4. Telepathy

Harry finds out in the story that he has a psychic connection with someone else, Voldemort.  Harry (and of course we as well) find out that there are spells to read someone else's mind, a technique to block that from occurring and additionally a curse to make someone else do your bidding.  There are spells to confuse others and to otherwise influence them without their knowledge.

In our own world we might classify all this as telepathy:  the ability to send words, ideas and images to another person.

Wikipedia:  telepathy - "the supposed transmission of information from one person to another without using any of our known sensory channels or physical interaction."

Adding on to our growing list of assumptions, let's assume that telepathy is real and used on a daily basis whether we're aware of it or not.

What if we also assume that some of the aliens also have this ability?  What would be the implications of this, especially if those aliens have an agenda to help or to hurt us?

And now, for what is possibly the most profound of my many suggestions:  What if the voice of your conscience isn't some part of your own mind and it's really telepathic suggestion by someone else?

Wikipedia:  "Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche... According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego is the organized, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role."

Sigmund Freud suggested that our mind is made up of three different identities, if you will.  What if I add the following twist, inserting telepathic suggestion into the mix:

Ego:  your own mind and the judgements that you make
Id:  the telepathic suggestions by one of the "bad guy" aliens
Super-ego:  the telepathic suggestions by one of the "good guy" aliens

I remember watching a Disney cartoon in which Donald Duck has a conversation (internal debate) with a small angelic-looking version of himself as well as a similar devilish-looking version.  Before too long, both angel and devil "Donalds" fight between themselves as Donald himself watches.  We might then interpret our own internal conversations with our conscience as a mental-versus-telepathic conversation with some external entity.  In theory then, this alien (angel) might be assigned to us, to guide us toward better behavior, let's say.  Likewise, we might also find ourselves internally influenced by other forces whose goals might be to corrupt us.

If this is true then it would be interesting to know the reasons why each of the groups would want to influence us and what is at stake.  If the HP story includes any insight into the answer it might be that the Draconians are motivated by the accumulation of wealth and power and that the Siriuns are motivated by personal (spiritual) growth and by helping others.