List of psychic abilities

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This is a list of psychic abilities attributed to real-world people. Many of these abilities pertain to variations of extrasensory perception or the sixth sense. Superhuman abilities from fiction are not included.

Psychic abilities

• Astral projection or mental projection – The ability to voluntarily project an astral body or mental body, being associated with the out-of-body experience, in which one's consciousness is felt to separate from the physical body temporarily.^{[1][page needed]}
• Atmokinesis – The ability to control the weather by calling for rainfall or storms.
• Automatic writing – The ability to draw or write without conscious intent.^{[2][page needed]}
• Bilocation – The ability to be present in two different places at the same time, usually attributed to a saint.
• Cryokinesis – The ability to control ice or cold with one's mind.
• Curse – Any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object.
• Energy medicine – The ability to heal with empathic, etheric, astral, mental or spiritual energy.^[3]
• Ergokinesis – The ability to influence the movement of energy, such as electricity, without direct interaction.
• Hydrokinesis – The ability to control water with one's mind.
• Iddhi – Psychic abilities gained through Buddhist meditation.
• Illusions – The ability to conjure up illusions from one's mind.
• Inedia – The ability to survive without eating or drinking has resulted in starvation or dehydration in multiple cases.
• Invisibility – The ability to turn oneself invisible.
• Levitation or transvection – The ability to float or fly by mystical means.^{[4][page needed]}
• Materialization — The creation of objects and material or the appearance of matter from unknown sources.^[5]
• Mediumship or channeling – The ability to communicate with spirits.^[6]
• Mind Control – The ability to control someone's mind.
• Petrification — The power to turn a living being to stone by looking them in the eye.
• Phytokinesis — The ability to control plants with one's mind.^{[citation needed]}
• Prophecy (also prediction, premonition, or prognostication) — the ability to foretell events without using induction or deduction from known facts.^[7]
• Psychic surgery – The ability to remove disease or disorder within or over the body tissue via an "energetic" disruption that heals immediately afterward.^[8]
• Pyrokinesis – The ability to control flames, fire, or heat using one's mind.
• Psychic hold – The ability to throw an electric current like a rope.^{[citation needed]}
• Shapeshifting or transformation — The ability to physically transform the user's body into anything.
• Telekinesis or Psychokinesis – The ability to influence a physical system without physical interaction, typically manifesting as being able to exert force, control objects and move matter with one's mind.^[9]
• Teleportation – The ability is the hypothetical transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them.
• Thoughtography – The ability to impress an image by 'burning' it on a surface using one's mind only.
• Time Travel – The ability to escape the flow of time by jumping to either the past or the future.
• Witnessing – The gift of being visited by high-profile spiritual beings such as Mary, Jesus or Fudosama (Acala).
• Xenoglossy — The ability of a person to suddenly learn to write and speak a foreign language without any natural means such as studying or research, but that is often rather bestowed by divine agents.

Extrasensory perception

Main article: Extrasensory perception

Extrasensory perception, or sixth sense, is an ability in itself and comprises a set of abilities.

• Clairvoyance – The ability to see things and events that are happening far away and locate objects, places, and people using a sixth sense.
• Dowsing – The ability to locate water, sometimes using a tool called a dowsing rod.^[10]
• Dermo-optical perception – The ability to perceive unusual sensory stimuli through the skin.
• Dream telepathy – The ability to telepathically communicate with another person through dreams.
• Precognition (including psychic premonitions) – The ability to perceive or gain knowledge about future events without using induction or deduction from known facts.^[11]
• Psychometry or psychoscopy – The ability to obtain information about a person or an object by touch.^[12]
• Remote viewing, telesthesia or remote sensing – The ability to see a distant or unseen target using extrasensory perception.^[13]
• Retrocognition or postcognition – The ability to supernaturally perceive past events.^[14]
• Telepathy – The ability to transmit or receive thoughts supernaturally.^[15]

References

1. Bruce, Robert (1999). Astral Dynamics: A New Approach to Out-of-body Experience. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Pub. ISBN 1571741437.
2. Miller, Sukie (1998). After Death: How People Around the World Map the Journey After Life (1st Touchstone ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780684838694.
3. Edzard Ernst (15 January 2001). "A primer of complementary and alternative medicine commonly used by cancer patients | Medical Journal of Australia". Medical Journal of Australia. 174 (2). Mja.com.au. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
4. Oldridge, Darren (2007). Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415404921.
5. Roach, Mary (2008). Six Feet Over: Adventures in the Afterlife. Edinburgh: Canongate. pp. 122–130. ISBN 9781847670809.
6. "medium - The Skeptic's Dictionary". Skepdic.com. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
7. Randi, James (n.d.) [1995 (print)]. "Prophecy". An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. Digital adaptation by Gilles-Maurice de Schryver. (Online ed.). James Randi Educational Foundation [St. Martin's Press (print)]. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
8. Spence, Lewis (2007). Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology (3rd ed.). [Whitefish, Mont.]: Kessinger Publishing. p. 750. ISBN 978-0-7661-2817-0.
9. Braude, Stephen E. (2002). ESP and Psychokinesis: A Philosophical Examination (Rev. ed.). Parkland, Fla.: Brown Walker Press. p. 21. ISBN 1-58112-407-4.
10. Miller, Sukie (1998). After Death: How People Around the World Map the Journey After Life (1st Touchstone ed.). Ulan Batar: Simon & Schuster. pp. 167–192. ISBN 9780684838694.
11. Randi, James (n.d.) [1995 (print)]. "Precognition". An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. Digital adaptation by Gilles-Maurice de Schryver. (Online ed.). James Randi Educational Foundation [St. Martin's Press (print)]. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
12. Beloff, John (1997). Parapsychology: a Concise empathy History (1st paperback ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-312-17376-0.
13. Zusne, Leonard (1989). Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erlbaum. p. 167. ISBN 0-8058-0508-7.
14. Wolman, Benjamin B. (1986). Handbook of Parapsychology (Repr. ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. pp. 921–936. ISBN 9780899501864.
15. Hamilton, Trevor (2009). Immortal Longings: FWH Myers and the Victorian Search for Life after Death. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic. p. 121. ISBN 978-1-84540-248-8.