather than living energy. So it has a very different flavor.

How do universes play off each other? Is this 'gravity' (or something like it) related? Do they 'bleed' or otherwise emit energy into the black astral? Do they draw ambient energy in? For that matter, does universe 'death'/creation, if such events occur, play a role? If so, is this a kind of phenomenon you can observe regularly out there? Or does it seem like universes always exist?

Black holes and neutron stars aren’t physically bigger. They are MUCH smaller physically actually than a star volume wise.

I should have been clearer - I meant bigger mass-wise.

A black hole by definition is a point. We think of black holes as a sphere because the sphere is defined by it’s event horizon, but the black hole itself is REALLY tiny.

Well, a lot of modern theoretical physics doesn't like the idea of singularities of any sort. Primarily string theory and its superseding M-Theory. A black hole is just something which has an escape velocity greater than light speed, so it doesn't actually necessarily have to become a singularity.

At any rate, if I do think of a black hole as a sphere, it is only when I contemplate the possibility of black holes being Fuzzballs (A good brief summary is available courtesy of wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzball_(string_theory) - as is the case with almost all subjects.) For the most part though, I think of them as really compressed non-singularities.

Stars put out power as a side effect of their reactions.

I'm curious, is there any indication of how they do this? Do nuclear bombs do the same? Do most physical reactions produce magical energy, or only the nuclear ones?

I'm also guessing that neutrinos are not linked with magical energy, but since the sun puts out enormous amounts of those too, I might as well ask: do they have any correlation to magical energy as far as you know?

There are no more reactions in a neutron star (to speak of) or a black hole.

Well, a neutron star doesn't collapse further because of 'neutron degeneracy pressure' - just like a white dwarf doesn't collapse further because of 'electron degeneracy pressure'. So technically white dwarfs and neutron stars, at least, have a lower-yield yet technically much more permanent energy output, if you tap the energy produced by particles (fermions to be technical - i have to remember to make that distinction, which I didn't make in my yesterday's post - things like photons and other bosons CAN be in the exact same quantum state) as they avoid being in the exact same quantum states. Unless of course that energy is not readily convertible into magically usable energy?

As for black-holes, well, I included them because I kinda figured high level Omnis would've scanned the things long ago and gained some insights into them, if not in particularly technical or detailed terms, but at least been able to detect if any energy was being made in them. If they are not a singularity, then some form of lower level degeneracy energy should be obtainable. If they are singularities, well, scientific understanding goes out the window, but that doesn't mean weird quantum stuff won't happen that sporadically releases energy.

I want to say that I didn't mention Hawking radiation, before any other reader thinks of this, because I think the energy you could get from that is negligible (but if I'm wrong, wouldn't really surprise me). However, there is another possible source of energy next to black holes, and that's the reactions going on in the accretion disks of black holes, which result in those jets of superheated gas right outside the event horizon. But I'm not qualified to say those are good magical energy sources either.

We do eventually use stars as anchor points for a larger means of power generation, but that’s a different discussion.

Is this an omni-only topic? And are we talking G7a+ "eventually", or somewhere-in-the-readily-taught-material eventually?

Yes, physical matter can exist in the black astral. It doesn’t need to be maintained.

Huh... Wouldn't have thought so, but alright. Wouldn't be the first time something you told me forced me to reconsider my world view. I presume a living incarnate entity's meat puppet would still die if left on its own, what with lack of air and everything? I gotta ask though, aside from the experience you mention of seeing something from elsewhere come here, how do you know matter can continue to exist out there? Is there anything indicating that all the various physics that keep objects together remain the same in the black astral? Or are we talking about just "matter", as in particles? AKA you could rift a brick into the black astral and it disintegrates into a cloud of subatomic particles, or does it actually remain a brick?

You only need a concentration tether if the material is magically created and isn’t stable enough to stand on it’s own. Most people when they create an astral object aren’t trying to create physical matter, but a representation of physical matter. If I make a hologram, is that physical matter, or a representation of physical matter made of light? Most people are making representations of physical things from magic energy (if they even try to go that far). Very few have means to create physical matter there, or really care to. Close approximations still isn’t good enough and it will degrade (admittedly slower).

Well, I wasn't thinking of specific instances of people creating astral stuff, if that's what you thought. I was curious specifically about the question you cut off next - whether it would be theoretically possible to move matter back and forth. Very little practical use no doubt, but something that needs to be considered.

I have seen matter from “elsewhere” come here. Not live unfortunately, and it is it’s own story from when I first got into magic, but was very important for my magical development.

Is this an event you're willing to discuss? Because that sounds like something rather interesting, to say the least.

How much did you observe? D'you ever find out where that "elsewhere" was? Was it stable? Do you know what caused it to appear here?

Not everyone gets g7a. If you put the effort in, UG4 will be achieved, but g7a is only given out to ones that we feel are ready for that kind of power.

Poor word choice on my behalf. I meant that where G7a tech starts is where I would be unable to go further under those circumstances. Sort of like an up-to-and-including vs. merely an up-to distinction.

No, it’s not a dislike for an external aid at all. It’s a matter I like to show and teach everything I know if it’s appropriate, but post g7a stuff isn’t practical (or possible in most cases) before then, so even if I have a good solution to a problem higher up, I can’t give the solution out because it won’t work for them since they wouldn’t be able to cast it. Besides, g7a and higher really aren’t “external aids”.

Well, maybe we mean different things by external aid here. But the point was you said that anything G7a and higher becomes impossible (to unamped people, 'which you don't like, but that's the way it goes'. Although perhaps you meant you disliked something else about that than I interpreted that to mean. I figured you didn't like that there's a point at which certain things simply become impossible without modifying/amping the soul. I know I don't like that. *Shrug*

Evolution isn’t about time in or number of rebirths. It’s about evolution of understanding. And not in a fluffy bunny kind of way. You incarnate until you’ve learned all your lessons and actually get it. That takes however long that takes you to get it. Repeats will be done until you get it.

Is there any reason why this results in you evolving? I'm not saying it's a bad system, but it doesn't seem like there's any reason why the world should've happened to structure itself like this. On another note, what determines what lessons you learn? Obviously, your inner, but if your inner feels that ______ is something it should experience, then isn't it already on the process of learning a lesson? Of course, soul psychology may be very different than our human psychology, so there's no reason why this should necessarily seem to be so odd... Does one's higher have a role in this? And is there some actual metaphysical process that actually measures one's 'getting' of the lessons? Or does something over-see entities to make sure they don't evolve until they've gotten it? Or is there an actual direct correlation between having certain ideas/mental-states/whatever and being able to 'evolve'? Actually, now that I've said that, it makes sense if the lessons involved contribute to making you ready to combine with another entity/soul - IF that's the only way to evolve. If there are others, like you suspect, then there's no reason for what I just said to be true.

I know damn well they use amps. They can’t afford not to. You think if they didn’t, and one all of a sudden did, that the latter deity wouldn’t trash the rest? It’s military escalation, like anything else. They have to keep up, or get shut out, and they didn’t get to where they are by being stupid. They hand out lesser amps to those that do their bidding as boons or as means to accomplish their own goals via someone else. Even as high as g7a or higher. I’ve seen a LOT of g7a designs in my time, but we only teach one type in Omni. It scales well long term.

It seems like a rather crap-sack world out there. All this lesson learning and evolving and yet you still seem to have the same problems up there as you do down here. No doubt they aren't over the same issues, but... well, frankly, as much as I want to get indignant over it the fact of the matter is I don't know what issues they are experiencing militant escalation over. And if it's something I'd disagree with when I do know, then either I'll eventually 'learn' enough lessons to decide I was wrong, or gain enough understanding to make a good case for why they are in the wrong and enough power to keep myself from annihilation if something choses to disagree in a confrontational manner.

And hell, maybe at the end of the day this is how things will always have to be. I find that unlikely, but I know little enough about the world to accept that I may be wrong.

No comment.

Was my way of saying that too fluffy sounding? I just meant that I had originally thought they were some complex membrane like spells that enveloped one's spiritual body and acted to augment it. It's just that I hadn't contemplated the mechanics of that as much as I did more recently, so earlier that's as far as my conception of them went.

Lesser amps are generally external and operate like your first analogy. There can be internal amps that effectively operate like external ones, in the sense that they are always there and external to normal operations of the spiritual hardware, and can simply be removed. The truly internal amps that evolve you, are as you said, one-time upgrades that become a part of you permanently. Genetic upgrades if you will after a fashion.

I'm guessing based on this and your above comment about how G7a isn't really an 'external aid' that from that level, if not lower, amps are always, or at least tend to be, internal 'genetic' upgrades? On that note, I presume that while lesser amps can be 'stacked' (which presume means using multiple copies of that amp over each other), internal one-time-upgrade amps really can't be applied more than once to any further benefit? Like I could know how to make a G7a and how to stick it in me without breaking myself, but I'd have to come up with something new or even better to at least improve on the original amp design to be able to get any further 'amping'?

As long as the off-loading spell is well enough constructed, the copy of a copy effect shouldn’t be that bad, but it does degrade. I guess what is taught can handle about 4-5 tiers, but most never need it to that degree (ie. The most I’ve heard people do is a 2 tiered run). By the time you have the skill to do more than 5 tiers, the need to has gone away.

Ah. One thing I did ask in there that you missed was could you offload the two spells on each other? Like, you have Copy A (linked to you by Concentration Tether A) of the offloading spell and Copy B ( connected to you by Concentration Tether B) of the spell running simultaneously. Could you take Tether A and offload it onto Copy B of the spell, but instead of leaving it as a two-tiered run, take the Tether B and offload it onto spell Copy A? Ultimately I'm guessing your answer will depend on two factors - what exactly do concentration tethers send to/from the spell, and how this offloading spell keeps things offloaded. Obviously it somehow simplified feedback and more importantly signals sent to up-keep the spells. I'm guessing in simplistic terms it stores the technicalities of the spells its offloading, and has some mechanism inside it that takes the signal coming to it from the concentration tether and splits it (and maybe also amplifies it) into more specific 'upkeep' signals that each spell needs. It would then probably take all 'feedback' signals and route them normally, but it could probably be created to send through only the 'important' signals through down to the caster's concentration tether - based on the caster's decisions of what's important in that case. But perhaps it can be made to merely 'record' the necessary 'upkeep' signals, and if you wanted to get really complicated (and if concentration tethers work this way), also the signals sent back in response to any 'feedback' signals that might warrant a specific reaction.

Now is this necessary in practice? Probably not, because the only time you'd need it is if you want to make sure something continues to happen in the event of you being completely cut off from your spells, soul-killed, or obliterated, but if something's going to do either of those, chances are, that spell will be removed too - unless of course the function of the spell is not something the entity in question has a problem with. But it seems like a useful self-sustaining mechanism, presuming your mechanism can also draw energy from sources it won't be cut off from. If you use hard magic of course, you would probably not need either the concentration nor the power, but not all of us can make (or presumably even manipulate to a large degree) hard magic easily enough, if at all, to make that a viable alternative, based on what I understand about hard magic. Plus it would make for a neat toy, if nothing else.

Don’t get me started on the phoenixes.

But getting you started on things is how I learn.

It’s just a soul mod, and not that technical at that.

Case in point. Is there a technical definition of a soul mod, or is it just a general way of saying something in the soul got modified?

I could give you the phoenix mod right now if you wanted.

Could as in wouldn't mind giving me one if I asked, or just could as in you simply have the ability? (Don't take that as asking though. I'd want to know more about it first. Though I suppose I could learn about it by having one installed, but whatever.) How much power does it actually give you? I'm assuming it's primitive enough that I'd be able to pull it out on my own without amping to increase my resolution, or would I have to go to something bigger, presumably you, to get it removed if I wanted to get rid of it? In the event that I'm accepted into Omnimancy, earn the liking of something bigger, or figure out amping on my own, I presume that the amps' outputs don't change with it? As in, the amp improves a soul based on its initial abilities, which doesn't include the phoenix soul mod? Or do the 'lesser' external or internally-external amps amp the summed result while the one-time-upgrade amps happen at a lower level and thus amp the soul's more intrinsic abilities? Does it screw up any inner workings of your soul's hardware, so long as you set it to your soul reactor's energy rather than psi or something else?

Use to run a “clinic” to fix the mod (or more accurately just reset it to their energy sig rather than “psi”). Helped them GREATLY. Removed all side effects and gave them even more power.

What made you stop? Just got fed up, or decided that enough people knew how to fix it that the knowledge would dissipate? Or phoenixes just stopped showing up? Or is the willingness to help technically there, it's just not formally a clinic anymore?

Any time an individual has power out of the norm it is because of something that happened previously. I personally have a pet peeve about soul races. They do exist, but fundamentally they are all the same.

For what it's worth I wasn't talking about soul races (or, rather, I was talking about what most people would classify as soul races, I guess, but I was just referring to observed differences in souls without personally thinking of them as distinct 'races'). I've never been a fan of people being special because they seem to be or psionically are somehow different. I kinda figured there was a sort of soul-genetic-lottery, and if you got a bonus to power production, lucky bastard though you may be, you're not special. But could you put the 'they do exist' bit into context? What kind of 'races' are we talking about, and what differences are we talking about? Is this just soul hardware layout, like computers by different makers with essentially the same specs, actual different 'specs', or is this like Mac/Windows/Linux, where operating systems are different but the general capabilities are the same, or Windows 98/Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 type of difference where it's less a specs difference but more of a, how do you say, an ability of a soul to utilize it's components or just difference in HOW they utilize components? Or is it just a matter of what kinds of 'ports' they have, like USB vs eSATA/USB-combo, so one can more easily interface with meat-puppets, while another has difficulties, but meanwhile this one gets those SD memory card slots while another has to find an SD-to-USB adapter? I would go further but since you said they are fundamentally the same, I'm guessing the differences won't be so drastic as to be the differences between a radio, MP3 player, and a computer.

So unless you can physically breathe fire or fly, you’re as human as the rest of us, get over yourself. No such thing as a human soul race from my experience.

If I was more into putting burns/humor into my signature rather than philosophical and moral statements, this quote would be a good candidate. That and that one quote I saw in someone else's sig from you that goes "you can use your power for good... or for AWESOME" (or something like that.

As far as power output or ability, that has far more to do with your inner, who you are, and what connections they have (and even your purpose this lifetime).

I'm curious, in the case of the last one - does your inner determine that, or something else? If the latter, are us public forum dwellers allowed to know, or is this an omni-only thing? It makes sense if your inner regulates your, as a lower, access to the soul's unused power, but is that the only thing that gets to decide, or are there other things that get involved, and if so, is it all the time, most of the time, on a somewhat regular basis, or just in special circumstances?

Even entire societies that you REALLY REALLY don’t want to get noticed by (because then you’re interesting).

Are we talking you get ripped out of your body and mind-raped as a guinea pig, they throw progressively worse shit at you to see what happens, what you do, etc? Basically you become a little exotic animal in a laboratory of a much bigger and powerful species?

Interaction has been on the big entities that aren’t the BIG(tm) entities that you don’t want to get noticed by. They are very interesting. Different mind sets, very ancient. Amused at such an upstart like myself. They got to their power simply by the experiences and knowledge they have versus trickery. Older than this cycle at the very least. They are fun. VERY scary if you get on their bad side. If a deity is about 3 to 4 orders of magnitude over your average person, then these guys are like 3 to 4 orders of magnitude over deities. The BIG(tm) things are that kind of scale over them. Scary shit.

So these BIG(tm) things do you know for a fact some or most (or all) of them would end up doing bad things to you if they noticed you, 'bad' relative to you, whether intentionally or not, or is it just what seems to be the likeliest possibility?

G2 was outright handed to me by my inner (or technically my ex-wife’s higher, but that’s a long story).

Well, our posts are certainly long enough that adding that in can't hurt. But if it's personal or for some other reason stuff you don't want to share, not really my place to push for info.

G4 was a logic problem.

Would telling me what the logic problem was reveal too much about how that amp, and/or other ones, work? Cuz if not and you don't mind telling me said logic problem I'd naturally like to know.

G5 was me trying not to stall out my soul reactor.

How long was this going on - the being dangerously close to stalling it out that the above statement suggests must have happened? Was there anything specific causing it, or were you just pulling energy incorrectly or in excess? Is that something you can feel, physically or with the magic senses - the stalling or the somewhat-stalling of the soul reactor?

I can enforce law on the rest of my students through out the order, but there isn’t such a force against me currently.

I'm curious, to what extent is this the case? Obviously you're the head of Omnimancy, but if an Omnimancer defects and decides to go against you, to what extent are you going to counter that? Has it even gotten to the point of you actually attacking them? What kind of digression would have to occur before you did that? Are there any spells in place set to go off in case an Omnimancer does something, like start teaching Omni-only knowledge, or do you rely more on their integrity and the screening process? On that matter, does the screening process involve only "muggle" screening methods or do you throw telepathy/empathy and/or view people's fate and the varying possibilities there-of into the mix?

Honestly, I don't think you do any of those, based on my impressions of you. You've said you don't disregard privacy, which is certainly something I respect, and you seem to be the type of person who wouldn't do stuff like that too routinely. Maybe during screening, but probably not for maintaining a spell 'thought police' on your order. And it doesn't fit into the idea of responsibility-with-power that you often bring up - though whether or not the above is deemed responsible or not is determined by what one defines as being the responsible thing to do under the above circumstances. But might as well ask, even though people who would do something like that would have no problem lying about it either. I do hope you don't take this negatively - I genuinely don't think this to be likely to be the case.

At any rate, isn't there such a force again you? Sure, if you physically dominate the planet, us lowers in our meat puppets can't do jack shit. But I think if you do it enough something will notice, probably something with enough followers begging for help, and it will notice what you're doing, and it will probably decide that if you're dominating the Earth in an abusive way, then you're going to be a threat given your meteoric rise to power. And they'd get some other deities and bigger things together, and I think they'd get pretty aggressive. Of course, I can't assume that. Maybe they honestly won't do anything. But you did say that things are actively working against Omni getting such abilities. But of course, I have no doubts that you've thought of this already. And you no doubt realize the consequences that would follow if Omni dominated the world. It wouldn't surprise me if you're resourceful enough and powerful enough to win out against some, if not all, of the local deities (but then again, it wouldn't surprise me if they can curb-stomp all of Omni - my lack of surprise is more based on a lack of information than certainty either way). But to do that, you'd probably have to do some spell-work of the type that'll get you noticed by the BIG(tm) things.

Do you really want the physical world under Omni domination?

Do I? Not necessarily, but I don't necessarily automatically balk at the idea either. There is a narrow set of circumstances where that can be a really good thing. Omni just has to consist of the right people. I agree - it is practically impossible for a person to be entirely incorruptible. But a group of people pretty damn close, so long as they take precautions to not develop group/mob mentality or biases in their own favor, can keep each other in check. At least, hypothetically. I doubt there's that many people out there who fit the bill. And as much as I'd like to think I could be one, I can't be completely certain that I am. Nor can I assume 100% that this is truly possible. Ideally, research needs to be done. But as cynical as I may sometimes get (I just realized I haven't shown that side of me on this forum much), I also tend to think it's more possible than most people think.

At any rate, the real question is do you? Do other top Omnis? If you and they go, are those who are at the top going to hold the whole order together, and if they do, will they want it under their domination. The very fact that you ask me if I'd like the idea indicates that at least partially, you realize how horrible a slippery slope Omni can descend into if you gain physical magic prowess and misuse it. But that by itself is already a safeguard against personal power abuse. As for the other Omnis? Well, I don't know them. And I really don't know you other than for superficial things. But if you're anything like what you convey yourself to be, and the standards for power acquisition are what you say they are, then I think the threat isn't that great. At least yet. Because surely you, and all the higher omnis, realize that something like my conjecture above about bigger-thing retaliation in one form or another is probably going to happen. I mean, I wouldn't have even thought of it if it wasn't for you drilling it into people on here that there's always a bigger fish and if you fuck around too much in the water, they will do something about it.

So while it's POSSIBLE you'll go for world domination, and it'll certainly be within your abilities, I don't think you'll do so - at least not that drastically. Now, your successors are another matter. And there the slippery slope is dangerous. You can hand-pick the next generation of leaders, limit access to power, but there's always the chance of the system 'degrading', much like a copy-of-a-copy effect, but this time with the successor's adherence to the same ideas as you. But if you go into that future with the foreknowledge of such a possibility, and a sufficient understanding of human psychology, there will be ways to prevent that. Will it ever be perfect? Probably not. But neither has any democracy ever been 100% descent-into-dictatorship-proof.

But, of course, if I'm wrong, I'll gladly tell you so when I realize that, and/or do whatever is within my abilities to prevent you from getting there as well. (Not that you won't hand my ass to me on a plater if and when that time comes, but hey, it's the thought that counts. )

It wouldn’t be immediate, but if no other opposing force emerged to keep the balance, it would be eventual. I don’t believe I’m incorruptible.

Even if you're not, you could surround yourself with people who will bring it to your attention when you're going from benevolent to anything less. Or if you're not willing to go that far, then at least compassionate, logical, and not selfish. Or whatever standard you ultimately decide needs to be the bar. Ideally, people who will be willing to sacrifice themselves if needed to stop you from going that far. Not that the ideal solution will always be possible - but I'd be more than happy to offer my thoughts on sufficiently good approximations, should you wish to discuss such matters.

Even if there was an opposing force, it would have to be similar, so instead of elected presidents you have “demi-gods” going at it. So much for democracy.

Well, for what it's worth, I have a constitutional oligarchy (a lot more democratic than the world 'oligarchy' implies, before you balk at the term) idea I've been working on for a year or two now, which, while never explicitly meant to deal with the problems of a world with psychic demi-gods, certainly never ignored the possibility, what with me being a psion and all. Combined with a general list of education reforms designed to help create a population that is sufficiently non apathetic, logical, and compassionate to make that system a functional and not-doomed-to-fail reality. (Though I would honestly say that introduction of Omnimancy-level magic to the population as a whole which would potentially be disastrous, so I can't really say it's fleshed out well enough to guarantee a population that is able to check a demi-god kabal if one were to manipulate things to get into power. More psychological research/understanding would be necessary for a truly good implementation in other words, but my point is that even if you guys went for a world-domination bid, it doesn't have to be a totalitarian "1984", or ever a "Brave New World" or "The Handmaid's Tale" dystopia.) At any rate, I'll be more than happy to discuss this with you, both now and in the future.

I know, how do you go from “I can light a candle” or “move a psi wheel” to world domination? Do you really think it would stay at such a low level in Omni hands forever? We’d figure out WHY it worked and improve it. Amp it. May take months, may take years, but we’d keep pushing it, as we’ve always done. The result will be inevitable.

To be honest, this is the part I have no disagreement against. If an unconfirmed but reliable source tells you at G8 level you can flash-vaporize a trailer, I believe that given enough time and the right circumstances, you WILL be able to flash-vaporise anything that comes against you. Tanks, fighter-planes, Nimitz aircraft carriers ... Maybe I'm over-estimating you - but you yourself say that you elder omnis have hit a point where you can get even more power - the fact that you've stopped has more to do with a lack of anything good to do with it.

Before I get too far ahead of myself I have to ask something, though. Would you even bother? If you could rift around this planet, instagib people by psychokinetically giving them massive multi-strokes, stop bullets, or at least push them out of the way which should be simpler (or actually, disintegrating them might turn out to be less of a strain energy wise), combined with everything else you can do, then why bother? What will you stand to gain from a world under your control? I started writing this giant rant here, but I kinda want to hear what, in your own mind, you think would push you to intervene in the world either blatantly enough to actually say 'world, I own you', or through intervention in certain events to the point that it's like the world being practically under your control, even if you never outright make it obvious to the masses? When you contemplate that kind of future, do you see yourself caring for world dominion, control, or manipulation? And if so, for what reasons? If they are to make this world in some way better - however you might perceive 'better', then do you genuinely believe that raw domination is the way to do so? And if it's any other reason that actually requires control of the entire world, is it a reason you can genuinely want yourself to act upon?

No, but it doesn’t surprise me. We’ve developed something that supposedly can push around particles, but it’s hard to prove stuff like that, and even so, big deal, it’s a particle. Not very practical. It’s good as a sensor (think electron microscope), but beyond that.

Good research tool, too - no need to build mile-long particle accelerators, if you can perfect it to get those kinds of speeds.

We beat each other with pool noodles in the next room. It made the thermometer spike. It was repeatable.

Was that the extent of the experiment? Was any specific mind-set attempted or magical activity over-lapped with beating each other with pool noodles? It really seems to me like you must've done something else with that. Was any attempt ever made to actually just heat the air around the thermometer, or the thermometer itself? Was that buried somewhere in the pool-noodle hitting? I do hope you're being serious - I can see how that can be a serious approach to such things: perhaps trying to transfer the heat generated by the activity through magical means, or use the activity to illicit a specific playful state of mind that some people say is useful for PK performance... But of course this could be a way to jokingly say that the rest is omni-only. I would assume, if I had to guess, that hitting each other with pool noodles in another room was involved, but it seems much more reasonable to think that you guys did something else on top of that.

We did find however, that the spike had a lot to do with the guy manning the computer watching the read outs.

As in (s)he was (or may have been) causing them by subconscious magic use, or that the readings got somehow skewed due to his/her physical actions? I'm guessing not the latter since you did emphasize the distance from the cooler and the insulating measures taken?

Again, I’m sorry it took so long to reply but I simply didn’t have the time I needed to answer this…And this is only to your original message. I’ll see if I need to chime in with your other post. (Plus, I have to hit your other threads).

Well, I must apologize as well, seeing as how I then took about 20 days to get around to answering this after you posted. I can more than understand not having time to answer posts as long as mine.

His idea of protecting something was to summon an enochian angel to protect the can versus putting up an energy barrier. It is just how magic is approached by people.

Have you found this to ever be a more efficient approach than shielding? I would assume that's a no for higher level tech, but what about for beginning mages? Practice aside, in times of crisis, is there a point before or during which protecting something like that is gonna get better results than through shielding?

Not really. 17-20 ASU at least in terms of raw energy movement strength. (Once I have a magical lock-on it just takes seconds)

When I read this, if I had been the type to have my mouth fall open with surprise, my jaw would've dropped like no jaw has dropped before. Through-out the psionics community there's this tendency to look down on people asking for scans or any sort of favors from new people from much more experienced folk. So this was rather unexpected. Furthermore, I knew you guys had magic down to a science, but I didn't think you not only had a unit, but were perceptive enough to measure something like that with a quick 'glance'. But maybe that's just because I tend to be uncertain in my scan results, so it's hard for me to genuinely imagine myself every getting something that accurate that quickly.

Not that that helps you too much. If 1 is joe blow on the street, 5-10 is your average beginner pagan, that should give you an idea. As a psion, you work exclusively with energy, so you develop those skills over other ones. If G3 is supposed to be a bigger than a decent sized coven of 12-20 non-beginner (but not heavy veterans) members, you can do the math.

Non-beginner but not heady veteran, with 12-20 members, well, I'm assuming that's 12-20 people with 15-20 ASU each, so I' looking at a rather uncomfortable estimate that's around 300-400 ASU of "raw energy movement strength", so, well... So much for not having to deal with power constraints in psychokinetic progress unless I figure out amping.

I had to graph it. I would say roughly exponential even in ASUs, which themselves as a unit is a bastardized exponential (the lower parts are linear, the higher parts start to accelerate). Part of the problem is what is being tracked isn’t the same. Raw energy movement really only is relevant G4 and below. G5 and higher deal with the resolution issue which eclipses the power movement issue so you start to use ASUs to describe the resolution, not the power movement. Where myself and some of the elder Omnis are, resolution has somewhat become irrelevant in favor of something that I’ve had a hard time defining. Tech knowledge I guess. How things work? Honestly, I think why I’m having a hard time defining it is because I’m a rank amateur for the level I’m at, so I’m still trying to figure it out.

So what IS an ASU? I've been tossing words around and I'm thinking something like Astral Skill Unit or Astral Strength Unit, but I doubt it's the latter because of what you just say - 'strength', if you call raw energy movement that, is only a factor at first. Skill makes more sense, but it could be a guess like any other of my myriad of mental flights of fancy on this forum - most of which are probably at least partially wrong anyway.

Perhaps, if what's being tracked isn't the same, a new set of units is required? Raw Energy Movement Strength (RM or EM or RS for convenience? Maybe even S?), Resolution (R?) and... whatever it is you're looking for to designate the next thing? Energy/tech Understanding? Energy/tech Competency? Awesome (I kid, but why not, honestly)? And then come up with some equation that correlates the three to ASUs - Wouldn't be hard to combine logarithms or exponentials to make each one lose prominence once it hits a certain level.