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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
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Lots of psychics in Star Trek. Vulcans, Betazoids, and Ocampa for instance.
~~I feel like there are some in The Culture series but its been a minute since I read them and I only got a few books in.~~
Dune has a lot of kinda-psychics. Paul and pretty much all the Atreides after him would count i think.
There are some in the Foundation series I believe
Starship Troopers had Neal Patrick Harris read a bug's mind
Just about anything that's not especially "hard" sci-fi tends to have psychics of one sort or another. I dont remember any psychics in The Expanse or BattleTech but my knowledge of both is rather limited edit BattleTech no, The Expanse yes from a cursory search
Also how was OP's 40k xeno example orks and not Eldar ;D orks are way cooler and more fun i agree tho
I feel like there are some in The Culture series
The ship Grey Area uses technology to read flesh minds while investigating war crimes. The other Minds consider that an abuse of power and call it the 'Meatfucker' behind its back. I don't recall any other (pseudo-) psychic phemonema.
Thanks! Yeah the more i think about it the more i doubt reading about psychics, which i imagine had to be deliberate seeing as humans had developed absolutely insane levels of control over their bodies (sex changes, producing drugs, etc just by deciding to)
There is one human character that has accurate "hunches" about the future in the first book. That's dropped in the next books though.
ocampas seems to have the more advanced one, especially with thier telekinesis(advanced telekinesis), and her telepathy was used to battle another telepathic alien early in the series(Kes). the sleeping telepaths(likely extended range using technology) that invades peoples minds.
Not sure why you're asking for the most popular...
But Stranger in a Strange Land eventually gets around to that.
It's about a human raised by Martians, and he learned a Martian telepathic language that can alter reality. But when returned to Earth, he has no idea how humans act, and is basically an infant.
But it's one of those books that changes a lot,bthe begining isn't what you're looking for, but just stick with it.
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 :)
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.
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.
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dune, foundation, starship troopers, stranger in a strange land, martian chronicles, its fairly common in a lot of classic scifi as some sort of evolution things that happens. even 2001. Sometimes its hard to identify if there are psychic abilities or technology that is allowing for the abilities.
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.
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Might not be relatively popular, but the psionics of the novel/anime Shin Sekai Yori are central to the plot and are portrayed in a pretty interesting fashion.
Foundation is another (more traditional sci-fi) work which also focuses on psychic people as a central plot point. The book series and TV series are very different, but I'd say each explores the idea well.
For video games, Control is another one I haven't seen mentioned yet. It's based on the SCP collaborative fiction project. Exposure to objects of power awaken the protagonist's (and other characters') latent psychic abilities.
The Foundation book series doesn't really start into psychic stuff until the second book, Foundation and Empire, with the Mule. Big turning point of the overall plot because of him. I wouldn't classify the Second Foundation as psychics as much as having the ability to predict patterns mathematically and socially influence populations. The fourth book gets into some other psychic influencers.
I'm okay with the TV show parts I've seen, but it is vastly different in its approach (and so more psychic type things going on). I knew a visual version would have to take a lot of liberties as the books just don't translate well in the way they're written.
Akira is an all time classic
You can find the Kronenburg movie Scanners on Archive.org
Akira is another big one.
Names of some of the stuff are Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis (and Cryokinesis), Psychokinesis, Precognition, Postcognition, Astral Projection, and that one word for finding lost objects or dead bodies I forget. And sometimes Empathy.
EDIT: Dowsing!
Damn how did i forget Akira
And shiners from The Shining / Dr Sleep
Also Stephen King's twin novels Desperation and The Regulators. And Rose Red. And IT. And Dreamcatcher, actually the film had a few psychics who were all actually really cool, imo.
Yeah King loves psychic powers
oh forgot babylon5. its a major part of the world.
Judge Anderson in Dredd had the ability to read thoughts and create illusions of the mind.
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The Protoss from StarCraft.
Uh, also the Terrans to a limited degree.
I like the psionics (or well Psycasts) in rimworld and it has a prominent enough role.
Mind tech that calls some machine superintelligence to alter reality, bestowed by space feudalism.
Starcraft had the Ghosts.
That may be based on something in Warhammer 40k, which you already mentioned, as I understand that some elements of the game were based on Warhammer 40k. I'm not really super-familiar with the lore of the two enough to know, myself.
In the book chysalids the main characters are psychics and can draw shapes and emotions In their minds and it broadcasts out for miles and can be picked up by others like them. They all communicate on a global channel and have to conceal it from the humans who are deeply distrusting of anything different.
Fantastic book. Archive.org has a good audio book version of it for free.
How about something like the movie Dark City ?
Firestarter with Drew Barrymore is a movie with pyrokinesis.
Also, I don't see a lot of books in here, but Alan Deal Foster's Flinx series is about a telepath.
Dune has lucid "prophets" (the guild navigators, Paul and Leto II, for example), and Paul can even see/feel his way around the world through his prophetic visions when he loses his sight in Messiah. "The voice" is described almost as an advanced technique that is purely physical and psychological and not magical so idk if it fits.
The Voice maybe not but being able to see the future like Paul and Leto II do definitely fits
Not entirely sure how close this hits, it's been awhile since I played through the games, but I think System Shock 1 & 2 as well as Prey lean into the psionics quite a bit. I think that's how the powers are derived, one of the enemies in System Shock 2 are experimental monkeys with psionic powers that shoot fireballs at you. Hate those little guys, every time I hear their chatter I get a bit on edge.
I can't remember the exact examples, but Farscape had a decent few in it.
The Scanners movies. Just watch the first one though.
"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
https://www.goodreads.com/series/49441-the-talents-universe
The talents books by Anne McCaffrey
Firestarter
trouble instigator
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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.
i just finished a 3 book series by Adrian Tchaikovsky called The Final Atchitecture. it features several characters with this ability. i highly recommend it!
IMHO the funniest one was Ghostbusters: they think about an arbitrary monster and it appears in the next second, but super sized.
Other nice movies: X-Men, Lucy, Sphere, Solaris, Matrix
Star trek! Vulcan mind melds (not to mention betazoids and other telepaths) are absolutely psychic
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.)
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this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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