The Telepathy Tapes is a podcast series by documentary filmmaker Ky Dickens that explores claims that certain nonspeaking autistic individuals possess telepathic abilities. The podcast, launched in September 2024, also covers claims of precognition and mediumship. The series became extremely popular in a short period of time, ranking for several weeks as the most-listened-to podcast in both the US and the UK.
The podcast has generated substantial controversy. Critics argue it promotes facilitated communication techniques that scientists have discredited and further contend that its paranormal claims lack adequate experimental controls. Defenders counter that it highlights emerging research that challenges longstanding assumptions about nonspeaking autism, also that dismissing it ignores both methodological improvements in alternative communication research and the documented reality of independent typing among many participants.
Contents
Background and Development
Before embarking on this project, Dickens had made several documentaries addressing social issues. Zero Weeks in 2017 examined paid family leave in America. Fish Out of Water from 2009 addressed LGBTQ rights and religious bigotry. Healthcare inequities were another focus of her documentary work. She attended Vanderbilt University where she earned degrees in communications, fine arts, and sociology, graduating magna cum laude. Several of her films have been screened at the White House, with others shown to Congress. She has received various awards including the Focus Award for Achievement in Directing and the Ford Foundation’s Change Maker Award.1Dickens (2024).
Personal experiences led Dickens to the project. Two close friends died. Her brother’s autism was an ongoing concern. She became interested in paranormal topics and started listening to podcasts like Cosmos in You. It was there she first heard Diane Hennacy Powell, a psychiatrist discussing telepathy in autistic individuals.2Jarry (2024). This led her to create a podcast on the topic.
Season One came out between September and December 2024 with ten main episodes, plus additional segments called ‘Talk Tracks’. Season Two began in 2025, expanding the scope significantly. It now covers Near-Death Experience (Overview) – Psi Encyclopedia, animal communication, plant intelligence, energy healing, and mediumship.3Dickens (2025). A third season will focus in particular on reincarnation, including statements made by very young children who claim to recall previous lives.
Key Figures
Diane Hennacy Powell
Diane Hennacy Powell is a psychiatrist who received neuroscience training at Johns Hopkins University. She also completed her medical degree there, as well as training in medicine, neurology, and psychiatry. According to her biographical materials she served on the Harvard Medical School faculty before subsequently joining the La Jolla Group for Understanding the Origin of Humans at the Salk Institute. This think tank included prominent neuroscientists and Nobel Prize winners among its members. She is a member of the Parapsychological Association, which has been affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1969. She authored The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena (2009).4Duggan (2020).
Powell’s research centers on what she describes as psi abilities in autistic savants. In 2013 she travelled to India in order to evaluate autistic savants whose parents reported telepathic and precognitive abilities. Between 2013 and 2018 she conducted tests with three children in the United States. She described these tests as controlled, though acknowledged that filming constraints created problems. The use of methods like Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) created additional limitations in the protocols.5Duggan (2020).
Powell retired from clinical psychiatric practice in 2024. This was in order to avoid potential conflicts with medical licensing boards and to focus on research full-time instead, she stated. According to her own account, her medical license had been suspended in 2014 following complaints about her ESP work. She states it was subsequently reinstated at the next board meeting.6Powell & Williams (2024).
Jeff Tarrant
Tarrant is a licensed psychologist with board certification in neurofeedback who directs the NeuroMeditation Institute. He founded Psychic Mind Science in Eugene, Oregon. His research examines brainwave patterns during meditation and altered states of consciousness, including claimed psi phenomena. His published works include two books: Meditation Interventions to Rewire the Brain (2017) and Becoming Psychic: Lessons from the Minds of Mediums, Healers, and Psychics (2023).7Duggan (2025).
For the podcast, Tarrant conducted electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings during the demonstrations. The observations convinced him the abilities were genuine. He also acknowledged the demonstrations were not formal experimental trials but rather characterized them as naturalistic case studies. These included some methodological safeguards such as randomization and stimulus blinding.8Tarrant (2025).
A 2025 Psychology Today article saw him defending his involvement in the project. Tarrant reported observing five nonspeaking autistic individuals who achieved what he characterized as near-perfect accuracy on telepathy tasks using randomly selected words and numbers. He maintained the observations warranted further investigation despite their preliminary nature.9Tarrant (2025).
Julia Mossbridge
Julia Mossbridge joined the project in mid-2025 as Human Potential Research Lead. She works alongside Tarrant as co-principal investigator. She is a Visiting Scholar in the Psychology Department at Northwestern University as well as a Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Her research addresses precognition and presentiment effects specifically. Her authored works include The Premonition Code: The Science of Precognition (2018) and Transcendent Mind: Re-thinking the Science of Consciousness, which she co-authored with others in the field.10Duggan (2020).
In parapsychology, Mossbridge investigates what researchers know as the presentiment effect, which she terms Anomalous Anticipatory Activity (AAA). Her work includes conducting meta-analyses on physiological anticipation of future events. She has also conducted smartphone-based psi testing with thousands of participants over time. The Parapsychological Association awarded her the Charles Honorton Integrative Contributions Award in 2015 for this body of work.11Duggan (2020).
Core Claims and Methodology
The Telepathy Tapes podcast presented several claims about nonspeaking autistic individuals. These included: telepathic communication (the ability to report information known only to another person); precognition (predicting future events or randomly selected targets before they occur); mediumship (communicating with deceased individuals); access to a shared psychic space that participants called ‘The Hill’; and what the podcast described as enhanced spiritual awareness.
The demonstrations typically worked as follows. A researcher would randomly select a target – typically a word, number, image or colour – and show it to just one person, a parent, teacher or other researcher. Without having seen it (since care had been taken to hide it), the nonspeaking individual would identify it using a letter board or typing device.
Powell described conducting tests with randomized stimuli and multiple witnesses present. She acknowledged that communication methods used in early experiments introduced the possibility of facilitator influence (see below). She further noted that filming constraints prevented what researchers would consider optimal experimental controls.12Powell & Williams (2024).
Tarrant presented his EEG recordings as evidence of neurological activity during the purported telepathic episodes. Interestingly, Dickens described one brain scan in the podcast as verifying telepathic ability; Powell herself later characterized that same scan as having failed.13Powell & Williams (2024).
Understanding Nonspeaking Autism and Motor Challenges
Central to the controversy is a fundamental disagreement about what nonspeaking autism represents. For much of the twentieth century, clinicians interpreted the inability to produce speech as evidence of profound intellectual disability—as cognitive deficit rather than as a motor or communication barrier specifically. Standard intelligence tests rely heavily on verbal or motor responses; these systematically underestimated the abilities of nonspeaking individuals. This led to widespread assumptions that they lacked the capacity for complex thought or self-awareness.14Courchesne et al. (2015).
Research over the past two decades has increasingly challenged this deficit model. Researchers now understand that many nonspeaking autistic individuals have apraxia – a neurological disorder affecting intentional movement and motor planning. This makes purposeful physical actions extremely difficult to execute even when cognitive understanding remains intact.15Mossbridge et al. (2025). The result is what researchers describe as an ‘intent-body disconnect’. The individual understands language, forms thoughts, and desires to communicate but cannot reliably control the motor movements required for speech or conventional communication. Individuals with full-body apraxia may appear socially unaware or behaviorally inappropriate, not because they lack social understanding, but because they cannot control their physical responses in the moment. This distinction between motor ability and cognitive capacity has profound implications for how clinicians understand and treat nonspeaking autism.16Mossbridge et al. (2025).
Alternative communication methods have emerged specifically to address this motor control challenge. These methods include rapid prompting method (RPM), spelling to communicate (S2C), and others, which aim to provide motor support while individuals learn to point to letters or type messages. Proponents argue that when practitioners give nonspeaking individuals appropriate motor support and presume them to be competent, many demonstrate sophisticated language comprehension and expressive capabilities, capabilities that standard assessments fail to capture.17Jaswal et al. (2026).
Connection to Facilitated Communication
The central controversy surrounding The Telepathy Tapes concerns its relationship to facilitated communication (FC). This technique emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In traditional FC, a facilitator provided physical support by touching the arm, hand, or wrist while a nonspeaking individual used a keyboard or letter board to communicate. Researchers conducting studies in the 1990s employed controlled testing protocols, particularly message-passing tests, to demonstrate that facilitators rather than the disabled individuals themselves authored the communications produced. In these studies, when experimenters showed information only to the nonspeaking person and hid it from the facilitator, accurate responses dropped to chance levels; conversely, when experimenters showed information only to the facilitator, responses often reflected the facilitator’s knowledge rather than any information the disabled individual could have accessed.18Mostert (2001).
These findings led multiple professional organizations to issue statements against FC. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association characterizes FC as discredited; it specifically warns against RPM due to lack of supporting evidence. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics have similarly published position statements against the use of these methods. A 2019 systematic review on RPM found no English-language peer-reviewed studies with participants who actually had official autism diagnoses.19Banajee et al. (2018).
Critics of The Telepathy Tapes argue that the podcast’s demonstrations used variants of FC, most notably S2C and RPM. While these methods typically did not involve direct physical contact in the traditional hand-over-hand sense, facilitators held letter boards that they could move. This movement could occur consciously or unconsciously to guide individual selections. Critics point to board positioning, body language, and pointing as subtle cues that could potentially influence the responses generated.20Jarry (2024)
The situation is more complex than a simple revival of discredited FC, however. Defenders of alternative communication methods contend that critics have over-interpreted the 1990s message-passing studies. The research demonstrated that facilitator influence can occur under certain conditions, not that it necessarily occurs in all cases or that independent authorship is impossible.21Jaswal et al. (2026).
They further argue that traditional message-passing tests operated with a presumption of incompetence. These tests required exact parroting of information without accommodation for the motor control challenges that make such repetition particularly difficult for individuals with apraxia.22Mossbridge et al. (2025).
Significantly, a substantial proportion of individuals featured in The Telepathy Tapes did not use traditional FC at all. According to Weiler and Woollacott’s analysis, nine participants typed directly into an iPad or QWERTY keyboard entirely on their own. They used no physical support whatsoever. Twelve participants trained in S2C spelled independently on letterboards without touch assistance. Only one participant required minimal physical support consisting of a light touch to regulate movement.23Weiler & Woollacott (2025) In these cases of independent typing, researchers can reasonably exclude the possibility of facilitator influence through physical guidance.
Questions about other forms of cueing through board positioning or other subtle signals remain subjects of debate. In some cases, eye-tracking research has provided additional evidence supporting the authenticity of authorship. Studies using letterboards have shown that nonspeaking autistic individuals consistently fixate on target letters before pointing to them. This demonstrates intentional selection patterns that researchers would find difficult to explain solely through facilitator control.24Jaswal et al. (2020). Critics respond that such studies have methodological limitations and do not adequately address the broader evidence base. Defenders maintain that the research warrants reconsideration of categorical dismissals of all alternative communication methods.
Recent work on message-passing test design has yielded more encouraging results. When researchers redesign tests to accommodate individual processing preferences, incorporate stimuli of interest to the participant, and avoid requiring exact verbal repetition, pass rates improve substantially. Research by Pavon (2023) found that most nonspeaking individuals with autism and severe apraxia demonstrated clear evidence of independent authorship. This occurred when researchers tested them under conditions that presumed competence and accommodated their specific communication needs.25Mossbridge et al. (2025).
Scientific and Sceptical Response
Formal Critiques
Psychologist Stuart Vyse published an analysis in Skeptical Inquirer characterizing the podcast as a dangerous cornucopia of pseudoscience’. Vyse noted that controlled tests of facilitated communication had consistently shown facilitators, not autistic individuals, to be producing the messages. The podcast omitted this entire research history. According to Vyse, researchers did not employ proper controls that would definitively establish authorship of the communications produced.26Vyse (2025a).
Molecular biologist Jonathan Jarry works at McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. He published a critique that identified specific instances of what appeared to be facilitator cueing in video demonstrations. In cases where mothers held letter boards, his visual analysis revealed positioning and body language that he claimed could potentially guide the selections made.27Jarry (2024)
Powell and co-author Bryan J. Williams published a rebuttal. They defended the research methodology, asserting that critics fundamentally misunderstood the field of parapsychology. Their defense acknowledged that early experiments had suboptimal protocols.28Powell & Williams (2024).
Organizational Responses
The Association for Science in Autism Treatment issued a statement that supported Vyse’s conclusions. It expressed concern that the podcast ‘spreads misinformation about the authenticity of facilitated communication and the presence of paranormal abilities in nonspeaking autistic individuals’. The organization emphasized in its statement that pseudoscientific communication practices could silence autistic voices and prevent access to evidence-based interventions that actually work.29Mathieu-Sher & Forbes (2025).
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association maintained in its position that methods the podcast featured lacked scientific validation. These might actually prevent individuals from accessing effective communication supports that researchers have empirically validated.30Banajee et al. (2018).
Defenses
A Mindfield article by David SB Mitchell defended The Telepathy Tapes against what he characterized as ‘pseudo-skepticism’. Mitchell argued that critics exhibited ‘scientism’, a belief system that prematurely constrains consideration of anomalous phenomena. Drawing on sociologist Marcelo Truzzi’s distinction between genuine scepticism (doubt) and pseudo-scepticism (denial), Mitchell contended that critics engaged in ‘wishful certainty that there is nothing at all substantive behind parapsychological claims’.31Mitchell (2025).
Mitchell cited what parapsychologist Etzel Cardeña termed an ‘unbearable fear of psi’ to explain the negative reception. He argued that applying the ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ standard to dismiss the podcast was hypocritical: Carl Sagan himself, after stating this standard, immediately added ‘I believe that the extraordinary should certainly be pursued’. Mitchell noted that the podcast’s Wikipedia article reflected what he described as the anti-psi bias of the ‘Guerilla Skeptics of Wikipedia’.32Mitchell (2025)
Emerging Research Perspectives
While mainstream psychology and speech-language pathology organizations maintain their opposition to FC and related methods, a small but growing body of academic work has begun challenging the consensus. This research does not defend traditional hand-over-hand facilitated communication; rather it argues for a more nuanced understanding. Researchers need to reconsider motor-supported typing methods and the cognitive capacities of nonspeaking autistic individuals.
A 2026 article in Autism Research by Jaswal, Prizant and colleagues argued that the field needs systematic research on assisted typing methods. Continued reliance solely on 1990s message-passing studies is insufficient, they contended. The authors noted that at least one-third of autistic individuals have limited or no speech and that most never receive robust communication alternatives. They argued that dismissing all assisted typing methods based on studies showing that facilitator influence can occur ignores documented cases of individuals who have achieved independent typing through these methods, and also emerging research on the motor challenges nonspeaking autistic people face. The authors explicitly called for in depth research examining successful cases rather than more message-passing studies or immediate acceptance of assisted typing.33Jaswal et al. (2026).
The research team associated with The Telepathy Tapes has developed what they term ‘mind-discovery’ and ‘telepathy-discovery’ protocols, designed specifically to investigate both authorship and anomalous cognition claims. A 2025 Mindfield article by Mossbridge, Welch, and Tarrant describes these protocols: they involve separating nonspeaking individuals from their communication partners, presenting stimuli in one room, and having the individual answer questions about information they could not have accessed through conventional means. The protocols presume competence from the outset and accommodate individual processing preferences. Researchers treat nonspeaking participants as active co-researchers rather than passive subjects. Outcomes from these formal trials will be released at the forthcoming Science of Consciousness conference in April 2026. 34Mossbridge (2026). (Personal communication 19 January 2026.)
A 2025 article in the journal EXPLORE byWeiler and Woollacott framed The Telepathy Tapes as a cultural turning point: one that forces reconsideration of entrenched assumptions about nonspeaking autism. The authors suggested researchers should understand the podcast as exploratory journalism rather than formal research: documented cases of independent typing and anecdotal reports of anomalous cognition warrant serious scientific investigation rather than immediate dismissal. Woollacott and Weiler maintain that what mainstream science has long characterized as facilitator influence in early FC studies might, in select cases, represent genuine telepathic capacities. While acknowledging that current data remain far from conclusive, they contended that dismissing the possibility altogether risks closing the door on potentially genuine anomalous abilities.35Weiler & Woollacott (2025).
Current Status
Season Two of the podcast address near-death experiences, mediumship, energy healing, plant intelligence, and animal communication among other topics. It continues to attract both dedicated listeners and vocal critics. Mossbridge and Tarrant have developed formal research protocols to investigate such phenomena. Mossbridge states in interviews that she is ‘organizing research ideas across the growing array of scientists drawn to this field’.36Dickens (2026). The research team has published descriptions of their ‘mind-discovery’ and ‘telepathy-discovery’ protocols in peer-reviewed venues.
Related research has appeared in mainstream peer-reviewed journals. Weiler and Woollacott published the 2025 EXPLORE article analyzing The Telepathy Tapes within the broader context of consciousness research in a journal indexed in PubMed. Jaswal and colleagues’ 2026 call for systematic research on assisted typing methods appeared in Autism Research, a leading journal in the field.37Weiler & Woollacott (2025); Jaswal et al. (2026).
Dickens states her intention to continue amplifying what she describes as the ‘suppressed voices’ of the nonspeaking autistic community and plans to keep the project going. The Institute of Noetic Sciences has announced that their laboratory will appear in the upcoming documentary film, featuring ongoing research into non-local consciousness and mind-to-mind connection phenomena.38Institute of Noetic Sciences (2025).
Michael Duggan
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