In June 1938 Action Comics #1 was published, introducing Superman to the world and codifying the modern idea of a superhero that the world has known for almost the past 80 years. There were superpowered heroes that existed in popular culture prior to this, such as the various demigods and heroes of myth (Hercules, the Biblical Sampson, etc.) and more contemporary works such as Gladiator (1930), John Carter in A Princess of Mars (1912), and even folk heroes like Paul Bunyan and John Henry, but Superman basically defined what it meant to have superhuman abilities and set the stage for everything that followed, including Captain Marvel (the DC/Fawcett one), Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Green Lantern, The Flash, and more. Most heroes in science fiction and fantasy prior to that time had no superpowers or at most relied on gadgets.
However, in a fictional universe set prior to 1938, it is almost certain that characters wouldn't view someone having powers in terms of Superman because the modern idea of a superhero hadn't entered the public consciousness yet, similar to how Cowboys and Aliens has its characters contextualize what we would recognize as modern-style extraterrestrial invaders in terms of demons and angels.
My question is this: how would someone alive in the 1920s-1930s explain or rationalize superpowers? I am specifically asking this in terms of a stereotypical urban fantasy/superhero genre conversation set in this time period between two people with superpowers, one who is experienced with powers and one who is new to having them, where the experienced individual provides exposition as to what is going on. The experienced individual is basically trying to sell the idea of "you have superpowers and that's okay" to the inexperienced one.
If this were a conversation set after 1938 the experienced individual would obviously say something akin to "you're like a superhero now" or "you have powers like Superman now" as a point of reference, but if this is in the 1920s-1930s superheroes as we know them weren’t a part of the public consciousness and they wouldn't make that analogy.
Additional Parameters
The story is set in New York City during this timeframe - Just to give an idea of where the characters are coming from in a geopolitical or cultural background.
Powers work on X-Men rules - The superpowers run on the same rules as X-Men, they just sort of appear without any clear warning. There is no alien contact or secret government super-soldier project or exposure to radioactive rays or some other pulp-y science of the times that the character can point to and say "you touched that and it gave you extra-ordinary abilities". Nor anything like many of the old folktales where you had to make bargains with dark powers or drink out of a wolf's footprint to gain magic.
The powers are kind of weird - The best I can analogize it, the powers are kind of like Stands in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or Quirks in My Hero Academia where the nature of the powers varies massively between wielders despite having a common origin and some are just plain strange. So it's not like they just have minor super strength or a healing touch that can more easily be rationalized (in context of the times) by comparisons to saints or fictional strongmen. The powers don't inherently make one good or evil, though people can always go power-mad.
Blessed/Cursed by God isn’t really an option due to context - I realize the further back you go in history the more likely someone is going to invoke religious explanations for unusual or seemingly supernatural phenomena and it is likely that someone will come to this conclusion, but in this case it really doesn’t work. Both people involved in the conversation have powers, and it is very unlikely that the experienced person is going to try to sell the idea of having powers as “oh yeah, we’re horribly cursed” unless they have a martyr complex. Blessed might work to some degree but the powers are too weird to easily classify as a divine blessing.
