However, is telepathic communication possible between a Chereoinite and a Terrestrial? He can read our thoughts but we cannot read his. Can he not only receive but also transmit? Is he not only a telepath but also a telesend? Can he transmit a question and read our response?
I think that he cannot. If Aycharaych had this power, then he would use it to spread disinformation. If a spontaneous, intuitive thought enters your conscious mind, how can you tell whether it has emerged from your unconscious or has arrived from Aycharaych's mind? If he had this power, then he would use it to the full.
CS Lewis' demon Screwtape, advising the novice tempter, Wormwood, suggests that, if Wormwood's human "patient" is feeling down, disheartened, discouraged, demoralized etc, then Wormwood should smuggle in the presumptuous thought, "By Jove, I'm being humble!" Can demons or telepaths do this? Insert a thought that we think is ours? With such a power, Aycharaych would subvert and defeat the Terran Empire very quickly.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Interesting, these speculations about Chereionites and Aycharaych. It does make me wonder if PRIVACY was totally nonexistent among members of that race before it became extinct. Is it possible this complete lack of privacy even contributed to this extinction? Complete knowledge of each of each other may have made intimacy intolerable. Or did Chsreionites evolve some kind of "mental blocking" with each other so they could have some privacy?
And it was darn well FORTUNATE that Aycharaych did not have the kind of mental powers you speculated about here. With them he could not only have brought down the Empire but also Merseia! And we do see some Merseians uneasily wondering if Aycharaych's goals and ends matched those of the Roidhunate.
What Aycharaych did, of course, was to use ordinary conversation with, or questioning of non telepaths to evoke in the minds and memories of his subjects the information he wished to obtain.
Sean
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