Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown
Episode: “Explore What Science Can’t Answer: Understanding The Telepathy Tapes, Near Death Experiences, & Supernatural Abilities”
Guest: Professor Jeffrey J. Kripal
Date: February 14, 2025

Episode Overview

This thought-provoking episode explores the boundaries of science, consciousness, and human experience through the lens of the “Telepathy Tapes” phenomenon, near-death experiences, and the possibility of supernatural abilities. Host Mayim Bialik, joined by co-host Jonathan Cohen, sits down with Professor Jeffrey J. Kripal—renowned scholar of religion and the paranormal—to discuss why mainstream science steers clear of phenomena it can’t explain, what we might be missing by ignoring extraordinary human experiences, and how trauma, neurodiversity, and altered states of consciousness are tied to mystical perception. The conversation is rich with compelling stories, memorable metaphors, philosophical insight, and practical reflections on thinking “impossibly” about the mind, the soul, and the nature of reality.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Societal and Scientific Fear of the "Impossible"

• There is a strong cultural and scientific discomfort with experiences and phenomena outside materialist explanations.
• Science’s Limiting Framework:
  • Jeffrey Kripal argues that “science actually prevents these things from appearing… the whole act of measurement, and the whole act of a laboratory, and the whole act of experimentation actually prevents the event from happening.” (00:32, 12:53)
  • Quote:
    “If there’s a metaphorical table, what the skeptic is doing is taking everything off the table that he or she cannot explain. And then, oh, I can explain everything on the table. But that’s just because you just took everything off that you can’t explain.” – Jeffrey Kripal (00:45, 08:01)
• Professional Risks:
  • Academics privately express interest in anomalous experiences but fear professional consequences.
  • “They don’t want to come out and identify with it because they’re going to sound like the tabloids, and they don’t know how to talk about it, by the way.” – Jeffrey Kripal (10:12)

2. Diversity of Perception: Trauma, Neurodiversity, and “Special” Abilities

• Neurological and Experiential Variation:
  • Trauma, neurodiversity (including autism, non-verbal individuals, ADHD), and suffering can open people to radically different perceptions of reality.
  • Quote:
    “The whole history of religions is filled with special people who perceive reality in a radically different way.” – Jeffrey Kripal (00:15, 12:53)
• Kevin’s Story:
  • Featured in Kripal’s book, Kevin is autistic and experiences mystical phenomena such as “kundalini rising” without prior knowledge of these traditions.
  • “He just knows things and experiences things I can’t… He’ll say things like the history of religions is a history of autistic people who are trying to explain their experience and their perceptions of the universe to people who can’t see it that way.” – Jeffrey Kripal (21:55)

3. Agency and the Unknown

• The episode challenges anthropocentrism—the idea that humans are the only agents or the apex of cognition/experience.
• “What if the phenomenon itself has its own agency, its own intention… What if we’re not the top predator in the universe or on the Earth?” – Jeffrey Kripal (16:07)

4. Near Death Experiences and “Passive” Knowledge

• Nature of NDEs:
  • Near-death experiences often involve passive reception of profound information—akin to a “download” rather than an act of will.
  • “The thing about a near-death experience or a vision is that the person’s not doing it, not at least consciously or in control.” – Jeffrey Kripal (17:37)
• Comparison to Magicians:
  • The analogy to stage magicians falls apart because experiencers are not active agents or tricksters; they’re often in shock and reaching for meaning.
  • “The stage magicians are the agents and they’re really trying to trick people… with these human beings, they’re in some kind of ontological or metaphysical shock.” – Jeffrey Kripal (19:02)

5. Altering Consciousness: Sleep, Dreams, and Telepathic Communication

• Dreams as Portals:
  • Sleep and altered states (right hemisphere dominance, quieted skepticism) open people to “extra” information; dreaming is historically and cross-culturally recognized as a way the divine communicates.
  • “Sleep is an altered state, right? ...the left hemisphere is shut down… so the person is open to access to other information.” – Jeffrey Kripal (35:36)
• Real-World Example:
  • A mother receives musical compositions from her non-verbal son while in a hypnagogic state, and these match what her son desires once communicated.
  • “She is not asleep, she’s not awake, but she is receiving information… she writes the music, brings it to her son, and he confirms it, tweaks it.” – Mayim Bialik (34:12)

6. Rethinking Consciousness: The Brain as Receiver, Not Generator

• Alternative Models:
  • Most world traditions see mind as distinct from or mediated by the brain—the brain does not produce consciousness but translates it.
  • Analogy: consciousness as the Internet, brain as the cell phone—a broken cell phone doesn’t destroy the Internet.
  • “The neuroscientific model that mind equals brain is in fact the anomaly.” – Jeffrey Kripal (28:28)
  • “You change the mechanisms or the applications on the cell phone and then… change the behavior of the Internet. But it doesn’t make any sense of these other experiences.” – Jeffrey Kripal (30:04)

7. “The Telepathy Tapes”: Skepticism vs. Thinking Impossibly

• Precognition, Shared Mind, and Children’s Connections:
  • The Telepathy Tapes chronicles non-verbal autistic children who appear to know about the death of a peer remotely and synchronously, a phenomenon explained by shared consciousness.
  • “These individual autistic children are simply nodes. They’re picking up this signal from this broader consciousness or mind. And when one of those nodes dies, they know right away.” – Jeffrey Kripal (31:56)
  • “Thinking impossibly” means refusing to immediately reduce phenomena to accepted categories and instead taking reports on their own terms.

8. Animal Telepathy and Temporal Awareness

• Attunement in Animals:
  • Anecdotes of elephants returning en masse to mourn a caretakers’ death, and dogs anticipating their owners’ return, suggest a non-human “telepathic” or time-linked awareness.
  • “Consciousness is not restricted to the human being… most people who live with a dog know there’s some kind of communication that’s not explicable in ordinary terms.” – Jeffrey Kripal (44:44)
  • Reference to Rupert Sheldrake’s research on animal telepathy.

9. Loss, Gain, and the “Buffered Self”

• Are We More Shut Off Now?
  • Modern humans are more “buffered”—less porous to external influences—than historical populations.
  • “Our ancestors may have been much more porous and… more capable of these kind of communications, but also more haunted.” – Jeffrey Kripal (48:03)

10. Trauma, Superpowers, and Healing

• Opening as a Superpower:
  • Suffering and neurodiversity can open people to “superhuman” abilities—often analogized with superheroes.
  • “When people experience these realms… they feel shut down, silenced, shamed. There’s a kind of healing component built into them—they want to be healthier.” – Jeffrey Kripal (49:18)
  • “The superpowers are real.” – Jeffrey Kripal (51:04)

11. The Essence of "Impossible Thinking"

• A Middle Path:
  • Audience desires something “smart between” pure skepticism/materialism and uncritical belief.
  • “Thinking impossibly” is described as “thinking after religion and science… in categories that don’t fit into those particular worldviews.” – Jeffrey Kripal (42:58)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I find it liberating to live in a world that I cannot explain and cannot control. But I think other people find that very troubling.” – Jeffrey Kripal (08:01)
• “Keep it on the table. That’s the goal, you know, in a single phrase. Keep it on the table. Don’t, don’t, don’t shove it off.” – Jeffrey Kripal (52:05)
• "The neuroscientific model that mind equals brain is in fact the anomaly… And it doesn’t work actually." – Jeffrey Kripal (28:28)
• “If you're not a materialist or a physicalist, dreaming is a really good place… in which other kinds of cognition and other kinds of information can come in.” – Jeffrey Kripal (36:17)
• “It's that ability to think impossibly that allows us to learn a lot more rather than to be able to say, I’m not going to entertain this… Which… is a distancing from what a lot of us are afraid of.” – Mayim Bialik (53:48)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Science and the Impossible (00:15 – 05:53)
• Fear and Professional Risk (05:12 – 10:12)
• Nature of Perception, Neurodiversity (11:56 – 13:45)
• Agency Beyond Humans (16:07)
• Near-Death Experiences & Passive Knowledge (16:51 – 18:24)
• Kevin’s Mystical Autism (19:52 – 24:46)
• Brain as Interpreter, Internet Cellphone Analogies (28:21 – 30:46)
• Telepathy, Shared Mind, and "Telepathy Tapes" (30:46 – 34:12)
• Dream States, Music Communication (34:12 – 37:55)
• Teachers, Entanglement, & Quantum Connection (37:55 – 41:10)
• Animal Telepathy & the Elephant Story (43:33 – 46:53)
• Buffered Self & Skills We’ve Lost (47:35 – 49:18)
• Superpowers, Healing, and Impossible Thinking (49:18 – 52:16)

Concluding Thoughts

This episode challenges listeners to consider that reality—and human consciousness—may be far more complex and interconnected than our current frameworks allow. While cautioning against dismissing extraordinary experiences as fantasy or delusion, Kripal calls for an approach that keeps all possibilities “on the table,” empowering people to explore, share, and heal through openness to the unknown. The tone is hopeful, poetic, and grounded in both scholarly rigor and deep empathy.

Listeners are encouraged to be curious, seek meaning beyond conventional boundaries, and perhaps, to awaken dormant superpowers for a more magical—and deeply connected—human experience.