The Telepathy Tapes

[NoParty]

As if the Telepathy Tapes podcast weren't misleading enough already, here Joe Rogan gives a completely untrue outline to a barely interested Jacques Vallee. I imagine Rogan hasn't heard the podcast in full and is just going off rumours about dozens of children completely locked off and in separate rooms performing amazing feats of telepathy.
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How totally on brand, for Rogan:
He is 100% wrong, but assertively declares his "facts" as if there were no doubt.

While I personally find this style obnoxious & embarrassing,
there are tens of millions of folks who mistakenly take it as impressive. #sad.

 

[Giddierone]

Rogan mentions a kid blind folded and using echo-location to navigate. It seems similar to this old video of kids apparently doing (far more impressive) acts of telepathy while blind folded. I wonder why this video (and others like it) didn't capture the public's imagination like the Telepathy Tapes has.

Source: https://youtu.be/rC7xZmLcOeY?si=fZQ-sFjnceG8AVhb

 

[Ann K]

Rogan mentions a kid blind folded and using echo-location to navigate. It seems similar to this old video of kids apparently doing (far more impressive) acts of telepathy while blind folded. I wonder why this video (and others like it) didn't capture the public's imagination like the Telepathy Tapes has.

Source: https://youtu.be/rC7xZmLcOeY?si=fZQ-sFjnceG8AVhb

"Why it didn't capture the public's imagination" probably is related to the sheer unbrlievability of the video. They give every impression of kids that can see around or through their blindfolds. When reading, drawing, or identifying images, they all conspicuously point their heads toward the task, often tilting their heads back. They didn't know the word the man wrote (even though he presumably thought the word "light" while writing it) until he pointed it toward them.

The inevitable conclusion is that they are a group of apparently normal children who have been taught how to lie.

 

[FatPhil]

Rogan mentions a kid blind folded and using echo-location to navigate. It seems similar to this old video of kids apparently doing (far more impressive) acts of telepathy while blind folded. I wonder why this video (and others like it) didn't capture the public's imagination like the Telepathy Tapes has.
Source: https://youtu.be/rC7xZmLcOeY?si=fZQ-sFjnceG8AVhb

Yikes. What have I just wachted?

Can we split this out into a separate thread, as it's a separate claim of evidence that is worthy of discussion. @Ben Harris - do you have any particular insights into this, or have colleagues who might want to cast a critical eye over things.

 

[deirdre]

. I imagine Rogan hasn't heard the podcast in full and is just going off rumours about dozens of children completely locked off and in separate rooms performing amazing feats of telepathy.

didnt you guys say the telepathy tapes woman was ON Rogan previously? not sure i'd categorize that as "rumours"

 

[Giddierone]

apparently normal children who have been taught how to lie.

I know. It's gaudy. It's appalling. I mention it only because it's stuff like this that Rogan folds into his inaccurate description of the Telepathy Tapes making it seem like it's settled science that psi is real.

 

[Ben Harris]

Psychic children have been popular in Chinese culture for decades. Here's a link to a Skeptics study from decades ago. Seems that the Western world is following suit.

Psychic Children in China

 

[deirdre]

Psychic Children in China

theres only one line in that very long article, not study, that mentions children.

Article:

It was in such a context that the public media reported finding some children who could identify human character by outward appearance—ear, forehead, and nose—and called it "special ability" (SA). The word "special" (Teyi in Chinese) means something a bit different from "paranormal," the word my American colleagues prefer to use.

Source: https://skepticalinquirer.org/newsletter/paranormal-in-china/

(not that i doubt there are psychic children in china. we've had Psychic kids and that other tv show where kids talk to dead people since that "i see dead people movie". so a few decades too. and once youtube and instagram let you make money parents started exploiting their children in a variety of ways to make money.)

 

[Mendel]

"i see dead people movie".

The Sixth Sense (1999)

 

[tinkertailor]

I wonder why this video (and others like it) didn't capture the public's imagination like the Telepathy Tapes has.

It has a lot to do with FC, in my opinion. A key component of FC is the idea that autistic nonspeaking children have abilities far above what society believes. FC proponents love to make feel-good inspirational content about autistic nonspeakers doing amazing things (i.e., getting a degree at a prestigious college, conducting a symphony). These stories serve as backyard propaganda for Spelling to Communicate or whatever the newest FC trend is; a lot of these kids are doing fantastical things through facilitation. I've heard it referenced as 'inspiration porn' for this reason. The idea is that these kids are locked inside a body limited by their autism. I think that lends itself really well to the idea of telepathy and that's why people are so obsessed with the Telepathy Tapes specifically.

To be clear, I know that autistic kids are amazing and powerful and do incredible things. I'm not saying they don't. I marvel at how funny, smart, bitingly sarcastic, passionate, and artistic these kids are daily. The thing is, they don't need supernatural abilities for me to know that.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

didnt you guys say the telepathy tapes woman was ON Rogan previously? not sure i'd categorize that as "rumours"

She was, but the problem with Rogan here is that he's completely mischaracterizing anything she ever said, and we already know that she herself mischaracterizes what she witnessed. It's Chinese whispers upon whispers, all the way down, or all the way up in this case, right to the top - the most listened-to podcaster in the world.

 

[Giddierone]

Yikes. What have I just wachted?

Oh, just search YouTube for Frank Elaridi. He's sure to be a claimant of the James Randi prize, because there are videos of him reading car number plates, detecting shapes and colours etc while blindfolded. With production values set to maximum ick.

 

[FatPhil]

Oh, just search YouTube for Frank Elaridi. He's sure to be a claimant of the James Randi prize, because there are videos of him reading car number plates, detecting shapes and colours etc while blindfolded. With production values set to maximum ick.

The payload in that otherwise-throwaway sentence was actually just to imply that I did indeed wacht it to the very end.

Seeing that made me wonder how good an education, core things like reading and writing, these kids are actually getting whilst having woo pumped into them.

 

[Giddierone]

A recent article [link below] about Katie Asher and Houston that also offers some background on Ky Dickens and The Telepathy Tapes and is more rounded than most articles so far.

It includes a typically amazing sounding example of telepathy.

Before I left, Katie wanted to show me Houston's telepathy skills. She handed me a slip of paper, and I wrote SURFBOARD.
"Grab the word," she said as she held the letter board aloft in front of him. "What was the word she just wrote down?"
Houston spelled S-U-R-F-B-O-A-R-D.

In response to FC criticisms:

Dickens countered, "None of the subjects in the podcast are using FC," by which she means they're using the newer methods. "To say that S2C is only valid if someone can control their body is ableist and a human-rights violation.")

Which is clearly nonsense (just read up thread).

Interestingly even Dean Radin wasn't' convinced by the TT videos:

On the podcast, Dickens thanks Dean Radin for raising "the legitimacy of telepathy worldwide" through his "commitment to the scientific method and rigorous statistical analysis." But in watching the videos of Dickens's tests, Radin observed no credible evidence of telepathy.

The journalist doesn't' seem to recognise the significance of the likely cueing motions of his mother:

While Akhil typed on his iPad, Manisha sat at the edge of his peripheral vision, not touching his wrist but rocking her torso like a joystick. She also balled her fists with one finger sticking out of each, and pointed up, down, to the side.

Interestingly:

For example, when Powell and Dickens visited Atlanta in 2022, they tested Houston's ability to communicate mind-to-mind with another nonspeaker. Those tests failed: Neither of the non-speakers could identify what the other was thinking.

It does include Janyce Boynton and the controversy about FC and reports of sexual abuse as well as some push back from parents with autistic children, as well as the rift that now exists between Powell and Dickens.

---

I Can Hear Thoughts

https://web.archive.org/web/2025042...source=twitter&utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=nym

 

[Charlie Wiser]

Interestingly:

For example, when Powell and Dickens visited Atlanta in 2022, they tested Houston's ability to communicate mind-to-mind with another nonspeaker. Those tests failed: Neither of the non-speakers could identify what the other was thinking.

Even more interestingly, these 2022 tests weren't mentioned in any way whatsoever in the 2024 Telepathy Tapes podcast.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

From that article:

For Katie, Houston's telepathy was a huge asset. He'd hand her her purse if she forgot it while she was running out the door.

Source: I Can Hear Thoughts, Elizabeth Weil, The Cut, Apr 2025

I can't fathom how, in any worldview, this constitutes telepathy. If she forgot her purse, how can she be telepathically communicating to him that she doesn't have her purse? A kid noticing an error in mom's routine is telepathy now?

 

[Charlie Wiser]

The article gives the background to Akhil and how his mother Manisha discovered his telepathy.

When Akhil was 10, Manisha took him to see the best autism neurologist in Boston. He pronounced that Akhil's "receptive language is very high" (meaning he had the capacity to take in information) "but expressive is zero" (he could not share that understanding with the outside world).

I think the Telepathy Tapes and videos show Akhil (compared to the other children profiled) to have the highest level of understanding, and certainly the highest ability to independently communicate (he can type to express himself outside of the telepathy tests).

He started learning to spell at age 10, and then:

One day, when Akhil was 12, everything changed. The morning was banal: Manisha attended a parent-support group at Akhil's school, then ran errands at Walmart and Target. At home that afternoon with Manisha, Akhil spelled YOU WENT OUT TODAY. YOU CAME TO MY SCHOOL, YOU WERE TALKING WITH OTHER PARENTS, THEN YOU WENT TO WALMART, THEN YOU WENT TO TARGET.

Manisha had told him none of this. That night, she said to her husband, "My life is an open book." Manisha had concluded that Akhil could read her mind.

Manisha had devoted her life, to this point, to helping her son (including doing work on herself) so she had an extremely high (subconscious) motivation to see results. I also found this telling:

she made it clear that skepticism is for people with alternatives; it's an artifact of good luck.

Stated another way: Belief is for desperate people. And she was desperate.

The description of the tests done with the journalist is painful to read, but illuminates that desperation perfectly:

Akhil wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, then settled on the rug with his iPad. Manisha glanced at a slip on which I had written MY HUSBAND IS GOING SURFING TODAY. Then she sat down next to her son...

"M m hu ba i," Akhil called out as he typed.

"My husband is …," Manisha said, consolidating and translating.

"Go go ca fo fa fo so fi."

From this Manisha pronounced, "My husband is going surfing!" She sounded relieved...

Then I handed Manisha a slip that read STRAWBERRY.

This time, instead of typing, Akhil just sat for ten seconds, blanket around his shoulders, iPad on the rug before him.

"Akhil, Akhil," Manisha said.

Ten more seconds passed. Akhil typed no letters. Manisha said, "Strawberry. Very good."...

She asked me to choose a shorter word. I wrote PEPPER.

When Akhil returned, he typed, A-A-A-E-P D-A B-A.

I felt terrible for coming.

Source: I Can Hear Thoughts, Elizabeth Weil, The Cut, Apr 2025

 

[Charlie Wiser]

Dickens is moving forward with season 2 of the TT and with a crowdfunded documentary.

"We're trying to be good stewards of the science," she said, "good stewards of the families."

Source: I Can Hear Thoughts, Elizabeth Weil, The Cut, Apr 2025

I wonder if she'll ever realize how these two statements are in conflict.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

The timing of the Telepathy Tapes shows that Dr Powell and Ky Dickens' professional relationship had broken down a year before Dickens was editing the TT podcast, which prominently featured Powell to bolster the scientific credentials of both Spelling and telepathy testing. (Episode 1 was released Sep 9, 2024.)

Dickens spent much of 2021, 2022, and 2023 — and tens of thousands of her own money — traveling with Powell and filming...

She dumped hundreds of hours of sound files into Descript software and spent May through September of 2024 writing, cutting, and recording by herself...

Powell and Dickens haven't seen each other in over two years [i.e. since before April 2023]. Powell feels used. Dickens, she said, invoked "my name, my reputation, my credibility, my credentials" to further her anti-scientific project.

Source: I Can Hear Thoughts, Elizabeth Weil, The Cut, Apr 2025

 

[yoshy]

From that article:

For Katie, Houston's telepathy was a huge asset. He'd hand her her purse if she forgot it while she was running out the door.

Source: I Can Hear Thoughts, Elizabeth Weil, The Cut, Apr 2025

I can't fathom how, in any worldview, this constitutes telepathy. If she forgot her purse, how can she be telepathically communicating to him that she doesn't have her purse? A kid noticing an error in mom's routine is telepathy now?

I gave my gf keys that she forgot to put in her purse without her asking. I am confirmed TELEPATHIC across space and time since she likely would've noticed she forgot them later! Please send me $100,000 to fund the documentary about my superpowers.

 

[yoshy]

The description of the tests done with the journalist is painful to read, but illuminates that desperation perfectly:

Another quote from the article:

"This has opened up my child to me. This is working," Manisha had said to me earlier that morning, laying out the necessary terms of her universe, one in which she is profoundly and inalienably bonded to her son. "If you are telling me this is not working, what else do you have that works? Give me that. I tried everything. I have tried everything."

I feel so awful for Manisha and others in her position. The truth is that there will likely never be a solution for this in her lifetime (obviously something I would never say to someone in her position). It's heartbreaking and extremely hard to accept something that sad.

I feel much less charitable towards the people pushing these techniques. I know (or at least hope) many of them are doing this in good faith and believe in the techniques, but the way they are parading this stuff around and marketing it as 100% verified fact is providing so much false hope to desperate people.