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The Telepathy Tapes

xjx388

Penultimate Amazing
xjx388
Joined
Dec 1, 2010
Messages
11,392
It’s been a long time since I’ve been active on the forum (mix of medical and personal stuff) but what drew me back was the explosion in popularity of “The Telepathy Tapes,” which is a podcast about non-verbal Autistic kids and their supposed telepathic abilities. I’m truly surprised there wasn’t a thread already!

It’s 10 episodes and it develops in a very familiar way, common to all esoteric subjects, where they slowly immerse you into crazier and crazier claims.

The first episode introduces us to Facilitated Communication. If you are not familiar, FC is a discredited way for non-verbal people to communicate using things like a ouija-like pointer board or keyboard and the assistance of a facilitator who “supports,” the disabled person, usually with physical touch. The problems with this are obvious, but the podcast host never questions FC, she just accepts it as valid.

What the kids are communicating is that they can read the minds of their facilitators. This is demonstrated with a variety of tests: the facilitator is shown a number and the kid will point to the board and indicate the correct number. Obvious bunk, but again, nothing but credulity from the host.

Not only are they telepathic with their facilitators, they all actively communicate with each other by “meeting up,” at a place they call The Hill, which seems to be some kind of psychic “space,” they have access to. There, they hangout and have relationships, even with people across the world.

Oh, but not only that! These kids also reveal that no one ever really dies; their psyche lives on and the kids can communicate with them too!

It’s truly crazy stuff. But it’s reaching a huge audience and I don’t think there’s very much out there taking a rational, scientific look at the claims. Too many people I personally know are taking this junk seriously.

Like … with The Telepathy Tapes, the NJ Drone crap, the other “psionic” kids who can summon UFOs… there seems to be a surge of Woo that has really surprised me lately.
 
Sarcasm not directed at you, but the podcast people.

Oh that is just fantastic, using the evidencd that your assertions are untrue and leaning heavily on them to "prove" them. Tell me, what else did you learn from the Pinky School of Logical Deduction?
 
All the comforting delusion of a seance plus the happy imagining that your non-verbal kid has a gang of friends on the astral plane. What's not to like?

I never heard of it. Is it actually popular?
 
Seems a bit like parents of disabled kids trying to find some magic in the pile of burden that child brings.
Of course they will learn some form of communication to express needs and desires, but it may take the bond with the primary caregiver to know what that is exactly. Much of that will fall on the caregiver knowing the daily schedule they created with the child.

So many mundane things lumped together and buried in a daily routine do not create magic powers. Everyone that has bondad with a newborn into toddler years will have done this.
 
8enotto said:
Seems a bit like parents of disabled kids trying to find some magic in the pile of burden that child brings.
Of course they will learn some form of communication to express needs and desires, but it may take the bond with the primary caregiver to know what that is exactly. Much of that will fall on the caregiver knowing the daily schedule they created with the child.

So many mundane things lumped together and buried in a daily routine do not create magic powers. Everyone that has bondad with a newborn into toddler years will have done this.
Click to expand...


It's very similar to the 'Telepathic Dogs' derail from the Razor of Hitchens thread last week. Confirmation bias, wishful thinking and a refusal to accept boring rational explanations over exciting magic ones.
 
What a coincidence.

Just yesterday, I was on a Zoom call for parents of autistic kids and some woman was saying that "autistic children are telepathic." I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I can't understand how people in 2025 still believe in telepathy in an un-ironic way.

When I incredulously pressed this lady for evidence, she said "Well, sometimes you think of a friend....and that friend calls you! Telepathy!"

My father is autistic, as is my sister and her husband. Let me tell you this. He's got zero magic powers.

He can be very rude, though.
 
MovieandTVFan88 said:
What a coincidence.

Just yesterday, I was on a Zoom call for parents of autistic kids and some woman was saying that "autistic children are telepathic." I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I can't understand how people in 2025 still believe in telepathy in an un-ironic way.

When I incredulously pressed this lady for evidence, she said "Well,
sometimes you think of a friend....and that friend calls you! Telepathy!"

My father is autistic, as is my sister and her husband. Let me tell you this. He's got zero magic powers.

He can be very rude, though.
Click to expand...
I think that is actually called "statistics". Good luck on convincing a believer.
:hit:
 
Here's the ironic thing. In a sense, autism is a super-power.

There's plenty of evidence that autistic people (for example) don't feel pain in the way that others do.

They get excruciating tattoos and don't even blink an eye.

Some can also smell that food is rotten before others can. Their sense of taste is bloodhound-esque.

I don't think my father or sister fall into that category, though.
 
MovieandTVFan88 said:
What a coincidence.

Just yesterday, I was on a Zoom call for parents of autistic kids and some woman was saying that "autistic children are telepathic." I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I can't understand how people in 2025 still believe in telepathy in an un-ironic way.

When I incredulously pressed this lady for evidence, she said "Well, sometimes you think of a friend....and that friend calls you! Telepathy!"

My father is autistic, as is my sister and her husband. Let me tell you this. He's got zero magic powers.

He can be very rude, though.
Click to expand...

I used to work with autistic bairns (not to mention folk I was at school etc with who just had to have been) and I can safely say none of them were telepathic. Some could be rude.

I, however, when I worked on CAMHS in-patient units (and elsewhere) was often accused of being telepathic... I had very good hearing. I can be very rude indeed though, as part of my leaving present from that unit confirmed.
 
I also swung by here because to me this kind of subject is what the JREF was about originally. Debunking nonsense like this telepathy tape crap. I feel like we might be at the start of a new cycle of woo, but this time without an active program to fight it.
 
gerdbonk said:
I think the SGU discussed this. The podcast was at number 1, ahead of Rogan. It's a multiple facepalm.
Click to expand...
The SGU discussed it, briefly, but they focused on the FC aspect of it. Skeptics With a K did a deeper dive into "The Hill" and how loony all that is.
 
My friend Pablo is all about this right now. I just nod and smile and change the subject really fast. He's a vet, so I just start talking about dogs. He has tried to get me to listen to this crap for a while now. Even smart people....
 
Yeah it's intriguing to the uninitiated but from what we are allowed to see it could be anything from not understanding/acknowledging how powerful non-extra-sensory empathy can be and so not controlling for it (Clever Hans), to outright showmanship. The only clip I was able to find so far of a guesser not being literally touched by someone who knew the answer, was still right next to the person generating and looking at the answer. I didn't see so much as an attempt to put the person being read behind or mostly behind a blind or the person being tested while wearing a sound isolating headset. So far; as I did not pony up the cash for the presenters' video.

Lots of people in Youtube comments convinced that Russia/CIA trying hard to do telepathy decades ago means they proved it and have it to use and suppress knowledge of it now. OK but I can't say I can see the effects of anybody using telepathy. So they have it but they only use it to make randos go crazy? Oh, right, randos going crazy is their cover psyop so you don't take it seriously. I forgot.
 
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Lithrael said:
Yeah it's intriguing to the uninitiated but from what we are allowed to see it could be anything from not understanding/acknowledging how powerful non-extra-sensory empathy can be and so not controlling for it (Clever Hans), to outright showmanship. The only clip I was able to find so far of a guesser not being literally touched by someone who knew the answer, was still right next to the person generating and looking at the answer. I didn't see so much as an attempt to put the person being read behind or mostly behind a blind or the person being tested while wearing a sound isolating headset. So far; as I did not pony up the cash for the presenters' video.

Lots of people in Youtube comments convinced that Russia/CIA trying hard to do telepathy decades ago means they proved it and have it to use and suppress knowledge of it now. OK but I can't say I can see the effects of anybody using telepathy. So they have it but they only use it to make randos go crazy? Oh, right, randos going crazy is their cover psyop so you don't take it seriously. I forgot.
Click to expand...
And not just Clever Hans. I remember reading about a Russian "psychic" who just had incredibly good hearing and picked up the sub-vocalizations of the sender. (sorry but I can't find a link.)
 
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