it's weird how much "science fiction" involves ESP or other "psychic" abilities. I feel like there's just this like 20th century woo mindset that accepted psychic powers, potentially old fashioned superstitions like poltergeists considered as psychic phenomena, as well as alien encounters. And you get some sci fi from that (especially let's say AA Attanasio), but also that's definitely where Stephen King is coming from so you can have aliens as well as vampires as threats to small towns in Maine.
Apparently a lot of this is due to a single guy! John W. Campbell, Jr. became a big believer and promoter of parapsychology/"psionics", so in the 1950s lots of science-fiction authors used it as a story premise to increase their chances of getting published in Astounding, and this solidified the concept as an SF trope...