Psychic
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Illustration: Henri Robin and a Specter, 1863 by Eugène Thiébault
Illustration to the Speculum Sophicum Rhodostauroticum (1618) by Teophilus Schweighardt Constantiens
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A psychic (from the Greek ψυχικός psychikos—"of the mind, mental") is a person who claims to have an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception (ESP), or who is said by others to have such abilities. The word "psychic" is also used to describe theatrical performers, such as stage magicians, who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot reading to produce the appearance of such abilities. It can also denote an ability of the mind to influence the world physically using psychokinetic powers such as those formerly claimed by Uri Geller.
Psychics appear regularly in fantasy fiction, such as in the novel The Dead Zone by Stephen King. A large industry exists whereby psychics provide advice and counsel to clients. Psychic powers are asserted by psychic detectives and in practices such as psychic archaeology and even psychic surgery.
Critics attribute psychic powers to intentional trickery or to self-delusion. A study attempted to repeat recently reported parapsychological experiments that appeared to support the existence of precognition. All attempts to repeat the results "failed to produce significant effects", and thus "do not support the existence of psychic ability."
List of psychic abilities
This is a list of psychic abilities that have been attributed to real-world people. These are also sometimes known as extrasensory perception or a sixth sense. Inclusion in this list does not imply scientific recognition of the existence of an ability. Superhuman abilities from fiction are not included.
- Apportation - Materialization, disappearance, or teleportation of an object.
- Aura reading - Perception of the energy fields surrounding people, places, and things.
- Automatic writing - Writing produced without conscious thought.
- Astral projection or mental projection - An out-of-body experience in which an "astral body" becomes separate from the physical body.
- Bilocation or multilocation - Being in multiple places at the same time.
- Clairaudience - receiving messages in thought form from another frequency or realm. It is considered a form of channeling.
- Clairvoyance, second sight - Perception outside the known human senses.
- Death-warning - A vision of a living person prior to his or her death.
- Divination - Gaining insight into a situation via a ritual.
- Dowsing - Ability to locate objects.
- Energy medicine - Healing by channeling a form of energy.
- Faith healing - Diagnosing and curing disease using religious devotion.
- Mediumship or channeling – Communicating with spirits.
- Precognition, premonition and precognitive dreams - Perception of events before they happen.
- Psychic surgery - Removal of diseased body tissue via an incision that heals immediately afterwards.
- Psychokinesis or telekinesis - Manipulation of matter or energy by the power of the mind.
- Psychometry or psychoscopy - Obtaining information about a person or object.
- Pyrokinesis - Manipulation of fire.
- Remote viewing - Gathering of information at a distance.
- Retrocognition - Perception of past events.
- Scrying - Use of an item to view events at a distance or in the future.
- Telepathy - Transfer of thoughts or emotions.
- Transvection - Bodily levitation or flying.
See also
