Alright @sleepy-night-child gave me license to do this and I'm letting Raymond explain:
So there's a bit of a difference between how people think Nyp magic works and how I know it to work, and that's mostly because since most people don't trust it it hasn't been allowed to be studied or advanced in the same way that other types have.
Nyps are people who can sense and manipulate the mind. When you really get into it when studying visigiology (that's the study of magic), all the types of magic are drawing from inherent connections that already exist. You can think of Nyp magic simply as magic sensitive to neural firing. But because we have mind and cognition ourselves, other's minds present similar to how it presents for them, as cognition, and it's really drawing on the links between cognitive nodes. That's one of the huge differences between us and Vivals, because theoretically Vivals could manipulate neural firing. Already, Vivals have made a lot of advances in magic that helps brain functions-- but the point here isn't Vival magic.
So there's kind of two things you have to master to be a good Nyp: getting in, and manipulating things while inside.
As far as getting in goes, you can't just get in just by making contact. You need some idea of how their mind works. I think of it like entering a house. So when you're simply talking to someone, especially a stranger, your walls are up, it's smalltalk, surface-level. A Nyp can't really get in-- you're standing in front of the door, or talking through a peephole, or you stepped out on your porch.
When you've started learning, you always have someone you trust let you in. If it's someone you know pretty well already, it's easy to get in. In fact, I think a lot of Nyps without training can slip into their friend's and family's minds, they just don't know what it feels like or how to do anything beyond that. They might not realize the door is even open. Sometimes they may slip in without realizing it, which would present as empathy or a slight psychic link. But because so many Nyps don't know they're in because they're not taught, they don't realize they have this access. If you know what you're doing though, you can feel it. If you're in training, someone who trusts you is usually teaching you, and might tell you something personal to let you in.
(More under cut)
A trained Nyp, though, learns how to get people they don't already know to reveal a bit more about themselves. If you're good, you can slip in with a small detail, with the door open a crack, sometimes even though inference.
Usually, this has to be through direct conversation, because you have to have engaged with them for the door to open to you. But I've gotten pretty good at slipping in and sensing when that door is open to someone else (doesn't matter if they're a Nyp or not, just only Nyps can go through the door and do anything), and can sneak in. That's how I can get into their head without talking to them.
There's actually another way to get in, but this one no one talks about, and I think because people haven't really figured it out. It's tricky too. It's through the senses. You have to have a good amount of experience with the other stuff, though, because that teaches you how to follow sensation.
Once you're in someone's head, if you're good, you can find their senses, follow them, see where they lead and the emotions attached to it. There's an underground Nyp trauma treatment that deals a lot with this, because the whole point is to weaken the sense-memory connection. Anyway, once you're good at following senses, you can actually use it to gain access.
Touch is easiest because it goes both ways-- if you're touching them, they definitely feel you, too. It has to go both ways-- you have to sense them, they have to sense you, because you're using your own senses to connect to theirs, tangling the two for a moment, and then following the signal back to their brain. And if they've gotten used to the sense enough to ignore it, it'll be much harder to gain access. Hearing's not hard, but it takes practice, because often you do it by talking to get their attention, and then you're doing two things at once. Vision is the hardest, actually, because our brains compensate and guess at most of what we see and our attention moves between different things we see that there's only that connection for a brief moment and it's hard to grab onto.
Most people don't know that Nyps can use senses, and to be fair most can't. Because Nyp magic is illegal to teach, train in, or cast, the field is pretty stunted. Most Nyps don't know any magic, and those that learn a little use the conversation method.
Once you're in, though, there's a lot of things you can do, though everything requires practice. The most common is thought-interpreting or thought-implanting. You don't have to know too much special for that. To use the house metaphor, this is all in the entranceway: whatever is currently being thought about. What people don't realize though is that it looks different for everyone, and it takes some practice to interpret if people think differently. If you think in words, for example, but the person doesn't, it takes some practice to sense their thoughts. You really have to be open to alternative ways of thinking. The cool thing about being a Nyp though is you actually understand how those alternative ways work. For example, Terran doesn't have pictures in his thoughts, and I do-- but all the information was there, I just couldn't see it. It helps to have a better understanding of psychology and cognition because it helps you know what to look for and how to interpret. That's also why most Nyps will call it mind-interpreting, not mind-reading, though both terms are used.
Implanting is only slightly harder. Anything in your mind is organized by a web, sorted by associations, that get activated. Interpreting is often just sensing what's being activated. The basic process draws on your own energy to forcefully activate certain things in their mind. If they think differently than you, and you don't want them to realize that the thought is foreign, you do have to change it into how they think. But if you have practice, it is almost as simple as having the thought yourself, you then just launch it into theirs. Your minds are already connected, so this isn't difficult once you get the hang of it. What's much more difficult is if they don't already have the schema to create the thought. Information is okay because you just take the concepts and connect them to create the info, but if there's something there they don't have a concept of then you sorta have to recreate it, which is difficult, but I'm not going to go into that.
Other than implanting and interpreting, the other main thing Nyps do is follow and manipulate connections. So before I was talking about either sensing activation or using your own energy to activate it yourself. But Nyps can also manipulate the connections, weaken them or strengthen them, cut them off even. This will change the way you think. Most Nyp magic is basically just imposing your own mental energy on their mind instead of your own. I mentioned before that it's hard to cast while talking? It's hard to cast while doing any of your own cognitive processing-- why many close their eyes, and why it's really hard if you're stressed. But changing the links exerts more control then most people can do with their own mind, and it all comes from the ability to control mental energy.
Some Nyps even focus on just learning to control their own mental energy (especially since there's no way to arrest you for it). When I was in middle school I figured out how to do this, to manually strengthen these links and commit things to memory more reliably. That's why I was able to skip a grade, got really good at memorization. But you can do that to others, too, if you get into their mind enough.
Almost anything you do can fade over time, and most things do last beyond a Nyp's manipulations. The more it's done, the more permanent it will be, but the mind will also correct itself and reform.
Examples of what you could do when manipulating other's is:
Take away memories-- technically it'll still be in their head, but completely cut off. Any link to it is destroyed. If every link is destroyed, it's unrecoverable, but that's rare. Most of the time a very weak thread will remain-- weak enough that the person can't get at it, but a Nyp using their own energy to propel them could, especially if they know what they're looking for. If the person gets reminders, though, that link will slowly reform. But that doesn't mean it's completely undone or not lasting-- the trauma treatment I mentioned that some Nyps have experimented with? I think that even if they get reminders, with the memories now reactivated in a safer environment and with more emotional distance, the person will be able to process it and remember it without the emotional reactions.
Manipulating emotions-- this is not that difficult, and it's what Mika got good at. Once you know where emotional processing happens you can connect almost anything to that emotion. Memories are already inherently emotional, as are most schemas. A lot of emotional manipulation is working with what's there, but it is possible to completely change the emotion. Once you do that, it's as simple as sending a ton of activation there. Emotional manipulation is also lasting-- unless the Nyp undoes it, that emotion will pop back up when that concept is activated again, though it may not be quite as strong.
Recognition-- recognition is just a strong connection between multiple concepts. Weaken the link, and recognition will be more difficult. This is usually very temporary, because recognition is learned, and even if you break that link the mind will relearn it quickly, so it really only reliably works once or twice.
Something like taking down Terran's focus is something I wasn't even sure I could do, but I had a theory about it. Since it's something he does through a Nance spell, it's much more difficult to change the activation level, because he's using his own resources to raise it but also to direct it. through the spell, he ends up keeping the activation from spreading too far. To be fair though, I don't think I completely understand what he does, but this is form what I'd observed. It stays on the concepts and tasks he finds useful and shuts down anything else. I don't know if I could always do it-- and I don't want to-- but it was basically forcing the activation to spread again. Problem is, because it's a Nance spell, there's a lot more there then there normally would be, and looking back on it, him getting overwhelmed was probably the best way that could have gone.
Of course there's more Nyps can do, but most things do boil down to manipulating links between concepts in your head or altering levels of activation. Most Nyps I've met who practice-- which admittedly is less than I wish-- have figured out something unique they can do, but of course there's no way to formally study it.
Thanks for listening!
Since this is a World thing I'm going to tag the taglist but no pressure to read through all this!
as a member i am legally obligated to plug the new york paleontological society. we meet every 3rd sunday in room 319 of the american museum of natural history at 2 pm. this month were having a presentation on dinosaurs of the gobi desert, but the topics vary every month; there is definetely a healthy representation of aquatic paleo. so come! its fun and you get to learn about different topics in paleo from professional researchers (who generally keep everything pretty accessable).
Ali Smith
Instagram: mommaloveAli
Twitter: mommaloveAli
Book: www.MommaLoveTheBook.com
Jim Lafferty
Instagram: jimlafferty
Karli Cadel
Instagram: karlicadel
Twitter: karlicadel
Entrance is free, but seating is limited!
The Photo Salon Committee:
Jay Maisel
Lavonne Hall
Bill Westheimer
Jack Reznicki
David Hodgson
Klaus-Peter Statz
For questions please contact
Lavonne Hall [email protected] or
Bill Westheimer [email protected]
It hasn’t been long, my dalliance with spoken word poetry. While I always have been writing, I never really found a direction I wanted my writing to be taken in. It was always trying my hand at this and that and seeing what works the best.
And on a very similar conquest, I came across spoken word poetry. It was by a fluke that I realized, this is something I can do! and one thing led to another and here I stand. Finally knowing where I belong! It has been a short but one hell of a journey.
Started with Sarah Kay, about a year ago. I read the quotes below and just had to see the woman who wrote them. And then came Mrs. Ribeiro! And that’s it, I was in love.
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Poets who really do it for me are so few and far between, and if this is what Sarah Kay has to offer in her 20’s I cannot begin to imagine what her life long career and future works will be like. Simple unadulterated play on words and metaphors. One of Sarah Kay’s key skills is to make everything relatable. Common experiences which we sometimes fail to take notice of just because we are clouded by the white noise around us.
So, it has just been six months and look how far I have come! I got to attend a one on one workshop with Sarah Kay, when she came to India for the first ever National Youth Poetry Slam. And boy, oh boy, was I, in true Darshita fashion, nuts!
I walk inside the workshop and almost slip, because there she was, right in front of me. Not ten feet away. #fangirling
I had been excited for a week, ever since I heard about the workshop, you see I had the added advantage of attending a 3-day workshop with the two most beautiful people and enormously talented guys i have come across : Ikenna Onyegbula and Kyle Luow. Their workshop, changed my life and it made me the person I am today. I write my poems the way I do, because of all that these two taught me. So if I got one with Sarah Kay, I wanted to see what that would be like!
Spoken word poets Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye at the High Line in New York on September 10, 2013. Sarah Kay is the Founder and both she and Phil Kaye are Co-Directors of Project V.O.I.C.E., for Vocal Outreach Into Creative Expression, that shares the art of spoken word poetry with schools across the country and around the world for students from kindergarten to graduate school.
Sarah Kay’s workshop, it goes to show why she is who she is. The hype, is not hyped up at all, and she, the most beautiful, vibrant buoyant person I have seen. Her words, they travel, they hit me right out of the screen and she is such a dynamo in real life, she is full of energy. Even when she’s listening, you can see her brain working, thinking, feeling the words, all the time. And she has the Dumbledore gaze. The one which stares right into your soul kind.
Seeing her in action has been a privilege. Seeing her act a word, gives the world a whole new level of resonance. She makes the words travel, they hit, right where they have to. Turns a word into an experience, a full blown performance and she tried her best to teach it all to us. Us, young poets who were busy fangirling over her, not able to believe she was in front of us! And believe it or not, once you get over the fangirling part and start doing what she s telling you to, it all comes together so beautifully.
She embodies poetry and words in a way that really personifies all my beliefs about poetry. you dont need for your spoken word poetry to be indignant. It just has to be you. It doesn’t need to say anything yet, it says a story which will stay with people for a long time. All the three poets i’ve had the privilage to work with, all of them made this pretty clear. It is not about the point you’re trying to make, it is about honesty. And vulnerability. And if you have the courage to put a little bit of yourself out there, for people to see, once you bare your soul, you recieve a millionfold in return.
After the workshops, I can see, feel the shift in the way i write! And if there is one thing I hope to keep forever from these people, its the art of appreciation. How every life, every story, every word, matters.
The poetry workshop with Ikenna Onyegbula and Kyle Luow
It just goes to say that I’ve had the distinct privilege to have seen and met the most brilliant spoken words poets out there. I got lucky. Flukes have always worked for me.
All in all, I guess in a way this is the first time ever, I have been satisfied with something I wrote and can actually say Just how much, meeting these brilliant poets did for me. I finished writing this just the day before, and let’s just say, All that Kyle, Ikenna and Sarah Kay taught me, didnt go in vain ;)
Do let me know in comments how you like the poem!
(This is the first time I am liking my own poem)
Sarah Kay on How we measure creative : https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/brain-pickings-3114621/poet-sarah-kay-on-how-we-measure-creative-4782836175
Spoken word poetry : The journey so far! It hasn't been long, my dalliance with spoken word poetry. While I always have been writing, I never really found a direction I wanted my writing to be taken in.
