No, I haven’t joined the Tinfoil Hat Guild. Not yet, anyway.
I’m just wondering what methods and technologies, in fiction, are able to block telepathy (ESP, Psychic powers, whatever). NOT including “Another telepath.”
For example, in “X-Men” comics, cartoons, and movies, Magneto has a helmet that protects his mind from telepathic attack. Ditto for Juggernaut.
I don’t, however, know how these helmets are supposed to work. Special metal? Microeletronics? Magic?
If anyone could shed some light on the subject, or add any other anti-ESP methods you’ve spotted, I’d appreciate it.
Ranchoth
This is going to be a summarization of quite a few things I’ve read. Fortunately, this isn’t GQ, so I don’t have to give cites.
Telepathic “blocks”. Basically, with most telepaths, the ability comes to them and they hear EVERYONE. Kind of like a radio in a room full of transmitters. So I don’t just hear YOUR thoughts, I hear the thoughts of the guy downstairs, the party across the hall, etc. To keep from being overwhelmed by information, the telepath has to learn how to selectively block out all the thoughts coming their way. And then there’s usually a “strength” element to it, like I can read your thoughts across the room or across the stars or whatever, so theoretically, if my “attack” telepathy is stronger than your “block” telepathy, I can break your defenses.
Quite often, writers have their characters use visualization. A defending character might envision a brick wall or a shield of pure white light. An attacking character may use a weapon of some kind, a sword or spear.
Not much different from tinfoil, but a metal plate in the head as a result of an old injury seems to provide partial protection according to more than one source.
To extend what RealityChuck said: find a meme so nasty and virulent that any telepath probing around will leave in disgust rather than be infected. In lieu of the actual Tensor melody, I would suggest the Badger song.
As ** Exapno Mapcase ** said, it will depend on the nature of psionics in general and telepathy in particular ** as you establish it in your universe **. That said, there are several possibilities. The two that you name work on different principles.
Juggernaut’s Helmet (and the skullcap he wears) is magical in nature, and is associated with the ruby (I think, perhaps some other gem) of Cytorrak (sp?) that gave him his powers originally.
Magneto’s helmet I’ve not completely understood, and it seems that different writers have had different takes on how it works as well. One aspect is that magneto himself is remarkably resistant to telepathy on his own because he actually has a high telepathic potential. The helmet may augment this in some way, presumably using sort of the opposite effect of Cerebro.
It is also possible that it is a focus for his magnetic powers in some way * as they interact with telepath * either redirecting the psionic energy he uses to manipulate magnetism to serve a different psychic function (protecting him from the telepathic form of psychic abilities) another aspect is that in the marvel universe, magnetic fields effect telepathy in some unexplained way. Magneto actually used his powers at one point to alter the magnetic field of the earth so as to make long distance telepathy much more difficult
Of course, in both of these instances the individual have either magical or psionic powers already, and you seem to be asking how would one explain psionic protection for someone without these means. A magical talisman would of course be the easiest, as it is the simplest of nonexplanatory explanations.
Another possibility would be a crystal of some sort. Particularly if telepathy uses crystals in some way to augment there own powers (such as in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s * Darkover [i} series) a crystal of the same or similar type might be able to protect against telepathy. If not directly, it could perhaps be keyed to maintain a “psychic field” of protection that was established by another telepath in advance,
Another technique may involve conditioning. Professor Xavier has conditioned all of the X-men to resist the effect of psychic assault and mind reading to some degree. If having someone read your mind has a detectable sensation. (perhaps one that most people would not notice of connect with telepathy) then a person could be trained to recognize it. From there, the techniques would vary based upon what forms of telepathy exist- simply doing mathematical equations in ones head would prevent a telepath form being able to learn anything if they could only read surface thought (a “skimmer”). Possibly Self hypnosis, possibly strengthened through repeated session done in advance, could be used to hide even memories deeper in the unconscious mind than even a trained telepath could go, or even provide false memories. The same techniques could be used to resist psychic domination.
As ** Exapno Mapcase ** said, it will depend on the nature of psionics in general and telepathy in particular ** as you establish it in your universe **. That said, there are several possibilities. The two that you name work on different principles.
Juggernaut’s Helmet (and the skullcap he wears) is magical in nature, and is associated with the ruby (I think, perhaps some other gem) of Cytorrak (sp?) that gave him his powers originally.
Magneto’s helmet I’ve not completely understood, and it seems that different writers have had different takes on how it works as well. One aspect is that magneto himself is remarkably resistant to telepathy on his own because he actually has a high telepathic potential. The helmet may augment this in some way, presumably using sort of the opposite effect of Cerebro.
It is also possible that it is a focus for his magnetic powers in some way * as they interact with telepath * either redirecting the psionic energy he uses to manipulate magnetism to serve a different psychic function (protecting him from the telepathic form of psychic abilities) another aspect is that in the marvel universe, magnetic fields effect telepathy in some unexplained way. Magneto actually used his powers at one point to alter the magnetic field of the earth so as to make long distance telepathy much more difficult
Of course, in both of these instances the individual have either magical or psionic powers already, and you seem to be asking how would one explain psionic protection for someone without these means. A magical talisman would of course be the easiest, as it is the simplest of nonexplanatory explanations.
Another possibility would be a crystal of some sort. Particularly if telepathy uses crystals in some way to augment there own powers (such as in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s * Darkover [i} series) a crystal of the same or similar type might be able to protect against telepathy. If not directly, it could perhaps be keyed to maintain a “psychic field” of protection that was established by another telepath in advance,
Another technique may involve conditioning. Professor Xavier has conditioned all of the X-men to resist the effect of psychic assault and mind reading to some degree. If having someone read your mind has a detectable sensation. (perhaps one that most people would not notice of connect with telepathy) then a person could be trained to recognize it. From there, the techniques would vary based upon what forms of telepathy exist- simply doing mathematical equations in ones head would prevent a telepath form being able to learn anything if they could only read surface thought (a “skimmer”). Possibly Self hypnosis, possibly strengthened through repeated session done in advance, could be used to hide even memories deeper in the unconscious mind than even a trained telepath could go, or even provide false memories. The same techniques could be used to resist psychic domination.
Telepaphy often has different levels of access to the brain. Here are some suggested levels of access.
Empathy is the simplest, here the telapath knows the emotion of the person scanned.
Surface Level aural is next, here the telepath listens into the scanned persons inner dialogue, this requires knowing the scaned persons language.
Surface level visual is next, here the telepath sees what the scanned person is seeing, or what they are thinking about.
Deep probe, here the telepath get’s too remember things from the scanned person, like relying on your own memories this can be problematic.
Mind scan, here the telepath takes control of the scanned persons mind. Allowing the telepath to dig for meories even the scanned person has difficulty with. Sort of like a combination of Deep probe, and hypnotic regression. This allows the telepath to examine how the scanned person will likely react in possible future actions.
Blocking methods,
Some people will be more capable of noticing themselves being scanned than others. The telepath may be subject to counter measures from an annoying song, to a terryfying image, to onset of sleep or temporary insanity. The deeper the telepath looks the worse the side effect could be to the telepath (imagine what sharing the German Canabals mind might do to a telepaths own sanity)./
Most forms of meditation will help block out a telepath as they won’t have acces to random thoughts that would allow them to probe deeper into the scanned persons mind. Complete single mindedness would also block most telepaths, as the scanned person is still in control of their mind and a single minded goal would leave the telepath with difficulty finding out anything not related to that goal.
A Faraday cage works to block electromagnetic telepathy.
A tamed Gummidgy psivore perched on your shoulder will act as an effective biological shield, as their parametabolism absorbs psi energy the way Earth plants absorb sunlight.
If this were Star Trek, Giordi would reverse polarity to the shields, thus causing a tachyon flow through subspace which would cause a time/space inversion. The resulting plasma field would create a quantum tunnel around your head, blocking mental waves.
“Racing thoughts”, where your mind is stuck on a train of thought and you can’t stop thinking about it, can be a side effect of some medications (antidepressants) or illegal drugs (mushrooms, cocaine).
I haven’t actually seen it used in fiction, but perhaps a character could put himself into such a state on purpose, in order to “trap” telepaths in that thought pattern.
