The Mind Readers

Summary

Radio Atlantic: “The Mind Readers” Episode Summary

Episode Title: The Mind Readers
Release Date: March 6, 2025
Host: Hanna Rosen
Guest: Dan Engber, Science Writer at The Atlantic

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Introduction

In the episode titled "The Mind Readers," Radio Atlantic delves into the enigmatic world of telepathy and facilitated communication (FC) through an analysis of the burgeoning podcast "Telepathy Tapes." Host Hanna Rosen and guest Dan Engber explore how this podcast has ignited debates around the plausibility of mind-reading abilities in non-speaking autistic children, the historical context of FC, and the broader cultural implications of such narratives gaining mainstream traction.

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Exploring the Telepathy Tapes Podcast

Hanna Rosen begins by recounting her personal experience of listening to "Telepathy Tapes" during a winter road trip. The podcast centers on a group of non-speaking autistic children who allegedly communicate through facilitated communication, a method where a facilitator assists the child in spelling out messages using a device like a keyboard or an iPad. However, "Telepathy Tapes" claims that these children possess genuine telepathic abilities, enabling them to read minds, communicate with the deceased, predict disasters, and exhibit other extraordinary skills.

[02:00] Hanna Rosen: "By the end of the series, the kids are not just reading minds, they're communing with the dead, predicting disasters, and generally outclassing the neurotypical mortals."

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The Mechanics and Controversy of Facilitated Communication

Dan Engber provides a comprehensive overview of facilitated communication, tracing its origins to the 1970s in Australia as part of the Disk Disabilities Rights movement. FC was initially lauded as an empowering tool for individuals with communication challenges, allowing them to express their true selves beyond the limitations of lower expectations tied to conventional IQ tests.

[04:06] Dan Engber: "10 years ago, was developed in the 1970s in Australia as part of the Disk Disabilities Rights movement, a form of empowerment."

Despite its noble intentions, FC has been heavily criticized and debunked for its inherent unreliability. Scientific tests revealed that facilitators often unconsciously influenced the messages, leading to false outcomes such as incorrect responses and even spurious allegations of abuse.

[13:27] Dan Engber: "A lot of tests were done of people using facilitated communication to see if they could ever spell out a message with information that their facilitator didn't know. ... few if any people using FC could pass that test."

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Telepathy Claims in Telepathy Tapes

"The Mind Readers" episode scrutinizes how "Telepathy Tapes" extends the controversial FC framework into the realm of genuine telepathy. Host Kai Dickens, self-described as a "science nerd" and skeptic, ventures beyond traditional FC by asserting that the children involved possess authentic mind-reading abilities. Through intimate live-room experiments, such as the one involving a teenager named Mia, the podcast presents scenarios where children seemingly access information unknown to those around them.

[06:14] Dan Engber: "So the facilitated part of facilitated communication means someone has to be there to help."

The podcast's production style, described as amateurish with a "Blair Witch effect," contributes to its perceived authenticity, making listeners more susceptible to believing in the supernatural claims without visual evidence.

[09:02] Dan Engber: "It's all about voices and people's impressions, and it's so intimate. ... the emotion just transfers to you."

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Analyzing Facilitated Communication and Telepathy

Dan Engber, with his background in science journalism, dissects the processes depicted in "Telepathy Tapes." He highlights the collaborative and intimate nature of FC, where facilitators often unknowingly guide the messages, drawing parallels to the Ouija board phenomenon. This unconscious influence complicates the validity of any purported telepathic communication.

[15:25] Hanna Rosen: "What did you see then? How did you assess the forehead touch?"

[16:32] Dan Engber: "It's really the idea that this might be working. Something like a Ouija board where a couple of people, two or more people put their hands on something and just the uncertainty of having multiple hands on it."

Engber emphasizes the difficulty in discerning whether the messages are genuinely from the children or influenced by the facilitators' subconscious cues, especially when facilitators exhibit behaviors like leaning towards specific areas corresponding to keyboard keys.

[26:38] Hanna Rosen: "I've taken a step back and changed my body position slightly just in case."

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Case Studies: Mia and Akhil

The podcast presents compelling case studies to illustrate the complexities of FC and telepathy claims:

1. Mia: A teenage girl whose mother holds her forehead during FC sessions. Mia successfully spells out numbers and words that skeptics argue could be guided by her mother's subtle cues rather than genuine telepathy.

   [07:10] Hanna Rosen: "So, Dr. Powell, what numbers do you want to put in there?"

2. Akhil A.: An adult who claims to communicate with the dead without physical contact from his mother. Despite the absence of facilitator interference, observers note potential subconscious cues, such as body leanings that align with keyboard letters.

   [25:34] Hanna Rosen: "Akhil used to see, like when my mom passed away... she's sitting beside me."

These examples underscore the challenge in validating telepathic claims, as genuine communication versus facilitator influence remains elusive.

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Cultural Impact and Mainstream Adoption

"The Mind Readers" episode explores the meteoric rise of "Telepathy Tapes," particularly following endorsements from influential figures like Joe Rogan. Rogan's support catapulted the podcast into mainstream consciousness, sparking widespread interest and debate.

[31:00] Hanna Rosen: "Exactly."

[31:05] Dan Engber: "This is the moment right here where there is such resentment against the standard narrative... any counter narrative is appealing."

Engber discusses how this phenomenon aligns with a broader trend of counter-narratives gaining momentum, facilitated by alliances among various skeptical and conspiratorial groups. These alliances transcend individual beliefs, creating a cohesive movement that challenges mainstream scientific consensus.

[34:49] Hanna Rosen: "So, meaning that there have been people forever who have wanted to believe in counter narratives..."

[36:46] Dan Engber: "It speaks to the central point here. ... some new alliances."

Examples include anti-vaccine activists collaborating with proponents of telepathy and other paranormal claims, thereby strengthening their collective influence.

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Conclusion: Navigating Counter-Narratives in a Scientific Landscape

Dan Engber and Hanna Rosen conclude by reflecting on the delicate balance between open-mindedness and scientific skepticism. While counter-narratives like those presented in "Telepathy Tapes" can foster community and provide hope for meaningful connections, they also pose challenges to scientific integrity and evidence-based understanding.

Engber warns of the potential dangers when emotional and relational desires overshadow critical examination of extraordinary claims, urging listeners to maintain a discerning approach.

[38:47] Hanna Rosen: "Dan, you have thoroughly explained this phenomenon to me. Thank you so much."

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Notable Quotes:

• Hanna Rosen at [02:00]: "By the end of the series, the kids are not just reading minds, they're communing with the dead, predicting disasters, and generally outclassing the neurotypical mortals."
• Dan Engber at [09:12]: "It's all about voices and people's impressions, and it's so intimate."
• Dan Engber at [15:25]: "It's really the idea that this might be working. Something like a Ouija board."
• Dan Engber at [24:55]: "Exactly. It's really just like you hit this fork in the road early in the process."
• Hanna Rosen at [36:46]: "So what do you make of a moment like this?"

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Production Credits:

• Produced by: Janae West and Kevin Townsend
• Edited by: Claudina Baid
• Engineered by: Erica Wong
• Fact-Checked by: Sarah Krolevsky
• Executive Producer: Claudina Baid
• Managing Editor: Andrea Valdez

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This episode of Radio Atlantic offers a thought-provoking examination of how deeply ingrained beliefs and the human yearning for connection can give rise to and sustain extraordinary claims. By dissecting the "Telepathy Tapes" podcast, Hanna Rosen and Dan Engber illuminate the intricate interplay between facilitated communication, telepathy, and the cultural zeitgeist that allows such narratives to flourish.

Transcript

[Hanna Rosen]

With the Venmo Debit card, you can turn the spa day that your friends paid you back for into concert tickets that you can earn up to 5% cash back on, where a spa day with the girls becomes concert tickets. Visit Venmo Me Debit to learn more. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. pursuant to license by MasterCard International, Inc. Terms apply Dosh Cashback terms apply. Pro Savings Days are back at Lowe's with limited time savings on the supplies pros need. Get up to 40% off select major appliances plus save an additional $100 on every $1,000 you spend on select major appliances. And don't miss your chance to activate and earn three times the points on select DeWalt and Klein tools Lowes. We help you save valid the 328 selection varies by location while supplies last. See associate or lowe's.com for more details on qualifying it On a long road trip over winter break, I listened to all 10 episodes of this podcast called the Telepathy Tapes. The show is about a group of non speaking autistic kids who are able to communicate using a method sometimes known as spelling or facilitated communication. Essentially, someone the facilitator, helps guide the kids using a keyboard or an iPad to spell out messages. That already is a kind of magic, because kids who have been unable to communicate can now share their thoughts. But this podcast takes it to a whole new level of magic. It's not just that they can communicate. These kids can read minds.

[Dan Engber]

I'll bring Houston up to them and just tell them, hey, think of one little thing and he writes it out.

[Hanna Rosen]

On the board so he's read your friends minds.

[Dan Engber]

He has read my friends minds before. I've seen it firsthand.

[Hanna Rosen]

By the end of the series, the kids are not just reading minds, they're communing with the dead, predicting disasters, and generally outclassing the neurotypical mortals. So again, she always tells me about these God visits, as she calls them, that happen at night. And so I said did he talk to you again last night? And she said yes, unfortunately. And then she does. On that road trip, my partner and I got into a big argument about this podcast. The mind reading scenes sounded so believable on the podcast. But telepathy? What is this phenomena happening? Why are his mind and my mind completely connected? Why were so many people buying into this foreign I'm Hanna Rosen, this is Radio Atlantic. Today we're going to talk about how an idea like telepathy lands differently now. The cultural Conditions that make this old idea that's almost too fringe to bother debunking take off. And we're going to do that by looking at this blockbuster podcast, the Telepathy Tapes, which started out as this low budget independent project. And then in December, Joe Rogan started spreading the word.

[Dan Engber]

I think some telepathy is real.

[Hanna Rosen]

It is real.

[Dan Engber]

I think it is real.

[Hanna Rosen]

And then the host of Telepathy Tapesher name is Kai Dickens. Got an agent, did an interview with Rogan and then more interviews, and now she has a documentary in the works. From the car that day, I sent a Slack message to an Atlanta colleague who knows a lot about facilitated communication.

[Dan Engber]

December 28th, 4:00pm Not a time that I was on Slack, that is Dan.

[Hanna Rosen]

Engber, a science writer at the Atlantic.

[Dan Engber]

I discovered that sliding my can of seltzer around on this table is sort of like an ASMR thing.

[Hanna Rosen]

Dan started looking into facilitated communication about.

[Dan Engber]

10 years ago, was developed in the 1970s in Australia as part of the.

[Hanna Rosen]

Disk Disabilities Rights movement, a form of empowerment.

[Dan Engber]

And it was seen in this, you know, in this whole tradition of liberating people with communication issues from, you know, basically the prison of lowered expectations just because, you know, they might not do well on an IQ test if they can't talk, but if you give them a way to communicate, they can reveal who they really are.

[Hanna Rosen]

The way it works is a facilitator helps the autistic person spell out messages.

[Dan Engber]

By holding the person's hand or fore forearm or possibly their shoulder, touching them in other ways, or holding the keyboard or the letterboard in front of them. The facilitated part of facilitated communication means someone has to be there to help. It always involved someone else there doing something to help the person type.

[Hanna Rosen]

Now, to be clear, spelling facilitated communication, or FC for short, is not reading people's minds or it's not supposed to be. So it's a bit of a jump from FC to telepathy, which is why Dan agreed to look into the Telepathy Tapes podcast. It was a new, let's say, development. Kai Dickens, the host of the podcast, is not a science journalist. In interviews she's referred to herself as a science nerd and a skeptic. Generally she makes documentaries, but since she didn't have the funds at the time to make this documentary, she decided to make it into a podcast. By the way, the Atlantic reached out to Dickens for comment, but she didn't respond. Okay, so the podcast begins with the series of spelling experiments that she's running, sort of Living room experiments.

[Dan Engber]

Yeah.

[Hanna Rosen]

What's the setup like? Describe to us who and what is in this room.

[Dan Engber]

Okay. The setup is she starts by. This is kind of her entree into this world. She hears a woman named Diane Hennessy Powell. This is a psychiatrist based in the Pacific Northwest who's written a book about ESP and is very interested herself in the topic of people with autism, who, in Powell's view, have kind of a savant skill for reading minds or esp, or psi phenomena. So Dickens hears Powell on a podcast and gets the idea that she wants to pursue this. And so she starts working with Powell to get some of these people and to design, you know, experiments, ways to test them. And then she's gonna film it and record audio from it and talk about it. And so that's where the podcast starts. So they set up in a rented house in Glendale, and they fly in a family from Mexico. All the spellers are, you know, only go by their first name.

[Hanna Rosen]

This is Mia.

[Dan Engber]

Hi, Mia. Nice to meet you.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yes. She's waving.

[Dan Engber]

So it's this girl Mia. I think she's a teenager. And they start running these experiments.

[Hanna Rosen]

So, Dr. Powell, what numbers do you want to put in there?

[Dan Engber]

I would like to try three digit numbers.

[Hanna Rosen]

So there'll be numbers between 100 and 999.

[Dan Engber]

Powell will generate a random number on an iPad app.

[Hanna Rosen]

Powell's the scientist. Remember?

[Dan Engber]

Powell's the scientist.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah.

[Dan Engber]

Then she'll show that number to Mia's mom behind a screen. Mia has a blindfold on. They've taken extra care to make sure, you know, they've covered up any mirrors in the room, even a TV screen. That's a reflective surface there, the tv.

[Hanna Rosen]

So we need to cover that. Okay. And this one, too. And there's a mirror there. And there's a mirror there. Yes. That's gotta be covered up as well or taken down.

[Dan Engber]

So they're taking a lot of care to make sure only Mia's mom is seeing this number. And then Mia's mom, who is the facilitator, sits next to Mia, and Mia spells out, using, you know, her letterboard, what her mom has just seen or she says what the number is. There could be numbers on the board too. Can you take it off? Now she can say pona guitar.

[Hanna Rosen]

Mm hmm. Mm. Morning at 6, 9, 8. How is it?

[Dan Engber]

So that's the test. That's the telepathy experiment as described in the first episode of the show.

[Hanna Rosen]

And I have to say, listening to it now, just in the pure audio, obviously, I can't see it, but I'm listening to is like a magic show. I mean, when you listen to it, you do think, whoa, you know, how are they doing this in the way they're describing? Like, how is this autistic child doing this? Like, how. The mother hasn't said a word. You haven't heard the mother say a word. So that's the feeling of listening to it. It is a little like watching a miracle, you know?

[Dan Engber]

Yeah.

[Hanna Rosen]

I mean, listening to a miracle, we're not watching it. And I think that's probably a key difference.

[Dan Engber]

Well, I hate to say this to a podcast host, but, like, I think the problem here is there's sort of like a pernicious problem with audio that is in play here. Boo.

[Hanna Rosen]

No, it's all right. Yeah, go ahead.

[Dan Engber]

It's all about voices and people's impressions, and it's so intimate. Right. And I think these are all things that are echoed in the people with telepathy. Supposedly with telepathy as well. So I think it's worth talking this through. In listening to the podcast, you're hearing Guy Dickens, the host, just be so amazed by what she's seeing. And then one of the members of her crew, she describes as this real skeptical guy, this real materialist, and he kind of has a conversion in real time on the podcast. It's hard for me to not believe this is authentic.

[Hanna Rosen]

I'm looking at everything.

[Dan Engber]

I'm watching her.

[Hanna Rosen]

I'm watching the mom.

[Dan Engber]

I'm watching.

[Hanna Rosen]

I'm watching everything.

[Dan Engber]

And for me, my perspective, it's real. So for the listener, you're not even hearing Mia. Of course, Mia doesn't speak. That's the point. But you're hearing the people who are seeing Mia, and you're getting their reactions, and they are so amazed and it is so sincere that that emotion just transfers to you. Also, the podcast is really, I would say, amateurishly produced. I talked to one podcast producer who described it as having kind of like a Blair Witch effect, which I thought was apt. It's like, that just makes it feel a little more real somehow. Uno, tres.

[Hanna Rosen]

Which one of us? Okay, so back to my original question. Dan, as someone who knows about facilitated communication and spelling, what are we missing?

[Dan Engber]

Okay, so what is not described in that first episode is how spelling works, which involves the facilitator, in this case, with Mia sitting her mom sitting on the sofa next to her and placing her finger on Mia's forehead the entire time that Mia is spelling. So, I mean, this is just. What does that mean? I know what it means. But I think if the average listener of the podcast were to watch the videos, and there are videos on the podcast website, you pay $10, you can become a member, and then you can watch the videos. It's just like gives you a first sense of, well, this process of producing the answers. The messages from Mia, it's very intimate, it's collaborative. Something here is going on. It's not Mia on her own with a pen and paper writing out digits. It's this intensely cooperative process to produce the messages. And that is a signal for what could really be going on here, which is this method, again, going back to the 1970s in Australia, has long, long, long been known to have a problem, which is it can be really, really hard to tell who is the actual author of the messages being produced.

[Hanna Rosen]

Facilitated communication found its way from Australia in the 70s to the US by the 80s and the early 90s. In a PBS Frontline documentary called Prisoners of Silence that aired in 1993, Kathy Hayduke, the mother of a non speaking autistic child, recalled the moment her daughter Stacy had a breakthrough. All thanks to FC and her daughter's new facilitator. She said, kathy, she's telling me this and she's telling me that, and you've got to see it. So one day she came over to the house and she said, stacy, I know you're excited after all these years. You must have something you want to tell mom. And Stacy types out, I love you, mom. I can understand a mom wanting to hear I love you from her child. So the relief was real and the emotions around FC were deep. But soon after the method came to the US it was debunked or at least declared wholly unreliable.

[Dan Engber]

A lot of tests were done of people using facilitated communication to see if they could ever spell out a message with information that their facilitator didn't know. So if the problem is maybe your facilitator is really the one writing the messages, well, there's an easy test for it. Like, okay, let me show you a picture of a sandwich and then while your facilitator's not in the room, bring him back in the room, tell me what you saw. And the reality was, few if any people using FC could pass that test.

[Hanna Rosen]

To quote a program director in the PBS documentary who was involved in some of that testing, out of 180 trials, quote, we literally really didn't get one correct response. Are you suggesting manipulation or what are you suggesting exactly?

[Dan Engber]

Definitely not manipulation.

[Hanna Rosen]

As we mentioned before, FC in Its original form was just holding someone's hand or arm or shoulder while the other person typed on a keyboard. Potentially, at least optics wise, lots of room for subconsciously guiding the person to where you want them to type. But in Mia's case, on the Telepathy Tapes podcast, her mom just had a finger on her forehead or she was holding her chin.

[Dan Engber]

I think this is really important. It is extreme. You could have read and reported on this at great length, as I have, and it's still extremely hard to tell what's going on when you're seeing it with your own eyes. So I think that's sort of how the podcast works. The people, the host, the camera guy, they're seeing it with their own eyes and then reacting. And they're reacting the way most people would react, seeing this with their own eyes, which is not like, hey, this looks fake, but rather, this looks real.

[Hanna Rosen]

Okay, so the filmmaker had a certain reaction, which we can assume was an honest reaction. I mean, let's just say it was an honest reaction. The filmmaker and the cameraman, they looked. They saw the hands on the forehead. They were like, whoa, something beyond my comprehension is going on here. What did you see then? How did you assess the forehead touch?

[Dan Engber]

Well, I think what is so easy to miss or so hard to grasp, even if you know what you're looking for is this idea that this might be working. Something like a Ouija board where a couple of people, two or more people put their hands on something and just the uncertainty of having multiple hands on it. I think it's called a plechette. On the Ouija board, the thing you're sliding around to different letters, sure. It kind of feels like it's moving on its own even when you're doing it right. But even understanding that this is my point, even knowing that a Ouija board is a toy or a game, it works, you know, that, you know, a spirit isn't moving this thing, and yet it kind of feels like, well, who is moving it?

[Hanna Rosen]

So Mia and her mom are doing what then? Is it like a collective? I'm just trying to find a word or articulate what is happening in that room. Because you're not calling it manipulation. You're not saying that me and her mom are kind of hucksters, you know, doing a circus trick to get themselves on a podcast. That's not your characterization of them at all, right?

[Dan Engber]

No chance.

[Hanna Rosen]

And you're not saying that Kai Dickens, the host or the cameraman are, like, lying. We're not saying that.

[Dan Engber]

No chance. As Far as I'm concerned, I can't read minds. I will admit that up front, but I just. I've interviewed a lot of spellers. I've interviewed a lot of spellers, moms. I've never met one that I thought was lying about it. There's one part in the podcast, actually, where Kai Dickens is like, addressing the skeptics that she knows are out there. And she just says the idea that the facilitators might be somehow creating these messages is. I forget the phrase, like unambiguously false. Like, she just rejects outright the possibility that there's any unconscious influence from the facilitators, from the parents. And then she quotes one of the parents saying, the thing is, Kai, we.

[Hanna Rosen]

Can'T all be lying, right?

[Dan Engber]

And the implication there is like, yeah, you know, okay, maybe you're so skeptical you think Mia's mom is a grifter or something, but, like, there are so many parents out here who feel that their kids have telepathy. Like, it can't just be a whole army of grifters.

[Hanna Rosen]

Okay, so what's in the mix then? Let me just try this and you see if I'm with you here. So it's not lying you think is in the mix between this parent and child. It's some form of communion, like love, maybe even connection. I would say hope. There's so much out there. I'm a parent of an autistic child, though not a nonverbal one, but so much hope of, like, inside the child. There's so much that this child wants to say and express with me and like a wish for connection, like there's a relationship or intimacy and that translates into something, but it's not clear what it is. Is it something like that?

[Dan Engber]

I think it is a profoundly intimate act. I've had facilitators facilitate me and it is. I mean, you're sitting with a stranger or I was sitting with a stranger and she puts her hand on mine and I don't know what to tell you. It's just like you suddenly you're holding hands with someone, you feel close to them, right? And there's just such a desire to. I think we all have a desire to connect and feel understood and feel like we're understanding people now raise that desire to the hundredth power if you're talking about a mother or father trying to connect with their child, to the thousandth power if that child is non speaking. And it's always sort of hard to exactly understand what's going on in your child's. Mind. I mean, the desire is even short changing it. It seems like the most urgent need I can possibly imagine is to find a way to communicate with your child.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah.

[Dan Engber]

And here is this thing, and at first it's frustrating, it's not working. And then. Wait, what's that? A glimmer of something. Like we're doing this method and we spelled out a word and then it flowers from there, Right. And then now we're spelling out short sentences. And now my son is writing poetry and now I'm learning about all this stuff like, oh, he's got a girlfriend and he's telling me all about that. It's like, what more could you want than have your kid tell you about their first love? And so you can just see how the drive to make this thing work and to find meaning in it is so intense. And I think that is both very moving and very dangerous.

[Hanna Rosen]

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[Dan Engber]

Right. Yeah. And this podcast actually invokes something that I didn't realize it, but has been present since the start of facilitating communication, which is just that. Okay, if it is the case, if you're facilitating me and the messages that are coming out are actually you are subconsciously writing those messages yourself, at some point you might think, hey, wait a second, Dan just spelled something that was in my head. Right? It's just a natural effect of how this Ouija board illusion. Right. Just eventually I might type something or spell something that you know, information that only you know that I shouldn't know. And so this is in some way just a byproduct of the Ouija board effect, right?

[Hanna Rosen]

Oh, duh. So the flaws that you've already described in facilitated communication, if you're not seeing them as flaws, the other word to call them is telepathy.

[Dan Engber]

Exactly.

[Hanna Rosen]

So there's.

[Dan Engber]

It's really. It's just like you hit this fork in the road early in the process. Right. There's two problems here. If it is really true that the facilitator is the one who's actually creating the messages, there's two problems. One, if the speller knows something that the facilitator doesn't know, the speller can't spell that out. That's the message passing test. That was the test that the scientists used to debunk this whole thing. So that's problem number one. So you have to deal with that problem. Problem number two, though, is exactly the opposite. Okay. Why does the speller seem to know things that are in the head of the facilitator like they shouldn't? Why can they do that? And so you can either see that happen and go, you know what? I'm a little worried that this method doesn't work. And then you move on to other interventions to try to help the non speaking person. Or you say, oh, I know what it is. The spelling is valid and they have esp. Yes.

[Hanna Rosen]

Oh, my God, that was. That's so obvious. I don't know why I didn't realize that that's exactly what it is. Of course you would call that telepathy.

[Dan Engber]

Yeah.

[Hanna Rosen]

Because you are in fact reading the thoughts of the facilitator. It's literally just a synonym for the problems you were describing.

[Dan Engber]

Yes.

[Hanna Rosen]

Does the podcast talk about the history of facilitated spelling or telepathy at all?

[Dan Engber]

Yeah, the podcast gets into it. I mean, there's a certain point right at the beginning. It's not clear what we're even talking about. It's just here's this girl, Mia. She can read her mother's mind. And as it goes along, it gets into the history of facilitated communication, the scandals. There were false sexual abuse allegations, There were the debunkings of the 90s. And so the podcast has to engage with that. Right. And what the host, Kai Dickens, does is she basically acknowledges that all that happened. She says, but look, people were experiencing telepathy from the very beginning. And also the method has improved. We now have these new versions called rapid prompting or Spelling to communicate, and they're much better. And also she talks about One guy that she features in the podcast.

[Hanna Rosen]

What is that? What do you see? Akhil A.

[Dan Engber]

A man named Akil A who is, you know, according to the podcast, telepathic and can also speak to the dead.

[Hanna Rosen]

Akhil used to see, like when my mom passed away and I used to sit down and study with him. He would say that your mom wants you to play with me. And I said, where is she? She's sitting beside me. I said, okay.

[Dan Engber]

And he does this without being touched. So for her, it's like, that's. There you go. That's proof.

[Hanna Rosen]

And what would you say about that? Because I do have to say listening. Akhil and his mother are the most charming mother son pair you will ever encounter.

[Dan Engber]

I mean, this is. Again, it's one of the complicating things about this is it'd be nice if you could just say, oh, FC is fake. And everyone who uses it is, you know, the message is coming entirely from the facilitator. But it's just such a diverse set of practices and it involves such a diverse set of people and people facilitator pairs. It's just like a very complicated question. Now, Akhil, you watch the video of him. He's not being touched by his mother, but there are cases where he appears to read her mind by typing into an iPad keyboard. And she's not touching him or the keyboard.

[Hanna Rosen]

Okay, so Manisha, come stand here. I've taken a step back and changed my body position slightly just in case. I reach into the paper bag and the new word is tiger. This one. Okay.

[Dan Engber]

Okay. Go, buddy.

[Hanna Rosen]

T bae. G E R. Tiger. Wow, awesome.

[Dan Engber]

I mean, it is really impressive. It looks like telepathy, but she is very involved in the process, right? She's making sounds, she's moving. And I think it just goes to show how this influence, what I would say is like unconscious influence over the creation of the messages can happen in many different ways. Like, it can happen if you're holding a person's hand. It could happen if you're holding their shoulder, putting your finger on their forehead, holding the letterboard for them and not even touching them. And my belief is that in the case of Akhil, it's through these other cues. You can see in the video, she's like leaning her body to one side or the other in concert with the direction that he has to move his finger to hit the next key on the keyboard. So he has to type army. And those are on the left side of the keyboard. And she's kind of leaning to the Left. And then he has to type ipo, which is on the upper right of the keyboard, and she leans her body in that direction. Now, in order for Akhil to pick up on those cues, I mean, the level of attunement that he must have to what she is perhaps subconsciously wanting him to do is truly exquisite. I mean, it's amazing.

[Hanna Rosen]

The answer is 44,126,388. 4, 4, 1, 2.

[Dan Engber]

On the other hand, what's your other choice here? Is to believe that he really is telepathic and speaks to the dead. So you're confronted with, you know, two extraordinary skills, one far more extraordinary than the other.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah. I have to say, listening to Akhil and his mother, I mean, never was I. More like I was tearing up listening to them, but mostly because of the depth of their love and attunement for each other and her dedication to him. Like, I wasn't so much paying attention to. Is he telepathic? I just doubted it from the beginning. But just this specific kind of intimacy they created with each other was just amazing. So what, you know, we've been talking about spelling and love. What are some of the, more, can we say, outlandish claims that the podcast makes?

[Dan Engber]

Yeah. So Dickens says that communing with the dead is. She describes it as a very common gift among these telepathic spellers. I mean, there's something funny about it. I'm sorry about the fact that this is, you know, you've rejected from the beginning the possibility that this is a Ouija board thing. And then the power that has emerged is like, literally the conceit of a Ouija board is talking to the dead.

[Hanna Rosen]

But it's not just communing with the dead. I mean, you know, where it lost me is she's talking about universities in heaven. I mean, there are some of the parents who feel extremely influenced by religiosity or spirituality.

[Dan Engber]

Yes. The people are talking to angels. They're prophesying disaster. They're treating cancer. They're reading hieroglyphics. The list of powers. I mean, again, in episode one, it's like, oh, I know what number my mom is thinking of. By episode 10, it's in a really. It's like I'm astrally projecting to a place called the Hill where I am reading the Great Gatsby with angels.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah.

[Dan Engber]

We hear about a telepathic parrot. We hear about a group of elephants that for some reason is able to observe a memorial on a specific day of the Gregorian calendar. Like, the claims really just. It's almost like once you've accepted that telepathy is possible, once you have broken out of what Dickens refers to as the materialist mindset, anything is possible. Everything is on the table.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yes.

[Dan Engber]

Once you've gone, you're off to the races.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah. Once you've gone through the portal, like, magic happens. Anything can happen.

[Dan Engber]

Yeah. There's a part in the Rogan interview where they're just taking this to logical places. Like, once you accept the premise, Rogan is like, imagine what the government would do with these kids.

[Hanna Rosen]

First thing you think about, people think.

[Dan Engber]

About someone's extraordinary, like the X Men.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah.

[Dan Engber]

And Dickens is like, yeah, that's a totally valid concern for their own gain. That's what everybody worries.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah. And it's a fair worry. I mean, it is a fair worry. And, you know, like, we try to be.

[Dan Engber]

And I'm sitting there and I'm like. I mean, it is a valid concern, right?

[Hanna Rosen]

Like, exactly, Exactly.

[Dan Engber]

They're correct.

[Hanna Rosen]

So you and I could sit here in our mutual podcast spaces and, you know, be skeptical. And yet the podcast has been enormously popular as you were reporting. It's now been a few months. How did you see the podcast evolve as a cultural phenomenon?

[Dan Engber]

Yeah. So, I mean, it really. It was getting big in December. It was climbing its way through the Apple audio charts. And then Joe Rogan got into it on his Christmas Day episode. He said, here's the thing about all this. You know, I think telepathy is real. He talked about this podcast. It is real. Have you listened to the telepathy tapes?

[Hanna Rosen]

No. You haven't? I haven't listened to it.

[Dan Engber]

And then it immediately. The telepathy tapes shot to number one, and it's really been, like, in the top 10 almost ever since. So I think it was that moment of, like, I think getting tapped by Joe Rogan. It's funny, if you actually watch the video of that episode, Rogen is wearing, like, a jester hat with bells, I guess, for Christmas. But it just makes it, you know, extra funny to have him talk about, like, how this. No, this is seriously, is real. And he's dressed literally like a clown.

[Hanna Rosen]

And then he had Kai Dickens on more recently.

[Dan Engber]

Yeah. Just last week, Kai Dickens was on the show for two and a half hours. And I think what you see there, just to your question of, like, why now? Is the way that, you know, different sets of. I mean, I would say sort of conspiratorial beliefs start to overlap and gravitate towards each other and Sometimes it's very clean and it makes sense, and then other times, little tensions emerge. So for Rogan, and he says this, he talks on and on in this podcast about, oh, yeah, there are these skeptics who just. They're afraid of sounding stupid and they just like to accept the mainstream narrative. And Dickens totally agrees. And, like, you can see how their worldviews are just are copacetic, right? Like, yeah, why not telepathy? And you've proved it, and that's amazing. And they're, like, loving each other. And to the extent that Rogan has a whole set of other beliefs that I don't know if Dickens has, but they're bonding in, having figured out the truth about what they won't tell you what the media elites don't want you to believe. And so I don't know, I was like, oh, this is the moment right here where there is such resentment against the standard narrative, the elite narratives, that any counter narrative is appealing. There have been people using spelling for decades, as we talked about. There have been people who believe that spelling reveals telepathy for decades. There are people who believe a lot of kind of weird things, but I think until now, they've all been kind of living in their own worlds. And now in their. And I would say in this moment, those people are kind of finding common cause. They're realizing that they kind of share an outlook with respect to the narrative, maybe, and they're forming alliances.

[Hanna Rosen]

So, meaning that there have been people forever who have wanted to believe in counter narratives or believe that you're being lied to. And just right now, that's ascendant. Like, that energy is ascendant.

[Dan Engber]

I mean, that there have been communities of people, like, living in their own realities, but that's just sort of like a private reality. And there are people who, for example, believe that childhood vaccines are deadly or cause autism or have other, you know, many, many other harms. And they're sort of living in their slightly more public, private reality. And there are people who believe in UFOs and they have their own community. Of course these people have been around all this time. But I think there are moments in, if I can be so grand in American history where the inhabitants of all these private realities kind of band together and it becomes more. Less like a menu of choices than, you know, a full meal. That's what I mean by the alliances. So, I mean, just to give an example, Diane Hennessy Powell, the scientist in the show, she is anti vaccine, who spoke in an event with RFK Jr. RFK Jr. Has likened people who are skeptical of spelling to pediatricians who deny the harms of childhood vaccines. So right there, there's an alliance between anti vaccine activists and spellers.

[Hanna Rosen]

Yeah, they do meet in this place where, you know, mystical ideas, you know, intuition, anything that mainstream science or the experts don't believe is ascendant. Now you are a person who is a science journalist who does want to align yourself with what the mainstream scientific institution finds to be true. So what do you make of a moment like this?

[Dan Engber]

I mean, I think sometimes the counternarratives are true and it is good when they get an airing and become ascendant. It's just, I think what is interesting to me to observe is the way it's like open season on counternarratives. Right. And so you're seeing this negotiation among adherence to counternarratives and it's playing out even like in the federal government. And so it's become, I mean, just to give one example, I'm sorry, this is going to sound far afield, but I think it speaks to the central point here. So we have an anti vaccine activist in charge of health and human services. There's also, we're going to have a Covid contrarian take over the National Institutes of Health. Both those people, Jay Bhattacharya and RFK Jr are into essentially paleo diets and the idea that carbohydrates are what's causing so much chronic disease in this country, as I understand it. Okay, so now maybe you're getting this other group that has been making this counter narrative argument about nutrition that the problem is not calorie intake, but sugars. Now they have a foot in with this administration. This is just like somehow there's common cause between the sugar is toxic crowd and the anti vaccine crowd and the COVID contrarians. And as I have said, you can draw these connections over into the world of spellers and telepathy. I just think if you mapped out all these different groups with their own hobby horses, some of which I think are reasonable, like the reasonable arguments to have about what nutritional policy should be. But you know, there's just these new alliances. That's what's interesting to me about this moment.

[Hanna Rosen]

Dan, you have thoroughly explained this phenomenon to me. Thank you so much.

[Dan Engber]

My pleasure.

[Hanna Rosen]

This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Janae west and Kevin Townsend. It was edited by Claudina Baid, engineered by Erica Wong and fact checked by Sarah Krolevsky. Claudina Baid is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. I'm Hanna Rosen. Thank you for listening.