← Imagine Heaven Podcast with John Burke
Imagine Heaven Podcast with John Burke
Non-Speaking Autistic Kids Are Reporting NDE-Like Visits to Heaven…Without Dying!?
01:10:10
What if non-speaking autistic individuals aren’t “trapped”… but experiencing something far beyond what we can see? Pastor Joe Infranco joins John Burke to reveal stunning parallels between Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) and what autistic non-speakers...
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- [00:00]
A
Well, the Telepathy Tapes became the number one podcast in America in 2025, revealing this fascinating mystery of how autistic non speaking kids could learn to communicate through spelling on a board. And what they began to reveal were things that shocked the world, like telepathic understanding of their mother's thoughts and even claims of visiting the other side, the spiritual world. Well, my guest today, Joe Enfranco, was interviewed on the Telepathy tapes because as a pastor, he has worked with autistic kids and started seeing the same evidence for himself. But he also is passionate about what was left out, which is who these autistic kids often meet on the other side. Well, Joe and I met comparing notes on the 1500 near death experiences studied in the commonalities of what they say with what he's heard these autistic kids say. And we think God's up to something amazing. So we decided to just let you hear our conversation. Well, I'm John Burke, author of the New York Times best selling book Imagine Heaven, and this is the Imagine Heaven podcast. Joe and Franco, welcome to the Imagine Heaven podcast. So great to have you on today.
- [01:19]
B
Hi John, great to be with you.
- [01:20]
A
We got to know each other a little bit in a conversation or two and kind of geeked out together. We have a few things in common. I was an engineer by background turned pastor. You were a lawyer by background turned pastor. And then both found ourselves stumbling into these kind of different realms of evidence of the reality of the spiritual world and even God. And so I'm really excited to hear more about what your findings are. So in all that, tell us a little bit of how you ended up working with autistic kids.
- [02:01]
B
Yeah, so as you pointed out, I had a career as an attorney. I'm still technically licensed if I care to do something. And I spent the last 18 years of that with Alliance Defending Freedom. And that was in the. Was in the pursuit of religious liberty and First Amendment issues and things like that. Then from that I just felt like I've had enough of this. I'm doing it a long time. And so God, when it went, I finally, I fulfilled my lifelong dream and became a pastor. And it started when the special needs ministry in our church reported a breakthrough for people with autism. Now we have a fairly large special needs ministry. It's Highlands Church in Scottsdale. I'm a pastor of adult education. And they started communicating by a process I'll call spelling. And spelling, if you picture a screen with letters, a screen about the size of your laptop, somebody who loses the ability to speak can in some cases communicate, pardon me, what's called augmented or alternative communication. And they're able to eventually get their hand and their finger and move to letters and spell words to answer questions. It's a laborious process. Think of Stephen Hawking. He had a, you know, an AAC device. He had in the end, one good finger. And when he lost the use of that finger, the, they set it up for him that he had an eye activated device. And then he could get to enter and you'd hear what he was thinking. So when that happened, the amazing journey started because the people with autism started telling us that they were inside. They were, I'm in here, I'm trapped. You don't know that I'm in here. Stop treating me like a kid.
- [04:06]
A
And these are. There's a wide spectrum of autism, right? Everything from very highly functioning and, you know, savant to those, and you're talking about those who have, they, they, they have verbal, some verbal skills, but that's, that's good.
- [04:26]
B
Yeah, that's a good clarification. So autism is a spectrum. The old saying is if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. The spectrum is very diverse, as you say, on the high end. I've had many people reach out to me now and say they're high functioning autism and they speak, they hold down jobs, some marry, have families. One wonders if we should even call it autism at that point. We used to distinguish between autism and Asperger's and you know, even Elon Musk is making a joke that he's got autism. And sometimes that might look like just simply a highly focused person, sort of eccentric thinking or things like that. What happens is the deeper you get into the autism spectrum, the greater there's a disconnect between the brain and the body. This is my layper. I have read countless, countless studies and tried to learn about this. So I'm giving my highly imperfect layman's, you know, summary of this. At some point, as they get deeper into the spectrum, fine motor skills tend to be affected more and speech is a fine motor skill. And so at some point their speech becomes unreliable. So you might meet somebody who can say a few words or sentence fragments, you'll meet somebody else with a little less than that. You'll meet some way different deep in the spectrum, whatever that concept means, who never say a word. You'll meet some who, who parrot words and they'll just keep repeating the word that they've said. So it's highly individualized, but at some point they cross a line, not clearly defined, where we say their speech is not reliable enough. We, we need to find some other way to help them come communicate.
- [06:22]
A
And yet, and yet the fascinating thing, and, and just for those listening, why I wanted to have you on is that they're in there and, and you're, you're discovering this like, fully functioning mind and human in there. And then they start, and I don't want to give away too much, but they start talking about experiences that they have in the spiritual world that map to what I've found with near death experiencers who clinically die and leave their body. And that's, that's what we'll get to, you know, eventually. So hang on. But it's important, I think, to understand, you know, your background and you know, who, who these autistic spellers are.
- [07:09]
B
Yeah. And so, you know, our church has a relatively large ministry. We do the Tim Tebow Night to shine and get maybe 14 people on campus for that. And we've ministered to perhaps 80, 90 families in a week. And it's not babysitting. We have people with autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, you name it. And there are Bible lessons. And I recently had a reporter from World magazine come to the church. She wanted to do a story on the program. And she sat with me in one of the sessions for the kids and she was amazed that they were getting a Bible story and they were answering questions and. Because again, spelling.
- [07:50]
A
Spelling. Answering questions.
- [07:52]
B
Yeah, yeah. Well, they weren't spelling. They were sitting in the room and they would raise a hand or talk because again, a lot of them, even with autism, you know, they might hear a question, who was the prophet who did this? Was it Elisha? Elijah, you know, and some of them would just go, Elijah, Elijah. You know. Right. They're answering. They clearly know.
- [08:14]
A
Yeah.
- [08:14]
B
We have a built in prejudice when somebody does not speak in an intelligible way. We associate that with a lack of mental capacity. So what happened to a lot of these poor young men and women was they would be shown kid cartoons like the ones that keep coming up are Barney and Elmo. And they suffer from kind of this repeating. It's called echolalia. So if Cody saw Elmo, he would start repeating, Elmo, Elmo. And the family would go, oh, that's nice. He likes, let's show him more Elmo. Which caused him to repeat Elmo, Elmo. And they thought they were doing him a favor when he finally had the breakthrough of spelling and he could tell us what he was thinking. One of the first things he said is, stop the Elmo cartoons. They're idiotic.
- [09:02]
A
They're for I Hate Elmo. I read that in your, in your new book, Decoding Cody. And I laughed. I thought, oh, oh, that's torture. And another, another one was like, Barney, we, we have, we have some, they're adults now at our church that I've gotten to know as well. And, and, and one of them will do the same thing. You'll say something and he'll parrot it back, you know, and so it was, it was interesting, helpful to see that that's kind of like it's the brain body disconnect.
- [09:34]
B
Yeah.
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A
That causes that.
- [09:36]
B
Yeah.
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A
But then your parents thought, oh, they want more, Barney. They want more. And that wasn't it.
- [09:41]
B
There's even studies that talk about part of the brain body disconnect is they lose the sense of their limbs, they can't feel that their legs at times or their extremities, which is going to relate back to when we get into the spiritual business. But so to keep it on point, for example, Cody told us he loves history. He's a big Beatles fan. He decorated his room with Beatles pictures. And Matthew, he also said, Toby, he loves World War II and I'll talk to him about World War II. Matthew, another speller said he loves architecture. One of my favorites is Elsa, who's like a granddaughter. She's not literally my granddaughter, but she's like that to me. And she went from kid cartoons to saying, I like math and science, I want to study the brain. She had memorized the periodic table in chemistry. She had a grandfather, was like a brilliant scientist.
- [10:36]
A
And were they, were they in school already learning or they're just picking this up?
- [10:43]
B
They were in adaptive programs. They were being given, you know, they're giving much lower level stuff than they were capable of. And the problem was because they weren't giving feedback on what they were getting. Nobody could do anything. But when I've asked about this, how did this happen? You know, one professor said to me, oh, they're autodidactic, they're self taught. And the idea was that words are all around us and, and they are constantly hearing people speak, seeing words. Just pardon me, sitting at your desk right now. Look around, see how many places you're looking at words. They're so common as part of our background that we, we cease to notice them. So they were self taught. They're remarkably good spellers. And again, once they started, you know, Talking to us and just to me, finish the thought. Elsa finished high school. She aced all of her math courses up to pre calc and science, and she's interested in going to college. And we're finally catching up because some of your listeners may say, wait a minute, I've heard about spelling. It was disproven. There's nothing to it. I saw something on Netflix, old info from the 90s. I mean, it was so irritating to me that I put an appendix in the book on academic studies, like from University of Virginia and other places saying, no, we, we missed their verbal skills. And there's more books are coming out about like this. This book over here is called Leaders among us. It's 60 some odd stories of persons with limited space with autism who are going to college, who are writing, who are doing theater, who are doing all kinds of things.
- [12:35]
A
Do you have a sense of how many have been like studied or.
- [12:44]
B
Yeah, I don't know. This is kind of a. It's a relatively new development. But I can tell you this. University of California at Berkeley is now admitting students with autism, non speaking students. And they communicate through various forms. Some of them are eventually able to use keyboards even. So it's out there, it's happening. But I don't know how many. And again, some kids with autism take to spelling. I've seen some take to it very quickly. Others, it's a slower process because they
- [13:19]
A
have to learn it. They have to learn how to actually connect with their bodies enough to point to the letters.
- [13:27]
B
The way it's been described to me by the people who do it is they're cutting new neural circuits. Hmm. They're the disconnect between the brain and the bot and the body is so severe that they're not used to on impulse being able to tell their body to do something unusual. They can pick up food to eat. You know, there's a circuit for that. But the idea of I'm going to look at a letter and then get my hand or my finger and point to that letter is, was a new level of challenge. There's even a delete key to take back letters. So I recorded the conversations with them literally in the book. You've probably read a number of them, particularly the ones where they talk about seeing Jesus or the spiritual world. So I want people to see exactly what they're saying. Yeah, this is not, you know, planted by. And I'll anticipate a question from you because it's asked so often. People say, well, wait a minute, aren't These church kids don't they go with their parents, they hear Bible stories about angels and now they're just kind of projecting it. And the answer to that is a lot of them come from either non Christian families or more commonly kind of a Christian background or heritage, but non practicing. A story I've heard a lot from parents is when I realized my son slash daughter is seeing these things and telling me about angels in the house. I thought, oh my goodness, I know nothing about this. I better find a church and learn about this stuff. So they were not being exposed to it. The fact that they might have been, you know, culturally Methodist or Lutheran didn't mean there was any exposure for the kids. And even one instance is a fascinating story about a kid from a Hindu family. But that I'll hold off on later that kind of intersects with some of what you speculated on and imagine the God of heaven about NDEs and non Christians. And anyway, to kind of complete this thought here, they started spelling. And when I learned about that John, I was just fascinated on a human and a pastoral level. I knew nothing about the spiritual world. I went just to meet with them and pray for them and hear from them. The idea of meeting a human being who's trapped inside their, their body for 15, 20, 25 years and is now talking to us to tell us who they are and what they see was so incredibly fascinating to me. I wanted to understand what's the experience you have. Tell me your reactions and your emotions from all this. And I very much wanted to minister to them because they'd been overlooked for so long.
- [16:18]
A
So you got interested just to pastor them. When did you first realize that? Oh well, they're having some kind of spiritual experience that we would never. We don't have typically.
- [16:35]
B
Yeah. So the beginning of it. And I tell the story in more detail, you know, in decoding Cody, the beginning of it was when Cody asked his dad for prayer because he was being oppressed his word by a demon. His dad was not really familiar with that world or deliverance. I've had experience with it and I believe it's a valid ministry that we need to do in a balanced way. You have to add those caveats because some people will go to unbiblical extremes. So we get that. So I went to pray with him and we spent time together. And I always before I'll pray for somebody, I want to make sure I try to find out what's the root of it. Like I've seen for example, people coming out of the new age get Exposed to things. I've met some who they invite in a spirit guide. Well, of course, you're playing in the, you know, a demonic backyard. When you do that kind of thing,
- [17:37]
A
it seems innocent, but they're just. They're deceivers. Like. Like Jesus said, they've never told the truth in their lives or, you know.
- [17:46]
B
Right. Also, it comes when people get gripped with fear or hatred or unforgiveness. Sometimes there's a spiritual dimension to those things. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, sound thinking. And I found when people hold on to bitterness or unforgiveness, sometimes they're leaning into demonic kind of thinking and reasoning and responses. And it can be very subtle. Right. I mean, Peter going to rebuke Jesus over talking about the crucifixion. And, you know, the Lord turns us back to Peter. He doesn't say, get thee behind me, Peter. He says, get thee behind me, Satan, adversary, you're an offense. It was in that moment Peter's thinking and response is being influenced by the adversary. It's not godly thinking. So those things happen too. So. And I'll make sure somebody. We try to identify it, and the person has to renounce it. They don't want this thing. And then I find they're easily delivered. So we prayed for Cody. His parents and the spelling facility said they never saw anything like this. His whole body thrashed and convulsed big time. And then he started spelling, he's gone. Who's gone? The demon. And then in the process of what followed, he started saying, and he was also feeling horrible pins and needle type pain in his forehead. And that was gone too. And then he was telling us, I'm afraid it'll come back. And we were trying to reassure him, but he was giving an odd amount of detail, like describing not only what this demon was saying, I'll be back, but kind of what he looked like. In fact, you know, at one point he was describing something and someone asked him, are you saying he was mad? And Cody's answer was, he was furious. And then from that, Cody gradually said, do you know, I'm able to see angels and demons. I see them all the time. Do you believe me? And he was concerned whether we would believe him. About the same time, there were three other spellers, so four in total, with whom I was having a lot of contact, and they were spelling. They began saying the same thing. And they don't speak to each other, they don't have phones. They can't talk to each other by definition. And they started telling me the same things.
- [20:16]
A
You know, they can see things happening in the spiritual world all around them.
- [20:21]
B
Some of them could see events that were about to happen. Including this might be upsetting to some people to hear this, but including events that hadn't happened yet. And the things that they were talking about and seeing were the things that could be verified were correct. They very often knew what people were thinking.
- [20:45]
A
So is that where the Telepathy tapes became, I think like the number one podcast in America. Oh, in the world. Last year my friends told me about it and I, I didn't hear it until, you know, until I met you. And then, you know, went and heard. But they were, they were saying it's. They're saying very similar things to what you talk about that near death experiencers
- [21:11]
B
say, yeah, yeah, that's wild, John. And, and the same thing happened that the. I got invited on the Telepathy tape. So I was on episode seven for a bit and a little bit on eight. And the creator of the Telepathy tapes, she's a very talented professional. She doesn't have a Christian worldview. I think she's in her own kind of journey of exploration. She says publicly I went from being a materialist to now thinking there's a spiritual world. But she's not taking.
- [21:44]
A
Because of these autistic kids.
- [21:48]
B
Yeah. And adults. The experiments that she's. That they've done and verify it are. Are just extraordinary.
- [21:56]
A
Like what kind of things for those kids will.
- [22:00]
B
And they've got the camera on them and somebody's in a different room and somebody asks what am I thinking? And the kid will spell out what they're thinking or they'll know names.
- [22:10]
A
And it's usually, it's usually the mother, isn't it?
- [22:13]
B
Or that's what I heard very often the mother. Because it's the. They want to. They can do that with people whom they trust. There's a close relationship and the mom is a primary caregivers like that. But I mean for I just, for example, just last week I hear from people all the time from literally all around the world. A woman from Scotland wrote to me and sent me pictures and she said, you know, my husband and I are caretakers for this little girl. She's maybe 7 or 8 years old. We take her to church and they sent me pictures, even some videos, this girl worshiping and smiling. And they said to me, she, she loves to worship and you know, she has autism. I should have had that, obviously. So I, I, I sent that over to Cody's parents, who were close friends and, and my co founders of a nonprofit. And I said, look at this. So the parents showed Cody just the picture and said, look at this picture. And Cody spelled out, oh, that's April. How do you know April? From the Hill. She's, and Cody been on to say she's known as a worshiper. She belts out glory to God in the highest. Do you know the names of her parents? Her dad's name is. And he had the correct name. And this was interesting. This was kind of like a stepmom
- [23:34]
A
and, and she's in Ireland.
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B
Scotland.
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A
Scotland. She's in Scotland. Cody's in Arizona.
- [23:40]
B
Yeah, yeah. They've never. But this happens.
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A
Okay, so happens the Hill.
- [23:45]
B
The Hill. The Hill is kind of a meeting place for them. And that's the telepathy tapes focused on the Hill a lot. The, When I went on the podcast, I had just learned about the Hill and I had a few of my kids telling me about it. So I said to the podcast creator, this is thing the Hill you're going to, I want to tell you about this. And by the way, she cut out the Christian content. That was not the story she wanted to tell. She had me on mostly to talk about academic studies and that I could verify which she has seen. And when she did the episode, she said, I had a laugh. Joe was trying to tell me about the hill, and little did he know, I've seen this, you know, hundred, more than a hundred times, kids talking about
- [24:28]
A
the Hill of kids saying that. So describe what that is for, for the listeners, because this is where it starts to come together.
- [24:36]
B
Yeah. So the Hill is a, it's a place, it's an actual place, but it's not an earthly place. I've asked a number of spellers, is it heaven? And they've said, no, but it has heaven like attributes. They describe it as an actual hill with grass, with flowers. There are angels there. They see Jesus there. And some people say, well, are they discerning spirits? How do they know Satan's able to appear as an angel of light? I went into that in great detail. In the book we talk about the discernment of spirits and the test first John 4, and looking at the fruit of what's being said. And just to say I'm, I'm convinced. And by the way, when they see demons, it's a qualitatively different experience. So I'll stay on the Hill. So it's an actual place. And when they Go there. They speak to each other just in their minds. They say all communication similar to NDEs. When somebody is seeing Jesus, they're not speaking, just your thoughts are. No. And they just.
- [25:41]
A
Or like if there's a reunion with loved ones who have died, it's. And some call it telepathy. But many have said no, it's much more than just thoughts. It's thoughts, it's emotion, it's all the connected ideas. It's perfect communication. You can't misunderstand.
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B
Right? Exactly. They say the same thing. Telepathy kind of, I think sends you down a wrong path.
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A
Or it's just much narrower if you're just reading someone's thoughts.
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B
Yeah. There's a knowing.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And what cannot be separated from the knowing things is the sense of love that permeates everything. It's not just knowing, but it's having the right perspective, the significance of your actions and other things. It's like there's a kind of a connectivity and it's interesting. I've met a lot of people with NDEs and I was thinking of some of the more unique ones recently. Or maybe I should send your way. But the. Because some of them have. Have, have. No, no, that's a rabbit trail. I won't do it.
- [26:49]
A
Have they been to the hill?
- [26:53]
B
Some of them have been to places like I now think that the hill is. It's. It's an actual place. And if you ask them is it real, they'll even sometimes tell you it's more than real. They have the sense that that's reality and what we live here is not reality. But you don't know that till you see it.
- [27:14]
A
Well, that's exactly what nd ears say.
- [27:18]
B
Exactly. It's another commonality there. They speak in that pure kind of mind. They worship on the hill. They worship God. They worship Jesus.
- [27:28]
A
Is Jesus always appear?
- [27:32]
B
They all see him. They say, oh yeah, I see him regularly. Does that mean he's there? He's obviously capable of being with everyone. And we're constrained by time. We can't imagine how he's appearing to John and Joe at the same moment. I believe I kind of recall you gave a helpful illustration in one of your books. I think I might have been imagining the God of heaven of kind of a timeline and how the. The divine intersects it.
- [28:01]
A
Two dimensional, second or third dimensional.
- [28:03]
B
Timeline.
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A
Yeah.
- [28:05]
B
Right. So in multiple. And by what I've heard from scientists and quantum physicists who say there's a basis to understand this and you know, and they start telling Me about multiple dimensions. And I go, okay, I got it. Yeah, it's really fascinating stuff, but. But some of it is. Is fascinating, like the idea in quantum physics or quantum mechanics that two particles, and this is just straightforward science separated by light years can interact and have an effect on each other with no passing of time. So we're getting superposition.
- [28:41]
A
You're talking about superposition.
- [28:44]
B
Yeah, yeah. We get lost into materialist thinking or we place limits on God according to our living in a space time continuum.
- [28:52]
A
Well, and I don't want to rabbit trail too far, but what's fascinating is there have been scientists showing mathematically, you know, the general relativity, which is Einstein's theory of the. The macro, which works perfectly for the macro, quantum physics, which works perfectly for the, the micro, the unseen. The two don't. The two don't work together unless you add a fifth dimension.
- [29:21]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:23]
A
And yeah, Kaluza and Klein showed. Showed that mathematically.
- [29:28]
B
Anyway, one book by me was Brian. I like reading about theoretical physics, but I. Brian Green.
- [29:34]
A
Yeah, I've read it. I've read several of his books.
- [29:36]
B
Yeah. And there was one talking about multiple dimensions that fold into each other.
- [29:42]
A
And I read that one, String theory. It was about string theory.
- [29:48]
B
Wait, I love string theory.
- [29:49]
A
Yeah.
- [29:50]
B
Okay, back to back. So back to the hill, they see each other. One thing the telepathy tapes focused on is they'll meet. They'll interview Bobby in Atlanta and Bobby will say, oh, I have my friend Steve in Houston. And a couple times they've tracked down that family somehow and they meet with Steve and Steve spells out, oh, yeah, I have my friend Bobby in Atlanta. And these stories happen and they all
- [30:24]
A
meet on the hill, this place that Jesus brings them. And, and so. Okay, so that, that goes to something. You know, if I were a skeptic, my thought would have been, well, how do you know these, these kids or these adults are telling the truth? You know, that they're seeing angels or seeing demons, or they're going to this hill and they're seeing Jesus. You know, a skeptic would probably just say, yeah, well, you know, that's. You spend time in your head, that's what you're going to think. And you're giving, you're giving some. That's some evidence, right?
- [31:02]
B
Yeah. And not only that, I, I was skeptical in the early part of the book. I went into that and I looked at it two ways. First I said, is everything I'm seeing backed biblically? The fact that they say they smell incense when angels are fighting is There a biblical basis for that. When people are praying, then you Remember what Revelation 5: and 8 where the incense represents the prayers of the saints and angels or administering them both. It's like things kept tying in. And then the second question was, are they being truthful? And even if they are being truthful, might they be mistaken in what they see? Could their perspective be off?
- [31:45]
A
Right.
- [31:45]
B
So I went through that the way I would cross examine somebody from my trial attorney days to discredit what they were saying. And what was surprising, John, was that people with autism tend to be among the most honest people you'll meet. That's a consensus of the opinion of experts. Many say they lack the appreciation of subtle social cues that make someone a good liar because they have trouble with that kind of process. They tend to be honest and sometimes they're easier to deceive. They're pure in thinking. And there seems to be a consensus as well that they cannot build on a lie. They can't get together and plan it and keep growing it so they're truthful. And then I went into, okay, but would they have motives to be, you know, dishonest? And I just be very quick with this. Why do people lie? Well, people lie for money. Okay. If you have non speaking autism, you're not considered legally competent, which means you can't sign a contract. You're not going to take, get out. Take a credit card or no bank accounts. They're disconnected from money. If there's money for them in the families, it's left in what's called a special needs trust. Money is not a pull on them. People might lie to get out of trouble or help a friend in trouble. And you see, they don't have these
- [33:11]
A
kinds of situations or what about to get attention or.
- [33:14]
B
Exactly. Great one. And you know, and how many people go on YouTube and claim that they're a prophet or saw this or that, right? And they get a million views and they monetize it. So I again, I went into those sorts of things for would they lie? People, life or attention? People with autism are unique. They would rather have routine. They don't like excess stimulation. Often you'll see them wearing headphones. There's a picture of Cody and me in the back of the book and he's wearing headphones. They want quiet time. They're more. They would, it would look more like how we would picture an introvert. The idea of attention and people coming to them and wanting to is unwelcome. So you just go point by point.
- [34:02]
A
It's like, what's the motive?
- [34:05]
B
They lack the motive. So it's.
- [34:07]
A
Well, and, and then I didn't realize they were, they were conferring with people on the Hill that could then be checked out in other states or other cities. That's pretty amazing.
- [34:20]
B
The telepathy tapes did some of the lifting for us. I think they're incomplete. And you and I had talked about. We want to resp. We want a Christian. You could call it a response, but we want, we want a Christian lens on the telepathy tapes.
- [34:37]
A
Well, I don't even know that it's a Christian lens. I think it's kind of like near death experiences. It's like, why are we getting so many of these? And I think what's going on probably is that God is raising up testimony of himself all over the place. And of course, we live in a world at war and evil's real and so it's going to try to take it and spin it away from God every opportunity it gets.
- [35:07]
B
Right. Right. And that's the reason I'm calling it a Christian lens is exactly that, that they're all talking about Jesus and about heaven. They're warning, they're telling people to get right with God. Quite a few of them are saying, he's coming quickly.
- [35:22]
A
Oh, I, I read what they're, I read in your book what they're, you know, what they're writing, what they're spelling out. And it's like, wow.
- [35:31]
B
I mean, there's many, hundreds of them. But the telepathy tapes did this lifting for us. And that is the kind of. The star guest on that was a, a woman who's a psychiatrist. I got to know her somewhat and she, she taught it at Harvard and at Johns Hopkins. So she's obviously an academic. She's brilliant. Right. She's been taking on materialism and she's been saying, look, we know that this kind of mind reading is not unusual. We've observed this all the time. We've observed this through all of our history. People just don't know what to do with it because we have a cultural materialist bias. And other places around the world don't have that. They live more comfortably with the supernatural. So that the telepathy tapes really establish, Established that and now with the kids.
- [36:23]
A
But did the telepathy tapes leave Jesus out? God leave God out.
- [36:29]
B
The closest she got was to say that these, the kids tend to see God in their religious tradition. Now I've, I've now come across that I've heard from. Yeah, I'VE heard from multiple hundreds of people. I've seen two things from it again that overlap with NDEs because I really think this is the way to understand the telepathy tapes. The things that overlap is a number of them have seen Jesus and they instantly know it's Jesus. And I'll ask them, how did you know it was Jesus? You just know.
- [37:08]
A
That's what they say. You don't have any doubt in your mind at all. Yeah, right.
- [37:15]
B
The thing that's most common is they know it's Jesus. There's no mistaking it. There's very few and not enough that I feel comfortable really commenting on it, who have an experience, feel the peace and feel like everything came together. They feel a great sense of connectivity, like they understand everything in the universe is connected. Every life is connected. Every, you know, they've given me examples like it's a tree with billions of leaves. But they're all, you know, and they get some kind of a general sense. And maybe not Jesus, but they, but they get a sense of something else. But the ones who see a person like that see, see Jesus. And let me just add this.
- [38:01]
A
And you said even people of other faith backgrounds, you said there was a Hindu person.
- [38:09]
B
I had one person who told me an account of a Hindu person and their experience with them. So to me it doesn't count because it's hearsay. But I've had a lot of experience with families that were either nothing secular or Christian by tradition, but didn't go to church, didn't read the Bible, didn't know anything. And that's important just because they're not planting stories in the kids heads. Right. And just to wrap up the hill on this, then we can change subjects. The hill is a place. I now think of it as some that a couple of them have now told me there's more than one hill. And sometimes what they see is not a hill but a field. The predominant color is gold. There's weed or growth. It's beautiful. They're aware of hills nearby. Sometimes there are buildings like I've heard people talk about pillars, like classical, you know, Greek or Roman pillars.
- [39:10]
A
Buildings with the pillars.
- [39:13]
B
Yeah.
- [39:13]
A
And, and so that sounds somewhat like what people describe. Do they like the, do they see the city of God?
- [39:23]
B
Some are aware there's a city in the distance. There are a few who say they've gone to the city Houston in the book of Heaven. I don't think Josiah and Josiah's fire did. But there are some who say that they. But this gets Interesting too. I had a long conference call with a man and his son last night. And the man, in addition to being mildly autistic, the son is non speaking, has had several NDEs and he's seen aspects of heaven. Was that from his autism or is that from, you know.
- [39:59]
A
Well, let's talk. Let's talk about some of the commonalities that, that I've studied with NDEs and that you've seen with, with these autistic kids going to the hill or heavenly place. Like I, I know in your book you talked about beauty and I think even colors beyond our color spectrum. Do they commonly say that?
- [40:21]
B
Yeah, the hill, the flowers have colors we've seen and colors we've not seen. And the tendency is, if it's the colors that we do know from earth, we just have an idea of those colors. We see the real color, we'll see deep blue for real, like, oh, that's deep. They say that, they say things like the colors are more real or again, it's a slow process because they're spelling. It's hard to get the level of detail that you can get from somebody. Oh yeah, A couple have. Have described it that way, that it's real, it's more real. It's not limited by space and time. There are thousands and thousands of kids on the hill. They have friends there. They worship. They're given assignments to intercede for us, by the way. And they all say there's teaching and the flowers are in some way connected with human beings. Everything worships God. There's a commonality. Every blade of grass worships God.
- [41:27]
A
They say that too. Yeah, yeah, that's what, that's what Heidi, my Jewish friend who met Jesus and sees heaven and said the, the grass and the flowers and everything was singing, worshiping God, but not, not like we think of singing. It was, it was something, something else. Music. Did they talk about music there?
- [41:49]
B
Yeah, they say that the worship is so beautiful. And one said to me, if anybody ever heard the worship there, they could never doubt God. When I asked Cody about the, the worship, he said it's perfection. He used one word to describe it. So they, they talk about the worship, but it's of a kind and soar. The worship of God is more pure. It's more. I mean, in the more direct presence of God, you know, it's not encumbered by bodies. And what we go through when we
- [42:25]
A
worship and have you had them describe Jesus to you or God as they understand him?
- [42:34]
B
It's a very powerful connection. The most Fascinating thing is now I've asked many of them to Describe Jesus. Almost 99% of the time the first answer I get is he looks like love. Some variation of that. I love that in their, the autistic mind they're getting to the essence of a thing before they get to the physicality. Physicality. Right, right. Because that's in a way that's more superficial.
- [43:04]
A
They'll talk but you know, that's almost exactly what like Dr. Mary Neal who was pinned under the waterfall for 30min. And I asked her what did Jesus look like? And she said this is going to seem nonsensical but he looked like bottomless. Kindness and compassion, that's what, that's what he looked like. And yeah, he had physical features and all that but.
- [43:27]
B
And sometimes they have a little trouble with some of the features because they say when you're in his presence rather than noticing that you're experiencing him. And in particular many talk about his eyes and they say that his eyes in particular radiate love. But they say his eyes are so deep you just, you get lost in them and you have this overwhelming sense not only of how much he loves you but how much he knows everything about you and loves every part of it. Like he's. You can't imagine how much he's for you really. Desires are good in every way and understand.
- [44:10]
A
They spell this out. They're spelling this out.
- [44:13]
B
Yeah. You'll see it in some of the conversations I recorded in there. Yeah.
- [44:17]
A
In the book.
- [44:18]
B
I asked him then for a description. I'll, I'll often get the most common. I, I get they know a height somehow. Don't ask me how. 5, 10 to 511 is the most common range that I get.
- [44:30]
A
Really interesting. I've heard six feet quite a bit.
- [44:34]
B
Well, five eleven. Six feet, Right.
- [44:36]
A
That's close. It's an inch off.
- [44:39]
B
Dark brown, longish hair, slightly wavy dark beard. His skin is, is a deeper, is like a Middle Eastern sort of, you know, olive of skin. Like that. Yeah. A few people have said his face in a way is more ordinary than you think you look and it's a very human face. He looks rugged. He looks like, he's not a wimpy guy. He, he looks rugged and strong. A few have said kind of a largish nose. Long. Long. Yes, long.
- [45:24]
A
Have, have any of them ever mentioned seeing either Akiana's painting of the Prince of Peace or, or the Shroud of Turin? The, the AI y image?
- [45:38]
B
I've shown a number of them paintings and asked which is the most lifelike and the one that gets picked the most is Akian's Prince of Peace. And apparently if you take the shroud of Taurus and you do a true reversal and you give three dimensional effect to it, that's apparently close too. So a lot of us wrote off the shroud of torn back a few decades ago and I don't know, now I'm.
- [46:06]
A
Now I wrote it off. I wrote it off. But I've. But yeah, there's a lot of new evidence.
- [46:12]
B
I went from writing it off on back of the undecided camp and it could be interesting.
- [46:17]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:18]
B
So yeah, they say that and they all talk about the holes in his hands and they'll say hands and wrists. And you and I kind of talked about this, the anatomical tunnel. That would be the most likely location.
- [46:30]
A
Yeah, more like right there.
- [46:32]
B
The angle is through here and Right. So they see that he's wearing a robe and. Yeah. And so they describe that. And he's a very good listener. You know, I've asked, what do you talk about? Well, he listens to me a lot and he's an amazing encourager that he's got plans for their lives. You know, Cody told me he knew he was supposed to, his life was supposed to proclaim the gospel. And I said one time, Cody, how did you know that? I mean you were non speaking, you weren't spelling and how could you think that was going to happen? My lack of faith. His answer was because Jesus said it was going to happen.
- [47:16]
A
Well, there you have it, there you go.
- [47:19]
B
Other commonalities, they see angels, they see spirit beings. The angels often are large. They've seen angels protecting us. Another commonality is, I believe, I'm pretty sure you've written about people, they're in a battered state from a car accident or whatever in the NDA. They're at peace, there's no pain and he is done. They're back in their body and their bodies as battered as ever. Right. When the autistics go to the hill, there's perfect peace. They have perfect understanding. Cody one time said to a friend of his, they were spelling together, the friend said, join us on the hill tonight. We hope you join us on the hill. And this is before I knew what the hill was. And Cody answered, it's so hard to go there and then to return to my body with its chains. So there's the separation of the spirit or the soul, whatever the right word is. But there's a sense that there it's perfect. And then when they're back in the body. They're back to the limitations of the body.
- [48:33]
A
So that brings up a question is, can they just go there at will?
- [48:38]
B
Yeah, we've wondered about this and some people have expressed concern and I think it's a fair point that, look, if they can go there at will, as this necromancy is. Necromancy is forbidden. If they can go at will. It sounds more like astral projection. It makes some people nervous, from what I've asked, that it seems like they're invited in some way. Cody has been clear that they're invited. Others are not quite as clear. So I don't think it seems not to be the case that Cody just go to sleep tonight and go to the hill, you know, and. And I've met people who are high functioning autism who are talking to me and they've been able to talk more about it. And some of them have said there's just times I have an awareness I can go there.
- [49:27]
A
Well, I'll tell you, I mean, I've had people reach out to me after I wrote Imagine Heaven, and I even interviewed a couple of them just to understand more. And this one was pretty high functioning autistic adult kid of a father who reached out to me and wanted me to hear what he experiences. And he claims that, yeah, he was able to leave his body and go to heaven and Jesus was there and, you know, all this and that he could do it on will. Yeah, Like Jesus had said to him, anytime you want to come. And I'll be honest, like, the reason I've never talked about it is because I was like, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what to. It's kind of like many of these things, like when, I don't know, I just put it on the side, you know, I just kind of put it in the. Like, okay, well, maybe. But yeah, I don't know what to do with that.
- [50:29]
B
That's not been the more common experience. Somebody told me recently that when he was young, he could do that anytime. He could go there. And then at some point, I won't remember how he said it exactly. He became aware it's not good for him to do that. He shouldn't be doing it.
- [50:48]
A
Oh, really?
- [50:50]
B
Have seen relatives.
- [50:54]
A
So they have, they've met deceased relatives,
- [50:57]
B
just like in NDEs.
- [50:59]
A
Wow, okay. Well, that would indicate that this is. You know, I often talk about people going to heaven in this nde, but sometimes they're not in heaven. Sometimes they're in a Place that I think Jesus even creates for them to meet them. I think about this one Australian professor who meets Jesus and these angels, and he has a life review, and he asks, am I in heaven? And Jesus says, no, you are traveling through the place that everyone must go to come to heaven. We've come out to meet you, and if you decide to go back, you can. Otherwise, you will come on with us. And so, you know, there's. I think, you know, God can create anything. And, you know, so maybe there are these places he creates that are meeting grounds like that.
- [51:50]
B
That's fascinating, because I've asked them, many of them, is it heaven? And they all say, no. And when I ask them, what is it the consensus of what I get? And they're not always clear. And by the way, they say they're not allowed to give. There's certain things about it they're not allowed to say. I've heard we take an oath or we take a solemn promise, we don't. But what they say is, it's not.
- [52:15]
A
That's fascinating.
- [52:17]
B
Yeah. But what they say is, it's not heaven, but it's a place that's prepared for us. So in our weakness, we're able to go there, we get some refreshing.
- [52:30]
A
But isn't that so cool? I mean, isn't that just so awesome of God? My best friend from high school, he has a daughter who is now 20, I think she's 29. And she's never gotten out of her wheelchair. She's never said a word. She never crawled or she tried. And. And he. And he told me, because I was telling him about our conversations, and I asked, you know, do you think Naomi's ever gone to the hill? And, you know, he. She's not spelling, so it's hard to know. But she said, you know what? Every night my prayer is, jesus, will you come and get my daughter and take her somewhere with you that gives her a sense of joy and excitement. And that prayer was from the Holy Spirit?
- [53:25]
B
I think. So wouldn't that be like the goodness of God?
- [53:28]
A
It is the goodness of God. Now, let's.
- [53:31]
B
I've heard it with people with down syndrome. I spelled not long ago with down sounds. He was with his mom, and he knew Cody from the hill. Yeah. And he volunteered. And he said, I go to a different hill where there's more people with down syndrome. That was when I first became aware that the hill is an actual place. But it's more. It's broader than just a hill. And they say it's hard to understand what it is. I have a few chapters about. About Brooke in my book. And Brooke is a friend and she's been a wheelchair all her life with a severe cerebral palsy. She has difficulty speaking. It's gotten worse as she's gotten older. So she'll use a voice activated device. She's written four books. She's an honors graduate of Arizona State. She's really brilliant and fun to be with, and people go up to and talk to her. Hi, are you okay? You know, and she told me that she's been with the Lord in this place and it's like the hill. And she described. And she said, we go there and we've danced and he called. So I don't know if any of your audience are like, no dancing. Nah.
- [54:45]
A
Well, too bad.
- [54:46]
B
You're gonna have to do it dancing with her. So it seems to be more than just autism. It seems to be a provision. And it just. You just. You're saying it reminded me. I got a call a while ago from. He was either like a Greek Orthodox or Serbian Orthodox or something like that. And he was like a retired. He had been a monk and he was now like. And he had worked with people with disabilities all his life. He had a long career. And we were just talking and. And somehow the subject came up about the hill and what they see. And he said to me, oh, yeah, they're all in the spiritual dimension. They all see angels. They've told me that this thing's very common with all of them.
- [55:33]
A
Wow.
- [55:33]
B
And he's saying it matter of factly and I'm like, of this. And his explanation was simple and I think it's true, but maybe it's just a part of it. His explanation was this is just God and his goodness taking people who struggle in life. And he's giving them a kind of help, a kind of compensation, a strength for them to get through. And you see that in the Scripture when people are facing difficult times in Acts 7, right? Stephen, he knows he's about to die. He looks up into heaven. He sees heaven. He's just standing at the right hand of the Father.
- [56:10]
A
Well, you know, there's. There's one of my staff members in our church has a son who. He's. He's pretty high functioning. And I don't know exactly what it is that, that he. That he has. But, you know, he's in a. In a home for adults who have special needs. And she told me, and this is when I was writing Imagine Heaven. And I think I. I wrote I wrote this in near the end because I thought it was so cool. Is one morning, and this is while I'm writing the book, she tells me that he came down and he said, mom, I'm getting baptized tomorrow. And she said, well, Shane, I don't even know if there is a baptism.
- [56:56]
B
Well, I remember this story. Yeah, Great story.
- [56:58]
A
Yeah. And he said, no, no. Jesus told me I'm getting baptized. And she said, jesus told you? And she said, and you have to understand John. Like, he doesn't make stuff up. Like, he doesn't have that ability. And he says that, yes. Last night, Jesus came to me while I was asleep and took me to heaven, and he showed me my house, and it has a red door, and she would not believe in him. And she said, oh, really? Well, that's nice. And am I gonna live. Am I gonna live next door to you? And he said, no, Mom. No, Mom. That's just for special kids.
- [57:44]
B
Oh, wow.
- [57:45]
A
And she said something about. Or he said something about, I'm gonna be next to. Next to God, and no, you. You won't be. And she said that blew her away. That's what got her attention, because she was like, well, he would always want to be with me. He would never not want to be with me. He would never say that on his own. And the next day, we were having a baptism, and he got baptized.
- [58:12]
B
Wow. I mean, Cody has said he would choose his autism if it makes his witness for God more effective. How many Christians, if you could hypothetically have a choice like that, would say that? It was funny.
- [58:24]
A
Let's talk about that as we start to wrap up. One of the things I read in your book, I think, or maybe it was in our conversation that you said that Jesus tells them he has a mission for them. What does he tell them?
- [58:42]
B
You know, an answer that I've gotten a number of times with that is they prefer to keep their conversations with Jesus to themselves. There's a special intimacy in that. And I do think that they have a high calling. You know, when Jesus says, the first will be last and the last will be first, that may go deeper than we know. Yeah. These are extraordinarily special kids, and they do see these things. And by the way, it's now in many, many hundreds. It started with four in my church, and I reached out and the network kept getting larger. This is not like an isolated phenomenon. Other people wrote books about it as well, talking about their kids, talking to Jesus, and I've been connecting with a lot of them. And, you know, Lately I've been connected with people in Hawaii talking about it, and I'm hearing from the uk there's a lot of this happening in England and Scotland and other parts of the world. So the conversation with Jesus, though, they will say he encourages them. He's told them that they have a special. They have a special purpose to be a witness for him. And they're given specific jobs, but it's broader than them. It's for us too. One thing that kind of rocked my world, John, was at the end of one spelling session, not with one of the kids in my church, somebody I met, and I think I saw a reference to him in a book somewhere. And somehow we got in touch and the. The kid at the end started suddenly spelling. His mom said, oh, he's saying one more thing. And then she looked at it, she said, he said, this is what he was saying to me. Jesus told him to tell you to tell me that, that you're supposed to be helping us. And you're raised up to be a way to help people in the church understand what's happening with this. Now, I've been around a while. The first time I can ever recall a Jesus said, honestly in the moment, John, I didn't even know how to react. I think I just went, oh, thank you. My brain momentarily just couldn't process it.
- [61:05]
A
Yeah.
- [61:06]
B
And I was home that night and I began praying like, lord, was that actually you Was like. Was that like really you? And right as I started praying that, his mom emailed me and said he said to tell you. Yes, it was. And he really does see you. So I. Oh, wow.
- [61:26]
A
Well, that's. That's nice confirmation.
- [61:28]
B
It's like he let this ties to what you're doing. The telepathy tapes and hints we're getting in other places and I know, sadly, we won't have time for this. Maybe we could do it another time. But I'm fascinated by the neurosurgeons who are writing books. The Immortal Mind, or I've got another one here, Proof of Heaven, where they deal with people who were brain dead or the spheres of their brain were severed. In fact, did you have. What's his name? Egnor. Michael Egnor. Was he on your show?
- [62:05]
A
No, I had another neurologist, Lee Warren,
- [62:10]
B
and they're talking about how the mind exists independent of the body. Right back to autism. If the brain and the body are disconnecting and they can't feel the limbs, maybe it's leaning in that direction. That because the brain is less Connected to the body, there's greater sensitivity to the spirit world. And now you have Jesus appearing in dreams and visions to Muslims. Yeah, Muslims now.
- [62:39]
A
Well, I'll tell you, I, I think that is, I think that is what's going on, you know, like, it just makes so much sense. God, you know, it says in First Corinthians, where is it one that God chose the, the things the world considers foolish, you know, in order for those of us who think we're so wise, you know, to kind of be like the fool.
- [63:03]
B
Sins of the world, to confound the wise. Right, yeah.
- [63:05]
A
And chose the powerless, you know, to basically testify to us who are powerful. And it's the upside down kingdom. It's, it's exactly who God is. He enters our world, not in royalty, in a manger. And he comes and he. He serves and he. He washes feet and then he suffers and dies for us.
- [63:28]
B
Yeah. First Corinthians 1 like 27. And it makes no sense. In Luke 10 there's a. And Jesus has just told the disciples that they have this power over serpents and scorpions, you know, demonic. And he tells them, don't rejoice over that. Rejoice instead. Your names are recorded in heaven then in the same hour or in the same hour. Like this is connected to what he's just saying. He rejoiced greatly in the spirit. And he said, I thank you, Father, that you've concealed these things from those who are wise in their own way, mind, and revealed them to children. And here I'm thinking, here's these. Many of them are children.
- [64:10]
A
Innocence.
- [64:11]
B
Yeah, they're seeing those spiritual things. I mean, I, I think we're getting a lot of shocks in heaven that, that when God says the first will be last. And the more we take that mind and that heart and you know, like, you know, really understand what it means to die to self and pick up the cross daily and follow him.
- [64:31]
A
Yeah.
- [64:32]
B
The closer we get to what he, what he wants normative Christianity to be. And we, we all do. We hold on to titles and we hold on to, you know, we think about all that's important things.
- [64:46]
A
Yeah, well, I think, and I think he is doing something in our day, I think, you know, just like you pointed out, I have, I, in fact, I've thought about bringing these four Muslims on the podcast that I know now who came to faith in Jesus because he appeared to them in vivid dreams. And that's happening all across the Middle East. And then you have near death experiences of people of all backgrounds. And now you have these non speaking autistic kids who are testifying about Jesus and the goodness of God in heaven.
- [65:24]
B
Yeah. And it's interesting, the two of us were skeptics and maybe that was helpful for people to hear this. But I mean, I think the Lord is really using you in the NDE space because you're doing it responsibly. And I tried to do the same thing with autism, which reaches a little further. That's how I've understood it. And a couple of the kids with autism have said things like this to me, that this is just a time God's using extraordinary means to reach more people. There's a sense of things accelerating. Even little things like AI can now translate just about. It can learn languages even if we don't ask it to learn languages.
- [66:07]
A
Oh yeah. This podcast will be in all kinds of languages through AI.
- [66:12]
B
I mean the world, it seems like the world. Things are accelerating.
- [66:17]
A
Things are accelerating. And I do, I believe that God is raising up these testimonies so that anybody who really wants evidence and wants to believe there's plenty of evidence.
- [66:30]
B
Yes.
- [66:31]
A
And if you don't want to, you'll find evidence for that too. But, but God is so good. And I think it's just so cool what you're doing, Joe, because I do believe what that boy said, that, that God's raising you up as this is starting to come out, you know, to, to help them express to the world what God's doing. Tell us, tell them where, where they can find out more about you, where they can get your book.
- [67:00]
B
Sure. So the book is, is decoding Cody. That's, that's an artist edition of the Hill. They can get anywhere books, you know, Amazon, Barnes and Noble books all. Every place you've had books, you've got it. But if people want more information, especially if there are people, and if you've got a member of your family with autism, you can reach us on our new nonprofit website. It's called Hidden gifts ministry. Hidden gifts ministry.org org and we're putting free resources there. We're actually in the process of creating special parenting series and a marriage series, families with a special needs diagnosis without help. It's a very high rate of divorce approaching 90%. People are not equipped to handle now having a kid. You can't go out in public. And where do I get help? So we're putting a lot of resources about spelling places to get help. We're going to try to put more resources, even state specific, over time. But you'll see stories, encouragement where you can buy spelling boards, get help if you want to be trained in spelling, things like that, you can email us through that.
- [68:12]
A
Well, and I'll put all that information if you want to contact Joe or find out more, I'll put it all in the description down below. Well, Joe, thank you so much for taking the time. It's been fascinating and just gives us a bigger picture, a greater picture of the kindness and the mercy of God that we just don't know what he's doing behind the scenes. But we know he's good.
- [68:36]
B
Yep.
- [68:37]
A
All right, Thanks a lot.
- [68:39]
B
It was great to be with you. Wow.
- [68:40]
A
I hope you enjoyed that. I know it was different than the typical podcasts I do, but when I met Joe and we started talking, I was just thinking like, isn't that just like God? I mean, I love the thought that God in his kindness and his mercy, you know, takes these kids and lets them experience freedom just to strengthen them for the difficulties of this life. But I think what's even more fascinating is how many of them that I read about in Joe's book talk about how Jesus tells them that they are here to be his. His witnesses. And maybe that's just the beginning of what is starting to happen with these spellers, is that more and more are going to be telling of his, of God's reality revealed in Jesus and what he's doing for really the whole world that we might all know the goodness and the kindness of God. Well, if you want more, check out Joe's book book. I'll have all that down in the description below. If you want to learn more about near death experiences and how they relate to the Bible, you can check out Imagine Heaven or Imagine the God of Heaven and until next time, be blessed.