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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hexmage-EN" data-source="post: 7443520" data-attributes="member: 79428">I've started reading a book recently called Secret Religions, which covers various real world New Age organizations and cults. It's inadvertantly helped me like the idea of psionics in D&D better, changing my understanding of the concept from just a scif-fi substitute for magic into a form of mysticism.The main thing that has caught my interest is that several groups, like the Theosophical Society, taught that psychic powers are innate to all humans but that only some people learn how to access them. Some claim that humanity as a whole once made extensive use of psionics but either forgot how to use them or somehow become largely incapable of it, while others say that humankind is just now discovering their hidden abilities for the first time.Another interesting concept is that there are entities who have mastered these powers to the point of becoming independent of mundane reality. These "ascended masters" strive to help others achieve apotheosis.D&D already has a number of concepts that could be integrated with this mystical view of psionics. Monks, like psions, are capable of unlocking supernatural power that is innate to mortals, yet largely untapped and only accessed through specialized study (4E's psionic monk makes more sense now, actually). Githzerai also embody both psionics and the monk class, and they have their own "ascended master" in Zerthimon. Perhaps "ki" is related to psionic energy in some way.Plus you've got the Astral Plane, a realm of thought, so you'd think that would have something to do with psions. 4E also floated the idea that divine magic might be a variant of psionics, seeing as the realms of the gods are linked to the Astral Plane. Maybe you could even have fringe cults claiming that the gods themselves are actually an order of ultra powerful ascended masters.</blockquote>

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