Alar

"It’s called Alar: riding-crop belief."

―Abenthy

Alar (PR: /ə'lɑɹ/ or /'eɪlɑɹ/) is the mental ability to hold a belief firmly enough that it affects reality. It is the cornerstone of sympathy.

Training in Alar

Abenthy taught Kvothe many exercises in order to improve one's Alar. Alar exercises included the following:

• Abenthy challenged Kvothe to believe that a stone won't fall, even though intellectually he knows it must fall.
• Kvothe leaned to sing in harmony with himself. He was able to sing up to three parts.
• Kvothe was expected to hide a stone with one part of his mind, and then try to find the stone with the other part.
• In order to perform Sympathy, Kvothe was instructed to believe that two objects are connected. As a study aid, Abenthy used pitch to attach two Jots together, to help reinforce the idea that they were connected. After that, Kvothe learned to connect them without the pitch.

Trivia

In Russian "Alar"(Алар)  means small garden or a copse.