ESPionage/Cold War and Psionic Powers

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

I'm posting about a lot of it, but if you want to ask questions feel free!

It's been a while since I've delved down that path, and about as long since I thoroughly read Psi Powers, but there were two things that stuck in my mind about astral travel. I don't know if they would be related to your experience though, and I might have messed up real traditions with some of my own imaginings.

First- When an astral traveller first "awakens" as such, it involves a vision of their body being consumed by wild animals before they are reborn with in a new, rebuilt, strong astral body. Having an Astral Form would be the way to go with this, but I wonder what abilities it would have, apart from Astral Armour.

Second- I remember reading a blog or personal description about an astral traveller who either constructed or discovered his own astral sanctuary. It was a hidden canyon among some mountains that he could only access in an eagle form, and whenever he went there it was always the same. I think he described making his own buildings and landscape there, and it would be the first place he'd go before adventuring off to find astral truths or whatever. This sounds like Create or Control powers, maybe with a Homebase perk, but it needs some more detail.

Do either of these ring true to your experience?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Second- I remember reading a blog or personal description about an astral traveller who either constructed or discovered his own astral sanctuary. It was a hidden canyon among some mountains that he could only access in an eagle form, and whenever he went there it was always the same. I think he described making his own buildings and landscape there, and it would be the first place he'd go before adventuring off to find astral truths or whatever. This sounds like Create or Control powers, maybe with a Homebase perk, but it needs some more detail.

I'm actually using my rules from "Lord of Your Own Domain" from Pyramid #3/63: Infinite Worlds II for both Astral and Dream Domains. No need for Create or Control really to create your own private pocket of astral/dream space.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

That's very interesting. I came across a lot of stuff like this in my youth as I searched for Truth. Reminds me of the summer I spent with a hoodoo conjure woman.

I don't have a lot of experience with hoodoo specifically. That sounds like quite an interesting experience to have!

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Same with this. But Tulpas tend to be direct creations of dreams that sometimes become real and go off on their own in the Dreamlands or rarely the real world.

That makes sense. There could be a practice of investing them with power. That was a thing I definitely encountered and even experienced a little. There was a thing that some people did that from a secular psychological perspective is definitely concerning, but that might be interesting setting piece.

(content warning: trauma, trauma coping mechanisms, DID, and related psychological concepts)

The practice was basically taking a piece of your own mind and using meditation to externalize and personify it as another entity which may or may not co-occupy your psychic space. The methods vary and some instances I've heard friends talk about came about as a result of (what we now refer to as) dissociative compartmentalization, either in an intentionally self-inflicted way or as the result of abuse by others. In that context it is similar to the mechanics by which dissociative identity disorder actually works. That's the concerning secular psychological perspective on it.

The interesting setting piece for a psi setting though is based on the reasons for doing it. And basically there were two reasons:
1. one of them was a form of compartmentalized mind in which the different compartments would have (mildly at first) different personalities and capabilities. This could provide defensive benefits against psychic attacks, as well as allow one compartment to focus "subconsciously" on certain tasks rooted in the part of the mind that was cut off to form it.
"This math problem doesn't make sense. Compartment two, can you deal with this?"
Compartment two: "Sure. I'll get back to you about it." and eventually it does. etc.
Naturally this has a lot of potential drawbacks along the lines of loosing access to part of your mental functions in order to accomplish it.

2. The more common and perhaps more benign reason is to create an external identity which imbodies a too weak to be useful ability which you can continually build into a more powerful entity. Essentially, giving up a weak ability you can't control right to make it into a Tulpa connected to you that you feed psychic power until it can do the ability far more dramatically than you. An example would be a psi finding they have a connection with weather, but one that is weak enough that their own limited psychic power is insufficient to create a useful effect. So the personify that connection as an entity and carefully craft it into such, developing a relationship with that entity until it can even surprise them, while constantly feeding it power. While they could never change the weather on their own based on how much power they can put out, the Tulpa eventually becomes powerful enough to do so. Essentially it acts as a battery with a mind of it's own. The people I know who have done this did it mostly unconsciously and only later realized that it wasn't another entity they met but one they created out of themselves. But it could be done intentionally, I imagine.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I think what I'm going to do is create a variant of Illusion by stacking on inherent modifiers in it and then raising the base cost. It's the base cost I have issues with mostly, not the idea of it being used in a way to muck around with reality.

That makes sense. Doubling the base cost would make it, what? around 250ish cp? that seems solid to me.

Originally Posted by Daigoro

It's been a while since I've delved down that path, and about as long since I thoroughly read Psi Powers, but there were two things that stuck in my mind about astral travel. I don't know if they would be related to your experience though, and I might have messed up real traditions with some of my own imaginings.

First- When an astral traveller first "awakens" as such, it involves a vision of their body being consumed by wild animals before they are reborn with in a new, rebuilt, strong astral body. Having an Astral Form would be the way to go with this, but I wonder what abilities it would have, apart from Astral Armour.

Second- I remember reading a blog or personal description about an astral traveller who either constructed or discovered his own astral sanctuary. It was a hidden canyon among some mountains that he could only access in an eagle form, and whenever he went there it was always the same. I think he described making his own buildings and landscape there, and it would be the first place he'd go before adventuring off to find astral truths or whatever. This sounds like Create or Control powers, maybe with a Homebase perk, but it needs some more detail.

Do either of these ring true to your experience?

Unfortunately I might not be that useful here: I never practiced astral projection. Astral vision is something I believed I had. And an astral form, plus an astral sword and armor. But I never projected and don't have any even unintentional out of body experiences. I was actually very careful not to. Expanded awareness yes, including visions, but not disconnecting from my body.

The Transcendental Meditation Movement considers itself to be secular and tries very hard to avoid looking like a religion. Thus it actually tries to distance itself from other New Age practices. But since it got started in the 60s and his followers were mostly experimenting truth-seekers, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gave explicit warnings about other spiritual practices he saw as spiritual experimentation. Mostly his warning was "follow traditional paths as laid out in their traditions, don't mix and match" but he also warned against a number of other more specific things such as the use of drugs to assist in higher states of consciousness.

That said, many people practiced all kinds of other things anyways and since they were doing it on the down low there wasn't really an official stance on it, but there were unofficial stances and one of them was that you shouldn't contract with spirits, and you should never leave your body empty. You also just shouldn't do things that weaken your connection with your body as the body is the anchor and conduit of your consciousness.

TL/DR: Astral Projection was a firm no, that's too dangerous, don't do it: it weakens your connection to your body and your anchor in a way that is long term dangerous, and also leaves you extremely open to psychic attacks and possession.

So no, I don't know if you have to undergo getting eaten by animals before rebuilding a body. That sounds like one traditions way of seeing things, to me, rather then something necessarily universal. Usually inducing out of body experiences involves some extreme stuff like drugs or the Sun Dance. But I don't really know. I never did it.

I would say that my astral body was different then my physical body, that I engaged with astral entities as though projecting but without leaving my body, and that it was cool.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

I don't have a lot of experience with hoodoo specifically. That sounds like quite an interesting experience to have!

After my grandfather died I dropped seminary school and wandered around the coast for a while looking for faith, truth, knowledge, all those things. I found very little, but I did meet a lot of people who felt they had.

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

That makes sense. There could be a practice of investing them with power. That was a thing I definitely encountered and even experienced a little. There was a thing that some people did that from a secular psychological perspective is definitely concerning, but that might be interesting setting piece.

(content warning: trauma, trauma coping mechanisms, DID, and related psychological concepts)

The practice was basically taking a piece of your own mind and using meditation to externalize and personify it as another entity which may or may not co-occupy your psychic space. The methods vary and some instances I've heard friends talk about came about as a result of (what we now refer to as) dissociative compartmentalization, either in an intentionally self-inflicted way or as the result of abuse by others. In that context it is similar to the mechanics by which dissociative identity disorder actually works. That's the concerning secular psychological perspective on it.

The interesting setting piece for a psi setting though is based on the reasons for doing it. And basically there were two reasons:
1. one of them was a form of compartmentalized mind in which the different compartments would have (mildly at first) different personalities and capabilities. This could provide defensive benefits against psychic attacks, as well as allow one compartment to focus "subconsciously" on certain tasks rooted in the part of the mind that was cut off to form it.
"This math problem doesn't make sense. Compartment two, can you deal with this?"
Compartment two: "Sure. I'll get back to you about it." and eventually it does. etc.
Naturally this has a lot of potential drawbacks along the lines of loosing access to part of your mental functions in order to accomplish it.

2. The more common and perhaps more benign reason is to create an external identity which imbodies a too weak to be useful ability which you can continually build into a more powerful entity. Essentially, giving up a weak ability you can't control right to make it into a Tulpa connected to you that you feed psychic power until it can do the ability far more dramatically than you. An example would be a psi finding they have a connection with weather, but one that is weak enough that their own limited psychic power is insufficient to create a useful effect. So the personify that connection as an entity and carefully craft it into such, developing a relationship with that entity until it can even surprise them, while constantly feeding it power. While they could never change the weather on their own based on how much power they can put out, the Tulpa eventually becomes powerful enough to do so. Essentially it acts as a battery with a mind of it's own. The people I know who have done this did it mostly unconsciously and only later realized that it wasn't another entity they met but one they created out of themselves. But it could be done intentionally, I imagine.

That's some very interesting fluff to describe certain mechanics with. Thank you.

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

That makes sense. Doubling the base cost would make it, what? around 250ish cp? that seems solid to me

I think if I create "Illusion (Reality Control)" at 100 points and then bake in certain assumptions like "All senses are affected" and "it has X ST for constructs" instead of adding TK it might work. I'm still thinking about it.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

So no, I don't know if you have to undergo getting eaten by animals before rebuilding a body. That sounds like one traditions way of seeing things, to me, rather then something necessarily universal.

You made me go and dig up some 10 year old research notes, which directed me to some dusty old electrons on Google Books.

Shamanism: An Encyclopedia, p154
A common motif for initiation is for the destruction of the body, down to the bones. For Australian and Siberian novices, it is by their ancestors; for an Inuit, their soul is extracted from their eyes, brain and intestines. Another source (p147) mentions Mayan initiates being devoured by a jaguar.

Then their body is mystically reconstituted- for Arctic shamans, by metal, and for Australian and South American initiates it's by filling their body with crystals. The Mayan's body is clothed with bat flesh then his internal organs are replaced with crystals.

But this seems to be getting a bit away from the traditions that you've been talking about.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I'm actually using my rules from "Lord of Your Own Domain" from Pyramid #3/63: Infinite Worlds II for both Astral and Dream Domains. No need for Create or Control really to create your own private pocket of astral/dream space.

That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Great article, by the way, it deserves to be in it's own book.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

You made me go and dig up some 10 year old research notes, which directed me to some dusty old electrons on Google Books.

Shamanism: An Encyclopedia, p154
A common motif for initiation is for the destruction of the body, down to the bones. For Australian and Siberian novices, it is by their ancestors; for an Inuit, their soul is extracted from their eyes, brain and intestines. Another source (p147) mentions Mayan initiates being devoured by a jaguar.

Then their body is mystically reconstituted- for Arctic shamans, by metal, and for Australian and South American initiates it's by filling their body with crystals. The Mayan's body is clothed with bat flesh then his internal organs are replaced with crystals.

But this seems to be getting a bit away from the traditions that you've been talking about.

Extremely away. The traditions I was more associated with were rooted in Hinduism or appropriated Native American traditions, with heavy flavors of European paganism and occultism.

Although... weirdly... I did have an experience like that? I didn't... think of it as particularly an out of body experience. I thought of it as a dream, albeit an extremely vivid and visceral one. In a dream I was called, or summoned, or pulled, or drawn maybe to a cave in Australia where a couple old shamans took me apart piece by piece and rebuilt my body with crystals... I don't personally have any connection with that tradition though and this is the first I've ever heard of what you're talking about (that I can remember).

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I think if I create "Illusion (Reality Control)" at 100 points and then bake in certain assumptions like "All senses are affected" and "it has X ST for constructs" instead of adding TK it might work. I'm still thinking about it.

I once made a character that had
Illusions (with extra senses, some area of effect, some range, and initiative)
TK (with an equivalent area of effect, selective area, and initiative)
DR (with forcefield, area of effect for the same area, affects others 1, selective area, initiative, some range).
all linked together with "must be used"

Illusions that look real, have a ST value and a DR value (make it ablative for an "hp value" instead). Selective area and initiative is used to make the TK and DR just mimic the illusions.

It was highly convincing almost all of the time. Her TK st and DR were both relatively limited in order to conserve points, and her aoe was also small and non-mobile (which, in retrospect, it should have been mobile, it was certainly treated as mobile even though it didn't have the modifier).

Mostly I bring it up because exactly what the constructs could do was very clearly defined and highly usable while also the single most versatile ability I think I've ever had.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Great article, by the way, it deserves to be in it's own book.

Thank you. When Pyramid was active I filled as many holes as I could for the things I noticed. Given how much I run games I noticed a bit more than usual.

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

I once made a character that had
Illusions (with extra senses, some area of effect, some range, and initiative)
TK (with an equivalent area of effect, selective area, and initiative)
DR (with forcefield, area of effect for the same area, affects others 1, selective area, initiative, some range).
all linked together with "must be used"

Illusions that look real, have a ST value and a DR value (make it ablative for an "hp value" instead). Selective area and initiative is used to make the TK and DR just mimic the illusions.

It was highly convincing almost all of the time. Her TK st and DR were both relatively limited in order to conserve points, and her aoe was also small and non-mobile (which, in retrospect, it should have been mobile, it was certainly treated as mobile even though it didn't have the modifier).

Mostly I bring it up because exactly what the constructs could do was very clearly defined and highly usable while also the single most versatile ability I think I've ever had.

Interesting. I had considered DR but ignored it. I think I probably shouldn't. I'll have to mess with Illusion some more and see if I can make that work with the DR of objects. Obviously there would need to be a limit of sorts.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Thank you. When Pyramid was active I filled as many holes as I could for the things I noticed. Given how much I run games I noticed a bit more than usual.

Yeah. I definitely noticed that and appreciated it. I'm definitely going to check out that article specifically. It's a subject matter that I've wanted to deal with in games a number of times.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Interesting. I had considered DR but ignored it. I think I probably shouldn't. I'll have to mess with Illusion some more and see if I can make that work with the DR of objects. Obviously there would need to be a limit of sorts.

Yeah. If you combine all of those things you can also do power techniques for things like snatcher off of it.