Looking Into Claims of Telepathic Abilities in Nonverbal Autistic Children

Did you have a preconceived notion of telepathy or spiritual gifts or anything before this? No, I mean, I think like a lot of people, like the idea of mediums and psychics, it felt like people that are often trying to just make money off of people in really vulnerable situations. And I've always believed certainly there's got to be people who have certain gifts like that, but that the vast majority couldn't be trusted or I didn't think telepathy could be real. That seems impossible. It just seems impossible. Even things like plant communication felt impossible. I mean, none of that was something that was my worldview. I was working on solving problems around paid family medical leave and making health insurance more affordable and accessible. Like it was not my cup of tea really. And so, which was kind of great because as I tumbled into this world, I mean, I was really wide-eyed as like, wait a second, have I been wrong about everything? And that's kind of where it ended up was like I had to go revisit everything I ever thought about the world because I started realizing our entire paradigm is wrong. I mean, or a lot of it is. That was my experience. So, let's talk about what you saw first. What was the first example where it was like an aha moment for you? Yeah. So, after I heard the interview with Dr. Diane Hennessey-Powell, I Zoomed with her and then I asked if I could go see her and meet her and talk about this a bit because I thought this could be the next project and I just knew it was going to be the next project, right? So, one of the first things I had her do was I was like, can you just tell me about some of the emails that come in from parents? I had her just kind of go through reading some emails from parents and it was one after the other. Like, I didn't believe this and I didn't believe my wife, I didn't believe my husband that this could be possible, but we've tested it, we've tested it. People were sending tests and I thought, okay, whatever is going on here, these parents don't know that any other parents are going through this. They think a singular miracle is happening in their home, that this child can read their thoughts and that this is where the story is, that there's so many parents who haven't been listened to. And so, I really thought this was about parents at first and then discovered, no, there's been teachers writing about this for 30 years, capturing it, videotaping this phenomenon going on and scared to come out about it. And I think same with the families, right? I mean, what a weird thing to say this child can read my mind or this child seems to be able to do X, Y, Z, things that seem impossible. And so, my first thought was, okay, I need to see this with my own eyes. And so, Dr. Powell had just been reached out to by a family in Mexico who discovered that their 13-year-old daughter was inside, they didn't think she was, and she was able to communicate. And the reason they discovered that was during COVID, they were in charge of homeschooling and started being like, okay, let's see what you know. And bing, bing, bing, she started spelling, she knew an awful lot. And I think they were shocked. And pretty soon thereafter, she said, I can read your mind. And they thought, what? And they would do tests. What did I just draw? And she'd say, what they just drew, what are we thinking? And she would write it. And so- Do they say what they see or how they see it? Like if someone writes something down, do they see the word or do they know it? Well, I think that's a really good question. And we've done a few experiments that, again, I'm not a scientist, like the experiments I was doing for the film, which is going to be now a film, but the podcast was kind of me just trying to understand like proof of concept of what is going on here. And I can only say what spellers have told me. And there's been quite a few spellers who say I can see through someone's eyes or I can hear through their ears. And others who seem to have a merged consciousness with someone that they're very close to, whether it be a father or a teacher or a communication partner, father or whatever, where we did some experiments with one mom where we'd show an image to her. Her son, who was sitting across the room, would all of a sudden start writing what the image was. But what was so fascinating is sometimes the mom wouldn't even know what the image was. So at one point, she thought it was paint. No, no, she thought there was a food fight. It was ketchup and mustard and he wrote paint. So at that point, it's like, she's not obviously sending a thought, right? He seems to be tapping in the second the images in her own mind. So for us, it was a big question of, is this just sheer telepathy? Because a few parents have told me, no, this is bigger than that. And it seems like a merging of consciousness of some sort. Yeah, in a bizarre way, if the mother doesn't know what it is, and the child does, that's strange. Yeah, it's really fascinating. And you know, but I also one of the stories that I loved goes back. So Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, the Cambridge biologist who's in this project, he didn't believe in telepathy either. I mean, I think a lot of scientists, right, don't believe this stuff right away either. And he had a, you know, a senior professor that he really looked up to, Sir Rudolph Peters. And he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for being such a brilliant scientific mind, right? And the Sir Rudolph Peters was in like the tea room at Cambridge one time, and telling young Dr. Sheldrake, young Rupert here, that, that he just heard of a blind boy that he tested, who, who obviously is blind and can't read an eye chart. But if his mother is looking at it, he could read it. And that's how Rupert Sheldrake fell into this world. And that boy was diagnosed with, you know, being blind, but also at the time, what they called, you know, severe mental retardation, which now we don't call that, you know, but but that's, who knows what this young individual have, if he had apraxia, or, or what was going on if he had autism, but he's... Because autism and blindness, like, it's a huge impediment, especially nonverbal autism and being blind, like, how do you learn anything? So you would assume that there's something wrong with the child when really, there's just a lack of the ability to communicate. Yeah, with, I mean, with non-speaking individuals with apraxia, they are in there, they're so smart. It's just that mind body disconnect and not being able to, you know, what do they think causes that? Do they have an understanding of what it is? I, you know, I don't know. That's, there's so many wonderful experts out there looking into this. And I don't know what causes apraxia. But I do know that there's a lot of supports to help individuals who have apraxia to communicate. And the world is just making it really difficult for these individuals. Have you ever seen this young blind boy that uses echolocation and he can ride a skateboard and move around? How bizarre is that? It's cool. I mean, you know, in some ways, you think of like echolocation or, or being able to see through infrared is like a sixth sense, like a sixth that we don't, a sense that we don't have, right. But it's like a sense some other creatures get around with. So it's like what we're talking about here is almost like a seventh sense, right? It's something beyond that. But I just, there's something so beautiful about that, that if you, if humans are so creative, that we will find our way to get around the world and find our ways to communicate. Also, when you're missing a sense, your other senses are stronger. This has always been a suspicion. I think that's been proven. Is that correct? Yeah. That people are better at hearing things if they're blind or seeing things if they're deaf. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is absolutely true. And I think though, as far as, you know, individuals with apraxia go again, like it's mind body disconnect. There's so many of the spellers I've met who don't know they had a body at first. They can't feel their body. You know, they want heavy boots to know where their feet are or heavy necklace to know where their chest is. And, and I think not being in your body, not knowing you have your body leaves you to live in this consciousness space more, right? This world of thought where, where we can't imagine that we're so bound to our body. We have these dissociative dissociative boundaries where it's like, you're Joe and I'm high. And, yeah. So I think that's, that's what heightens a lot of this for them is just not, you know, feeling as grounded into their bodies. In the wackiest of conspiracy theories, when people talk about the government's connection to alien intelligence, that they recruit these nonverbal autistic kids, because they're the ones who can communicate with aliens. I don't believe that. No, I don't believe that either. No, it's the wackiest of conspiracy theories, but the idea being that if you were the government, you would look for someone who is extraordinary in, in that they, they're more open to this ability to interact than we would be. They do not have the burden of feeling foolish. They don't have the burden of societal constraints that we've kind of culturally put on the idea of alien life, being able to communicate with them. Yeah. I mean, this is, I have received a question around, you know, could the government utilize these individuals? Isn't that disgusting? That's the first thing you think about. People think about that. If someone's extraordinary, could the government, like the X-Men. Yeah, you're right. Like how, how will the government utilize this? I mean, that's what everybody worries. Yeah. And it's a fair worry. I mean, it is a fair worry. And you know, like we try to be very protective of, of the families and make sure that they're safe and that they're only out there if they want to be out there and, you know, that type of thing. But. And even they know what that means. Yeah. That's the problem. You say you want to be out there. Do you know what that means? Right. Exactly. But I will say, I mean, every non-speaking individual with these gifts that I've ever met won't use it for bad or nefarious means that they're, they're interested in love. They're interested in connection. Right. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Well, the problem is if they were used and didn't know what they were doing. They would know. They'll know. They can read your thoughts and they know what's up. They know what's up better than anyone. I think, you know. Interesting. Um, when you, uh, first started, was there stages of acceptance for you with these ideas? Yeah. What was the first stage? I mean, the first stage was, I think, uh, I never, I never had the barrier of whether or not they're in there. You know, I've, I worked, I helped start the inclusion program in my high school and I've worked and cared for people, you know, with varying abilities my whole life. So that I knew they were in there, but I think the next thing for me was the telepathy. And, and, and when you see it, and when you talk to enough parents who are saying, all you need to do is go see it. It's not like, it's not like, does it show up or like, will it appear? It's like for the parents and teachers report, this is happening. If you go work with a speller, you just see it. So that was pretty phenomenal. And then the first person we saw, um, being able to, to do it was this girl, Mia. And she was still in the early stages of learning to spell, to communicate. So she was being touched. It often helps like first with the wrist and then here and then here and then on the head and then often then there's no touch at all. Right. It's just like learning that body and learning those supports to control your motor. So, um, so Dr. Powell was like, ah, no scientist will take this because she was being touched. And I think a lot of us in the room were like, wait, people think she's her mom sending Morse code. Like they're they plan. I mean, of course that's ridiculous. It really is. But then the next individual could do it across the room and wasn't being touched. And you know, anyone that we saw thereafter wasn't being touched. So that was pretty remarkable. And I don't think touch actually, I think telepathy is really cool if you're being touched, you know, but, um, so it's telepathy that was the first one. And then I think the second one was, uh, the language stuff. And a lot of parents saying, you know, we have no idea how, but she's speaking Portuguese and no one in the house speaks Portuguese or people talking about, you know, this has been documented. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. It's quite common actually. Um, these are non-verbal kids, non-speakers, non-speakers. So what is the difference between non-verbal and non-speakers? Well, I think non-verbal is this idea, right? Like that you're, um, not able to make, uh, like language, you know, in a way where like speaking, it's just they can be verbal, they can communicate, they just can't speak it. Okay. Just can't speak it without the support of a communication partner. Like, you know, that is, um, uh, they, the goal is to type independently. Do they make noises? Yeah. I mean, I think especially with apraxia, there's often a lack of body control, um, voice control. So, so there is like a beautiful soundtrack that I've come to love of non-speakers that will often be like, um, some grunting or just lack of body control. And actually I think if someone sees a non-speaker out in public, one of the most loving things you can say is like, I know you can't control your body and know that, I know that's not you. You know what I mean? Because the person in there might want to be doing X, Y, Z, but just cannot control their body. And imagine how frustrating that would be. Yeah. Um, so these people, they're, they're non-verbal. And when you say that they can speak Portuguese, they, they understand Portuguese. They, do they write it? Like how, how does this manifest itself? Yeah. So, I mean, there's one young girl I'm thinking of in particular, but there's this, again, this has come up now with, I don't know, 15 non-speakers that I've met. Um, but the girl I'm thinking of, uh, her, you know, she will work during the day with a paraprofessional and a, um, spelling coach. You know, there's a, you know, the education system, there might be two or three people in the room and three people who are in the room this day. And she started spelling in a language and they didn't know what it is. So they looked it up and it was Portuguese. And then she started spelling in Spanish and they were like, this is wild. And she also said she knew hieroglyphics. And then they were like, well, how do we test this? Because if we know the answer, she'll read our mind and know. So they had to just- Which is wild already. Like you have to worry about this kid reading your mind. It might be bullshit. So they had to like, look up pictures of hieroglyphics and not know what the pictures were representing to be like, okay, here's the feather. I mean, I don't know what a feather on top of a stone or whatever the picture was of. And here's this picture and this picture. And then she identified them and then they looked them up and they were right. Wow. All of them a hundred percent accurate. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, and I'm not saying, of course, not- What the hell is going on there? Not every, um- What is that? Well, I mean- That is, that's beyond bizarre. Did you give her a CUNY form? I mean, I wasn't there for this. I, you know, her mom reported it to me and has the email that she received from the staff. And so, you know, the staff is just like, this is what happened today?