Aren't mental super powers pretty much ubiquitous in folk tradition in the form of magic, the working of miracles, or perhaps spiritually derived "powers" such

Aren't mental super powers pretty much ubiquitous in folk tradition in the form of magic, the working of miracles, or perhaps spiritually derived "powers" such as the siddhi of Indian tradition? (The traditional description of siddhi - i.e. 'attainments' or 'accomplishments' - may be the closest thing to a purported 'science' of such super powers within existing traditions. At least, it's a lot harder to find this kind of analysis in other plausible sources, such as from the Western esoteric tradition which is also a lot more obscure.) It seems weird to link these things so closely to 20th-c. hard sci-fi, when they are far from typical to that genre.