| “ | After all, what is empathy if not walking in another woman's shoes. | ” |
Empathy is the power to sense and feel the emotions of others. The users of this power are labeled as empaths. Empathy is generally an "umbrella" term used to refer to any ability pertaining to projecting, sensing or manipulating emotions, including feelings, moods and their affects.
This is the primary power of Charmed One, Maggie Vera. Throughout her time as a witch, Maggie has displayed various aspects of this ability.
Overview
This power is directly related to emotions and, at the very basic level, allows its user to access the emotions of oneself or others. There are various empathic abilities, all involving sensing and manipulating emotions. Most users tend to channel their power through their hands.
Branches from Empathy
Empathic Telepathy
Empathic Telepathy is a form of telepathy, the ability to access the mind of other beings, that can be harnessed through empathy. As people's thoughts are often influenced by their emotions, an empath's power may extend to allow its user to read minds as well as sense emotions, acting as a mixture of both empathy and telepathy. The users of this power are also able to project their thoughts into the minds of another being to conduct telepathic conversations or to subtly influence another's mind. This ability can further develop into a form of spiritual empathic telepathy to allow the users to sense the emotions and hear the thoughts of spirits as well. If the feelings of the user are blocked, this ability will become ineffective. Some beings, such as the Imposter Demon that impersonated Marisol Vera, are immune to this power.
Emotional Energy Manipulation
Some users of empathy may develop the ability to channel emotion and manifest it into raw energy. The raw energy created from the emotion can be manipulated in both a defensive or offensive measure, allowing the user to block attacks and to potentially blast opponents away. The channeled emotion is not limited to the emotion of the user solely, but could also be the collective emotion of a group of people. For example, Maggie was able to use her love for her sisters and their shared connection through the Power of Three to enhance this ability, allowing them to create powerful force fields to protect them from attacks.
Soul Transference
Soul Transference is a branch of empathy that allows the user to switch bodies with another being. It is very rare and highly leveled ability that only powerful empaths can achieve. If an empath's powers are ever exceeded beyond her control, this may result in an "empathic surge" causing an accidental transferal. However, an empath with enough control over her power can easily reverse this process.
Emotional Inception
This branch of empathy allows the user to project their own emotions onto another, causing the individual to feel the same emotion. Maggie developed this expansion after having her other empathic powers rendered dormant.[1] As the empath's power further develops, they are able to project any emotion or feeling that they desire into another being.
Empathic Mimicry
An empath's powers can potentially expand to allow them to temporarily replicate the magical abilities of other beings. As the power is derived from empathy, users require an emotional understanding of the other being in order to mimic their powers.
Known Users
- Original Power
- Maggie Vera
- Unknown Sarcana Witch
- Through spell, artifact, power stealing, etc.
- Mel Vera (via Soul Transference; temporarily)[2]
Trivia
- This power was first labeled as pure telepathy (the ability to read thoughts) but later the writers of the shows clarified that Maggie's mind-reading abilities were an extension of her empathy (the ability to feel emotions).[3]