Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 9681118" data-attributes="member: 58172">I found this post in an other thread. It shows how ancient the concept of psionics is. The list is useful for crosscultural comparisons.Comparing these Hindu traditions with Norse traditions, the mind of a soul can:"Force influence upon anyone" − this is Norse seiðr, "playing with minds". This intimate interconnectivity among minds is positive and compassionate, as well as potentially aggressive."Expand body to an infinitely large size", "reduce body to the size of an atom" − these relate to shapeshifting, literally form-travel ham-far. The soul has different aspects, including the body-soul being the lifeforce of the body, and the mind-soul hamr being the sense of self. The Norse and the Sámi share these shamanic traditions. The mind-soul is able to journey beyond the body. Techniques to disassociate the minds point of view away from the physical body include becoming the form of an animal as an alternate self, or becoming the form of a dead corpse. (Compare Óðinn sacrificing self as a shamanic trance technique, and the many references to shamanics entering a deathlike trance.) Free from the body, the mind-spirit can take on any form imaginable. References to infinitely large and infinitesimally small relate to an existential mind being the fundament of any and every reality. The particular things of any experience are fleeting "delusion" ginning (compare Hindu samsara). The consciousness itself is the transcendent indestructible no-thing-ness. The mind-soul is wherever it visualizes, and is everywhere and anywhere, infinitely and infinitesimally."Access any place in the world" − the mind travels at the speed of thought, hugi. When attuning a particular location, the mind in a sense is actually, physically, at the location."Become weightless, as air", "become heavy, dense" − one can visualize ones point of view from a sense of self that is ones own body, or an other body, or an other kind of body, an other kind of object. Then the mind-soul is this new visualized "form", hamr. The stronger the mindful intention the more influence this mind-soul has over ones physical body. It is often the case, the mind-soul projecting away from the body can physically manifest, ghostlike, in the form of a bear, bull, or wolf, or in the form of oneself in a kind of bilocation, or in some other phenomena. But for those that are "form strong" ham-ramr, the form that the mind-soul aura adopts even causes the physical body itself to shift into it, as a metamorph. One might even shapeshift accidentally because of the influence of a shapeshifter whose mind-soul was unusually strong. Healing techniques include a healer projecting an aspect of ones mind-soul into a stone, and patient carrying the stone while the mindful influence regenerates the body to a healthy form. Specific explicit references to making the body weightless or heavy are rare in Norse literature. Identified as an alfr, Vǫlundr is said to "hover" among the clouds when he returns to the sky. Likewise, the references to various sky beings having homes across the atmospheric skyscape, convey a sense of weightlessness among the mind-soul activity of nature beings."Control all material elements, natural forces" − for humans to control nature is somewhat rare, but nature beings do exactly this all the time. Also, the Sámi shamanic, the noaidi, is understood as able to control weather, and credited with the deadly arctic storms. There are occasional references to a Norse shamanic altering the weather, such as in regard to a lover sailing at sea. Nature beings, vættir, including mountains and thunderstorms are the literal natural phenomena: the actual unique mountain, the actual lightning strike. The lightning strikes because its mind-soul wants to. These material things of nature also have mind-souls, and some of these mind-souls are shamanically "strong", and able to manifest elsewhere, in various forms, including human and animal forms, and achieve various marvels by means of shamanic mindful influence. As the mind-soul of a wind can manifest in the form of a human, the mind-soul of a human can manifest in the form of a wind."Realize whatever one desires" − wish. In modern popculture, this is sometimes refered to as "visualization", or "visualization boards", or traditional "faith to move mountains". The mind conceives an intention and acts toward accomplishing the goal while also trusting it to happen miraculously. In the Norse traditions, this concept relates to prophesy, spá, the ability of the mind-soul to foresee across the timelines of fate, ør-lǫg, "the primordial law", spacetime. In the Norse concept, some fates once set are unalterable features of spacetime, but even these limitations can be radically subverted, interpreting them in a surprising way. A human can be a "luck smith", a maker of ones own fate.</blockquote>

Verification