Mental essence

Mesmerists manipulate mental energies through occult magic.

The wheel of magic divided into quadrants, with the points pointing towards the four essences of Mind, Spirit, Life, and Matter, and the quadrants representing arcane magic, divine magic, primal magic, and occult magic. Eight colored rings surround the wheel, one for each of the schools of magic.

This article refers to one of the four essences. Generic uses of terms such as mind and thought should not link here.

Mental essence, also called Mind, thought, or astral essence, is the academic definition of the fundamental energies that allow beings to think about, rationalize, and remember reality. It is one of the four essences of metaphysical study, the opposite of the instinctual vital essence and bringing shape to material and spiritual essences.

Mental essence empowers and facilitates rational thought, logic, language, learning, and consciousness in beings, including some particularly conscious emotions. This includes unconscious dreams, which conjoin mental and spiritual essences, and the perception and disbelief of illusions. Its application is also not limited to sapience; nonsapient beings also interact with mental essence, albeit less so.

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In magic

Magic that affects mental essence prominently affects the gathering and processing of information, manipulates beings' perception of time and reality, and creates or destroys illusions.

In the magic theory of magical traditions, mental essence is most associated with the arcane and occult magical traditions for their properties in manipulating mental perceptions of reality. Arcane magic is the conjunction of material and mental essences, and occult magic is the conjunction of spiritual and mental essences.

In the schools of magic theory, it is most associated with the divination, enchantment, and illusion schools, and in the cases of spells like haste that manipulate perceptions of time, limited aspects of transmutation.

The eidolons of arcane magic summoners are typically formed from mental essence.

In items

Intelligent items

An intelligent item gains sentience and sapience by acquiring mental and spiritual essences, resulting in a consciousness—and in some cases, a soul—of its own.