Would you believe me if I told you that I have superpowers? It would be fun to teleport myself anywhere, be invisible, or talk to sea creatures.
For the most part, when a person claims to have super abilities, everyone else understands that there is imagination at work. You might even play along, but you wouldn’t believe my claims.
So, when was it not a good idea to claim to have superpowers at the risk someone would take you seriously?
The 16th Century was a terrible time to tell people that you were superpowerful, especially if you were a Spanish priest. Duh.
Pedro Ruiz Calderón was a priest in Mexico City and claimed that he was able to:
- Teleport great distances (to other continents very quickly)
- Be invisible (so he could seduce women)
- Predict the future
- Discover buried treasure
- Summon and exorcise demons
By Lynn Kelley Author via WANA Commons
Wow, that’s quite a repetoire. He also bragged that he met the devil in hell where he acquired some of his abilities. The devil autographed at least one book for him while he was there, although that tome was not found in his library. Imagine that.
His motivations seemed to be money and women. He did find treasure and was paid to help others find lost things. He bragged about seducing many, many women, which means he probably didn’t.
The shocking thing is that he never performed any of his powers for the inquistors at his trial. What’s more, he didn’t use his teleportation power to escape prison, nor did he use it to travel back to Spain when he was exiled there as punishment. He could have saved his government the time and cost of shipping him across the Atlantic Ocean.
He got off with a light sentence considering how many people were tortured and killed in the Spanish Inquisition. Perhaps he did use his superpowers on the inquisitors (or paid them with gold), and no one knows what happened to him when he returned to Spain. Perhaps the Spanish Inquisition picked him up there.
Just for fun, here’s a link to Monty Python’s “The Spanish Inquisition” sketch on YouTube.
If you had superpowers, would you brag about them or keep them secret? Would the lure of money be enough motivation for you to make up special skills or abilities? I’d love to hear from you.
Diana Beebe 
If I could have one, it would be to edit any draft (no matter how rough) in the blink of an eye. The Flash.. but with Steven King’s mad skills.
LOL. Ryan, if you pull that one off, I’ll be giving you my mss for final edits.
Oh, that’s a great one! yes!
Hmm… I’d probably keep mine secret and use them to enhance my super sneaky spy skills. 😉 Teleporting is a crazy one. I admire Pedro for using his for good. Fun post, Diana!
Thanks, August! Now I have to wonder what your super sneaky spy skills are. 😉
It sounds like Pedro needed a psychiatric evaluation more than a Spanish inquisition. LOL. Recently, I’ve decided that I want my body to have the superpower of translating all the junk food I eat (to my heart’s delight) into healthy nutrition that keeps my body fit and trim. It would be like Popeye but with ice cream instead of spinach. 🙂
LOL. Great superpower!
As a confirmed hermit, I would like to be invisible, so would keep it secret, because if people knew they’d try to get me to do stuff for them, which would mess with my hermit-ness. (grin)
So true! Sharing would be counter intuitive. 🙂
There are so many answers I could give here by way of a superpower. I don’t know which direction would be the best so I will choose to remain silent at this time. 😉 As for Pedro, it’s possible he was an excellent conartist.
Ah, the quiet ones are usually the most powerful. 😉