Mentem
Mentem is a Form, one of the fifteen Hermetic Arts that underlie Hermetic Magic. It governs the mind, including immaterial spirits that are nothing but mind. Mentem also affects the Characteristics of Intelligence, Perception, Presence, and Communication. Animal minds (i.e. those creatures with Cuning instead of Intelligence) are not affected by Mentem, instead being susceptible to Animal.
The Art is explained in ArM5 79 and 148. Further discussions and rules are provided in HoHS 66-70-70. The topics include creating emotions, lists of mental capacities, of emotions, and mental states, and affecting memory.
Three aspects are especially noteworthy in the HoHS expansion on the Art. First, the creation of emotions is explicitly tied to Personality Traits and natural resistance. Second, the creation of detailed memories requires Finesse (contradicting the core Memory of the Distant Dream spell). Finally, the section explicitly deals with the subject of "procedural" and "inscribed" memories, noting that while Hermetic magic should be able to create Abilities, in practice it cannot.
Works providing inspiration
- The tenth chapter of Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson, provides some interesting ideas and discussion about how to view mentem effects. There are people in the book that can burn certain trace minerals to cause various magical or psychic (pick your poison) effects. Most such individuals can burn one metal for one category of effect, more rare are those who can burn any metal. With that background, in the tenth chapter, Breeze, a soother, explains how his work can be used, to the point where his ability and those of his opposite number, inflamers, can essentially bring about the same results by soothing or inflaming different emotions to various levels. He even explains how by basically only influencing emotions, the memories of a group at an event can be enhanced. Good descriptions for mentem type effects. Review by IMHO
Legacy Page
The history of this page before August 6, 2010 is archived at Legacy:mentem