AI 整理 : Jimmy Akin の解説 : テレパシー・テープ (The Telepathy Tapes)

June 27, 2025 · 126 min read

前置き

Jimmy Akin の最近の podcast を AI 整理した。

内容は長いが、

ディーン・ラディン (Dean Radin): アメリカの科学者で、超心理現象に関する研究を多く行っている。カイ・ディケンズは彼の研究を「テレパシーテープ」で引用し感謝しているが、ラディン自身はディケンズのテスト動画を分析した結果、「テレパシーの信頼できる証拠は見られなかった」と述べている。

が決定的。群を抜く研究実績で世界的に著名な超心理学者の Dean Radin の明確な否定は重い。

本題から外れるが、今回の podcast で Jimmy Akin の仏教理解の程度が露呈した（後述の AI 対話部分で言及）。

情報源 : Youtube 動画(01:56:14)

The Telepathy Tapes - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World

AI 整理

音声対話

https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/193e5ab4-1a41-4828-9826-6e664b3ff331/audio

テレパシーテープの謎

今回の音源は、信仰と理性という二つの視点から謎を探求するポッドキャスト「ジミー・エイキンのミステリアス・ワールド」のエピソード371からの抜粋です。

エピソードでは、「テレパシー・テープ」という別のポッドキャストを取り上げ、その内容を詳しく分析しています。この「テレパシー・テープ」は、話さない自閉症の子供たちが持つとされるテレパシー能力に焦点を当てており、2024年には全米No.1ポッドキャストになりました。ポッドキャストでは、テレパシーの事例やその他の超能力、そして非話者コミュニティへの影響について議論されています。また、信仰の観点からテレパシーが問題ないこと、そして合理的な観点から様々な主張が検討される様子が語られます。

要約書：「テレパシーテープ」にみる自閉症とテレパシーに関する主張の検討

このブリーフィングドキュメントは、ポッドキャスト「テレパシーテープ」に関連する2つの文字起こし、「テレパシーテープの評価」と「謎のテレパシー現象」の内容をレビューし、主要なテーマ、重要なアイデア、および事実をまとめています。

はじめに：「テレパシーテープ」とは

「テレパシーテープ」は、2024年にリリースされ、瞬く間に国内トップのポッドキャストとなった番組です。話すことのできない自閉症の子どもたちに焦点を当て、彼らがテレパシーを含む驚くべき能力を持っているという保護者の主張や、それにまつわる様々な物語を紹介しています (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:03:28)。ポッドキャストの制作者であるドキュメンタリー映画監督のカイ・ディケンズは、その内容を「パラダイムシフトと画期的」と評し、意識と人間の可能性について深い問いを投げかけるものとしています (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:05:50)。

主な主張

ポッドキャスト「テレパシーテープ」で提起される主要な主張は以下の8点です (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:27:34)：

スペリング・トゥ・コミュニケート（S2C）が機能する: 話すことのできない自閉症者が文字盤などを用いてコミュニケーションを取る方法。
古典的自閉症は知的障害ではなく、運動障害である: コミュニケーションを妨げる身体のコントロールの難しさに関連すると主張されます。
話さない、またはほとんど話さない自閉症児の「一部」または「全て」がテレパシー能力を持つ。
彼らは「ヒル」やそれに類似するテレパシーによるチャットルームでコミュニケーションを取る。
テレパシー以外の幅広い超能力も持つ: 予知、透視、サイコキネシス、死後のコミュニケーションなど。
彼らの潜在能力は人類の文化を変革するほどのものがある。
定型発達者ともテレパシーによるコミュニケーションを確立することがある。
一部の定型発達者も、成人後に彼らと同様の能力を得ることがある。

信仰と理性の観点からの評価ジミー・エイキンは、これらの主張を「信仰」と「理性」の二つの観点から検討しています。

信仰の観点 (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:28:20)

超能力とキリスト教信仰の対立なし: エイキンは、超能力の概念がキリスト教信仰と根本的に対立するものではないと述べています。聖アウグスティヌス、聖グレゴリウス大王、聖トマス・アクィナスといった教会の博士たちは、超能力を神が人間の本性に組み込んだものとして受け入れたり、肯定的に確信したりしていました。
「霊的な贈り物」としての解釈: ベンというスペラーは、これらの能力を「神からの霊的な贈り物」と見なすべきだと示唆しています。
「悪魔の仮説」への慎重な姿勢: いくつかの主張（例：アメリアが「神々」や「ブッダ」から学んだと主張する点、転生の概念）はキリスト教信仰と衝突する可能性があり、一部の人々は「悪魔の仕業」と考えるかもしれません。しかしエイキンは、これらは「外れ値のデータ」であり、他の方法で説明できると指摘し、性急な結論を戒めています (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:40:07)。また、愛を促進する側面は悪魔の関心事ではないと述べています。

理性の観点 (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:42:10)

エイキンは、8つの主張を「周辺的なもの」から「中心的なもの」へと順番に評価しています。

成人後の定型発達者における超能力の発現（主張8）: 外傷体験（例：臨死体験、脳手術）後に超能力が発達することは文献で報告されており、エイキンもこの可能性に異論はないとしています (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:42:59)。
定型発達者とのテレパシー（主張7）: 感情的に近い人々（「絆で結ばれたペアのテレパシー」）の間でテレパシーが起こるという研究が存在するため、自閉症児と親や教師との間でのテレパシーは不自然ではないとしています (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:43:55)。しかし、スペリングを介さないテレパシー（例：ジェスとアッシャー、キャロリンとカイルの夢中でのテレパシー）については、それぞれ個別の検証が必要だと強調しています。
世界の変革（主張6）: これらの主張は「希望的観測と誇張」に聞こえるとしながらも (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:46:17)、もしこれらの主張が真実であれば、自閉症の治療法や超能力の存在証明において社会に大きな変化をもたらすことは認めると述べています。
テレパシー以外の幅広い超能力（主張5）: ポッドキャストが各子どもが全ての能力を「堅牢な形」で持つと主張しているわけではなく、これらの様々な能力が子どもたちの間で報告されているという「より控えめな主張」であれば、エイキンは問題ないと考えています (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:49:15)。
「ヒル」のようなテレパシーチャットルーム（主張4）: テレパシーが距離によって制限されないという研究（例：エドガー・ミッチェル宇宙飛行士の月への道中でのテレパシー実験）があるため、堅牢なテレパシー能力を持つ子どもたちがグループチャットを形成することは不自然ではないと述べています (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:50:27)。
話さない自閉症児の全てまたは一部がテレパシー能力を持つ（主張3）: エイキンはこの主張に対して「オープン」であり、ダイアン・ヘネシー・パウエル博士も人間のコミュニケーションへの欲求を考慮すると、話さない自閉症児がテレパシーの可能性のある候補であると提案しています (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:51:54)。

決定的な問題点と批判

しかし、最も中心的な主張、特に「スペリング・トゥ・コミュニケート（S2C）が機能する」という主張については、エイキンは強い疑問を呈しています。

S2Cの信頼性（主張1の核心）:

ポッドキャストのほぼ全ての主張の真偽は、S2Cが非話者との信頼できるコミュニケーション手段であるかどうかにかかっているとエイキンは指摘しています (「テレパシーテープの評価」0:53:25)。

促進者の影響: 1990年代の促進されたコミュニケーション（FC）の研究では、促進者が無意識のうちにコミュニケーターの手を導き、正しい答えを出させていたことが示されています。「もし促進者に犬の絵を見せ、コミュニケーターに猫の絵を見せた場合、メッセージは依然として『D-O-G』と表示された」という例が挙げられています (「テレパシーテープの評価」0:54:48)。文字盤やiPadを持っていても、意図せずしてスペラーを正しい文字に導く可能性がある「観念運動効果」の存在を指摘しています (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:02:13)。
作者権テストの欠如: S2Cコミュニティは、この形式のコミュニケーションが機能することを証明するために不可欠な「作者権テスト」をこれまで実施していません (「テレパシーテープの評価」0:57:10)。懐疑派であるスチュアート・ワイスは、「新しい文字盤方式を支持する現存する論文のどれも、1990年代に否定的な結果を生み出した単純な作者権テストを採用していない。一つもない」と述べています (「テレパシーテープの評価」0:57:35)。
「科学は必要ない」という姿勢: S2Cの提唱者の中には、ヴェイシュナビ・サラティのように「子供がコミュニケーションを取っているなら、科学は必要ない」と主張する者もいます (「テレパシーテープの評価」0:58:10)。これは、「証拠よりも信念、開かれた質問よりも強い擁護」という態度を示しています (「テレパシーテープの評価」0:58:33)。
過去の不正疑惑との関連: 1990年代には、FCが性的な虐待の虚偽の申し立てを生み出し、裁判所が介入してテストを強制した経緯があります。現在S2Cでは同様の規模の申し立てがない理由として、コミュニケーションパートナーが親であること、または過去の経緯から虚偽の申し立てを避ける無意識の動機がある可能性が指摘されています (「テレパシーテープの評価」0:59:44)。

古典的自閉症が知的障害ではないという主張（主張2）:

エイキンはこの主張に対してオープンですが、それを解決する方法は「古典的自閉症の人々との信頼できるコミュニケーション手段を確保し、彼らの知能を評価すること」だと述べています。そのためには、やはりS2Cの作者権テストが不可欠となります (「テレパシーテープの評価」0:53:25)。

テレパシーのテストの不備:

「テレパシーテープ」で行われたテレパシーのテストも不十分であると指摘されています。

ヒューストンのケース: 母親が正しい答えを知っており、文字盤を保持していることで、観念運動効果による誘導の可能性が排除されていません (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:09:49)。
ミアのケース: 母親がミアの額に手を置き、その手の動きが視覚的にミアの頭の動きを誘導しているように見えることが指摘されています。「この映画クリップは、何が起こっているかについて、明白な代替の非超能力的な説明を提供しているが、それが探求されることはない」とエイキンは述べています (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:11:44)。
アキルのケース: エリザベス・ワイルによるアキルとマニシャの観察では、マニシャがアキルの周辺視野に座り、「ジョイスティックのように胴体を揺らし、拳を握り、指を上下左右に動かし」ていたことが報告されています。アキルがタイプしなかったにもかかわらず、マニシャが「ストロベリー」と言い、「とても良い」と述べた例や、意味のない文字の羅列をタイプした例が挙げられ、コミュニケーションの信頼性に疑問が投げかけられています (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:15:02)。また、ワイルの存在がアキルのパフォーマンスに影響を与えたというマニシャの主張は、疑念を払拭するのではなく、さらなる疑問を投げかけています。
文字盤の保持の必要性: 多くのスペラーが、文字盤が立てて保持されることを必要としていることが指摘されています。これは、促進者が文字盤を動かして「正しい文字がターゲットとなるように誘導する」観念運動効果の可能性を示唆しています (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:19:19)。
専門家による指摘: メンタリストのピーター・ターナーは、ビデオを分析し、母親の微細なジェスチャーや不必要な言葉が、スペラーへのキューとして機能していることを指摘しています (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:21:19)。
ディーン・ラディンの見解: 「テレパシーテープ」で科学的正当性を高めるために紹介された超心理学者のディーン・ラディンでさえ、「ディケンズのテストのビデオを見ても、テレパシーの信頼できる証拠は観察できなかった」と述べています。「彼が見たのは、愛、切望、そして信念だった」とラディンは報告しています (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:22:35)。

テレパシーオーバーレイの問題:

テレパシーが存在するとして、コミュニケーションパートナーの思考や信念がスペラーのメッセージに影響を与える「テレパシーオーバーレイ」の可能性も指摘されています (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:30:06)。これは、リモートビューイングの分野でも報告されている現象です。ポッドキャスト内でも、パートナーが思考を遮断するために歌を歌ったり、単語を繰り返したりする例が挙げられており、メッセージが本当にスペラー本人のものであるかという疑問を呈しています。

ジョン・ポールとリリーの事例における矛盾:

テレパシーでコミュニケーションを取っているとされるジョン・ポールとリリーが、ジョン・ポールの家族について尋ね合う場面が挙げられています。「もし心が通じ合っているなら、なぜリリーはジョン・ポールの家族について尋ねる必要があったのか」という疑問に対し、ポッドキャストで提示された回答は「信憑性を保つための後付けの言い訳」に見えるとエイキンは指摘しています (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:26:27)。

結論と提言

ジミー・エイキンの最終的な結論は以下の通りです (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:41:36)：

作者権テストの喫緊の必要性: 「メッセージの作者権に関する必要な研究は行われておらず、実施は非常に簡単である」と強調されています。「スペリングへの抵抗が止まる前に、作者権研究への抵抗を止めなければならない」。
「ファンタジーの物語」の危険性: 作者権テストなしには、スペリングが本当に機能するかどうかは不明であり、もし機能しないのであれば、「これらの子どもたちに関するファンタジーの物語を構築することは、彼らや他の誰にも役立たない」。
道徳的責任: 「コミュニティにはテストを行う道徳的責任がある」とエイキンは主張します。もしスペリングが機能するなら、より多くの潜在的なスペラーを助けるために、その事実を知る必要があるからです。
科学的かつオープンマインドな研究の呼びかけ: エイキンは、「話すことのできない自閉症の子どもたちの作者権とテレパシーの両方について、オープンマインドで科学的に正確な研究を行う必要がある」と強く訴え、これによって子どもたち、親、教師、そして社会全体にとって最善の道が開かれると結んでいます (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:42:00)。

今後の展望

ダイアン・ヘネシー・パウエル博士は、大学の支援を受けたテレパシーテストを将来実施する意向を示しており、子どもと保護者/臨床医を別々の部屋でテストするなど、必要なコントロールを導入しようとしていることが示唆されています (「テレパシーテープの評価」1:39:19)。これは、エイキンが求める厳密な科学的検証への一歩となる可能性があります。

まとめ

「テレパシーテープ」は、話すことのできない自閉症者の潜在能力と超能力の可能性について、魅力的で物議を醸す物語を提供しています。しかし、その主張の信頼性は、特に「スペリング・トゥ・コミュニケート」の作者権やテレパシーテストの厳密性に関する科学的検証の欠如によって、大きく損なわれています。ジミー・エイキンは、これらの主張に対するオープンマインドな姿勢を保ちつつも、説得力のある証拠を確立するためには、厳格な科学的テストが不可欠であると強く主張しています。

タイムライン：テレパシーテープの謎

1971年

アポロ14号のミッション中、エドガー・ミッチェル宇宙飛行士が地球上の友人と個人的なテレパシー実験を行う。これは、テレパシーが長距離で機能するという主張の歴史的な裏付けとして挙げられる。

1990年代

「ファシリテイテッド・コミュニケーション」に対するテストが、性的虐待の申し立てによって強制的に行われる。これらのテストは否定的な結果をもたらし、コミュニケーションパートナー（ファシリテーター）が無意識に信号を送っていたことが示唆される。この経験から、新しいレターボード方式の推進者たちは、テストを避ける教訓を得たとされる。

2021年 (4年前)

カイ・ディケンズが「Cosmos in You」ポッドキャストを聴き、ダイアン・ヘネシー・パウエル博士の存在を知る。これが「テレパシーテープ」制作のきっかけとなる。

2022年

ダイアン・パウエル博士とカイ・ディケンズがアトランタを訪問し、ヒューストンの他の非話者との心と心のコミュニケーション能力をテストするが、失敗に終わる。
パウエルとディケンズが心理学者ジェフ・タラントを同行させ、QEEG脳波スキャンデータを収集する。ポッドキャストでは「興味深いデータ」と表現されるが、タラントは「意味のある発見はなかった」と後に述べる。

2024年

「テレパシーテープ」ポッドキャストがリリースされ、3か月以内に国内のポッドキャストチャートで1位を獲得する。ポッドキャストは非話性自閉症の子供たちのテレパシー能力に焦点を当てる。
「テレパシーテープ」が長編映画化されることが決定し、2025年公開予定となる。

ポッドキャストの内容に基づく主な出来事と主張

カイ・ディケンズ、非話性自閉症コミュニティのテレパシー現象を探求開始。彼女はドキュメンタリー映画製作者であり、このポッドキャストを制作する。
ダイアン・ヘネシー・パウエル博士、テレパシーが自閉症のサヴァン症候群スキルとして理解できるという仮説を提唱。彼女は「テレパシーテープ」の初期のインスピレーション源となる。
アキールとその母マニシャの紹介。アキールはiPadでタイピングし、テレパシー能力を持つとされる。彼が「離れた祖先の霊を見る」と報告されることで、番組はシンプルな対人テレパシーの範疇を超える。しかし、エリザベス・ワイルによる後の検証では、アキールのコミュニケーションにはマニシャの誘導が示唆される。
ケイティと息子ヒューストンの紹介。ヒューストンはレターボードを使用し、テレパシー能力を持つとされる。
「すべての非話性自閉症の子供がテレパシー能力を持つ」という主張と、「ヒル」と呼ばれるテレパシーチャットルームの概念が導入される。
リビーと息子ジョン・ポール、スコットと娘リリーの家族が紹介される。ジョン・ポールとリリーはテレパシーでコミュニケーションを取り、結婚を望む関係とされる。
イギリスの教師ジェスが、生徒たちとの「直接的な心と心の接触」によるテレパシーコミュニケーションを主張。彼女はスペリングやファシリテイテッド・コミュニケーションを使用しない。
非話性自閉症の子供たちがテレパシー以外の広範な超能力（予知、透視、サイコキネシス、幽体離脱、死後コミュニケーション）を持つという主張。ある子供は本に触れるだけで内容を学ぶことができると報告される。
アメリアという子供が、神または「神々」から夜に教えを受けていると主張。彼女は複数の言語を話すことができ、生まれる前から知っていたと述べる。
イスラエルの著者アーサーと息子ベンの紹介。ベンは能力を「神からの霊的贈り物」とみなし、他のユダヤ人と異なる「ヒル」に参加しているとされる。
ジョン・ポールがホットタブで溺死するという悲劇的な出来事。彼のテレパシー能力を持つ友人たちは、彼が事前に死を予知していたと主張し、死後もリリーに現れると報告される。
テレパシーの限界に関する議論。マリアンヌは、コミュニケーションパートナーが思考を「クリア」または「シールド」しない限り、「テレパシー的オーバーレイ」（他者の思考が通信に混入すること）が起こりうると警告する。
非話性自閉症コミュニティからの様々な意見。カイ・ディケンズへの感謝を示す者もいれば、「スーパー・クリップル」の比喩（障害者が超常的な能力を持つことで価値ある存在とされる）に利用されていると感じる者もいる。
ダイアン・ヘネシー・パウエル博士がカイ・ディケンズに失望を表明する。パウエルは、ディケンズが「不都合な情報を排除し、スピリチュアリティに傾倒した」とし、自身の評判が「反科学的プロジェクト」に利用されたと感じている。
スペリング・トゥ・コミュニケート（S2C）コミュニティが、いまだに「著作権テスト」（誰がメッセージの真の著者であるかを検証するテスト）に抵抗していることが指摘される。

登場人物

カイ・ディケンズ (Kai Dickens): 受賞歴のあるドキュメンタリー映画製作者であり、ポッドキャスト「テレパシーテープ」の制作者。非話性自閉症の子供たちのテレパシー能力を探求し、その物語を世に広める。2025年にはこのポッドキャストを基にした長編映画が予定されている。
ダイアン・ヘネシー・パウエル博士 (Diane Hennessey Powell, MD): 精神科医、神経科学者、研究者、著者。ジョンズ・ホプキンス大学で医学訓練を受け、ハーバード大学医学部の教員も務めた。自閉症患者におけるテレパシーを「サヴァン症候群スキル」と捉え、長年研究している。カイ・ディケンズの初期のインスピレーション源となるが、後にディケンズのポッドキャストにおける描写と方向性に不満を表明し、「反科学的プロジェクト」に利用されたと感じている。
アキール (Akil): 非話性自閉症の子供で、iPadを介してコミュニケーションを取るとされる。部分的に発話可能。彼の母親はマニシャ。カイ・ディケンズのポッドキャストではテレパシー能力を持つと紹介されるが、後にエリザベス・ワイルによる検証では、コミュニケーション時に母親の無意識の誘導が示唆される。
マニシャ (Manisha): アキールの母親であり、彼のコミュニケーションパートナー。アキールの部分的な発話を解釈し、彼がテレパシーでメッセージを送ると信じている。エリザベス・ワイルの検証時、アキールのタイピング中に体の動きや手のジェスチャーで誘導している様子が報告される。
ケイティ (Katie): ヒューストンの母親であり、彼のコミュニケーションパートナー。ヒューストンがテレパシー能力を持っていると信じている。レターボードを使用するコミュニケーションにおいて、彼女の無意識の誘導（イデオモーター効果）が指摘される。
ヒューストン (Houston): ケイティの息子。レターボードを使ってコミュニケーションを取るとされる非話性自閉症の子供。特定のコミュニケーションパートナー（母親のケイティや姉）としかスペリングができないと報告されている。
ジョン・ポール (John Paul): リビーの息子。体格の大きな非話性自閉症の若者。リリーとの結婚を望んでいたとされる。テレパシー能力を持つと主張されるが、ホットタブでの溺死により命を落とす。友人たちは彼の死を予知していたと信じている。
リビー (Libby): ジョン・ポールの母親。
リリー (Lily): スコットの娘。ジョン・ポールとの関係がポッドキャストで語られる非話性自閉症の子供。ジョン・ポールの死後も彼からのテレパシーによるコミュニケーションがあると報告されている。
スコット (Scott): リリーの父親。リリーのテレパシーによるコミュニケーションを信じている。
ジェス (Jess): イギリスの教師。ファシリテイテッド・コミュニケーションやスペリングを使用せず、生徒たちと直接心と心のテレパシー的接触を持つと主張している。特にアッシャーという生徒との強い絆を報告している。
アッシャー (Asher): イギリスの生徒。教師のジェスとテレパシーでコミュニケーションを取るとされる。輪廻転生について「すべて同時に起こっている」という独自の解釈を述べる。
マリア (Maria): シカゴ地域の教師。テレパシー的チャットルーム「ヒル」について「思考の山」のようなものだと説明している。
アメリア (Amelia): 非話性自閉症の子供で、神または「神々」から夜に教えを受けていると主張。複数の言語を操り、生まれる前から知っていたと述べる。彼女の主張は一部で異例のデータと見なされる。
ベン (Ben): アーサーの息子。テレパシー能力を「神からの霊的贈り物」とみなし、他のユダヤ人と異なる「ヒル」に参加しているとされる。
アーサー (Arthur): イスラエル人の著者で、ベンの父親。
タニー (Tani): ジョサイアの母親。
ジョサイア (Josiah): タニーの息子。数百マイル離れた著者のマックス・デイビスの思考を拾い始めたと報告される。
マックス・デイビス (Max Davis): ジョサイアが彼の思考を拾ったとされる著者。
スチュアート・ワイス (Stuart Weiss): 「Skeptical Inquirer」誌に寄稿した人物。「スペリング・トゥ・コミュニケート」の支持者が1990年代の教訓（テストに提出しないこと）を学んだと指摘している。
エリザベス・ワイル (Elizabeth Weil): 「New Yorker」誌の記者。マニシャとアキルを訪問し、独自のテレパシーテストを実施。アキルのコミュニケーションにおけるマニシャの誘導を観察し、ポッドキャストの描写に疑問を投げかけた。
ピーター・ターナー (Peter Turner): エキスパートメンタリスト。カイ・ディケンズのテレパシーテスト動画を視聴し、コミュニケーションパートナー（母親など）が子供の動きを誘導する隠れた手がかりや不必要な言葉（コード）を特定した。
ディーン・ラディン (Dean Radin): アメリカの科学者で、超心理現象に関する研究を多く行っている。カイ・ディケンズは彼の研究を「テレパシーテープ」で引用し感謝しているが、ラディン自身はディケンズのテスト動画を分析した結果、「テレパシーの信頼できる証拠は見られなかった」と述べている。彼は「愛、憧れ、信念」を観察した。
エドガー・ミッチェル (Edgar Mitchell): 元宇宙飛行士。1971年のアポロ14号ミッション中に個人的なテレパシー実験を行い、肯定的な結果を得たとされる。
ジョシュ・レノ (Josh Reno): ニューヨーク州立大学ビンガムトン校の人類学教授。18歳の非話性自閉症の息子を持つ。「テレパシーテープ」が「スーパー・クリップル」の比喩に陥っていると批判し、非話性自閉症の子供たちが「魔法の力」を持たないことに落胆するファンがいるかもしれないと述べている。

AI との対話

以下の対話は、 Jimmy Akin の他宗教の知識がどの程度かを推し量るのに役立つ。キリスト教徒としては仏教をかなり理解していると言えるが、肝心の

涅槃（ニルヴァーナ）の概念: テーラワーダ仏教（初期の歴史的な仏教の形態）の理解では、ブッダが達成した涅槃は、この世や来世との接触が一切ない、知り得ない、到達不能な状態とされています。この教えに基づけば、ブッダがこの世や来世で誰かに教えを授けることはないはずです。

無我（アナートマン）の教義: 仏教は「無我（アナートマン）」という教義を説いています。これは、永続的な自己や魂が存在しないという考え方です。この教義に照らしても、ブッダが長い年月を経てなお存在し、教えを授けることはあり得ないとされます。

の箇所はどちらも正しくない。理由は…

涅槃は生きている間に達成可能な境地（現世涅槃）とされているゆえに、「ブッダがこの世や来世で誰かに教えを授けることはない」は間違い。
初期仏教経典（パーリ語経典）においても「ブッダ」は釈尊だけを示す固有名詞ではない。ゆえに、別のどこかで生きているブッダから教えを受けることはありうる。
初期経典に説かれているアナートマンは「（それは）我ではない」という意味であって「我がない」という主張ではない。我が有るか無いか…といいった形而上学的な問いに釈尊は答えず、沈黙を保った。

もっとも、仏教徒でも涅槃と無我の意味を経典の記述に基づいて正しく理解できているのは少数なので、Jimmy Akin を責めることはできない。

Me:

mind map にある「アメリアの「ブッダから学ぶ」」、「仏教の教えと矛盾」の箇所について詳しく敷衍して。

マインドマップに記載されている「アメリアの『ブッダから学ぶ』」および「仏教の教えと矛盾」の箇所について、ソースに基づいて詳しくご説明します。ソースによると、「テレパシーテープ」のエピソード7で、アメリアという子が夜に物事を学ぶ場所に行く話が紹介されており、彼女はラビ、ブッダ、神から学んだと報告されています。このアメリアの主張は、いくつかの点で仏教の伝統的な教えと矛盾する可能性があり、また懐疑的な見方も示されています。

「ブッダから学ぶ」ことの矛盾点:

涅槃（ニルヴァーナ）の概念: テーラワーダ仏教（初期の歴史的な仏教の形態）の理解では、ブッダが達成した涅槃は、この世や来世との接触が一切ない、知り得ない、到達不能な状態とされています。この教えに基づけば、ブッダがこの世や来世で誰かに教えを授けることはないはずです。
無我（アナートマン）の教義: 仏教は「無我（アナートマン）」という教義を説いています。これは、永続的な自己や魂が存在しないという考え方です。この教義に照らしても、ブッダが長い年月を経てなお存在し、教えを授けることはあり得ないとされます。

キリスト教的視点からの可能性:

もしキリスト教の教えが正しく、永続的な魂が存在するならば、ブッダにも永続的な魂があり、もし彼が天国に行ったのであれば、人々を教えることが可能であるかもしれない、という逆説的な見方も提示されています。ただし、その教えはキリスト教の教えと矛盾しない範囲でのものとなり、例えば「永続的な自己や魂が存在する」といった内容である可能性があります。

懐疑的な解釈と「外れ値データ」:

ソースの語り手は、アメリアのこの主張は、仏教についてあまり知識のない人物が、主要な宗教的人物リストを想像し、彼らが皆利用可能であると仮定しているように聞こえると指摘しています。これは、実際のコミュニケーションではなく、想像に基づいている可能性を示唆しています。
この主張は、番組で登場する他の多くの子供たちの証言とは異なり、アメリアという特定の個人からのみ報告されているため、「外れ値データ（outlier data）」として扱われています。そのため、これを決定的な信頼できる情報とは見なすべきではない、とされています。ソースの語り手は、アメリアが「欠陥のある接続」を持っている可能性すら示唆しています。

したがって、アメリアがブッダから学んだという主張は、伝統的な仏教の教えとは根本的に矛盾し、また番組内の他の多くの証言と比較しても異質な「外れ値データ」として扱われています。

文字起こし（＝AI 入力データ）

(transcript 1of2)

（以下は podcast の文字起こしです。長いので 2分割しています。以下はその前半部分です。）

You're listening to episode 371 of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason. (0:03:05)

In this episode, we're talking about the Telepathy Tapes. I'm Dom Bettinelli, and joining me today is Jimmy Akin. Hey, Jimmy. Howdy, Dom. Folks, be sure to stick around for the end of the episode, as we'll have your feedback on our recent episode on the Lost Scriptures, First Esdras. But first... In 2024, a new podcast appeared. (0:03:28)

It was called the Telepathy Tapes, and by Christmas, it had become the number one podcast in the nation, scoring even above Joe Rogan. The podcast focused on a group of non-speaking autistic children, but their parents reported that they had extraordinary abilities, including telepathy. And they told many amazing stories about them. (0:03:46)

So, what happens on the Telepathy Tapes? What claims are made? And how credible is it all? That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. So, Jimmy, what do you want to say to begin? Well, I first heard about the Telepathy Tapes a few months ago. It was so popular that once it appeared, I quickly started getting messages about it, and people wanted to know what my take was. Which isn't surprising, since it's a mysterious topic, and I'm the creator of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. It took me a while to listen to the episodes, and then it took me a while to get around to writing the script for this episode, but it's finally here. (0:04:23)

So today, we're going to be discussing the Telepathy Tapes, and I'll give you my perspective. And how do you want to proceed? Well, the Telepathy Tapes has released its first season, which consists of 10 episodes that are each between 40 minutes and an hour long. They're currently working on a second season, but that's not out yet. (0:04:46)

So, I thought what we'd do is go through the Telepathy Tapes one by one and hit the highlights. That'll give you a sense of the overall shape of the first season. Then we'll take a break, and when we come back, we'll make a list of the key claims that the show proposes, and then I'll go into analysis mode, and we'll look at the claims of the Telepathy Tapes from the perspectives of faith and reason. (0:05:06)

Then let's begin. What happens in episode one of the Telepathy Tapes? Well, we meet the creator of the podcast, Kai Dickens. She's a documentary filmmaker who has won a number of awards, and according to her bio on her website, kaidickens.com, Kai's fifth film, Show Her the Money, featuring Elizabeth Banks and Sharon Gless, was named one of the decade's best financial films by U.S. News and World Report. The film has won three jury prizes for best documentary, including from the Los Angeles International Film Festival. Kai recently ventured into audio storytelling with her groundbreaking podcast, The Telepathy Tapes, which explores telepathy within the non-speaking community and raises profound questions about consciousness and human potential. (0:05:50)

Lauded as paradigm shifting and groundbreaking, the podcast has topped Apple's and Spotify's charts, claiming the number one spot within three months of its release. The Telepathy Tapes is now being developed into a feature film slated for 2025. Here's how the first episode begins. His mind and my mind completely connected. Telepathy is the tip of the iceberg with their spiritual gifts. People don't understand that they can do this. (0:06:28)

They don't even have to be in the same room, the same zip code. For decades, a very specific group of people have been claiming telepathy is happening in their homes and in their classrooms. And nobody has believed them. Nobody has listened to them. But on this podcast, we do. (0:06:49)

Kai then relates how four years earlier in 2021, she was listening to the Cosmos in You podcast when she heard about a psychiatrist named Diane Hennessey Powell. And according to her biography at the Parapsychology Association, Diane Hennessey Powell, MD, is an author, researcher, public speaker and practicing psychiatrist who started as a neuroscientist before obtaining her medical degree and training in medicine, neurology and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University. She became a member of Harvard Medical School's faculty and later an original member of the La Jolla Group for Understanding the Origin of Humans, a think tank at the Salk Institute with several world-renowned neuroscientists and Nobel laureates. (0:07:35)

She has spoken at international conferences, such as Towards a Science of Consciousness and the IONS Annual Conference. Her research findings and hypotheses about the brain and psi are published in her book, The ESP Enigma, A Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena. Her current research focuses on autistic savants. Their abilities are so similar to psychic phenomena that they defy the current paradigm about the brain and consciousness. (0:08:04)

But unlike psychic abilities, theirs are accepted because they are reproducible. Her current project investigates savants who also report psi. She is also collaborating with her brother, theoretical physicist and artificial intelligence expert Ken Hennessey, PhD, on creating a model for understanding consciousness and the quantum world. I'm aware of Dr. Powell and I have her book, The ESP Enigma. Kai was fascinated hearing about telepathy from a neuroscientist. (0:08:34)

Sometime previously, Dr. Powell had come up with the proposal that telepathy was likely to manifest among people who had been unable to speak since childhood. Like when a person is born blind, they'll learn to rely more on their hearing than sighted folks do. So, if you can't communicate through speech, you might be better at communicating through telepathy. And since many children with classical autism, which we talked about last week, are non-verbal, you might find more demonstrable telepathy in that population group. (0:09:02)

And thus, she had made it the focus of her recent studies. Kai was fascinated by this. She and Dr. Powell spoke and later met, and the two of them ended up in communication with a Mexican family that had an autistic girl named Mia. After a conversation with them, it was decided that it would be a good thing to bring them up to Los Angeles to do some formal tests. (0:09:28)

The rest of the first episode deals with the tests they ran on Mia. Basically, they had Mia name three-digit random numbers, like 365 or 798, that Mia couldn't see. They also had her sort popsicle sticks into piles based on what color they were, even though she was blindfolded. Kai took extensive steps to avoid the possibility of cheating. She took both Dr. Powell and Mia and her family to a place they'd never been before the tests. (0:09:55)

She bought all the supplies that they would be using during the tests, and Kai even downloaded the random number generator that they used while they were at the test site, so nobody could have tampered with it ahead of time. And Mia did extremely well on these tests. They said she scored 100% correct over and over again. (0:10:17)

But despite all the precautions that Kai took, after the tests were over, Dr. Powell told her that none of the tests they did would pass scientific scrutiny. And that's our cliffhanger for the first episode. (0:10:28)

Okay, if that's what happened in episode one of the telepathy tapes, what happens in episode two? Do they resolve the cliffhanger from episode one? They do, though for dramatic reasons they don't do so immediately. The reason is that all the tests that they did with Mia and her mother, her mother was touching Mia to help her communicate. And that gets us into the same territory we covered last episode with facilitated communication. (0:10:54)

It raises the risk that Mia's mother was unintentionally guiding her to the correct answers, and thus it disqualifies these tests as providing scientific evidence for telepathy. Dr. Powell thus put Kai in touch with a family in New Jersey. This family had a young man named Akeel, and what makes him different is that he's learned to type on an iPad or a computer without anyone touching him. (0:11:23)

So, Kai went to New Jersey and met Akeel and his mother Manisha. They did more telepathy tests there, and we're told that without anyone touching him, Akeel was able to get correct answers. We're also told something else, which is that Akeel reports seeing the spirits of departed ancestors, which wouldn't be that unexpected since apparitions are a telepathic phenomenon. (0:11:46)

After all, departed people don't have bodies, they're just minds, so any way they would appear to you would be telepathic. And it makes sense that someone who's highly gifted in telepathy might be able to have contact with the minds of disembodied people as well as embodied people. But this is our first indication that the telepathy tapes is going to get us into territory that is beyond simple person-to-person telepathy with living people. If that's episode two, what happens in episode three? In this episode, Kai goes to Georgia where she meets a new family. (0:12:20)

This one is headed by a woman named Katie who has a son named Houston. He uses a letter board to communicate, and his mother also believes him to be telepathic. In this episode, we encounter two claims that are noteworthy. The first is that all non-speaking or low-speaking autistic children are telepathic. Not just some of them, all of them. And the second is that many of these individuals communicate with each other telepathically on something they've nicknamed the hill. (0:12:50)

The hill is a kind of... it's kind of like a telepathic chat room where multiple people participate at once. So if you've ever been in an internet chat room or part of a group chat on your phone, that's what the hill is like, only with telepathy. And there's nothing intrinsically implausible about the idea that people who are very good at telepathy might be able to establish a group chat. We've now covered the principal ideas from episode three. What happens in episode four? (0:13:12)

In this episode, Kai stays in Georgia where she meets a couple more families because there's a community of families with similar children in the area. The first family we meet has a mother named Libby and her son is John Paul, who is described as being six foot eight inch tall and almost 300 pounds. So he's quite a large young man. (0:13:36)

The second family has a father named Scott and his daughter is Lily. We're told that one of John Paul's goals in life is to marry Lily. The two get together and hang out and based on communications attributed to them, they sound very happy together. We're also told a little bit more about the hill. (0:13:50)

Apparently on the day they were recording, there were 1789 people on the hill, which is more than normal. But apparently word got out on the hill about the telepathy tapes. And so a lot of people who go to the hill were all excited and interested and wanting to talk about how the telepathy tapes could change the perception of autistic people. So a bunch of them went there to discuss it. (0:14:13)

What happens in episode five? In this episode, Kai talks to other people who are aware of children and their telepathy, but who've stayed quiet about it. This includes teachers in schools who say that they see the children doing telepathic things, but they're reluctant to report this because they could lose their jobs and have their certifications taken away. (0:14:37)

One of them we meet is a teacher in England named Jess. And she doesn't use facilitated communication or spelling to communicate with her students. Instead, she suspected that the children were telepathic without those means. And according to her, once she realized this, the children found a way to begin communicating with her telepathically. And there's one particular student that she has a strong telepathic bond with. (0:15:01)

So with Jess, she gets information directly from mind-to-mind contact rather than using spelling. We also hear from a Chicago-area teacher named Maria that the reason the hill is called the hill is that it's kind of like a pile or hill made of thoughts. And what happens in episode six? In this episode, Kai takes a step back from interacting with the children, their families, and their teachers and such. And she instead focuses on the evidence regarding telepathy. (0:15:30)

In this episode, she principally focuses on two scientists. One of them is the British scientist Rupert Sheldrake. And he'll be familiar to listeners of Mysterious World because we mentioned him before. For example, we discussed him in episode 298 on pet telepathy, where we covered his work with dogs that know when their owners are coming home. And also his work with the African great parrot in Kesey. And they talk about both of those. (0:15:57)

Kai also interviews a scientist that we'll talk about in future episodes of Mysterious World. His name is Dean Radin. And he's an American scientist who has done a lot of work on psychic phenomena and has written several books that I've got. When listening to the telepathy tapes, one of the things to note about both of these scientists is that they don't provide evaluations of what's happening with the autistic children that Kai has been visiting. (0:16:23)

Instead, they talk about other studies that have been done involving telepathy. And they might say that something is possible that's been reported with the telepathy tapes children, but they aren't quoted as saying things like, oh, I've looked at the studies that have been done with these children and I'm convinced they are communicating. (0:16:44)

They really are telepathic. So the discussion in this episode is at a more general level. What do we learn in episode seven? Well, this episode is kind of a big one. We get a bunch of new claims in this episode. It's not just versions of telepathy that are being reported for these children anymore. (0:17:01)

Now it's revealed that they have all the different forms of psychic phenomena that parapsychologists have identified. If you'd like to hear about those, you can listen to episode 360 on the mystery of parapsychology. But now it's revealed that in addition to telepathy, the children have clairvoyance, so they can see distant places and hidden things. (0:17:17)

They have precognitive experiences, which can be a burden for many of them learning about scary things that are going to happen in the future. They have psychokinesis, including the ability to heal other people, even from very serious diseases like cancer. And we've already covered how some of them report seeing the spirits of departed people. So they're kind of like psychic savants that display really high levels of skill across multiple abilities. (0:17:43)

One child is even reported to learn everything in a book simply by touching it. We also learn about a girl named Amelia who says that God teaches her things at night, and another who is said to visit other worldly realms in out-of-body experiences. And just like a couple of episodes ago when we heard about a teacher in England who established telepathic communication with one of her students, we even hear about non-autistic neurotypical people, one of whom is said to have visited the hill. (0:18:17)

There's also another shift that occurs in this episode. You'll recall how in episode one, Kai was just beginning to explore this world. She was open but skeptical about the claims of telepathy, and she took all those precautions to try to prevent cheating in the telepathy tests. Well, now by episode seven, she's convinced. And she moves from reporting on these children into full-throated advocacy for them. (0:18:41)

She's come to view them in basically messianic terms and believes they have a huge role to play in the future of mankind, such as in this clip. I mean, honestly, Susie, if I had a million dollars, I'd want to open a like a healing and education center where non-speakers could work with the best minds in science and math and you know, healthcare. So they could, you know, heal the planet and people and relationships and animals. (0:19:06)

And similarly in this clip. And knowing Amelia and her parents who love and support her beyond words, she could end up being the best genetics doctor the world has ever seen. Amelia, just like so many of these kids, have the gifts and talents and knowledge and seemingly the access to even more knowledge. Now it's on us to help them. And there's something enormous standing in their way. (0:19:28)

A lot of families have their school districts telling them, no, they can't work with them using spelling. We actively have people working against it, saying that their typing is not an acceptable form of communication. For the life of me, I can't understand the pushback and the resistance to doing this. (0:19:50)

I get angry. And Amelia is going to change the world, as are all these other kids too. So you can really hear the advocacy happening at this point, which would, you know, be totally understandable if these children are really intelligent, psychic savants, and they're being denied their right to communicate and their right to be taken seriously. After we get the set of big reveals in episode seven, what happens in episode eight? Having just pointed out the fact that many school systems won't teach spelling, do they dig into the controversy around it? Yes, this episode is devoted to the controversy, and they very briefly review some of the material that we covered last episode on facilitated communication and spelling to communicate. (0:20:29)

They acknowledge that there were problems back in the 1990s with facilitated communication. They blame some of these problems on facilitators being given inadequate training before they started working with children, and they say that the new techniques with spelling to communicate are better. (0:20:43)

But one of the things they never discuss are the blinded tests that were done, where the experimenters got the right answer if the facilitator saw the same picture as the communicator did, but where they got the wrong answer if the facilitator saw a different picture than the communicator did, or where only the communicator saw a picture and the facilitator didn't see anything. (0:21:13)

Those tests were devastating, and they never mention them at all, so I would say that their coverage of the controversy is incomplete. In this episode, we also meet a woman from England named Carolyn, and her son is named Kyle. Kyle doesn't spell to communicate. He's never learned to use a letter board. (0:21:31)

Instead, his mother reports that he comes to her in dreams and communicates with her telepathically in them. We also meet an Israeli author named Arthur, who has an autistic son named Ben. According to Ben, these abilities are spiritual gifts from God, and Ben is part of a different hill than the one we've been hearing about. (0:21:51)

He seems to work exclusively with other Jewish people, so his hill is different than the other hill, and thus there seem to be different telepathic chat rooms for different people. What happens in episode nine of the show? This one is devoted to the limits of telepathy, and it covers a number of things. One of them is the story of a mother named Tani and her son Josiah. Apparently, Josiah started picking up on the thoughts of an author named Max Davis, who was living hundreds of miles away down in Louisiana. But it's not that surprising, as we've already heard about the telepathic chat rooms like the hill having widely separated members. (0:22:33)

We also hear that some people arrive at the hill for the first time in the afterlife. That is, they didn't go there when they were alive, but they start communicating there after they die. We also hear about a woman named Becky who had shrapnel in her head from the Iraq war. (0:22:49)

She had to have brain surgery, and after the brain surgery, she also started seeing the spirits of departed people. And then we come to the most tragic event that the podcast covers. You'll recall the young autistic man from Georgia that we met in episode four named John Paul, the 6'8", 300-pound guy who wanted to marry Lily. Well, on September 24th, 2023, while the show was in production, he died. (0:23:18)

He had also wanted to be an author, but on this day, he got into his family's hot tub by himself without anyone else around, he had a seizure, and he drowned. We then deal with the impact of this event on the spellers he knew. According to them, John Paul knew that he was going to die in this accident ahead of time. (0:23:37)

He sensed that he couldn't do any more on earth at this point, and he allegedly said goodbye to his friends. The spellers seemed to know when John Paul died. From the other side, he reported that he had no fear or pain during his death. And according to Lily, he still appears to her regularly and still tells her he loves her. (0:23:55)

Wow. That brings us up to the final episode of the season. What happens in episode 10? This episode is devoted to what the spellers themselves have to say. Kai asked each of them what listeners should do with the information they've learned in the podcast, and they uniformly said that people need to take them seriously, that they are fully intelligent, they just have trouble speaking, that spelling to communicate really does work, that opposition to spelling needs to stop, and some are openly angry about the way they've been treated, though most don't come across that way. (0:24:34)

They also paint a really rosy picture of humanity's future, which they envision as involving people accepting them and their abilities, which will lead to a transformation of human culture. Some of them also sound like they're almost non-human beings from another world. For example, one of them says, my capabilities are vast and currently undefinable. I belong to the energy group of non-speaking souls working between dimensions. (0:24:58)

I descend and accept what is referred to as three-dimensional linear thought, yet I struggle with its limitations and restrictions. Matching specific frequencies allows me to access information and to transfer thought forms. Blending energy with me is the best way to share glimpses of my multi-dimensional perspective. Frequency adjustment is the key to interacting with them. Currently, most humans do not have free access as we do. (0:25:34)

Each frequency is attuned to love. Another child, Anthony, declares himself to be a futuristic human. Another says that they're really a genius by our standards. And the message that we're higher than you consistently comes through. We neurotypicals just need to presume that they are mentally competent and then we can accept all they have to offer. (0:25:59)

Kai then closes on a note of advocacy. Now it's up to us to carry forward this message, to presume competence and advocate for spelling, and to work hard to change and envelop more compassion and love and unity into our lives so that we might just evolve in the way the non-speakers say we can and should. And that's how season one of the telepathy tapes ends. (0:26:15)

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So, Jimmy, what are the key claims in the telepathy tapes that we want to examine? Well, there are a number of them. First, spelling to communicate works. (0:27:34)

Second, classic autism is not an intellectual handicap, but a motor one. Third, some or all non-speaking and low-speaking autistic children are telepathic. Fourth, they communicate on the hill and through similar chat rooms. Fifth, they have other psychic abilities, including precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and after-death communications. Sixth, they have so much potential that it will lead to a transformation of human culture. (0:28:05)

Seventh, that they sometimes establish telepathic communication with neurotypicals. And eighth, that some neurotypicals gain abilities like theirs as adults. Before we get to the reason perspective, what can we say about the telepathy tapes from the faith perspective? (0:28:20)

Well, I don't see any fundamental conflict between the idea of psychic functioning in the Christian faith. As we've discussed in previous episodes, doctors of the church like St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, and St. Thomas Aquinas were either open to or positively convinced of psychic abilities as things that God built into human nature. It's also been proposed by figures like Fr. Alois Feisinger that psychic abilities may be the remnants of the preternatural gifts that Adam and Eve had before the Fall. And God can certainly produce the same effects that are attributed to psychic abilities. (0:28:57)

It's just that Christians have historically called them by different names. The effect that we now call ESP has historically been classified as a form of prophecy, and it includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. And similarly, the effect that we now call psychokinesis has historically been classified as miracles. Now, both prophecy and miracles can be done directly by God, but figures like Pope St. Gregory the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas also held that they were sometimes done by things that God built into human nature. (0:29:36)

For example, St. Thomas Aquinas referred to ESP as natural prophecy to distinguish it from the supernatural prophecy that comes from God. In the telepathy tapes, we heard about one speller, Ben, who suggested that these things should be looked at as spiritual gifts from God. But whether you look at them as spiritual abilities or as abilities that are built into human nature, there's no intrinsic conflict with the faith. (0:30:02)

Are there other, more specific claims in the show that would be problematic from a perspective of Christian faith? There are three moments in the show where two of the many children they feature reportedly say things that could be problematic from the faith perspective. These two children are a girl named Amelia and a boy named Asher. Before we look at their claims, I want to point out that it is just these two children saying these things on the show. (0:30:31)

The other children, from a faith perspective, talk about God and angels and praying and they stress the need for an overwhelming importance of love, all of which is very much in agreement with the Christian faith. But there are two children that say some things that are potentially in conflict with it. So, we should keep that in perspective, as it does not represent what the majority of these kids are saying. (0:30:54)

So, it's outlier data. One moment that might cause some folks to pause is this clip about the speller Amelia. She often writes in Spanish. She, in one sentence, went from Spanish to English to Portuguese. And how does she say she knows that? She'll either say God taught her or the gods, plural. (0:31:21)

And she says that he teaches her at night. Sometimes she will say she was born knowing that. And one time I did ask her, I said, so you knew it as a baby? And she said before. (0:31:26)

So, whatever she was referring to. When Amelia was younger, she used to tell us that she would see the God or the gods at night and she would learn things from them. Recently, I asked her about, you know, different religions and different gods and different things that people believed. And she, and I asked her, you know, do you think that there are multiple gods out there? Or is it just one God or one being that everybody has a different name for? And she typed different names. (0:31:57)

So, there are two things here. First, Amelia refers to God or the gods teaching her. And second, she refers to a time before she was a baby. What do you make of the first one? I don't think it's ultimately decisive because when she was asked about this, she indicated that there's really one God that people call by different names. And that's certainly true. (0:32:26)

If you asked me why she spoke of the gods, it might be that she was referring to angels as lesser gods, which is exactly how the ancient Israelites sometimes talked about them. We discussed this back in episode 112 on God and the gods. I also don't expect a child like Amelia, who has limited communication abilities, to articulate things in the theologically precise way that I would as an adult who studied in this area. (0:32:50)

And this is a principle that we'll keep coming back to. What an individual person says about their experience is not always something you should rely on. As we discussed in episode 363 on Christianity and near-death experiences, scientists regularly set aside outlier data and look at the core of the experience. Because anybody can be wrong. (0:33:14)

They can misperceive or misunderstand things. So, you don't take single points of data as decisive. You look at the core of what's reported about an experience. That's why we insist on replication in science, because it's the core of a well-documented, repeatable experience that needs to be taken seriously, not outlier bits of data. And a lot of what comes through psychic functioning is also unreliable anyway. (0:33:40)

What about the second claim, that Amelia knew something before she was a baby? Would that point to the idea that souls exist before conception? Well, maybe, but there are three points to make here. First, even if you take what she said as indicating pre-existence of souls, that wouldn't be completely ruled out. (0:34:04)

The idea that souls exist before conception has not been a popular opinion in Christian history, but it hadn't been completely ruled out by church teaching. We discussed that back in episode 282 on announcing dreams, if you'd like to learn more about that. Second, there's another possibility, which is that Amelia was referring to the time after she was conceived, but before she was born. (0:34:27)

She might be identifying the term baby with a baby who's already been born, not a zygote or an embryo or another kind of unborn child. That is, she may have been saying that she knew the thing in question while she was still in her mother's womb. And third, we're still dealing with outlier data here, and so it shouldn't be considered decisive. What about other ideas that might be in conflict with the faith? Well, one passage that some might wonder about is this one. (0:34:55)

And Amelia from episode 7 also said she goes to a place at night where she learns things. She's talked about learning from rabbis, from Buddha, from God. So Amelia reportedly says that she's learned things from Buddha. In the first place, this would be outlier data again. And notice that again, it's coming from the same individual. (0:35:12)

These more challenging claims are coming from Amelia. So it could always be that Amelia just has a faulty connection. But second, if Amelia did learn something from Buddha, that would suggest that Buddhism is wrong because the definition of a Buddha is a person who has achieved nirvana. And nirvana is an unknowable, unreachable state in which a person has no more contact with this world or the afterlife. (0:35:44)

At least that's the understanding in Theravada Buddhism, which is the original historical form of Buddhism. So Buddha shouldn't be around to teach lessons to anybody in the world or in the afterlife. Not to mention that Buddhism teaches a doctrine of anatman, which means no self. In Buddhism, there is no continuing ongoing self, like a permanent soul. So Buddha also shouldn't be around for that reason after all this time. (0:36:08)

Third, if on the other hand, Christianity is right, and we do have permanent souls, and if Buddha, then Buddha would have a permanent soul. And if he made it to heaven, then he would still be available and might be able to teach people things, not things that contradict Christianity, but other things like, hey, turns out we have permanent selves or souls after all. (0:36:35)

And fourth, what this really sounds like to me is someone who doesn't really know much about Buddhism is imagining a list of religious figures that one might meet, you know, major religious figures that one might meet, and just assuming that they could all still be available despite what historical Buddhism has taught. So that could be evidence that this is not a genuine communication. (0:36:57)

And in any case, it's outlier data and should not be considered decisive. What about reincarnation, an idea that's common in Buddhism and other eastern religions? Do the telepathy tapes have anything to say about that? They do contain this passage. In England, Asher says he visits a place called the realms to access information about any topic. And he talked about time when his former teacher, Jess, asked him about reincarnation. (0:37:21)

And he said, well, reincarnation, definitely, yes. But he said it isn't past lives, because they're all happening at once. And we're all having all of our lives all of the time. But we're just not aware of that as 3D people, but they're all going on at once and they interact with each other. So if something happens in this lifetime, and you suddenly get the Eureka moment, and you find something out that's wonderful and amazing that you hadn't known before, that will actually have repercussions in other lives because they're all interconnected. (0:37:59)

It's all parts of our soul exploring consciousness in different ways. And we're basically building up huge amounts of information, every new thought we have, every new idea we have. And it isn't clear what Jess is saying Asher is claiming here. It sounds sorta like reincarnation, but also sorta not like reincarnation. What Jess attributes to Asher sounds like there are groups of people who are mentally linked. And what happens with one person affects other people in the link. (0:38:34)

But it's not like you are one person and then become another person when you die. So that doesn't actually sound like reincarnation. It just sounds like a group of telepathically linked people. Rather than trying to untangle exactly what's meant here, I would point out that Jess does not communicate through spelling or ordinary writing with Asher. It's supposed to all be a telepathic link between the two of them, with no external way to even attempt to verify what Asher is thinking. (0:39:05)

So it's entirely possible that Jess just imagines everything in her own head and then attributes it to Asher. Based on what they present in the show, there is no way to verify that Jess didn't just imagine it at all. So I don't think we can consider this a reliable communication claim, aside from the fact that it would again just be outlier data to begin with since we don't have lots of children claiming this. From what we hear on the show, it's just Asher, supposedly. (0:39:31)

Let me ask a question that I know some listeners will be wondering about. (0:39:35)

Could this all just be demons? I'm always open to the demon hypothesis, but we can't leap to it. As we discussed in episode 188 on whether it's always demons, you have to have evidence if you want to attribute things to demons. We've heard in a few cases of ideas that could conflict with the Christian faith, but these were all outlier data, and more importantly, they can be explained in other ways, which we'll get into more from the reason perspective. (0:40:07)

A tiny number of bits of outlier data that can be explained in other ways is not a solid basis for shouting demon. Of course, you could propose that the demons are just playing a really long game, and that the evidence for the demonic just hadn't emerged yet, but then you're building your case on evidence you don't yet have, which is irrational. (0:40:29)

The rational thing to do would be to wait for the evidence of the demonic to emerge before you draw a conclusion that something is demons. We also should be careful about proposing global hypotheses that involve demons. I'll give you a parallel illustration. You know, in the Bible, we read that demons sometimes cause physical illnesses, but it would be a mistake to say, hey, demons can cause physical illnesses, so everybody with a physical illness must be demonically possessed. Every time you get a cold, you need an exorcism. (0:41:00)

In the same way, even if you got evidence that demons are involved in some of these situations, it would be a mistake to say that all of the phenomena discussed in the telepathy tapes must be due to demons. Finding a few individuals who have demons does not give you evidence that a whole class of people has them. (0:41:22)

We need to be more discriminating than that, and we need much, much more evidence to propose demons as a global explanation. Finally, I'd like to point out that one of the things that is a recurring theme in what these children are supposedly saying is the theme of love and how important it is. Love is at the core of the Christian faith. (0:41:47)

Love is the first and the second great commandments. Love God and love your neighbor. As 1 John 4 says, God is love. And so to the extent that these children are promoting love, that would be evidence of at least some kind suggesting that it's not purely demonic. Now, I'm not saying it proves it's not demonic, but promoting love is not something that demons are particularly interested in, certainly not for its own sake. (0:42:10)

Then let's turn to the reasoned perspective. What can we say about the telepathy tapes here? You identified a set of eight claims we ought to consider from the podcast. How do you want to go through them? I want to start at the bottom of the list, which deals with some of the more peripheral claims, and then work our way up to the top of the list, which makes the most central claim. (0:42:29)

And I don't want to spend a huge amount of time on some of these, so we'll go through a few of the claims pretty fast. (0:42:33)

Then what about the eighth claim that sometimes neurotypicals gain abilities similar to the children later in life, like if they have a brain injury or brain surgery or something? This is actually something that's reported in the literature. If people undergo trauma, they may develop psychic abilities. This is true, for example, of people who've had near death experiences. (0:42:59)

If they've gone through clinical death or even approaching clinical death, then that involves a good bit of trauma, and a notable number of people who have had NDEs report having psychic experiences afterward. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if psychic abilities exist that undergoing trauma, such as having brain surgery, could result in some adults spontaneously developing psychic abilities later in life. (0:43:22)

However, this is a peripheral claim in the telepathy tapes, at least in season one, which is primarily about non-speaking children, so we won't go into this further here. Then what about the seventh claim, that the children sometimes have telepathy with neurotypicals? I also don't have a problem here. There has been considerable research done on what you can call bonded pair telepathy, which is where two people who are emotionally close or bonded with each other can experience telepathy, like between a husband and wife or between a parent and a child. (0:43:55)

Well, non-speaking children are bonded with their parents, they may also be bonded with their teachers and caregivers, and so it would not surprise me if they sometimes manage to get a neurotypical person at least partially plugged into the loop, such as by projecting their own thoughts into the neurotypical person's head. However, I would note that we have different things going on here. (0:44:16)

Most of the children covered in the telepathy tapes communicate through spelling, but two of the children are reported to communicate strictly through telepathy. Both of them were in England. You'll recall the teacher Jess and her student Asher, who communicates with her telepathically while they're both conscious, and also Carolyn and her son Kyle, who telepathically communicates with his mother in her dreams. (0:44:39)

These are fundamentally different procedures, and research would need to be done on each form of communication to validate that they really are communicating. So, to establish that the spelling children have telepathy, you'd need to do research on them. For people who claim to have conscious telepathy without spelling, you'd need to test that. And for people who claim to have dream telepathy, you'd need to test that too. (0:45:07)

Because even if it turned out that spelling is a genuine form of communication, and that the spelling children turn out to be genuinely telepathic, it could still turn out that people like Jess and Carolyn are imagining what's happening. So, in each case, you'd need to establish that the parties really are communicating, and that these particular parties have real telepathy. (0:45:26)

I could describe the kinds of tests that you could do in cases like Jess's and Carolyn's. They would basically involve passing information to the non-speaker that their communication partner is not aware of, and then see if the communication partner can accurately determine what was told to the non-speaker in a way that goes beyond random chance. (0:45:51)

Like, maybe before bedtime, you show Carolyn's son a picture of something, and then you see if he can pass that information of what the picture was to his mom in a dream, so when she wakes up, she can tell you what the picture was. But since our focus in the telepathy tapes is about spelling to communicate, we'll devote most of our attention to that. But in principle, I have no problem with the concept here. (0:46:10)

What about the sixth claim, that these children are going to usher in a new age and transform the world? (0:46:17)

This one is harder to evaluate because the claims about this toward the end of the telepathy tapes are so non-specific, which is in part because they're so aspirational. I will say that they strike me as, to some degree, as wishful thinking and hyperbole. Even granted that all of the claims in the telepathy tapes are true, I'm skeptical of bold claims about major transformations in society. These have a poor historical track record of working out, and even when changes in the world do happen, they tend to be slower than a lot of people initially thought. (0:46:54)

I'm also frankly turned off by the I am a genius, I am a futuristic human being, we are superior to you language that we get in episode 10. It frankly comes across as arrogant, and not what I would expect from humble people focused on love. However, I don't want to be too critical here, because we're dealing with kids, and so they are by definition not mature adults. (0:47:18)

Also, if you have a bunch of kids who have been looked down on, their whole lives as mentally disabled, when really they're not mentally disabled, and in fact have some abilities that most folks don't, I can imagine that they might stress the hey, we're actually superior side of things, and overcompensate for the fact that they're so often looked down on. (0:47:39)

I also don't deny that if the telepathy tapes claims are true, that there would be a big change in the future. If you can show that they really are communicating, and they really are mentally normal, that of itself would force a huge change in how classic autism is treated. Classic autism being the form that often results in a person being non-speaking, as opposed to other problems of the autism spectrum that don't produce the same kind of challenges. (0:48:09)

So that discovery alone would rock the autism world. And if it turns out they're also telepathic, that would have a broader impact on the world at large, since it would prove the existence of psychic functioning, which would impact society in all kinds of ways. I'm thus skeptical of the claims that these children are here to lead us into a magical golden age, but I don't have a problem with the idea that if these claims are true, that there would be a significant change in society. (0:48:39)

What about claim number five, that the children have a wide range of psychic abilities besides telepathy? Well, I think it depends on how you take this claim, and that's something that they're not super specific on in the podcast. If the claim is that they are all psychic savants across the board, so that in addition to robust telepathy, each child also has robust clairvoyance, robust precognition, robust psychokinesis, robust out-of-body experiences, and robust abilities at communicating with the dead, I'd be quite skeptical of that. (0:49:15)

However, the sense I get from the podcast, even though they aren't as clear as I would like, is that they're not making that strong a claim. Instead, they're just claiming that these various abilities are all reported among the children, but it's not like each child has each and every one of them in a robust form. Well, that's a much more reasonable claim. In the world of psychic research on adults, there are reports of people having more than one psychic ability, often with one ability being stronger than another, you know, that they may display to a lesser degree. (0:49:48)

So, if the kids are highly telepathic, it wouldn't surprise me that other psychic abilities are reported in the same population. I thus wouldn't have a problem with the more modest claim. How about claim number four, that they communicate on the hill or other telepathic chat rooms like it? Well, if they really do have robust telepathy, I wouldn't find this implausible. People want to talk to each other, and so a child who can't communicate through speech would naturally want to find others they can't communicate with, just like people who are deaf want to communicate with other people in sign language, and not just inside their own family, but as part of a broader community of people. (0:50:27)

Well, the research on psychic functioning suggests that it's not limited by distance. Specifically, research on telepathy has suggested that it works across very significant distances. In fact, when astronaut Edgar Mitchell was on his way to our sister planet, the moon, back in 1971 on Apollo 14, he conducted private telepathy experiments with friends back on Earth, and he got positive results that went well beyond random chance. (0:50:52)

So, I wouldn't be shocked at all if highly telepathic children here on Earth, who couldn't communicate otherwise, started group chats like the hill. I thus have no problem with this basic claim. Then how about the third claim, that some or even all non-speaking and low-speaking autistic children are telepathic? I'm certainly open to the claim. As we heard at the beginning of today's episode, Dr. Powell proposed that non-speaking autistic children would be plausible candidates for telepathy, given the human drive to communicate. (0:51:29)

(transcript 2of2)

（以下は podcast の文字起こしです。長いので 2分割しています。以下はその後半部分です。）

Now, if you claim that all such children are telepathic, that's a stronger claim than just some of them are. So, you're going to need to do more research to show that, because it might turn out that some of them are and some of them aren't. But if we leave the claim open, so that it's either some or all non-speaking autistic children are telepathic, well, I have no problem with this basic claim. (0:51:54)

Our last two claims do not involve the paranormal and are purely scientific claims. So, what do you make of claim number two, that classical autism is not an intellectual disability, but one that makes it hard for children to control their bodies in a way that prevents many of them from using speech to communicate? Well, I'm open to this. (0:52:16)

As we pointed out last episode, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual doesn't include anything about an intellectual disability in its definition of autism spectrum disorder. Now, this could simply be because of the decision to merge classical autism and Asperger's syndrome. Asperger's syndrome clearly doesn't require an intellectual disability, because there are very highly intelligent people who have Asperger's. So, if you're going to merge Asperger's with classical autism, you can't really include intellectual disability in the consolidated definition. (0:52:47)

And I know some individuals who think that the two should not have been merged. For example, Dr. Powell thinks that the merger was a mistake and that autism and Asperger's are really two separate conditions. If that's the case, then it might turn out that autism does involve an intellectual disability, even though Asperger's doesn't. That's not necessarily what Dr. Powell thinks, as I understand it, but it would be a possibility. I'd thus say that I'm open on the issue of whether classical autism involves an intellectual disability or a neuromotor disability that prevents communication. (0:53:25)

The way to sort that out is by making sure that we have a reliable means of communication with people who have classical autism so that we can assess their intelligence. But I have no problem with the claim itself. We simply need to do the research. Then let's go for the big one. Claim number one, that spelling to communicate is a reliable means of communication with non-speakers. Almost everyone involved in the telepathy tapes uses spelling to communicate, so the truth of almost all the claims it makes depends on this. This is really the linchpin of the whole series. (0:53:59)

What do you make of spelling to communicate? Well, as we covered last episode, I'm open, but more research needs to be done. Last episode, we saw that there were serious problems with the related practice of facilitated communication back in the 1990s. It was not a reliable means of communication. After a series of accusations of sexual abuse, the courts got involved and was done to determine who was the actual author of the messages that facilitated communication produced. Was the author the non-speaking communicator or was the author the facilitator, even though the facilitator didn't realize this? And as we saw last week, it turned out that the actual author was the facilitator. (0:54:48)

This was established by showing things and then asking what things had been shown. If you showed both the facilitator and the communicator a picture of a dog, then the message would say D-O-G and be correct. But if you showed the facilitator a picture of a dog and the communicator a picture of a cat, so that the correct answer was C-A-T, the message would still say dog. (0:55:15)

And if you showed the communicator something like a key and you showed the facilitator nothing at all, then the message would not come up with the correct answer either. So what was happening is that by holding the communicator's hands, the facilitator was unconsciously sending signals about what the hand should do next. (0:55:32)

And the communicator was picking up on these signals. So the facilitator was the real author of the messages. This relies on what's known as the ideomotor effect, which occurs when our subconscious causes tiny involuntary movements that we're not consciously aware of. It's also what powers Ouija boards. And it's easy to demonstrate. You can watch last week's episode for a demonstration of the ideomotor effect that I did using a pendulum. (0:56:00)

So facilitated communication did not work, but it's claimed that the rapid prompting method or spelling to communicate uses improved methods. For example, they don't at least typically hold the communicator's hand anymore, and they're meant to go through a process that's aimed at them eventually getting to where they do independent typing on a speech device that nobody is touching, though not all spellers get that far. (0:56:29)

In episode eight of the telepathy tapes, they introduce a man named Joe, who's a pastor in Arizona, and he says that he looked into the scientific literature and he states that there were a lot of negative findings about facilitated communication back in the 1990s, but that there are now more than a hundred papers looking at spelling to communicate that are more positive. (0:56:49)

He states that they're saying, wait a minute, we missed something here. The problem is that they never name these papers in the telepathy tapes. They don't provide links to them in the show notes, they don't indicate what publications we can find them in, they don't give us the names of the researchers, and they don't give us keywords that we can use to search the medical literature to find them. (0:57:10)

There's also a problem in that Joe may be confused in two different things. There have been studies on spelling to communicate that look at some aspects of it, but what there have not been are studies that look at the authorship question, which is what you need to look at to show that this form of communication works. In Skeptical Inquirer, Stuart Weiss writes, What about those hundred papers? First of all, there aren't a hundred such papers. (0:57:35)

Second, none of the papers that do exist in support of these newer letterboard methods employ the simple test of authorship that produced the negative results in the 1990s. Not a single one. Apparently, the proponents of the new methods have learned a lesson from the 1990s. Don't submit to testing. This philosophy is most directly expressed in the pro-letterboard film, Spellers. Vaishnavi Sarathi, who holds a PhD in chemistry, appears in the movie and says, When a child is communicating, we don't need the science. (0:58:10)

Sarathi, also the mother of Sid, a non-speaking child featured in the film, says, I don't want the science. I want Sid to talk. I don't care about the science. I know that Sid is talking. The attitude adopted in Spellers and in the telepathy tapes is one of belief over evidence and strident advocacy over open-minded questioning. (0:58:33)

So it seems that the needed studies of authorship have not been done. What about the suggestion that Weiss made that the advocates of spelling learned the lesson from the 1990s not to have testing done on their procedure? What do you make of that? I understand why Weiss might think that, but I prefer not to speculate on other people's unstated motives. (0:58:55)

I prefer to see what the advocates of spelling have to say for themselves about why the testing hadn't been done. So we'll look at that in a bit, and we can see if the reasons they offer are persuasive or not. There's also a difference between the situation now and the situation then. In the 1990s, the testing on facilitated communication was forced when the courts had to get involved to decide on allegations of sexual abuse that the method had produced. (0:59:22)

But so far, spelling doesn't seem to have produced such allegations, certainly not on the same scale. That could be explained by saying that facilitated communication didn't work, that it let the facilitator's subconscious fears take over and produce the false allegations, while today's spelling does work, and so it's generating a similar batch of false allegations. (0:59:44)

Can you see any way that a skeptic could explain this other than the idea that spelling works? I can, and for several reasons. First, the communication partner of a speller is frequently one of their parents. This has even been noted in the literature. And if a parent knows that sexual abuse is not occurring, or even if it is and they don't want it to be found out, they're scarcely likely to report that it's happening. (1:00:08)

Second, when the communications partner is someone other than a parent, one or both parents are often in the room, and so false allegations of abuse are unlikely to be made right in front of the parents. Back in the 1990s, these reports were happening in private when the parents weren't there, you know, like when the kid was at school or something. (1:00:29)

And third, the communications partners today know that it was the false allegations that brought down facilitated communication, so they'd have a subconscious incentive not to do the same thing to this method that they strongly believe in. You know, they'd have a subconscious urge that says, don't receive the kind of messages that would force the courts to look into spelling the same way the courts looked into facilitated communication. It could shatter everything we're doing here. (1:00:57)

I thus think that you could explain the absence of a wave of sexual abuse allegations either because spelling works, so false allegations are not being made, or because the communication partners are incentivized not to make false allegations. So, I don't think that this gives us evidence either way on the authorship question. We've already covered some of this, but how would you articulate the key objection that critics make to spelling to communicate? The main objection is that it uses principles that are similar to that of facilitated communication. (1:01:31)

In the first place, some forms of spelling do involve touching the speller, and the Telepathy Tapes does mention this, but they minimize this fact when they consider the objections to the method. (1:01:40)

However, even when the communication partner is not touching the speller at all, for most of them, they're still holding what the communicator is typing on, whether it's a letter board or an iPad. And it doesn't matter which thing you're holding. If you're holding the communicator's hand, you can unintentionally guide the hand to the correct letter. And if you're holding a letter board or an iPad in front of the speller, you can unintentionally move the letter board so that the speller hits the right letter. (1:02:13)

So, you still have an opening for the ideomotor effect, and you need to do authorship testing to show that that's not what's happening. However, the spelling to communicate community has thus far resisted doing authorship testing. Why is that? How do advocates of spelling explain that decision? Well, as we heard, they say things like, I know this works. (1:02:35)

I see my own child communicating. Some of them say if you see your child communicating, you don't need science to prove it to you. They also may say that it's degraded and dehumanizing to assume that these children are intellectually handicapped and that as a matter of human rights, we need to presume competence on the part of these children. Some may also say that you need to believe in the children for them to perform. (1:02:55)

If you don't, if you do rigorous tests on them, then, well, that'll make them nervous, and they'll get dysregulated, and then they'll fail the tests. How would a skeptic reply to these claims? Well, to the claim that they see their own children communicating, so they don't need proof, a skeptic would say a couple of things. First, well, that's exactly what many people who used facilitated communication said. (1:03:21)

They really did believe their children were communicating until the false allegations of sexual abuse that forced the matter to be tested. And second, you may not personally need evidence that this works, but if you want people to believe what you claim your child is saying, like your child is a genius who is highly telepathic, well, then you need to offer those people evidence that this communication method works. (1:03:45)

Otherwise, they have no reason to accept such startling claims. Further, if you want society to accept that spelling to communicate works, so that other people accept the messages that come through it, so that spelling to communicate becomes an accepted practice, so that people in schools and institutions will use it, and so that the taxpayers will pay for it to be given to children, well, then you need to provide evidence that it works, and that the children are the real authors of the messages. (1:04:14)

What about the second claim advocates make that it's dehumanizing not to presume competence on the part of the children? A skeptic could respond by saying, I'm not making that presumption at all. I'd be delighted if it turns out that classical autism doesn't involve an intellectual disability, but just a purely neuromuscular one. If we can establish that, we can get these kids the kind of help they really need. (1:04:35)

So, a skeptic can be happy to presume competence for the purpose of testing. (1:04:40)

That would be one of the hypotheses that needs to be tested, that these children really are intellectually competent, and they have totally normal intelligence. Now, let's test the hypothesis and see if it holds up. What about the third claim advocates make, that if you do the tests, it will make the children nervous and cause them to melt down so that they fail the tests? (1:05:03)

Well, if that were true, it would make the situation conveniently untestable. It would put it beyond the realm of science, since science is based on running experiments. It would thus be totally accurate for opponents of Spellin to say there is no scientific evidence that Spellin works, and that it looks like it's facilitated communication in another form. If you don't do the scientific tests, then it's fair to say there's no scientific evidence. (1:05:31)

But I don't think that the claim is actually true. Certainly not of all non-speakers. If a non-speaker has a meltdown, well, you can just stop the testing. And although I won't go through all the details, you can design the experiments in a way to make the children feel very comfortable. You can test them in places that they already know and are comfortable with. (1:05:53)

You can keep the number of people in the room low so that they're comfortable. In fact, you really only need two people in the room, the speller and their communication partner. In fact, I wouldn't have the experimenter in the room at all, lest the experimenter unintentionally give an encouraging or discouraging signal that could affect the results. (1:06:13)

So you can make sure that only people the children already know and are comfortable with are in the room. You can even use hidden cameras to film the experiment, so there's no intrusive unfamiliar equipment in the room. All you need to do is image-based authorship tests, where in random computer-determined patterns, sometimes the speller and the partner see the same things, sometimes the speller and the partner see different images, sometimes the speller sees an image and the partner sees nothing, and sometimes the speller sees nothing and the partner sees an image. (1:06:48)

And you can do that with just two screens, one of which is visible to the speller and one of which is visible to the communicator. So this would be very easy to test, and it would not put spellers under undue stress, and if they have a meltdown anyway, you just stop the testing with this speller. So this is very doable. (1:07:11)

And if Spelling to Communicate works in the real-life situations that people claim it works in, surely some of the children will be able to demonstrate that it works. I mean, they claim that they put the children in the telepathy tapes through tests to gauge their telepathy. Surely they could handle tests of whether Spelling to Communicate works. I'm spelling dog when you just saw a picture of a dog is surely less stressful than being asked to spell the three-digit number that your mom is thinking of, given how many three-digit numbers there are. (1:07:46)

So I think it would be very possible to do the needed authorship tests for Spelling to Communicate. You just mentioned the tests that were done on the telepathy tapes. Let's look at those more closely. Many people have found them convincing. What if people who have analyzed the show said... Well, many who have listened to the podcast have found the tests they do on it very convincing. (1:08:06)

That's one of the reasons the podcast is so popular. If they didn't take the tests as provided evidence for telepathy, people would be a lot less interested in it. But it's been pointed out that there's no real way to cross-examine the tests they're doing on the show. Even though they filmed these tests, they don't provide the films to the listener. The telepathy tapes is not like Mysterious World, where they provide video to the public. (1:08:26)

It's an audio-only podcast, so you can't see what they're doing and evaluate it for yourself. Kai does say that you can watch the videos of the experiments at the website for the podcast, but you can't watch them for free. They're behind a paywall, and you need to pay $10 to see them because she's raising money to make a film about the same subject. (1:08:48)

And if she does, maybe we'll get better access to the footage then. Have some skeptics paid the fee to access the footage? If so, what have they thought? Some have. One of them is Stuart Weiss, who wrote an article for the Skeptical Inquirer. And some little snippets are also available in the video trailer for the telepathy tapes on YouTube. Since the original videos are paywalled, and Kai put big copyright watermarks on them, Weiss relies on the footage from the trailer. (1:09:20)

But the paywalled videos are apparently the same. One of the things he points out essentially confirms the impression that I got from listening to the audio version of the podcast. It seems that in all the tests they did on the show, the Speller's communication partner knows the correct answer to whatever question is being asked. For example, Weiss provides two stills from episode 3 where Houston is being tested for telepathy, and his mother is serving as his communications partner. (1:09:49)

Behind Houston, so where Houston can't see, Dr. Powell holds up a plus two card from the card game Uno. In the first frame, Katie, the mother and the communication partner, turns to look at the plus two Uno card, so she knows the correct answer. And then she turns to hold the letterboard in front of Houston, and he types plus two. (1:10:17)

Now, you could explain that as Houston is reading the information out of Katie's mind, or you could say that Katie's ideomotor effect is controlling the positioning of the letterboard so that when Houston pokes forward, the letterboard intercepts him in such a way that it selects the plus and then the two. Both explanations are equally good the way this test has been set up, so this kind of test doesn't provide evidence for telepathy in particular, and this is apparently typical for the tests they do on the telepathy tapes. (1:10:51)

Vice also provides an illustration of a test that was done with Mia, the little girl from Mexico, in episode 1. Vice describes the test this way. The psychic test that so impressed the cinematographer in episode 1 involved a blindfolded girl sorting colored popsicle sticks. The basic setup is shown in figure 2, another screenshot taken from the trailer. (1:11:14)

The girl is seated at a table with four different colored popsicle sticks, and she is blindfolded. In the paywalled test video, the girl's mother is seated on a couch next to her, and the mother's hand is on top of the girl's blindfold. For each trial, the mother hands the girl a popsicle stick, and the girl's job is to move her hand left or right to the correct spot and drop the popsicle stick. (1:11:39)

The mother's hand is on the girl's forehead the whole time, and of course the mother can see the array of popsicle sticks on the table. (1:11:44)

To my eyes, the mother appears to move the girl's head back and forth as a prompt to where she should drop the stick. In one case, when the girl was hesitant and the correct pile was to her far left, the mother appeared to be pushing the girl's head very far to the left side. It's possible that the girl is in charge and the hand is just riding on the forehead, but in that case, what is the mother's hand doing? The film clip provides an obvious alternative, non-psychic explanation for what is going on, but it is never explored. (1:12:21)

The filmmakers accept the results on face value. No one ever asks, can she do it without your hand on her head? And that's a really important question. Here, we aren't even doing something as complicated as spelling, so why does Mia need to be in physical contact with her mother? Could someone say that Mia needs contact with her mother because that human contact helps her slow down her autism and function? That was one of the claims made by advocates of facilitated communication as we heard last episode, that the human contact helps them focus and slow down. (1:12:59)

Sure, someone could propose that, and the standard scientific way of testing this kind of phenomenon, at least in parapsychology, would be to let the test participants do things in a way that seems normal to them, and then gradually begin introducing controls to eliminate possibilities, like the mother's ideomotor effect is controlling the direction of her daughter's head. Well, once Mia is blindfolded, she can't see anything, and we can still let her mother see the situation in case Mia needs to look through her mother's eyes telepathically. (1:13:29)

So what we do is we have a third person with a similar hand to the mother's touch Mia's head, so Mia can't see that it's not her mother, and she still gets the human contact to slow her down and help her focus, but we blindfold the third person so that they can't see what color stick Mia is holding and thus can't direct Mia's head where to go. (1:13:56)

Easy peasy. We've thus introduced a simple change that controls for the possibility that Mia's mother is unconsciously guiding where Mia's head goes to signal where to drop the stick, and while giving Mia human contact that supposedly will help her in this situation. And if the claim is made that, well, Mia might be frightened or dysregulated by a person that she's not familiar with having her hand on her head that she could pick up telepathically, well, we'll just have the third person who's blindfolded be another family member that she's already comfortable with. (1:14:28)

What about situations where the parent is not physically touching either the child or what they're using to communicate? In episode two, Kai introduced us to the mother Manisha and her son Akil. Dr. Powell had recommended them to her because Akil doesn't need to use a letterboard, he can type on an iPad. And once in episode two, he was doing that when he wasn't near his mother. (1:14:50)

Well, this is true, and it could be that Akil is able to communicate in a way that spellers using letterboards don't. It also could be true that he is telepathic. Akil also is partially verbal, so he makes an effort at communicating through speech. (1:15:02)

Even though he often can't say the whole word, Manisha listens to what he says and interprets it. But that's a subjective process, and Manisha might be hearing what she wants to hear. In an article for the New Yorker, Elizabeth Weil also visited Manisha and Akil and did her own telepathy tests. She reports, In her living room, Manisha handed me half a dozen slips of paper and told me to write a word or a sentence on each. (1:15:29)

While I sat on the couch writing, Akil grew agitated. He ran down the hall and returned, slapped a hand against his chest, and yelled, We will show you my mind is very good. Manisha tried to calm him. Just one or two, that's it, okay? Don't worry. Just one or two, that's it. (1:15:56)

Akil 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. Okay, big sentence, she said. Okay, we'll try. Akil shouted, I will tell you what's in my mom's mind. You tell her what is it. What is it? (1:16:18)

Manisha said. While Akil typed on his iPad, Manisha sat on 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. Akil called out as he typed, My husband is, Manisha said, consolidating and translating. From this, Manisha pronounced, My husband is going surfing. She sounded relieved. (1:16:51)

Okay, so that's not a particularly convincing test, but that could be due to Akil's speech limitations, and maybe only Manisha can understand his clipped words correctly. Give me one word, Manisha said to me. He's feeling that unbelief. If you are questioning, you need to change your questioning. I apologized for the skepticism inherent in my role as a journalist. Then I handed Manisha a slip that read strawberry. (1:17:19)

This time, instead of typing, Akil just sat for 10 seconds, blanket around his shoulders, iPad on the rug before him. Akil, Akil, Manisha said. 10 more seconds passed. Akil typed no letters. Manisha said, Strawberry. Very good. So this test was also a fail. Akil didn't type or say anything, but Manisha eventually said the word and then said very good, perhaps to reassure Akil. So they did a third test. (1:17:50)

She asked me to choose a shorter word. I wrote pepper. When Akil returned, he typed A-A-A-E-P-D-A-B-A. So this test was also a fail. Elizabeth wrote the word pepper, and Akil typed a meaningless string of letters that did not resemble pepper. Elizabeth continues. I felt terrible for coming. New person. He can catch that emotion. He feels that uncertainty, Manisha said, her voice tightening. If you have 1% doubt, if you have that, he can catch it. (1:18:27)

My presence put a tear in the survivable world Manisha had constructed. (1:18:32)

Voice recorders and reporter's notebooks had no place here. I apologized and called a lift as she clearly wanted me to go. So if Weil is accurately reporting what happened in her encounter with Manisha and Akil, it raises questions about what we're hearing in the telepathy tapes. I'm not doubting that the experiments worked the way that Kai said, after all, she filmed them. (1:18:57)

But you have to wonder what's being left out. Are there other factors that put the tests in a different light? This is something that Weil also explores. For example, one of my questions is, why do so many spellers need to have the letterboard held in front of them? That's something that allows the ideomotor effect to play a role here. (1:19:19)

But you could easily eliminate that possibility by putting the same letterboard on a stand that is conveniently close to the speller and that's at the right angle for the speller. They don't address that on the telepathy tapes, but for many, it appears necessary that it be held. Weil reports, Houston, like other spellers, can't spell if the letterboard is lying flat on the table. (1:19:40)

He needs someone to hold the board in the air. Houston, like other spellers, can also spell only with specific communication partners. Within his family, he can spell with Katie and his eldest sister, but not with his wrestler brother who lives at home. That brother explained this to me by saying he can't anticipate Houston's words. And you shouldn't need to anticipate someone's words if they really are communicating on their own. If anticipating the letter that comes next is important, that suggests that the ideomotor effect is playing a role by moving the board to where the right letter will be the target. (1:20:19)

Can you explain why someone would need to hold the board in another way? Oh, sure. You could say that the person needs to hold the letterboard so that if the speller gets stuck, you can whisk the letterboard away, let them refocus, and then start again. Fine. But if a human really needs to hold the letterboard so that it's floating in the air, then you also have to look at what that person's doing with their body. (1:20:44)

So, Elizabeth Weil decided to ask someone to watch the videos carefully. The patterns, hidden to most of us, are legible to a trained eye. Look, as soon as she sees his hand coming down, she moves the board to match the right number. The expert mentalist Peter Turner noted as he watched videos Dickens provided of her telepathy tests, starting with Katie and Houston. Watching a video of Mia, he noted her mother's hand on Mia's chin and how the mother's thumb and fingers guided Mia's movements. (1:21:19)

In a third dyad, Turner laid out a further lexicon of cues. Small gestures, see what she's doing with her hands, she's letting him know that he's on the right path. Unnecessary words that can serve as codes, watch that woman again, you'll hear words like focus, like okay, okay, what is it? (1:21:36)

Often he saw parents signaling to their children when they were wrong, and thus in the absence of those signals, when they were right. Taken together, all this formed what Turner described as a private language, an idiosyncratic vocabulary that, he theorized, took on meaning organically over time. The pair likely gained fluency without even realizing how, thus the sense of telepathy. And this is not just something that this expert noticed. (1:22:09)

You'll recall that in episode six on the scientific evidence for telepathy, Kai brought on scientists Rupert Sheldrake and Dean Radin, but they talked about telepathy and children in general terms, they didn't provide any evaluations of the experiments that Kai had done. But in Elizabeth Weil's article, we read this. 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. (1:22:35)

But in watching the videos of Dickens' tests, Radin observed no credible evidence of telepathy. What he saw was love, yearning, and belief. In some cases, probably all cases, the mom or the trainer is very heavily committed to seeing that the child is doing something extraordinary, he said. So when parapsychologist Dean Radin looked at the videos, he didn't see credible evidence of telepathy. (1:23:06)

We've covered some of the views of others in evaluating the telepathy tapes experiments, but now I want to put you on the spot. What do you make of them? Well, I have no problem with the idea of telepathy. I'm not a closed-off skeptic who dismisses psychic function and is impossible. In fact, I teach parapsychology, and I'd love for the basic claims the telepathy tapes make to be true. (1:23:26)

Even apart from the parapsychological claims, I'd love for it to turn out to be true that classical autism is a neuromotor disorder rather than an intellectual one, and that we've cracked how to communicate with the people who have it so that spelling actually works. I'd be overjoyed if that turns out to be true. (1:23:45)

But from listening to the podcast, I haven't heard convincing evidence of these things. In the first place, the experiments Kai does on the show are not properly controlled to eliminate the ideomotor effect from the communications partner. All of this can be explained as the ideomotor effect of the partner who knows the correct answer and is in contact with either the communicator or the communications tool. (1:24:10)

Further, I find it suspicious that many of the children in the telepathy tapes are said to have 100% accuracy on these tests. That is most definitely not what parapsychological tests have typically found. They may show that people can do things in a way that goes beyond what random chance would have, but 100% accuracy is extraordinarily unusual. Now, you could say that that's because these kids are psychic savants. (1:24:37)

They're a population that is not normally tested by parapsychologists, and they just have a different accuracy rate. But there's no way to know that unless you put in the controls needed to eliminate things like the ideomotor effect, and that isn't done here. So, unless the tests are repeated with the needed controls, the unprecedented nature of the claim is still reason to doubt it. (1:25:01)

There's also a plausible explanation for how the claims of telepathy might arise. If spelling works because of the ideomotor effect, and if you need to be able to anticipate what the speller is going to do in order to function as a communication partner, then that anticipation would give you a feeling of, hey, I kind of feel like I know what you're about to do. Are we reading each other's minds? (1:25:22)

And so you could see how the idea of telepathy would get injected into these discussions. (1:25:28)

And finally, there are individual things I noticed when listening to the telepathy tapes, like how the spellers were frequently coming up with ungrammatical messages that had to be interpreted to make sense, or how the answers they gave, especially in episode 10, didn't quite fit the question that they were being asked. It's like the first part of the message had been randomly generated, and then the communication partner had to complete the message in a way that it made sense given the question. (1:26:03)

So there was a kind of curious disconnect between the question and how the answer started. But there was also this incident. You'll recall that John Paul, the gentle giant who wanted to marry Lily, but who later died in a hot tub, well, their caretakers would arrange for them to get together and hang out. At the end of one of these dates, the therapist asked John Paul and Lily if there were any final words they wanted to say to one another. And this is what they spelled. (1:26:27)

When I received this exchange, I wrote to Lily and her dad via text message and asked why she needed to ask about John Paul's family. Wouldn't she already know the answer to that if they're speaking mind to mind? This is what Lily wrote back. And then her dad Scott followed up with his own text saying, My radar went off when I heard this. (1:27:31)

Now, Kai's question about why Lily asked John Paul how his family was is a good question if they're telepathic. Why wouldn't she already know the answer? But a good question needs a good answer, and that's not what I heard here. If I had been in Lily's place as someone who thinks a lot about telepathy and how it might work, I'd be inclined to say, well, John Paul hadn't been thinking about how his family was, and we'd been communicating about other stuff, so I didn't know the answer, and I suddenly thought to ask the question at the end when the translator wanted to know if there was anything else we wanted to say. (1:28:09)

That would have been a good answer to Kai's question. But not everyone thinks about how telepathy may work, at least not as much as I do, and the answer that was attributed to Lily sounds like it came from one of those people, probably Lily's father, who didn't think to question the premise of Kai's question, that Lily should have already known the answer if they're telepathic. (1:28:36)

I didn't know the answer, so I asked is a better response to the question than I did know, but it seemed natural to ask the question that I already knew the answer to since we were using a helper. That sounds like a belief-preserving answer made up after the fact rather than a natural answer, especially since spelling requires effort, and if it works, it also requires quite a bit of concentration. (1:29:02)

So it doesn't make sense to me that you would ask unnecessary questions that you already knew the answer to just because you were using spelling and using a helper. This thus looks to me like a slip-up that reveals that John, Paul, and Lily may not actually be communicating, either telepathically or through spelling. (1:29:20)

I know there's also one other thing you wanted to point out about a potential problem with the communication method here. What's that? Well, this is not something that would occur to hardened skeptics who reject any possibility of psychic functioning, but if you're open to the possibility of psychic functioning, you have to consider it. So listen to this clip from episode 8. Marianne thinks it's essential for everyone to know about this telepathic and energetic link because influence can occur and that's dangerous not to tell everybody who's using the process because if communication partners aren't aware of this telepathic link or the merging of consciousness or whatever you want to call it, then they won't be able to clear their mind or shield their thoughts to ensure that the speller is only communicating their thoughts. (1:30:06)

The person can influence the other person not knowingly and be totally unaware of it. So this is very important. In other circles like remote viewing, the phenomenon they're describing is known as telepathic overlay. One of the things that remote viewers discovered was that the results they got could be polluted by the thoughts and beliefs of other people involved in what they were doing. (1:30:33)

Like instead of remotely viewing the actual real world target, they started reporting back what their monitor or their employer believed about the target. The other person's beliefs were being telepathically laid on top of the perceptions that the remote viewer is getting and so they developed steps to try to block telepathic overlay. And telepathic overlay has been reported in other fields as well. (1:30:56)

Well, what this clip is reporting is that telepathic overlay also happens with these children and people need to know about it so they can try to prevent it. As the episode goes on, they give examples of that. Like one communication partner will sing, you are my sunshine, my only sunshine in her head to prevent her thoughts from interfering with what the speller is saying. (1:31:17)

And another will repeat the word pumpkin over and over in her head to prevent the same thing. But if telepathy exists, then telepathic overlay is a real problem. It could be that even if spell and communicate does work, it could be the thoughts of someone other than the speller are coming through. In other words, the speller may not be picking up clues for the correct answer through someone holding their hand, or through someone moving their letter board, or some verbal cue they're being given, but because they are telepathically picking up what someone wants them to select next. (1:31:52)

In that case, you'd need to introduce additional protocols to try to control for the possibility of telepathic overlay contributing to the message. Just as we heard, some of the communication partners have been trying to do, which is commendable. The trajectory of this week's episode is similar to last week's. Last week, we saw a bunch of evidence against facilitating communication and spelling to communicate. (1:32:19)

But then at the end of the episode, you pulled out reasons for hope. Do you see any hope this time? Sure. As I pointed out last week, there are some spellers who have transitioned to using communication tools like iPads that are in fixed positions and that aren't being held by anyone. Those involve a different and better situation that suggests that at least these spellers may really be communicating, and so people need to look into the situation of these spellers more closely. (1:32:47)

In the same way, there may be individuals in the telepathy tapes who are capable of independent communication, like Akil is reported to do, and their situations need to be looked at more closely as well. Though, at least based on Elizabeth Weil's experience, it sounds like Akil's situation wasn't as promising as it was presented in the telepathy tapes. (1:33:07)

The fundamental thing is that while presuming competence, we should still do the testing needed to establish that this communication method works, and that while being open to telepathy, we need to do tests that would point to telepathy being the actual explanation, including the telepathy of the speller rather than telepathic overlay. In fact, I'd argue as I did last episode that the community involved has a moral responsibility to do the testing. (1:33:31)

That doesn't mean that every individual needs to be tested, but some people in the community do need to be tested under proper controls. If spelling works, then people need to know this, so that it can help as many potential spellers as possible. And if robust telepathy and other psychic powers exist in these children, then people need to know this, so that it can benefit as many people as possible. (1:34:00)

So, I would say that there is a moral responsibility to do the kind of tests that are needed to show these things. To refuse to do them will unnecessarily keep the spelling community small, harming many children who could benefit from it, and it will unnecessarily keep psychic functioning in the shadows, harming many people also. So, my message to the believers in the claims made in the telepathy tapes is, get off the fence and do the needed tests. (1:34:23)

That way, if you're right, everyone can benefit, and if you're wrong, we won't be wasting everyone's time on a false view of reality. You've now given your personal views, but let's step back from your personal views for a moment. How have other people reacted to the telepathy tapes, whether they believe in psychic functioning or not? Well, it's been mixed. (1:34:46)

In her article for the New Yorker, Elizabeth Wild notes the reactions of some people who themselves have classically autistic children. (1:34:51)

She states... Many in the non-speaker community feel deep gratitude toward Kai Dickens. The care and conviction with which she told their story caused the world to finally see them. Others, however, feel patronized. The telepathy tape steers head-on into the trope of the super cripple, the disabled person whose extraordinary, perhaps magical, abilities make them worthwhile. It might disappoint fans of the telepathy tapes to learn that our non-speaking child does not have magic powers, said Josh Reno, an anthropology professor at SUNY Binghamton who has an 18-year-old non-speaking autistic son. (1:35:34)

He's just a nice kid who finds ways to communicate with us without the use of words. And that is enough. She also writes... Amy Lutz, a lecturer in the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania who also has a non-speaking autistic son, is angry about the podcast too. (1:35:56)

In her book Chasing the Intact Mind, she critiques the genre of miracle memoirs written by non-speakers or their parents. One common thread in these books, parents don't regard non-speakers' autonomous actions, like Betsy's hitting and scratching, as reliable expressions of the non-speaker's thoughts. Instead, the child's true intent must come through the mouth or hand or brain of the parent. (1:36:19)

And that's something we discussed last week, where we saw a video of a non-speaker whose mother was interpreted in a way as she pecked at a letterboard, while at the same time the non-speaker was clearly distressed and saying things like, no more, no more. Why should we prioritize what comes through a letterboard and ignore other signals and even clearly heard words that the communicator has given us? There is also one final comment that we should consider, and it comes from Dr. Diane Hennessey Powell, who started Kai's journey in the telepathy tapes. (1:36:55)

Elizabeth Weil reports, listeners may be surprised to learn Diane Powell, the paranormal researcher, is upset with Dickens as well, with her willingness to cast aside inconvenient information, with her slide into spirituality. Powell has also spent the past three decades of her career fighting skeptics who belittle her for claiming telepathy in the autistic population can be understood as what she calls a savant skill. (1:37:18)

By this, she means the qualities of mind that enabled Daniel Tammet to recite from memory 22,514 digits of Pi could also produce in other autistic people, an aptitude that looks like ESP. Yet what troubles Powell most now are not the doubters. It's the newly enthusiastic embrace of telepathy from what she calls the woo world. (1:37:47)

Among Powell's complaints about Dickens, on the podcast, she misrepresented the testing they did together. For example, when Powell and Dickens visited Atlanta in 2022, they tested Houston's ability to communicate mind-to-mind with another non-speaker. Those tests failed. Neither of the non-speakers could identify what the other was thinking. Dickens and Powell brought on the trip a psychologist named Jeff Tarrant who collected QEEG brain scan data by attaching electrodes to a non-speaker's head both in a baseline state and while the podcast subjects claimed telepathy was happening. (1:38:21)

On the podcast, Dickens describes this in miasmic sciency language. We conducted QEEG tests with the hyperscanner which provided some fascinating data. But when I called Tarrant, he told me the brainwave data he collected produced no meaningful findings at all. Powell and Dickens haven't seen each other in over two years. (1:38:40)

Powell feels used. Dickens, she said, invoked my name, my reputation, my credibility, my credentials to further her anti-scientific project. So Dr. Powell who inspired Kai to get into this area and who inspired the initial episode of the telepathy tapes has said that she feels used, that Kai used her reputation on these matters, that what Kai is doing is unscientific and the two of them have not seen each other in over two years which is a significant reason for caution about the telepathy tapes. (1:39:19)

You've stressed several times that you think new tests need to be done. Do you see evidence that such tests may be done in the future? I do. On her website, Dr. Powell has a page dealing with future telepathy experiments and it states, Are you interested in participating in Dr. Powell's university-backed telepathy tests and fit within the autistic population? If you know an autistic speller who demonstrates telepathy and can either type independently into a device or spell with the communication partner who is not their telepathic link, please email Dr. Powell's research assistant. So this is good. (1:39:52)

They're controlling for the possibility of the ideomotor effect by looking for people who can either a type into their independent device with no one touching it or b who can communicate through someone other than their telepathic partner so that their communication partner can be blind to what their telepathic partner perceives. The page goes on to state, Proof that the phenomenon I'm witnessing is telepathy would require the elimination of any possibilities of subtle cueing. (1:40:26)

This means being able to test the child and parent-clinician in separate rooms or with a larger divider separating them. Given the extreme sensibility autistic children have to change in new people, this could not be done on my initial visit. However, using behavioral strategies, we can work towards the ideal protocol before filming the next set of experiments. (1:40:50)

So this is also good. Dr. Powell seems to be continuing towards the kind of experiments we need to show that telepathy exists and that these messages are not simply produced by the unconscious of some individuals. So Jimmy, what's your bottom line here? The telepathy tapes make several startling claims. I understand very much why the parents of non-speaking autistic children would find these claims appealing. (1:41:11)

And I think that anything that encourages interaction between the parents and the non-speaking children is good. At the same time, we need an accurate understanding of what is happening in these interactions, because if it turns out that the understanding you have is false, it'll cause problems. Thus far, the work that has been done on spelling to communicate has not shown it to be a reliable means of communication. (1:41:36)

The needed studies on authorship of the messages have not been done, and they would be very easy to do. Advocates say that resistance to spelling needs to stop. But before resistance to spelling can stop, resistance to doing authorship studies must stop. Without authorship studies, we can't know if spelling really works. If spelling doesn't work, the claims of telepathy and other psychic functioning in these children also don't work. (1:42:00)

And if these children are not robustly psychic, building a fantasy narrative around them does not help them or anyone else. What ultimately matters here is what's true. Figuring that out is what's best for the children, so that they can be helped in the best way possible. It's best for the parents and the teachers, and it's best for society at large. (1:42:22)

So, what we need to do are open-minded and scientifically accurate studies, both of authorship and of telepathy in these children. Hopefully, those studies will be done. And Jimmy, what further resources can we offer? (1:42:33)

We'll have links to Diane Hennessey Powell's book, The ESP Enigma, the Telepathy Tapes website, Kai Dickens' website, Diane Hennessey Powell's biography, Powell's telepathy projects, the story from The New Yorker, also Stuart Weiss's story in The Skeptical Inquirer, information about Edgar Mitchell's ESP experiments on the way to the moon, and an interview with Edgar Mitchell about them. Very good. (1:43:04)

(2025-06-27)

前置き​

情報源 : Youtube 動画(01:56:14)​

関連​

AI 整理​

音声対話​

テレパシーテープの謎​

要約書：「テレパシーテープ」にみる自閉症とテレパシーに関する主張の検討

はじめに：「テレパシーテープ」とは​

主な主張​

信仰の観点 (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:28:20)​

理性の観点 (「謎のテレパシー現象」0:42:10)​

決定的な問題点と批判​

S2Cの信頼性（主張1の核心）:​

古典的自閉症が知的障害ではないという主張（主張2）:​

テレパシーのテストの不備:​

テレパシーオーバーレイの問題:​

ジョン・ポールとリリーの事例における矛盾:​

結論と提言​

今後の展望​

まとめ​