
In this stunning episode of Nephilim Death Squad, Top Lobsta and The Raven (David Lee Corbo) sit down with Pastor Joe Infranco to uncover the hidden spiritual realities behind telepathy, autism, and unseen warfare. Joe is the founder of Hidden Gifts...
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Sarah
Hey, this is Sarah. Look I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and well, you're sweet and all but I found something more fulfilling Even kind of cheesy But I like it. Sure you met some of my dietary needs but they've just got it all so farewell oatmeal so long, you strange soggy.
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Co-host 1
Boxes were all filled with gifts, big and small. But sharing pure love is the greatest gift of all.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Stay cozy my people and have a BOSS year.
Pastor Joe Franco
Get into the holiday spirit with BOSS.
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Pastor Joe Franco
Curated selection online@boss.com.
Sarah
Hey, this is Sarah. Look I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and well, you're sweet and all but I found something more fulfilling Even kind of cheesy but I like it. Sure you met some of my dietary needs but they've just got it all so farewell oatmeal so long, you strange soggy.
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Break up with bland breakfast and taste AM PM's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit made with K tree eggs, smoked bacon and melty cheese on a buttery biscuit. AM PM Too much Good stuff.
Pastor Joe Franco
TOP.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Nephilim Death Squad. I am David Lee Corbo, AKA the Raven that is Top Lobster, the father of disinformation. Before we get into today's guest. Really excited for this episode, but we have to do a little business up front, guys. If you're looking for a way to support the show and looking for a way to keep watching after the half an hour mark patreon.com forward slash nephilim death Squads where you're going to want to be ad free viewing experiences, early access to episodes, early access to tickets to Bohemian Grove. We're looking at the first Friday and Saturday of March for that event, so Patreon members get first dibs to those tickets. Also, discount codes off of merchandise from top. Lobster.com that is the website where you're gonna find all of our shirts, all of top's original designs, everything that we make here and offer to you guys. There's our Mother Horse Eyes episodes. I can't believe we don't have a Telepathy Tapes episode.
Co-host 1
Yeah, that's actually a great way.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
We need to have one of those, right?
Pastor Joe Franco
I'm.
Co-host 1
I'm very excited about this episode, let's just get right into it.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
This is a, this is a big conversation.
Co-host 1
Pastor Joe and Franco with us. I don't know if he prefers pastor, but Joe, he's with us today. I'm very excited to talk to you and get into your field of expertise, man. Can you give us a quick introduction? What are you about? Where are you from? What do you do?
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah. Daniel David, great to be with you. Joe is fine. Originally from New York. A background, I'm a pastor, but I spent a good amount of time in law practice. I was a litigator in New York. I got involved in defending religious liberty cases, churches helping non profits and all that. And from that got involved in some First Amendment litigation and started working with some of the national organizations. Then 2003, I got an invitation to go work with a ministry called Alliance Defending Freedom. So I was there and did more of like training of attorneys and, but still involved in litigation and a number of cases that ended up at the Supreme Court. And I left that and started pastoring in 2020. I've been an elder a long time, but this was really where I wanted to end up. It was kind of my heart to have, you know, a good run as a pastor. And that was where I got exposed to the things that are, you know, going to be the subject today.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Well, that subject today. And, and by the way, hidden giftministries.org is at the bottom there. That's where you can find a lot of what happens over there at Hidden Gift Ministries. Before we get into.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, hidden gifts ministry.org is a, it's a new non profit setup. We, you know, we have our 501c3 status and all that. One of the things we became aware of was the great need in special needs families almost crisis level at times where when parents get the diagnosis, they don't know where to turn. A lot of churches are not equipped for it. So we're trying to load up free resources, get people linked and connected, work with other ministries, doing a great job, even down to mundane things like how to get government benefits because we think the church needs to do a better job of reaching special needs families and individuals, maybe understanding better what it means to be an image bearer of God. And I'm not criticizing churches. This is just something we don't know what to do. It's hard to know what to do with people with significant autism or down syndrome who are not able to answer you at times when you ask questions. And so we're trying to reframe the church's understanding and see the incredible gifts that these young men and women are. And so every, all the resources are going to be free. You know what comes from the decoding. Cody book goes there as well. This is, it's just a vision and a mission we have.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
So I guess to the topic at hand, your, Your involvement in a. A project that over the last year really took people's awareness by storm. It became, it was a controversial topic. And what we're talking about is telepathy tapes. For a time, it was the number one podcast. And still, I think kind of goes back and forth between the number one position you worked very closely with, with Kai Dickens in the development of this project, and before we get into the role that you played, let's talk a little bit about how that came to. To be.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah. And I would say it's an overstatement to say I helped her develop it. I did. And I just went on as a guest on two of her shows. The, the way that it happened was I started. It started with four individuals in the church. There's more here now, but four individuals who began spelling. They all have what's called non speaking autism and spelling. You can find pictures of it online and video is generally done the spellers. The person who's. Who is not able to speak reliably has a board about the size of your laptop screen with letters including a delete key. And they can train themselves to point to letters and spell out the answers to things. Think of Stephen Hawking in a wheelchair. He lost his power of speech. He's communicating by pressing buttons on a device broadly, it's called augmented alternative Communication. Aac. Spelling is one type of it. So when they started spelling, I was astonished to find out that we'd been treating them like they were infants, like they had no understanding of anything. I've known Cody since he was a little boy. You know, he's 24 now and 6 foot 5 and always, you know, hi, Cody, and silly fist bumps. And when they started spelling, what came out was that they're fully in there. Autism, when it gets to a significant degree, is not an intellectual disability. It's a, it's a brain motor disability, a brain body disconnect. There's trouble with motor function. And so here I was talking now. I, I initially just went to meet them. I was astonished. What, what's life going to be like for someone who's been trapped in a body, shown Barney and Elmo cartoons for, you know, decades, and now suddenly they're telling Us. Please stop that. I'm in here. You know, I. Cody is interested in World War II history and politics. You know, Matthew, one of my spellers loves architecture. My favorite is Elsa, who's like my granddaughter. I'm so fond of her. And, you know, she went from kid cartoons to advanced math and science courses and telling me she's memorized the periodic table in chemistry and wants to study the brain. So that's how it started. They were in there. And this, to me was astonishing, just on a pastoral and human level. Where it went from astonishing to completely mind blowing, was when all of them started telling me they're able to communicate in thought that they see angels, that they see demons, some of them have seen heaven. And then all these details started coming. And that was when I said, oh, my goodness, what's going on here?
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
So this. This aspect of seeing angels, seeing demon, seeing heaven, not something that was spoken about too much in the series, I believe there was one instance. You talk about it pretty often. It was a.
Co-host 1
They were. I mean, when it. Where it was touched on in the series was from. From like a Hindu perspective. There was a. The Indian woman and her son. And they were talking about very briefly that, like, he. And he. He would mention that he encountered lowercase g gods, and his mother kind of wisely steered him away from that. But it was. It was just a footnote in the telepathy tapes, which, I mean, it's such a. It's such a great podcast, but for us, we're looking at it through a Christian lens, through a spiritual lens, and we're like, there's so much more meat on the bone here that it seemed like we're just focused on the ability of the telepathy, which, I don't know, maybe. Maybe I'm a weirdo, but when I, When I heard it, I go, that makes a lot of sense that there is a human being in there and they're just having trouble communicating. And they are.
Pastor Joe Franco
Right.
Co-host 1
Coherent.
Pastor Joe Franco
Right. And. And we shouldn't be surprised by this. You know, we've had hints of it all along. You know, there's a professor at Colorado State, I believe I forget the university now, Temple Grandin, who has autism and has pioneered, you know, know, methods of cattle. Well, people maybe remember the movie. I'm sorry, I should have finished that sentence. She's pioneered humane treatment of cattle that's going to be slaughtered and other agricultural type of issues. But people may remember the movie Rain man with Dustin Hoffman. Sure. Based on a real life character. Sometimes people with Autism have prodigious memory or savant syndrome type mathematical skills. I've seen some, you could say, what's 14, 12 times 618? And you get an answer like that. Dustin Hoffman's character looked at a phone book and memorized it. Saw a server in a restaurant, read her name and told her address and phone number. That's real life stuff. The brain organizes a certain way. So autism at some point we call it that, it's, it's a different kind of functioning of the brain. Some of the smartest people I've met are somewhat in the spectrum and it's always called Autism Spectrum Disorder. You can be in the high end, high functioning, married, have a family, have extraordinary skills, but have great difficulty with emotions or just not be able to comprehend certain things. I've met some who can't comprehend humor. Not all. I'm, you know, I'm generalizing right now, but we have had hints that the person was in there and we're coming to understand a little better what that means.
Sarah
Hey, this is Sarah. Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling, even kind of cheesy. But I like it. Sure, you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all, so farewell.
Pastor Joe Franco
Oatmeal.
Sarah
So long, you strange soggy.
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David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Let's, let's. I mean we have our own suspicions about the nature of, let's say, telepathy in particular. And I don't want to go into the details too much because I think it's really important to share some of your experiences and these things that were omitted from the final product which in any sort of documentary that you're going to do, you're going to have quite a bit of footage and it's not all going to make the cut. And so in that way it's understandable. It is interesting to me the nature of the cut in this particular instance. But before we go on to that.
Co-host 1
Well, they're telling a certain story and I, I get it.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Yeah.
Co-host 1
That story just doesn't involve what I, what we think would be the, the more important parts of the subject. But yeah, what, what was left out?
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Before we go there, I do want to say on the topic of, of telepathy displaying itself in individuals who experience autism. On whatever end of the spectrum are you aware of, let's say, intelligence operations where they have induced different states and individuals by creating, first and foremost a state of disassociation. So what I'm hinting at here is in particular the CIA's operations when it came to MK Ultra or Project Monarch. These are files that were released through the Freedom of Information act, supposedly no longer in operation. And you could speculate as to whether or not that's. That's a fact. But the center of their research had to do with creating a state of disassociation in the patient or in the subject by way of trauma. And what happens is when an individual disassociates, a number of things become achievable. For example, a secondary programmable personality might emerge. These are all things that are out there, and they exist in these release files now. But some of the more speculative things are the emergence of psychic abilities or, you know, telepathy, let's say. Does it strike you as significant that these individuals are in a state of disassociation from their physical body and then are displaying these very same attributes that it seems the CIA was fascinated in?
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me in the least. I. I think that to some extent, it's a much more natural phenomenon than we realize. When government shrouds it, it makes it mysterious. But you go back to the founders of modern psychology, you know, Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung. Jung wrote in his synchronicities about exactly these kinds of things, believed and had seen extrasensory perception. It just didn't take off. Freud's model took off because people would rather talk about sex than, you know, weirdness. So the. But I mean, often I'm in a room with people and, you know, I'm speaking, and I'll just ask how many of you have experienced something unusual? The phone rings, you think of Aunt Sally, whom you haven't spoken to in a year, and it's Aunt Sally. Every hand goes up without fail, because we've all experienced these kinds of things. They're just not normative. So what happens is the thing that the brain can't process or classify easily gets kind of pushed aside. And so it remains sort of in the weird, you know, area. And yet there are some people who have these. It could be that the mechanism of how that works is related to spiritual gifts. I. I believe all that the spiritual gifts described in First Corinthians 12, Romans 12, are still absolutely in operation. I've had it happen many Times I'm talking with someone or praying with someone, and I understand a particular, very specific thing happening in their life, and I'll share it and they'll go, oh, my goodness, how did you possibly know that? I think there are just those times now whether perhaps the Holy Spirit is working through the background setup that God used for that because other people experience it. It's, again, it's not uncommon. We get. We react a little more freaked out to adhere because we're the product of a materialist society. Kai Dickens had this right. I've been in many parts of the world where they're much more conscious and aware of spirits, and this kind of thing doesn't strike them strange in the least. You know, I was on a Rotary scholarship in India, and when I was young and spent an extended time there, I remember the end of a board meeting of the third largest bank in India, the chairman saying, okay, your next stop is the local witch doctor who was well known and told the future. And I had already become a Christian. I didn't. I just watched it and all that. But imagine being a Chase Manhattan bank. And, you know, the chairman says, okay, we're done here. It's time for you to visit the psychic. It's not a feature of our culture or our psyche or our ethos. So yet I think it's common there. It's not. It's perhaps not as strange as we think. What's hard for us, we don't know how to process and classify it.
Co-host 1
This is so part of the. I guess the alarms that went off with the telepathy tapes for me was the introduction of this phenomenon, and not just the normalization, but the popularization of it. It beat Joe Rogan. So now that's just telling me if. If the numbers are organic, which I think they are, it's telling me that people are looking for and ready to hear this. And since 2020, there has been a huge spiritual shift. Like, if you were an atheist before, you're on one side or the other at this point, you know, there is.
Pastor Joe Franco
I totally, totally agree. Yeah.
Co-host 1
Tucker Carlson had mentioned it a couple years ago when he started talking about the Nephilim as well. Like when we started this show and he had brought up that idea of, we, we've been in a spiritual world, but the blanket's been pulled over our eyes and now it's kind of getting torn back down and we're going to have to deal with that. So this was a big indicator for me that the people are. I don't Know if they're ready. But they are looking. They're looking at it now, and they're curious again. And whatever these things are that are working behind the scenes, like you said, these. These folks are seeing angels and demons and Jesus at some point, you see.
Pastor Joe Franco
They see them fight. They see what it's like when they battle. And I describe that in some of the dialogues in the book, the kind of weapons that they use and how Jesus dispatches angels when we pray. They see it all.
Co-host 1
Can we talk about that? Because, like, we just. We just wrapped up our study of Daniel. So, like Daniel 11, right? Or Daniel 10.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Yeah, I think it was Daniel 10.
Co-host 1
You're talking about the angel, the Prince of Persia.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
He's.
Co-host 1
He's caught up there and he's like, I got.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Co-host 1
Three weeks. Like, well, what happened? These guys must have saw that. That's crazy.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, yeah. You know, the. The. And the word demon is tricky. The Greek daimon, or there's a dominion of form. Daimonium, actually just means spirit. You'll find places in older Greek writings where it refers to a deity, not necessarily good or bad. Socrates had his daimon, his spirit guide, you know, who he said was a conscience and all that. In the New Testament, they're always bad when you see the word used. So we've just now come to use demon as a spirit in rebellion against God. But, you know, Paul says in Ephesians 6, our wrestling is not against flesh and blood. You guys likely hit that principalities, powers. And he goes on to give classifications, and if you study the Greek in those, it suggests there's hierarchies, some of them. Some of the titles suggest almost like a jurisdictional control of an area. And so you get glimpses of that, most notably in Daniel when Gabriel says, I was sent to you three weeks ago and the Prince of Persia withstood me. And Michael, your angel, came and fought so I could get through. Or even, you know, the very odd reference in Jude where Michael the Archangel is disputing with Satan over the body of Moses. It's crazy. Like, what the heck was that about? You know, I have some theories on it, but not. I won't go into them here. So, yeah, that's there then. There seems to be a great hierarchy. Maybe you guys have seen some of Michael Heiser's stuff, You know, the unseen realm and angels and all that. The only thing I feel sure of is it's much more complex than we know. We oversimplify. Angels good, demons bad. You know, you. You there. I Mean, there are principalities. I encountered one in India. If I tell a quick story, please. They, they took us to something called a devil worship temple. And I thought, oh, all right, you know, I'll go along. I'm. I'll say, store up the information. And you know what? You walked in there with these like carved figures with fangs and bloody teeth. And there were the, the. I don't know what to call them. They call themselves priests walking around. And you know, I talked to a few of them. I said, can I ask you a question? Sure. If you know these are demons, why would you worship them? And one said to me, that's a good question. It's because they trouble people and we try to pacify them and we feel like if we satisfy them, they'll leave us alone. I lived in New York at the time and I said, yeah, we have that back in New York too. We call it paying protection to the mob. But I don't think they got the cultural reference. And I asked one of them, is there a head demon here or something? And they said, yeah. And they pointed to a location. And I saw it was like a little concrete cinder block structure, maybe 4 or 5ft high, maybe 4 or 5ft square. The middle was hollow and there were little things inside I couldn't quite make out. Flowers, little trinkets and things. And I was New Christian at that point and I was praying and walking toward it and as I was doing that, I was just going to get right up and look in like I was just curious. And as I was walking, you know, I've been a believer since 1978. I never had anything like this before or after. Guys. It was like I walked into an ice cold wall of something that was black and so profoundly hateful it actually froze me in my tracks. I've never encountered anything like that in my life. I had been a seeker researcher before coming to Christ that I had studied Hinduism somewhat and gone to a Buddhist temple for over a year and read up on the Eightfold path at the Vinyl and never anything like this. It froze me. And I just heard like, hey, this is Sarah.
Sarah
Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling, even kind of cheesy. But I like it. Sure, you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all. So farewell, oatmeal, so long, you strange.
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Pastor Joe Franco
Almost audibly. I've never heard an audible voice, but so loud on the inside. Back up and get away. You don't know what you're doing here. And I backed away from it like, like you would from a dog, a rabid dog. I kept my eyes on it like backing up and all. And I think it took years and reading and more understanding to know that was a kind of a, that that spirit had a jurisdiction. It was welcome there. Very different from, let's say the spirits who try to harass Christians and you know, who are more intrigued with the flesh and appetites and promoting hatred or bitterness or you know, you know, kind of sexual obsessions or things like that. That's different. We do have power and authority over those, you know, especially when a person repents and, and all. But there's a class of spirits that seems more interested in having a body. You know, you recall when, you know, there was the, the demon possessed man and the Gadarenes and Jesus said, what's your name? Lesion were many. They pleaded with Jesus, they pleaded to go, to not be sent back to the pit, the abuse, the abyss before their time, but to go into a herd of pigs. They, they would rather have had embodiment in pigs than to be disembodied. And you know, Jesus gave them that permission. And that was, you know, the first case in the Bible, some would say of deviled ham. But I would never, I would never say that, but I've heard other people say it.
Co-host 1
We were, we were talking with Karen Wilkinson yesterday. She's like a abductee survivor. And we mentioned that story and found it very interesting that the first thing the pigs do is because, I mean they, they don't want to be disembodied, they want to be in flesh. But the first thing they do is, is throw themselves in the water so they die there. And I'm like, what's, what's going on with the water that these spirits will, if they're, maybe if they release there, they can spread a little bit more readily. And then that gets into. I was already weird.
Pastor Joe Franco
They might have just miscalculated. You know, the pig brain freaked out. It's not a big and all that, but I mean, you're fine, you know. Jes. When an unclean spirit departs from a man, it goes through the Greek is kind of like dry places like deserts. It's, it's upset. It doesn't like that. And he said, it returns, and if it finds the house swept clean, the person is not, you know, The. The room hasn't been let out to the Holy Spirit, then it'll return and bring, you know, seven worse in itself. So, yeah, there's that level of these things too. You. It takes time and discernment from study to know what you're dealing with and how you handle those situations.
Co-host 1
One of these. Sorry to interrupt. We're doing a Bible study with our friend Matt, and we're going through the Book of Jude. We have only gotten, like, seven scriptures through because it pertains, like, each scripture, you can pull up, like, 15 more that have reference. And I forget exactly where in the Bible, but I think it's in one of the first four books. I don't remember, though. It's. It basically makes a mention of God helping other tribes slay giants. Like God helped them to kill these giants. They're not Israel. It's not the Jews. It's somebody else. And then they take that land from the giants. I. I wish Matt was here because he would give us the exact scripture. And then it. That leads to interesting thoughts because now we're talking about principalities and dominions. It's like, well, did that tribe then worship God? Is there historical record of them obeying the law or following it? Not really. So he just kind of is like, yeah, you take those guys out over there, and then maybe now your principality is in control here, or. I don't know how it works, but it does seem like that. Like you can't walk into someone else's territory because those lands have been granted to whatever. To do whatever with.
Pastor Joe Franco
You find that the idea of the local God, little G. Associated with the land. There's a time that there's, you know, Israel's in a battle and defeats, you know, the tribe and. And whoever they're fighting. And people in that tribe say, well, that's because their God is the God of the hills. You know, we have to fight them in the plains instead. And then they fight in the plains and they lose again because the awareness is coming that Yahweh is the one true God that they've been worshiping. You know, the inferior Elohim, the. You know, these little tribal. The. The. The tribes are following a particular spirit. So, yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff in that.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
There's a. You had mentioned before your time in India and, you know, with. With this entity that you experience, this principality, and I find that interesting. There's an individual. His name is Rupert Sheldrake. He's a PhD in biology. He's also an author and he's, he goes around and gives these talks and he has some very fascinating information. Not a Christian, but still has some insight. I just, you know, the sort of, the nature of things I think is where he, he really deviates. But he has some really incredible work on the psychic phenomenon telepathy, things of that nature. One of his studies in particular was the psychic connection between individuals and their pets. He does studies on things like you had mentioned before, this idea of like thinking of someone and then suddenly they call, which we've all experienced. I think the study he might be most famous for is when you are coming home, if there's cameras in your house and you have a pet, even if you switch up the variable of when you are on your way home, meaning, you know, a dog might get used to you being home every day from the office at 5:30, switch that variable up and still 15 minutes or so before you arrive, your pet will get up, it'll get antsy, it'll go to the, to the, to the window, it'll climb on the couch, it'll destroy your blinds. And so, you know, he's displaying this psychic phenomenon. But one of the things that I think is interesting is the conclusions that he draws. This psychic phenomenon is very easy for the new age to grab onto and an element that keeps showing itself surrounding specifically autism and then the telepathy tapes becomes part of the conversation is that, and it's not a hard line, but it's one that seems to be pushed across the table to us to consider now and again is that this is somehow the next stage in ascension. Well, ascension, human development at the very least. And that being this sort of savant aspect where sure you may be emotionally stunted but you are hyper developed in a particular craft or such. And then of course also you toss in there the telepathy aspect.
Co-host 1
Are your. I'm sorry to interrupt, but are your kids the initial four and the ones you're dealing with now, are they coming back with the same message as well?
Pastor Joe Franco
I mean it's more than double just at my church, but now I'm in touch with hundreds of them. They send me books, I do zoom calls with them. I mean I, I get calls, letters, emails virtually every week. If people have something like this, they want to talk about it. I try to answer everyone. They can always reach out on Instagram, you know, the, the, you know, it's at Pastor Joe And Franco, they can email me at my church, Highlands Church. It would be J in Franco. J I N F R A N c o@highlandschurch.org and I'm, you know, try to speak with you or meet or whatever. So yeah, this is everywhere. And you're hit. They have the kind of questions you're asking. If I can just expand. I think you're hitting on something really important. You know, David, they. We have to remember Satan can create things. Sort of the evil by its nature takes something that God's created for good and perverts it. It's the misuse of something. You know, astrology is a, you know, clearly given over to, you know, sort of demonic influence. Yet, you know, the heavens declare the glory of God. The, the magi knew the season. Studying the stars. What God puts in for some purpose, for good measure just gets taken over and hijacked. And you find many subjects, even many things in life like that. You know, certain sexual relations are a gift from God for intimacy, procreation. God designed it for one man and one woman and a lifelong faithful commitment. You know, the, the abuse of it becomes lust. You personify a person, you end up with sexual trafficking all kinds of victim because the, you know, that naturally declines them to things. So it's the abuse of it. The God gives us, you know, gave us spiritual gifts and, and also I think part of our mind is just able to function at times in that realm where we know something. At a zoom call with a woman last night and I could just tell some things and she was saying, how did you know this or that? And, and, and, and so there's a. I think telepathy gets into that and I dislike the word. When, when I was first invited on, I spoke with Kai for hours. I was reluctant at first because to me the word carries some baggage. And I prayed and I felt like, no, I should go on. I'll give the Christian perspective because virtually all the spellers who I've met who see these things are talking about Jesus. And it's not just anticipating a question. It's not just, oh, their parents dragged them to church, they heard about angels and now they're projecting it. I heard from non Christian families or from lapsed Christians. You know, the parents said, you know, we used to be whatever, Methodists and we haven't been to church in a decade. And my daughter is talking about angels and this and that and seeing these things that got us back to church. So you, you can see things like that as well. So when I went on to speak to Kai. I wanted to supply the spiritual dimension. She had Diane Powell, who's a very respected psychiatrist. And I've got to know Diane a little bit. Diane taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, I believe, and she wanted to talk about the more serious science. I think she felt like that got lost in the. She called it the woo woo of telepathy. I felt a little bit the same way that I wanted to talk about the spiritual part of it and Kai. And this is not a criticism. Kai is a brilliant filmmaker. I like her. You know, it's just not that the story she wants to tell. So she's finding the pieces that fit with her narrative. And in particular, she was interested in my discussing studies because spelling was initially discredited in some forms. There was an organization called ASHA that wrote criticisms of it. There were about 40 negative studies going back to the 90s. Because of the way that they did some things, the methods are dramatically improved. There's more than 100 positive studies now after methodologies were changed. University of Virginia's Department of Psychiatry is a leader. And they keep, you know, writing about how these things now are. They're clearly in there and communicating. You're getting studies like that at the University of Syracuse, Boston University, even Cambridge in England, Vanderbilt, in fact, University of California, Berkeley. That bastion of conservatism is admitting spellers with non speaking autism. This is one book somebody sent me. It's got about 60 or so accounts of, of people who are first, you know, attenders in this college or that college. So Kai was intrigued by that. The fact that I did a deep dive into the research, that spelling is real, that we keep finding it's legitimate because the old complaints just keep getting recycled and they're not. And it's odd that that's happening while spellers are being with autism are being admitted to universities. The thing gets repeated often enough. The other thing is there's old modalities as there's funding behind old types of treatment, including heavy use of pharmaceuticals. Whenever you start getting into something that's growing somebody's economic ox, they don't like that, you know, so. But spelling is unquestionably real. There's more and more studies coming. We're finding the person. I've seen hundreds of these now. It's clearly the person. If you're out there and you said, oh, I heard somewhere about this. I explained this in detail in the book and even cite a number of the studies because it's just not true any longer, that this should be discounted that. Don't get caught up on that old untruth. Kai was interested in that the spiritual content got cut out.
Co-host 1
It's so interesting because they run, they run hand in hand. One of the things that fascinated me.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Not we're at the 35 minute mark and that's kind of what I was looking at.
Co-host 1
The people get a couple more minutes and then we'll.
Pastor Joe Franco
I can give you, I can give you guys as long as you like. Have no limit.
Co-host 1
Oh no, it's just for the, the content of the. We usually take the episode down, edit it so that way it's friendly for YouTube.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
We don't get flagged on who knows.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, yeah.
Co-host 1
But anyway, I'll just, I'll just ask the idea behind like spelling. When she was initially talking about it, the science was saying, well, it's not legitimate because sometimes a parent will put a hand on the child or even just a finger on the head and that's to help the child like locate their body and.
Pastor Joe Franco
Right, right. You're well informed. That was a type of facilitated communication. They would apply a hand to the arm usually, but they would do it counter pressure because it's known people with, you know, significant levels of autism lose the feeling of their limbs. And so doing that was just to help the arm get moving. But then, you know, once the arm is moving, if you've got a hand on it, that opens you up to the criticism that your hand is guiding the arm. So the newer forms of spelling, there's absolutely no touch. It's very strict protocols. Takes longer for them to get going. But it's very strict, you know, no touch. They only ask non leading questions. You can't ask questions that suggest the answer. Or. One other old criticism was, well, we're not able to duplicate it. You expel with the person. And when we put Harry in and Harry tries, it doesn't work. And this to me misses by a mile. This is the analogy I came up with to explain that the spellers have a bond with the person they're spelling with. There's trauma, there's, you know, they, it takes time for them to develop a relationship. They have a sense of who loves them and cares about them. So imagine, you know, a woman who's had severe severe trauma and she finds a therapist and she finally is able to relate and they open up and she trusts her and there's a, you know, a good therapeutical relationship going on. And you know, some guy comes along and says, well, I want to see if this is real. You know, you get out, I'm going to ask you questions. How do you feel? All right. And it doesn't work well for that, that person to say, well, see, that proves there's nothing to therapy. Well, it'd be absurd. The relationship between the patient and the therapist in that illustration, something like the speller and the spelling facilitator. There's, there's a very much a personal, you know, element. Cody knows Missy since he's a little boy. He knows how dearly she loves him and, and vice versa. And you know, so that's an aspect of it. So those criticisms are easily answered. Some of them, in fact have been just fully disproved. Oh, you're moving the board to the finger. That's how they're spelling. University of Virginia said, okay, let's do a study. We'll track eye movement and hand movement. What comes first, the eye or the hand? And they showed conclusively the eye goes to the letter first and then the finger follows the eye. And they said, this is clear. There's activity of the brain wanting that letter. So all these things have been answered. The old complaints from the 90s just get recycled often enough that people don't, you know, people repeat them. And that was, I took space in the book, I had to and including an appendix to cite some of the studies to show don't be thrown off by those things. And I also took more space that I would have liked examining it like a lawyer cross examining for credibility, finding out there's a strong trend between, you know, non speaking autism and truthfulness. There are some studies who can go as far as saying they're incapable of lying because they lack the subtle social cues. I don't think that's true. It seems though that they are, they tend to be more honest than usual people, the average person, and that's very important for them to that you know who they are. They've been stuck in there for ages. They don't even have motives to lie, like for money. They, if they have money for them, it's in a special needs trust. It doesn't connect for them. Attention. Like a lot of people might go on YouTube and talk about visions and run up the numbers and monetize it. People with that degree of autism, it's characterized often by repetitive motions, difficulty making eye contact, a desire for, you know, less stimulation, they don't want noise. I went into some of their Reddit groups and followed the dialogue. Some who were able to type, they dislike attention. They like calm repetition, quiet. I've Seen some of them say in those groups, when people pay attention to me, it reminds me of the trauma when I was a kid. I was made fun of. You go right through the reason somebody would lie. And none of them line up. So it's this amazingly on it's amazingly developing picture of their. The likelihood that they're being truthful. And then when you find out there are. I may have had days, four of them come in and they don't speak, they can't. They don't own phones, they don't text. You know, it's countless times they come in. There are four angels in the room today. Every one of them will say it. They know what people are thinking, they know what people are saying. They report what's happening in the spirit world. They've seen things before, they happen. There's too many stories to recount. So I just put the. I put the actual dialogues in so people can read and see this is how they described it. And some of them talk like Old Testament prophets. Some of them have very, very deep ways of expressing things. Like my friends Josiah and Houston. They're not in the church here. You know, I put a chapter in because of the incredible things they see and understand. And they'll tell us that they're meant to be heralds, that God's made them heralds of something he's doing in the world.
Co-host 1
See, it's one more thing. I just want to say it's very unfair that there's like we have to do a double blind study on these autistic children. It's like our research has shown us that they've been looking at this since at least the 50s. Oh yeah. And the crazy part is that this person is mentioned on the telepathy tape, but only in passing. And this guy, Andreeja Puharish, they go, oh, well, he developed a patent that is a dental tooth implant. And Lucille Ball kind of suffered from this thing. You remember this part where she.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, she gets a radio signal. Yeah, yeah, yep. Fun story. Yeah.
Co-host 1
I mean, but this guy's not so fun. This guy's a government spook and he's been around for a while and basically his studies are back engineering telepathy. He's written books about it. He's also written books about mushrooms. So he's dealing in the psychedelic realm as well. They were onto this since the 50s and they're asking questions in the 90s, 40 years later, that just exist to trip you up and trip up these, these kids that are going through this thing. They Figured this out a while ago. They figured out the disassociative state. This is what I was saying, with like the arm on the, on the, on the hand or the, the shoulder of the child. It's to help them to like, I guess, vibrate.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
I mean it's almost like locate their body.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, exactly. That's the way that many of them describe it.
Co-host 1
They say they feel like their soul is vibrating here in their physical body and when they're touched, they're able to locate where they are here, here.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
It's like a calibration world.
Co-host 1
Yeah.
Pastor Joe Franco
So, yeah, and this is all fascinating and I think these things tie in. Would you guys be okay if I make a little bit of a left turn here?
Co-host 1
Go for it.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, I, I think the thing we don't want to miss is that they are all talking about God. They all the ones I know I've been told to be careful not to say. They all the, all the ones I've met, they talk about Jesus, even some who are not Christian and, and non Christians with. This is another interesting subject, but I want to say I've noticed a lot of overlap between what they report and near death experiences and even some overlap with the accounts of Christian, pardon me, of Muslims who see Jesus in dreams and visions. It's been recounted in a number of books. The guy who wrote A Wind in the House of Islam as a PhD from University of Chicago on a research. It's there. And what fascinates me now is this is kind of overlapping of God speaking. Almost like speaking to the world through unlikely vehicles.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Right.
Pastor Joe Franco
And, and again, you know, the, you see this continually in what, you know, the paradoxical ways of God that, you know, God's power is made perfect in weakness. You know, Paul says, First Corinthians 12, 8, he asked three times for the thorn in the flesh to be removed. And God's answer was, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness, you know, And Paul said, I'd rather boast about my weakness. So the, you know, the power of God will boast to me. You get so many hints. You know, Second Corinthians 4, we hold this treasure in jars of clay, you know, First Corinthians chapter one, like verse 27, God's chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. Again, we keep getting these hints of that. And even where, you know, there's a time where Jesus rejoiced in the scripture. The Greek is kind of like he greatly exalted, like you could just picture him smiling and laughing. I'm curious, do you remember the reference where he. That it says that of him, what he was rejoicing and exalting about? Most people don't. It's in that hour. 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 minds and you've revealed it to those who are babes, or those, I would say, I would add, who become like children. So here's God taking Matthew 24.
Co-host 1
Right. Like you have to be like a child to enter into heaven. This idea.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah. Unless you become his children, you won't enter the kingdom of heaven. And now we have a relationship with them. A lot of times when I'm, you know, signing books for people now, you get by. The people want the book. I sorry for saying this. They could go on the website if they order it, if they order it there, we just ask for a donation. Whatever you can afford. I'll. I sign all those that go out and then every penny of it goes, you know, to the ministry to help. You know, we want to have a special focus on, on autism. And you know, I, I fond of quoting Matthew 25:40. What you've done for the least of these, you've done for me. So, you know, I. There's God is, is doing something here. It's emerging. Many of them have said to me, joe, our story was meant to get out. Jesus has told me all my life, my story is going to come out. I'm going to glorify him through my autism. Which raises all kinds of other questions, like why aren't they getting healed instead of glorifying God in autism? And they talk to Jesus. They do. They have a lot to say about Jesus.
Co-host 1
Well, I have other questions as well. What afflicted them? Why so many? I mean, these are questions to God or perhaps the government. But why so many in this day and age, so many children suffering? I mean, like the percentage is going up and I know that there's discrepancies between how we diagnose it, but it, I mean, I forgot the numbers, but it's like thousand percent or something like that that RFK Jr. Was saying.
Pastor Joe Franco
It's right. It's a huge increase. We are diagnosing it more effectively. Some friend sent me an academic article about. Part of the problem is this is going to sound weird. It's almost becoming trendy.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
People feel like social contagion.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah. People say, I have a Little autism and they're functioning fine and they speak and all of that, but they feel like if they have just a touch, it makes them like Elon Musk. They can be brilliant.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
See, and that's what I was talking about before Joe, with that subversive kind of little message that gets slid across the table. It goes, hey, this is the next step. Step in human development. This is the next. And there's like some sort of glorification of that when, to be perfectly honest, from where I'm sitting, these look like injured children. I don't think that anybody who's actually experienced this would say that this is the next step in development and this is something that you should boast about or.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, no, no, yeah. They struggle. I mean, they, you know, many of them said to me, my. My mind and my body are at war. They'll. They'll have these first out of frustration, you know, tantrums. They can't control their body, they thrash on the floor. And afterward, if they're able to spell about it, they'll say, you don't understand what it's like. My brain can't get my body to do what. What it wants. I was speaking at a conference in Orlando and doing a breakout session and I had a few spellers there and we did back to back break breakout sessions. And one of the spellers, Elsa, came up and spelled for them. The people were just spellbound. And the second young man who's had a lot of trauma in his life, he was adopted from a Bulgarian orphanage. He's blind, loves his family. You know, he has food issues from eating paint chips when he was. There was no food in the orphanage and all that. He spells profound things. And he started trying to spell and he lost control of his body. He was thrashing on the floor. And I just said to the, you know, the people in the room, this is the life his parents have. This is why we want to meet them and love them. Because this kind of thing can happen anytime. It's not something to. But the interesting thing is that every one of them talks about how much Jesus loves them. I've maybe now read. It could be about a hundred accounts from people who describe it. I've met them on Zoom Calls and, you know, all kinds of. Met a good number in person now. And I've asked many of them, what does Jesus look like? The first answer I always get from them is some variation of this. He looks like love. He is the love of God for us. He is God's love on display you and I, if we were asked to describe someone would give a superficial answer, right? Five foot eight, has a beard, whatever. They go right to the essence of who he is. They're all riveted by his eyes. They say his eyes have light. And when they say when you see his eyes, you're the only person in existence. His attention is totally focused on you. His love is so deep and profound. There's no condemnation. There's this deep acceptance to seeing your life. Now again, I've had people write and say, well, why, if they're seeing Jesus, why aren't they getting healed? I, I can't answer that. But the, a number of them have said that God wants me to glorify him through my autism and to be a faithful witness. So I mean, you all can wrestle with, you know, the theology of that. It's interesting. They said some of them send me books. This was a book I spelled with Jeff. It was his privately published Lights in the Darkness. It's about maybe 30 accounts or so. And these are all people with non speaking autism. Story after story. Just here. This is Angelo. Jesus was a friend to me when I had no friends. He shined the light of freedom in my life. But it was my choice to choose freedom and allow the light in. Jesus died for all of humanity. They get the gospel very clearly. There's no question. They don't say Jesus is one of many ways. They say Jesus is the way the Father's given us. He died to wipe the slate clean for our souls. That's pretty direct. He came to restore our hearts, minds and bodies. My heart was filled with self hatred, resentment and anger. Through Jesus, love and sacrifice, my heart and mind were restored. It all began when Jesus opened heaven's doors for me. Angels of heaven have visited me in my sleep since I was three years old. I was brought into the heavenly realm and shown the lion of Judah. He would walk in green pastures with me and pour his love into me. These kind of stories are common and I love this one. Jeff, who did this one, I love it. He autographed it for me to Pastor Joe.
Co-host 1
Nice.
Pastor Joe Franco
Because he's one of the stories in him. So they, they are very much talking about Jesus. They go to a place called the Hill, which is hard to understand. They're able to speak in. They don't use a word like telepathy. They just say we speak in just our mind. You don't need. It's spirit speaking to spirit. So they don't need to use a body, you know, in all of that they describe as a place where there's freedom, by the way, they not only fellowship with each other, like the telepathy tapes has picked up, they go there to intercede for us. They go there to meet with Jesus. They get work assignments. There are all kinds of things happening, and most of them won't tell me. I've heard a number of times we're not allowed to say this. There's a code there. A lot of times in response to questions, they will say, I'm not allowed to talk about that. And they. They'll say to someone, you need to read your Bible, pray and trust God. They don't view themselves as little oracles or mystics. They're always pointing people to know Jesus personally, get to know God, you know, like Jeremiah 9:24. You know, I delight in this. The one who understands and knows me says the Lord. So that that element of things is very much in play too.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Joe, I wonder if we could talk a little bit about some of the things in particular. This story of the telepathy tapes is important, and I think the reason it's obvious to me is the way that it caught fire. This resonates with people. We have been stripped of our spiritual understanding, especially here in the west, and this is now something that looks like spiritual food. Huge omission. I mean, you know, I. I understand. We already talked about it. We've added these caveats. You can't include everything. Kai has an agenda. And this specific thing that's been omitted is, in my opinion, the most important aspect of this entire story.
Co-host 1
And specifically the way Joe is talking about it. You seem like a. A man with decent discernment. And that's my. I've never spoken to any of these kids. My main holdup would have been, you know, test the spirits. That's what the Bible says. When something approaches you, like, I don't know. I know if I'm thrown into this spiritual realm, I'm gonna be a little confused on what to trust, where to go. I wouldn't even. I don't even want to go there. I have no interest in moving around there. A lot of people do, like astral projection. I'm like, no, no, not me. And these kids are kind of. I have. I have some life experience. I'm from New York too, so I know how to walk around the streets. I know how to handle myself a.
Pastor Joe Franco
Little bit, get about it. I know to how.
Co-host 1
You know what I mean? You see trouble, you know how to, like, okay, well, this might be a problem. These kids are in their houses, but then they're thrusting into the spiritual realm. So like, my. My question was like, how do they know what's what? But you're saying that the initial. I mean, not, not just the initial, but the overall sentiment that you're getting from these guys is that they know their stuff and their fruits bear that.
Pastor Joe Franco
Well, yeah, yes, yes and no. That's great. Question. The angels at times are very obvious. They're light, they're light bearing. And they'll say, you know, angels are worshiping God, they're obeying Jesus and all that. Sometimes demons are easy to detect. They're dark. There's a hateful aspect to them. There are times, I mean, I've talked to some of them and I'll pray with them and for them. I. And they ask me questions. We've had to go through discerning of spirits. You know, I can think of times, and I'm not an expert on this, people think like Joe has the answers. I'm feeling my way around a room and I keep becoming aware. There's dozens of other rooms in this place that I get hints about. I don't even know how to process this. But there are times that, you know, the Bible says Satan can appear as an angel of light, you know, where I'll hear things like, I'm really troubled. Okay, let's talk about it. You know, the spirit was asking me questions. Why did God let this happen? All right, well, that's pretty easy. All right, let's go back to the Garden of Eden was the original temptation. Asking the question, as God really said and all that. And then a lot of times what I'll do with them is we'll talk about the fruit of the spirit and, you know, say, how did you feel after that? Well, I felt afraid. Oh, okay. What does the scripture say? God's not given us a spirit of fear of. But of power, love and sound thinking. And we walk through those things and they get it quickly and they say, wow, thanks. Yes. And you know, they want prayer. They want to understand things. Sometimes they see things and they don't get it or they don't get the context, you know. Is that in scripture, Joe? Yeah, I can think of examples. Notably when. When the apostle Paul is on his way to Jerusalem, the prophet Agabus comes, takes Paul's garment, binds his hands and says, you know, the Lord says, the one who owns this piece of clothing is going to be handed over to the Jews and, and all. And, and, you know, Luke says, we all Started pleading with him, don't go. Don't go. And Paul said, why are you breaking my heart? I'm ready to go and die. And earlier he had said, every place I go, the spirit bears witness that chains await me. But what Paul knew from his intimate walk with Jesus was from his very call, when Ananias went to pray for him, that the scales would fall off his eyes. God said, he's a witness to me to speak before kings and rulers, and I'll show him what great things he must suffer for my sake. So the people there had heard from the Holy Spirit, paul, this is what awaits you. But they drew the wrong conclusion. Therefore, don't go. And Paul was saying, no, I'm supposed to go. That's exactly my destiny. So I help them. And sometimes they don't understand things. There was a time a couple of them asked me about incense. Why do they smell incense when, you know, when angels are more active and fighting and, you know, if you want to come back to that, I'll tell you about that, too.
Co-host 1
You can't. You can't skip over that. I'm sorry. That's good.
Pastor Joe Franco
Okay. All right, all right.
Co-host 1
This is a technique. I mean, the first episode I've ever done, when I started this podcast, I interviewed my aunt, and she was having demonic oppression. She went to a witch doctor in Puerto Rico.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Wrong move.
Co-host 1
And they had. They had her lighting incense, and it seemed like it would help for a little while, and then it would intensify, and it would help again, and then the attacks would intensify. So what is that? What's that about?
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, I mean, I keep telling people, love God, keep getting closer to Jesus and trusting him and those. You know, those. I made our times. I've done plenty of spiritual warfare and had those situations and prayed and, you know, removed demons and all. But the. The. You. You. We. You don't want to be afraid of them when you encounter them in believers. Jesus gave us authority over serpents and scorpions. He gave us balance, too. Don't rejoice over that. Rejoice instead that your name is written, the book of life. People can have unhealthy obsessions with those ideas. When we encounter them, we deal with them. The main thing we're called to do is glorify God and love him and be witnesses of who he is. So. But the incense. Matthew had asked for prayer about something. At the end of it, he asked me, why do I spell? Why do I smell incense? And he spelled the name of an incense. It was Something like amaranth. My first thought was, oh, great. I'm just getting my brain wrapped around they see and they hear. Now they're smelling too. And at first that struck me as really odd. So, you know, we talked a little while. I said, let me think about this, Matthew. I'll come back and talk to you about it. And I started thinking, okay, we have five senses. Do other senses operate? Well, both Ezekiel and John in Revelation are handed a scroll and they're holding it. Touch, they're told, eat the scroll. They do. And it's sweet in their mouth, so they've got taste. And I thought, all right, if. If everything else is working, why would smell not be working? I looked up online Amaranth. It's funny, there's a close spelling variation. There's an incense of that name, and it is made by like an order of monks in some obscure place. Place. And so I started thinking, okay, let's try to wrap our hands around this. It's active when angels are ministering and we're praying. That's what, wait, Revelation 5, Revelation 8. Those chapters talk about incense. You go to them. Those chapters say that incense presented in heaven is the prayers of the saints. They're in a bowl and the angels are lifting the bowl before God. They're the ones administering the, you know, bearing the prayers. And. And so suddenly, wow. So when we're praying and they smell that incense. So maybe incense is, is more literal in that prayer than we realize. It was a feature, even going back to the tabernacle. There was an altar of incense. It got put right on the curtain next to the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the Covenant was. And every day the priest was lighting the incense. And that represented even then, the prayers of the saints rising up. So they keep opening doors and windows on these marvelous biblical pictures and verses. They start tying together. But do we get the whole picture? Of course not. But the discernment of spirits is very important, and I've worked with them on that. But there are certain things that are.
Co-host 1
Self evident to them that that gives a little bit new meaning as well. You have my brain just going, when Mary pours the perfume on Jesus feet, wipes it with her hair, it's more than just the sacrifice, because that was like a yearly wage or something like that.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
And the magi bring like incense and myrrh.
Co-host 1
Frankincense and myrrh.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Frankincense and myrrh and gold.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Co-host 1
Really makes you question. It's. Is it not just like a Is it more than just a profession or like, a gift?
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Maybe we should burn incense in here.
Pastor Joe Franco
Probably not. I looked into discernment of spirits, and I wrote about that too, as well as the ministry of angels and demons. Like, some people are freaked out and they say, oh, they're hearing from angels, that that's bad, you know. Well, no, the word angel, Angelos, means messenger. Angels are bringing messages through all of scripture. Let me just start with the new, you know, Testament, you know, Zechariah, John's parents, you know, Mary, Joseph, shepherds. I mean, on and on and on and all that. I think what people have to understand is spirits are the same, demons are the same order of creation, but they're fallen. They're in rebellion against God. You know, Revelation 12, the devil, the dragon and his angels fought against Michael and his angels, and there was war in heaven. They're in rebellion against God, which is why, you know, our warfare is not against flesh and blood. But they're the same type, the same order of being. So there's similarities in the way they were created, just not. They're no longer missional, they're no longer worshiping God. And I'll say, but, you know, you're thinking of maybe Galatians. If an angel brings you another, you know, gospel, it should be an anathema. It's a curse. Reject it and all that. These, these are not angels bringing another gospel. This is the same. They're doing the same role. They're bringing comfort. They're bringing the love of God. Yes, they look, Paul, and the terrible storm and the ship that was going to crash, and the people on it thought, we're all dead for sure. Paul says to them, good news. An angel of the God I served appeared to me last night. God's graciously given all the lives on the ship, you know, but you all have to stay with. With it. And so, you know, you want to be careful not to take one verse out of context. The angels love the Lord. They worship, they fight for us. They. They talk about. There's a couple here and they're guarding today. And this was an interesting story when. When Cody's mom, Glory, was on vacation, they were in a room in a hotel, and Cody was sitting in another part of the room, and Glory was reading an earlier version of the manuscript, and Cody suddenly spoke up and said, elisha, Elisha. Again, non speaking is preferred over non verbal because they can sometimes say words or even a few words or a fragment of a sentence. Just the speech is not reliable. So she thought, that's interesting. Why would he say Elisha? She went back to the book and kept reading. In the next paragraph, I was writing about Elisha and his servant at the city, I believe was Dothan, where the servants freaking out because the enemy troops are all around. Elisha says, don't, don't worry. There's more with us than with them. You know, Lord open his eyes and the servant is able to see the hillside covered with chariots of fire and you know, and angels. And so Elisha just had that ability to see into the realm. There are times in scripture and even now in this world, I've met people, I don't have that ability, but I've met people who say they do. And so Glory was just amazed. In the next spelling session, she said, cody, why did you say Elisha? Jesus told me that you were reading about Elisha and angels. And I wanted you to know that I really do see angels. So these stories are the new norm for me. For many of these non persons with non speaking autism, they glorify God. They want people to be ready. A lot of them say Jesus is coming quickly and it could be there's God is doing something in this world.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
It's wild because this is not, this is obviously by this conversation, become the norm for you. And you know, it's spread across multiple.
Co-host 1
Individuals to live in.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
It is a fantastic world, but it's not the one that we get, you know, from sort of the cold clinical diagnosis of a nonverbal autistic individual. That's not what we're subjected to. That's not part of the narrative or anything like that. And you know, this entire thing, this omission is a tremendous one and it, it's, it's an important one that will change dramatically the way that you perceive not only this phenomenon, but also what it means in the larger picture, and clearly what it means in the larger picture is that Jesus is real. This unseen realm, you know, as Heiser puts it, is real. And, and these people are interacting with that realm in a way that far exceeds the average person's capability of interacting with it. I wonder, could you talk about any specific moments is, or moments or instances rather that were omitted from this final product that you would have really liked to have seen in there. I mean, this whole thing, this whole omission is, is a huge one. But.
Co-host 1
And after this, I want to talk about what was put in its stead because I feel like that's the, maybe the most important thing to drive home to our audiences. That kind of like preaching the choir, but, you know. Yeah, and you're.
Pastor Joe Franco
You're talking, you're referring to the telepathy tapes.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
To the telepathy tapes. Was there anything that wasn't seen by people that should have been seen by people?
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah. Okay. The biggest thing is that they're all talking about. From my experience, the ones I meet, they're all talking about Jesus, even ones who didn't come from church backgrounds. And, you know, I, I think the telepathy tapes editing was interested in com. My comments on why spelling is reliable and some of the science and all of that. And then also like, you know, Kai left in a story about that they'll see things before they happen. That freaks out some people. Like, what time is that? Like, you know, fortune telling or something? No, but God is outside of time. The prophet Agabus foresaw a famine, and the church said, okay, we'll get ready. You know, Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream, a famine's coming. You know, and all that. This was just one of the, you know, a young woman kept telling her, dad, be careful. You're going to slip on ice and get hurt very badly. Please be careful. Please be careful. And he came to see me and, you know, I got to know him. And he came to Faith in Christ through all this. And the. He said, she keeps warning me of this, but we're in Phoenix. We don't get much ice. Weeks later, he was on a business trip in the Midwest and he texted me from an emergency room to say, you're not going to believe this. I went back to the hotel. I slept on ice, broke my hip. They're putting in hardware, you know, here is a picture of the X ray that they took. And so, I mean, this is just. It's just kind of really, really wild stuff. But these, these things, you know, these things keep happening. What I would have liked to have seen, I don't want to lose track of your question is the, the people I'm meeting and talking to are, Are all so connected to God doing something really connected with the idea of God's love. Really connected with, you know, the idea that they're supposed to be messengers, that they're gifts for us. That's one of the reasons we use hidden gifts, ministry. Right now, when we think of people with those kinds of disabilities, the word burden creeps into our mind. Who's going to care for them? They have to be fed or this or that. And all. Well, once we get to know them, we see what's inside Them to learn that they're interceding for us that I mean they've shared insights and some of them have said to me, joe, Jesus wants you to know this and shared intensely profound personal things and, and all I, I, I think, I'm sorry, what didn't get out is that God wants to change the way we see every human being, especially the ones whom we discount. Every human being is an image bearer of color God. We draw wrong conclusions. We, we idolize the rich, the famous, the great athletes, you know, the influencers and all that. And sometimes God moves the most powerfully through the least of these, that person on the street. And God wants us seeing people differently. And I wish more of that had come out. Also. Kai said that they, people tend to see God in their tradition and she left it at that. I think that's a kind of unfair understatement. Oh, I don't want to say that. That sounds like I'm criticizing and that that's her way of explaining it. I, I think that that doesn't adequately explain what I've seen and how much God and, and Jesus are up the center of it. Even where people come from other religious backgrounds maybe say it that way, right.
Co-host 1
Like the, the consistent overlap in description is, is something that you can't, or, well, you know, the other people, naysayers can explain away. I guess they'll do their best and you know, good luck to them. But something interesting that you, that you had mentioned as well about like this, this foresight of something that is going to happen, maybe even it probably happens to them, even like maybe minuscule things like, hey, you might drop that pen. They saw that a couple seconds before and whatever. In our studies with our friend Dr. Jerry Marzinski, who was a licensed psychotherapist for 30 something years, he, he thinks that the condition of schizophrenia is actually more of a spiritual condition rather than just hallucinations because it draws patterns. But one of those patterns would be people having like this kind of foresight of things right before that, right before they happen.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Precognition.
Co-host 1
Yeah, yeah, precognition. It's just a very interesting overlap or thought or like, I don't know quite where to put it, but there is a condition that these people have and it's giving them these abilities that sort of overlap. Like, you know, obviously schizophrenia, they'd say that they're being tormented by demons, but they're in a, they're communicating with another realm, you know, they've kicked over.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, these are very, yeah, very tough questions. I mean, there are legitimate forms of mental illness and people who, who do better on medications and all that. And I think we have to approach this with a lot of wisdom and discernment and then remember as well. I mean, somebody might see something but not interpret it correctly. So of necessity, we have to stick very closely to the, The Bible. I said in the introduction, when I dove into this world and started examining it, you know, as a skeptic, one of my opening, you know, you know, foundations was if it's anti biblical, if it contradicts the scripture, is. Has to be thrown out. There's something else happening here. And that's not been the case. Everything I've seen, with my experience, the people I've spoken with, is over always biblical. And it very strongly correlates to Jesus. He's so prominent in this.
Co-host 1
Do the people that you talk to also have the premonition of this catastrophe, this thing happening?
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Oh, that's an interesting question, because this.
Co-host 1
Is what the Telepathy tapes draws its conclusion at. Sort of where it's like there's going to be a destruction of some type or a polar shift or a. I don't know, we're gonna.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
In other words, a global catastrophe that needs to be sidestepped in some way.
Co-host 1
Shape or form if we don't do this.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
I believe the way the Telepathy tapes kind of leaves it off is. Is. And I don't disagree with this message. If you look at it through a biblical lens, it's like being good shepherds, you know, to the earth or not shepherds. What's the.
Co-host 1
There's a. Stewards.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Stewards. Thank you. But this sort of thing comes up a lot in our, in our research. I mean, is there anything. When you're, when you're talking to these kids, are they concerned one way or another with the state of the earth and the trajectory?
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, yeah.
Co-host 1
So preface. I like to preface it too, so there's no trickery in the question. Because when we, when we talk to people who are like alien abductees, they.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Get the same message.
Co-host 1
They get the same message. They're talking about the Intergalactic Federation of Light, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're like, there's gonna be a catastrophe, and that's why we need to ascend. And a lot of New Age thought leads to this. And we heard the same thing coming from some of the kids in the Telepathy tapes, or at least that's what was told through the podcast. And I'm just like, I don't Know where to put it.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
How prevalent is that sort of message?
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, it's not super common. I've gotten some hints of it and not really been able to explore it. I wouldn't be comfortable saying that they're actually saying that. And bear in mind, spelling is a difficult process. When you see the book and you see one page with a spelling conversation that could have taken an hour, imagine having to get your body going and point to a letter and it could be slow for some. Some and delete that letter and all. And the main things have been, one, they want people to know who they are. I'm in here. It's thrilling for them. Their families are meeting them and finding out what they're interested in. Then second, they want people to know they do see the spiritual world. Jesus is real. They see angels and demons. They see them fighting over us. So the kind of focusing on those things, those are the most immediate parts. And sometimes it's hard to get subtleties. Like, I could ask you guys a question, you give me an answer, I could follow up and get some nuance. It's really difficult to do that. So while, you know, I've gotten maybe occasionally hints about that, it's not a popular or prominent subject. And even there, if that was coming, you know, now and then from somebody, I would want to know more about the context. And even, you know, I would want to have some spiritual discernment, what they might be hearing, from whom they might hear it. Now, you could look at Matthew 24 and Luke 21 and the signs before Jesus returns. Unless those days were cut short, no life would survive. You know, you know, signs in the heaven, you know, earthquakes, famines, pestilence and all that. You can certainly see those kinds of things in the. In the scripture. And. And yet it's interesting. Jesus does not give us a lot of detail. We don't know the day of the hour. We get some hints about the season. When you see these things begin to come, to pass, lift up your head, you know, your redemption's drawing close and all that. But it seems like whenever those things come up, the focus is not on the events. The focus is on be ready. You know, if the. If the servant knew what time the master was returning, he would have been ready. There's a lot of parables and teaching where the Lord's conveying. You don't know. It's going to come unexpected. It's going to be like in the days of Noah, they were eating and drinking and partying, and wham, it hit you Know that the focus seems to be, be more focused on walking intimately with me, getting your relationship in order, making daily time with me a priority. Get in your Bible, pray, see what I've got for you to do, and then you're ready. You're walking in readiness. If, if Tomorrow there's a 9, 11 type event, but a hundred times worse. We're not going to be scrambling. Where do we run to get answers? Oh no, we better go to every time those things happen. The churches are full, right? People want answers. I think Jesus wants us to live in a way that we know him more intimately and trust him and love him where he's the answer. We don't have to have fear in those situations where, you know, we're lifting up our head that that's a sign of expectation and almost rejoicing that the, the culmination of the greatest thing God's promised us is coming. So again, I don't, we don't get a lot of detail on that. If, if I hear more, I'll let you guys know and we can, you know, pick up the theme on it. But the, you know, my response to that would be the more of that you hear, the more you should focus on being ready.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Interesting little tidbit for you. And I think that is, you know, that's well said and I'm glad to hear that. That is the message that comes across something that you might find interesting. We had a writer or listener submit an email to us and say that she's the mother of a non verbal or non speaking autistic child and that through one way or another, you know, she didn't go into great detail, but she brought these concepts up to her child after hearing about us talk about the telepathy tapes. And he was receptive. One thing led to another and he seemed to insinuate that the hill was in Utah. So, you know, in other words, he had experienced the hill as well and then said that it was in Utah. Interestingly enough, now, you know, who knows to what degree there's communication there or if that was what the actual message was. I understand these things can be difficult, but I just thought that that was a fascinating.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, yeah. Can I say a word about the Hill? It's hard to know what it is. It's not heaven, but it seems to be something like a suburb of heaven. There are colors that you've never seen. The colors you'll know and colors beyond. Everything worships God. The flowers are very important to the spellers. I tried to describe a Little of what they said about that, that the flowers have emit energy, which is the creative energy of God and that people are tied to flowers somehow, whatever that mysterious sentence means. But often they're aware that the city is that way, you know, or something like that. And it seems that there's fields and some of them have described fields and places are just beautiful. Gold is a common color of, you know, the vegetation there. But everything worships God. The plants are worshiping God. The animals, there's animals. They say the animals are worshiping God. So all these things are, you know, happening there. And, and I just want to add this because a lot of times people hear these things and they go, oh, that's my child. My child's not speaking autism. I would just recommend that they go to that. Hidden Gifts ministry.org My dear friends Matt and Glory, Cody's parents have lived this. What. How do you bring siblings into it from the shock of the diagnosis and the fear, like what's going to happen after we're gone and this and that. That's why we're trying to. That's Cody when he was young there. That's what we're trying to put lots of resources including information about spelling places. You might be able to, you know, find a spelling facilitator. I don't do that. I don't know how to do it. I've tried to with Cody. We've had some limited success. But there, you know, there's a resources page. There's some good books there like Underestimated. We're putting a link to getting government, you know, resource resources or help. We want to keep loading this with free resources so that as you meet people you can recommend it to them. You've got a friend at work, say, do me a favor, just go check out that website. We want people to be blessed and if we're able to do it, we want to scholarship people too because spelling is not covered by insurance and a lot of people can't afford it. We would love to scholarship people who want to study spelling who will agree to work with low income people to help them meet their kids. You'll see where you buy spelling boards where you get lessons. You can get lessons free and download them. If you want to try this on your own, you'll see interviews with people who have gone through it. I feel like I don't want to talk about this and just convey the mystic parts of it. I love the mystic parts. I live for that too. My heart is really to reach the people walking through this to say, hey, there's going to be help here for you. We want to glorify God together in this. And then in the unexpected, you know, paradoxical ways of God, we reach to comfort them and love them. And then it turns out they're a provision for us and they're blessing us with insights that knock me off my chair. So this is just God being God, doing it both ways. So people listening, a starting point. If what can I do for spelling? Don't go to me personally. Go to Hidden Gifts. If you email us there, we'll get back to you too. But go there and look at resources and start reading more about it. And that's like the first step into it.
Co-host 1
Maybe a question you can answer. I don't know. This is again, he's like, he's like, don't ask me, but I'm gonna ask you. So I, I see the spelling board here. But like, is there going to be like a prerequisite for the child to. I mean they have to know, they have to know the letters, they have to know the language.
Pastor Joe Franco
Here's the shocking thing. They're autodidactic. I've asked many of them, how did you learn how to spell? They spelled big complex words. One of Cody's early spelling sessions, he was asked a genus and species of a narwhal and he answered mono today, like his mom almost fell off her chair. So University of Virginia's had a lot of good info on this and a short answer. We live in a print rich environment. We take words for granted. They're all around us. I'm sitting here with you right now. Virtually everywhere I look in my office, I'm seeing words. So they've lived, they've heard people pronounce words. They've seen that what people are seeing, they get the letters and all of that, they just pick it up. They're self taught and they have a much deeper level of sophistication than I, than, than we realized. And again, some of the recent UVA articles say we've really seriously underestimated the verbal abilities of non speaking persons. We have a natural prejudice that kicks in when somebody cannot answer us in a familiar way. I had somebody here looking into, you know, not long ago and we were meeting some people is a young woman in a wheelchair whose, whose speech is very difficult. She has a severe cerebral palsy. She's had visions too. She spells on a device. She's an honors graduate of Arizona State University. She was her graduation speaker. Speaker. She's an Author. And it's funny people. And I tell people that in advance and her name is Brooke Brown. And people will come up and they'll see her, hi, Brooke. They don't get an answer. They can understand. And this is the default. It's so nice to meet you. And after I said this person, we all did the same thing. So when I hear that, I'll then, you know, in the next sentence say, you know, Brooke, this person is really happy to meet you. I'm so glad you were here. You had books for that. I talk like I'm talking to you because they get that. They want that. This is not a bad on us. Like, how could we, you know, this is more just. There's something in us that triggers. If you talk to a six month old, you don't expect to get an answer. You don't talk the same way. Yeah, we talk to the kids as if they did understand because we get, that's helping them to understand and develop words and language and all that. Well, it's just a natural response we have. And again, one of the big themes of the book is that we should always assume competence. Speak to everyone you meet like that, as if they can understand you. I've met people since I'm in some place or outside walking as a mom and the kids in a wheelchair, we say hello, we get into a conversation. Can I talk to your daughter for a bit? Sure. And I'll just turn to the, you know, the one in the wheelchair and I'll say, I'm so happy to meet you. I hope, I know you're enjoying this beautiful day. It's really a blessing to meet you. You know, I know there's a lot of special things in your life and sometimes you'll see the reaction on their face like, oh my goodness, he knows I'm here or something. So that's a really important part of it, how we treat people. I think God's reorganizing our thinking to see people more the way he does.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
All of that makes me really hopeful for the future. I feel like we're turning a corner pretty rapidly. Not only in our understanding of this, but in some people say we're in the middle of a revival. And I hope that that is the case. And I think that stories like yours and you know, sure, there may have been some omission on part of the telepathy tapes, but it kicks the door open and then look at the conversations that we get to have here. And so these stories do get told and that is important. And I don't know, I think I'm just hopeful for the future in the direction that this is going in.
Pastor Joe Franco
Kind of encourage. Can I just add to that? I say amen. It's. I've had people say, oh no, that with the Telepathy tapes is going to be a movie in 20, 20, 26. And it's going to be all this weird like New Agey sounding stuff and all it's here, it's getting people to think about the concepts. Christians are going to want to know, what does this mean? We should be ready to tell them, you know, we accept the parts of it that are, you know, all truth is God's truth. If they're able to see and communicate, let's rejoice in that. But let's just find out more. What is God doing? And I see it as a great opportunity.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Yeah, I think that when this first happened, the Telepathy tapes, I felt as though the Holy Spirit kind of put it on our radar. There was some nudging to look at it. And sure, in this discussion there's maybe something you could describe as bitterness when it comes to the way that things were portrayed. But then we get emails from people, which we have, and I can think of a couple people in particular who have children that, you know, suffer from this disposition and who have thanked us for talking about it. And the more we talk about it, the more this information gets out. I'm to the point now where I have, I do have a hard time looking at it in a negative light. Look at the fruit that it's bore. Look at the conversations we get to have.
Co-host 1
Yeah, but it's our, it's also our job. So like when I guess when we first started the show or like my gripe with the. I used to go to church, then stopped and then, and now we're going again. But my gripe was the lack of dealing with the supernatural or dealing with some of these things, depending on which church you go to. Some people will just tell you to kick rocks when you're asking them the questions that we've asked you that you've gave us really great answers to. And it's our job to have those answers. Otherwise people will go and they'll get the answers from somebody else.
Pastor Joe Franco
But be kind. You know, every church is imperfect and some people have answers and wince at them and all go there and be the light for that. Be the one who helps people understand that, that you will never find a perfect church. But you know, as soon as you do, it won't be perfect because you're in it. That's true. There's an old joke. Can I tell you an old joke?
Co-host 1
Yeah, yeah.
Pastor Joe Franco
I know we're running tight on time, but a man is rescued from a desert island, and the captain of the ship comes aboard. He says, you're amazing. You were here for years. How did you survive? And he sees three huts in the center of the island. The man says, well, I built three huts. That first hut was my home. I knew I needed shelter from the elements. Wow, amazing. What's the second hut? Second hut's my church. I knew I wouldn't make it unless I was in tune with God and walking with the Lord and trusting. Wow, amazing. What's the third hut? Oh, that. That's the church I used to belong to. You know.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
That'S actually very funny.
Co-host 1
That's a great.
Pastor Joe Franco
Fair enough. Fair enough.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
I love that. That's great. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to tell that. And I'm not going to credit you.
Pastor Joe Franco
I'm not crediting whoever told me. So there you go.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Well, look, I want to bring it in for a landing, but we do have one last question that we like to ask our guest. And everybody has such a unique perspective because of the different field of study they come from. And so I'm eager to hear your response. Not necessarily Joe, in this conversation, but your pursuits, everything that you're involved with. And I think I kind of already imagined the answer, but are you having fun?
Pastor Joe Franco
I am having the time of my life. And, you know, we've all heard the difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is transient. It's focuses on an event. When the event is done, I am having a blast. And part of the fun comes from a deep joy of letting go of more things. And I find I'm able to trust God in a deeper way. Look up to the time that a lot of our life were driven by all kinds of things and fears and anxieties and pride, especially, you know, as men, where do we fit in? And. And how do people see us? And we're worried about those things. There's something really blessed and liberating about meeting people so free of that because of the way that they live and just getting to know them for the sake of knowing them. That's kind of like I look at other stuff and I go, what the heck does that mean? That means nothing. And the process I've been going through with that has been so much fun. I feel like it's almost not right that I'm enjoying it. So much.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
That's. That's a. It's good to hear. I. I will say the common thread, and I very much think that you. You find yourself in this position, Joe, is when people are doing what they feel they were meant to do. You know, we spend a lot of time looking for, like, what's our purpose? What does God want us to do? What's God's plans for us? And overwhelmingly, the people that we talk to, I feel like they're. They figured that out there. They're on that path. They're talking to people, and they're trying to, you know, spread this information. And so I just think that that's like, the real commonality is.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Did you see. Did you see the movie Chariots of Fire? The best picture, Long Time Back.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Who was that by? I think that sounds familiar.
Pastor Joe Franco
It's about. It's about runners in England and the.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Oh, no, no, no.
Pastor Joe Franco
Olympics. And. Well worth seeing. One's a Christian runner based on a true story, and the other is Jewish, and they win gold medals in the Olympics, but their stories. And the Christian runner who died in World War II in a Japanese camp, you know, makes a decision to run the Olympics, and his sister's all upset. You should be about serving God and all. And there's. And they're from Scotland, and they're walking in the Highlands. And he tells her he's going to run in the Olympics to glorify God. At one point, he takes her by the arms, and he looks there, and her name is Jenny. And he says, jenny, God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure. And I thought, oh, man, that's it. When you do what he made you to do, you feel his pleasure.
Co-host 1
That's. That's the thing. This is what I'm trying to do with my life and whatever talents or whatever thing I think I do good. I'm like, all right, well, how could I use that for God now instead of sitting on it or doing nothing. And when you do it feels. It feels really good. It's like you said, it's almost like I'm, like, greedy in a sense. Like.
Pastor Joe Franco
Right.
Co-host 1
It's like, I did this, and I feel great.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Yeah.
Co-host 1
And then you keep doing it, and you're like, I feel even better now. And it's just. I guess we should keep doing it, though.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
That's it.
Pastor Joe Franco
Go for it. And because you're from New York, go for it. And if it doesn't work, you can always drag the guy in an alley and pound. Well, no, never.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Well, no, we've removed. I don't know if you could take the New York out of him, but we did take him out of New York.
Pastor Joe Franco
What part of New York were you from?
Co-host 1
From Brooklyn. Part. Yeah.
Pastor Joe Franco
Oh, I was, I was born in Brooklyn. Okay.
Co-host 1
Oh, yeah, yeah. Grew up in Coney island and then Sheepshead Bay and then believed.
Pastor Joe Franco
Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Co-host 1
All right.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Yes, it explains a lot. Explains a lot.
Pastor Joe Franco
Now I get it. Now it makes sense.
Co-host 1
All right, thank you, Joseph. Can you tell again one more time? Tell them where they could support your, your ministry and.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, and the book is decoding, Cody. There's the COVID It's available, of course, anywhere, you know, if you want to go on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, Walmart, they're all covering it. If you, if, if you want to go on hidden gifts ministry.org you can get the book there for donation. There's a suggested donation, but whatever you can afford. And there were, you know, we're sending signed copies and every penny that comes from it, literally every penny is going for the ministry and trying to help special needs people and get this off the ground. So. Great. Thank you guys for asking about that.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Thank you for joining us. Thank you for your time. Really, really appreciate it. This is something that's been fascinating to us for a while, and it's great to finally get to talk to somebody who knows it intimately, and it's a great message to hear. It may have been omitted, but we talked about it here.
Pastor Joe Franco
Been great to be with you. And I didn't get to ask you why or how you came up with Nephilim Death Squad, so maybe another time.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Well, we'd love to have you back.
Pastor Joe Franco
I don't want to ask. I do want to ask you that. Okay. All right.
Co-host 1
Yeah, we'll, we'll have you back when maybe with our, our friend Matt. He's a, he's like kind of like a biblical scholar, and we could hit something, maybe something real fun if you'll come back.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, I, I'm happy to. I, I, I already have way more information in the book. Like, this is happening with people with down syndrome. There may be multiple hills.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Oh, wow.
Co-host 1
Burying the lead, Joe.
Pastor Joe Franco
How dare you? I'm scratching the surface. There's more that keeps coming, and problem is processing it to the point that I feel comfortable enough talking about it and having a biblical framework.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
So we would love to have you.
Pastor Joe Franco
Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it again for sure. Guys.
David Lee Corbo (Top Lobster)
Yeah, you, awesome.
Co-host 1
Thank you, Joe. And guys, thanks for tuning in. Until next time. Don't forget to obey. Submit and comply. We'll see you later.
Pastor Joe Franco
Sam.
Date: November 12, 2025
Hosts: David Lee Corbo (Top Lobsta), Co-host (Raven)
Guest: Pastor Joe Infranco
This episode dives into the fascinating overlap of spiritual phenomena, non-speaking autism, and recent conspiracy-adjacent media like The Telepathy Tapes. Pastor Joe Infranco discusses his experiences working with non-speaking autistic individuals who reportedly communicate spiritual experiences—sometimes via telepathy, spelling, or nonverbal cues—that often involve encounters with angels, demons, and visions of Jesus. The discussion critiques the editorial choices in The Telepathy Tapes, highlighting the omission of explicitly Christian and spiritual content, and draws connections between biblical worldviews, supernatural phenomena, and the potential for a spiritual revival.
“We’re trying to reframe the church’s understanding and see the incredible gifts that these young men and women are.”
— Pastor Joe (04:36)
“What came out was that they’re fully in there...when they started spelling, what came out was that they're fully in there...some of them have seen heaven. And then all these details started coming.”
— Pastor Joe (06:39)
“The biggest thing is that they’re all talking about Jesus, even ones who didn’t come from church backgrounds.”
— Pastor Joe (70:57)
“The newer forms of spelling, there’s absolutely no touch…it’s very strict protocols.”
— Pastor Joe (38:24)
“They’re able to speak in…they don’t use a word like telepathy. They just say we speak in just our mind. Spirit speaking to spirit…They go there to intercede for us… to meet with Jesus.”
— Pastor Joe (54:53)
“There are legitimate forms of mental illness…and we have to stick very closely to the Bible. If it’s anti-biblical…it has to be thrown out.”
— Pastor Joe (76:12)
“These look like injured children…I don’t think that anybody who’s actually experienced this would say that this is the next step in development and this is something that you should boast about.”
— David Lee Corbo (50:20)
“What I would have liked to have seen…is that God wants to change the way we see every human being, especially the ones whom we discount. Every human being is an image bearer of God.”
— Pastor Joe (70:57)
Spiritual Discernment
“I’m feeling my way around a room and I keep becoming aware there’s dozens of other rooms in this place that I get hints about.”
— Pastor Joe (58:07)
Heavenly Visions
“They go right to the essence…They say his [Jesus’] eyes have light...His attention is totally focused on you...His love is so deep and profound.”
— Pastor Joe (50:45)
On Doing What You’re Meant For
“God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure. And I thought, oh, man, that’s it. When you do what he made you to do, you feel his pleasure.”
— Pastor Joe (97:26, referencing Chariots of Fire)
The Church’s Challenge
“As soon as you find a perfect church, it won’t be perfect because you’re in it.”
— Pastor Joe (93:52, jokingly)
Genuine, searching, faith-driven, and candid, the conversation balances unashamed supernaturalism with a critical, biblically-anchored skepticism of popular new spiritual narratives. There’s a consistent sense of advocacy for the marginalized, a call to revival, and optimism about the spiritual hunger stirring in the culture—despite (or because of) the omissions and distortions in mainstream narratives like The Telepathy Tapes.