Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Anne McCaffrey's "To Ride Pegasus" [Followed by "Pegasus in Flight" "Get off Unicorn" and "Pegasus in Space" collectively know as her Talents Series] cover the Societal arch from Psi first being Verifiable Documented, and the Journey to go from prejudice to just one more accented minority in security.

Though only the first of them predates Traveller. I suspect the most discussed work with a persecuted psis theme around the time Traveller was being written would have been Katherine Kurtz Deryni series. Society hates and persecutes psis is not a rare theme in SF.

The bit that may be original to Traveller are the Psionic Institutes, I can't actually think of a precedent for those - there are organizations that train people that are *already* psis, but the teach anybody model, and the related concept that anybody can join this persecuted minority by attending one, seems new. Though of course it follows the religious persecution model quite well - underground religious academies that seduce our children into their evil cult certainly aren't an unprecedented fear.