This is a very rough draft for a part of the "supernormal" in my nascent modern-weirdness setting "Conspiracy Practice". This weekend I'll put up another section on strangeness and an updated (and terser) version of this one. I'd really like some feedback on artistic consistency, relevance and I'd really love any suggestions that you have for applications or themes that could be integrated.


Pscience

Pscience is the area of human knowledge analyzes the knowledge of being human. Just as physics is the organized study of forces, and biology is the organized study of life, and philosophy is the organized study of wisdom, pscience is the organized study of awareness. This is not psychology or even sociology -- though it is inconceivable that one day these will not be absorbed into this field. But that hasn't happened yet, the realm of pscience is both too vivid and to tenebrous for such generalizations to yet be made. A good analogy for the relative states of knowledge would be if
Newton had seen the colors in his prism, and then immediately deduced
the techniques of Rennaissance art.

But what is pscience. It is the study of awareness, but that's like saying physics is the study nature -- the statement says so much that it says nothing. But that's the best anyone has come up with. Suffice is to say that emotion, sentience, thought, will, and consciousness are not artefacts of the world but things in themselves, and they have origins, and consequences, and implications, and that pscience is the study of all of this. It is as vast a realm as physics, or biology, or art, but while ideas from
these are present in the field they are inspirations and not postulates. In fact, the methodology used in pscience was derived directly from that of (good) literary criticism, because literature is organized thought and criticism is how one studies it.

Pscience's effect on The Game has been twofold. Many phenomena and powers cannot be explained using the methods of physics -- so physics has concluded that these things do not exist. They are not even wrong, merely not as right as they think they are. But in the context of pscience such things as ghosts, lucid dreaming, psychic power and far more are believable, so there are those in the Game that use them.

The second factor is that these have not come from pscience itself. The field has not yet produced many useable applications, or at least far less than tens of thousands of years of gropes and stumbles by thinkers throughout history. So quiet struggles in terms of anthropology and archive search go on to get all the information possible, to be put to eventual use when someone figures out how.

But make no mistake. Pscience is not itself a mystery, but an explanation no one understand yet. Just as the natural world is being explained by physics, pscience will explain what is now thought of as "supernatural".

Now, for pscience's major themes. I want to try and fit what I can into these areas, so the concept doesn't become too slapdash and derived.

Aftertention

The awareness is definitely connected with the physical life, but not totally. It exists for a time afterwards, but gradually the mind is broken down and recycled into babies in what pscientists have termed the "carnation cycle". While they do so linger minds can sometimes affect the physical world, causing the phenomena often considered spectres and ghosts.

Dreamfields

However, humanity does not owe its sentience to each individual awareness. To a great extent our ability to think and imagine is derived from our connecton to a thing that has been independently termed the collective unconscious, and which we can only perceive in dreams. In another matter, a small number of animal species also have such connections -- meaning these creatures are *far* more intelligent than science gives them credit for.

Sympassionism

On a more primal level, emotion and attention are not internal matters. There are confirmed connections existing between oneself and those things, people and items and areas and possibly even *ideas*, one has strong feelings towards. The possible implications for things that are the focus of emotions of many people quite frankly frighten those in the highest ranks of the Revolution. On the other hand, things such as true love and the sense of being stared at now have an academic basis.

Disciplines

And what would this be without psionic power? Just as the machines of physics are made of matter, the "machines" of pscience are made of extremely disciplined and precise *thoughts*. Swamis and martial artists, through their decades of self-discipline, occasionally get a mentality that can think these thoughts, but only by accident are they on the right track. This is the true cause of "chi" abilities and transcendantal meditative powers, but small progess has been made in the Game towards finding the specific thoughts involved and giving training towards these concepts in specific -- and has yielded results in the form of certain bodily, affinitive mental and physical powers for those who practice them.

Brainburners

But the brain is involved, and other powers can be gained through physical properties of one's neurology. This is the origin of the occasional person with "second sight" and other abilities, but powers have also arisen after physical or psychological trauma among previously unremarkable individuals. And those whose brains are deliberately screwed with in very specific ways have demonstrated some very powerful abilities, though both sanity and physical health suffer from such an approach.

Spirits

All that has been said has dealt with "human" awareness, but there are also "free" spirits of many types and sorts which have consciousness independent of body. A few can directly affect the physical world, but most are only relevant when they "possess" an item or person and use it for their wills. The skull jumpers are of this sort, as are other beings -- including brownies and gargoyles -- which have appeared in mythologies across the world.

The Occult

Over the eons, a few traditions have arose that teach their followers to deal with these free spirits, and placate them or control them with the benefit of their service being the end result. This does not include The Art (described in applied theology) but many other things such as shamanism, voodoo, cabbalistic magic, and shinto powers have some real potency in the Conspiracy Practice setting. This is the applied form of the previous fields, and has been known to involve everything from debates, to contests of will, to human sacrifice.

Well, it's very hard to speak to relevance without context. What's the rest of the game like? What context do we find these abilities in?

This seems like a lot of explanation for what's still, essentially, a jump in belief. Why not just say, "these things exist, get over it"? I mean, reading this might give me some insight into how these things actually work in the game world. But does everyone in the gameworld have the same beliefs as to how these things work?

Mike

RE the word 'pscience' - are you married to it? From your description of its meaning, I think what you're describing is Ontology

Ontology hadn't occurred to me, but I already have a section of the setting that refers to "Applied Theology", and applied ontology would be pushing the envelope.

As for the context issue, the rest of Conspiracy Practice is nowhere near being ready for even preliminary posting. The "supernormal" is going to be a relatively minor part of the setting, the real emphasis is on the spies and the conspiracies they face -- and are members of. The Game is the shadow fight to guide human history, and it has spawned many forces of evil. And one force of good, the Revolution, which stands for all things good and pure and for the dignity of being human. They face malice aforethought afoot, and the reek of brimstone on the wind. But they can't stop, because their problem is they're heroes.