I'm blind!

[Obsidian]

Well.. Not really but it feels that way sometimes.

I have a question regarding physical senses and how they relate to magical senses.

Quite some time ago I did some research and begun attempting to see people's energetic fields (auras), my own field and energy constructs/spells that I put together. Little success caused me to eventually lose interest but I've recently picked it back up again.

I found that, within two or three days I was able to re-reach the level that I achieved the first time (after maybe a month or two of practice) but now, three weeks on, I seem to have plateaued and see no improvements.

The level that I'm now is fairly consistent so I'll describe what I can observe and then outline a few questions.

I'm always able to see a faint 'heat distortion' effect around most things, with it being stronger and larger around 'living' things. Occasionally it will contain colour but, more often, it will simply be a glow.

If I spend a bit of time observing this glow, I can see it string between my fingers if I'm moving energy around but that's the limit of what I've observed.

So my questions are thusly:

Is physical observation of magical energy simply a case of 'practice makes perfect' or are there other things that need to be taken into account?

Is there certain 'kinds' of energy that're easier to physically see than other kinds?

Does your ability to sense on the astral have an effect on what you can observe physically?

I've found my astral senses have deteriorated quite significantly and I'm in the process of building then back up, same as my general energy manipulation abilities. This is also a frustrating struggle for me..

A few days ago I made myself a nice energy ball out of my internal energy, and then one out of energy I gathered from the surrounding area, which prompted me to ask the earlier question. Would energy fresh from a living creature (e.g 'psi', such as beginner psions use for spells) be easier to observe than energy that's drawn from other sources and is of a mixed flavour?

Seeing energy is mentioned in the beginners documents on the Omnimancy site. They mention using energy balls as strings of light and so on. Iirc, Rene wrote those up? Is it a case of her working her ass off to be able to see like that or did she have some innate ability? (I'm leaning towards the latter here).

I've begun theorizing that there might be certain wiring and grid pieces that are needed to physically see energy that no amount of practice, huffing OR puffing with be able to circumvent. Any accuracy in that?

If I'm asking too much or whatever, feel free to yell at me =)

Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you get through it.

James.

[Syntax]

So my questions are thusly:

1. Is physical observation of magical energy simply a case of 'practice makes perfect' or are there other things that need to be taken into account?

2. Is there certain 'kinds' of energy that're easier to physically see than other kinds?

3. Does your ability to sense on the astral have an effect on what you can observe physically?

I've numbered your questions for convenience.

First the disclaimer, I am by no means an expert on the supposed physical observation of magical energy, but I have some experience and a few hypotheses. I'm not really going to go into all of it, but I'll try and directly provide some input into each of your questions.

1. It's likely a bit more complicated, but in general, to get to a point where you are observing astral/magical/psi/etc phenomenon seemingly with your physical senses takes practice.

2. Short answer, no. In my experience, you are generally able to perceive, within your limits, what is most relevant to your environment/situation whatever the type of phenomenon.

3. Short answer, yes.

Again, this is based on personal experience. Your mileage may vary.

[Psychokinetic Wannabe]

I debated for a bit whether or not to post here because sensing-wise, I am a noob (mostly - times of necessity tend to make things easier, but casually, I kinda suck). I also have stopped wanting to perceive energy in a physical way for the longest time because it seems to be a poor way to approach energy sensing.

We know we have senses that sense energy directly, and we already have to deal with one rerouting of our perceptions, from what we perceive as our astral selves to the best our physical brains can approximate it to. When I first got into energy manipulation I liked the idea of being able to eventually 'see' energy, but I think that died out pretty quickly once I realized that if you do somehow make your mind do that, you're cutting out your ability to consciously perceive energy more 'directly'. After all, getting yourself to see energy, or feel it with any other sense, is getting your mind to take the input it gets from the astral senses, and then recode it into the input it gets from other senses.

Seems to me like getting your mind to the point where it readily does so just encourages the person to understand what's going on around them less - at least at a conscious level - since you're letting your mind do all the actual understanding and re-coding on its own, and you're then just operating based on the perceptions overlaid on your physical senses.

This is the same reason I've never wanted to develop any ability to 'see' auras, though that's not necessarily relevant since the average beginning level auric sight isn't as detailed or as technical as the kind of seeing energy that you're talking about. (of course, my eyes are also shit, so without glasses anything within a few feet already distorts, so seeing energy is a little more iffy for me even if I tried doing it.)

But anyway, based on just logical deduction off what I have come to believe is most likely the nature of reality when it comes to these things, I'd say:

1. I think practice is a part of it, but a portion of it might be how much you think, consciously and unconsciously, physically seeing it is actually useful, and how much at a subconscious level you're willing (and maybe able) to code your energy senses into physical stimuli.

2. Honestly, I wouldn't know, and there's probably exceptions, but since I suspect you're ultimately physically perceiving only what you're astrally perceiving, things will be easier or harder to see based solely on how easy or hard they are to perceive psychically.

3. In tandem with the above, my guess would be that not only do they have an effect on each other, but for the most part (unless the energy has some property that makes it influence the physical world in a way you can detect with the normal senses), they are one and the same. Your physical senses detect stuff that they detect, and while there may be minor exceptions, the range of stimuli they respond to is essentially well known through scientific observation. If you're 'seeing' energy, chances are you're not seeing anything, but sensing it psionically and then over-laying that on top of your physical senses without thinking about it.

Of course, I might be wrong. Presuming the Omnis here are right, and I suspect they are, I happen to exist in a state of being wrong much of my conscious moments, so don't take my word for it.

I want to point out too that when experienced energy users say that they see energy, I don't know if that's necessarily the case in a literal sense. I tend to take it to mean that they are good enough with their astral senses that to them, it comes as naturally as seeing, and given the limitations of human language, using sight-linked terminology is just the most natural way of expressing the concepts discussed. Like when LordArt was describing in another thread how he showed a bunch of other Omnimancers the first Omni-created power-source. Namely, 'they all said they saw a massive beam of light crash through the shield' (I'm paraphrasing here) - the point is I think for a lot of people, especially at the experienced level, talking about psionic perceptions like talking about sight (and maybe touch), just comes naturally. I presume they didn't actually physically see a beam of light - they 'saw' it energetically, but the vernacular of normal human experience naturally gets used. So maybe that's the case with Rene in the public documents.

As for the wiring/grid pieces... Way out of my field of experience, though I suspect even those can be modified if you're good enough.

[Syntax]

This is terribly late, but it is a topic of interest to me, so here is the reply. Giant disclaimer, I am quoting my opinions, thoughts, and experiences. They do not represent the views, opinions, and such of the Omnimancers as a whole, just mine at this time.

We know we have senses that sense energy directly, and we already have to deal with one rerouting of our perceptions, from what we perceive as our astral selves to the best our physical brains can approximate it to.

While I tend to use a similar model, I find that as descriptive as it is, it tends to obscure or oversimplify the reality in practice, at least based on personal experience.

For example, it is not difficult to close your eyes, taste a delicious bit of cake and find imagery and emotion accompanying it. In the same way, it is not difficult to perceive something astral in the same way you would something physical and have emotional, mind's eye, and intuitive information all coming simultaneousnessly.

For me and the few that I've met that have some ability to perceive seemingly non-physical phenomenon as it were physical, the additional input or interpreted data enhances rather than detracts from whatever information they have gathered via the mind's eye.

When I first got into energy manipulation I liked the idea of being able to eventually 'see' energy, but I think that died out pretty quickly once I realized that if you do somehow make your mind do that, you're cutting out your ability to consciously perceive energy more 'directly'.

I have to disagree. I have met someone that had never perceived energy in this 'direct' manner. The majority of his experience was 'seeing'. I taught him to perceive it in the 'direct' manner, and he was quickly able to adopt it with great success. He now uses both methods, though I doubt he partitions them out as such.

Also, I would argue that either the 'direct' or the 'seeing' methods are both interpretations. At the moment, I am largely unaware of any truly direct method of sensing (physical or otherwise). To my knowledge, it all gets interpreted.

Seems to me like getting your mind to the point where it readily does so just encourages the person to understand what's going on around them less - at least at a conscious level - since you're letting your mind do all the actual understanding and re-coding on its own, and you're then just operating based on the perceptions overlaid on your physical senses.

I tend to disagree here also. Barring the obvious exceptions, we as meat sacks tend to prioritize our sense of sight. It is more often the case that people are largely unaware of what is going on in the astral than what is happening in the physical. I have found the ability to perceive astral phenomenon with the sense of sight to be more of a boon in keeping aware of the local astral environment.

Also, I have 'felt' when things have knocked on my shields. I was made aware during the attack and was able to mount a quick counter attack. This is not to say I haven't perceived the same thing with my direct senses, but my response time doesn't tend to be as quick as I don't walk around overlaying everything all the time as a rule.

This is the same reason I've never wanted to develop any ability to 'see' auras, though that's not necessarily relevant since the average beginning level auric sight isn't as detailed or as technical as the kind of seeing energy that you're talking about. (of course, my eyes are also shit, so without glasses anything within a few feet already distorts, so seeing energy is a little more iffy for me even if I tried doing it.)

I have found my own limited ability to 'see' auras tremendously amusing. When I am engaged in conversation, I don't often stare at people's auras via the mind's eye, but I tend to 'see' them with my eyes to a limited degree. When someone knowingly tells a lie, I've often seen visual cues in their aura. This has lead me down interesting roads of inquiry.

(As a note, I don't think your physical eyes are involved with seeing energy, so you should be able to develop the ability without any problems.)

Eh, and that's about all I want to say. Again, opinions and personal findings. Hope some of what I have said is helpful to someone.

[Psychokinetic Wannabe]

For example, it is not difficult to close your eyes, taste a delicious bit of cake and find imagery and emotion accompanying it. In the same way, it is not difficult to perceive something astral in the same way you would something physical and have emotional, mind's eye, and intuitive information all coming simultaneousnessly.

Emotional reactions to any stimuli, not counting telepathy/empathy use, occur as a result of thought processes resulting from the stimulus. Even if they are more primitive, such as pleasure in response to a pleasant taste, they are still internal consequences from a cognitive cascade, so to speak (I like the sound of that... cognitive cascade - but seriously:), from the original thoughts. Maybe you just used the delicious taste analogy in a way that didn't really mean to be that specific, though, so fair enough.

Though ultimately, given the nature of emotions, it seems to me that no matter what the initial stimulus (again, telepathy/empathy aside, and any other ability that might manipulate emotions directly), the 'emotional' component of the information isn't inherent to the object. In other words, the emotion is something entirely in the observer, and not a property of the object observed. "Intuitive" information is something you'd have to define, because intuition as far as I see it is merely (from the lowers' perspective) thoughts that pop up which also have a feeling of being right to them. Unless there's an actual 'intuition sense', which accounts for all intuition experiences, then intuitive information is against not inherent to the object perceived - the intuition might be telling you information about the inherent properties of the object, but the actual object has only those properties, not some 'intuit _____' property, the perception of which leads to _____ popping up in your mind with a feeling of being right.

Similarly for imagery/mind's eye (again you have to distinguish between technical 'mind's eye', and then whether it's the chakra in your forehead or if we're talking about the psychic/magical/psionic senses, vs. the 'in your mind's eye' colloquial phrase that ultimately often is indistinguishable from imagination), if you have imagery with a sensation, usually it's a mental picture formed from psychological association with the thing you're getting the sensation from, the sensation itself, or other info you have in association with the source of the sensation. Magic senses count as sources of that information, but again, the imagery itself isn't necessarily inherently linked to the thing perceived. It might be assembled from data you know, but unless you're actively 'looking' at it magically while taking a bite or whatever, the imagery is no more sensing information from the object than visualizing an object that you're holding with your eyes closed is seeing actual information from the object.

For me and the few that I've met that have some ability to perceive seemingly non-physical phenomenon as it were physical, the additional input or interpreted data enhances rather than detracts from whatever information they have gathered via the mind's eye.

For what it's worth, the fact that you can perceive it like that, especially if you've been doing it for a while, and even more so if it was a natural thing for you, might indicate that certain psychological phenomena have kicked in for over-lapping the input of various senses and over-all letting subconscious thought processes do more of the sorting, and getting a more coherent and insightful end result. Which is useful for the perceiver's understanding of what they are perceiving, but can negatively impact one's ability to consciously understand how they are perceiving what they are perceiving. BUT, for what it's worth, I can't say I know enough about the matter of astral senses to assume either way HOW processing of that data happens, and how linked it is to the processing of physical data. So I may very well be wrong.

I have to disagree. I have met someone that had never perceived energy in this 'direct' manner. The majority of his experience was 'seeing'. I taught him to perceive it in the 'direct' manner, and he was quickly able to adopt it with great success. He now uses both methods, though I doubt he partitions them out as such.

Well, I did not mean that you're cutting out the ability to perceive stuff directly permanently. Just that you're leading yourself to not really care about developing that aspect of your abilities, and are more likely to fall back on 'seeing' in times of need. Though if he was able to adapt it easily, good for him. Though whether that was easy for him specifically or would be easy for all people is another matter.

Though if he doesn't partition the two, there's still some of my argument in there, though I never really stated that aspect. He's not as consciously aware about what he's doing to get to his over-all perceptions of the world. It's good for him, but if he's not paying attention to how he's getting which aspects of his data, he understands the underlying process less. Which probably won't cause him problems if he still gets accurate enough data, but at the very least reduces his ability to accurately 'convey' what he's doing.

Also, I would argue that either the 'direct' or the 'seeing' methods are both interpretations. At the moment, I am largely unaware of any truly direct method of sensing (physical or otherwise). To my knowledge, it all gets interpreted.

I kinda have to agree with you there, but it seems to me like you're taking an extra step with visual: You already have this data moved into your lower meat-puppet's brain, where conscious psychological processes mess with the data, but then you take all this data, or at least aspects of it, and move it into visual stimulus (though arguably, it might be just vividly imagined stimulus, and it's possible that if a person stops and thinks about it, they'll be able to see that this isn't really 'visual' data per se). Here I must admit that not being able to do it is stopping me from being able to know how likely this possibility is.

I tend to disagree here also. Barring the obvious exceptions, we as meat sacks tend to prioritize our sense of sight. It is more often the case that people are largely unaware of what is going on in the astral than what is happening in the physical. I have found the ability to perceive astral phenomenon with the sense of sight to be more of a boon in keeping aware of the local astral environment.

True, but this lends itself more to my idea, at least in terms of optimizing practical performance. We don't HAVE to be focused on only our sight. Most of the time we are, and that IS our dominant sense, but we can function pretty damn well without it. The problem is most of us wait until something leaves us permanently blind to learn to do so. And that is one reason why I don't want to develop auric sight, etc - I want to make myself focus on my psychic perceptions. I don't want to be oblivious to shit psionically hitting me unless I 'see' it too. I also want to be able to eventually sense things more like they truly are. I am not going to get there by reformatting my perceptions into visual data. Is it helpful? Hell yes. If I was able to see stuff at the level I am at, I'd be so much more potent as a mage/psion/whatever. Right now, the person I usually have to help with defending against the occasional weak entity can sense them better than I can, and I can generally ask her to tell me what she senses just so that I can confirm my own sensations. Yet I know that that doesn't have to be the case. I do have to potential to remain aware of my astral environment without needing to relay it to other senses to avoid tuning it out.

I have found my own limited ability to 'see' auras tremendously amusing. When I am engaged in conversation, I don't often stare at people's auras via the mind's eye, but I tend to 'see' them with my eyes to a limited degree. When someone knowingly tells a lie, I've often seen visual cues in their aura. This has lead me down interesting roads of inquiry.

I'd actually love to get together with you and experiment with that (not gonna happen any time soon, obviously, but just saying). Actually, I want to see to what extent I can control my thought processes in a way that would reflect in the aura without having to shield / install weird stuff deeper into my energy system. And then see if you can still detect those 'lies'. And then see if it makes a difference how much you're 'looking' for signs of lying. For me, what with the lack of aura-seeing, I just have a tendency to 'feel' when someone lies to me. I suspect that there are physical cues involved, but usually I am very consciously attentive to what data I am getting from a person, and can often sort out the majority which had physical cues, and those that I would've had no way of knowing otherwise.

On of the things about aura sight that that also reminds me of is that I personally suspected for a while that it's not really the aura that carries this info, but that people that 'see' auras actually meld more senses into a general visual impression, and lying is picked up on in a more telepathic sense, and then reflected in how the mind compiles a bunch of inputs on the human observed into a nice 'summary'. I might be wrong there though, especially if the aura is energy emitted as waste from what started as soul-reactor output, and the soul probably uses that energy for 'thinking' processes.

(As a note, I don't think your physical eyes are involved with seeing energy, so you should be able to develop the ability without any problems.)

Actually, I meant that when I'm not wearing glasses, a person 10 feet away is blurry. 20 feet away and they are even blurrier. I see you across a long hallway and I won't know who you are unless you have a very telling silhouette. The problem isn't that I wouldn't be able to see the auras, it's just that I think I wouldn't trust myself in the beginning of developing my abilities because I wouldn't 'see' the auras overlayed with my normal blurro-vision. Though I suspect I'd probably still perceive it, I guess, 'intuiting' that these vague aspects of color are their aura, and the rest isn't.

EDIT: I just wanted to elaborate on the 10-20 ft thing. 3 feet away and you're blurry. It's just that if I know your facial features, around 10 feet away, I'll probably still recognize you. Probably being the operative word. I actually find I am much better at identifying voices now because I rely on people's voices at across-room distances to know who the person approaching me is. (And I don't wear my glasses regularly specifically because I don't want to be blind and disoriented without them. I would never have picked up as good of vocal recognition etc, if I made glasses the rule rather than the exception.)

[Syntax]

Emotional reactions to any stimuli, not counting telepathy/empathy use, occur as a result of thought processes resulting from the stimulus.

As far as emotional reactions to stimuli requiring conscious thought, not so much. I would say the classic hand buzzer prank relies on the individual not being able to consciously control their emotional response to the stimuli. Something a bit more encompassing would be the field of psychiatry. In general, psychiatric medications rely on chemical process to control affective disorders. Emotions are a complex subject in my opinion. If you were to ask me, I would think that emotions are more due to "path ways" and are largely a subconscious response to those "path ways" being stimulated. Not saying you can't create an emotional response simply with thought, but I think there are other ways to get a similar effect without it.

Though ultimately, given the nature of emotions, it seems to me that no matter what the initial stimulus (again, telepathy/empathy aside, and any other ability that might manipulate emotions directly), the 'emotional' component of the information isn't inherent to the object.

I'm going with the idea that you are saying that emotions are generally subjective. Sure. I would agree aside from some extreme example that would be stretching things beyond sense.

It might be assembled from data you know, but unless you're actively 'looking' at it magically while taking a bite or whatever, the imagery is no more sensing information from the object than visualizing an object that you're holding with your eyes closed is seeing actual information from the object.

That all fine and good, but I was simply implying that a multi-sensory like experience is actually quite natural. I included emotional, intuitive, and mind's eye bits to sort of draw a connection to how many folks out there sense the psi/magical evironment. (Intuitive meaning the sort of information you just "know".) I was not trying to imply that the piece-o-cake was somehow being objectively sensed by my emotions, though you could argue the happy feeling is coming from a chemical change occurring in my brain due to the sweet and scrumptious flavor of my cake. But that's not what I was trying to imply.

I was under the impression that you were implying that it would be a difficult thing to manage the more mind's eye-like and/or intuitive senses along with "seeing" the "astral" environment. If you weren't, then . . . well, its a rather pointless point. Especially if you agree that multi-sensory experiences are natural.

Which is useful for the perceiver's understanding of what they are perceiving, but can negatively impact one's ability to consciously understand how they are perceiving what they are perceiving.

How does it negatively impact what one's ability to consciously understand how they are perceived? Are you implying there is some blip x where the info is stored and it is being processed in serial or parallel by some bit x somewhere in ourselves? If so, I would have to admit to not being sure of the exact processes that magical sensory data is getting processed. I have models, but those are largely incomplete.

Though if he was able to adapt it easily, good for him. Though whether that was easy for him specifically or would be easy for all people is another matter.

Honestly, he's the only person I've met that fell under those specific circumstances. He's the only point of data I have. I will say that at the present time, he tends to get non-visual info at a pretty constant rate. We've discussed it in the past, as we both had similar experiences in this regard.

Though if he doesn't partition the two, there's still some of my argument in there, though I never really stated that aspect.

He tends to partition the two when we are discussing it, or when he is trying to focus on one explicitly. This isn't very different from explicitly focusing on hearing or seeing something.

We don't HAVE to be focused on only our sight.

True, but it is the natural thing to do. Most folks that I've met that rely exclusively on the non-visual sensing of psi/magic phenomenon tend to actually be less aware of there surroundings.

I'd actually love to get together with you and experiment with that (not gonna happen any time soon, obviously, but just saying).

Come to Crucible. ^__^

Bah, that's about all I want to write. My thoughts on the matter are based on my personal experiences and experiments. If your experiences differ, then follow those. These conclusions are based on my data.

Happy magic-ing either way.

[Psychokinetic Wannabe]

As far as emotional reactions to stimuli requiring conscious thought, not so much. I would say the classic hand buzzer prank relies on the individual not being able to consciously control their emotional response to the stimuli.

Well, the thing that causes a person to react to the hand buzzer isn't emotion at all. It's a LOT more hard-wired into the body. You could argue that there's instinctive fear, but while fear IS an emotion, different emotions and different stimuli have different thresholds within which they can be controlled at all. Since the body is wired for responses that would've contributed to its survival, the startle response, as well as reflexive jerking back from unexpected unpleasant stimuli are both built to over-ride conscious thought. This may, of course, also very from person to person - some people are probably better at consciously performing cognitive behavior 'therapy' on themselves, which is basically guiding your thought processes consistently in the direction you want them to take in response to something, which eventually results in those becoming your automatic thought processes in those situations.

But back to the point - in the hand-buzzer prank, and similar examples, what's at work is less pure emotion and more 'startle response', which I would argue is somewhat different than emotion, and, more like than not, reflexes. And on the subject of reflexes - those don't even take place in the brain. A large part of reflexes are processed within little clumps of nerves in the spinal cord, and the command to do something is sent back down before the brain even receives the stimulus in the first place.

Emotions are a complex subject in my opinion. If you were to ask me, I would think that emotions are more due to "path ways" and are largely a subconscious response to those "path ways" being stimulated.

Of course they are complex. Also, I just realized: I only said that they result from 'thought processes' in my first post, not necessarily conscious ones (though conscious thought can and does effect what emotional response you feel in most cases, even though it's at a level that I suspect not too many people consciously pay attention to). You are of course right about pathways. And no doubt, most of higher thought processes, conscious thought largely included, happen in very different regions of the brain from the primal emotions and instincts like fear and startle response in general. But at the same time, the interaction between stimuli being processed in the sensory cortices (plural of cortex), and the emotional responses going on elsewhere, are largely linked to the conscious thoughts going on at the same time (with gradually less conscious thought contributing the deeper into the 'primitive' regions of your brain you go).

And really, that's why cognitive behavior therapy works the way it does. Because when you perform any thought, you use certain neural pathways over others. The pathways get stronger (what technically happens is that the ends of the neuron sprout more of these little stump-like structures that pick up the neurotransmitters at the end of their fibers) the more they are used, and conversely, if they are less used, the neurons eventually lose a few, returning back to a minimal amount. Most neural pathways in the brain are interconnected, and there is correlation between the thoughts you think about something, and what emotion you feel. Again, I'll gladly admit that the more instinctively hard-wired the emotion is, and the more sudden the situation, the more your brain is likely to skip the conscious thinking and fall back on one of the more primitive responses built into it.

Anyway, when you think a certain way, that changes the exact combination of factors that effects what emotion your brain has you feel. Of course, certain things that I learned courtesy of LordArt make me think that in the long term, a reconsidering of how exactly both thought and emotion happen is in order. I suspect ultimately that the neural pathways mirror and represent things that occur in the soul, though, and that to some extent my statements stand. However I will gladly admit that even if my take on it is true, that doesn't mean people can readily control their thoughts, and consequently, emotions, in many spur-of-the-moment situations.

That all fine and good, but I was simply implying that a multi-sensory like experience is actually quite natural.

I agree there, and I know that this both happens with most people and is often very useful, because some magical phenomena/sensations are easier to express in one way than in another. I'm merely arguing that the goal should be to try to perceive the data as directly as it is sensed, instead of collecting data with the senses and then converting them into mixes of more familiar physical sensations.

I was under the impression that you were implying that it would be a difficult thing to manage the more mind's eye-like and/or intuitive senses along with "seeing" the "astral" environment. If you weren't, then . . . well, its a rather pointless point. Especially if you agree that multi-sensory experiences are natural.

Not exactly what I was implying, but kind of. I realize that it's easy to manage - that's mainly the convenience - you don't have to consciously focus on developing awareness of these senses you've spent your incarnate life not paying attention to, because you have the convenience of having the relevant bits thrown up as a visual overlay. What I was saying is that by having this happen outside of your conscious control you're letting yourself settle into a complacency - much like a person who has eye sight gets complacent and doesn't bother paying attention to their other senses until - 'oh shit, I just got blinded'. Alright - that's an extreme example. A better one would be imagining a world where most people didn't need to use their sense of hearing. But there are no real simple analogues between sound and sight, or any other sense. You CAN 'see' sounds if your brain picks up on it and you can visualize sound as a proportionately intense 'glow' coming from there you hear it from. And if you're living in a world where sound has never been something you had to pay attention to, when stuff suddenly comes up, having a relevant sudden sound pop up as a glow in your vision is good - but it's still not exactly the same. And with sound/sight comparisons, most of this is still not great of a problem because both are waves - so so long as you 'feel' which perceptions are the 'extra' sense of hearing instead of sight, you can pretty much validly say that you're perceiving sound, just with a different experience of it. But problems arise when you're dealing with an astral environment and you have a shitload more dimensions than 3, etc, etc.

Of course, here you could argue that either way, you'll still have intuitive knowledge of what direction something is in, and even without it you'll still have a general impression of it that lets you, say, perform your own spells on the object in question, without needing to know where exactly it is - but I guess what I'm arguing is that in some ways, it's better to get to a point where you can consciously keep track of these things as they are, instead of letting subconscious processes keep track for you on whether or not something is to the 'left' in dimension k or 'right' in dimension n instead.

How does it negatively impact what one's ability to consciously understand how they are perceived? Are you implying there is some blip x where the info is stored and it is being processed in serial or parallel by some bit x somewhere in ourselves?

Well, I guess what I mean is, to go with the previous analogy, if you 'hear' in the form of visual overlay, you will take a lot longer to figure out that while both are waves, 'light' is a lot more directional once radiated from a source, while sound is a bunch of shockwaves in the medium of matter. Similarly, it'll be harder to get nuances like "light travels in a strait line until it hits walls and then it refracts somewhat erratically, unless that surface is sufficiently reflective like a mirror", vs "sound bounces of almost everything while remaining relatively coherent". You might detect echoes as multiple glows, or glows flowing into each other, or your mind might even cut that bit out of your perceptions because it's not really necessary, and just show you what it detects to be the 'source' of the sound as a single distant glow, leaving you without the knowledge about echoes. Of course, you might be able to will yourself to pick up on details like that, but you have to conceive of them before you can want to notice them, and having what seems like an already damn good perception of the world keeps you away from that. Similarly, if a large part of your psychic info is 'visual', the idea that there's 50 different dimensions which shit could be coming from doesn't occur to you too automatically. It might, and you probably know it subconsciously, but without the conscious knowledge of such details, you'll eventually get to a point that your ability to advance is hindered by a reliance on a mechanism that doesn't let you full perceive what's going on - and simultaneously you're also a less effective teacher when it comes to being able to explain the nature of the multiverse as a whole.

True, but it is the natural thing to do. Most folks that I've met that rely exclusively on the non-visual sensing of psi/magic phenomenon tend to actually be less aware of there surroundings.

It's also natural to have your soul un-amped. And, for that matter, to not feel damage to the meniscus in your knees until you've damaged it irreparably (it doesn't have nerves in it, and most of it doesn't have blood vessels running to it). That doesn't mean it's always to your advantage. Same with naturally letting sight take precedent. In our world our sight does give us the most information readily - but there's a difference between accepting that, and letting sight become the only sense you consciously consult.

I know people who see magical events as if they were physical are at an advantage because they are more likely to pick up on things quicker. I argue that with sufficient diligence, this difference CAN be removed, and that in the long run, it's to your advantage to keep your astral perceptions as close to what they are to begin with. (If for no other reason that you get the hard part over with first - namely getting yourself to stop focusing so unilaterally on your vision as the incarnate lower.)

The main factor, really, in your observation is that the people who readily 'see' magic phenomena are already naturals at sensing to some degree - where-as the majority of people who don't automatically see magical stuff are not naturals at all. But because the naturals experience magical growth with a convenient sensory heuristic, they get an advantage that in turn removes most incentive for further training of one's senses.

*Shrug* I'm not really saying that people who see magical events are doing it wrong and should go unlearn everything. However, I am saying that it's not nearly as great as it seems, especially for someone who isn't naturally able to do it. If it's something Obsidian or anyone wants to develop, that's their right and if they feel that's what they need in their magical development, maybe they do and I'm not gonna tell them no - but for me it's definitely not the most efficient or best path to improving your sensing ability.

Come to Crucible. ^__^

Oh if only I could. I live in Florida and am in college, so it's a bit difficult to do. But we'll see how things are working out money-wise and time-wise when the next one's coming up. There's always the chance I might be able to make the next one.

Bah, that's about all I want to write. My thoughts on the matter are based on my personal experiences and experiments. If your experiences differ, then follow those. These conclusions are based on my data.

Happy magic-ing either way.

Thanks. I must admit much of my ideas are based more on contemplation and deduction based on psychology and other knowledge and less first-hand experience, so there may always be some bit I completely missed.

Happy magic-ing to you too.