S1E2: Telepathy or the merging of consciousness?

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We're producing a season two, and we just rolled out the talk tracks, and I've been excited to finally hire a staff in order to help me make those things happen. And we've just had to grow in a way that I was never anticipating. And so, in order to pay for this, we are turning on ads. But that is a critical piece in being able to continue this work, so that those of us doing the research and working to bring these episodes to you are getting paid for our time. So thank you so much for understanding as we move into this new phase of the telepathy tapes and the talk tracks. Hey, what's up everyone? This is Kai Dickens, and you're listening to the telepathy tapes podcast. My sense had to be, I can hear thoughts. What does this phenomena happen in? Why am I in my mind completely connected? Telepathy is the tip of the iceberg with their spiritual gifts. People don't understand that they can do this. 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. [Music] Welcome to the second episode of the telepathy tapes. Today, we explore if something far greater than telepathy is happening amongst our subjects. The phenomenon around telepathy and non-speaking individuals extends well beyond correctly naming flashcards or numbers from behind a partition. It's bigger, and it reveals something more mysterious and complex about the origins and potential of consciousness. We're on our way to New Jersey to meet a mother named Manisha, who says that whatever is happening, shared consciousness is a better term for it than telepathy. Manisha and her husband immigrated to the United States from India after they got married. And their only son named Akhil was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. He regressed after his first birthday. And he was diagnosed in 18 months. And I had no clue what autism was. None of the doctor ever gave us a hope that I have an intelligent child. You have a smart child. Doctor said he will never speak. Manisha is a lightning bolt of a mother. She has gone to the ends of the earth to help her son Akhil be successful. Akhil is now in college and wants to study plant medicine. Akhil is someone that Dr. Diane Hennessy Powell, the neuroscientist studying telepathy and non-speaking individuals, has tested before. Dr. Diane felt the last telepathy test we witnessed in the first episode wouldn't hold up under scrutiny. She urged me to meet Akhil and his mother in order to get a clear picture of the phenomenon. Now that I've become committed to exploring and understanding this, I've become very aware of two worldviews that are complementary but also sometimes competing. One is that of a committed scientist, Dr. Diane, who needs incredibly controlled and rigorous scientific tests in order to explore whether or not telepathy is happening. The other is that of the parents who just want answers. They need to know how and why this is happening, what it all means and how to best empower their kids who seemingly have the ability to read their minds. And the conundrum is that research needs to be funded in order to give the parents these answers. And there's not much money pouring into this because the topic is kind of taboo. So Dr. Diane Hennessy Powell almost needs to prove to the scientific community that there is a there there. Here's Diane and I talking about this. I did an extensive review of the literature that already existed by other scientists on these things that I was told were impossible. So I didn't fall for that trap of thinking, you know, the science is settled on that that telepathy is impossible. It became a goal of mine to explore it, to have the opportunity to actually test it under controlled trials. So what was your goal? Was it to prove telepathy exists or just to legitimize it to science? My goal was to try to advance science by expanding our way of approaching these things, but also I've been wanting to come up with a theory for how the brain and consciousness might even have anything to do with one another. By the end of the episode, I promise that I'll explain why Mia's tests don't hold up under scientific rigor, but I think it's imperative for you to get to know a kill first. This trip is more or less just for me to better understand this and understand what Diane's looking for. So she did not come with us to New Jersey. Okay, that's stuff like the house. She said a look for the sign here, pull, pull in here. Hey, hi, Manisha. I'm Kai. I arrive at a keel's house with Michael, who's my camera guy and a small crew. Okay, I'm okay to put things right here and we'll take our shoes off. I think Kai is here. Oh my gosh, a keel. It's so nice to finally meet you in person. When we arrive, a keel's just getting ready for his day. While the crew brings an equipment, I sit down with a keel in the hallway near his kitchen. We're on the floor and he's draped himself in a blanket. So Kai, I want to show you some stuff. Show you what I have. What do you have? Manisha hands an iPad over to a keel and encourages him to show me the app that he uses for communicating. This will be the best thing for you to directly communicate with him. We have two, we have two, a keel is typing into an app where every letter or word that he types is spoken out loud. The software also uses a predictive text tool that offers likely next words. So sometimes you'll hear letters being called out and other times an entire word. We have to show how the mind, how the mind, a keel just wrote on his speaking device. We have to show how the mind works. A keel, do you like it better if I type to you on this or when I talk to you with words? Manisha demonstrates for me that using his app to type directly to him is sometimes the best way to get into the flow with a keel better than talking to him verbally. Let's say a keel guy is here. They are going to tell me. A keel just wrote guys spend time with friends and film interviews. A keel go, take shower. While a keel goes and showers and gets stressed, we spend a little time chatting with Manisha at her kitchen table. You said like up until age 11 he was not in verbal but he was understanding everything. He was comprehending everything but he did not had a way to show us. So he goes to this new school and they introduce him to something called a supported typing. It's a very controversial and I had no clue and they had 40 children already typing in the school. He goes for his first typing session so they just give him a little bit of support from here and with that support he typed four lines. Manisha is showing me how the teacher would support the bottom of a keel's wrist when he first started typing. So the school teacher called me next day and said you know what we are doing the supported typing program with a keel but I said he doesn't know his letters. He said of course he knows letters. So by 11 a keel had already been through two different schools and this new school started to teach a keel to communicate via typing. Manisha didn't believe it. She didn't think it was possible because for a decade all the other schools had told her that he doesn't know any numbers or letters. The school teacher called and said why didn't you come and check it out. I said okay so I go there she shows me how to do it. I see it and I'm still unsure about it. So almost a month or two months past a keel was typing in school with a teacher. We just had two choices should we believe in this communication or should we not believe in this communication. And she hedged a bet and she tried typing with him alone at their house and something clicked. I had to literally look into his eyes and told him that I trust you. She went against every professional opinion in her life and made the choice to presume competence and everything changed between them. I don't know what happened but things clicked between me and a keel and he started on journey and then I would ask him many questions. So you knew he was typing for real? Yes but if you go and search about supported typing it would be already controversial. Okay because supported typing maybe you could just explain it again. It's when you have the help and support of a therapist but from what I understand it the controversy is oh well the therapist is pushing their hand. It starts from here then support comes here then support comes here. Manisha is showing me that when a keel first started typing pressure was put on his wrist then it was moved to his forearm then to his elbow and then to his shoulder. Though a keel learned to converse via supported typing there are various methods of typing to communicate. The original method was called facilitated communication and that received the most criticism due to the amount of touch involved. There's also rapid prompting method and spelling to communicate. Many in this world just simply say spelling to keep things easy and it's common to refer to individuals who communicate this way as spellers and the reason spelling works is because you're using your body to point to a letter and that's a gross motor skill versus verbally speaking which is a fine motor skill and we believe in him and we say you know what we are going to presume competence. And thank god they presumed competence because now a keel can type totally on his own into an iPad or computer without anyone touching him. Once a keel could communicate Manisha and her husband got to learn about a keel in a whole new and intimate way and one of the most shocking but helpful things he told them was that he didn't realize he had a body. Becky was not aware of his body. He made a statement I cannot see my body in my mind. And how did you teach him to see his body? When we started touching him and I started touching each finger he realized oh I have hands and fingers and they move. I love this visual of Manisha rubbing his hands and fingers and then a keel realizing oh I have hands and fingers and they move. There's just no way he could have conveyed this type of disconnect without being able to communicate. And then he started saying oh I have a body but the body in my mind doesn't move. A keel talks a lot about the mind body disconnect and this was how he articulated it for the first time that the body he sees in his mind doesn't move when he asks it to do so. And so when did everything start with telepathy? Like when did you realize he could read your mind? I could feel that he is reading my thoughts. He has a capacity to read my mind but like one day he was in school and he typed with me and said oh you had gone out today and then he started typing. Everything in you. I went to Walmart. I didn't get things there. Then I went to Target. So everything like my life was like an open book. So you were like where did I go today and he said Target Walmart? Yeah he knew everything. I didn't even tell him anything but he and that's why then I was like oh my god my husband said what is this? My life is an open book. And that's why I got convinced that this is telepathy and then I started reading what about it. It was very hard to find answers for this. This has become a familiar refrain by parents who discover their kids have telepathy. There's just not much information about this out there. So money should turn to people within the community. Others who she'd met through the spelling world. So it's people who are from the supported typing world. I went and I asked what is happening when I'm near a kill. What is my field and what is a kill's field? Why do my thoughts and his thoughts become identical? The specificity of her question is important. What is his field versus what is my field? She's not asking what's his body and what's my body or his thoughts or my thoughts. It's more about how are they merging? And she said it's like these kids are using your blood mold. So they use your mental space. So this is a dimension which is beyond science for me. I first saw a Lolo blanket when I was walking down the beach and surfers were wrapped up in one. It looked so cozy and warm and because I'm always cold I had to ask where it was from. 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And that's why Ali delivers fresh human grade food that your dogs will love. Head to Ali.com/tapes. Tell them all about your dog and use code tapes to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus they offer a happiness guarantee on the first box. So if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's o-l-l-i-e.com/tapes and enter code tapes to get 60% off your first box. Trying to make sense of this was totally beyond me as well. And in future episodes, we will dig into this with many experts. But what I can say right now is that Manisha is one of many, many parents and teachers who say that there seems to be some sort of energetic transfer or something going on. One mom said to me, "In order for my son's software to work, he needs to use my hardware." It's very clear that non-speakers have thoughts of their own and they can communicate independently and they are extremely capable of thriving in school. But what many non-speakers are saying is that they have the ability to merge in some way. And parents and teachers will tell you that at times you can't tell where one consciousness begins and the other one ends. So how did you be Dr. Powell? So it was 2015. And I approached her saying the Dr. Diane, you know, my son is telepathic and how could you help her to understand him or what we can do. And that's how then first time Dr. Diane came to her house, she did a part one study. This first telepathy test that Dr. Diane did with Manisha and Achille was on that drive she sent me when I first met her. The other amazing thing about this test was that the famous author and new age guru Deepak Chopra tagged along. And apparently he was so amazed by what he saw that he left his briefcase and glasses and I think even his phone at Manisha's house because he was so flustered by what he just witnessed. Achille resurfaces and he's dressed and ready for the day. But you can tell he's distracted and a little concerned about all the lights and the people. Achille, do you think we should show them how you boil the eggs? We use in step art, we use electric gadgets so that we can cook for himself so now he can like boil eggs for himself. Manisha has done an incredible job equipping Achille with his independent living skills and while she's showing me around the kitchen, Achille leaves the room and he hides in the closet. Manisha is promising Achille that he can have YouTube once he comes out. This is a negotiation I feel very familiar with from my own household. Knowing that Achille can seemingly read Manisha's mind, I find it very cute that we're whispering. But more than anything, I want to make sure he's comfortable. When Manisha comes back into the room, she suggests that we take some of the lights down. There's a lot of commotion, a lot of newness, and it's simply and understandably overwhelming. This is a lot better than him. We'll take the light down. We'll be in here the most, so probably. So I asked the crew to please take down all the lights and for them to go stand outside. The weather was beautiful, thankfully. I wanted to meet Achille where he was at and with his permission, I went and sat with him in silence in the closet for a little bit. And with Manisha's prompting and the safety of his blanket, he settled in at the dining room table. Remember that we don't have Dr. Diane here, so we're kind of winging it. Manisha grabs a spiral notebook and she's a white computer paper. Manisha is kind of spearheading this test and I'm a little confused as to what's happening. She's folding the white paper and making deep creases so we can easily tear them into little white cue cards. She hands me the notebook and I like what's happening because she's suggesting using it as a partition. I'll be able to write a word on one of the cue cards inside the notebook, blocking the view of it by holding up the cover. So you decide which words you want. Okay, and hold on to them. I'm going to have my camera guy write a weird Tuesday's way. Yeah, anybody. Okay. Michael, let's write these over here so there's no way anyone can see. Okay, and then we'll put these in the paper bag and just give me one in my hand. Okay. Michael has made a black backing out of foam cord to put behind each slip of paper so there's no possible way Akeel can see the paper. Okay, so Akeel cannot see this. This is the first one. The first one was written by Michael and the word he chose was onion. Oh, and I. Oh, and now Manisha, give it to you. We're at a dining room table. Akeel is sitting at the head of the table and I'm standing with Manisha perpendicular to Akeel on the long side of the table. When we start the test, Akeel is just looking down to the table and then he grabs his iPad in order to communicate. Oh, and the I. Oh, and that's awesome. Akeel. Michael's eyes become huge. That's so cool. Now, I'm going to give you another one. Okay, so Manisha, come stand here. I've taken a step back and changed my body position slightly, just in case. I reach into the paper bag and the new word is tiger. That's one. Okay. Okay. Go, buddy. You're amazing. Akeel, can you do it if your mama's farther away? Yeah. She should be here, you think? Yeah. Yeah. Should we try it? You can give verbal. He can give verbal also. Okay, this is exciting because we haven't done this before. Akeel is minimally verbal and though it's difficult for him to string together a sentence verbally, he's great at calling out letters. Akeel's pronunciation might sound different from yours or mine. He can't form words or sounds effortlessly. But we go ahead and try this test. So here, Akeel has moved over to the sofa in the living room and Manisha is still sitting at the dining room table, which is about 15 feet away. And she's going to basically show us how Akeel's telepathy works in real time. So for every letter she writes, he will speak it. She writes the first letter M, next she writes letter O and she writes the letter V. Manisha was barely even done writing the word movie when Akeel was yelling it from across the room. It was pretty unbelievable. This is a book that my father-in-law wrote about an uncle so you can't buy this book on Amazon, you can't find it anywhere. So if you open this book right now and you looked at a picture and said, what am I looking at? What would he say? He will tell me what I'm looking at. Do you have to be in even from the room? No, I don't have to be in the room. So one day I was watching a movie of an athlete whose leg was amputated and he got into a special Olympics. The family lives in a house with multiple floors. So one day Manisha was watching a film downstairs in the basement about an Olympian who had his leg amputated. And I went upstairs to tell Akeel, Akeel, Akeel, come, come, come, look, I want to show you the story, see how people overcome their difficulties and challenges. He said, yes, I know he doesn't have a leg and he is in Olympics. Because he was watching the show or something. Because I was watching and he was upstairs. So those thoughts can get transferred. So Manisha had gone upstairs to tell Akeel, I want you to see this movie. It could be inspirational for you. And Akeel revealed he already knew the plat line and what it was about. Even though Akeel was upstairs in his room. Manisha shared a few stories like this. Another amazing one was that she could be reading a book in a different room and later ask Akeel a question about the book she was reading. For instance, where was the main character from? And he could correctly tell her the answer from a book she was reading while she was alone in a different part of the house. If I'm sitting here, okay, and I'm reading something in my mind. And if I ask him a question in my mind, he will answer this absolutely blew my mind. It's something I think about a lot. And this will be one of many stories you hear like this. One of the subjects we meet later in Georgia knew all about Harry Potter, even though he'd never read the books. When his mom asked him how, he noted that his sister had read all the books. And that's why he could answer any question about it. But he wasn't in the room with her when she was reading them. So this onion will just keep peeling back and back and back. Akeel has walked away. He's in the living room sitting on a couch watching his iPad. The iPad is a bit of a reward for having so much patience with the test this morning. Akeel, you can probably tell me yes or no. I know you're watching YouTube but telepathy how we're meant to communicate. That's what he had explained in the past. What did he say? He had said that in my world, in my world, people don't talk. People just throw their eyes and that's how we communicate. In his world, they don't talk, but they still communicate. What do you think he meant by that? So once he came home and he was upset and I typed with him. So I said, "Okay, why are you upset?" And he said that, "I am telling high to the person, but the person is not replying me back." Okay, wait. So Akeel is saying high with his mind, but the other child isn't responding to him because he didn't say it out loud. Yes. So he thinks, "Why do I have to use my mouth and my body to answer the question when I'm answering in my mind?" He doesn't get it. He thinks everyone should be using his mouth. Yes, he literally tells me that teach people how to read my mind and I said, "I cannot." He said, "I have to read people's mind." Despite that, I was confused because Akeel said in my world, "This is how we communicate." And I just kept wondering, "Well, who is the we?" Communication takes two people doing something back and forth. And what I've learned from talking to so many spellers is they do not misspeak. The words they choose are precise and thoughtful, often poetic. So who is the we in his world that he's referring to? We take a break for lunch. And when we return from lunch, I suggest doing more formal tests with Akeel using his speaking device. I wonder if there's a random picture generator. That'd be cool, wouldn't it? Random words generator. Oh, yeah. Random word generator. Aha. Okay. Oh, look. It says weird words, fake words. Holy. Look how weird that word is. Yeah, perfect. I'm trying my best to channel Dr. Powell. We download a brand new random word generator in front of the camera on the spot. And then we set up the room to get various angles with our cameras. I'm going to start the shot right here. So there's nothing back here. We just have an empty room, table or mirrors. With my camera, I did a 360 degrees sweep of the room. So people could see that there's no one in front of a keel giving him clues or mirrors or any reflective devices. In fact, a keel was often just looking down at the ground, looking at his hands. What should I press? You got to hit the blue one. This? Exactly. Hit that one or do another random word. So when you do the random again, just do it again. Yeah, we just tell like even though the software probably makes the word very random, we have decided to always hit the button twice or three times to make the word super, super random. It is okay. Yep. The word she selects is Isard. I-Z-A-R-D. Manisha is sitting next to a keel on the couch. And Manisha is closest to me. And my iPad, which now has the random word generator on it, is facing away from a keel toward my camera. There's no way that a keel could see what's on the iPad because it's facing in the complete opposite direction of him. Z-A-R-D. Good, and then try. Nice, a keel. I didn't touch at all. Manisha just said, "I didn't touch it all." And this is because at the beginning of the day, I asked her to never touch him during any of the tests. And this is the first test that we've done where they're sitting right next to each other, side by side. It's to another one. And in the one? Yeah. A keel is leaning on the couch. His safety blanket draped around his shoulders in the back of his head. We can see where his eyes are. And once again, there's no way he can see the iPad. It is facing in the complete opposite direction of him. Okay, ready? Ready? You're doing great, a keel. The word Manisha has pulled up is k-i-t-h. A keel's typing device is sitting casually on the couch, facing up, and she hands it to him so he can start. A keel types two of the wrong letters here, something you don't see very often, and he kind of looks at his mom. And then he confirms with Manisha that he can watch YouTube when he's done with all the testing. And she says yes. And then suddenly, it's like he's back in action. Awesome, a keel. Can we please do one more? Okay. Okay, random word generator go for it. The word generated is p-a-t-t-e. P-a-t-t-e. iPad. Good. Nice. We continue to do many more tests with random word generators, random number generators, and a keel continues to be accurate. But this is where things got fun. Okay, so I'm going to see if there's a random picture generator. One of the things Manisha continually says is that this is not sheer telepathy. The sankant information enters her mind, it goes into his mind. She says it's like they share a consciousness, and sometimes she's not sure if a thought is hers, or his, or theirs together. I'm thinking that a random picture generator is one of the best ways to test this, because the picture that's generated, it often isn't obvious or clear what it is to Manisha, or me, or any of the crew looking at it. And so if telepathy involves sending a signal to someone or sending a picture, and they receive it, then what we're about to do is beyond just testing sheer telepathy, because she won't be sending a signal, because she sometimes doesn't know what she's looking at. There is a random picture generator. Okay, good. Some of them are pretty dumb. I mean, look at this. It's so abstract. Yeah, like see, it's interesting. Manisha is sitting on the couch, but a keel has gone back into this little nook off the dining room. It's a small room that we haven't been in yet today. And as Manisha's pulling up the image, I'm asking Michael to please try to go film a keel in the room where he's at. But I think I want him here. Let's just please try one with him in there. Okay, um, Michael, can you please go film a keel and I'll cover this. Manisha hits the button that says generate and an image of red foam booths, the type you see in London, enter the frame. Okay, what is this? Yeah. Yeah. Hello. Hey, Michael, can you go over here and get ready? He said telephone. And what is the color? Michael, I have red. You want me to go there with him? Just we know. A keel sounds out telephone and then sounds out the word red. For most of this test, I'm distracted because I really want Michael to be in the other room with a keel so we can prove that he was far far in another room. I've played back this test many times and I encourage you to do the same because yes, Manisha is echoing or repeating the sounds that a keel is making. And when you play it back, you'll see that he is always making the sound first and she is echoing it or validating what's being said. No, this is good. She offered to go sit with a keel, but I wanted to capture another test like this with them in totally different rooms. However, at that moment, a keel walks back and sits on the couch. Oops. Okay, easier. Easier. He'll he'll do it. We are in the same setup as before where Manisha is sitting closest to my camera. She's holding her iPad toward me and there's no possible way a keel can see it. Okay, random generator, ready? The picture that was generated was weird. You can tell by Manisha's reaction that she isn't sure what it is. To me, it looks like the remnants of a food fight, like mustard and relish and catch up on the ground. A keel had typed paint. Can we accept it? It's amazing. We did a few tests like this. A keel would state what he was seeing even though often Manisha had no clue what the picture was. This felt similar to the popsicle stick test that we did with Mia in the last episode. This was different than just telepathy. I thought about this test a lot. And after the shoot, I talked with Michael, my cinematographer about it, and here's a snippet from our conversation. I would love to get your take on the random picture generator. Do you remember that? Yeah, that was cool. Yeah, there were moments where he's interpreting images differently than we are, but then once he says it or he doesn't, you look at it and it makes sense. You can tell that he's thinking about these things as a metaphor. One of the things that Manisha said to me early on was it's not just sheer telepathy. It's almost like sharing of a consciousness. And she's like, I don't know what that means, as it means consciousness is coming to us from somewhere else when we're both tapping into the same signal or what. And so that was the thing for me watching the random picture generator. It's like, okay, if it's possible that my phone can send you a text or my phone can send you a picture. Why couldn't that happen with the brain? Maybe she's sending him a word or a number or a picture, right? But then when it came to like looking at a random picture, like you said, having to interpret this metaphorically, then I was like, she doesn't know what she's even sending him because she doesn't even know what she's looking at sometimes. So what does this mean? Is he looking through her eyes? Well, that's the difference is like, is he just using her eyes as an instrument? Like you said, the idea that like he sees something, you're he's interpreting something that she's not even interpreting is more just like he's bypassing her brain and just using her eyes. Our afternoon of testing left us with more questions and answers. From another room, a kill could describe exactly what his mom was looking at. When Manisha wrote a word and then crossed it out, a kill could name the first word and then the second word. He even interpreted pictures as mother viewed from across the room. Was a kill somehow seen through his mother's eyes were they sharing a consciousness or was something entirely different happening? We took a break to see a kill's college set up in the office. There he types independently with a large computer keyboard and we saw him do some lessons in computer graphics and coding. If you want to animate a single shape and came up, you can quickly end up with a lot of variables to manage. A kill demonstrates his academic prowess. He's taking college level classes and the software program that Manisha has just pulled up, teaches animation and coding. Then we went back to the living room so a kill could work on building robots on the floor. We stayed there for the remainder of the evening and it felt very intimate and close. We did more telepathy tests, in fact, some of my favorite ones. But we did them in between, some meaningful conversation. A kill, what do you think about the parents who say, "Oh, my child doesn't understand. They're not in there." A kill sitting next to his mom typing into the speaking device. And this is how he ended up answering my question about what he'd say to parents who think their kids aren't in there. "Not to think they have to show, but this is not easy." The software leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to punctuation. But what he wrote was not to think that. They have to show, but this is not easy. "I know it's not easy. You make yourself understood so well." I also ask Manisha what she wants most for a kill. Though telepathy is a fascinating and perplexing development in her life and she definitely wants answers. She's got much heavier and bigger concerns. "The kids like a kill should be accepted and instead of trying to fix them, see what their capabilities are, what their skills are, work on the strengths. Everybody is busy, either trying to understand them, research them, make judgments about them, and trying to get them to come in our world and do things what we do." And this is the crux of everything. Non-speakers have been judged by their behaviors for decades. Schools, doctors, really, society at large makes judgments on what their body is doing. But this isn't an accurate reflection of their intelligence. It's a beguiling trap. How does society celebrate neurodiversity when we do little to fit them into our world? "Like the blanket which he has, can he take the blanket all over the place? No, the teachers think that's not appropriate and he should not. But this is house. We cannot take the blanket away from him. So there has to be an agreement and a mutual understanding between both the worlds and both the world and both the community have to bring into a balance." Kill operates best when he has a blanket around him. Why can't we allow this in schools or a workplace? "If they need to be touched, then they need to be touched for you." Many non-speakers feel more grounded and better able to regulate their bodies when they're being touched. But when it comes to communicating via spelling, so often their words are discounted as not even being their own if they aren't typing independently into a keyboard. And it took a keel years to get to that point. And some people never do. Should their words and thoughts be discounted along the way because of this? And another way we're not meeting them or even trying is by not looking into this. The idea that non-speakers might have abilities with their minds that the rest of us have either forgotten how to use or just simply can't access. "Have you ever asked him does he see through your eyes or just does he just know what's in your mind?" "He just automatic. He gets an automatically in that time." And to dig into this further, I came up with a new test on the spot, which ended up actually being one of my favorites. A keel is under his blanket busy with his iPad. "All right, I'm just gonna do something." I took out my phone calculator. A keel will have to tell us the answer to the equation that we just typed into the calculator in real time. "Okay, I'm gonna type in the first equation. I type in 1, 1, 0, 3, 1, 5, 9, 7 times 4. I certainly don't know the answer to that. The answer that pops up is long." "What was it too long?" "No, it's fine." As noted, we're sitting on the floor. Manisha is next to a keel and I'm sitting in front of her holding the calculator away from a keel and toward Michael's camera. So again, there's no way a keel can see this number. A keel picks up his speaking device off the ground and goes for it. The answer is 44,126,388. "I'm out of the shop." "Okay, so." So I hand the calculator to Manisha. She keeps it turned away from a keel. "Look at me for a thing and a keel." "Can you write another one?" "Yeah." "Let's please multiply two numbers and see if he gets it." Manisha types in 25 times 36 and as the answer pops up, she points to her head and says, "The moment it comes here," and then she points to a keel and says, "It goes there." "The moment it comes here, it goes there." "Can you see it already in your mom's bed?" "Yeah, that's that." The calculator is pointed totally away from a keel right up in Michael's camera and a keel is under his blanket and his speaking device is on the ground in front of him. By the way, 25 times 36 equals 900. "Okay, what is it?" "Nine, zero, zero, unbelievable." We do multiple calculator tests with longer numbers, shorter numbers, and a keel is right every time. And the reality of what we're seeing, there really aren't words for it. "What is this phenomena happening? Why am his mind and my mind completely connected?" The desperation in Manisha's voice is now something that I've heard echoed over and over again over the course of four years. Can someone please just explain this? And it's hard for scientists to get research funded in this realm. Because as we talked about in episode one, much of our scientific paradigm is materialism, which more or less says the only things that can be real are things that can be observed and measured. So scientists who earnestly want to research and look into ESP and telepathy have historically not been given much respect and certainly not money. And Dr. Diane Hennessy Powell has been trying, but there needs to be a ton of research looking into this. And what Manisha says next is classic. "Whoever is asking for data, a keel is a data." Whoever is looking for data, a keel is the data. Michael had signaled to me that he needed another battery. When I got to the camera room, Michael had his head in his hands, and if you remember from the first episode, Michael often approaches things skeptically. I would say, and I think Michael would agree that he doesn't believe in much that can't be measured or explained, and he certainly doesn't put much stock in religion. When he looked up, he said, "Do I have to believe in God now?" Coming from Michael, this was totally out of character. I was actually shocked to hear that question come out of his mouth, and we couldn't really dig into this or talk about it because we are working. So I called him afterward. And I was like trying to find an explanation for these things happening. I'm seeing this with my own eyes, but what does it mean? And it's like, "Okay, this is open up the possibility that there is something bigger than us happening, whether it's like some spiritual thing or something metaphysical." When you see it, that's an easy road to go down. The spiritual aspect of this cannot be understated, and most people who enter this world have their thoughts on science and spirituality shift, including the parents and teachers who are intimately involved with the non-speakers. But when I asked Michael, his thoughts on God, after having some time to consider everything, he said, "The more I think about it, though, for me it doesn't actually prove the existence of God. We used to think God made rainbows." His reference is a great one. In fact, John Keats, the poet, once said that Isaac Newton was destroying the poetry and wonder of the rainbow by reducing it to just being a prism of colors. In fact, it's not abnormal for scientific breakthroughs to be met with skepticism that happened to Galileo when he proposed that the Sun and not the Earth was the center of our universe. It happened to Gregor Mendel when he proposed his theory of genetics. Many scientific breakthroughs that are rejected or ignored by academics and the public when introduced eventually become accepted as empirical truths about our world. But I saw these things with my eyes, and I believe that they're happening, so now when I'm thinking about it's not whether it's happening, but what's the explanation for it? When he was saying this, it made me think of this Nikola Tesla quote, "The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena. It will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence." But for now, back to our visit with a keel. The entire reason that we are here standing in this basement is because the telepathy test we did with Mia in episode one wouldn't pass scientific muster. And here's Dr. Diane Powell explaining why. So someone who really knows nothing about these children and their abilities, the testing with Mia was really problematic because the mother was touching her. It's problematic because there's this concern that she could be somehow transmitting the information to Mia. The keel is a much better test subject because he's been able to go on and type at a computer. As a refresher, Mia had just learned to communicate via pointing to a letter board or typing into a speaking device within the past year. When Mia first started typing on her own, she needed support near her typing hand or wrist. And slowly her mom started putting less pressure on Mia. Moving her hand up to Mia's elbow and then to her shoulder, then to her upper back and eventually up to her neck. And now she barely touches Mia with a single fingertip on her forehead. When I met Mia's family in person, none of this felt suspect to me. And if I'm being honest, it still doesn't. It was part and parcel of helping her learn to communicate. And it reminded me of when my dad taught me to ride my bike. I wanted him to hold the handles firmly, squeezing my body between both of his arms. And slowly, when I got more confident, he moved his hands up to my shoulders. And then eventually, he was holding the back of the seat. And then at some point, he just touched me slightly on my back. I was bouncing on my own, but I needed to know he was there to catch me. Many of us need emotional or physical support when learning something new. And this is especially true for someone who is difficulty with motor planning or controlling their body. The idea that Mia's mom was passing messages regarding detailed words and numbers through a slight touch of a single fingertip that was not visibly moving seemed unlikely to me. But as Michael is always looking through the camera, often with a much tighter view than I have, I called him up to get his thoughts. Do you think that Mia's mom was transferring words and numbers and information through the fingertip on her head? No, definitely not. The idea that's like some kind of Morse code thing. I mean, it's just her finger was just on her head. It's not moving. But regardless of how unlikely we felt it was that entire words and messages were being passed through a finger, we came to New Jersey to witness telepathy without any touching. And though I understand why Dr. Diane and other scientists doing this work need to focus on this type of criteria in order for their research to be considered thorough and solid. When it comes to day-to-day communication, it feels kind of ableist and silly for anyone else to dictate how someone else should be communicating in order to have their words counted. We go back upstairs to wrap things up and my head is full of questions. I'm wondering about the origins of consciousness and if it's limited at all by time or space or even death. And I'm wondering how widespread this phenomenon could be. The so many show I know Akiel's not in the room right now. And when he gets back I do want to talk to him about this as well. But has he talked to you about, you know, like God or spirituality? We have some episodes and that was a shocking to us. And what were the episodes? There were some ancestors were passed to me and Akiel started giving messages from them. So when you would get these messages from people who's passed on, would you go look into them? Were they usually correct? Yeah, but then we didn't want to do any crazy all these things. So I kept it very limited. And she told me some stories about ancestors who had died 20 to 30 years ago. And Akiel passed along messages from them. And when she went back to India, that's when she confirmed that the messages were correct. And then I brought up Mia who he met in episode one. Mia sees people all the time that other people can't see. Akiel used to. But then when Akiel used to. Akiel used to see like my mom passed away and I used to sit down and study with him. He would say that your mom wants you to play with me. And I said, really, she's sitting beside me. I said, okay, tell her not to play right now. And I kept it very limited and I didn't wanted him to get connected with other world. As a parent myself, I get this entirely. I would not want my child connected to another world that I couldn't see or be a part of or control. Akiel came back into the room and I was excited to see him because I felt only he could truly answer this next question. Akiel, have you been around other people who have a difficult time speaking where you get a sense you can read their mind like do you think for most non-speaking people they can read minds? There was no hesitancy. Why E-S. When contemplating telepathy as part of the human experience, the most plausible connection is between a mother and a child. A mother's intuition is undeniable and for the survival of a family unit, it almost makes sense. But Akiel is saying that non-speakers can communicate with each other. Telepathically. And this is what we will explore next. Everyone with non-speaking and unreliably speaking autism have this ability. John Paul is in his bedroom and he is telepathically talking to his other friends. And I'm talking tens of thousands of kids every single one of them has been telepathic. Every non-speaker has the ability to communicate telepathically. In the next episode we head down to Georgia where we learn that telepathy in non-speakers knows absolutely no bounds. Thank you to my amazing collaborators. Original music was created by Elizabeth PW, original logo and cover art by Ben Kendoor Design, the audio mix and finishing by Sarah Ma, our amazing podcast coordinator Jill Pacheznik, the telepathie tapes coordinator and my right hand, Catherine Ellis, and I'm Kai Dickens, your writer, creator and host. Thank you again for joining us. Remember that you can review some of the tests and see some of the film recordings on our website, the telepathietapes.com. Thank you so much for tuning in and join us next week as this world expands and demons. [Music]