Living Psionics
Psionics - the harnessing and shaping of personal, internal energies - is a unique experience. Much like Zen, its essence cannot be described; it must be felt. At the heart of psionics is a tautology: only understanding brings understanding. Still, for the curious, what follows is an attempt to describe the psionic experience.
The first thing a psionicist learns is how to recognize internal energy. Everyone is filled with it, but most people are completely unaware of it. It suffuses our being 24 hours a day, building up during times of rest and draining away during times of exertion or stress. The psionicist learns to turn his awareness inward and search for this energy. Gradually, he gathers it together, drawing it toward some spot. The notion of drawing is key, because this energy cannot be pushed or forced; it must be enticed to accumulate. An experienced psionicist can gather his energies continuously and unconsciously. For a beginner, however, this is the first and most important breakthrough.
Once an amount of energy has been gathered, the psionicist can begin shaping it. The closest description for this bundle of energy is a "warm spot" at the gathering point. Initially, warm spots are easiest to form at the front of the brain. As the budding psionicist practices, he learns to move it around. Eventually, he can gather energy anywhere: his head, his hand, his shoulder, his back. The precise location is important when using some powers, but not all. The energy is not shaped in the normal sense of that word. Instead, primed may be a better label. The psionicist visualizes the effect he wants. The stronger the visualization, the more likely it is to succeed. When the gathering reaches its peak, the energy is usually realized in a single, explosive release.
Many psionicists describe this release as an instantaneous increase in the apparent temperature of the warm spot, accompanied by a "beat" sensation - as if the warm spot had fired spikes of energy in a radial pattern through the psionicist's body. This sensation is strongest when the psionicist is directing energy outward in an aggressive fashion - when moving an object, for example. If the power being used is directional, the spikes are strongest in that direction, and very minor in others. If power's effects continue for more than a few moments, the beat also continues, but at much lower intensity.
Contact, a common and vital power, has another physical manifestation. Rather than a warm spot, subjects describe the sensation of contact as a "thick spot" or a "heavy spot" somewhere in the mind. They usually have trouble locating it precisely (front, back, left, right), but feel nonetheless that it is a definite place. Forcible contact (as in telepathic combat) is similar, but much more extreme. Each tangent arrives "like a gallstone in the mind" according to Bezelar Mujarif, a prominent psionicist now residing in Calimshan. When contact finally comes, he adds, it feels "like a tiger has unsheathed its claws in your head."
Clairvoyant powers tend to operate one of two ways. Either the power simply layers over the psionicist's normal senses (clairaudience, clairvoyance) or brings information in snatches and bursts of insight (object reading, precognition).
Nonpsionicists often imagine that a telepath can "eavesdrop" on their thoughts. That's not quite true. If a psionicist uses telepathy, the target's thoughts do not flood into his mind, masquerading as his own thoughts, or interfering with them. Instead, the thoughts come forth as simple knowledge. The psionicist knows what the target is thinking, as if someone had told him hours before and he just now remembered.
