The Ultimate List of Superpowers and Magical Abilities

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Urban legends expert Sydney Bermudez shares some common supernatural powers

Co-authored by Sydney Bermudez and Dev Murphy, MA

Last Updated: March 6, 2026 Fact Checked

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• Types of Supernatural Powers
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• Are superpowers real?
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From Greek deities to urban legends to Marvel superheroes, supernatural powers have shown up in fictional narratives throughout time and around the world. If you're looking for a list of supernatural abilities to give your fictional character—whether they're a human, god, vampire, superhero, or some other archetype—you're in the right spot! wikiHow partnered with relevant experts to come up with the ultimate list of incredible supernatural abilities—and yes, there's evidence that some of them may actually exist outside the realm of fiction! Keep scrolling to read about some of the coolest magical powers.

Coolest Supernatural Abilities

Urban legends expert Sydney Bermudez says common (and amazing) supernatural powers include supernatural strength, superspeed, heightened senses, and other abilities listed below:

• Immortality
• The ability to heal quickly
• Mind control
• Shapeshifting
• Elemental control

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Section 1 of 2:

Types of Supernatural Powers

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   Superstrength Bermudez cites superstrength—physical strength far exceeding natural human limits—as one of many impressive supernatural gifts. Think of the Hulk, He-Man…y'know, pretty much any superhero.

   Meet the wikiHow Experts

   Sydney Bermudez is an urban legends expert, Mexican folklore expert, and horror content creator. She shares horror stories, paranormal cases, and internet mysteries with her over 400k followers on TikTok and Instagram.

   Joanna Cabot is a psychic medium and energy healing practitioner based in Saint Barthélemy. Her goal is to use the abilities she has developed to give her clients spiritual insights and a more harmonious and peaceful life.
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   Immortality If you could have the ability to live forever, like Tuck in Tuck Everlasting or Edward Cullen from Twilight, would you? Hard pass, for us! But it's still neat to think about: continuing on, never dying, getting to live on forever and do all the things you've ever wanted to do in this life…. We'd probably just take more wikiHow quizzes, tbh.
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   Accelerated healing The ability to heal yourself at a rapid pace would be incredible, right? We don't know about you, but we'd live a far riskier life if we had this power. We'd be skydiving, rock-climbing, doing polar plunges—basically, we'd turn into adrenaline junkies if we thought we could heal instantaneously.
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   Superspeed Superspeed is the ability to run at a velocity exceeding natural human limits, and it's a pretty impressive super skill, according to Bermudez. Fictional characters with this skill include the Flash and the vampires from Twilight.
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   Mind control Mind control is the ability to manipulate another person's thoughts and actions. Some people equate mind control with hypnosis, but they're not really the same thing. Hypnosis isn't about mental control, but a type of therapy involving deep concentration that can help you manage your mental health.
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   Clairvoyance Psychic medium Joanna Cabot defines clairvoyance as "seeing visions or images, either in dreams or during waking moments." These visions, typically, give some sort of insight about a person, thing, or event. Fictional characters with this power include Alice from Twilight and Phoebe from Charmed.
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   Shapeshifting Shapeshifting is the ability to assume the form of another person or creature. Think Mystique from X-Men: she can take on the form of any person she wants (including Jennifer Lawrence!). How cool would it be to be able to wake up every morning and change how you look depending on your mood?
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   Heightened senses Heightened senses, or extrasensory perception, involve elevated senses of hearing, smell, taste, sight, and touch. Remember that scene in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, after Peter gets bitten by the radioactive spider and he's suddenly aware of every little thing happening around him—from a fly buzzing to a paper airplane soaring down the hallway? That's heightened senses. Or spidey senses, if you will.
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   Levitation Levitation is the ability to float or fly, or to telekinetically lift objects with your mind. Characters with this special power include Jack-Jack Parr from The Incredibles, Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z, and Alice from Barbara Comyns' novel The Vet's Daughter.
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    Clairaudience Cabot describes clairaudience as "hearing messages, usually as thoughts or internal voices." Similar to clairvoyance, clairaudience offers insights into different situations or about certain people or things.
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    Elemental control Elemental control means having the power to manipulate air, earth, fire, and/or water. You could attack enemies by shooting fireballs at them, or you could nurture crops during a drought by showering them with water. What a neat power! Fictional characters with the ability to manipulate the elements include Storm from X-Men and benders in the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe.
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    Time travel (chronokinesis) Time travel refers to the ability to move between different points in time, like Marty McFly in Back to the Future or Hermione Granger in Harry Potter (though it's perhaps worth noting these characters used technology to move through time).

    • What would it be like to be a time-traveler? Check out our time travel simulator to find out!
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    Clairsentience Clairsentience, according to Cabot, means "feeling emotions or physical sensations from people or situations." Clairsentience is similar to clairvoyance and clairaudience, except that instead of intuiting information through hearing or seeing different things, you intuit it through feeling certain emotions.
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    Claircognizance Claircognizance, Cabot explains, means "simply knowing something without knowing how you know. It’s instant, like receiving a fact that just lands in your mind." It's similar to clairsentience, except that instead of emotionally sensing information, you know it on a logical level.
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    Animal empathy The ability to communicate with animals is known as animal empathy. If you're like us, you've spent a decent amount of time wondering what your cat's really thinking about, so we'd take this superpower in a heartbeat! (Then again, it's probably just "Please madam give me more food," so maybe we don't actually want to know.)
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    Spellcasting The ability to use magic to perform spells and curses has been featured in stories and mythology throughout time, especially stories about witches and wizards. Spellcasting is often done through reciting an incantation, utilizing specific ingredients (like herbs or crystals), or using the power of the natural world—for instance, casting a manifestation spell under the full moon.
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    Animation Animation (or life inducement) is the ability to bring inanimate things to life. Examples of fictional characters with these abilities include Giorno Giovanna from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and the Life Giving Magus from Adventure Time.
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    Psychometry Psychometry refers to the ability to read an object's history by touching it. How cool would it be to be able to pick up an object and know where it came from and who handled it? Super cool. You could solve crimes or locate missing people in an instant! Fictional characters with this superpower include Ophelia from The Mirror Visitor books and Sylar from Heroes.
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    Omnilingualism Omnilingualism—the ability to instantly speak and understand any language—is a classic Would You Rather question: Would you rather be able to speak every language, or…? Comprehending every language instantaneously—including alien languages, dead languages, sign language, computer codes, and universal languages like math and music—would make it so much easier to understand the world around us and interact with different civilizations, be they human or nonhuman.
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    Necromancy Necromancy is the ability to communicate with or manipulate the dead. Necromancy—and practices associated with it, including playing with Ouija boards—has historically been forbidden by many religious cultures, as people believed that only God should be able to raise the dead. However, that hasn't stopped people like Victor Frankenstein from trying!
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Section 2 of 2:

Are superpowers real?

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1. 
   Most superpowers are not backed by science, but some could be real. The majority of the powers listed in this article only appear in fiction and myth, but that doesn't mean superpowers absolutely can't exist in real life. We just might not have discovered them yet—or science hasn't caught up enough yet to help us acquire them.

   • Some people, like Cabot, believe certain powers are innate and just need to be honed: "I really believe that everyone has psychic abilities," she says. "Some people talk about it as a gift, but I think we’re all born with intuition and psychic senses."
   • Other powers, like immortality, exist in nonhuman creatures, like the jellyfish Turritopsis. dohrnii, whose cells regenerate seemingly indefinitely. Oh, to be an immortal jellyfish.
   • Whether a superpower exists may also depend on your definition of that power. For example, futurist Ray Kurzweil believes humankind is only years away from achieving "immortality" through downloading our brains to computers (thanks, but no thanks!). Is that really "eternal life"? Who can say?

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