Há realmente um pouco escrito sobre "transmissão do pensamento", incluindo suas limitações, em um ensaio intitulado "Ósanwe-kenta", datado por Christopher Tolkien de 1959 a 1960 e publicado pela primeira vez em 2000.
O ensaio é muito longo para citar todas as passagens relevantes, então vou me limitar a algumas das restrições:
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A mente "receptora" deve estar "aberta":
If we call one mind G (for guest or comer) and the other H (for host or receiver), then G must have full intention to inspect H or to inform it. But knowledge may be gained or imparted by G, even when H is not seeking or intending to impart or to learn: the act of G will be effective, if H is simply "open" (láta; látie “openness”). This distinction, he says, is of the greatest importance.
"Openness" is the natural or simple state (indo) of a mind that is not otherwise engaged
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Para encarnações, a transmissão requer fortalecimento adicional:
The Incarnates have by the nature of sáma [mind] the same faculties; but their perception is dimmed by the hröa [body], for their fëa [spirit/soul] is united to their hröa and its normal procedure is through the hröa, which is in itself part of Eä, without thought. The dimming is indeed double; for thought has to pass one mantle of hröa and penetrate another. For this reason in Incarnates transmission of thought requires strengthening to be effective.
Esse fortalecimento pode vir da afinidade entre o remetente e o receptor, ou da urgência ou autoridade por parte do remetente
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Comunicação simbólica ( tengwesta ) torna isso mais difícil:
Lastly, tengwesta has also become an impediment. It is in Incarnates clearer and more precise than their direct reception of thought. By it also they can communicate easily with others, when no strength is added to their thought: as, for example, when strangers first meet. And, as we have seen, the use of "language" soon becomes habitual, so that the practice of ósanwe (interchange of thought) is neglected and becomes more difficult.
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Ambos os itens acima são verdadeiros até para os Valar (e, portanto, presumivelmente, o Maiar), embora não no mesmo grau, quando assumem uma forma corporal:
The hröa and tengwesta have inevitably some like effect upon the Valar, if they assume bodily raiment. The hröa will to some degree dim in force and precision the sending of the thought, and if the other be also embodied the reception of it. If they have acquired the habit of tengwesta, as some may who have acquired the custom of being arrayed, then this will reduce the practice of ósanwe. But these effects are far less than in the case of the Incarnate.