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The Telepathy Tapes is a podcast by documentary director Ky Dickens. The podcast speculates that nonverbal autistic children have telepathic powers, which is not accepted by mainstream science. Season 1 was released in 2024.

Description

Based on the theories of former psychiatrist Diane Hennacy Powell, the podcast examines the premise that nonverbal autistic children communicate telepathically with people around them, through personal testimony, anecdotes, and interviews with proponents of paranormal powers.

The Telepathy Tapes was directed by American documentary maker Ky Dickens. While Dickens professes to be a "science nerd", her degrees are in communications, fine arts and sociology. She got interested in this particular topic when she heard Powell speaking on another podcast.

The podcast quickly gathered a very large audience during the Fall of 2024, briefly becoming the most popular podcast on some streaming services in the United States and the United Kingdom. As of January 2025, The Telepathy Tapes had a 4.9 stars rating on Spotify with over 2,000 reviews.

Interviews with parents of autistic children constitute the core of most episodes, with people presented as experts and Dickens chiming in to speculate about paranormal powers. Listeners can hear sessions during which autistic children try to guess numbers and words their parent is thinking about, successes in these tests being presented as evidence of telepathy.

Powell is heavily featured and the podcast's website indicates that she has been researching the topic for a decade. The audience is invited to subscribe to the paywalled portion of the website to see the videos of the children trying to read minds and fund her research activities. Powell is a controversial character: she spoke at a March 31, 2017 rally organized by anti-vaccination organization National Vaccine Information Center in Washington and published anti-vaccination arguments on her website in the same period. Her license was briefly suspended by the Oregon Medical Board in 2010-2011.

The podcast also features Dickens' camera technician in the role of a hardened materialist skeptic who turns into a believer in the course of the series.

After seeing the short video clips from the website, both Jonathan Jarry of the McGill University Office for Science and Society and psychologist Stuart Vyse independently concluded the tests are derived from the rapid prompting method, a variation of the scientifically discredited technique of facilitated communication. For Vyse and Jarry, with the parent holding the board that the child needs to point to construct a response, or holding the child themselves, the most likely explanation is that the parent is steering the child to the right answer, consciously or not (through the ideomotor effect). About facilitated communication techniques, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry states that "studies have repeatedly demonstrated that FC is not a scientifically valid technique for individuals with autism"; the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics also published position statements against their use.

Dickens has announced the second season of the podcast would feature non-autistic telepaths and is raising funding for a television production.

Reception

While the show received an enthusiastic reception from a large number of listeners and has been promoted by Joe Rogan, it has been heavily criticized for its pseudoscientific premise and speculations.

The Times' podcast reviewer, James Marriott, found listening to the anguish of the parents featured on the podcast "heartbreaking", but takes Dickens to task for presenting a mockery of the scientific approach.

Aware that what she presents does not constitute scientific evidence, Dickens chides "close-minded" scientists for not thinking outside the box. Beyond telepathy, Dickens also briefly entertains the notions that autistic children can also communicate with ghosts and that strange powers can be accessed through crystals.

Episodes

References

1. ^ Marriott, James (2 January 2025). "The Telepathy Tapes review — this hit podcast has contempt for science". The Times. Retrieved 12 January 2025.
2. ^ Jarry, Jonathan (13 December 2024). "The Telepathy Tapes Prove We All Want to Believe". Office for Science and Society. Archived from the original on 5 January 2025. Retrieved 12 January 2025.
3. ^ Cockerell, Claudia (3 January 2024). "What is The Telepathy Tapes? The controversial podcast which replaced Joe Rogan as number one". The Standard. Archived from the original on 5 January 2025. Retrieved 12 January 2025.
4. Sager, Monica (3 January 2025). "Podcast Claiming Autistic Children Are Telepathic Knocks Rogan off Top Spot". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 6 January 2025. Retrieved 12 January 2025.
5. ^ Roeloffs, Mary (3 January 2025). "Podcast About 'Telepathic' Autistic Children Briefly Knocks Joe Rogan Out Of No. 1 Spot". Forbes. Archived from the original on 5 January 2025. Retrieved 12 January 2025.
6. "Telepathy tests". The telepathy Tapes. Archived from the original on 25 December 2024. Retrieved 12 January 2025.
7. Hennacy Powell, Powell (28 March 2017). "The Three Faces of Autism: What is really going on?". Dr. Diane Hennacy. Archived from the original on 16 December 2024. Retrieved 13 January 2025.
8. Boese, Brett (8 April 2017). "As autism rates rise, the vaccination debate rages on". Post Bulletin. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025. Retrieved 13 January 2025.
9. Live from the Revolution for Truth Rally! (Video). March 31, 2017. Event occurs at 1:35:52.
10. Dickens, Ky. "A critical commentary on Jonathan Jarry's (2024) article "The Telepathy Tapes prove we all want to believe"". The Telepathy Tapes. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025. Retrieved 13 January 2025.
11. "License Verification Details". Oregon Medical Board. Archived from the original on 1 December 2024. Retrieved 13 January 2025.
12. ^ Vyse, Stuart (6 January 2025). "The Telepathy Tapes: A Dangerous Cornucopia of Pseudoscience". Skeptical Inquirer. Retrieved 13 January 2025.
13. "Facilitated Communication". American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. October 20, 1993. Retrieved 13 January 2025.

• 2024 podcast debuts
• Esotericism
• Telepathy
• Health and wellness podcasts
• Autism
• Autism pseudoscience