Esper refers to an individual born capable of using telepathy and similar paranormal mental abilities; it apparently derives from extra-sensory perception ("ESP") via the English occupational suffix, thus being literally "ESP-er" with different capitalization. The term was apparently coined by Alfred Bester in his 1950 short story "Oddy and Id". Science fiction and espers The concept of the esper appears often in science fiction, much less often in fantasy, and is used by name much less frequently than it is referred to. Especially salient appearances of psychic abilities, although never attended by the usual name for them, are in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, especially Second Foundation, where psychological research turns up a means of direct mental contact between humans which was lost with the development of language; in George Lucas' Star Wars films, where The Force, from a p