Wrapping objects in their magical aura and moving them about is perhaps the most fundamental ability of unicornkind - and therefore also one of the most taken-for-granted, both in-universe and out. So I figured I'd make a thread in which we can gather evidence from all corners of the show and figure out it's rules and limits.

A few tidbits I plucked from random eps:

• Line of sight is not necessarily required to "grab" an object.
• Unicorns can lift other creatures, but not generally themselves. (Starlight Glimmer may be an exception.)
• Very powerful unicorns straining themsleves can lift even something as large as an Ursa Minor and send it a great distance away.
• At least some unicorns can manipulate dozens or more of objects at once.
• Unicorns can "pass" each other objects without dropping them.
• Unicorns can focus their aura on only part of an object or being, if that part is distinct enough.
• Unicorns can pull against a physical grip on the object.

So, anyone got any more to add or discuss? Feel free to talk about theories and potential uses, too.

Starlight Glimmer may be an exception

I vote that any ability or power exhibited by Starlight be given an asterisk. Her feats are so far out from the norm that there's no meaningful comparison to be had.

7108726
Your comment crossed with your avatar strikes me as being so amazingly perfect.

7108726
indeed - my theory is that breaking, or at least severely bending the rules of magic is her special talent. But that doesn't mean she can't use basic abilities too.

(Twilight, on the other hand, is good and clever but colours within the lines.)

7108729
True enough. Though, to put it another way:

Is it scientific or otherwise useful to compare the yield of a firecracker with that of the Tsar Bomba? I'm just saying, Glimglam is a savant where it comes to magic. Raw talent and innate skill in place of deep knowledge (though she's not shabby there either). It's unfair to use her as anything other than a hilarious anecdote. Sort of like whenever I see a discussion about Time Lords from Doctor Who and Rassilon comes up. You've got time travelers on the one hand, and someone who can turn your entire multiversal cluster into cancer-cheese while turning into a Supervampire.

Sorry, got off topic.

7108724
The way I treat telekinesis is thus;
1: Telekinesis works like an extra arm and hand, and follows the same rules as such. That's why lifting yourself with it is impossible. Self levitation is a different spell entirely.
2: The weigh you can lift is determined by your magical power, while the number of seperate objects you can lift is dependant on focus and finesse.
3: Lifting something out of line of sight is possible by 'feeling' for the object with ones magic.
4: Starlight Glimmer was the true first natural born alicorn, but her wings were surgically removed to protect her from Celestia.

7108729 Untrue: We see Twilight levitate herself when she falls down the spiral staircase in The Crystal Empire - Part 2 (season three, episode two):

We also see Star-Swirl doing the same thing in The Ending of the End - Part 1 (season nine, episode twenty-four):

That said, I do agree with the idea that the Mane Six and similar characters (including Starlight and the Pillars) are bad examples by which to judge what your average unicorn can do.

7108735
Well the first three of those are pretty straightforward, at least! 2 in particular seems obvious, but is worth saying anyway.

7108736
She catches herself, huh? In both cases, they're floating statically just off the ground - though in Twilight's case she did have to cancel a good deal of momentum. So it's probably not the same trick Starlight uses to float around Cloudsdale - or at least, Starlight must have a new way of using it.

Hmm - Starswirl seems to be using it as a meditation trick, so perhaps it requires total concentration? Or in Twilight's case, the total focus of impending death.

7108724
These are all the instances of self-levitation that I know of:

* Pumpkin Cake, during her magic surge
* Twilight uses self-levitation to brake her fall in "The Crystal Empire"
* Starlight Glimmer seems to have it as a signature ability, to the point that Twilight even remarks on how unusual it is to be able to fly using magic. She uses the ability several times throughout the series.
* Snails self-levitates as part of his buckball meditation routine.
* Trixie levitates herself down from the top of her caravan in "Road to Friendship", or at least uses it to slow her descent. (Starlight had been coaching Trixie in magic by this point, so it's not unreasonable to assume that that's how Trixie learned to do it).
* Star Swirl does it a couple of times with little effort. Like Snails, he also uses it while meditating.

The evidence generally seems to point to it being a difficult, high-level ability - which makes sense, otherwise all unicorns could just fly. It doesn't seem to be related to the difficulty of lifting a pony-sized weight - Moondancer, for example, casually plucks Twilight off the ground and moves her out of the way in "Amending Fences".

7108740
Probably the key difficulty is focusing the magic back onto yourself - kind of like standing on your head. And the fact that it is a pony-sized weight probably doesn't help.

7108735

4: Starlight Glimmer was the true first natural born alicorn, but her wings were surgically removed to protect her from Celestia.

7108724
There's also a rather subtle demonstration of telekinetic mechanics in "The Parent Map"; at one point, Stellar Flare is levitating a long scroll which is dragging on the ground, and Firelight steps on it to stop her walking away. Stellar stops walking immediately, suggesting that she somehow physically felt the pull on the scroll even though it was being held in her aura. This suggests that unicorns get some kind of tactile feedback from their telekinesis - which makes sense, since it would be harder to deftly manipulate objects otherwise.

7108749
Also important for passing objects to one another without dropping them.

Flurry Heart also levitated herself.

Discord can also do it.

7108776
Flurryheart's an alicorn, plus I thought that was a shield spell. Not sure if she could fly with it.

Discord can also do it.

Yeah... but it's Discord.

7108737
Simple, yes, but it's surprising how few people think about those.

7108782 She did decelerate her fall with the bubble without using her wings.

7108724

In "Magic Duel" Trixie is able to do an age spell on Snips and Snails with the Alicorn Amulet....and Twilight said that age spells are only for the highest level unicorns. Now as we all remember, Starlight Glimmer cast an age spell on herself along with Sunburst.....and that was on top of the spell used to transform the throne room into their childhood home....both of which she wrote. When it comes to unicorns, I would say that Starlight is among the highest level if not THE highest level. I can only imagine how things would have been had she had guided study under Celestia like Twilight did....I think the possibilities would have been limitless....hell she could have probably found a way to ascend herself into an Alicorn.

I can see it now.

"Starlight, I have to go out for a bit. I want you to study something extremely difficult and then give me a report on what you learned."

"Alright princess!"

Five hours pass and Celestia returns to the palace to go see what Starlight is up to. She heads up to Starlight's study tower and is greeted by the newly ascended Starlight,

"So Starlight.......................AAAAAH, how did you become an Alicorn, an Alicorn the same size as me?"

"Oh, I did a bit of studying on transforming ponies from one type to another." She holds up a scroll and continues, "And I wrote this!"

Celestia reads it and faints in shock knowing that Starlight literally has goddess tier powers.

Now that would be pretty sweet in my opinion.

7109060
Starlight being on the top rung of the unicorn ladder is pretty obvious, but I'm not sure what this has to do with telekinesis...

7109075

It doesn't have much to do with it, it has more to do with how powerful Starlight is.

7109080
Well, that isn't really the topic of this thread unless you want to talk about some particularly impressive telekinetic feats of hers.

On the topic of levitation on one's self- Twilight easily does this in the end of the True True Friend song. It's something I see easily overlooked. She levitates both herself and her five friends at the same time.