Unified Source Theory: Ch'i, Magic, Psionics, and Cosmic Energy

[AlgaeNymph]

7 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

I think you're thinking of his other book, Authentic Thaumaturgy, which is a gaming supplement.  I've gotten more gaming use out of Real Magic, myself.

Oo, sorry for the confusion.  ^_^;

 

18 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Getting back on topic, OP asked if any of the stock super-power energy sources could encompass others. It wasn't completely clear that you meant to limit this to options that would work in the CU, or that you wanted to privilege some sources or models over others. So, I gave a way a certain model of magic could swallow up science, even if it can't work in the CU. I'm sorry if it wasn't what you wanted.

Well I did ask in the Champions forum so I felt that was implicit, but...being explicit is necessary for scientific discussion.  Also, apologies for being a bit antisocial back there.  Like I said, the Traditions are kinda triggering, and there are people who think like the Devil's Advocates in real life.  (Seriously, Gyre needs a friend, not a face-puncher.)

[DShomshak]

Well, yes. Gyre was inspired in part by the Kabbalist tradition that students should have a study partner (and married, and over 40 -- let's pass by the "male" admonition...) to help keep them grounded, because learning too much, too fast, is dangerous. IIRC, Isaac Bashevis Singer's play The Dybbuk has a young student who dies from excessive comprehension... and leaves a ghost.

 

Anyway: Bonewits wrote a game supplement, too? If I ever knew that, I forgot it.

 

This will be brief and probably not do justice to Real Magic, since it's been a couple decades since I read it.

 

At the time Bonewits wrote (1979 revised edition), parapsychology was still a thing, so h takes telepathy and psychokinesis as within the bounds of scientific reality. He also thinks telepathy might be electromagnetic, because our brains are electrochemical. But that's not actually central to his argument.

 

So, telepathy. If people are telepathic -- even if unconsciously, and erratically -- you have the possibility of a group-mind "switchboard" (this is before the internet, remember) with, potentially, the psychic energy, processing power, and knowledge base of all humanity, as a resource for magicians to draw upon.

 

Psychokinesis might operate on more than the macroscopic level of, say, bending spoons and controlling the throw of cide. Psychokinesis operating at the cellular level might explain feats ranging from faith healing to voodoo curses. Atomic-scale PK could move heat around (for pyrokinesis, among other feats), manipulate light, or even transmute matter.

 

The paraphernalia of magic -- the consecrated tools, the ritual setting, invocations, incense, and whatnot -- are tools to focus the magician's mind, consciously and unconsciously, so as to activate, shape and direct telepathic and psychokinetic ability. (Bonewits has a whole chapter on "The Fundamental Patterns of Ritual.")

 

Even summoning spirits can be justified within this system. Say you want to conjure a demon to attack an enemy. The magic circle and other implements and procedures focus your mind and will. Atomic psychokinesis shapes an apparition of a body, giving you the illusion of interacting with a separate being. Then cellular psychokinesis causes your victim to get sick, have a heart attack, or whatever. Or if you summon a spirit of knowledge, you are actually accessing the Switchboard for information you perceive as coming from the spirit.

 

Likewise, all those divination methods, the 'ologies and 'mancies? ways of accessing the Switchboard. What the collective unconscious/group mind doesn't know, it might be able to infer, with more than Holmesian ability.

 

Bonewits admits that magic has, hitherto, been deeply unreliable, which somewhat excuses scientists from not taking it seriously. But he thinks a scientifc approach could cut out the outright superstition and develop more reliable techniques.

 

As I said, I don't think Bonewits' schema could work for the CU. Too much is established as genuinely external to humanity: Tyrannon is not a rogue neurosis of the human collective unconscious, given an illusion of form by atomic psychokinesis. But it can work in other settings. Bonewits also offers some cogent observations about common patterns in how people practice magic, that you can use to make magic in your game feel more, well, magical. His discussion of claimed and potential psionic abilities also gives some cool ideas for psionic characters. All in all, I think it's a useful source for gamers.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

(Oh, and I don't blame anyone for having, well, issues with White Wolf games. Even when the game concepts were brilliant -- and some of them truly were -- I often found the 'tudes insufferable. About which I could discuss more, but it would be bad manners. So I won't.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[AlgaeNymph]

On 2/18/2021 at 12:00 PM, DShomshak said:

Gyre was inspired in part by the Kabbalist tradition that students should have a study partner (and married, and over 40 -- let's pass by the "male" admonition...) to help keep them grounded

So she needs a friend and a love interest.  Got it.  Just don't have it be specifically a male PC, like every time romance is brought up in the supplements.

 

On 2/18/2021 at 12:00 PM, DShomshak said:

I don't think Bonewits' schema could work for the CU. Too much is established as genuinely external to humanity: Tyrannon is not a rogue neurosis of the human collective unconscious, given an illusion of form by atomic psychokinesis.

Well not for everything in the CU, but it might work for something.  Or it might not; that's what applying science to magic is for.  : )

 

[Chris Goodwin]

On 2/18/2021 at 12:00 PM, DShomshak said:

As I said, I don't think Bonewits' schema could work for the CU. Too much is established as genuinely external to humanity: Tyrannon is not a rogue neurosis of the human collective unconscious, given an illusion of form by atomic psychokinesis. But it can work in other settings. Bonewits also offers some cogent observations about common patterns in how people practice magic, that you can use to make magic in your game feel more, well, magical. His discussion of claimed and potential psionic abilities also gives some cool ideas for psionic characters. All in all, I think it's a useful source for gamers.

 

1 hour ago, AlgaeNymph said:

Well not for everything in the CU, but it might work for something.  Or it might not; that's what applying science to magic is for.  : )

 

It could work for a particular character.  Psionic-powered, but their power acts like magic.  

 

I got an idea long ago from Bonewits that I've wanted to use.  World X has what might be called talents or knacks; generalized magic has come about through a number of talents that have allowed lending and borrowing of talents, along with a long period of what amounts to scientific study of the phenomenon.  The guild of talents and guild of magicians are both annoyed with each other; the talents hate it when the magicians take a perfectly good potential talent and ruin them by teaching them that frou-frou stuff, and the magicians hate it when they miss out on a potential and their talent locks itself into a fixed form.  It's really all just different powers with a common basis; "magic" is what happens when a bunch of people think they've discovered a system and teach it to potentials.  The same thing could apply to "high tech" or "monastic martial arts" or "elemental bending" or any other systematic training.  

[Chris Goodwin]

On 2/18/2021 at 12:31 PM, DShomshak said:

(Oh, and I don't blame anyone for having, well, issues with White Wolf games. Even when the game concepts were brilliant -- and some of them truly were -- I often found the 'tudes insufferable. About which I could discuss more, but it would be bad manners. So I won't.)

 

Dean Shomshak

 

At least in my top 10 of very favorite RPG writings ever is the Cabal of Flamboyant Justice, which must have been cross pollination for what eventually became the Champions Universe Mystic World cosmology.