Sustain Spirit

Sustain Spirit was the ability to sustain one's soul after the physical body had perished.

Conjured through Sith magic, this power was extremely difficult to perform and could only be accomplished by the most seasoned practitioners of Sith necromancy. While some powerful Jedi could sustain their own spirits and return to the physical world as Force ghosts, Sustain Spirit did not rely on becoming one with the Force and embracing death. Instead, it relied on sheer willpower of the user and the fear of being lost in the Force. Because of this, sorcerers that kept themselves intact with this ability were bound to haunt the location of their physical death as they could not travel through the Force. In some cases, however, the user was able to linger around their body for some time before detaching. Prime examples of this were ancient Sith who haunted their own tombs even though their physical death occured in a completely other location.

An easier and possibly more reliable version of this technique was the imbuement of one's spirit in an artifact, such as an amulet. The prime example of this was the Muur Talisman, which was possessed by Karnes Muur's spirit for millennia.

Sorcerers who sustained their spirits were able to perceive and interact with the physical environment they roamed. They could communicate with living beings that happened to wander about and even influence them with the Force. Should the sorcerer have used an artifact to sustain their spirits with, they could not perceive nor influence their environment like spirits who roamed their territory freely. Instead, they could only commune and interact with anyone who touched the artifact they had locked themselves in. Sorcerers that had sustained their spirits, either freely or within an artifact, were sometimes known to infiltrate a victim's body and take over their bodies. This phenomenon was very similar to the Transfer Essence ability.