The Symphony Ephemeral: A New Book Out Now!

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TheoremOfNeutrality
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Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 10:07 pm

Posted by TheoremOfNeutrality »


Having caused a modest splash in the scholarly community with its release, this book is available in places of learning and from the shop of Kesto Brighteyes. It's slim, carrying numerous equations with snippets of philosophy and explanation between.
The Symphony Ephemeral: A Treatise Re-evaluating the Nature of Magic and Energy wrote:
In search of truth, sages and greybeards throughout time have carefully sought out principles of power and the machinations of magi. Enough has been written on the nature of magic to fill a thousand libraries – but very little of it successfully delves into the deepest mechanics of it as a discipline. This knowledge has been the sole property of the ancient wisdom, the occult mystery behind all magical schools of thought. This tome in your hands exists for the sole purpose of finally cataloging this wisdom, of weaving it into a comprehensible form, agnostic to any singular philosophy and applicable to any practice. Within this book you hold, a new school of magical study will be created: Energy Mechanics, the study of the nature, mechanical properties and the philosophy of the basic building block of reality.

The root assertion of Energy Mechanics is thus: energy suffices all things, all things are energy. No singular school, type or observation of magic is separate. Arcane magic does not draw from a different pool than divine – the deities drink from the same well that a wizard does when they channel power. What separates the wizard and the priest is not the energy drawn, but merely the technique used to draw it. The wizard shapes clay into platter ware, the cleric shapes clay into vases – but both still shape the same clay. Arcane, Divine, Psionic – the three primary magical schools, of which all others are derivatives; each cohesive, but interwoven, drawing on similar thoughts and principles. The first truth that must be accepted to grasp magic is thus: to see magic clearly, one requires three eyes.

That is likely a controversial assertion, and so we will not let it stand on merit alone. In order to show the obvious nature of that statement, we will apply the principles of Energy Mechanics. We will begin by examining the nature of energy itself, its cohesive nature as the animating property of reality, the nature of energy resonance and how it plays into its nature, and how energy denatures into dissolution by the process of entropy. We will then attempt to discover where energy is and how it gets there. We will understand when energy comes into being, how time affects the nature of energy, and how energy is related to all events that have or will ever occur. We will examine the greatest nexuses of energy in the Multiverse, the Planes, and their outward expressions, the Powers, and we will likewise examine the nature of Patterns. We will then coalesce all this knowledge into the nature of applied Energy Dynamics: magic, examining how the previously established observations apply to magical practice on every possible level. Then, we shall at last examine the primary tool with which energy is manipulated, the final goal of Energy Mechanics: the refinement of the Enlightened Will.

Energy: An Ontological Dissertation wrote:Energy is best described thus: a resonant field comprised of the two primary creative forces, Possibility and Potential. Possibility is the essence of the idea, its purest form – a dream which exists independent of reality, which can take infinite and protean shapes unbounded by any concern. It is assumed and projected from the Astral Plane, where all ideas, thought or not yet conceived of, exist. Potential is the raw conditional nature of reality, the means by which all things come into being, the essence of form, shape, promising everything but unable to become of its own accord. It is assumed and projected from the Ethereal Plane, where any shape comes into being from the mists of protomatter. Throughout reality, these two forces intermingle in differing amounts to bring about all that is. Both are equal, opposite, reliant upon the other, and from two is a third born: Creation.

To examine energy and measure it, one must dissect it into three different measurements: the dweomer, the field and the resonance. These move from the largest possible observation, to the smallest. A dweomer is a purposed field of energy, defined by its resonant signature. A field is an observed movement of energy. A resonance is the base nature of a field and dweomer, what determines the shape both take. Energy is resonant – it moves, vibrates, echos at different volumes and frequencies, and this resonance, along with the energy’s composition as either being more Possible or more Potential, are the core means of determining the nature of a dweomer. One should think of energy as sound, with its sweetness or harshness being determined in much the same way as a bow upon a string. A dweomer is a full song, fields are separate notes and the resonance are the specific snippets of sound themselves. Without resonance, there is no energy – all would be stillness, without difference or purpose.

Continuing that theme, we must understand how the resonance of energy changes over time – and the primary process that brings this about is known as entropy. Energy moves in cycles of complexity, beginning in its simplest form, and growing increasingly in complexity, before the process of entropy returns that energy to its simplest form. Nothing is destroyed – but everything is changed. Change is the sole absolute, not serving as the opposite of stillness, but as the force that brings energy between stillness and movement in an eternal cycle that brings about all that is. Without entropy, energy could not move, could not bring about life. All would be emptiness.

With entropy to provide disparity, the first important quality of reality was born: movement. Energy exists everywhere, all spaces are sufficed with energy. Space is the natural result of the movement of energy, a base Pattern that energy requires to fill all things. Even Vacuum is gently infused with the dissolving nature of negative energy. Dweomers exists simultaneously across layers of reality – be they separate timelines, dimensions, planar boundaries, and even entirely separate Patterns. When one alters a specific resonance within one layer of reality, that same resonance is altered across all layers simultaneously – creating the observation known as As Above, So Below. This answers two important questions: how does energy move across infinite space, and how does it move if it already suffices reality? To put it simply, energy fields dilate, and then split into imperfect copies, both with subtly altered resonances – and this dilation spreads out in a chain reaction of movement across all subsequent layers of reality. This subtle alteration is what brings about metamorphosis in form, what Purposes energy into various shapes, be it fire, ice, love, hate, a solar or an elf, even time itself. All comes about from the movement of energy.

Time was the second major quality of reality, and it is born from the movement of energy across space. It does not move as a singular flow, as the observation of As Above, So Below shows us. Instead, time moves in recursion – also obeying the Unity of Rings. Past, present and future are all observations of energy, and all exist simultaneously in the same space, as separate layers of reality, all influencing one another in what would be better described as a spring, bent in a circle so both ends of the spring touch. Following its recursive nature, all events repeat – with entropy causing the slightest alterations with each repetition. All that is will be again, all that was is coming, all that will be was already so. Only rare spaces and beings contain powerful enough resonance to exist in perpetuity across all layers of reality.

Great nexuses of power, the Planes occupy all their potential, perceptive realities at once. This is, in part, what enables their infinity – they exist in recursion, and will ultimately repeat, with but the faintest alterations. They exist in what is termed as relative determinism – a space in which reality alteration is limited to specific purposing and resonance. Planes act as great gathering points of purposed energy. As perception alters energy, it moves towards these great sinks of power that exist and likewise influence the very perception that creates them. This push and pull is vital, as it does allow the nature of Planes to change over time, or even all at once with great, singular actions. The beings most capable of these acts are the most famous and powerful denizens of the various planes: the Powers. Powers reflect the Planes in many ways, and this is what assures them their power – they exist as pure fonts of resonant energy that perpetuate through the purposing action of the minds of their worshipers, replicating themselves between each worshiper as a single, unifying force. In doing so, they reinforce the push and pull that brings about the Planes, acting in many ways as pillars of Creation, singular outward representation of concepts too specific for any Plane to represent.

In this way, energy is cohesive – it binds together all of reality in a constant cycle of movement, push and pull. Reality exists both outside of abstraction and in abstraction at the same time, and these seemingly exclusive properties instead create the necessary conflict that brings about reality; the tension and quaking of opposites. All these disparate observations play singular roles within one another. Through these various means, even something as small as a mortal can wield power great enough to influence the fate of entire planes.


Applied Energy Mechanics: Magic wrote:With our foundations laid, we can now discuss the aspect of energy everyone knows and has seen: the mystic arts. Magic is itself the use of the Will to manipulate localized dweomers – to cause artificially what may have happened on its own. Magic is the apex of these teachings – even those who have their capacity to channel these energies intuitively must refine their Wills to make it occur (and these innatists frequently face a greater hill to climb in that regard). We will carefully dissect how the properties of energy give rise to the capacity to influence reality, and finally establish our central argument: that all magic exists as separate techniques to manipulate the same mass of being.

All magic observes three basic properties of energy manipulation: sympathy, antipathy and reflection. Sympathy is the tendency for energies of similar nature to congregate into dweomers of increasing complexity. Sympathetic magic is the most common form, as it produces stable dweomers that are easy to manipulate. Examples of sympathetic magic are those that use symbolically aligned materials in their casting, such as a priest’s holy symbol or the licorice root used to cast a haste spell. Antipathy is the tendency of opposing energies to reduce all dweomers to a state of base ambiance. These are most frequently seen in the form of anti-magics and abjurations, though quite a few psionic manifestations use antipathy to cause direct harm to the mind. Reflection is the tendency for dweomers to produce the opposite of their effect elsewhere within the chain of causality, creating a secondary effect through the application of a primary method. Illusion and shadow magic are the most common manifestations of this property, which either indirectly influence light to create the effect, or cause a change in the Plane of Shadows to create a change in a connected Plane.

Magic can likewise be channeled in two ways: it can either be channeled externally, drawing from energy sources beyond the self (such as a deity), or it can be internal, using personal reservoirs of mental or physical power to produce. As a general rule, arcane and psionic techniques tend to be internal, divine techniques tend to be external – though this not even close to a hard and fast rule. Exceptions of all kinds exist. The priest who draws upon a personal faith, or the belief in their own divinity would assuredly be classified as an internal caster, whereas the arcane arts of the invoker are sourced from a pact with another being and are usually external in nature. Even spells and manifestations within these techniques can vary and become external or internal. What remains true, regardless, is that magic is easiest to classify in this way: from whence does the initiating energy originate?

In the case of most arcanists, the energy is sourced from the exertion of the Will. Mental and emotional processes are key to this style of magic, which utilizes fairly rigid (if diverse) ritual means of focusing the Will – in the form of complex verbal and somatic components. Innatists may rely on entirely nonsensical versions of these components, or they may use ones that are symbolic only to they – but only arcanists with specialized training can totally internalize the Will and bring about change in reality. As noted above, invocation bucks the trend of the arcane being an internal discipline – it straddles the uncomfortable state between the two, as the power is not directly granted. Instead, it is merely presented, molded and shaped by the invoker’s will. The true masters of external magic remain divine casters, who use specialized rituals to channel the nature of a higher force. Deities quite literally implant the power to use certain dweomers directly into the minds of their priests. What results is an extraordinarily diverse type of magic – each faith and philosophy being capable of unique spells. Psionics prove to be the ultimate internal, sympathetic discipline – as they rely heavily upon the interconnections of the minds of all beings. Manifestations often make for the most subtle of dweomers, as they ride sympathetic currents that bind all beings together.

All these various techniques of magic form a whole within the cohesive and circular flows of energy. A mystic, noting the observation of As Above, So Below, mimics what energy will do on its own. In all cases, a strong Will encourages reality’s natural dweomers to conform as they wish – it’s only the means that ultimately differ. The Will is the guiding tether between each. This is what we will refer to as the Enlightened Will – the quality of all beings to confront adversity, to assert selfhood, and to bring about true and lasting change in reality. Enlightened Will is the creation of practice, of study and careful honing of one’s self – and there is not just one singular method that brings about this goal, as evidenced by the multifarious permutations of magic’s nature. Even in this, however, we see a few patterns emerge – much as water takes the easiest course to its destination, so to do the various Wills of the Multiverse.

It is easiest to understand this unifying element of practice in the form of an equation. Strength + Will = Power. The opposite is also true, Power + Will = Strength. Will will parse this part by part. Strength is best described as one’s natural, innate, physical talents; strengths are things one is born with, and can hone. Power is that which we gain external to ourselves, and may arise from our strengths, but not necessarily so. Both aspects are required to create true and lasting change through magical means. We refine our natural talents with a strong Will in order to bring about our true power, or we use our power, obtained with a strong will, to encourage our strengths. The Will unifies.

Energy responds to the Will. It can sense us, it conforms to us, it brings about what we want reality to be. In this way, it controls us – it stops us from viewing things as they really are. It contorts reality into something that is participial illusion, creating the misconception of separation. Where there are two opposites, seek a third that stands between them. Understanding Energy Mechanics, seeking to grasp the nature of the building block of reality out of and in abstraction, allows one to see the true nature of things. Pause and listen, and one begins to hear the symphony ephemeral for themselves and the beautiful music within everyone.
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