Energism

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

Energism differs from arcane magic in that energism draws energy directly from the practitioner 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 energism and arcanism, but disagree about the nature and practical articulation of it.

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

There are several schools of energist practice. The subtle school believes that energism which enhances existing ability and works without obvious effect is best. However, most skilled energists usually adopt a mixture of several schools. Some energists 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 energism.

Energism 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 energists, sometimes called psychics. The ancient Ithatian philosopher Eiphanas Asgionantiaks Bydanaksi of Sephri proposed that energists 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 energist powers did not draw from the panstream, but not determining whether they originated from the earth.

Many terms for energist practices and energism are borrowed from the Khahonri Language, In the Khahonri, an all-purpose energist is called a z'aluman while an energist who focuses her powers on enhancing her combat ability and skills related to combat, such as self-healing, is called a kamsudhi.

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

Energists often practice meditation and focus development of the lower three or four chakras which are essential to the power of energism. Energist 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.

See Also

• Eiphanas Asgionantiaks Bydanaksi of Sephri, Ancient Ithatian Philosopher of Energism and Magic
• Isbajutha
• Sensitive
• Shenimites