I’ve engaged in numerous conversations about superpowers (shocking!). Which one is the best (telekinesis), the worst (changing color) and the most popular (flying – especially after the TSA flap).
Telepathy would suck eggs. Pardon my pre-Hobbit, but I can’t think of a better description.
Have you ever noticed the horrible things flying out of your mouth when you’re startled or angry or frightened? Think of the things you don’t say in such circumstances and imagine those things shooting out of your brain toward anyone in a 20 foot radius. That’s if you’re a broadcast telepath.
Kinda scary, isn’t it?
Have you ever walked past the weird person in the supermarket and thought something unflattering? Have you then realized (hehe!) that is exactly the kind of person likely to be telepathic and to have received your unflattering thoughts? That would be the receiver kind of telepath. Turn the tables a bit and imagine you’re the one receiving those broadcasted thoughts about you.
TT: I categorize my telepaths into broadcasters, receivers and pure. Broadcasters only project, receivers only receive and pure telepaths do both. I’ve given the whole issue a lot of thought since many of my books involve psyonics. Elementals is one of the exceptions.
Telepathy sounds great, but when talking about flawed humans, I sometimes wish we had fewer communication avenues than we do. Then I think about some of the politically correct editing going on around me, and I get nervous again.
TT: No, I don’t know where this post is going, either. Stay with me. I will find a point.
Have you read George Orwell’s 1984? He introduces the idea of “thought police,” along with the government as “Big Brother” and the eternally-shrinking dictionary. Once upon a time, we might have scoffed at our thoughts being edited before we had them. I don’t scoff anymore.
Political correctness teaches us what not to say and therefore what not to think. The body leads the mind, after all. If an action is prohibited, it’s possible for the thought prompting that action to be pre-empted. This is my main take-away from 1984. Perhaps I should create a list of “15 Books That Influenced Me (as opposed to 15 authors).” Orwell’s would be right next to the Bible.
I resist the government – or any human authority – telling me what to think and what to say. Freedom of speech is freedom of thought.
On the other hand, not every thought is worth expressing. Consider our hypothetical broadcaster in the supermarket. Is it worthy to think such unpleasantness about another human, even if that human doesn’t know it? Does it make me a better person to entertain such thoughts, even if I have the right to do so?
Jesus expects us to control our thoughts as well as our actions. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said anyone who is angry with his brother is subject to judgment (Matt 5:21-22) or who looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery in his heart (Matt 5:27-28). Jesus is concerned with our thoughts whether or not they are shared with anyone else. Our thoughts determine who we are, after all.
Christians are told to “be transformed by the renewing of our minds…” Romans 12:2. In this instance, our thoughts – massaged by the Holy Spirit within us – are brought into line with Jesus’ thoughts. I do not mind my Lord and Savior editing my thoughts. Well, not much, anyway. No point adding lying to my long list of faults.
This is not a prohibitive exercise. To become like Jesus is the main goal for the Christian. We accomplish this by “doing what he commands (John 15:14)” and ultimately by thinking like He thinks. The body leads the mind, the mind leads the body and the Spirit over and within.
These reflections were of course prompted by a thought apparently shared by no one else. At least, it was admitted by no one else. No, I won’t tell you what it is.
Wishing you were telepathic, aren’t ya?
The New Authors Fellowship 
A couple of comments:
1) Stephen King hypothesized about telepathy in that writing is a form of telepathy. You write down your thoughts and “send” them my way, and I read your thoughts. These thoughts are “broadcasted” over both space and time. You may have thought the thoughts a long time ago, but I’m “reading” them now. One can read your thoughts after you die and you’ve “broadcasted” them over much time and space. And with the advent of the Internet, we can communicate over long distances with just our “thoughts”. Sort of like the old legends, eh? Solomon said there wasn’t anything new under the sun, so it makes you wonder when they had the Internet or something similar in the past. 😉
2) I can’t remember the details, but I was listening to something recently that was talking about things mentioned independently by both Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein about the human brain and how atoms are always vibrating at different frequencies. Since our brains are made up of atoms and are most active they vibrate in a way that’s different from other parts of our bodies and other things in that our brain can both broadcast and recieve information and frequencies. There’s a lot more to it than that, but basically, what it comes down to is that if you are thinking negative thoughts, negative things occur to you, but if you remain positive then positive things occur. That can be proven by Scripture as part of God’s design when He says for us to have faith and to not doubt, so when you consider faith to be positive thoughts and doubt to be negative thoughts it makes sense. You attract what you broadcast out with the frequency of your brain and “like attracts like” or “every action causes an equal yet opposite reaction”. You broadcast positivity into the universe God created and by the law of attraction that God set up (along with all the other laws such as gravity and lift) the equal reaction of positivity occurs, but it’s in the opposite direction since it’s coming your way. So in a way, we’re already pure telepaths in that we’re broadcasting and receiving frequencies all the time. 😉
You have some interesting categories for telepathy. I’ll be honest in that I never gave it much thought. I always just assumed telepathy should go both ways, but now that you explain it the way you do, that three tier system sounds much more fun to write with. (:
I’ve been meaning to pick up George Orwell’s 1984. I didn’t like Animal Farm much (required high school reading), but 1984 sounds like something I would really enjoy. I still wonder how thought police would work, and as for political correctness, for the most part I think it’s a farce.
On a completely unrelated note, I found this image and it made me think of you: http://jollyjack.deviantart.com/art/Awesome-Fun-Turtle-154678543?q=boost:popular+in:cartoons&qo=22
I was curious where comments might go on this post. I see so many possibilities with the regular NAF crowd.
David, very interesting take. For my story purposes, I need telepaths who literally send and receive and consciously interpret thoughts, but your comments make me want to research some current science to work in, if I can.
Zoe, some nerds can’t help categorizing everything. But I need an entire Guild’s worth of pysionic abilities and their statistical probabilities within the population, so I got more nerdy than usual with this little aspect. I read Animal Farm, too, and the only part I remember is the silly horse trying out different colored ribbons against her mane while looking in the mirror in the farmer’s house. 1984 has more to it than I mentioned, but that was the part that stayed with me.
And I just looked at your link. That’s where my old glasses went! hehe!