S2E11: Mindsight: Seeing Without Eyes

Summary

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The Telepathy Tapes – S2E11: "Mindsight: Seeing Without Eyes"

Host: Ky Dickens
Date: December 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this compelling episode, Ky Dickens investigates the phenomenon known as "mindsight"—the purported ability to perceive visual information without the use of physical eyes. During the episode, Ky visits multiple international programs, witnesses demonstrations, explores scientific opinions, and even undergoes mindsight training with both children and adults, including her own children. The episode balances skepticism with direct experiences, personal stories, and emergent scientific inquiry, ultimately asking whether our sensory reality is only a partial view of what consciousness can access.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to Mindsight (00:00–04:34)

• Recap: Season One showed non-speaking individuals with autism displaying telepathic abilities.
• Current Episode Premise: This season expands to other extraordinary human experiences. Mindsight is introduced as reading, seeing, or playing games while blindfolded.
• Ky’s own skepticism is addressed: “If I've learned one thing from making the Telepathy Tapes, it's that just because something's been called debunked doesn't necessarily mean that it has been.” (04:12)

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2. The ICU Academy (04:34–12:25)

• Expert Guest: Nicola Farmer, founder of ICU Academy in Essex, England, teaches children to see with their "outer consciousness."
• Program Details:
  • 10–12 sessions, each an hour, focusing on ego reprogramming and positive reinforcement, bypassing the logical left brain.
  • Children as young as 6 perform feats such as reading books, identifying objects, and playing sports while blindfolded.
• In-Person Demonstrations:
  • Ky and a “skeptical” crew, including her father, witness children identifying colors, reading, playing tag, and matching cards while blindfolded.
  • Blindfolds are independently validated as legitimate by crew and Ky’s father: “You can't get light through it…this is a remarkably effective blindfold” (08:41).

Notable Quotes:

• “They see actually sometimes better than they can with their eyes. If they have to wear glasses, they don't need them with a blindfold.”
  —Nicola Farmer (07:44)
• “For most of my life, I've been skeptical of things like seeing with a blindfold on. What I saw today…it's just an amazing thing…it's real.”
  —Ky’s Father (12:25)

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3. Training Methods & Skepticism (13:29–17:41)

• The teaching avoids questions that activate the left brain; instead, children are encouraged to "show," "tell," or "point."
• Skepticism is discussed: According to Nicola, skeptical energy can disrupt performance, with anecdotes of children's vision disappearing in the presence of a skeptical parent (15:28).
  • “The energy is so fine and in such a high frequency that they're working in. Anybody who comes close, who brings that energy down, the children can lose their vision.”
    —Nicola Farmer (16:16)
• Teachers describe “conscious seeing” as accessing vision through different areas around the body, sometimes resulting in 360-degree perception.

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4. Mindsight Around the World: India & Advanced Abilities (19:03–21:12, 25:59–34:05)

India’s Intuition Process:

• Guest: Mala Sundaresan from the Art of Living Foundation in Bangalore.
• Intuition Process uses meditation and breathing exercises to activate mindsight. Children as old as 18 are trained.
• Demonstrations include:
  • Blindfolded children reading, identifying cards, copying drawings, and even discerning which person drew a specific picture.
  • When asked how it feels, participant Nysa says: “The image pops up into my brain.” (29:06)
  • Nysa is unaffected by skepticism but finds abilities diminish with age as logical thinking takes over.
    • “As age went on, it got harder…school system kind of made me trust my logic more than my senses.” (30:16)

Advanced Abilities:

• Devani and Nidhi, two sisters, report developing clairvoyance (e.g., remote viewing, finding missing people, “seeing” events).
  • “We can kind of see like a video of them walking out of their house…” —Nidhi (33:20)
• Their family friend Ashutosh credits their intuition with saving his life during a heart attack.
  • “It was a really, really clear knowing. It's just I knew from the inside, like he said…you should be at the hospital right now.” —Devani (35:56)

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5. Mindsight and Blindness: John’s Journey (36:13–42:35)

• Guest: John Herzog, legally blind since birth, acquires “vision” through mindsight training.
• Reports perceiving light, objects, and even colors as physical sensations (e.g., red “tingles” his palms).
  • “To experience the higher part of myself translating this...into a method that I could perceive...I was just so emotional about it.” —John Herzog (41:02)
• Challenges prior scientific assumptions that vision cannot be learned after a certain age.

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6. Scientific Inquiry and Testing (44:02–53:11)

Dr. Anne Deselaer, Neuropsychologist (44:16–46:13)

• Initially tried to debunk mindsight as “just cheating” but was unable to.
• Rigorous controls: Using eye patches, hoods, and even working with blind subjects who cannot “peek.”

Dr. Jeff Tarrant, Neuroscientist (47:42–51:31)

• Ran quantitative EEG brain scans on mindsight practitioners.
  • “The biggest changes were really in the theta and alpha frequencies, especially in the occipital lobe, responsible for vision.” (49:42)
  • Suggests visual information may be entering the brain through unknown pathways.

Possible Explanations Discussed:

• Skin may contain light-sensitive molecules.
• “When the stimulus [vision] is taken away, the brain may search to fill that input through other senses.”
  —Referencing Dr. Ben Kilmendy, Yale (52:25)

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7. Mindsight in China and Global Scale (53:57–60:11)

Guest: Dr. Simon Duan, Cambridge-trained material scientist

• “Tens of thousands of schools” in China teach extraocular vision; it began with reports of “ear sight” in 1979.
• Methods evolve: From color card identification (by touch, smell, or sound) to perceiving full text and even “scanning” entire books mentally.
• U.S. intelligence was interested enough to collect and analyze reports; some Chinese methods avoid blindfolds, using hidden cards for stricter control.

Guest: Teacher Dani Li

• Details on rigorous anti-cheating protocols.
• Suggests that training ESP is foundational to many other abilities.

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8. Mindsight Training at Home: Ky’s Own Children (60:11–69:54)

• Dr. Anne Deselaer conducts a session with Ky’s 6- and 11-year-old children.
  • Meditative and playful approach; both quickly identify colored papers, then progress to reading UNО cards, numbers, and words through blindfolds.
  • Experience of “windows” of perception opening gradually, sometimes off to the side or at the back of the head.

Notable Quotes:

• “The most important thing is to remember that you can do this. And if you can do something that you thought was impossible, what else can you do?”
  —Anne Deselaer (64:51)
• “Look at this girl...So the important part now is to feel in your body when you're in flow like that.” (67:22)

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9. Adult Learners & The Power of Play (70:44–74:09)

• Case Study: John May, age 85, tries mindsight and correctly distinguishes teabag colors (yellow, blue) under blindfold with odds against chance of 32,768:1.
  • “It was absolutely amazing…if people can wrap their head around that…there's almost no training to do this…it's just put yourself in the play state, be open minded, lose your ego, and sense what you can't see.” —John & Stephen May (73:35)
• Suggests this is accessible at any age given an open mind and a playful attitude.

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10. Emerging Theories and Implications (74:36–78:07)

• Many subjects report secondary effects: Sharpened intuition, ESP, telepathy, effortless memory, improved emotional and social skills.
  • "If neurotypicals like ourselves, just average people, can experience firsthand that there's more than meets the eye…it just may create an awareness that there's more than the individual. We are all connected." —Anne Deselaer (77:15)
• Global contrasts: While China invests heavily in these capacities, the West risks falling behind by dismissing them outright.
• The episode asks whether mindsight is a rare “superpower” or a latent human capacity awaiting discovery and development.

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Unforgettable Moments & Memorable Quotes with Timestamps

• “You can't get light through it…and I've tried it. I can't see up or down or sideways.” —Ky’s Dad, blindfold validation (08:41)
• “They see sometimes better than they can with their eyes. …They have 20/20 vision [with blindfolds].” —Nicola Farmer (07:44)
• “It's just an amazing thing. I tried various tests myself…they do it. …It's amazing and it's real.” —Ky’s Father (12:25)
• Nysa (India): “As age went on, it got harder. The school system kind of made me trust my logic more than my senses.” (30:16)
• John Herzog (Blind participant): “When new colors were introduced, like green, blue, red, each one of those had a persistent feeling about it...” (40:20)
• Dr. Anne Deselaer: “I've really been trying to prove that they are cheating, and I can't yet.” (44:48)
• Dr. Jeff Tarrant: “The biggest changes were…in the theta and alpha frequencies…the occipital lobe lit up…the part of the brain responsible for sight.” (49:42–50:05)
• Ky (on observing her own children): “Watching my kids do this made me really excited about the possibilities for all of us.” (69:10)
• John May, age 85: “I saw them somehow in my brain.” (73:29)

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Notable Timestamps for Key Segments

• ICU Academy and demonstration: 04:34–12:25
• Scientific explanations & skepticism: 44:02–53:11
• China’s “mind vision” training: 53:57–60:11
• Ky’s own family’s mindsight training: 60:11–69:54
• Elderly adult learning mindsight: 70:44–74:09

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Tone

The tone is inquisitive, open, and playful but rooted in a respectful skepticism. Ky continually checks her own biases and invites expert opinions, first-hand observations, and participant voices, emphasizing lived experiences without dismissing alternative explanations or unresolved scientific questions.

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Conclusion

“Mindsight: Seeing Without Eyes” presents a wide-ranging investigation into the possibility that human perception—and consciousness—may extend beyond conventional senses. Through international case studies, robust skepticism, personal trial, and neuroscience, the episode contends that this capacity may not be fringe or supernatural, but an innate, trainable human skill available to young and old alike. The implications for personal growth, intuition, education, and scientific understanding are profound, sparking a call for open-minded exploration of the full spectrum of consciousness.

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Transcript

[A]

Hi everyone, this is Kai Dickens and you're listening to the Telepathy Tapes podcast. In season one, non speakers showed us that telepathy is possible, shattering our assumptions about the world itself. This season, we're turning to others who've also been dismissed, doubted or mocked for the ways they claim to know, see, heal or create. What if only by listening to those who've been ignored, we could unlock the deepest mysteries of who we are, where we come from and where we're going. This is the Telepathy Tapes and we're opening up the next channel. The Telepathy Tapes is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are the things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. It's Kai. And as we move into the holidays, I've been thinking a lot about the ways we stay connected. So this December, we wanted to offer something that feels truly special. You can give the gift of Telepathy all month long. Our annual Backstage Pass subscription is 25% off, and for the first time, you can gift an annual membership to someone you care about. The holiday sale runs from December 1st through December 31st. To subscribe, visit thetelepathytapes.supercast.com the link is also in our show notes. We hope this brings a little bit more joy and connection into your holidays.

[B]

Salma, tell me what you see on the front. I see a monkey. A monkey. And, um, Mara, tell me the color at the bottom here. Yellow. Fantastic. Well done.

[A]

Believe it or not, Selma, whose voice you just heard, answered those questions while wearing a completely blacked out blindfold, something I used to think was absolutely impossible. Last week we explored the ability to access and communicate with someone's higher consciousness, even when their brains and bodies are failing them, as in the case with dementia. It posed the question, can some part of us perceive and communicate even when our senses fail us? This week, we're jumping into a world where children all over the globe are being taught to see the world around them without using their eyes. They can read books, identify colors, and even play sports, all while completely blindfolded. We'll seek to understand the validity of this phenomenon, which is spreading like wildfire around the world to figure out what exactly is going on and can it even be understood scientifically? Today you'll meet people who have mastered both teaching and learning this skill from China, India, England, and here in America, Including a legally blind man who went through the training and gained vision in a way doctors can't yet explain. I first heard about mindsight, or seeing through a blindfold, back in 2022 when I was in the middle of my own cognitive dissonance around telepathy and trying to understand how any of this could possibly be real. A parent in Florida who was also searching for answers sent me a video from Frank Elleridi's YouTube channel about a school in England where neurotypical children were supposedly learning to see without using their eyes. Sunny and Lucy are just two of the students who attend this special class in England and can now demonstrate remarkable abilities. Ellaridi's video showed kids identifying objects, reading text, even playing games in blindfolds. And the blindfolds appeared legitimate and totally secure, confirmed by a member of the film crew who tried them on.

[C]

Let's have Joe try it.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Can you see anything?

[B]

No, can't see anything.

[A]

And I love it when skeptical crew members or outsiders add a layer of validation. I'm going to write something on this paper and.

[C]

And you'll tell me what I wrote, right?

[A]

It's going to be one word.

[C]

That was so fast.

[A]

The children showcasing these abilities were students from the ICU Academy in Essex, England, and their teacher was Nicola Farmer. Nicola's approach to teaching mindsight, a catch all phrase for seeing through a blindfold, grew out of her own spiritual journey and work. Over many years, she has taught thousands of individuals and trained hundreds of teachers over 40 plus countries, guiding them in awakening their innate abilities and expanding awareness. I was very skeptical of all of this, and after doing some research, I even saw videos online claiming that this blindfolded vision phenomenon was debunked. But if I've learned one thing from making the telepathy tapes, it's that just because something's been called debunked doesn't necessarily mean that it has been. So I called up Nicola. Hi, thank you so much for hopping on the phone.

[B]

You're welcome. I love it. So please. Pleasure.

[A]

Nicola and I talked about her school and what's happening as children undergo the training.

[B]

The work we do with the kids is not telepathy and it's not third eye. Seeing is like the ultimate cherry on the top of the cake if you like, but they can see with what we call the outer consciousness. So effectively their spirit.

[A]

When. When a child takes your class, how long is the entire program?

[B]

10 or 12 sessions and an hour per session. And ideally one week between the sessions. I take them through this sort of ego reprogramming. There's no. No left brain activity when they're working. We don't even say no to them in a session. Yeah, we constantly praise them for a whole hour.

[A]

Are there successful ICU programs happening in other countries right now or is it still mainly in England?

[B]

I've taught people from New Zealand and Australia and North America, South America, Europe, Mongolia, potentially. We have a team of teachers around the world that can help change the kids. But one child, Kai, can change a whole family.

[A]

After meeting Nicola and still not being clear on how this works or is even possible, I decided to go through the teacher training myself. It laid out a clear methodology and equipped practitioners with what they would need to teach this technique to children. What it didn't answer for me was the biggest question again of how any of this might be possible. And like many things, I think I just needed to see it with my own eyes. So when the opportunity arose for me to go to England, I decided to visit Nicola's school and meet some of her students and the teachers that she's trained. And I brought along the biggest lifelong skeptic I know, my dad. Okay, so who's the oldest in here?

[B]

You're the oldest.

[A]

How old are you, Finley?

[B]

Eight.

[A]

You're eight. Okay. And how about you, Selma?

[B]

Eight.

[A]

You're eight. When we got to Nicola's, I was with a small crew. Michael, my dp, a few audio people and grips, and my dad. Immediately upon entering Nicola's charming house, I met three young kids. Finley, Selma and Mara. The youngest, Mara, was feeling a little nervous and didn't speak to us right away. So Finley, tell me how long you've been able to see with a blindfold.

[B]

A year.

[A]

Wow. And how about you?

[B]

A few months. Wow.

[A]

Just a few months. Did it take you a lot of sessions to be able to see or was it pretty quick for you?

[B]

Pretty quick. The second lesson I could see easily.

[A]

And what about for you, Selma?

[B]

Quick.

[A]

And then tell me what you saw first. Was it pictures in a book or colors or shapes? Do you remember?

[B]

It was cards, like with it's color.

[C]

And like a shape.

[B]

So let's say Tonya put a card in front of my face and it was like a pink square. And for my blindfold I had to see there's a blink square.

[A]

And what about for you, Selma?

[B]

Colors.

[A]

Colors. And are you able to see things, like far away and close up and tiny things and big things?

[B]

I can see small things and big things. I can see stuff far away that eyes can't even see.

[A]

Wait, wait, wait. Things their eyes can't even see. I look at Nicola, their teacher, for clarification.

[B]

They see actually sometimes better than they can with their eyes. If they have to wear glasses, they don't need them with a blindfold. They have 2020 vision.

[A]

But how?

[B]

They're seeing consciously through the eyes of their consciousness. That's the best way to describe it. They see every minute detail.

[A]

I was excited to put all of this to a test and finally see it for myself.

[B]

So tell me what you wear on your eyes. Can I see what you wear on your eyes?

[A]

Let's have one of these guys over here try it on. I grabbed Colm, one of our English crew members, to try on the blindfold.

[C]

I cannot see anything.

[A]

Okay, now put your head up. Like, look at the ceiling. Can you see through the bottom of it?

[C]

No, I can see nothing.

[A]

Okay, and are these the ones that all of you wear as well?

[B]

Uh huh.

[A]

Hey. Okay, can you give that to my dad? He's gonna look through it. And dad, can you please explain for the camera what you have in your hand and if you can see through it?

[C]

I've got a blindfold, and it's got foam rubber, so it conforms to the face. You can't get light through it. And I've tried it. I can't see up or down or sideways.

[A]

There's no light at all.

[C]

So this is a remarkably effective blindfold.

[A]

So, Finley, let's put a blindfold on you. Okay? Here we go. Okay, Is that pretty secure, huh? All right, Selma. And then we're going to put one on you as well, okay? Yeah. Okay, good. What do you want to show us first? Should we pick up a book?

[C]

Sure.

[A]

Both kids are blindfolded, and I grab a random book from the many in the room. Selma, tell me what I'm pointing at. Right here on this page.

[B]

I'm an octopus. Octopus.

[A]

Wow. I wanted to quickly hold up another visual cue in a different area of their field of vision to see what happens. So I held up two fingers and then, Selma, how many fingers am I holding up?

[B]

10.

[A]

Good. And Finley, we flip to another page and point to a dolphin. Finley, tell me what's on this page here.

[B]

A dolphin.

[A]

Dolphin. Good. I then held out three fingers toward the side of Finley's field of vision. Finley, how many fingers do I have up right now? 3. Great job, Finley. Mara, the youngest, who's about 6, is blindfolded and ready to go. So even though she hasn't spoken yet, I try to bring her into our game. All right, Mara, this is really, really tiny. Tell me if you can see this, what I'm pointing to right here. I point to a tiny little crab on the page.

[B]

Crab, Crab.

[A]

Wow. Very good. Okay, let's have my dad come in and we'll get some more books. My dad picked out a new book for them to read while blindfolded and hands it to the three blindfolded kids all sitting in a line on the couch. And Finley begins.

[B]

Ms. Lollipop said, they're there. I didn't get. I didn't get a present. The tearful tiger sighed.

[A]

Then Selma took the book and flipped to a new page.

[B]

Ms. Lollipop said, Cheer up. We'll go for a birthday ride.

[A]

They started reading a book together, switching off by page. What was really remarkable was how Finley was reading. He would hold the book to the side of his head in a direction that human eyes physically can't see, and he said it was easier for him to read a book that way.

[B]

I've seen many other kids, they don't see from the same direction where the eyes are.

[A]

This is Paula, who's Mara and Selma's mother. She was so astounded by what her daughters have accomplished in Nicola's training that she herself has gone through the training and has taught many other kids to do this.

[B]

The eyes are closed. They're not seen through the blindfold, but also they're not seen necessarily from here.

[A]

She holds her left hand toward the back of her head, almost behind her shoulder, where eyes, like, literally could never see. Here's Nicola jumping in.

[B]

I taught a girl who held the book behind her head. They can develop 360 degree vision as well.

[A]

By the end of this episode, you'll hear this from teachers and students that their vision starts small, almost like a pinhole. And many programs that teach mindsight often call this a window. And the windows tend to get bigger and bigger until they combine and even expand to give someone panoramic or 360° like vision. Okay, should we go outside and play tag and get some wiggles out? The kids then went out into the garden and started playing with a ball, playing tag all while blindfolded. And eventually we put memory game cards in the grass and asked them to identify or match pictures. Can you pick up all of the ladybugs Wow. I was constantly looking around each student's head for a hole or crack or a way they could be seeing. And a few times the blindfold did drift a touch, and I was concerned the child could peek underneath it. But when we'd push it back down, they'd just keep on going with whatever they were doing. All right, now how about the dolphin? Yeah, that was it. You're doing great. At the end of the day, I asked my dad what he saw and if he thought this was legitimate. For most of my life, I've been.

[C]

Skeptical of things like seeing with a blindfold on. What I saw today is children wearing these blindfolds who've been able to play.

[A]

Catch, play tag.

[C]

Make a jigsaw, puzzle, draw, identify things pointed out in the book. Colors, shapes, objects.

[A]

And we'll put all these videos up on our supercast channel and some on our YouTube channel in the new year.

[C]

So it's just almost incomprehensible that these kids can do what they do. But I've seen it with my own eyes and they do it. It's just an amazing thing. I tried various tests myself. I held up fingers, held up numbers, and so nobody's telling me what to do. I'm doing it myself.

[A]

And the kids responded with accuracy.

[C]

And I think the accuracy is probably 100%. Sometimes they'd have five fingers and they'd say six. No, no, no, it's five. So the kids would correct themselves if they had a wrong direction in what they were saying. The whole thing is inexplicable. It's amazing and it's real.

[A]

While with Nicola, I asked her to briefly describe some of the tenets of the program and how it works.

[B]

We never ask the children questions and we try to bypass the left brain as much as we possibly can so that they're functioning in their right brain.

[A]

She described that generally the left side of the brain is known for being logical and analytical, while the right side of the brain is responsible for things like creativity and intuition. At the ICU school, they prefer to train children under the age of 12 because this is the time in the child's life when the left brain hasn't fully kicked in yet. So essentially, it sounds like her training is designed to quiet the part of your brain that would question or maybe even criticize the right brain's free flowing nature.

[B]

So we don't ask questions, we never say no to the children because as a child hears the word no, they're instantly shut down. And in fact, we don't even Say yes to them either. So we're constantly praising them for a whole hour during the session because the praise, it's like you can see them sort of puffing up their feathers and it's like, wow, this is so amazing. I'm getting praise. And the one to one attention is incredible.

[A]

So how do you communicate with them? Or have them tell you what they're looking at if you can't ask the question?

[B]

So instead of asking how, why, where or when, we'll say, tell me, show me, explain to me, point to that color, show me where it is on the page. It's stimulating them to react, to respond to what we're doing. Without that left brain activation, it works really well. And in fact, you know, I encourage the teachers to do it in their everyday life as well. We try and avoid the children being around skeptical people because that can really have a profound effect on them.

[A]

The idea of skepticism impacting someone's ability to perform may seem overly convenient, but it echoes what many of the non speakers from season one said time and time again. They noted that someone's negative energy or negative thoughts can cause energetic friction and become distracting, making concentrating on a task or demonstrating PSI or ESP abilities more difficult.

[B]

We had a brother and a sister that were going through the program and the father was a complete skeptic. He was an academic and you know, everything in his world was logical and analytical. And he took his daughter to one of her sessions. And we never have the parents in the room working with the teacher and the child. So he was sat in a room behind, but there was glass doors between the two of them. And the little girl was sitting there reading her book. And the teacher was facilitating and guiding her and everything. And the father walked towards the room, he became really curious and he put his hand on the door handle and instantly the little girl said, my vision's gone. And when the teacher saw him standing at the door, she beckoned him to move away. And as he took his hand off the door handle, her vision came back.

[A]

So what do you think is going on there?

[B]

I think that the energy is so fine and in such a high frequency that they're working in. Anybody who comes close, who brings that energy down, the children can lose their vision. It's definitely non physical because their eyes are completely blacked out. People have tried the blindfolds on, you can't see anything through them, not a speck of light. So when we take them through the program, they go through this activation process where literally we're getting them to Bring the light out of their heart. So that light, they then spread it out personally. Whether you want to call it consciousness, whether you want to call it insight, whether you want to call it spirit, they're seeing with an extra vision that is not coming through their eyes. And you witnessed the kids that they see from one side or the other.

[A]

She's referring to what we saw earlier, when some of the students appear to be looking out of a different area of their body, so not straight ahead.

[B]

So for me, it's the angle of the vision, so through their consciousness that directs them in that way that they need to see. So we call it out of consciousness. And that's why when a child can read blindfolded, we call it conscious seeing. Their awareness is fully present. They are fully present. Their spirit, their energy is fully present.

[A]

While in England, I was able to talk to Finley's teacher, Anna, who originally taught him to, quote, unquote, see.

[B]

I'd done the ITU training with Nicola about 18 months ago. My first case study was Finley, and I was pretty nervous to start off with, because you doubt yourself, and there's lots of things to remember, really. But he started to see on the first session, I'm certainly seeing colors. And by the second session, he was onto the shapes. And then he just announced, well, that's easy, because I can read what it is because it says it underneath. So I was pretty blown away by that. And then you've got boredom, freezing, and. And he wanted to go outside and play football. And when we went outside, he could see about 500 meters away with a mask on into we've got a Christmas tree farm. And he said, there's something red in the trees. So I walked him down there, and sure enough, there was a red bike in the trees. So it's like, wow, you can see further than I can see with my eyes. I've taught about 17 children. Therefore, the changes in their life is phenomenal. It seems to open other doors. It certainly has done with Finley, but also a few other children as well. I've noticed, you know, they've become that they don't know what telepathy means or being psychic, but they certainly seem to be using those sort of things.

[A]

And here's where things start to really expand. Nikola's program is far from the only one. All around the world, similar trainings exist. Thousands of miles away in India, children are also being trained to see through a blindfold, but often with different techniques and sometimes even different philosophies, but they still get the same result.

[B]

Hi, my name is Mala Sundarasan and I stay in Bangalore, India in the International Art of Living Ashram, the International center, and I do a lot of work with children and teens.

[A]

Mala is the head of the Intuition Process, which is their version of Third Eye Academy at the Art of Living Foundation, a humanitarian and educational organization founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, also known as Guru Dev. Mala says that Intuition Process Training began in 2014.

[B]

We had heard about such programs for children where it is possible to really do a lot of so called magical things, but through delving deep into oneself. And he said it's, it's not so difficult if children could practice some of the meditations and some of the techniques and some of the breathing techniques that are there.

[A]

So Gurudev said that there's meditation and breathing exercises and if kids could be trained to do them, it could open up their greater potential.

[B]

So he had told us what to do, what kind of meditation, what breathing techniques, what to do with the kids. He said, go do this with the kids now. That was the base for us.

[A]

The breathing and meditation exercises Gurudev told them about had real results that they ended up formally putting into a structured program.

[B]

And then to our great surprise, after that, he went out and we made them do those things. And every kid is able to, you know, read the thought of the other person and we are like, what's happening here? Whoa. You know, it was an unbelievable moment for us and it really opened up our eyes from inside that anything is possible on this planet. It just needs someone to think about it and to say that it is possible.

[A]

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Go to quince.com tapes for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N C-E.com tapes to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com tapes. My team and I paid a visit to the Art of Living Foundation. Its headquarters are in India, but we visited them at their local LA building where many children are taught the Intuition Process or mindsight. We walked into a large space that felt like a church where several students had flown in to meet us. I had my producer Katherine with me, a cameraman, and even some of our film investors who were eager to get a glimpse of some of the things we were doing on the ground. We first met Nysa and her teacher samya. Nysa is 15 years old. The intuition process will train children ages 6 to 18, but their approach is a bit different than Nicola's, leaning more on meditation and breathing exercises to help the children get in touch with themselves and their surroundings. Hi, I'm Nysa and I'm in 10th grade and I started doing it in 2018. So eight years ago we also met Samya, one of the experienced teachers there.

[B]

My name is Samya, I'm a pediatrician as well as an Art of Living Intuition Process trainer. I have been working with Nysa and many other children like her for over last 10 years as well. So first thing we're going to do is Nysa is going to actually wear a blindfold. Wearing a blindfold allows us to see that we are doing these things and knowing things without using our senses. We have this blindfold, which is designed specifically for children, and it has a lot of padding underneath and on top, which makes sure that no light is coming through. But still, for the process of the demonstration today, Nysa is also wearing eye patches to make sure that there is absolutely no light coming through to her eyes.

[A]

And on top of that, Nysa had taped large band aids over her eyes and under the blindfold to ensure there could be no cheating happening.

[B]

So the first thing we're gonna do is we have this bunch of Uno cards. I'm gonna spread them out on the table right here. I'll invite anybody here to say a card, and then Nysa is going to pick that one from the table.

[A]

I chose a yellow two and handed it to Nysa, and she does not look in the direction of the card. Yellow two, good.

[B]

That is correct.

[A]

And what about this one?

[B]

You can hand it to her.

[A]

I hand her a red Uno card with the skip symbol. And if you haven't played Uno, it's like a white circle with a line through it, meaning your turn is skipped.

[B]

Red skip. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, it is correct. Good.

[A]

Our producer Katherine, then grabbed a random book, opened to a page, and pointed to a line for Nysa to read. And again, Nysa's physical eyes don't seem to be looking in the direction of the book.

[C]

To consume bananas.

[B]

That are green or don't have any spots yet. Catherine, you want to read it? Yeah.

[A]

Try not to consume bananas that are green or don't have any spots yet.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Good job. Even though she had taped bandages over her eyes and a blindfold on, she could do any task we threw her way, whether it was reading, copying images, selecting cards. It was so unbelievable that at some point, we even checked her ears to make sure there was no walkie or audio device in them. My team and I drew different drawings while she was blindfolded, and she copied them with almost exact precision. Nysa was able to even identify energetically which one of us drew which picture, something that she'd never even tried before, and she was accurate. Do you think you'd be able to tell who drew that one?

[B]

I'm not sure. Let's try. Okay. Okay. I think this person enjoyed it.

[A]

I do.

[B]

Yeah, that's correct. Nice job.

[A]

Nysa, you mentioned you could feel the things that you're putting your attention on. Can you see it visually, or are you feeling it like. Can you explain what it's like?

[B]

When I feel it, it's like the Thing that I'm kind of, like, feeling or holding, the image pops up into my brain.

[A]

So it helps to actually touch it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you were around a room of.

[B]

People who didn't believe in you are.

[A]

Really skeptical people, does it diminish your ability to do it at all, or does it not matter?

[B]

No, it doesn't really matter. Like, I don't try to force, like.

[A]

The idea of intuition on, like, people.

[B]

That don't believe it. That's why they got a school. I just tell the people that I know, like, will understand it, and they actually take it seriously. I don't. Yeah, but it doesn't, like, actually affect my abilities.

[A]

This is unusual and different from what Nicola in England had said about negative, doubtful energy affecting the ability to perform. And when I contemplated this, I thought about teaching my own kids new skills. We shower them with positive thinking. Because if someone tells you over and over again, you won't be able to do it, or you can't do it, or it's impossible, the mind tends to believe it. Belief in something often works hard enough for it to become true. But the more confident you get in something and the more you know you can do it, that doubt wanes. And Nysa has been doing this for almost eight years. She's older, more mature, and way more confident in her ability. However, one thing that was very unusual is Nysa said this skill becomes increasingly more difficult as she gets older.

[B]

I feel like it just like, as age went on, like, it kind of, like, got harder.

[A]

Why do you think that is?

[B]

I feel like even doing the process every day, the school system kind of made me trust my logic more than my senses. Yeah.

[A]

Do you think it heightens any other abilities?

[B]

Yeah. Academic, emotional, my, like, relationship with myself, others, I'm more easygoing. Yeah. It helps me every single aspect of life. I don't second guess myself once I make decisions.

[A]

Nysa is basically talking about trusting her intuition, something people often have a hard time naming, let alone doing. That's part of what's so fascinating about what they're teaching here. They seem to be connected more deeply to themselves, which in turn allows them to more deeply connect with the world around them. We next met two sisters who are older and more advanced in their mindsight practice. They showed us the many things they can do while blindfolded, like play video games, draw, read, and identify objects. But their practice has advanced well beyond just seeing without their physical eyes into a heightened level of intuition, even turning on gifts of ESP, or extrasensory perception.

[B]

So my name is Duany. I'm 22. I live in Toronto, Canada. My name is Nidhi. I'm 17. I also live in Toronto, Canada. If we're talking about the intuition process, we did it 10 years ago.

[A]

And do you feel like from when you started to now have your abilities heightened or lessened or changed in any way?

[B]

I think our practice has been very regular over the years, so we haven't really changed much. Our abilities haven't changed much. We've enhanced them with our practice, that's for sure.

[A]

And how. So, like, what if you were to talk to someone who knows nothing about this? Where would you say you've started and where are you now?

[B]

It's kind of hard to say because I feel like there is really no end to enhancing your abilities ever. But when we started, we were able to do basic things like coloring or, like, reading. Blindfold. Yeah, reading. Identifying colors. But then slowly, as we started practicing more and more, we were able to help find missing people and things. Make objects. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, wow. Okay. So kind of like remote viewing, like you can find where people are.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Devani and Nidhi's practice has taken them to new places where their intuition and abilities go beyond the physical in front of them. Since they've learned to trust themselves, they've expanded into other gifts like clairvoyance. And they seem very nonchalant about the whole thing. But to me, this was such a revelation regarding why this type of thing could be important, especially in terms of teaching kids early. And that's intuition. Like, when you are finding someone, how does that work? Do you see, like, a coordinate or.

[B]

Do you just know where they're at?

[A]

Like, explain that.

[B]

So we close our eyes, and we can kind of see where they're sitting or what's around them or the path that they were walking before they got lost. And then if we can see a restaurant near them or if we can read something that's nearby, we can try to identify by that. Okay, yeah, they're by this restaurant, or they were sitting in this car when they got lost. When you're doing that, will you see.

[A]

It in the past? Like, this is where they were, or this is where they're at right now, or this is where they're going. Like, how does that work with time?

[B]

So we can kind of see, like, a video of them walking out of their house. And then two, they walked here and now they're here. Or they stopped here in the middle, or they ate this or they met with this person. We see, like, landmarks or things that are really famous in the area and then we're able to help people by that. It all just depends. Like it just comes to us. So it's really no way of really being like okay this is going to come to us or this won't come to us. It just happens naturally. Right.

[A]

And sometimes it probably won't. Right. Like you can't force sounds like correct.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Devani and Nidhi went on to describe a remarkable story of when their family friend was sick and from an entirely different country. They sensed the urgency of his condition and insisted that he go to the hospital.

[B]

So one of her family friends, he wasn't feeling well and like Nidhi and I were like okay you need to go to the ER right now.

[C]

It happened on a Sunday. I was feeling pain in my left shoulder.

[A]

That's Nidhi and Devani's family friend Ashutosh recounting what happened to him in 2024.

[C]

Sunday whole day passed, Monday passed.

[A]

Ashutash chalked it up to a pulled muscle and didn't think anything serious was going on.

[C]

I laugh at myself that why did I think that this is a simple muscle catch or muscle pull or what have you. And that's what I believed. I was thinking that no, no, no, it'll subside.

[A]

But his pain didn't subside that day and the family grew increasingly concerned.

[C]

Tuesday morning we went to see a walk in clinic where there is a doctor and the doctor also confirmed that no it's just a muscle catch. My wife asked should we not go to the emergency and the doctor said no no need, just take an Advil or what have you.

[B]

We came home.

[A]

Ashutas knew about Devani and Nidhi's training and trusted their intuition based on past experience. So they gave the girls a call.

[B]

In the most respectful way possible. I deeply felt that he shouldn't listen to the doctor. I had a sense of panic and they called an ambulance and thank God they came in time. And it turns out like he had a 72 hour heart attack and he could have passed away if he didn't.

[A]

Go to the hospital.

[C]

There was a full blockage in one of my arteries.

[B]

Like he could have, he would have not made it.

[A]

So if a middle aged man is having chest pain it's not uncommon to suggest they go to a doctor. You know what made this different for you?

[B]

It was like a really really clear knowing. It's like if I said to you right now my hair is orange you would say no it's not. I could see it's black or brown. It's just I knew from the inside, like he said. The doctor said I could stay at home and rest, and I knew from the inside, no, you cannot. You should be at the hospital right now getting treatment.

[A]

And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. We heard from a neuroscientist about instances where individuals who were born blind are establishing fields of vision through mindsight training, or as they would call it, extraocular training. I was pointed in the direction of a man named John, who was born blind, but has been working with a mindsight teacher to establish a field of vision.

[C]

My name is John Herzog, and I am a person who has been legally blind since birth.

[A]

So, as a legally blind person, I'm so curious about your journey establishing vision through mindsight.

[C]

In truth, it actually started with my father because he has always encouraged us growing up to have open minds, and if we don't know about something, ask questions about it. And so one day he told me about a documentary he had watched showing children who were practicing the ability to see without their eyes. They made a claim that we have the capacity to see with all the cells of our body. They mentioned a few teachers, one of whom was teaching a certain modality in the United States. I got in contact with them. I had an amazing experience where I was actually able, blindfolded, to see my own light. So when I held my hands in front of my face, I could see the light from my hands. And I also started getting really good at just intuitively knowing where objects were. I did that for about two years or so, and I kind of reached a plateau. I was able to generally tell where objects were, but I wasn't really progressing past that point. I met with a lady who told me about a system called Vision without eyes, and they used a completely different, different modality to get people to open their mind. Site, as it was called.

[A]

John got in touch with the head of the program to pick his brain.

[C]

He said that he was not sure of what the results would be for a completely blind person who had never seen. The majority of people that he worked with were cited. I went to Vision Without Eyes in January of this year, 2025.

[A]

What really impressed John the most was that the trainer he was working with had total confidence that he could do this, that he could see even though he was blind.

[C]

She absolutely knew that it was possible for everybody to see with their mind's eye, and she exuded that level of confidence when she worked with me.

[A]

John noted that her confidence in his ability to learn to see even though he was blind helped him believe that he could. And just like the children you met in England, John was able to sense or quote, unquote, see objects more clearly when they were positioned in certain locations around his body.

[C]

She would find the areas where I was most sensitive, and then she would put the object near that area. So it might be the top of my head, it might be the side of my head, it might be the back of my head. And then she'd say, okay, your job is just to tell me when the object is up or down, when it's in or out of where you can feel it from. I started getting more and more accurate during our training session. And it wasn't until after our training exercise was over that she told me, hey, look, I'm standing behind you. You would not have been able to see this even if you were fully sighted. And I was blown away.

[A]

And so what does that feel like for you as a seeing person? It's so hard to even understand what that experience would be like.

[C]

During this training, they encourage you to tune into your body and your intuition and to pick up on any sensations that you might be getting. I continued to work with the other trainers in vision without eyes. So it transitioned from being able to feel generally where something was at or just get an intuitive sensation of something to then, if I really concentrated hard, being able to see, like, silhouettes and the outlines of the edges of objects.

[A]

So all of the ideas that you have about yourself and your world were built on the assumption that you'd never be able to see. And how has it changed your world and life now?

[C]

I do think it's liberating to be able to see things move. And that's pretty cool to be able to just reach my hand down and grab it directly. As I said to you earlier, I didn't initially see anything when I was in my blindfold, but yet I felt something. I clearly felt something when the yellow object was near my hand. And I felt it in a consistent and persistent way. And it was a way that I could understand because it was my sense of touch. Yellow would often tingle on the whole right side of my shoulder and my body. It would often be a warm sensation. So that was very moving. And it got even more moving because when new colors were introduced, like green, blue, red, each one of those had a persistent and consistent feeling about it. So, for example, red would tingle my palms, blue would tingle my elbow, orange would tingle my wrist. And it was so moving to think that a higher part of me not only knew what the colors were, but it knew how to communicate those to me in a way that I would understand it as a completely blind person. I had talked with an optometrist when I was about 12 or 13, and she had suggested that if the brain was not exposed to colors and shapes and things like this in a visual perspective by the age of 10 or so, it would be too late to learn it and to experience the opposite, to experience that I actually was learning it in my way. And not only that, but to experience the higher part of myself. Translating this seemingly unknowable, unperceivable thing into a method that I could perceive that that part was. I was just so emotional about it.

[A]

So, yeah, I mean, this is beautiful. And do you think this has to do with something scientific that we don't yet understand, or do you think it has to do with the higher self or soul? And if so, how is that higher self influencing you on this sort of, you know, plane of existence?

[C]

Well, I think that myself, my higher self would have to be. It's a part of myself that I am not fully aware of that would have to be involved. Because how else could it translate so reliably and consistently those colors and those shapes into something that I could understand? This whole experience has shown me that I, and frankly, you and everybody else, we are bigger than any thought or idea or story we could ever have about ourselves. Even the greatest ones, the grandest ones. What you have to do is you kind of have to let the universe let your higher self take over and show you how it wants to communicate with you. You have to show that you are open to the communication.

[A]

From the very beginning, I've seen the skepticism around this training. There's online videos debunking it or insisting it's all a trick. The people are simply peeking. And I don't doubt that deception may exist in some places, but there are things that just don't add up if we try to wave all of this away. First is an assumption that thousands of teachers, parents and children are lying and having met so many of them, that just doesn't track for me. And there's so many cases that don't fit the peaking narrative at all. People seeing from the sides or backs of their heads, and people like John, who've been blind since birth. I mean, how can you peek when you're blind? And he isn't the only blind person who reporting gaining vision by doing mindsight training.

[B]

The gold standard is blind people, right? If they've been able to be trained, which they have. We've been able to train these blind people to see using these methods, and it's impossible for them to cheat.

[A]

This is neuropsychologist Anne deselaer. This phenomenon recently caught her attention, and she started dedicating a lot of her time to researching what exactly is happening here.

[B]

I'm Dr. Ann Desolar. I'm a neuropsychologist. I'm based in New York City. I've been intrigued about the relationship between the brain and the mind and consciousness since I started meditating when I was 17.

[A]

Dr. Desolaar's dedication to understanding the mechanism behind this extraocular vision has led to a lot of preliminary testing. And I asked Dr. Desolaar what her take was on the claims that this can all be chalked up to cheating.

[B]

You know, I've definitely thought that all these people were cheating. And so as a scientist, I've really been trying to prove that they are cheating, and I can't yet. And so some of the questions that we've been asking is, you know, is this small amount of light getting in?

[A]

From a scientific standpoint, I guess the simplest hypothesis is that they're still receiving visual information through tiny leaks of light. And often teachers purposely allow some light in at the beginning of training. Teachers I've met say those small cracks of light often help children feel comfortable enough to transition to complete darkness.

[B]

It does help to start with a small amount of light coming in and then decrease that small amount of light to really nothing.

[A]

Dr. Desolaert's team has tested whether people can still do this when light is completely blocked, not just around the eyes, but around the entire face. Some researchers have even wondered whether light might be entering through the skin. So her goal was to eliminate every source of light.

[B]

We've used these shields that we've been putting over the masks to varying degrees. We've put patches and band aids over the eyes, and we've covered the noses. Put like band aids over the noses, too. These entire hoods over the head. And these have all been overcome to varying degrees. And here's the kicker. Even blind people.

[A]

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[C]

Just a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go visit with a young woman who had learned this process through the intuition process, which is affiliated with the Art of Living program. When I talked with her, she said she really hasn't been practicing that much. She meditates every day, but really only does the mindsight for demonstrations. I went and visited her at her house and we set up a whole testing procedure. We were there for quite a long time. So before we even got started with doing the testing, I did some baseline brain mapping. So It's a quantitative EEG with 19 channels to measure her brainwave activity. And we did baselines in several different conditions. So we did eyes closed. We did eyes open, and then probably the most valuable was doing it eyes open and having her look at the same kind of stimuli that she would be looking at with the blindfold on. And so I think that was a really important comparison because then we're comparing apples to apples in terms of what the task is. The only difference is the blindfold. So we got all these baselines. She put the blindfold on, inspected it again once it was on to see if there was any gaps around the edges at all. And anywhere there was even a slight gap, I stuck cotton balls in there as a way to block any possible light seepage. What was interesting is that the way that she does her mind sight most of the time is actually with her eyes closed. So her eyes are closed and the blindfolds on. So we started with that because that's what she's more familiar with, it's what she's more comfortable with. But the first test we did was with 15 playing cards. I would hand her a card, she would hold it up in front of her, just like she did during the baseline testing, and identify what it was. So we did 15 cards. She got them all right.

[A]

Jeff continued to run a series of tests with her, using a lot of items he brought himself as another control variable. When asked to identify objects, she got every single one correct. He spent hours on testing and had a lot of data to sort through. But he explained some of the preliminary findings.

[C]

There were some significant changes in her brainwave activity. And the biggest changes were really in the theta and alpha frequencies. The theta and the alpha increased dramatically, especially in the occipital lobe. And the occipital lobe is at the very back of the brain, and its primary responsibility is visual processing, the part.

[A]

Of the brain responsible for sight. What surprised Jeff is that the visual system lit up while she was quote, unquote, seeing in ways that shouldn't have been possible, as if the brain was receiving visual information even if the eyes weren't the ones bringing it in.

[C]

I did some more in depth analysis to look at all the different parts of the brain back there involved in visual processing, and all of them lit up the same way. Why would the alpha and the theta increase so dramatically, especially in the back of the head? It's common for alpha to be really strong in the back of the head when our eyes are closed and we're resting. But remember, the eyes are open in both of these circumstances. Another aspect of alpha that's important is this sort of inhibition process. So part of what alpha does is filters information. But then theta. Theta is even more interesting because theta is a really slow brainwave. And again, it was in the same spot in the back of the head. And so one idea that we have is that maybe what's happening is that she's actually not using the eyes to pick up this information, but somehow she's getting this information, and the brain is still translating it. It's still turning it into a visual image. And so it makes sense that it's showing up in the occipital lobe. And it may be using theta as a way to essentially integrate and facilitate the development of that image.

[A]

Brain imaging can't tell us how information is entering the system or even whether it truly is, but it can tell us how the brain behaves during the Experience, and that's interesting. Dr. Anne Deselaer, the neuropsychologist you met earlier, has been studying these mechanisms as well.

[B]

So we put EEGs on kiddos. We're seeing electrical activity in their brains that are similar to what happens when they see things without the blindfold, which is so cool. So the visual cortex is kind of lit up, and then it may also have to do with alpha crane waves mid brain activation. There may be photoreceptors in the skin.

[A]

Some researchers are exploring whether the body may sense light in more ways than we've previously understood. We already know that the skin contains light sensitive molecules that respond to illumination. That doesn't mean that the skin sees the way eyes do. But vision is ultimately processed in the brain, and we're likely still learning different kinds of information the brain can receive.

[B]

I mean, think about our cell phones. They receive data through these invisible cell phone waves. And we believe that, but we don't believe that there may be other ways we can receive information. Perhaps we're picking up on signals that we haven't been able to measure and maybe deliver through fields that we haven't discovered yet. Dr. Ben Kilmendy at Yale, he hypothesizes that, you know, potentially it's due to a reorganization of the neuronal network. So if you think about our visual system, it's become inundated with information, almost 100 gigabytes of data a day. And when this stimulus is taken away, the brain may search to fill that input through other senses.

[A]

And this connects back to an idea we've talked about throughout this series. The possibility that the brain may not just create experience, but also filter it. If that's true, then what we normally call reality may only be a narrow slice of what we're capable of perceiving. When one channel gets quiet, like vision through the eyes, it may allow other pathways to open in ways we're only beginning to explore.

[B]

It might be a combination of all of these things and we really can't measure it yet. But the important part is that there's more than meets the eye, no pun intended. But we're capable of sensing these sort of things and training this skill. And I just wonder what else there is that we're not sensing and that we can train.

[A]

Anne's question is a big one. If this is a trainable skill, then what else could we learn to access? And in some parts of the world, that question is not theoretical. In China, large scale programs are actively teaching children to develop mindsight, not as a Curiosity, but as a real trainable human ability.

[C]

Many parents send our children to those training facilities as extra curricular activity with the aim actually to mainly to boost that school performance.

[A]

Dr. Simon Duan, a Cambridge trained material scientist and founder of the medicompeutics labs, said that hundreds of schools teaching this form of perception exist all over China. And the country has been taking mindsight seriously since the 70s. And the interest actually started with one boy.

[C]

The story actually started in 1979. A boy was discovered. We call it ear sight. So basically people write a character, write a word and put in a piece of paper and they gave to him. He can put in his ears, then he can tell you what's written in a piece of paper.

[A]

He's referring to the case of an 11 year old boy named Tang Yu who was said to be able to identify written characters placed inside of his ear.

[C]

This phenomenon triggered wide range of interest all over China. Many kids have been discovered they can do the same. They can put the piece of paper with the written characters into different parts of the body, such as in the armpits.

[A]

So in China, they were saying you could write a symbol on a piece of paper, give it to a child who would then touch it to their ear or their foot or even under their armpit and they could read it.

[C]

They can manage to work out what's written in that piece of paper. Then this started interest from research institutes, universities.

[A]

A 1992 Chinese study described experiments at Hangzhou University where children were trained to read with their ear, meaning they were instructed to concentrate and attempt visual perception through a non visual channel. And in this study, over a thousand students were trained to do this. And researchers reported that a significant subset appeared able to correctly identify written information placed near the ear at rates above chance. Some deemed the work controversial, but there was enough in it that the US intelligence agencies took the myriad of reports coming out of China seriously enough to investigate them. These reports became a body of material that was collected by the CIA and included in an analysis of human perception and cognition. The release documents note that these demonstrations and the schools where they were being taught should not be dismissed out of hand. And that the phenomenon warranted further attention.

[C]

That's how I got into Chinese psychical research circle. I learned a lot of things about what's happening behind the scenes.

[A]

And Dr. Duan's experience behind the scenes indicates that China has invested far more time and resources into cultivating these abilities in children than most countries ever have.

[C]

There's a lot of kids come through at the beginning the kids are trained to sense the color of cards without looking at them. You can blindfold them, but they can develop this ability by touching the cards or smell the card or listen to the card. So it's very strange, but it works.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

All the cards are made from the same amount of paper, but they can manage to figure out what the color of the card is. But this is only the beginning.

[A]

This is how much of the mindsight training in the west begins as well. Identifying colors of cards.

[C]

Then they gradually develop that mind vision. Those colors appear as a vision, as a color in their mind. Yeah. But the mind vision become further developed once that happen. They can recognize the writing on a piece of paper. You write something on a piece of paper, you fold it many times, you give to the kids, and the kids are able to have that information displayed in their mind vision.

[A]

So this is taking mindsight beyond identifying colors or shapes into the ability to perceive written information sealed away from physical sight entirely.

[C]

When the mind vision becomes clearer, become more stable, they are able to store information in their mind vision, like a photograph. They can just scan a page of book. Then the information is in their mind vision as a scan when you use the computer scanner. So it's not memory. We sometimes call it the photograph of memory, but it's actually a storage. With this storage, you can actually read the text backwards. The next stage is that they can just flip the book, get all the pages into their mind in seconds. Yeah, yeah. No matter how thick the book is, you just flipped the book, all the pages, information get through their mind.

[A]

In these schools, mindsight doesn't end when you can see with a blindfold on. For some students, it evolves into being able to rapidly scan pages and in some cases, entire books, storing them mentally as if they've been photographed.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

If you ask them what's the content in page 13, for example, they can read out for you. And the next stage is actually they can gather information remotely.

[A]

I love this conversation because Simon is actually laying out a map of where these skills can go and how they can be built upon.

[C]

It's not just the imagination. It's not just the hallucination. It actually works.

[A]

And when I asked Simon how many schools he thinks are teaching this in China, he said thousands. It's not fringe.

[C]

But in China, there are tens of thousands of schools. It's everywhere.

[A]

Tens of thousands of students are learning this in China. That alone should make the most skeptical among us sit up. Because if other countries are leaning into what they see as the next horizon of Human potential, then blind skepticism isn't just doubt, it could actually become a liability.

[C]

The training of children to quite sizability has boomed as more and more training facilities popping up everywhere. Many parents send their children to those training facilities with the aim to boost their school performance.

[A]

So while some people and even countries like China invest in these skills, train and expand what they believe is possible, nations and people who dismiss this outright may one day find themselves left behind. While others leap forward. Children with supernatural abilities often find significant benefits in their academic studies and many aspects of daily life. They tend to find learning easy and enjoyable, experience frequent inspiration, and maintain good interpersonal relationships. This is Danny Lee, a head teacher from one of these many schools in China. And teacher Li notes that an entire ecosystem of training has been established, including teachers who master these skills themselves. And here's her words through an English translator. In mainland China, extrasensory perception training serves as the foundation for all supernatural abilities. The instructors themselves must possess a certain foundation in actual sensory perception to better understand and comprehend this field and continuously enhance the children's ability. And though all teachers have their own way of training, Dani says she rarely uses blindfolds when she begins with new students. I actually rarely have children wear blindfolds or eye masks in my teaching. I usually have them close their eyes or keep them open while placing the playing cards or color cards where they cannot see them. For example, place the playing cards face down on the table and have the children sense them without touching the cards. From the very beginning of training, strict measures are taken to prevent cheating, ensuring the development of genuine abilities. If China is already training children to develop these capacities, to me, it's a bit of a silent verification. And maybe the effort shouldn't be trying to prove this is real, but encouraging as many people out there to explore it for themselves. And that became true for me as well. I wanted to see if my own kids could learn. So I turned back to Ann desolar for her guidance. She was a scientist who originally set out to test whether mindsight was even real. She began as a skeptic, but after research, repeated testing, and results she couldn't dismiss, Ann now believes that this is a genuine trainable ability. She's founded an organization called mindsea to not just continue research, but to train kids. And she's developed a curriculum to teach it responsibly. And though many schools and teachers who teach mindsight say it takes weeks or even months to learn, Ann says that she can often have children seeing with a blindfold on within hours or even days. So I asked her if she'd come to our telepathy tape studio and teach my own kids, who are ages 6 and 11. And to me, they felt like the best candidates to test this out for this episode because they're brutally honest and don't tolerate any bs. In fact, when my son went through the wand shop at Harry Potter World and realized the magic was just animatronics, he started yelling at the top of his lungs, it's a scam. And marched out of the building screaming at employees for trying to trick him. And when my daughter overheard an interview I did about near death experiences, she quietly said to me, mom, that's really hard to believe. So my kids are not ones to just fall in line or be polite. Ann starts by guiding them through simple meditation exercises, helping their bodies settle and their minds grow quiet, creating a state of openness before anything else happens. She also did some ocular exercises, having them kind of look in different directions to get them familiar with their eye muscles.

[B]

We're going to do some more of that meditation that we were doing earlier, and we're going to do some deep breathing and really slowly open up those windows.

[A]

We mentioned this earlier, but Ann and others refer to the visual field while blindfolded as mental windows. So when she says your windows are opening, she means the area around your head where you're picking up the visual information. And like we talked about, it's different for everyone. For some, it's on the side of the head or the front or even completely behind the head.

[B]

A fun job today is to look at those windows. And the reason why we call that mindsee is because your mind sees it. And like I said, it's not magic, it's a muscle. So we're just here to strengthen that muscle. And we have to remember that your c and you're loved. And the most important thing is to remember that you can do this. And if you can do something that you thought was impossible, what else can you do?

[A]

She started the training with color cards and color pieces of paper.

[B]

So we're gonna start with some colors. So I'm going to give you a piece of paper.

[A]

She gave my son a piece of paper, and he was able to identify the color almost immediately.

[B]

I'd like you to hold it and get to know it. And what color do you think it could be?

[A]

My son seemed to pick it up very quickly. And like I said earlier, anyone who's met him knows how passionately angry he gets if he's being deceived, misled, tricked or made a fool.

[B]

All right, now I'm going to give you another one.

[A]

She then holds up a very tough color to see. Black and then green. And he got them both right.

[B]

A black, black Richard. So now what's happening? So I'm holding this piece of paper. You're not even touching it, and you're still getting it. Green.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yes. Great job.

[A]

And then one after another.

[B]

How about this one? One. Yeah. Good job, buddy. This one? Nope.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Yippee. You're doing it.

[A]

Yay.

[B]

I cannot believe you're doing it. He's amazing. He's so amazing. Queen. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I love how fast you are at this.

[A]

I can't believe it.

[B]

Now, remember, the most important thing is to know that you can do this and to have fun with it. Right.

[A]

You know, that makes me think, August, that you really believed that you could do it. My daughter is a bit older, and it took longer for her windows to open, but once they did, she was in a total flow state. And something I found interesting is there's such a playful nature to this and describes it as being joyful and playful with the universe because it wants to show itself to you.

[B]

There we go.

[A]

Purple. Yeah. It's very good. Very good.

[B]

Life, man. Things just go much better, right? Orange. Yes. That's excellent. Nice. Pink. Yes. Oh, good God.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Look at this girl. Yellow.

[A]

Very good.

[B]

So the important part now is to feel in your body when you're in flow like that and you're doing one after the other. That's what being in flow really is.

[A]

But when you got it wrong, which is gonna happen, did that, like. And then you start getting it right. Could you see it more clearly or what happened? I don't know.

[B]

But the colors were more like vivint and bright than before. They were more like, vivid. Yeah. Can you touch on your mask where it's coming in? I want to see that, too.

[A]

Hold on. Yeah. She pointed to two areas on her mask where she said her windows were forming. One was over her right eye, and one was higher up on the left side of the mask. So that's where it's coming in. Is it coming on both sides or one side stronger?

[B]

This side's stronger.

[A]

Is it on both sides?

[B]

Okay. And when it first came in, was it small, and now is it getting bigger? They're kind of.

[A]

This one's bigger than this one, but.

[B]

They'Ve stayed the same size. Okay, good. Now our jaw, then that's like we say, that's a muscle. So our job is to Strengthen that and to make it bigger. And then before you know it, you're. You're going to be, like, seeing way up here and seeing down here, and you're going to be seeing all around you. So you can start walking and doing stuff like that. So right now, it's a small window, but it's open.

[A]

It was remarkable to watch, and my podcast team was there as it unfolded. They immediately questioned whether small leaks of light around the mask might be able to explain how my kids were interpreting colors. That is a fair concern, but even if that could be explained away by light, it doesn't account for what happened at the end of their sessions when they were identifying words and numbers, letters and pictures, all with a blindfold on. Anne, who's an incredible teacher, offered to keep working with my kids once a week over Zoom. They can both now read through a blindfold.

[B]

How about this? A scientist with glasses and two specks of hair.

[A]

And one of the most convincing moments to me was when my son was reading UNO cards that Ann was holding up over Zoom. Ann's image was pinned large in my screen, so the image of the UNO cards were taking up the entire laptop screen, and my son was naming each one accurately and quickly.

[B]

Let's try this one. A sweet yellow. Okay, how about this one?

[A]

Six red. He was nailing the UNO cards and weirdly, not even looking in the direction of the screen.

[C]

Four green.

[B]

Why did you do it backwards?

[A]

You know, it was upside down. And then my daughter accidentally touched the keyboard, and Ann's zoom window became super tiny at the top. Neither my daughter or I could see the zoom card she was holding up, which was one blue.

[B]

One blue.

[A]

There's nothing. Oh, it is a one blue. Do you know what's so weird about that? Ann Harlow changed the thing, and he became tiny on the screen.

[B]

1.

[A]

And when we asked him how it looked in that tiny window, he said the UNO card looked as big as all the others.

[B]

This is really amazing. Okay, I'm gonna give you harvin plus two blue. I think I got you on this one. A1.

[A]

You're not even looking at the screen. It was dumbfounding. And now he can read books while blindfolded. That Ann shows him over Zoom. And watching my kids do this made me really excited about the possibilities for all of us. But when we were wrapping up this episode, the only question still nagging at me was why this was a phenomenon just for the young, or could older brains learn it too? And then, within days of wrapping this episode, I received an email from Stephen May in the uk, who had just tried Mindsight with his father, John.

[C]

Hello, my name is John May and I was born in 1940.

[A]

Nice.

[C]

So that makes me almost 86.

[A]

Stephen, how did you come across mindsight and how did you explain it to your dad?

[C]

At first seen mindsight on a YouTube video. I'd heard that this sort of thing was possible with young people, but I didn't think it'd be possible with older people. So I pitched it to my dad, who was the most skeptical person I know of.

[A]

What were you thinking, John?

[C]

I didn't think it was actually possible. I was a skeptic. I thought to myself, it's one of his fads.

[A]

So they're on a road trip in Scotland, get to a hotel, and John asks his dad to lay down on the bed.

[C]

Bear in mind he's lying on a twin bed in a hotel room at this point. And I said, I want you to put on a blindfold.

[A]

And here's his dad, John, again.

[C]

He gave me this mask, which was like a blindfold really, but you couldn't see a thing. It didn't touch your eyes at all.

[A]

And here's Stephen.

[C]

And I said, I'm going to give you two objects and I want you to tell me which one you think is different. They were tea bag packets from a hotel room because I didn't prep what I was going to do. I just kind of hoped that I'd be able to do something. One was yellow, one was blue.

[A]

So I hand them to him and here's his dad.

[C]

So one was dark and one was light. I knew that the one in my right hand was either darker or it was lighter. And I didn't know how I was doing because I couldn't see a thing. There was about 15 things, I think, that he gave me that were all different. He said to me, dad, you got them all right. You got them all right. But I couldn't see a thing. All I could see was total blackness and I could feel these things in my hand. And I was saying, well, this one's darker than this one.

[A]

And here's the son, Stephen, again.

[C]

I recorded the whole thing because my cynicism and my skepticism was that my.

[B]

Dad would probably ask me at the.

[C]

End of it, well, were you lying, Stephen, or were you telling the truth? So what was amazing when we got to the end and I looked at the likelihood of getting a two question, two options right in a single question, 15 times out of 15, the odds were 32,768 to 1. When I sat back and said, right now, talk to me about each one of the selection, my dad said that he could see them. Yeah, I think I could see them. Although I couldn't physically see them. I saw them somehow in my brain.

[A]

And so, John, what do you think was happening? Like how that's possible now that you know you've done it with your skepticism?

[C]

Well, I really don't know whether it's a sixth sense you have. It was absolutely amazing to think that I could tell the difference even in the dark. And if people can wrap their head around that, there's. There's almost no training to do this is mind blowing. When you realize that you don't have to be a particular age to do it, it's like there's no skill involved. It's just put yourself in the play state, be open minded, lose your ego, and sense what you can't see.

[A]

There's more serious scientific work underway right now to understand what might be happening with mindsight and inside Anne's mind C community. There's a real urgency, a belief that this training could help people connect more deeply with themselves and maybe even help people who are blind navigate the world in new ways. And this all seems like just the beginning. The deeper people go into the training, the more they report other capacities awakening abilities they believe may have been dormant all along. You saw telepathic abilities opening up.

[B]

Opening up? Yeah, across the board. And it's not immediate. It's the telepathic ability that kind of comes down the road. So you kind of open up these windows and I think what you do is you give the kiddos the confidence that, okay, I'm receiving something else, I can then interpret that and then I can take that in and make decisions with that.

[A]

Here's Mala again, speaking to what she believes.

[B]

Intuition is perhaps the most common explanation that I can think of is I get a thought and it comes true later. You know, perhaps call it precognition. Right. But you are aware of something that's going to happen and it happens in the way that you got the thought. And if it doesn't happen, by definition, it's not intuition, it's just a thought. My understanding is it comes from the very being that we are the consciousness that we are in the. The big mind, the divinity within us, anything that you would like to call we are all connected, and that connection is where this happens. And if I am connected to every particle around and that gives me the ability to download the knowledge in that and that which is special in each one of us is the consciousness, whatever you call it, the big mind. Now intuition comes from that space of calmness when I can connect with it. And when I connect with it, it potentially knows everything. You can download anything and everything that is required in that moment. I think this is just like you said, like the tip of the iceberg. Like, okay, we close our eyes, we receive information, we don't know how or where it's coming from, but we're receiving so much more information. And the amazing part is we can't measure it yet. We don't know what the signal is. We don't know how the signal is being carried across through which dimension, but it's happening. And so it's indisputable. When you see this hundreds of times.

[A]

Ann, like so many others, suggests that this is not simply about seeing without your eyes. It's about opening another channel of perception, one that may allow us to achieve new heights in human potential, even if we don't yet have the tools to measure how.

[B]

So it's important to say, I think that this is more than just a party trick because we've talked to kiddos who've been doing this for over a decade and they say that the effects go beyond sight. They talk about intuition sharpening, they walk into a room and have this sense whether it's safe. They pick up on others intentions, they recall information almost effortlessly and. And some of these average kiddos even begin to display telepathic like skills. And so these are all abilities I wish for the next generation. If neurotypicals like ourselves, just average people, can experience firsthand that there's more than meets the eye, it just may create an awareness that there's more than the individual. We are all connected. And if we live our lives that way, would we treat each other better knowing it actually affects us? Because we are all connected. So I think for me it's not about having the answers, it's more about asking the questions. What else lays dormant within the average person waiting to be awakened?

[A]

When I step back and look at the journey we've been on together, it feels like a single question. Wearing many different costumes, we began with stories of non speakers who were able to read thoughts. And then we moved into near death experiences. Energy healing, telepathy with plants and animals, and even non local communication with those whose brains and bodies are slipping away with dementia. And now we ended with something that on the surface looks like a magic trick. Children and adults seeing the world around them without using their eyes. And if you look at any of these stories in isolation, it's easy to write them off. But taken together across cultures and ages and belief systems, a pattern starts to show itself again and again. People are bumping into evidence that some part of us can perceive, connect, and know in ways that do not seem limited to the five senses or even to the physical brain. And none of this is tidy science. Yet so many of these stories are anecdotal and live in hospital rooms and family kitchens. And that will be true before it lives in randomized control trials. But that's how so many things begin. Everything is hearsay until it isn't. First we have the lived experience, and only later do we build the language and tools to measure it. What feels most important for me to say at the end of this season is that this is not just about a handful of extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. Over and over, the people we've met are telling us that these are human capacities, not rare superpowers. They may be louder in some of us and quieter in others, but. But they belong to all of us. And so if the brain is not only a producer of consciousness, but also a filter, then we've barely begun to understand what it's filtering out. And we're not done. In January, we'll start releasing talk tracks every single week. And in spring we'll begin filming many of our conversations live in our studio, especially interviews with non speakers who are so eager to share who they are, what they experience, and answer the questions you've been sending to us on supercast. And then in season three, out next fall, will turn to an even deeper frontier, the question of what happens to consciousness when we leave this life and what may await us on the other side of it. We'll meet children who speak of places they've never been, families they've never met, and memories that do not seem to belong to this lifetime. And we'll try to understand what those stories might be telling us. Because if even a fraction of what you've heard this season is real, then the story isn't just that consciousness survives or that the mind can be meet at a distance. The real story is that we are more than we were taught to be. And some deep, ancient part of us already knows how to remember that. Thank you so much for joining us this season and we'll be back with new episodes of the Talk Tracks in January, starting with an amazing near death experience story. It takes a village to make this podcast, and I want to thank our producers, Jesse Steed, Jill Pichesnik, and Kathryn Ellis. A special thanks to our contributing producer, Anne desolar. Original music is by Rachel Cantu Mix Mastering and additional music is by Michael Rubino. Our associate producer is Selena Kennedy. Original artwork is by Ben Kendora Design and I'm Kai Dickens, your executive producer, writer and host.