Reality reliably constitutes itself in patterns that the conscious mind can comprehend. Each pattern can be given a symbolic name, and numerical basis. The pattern I wish to talk about is the relation between two branches on the weave of Eight.

[Wiki poster's note: original format in game depicts the below in a 'diamond' or 'circle' formation, but I'm shit at editing]

            Abjure

    Necro    Enchant

Divine_________Illusion

    Trans     Conjure

            Evoke

I will speak of the relationship between Divination and Necromancy. This is something that many shamans ought to be familiar with. There are several spells that would thread aspects of both genres. I cannot say which method would be more efficient, for either Divination or Necromancy to be predominant, only that there is value in their synthesis. Even for the lost souls who view reality as little more than a trophy case from which to pull resources, they will find practical use in the narratives I'm going to reveal.

What is Divination? A simple question, yet no one has given a real answer. On a practical basis, the learned initiate might say that it's the practice of weaving revelatory magic. But how? Hitherto, we've failed to ontologically conceptualize Divination. It's a difficult task that invites conflict, either with yourself or with your peers. For this reason, many fools have gone on to claim that the Eight branches of the weave are actually impotent and arbitrary. It doesn't take a genius to realize the cowardice of such claims. If these categories were impotent, then learning to focus on one of them wouldn't yield any results. But that's demonstrably false. Those who focus on one of these branches can weave its ontologically relevant spells with MORE potency. Everyone knows this. So there is clearly a narrative here that popular science has failed to identify.

Divination enhances our cognitive machinery, by bringing us in closer spiritual attunement -- ephemeral proximity -- with supreme consciousness. This truth is in its very name. Divination. Divine. These spells elevate our consciousness--our soul--creating a channel between us and the desired information.

And what is Necromancy? Another simple question, and one even more rife with moral posturing and cowardice. In the paradigms of ages past, it was Necromancy, not Conjuration, that served as the framework upon which healing spells were woven. Clerics, commanding the greatest healing, were also the most accomplished animators. Only through Palemastery did the arcanist compare. Some spells still linger as proof of this, like Greater Restoration, and the Resurrection spells. Even an encyclopedic entry for Necromancy acknowledges these roots, stating it as the practice of weaving spells that command the forces of life, death, and undeath. Yet as time goes on, reality's narrative continues to play out, thereby evolving the practical landscape. Were these aspects of Necromancy lost, destroyed, forgotten? I do not know. But the narrative thread continues, as the past informs the future. In fact, it's with recent scientific breakthroughs that I'm hopeful Necromancy will breakfree from its current cultural stigma. "Nothing is ever truly created, nor destroyed. Only changed." Death is always in service to life, and life always necessitates death. This is the ontological essence of Necromancy.

Necromancy manipulates the spirit of a thing, for better or for worse. Due to the inexorable link between the physical and the metaphysical, these manipulations create tangible effects. Of interesting note, as well, is that it's only sufficiently complex lifeforms that this practice has the tools to effect. And in our present paradigm, those effects are most often harm and impairment.

The overlap here becomes tantalizingly clear. One practice emphasizes the elevation of consciousness (divination), while the other manipulates the building blocks of consciousness (necromancy).

Consider now the following spells: Speak With Dead, and Legend Lore.

At their core, both are used to retrieve information. However, one focuses on the inanimate, while the other focuses on what was once animate.

Speak With Dead reflects an animacy back into the deceased specimen, reconstructing a simulacrum of its previous consciousness. Thereby it allows the caster to access fragments of what the body's host once knew, adopting its knowledge into their own.

Legend Lore, on the other hand, gleans information from reality's wider narrative. Nothing is reflected upon the inanimate item; rather, the item reflects upon the caster. They become more at one with reality, and as such, can discern its narrative with more familiarity.

Now let's consider Astral Projection, and Scrying.

Astral Projection frees the soul from the body, leaving you connected only by a thread, as you are otherwise spirited through the planes, by way of the Astral. And then when you emerge, the universe balances; it realigns. Matching physical with metaphysical. Bringing your body to bear at the new location of your soul, as you become one once more.

Likewise, Scrying segregates your conscious awareness. However, when this separation draws the caster's consciousness toward a person, place, or thing, it's in a much more transient way. Sometimes even with a degree of difficulty. However, success still means that this extension of the caster perceives reality through a limited aperture, fixed at the intended target.

So what would happen if one were to blur the line here? Astral Projection is a spell very few have mastered. But if you could take that connection formed through Scrying, and turn it into something more palpable? It would be a limited form of Astral Projection.

Consider the ancient shamanic rite of the Mazticans, called "Toril's Embrace." This experience, like all shamanic rites of initiation, is meant to foster an awareness of reality's narrative--its spirit. Through the aid of visionary plants, and while buried in the ground, they set their soul free in symbolic death, to explore and become more at one with the supreme consciousness of reality. It is an augmented form of Astral Projection.

I have done it, and you could as well. So go try. See for yourself. Imbibe some visionary plants. Bury yourself in a grave. Immerse your spirit in reality. Then scry and be transported.