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The Lexicanum article states a portion of the Emperors "vast essence" is transferred.

Does that diminish Him in any way?
Is He even aware it's happening?
How is the process started, surely you can't just walk up to him and pluck out some of His essence freely?!

They apparently just sit the soon-to-be-Astropaths down in front of the Golden Throne and their eyes are burned out by the light of His radiance, and then it's done.

I wonder if this could tie in somehow to the "thousands of shamans simultaneously reincarnating" set of fluff... pull out an individual shaman and stick it inside someone else's body.

Ah well, that's just me speculating on fluff I know nothing about.

I read a really interesting idea the other day... I'm assuming its completely hypothetical and not based in fluff ... That each of the primarchs was the essence of one of the shamans that made up the emperor, their bodies were genetic/warp based constructs but their would where just one of the thousands of shamans that joined together to make the emperor.

Obviously not fluff but a nice little idea

Maybe he did give part of his essence to the Primarchs but it can't be in the same manner as the Soul Binding as none of them seemed particularly resistant to the touch of Chaos.

It could be more likely that he was given fragments of the Chaos gods essence which is why some of them were more obviously aligned with one of the big 4 without realising it.