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Thoughts on Astral Race

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Thoughts on Astral Race

Postby Rene » Tue May 31, 2011 9:49 pm

This topic has come up a few times and rather than resurrecting a dead post I figured I'd start a new one so I can throw in my two cents. That there are different races or species of beings on the astral is not an original idea and it’s present in many, many other systems of magic so I won't cover that here. What I will get into is what role astral race plays in omnimancy. If you want to skip the rest of this post, you can, because the answer is right here; it plays almost no role. If you want more than that, by all means, keep reading.

Astral race happened to be a personal pre-omni interest of mine and continues to be so. Even though astral race has few to no applications in omnimancy I've researched it to add to my personal knowledge.

So what exactly is an astral race? It comes down to energetic structure. There’re a limited number of successful ways for a spirit to be constructed. The spirits found relatively near Earth all tend to operate in a similar fashion because that's what's compatible with incarnating and interacting here. The interacting bit is important: things that are constructed differently enough that they have problems incarnating here also generally have problems interacting with the local spirits. They’re not common around here because we have little to offer them.

So races are just variations on a theme. There's more than one way to put together a spirit to get a similar end result, but those combinations are finite. Being finite means they can be broadly classified into different groups. Thus race is based generally on some of the "hard" and less changeable features of a soul/spirit, rather than things that can be easily altered (like shape of the astral body, for example).

What are these different groups? Well, first is the most standard construction which represents what happens to incarnate most around here. It's the standard. Less locally common but still quite prevalent are things that (not coincidentally) show up in human mythos, like dragons, fae, elves, etc. Also less locally common are plenty of races that haven't for whatever reason made it into our mythos. Some are local to this area and some are incidental visitors that did not originate from anywhere near here. The astral's a big place; what's locally common here can be rare elsewhere.

Keep in mind, all these different variations can produce a similar end product. Nearly identical, in fact. Individual power, potential, and aptitude all come from individual experiences, NOT race. How an individual member of ANY race can develop and evolve has magnitudes more to do with its experiences and who and what it’s exposed to than it does with whatever its original starting template was. There are probably numerous races simply because there's more than one way of achieving a similar result, not because one way is better than another. To put it another way, there are lots of races because there's no disadvantage to it. If one race existed that had inherent clear advantages, there wouldn’t be so much diversity because they would have out-competed everything else.

I happen to be one of the omnis who doesn’t have a standard construction and is from a different race astrally. I’m not as uninterested in race as Art is but my race doesn’t have much to do with my magical potential or how other magic affects me. I’m interested in race for reasons of personal and spiritual growth and fulfillment, and those are not things that fall within the realm of what omni teaches. Omni is up front about this but that doesn’t mean it’s incompatible with spirituality, it’s merely left up to the individual to pursue or not as they wish. Since we’re not a mystical or spiritual path but rather a group focused on functional magic, race is nearly a non-issue.

So, if it’s not about what you can do or learn, what role does race play in omnimancy? Because it affects energetic systems, race can have a minor effect on healing if the healer isn’t aware that some things are not quite the same for all people. That’s the only real thing I can think of that might come into play in theory but in practice I can’t say I’ve seen it happen much. It’s hard to overemphasize how similar things around here really are.

So that’s my take on astral race and omnimancy.
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Re: Thoughts on Astral Race

Postby FireEssence » Wed Jun 15, 2011 7:23 pm

Just a question-- have you seen much variation in either the age or variation in tech "carried" by beings whom are not local to are realm but have made it, at least temporarily, a home? At least thinking anthropologically and sociologically, I would have assumed that while inherent capabilities may not be all that different, you would expect to see some novel concepts or bits of astral technology float around with migration patterns, much like we see those sorts of contributions made by various cultures on our planet at a slightly less macro level (cooking techniques, home styles, materials of use, etc.).

While I don't expect that entities from neighboring or not especially dissimilar realms would have a massive repertoire of novel technologies, one of the reasons I have always wanted to learn a little bit more about my own astral race/background and that of several entities I've come into contact with over the years, is the slight differences I see-- for example, the fact that several of these entities were able to give me access to tech or spells or "upgrades" that I have since never really come across in the same manner or set-up despite frequently seeing "standard" ways of casting spells for similar effects amongst those I believe to be local (or "know" are), or the fact that many of the magically active non-locals I have encountered who are incarnate (which granted, is a relatively small number) seem to be more commonly "tech-casters" than rely solely on will, even if they think they are.

Thoughts?
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Re: Thoughts on Astral Race

Postby Rene » Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:30 pm

Sure, there can be quite a bit of variation in ways of doing things and the further out from here you get, the less it tends to resemble what folks around here tend to do. But even around here there's great variation in technique and different ways of achieving a similar end product. It's worth noting that in most cases it doesn't have much to do with race though so much as simply groups that tend to associate with each other. Groups that form may or may not be of the same race and since race doesn't have much to do with reproduction like it would in a physical and organic sense, who you hang out with isn't limited like it might be.
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