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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9587706" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Well, you nailed one of the main reasons already.Another is that in many cases, psychic powers have been associated with prodigious brainpower, not necessarily being charismatic and compelling. Consider Pokemon (where the Psychic type keeps a lot of this stuff alive and well...another example of a popular thing that features psychic powers!): Alakazam, Metagross, Mewtwo, Deoxys, and various other prominent, powerful psychic-types are presented as being incredibly intelligent, not ultra-compelling. In fact, most Psychic types are more weird than charismatic!Japan is actually a really ripe source of a lot of this sort of thing, since you keep asking for cultural touchstones on the topic and then rejecting things because they don't fit your growing list of requirements. Terms like "espers" (ESPers, "extra-sensory perception") and, yes, "psionics" are quite common there. Various manga and anime works feature them or make references to such powers, and the translation will, like as not, use the word "psychic" or "psionic". There's also Star Trek, which explicitly refers to "psionic energy" and has Vulcans who can perform touch telepathy, amongst other things.The idea, I think, is that telekinesis and telepathy and such are cultivated by flexing your mental muscles really hard, which is seen as an Intelligence thing. Wisdom is about intuition, observation, and resilience against mental assault, and Charisma is about being compelling and self-assured. Intelligence is your mental power, hence psychic powers draw upon that power, not on defending yourself or tricking/compelling others.</blockquote>

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