Ep. 8: Gatekeepers of Truth - Telepathy and the Spelling Controversy

Summary

Episode 8: Gatekeepers of Truth - Telepathy and the Spelling Controversy

Introduction

In Episode 8 of The Telepathy Tapes, host Ky Dickens delves into the contentious debate surrounding the use of spelling as a communication method for non-speaking individuals with autism. This episode, titled "Gatekeepers of Truth - Telepathy and the Spelling Controversy," explores the intersection of telepathic abilities, educational challenges, and the resistance faced by families advocating for alternative communication methods.

The Controversy Over Spelling

Ky Dickens opens the episode by highlighting the skepticism and backlash that spellers—individuals who communicate by pointing to letters—face from educational institutions and professional organizations. Spelling is portrayed as both a beacon of hope for parents and a target of criticism from those entrenched in traditional communication paradigms.

Kai Dickens (01:05): "Telepathy is the tip of the iceberg with their spiritual gifts."

Personal Accounts: Katie and Houston’s Story

One of the central narratives involves Katie and her son Houston, whose journey underscores the challenges and triumphs of advocating for spelling-based communication.

Katie (03:02): "When Houston first began communicating, I was so excited... I knew it was true."

Despite Houston's progress, Katie encounters resistance from his school, where officials dismiss spelling as a valid method, forcing her to fight for his inclusion in a general education classroom.

Katie (04:53): "I didn't know what she was talking about. I was clueless that anyone could possibly be against letters or pointing."

Institutional Resistance and ASHA’s Stance

The episode scrutinizes the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)'s opposition to spelling methods, citing outdated research and concerns over the legitimacy of these communication techniques. This resistance is portrayed as a significant barrier for both families and educators seeking to support non-speakers.

Kai Dickens (07:57): "ASHA posted a statement saying they warn against using all forms of spelling..."

Evolving Communication Methods

Transitioning from traditional facilitated communication, the episode discusses newer methods like Spelling to Communicate (SGC) and Rapid Prompting Method (RPM), which avoid physical touch and emphasize the independence of the speller.

Libby (08:14): "I personally use Spelling to Communicate with my child, and it changed our lives."

Telepathy Beyond Spelling

Beyond spelling, the episode explores the telepathic connections that some non-speakers maintain with their families. Caroline and her son Kyle exemplify a profound telepathic bond that transcends traditional communication methods, utilizing lucid dreaming as a medium for interaction.

Caroline (19:43): "I've been feeling it for years... Kyle and I have communicated via telepathy for most of our lives."

Case Study: Caroline and Kyle

Caroline shares her unique experience of communicating with Kyle through dreams. This telepathic connection allows them to convey complex emotions and needs without relying on physical communication tools.

Kai Dickens (21:21): "Kyle, just a boy at the time, had to find a way to get his mom out of a deep dream and into a lucid dream so they could communicate."

Historical Context and Gatekeeping

Arthur Golden, a retired lawyer, provides historical context on the suppression of telepathic communication within the autism community. He recounts how early cases of facilitated communication were marred by false accusations, which tarnished the credibility of genuine communication efforts.

Arthur (39:04): "Mainstream proponents of facilitated communication were so opposed to telepathy, they did what they could to suppress it and they were successful in doing so."

Modern-Day Suppression and Gatekeeping

The episode highlights ongoing efforts by certain groups to censor discussions about telepathy and alternative communication, fearing that acknowledgment of these abilities could undermine established communication frameworks like spelling.

Kai Dickens (38:54): "These children, who are still trapped, their parents need to know the truth."

Strategies for Authentic Communication

Spellers and their supporters employ various techniques to ensure that the communication is authentic and free from external influence. These include mental preparation and grounding methods to maintain a clear connection between the speller and their thoughts.

Marianne Harrington (45:47): "It is an energetic link. There's joint attention going on. They can see through my eyes, and they've even said they can hear through my ears."

Expanding Consciousness and Spiritual Gifts

The conversation extends to the broader implications of telepathy and spiritual gifts beyond communication. Kyle’s ability to influence music and songwriting through telepathic exchanges illustrates the expansive potential of these abilities.

Caroline (27:05): "He’s never had any formal music lessons... it's like he can access, perfect pitch, which is really difficult to do."

The Role of Community and Support Networks

The formation of supportive communities, both online and offline, plays a crucial role in validating and spreading awareness about telepathic communication. Caroline's initiative to host discussions has fostered a network where educators and parents can share experiences and strategies.

Caroline (20:58): "We all agreed that safety in numbers. So the more of us that there are, the stronger and more galvanized this whole movement becomes."

Conclusion: The Path Forward

Ky Dickens concludes the episode by emphasizing the need for broader acceptance and understanding of telepathic communication and spelling. He advocates for legitimizing these methods to unlock the full potential of non-speakers, urging a shift in societal paradigms to accommodate and support these profound abilities.

Kai Dickens (49:35): "And this is exactly what happened to me. Once I validated that the spellers were capable of telepathy and I got past the wonder of how they were communicating, I turned to the wonder of what they were communicating."

Key Takeaways

• Spelling as Communication: Spelling offers a viable communication method for non-speakers, though it faces significant institutional resistance.

• Telepathic Connections: Beyond spelling, some non-speakers, like Kyle, maintain telepathic relationships with their families, enhancing their ability to express needs and emotions.

• Historical Suppression: Past controversies around facilitated communication have led to ongoing gatekeeping and skepticism towards alternative communication methods.

• Community Support: Building supportive networks is essential for validating and advancing the use of telepathy and spelling in communication.

• Future Implications: Embracing these communication methods could revolutionize our understanding of consciousness, spirituality, and human potential.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Katie (04:53): "I was clueless that anyone could possibly be against letters or pointing."

• Libby (09:23): "He was able to spell, he was learning age appropriate academic. It just changed the whole world."

• Arthur (42:13): "I've had two way telepathy with my son from the beginning."

• Caroline (33:08): "I just had to grab a strand of hair of her child and cool a little bit so that her child could feel herself."

• Marianne Harrington (45:47): "They can see through my eyes, and they've even said they can hear through my ears."

Final Thoughts

Episode 8 of The Telepathy Tapes offers a compelling exploration of the intricate interplay between telepathic abilities and alternative communication methods for non-speakers with autism. By weaving personal narratives with critical analysis of institutional resistance, Ky Dickens provides a nuanced perspective that challenges listeners to rethink conventional understandings of communication and consciousness.

Transcript

[Kai Dickens]

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[Katie]

My son said to me, I can hear thoughts. What is this phenomena happening? Why are his mind and my mind completely connected? Telepathy is the tip of the iceberg with their spiritual gifts.

[Libby]

People don't understand that they can do this. They don't even have to be in the same room, the same zip code.

[Kai Dickens]

For decades, a very specific group of people have been claiming telepathy is happening in their homes and in their classrooms, and nobody has believed them. Nobody has listened to them. But on this podcast, we do. Welcome to the eighth episode of the Telepathy Tapes. Spelling is the greatest hope parents have to unlock their kids, and it's also the sharpest weapon used against them if you're not in this world. It's difficult to understand how contentious and vicious the attacks are against spellers and their method of communication. Lily, the speller that you met in episode four sent me this message. Spelling is the only method that has given hope to non speakers and shown the world our beautiful minds.

[Katie]

But so many people don't want to believe that the words are our own.

[Kai Dickens]

The very existence of this episode is controversial because there is so much at stake. For the parents, it's hope. For the spellers, it's their autonomy and education. And for those railing against spelling, there's money, systems and the ramifications of admitting a mistake that has costed thousands of kids their education. Their hope and personhood. In episode three, you met Katie and Houston. And Katie had lost all hope that her son would ever communicate. And just before he was done with high school, he found his voice.

[Katie]

When Houston first began communicating, I was so excited. I was writing down every single word he spelled and telling every single person I knew. And of course, one of the most important people to tell was his school and his teachers and the administrators. And so I was thrilled when I finally got his teacher on the phone over the summer and let her know about what Houston was doing. And she shocked me by saying, oh, aw, that's been discredited. I was shocked by that because I was looking at it. I knew it was true. I was watching it, and I thought to myself, she must have never seen it. I think this is a great example of how we have prejudices and don't believe things until we see them. If someone else says it's not true, then we just take their word for it instead of actually finding out ourselves. He only had a few months of school left, but I wanted him to be able to be included in a general ed classroom for the tiny amount of time he had left.

[Kai Dickens]

So Katie and the principal scheduled an IEP meeting to get Houston on a different educational track for the remainder of the year.

[Katie]

At that point, I'd been to about 20 IEP meetings, and I was shocked when I walked in that day and found triple the number of people that were usually there. There were people I'd never met before, and this was not normal at all. I was nervous, and I sat down, and I had always had such a good relationship with his teachers and everyone in the schools. And before I even sat down, this woman who was the director of speech services for the county, leaned forward very aggressively and very aggressively gestured at the stencil and said, we don't believe in that. We don't support that. And I was thinking, what? You don't support letters?

[Kai Dickens]

I was confused.

[Katie]

I didn't know what she was talking about. I was clueless that anyone could possibly be against letters or pointing. She then went on to say that Asha, who I didn't know what Asha was, had put out a statement saying they didn't support it, so they weren't going to support it either.

[Kai Dickens]

Asha is the American Speech Language Hearing association, and they're in charge of certification of speech pathologist in this field.

[Katie]

My heart was just beating through my chest. I didn't understand why they weren't for him, why they weren't supportive. They knew him. And at the end of the day they let him attend a US History class for his last few months of school. And that was his whole education.

[Kai Dickens]

Houston had been educated like he was a toddler for his entire life. Nobody believed he was in there and he had no way to show that he was because learning to communicate via spelling was not taught in his school.

[Katie]

And this is happening all over the country where parents are having to fight for their children, they're having to fight school systems, they're having to fight teachers.

[Kai Dickens]

Maria, the speech therapist from Chicago that you met in episode five said, many.

[Katie]

Of the students I have, they're hitting roadblock after roadblock. In order for them to spell at.

[Kai Dickens]

School, they need to prove that they can use this letterboard.

[Caroline]

Prove it.

[Kai Dickens]

Kids don't have to prove they can before they're taught to read.

[Katie]

So why would they need to prove.

[Kai Dickens]

That they can use this letterboard before.

[Katie]

They can be schooled? If they speak Spanish, they don't have.

[Kai Dickens]

To speak English completely before they come to school. So it's just a different language. Carrie, the speech pathologist from episode five teaches spelling under the radar. She even used a pseudonym when talking to me.

[Katie]

If we are using it as professionals that we risk losing our license. I know that threat on me. It even fits heavy. I know that behavior specialists, they say right out, if you engage in facilitated.

[Kai Dickens]

Communication, you will lose your license. Spelling as a way to communicate has been controversial based on outdated research, stigmas and the long held belief that non speakers just aren't competent. I think one of the key things to understand is that facilitated communication, the first method of spelling ever devised, utilized touch. The facilitator would often touch the wrist or hands of the speller. And after some high profile court cases which we'll talk about shortly, that method evolved into new methods like spelling to communicate and the rapid prompting method which don't use touch at all. Maria, who's worked with non speaking students for over 30 years, explains the difference.

[Katie]

With the spell to communicate and the rapid prompting method. One of the prime rules is you don't touch them.

[Kai Dickens]

Kerry, who has also worked in this space for decades, uses these newer methods of spelling.

[Katie]

There is no physical touch involved at all from the get go. And. And the problem is Asha has lumped RPM and Asha has lumped SGC in with facilitated communication.

[Kai Dickens]

And Asha posted a statement saying they warn against using all forms of spelling and many schools point to this statement as the reason they don't teach it.

[Libby]

I am a speech language pathologist since 1999 and I am a member of ASHA and I despel with my child.

[Kai Dickens]

In episode four, you met John Paul and Libby, and Libby is a member of asha.

[Libby]

Therapists kind of have to be a member of ASHA if they want to get jobs, if they want to be able to bill insurance, if they want to have their certificate of clinical confidence.

[Kai Dickens]

But Libby is also a mother and.

[Libby]

We tried every therapy around. I mean, I have an extensive list. And then when John Paul was about 8 years old, I was at a.

[Kai Dickens]

Conference and another attendee told her about a new spelling technique called the rapid prompting method or rpm, where non speakers can point to a letterboard. This uses gross motor skills, unlike speaking, which requires fine motor skills.

[Libby]

I literally was looking at her and thinking, I've never heard of it. I needed to see it for myself. I know I had tried everything else.

[Kai Dickens]

So she went to a workshop to observe kids who were communicating with rpm.

[Libby]

I saw kids just like John Paul coming in and they were spelling. I couldn't believe it and I just burst into tears and I just couldn't stop crying. This is it. I knew from being a speech pathologist and taking biology and understanding the brain, it all made sense to me.

[Kai Dickens]

And as you all know, John Paul started communicating.

[Libby]

He was able to spell, he was learning age appropriate academic. It just changed the whole world.

[Kai Dickens]

And he became quite the poet. He had a ton of language and knowledge and even knew other languages. And Libby had to reconcile that understanding with her professional organization who forbids parents to teach their kids to spell to communicate.

[Libby]

Why would people doubt this? And I really, truly do not understand it.

[Kai Dickens]

A lot of parents and teachers feel gaslit. They can see with their own eyes that their children or students are expressing unique, independent thoughts, often about topics that they know nothing about and sometimes even in different languages. And nobody is pushing their hand or touching them. So when you're told it's not real and it's not happening, it's frustrating, it's.

[Libby]

Maddening, it is life changing. And once the parent learns the method, I mean, we just would converse at dinner with the letter board and John Paul is a part of the conversation. I just don't know why there is so much pushback on it.

[Kai Dickens]

I visited the Asha website where they listed several reasons for opposing spelling, including uncertainty around who's doing the spelling. And this feels just so bonkers to me. I've seen Akil type into an iPad while sitting by himself across the room from everyone else. I've watched Houston point to letters while vocalizing them. As you heard during the UNO tests, plot 2 spellers are often relaying totally shocking information to parents, stuff that never occurred to them.

[Katie]

He said that I cannot see my body in my mind.

[Kai Dickens]

Like when Akil relayed to his mother that he didn't realize he had hands and fingers. This was critical information for his mom, and it allowed her to get him the therapy he needed.

[Katie]

There were so many things that Houston spelled that I didn't understand when he spelled them. He explained that he felt like he was falling out of the bottom of his feet. And he was talking about how he couldn't feel his tongue and how he would flap his hands so he knew where his hands were and about having alternating blindness. And all of these things didn't make sense to me until I started doing the investigative research. Their physiology doesn't work even remotely the same.

[Libby]

John Paul could do math. I have dyscalculia, which is a math disability. I could never do the math that he could do. And his poetry and his writings, they were just effortless for him. They aren't coming from me. I can't do what he could do.

[Kai Dickens]

The accusation that most spellers are not actually communicating, that someone is pushing their hand around or moving around the letterboard, is unabashedly, unequivocally false. I have filmed dozens of spellers and I have never witnessed such a thing. You can watch the clips of the spellers you've met@the telepathytapes.com I also recommend the Spellers movie, which you can watch for free on YouTube. It follows many incredible spellers who are communicating independently. The ASHA website also lists as a concern dependence on another person, thus preventing independent communication. Yes, most spellers need a communication partner, just like those using interpreters or translators or sign language do. ASHA also claims the technique lacks evidence. Which reminds me of what Joe, the special needs minister from Highland Church in Arizona said about evidence in the last episode. I looked early on and I saw that there were sources that were skeptical of spelling.

[Arthur]

And I actually looked into some of.

[Kai Dickens]

The academic papers on it and what.

[Arthur]

I found was the 40 or so.

[Kai Dickens]

Negative papers were earlier on in the process. They were back in the 90s. Then at one point the spellers improved their methodology. You find later on there's like over 100 papers that are now saying, wait.

[Arthur]

A minute, we missed something here.

[Kai Dickens]

I double checked this and There are over 100 peer reviewed studies using various methodologies that confirm that non speakers are authoring their own messages. There was a recent study out of the University of Virginia where somebody even.

[Arthur]

Said, let's track eye movements and hand.

[Kai Dickens]

Movements and see what happens first.

[Arthur]

And what they found is the I.

[Kai Dickens]

Went first to the letter, then the finger followed the I. So I think those old notions of spelling was kind of phony or fake. Those are being dispelled. And I have no doubt whatsoever that.

[Caroline]

The information I'm getting is coming from the spellers.

[Libby]

The thing is, Kai, we can't all be lying. It's frustrating because everyone listens to the experts and take their word for it. In my case, I honestly didn't know that this was so controversial. So I looked into it, I tried it, and it changed our lives. It makes me sad. They say we're these desperate parents that are making this up or whatever, because that's just not true.

[Kai Dickens]

I believe that stigma is a big reason Asha hasn't changed its stance. A series of high profile court cases in the 1990s cast doubt on facilitated communication, an earlier method that involved more physical assistance than today's independent spelling techniques. As ABC News had reported on Primetime Live in 1992, a new therapy had appeared on the scene, something called facilitated communication, or fc. It seemed like a revolutionary idea that if someone holds an autistic child's hand or arm a certain way that child can type their own thoughts. In several cases, facilitated communication produced accusations of sexual abuse against family members or caregivers, sparking court cases and intense media attention. It was just a few keystrokes, a couple of sentences. On a computer screen, the severely autistic Aislin Wendrow is describing her weekend and types this on her computer at school. My dad gets me up, he puts his hands on my private parts. Wendrow's lives would never be the same. Allegations like this that turned out to be false turn public opinion against facilitated communication.

[Katie]

Several different cases where individuals who were not trained and got their messages with the person who was spelling discredited.

[Kai Dickens]

ABC News reported that the facilitator in this case was not adequately trained or prepared to serve as a communication partner.

[Libby]

She sat through one hour, she said of unpaid training.

[Kai Dickens]

One hour.

[Libby]

One hour.

[Kai Dickens]

That was enough for Scarcella to facilitate those sex allegations and everything to follow. The allegations were just horrific.

[Katie]

There is a lot of suspect activity around those cases.

[Kai Dickens]

Untrained or barely trained facilitators were working with non speakers and they should not have been. But due to these awful cases that really uprooted lives, facilitated communication took the blame, not the facilitators.

[Libby]

Every child who was gaining, learning something and being able, they lost their voice. It happened so fast.

[Katie]

What was so tragic is that facilitated communication got wrapped up in this controversy, and that seemed to be the story that continued to run in the papers, even though all of these other incredible individuals were independently communicating.

[Kai Dickens]

A valuable tool was villainized and taken away from thousands because a few untrained people weren't properly using the tool. And it's easy to say, great, let's make sure these other forms of spelling are the norm. And facilitated communication is gone forever because it involves touch. But Carrie, who has worked with hundreds of non speakers, says this approach isn't helpful either.

[Katie]

We know that autistics have difficulty knowing where their body is in space. I've had kids who told me they don't feel their hands, they don't feel their arm. So if they're not feeling their arms or their hand, how can they type? But if I touch them and I put a backward pressure on their arm and they have to push forward, which is what happens with facilitated communication. They know where their arm is in space.

[Kai Dickens]

Libby also says that we shouldn't completely throw out facilitated communication.

[Libby]

It actually brought our spelling to a whole new level, because I didn't realize that there were times John Paul couldn't feel his arms. You know, he needed just a little resistance to get things going.

[Kai Dickens]

So Libby would touch John Paul in the beginning of a spelling session just to help him out.

[Libby]

And without having tried doing from fb, I wouldn't have gotten to an elevated place of spelling with John Paul. Some parents get to where they just have to put a finger on their shoulder that they can feel their arm. One parent, I know this sounds crazy, but she actually just had to grab a strand of hair of her child and cool a little bit so that her child could feel herself. And that's where they got to. But John Paul sometimes needed me to just put a hand on his wrist just so he could push back initially to feel.

[Kai Dickens]

And that helped John Paul get to the place where he can type totally independently without being touched at all. Like I witnessed when I was with.

[Libby]

Him, not everyone needs it, but the kids that need it have to have it.

[Kai Dickens]

I want to pivot back to telepathy now, because the spiritual gifts in non speakers exists with or without spelling. Like, remember that Marianne Harrington, the teacher in Wisconsin, first realized her student was reading her mind when he drew her pictures of the treats that she had left in the car. Libby first realized that John Paul might be reading her mind when he'd find the Halloween candy the second she thought of where it was hidden. Spelling gave parents and teachers the validation that they needed to know that this was indeed happening. But the telepathy isn't because of the spelling. And there are some parents and non speakers who have foregone letterboards altogether, utilizing only a telepathic link or nonverbal communication to communicate.

[Caroline]

We don't use the letterboarding or sign language because that's just something that Kyle's never gravitated to. But, you know, music and dreams seems to be our. Our own personal language.

[Kai Dickens]

This is Caroline, and she lives with her son Kyle in Cornwall, England.

[Caroline]

I've been feeling it for years, ever since I was little that I could understand him from a nonverbal perspective.

[Kai Dickens]

Kyle is 38 years old, and he and Caroline have communicated via telepathy for most of their lives. He's never spelled using a letterboard. I would have never met Caroline had she not made the bold choice to come out about her telepathic experience online during the COVID lockdown.

[Caroline]

I think I put it up on eventbrite to start with.

[Kai Dickens]

She created an invitation to an online discussion that she was hosting, and she asked the broader community, are you a.

[Caroline]

Parent, caregiver, or professional working in the field of autism? Have you ever felt that you've had a telepathic connection with the children that you either teach or care for?

[Kai Dickens]

For over 30 years, Caroline was hesitant to expose this truth, to publicly put this out there.

[Caroline]

I've just come to a point in my life. If I don't do it now, I never do it. You know, as we get older, one never knows how long one's got left. And I thought, I'm just going to put it out there, and I really don't know how it's going to be received.

[Kai Dickens]

And sure enough, RSVP started pouring in to attend her online discussion.

[Caroline]

I had people just saying, yeah, I have this experience, and yes, I do believe that my child has telepathic skills or can read my mind. Teachers were coming forward saying, I've definitely experienced this in the, in the classroom, but I didn't want to jeopardize my career in any shape or form.

[Kai Dickens]

Caroline was hearing from people from all over England and Europe.

[Caroline]

Teachers and practitioners and parents have been doing this right from the get go, but it's just something that's not recognized. We all agreed that safety in numbers. So the more of us that there are, the stronger and more galvanized this.

[Kai Dickens]

Whole movement is becoming the movement of speaking this truth. Non speakers are capable of telepathy as well as other unexplained size, skills and spiritual gifts. And one of Kyle's unique gifts is that he's able to communicate with his mom telepathically through lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is when you become aware that you're dreaming while you're in the dream, which allows you to control it or influence it.

[Caroline]

So the first time he came, he must have been about eight. I was in a dream. I wasn't lucid. I was just kind of hanging out in this dream. And then Kyle was there, and he seemed really like your average guy. And he kept looking at me as if to say, come on, mum, wake up. And I was still unconscious in this dream, I still wasn't lucid. And then he handed me the ace of spades playing card.

[Kai Dickens]

Kyle, just a boy at the time, had to find a way to get his mom out of a deep dream and into a lucid dream so they could communicate.

[Caroline]

He sort of looked at me as if to say, right, wait. And I just didn't. And then he took the card off me and folded it up. And then he started to rip the corners a bit like how children make the little snowflakes that you put in the window. And he held this little. Cut this card up with all the holes in it, and then he put it up against my eye, and he said, now wake up. And at that point, I went into a lucid dream. And then he started talking to me. And then I was sent a card. You're talking to me, Kyle. You can talk. And he said, in dreaming, mom, I can talk, but you have to wake up.

[Kai Dickens]

The next morning at breakfast, Kyle took an ace of spades out of a deck of cards and held it to his eye like he did in the dream, validating for his mom that what happened in the dream was intentional.

[Caroline]

That dream enabled me and Kyle to create a bridge between the dream world where we can have conversations and I can understand Kyle in that world, you know, where I can't always.

[Kai Dickens]

In the physical world, there's something called dream bridging that traces back thousands of years across many different cultures. Indigenous shamans use dreams to communicate with spirits, ancestors and guides. Mongolian and Siberian shamans called it soul journeying. And they believed one spirit or consciousness could leave the body to explore other realms, including other people's dreams. Once Kyle is in his mom's dream, he. He'll do something unusual to get her into a lucid dream state.

[Caroline]

You know, hand me a pink umbrella or something, or he's handed me a glass of water that's had ice in it, and I've held the ice in My mouth in the dream, whatever it is, the cue is for me to wake up and have a deeper experience with him.

[Kai Dickens]

And the reason Kyle makes sure his mom goes into lucid dreaming is so that she doesn't forget their conversation.

[Caroline]

I get to hear what his needs are and the adjustments I need to make in his everyday to make his physical world, his physical body happy. So if he's not feeling well, or even to things like food allergies, sometimes he will be like, I can't eat that anymore, Mom. Like tomato ketchup. He's always like, tomato ketchup. And I'm like, okay, I won't. I won't give that to you anymore. And even myself, he will say to me, mum, you need to listen to me and get rest and stuff like that.

[Kai Dickens]

I wanted to understand how often Kyle and his mom communicate via dreams.

[Caroline]

The more we do it, the more accessible it is to us and the easier it is for me to get into a dream. It's a good couple of times a week. If I've had a busy day, then I might just go to sleep and crash out and not necessarily go into a lucid dream. But if I'm pretty well restored, then I'd be much more open at nighttime to have those type of dreams.

[Kai Dickens]

And so Kyle and Caroline have just never relied on language the way most of us do. And this has become Kyle's way of telepathically communicating his needs with almost anyone.

[Caroline]

He comes to other people too. People said, I dreamt about Kyle last night and he was trying to wake me up in this dream. And then all of a sudden I was having a conversation with him.

[Kai Dickens]

I wanted you to meet Kyle because he demonstrates that the spiritual gifts and telepathy exists whether someone is spelling or not. Spelling certainly seems to open up a deep merging or telepathic channel between people. But the telepathy and the spiritual gifts are there with or without spelling. And the second thing Kyle demonstrates is that non speakers are in there regardless of whether or not they communicate via spelling. And we know this because Kyle can write and play music.

[Caroline]

I didn't know he could sing, and I certainly didn't know he could play an instrument until he started having music therapy 14 years ago.

[Kai Dickens]

The first time his music therapist, Corinne came to the house, she gave him.

[Caroline]

Her keyboard and he had a whole repertoire of songs that he'd obviously heard and remembered and logged in his memory somewhere and started singing Sealed with a Kiss and he started playing it on the keyboards.

[Kai Dickens]

Suit with a gisket is gonna be A cold, lonely summer, because I have.

[Caroline]

Absolutely no idea that that was in him. I think now he kind of. He takes music from somewhere else. It's like he can access, like, perfect pitch, which is really difficult to do. And he has an ability to pick up an instrument and play it by ear without any sort of lessons or being shown what to do.

[Kai Dickens]

Kyle is always communicating something with his music. And one song Kyle played a lot in the beginning makes perfect sense. When I feel blue in the night and I need you to mean times when I warned you All I have to do is dream.

[Caroline]

He'S never had any formal music lessons or formal singing lessons as such. It's all what he hears and he remembers and embodies. And I don't think that's just happening in the physical plane. I think that's happening somewhere else for him. When he's on his own playing his keyboard and he can pull on this repertoire that he's gathered, he's able to almost, like, store it in, like, his own personal icloud.

[Kai Dickens]

Singing has also become a way that Kyle can communicate his needs quickly during everyday life. Like, if Kyle is hungry, he would.

[Caroline]

Find a song that had food involved, or, like, he's thirsty and it has drink involved, and he would just choose from his thousands of songs that he's got in his mental archive. Some people talk about it as essentially, but, you know, Kyle always chooses song titles that are relevant to what's going on in the situation. They're never just a random thing that he comes out with. They all have meaning, and they are a way that he can make his feelings and emotions and his needs known to me.

[Kai Dickens]

Caroline leaned into Kyle's interests, surrounding him with other musicians and music therapy and even a music producer.

[Caroline]

He's written two albums, and he's just writing another one at the moment.

[Kai Dickens]

And one of the ways he writes these albums is through the telepathic link he establishes with people in dreams.

[Caroline]

We bridge through dreaming, and that's how the songwriting started. Where Kyle started giving me words and would hum a tune, and I'd. I'd wake up remembering that tune or almost humming that tune. As I was waking up in the.

[Kai Dickens]

Morning for his album named beyond the.

[Caroline]

Syntax, he came to me and he told me that he wanted me to write songs about what it's like to be autistic, what it's like for him to experience the world. He said, these songs I want you to write for me. You've just got to try and remember. So I dreamt pretty much all the songs in one night. So I woke up trying to write all the words down that I could remember. And then I fell back to sleep again. And then I got up in the morning, started carry on writing again, seeing if I could recall the themes of the songs and some of the words he'd given me. My job is to get pen to paper as fast as possible to be able to get those words down on paper for him.

[Kai Dickens]

And then once they get into the music studio, Kyle can really insert himself regarding any changes he wants made to the song.

[Caroline]

When we're in the music studio and we're actually recording them, that's when he's really telling me if he's happy or not happy. Because it either flows or it doesn't. He either sings the songs that we've written for him and put the music to them and it's a very organic, natural process, or he kind of gets almost a bit catatonic and he stops as if to say, no, this doesn't feel right. So sometimes we have to change the melody or we might have to change the bridge of the song so it feels right in his body. Sometimes if there's a word that doesn't fit with him, he will actually change that word whilst he's singing. And he also changes the timing sometimes.

[Kai Dickens]

Come now, just take my hand.

[Caroline]

And then actually the song ends up feeling a totally different song sometimes. But I think that's him orientating energetically to how he wants that song to feel inside him as he's singing it. He's the vessel for the song. I know he does it for autism and the non speakers. He feels this to be his mission or he's being of service to all the other people like him that can't express how they feel and think and what they experience on a daily basis.

[Kai Dickens]

The letters take up too much of mine time. The letters take up too much of my time. By choosing this you miss what's mine By I choosing this hum what's mine. Just listen now and listen on my.

[Libby]

Silent voice, my words and so on.

[Caroline]

I think he's singing that on behalf of other people that are like him, that can't communicate through conventional language to the everyday world.

[Kai Dickens]

Caroline has also learned to engage in two way telepathy with Kyle during the day, where she can hear his thoughts too. And if Kyle wants to communicate with her telepathically, she said it's almost like she can sense or feel him coming in.

[Caroline]

There's like a sort of an invisible pressure that he's impinging a kind of energy on me that makes me take notice.

[Kai Dickens]

This reminds me of the sense of being stared at that Dr. Sheldrake has studied. This innate sense we all have when someone is focused on us or looking at us without words, that's my cue.

[Caroline]

To empty out and have nothing in my internal dialogue. And if I'm. If I'm quiet and I'm receptive, then that's when he will give me a stream of words or even song lyrics.

[Kai Dickens]

Parents and teachers capable of this two way telepathy say that emptying out is key.

[Caroline]

When I think nothing and I'm just in my body awareness, then that's when we really go into that deeper field and it's like the waking dream. And sometimes I get a massive download.

[Kai Dickens]

Where Kyle might send her lyrics or music for almost an entire album in.

[Caroline]

One sitting, which I will sit and write. And I wrote a whole album lyrically in a whole afternoon. And I kept showing him and I went good. And he would go like that, shaking.

[Kai Dickens]

His head as if to say, you.

[Caroline]

Know, not good, you know, And I would then change things and he'd go, yes, yes, like that. So I hear music and tone and frequency and melody through this channel.

[Kai Dickens]

Of all the things I've heard from parents, this one was actually something that felt utterly familiar to me because I've experienced it myself with ideas. I've woken up in the night with a fully formed script or story and can barely write fast enough to capture it all. Many creators talk about moments like this. Mary Shelley described Frankenstein as coming to her in a vivid dream. And Paul McCartney described the melody for yesterday coming to him in a dream. J.K. rowling said Harry Potter came to her almost fully formed on a train ride.

[Caroline]

It shouldn't have been four hours, it was delayed. And Harry was there, Harry's star was there.

[Kai Dickens]

She's described this experience as something that happened to her, almost like the story was ready to be told and she was just the channel through which it arrived.

[Caroline]

It's a very strange thing, but I know I'm not alone in this among writers. It was as though I was given a piece of information and I just had to find out the rest of the information. It wasn't really as though I were inventing it. I was working backwards and working forwards to see what must have happened.

[Kai Dickens]

Caroline and others have shared that this is what it's like to receive a telepathic download from another person. Caroline once explained that if someone says the word Christmas out loud, it's just a word. But if they send it telepathically. It is everything.

[Caroline]

It's the Christmas tree, it's the decorations, it's the Cherokee. It's that. The complete embodiment of an experience. Experience.

[Kai Dickens]

A speller once told me that telepathy is the purest form of communication. With telepathy, there's no deception or sarcasm. There's no white lies or omissions or exaggeration. You receive exactly what someone is feeling and intending, unfiltered by ego or worldview.

[Caroline]

Can we all become telepathic so we can receive these messages? Yeah, I'm sure we can. But maybe we've got to learn how to meet in the field.

[Kai Dickens]

Caroline's brave post uneventbrite, inviting people to talk about telepathy has grown into a supportive network where teachers and parents can share notes and experiences.

[Caroline]

I've been talking to some of the mums and the educators in our meetings online that we've been doing. Some of these educators are almost like, I don't want to say the chosen ones, but certainly they have a faculty that I don't actually have. Kai, I can't hear the hill and the fields that they talk about. I can feel some of it.

[Kai Dickens]

I didn't ask Caroline about it at the time, but I certainly took note that she said some of the educators and parents in their meetings say they can access the hill or other fields along with the non speakers.

[Caroline]

For me, it's about normalizing telepathy, normalizing non speaking communication. I know we all do it very differently and very uniquely, which is amazing because we need to open the field and widen the field because the truth.

[Kai Dickens]

About telepathy and spiritual gifts within this community have been kept so secret. There's not yet a shared language to describe how it works or the elements of it. But Caroline uses a great metaphor to help explain everything.

[Caroline]

I think normal, average, everyday, conventional language is in the first bandwidth. The second bandwidth, I think, is where me and Kyle communicate through music. When I can feel the lyrics that he's portraying or he's conveying to me, and that's more of the creative field. And then the third field, or the field beyond, the second field, if you like, is more of this collective consciousness, the realm, the, you know, the field. You're more likely, I think, to connect with another being or another consciousness of some description, whether it's human or non human, that further bandwidth. So I think the further you can go out or the further you can explore, expand your consciousness into these different fields, the more information there is available to you.

[Kai Dickens]

And so when Non speakers explain going to a different realm to get information or to even talk to a higher power. It seems as though their consciousness has expanded enough to make this easy for them. And most non speakers will say the reason this is so easy for them is because they are not as bound to their bodies as the rest of us.

[Caroline]

I don't use the word savant for Karl. He's just tapping into something not of your normal bandwidth. You know, it's not from the narrow field, it's from a much wider field. I think this is just like. Like you say, Kai, it's the tip of the iceberg. We know that language is the minor, not the major. It's the micro, not the macro.

[Kai Dickens]

And this is what's missing in the war around spelling. The non speakers are working from the major, the macro, the third ring or beyond of consciousness, where information can be accessed and shared without pointing to letters. And to get them to point to these letters takes so much motor planning and effort that they need someone in the room to help them regulate, to know where their body is, maybe even to help them come down to our little narrow first ring of consciousness, where language rules the day.

[Caroline]

It'd be really interesting to ask people that are letterboarders, like, does it take too much energy for non speakers to actually speak, hence why they don't. I just wonder if that. If they lose their sense of self by speaking, it almost like dilutes them and they can't stay in that. In that field.

[Kai Dickens]

Like, maybe for the non speakers, being in that expanded farthest ring of consciousness is preferred, and to come back into the language space, they would lose something of themselves or lose some of their access.

[Caroline]

I do wonder that.

[Kai Dickens]

And now to bring us back to spelling parents, you know, and they get.

[Katie]

Gaslit all the time.

[Kai Dickens]

Parents often say they are facing a war on many fronts. One front is against Asha and the outdated misnomer that spellers aren't speaking for themselves. But they're also fighting a war against their own. The gatekeepers in the spelling community who are trying to shut down any mention of telepathy and other spiritual gifts.

[Katie]

What happens online, on Facebook, or even at conferences? Parents will ask, is anyone else having this experience of feeling like their kid is reading their mind and they get shut down immediately.

[Libby]

We get shushed a lot every time.

[Katie]

Someone posts something about telepathy or this podcast, it's removed. They think that this information about telepathy getting out to the wrong people could hurt our spellers, and they've just decided to take it upon themselves. To remove any information about the truth.

[Kai Dickens]

In our first few episodes, you heard this mentioned.

[Libby]

Sometimes our greatest allies and supporters and.

[Arthur]

People that have advocated can also be acting as gatekeepers.

[Katie]

Nobody wants to even get the word telepathy near this.

[Kai Dickens]

And this goes back to the very beginning.

[Arthur]

Mainstream proponents of facilitated communication were so opposed to telepathy, they did what they could to suppress it and they were successful in doing so. They were concerned that if we got into this type of thing that people wouldn't consider to be scientific and they wouldn't do it.

[Kai Dickens]

Meet Arthur Golden, a retired lawyer who has spent the last 30 years documenting the journey of spelling in the education system. Arthur is like an encyclopedia on the battles surrounding spelling and telepathy, with an incredible memory for names, dates, locations and details. Now retired, he lives in Israel with his family, immersed in a conservative part of the Jewish community, what you would.

[Arthur]

Call ultra Orthodox parade. My son Ben, he chose to come here, leaving the modern, sophisticated Boston, Massachusetts area and to become part of a community that was very traditional and spiritual and not modern Western civilization.

[Kai Dickens]

Ben is not only telepathic with his father and other Don speakers, but he seems to channel thousands of spiritual messages.

[Arthur]

They fully accept what he's doing. They were actually printing 80,000 copies every week of his messages distributed throughout Israel. And now, by the way, any of the messages that he's writing, which are now in Hebrew, well versed rabbis, which I'm not that know the Jewish law says that everything Ben says is consistent with the strict Jewish laws and Jewish viewpoints. Everything.

[Kai Dickens]

And it's critical to note here that his dad, Arthur, lived most of his life in America and thus didn't speak Hebrew.

[Arthur]

My Hebrew is not so good.

[Kai Dickens]

So, Arthur, when did you become aware that Ben could read your mind?

[Arthur]

I became aware at least of telepathy with him in April 1994. There were some times when he was younger that I would think something that I needed without saying it, and Ben would be immediately responsive to it. He somehow developed an alternative channel. That alternative channel is something that we would call telepathy. Although my son says, and I can prove it, that it's not a psychic ability, but it's a spiritual ability. It's a gift from God.

[Kai Dickens]

The first time I met Arthur, a few years ago, I told him about the Hill.

[Arthur]

They're not the only group that does that. Ben basically has his group here and they communicate that way. And you have the group in Arizona that does the same thing, even though they're hundreds of miles apart.

[Kai Dickens]

I asked for more specifics about the hill that Ben visits intentionally.

[Arthur]

He just restricts himself to the Jewish people in terms of his knowledge of things and so forth. It goes beyond telepathy.

[Kai Dickens]

In the last episode, I shared a story about Asher, who could put a hand on a book and receive all information or give the information to someone else. And Arthur said, Ben can do something sort of like this.

[Arthur]

The access is the mind of somebody who's read the book and then he knows all the contents of the book.

[Kai Dickens]

And much like Kyle and Caroline, Arthur and Ben can engage in two way telepathy.

[Arthur]

I've had two way telepathy with my son from the beginning.

[Kai Dickens]

Okay, so you've been able to receive his thoughts back this whole time?

[Arthur]

Yeah, but I usually prefer not to. I prefer to have him actually write it on the letterboard.

[Kai Dickens]

When you've been tracking the war against spelling as long as Arthur has, he knows how important it is to make sure the spellers type independently on the board so their words can be legitimized by skeptics. Arthur says the first murmurs of telepathy began when facilitated communication was introduced to thousands of people in the 90s by a woman named Marilyn Chadwick.

[Arthur]

She found among these thousands of students that there were hundreds, maybe like 10% of them that were also recording having telepathy.

[Kai Dickens]

And in the early years, parents were really eager to discuss what was going on.

[Arthur]

The Autism Society of America, along with.

[Kai Dickens]

Syracuse University, held an annual event in 1992.

[Arthur]

The group of parents spoke to the people from Syracuse University and said, could we discuss this telepathy and what's going on? And the response from the Syracuse University people or the Facilitated Communication Institute, they said, oh, no, there's no such thing. They felt that it would hurt the credibility of facilitated communication. And by the spring of 1993, they had managed to completely suppress any talk about telepathy.

[Kai Dickens]

Like any good lawyer, Arthur has an incredible paper trail. He has saved articles, emails, chat room conversations, Facebook posts, and journal entries that exemplify over and over again the number of teachers, parents and administrators who have been fired or intimidated into silence because they mentioned telepathy. He has sent me a lot of this stuff, and it would honestly take an entire season to go through it.

[Arthur]

Tom Smith, they made sure he got fired because he said there was telepathy involved. Ann Donnell and was considered one of the leading experts on autism in the world. They basically threatened her, and she lost a lot of her position because she mentioned the possibility of telepathy. There was an email group called FCNET which was run By Pat Edwards. These were just classroom teachers, and they found that there was telepathy involved.

[Kai Dickens]

What Arthur paints for me is a clear picture of knowledge and gatekeeping that persists to this day. And while facilitated communication has largely given way to more independent forms of spelling, the fear remains that discussing telepathy will undermine the credibility of spelling.

[Katie]

These children, who are still trapped, their parents need to know the truth.

[Kai Dickens]

I understand why early spelling groups aiming to prove spelling's credibility were concerned that mentioning spiritual gifts might undermine their efforts. But after 30 years, keeping quiet has not helped non speakers. It's actually made things worse. If a skeptic were to test a speller, which they have, they might find it surprising or even disqualifying that a trusted partner's presence must be in the room. And it helps them to communicate even if they're not being touched at all, Even if this partner is 10ft away, just having them there is necessary. That's hard to explain and justify unless someone understands there is some sort of physical regulation or merging or something that is going on where the non speaker needs another person's body to help them ground.

[Katie]

Part of this process is the regulation of one body.

[Kai Dickens]

Susie Miller notes that a trained spelling partner will know how to get their bodies ready for the communication that's about to happen.

[Katie]

They learn to clear things out. They learn to be present in their bodies. They're grounding. And the minute that system is set like that, the kids find it easier to communicate.

[Kai Dickens]

And Marianne Harrington, who has been working with spellers for 30 years, says it.

[Libby]

Is very hard to describe unless you've experienced it. It is an energetic link. There's joint attention going on. They can see through my eyes, and they've even said they can hear through my ears. They're almost stepping into my neurology.

[Kai Dickens]

And here's Casey from Georgia. I'm like a lightning rod, like I ground his energy.

[Libby]

We're merging our energy together, our consciousness together, our higher selves together. I don't know what we're doing, but that was the way they told.

[Kai Dickens]

The reason they can't type with everyone is because their energy signature may not.

[Katie]

Be compatible with everyone, so they can't be in their body long enough to type. From what I've asked the kids directly, sometimes they'll use the information fields that the parents have.

[Kai Dickens]

Marianne thinks it's essential for everyone to know about this telepathic and energetic link.

[Libby]

Because influence can occur. And that's dangerous not to tell everybody.

[Kai Dickens]

Who'S using the process, because if communication partners aren't aware of this telepathic link or the merging of consciousness or whatever you want to call it, then they won't be able to clear their mind or shield their thoughts. To ensure that the speller is only communicating their thoughts, the person can influence.

[Libby]

The other person not knowingly and be totally unaware of it.

[Kai Dickens]

The people who I've interviewed for this project, however, are aware of it and do a lot of creative things to make sure the non speakers are typing only their own thoughts.

[Arthur]

I stand behind him when I facilitate with him so he can't see where I'm looking.

[Katie]

I first started singing you are my Sunshine whenever Houston was spelling. Then I started tapping my foot or just humming one consistent beat. Anything to keep my mind completely clear. Sometimes if I'm doing a lesson and someone starts picking up my thoughts, I'll.

[Kai Dickens]

Stop and say, that was my thought.

[Caroline]

Tell me what you think.

[Kai Dickens]

And I say pumpkin in my head.

[Katie]

Over and over and over until they finish spelling. Nobody spelled pumpkin yet.

[Libby]

I try to be really careful of.

[Kai Dickens]

The influence that I can have over Amelia. I will even think of, like, the wrong answer if I'm doing homework with her.

[Libby]

Also with hiding things in the house like candy. I would sing a song in my head so that he couldn't hear where I was putting it.

[Katie]

I do not want them taking my word. I want their word to be their word.

[Kai Dickens]

This is why the truth about telepathy needs to be shared and why spelling groups and Asha need to stop censoring it. Working with non speakers requires people to totally clear their minds.

[Libby]

It is an enigma, and we're really, really at the beginning stages of trying to understand it. I don't think we necessarily can wait for science because they haven't jumped on board, but I want them to.

[Kai Dickens]

You know, there's another hurdle standing in the way of full acceptance of spelling, and I think it has more to do with materialism than spelling itself.

[Katie]

Having heard from tons of the kids, I know that spelling itself is not the issue. To accept this spiritual nature of spelling means we have to accept the spiritual messages that they have to share with us. And that threatens the materialistic paradigm. Spellers consistently challenge us to go beyond what we've been taught.

[Kai Dickens]

And this is exactly what happened to me. Once I validated that the spellers were capable of telepathy and I got past the wonder of how they were communicating, I turned to the wonder of what they were communicating.

[Libby]

They care about love. They're worried about our behavior.

[Katie]

What they all will say is, at the end of the day, we're all one. We have to see that we are more than we perceive ourselves to be.

[Libby]

They're worried about our planet. They're worried about climate change. They're worried about the effect emissions we put out in the atmosphere are having on other planets. It's not just about us.

[Katie]

They're talking to me about new science, new medicine, new education, new forms of parenting.

[Kai Dickens]

This is a lot. And in order for the non speakers to help us to achieve our full potential, we need to help them to achieve theirs. And one gigantic step we can take is by legitimizing spelling, despite the fact it means admitting our paradigm is wrong and telepathy is real. Only then can the non speakers help us to usher in the future of medicine, technology, spirituality and science.

[Katie]

Yes, it's bigger than all of us could ever have imagined. But we have to accept that that's the reality. And maybe what has to change is us. It's the only way we save these kids is by telling the whole world the truth.

[Kai Dickens]

The whole truth. Katie talks about this a lot. Since I started this journey four years ago, I've watched truths that I once held about the world unravel before me. Wading into this world has been like slowly walking into cold water, allowing my body and worldview time to adjust with every step. And in two weeks, I'll take you deeper. We'll meet Josiah, a young non speaker in Minnesota who heard the prayers of a complete stranger, Max in Louisiana, a profound connection his mother helped validate and will contemplate the enduring strength of love when a beloved non speaker loses his life but finds ways to comfort his family and friends from the other side. Once again, there will be a two week delay before we drop Episode nine A very special thanks to my incredible collaborator and producer Jen Mirza, who created all music and sound effects for this episode of the Telepathy Tapes. Remember that you can review some of the tests and see some of the film recordings on our website thetelepathytapes.com thank you so much for tuning in and join us next week as this world expands and deepens.

[Caroline]

Did you know that two out of three listeners say podcasts are the best way to learn about the things they care about most. That makes podcasts the perfect place to introduce your brand where ads are more relevant and trusted than any other media channel. Want to learn more? Download the full podcast polls 2024 report now at podcastpulse2024acars.com and see how you.

[Kai Dickens]

Can make your brand part of the conversation.