January 2025
“The Telepathy Tapes,” a seven-hour long documentary to prove psychic abilities in nonverbal autistic children, was the most popular podcast for a time on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts in the US. That achievement — indicating millions of listeners — thrust parapsychology into mainstream awareness.
SCREEN SHOT: thetelepathytapes.com
Despite parapsychology (the study of psi phenomena) being an acknowledged branch of science that’s held to more rigorous standards than other researched topics, the most staunchly materialist segments of the scientific community still dismiss it as “pseudoscience”. But the general public seems open, as the popularity of “The Telepathy Tapes” demonstrates.
The host is journalist and filmmaker Ky Dickens. She’s joined by neuropsychiatrist and psychotherapist Diane Hennacy Powell has researched telepathy in nonverbal children for decades.
“The data was so compelling and accurate that I had to follow it, even though I knew I was risking my scientific reputation”, Powell says on the podcast.
Several newspapers have reported on the successful podcast. While Forbes, The Standard and Newsweek have run relatively neutral articles, The Times UK published a harshly critical review: “This hit podcast has contempt for science”.
Over the course of 10 episodes, Dickens and Powell document the astounding abilities of several nonverbal autistic children. They are subjected to tests that seemingly show they can communicate telepathically with their parents, mothers particularly.
Using boards with letters and numbers, the children repeatedly give correct answers to questions they have not heard and formulate thoughts not verbally expressed by their parents. The brain waves of children and parents are measured and found to increase and harmonize during communication.
The parents have been told their children would never be able to understand letters nor numbers and never be capable of communication or competent of learning. But as it appears, these neurodivergent children are able to tap into some nonphysical field.
The popularity of the program has raised a red flag among materialist skeptics, including Stuart Vyse, who delivers a hard blow to the podcast in the Skeptical Inquirer. The headline reads, “A Dangerous Cornucopia of Pseudoscience”.
In a slightly less close-minded yet very skeptical review, molecular biologist and ‘science communicator’ at McGill University Jonathan Jarry suggests that the parents influence how their nonspeaking children respond by subtle nudges or moves of the letter board.
Jarry’s speculation is rebutted by Powell in an article on “The Telepathy Tapes’” webpage, where she defends the research reflected in the podcast. Much of it appears in her 2008 book, “The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena”. Powell also has written about her research on telepathic abilities in autistic children in the Parapsychological Association’s magazine, Mindfield.
Powell has yet to publish a peer reviewed paper on the subject. However, but she’s soon to begin a collaboration with the Division of Perceptual Studies at University of Virginia, according to a blog post by the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Perhaps that will result in a journal article.
“We eagerly await the results and hope they will pave the way for broader acceptance and application of these extraordinary insights into human consciousness”, the IONs post says.
“The Telepathy Tapes” goes on to explore the scientific evidence for psi phenomena in general. Eventually, it ventures beyond those and ponders a possible larger reality. The discussion raises questions of life and death, consciousness, the essence of a human being, and whether this earthly world is a simulation.
In the last episode, profound esoteric knowledge, purportedly held by the gifted non-speakers, is interpreted and conveyed. It is about the natural ability humans hold for telepathic communication, how we can achieve wiser health care and how we can evolve in a more beneficial way.
“The mission of the show is really to show that our paradigm is wrong. That there’s more happening than we realise. And that, more amazingly, the non-speakers can really validate — if not prove — these claims”, Dickens says.
Anders Bolling
