Psychism

Psychism, sometimes called energism, is the practice of directing and projecting one's consciousness in both the spiritual and material worlds. A person who practices this is called a psychist. While the most powerful psychists are in the minority, unlike arcane ability, it is believed than any human and most humanlikes can attain some ability at psychism with study and devotion. It is thought that natural psychists among humans are statistically more common than among the humanlike races. The words 'psychic' and 'mentalist' are sometimes used interchangeably with the word psychist. The term 'psychic' tends to imply that the psychist is also Incarnandist.

Psychism differs from arcane magic in that psychism draws energy directly from the practitioner and his body's energy centers while arcane spellcraft manipulates the power of unseen, ambient magical energy, called pan. Scholars believe that at some level there is an inherent universality common to both psychism and arcanism, but disagree about the nature and practical articulation of it.

Psychists are not inherently tied to any religion or belief. Howevever, few psychists, in practice, are chaos cultists, and it is widely thought that the self-discipline inherent to pPsychism is incompatible with the cosmic powers of Chaos.

There are several schools of Psychist practice. The subtle school believes that Psychism which enhances existing ability and works without obvious effect is best. However, most skilled psychists usually adopt a mixture of several schools. Some Psychists practice many years under a tutor and others do not learn from a tutor. There is a broad gamut of learning styles, but meditation is universally practiced and essential to the art of Psychism.

Psychism was mistaken frequently in antiquity as a kind of folk magic and sometimes repressed by local authorities. In modern use, magic is exclusive of the mind powers of psychists, sometimes called psychics. The ancient Ithatian philosopher Eiphanas Asgionantiaks Bydanaksi of Sephri proposed that Psychists drew their power from the earth and did not actually engage in magical powers. His theories were tested extensively in the late twenty fourth century by the Amyrnite magico-philosopher Arfagachadraig of Blamffa who proved in a series of reproducible experiments that Psychist powers did not draw from the panstream, but not determining whether they originated from the earth.

Many terms for psychist practices and psychism are borrowed from the Khahonri Language, In the Khahonri, an all-purpose psychist is called a z'aluman while a psychist who focuses her powers on enhancing her combat ability and skills related to combat, such as self-healing, is called a kamsudhi. The Jathya-Dhumi language and the Amandal Language are also sources for terms used for aspects of psychism.

Kamsudhi is a broad term that includes all manner of warriors who use psychism in combat. Some kamsudhi develop powers that enable them to detect and defeat chaos magic practitioners and chaos cultists.

Psychists often practice meditation and focus development of the lower three or four chakras which are essential to the power of Psychism. Psychist powers include precognition, especially immediately before an event occurs, ability to sense another's thoughts or emotions, ability to convey one's thoughts or emotions to another without physical means, ability to sense the thoughts or feelings of an animal, ability to convey one's thoughts to an animal, ability to enhance one's physical action to add more vehemence or reduce the action to intense delicacy of movement as needed, ability to transfer vital energy to someone else, ability to reduce one's own or another's natural fear, ability to impair magical power in an area or another being, especially chaos magic, ability to move a physical object without any physical transference of power. There are many more powers, but these are some of the most commonly used and practiced.

Theory of Psychism

Psychism is the ability to access metaphysical powers through the various chakras and sympathetic vibrations of the respective creature's body-mind-spirit system. Consistent with the saying "As within, so without", the body-mind-spirit system is a microcosm of the universe.

Psychism contrasted with Arcanism

Psychism is sometimes confused with magic use. According to psychic practitioners, their powers differ from magic as they arise from the lowest chakra (red or malkuth) and rise up through the chakras to eventually manifest. In contrast, arcane powers are thought to descend from either the crown (seventh) or sixth chakra. Psychist powers do not require magical energy, also known as pan, from the environment. Some scholars have attempted to show that both systems, psychism and arcanism, are complex, and that the full nature of their differences is not fully understood.

Psychism and the Chaos-Taint

Pyschism has certain advantages against the chaos-tainted. For this reason, it is believed that humans have been able to maintain some degree of dominance in the world and the powers of chaos have been kept at bay. Psychists are more resistant to the mind-affecting powers of the chaos-tainted. Certain psychist powers are specifically designed to deal with the chaos-tainted. Psychists can attempt and sometimes successfully force a chaos-tainted entity that has come into the world by means of gating back to its home realm, the Realm-of-Chaos—this is especially true of the z'aluman. Psychist powers were particularly useful during the Isbajutha.

Traditions of Psychism

Of the several traditions of psychism, the Shaphrizite and Vimalian are the most revered in the West.

• Shaphrizite Tradition of Psychism
• Vimalian Tradition of Psychism
• Weshifite Tradition of Psychism
• Amandalite Tradition of Psychism
• Hœrnectian Tradition of Psychism
• Sungotinian Tradition of Psychism
• Other traditions such as in Za'Bahuna.

See Also

• Eiphanas Asgionantiaks Bydanaksi of Sephri, aka Iphanas of Sephri, Ancient Ithatian Philosopher of Psychism and Magic
• Isbajutha
• Magic
• Sensitive
• Shaphrizites