Psychics “Я” Us

 

While my current SciFi Romance series, Ancient Alien Descendants, is about an upcoming alien invasion, I focused on having the main characters wield different psychic powers. The heroes may be half alien, but it is their human side that gives them their psychic abilities.

 

Psychic - What are They?

Before I started writing the series, I researched different psychic abilities to give my heroes. To do that, I had to define what being a psychic meant. In Wikipedia, the basic definition of a psychic is “a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses. Particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are inexplicable by natural laws.”

From the beginning of recorded record, seers and profits have been with humankind (check out any religious work). One of the earliest practices of divination was astrology, where practitioners believe the positions of the heavenly bodies let insight into their lives. A vast variety of these folks held titles, such as advisors, priests, shamans, and judges.

How are Psychics Viewed Today?

According to a Gallup poll in 2005, 41% of folks believe in ESP, 26% believe in clairvoyance, and 31% believe in telepathy. Some maintain anyone can have psychic powers that are activated through study and practice of various disciplines such as meditation. Another popular opinion is that it’s hereditary. Psychic talents are passed from a parent to their children. During the late twentieth century, we associated psychics with the New Age movement.

The Psychics in my Series

My series has a set of five brothers–fraternal quintuplets. While they have more than one psychic power, one ability is dominant. It was a lot of fun coming up with the various powers they could have, plus a little extra ability that made things interesting.

Spoiler alert–their lady loves to discover they have comparable abilities right alongside their men.

Book One: The Empath

The first hero we meet is Ben, the youngest of the quintuplets. What, you may ask, is an empath? Empaths are people who experience other people’s feelings and emotions as if they were their own. In my story, Ben not only experiences other people’s emotions, but can also manipulate folks to feel things he wants them to. Another of his major talents is entering people’s dreams to interact with them in a practice I called Dreamwalk.

In the book, he explains that he’d rather be in empath than a mind reader. “People lie to themselves with words all the time,” he states, “but their emotions don’t.”

Book Two: The Shapeshifter

If you read any type of paranormal romance, you know shape shifters are some of the most popular. After all, who hasn’t heard of a werewolf? In my second book, we meet Pete, the smartass of the bunch. He’s the second to the youngest and is a powerful shapeshifter. He can turn into any type of animal or creature he’d ever touched, that includes humans. To give his novel an extra twist, his love interest, Jena, has the same powers but takes it a step further. She not only can transform into any creature or person she touches; she also can change into any mythical creature she desires (hey, dragons had to show up somehow!).

 Book Three: The Psychic

Now this one sounds like a no-brainer, but bear with me. Michael is the middle brother of the five. He not only has the strongest mind reading ability, he is also the prophet of the family and can teleport short distances (teleportation is the hypothetical transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them). Michael can also create a Dreamwalk like Ben does.

To make the story interesting, I had a demigod from Egypt take away Michael’s powers. So for the first time, someone who had unlimited psychic powers had to save his lady love without them. Good thing she was there to save him right back.

Book Four: The Vampire (coming spring 2022)

Throwing a vampire into the mix might seem unusual in a series about psychics, but what is a vampire other than someone who has boundless psychic abilities? Here we meet Zamush. The man isn’t one of the undead, but is genetically different from the rest of his siblings. While he relies on blood to live, he also needs food and sleep. But, like a vampire, he can teleport and is a strong telepathic. Better to control someone’s mind when he bites them. While the sun won’t kill him, he is allergic to it and breaks out in a severe rash if he’s out in it too long.

I gave Zamush an extra power: he’s a prokinetic–the ability to create and control fire with his mind.

His lady love, Jelena, has the same genetic makeup. But instead of fire, she wields ice.

Book Five: The Mage (coming fall 2022)

The last book in the series highlights the eldest son, Raiden. He has all the abilities his brothers do, but it at a more advanced level. He uses telekinesis to move things around. In order to mix the story up, his lady love, Jazmi, is just as powerful as he is. But she has been biding her time before allowing them to meet. The timing had to be right for them to get together so they can stop the alien invasion from destroying earth.

 

Conclusion

It was a lot of fun peppering my heroes and heroines with various psychic abilities. Some folks have asked me if I believed psychics are real. I do think people are more clairvoyant than they realize. Part of it is reading body language, and some of it is observing what goes on around them. As for me, I admit I don’t know what I don’t know. I’ve long had the motto to stay clear of absolutes.

Whenever I dream of the future, I think as humanity grows, we’ll tap into those unused portions of our brain and unlock all sorts of possibilities for us.

Sort of like X-Men meets Star Trek.