On 1/12/06, Scott Schultz <scott at cjhunter.com> wrote: > > > As for the status of Psychics, I get the impression that there are probably > several branches of "fringe" schools of magic. As noted, it seems to be > rather similar to Witchcraft, though it's methods are derived from the > Dragaeran left-brain approach to such things compared to the Eastern > right-brain approach. It might well be a hallmark of House Hawk that it has > nearly as many "schools" of esoteric science as it has family lines to > research and teach them. > I noted that in /Sethra Lavode/, there was mentioned one "Paarfi of Hovaal" (no relation to the author of the Histories) who headed Sethra's psychic communication corps, who was also a Hawklord. I sort of suspect that Hawks may tend to specialize in psychics. On a tangent, an analogy that occurred to me was that Orb-sorcery might be compared to the steady, standardized voltage, frequency and amperage of electricity that modern society uses, Elder sorcery might be compared to directly tapping nuclear power (the stuff that (sometimes) drives the power plants that produces the electricity that everyone else uses), and psychics is like magnetism (often produced by electricity, but can also exist on its own, and can be very powerful). To continue the (somewhat strained) analogy, witchcraft can be compared to directly exploiting quantum mechanical effects, which are weaker than the more common forces. But there's stuff that can be done with quantum mechanical effects that cannot be done with anything else. Um. Or something like that. Disclaimer: I've just read an article on atom chips, which causes me to want to pretend that I know what I'm talking about when discussing physics.