psychic talents & forms of magic

Got to thinking that it might be useful for idea development to start with the personality quirks (vis psychic or magical talents) of main characters or villians.  So here's a non-comprehensive list with links.  I suspect that this will be as useful as archetypes for character development, as there is nothing like a talent which either must be used, hidden or which stigmatizes a person to be a focal point of character development, as well as a likely source of childhood pain (e.g. backstory) or plot complications.  Nothing like a misfit with power for a bad guy or a shattered ego on a stick for your character in need of personal growth!

Psychic talents:

• Psychometry.  Perception of information via touch.
• Clairvoyance.  Ability to see psychically.  Can include dreams, visions, seeing auras.  Any of the 'seeing' can be mental or with the eyes.
• Clairaudience.  Ability to hear psychically.  Maybe be mental or physical experience.
• Clairsentience.  Ability to feel or sense psychically.  Can include sensory impressions or physical symptoms such as heat, cold, pain, scenting odors, or a 'feeling'
• Claircognizence.  Ability to know information psychially.  Can encompass the above or be interpretation of impressions.  Some lump claircognizence in with various forms divination.
• Divination.  Reading the future, generally via tool use, such as scrying crystals, tarot cards, reading entrails, numerology, etc.  Can be lumped with claircognizence by some. 
• Telepathy.  Ability to hear thoughts, whether as words or impressions.
• Empathy.  Ability to sense the emotions.
• Precognition.  Ability to know the future.
• Pyrokenesis.  Fire starting.
• Remote viewing.  Given a prompt, practitioner can pick up relevant information (images, words, etc.) for a target.
• Seeing ghosts.  This may be a random experience or a sort of active mediumship or clairvoyance.  I cannot find a specific term for being a Ghost Whisperer.
• Mediumship.  Via a psychic 'helper' or 'guide' relays information from the other side to this world.
• Channeling.  A form of trance mediumship where the channeler gives up control of his/her self to greater or lesser degree.  Includes automatic writing, ouija board use, and having another entity take over one's body to speak with an audience.  Reportedly, channelers get sick a lot.

Fictional references:

• The Dead Zone, Stephen King:  precognition after a car accident.
• Jean Grey of the X Men comics:  telepathy.
• Firestarter, Stephen King:  pyromancy
• Ghostwhisperer (tv show):  clairvoyance, seeing ghosts.

Magical belief systems:
My observation is that there are several general types of magical systems prevalent in the US. 

• Theurgy:  Ceremonial magic such as the Golden Dawn, Thelema, New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn (NROOGD). 
• Hermetic and alchemical traditions.  Involves transmutation of base element to finer element (e.g. lead into gold).  Probably refers to transference of gross flesh to spiritual perfection, with the lead-into-gold aspect being more a metaphore than a literal element to those who studied these traditions most closely.  Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, among others.  (May or may not include Freemasonry and the Rosicrucians.)
• African based:  Voudoun (Haitian system), Voodoo (New Orleans), spirit-ism, Hoo doo, Candomble (Brasilian system), Santeria/Lukumi (Cuban system that is most wide-spread in the US), the Orisa faith in Trinidad/Tobago, and several other systems in the Carribbean Islands.
• Wicca/Paganism/Neo-paganism/Witchcraft:  Earth-based religions that primarily focus on the nature practices of old Europe prior to Christianity's spread.  Wicca supposedly is based on passed-down family tradition (Fam Trad), but is probably nearly 100% reconstructed.
  
  The Big Three (most well known to mundane types) are the ceremonial traditions resurrected in the 1800s and early 1900s:  Gardnerian, Thelema (Aleister Crowley) and Golden Dawn.  Also includes Eclectic (kitchen sink magical practitioners), Faerie (3rd Road, a la Francesca DeGrandis)/Feri (a la Victor Anderson), Reclaiming (a la Starhawk); Circle Craft (a la Selena Fox); Church of All Worlds (Otter Zell, et al); Seax (Saxon-based) Wicca (Raymond Buckland), & etc.  Other systems include Druidic, Discordian, Tameran, Kemetism (Egyptian-based), Asatru (Nordic-based), Hellenism (Greek-based), Alexandrian, & Dianic (feminist).  Most of these admit to being old systems mixed with new systems.
  
  There are many wiccan traditions, and, in fact, it is a joke among pagans that for every pagan, there is a new tradition in the making.  Most of these are covered at witchvox.com. See their page for a link.  Also, note that this is a relatively brief list of fairly common flavors of paganism in the US.  For the best list I've found, I do recommend witchvox!
• Satanism.  Inverted Catholicism where its practitioners worship the Christian Devil as their god.  Created by Anton Levey in 1966.  For the purposes of this article, Satanism is a version of Catholicism.  It is not witchcraft nor is it Wicca.  It is, however, a magical tradition.  The official Church of Satan website is here.
• Various religious systems with ancestor worship:  Shinto, African-based religions.
• Various religious sytems that offer direct interaction with the god(s):  Shinto, Buddhism, Christian mysticism, kaballah, Sufi, Satanism, Wicca, Paganism of most sorts.
• Shamanism.  Various indigenous belief systems and religions, which are too numerous to include.  For those of us in North America, however, in brief:  there are the Mayan/Aztec derivitives from Central and South America, the Inuit, and the multitude of Native American tribal beliefs, which are decidedly NOT homogenous. Southwest and Pueblo, Plains, Eastern Woodland, Cherokee Nation, Iroquois Nation and etc. tribes all have distinct differences in their religious practices and beliefs just as they do in their cultures.
• Eastern traditions.  These will not be addressed here, as I admit to being desperately ignorant about their components and mythology.  However, I will say this:  There are many similarities between these cosmologies and pagan cosmologies I have studied.
• Demonology.  Not sure what to tell you about this one.  Never heard of it except in a historical context, and that is via Catholic persecutory activities and literature.  Seems like it should be lumped in with Satanism as a riff off of Christianity and as something outside the general pagan/Wiccan/witchcraft venue.  In fiction, this seems to be related to magecraft/ sorcery.

Fictional references:

• The Walker Papers (Urban Shaman, Coyote Dreams, Thunderbird Falls), by C.E. Murphy: Woman develops shamanic powers after a near-death experience.
• The Diana Tregarde books (Children of the Night, Jinx High, Burning Water, etc.) by Mercedes Lackey.  Ceremonial magic.
• The Rowan Gant investigations series by M.R. Sellars.  Witchcraft.
• Harry Dresden books (& TV show) by Jim Butcher.  Ceremonial magic and, I think Alchemy and demonology.

Reading magic in fiction confirms what I said earlier that much of it doesn't reflect pagan practices today.  For one thing, I've never seen witches able to blow things up or fly.  Etc. 

References:
Wikipedia articles on psychic ability, magic, and parapsychology.
For basic info on witchcraft, www.witchvox.com & here at dmoz.

Thinking about an article series.
For future reference, I am going to write an article or series of articles on how to portray "real" witchcraft in your stories.  Things like the basics of spells, circle casting, altars, pagan etiquette, levels of knowledge.  All general stuff that doesn't count as really learning the Craft, but which can give the gritty edge of realism.  Please, give me any questions you have regarding this subject!

Comments

[Bernita]

Comprehensive post.

[Carolyn]

Wow! You are really packing in a lot of interesting and helpful information here. I don't know of other place where it is really so collected, but then again, I am no authority. But it seems like this could be really helpful to people. In my current work, I'm sort of making up some talents, but some of them relate to what you have going here.
Also, did you see LS's reply?

[writtenwyrdd]

I replied to the reply, Carolyn. Thanks for th eheads up.

As far as writing goes, the use of psychic abilities or witchcraft is up to the author. But one thing that I notice in some books with occult practices is that, when its something that is similar to real world stuff, it can be really badly done.

So I thought I'd offer up some info so writers would have an easier time thinking like a witch/magical practitioner in those almost-real-world circumstances.

I make my characters' powers up as I go as well...so far. ;)

[Charles Gramlich]

Wow. I'm gonna bookmark this post for reference purposes. A lot of good information here. I'd love to hear more about any articles you're doing on this topic.

[writtenwyrdd]

I've already written the drafts of four articles,Charles. They should be showing up over this month.

[Bernita]

I tried posting before and was told I looked like spam.
Anyway, an excellent source/information list, Written.