fandomhigh | Magical Theory 101 (Wednesday, 02/01/2006, 4th Period)

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Magical Theory 101 (Wednesday, 02/01/2006, 4th Period)

CLASS IS CLOSED
The door, as usual, is closed in order to minimize disruptions from the hallway, and Jenny's got coffee, bagels, and strawberry cream cheese sitting up on her desk by the sign-in sheet. "Today? Magic and science meet. Well, sorta, given that not everyone thinks parapsychology is a real phenomenon. ~~And I'm totally not cribbing off this lecture for Psych 101 later, why do you ask?~~ Parapsychology is the study of certain extrasensory abilities that researchers believe can be quantified in a laboratory setting. Extra-sensory perception--ESP--is also known as anomalous cognition, and includes telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairalience, clairgustance, clairsentience, precognition, postcognition, psychometry, and dream transference. Anomalous operation includes psychokinesis--aka telekinesis--out-of-body experiences, astral projection, near-death experiences, mediumship, and reincarnation.

Some parapsychologists specificially study hauntings hauntings. You guessed it, ghosts. ~~In fact, I think our esteemed Gremlinbusting team has some credentials in the field of parapsychology. ;) Not that I know or care IC, because gremlins going away is a good thing in Jenny's eyes.~~

So. The larger scientific community? Pretty skeptical. Go figure, right? It's common for parapsychological research to be held to even more strict standards of the scientific method than most standard psychological research. For example, two researchers must always be present during an experiment in parapsychology in order to ensure that the results are considered valid. Valid results? Anything over a twenty-five percent success rate is considered valid by the parapsychological research community. But we're going to treat it as real here. Anybody here skeptical that sort of stuff exists? Seriously, if you are? Okay. No problem there. I just disagree. Sure, there are frauds out there. I've got no problems with stricter research standards. I just don't think the scientific community at large is ever going to be in the mood to recognize that parapsychological phenomena is real and quantifiable.

So. Some basic definitions are needed, right? Here are a few of the basics. Your worksheet has more definitions for you. Psychokinesesis: Movement of physical objects by force of will. Telepathy: Ability to communicate mind-to-mind. Clairvoyance: Knowledge of distant events, places, or, hey, whatever. Basically, knowledge of current events transmitted by inexplicable means. First you want to prove it exists before you prove how the information is transmitted, I think anyway. Hauntings? A little more complicated. You could call it looking for ghosts. Or some people think a ghost is just an empathic residue of an individual or a particularly strongly felt event that took place at the site of a haunting.

Extra reading is up on the desk for you if you want it. We've got "Parapsychology Without The Para (Or Psychology) and and your worksheet is next to it. ~~First link is a pdf file, second link is our usual Wikipedia link.~~

A lot of these things are tested with Zener cards, which are those five sets of cards with different symbols that one person holds up and one tries to guess. You can actually test telepathy, clairvoyance, or precog with those--depending on your test setup.

I've actually got a laptop set up here with an online Zener card experiment. Can't test telepathy that way, but since the results are preselected, what you're testing is clairvoyance--if you want to play around with that.

Parapsychology is a big field, and I've boiled it down a lot for you here. Questions on anything more that I didn't cover? Further explanations on what I have covered? Randomness?"

OOC Note: Things are busy today. Expect slow replies. :)

Useful Links:
Ms. Calendar's Voice Mail
Ms. Calendar's E-Mail

{{OOC: OCD comment threads ~~going up shortly~~ are up now.}}

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"Because," Kiki answered with a faint hesitation, "when we did those readings in class, I got something bad. Really bad. And it came true. Now this Zener test...Ms. Calendar, I was trying to fail it. But I still got 11/25."

"Why is showing evidence of clairvoyance a bad thing, Kiki?" Jenny wrapped her hands around her coffee mug and took a drink. "Though, gotta say, seeing something bad in the cards and having it happen pretty much bites. Is everything with that done, or are things still hanging on?"

"I don't know," Kiki admitted, pushing her hair off her brow. "It's... kind of complicated, I guess. I'd asked about love, about my problems with - well, that's not really important - and I got the Knight of Swords, reversed, for my approaching influence. I thought it had something to do with that problem, not that it indicated a new one."

Kiki grimmaced. "I don't think I'm explaining all of this very well," she sighed. "Other than reading cards and runes and tea leaves, where I'm from, a diviner has another method they can use. Communing, or speaking with the dead. It's very dangerous, even for skilled diviners, and many refuse to use these methods because it's so close to and leads often to-" Kiki's voice caught and her next word she spoke almost fearfully. "-Necromancy. My mother told me that many necromancers are strong in divination, that that's how they got their start."

Kiki took another breath, and continued. "I'm not an extraordinarily powerful witch, and I'm certainly not trained at all in performing them but - I did a seance, to try to help a friend back before Christmas, and it worked. I'd been hoping that it was just a fluke, but..." She shook her head, and her hands were clenched into tight fists before her on the desk. "I shouldn't have been able to do it, and this test just confirmed why I could. And I wish it hadn't."

"And necro is some pretty heavy, dark stuff to get into," said Jenny. "But just because you can do it doesn't mean you have to. And it sounds like you're really not jazzed about the idea."

Kiki dropped her gaze and shook her head a little. "But I already have," she whispered.

"I wasn't just sick on Monday," she said softly. She'd been thinking about this, a lot, and no matter how she looked it it, she came always back to one logical conclusion. "I think...I think I was dead."

"Doesn't mean you have to do it again, though," said Jenny. "But a little ol' seance isn't necessarily necromancy. Unless there's something else going on?"

"Dead?" asked Jenny. She frowned. "That's a little odd. What makes you think that?"

"The lack of pain, the gentle voice calling me forward, the promise of complete and utter peace and rest, the quiet empty void..." Kiki lists quietly. "Mostly I think it was how all the pain was just gone."

Jenny looked down into her coffee for a minute, then glanced back up at Kiki and smiled wryly. "Doesn't match up exactly, but--" She paused. "Hey, I've been there. Kinda boring, y'know? So what's up with that, anyway? What happened? If there's something I can do to help, lemme know."

Kiki looked up in surprise. "You were? Dead? How did you deal with coming back?"

"It's not like I really keep it a secret," said Jenny. "'Course, I don't advertise it either. Do you want to go back to being dead? Because like I said--sure, utter peace. But kinda boring. I was pretty disoriented when I first got back to the land of the living. Didn't help that my family handed me a suitcase full of clothes, a laptop, some cash, and sent me off here right away along with a simultaneous lecture on my duty." She shrugged. "We don't really get along."

"No, I didn't know," Kiki marvels quietly. "I wasn't there long enough to be bored - someone was calling for me, so I went. It was like climbing an endless mountain, coming back. I was so tired...I'm still so tired. But that could be-

"It all came from that first seance. I didn't close it correctly, and the spirit started harrassing me...at least, I thought it was just a spirit. But it was something much more powerful, and when I went back in to bar him back in the spirit realm, he... possessed me." Kiki took a shaky breath as she relived the events and she blinks several times. "The whole time, I could see what it was doing, and could do nothing to stop it. It took an angel, a demon, and all my own strength to get that... that thing out of my body... And - it killed me in the process."

"Well, y'know, I'm fairly sure most people don't find it boring," said Jenny. "But that could be what?"

"You sound like you're still recovering," said Jenny. "I mean, you're back, you're alive. You're no longer possessed. These are all good things. But something's still bothering you."

Kiki gave a sad, hollow smile. "I guess it's just that it doesn't feel like it's that simple. I remember everything he said. Everything he made me watch as he forced me to torture my closest friends," she whispered brokenly. "All the pain and torture he inflicted on me. I never thought it would be possible to feel that much pain. He was so...obsessed with hurting me, and all I cared about, hurting my friends to torment me as well as them, and kept calling me pet names while he talked about how much he wanted to break me."

Kiki raised her head and looked at Jenny with watering eyes. "But I don't understand why. And...what if what fascinated him so much was this divination skill of mine? Am I going to be a lure for these sorts of evil spirits for the rest of my life?"

"Sounds like you've got a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder going on there," said Jenny sympathetically. "Possession's not an easy thing to cope with, and watching an evil spirit use your body to hurt the ones you love? Much worse. Do you think you want to see a counselor? I'm willing to listen, but I'm not qualified to do any sort of official therapy."

Jenny fished in her laptop case and came out with a small package of tissues. She silently offered them to Kiki. "That depends, I think," said Jenny. "On if you're planning on running any more seances. I'd advise against it, if I were you."

"I've sworn those off," Kiki said, her voice hard and determined. She plucked a tissue and wiped her eyes. "Thank you," she said, putting on a small, brave, smile. "I might talk to Dr. Pevensie...but I thought you might, I don't know, have some advice? Dr. Pevensie seemed really nice when I met her but I also kind of felt like this sort of thing was a little out of her area."

"Dr. Pevensie's probably a little over her head with the magic stuff, but post-traumatic stress disorder's going to be the same no matter what the situation is," said Jenny. "But what kind of advice are you looking for?"

"I'm not even sure, myself," Kiki answered, rubbing her temples. "I know some basic protection spells... but I'm worried they're not strong enough. Most of what I know is low power. I - I'm scared. That he, or someone like him, will use me like that again, and I won't be able to stop him - and I won't have the help of people who are strong enough to drive him out again... Isn't there a way I can mask myself? Or at least the stength of my divination power?"

"There are probably ways," said Jenny. "But I don't know if I could teach you anything. A lot of what I do know-- Well, it's my family's magic. We tend to hold it pretty close to the chest. And I focus my magic through my computer anyway. I can give you the names of some books that can help you, and a note into Special Collections for those books."

OOC: To be honest, I'm not looking to have Jenny teach active magic right now. I'm sorry! I don't have the time, and IC, Jenny's got one person she'd teach, and that person isn't an active character in the game.

Kiki nodded. "I understand. I'd like to see what's in the Special Collections - there would probably be a lot that's useful in those books."

[ooc: That's fine! :) No worries.]

"True enough, there might well be," said Jenny. She scribbled down the titles of a couple of harmless, potentially helpful books that didn't contain a drop of bad--or even gray--magic in them, and added a note okaying Kiki to go into Special Collections for those books. "But you've gotta be careful in there, I hear."

OOC: Cool! If you want to come up with anything useful or plotty out of Special Collections, I highly recommend checking it with the Librarian and the game admins. Also, use a link to this comment as your 'note' for Special Collections when you hit the library.

Kiki nodded solemnly as she took the paper. She looked faintly more reassured and less worried, but still drawn and exhausted. "Thank you," she answered quietly with a wan smile. "I'll be careful, certainly."

"Good," said Jenny. "You're one of my best students, and I'd hate to see something happen to you."

Kiki's smile widened a hair and two spots of color appeared faintly in her cheeks.

"Thank you, Ms. Calendar," she said, gathering up her books and slowly standing up.

"Any time," said Jenny. "I'll see you around."

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Magical Theory 101 (Wednesday, 02/01/2006, 4th Period)

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