Psychic Reflection is the ability to reflect emotions and/or memories back onto a person or onto another being. It is a highly evolved form of Empathy and was revealed to be extremely potent. Phoebe Halliwell developed this power in 2008 when her empathic power grew to include the ability to project the emotions and/or memories she channels.
Overview
- Prue: "I don't buy it. Her power can't kill. "
- Leo: " Well, it can now. It's been ten years. All your powers have grown."
- — Leo explaining that Phoebe's power can now kill.[src]
To use this power the user must first channel the emotions and/or memories of another being; the emotions and memories could be that of an enemy's, their victims' or a mixture of both. Once this is done, the user can project the emotions and/or memories through the hands in the form of tiny electricity bolts.
Using these bolts, the user can flood the enemy's mind with emotions and/or memories, force them to relive related memories, before finally overloading their brain. These bolts can severely incapacitate - if not vanquish - even magical beings thought impossible to vanquish.
- "I used his own rage to kill him. Flooded his mind with his reflected emotions. Overloaded his brain with the memories of the women he hurt. What he was feeling when he attacked them. The fear they felt"
- —Phoebe discovers her power [src]
When Phoebe from 1999 time traveled to 2009, she got a premonition in which she saw herself killing Cal Greene with this power for murdering her friend. At the time, she did not know what the power was or how she killed him. However, in early 2008 Phoebe developed this power, it was born from her rage after finding her friend Elise Rothman beaten nearly to death, which finally enabled her to figure out how she killed Cal Greene. She had used her power to overload his brain, causing it to flood with his own emotions including what he felt when he attacked his victims as well as with the images and feelings (fear) of his former victims.
Phoebe did not do this in the current time line, as Paige was fortunately there to heal Elise before she could die.
Phoebe's attack on Neena
In 2008, Phoebe used this power to channel all of Neena's emotions and bring them to the surface, forcing her to experience all her deepest feelings at once. This caused Neena extreme mental pain until she was knocked unconscious. This was the first time Phoebe used the power on a magical being, a witch.
Effects and Limits
Phoebe discovers that Rennek's soldiers had no emotions
The purpose of this power is to inflict pain or cause the instant death of an enemy, however, channeling too much emotions to do so can sometimes have an effect on the user: for example, channeling all of Neena's emotions at once caused Phoebe Halliwell to collapse- during the Battle for the Upper Regions- but still remain conscious.
Phoebe can currently only attack one opponent at a time, and needs to be near her opponent, as using her power involves holding her hands with her palms spread at each temple of her enemy's head, usually while standing behind them. However, she offsets this limitation by sneaking up on her opponents.
When both emotions and memories are missing in a being, this power will be rendered useless. Phoebe first revealed this while in The Nexus of the All fighting Rennek's soldiers. She flew up behind one of the soldiers and tried to use her power on him, but found he had no memories or emotions to turn back on him. At the time, she was unaware the soldiers were made out of sand, plants and water.
Empathy and Astral Projection
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A witch blessed/cursed with the power of Empathy can use her natural power of Astral Projection to project emotions into another being. Prue was the only known being to have ever used Empathy and Astral Projection in this manner.
She used them to destroyed a till then thought-unstoppable demon named Vinceres by projecting herself into his body and forcing him to feel all the emotions that she had been experiencing. The emotional baggage overwhelmed Vinceres and literally tore him apart; vanquishing him.
List of beings who use(d) Psychic Reflection
- Original power
- Through spell, potion, power stealing, etc.
The "Electro-Mental Ignition" Theory
- "What did I do, premonition the man to death?"
- —Phoebe Halliwell on her new power.[src]
This power was originally believed to be an ability which fans named Electro-Mental Ignition. Fans believed that Phoebe overloaded a victim's brain with visions of the worst moments in their life. This theory was based on Phoebe's own reasoning about her power advancement, as well as the fact that her sisters' power advancements were also directly related to their primary power.[1]
Notes and Trivia
- Psychic Reflection is often referred to as Pathokinesis, Advanced Empathy, Empathic Manipulation or Empathic Overload.
- Phoebe is the only known magical being in the Charmed universe to possess Psychic Reflection.
- So far, Phoebe has only used this power on mortals and witches, but never on demons. However, it was shown what this power could possible do to demons when Prue channeled her powers into Vinceres.
- Phoebe's power was revealed to be truly potent. While she could not vanquish Neena with her power, she was still able to incapacitate her long enough for her and her sisters to recite a spell. However, using this power caused Phoebe to collapse, overwhelmed by the emotion, but unlike Neena, she managed to stay conscious.
- Besides their own emotions, this power can make a killer feel the pain of his victims. Furies have been known to do something similar.
- When Phoebe uses this power on a killer, she can not only force the killer to feel their existing emotions, but she can also force them to relive the emotions they felt when they were attacking their victims and make them feel the fear their victims felt.
- Phoebe revealed that she can induce memories and possibly mental images based on the emotion she's manipulating.
- Phoebe can channel and project multiple emotions at once or a single emotion, such as rage or fear.
- Phoebe has also been shown displaying this power in an advert and on a Charmed Comic cover. The first was a promotional advert for the comics and the second was on the actually comic where she gained the power.
References
- ↑ As seen in "Morality Bites"