Empathy

Empathy is the ability to feel and interpret other people's feelings and emotions. The user of this ability can feel exactly what another person is feeling, and for the same reasons, without direct contact with them.

Usage
There are many ways to utilize Empathy:


 * Promote interpersonal understanding.
 * Discover other people's true intents and desires as well as any secrets that they are trying to hide.
 * Sense emotionally charged discussions by feeling the heightened emotions behind the words.
 * Control and even deflect other people's powers.
 * Duplicate the powers of those near or around you.
 * Resist the effects of another person's power.
 * Enhance as well as evolve your other powers.
 * Heal and guide other people emotionally/mentally.

Strength
Only two variation of Empathy has ever grown in strength; Feeling Emotions and Augmentation. The growth in strength and range of Phoebe Halliwell's ability to feel other people's emotions eventually allowed her to sense and maintain contact with people within a city wide distance, as well as in between dimensions.

When Prue gained the power of empathy, she gained four variations of it. However, Prue was only able to use two of them, feeling people's emotions from miles away, and enhancing her own powers to far superior levels by channeling emotions into them.

Variations of Empathy
To use any of the skills within this power, the possessor most first establish and maintain a empathic bond with his/her intended target. The power gives the possessor access to nearly everything connected to emotions.

Feeling Emotions
The first and main aspect of the power is the ability to psychically feel what other people mentally and physically feel, and to correctly interpret those feelings.

Phoebe can feel the emotions of every living creature, which includes animals and even spirits. As such, beings with malevolent intent are usually worried when they are around her because she can correctly interpret the intent as well as the desire behind each emotion, and could find out any secrets that they are trying to keep hidden.

Clairaudience


A variant of the power used to hear what people outside natural hearing range are saying inside one’s mind, while channeling their emotions. This constant flow of emotions in one's heart and voices in one's head is what will drive a human not meant for the gift insane.

During Prue Halliwell’s brief time as an empath, she was able to hear the arguments people were having all over the city. This is most likely due to Prue’s Empathy picking up on the intense emotion behind the angry words people were shouting at each other.

Empathic Healing


The next aspect of the power is the ability to heal emotional wounds by using ones intimate knowledge of what the other person is feeling or has gone through, and then offering them advice or comfort.

Phoebe, as an advice columnist, uses her gift to help the people who writes to her. Her powers helps her to 'read people really well', so she was able to give them genuinely helpful and insightful advice.

Aside from counseling, immortal Empaths can also heal emotional suffering, akin to Whitelighters healing physical wounds. Father Thomas used his hands to heal the emotional anguish of his parishioners. He used this same method to curse the demon Vinceres.

Power Manipulation


Another aspect of the power is the ability to manipulate the powers of others, which is composed of three—and arguably the most powerful—variations of the power; Channeling, Replicating and Resisting powers. It may also be possible to replicate the effects of spells as it's a basic magical power.

All supernatural powers are tied to emotions; to manipulate powers one must first establish and maintain a emotional connection with another person, and then access their powers. Phoebe is particularly skilled in this area, which is also one of her primary defensive and offensive moves.

Augmentation


A rare aspect of the power is the ability to dramatically enhance your own powers by channeling a massive amount of emotions into them, making you much stronger than usual. This aspect was used by Prue Halliwell when she temporarily obtained the power.

Her power of Telekinesis advanced to a point where Vinceres, a demon who was immune to witchcraft, became vulnerable to it, and even allowed her to perform gravity-defying maneuvers so that she could meet Vinceres blow for blow in hand-to-hand combat. Her Astral Projection power also evolved into Cloning.

Limitations
This power has a few limitation; these are:


 * In the early stages, the power can be very uncontrollable.
 * Users can be overwhelmed by the emotions and feel compelled to act them out. However, once they embrace the power they will be able to turn it on or off at will.
 * On rare occasions you may not be able to read another being, as seen when Phoebe was unable to sense any emotion during her first meeting with Cal Greene.
 * Phoebe has to be within the vicinity of the person whose powers she want to control as well as duplicate.
 * The power can be blocked with an empathy blocking potion. However, the effects of the potion is temporary.

Power developed from Empathy


This power is an advanced form of Empathy. It is the ability to manifest and channel emotions through the hands, to create a psychic blast made purely of emotions. The effects generate energy sparks which resemble Lightning Bolts.

Phoebe is the only known being with this power. With it, she is capable of vanquishing, or severely incapacitating even supremely powerful magical beings thought impossible to be defeated. She used this power on the first witch, Neena: magnifying her emotions until she was knocked unconscious. It is one of Phoebe's strongest powers.

Insanity and Demons


"I'm afraid that you're in danger, you weren't meant to receive this gift. You can't handle it."

- Leo expressing concern for Prue.

Empathy can drive a person to insanity if they are not destined to have it, as it is a psychic ability that requires the user to be mentally strong. Demons can never gain this power naturally, due to the fact that they cannot handle human emotions. It would destroy them or drive them insane, as it drove the demon Vinceres almost insane, but shortly after it was taken away, he returned to normal.

Prue accidentally received this power from Vinceres through the use of a spell. Although she was fine with it at first, eventually, as its range expanded, she was unable to control it developing to the point where she was constantly taking in the emotions and noise of the entire city of San Francisco. However, Father Thomas taught her how to control the power.

She qiuckly learned and mastered the ability to channel all the incoming emotions into her other powers, which significantly enhanced them, and then used them to destroy the once thought-invincible demon, Vinceres. However, while Prue eventually learned to control it, the power left her immediately after the battle as she was never meant to have it.

To Release an Empath from his Gift

 * Free the Empath,
 * Release his gift,
 * Let his pain be cast adrift.


 * (It is important that when casting the spell there is no physical contact with the Empath as the power will transfer in the caster of the spell ("Primrose Empath").