Psionics involve the use of the mind to alter or command reality, typically through some understanding of a deeper truth about the universe or command over a fundamental law of reality.
It’s pretty cool, but I have trouble thinking of media where it takes a prominent role. The few examples that come to mind are:
Star Wars - The Force Mass Effect - Biotics/Element Zero technology Stellaris - Spiritualist Ethos Warhammer 40k - Psykers/Orks
What are some other examples of psionics in Sci-Fi?
Star trek! Vulcan mind melds (not to mention betazoids and other telepaths) are absolutely psychic
The sci-fi book series “Perry Rhodan” features a lot of humans and other beings with all kind psionic powers.
Telepathy, telekinesis, invisibility, teleportation, fire, ice, atomic restructuring, the list is really really long.
Perry Rhodan
Just be prepared to catch up. They have been publishing weekly novellas since 1961, so they are well over 3,000 issues.
Oh, and if you want to go past the first 140 or so, you will need to learn German!
If you speak/read Portuguese, French, Japanese, Dutch or Czech, you can read a lot further than in English. But yeah, original language is German.
I prefer to read the Silberbände over the novellas tho.
Firestarter
trouble instigator
T-wisted Drew Barrymore.
Star Gate?
Currently rewatching SG1.
While it exists in the universe, I wouldn’t really call it popular. It’s basically just a small plot point in a handful of episodes, unless I forgot something
Surprised no one has mentioned Stranger Things.
The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man both have this in some way, perhaps explaining the presence of Mr Bester in Babylon 5.
Philip K Dick has recurring themes of pre-cogs and telekinetics.
X-Men is extremely heavy on telepaths, and has quite a few telekines and other variants.
Two video games got me kinda obsessed with psionics as a younger person:
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy. It’s a near-future military thriller where the main character has amnesia, but finds himself with telekinesis, pyrokinesis, remote viewing, mind control, and “mind drain” to power those abilities. That game was amazingly cool and had a banger single called “With My Mind” by Cold (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZQk3ig-i_s)
It’s been a long time, but our guy basically battles a rogue paramilitary bad guy faction that’s like “If MK ULTRA actually worked on a few dudes and they were super fascist.”
Second Sight: Still gotta play this one! Kinda like Bourne Identity. Guy wakes up in a strange facility with psychokinetic powers and amnesia, and strange government people are trying to kill him. He can throw things around with his mind.
(I feel like these were the same game pitched to two different publishers hahaha)
Hehe I remember really trying to exercise my mind to put out matches or move objects. Was quite disappointed. :p
Chronicle: This one is an interesting movie. Kinda a found footage superhero film. Three friends touch a weird rock and end up with telekinesis. Things kinda derail out of control from there. Excellent effects.
(Somebody already mentioned “Push” which is also super cool.)
apocalypses, advanced telekinesis, which allows him to re-order matter and make new materials from it, though he doesnt have telepathy right off the bat, he apparently is able to manipulate telepaths if it is being used against him, and also shield against telepathy.(if you consider his mutant power enhancement bestowal as psionics). EMMa frost, unique diamond form makes her immune to telepathic attacks(depending on the film/show) she also has similar ability to block telepathy/ add a telepathy wall in someones mind. psylocke, has the psi-blade ability, plus her telepathy apparently.
Chrono-skimming seems to be an advanced version of telepathy, you can project your conciseness into a future or past self. kitty pryde in DOFP, could do this to bishop and wolverine, although she never did to a future self. HERS IS unique because she is using her phase shifting ability to do it.
AOT, eren(attack titan) was able to chronoskimm into a past self, although its more obscure.
Mindbridge was pretty good iirc.
Check out Babylon 5, telepaths are a major part of the story for so many reasons.
The creator of Babylon 5 has recently begun uploading every episode of the show to YouTube to watch for free, they release a new ep every 3 days
For anyone who wants to give it a try, here’s the season 1 playlist: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGTv90eS-e4I
Looks region locked :(. All are hidden.
Unfortunately it is :/
If you have a VPN and use a US server you may be able to get around it (maybe Mozilla’s free VPN in Firefox would do the trick?)
Otherwise, there’s always yarr 🏴☠️ :)
“More Than Human” by Theodore Sturgeon is a novel about a collective of psionic humans who have to work together because they have an unusual mix of powers and weaknesses. One of them is a forever-infant whose role is a living supercomputer, for example
“Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn is a bit of a stretch, but it’s technically a conversation between the main character and a telepathic gorilla, if you want something a little different than the usual story about psychic humans
On the movie side, there’s “Beyond the Black Rainbow,” a somewhat trippy thriller and sort-of horror story about a psychic adolescent girl being raised by a scientist who developed a disturbing obsession with her. Might be a little rough to watch on that note, but it’s good. I liked the way they portrayed how her powers worked and it was an interesting audio-visual experience besides
The Scanners movies. Just watch the first one though.
WandaVision: She creates a new reality around herself.
Fringe: One of the main plot points are psychics controlling reality.
Push: A movie about a psychic people that can push thoughts into other people’s heads.
Legion: Mind bendy reality show where the main character can control reality.
i dont think wanda, counts she using reality warping with chaos magic, she does use telepathy with her magic is different.
Push is a great movie! This is the first time I’ve seen it mentioned and it deserves more recognition. It combines suspense, action, character development, and cultural impact, backed by a good script and excellent acting.
I haven’t watched it in a really long time, but it stuck with me when it came out. I’m a sucker for creative names for existing concepts. It was the first time I had head of “pushing” a psychic term.
Overall it was a surprisingly original take on psionics. I particularly liked the way they handled Watchers. They didn’t so much predict the future as see the detailed consequences of their actions. The one woman breaking out of the secure facility by rolling a ball bearing along the floor was both neat and kind of terrifying.
I have also come to the conclusion that Chris Evans is worth watching in anything. He was an incredible Captain America, but I have now seen enough of his other movies to appreciate just how much he brings to every role. Not all of his movies are good, but he is always good in them. And he has mostly picked good movies.
Yeah, Push was his first one I saw him after Johnny Storm, then he had Scott Pilgrim and Snow Piercer. So he had a good few cult classics.
I don’t know about popular, but one of my favorite examples is Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. It’s an old game (1999) but I’ll put the psionic stuff in a spoiler tag because, If you like Civilization type games and want a good story, I think it’s worth going in blind and experiencing the story as it was intended.
SMAC plot spoilers
The game takes place on a planet around Alpha Centauri, generally referred to in-game as Planet. Just before the colony ship gets to Planet, disaster strikes, communications with Earth are lost, and the crew breaks into seven factions, one for each drop pod on the ship. The planet is dominated by a fungus that hosts a number of hostile native species, and these species use psionic attacks to paralyze their victims with horror before killing them.
As the player develops their civilization and discovers new techs, they learn that the alien animals are psionically linked to the fungus, which itself forms a Planet-spanning neural network. Over the course of the game, Planet begins to develop conscious thought and communicate with the humans, first through psionic dreams, later through specially constructed interfaces between the fungus and human tech.
I distinctly remember having my mind blown as the story unfolded. It’s been many years since I’ve thought about it; gonna have to dig it up and see if it’s as good as I remember it :)
Psionics was more popular in older sci fi, a few that come to mind are:
- The Lensman series - one of the classics in sci fi, mental powers are very prominent.
- The Tower and Hive series (also Dragonriders of Pern by the same author to a lesser extent as it’s largely just telepathy in that series).
- The Saga of Pliocene Exile series.
Read stuff written before the turn of the millennium if you’re into this, I feel like it’s become less and less common in sci fi as time progresses. I guess it’s because mental powers - being effectively magic rather than technology - slot better into fantasy than sci fi in modern readers expectations.
Also because people in the 50s, 60s and 70s were absolutely convinced we were in the verge of unlocking uncanny mental powers because of this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-percent-of-the-brain_myth
Like we were around for 300,000 years mostly without technology with no sign of ESP but if we just concentrate really hard now we might be able to bend a spoon or see into a locked room. Even the CIA had a go with MK Ultra.
