Unsolved:The Telepathy Tapes

From HandWiki
Short description: 2024 podcast


The Telepathy Tapes
Presentation
StarringKy Dickens
FormatAudio
Created byKy Dickens
Written byKy Dickens
Production
Composed byElizabeth P.W.
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes10
Publication
Original releaseSeptember 9, 2024 – December 23, 2024
ProviderAcast
Websitethetelepathytapes.com

The Telepathy Tapes is a podcast by documentary director Ky Dickens. The podcast presents nonspeaking autistic children that are claimed to demonstrate telepathic communication and other paranormal abilities. Season 1 was released in 2024. The show has been criticized for omitting well-established scientific findings that tend to invalidate two of its central premises: (1) The existence of the paranormal is not scientifically established; and (2) The show promotes a discredited therapeutic technique called "facilitated communication" which proponents claim uncovers the communication abilities of non-verbal autistic individuals while the published evidence shows facilitators, rather than the autistic individuals, are the true authors of the messages produced.

Description

Based on certain unreviewed speculations of former psychiatrist Diane Hennacy Powell, the podcast entertains the notion that nonspeaking autistic children communicate telepathically with people around them relying on personal testimony, anecdotes, and interviews with proponents of paranormal powers.[1] The Telepathy Tapes was directed by American documentary maker Ky Dickens. Dickens's degrees are in communications, fine arts and sociology while she describes herself as a "science nerd". She became interested in this subject when she heard Powell speaking on another podcast.[1][2] Powell is heavily featured and the podcast's website contends 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.[3][4][5]

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.[1][3][4] 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.[3][2]

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.[1][3][6][4] Dickens has announced the second season of the podcast would feature non-autistic telepaths and is raising funding for a television production.[4][2]

Reception and criticism

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.[3][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] 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.[1] While acknowledging that what she presents does not constitute scientific evidence, Dickens also chides "close-minded" scientists for not thinking outside the box, echoing similar complaints made by Powell in the podcast. Powell's license was briefly suspended by the Oregon Medical Board in 2010-2011, which she said was due to the medical board's opposition to her support for certain parapsychology claims.[2][14][15][16] Powell expressed some frustration with her portrayal on the podcast and told The Cut that Dickens misrepresented the results of some of the experiments she discussed. In particular, a brain scan which Dickens described on the podcast as verifying telepathic ability was characterized by Powell as a failure.[17] Another participant in the podcast, psychologist Jeff Tarrant, defended his involvement with the show in spite of criticism, clarifying that even as "these demonstrations convinced me of the reality of these abilities, they were not structured as formal experimental trials."[18] The podcast Science Vs noted that the claim in The Telepathy Tapes of a "huge amount of research on telepathy published in peer-reviewed journals, which has proved to be repeatable and seems to me irrefutable" was based on a meta analysis that, among other issues, relied on studies with poor data controls such as rejecting a subject who 'wasn't really concentrating during the experiment' and that research conducted by believers tend to measure an effect while those performed by non believers do not.[13]

After seeing the short video clips from the website, Jonathan Jarry of the McGill University Office for Science and Society and psychologist Stuart Vyse both 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).[2] Vyse further pointed out that the podcast does not acknowledge any of the research that conclusively showed that facilitators, not the autistic individuals, were the true authors of the messages produced through facilitated communication.[19] 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.[19][20] The Association for Science in Autism Treatment issued a statement supporting Vyse's conclusions: "the Telepathy Tapes podcast spreads misinformation about the authenticity of facilitated communication and the presence of paranormal abilities in nonspeaking autistic individuals."[21]

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.[1] Journalist Zaid Jilani noted that the podcast "relies on experts and witnesses who sincerely believe that vaccination is helping increase the prevalence of autism, something that has no scientific basis."[22] Skeptical critic Michael Marshall additionally notes that Powell favorably cites an anti-vax proponent as "her go-to expert on autistic children", and Powell also objected to vaccinating children in a speech she made at a March 2017 rally alongside Judy Mikovits, Del Bigtree, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.[14] Social psychologist Devon Price recommended that those interested in exploring what he described as "the many, many problems with The Telepathy Tapes" listen to the episode[23] of the podcast Conspirituality devoted to the same. Price opines, "The Telepathy Tapes is very much a part of a pipeline that leads from talking of 'highly sensitive persons' and indigo children all the way down to antivax sentiment."[24]

Episodes

Script error: No such module "Episode list".

Script error: No such module "Episode list". Script error: No such module "Episode list". Script error: No such module "Episode list". Script error: No such module "Episode list". Script error: No such module "Episode list". Script error: No such module "Episode list". Script error: No such module "Episode list". Script error: No such module "Episode list".

Script error: No such module "Episode list".
No.TitleLength (minutes:seconds)Original air date

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Marriott, James (2 January 2025). "The Telepathy Tapes review — this hit podcast has contempt for science". The Times. https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/telepathy-tapes-review-podcast-rnmspsn9h. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Jarry, Jonathan (13 December 2024). "The Telepathy Tapes Prove We All Want to Believe". https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-pseudoscience/telepathy-tapes-prove-we-all-want-believe. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Cockerell, Claudia (3 January 2024). "What is The Telepathy Tapes? The controversial podcast which replaced Joe Rogan as number one". The Standard. https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/podcast-telepathy-tapes-joe-rogan-top-charts-b1202851.html. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Roeloffs, Mary (3 January 2025). "Podcast About 'Telepathic' Autistic Children Briefly Knocks Joe Rogan Out Of No. 1 Spot". Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/01/03/podcast-about-telepathic-autistic-children-briefly-knocks-joe-rogan-out-of-no-1-spot/. 
  5. ↑ "Telepathy tests". https://thetelepathytapes.com/telepathy-tests-library. 
  6. ↑ Sager, Monica (3 January 2025). "Podcast Claiming Autistic Children Are Telepathic Knocks Rogan off Top Spot". Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-podcast-telepathy-tapes-autism-spotify-charts-2009384. 
  7. ↑ Lamb, Eileen (2025-01-08). "The Telepathy Tapes: Separating Science From Pseudoscience In Autism Communication" (in en-US). https://theautismcafe.com/the-telepathy-tapes-podcast-autism-review-pseudoscience/. 
  8. ↑ Jilani, Zaid. ""The Telepathy Tapes" is Taking America by Storm. But it Has its Roots in Old Autism Controversies." (in en). https://www.theamericansaga.com/p/the-telepathy-tapes-is-taking-america. 
  9. ↑ "FC’s Lesser-Known Side: Thoughts about the Telepathy Tapes (Episode 1)" (in en-US). https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/fcs-lesser-known-side-thoughts-about-the-telepathy-tapes-episode-1. 
  10. ↑ Johnson, Stephen (2025-01-09). "What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: 'The Telepathy Tapes'" (in en). https://lifehacker.com/entertainment/the-telepathy-tapes-what-people-are-getting-wrong-this-week. 
  11. ↑ Farrier, David. "Telepathic Children Do Not Exist" (in en). https://www.webworm.co/p/telepathytapes. 
  12. ↑ Engber, Daniel (2025-03-03). "The Telepathy Trap" (in en). https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/03/telepathy-tapes-podcast-spelling-facilitated-communication/681895/. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Wendy Zukerman (2025-04-17). "Telepathy: Is It For Real?" (Podcast). Spotify. Retrieved 2025-05-18.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Marshall, Michael (2025-01-31). "The Telepathy Tapes is wrong – autistic children don't have supernatural powers" (in en-GB). https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2025/01/the-telepathy-tapes-is-wrong-autistic-children-dont-have-supernatural-powers/. 
  15. ↑ Dickens, Ky. "A critical commentary on Jonathan Jarry's (2024) article "The Telepathy Tapes prove we all want to believe"". https://thetelepathytapes.com/dr-powell-defense. 
  16. ↑ "License Verification Details". https://omb.oregon.gov/Clients/ORMB/Public/VerificationDetails.aspx?EntityID=1477431. 
  17. ↑ Weil, Elizabeth (23 April 2025). "‘I Can Hear Thoughts’" (in en). The Cut. https://www.thecut.com/article/telepathy-tapes-families-autism-ky-dickens.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=nym. 
  18. ↑ "Science, Skepticism, and "The Telepathy Tapes" | Psychology Today" (in en-US). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/choosing-your-meditation-style/202503/science-skepticism-and-the-telepathy-tapes. 
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Vyse, Stuart (6 January 2025). "The Telepathy Tapes: A Dangerous Cornucopia of Pseudoscience". https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-telepathy-tapes-a-dangerous-cornucopia-of-pseudoscience/. 
  20. ↑ "Facilitated Communication". October 20, 1993. https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Policy_Statements/2008/Facilitated_Communication.aspx. 
  21. ↑ Mathieu-Sher, Reva (27 January 2025). "ASAT Responds to The Skeptical Inquirer: “The Telepathy Tapes: A Dangerous Cornucopia of Pseudoscience”". https://asatonline.org/media_watch/asat-responds-to-the-skeptical-inquirer-the-telepathy-tapes-a-dangerous-cornucopia-of-pseudoscience/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3mIZ01DXfbJ1pdOjvkoqNgVMCF93NkVjSjqTd0n4MJv73Q-B6kYtUoEAU_aem_PFvVHHO2DZPEHIKUnVbQPQ. 
  22. ↑ Jilani, Zaid. "“The Telepathy Tapes” Has Close Ties to Vaccine Skeptic Movement" (in en). https://www.theamericansaga.com/p/the-telepathy-tapes-has-close-ties. 
  23. ↑ "241: Unravelling The Telepathy Tapes" (in en-US). https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/241-unravelling-the-telepathy-tapes. 
  24. ↑ Devon (2025-03-05). "'The Telepathy Tapes' is Dangerous, Unscientific Nonsense that Promotes a Widely Discredited "Communication Method" Used to Abuse Autistic Kids". https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/the-telepathy-tapes-is-dangerous. 



Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Unsolved:The_Telepathy_Tapes&oldid=3993414"