This is an important point, though it's not one everyone is happy about and accepts. In prior editions, psionics was usually separate from and opposed to magic. Not only was it practiced by different people, it had entirely different game mechanics, which really drove home to the players that it was something other.
Absolutely. They weren't in any way at all
spells with the serial numbers badly filed off.
Levitate, Psionic
Psychoportation
Level: Nomad 2, psion/wilder 2, psychic warrior 2
Display: Olfactory
Manifesting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal or close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: You or one willing creature or one object (total weight up to 100 lb./level)
Duration: 10 min./level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Power Resistance: Yes (harmless, object)
Power Points: 3
As the levitate spell, except as noted here.
Special
When a psion, wilder, or a psychic warrior manifests this power, the target is the manifester (not a willing creature or an object).
Yes, that looks absolutely nothing at all like a spell to me. Even converting to the power points of a third level spell. And literally referencing a spell.
It was this and psionic spells like it that really drove home to me that in D&D psionics
wasn't something other, it was just spells. It was just an alternate spell system. I played GURPS long before I played D&D - and in that psionic powers are very different from magic.
And yes I know that 1e psionics were their own thing (that as far as I am aware no one wants back) and 2e were more different from spells than 3.0 or, worse, 3.5. And they aren't explicitly going to recreate 4e psionics.
