Psychic Powers / Literature

Psychic Powers in literature.

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Examples by author:

• Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination revolve around telepathy and psychic teleportation, respectively.
• Alan Dean Foster examples:
  • The Damned Trilogy has the Amplitur, with some mind control abilities, humans and Lepar, who can resist them, in the case of humans with extremely bad results on the Amplitur, and as of the second book, there is a group of humans known as the Core that has the Amplitur mind control ability.
  • Flinx from the Humanx Commonwealth series has empathic telepathy, as well as an instinctive psychic defense mechanism that shows up occasionally, and usually wreaks havoc when it does. Flinx is not the only person in the series with these capabilities; there is also Mahnami, a telepathic and telekinetic girl with a similar background to Flinx, an alien race of subterranean empaths, and a race of nearly omnipotent bear-like alien telepaths. Also, one of the series' Precursor races, the Tar-Aiym, were all powerful telepaths.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's works:
  • The Mother Thing in Have Space Suit – Will Travel communicates via telepathy.
  • In Starship Troopers it is not focused upon, but present. Early in the novel, Rico refers in passing to the "talents" assigned to Logistics and Communications (including "telepaths", "sensers", and "lucky men"). Towards the end, a "sensitive" is brought in to draw a map of a tunnel network. It's the real deal, but Rico himself is skeptical. Even after the sensitive's skills are proven, Johnnie still doubts the guy is psychic. His theory is the guy might just have really good hearing, and several comments made by the sensitive and his "handlers" would seem to back this up, but it's still ambiguous.
• Alexander Key examples:
  • Escape to Witch Mountain: Tony has clairvoyance and telekinesis. His sister Tia has a form of telekinesis that lets her open locks; she is also a Friend to All Living Things. They are not telepathic, however as in the film adaptations.
  • The Forgotten Door: Little Jon is telepathic (which lets the author Hand Wave how quickly he learned English), an ability which carries over to reading the thoughts of animals. He is also telekinetic in that he can 'lighten his feet' to run and jump unusually fast.
• Many of Stephen King's novels (and the film adaptations) concern someone with Psychic Powers; the origin may be scientific or magical/occult depending on the novel.
  • The Dead Zone: clairvoyance and precognition.
  • The Shining gives Danny Torrance and Dick Halloran the whole package: telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and postcognition.
  • Firestarter features a couple who, as students, took part in what was secretly an MK-ULTRA-style government experiment and were subjected to drugs that gave them psychic powers (or activated latent powers): telepathic hypnosis (father) and minor telekinesis (mother). Years later, their daughter turns out to have strong pyrokinetic powers, along with minor clairvoyance and enough telekinesis to jimmy a pay phone. The film version features a lot of Psychic Nosebleeds from the father whenever he tries to "push" suggestions into the minds of others.
  • Carrie gives its title character both telekinesis and a sort of "broadcast telepathy"; during her rampage, everyone in town has Carrie's thoughts beamed into their head so that they all know she is the one destroying the town, and she mind rapes Sue (although Sue invites her to look in her mind — she just didn't expect it to be so thorough) near the end. Powers are passed down genetically through the mother, skipping two generations, and manifest around puberty; it's also strongly implied that they are a lot stronger when she's distressed or angry. The film version removes her telepathy and focuses on her telekinesis.
• Anne McCaffrey examples:
  • In the Dragonriders of Pern books, Lessa is never explicitly called telepathic, but she is actually a true telepath, given her ability to "lean" on people and influence their behavior. The dragons themselves are telepathic, able to teleport, and, revealed in later books, telekinetic. Dragons can sense humans with high psychic potential — this is how they aid their riders in Searches for suitable Impression candidates. People like Lessa who explicitly have actual telepathic abilities such as being able to hear all dragons' thought-speech are rare.
  • The Tower and the Hive series revolves around the Talents, the world's first real, proven psychics who quickly become the cornerstone of the world's economy, and later the foundation of a galactic civilization. Their powers run the gamut of those listed here, and are inheritable.
• Andre Norton stories that do not involve outright Functional Magic often involve this trope instead, particularly in Science Fiction settings.
  • Catseye (1961): The protagonist has mindspeech with his enhanced animal companions, without technological assistance (unlike the handlers from whom he rescues them).
  • In the short story "The Gifts of Asti", the protagonist's people learned mindspeech from Lizard Folk; she acknowledges freely that her Lizard Folk companion is much more adept than she at the art.
  • Moon of Three Rings: The Moon Singers have mindspeech, which they can also use with animals. As part of their training, at some point they swap minds with an animal, which can go badly wrong.
  • Warlock Series:
    • The female Wyverns of Warlock are mistresses of illusion (a Gender-Restricted Ability) and have mindspeech.
    • The protagonist of Forerunner Foray, Ziantha, was taken into the Guild as a child because her sponsor saw her playing guessing games while begging for money, and realized that she must have psychic ability to do so well. Ziantha has psychometry, which she uses in the first foray in the book to steal information from a target without physically touching his physically isolated storage devices. She later (with the help of an alien friend) uses teleportation to steal the story's MacGuffin. She can also use mindspeech, at least with other psychics.
  • The Zero Stone and Uncharted Stars: Eet communicates through mindspeech and is a master of illusion, and teaches some of these skills to the human protagonist, who is effectively Eet's Human Sidekick once Eet enters the first book.

Examples by work:

• Two variants in An Outcast in Another World have been shown so far. Elder Alessia specializes in telekinesis, which allows her to fling people around, fly by moving her own body through the air, and contort people with enough force to break their limbs at 90-degree angles. A Mind Mage is also shown whose presence is used as a torture threat; if the prisoner refuses to give up information, the Mind Mage will find it anyway, potentially doing permanent brain damage in the process.
• In Trudi Canavan's The Age of the Five series, the Gods' Chosen have the ability to read anyone's mind - including that of the other Chosen. Several situations with major squick potential show up, but the deeper implications are entirely ignored.
• In Alterien, Oberon has telepathy, energy-based telekinesis, empathy, precognition, hypercognition and retrocognition through psychometry. He later learns these abilities are common to all of his species.
• Mindspeech: The Animorphs equivalent is "thought-speak"; every Andalite uses it, seeing as they have no mouths, as do the Animorphs when they're morphed into animals that can't speak.
• A number of races possess these in the Arrivals from the Dark books. For example, the Bino Faata are the first aliens (officially) encountered by humanity. Their society is stratified, with those on top possessing the ability to communicate telepathically and issue telepathic orders to the lower castes (who use wearable devices or implants to receive the orders, as they themselves aren't psychic). The Faata use powerful biological computers (left behind by Precursors) to both exert psychic control over the lower castes and to send instant telepathic messages across light years. Humans aren't initially psychic, but the novels are focused on the descendants of a Half-Human Hybrid, whose mother was artificially inseminated by the Faata, and some speculate that the psychic gene will eventually propagate through the entire human race. The main difference is that the Faata are unable to initiate a psychic link with a non-Faata, while a psychic human can seemingly do it with anyone. Other psychic races include the Metamorphs (one of whom helps a few members of that family master their abilities) and the Lo'ona Aeo. Under the right circumstances, a human psychic can reach out across light years, which is something only the Metamorphs are able to do of all known alien races. The Lo'ona Aeo are fairly powerful (and their society depends on them being constantly surrounded by the combined psychic fields of their kin), but only at relatively short ranges. The Paraprims possess some unexplained psychic abilities, including the ability to interact with bat-like creatures that live on the planet Osier (it's revealed that they were the ones who brought the "bats" to this planet from their homeworld). They can also seemingly see the future or, at least, a number of possible futures.
• The high spirits of Astral Dawn have an array of psychic abilities, including telepathy, empathy, psychokinesis, spatial shifting, energy projection and thought-based perception.
• An interesting example comes from The Belgariad, which is otherwise a purely-fantasy series: the Dals are joined in a loose Hive Mind, which allows them to communicate telepathically. Toth is part of this union, and when he communicates through strange hand gestures that Durnik understands, he's actually placing the words in Durnik's mind with this telepathy. Once the heroes arrive in Kell and learn about the hive mind, Toth stops making the gestures, as he no longer needs to hide his ability.
• Fred Saberhagen's Berserker universe has the Carmpans, with the Framing Story being narrated by the Third Historian who has the power to sense events throughout time and space. Then there are the Carmpan Prophets of Probability who can predict more immediate events.
• Ian Tregillis' Bitter Seeds features a team of Nazi child soldiers with psychic powers.
• Voyants, short for clairvoyants, in Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season are split into many subtypes but most of them are a variant on clairvoyance (natch), pre- or retrocognition or mediumship.
• Bruce Coville's Book of... Spine Tinglers:
  • The title character of The Teacher Who Could Hear has a form of clairvoyance, able to hear future things, including people's deaths including her own. Her successor in the classroom has a different version, and is able to see ghosts.
  • Implied to be possessed by the author of the book that Miss Mary Stevens hears, since he writes books where teachers die and then kills a real teacher and traps their spirit in his newest one.
• Chasing Yesterday: J.D. discovers not far into the first book that she has telekinesis, and spends a good portion of the series trying to figure out exactly how to control it.
• City of Bones by Martha Wells: The Warders' magical abilities allow them to sense others' presence, thoughts, and emotions; create illusions and Perception Filters; and exercise some telekinetic ability. They also eventaully drive the Warders insane.
• City of Light: The Ayin, a group of psychic Palidian soldiers, can affect or enter into people's minds.
• In Dorothy Gilman's The Clairvoyant Countess, Madame Karitska herself: Dreaming of Things to Come and reading the past, present, and future off of objects, including the personalities of people. There are also some other characters with similar powers.
• Coils (1980) by Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen features a whole team of psychics selected by a Corrupt Corporate Executive because of their mental powers. These include a female telepath, a bio-PK (a former faith-healer who can heal or kill with his mind), a female telekinetic, and the protagonist, a machine empath who can control machines and "dive" into the global computer network.
• The Coming Race (1871), by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, may be one of the earliest examples, where the Vril-ya have psychic powers thanks to their ability to channel Vril, an "all-permeating fluid".
• The Cytoverse has cytonics, for which the setting is named. Known cytonic techniques include:
  • FTL communication: Cytonics who learn this technique can communicate with other cytonics over any distance. With proper mechanical support, a single cytonic can allow for the transmission of incredible amounts of data, potentially allowing for something not dissimilar from FTL radio.
  • Teleportation: This technique allows a cytonic to teleport instantly to any location with which they are familiar, or which they have been given "targeting data" for by someone else who is familiar with it. With the proper mechanisms, they can bring ships with them when they do.
  • Mindblades: This technique allows for the projection of atom-edged slivers of psychic energy. These can cut through most physical substances, and can only be blocked by other mindblades.
  • Concussion bolts: This technique allows the projection of blasts of pure mental force, which can pass through physical barriers and stun or disorient most targets.
  • Inhibitor fields. This technique allows a cytonic to block other cytonics within a certain area from accessing their powers. This usually requires either mechanical support or multiple cytonics working together to be effective.
  • Illusions: This technique allows a cytonic to superimpose hallucinations over another cytonic's perceptions.
  • Non-cytonic telepathy: This technique allows a cytonic to telepathically speak to and read the thoughts of non-cytonics. Very few cytonics are able to learn this technique.
  • Sensing: This technique allows cytonics to detect other cytonics nearby, or with more skill to detect the physical world around them without using conventional senses.
  • Memory encoding: This technique allows a cytonic to encode memories or information into a physical object, allowing other cytonics to access the stored memories by touching the object.
• Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series is a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid wherein human colonists stranded on an alien world revert to a feudal culture and develop psionic powers into a form of Functional Magic and Magic from Technology. Some characters surround these abilities with various mystical trappings, while more pragmatic ones treat them scientifically, hence terms like "sorceress" and "matrix mechanic" co-existing in the society's lexicon.
• Despoilers of the Golden Empire:
  Once indoctrinated into the teachings of the Universal Assembly, any man could tap that Power to a greater or lesser degree, depending on his mental control and ethical attitude. At the top level, a first-class adept could utilize that Power for telepathy, psychokinesis, levitation, teleportation, and other powers that the commander only vaguely understood.
  • A subversion; while Commander Frank certainly believed that this was the case, the story was actually set in the real world; the powers ascribed to said first-class adepts were references to miracles by Christian saints and Jesus.
• Discworld: Magic is occasionally treated like psychic powers, especially subtle and mental witch magic such as Borrowing, by contrast with wizard magic, which involves memorised spells and occult implements and usually has direct physical effects (although wizards are fonder of pseudoscientific terminology, calling Borrowing psychoproicio). Witches are called "the psychically inclined" in Wyrd Sisters. Most witches, however, prefer messing with people's minds without using supernatural abilities. The first edition Discworld Roleplaying Game considers both options (and gives Granny Weatherwax in particular some powerful psi and a range of spells) and also uses GURPS Psionics to model The Fair Folk's mental abilities, noting that there's no real Magic or Psychic? distinction in the setting.
• "Does a Bee Care?": Kane has an innate ability to inspire the people around him. This inspiration works better if the person is smarter, and he doesn't have a way to consciously control it. It should be noted that the word 'psychic' never appears in the story. This ability is a racial trait that helps him to encourage humanity to develop space travel, where he can Metamorphose into his adult form.
• The Dresden Files:
  • While most events are explained by magic, Harry has the ability to consciously sharpen his hearing to hear whispered conversations across the room, footsteps coming closer, and heartbeats twenty feet away. He's uncertain whether the clairaudience is magical or natural. Rashid, the Gatekeeper, indicates that he's also capable of this.
  • More generally, telekinesis in the form of Force Magic and pure Will is present among most magically capable beings, as are various forms of telepathy — however, even lightly invasive forms of telepathy are very definitely Black Magic, with two of the seven Laws of Magic banning them, and it is universally depicted as absolutely terrifying, with the effects lingering for months, even years, afterwards. Accordingly, the books place a massive emphasis on how terrifying mind control is. The villains of books 6, 8 and 9, Lord Raith and Mavra, Eldest Fetch and Vittorio Malvora respectively, with appearances by Madrigal Raith in the latter two are all psychic predators. One of the villains of Book 7, Corpsetaker, is fond of using Mind Rape and Body Surf as combat tactics, the Man Behind the Man villain of Book 11, Peabody, is revealed as a member of the Black Council and as having exploited his position as the most senior functionary on the Council to use his alchemical formulae in ink to open the minds of the most senior members of the Council to manipulation, something he had been doing for years, creating brainwashed sleeper agents and implanting trigger words into pretty much the entire younger generation of Wardens, leading to the assassination of a Senior Council Member, the death and discrediting of one of the staunchest Council loyalists — even if he was an enormous dick — and the deaths of over fifty wizards when he was made and unleashed a Mistfiend into the packed Council auditorium, the villain of Book 13 is Corpsetaker and even more fond of Mind Rape as a ghost than as a member of the living, while The Heavy well back in Book 3 uses Mind Rape as a standard combat tactic. Hell, even Aurora, the villain of Book 4, had some mind magic game. All breeds of vampire and most faeries do too, and one of the most terrifying aspects of the recurring Denarians is their ability to manipulate their hosts. And the Big Bad of the Myth Arc is Nemesis, the psychic infection of the Outsiders which takes over the host and twists them ever so slightly, making them into often unaware puppets of the Outsiders, and which has been implied to have been screwing around with people and entire supernatural nations from the start of the series, if not before.
  • With all this taken into account, it's unsurprising that putting someone into a healing sleep after a psychic invasion is about as far as is legal to go. As Dresden notes, to do magic you have to really, truly believe that what you are doing is right (think about the implications of that for a moment). He also notes that it's a slippery slope, because when you twist someone's mind out of true, your own gets twisted with it. And the more twisted you get, the easier it is to twist others. This aspect of the Art is repeatedly noted to be incredibly dangerous, and gets Molly, who has an instinctive gift for such magic, into very hot water.
  • Various beings have some degree of precognitive ability, while all Wizards develop the Sight as they age, something that mostly manifests as intuitions and vague senses that someone or some place might be important — though they generally aren't told about this until it starts coming in, because apparently there's otherwise something of a problem with young Wizards "labelling their more appealing fantasies" as precognition. Some apparently develop a particular talent for it, the Gatekeeper in particular — who, it is implied, can read probabilities.
• Frank Herbert's Dune universe has the sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit, who through a genetic breeding program and the Spice drug have developed strong psychic powers, most notably pre- and post-cognition, bio-PK and telepathy. The end products of that program, Paul and Leto II, have precognition powerful enough to foresee the destiny of all humanity. The Navigators also use drug-induced psychic powers to make Faster-Than-Light Travel practical. The prequels have the Sorceresses of Rossak, who possess powerful Mind over Matter abilities. The very first Navigator, Norma Cenva, is also a powerful Sorceress, which allows her to fold space without an FTL drive. The prequels also have Sorceresses-turned-Sisters, combining the power sets.
• In Enchantress from the Stars, the very advanced members of the Federation, the most enlightened race of humans, are able to use telepathy, telekinesis, and put up a Shield to protect themselves both physically and psychically.
• In Fallen Empire, there's a genetically-engineered group called the Starseers, who have telepathy and telekinetic abilities. They'd attempted to take over the system, failed and had their homeworld blown up, and now live as a feared, reclusive minority among normal people. Some of them, however, retain their old desire for conquest...
• In the Firebird Trilogy, this is the defining feature of the Sentinels and the Shuhr/Mikuhran. Their powers were gained through genetic modification. Specific abilities include Telepathy (with or without permission), sensing the emotions of everyone around them, moving objects remotely, Compelling Voice, Emotion Suppression, Psychic Block Defenses, pain suppression, and controlling what others perceive.
• Julian May's Galactic Milieu/Saga of the Exiles series had a detailed scientific classification of these, and high end powers including intergalactic teleportation.
• In the Green-Sky Trilogy by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, the Kindar and Erdlings are descended from earth colonists brought to the planet as children by a group of scientists fleeing nuclear annihilation. Raised in an atmosphere of complete trust, without even the words for hatred, anger, etc., the first few generations developed "Spirit-skills" including pensing (telepathy), kiniporting (telekinesis) and grunspreking (influencing the growth of plants). These abilities, along with gifts like psychic healing, are considered manifestations of Spirit (God) in everyday life. Even more important is "uniforce", where two or more people join their powers together, letting them do things that would be impossible alone — especially important in kiniporting, where it was used by construction workers to create magnificent palaces and public buildings. But now, all these abilities are dying out, and this is where the story really starts.
• Guardians of the Flame: Dragons communicate via telepathy, using telekinesis to fly in conjunction with their wings, as they're too weak otherwise.
• The Sharonans of David Weber's Hell's Gate series have examples of all the broad categories sprinkled through 25% of the population, which, layered on top of their 19th-century-level technology, makes them quite formidable.
• The Heralds of Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar novels all have at least one Gift that fall into these categories. The most common include Mindspeech, which sometimes includes mind reading as well as mental conversations, Fetching (telekinesis and apportation), including the rather rare subcategory Firestarting (pyrokinesis), FarSight (clairvoyance), and ForeSight (precognition). Empathy is another possible, but rare, Gift — powerful, projective empathy being particularly rare. Considered separate, but related, is the Mage-Gift, the ability to work the series' Functional Magic.
• In John C. Wright's The Hermetic Millennia, Menelaus reflects on how stories have people with superpowerful intellects also have cool mental powers. He, who does have superhuman intelligence, can perfectly calculate how the blow to his head will hit but can't do a thing about it.
• The main characters in Hidden Talents have psychic powers along with Power Incontinence, which has caused their apparent behaviour problems and landed them at Edgeview Alternative School.
  • Torchie can start fires with his mind and this has gotten him labelled as a Pyromaniac.
  • Cheater can hear people's thoughts, but he can't distinguish between them and his own thoughts. This causes him to unwittingly copy other people's test answers word-for-word and then get punished for cheating.
  • Lucky can hear the "voices" of lost objects and is compelled to pick them up. The way in which other people's things mysteriously turn up in his possession has gotten him accused of stealing.
  • Flinch has a form of precognition where he sees events a few seconds before they happen. This makes him disruptive in lessons because he pre-empts what the teachers are going to say and interrupts them.
  • Trash is telekinetic and this causes objects in his presence to fling themselves around the place. Because of this, people think that he's a vandal.
  • Martin can detect people's emotional weaknesses. This has gotten him into trouble because he pushes the Berserk Button of anyone he doesn't like, which includes everyone in authority.
• Aphrodite from The House of Night has horrific future visions. Neferet can read minds.
• In the Young Adult Jack Bishop novels by Steve Diamond, psychic powers are the end result of the Helix Corporation's research. They've succeeded in giving test subjects them by studying monsters but the drawbacks are severe.
• In Jago, the heroine Susan Ames has a variety of abilities, none very strong: just enough pyrokinesis to light a gas stove, just enough telekinesis to help get things off high shelves, a bit of telepathy, and a touch of psychometry. The villain Anthony Jago has all the same powers at much, much higher power levels.
• Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter of Mars and his fellow Barsoomians used telepathy to control their riding thoats. The first book justifies the universal language spoken throughout Mars as 'partially telepathic' and backs this up by indicating that written languages vary from area to area. One book introduces an isolated community with more advanced Psychic Powers, primarily in the creation of illusions.
• Appears several times in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. The Kzin have a telepathic subspecies, the Grogs have powerful telepathy and Mind Control (which, being immobile, they use to draw prey into their mouths), and several psychic humans have shown up, particularly Gil the ARM, who has a telekinetic third limb he discovered after losing one of his physical arms in a mining accident. In Ringworld Teela Brown was originally implied to have "psychic luck", but this is deconstructed and left ambiguous in later stories. In A Gift From Earth, Matt Keller had Plateau Eyes which could either make you really not notice him, or completely fascinate you.
• A very faint example of Clairvoyance in The Left Hand of Darkness - on the planet Winter, one of the unique religious elements is a council made up of specific people with specific aptitudes. They work their way into a collective trance, and then the speaker declares an answer to a given question after a certain period of time. The answer is nearly always correct; the narrator describes this as having "perfected the hunch." (One time someone asked such a council "What is the meaning of life?") At the end of it, some of the council was dead, others were insane, and someone started a new religion.
• Though the Lord Darcy stories mostly use Functional Magic instead, precognition is one manifestation of the Talent that's poorly understood. Visions of the future arise spontaneously and without need of ritual implements, making it more like a psychic power.
• The Medusa Project, a British Young Adult series by Sophie Mckenzie, features four (later six) teens who, prior to their birth, were injected with a special artificial genome that would give them psychic abilities, which would manifest at puberty and be dependent on their personalities:
  • Outgoing show-off Nico develops Telekinesis.
  • Forward-thinking sprinter Ketty develops Precognition.
  • Bookish, analytical Ed develops Telepathy.
  • Reserved tough-girl Dylan can make herself Nigh-Invulnerable
  • Nico's free-spirited half-brother Cal has Flight
  • Ed's insecure body-sensitive younger sister Amy has Shapeshifting
• In the Mindspace Investigations series by Alex Hughes, a significant number of the populace are psychics. With powers like telepathy, teleportation, and telekinesis being among the more common. The unnamed main character uses his telepathy to interview suspects for the police and produce confessions.
• Minority Report by Philip K. Dick, and the Tom Cruise film loosely based on it, concern the problems of precognition.
• Piers Anthony's Mute is about a society of mutants who occasionally (but very rarely) develop useful psychic powers; interestingly, it's not limited to humans. There are animal psis as well. It's eventually revealed that the computer that runs the galaxy-wide society intentionally allows a method of starship travel that causes increased mutation, despite the health risks and birth defects, because psychic navigators are necessary to allow Faster-Than-Light Travel, and psi mutations don't breed true.
• The Clayr in the Old Kingdom series exhibit clairvoyance, but it's as much a magical phenomenon as anything else.
• In The Pale King, Claude Sylvanshine has Random Fact Intuition, which is ESP but with useless information.
  • Shane Drinion can levitate if he concentrates on a single thing long enough. He gradually starts floating as he listens to Meredith's story. He also once gets caught floating upside down while examining a tax return.
• Zenna Henderson's The People have an assortment of psychic abilities up to and including true telepathy (they offer a couple of times to do selective mental erasure on humans who witness their powers) and manual energy collection, conversion and redirection of sunlight or moonlight. Presumably they are harnessing the interactions of light and gravity. They just say they're "grabbing a handful of sunlight".
• Perry Rhodan used to feature a Mutant Corps especially early on — an elite unit composed solely of people with psionic powers, quite a few of them of Japanese descent. The spectrum originally ranged from classic telepaths, telekinetics, and teleporters to the more exotic "igniter" (capable of triggering nuclear reactions in anything containing carbon or calcium...like most forms of steel or organic lifeforms) and "wave-sprinter" (able to use basically any sort of carrier wave or power line to quasi-teleport from one place to the next). Despite the use of various immortality inducers, attrition took its toll, the Corps eventually ceased to exist as an organization, and there may be about two of its first-generation members still left alive today (Pooky the Ilt and Homer G. Adams, the latter generally better known for his financial genius than for the photographic memory that earned him quasi-honorary mutant status in the earliest days of the series).
  • Additionally, of course, the series features plenty of more-or-less psionic alien species, especially among the less humanoid and/or more "advanced" kinds. Sufficiently advanced aliens of "super-intelligence" and higher rank always have immense psychic powers and the energy reserves to use them as well.
• Peter David's Psi-Man series is about a powerful psychic sought by the Government as a human weapon.
• In Psy Changeling, this is the Psy race's defining trait; known designations include:
  • Tk – Telekinesis (some are teleportation-capable, others are not)
    • Tk-Cell: A Tk-Cell has the ability to move things at the cellular level. Some are capable of doing this to their own bodies.
    • [[{Psychic Teleportation Tk-V]]: Also known as “Travelers” these Psy are true teleporters and can go from location to location in the blink of an eye. Travelers are extremely, extremely rare.
  • Tp – Telepathy
    • Telepaths are broken up into many sub-designations. Pure Tp-Psy exist at the top end of the spectrum – they can literally send and receive across the world, with a clarity that makes it seem as if they’re standing in the next room. Pure telepaths of that level of power are rare and usually work for the Council.
  • M – Medical
    • M-Psy have different specializations. The most well-known of their abilities is the power to see inside a body and diagnose illness. Some M-Psy at the far end of the scale have the capacity to see down to the DNA level.
    • An unknown fraction of M-Psy can actually heal, but that healing appears to be limited to low-level injuries (broken bones, cuts etc).
  • F – Foresight
    • A variation of Foresight, that still falls within the F-designation, is Backsight – the ability to see the past.
  • Ps – Psychometry
    • In basic terms, those born with Ps abilities can gain information by touching objects.
  • X - Possibly from Exardesco (f. Latin, 'to blaze up'): X-Psy have the ability to produce cold-fire/X-fire, which can burn things to ash within microseconds.
    • The power has the capacity to build until it reaches synergy. This is a very rare designation as most X-Psy do not survive into adulthood.
  • E – Empathy
    • Not recognized as a designation with the rise of Silence, E-Psy have the ability to sense and heal emotional hurts.
• Robert Doherty's Psychic Warrior series concerns a group of soldiers who have various tech-amplified powers, primarily the ability to project psychic energy avatars anywhere in the world. And give them Arm Cannons.
• Sadako Yamamura from The Ring is an astonishingly powerful psychic who, at one point or another, exhibits all these powers. Not only can she manifest psychography (called "nensha" in the context) with such force as to create the Cursed Video, she can manipulate viruses and human beings to alter their genetic structure — if she doesn't content herself with creating tumors or stopping hearts. By the third book, Loop, her power is so great she's breaking through to the real world and spreading her curse there. Her mother, on the other hand, merely manifested precognition, and clairvoyance.
• Jean Lorrah's Savage Empire books feature the vegetarian Readers (telepaths/remote viewers) and the meat-eating Adepts (physical psychic powers like pyrokinesis and telekinesis).
• In the Sector General universe, all species with psi abilities receive the classification of V regardless of physical type.
• Shade's Children: Change Talents. Those we see in the book are telekinesis, conjuration, precognition and telepathy.
• Sixth of the Dusk: Pretty much everything, including most predators, are psychic on the islands. The only defense are the Aviar, psychic birds that humans can tame. They grant a single talent, unique to each species, and are invaluable for shielding minds against psychic detection.
• In Solar Warden, a number of alien species are telepathic, although being "alien" doesn't necessarily mean "extraterrestrial" in this case, as two of them (the so-called "Nordics" and "Greys") are actually evolved humans from the future (the "Nordics" are from about 11,000 years in the future, while the "Greys" are from a million years later). The "Saurians" are the only ones of the frequent guests who aren't related to humans (except they are, very remotely, since they're actually evolved dinosaurs from the Cretaceous). The second novel reveals that some humans already possess limited psychic abilities, with remote viewing (the Stargate Project) playing a key role in the story. A "Nordic" woman explains that these gifts are just the beginning of what humanity will be able to do in the future. Indeed, "Saurian" telepathy seems to be limited to short ranges (except when piggybacking on another psychic signal), while a modern human remote viewer can see much farther than that, especially while traveling FTL (the viewer in question also seems to get images that are time-shifted as well, and scientists speculate that it's because space-time is not as separate as most people think.
• In Super Powereds, Supers of the Advanced Minds category have mental powers. For example, Mary is a powerful telepath and telekinetic (and a Dream Walker), while Alex is an empath and a weaker (but more precise) telekinetic, who claims to be a Jedi. Professor Stone's telepathy and telekinesis is on par with Mary's, and she can also manipulate memories. Alice's mom can see possible futures. Jill is a technopath. Others have psychic powers that include entering others' dreams and putting others in dream-like states. A dean from another school is likewise a telepath/telekinetic, while also possessing the ability to create blind spots in other people's perception, effectively remaining invisible while he puts a bullet between their eyes.
• Ia, protagonist of the Theirs Not to Reason Why series has massive precognitive powers, along with lesser talents in telepathy, pyrokinesis, electrokinesis, telekinesis, and biokinesis.
• These Broken Stars: How the whispers communicate, initially with Lilac, but later with Tarver after Lilac dies. They can make people hear and see things, read minds, and make some solid objects, such as a flower and a water canteen as well as a copy of Lilac when she dies.
• This Immortal:
  • Conrad Nomikos exhibits the occasional bout of clairvoyance where he is able to see, hear and feel something as if he were there is he has he has enough information to make a good guess. He calls it pseudotelepathic wishfulfillment and claims he's occasionally guessed wrong, but it is proven to be real when he accidentally connects with Myshtigo who later identifies it as real.
  • The Vegans have developed several systems of mental discipline able to produce extrasensory abilities, and since every Vegan comes in contact with such a system at some point in their lives most are able to at least identify such occurrences.
• Time Machine Series: The Rings of Saturn, set in the future, has mutants who live in wildlife preserves, in stone-age conditions; their powers range from telepathy through future sight to teleportation. They rarely enter civilization and prefer to keep the outside world unaware of the full extent of their abilities.
• In The Time Quartet, A Wind in the Door introduces the idea of "kything", a form of telepathy - telepathy to the next level, where, no matter what distance, you can be with another on an emotional level. It's motivated (naturally) by love. In A Swiftly Tilting Planet, kything is itself taken to the next level, of "Going Within" (benign, non-intrusive occupation of another's body.) Charles Wallace has a gift for all these powers.
• In Time Scout, a few people have various psychic powers.
  • Ianira Cassondra, the living Goddess, with precognition, clairvoyance (both willing and unwilling), postcognition, and powerful empathy.
  • Ianira states outright that Margo could learn the same.
  • Jack the Ripper has mesmerism and an aura of evil so powerful it can send psychic sensitives into paralytic visions.
• They appear frequently in Tolkien's Legendarium in various forms.
  • Ainur (both the powerful Valar and their servants the Maiar) can foresee distant events and place "dooms" upon others to alter their fate, but since they are angelic beings, this kind of thing is to be expected.
  • Certain elves are gifted with foresight. Although it's not explicitly described as a power to actively tap into, they are able to see far-distant outcomes of today's choices.
  • The men of Númenor and their descendants, being descended from a half-elf, often display this to some degree. The Dúnedain in Lord of the Rings have foresight, with Aragorn accurately stating that he and Éomer will meet again "though all the host of Mordor stand between us" (which Éomer took as a vow, not a prediction, until it came about). His kinsman Halbarad accurately predicts his own death far from the lands of Arnor.
  • Númenorian descendants with a particularly strong share of elven genetics can also peer into the minds of men. Though they can't fully read another's mind, they can read will and intent enough that they are extremely hard to deceive. Denethor and Faramir display this quality most strongly.
• Trapped on Draconica: Gothon has this provided to him by "garmen tech"fol.
• The Twilight Saga has several examples of psychic powers:
  • Firstly, most of the "special gifts" (unique powers that a select few of the vampire species develop upon turning) that some vampires possess are psychic in nature:
    • Edward's mind-reading
    • Alice's precognition
    • Kate, of the Denali Coven, can create a sensation akin to an electric shock through physical contact. It is noted to be psychic in nature
    • Antagonist Victoria is able to sense any danger (to herself) and instinctively avoid it - unless she consiously chooses to stick around anyway
    • Aro's "tactile telepathy"
    • Marcus, who can sense the nature of relationships
    • Marcus's wife, Didyme, who projected an aura of joy everywhere she went
  • The Volturi Guard gives us:
    • Demetri, who is a psychic tracker that can sense the direction of his targets
    • Jane, who can project the illusion of intense burning pain
    • Alec, Jane's twin, who can switch off all of a person's sensory perception
    • Chelsea, who can manipulate relationships
    • Eleazar, who can instinctively identify and determine the powers of other gifted vampires
    • Corin, who can stimulate emotional contentment to an addictive degree
    • Afton, who can create the illusion that he is not visible or present
  • Bella, the main protagonist, has a natural immunity to all psychic abilities that directly affect the mind. Edward and Aro's telepathy, Demetri psychic tracking and Jane and Alec's mentally offensive abilities don't work on her, while Alice's precognition still does because her precognition isn't mental. When she becomes a vampire, Bella is able to project this "shield" outwards and shield others as well.
  • Possibly Heidi of the Volturi. She is noted (alongside Rosalie) to be incredibly beautiful, even for a vampire. However, her ability to attract people is implied to border on hypnosis
  • Jasper is a subversion: While it seems, at first, as though he is a traditional empath, Bella's inability to shield herself from his powers is explained as him directly affecting the nervous system and not the mind.
  • The werewolves of the Quileute community also have psychic abilities:
    • There is a form of involuntary telepathy shared among members of a pack. The Alphas of different packs are able to communicate telepathically with each other by choice. This telepathy only works when the werewolves are in wolf form, and may have developed to make up for the fact that wolves can't talk.
    • The Alpha of a pack is able to exercise his will over his subordinates, to the extent where attempts at disobeying direct orders cause physical discomfort
  • It is also hinted that some humans may be born with natural, low-level, psychic abilities. These will be greatly magnified if they become vampires. Examples include:
    • Bella, who as a human was immune to all direct psychic influence
    • Charlie, whom Edward says has a difficult mind to read (implying it is from him that Bella gets her own mental shields)
    • Alice was plagued by a weaker form of her precognitive visions as a human, which led to her being institutionalized.
  • Renesmeé, Edward and Bella's hybrid daughter, who has tactile psychic powers. She is the sole psychic character who can penetrate her mother's shield. She can also project her own thoughts into the minds of others through physical contact. This leads to an interesting scene in which she and Aro (who receives thoughts through touch) have an entire, non-verbal conversation just by holding hands.
• A number of species in the Uplift 'verse have psi abilities as well as individuals of many other species (including humans). Most notably two Clients of the Tandu, the Acceptors, who are used as long-range metaphysical sensors, and the Episiarchs, Reality Warpers most often used for extremely fast but dangerous FTL travel. There are also several psi amplifiers used for long-range communications and psi-"bombs" that are not only weapons but distress beacons.
• In an interesting inversion, Anne Rice dispenses with Functional Magic in The Vampire Chronicles and Lives of the Mayfair Witches series. All preternatural phenomena and beings such as vampires, witches and spirits are explained in psychic, rather than magical, terms.
• Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time:
  • Wolfbrothers can communicate mentally with wolves.
  • A few of the Aes Sedai also have prophetic seizures (they are otherwise treated more as witches). There are also "Dark Prophecies", but these are not discussed in much detail.
• Many of the Wild Cards characters have Psychic Powers — in fact the case has been made in the books that nearly all of the super-powers displayed are actually psychic in origin or were caused by people having unconsciously bio-kinetically reshaped their bodies during their transformation. The Takisians are also ruled by a caste of telepaths.
• The Witling by Vernor Vinge introduces a whole planet of psychics, who have a language which assumes such powers exist including special words all ending with "-eng" to describe the powers and using them, e.g. "seng" = see remotely, "theng" = telekinesis and several others.
• In NISIOISIN's Zaregoto novels (at least the first one), Himena Maki is a world-renowned psychic. She's capable of precognition up to two years after her introduction, at which point she will be brutally murdered and mind reading, which she uses to insult the main character about his major personal problems every chance she gets.

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