I agree. Relying on hearing makes the spell much more rounded and organic. Substituting hearing for vision should also not affect spell feasibility or level.
The MuMe Guidelines on ArM5 p.150 state that you need the Imaginem Requisite to "make a mind or spirit visible".
Here I am definitely differing. I do not buy that "make a mind or spirit visible" means "make me see everything I wish to know about a mind or spirit". Getting to know what is not patent is the domain of Intellego, and reading surface thoughts is an Intellego effect.
So the intended spell (R:Eye, D: Sun, T:Ind) contains a lvl 30 MuMe(Im) effect 'make audible' (Base 15, R:+1, D:+2) and a lvl 30 InMe effect 'read surface thoughts' (Base 15, R:+1, D:+2). IMO yet another magnitude of spell should be added because it involves creating language, following the CrIm guidelines.
ArM5 p.114f: "There are two kinds of requisite. The first ... The second adds an effect to a spell. In this case, the base Arts and level for the spell are those for the highest-level effect it has. ... if the spell would still do something without the requisite, but significantly less, then each requisite adds at least one magnitude to the level of the spell. ... if the additional effect is sixth magnitude or above, it is often appropriate to add two magnitudes."
Since a stream-of-consciousness narrative is IMO a very appropriate representation of surface thoughts, encoding in especially created species does no longer appear necessary to me, so I don't see a Creo requisite for this version now.
So I get:
The Curse of Angelic Speech
Mu(In)Me(Im) 45; R: Eye, D: Sun, T: Individual
This spell turns the surface thoughts of the target into words of his native tongue which are clearly audible around him.
(Base 15, R:+1, D:+2, In requisite:+2, Involving language:+1)
The problem I see with this is that not everyone thinks in words. There are people who do think in pictures, even if I'm not one of them. These people generally have a much faster flow of thought than those thinking in words. Thinking in words is like talking to yourself. Thinking in pictures is like showing yourself a movie. Which one is more informative?
Will this spell only specie-fy the "audiotrack" of those people? Or does it somehow transcribe the pictures into words?
I do not know to which psychological theory - modern or medieval - you refer to. So I can understand 'thinking in pictures' or 'thinking in words' only as metaphors for thoughts which can be more easily expressed in pictures resp. in words.
But whatever 'people who do think in pictures' (all the time? most of the time?) might be: unless they never had learned a language they wouldn't be incapable of verbalizing their thoughts, would they?
Anyway, even very complex paintings or movie scenes can be described quite exactly in words by art historians and film critics, while concepts like - say - purpose, obligation, avoidance are quite impossible to comprehensively express in pictures.
Thinking in pictures is a metaphor used to describe the difference between 'normal' people and people who have autism. Autistic people 'think in pictures.'
Accounting for this, it may be appropriate to say that Curse of Angelic Speech may not work on a target that is autistic. However given that most player characters and NPC's are not autistic (are any?), I suggest that this spell would work on nearly everyone targeted.
I have only one concern regarding this spell, and that is that it might be beyond the scope of Hermetic Magic. Why? Well to understand why we must ask ourselves why angels "According to medieval doctrine"...." are purely mental beings that communicate by direct apprehension of each other's thoughts (or, according to Dante, by the apprehension of their images in God). They are transparant, their thoughts not hidden from each other by the veil of flesh. " The answer is quite simple, because they are not affected by the divine curse of Babel (See Genesis 11:5 - 9). So, the curse of angellic speech, should more appropriately be called "Removing the Curse of Babel." But since the Curse of Babel is the result of the Will of God, it is beyond the scope of Hermetic Magic.
At first glance, it might seem that from this perspective, even the canonical spell of "Thoughts Within Babble" (ArM5 149) would be beyond the limits of Hermetic Magic - especailly given the following phrase: "You also understand people who misuse a language that you do speak; you know what they meant to say, as well as hearing what they actually said." However, this is very different to understanding them completely as the curse of angelic speech (or removing the Curse of Babel) would allow. I shall provide the following example, in order to properly stoke your intuitions concerning the matter.
Consider the following phrase uttered by someone not fully competent with the English language:
"I live New York and I move the dogs"
What such a speaker might actually intend to say is "I live in New York and I walk dogs (so that the dogs get exercise and are able to relieve themselves)." This is what would be understood by a succesful casting of "Thoughts within Babble." However, what is not indicated by such a casting is the motives behind such an utterance and whether the person actually believes the utterance to be true or false (there are many other factors that such a translation might miss). These are questions that removing the Curse of Babel would instantly answer.
For example, if we were to remove the Curse of Babel, we might understand that the speaker mentioned above is actually a New York native who is attempting to pose as an immigrant animal lover who hopes that by doing so he will attract the attention and sympathy of a nearby young lady (for lecherous purposes presumably). Furthermore we would instantly understand why he feels that this is his best chance of attracting a mate, and why he is only comfortable with short term flings versus long term relationships, etc. This would be such an understanding that we would be almost incapable of harshly judging his pathetic courting attempts. (Unless of course he were truly evil not just misguided).
Thus, I maintain that "The curse of Angelic speech" is far beyond the scope of Hermetic magic (even ritually).
But presumably, men weren't telepaths even before the Curse of Babel, so our not having that rather extensive and deep interpretation of the example speaker is not a consequence of the Curse. While comprehension of another's utterances requires some comprehension of their beliefs and other attitudes, it surely doesn't require an exhaustive grasp of every detail of the speaker's mental life that had some sort of infliuence on the formulation of the utterance.
That is a very interesting objection. It is invalid, however, as the sounds are still in the target's native tongue. The curse of Babel is not broken, the person is still incomprehensible to others.
If you would like, this implies the spell's name is a bit of a misnomer, claiming more power than what it delivers (or is even Hermetically feasible). This won't be the first Hermetic spell to have a too grand name.
You know, I don't think the Intellego requisite is really necessary unless, let's say, you want the target's thoughts to be translated in the caster's language. What was the rationale for adding it?
Now with a tethered Sensory Magic spell, you could do a CrMe with a Spectacle target, and then transfer it to somebody else (since you must cast them at Personal Range). That way, anyone who looks at the target would "hear" their thoughts in their own language.
After posting something else today, I decided to check my posts (all three of them) to see if anyone responded. At first, I wanted to challenge your response insofar as you called it invalid. I thought you meant something like unsound, but after giving it some thought, I think you might be right. I assumed something like a language of thought thesis, which would make my argument valid, but you were not thinking that at all. As I understand your spell, the thoughts of the one targeted are presented directly to their mind as pseudo-species of ordinary language that they understand(?). Perhaps that is a correct. I have no good argument that Aristotle or medieval scholars subscribed to a language of thought thesis, and as such, I cede the point. Although it should be mentioned that "thoughts within babble" seems to make the most sense if we were to assume a language of thought thesis.. or for that matter any "reading of surface thoughts" is best explained with the language of thought thesis. My familiarity with Aristotle concerns his logic, overall metaphysics, and virtue ethics. Is there an Aristotelean scholar who knows much about his philosophy of mind?
I really think that it is a neat effect, and I still hold that it does seem to be beyond the scope of Hermetic magic. However, I have no good argument as to why other than it seems very divine.
I agree with everything that you say here, especially the last part. I took the curse to be a measure to prevent humankind from ever working toward an absolute goal in a unified manner. I was trying to push an interesting interpretation of the Babel story suggested by Neal Stevenson in Snow Crash. Such an interpretation allows for interesting mechanics in my past sagas, albeit an idiosyncratic interpretation. My thought was that the curse basically forced upon us an indeterminacy of translation, such that for any given utterance, there is always a possibility of misunderstanding. My worry was that the Curse of Angelic Speech, eliminated any possibility of misunderstanding. Now, after more than a year of thinking about it, I am not sure that is what YR7 intended.
The spell, indeed, assumes that there is no language of thought but rather that each person thinks in his own native tongue. This may, indeed, be somewhat inconsistent with Thoughts Within A Bubble or similar spells.
I did not intend the spell to ease communications, and I don't think it would alleviate misunderstandings. Indeed, as it communicates someone's stream of consciousness rather than communicative speech, it would likely only lead to greater misunderstanding.
That's an English metaphor I never encountered before. Thanks.