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Welcome Holly Barbo! 

Today, Holly gives us insight on psychic abilities. 

Congratulations, Holly, on your new release, The Founders!

Holly Barbo

On the planet Ose there are a small number of individuals
with psychic abilities. They are called sages and the series:  Sage
Seed Chronicles is about them and their interaction with the other
inhabitants and the world. The Founders
is the first book.

Each sage has two to four psi talents which blend to form a
unique skill set as individual as they are. Let’s look at the gifts that those
special individual draw from.

Psychometry is a common ability. Those sages can get
information from touching something. If it is an object they can get knowledge
on who it belonged to or where it has been. When they touch a person they can
read bits of intelligence about the individual or what they are thinking.
Psychometry can sometimes be a lie-detector, too.

A few sages are gifted with Telekinesis and can move objects
with their mind. Zair is a sage with this ability and at a critical point in
the story is able to clear debris caught in the gears of a windmill; an act of
sabotage that he thwarts. Sometime a healer has this gift and is able to “see”
inside the body to clean a wound or hold it closed as she stitches it. 

Another talent is Clairvoyance and every sage who has it
always comments that it is an unreliable skill. Those sages can see glimmers of
things that will happen … or perhaps not happen if the future changes due to
someone’s action now. Gert is clairvoyant and finds it awkward.

“She shook her head. Her pragmatic side would scoff and
say that she had flights of fancy, if it wasn’t for the fact that too many times
these thoughts had proven true. “I never understand why I see what I see.
Frankly, I’m rather uncomfortable with this skill. I just have to assume that
there is a reason.”

The Empath sage can feel or receive emotions or impressions
of another person. This skill is frequently, though not always, linked with
Telepathy: an ability to tune into thoughts of others. It depends upon how the
talent is manifested but some Telepaths can communicate with animals. The Great
One, who is the leader of the realm, is always a sage with telepathic skills.
He must be able to talk to people in their minds from great distances.

The last psi talent is Intuition. It is often an ability
that is combined with other skills. In any given sage the psi endowments
connect together differently. Some skills are stronger than others or manifest
only in specific ways. 

One of the prominent characters is Rafe. His earth heritage
was Italian and Cherokee and he had the appropriate coloring and bone
structure, with the surprising exception of grey eyes. He stood a little over
six feet tall and had been active his whole life. When he was a child in New
York, he used to read comic books and always related to Spider-man’s “spidey”
sense. Later, he understood that was the form that his empathic intuition took.
Those two skills were his strongest but flavored with clairvoyance. He was also
able to communicate with animals by telepathy.

Paranormal by definition is an event or perception
without scientific explanation yet many of us know who is calling before we
pick up the phone or have a feeling about something that comes true. Can we
prove these feelings or hunches scientifically? No, but they are just as real.
What I have done with characters in the Sage
Seed Chronicles is give these wonderful talents legitimacy. Besides… I
have always wanted to be able to communicate with wildlife. Why not make it
possible in my own world?