descendants the talamasca has investigated numerous descendants , and found that among them mild psychic powers are common some exhibit exceptional psychic powers it is also common to speak of the ancestors of saint-domingueas 'witches ' and to say that they were 'lovers of the devil ' and sold their souls to him , and that the devil made the family rich these tales are now told lightly and often with humor or with wonder and curiosity , and the majority of the descendants with whom the talamasca has made limited contact do not really know anything concrete about their history they do not even know the names of the 'witches ' they know nothing of suzanne or deborah , though they do banter about statements such as 'our ancestors were burnt at the stake in europe , ' and 'we have a long history of witchcraft ' they have rather vague notions about the legacy , knowing that one person is the mam beneficiary of the legacy and they know the name of that one person , but not much else however , descendants in the new orleans area know a great deal about the core family they attend wakes and funerals , and were gathered together on countless occasions by mary beth and by stella , as we shall see the talamasca possesses numerous pictures of these people , in family gatherings and singly stories among all these people of seeing ghosts , of precognition , of 'phone calls from the dead , ' and of mild telekinesis are by no means uncommon mayfairs who know almost nothing of the new orleans family have been involved in no less than ten different ghost stories contained in various published books three different distantly related mayfairs have exhibited enormous powers but there is no evidence that they understood or used these powers to any purpose to the best of our knowledge , they have no connection to the witches , to the legacy , to the emerald necklace , or to lasher .