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Studies: Utilization of the One Power

"Now, I'm new here, this is actually the very first thing I've ever posted on the net. I've only read the entire WoT once, but have just finished reading FoH for the second time, and I've been doing some discussing with some friends about the books, and metaphysics in general. So if this is dead wrong please tell me!

I have just read the Polarization Hypothesis by Drucker. As his text pertains the way one "connects" to the true source, I decided I should try to write something about the actual utilisation of channeling. It is probably going to be rather messy and hard to follow, but I am not good at explaining things, especcially in text, so please bear with me.

The way I see it channeling, actually all kind of magic in all fictional universes, is a subconsious act, much like the way your brain tells your heart to beat, but you can't consiously tell it to stop. Now, you may have heard about people who can control their heart-rate. This is done by finding a crossover-language for communication between the consious and the subconsious mind. In many cases, some sort of meditation. The same goes for channeling. You find some sort of imagery to tell yourself (Your subconsiousness probably doesn't understand english) what you wish to do. In Randland, the system used is weaving of threads. There are five threads: One for each of the elements (earth, water, air, fire), plus a fifth called spirit.

Now, let's say you're a wilder. You've realized you can channel, but you don't know any weaves. the first thing you would do is set up a system based on the elements, as that actually is a very logical system (the Greeks were quite clever), and start trying it out. If you wanted to make something instantly combust, you would channel a simple weave of pure "fire" into the object, maybe making small adjustments dependig on what object you were trying to ignite. But, then let's say you only wanted to heat the object. That would also depend on "fire" only. So you would have to weave another pattern in order to seperate it from the ignite-weave. It would still be only "fire" but the weavepattern would identify the difference. But for someone else, the patterns might be totally different. the reasons why the individual difference of weaves among Aes Sedai is very small (i.e. most Aes Sedai who weave Mirror of Mists will use much the same patterns) is because they've been taught it by others. After all, the educational system among both Aes Sedai and Wise Ones is very strict.

If we look at something more advanced, like healing, we can get a more indepth angle at things. According to the books, Healing is a weave made up by water, air, and spirit. This is mainly because:

1. Water is an archetypical image of life. Practically every multicellular organic structure needs water to live. So the element water is neccesary in healing.
2. Air is, like water, a strong mental image of life. The first thing a newborn does is to inhale, and the last thing a dying person does is exhale. Actually in many cultures, breath is directly or indirectly connected to lifeforce. Thus air is included
3. Spirit is a special element. It is not used to affect the physical world, but the mental plane. According to what several Aes Sedai have said, mental illnesses cannot be cured by the One Power, so the spirit threads cannot be in the weave for the same reasons as water or air. Most likely it is there to connect the healer and the pasient. This connection will the work as an "online" diagnostics tool, much like the "delving" (the medical kind).

In other words, Healing might work with only water and air, or even possibly water and spirit. But it would require immense amounts of work for very little gain. if one tried to heal with only water and air, on might do almost as well as with normal methods, or one might kill the pasient. Most likely the latter.

So far, I've tried to set up a theory for how the mental prosesses of channeling works, and how the elements are utilized in certain spells. Later on I hope to postulate a hypothesis on what the brain actually is manipulating, whether the One Power is a particle flow, a force-field, or whatever. Once I've got some sane (Insane) ideas on paper, I'll post it."

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