telepathy vs telekinesis

The core difference

• telepathy — perceiving or transmitting thoughts directly between minds.
• telekinesis — exerting physical force on matter by mental effort alone.

Information versus force

This is the cleanest way to hold them apart. Telepathy moves knowledge and nothing else — reading an intention, sending a message. Telekinesis moves mass. A character who can hear thoughts but cannot lift a spoon is telepathic; one who can bend the spoon but not read the room is telekinetic.

Psychokinesis, and which term is correct

Psychokinesis is the older and more formal term, and covers mental influence over any physical system — including things that do not move visibly, such as affecting a random number generator. Telekinesis specifically implies movement at a distance. Parapsychological literature generally prefers psychokinesis; fiction almost always uses telekinesis.

The tele- family

The prefix is Greek tele, far off, and it produces a large and consistent set:

• Telepathy — far feeling, from pathos.
• Telekinesis — far movement, from kinesis.
• Teleportation — moving matter instantly between points.
• Telephone, television, telescope — far sound, far sight, far seeing.

The last three are ordinary technology, which is a useful reminder that the prefix promises nothing supernatural on its own.

Where the words come from

Telepathy was coined in 1882 by Frederic Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, replacing the earlier thought-transference. Telekinesis came slightly later, from the same milieu.

The wider umbrella is psi, and the receptive abilities together are extrasensory perception — a term popularised by J. B. Rhine at Duke in the 1930s. Rhine's card-guessing experiments were influential, widely repeated, and did not replicate under tightened controls.