Say an 11th-level wizard has an Intelligence of 15. Can the wizard prepare a teleport spell (5th-level spell) enhanced with the Silent Spell metamagic feat and thus use a 6th-level spell slot that the character (thanks to low Intelligence) could not use to prepare a 6th-level spell?
Using a metamagic feat makes the spell occupy a spell slot of higher level, but it does not actually change the spell’s level, except for Heighten Spell, which does increase the spell’s level. So long as the wizard in question has enough Intelligence to cast the spell at its actual level (15 for the 5th-level teleport spell) the character can cast the metamagic spell. Note that the character doesn’t have to use metamagic to use the 6th-level spell slot; the character can simply prepare any lower level spell in the slot.
Seems that for wizards effective ≈ actual level when talking about Heighten Spell(Power) MetaMagic(Psionic) Spell(Power) Level Increase.
Seems that Heighten Power + Metapower/Overchannel it's a legit (until disproven raw) to cast a "higher-level-then-the-ones-that-you-know" Power and thus enable Expanded Knowledge/Erudite Discipline Learning Trick, at least until 9th lv powers come in.
The last section you quoted actually did disprove this. Wizards effective spell level ≠ actual spell level under any circumstances. The section clearly states that it is to prepare a metamagic feat into a slot of higher level than the wizard has an intelligence score to use, but has access to by class levels. Any metamagic feat that simply changes the level slot of the power can still be used to cast spells from those slots just as if you were to use the slots to cast a lower level spell. However, heightened is an exception to this since a heightened spell is treated as a spell of that level. You must meet all requirements to cast a spell of the heightened spells level to cast it. Do you have the attribute score for it? Do you have the slot for it? if the answer to both questions is yes then you may cast the heightened spell. Feats that grant you a free bonus to heightened spells only require you to have the score and access to a slot of the level that the heightened spell will use. So a spell heightened to 6th and boosted to 7th by Earth Spell would only require the ability to cast a 6th level spell.
So while you can cast a spell heightened above your ability to cast through tricks like this. Your ability to cast does not change to accommodate. Your ability to cast spells of certain levels is directly determined by your class level. Psionics is no different. Heightening a spell past the level of spell or power past the level of spells or powers you actually have the ability to cast (regardless of any free bonus heighten tricks) does not grant you an increase in your ability to cast.
The erudite's ability to learn powers is still subject to your inherent ability to manifest powers as well. A heightend power is still only an Effective Level. The feat is explicit on this point. And an Effective Level is not an actual level, Effective Levels do not factor towards requirements for any feats, abilities, or class features. There are feats & prCs that allow you to stack actual levels in multiple classes to determine the effects of specific abilities, and items that allow you to treat your level in a class as X levels higher for determining the effect of a specific ability as well. The items do not grant you the ability to qualify for Feats or prCs through these means, nor do some of the feats. Most of the feats and prCs that stack class levels do allow you to qualify for other feats & prCs though. These work because they stack ACTUAL LEVELS.
