The Differences Between Prophets and Psychics

For those of you who want to write about a prophet or psychic but don't understand the distinction between them, this will hopefully help you to understand these types of characters.

Prophets are usually common people divinely inspired to represent God. While prophets are usually individually inspired, there are prophets who also have offspring with the power of prophecy, which is a kind of spiritual sensitivity to God. They may also see or experience supernatural visions, most commonly through dreaming.

Prophecy is a divinely inspired message usually revealing some sort of secret or divine info, but it also might be a preview concerning future events largely concerning the world or a part of the world. As said above, prophecy is a kind of spiritual sensitivity.



Psychics are people that claim to see or interact with the supernatural. They also have visions and see into the future at various times, but this is usually called clairvoyance. Some can see and talk to the dead.

Clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human abilities, also called ESP. A person with this power is also called clairvoyant.

The most common ability a psychic is the power to see or communicate with spirits. The TV series Supernatural is a very good reference for using these kinds of characters, especially seasons 1 and 2.