Psychic Interface
Description: A specialty of certain Virtual Adepts, Black Suits, cyber-shamans, tech-savvy Hermetics, and the mysterious Mirainohmen, the discipline of psychic interface allows a reality hacker to manipulate computer-based information with his mind alone. Entering a light trance, he focuses on his vision of the data stream or reality code (essentially tapping into the Matrix through psychic contact or brain/ computer interface) and begins to work with the code. By successfully doing so, he can access and alter information, control IT-based systems, surge or short out the electrical impulses of a computer-based network, and possibly – if his psychic bond comes by way of computer spirits – commune with entities composed of raw information.
System: Practically speaking, the psychic interface lets computer-savvy mages access computers without actually using their hardware. Focus-wise, a mage with this discipline (strictly speaking, it’s not a rote) can add meditation' to his selection of instruments and then use it in place of computers and IT gear . Most Technocrats still employ tech-based instruments (implants, Glass-tech, or similar contraptions) in order to focus her psychic interface, although practitioners of the cybernetics practice can simply commune with The Machine. Tech-smart mystics can meditate their way into the Computer Mind as well, whereas technoshamans bargain with the spirits, employ IT-based rituals, access a specifically dedicated computer system (in game terms, a unique and personalized instrument) from a distance, or otherwise use Spirit Sphere magick instead of the Mind Sphere.
The Data Sphere is essential for this kind of interface; mere Correspondence lacks the essential ties to the essence of computerized reality. The Mind Sphere, meanwhile, projects the mage’s consciousness into the Computer Mind. The Forces Sphere allows that character to manipulate electrical systems from a distance, and the higher-level Mind 4 variant lets him project himself into the Digital Web without using hardware to do so.
In order to employ this discipline, a character must have at least four dots in Computers, a specialty in Psychic Interface, and at least three dots in Meditation. Whether such access is coincidental or vulgar depends upon what the mage does with it. Simply linking yourself into a computer system from a distance so you can scan or hack its information is essentially invisible, and is thus coincidental. Staring at a computer from across a room and making it print up documents or explode would be vulgar anywhere outside of a dedicated Technocratic facility or other computer-mage stronghold, although obviously body-based interface technology (like a smart phone or Google Glass) would probably pass for coincidence in a tech-savvy region. Downloading yourself into the Digital Web is vulgar to begin with, and communing with tech-spirits would look, if nothing else, really fucking weird.
Source: Mage V20 - pg.608-609
