A NOTE ON SIDDHIS

All nations have mythical tales full of warnings against trifling with the supernatural.  They tell of how a few wishes are granted, whereupon the demon, genie, or wizard turns upon his master and takes possession of him, body and soul, with ruinous results. 

But the genuine spiritual aspirant cannot be harmed by any acquired occult powers, called siddhis in Vedanta and Buddhism, because he regards them merely as byproducts of the enlightenment he is seeking.

In modern terms, siddhis are telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation, and apparitional experiences.