Ep 2: Telepathy or the merging of consciousness?

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Hey, what's up, everyone?

This is Kai Dickens, and you're listening to the Telepathy Tapes podcast.

My son said to me, I can hear thoughts.

What is this phenomena happening?

Why are his mind and my mind completely connected?

Telepathy is the tip of the iceberg with their spiritual gifts.

People don't understand that they can do this.

They don't even have to be in the same room, the same zip code.

For decades, a very specific group of people have been claiming telepathy is happening in their homes and in their classrooms.

And nobody has believed them.

Nobody has listened to them.

But on this podcast, we do.

Welcome to the second episode of the Telepathy Tapes.

Today we explore if something far greater than telepathy is happening amongst our subjects.

The phenomenon around telepathy and non-speaking individuals extends well beyond correctly naming flashcards or numbers from behind a partition.

It's bigger and it reveals something more mysterious and complex about the origins and potential of consciousness.

We're on our way to New Jersey to meet a mother named Manisha who says that whatever is happening, shared consciousness is a better term for it than telepathy.

Manisha and her husband immigrated to the United States from India after they got married, and their only son, named Akil, was diagnosed with autism as a toddler.

He regressed after his first birthday.

And he was diagnosed in 18 months.

And I had no clue what autism was.

None of the doctors ever gave us a hope that you have an intellect child, you have a smart child.

Doctors said he will never speak.

Manisha is a lightning bolt of a mother.

She has gone to the ends of the earth to help her son, Akhil, be successful.

Akhil is now in college and wants to study plant medicine.

Akhil is someone that Dr.

Diane Hennessy Powell, the neuroscientist studying telepathy in nonspeaking individuals, has tested before.

Dr.

Diane felt the last telepathy test we witnessed in the first episode wouldn't hold up under scrutiny.

She urged me to meet Akhil and his mother in order to get a clearer picture of the phenomenon.

Now that I've become committed to exploring and understanding this, I've become very aware of two worldviews that are complementary, but also sometimes competing.

One is that of a committed scientist, Dr.

Diane, who needs incredibly controlled and rigorous scientific tests in order to explore whether or not telepathy is happening.

The other is that of the parents who just want answers.

They need to know how and why this is happening, what it all means, and how to best empower their kids who seemingly have the ability to read their minds.

And the conundrum is that research needs to be funded in order to give the parents these answers.

And there's not much money pouring into this because the topic is kind of taboo.

So Dr.

Diane Hennessy Powell almost needs to prove to the scientific community that there is a there there.

Here's Diane and I talking about this.

I did an extensive review of the literature that already existed by other scientists on these things that I was told were impossible.

So I didn't fall for that trap of thinking, you know, the science is settled on that, that telepathy is impossible.

It became a goal of mine to explore it, to have the opportunity to actually test it under controlled trials.

So, what was your goal?

Was it to prove telepathy exists or just to legitimize it to science?

My goal was to try to advance science by expanding our way of approaching these things.

But also, I've been wanting to come up with a theory for how the brain and consciousness might even have anything to do with one another.

By the end of the episode, I promise that I'll explain why Mia's tests don't hold up under scientific rigor, but I think it's imperative for you to get to know Akhil first.

This trip is more or less just for me to better understand this and understand what Diane's looking for.

So she did not come with us to New Jersey.

Okay, that's definitely the house.

She said to look for the sign here.

Pull, pull in here.

Hey!

Hi, Vanisha.

I'm Kai.

I arrive at Akil's house with Michael, who's my camera guy, and a a small crew.

Okay, is it okay to put things right here and we'll take our shoes off?

Okay, Kai is here.

Oh my gosh, Akhil,

it's so nice to finally meet you in person.

When we arrive, Akil's just getting ready for his day.

While the crew brings in equipment, I sit down with Akil in the hallway near his kitchen.

We're on the floor, and he's draped himself in a blanket.

So, Kai, I want to show you some stuff.

Show your app.

What is your app?

Manisha hands an iPad over to Akil and encourages him to show me the app that he uses for communicating.

Akhil is typing into an app where every letter or word that he types is spoken out loud.

The software also uses a predictive text tool that offers likely next words.

So sometimes you'll hear letters being called out and other times an entire word.

We have to show

have to show

how the

mind works.

How the mind works.

Akhil just wrote on his speaking device, we have to show how the mind works.

Akhil, do you like it better if I type to you on this or when I talk to you with words?

Manisha demonstrates for me that using his app to type directly to him is sometimes the best way to get into the flow with Akhil, better than talking to him verbally.

Let's say if Akil Kai is here,

they are going to film you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Akhil just wrote, Kai, spend time with friends and film interviews.

This will be the best thing for you to directly communicate with him.

Akhil, go take a shower.

While Akhil goes and showers and gets dressed, we spend a little time chatting with Manisha at her kitchen table.

You said, like, up until age 11, he was non-verbal, but he was understanding everything.

He was comprehending everything, but he did not have a way to show us.

So he goes to this new school and they introduced him to something called supported typing.

It's very controversial, and I had no clue.

And they had 40 children already typing in the school.

He goes for his first typing session.

So they just gave him a little bit of support from here and with that support he typed four lines.

Manisha is showing me how the teacher would support the bottom of Akhil's wrist when he first started typing.

So the school teacher called me next day and said, you know what, we are doing the supported typing program with Akil.

But I said he doesn't know his letters.

He said, of course he'll know his letters.

So by 11, Akhil had already been through two different schools and this new school started to teach Akhil to communicate via typing.

Manisha didn't believe it.

She didn't think it was possible because for a decade all the other schools had told her that he doesn't know any numbers or letters.

The school teacher called and said, why don't you come and check it out?

I said, okay.

So I go there.

She shows me how to do it.

I see it and I'm still unsure about it.

So almost a month or two months passed.

Akhil was typing in school with the teacher.

We just had two choices.

Should we believe in this communication or should we not believe in this communication?

And she hedged a bet and she tried typing with him alone at their house and something clicked.

I had to literally look into his eyes and told him that I trust you.

She went against every professional opinion in her life and made the choice to presume competence.

And everything changed between them.

I don't know what happened, but things clicked between me and Aki.

And we started our journey.

And then I would ask him many questions.

So you knew he was typing for real?

Yes, but if you go and search about supported typing, it would be already controversial.

Okay, because supported typing, maybe you could just explain it again.

It's when you have the help and support of a therapist, but from what I understand it, the controversy is, oh, well, the therapist is pushing their hand.

Correct.

It starts from here, then support comes here, then support comes here.

Manisha is showing me that when Akhil first started typing, pressure was put on his wrist, then it was moved to his forearm, then to his elbow, and then to his shoulder.

Though Akil learned to converse via supported typing, there are various methods of typing to communicate.

The original method was called facilitated communication, and that received the most criticism due to the amount of touch involved.

There's also rapid prompting method and spelling to communicate.

Many in this world just simply say spelling to keep things easy, and it's common to refer to individuals who communicate this way as spellers.

And the reason spelling works is because you're using your body to point to a letter, and that's a gross motor skill, versus verbally speaking, which is a fine motor skill.

And we believe in him and we said you know what we are going to presume competence.

And thank god they presumed competence because now Akhil can type totally on his own into an iPad or computer without anyone touching him.

Once Akhil could communicate, Manisha and her husband got to learn about Akhil in a whole new and intimate way.

And one of the most shocking but helpful things he told them was that he didn't realize he had a body.

But Akhil was not aware of his body.

He made a statement, I cannot see my body in my mind.

And how did you teach him to see his body?

And we started touching him and I started touching each finger.

He realized, oh, I have hands and fingers and they move.

I love this visual of Manisha rubbing his hands and fingers and then Akhil realizing, oh, I have hands and fingers and they move.

There's just no way he could have conveyed this type of disconnect without being able to communicate.

And then he started saying, oh, I have a body, but the body in my mind doesn't move.

Akil talks a lot about the mind-body disconnect.

And this was how he articulated it for the first time that the body he sees in his mind doesn't move when he asks it to do so.

And so when did everything start with telepathy?

Like when did you realize he could read your mind?

I could feel that he is reading my thoughts.

He has a capacity to read my mind.

But like one day he was in school and he typed with me and said, oh, you had gone out today.

And then he started typing everything he knew.

I went to Walmart.

I didn't get things there.

Then I went to Target.

So everything like my life was like an open book.

So you were like, where did I go today?

And he said, Target, Walmart.

Yeah, yeah, he knew everything.

I didn't even tell him anything.

And that's why then I was like, oh my God, I called my husband and said, what is this?

My life is an open book.

And that's why I got convinced that this is telepathy.

And then I started reading more about it.

It was very hard to find answers for this.

This has become a familiar refrain by parents who discover their kids have telepathy.

There's just not much information about this out there.

So Manisha turned to people within the community, others who she'd met through the spelling world.

So people who are from the supported typing world, I went and I asked, what is happening when I'm near Akhil?

What is my field and what is Akhil's field?

Why do my thoughts and his thoughts become identical?

The specificity of her question is important.

What is his field versus what is my field?

She's not asking what's his body and what's my body or his thoughts or my thoughts.

It's more about how are they merging.

And she said, it's like these kids are using your blackboard.

So they use your mental space.

So this is a dimension which is beyond science for me.

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Trying to make sense of this was totally beyond me as well.

And in future episodes, we will dig into this with many experts.

But what I can say right now is that Manisha is one of many, many parents and teachers who say that there seems to be some sort of energetic transfer or something going on.

One mom said to me, in order for my son's software to work, he needs to use my hardware.

It's very clear that non-speakers have thoughts of their own and they can communicate independently and they are extremely capable of thriving in school.

But what many nonspeakers are saying is that they have the ability to merge in some way.

And parents and teachers will tell you that at at times, you can't tell where one consciousness begins and the other one ends.

So, how did you meet Dr.

Powell?

So, it was 2015.

And I approached her saying, Dr.

Diane, you know, my son is telepathic, and how could you help us to understand him or what we can do?

And that's how then first time Dr.

Diane came to her house, she did a part one study.

This first telepathy test that Dr.

Diane did with Manisha and Akhil was on that drive she sent me when I first met her.

The other amazing thing about this test test was that the famous author and New Age guru Deepak Chopra tagged along.

And apparently, he was so amazed by what he saw that he left his briefcase and glasses and I think even his phone at Manisha's house because he was so flustered by what he just witnessed.

Akil resurfaces and he's dressed and ready for the day, but you can tell he's distracted and a little concerned about all the lights and the people.

Akhil, do you think we should show them how you boil the eggs?

We use Instapot, we use electric gadgets so that he can cook for himself.

So now he can like boil eggs for himself.

Manisha has done an incredible job equipping Akil with his independent living skills.

And while she's showing me around the kitchen, Akhil leaves the room and he hides in the closet.

Do you want to go check on Akil?

Okay.

Yes, I'll give you YouTube.

Come out.

Manisha is promising Akhil that he can have YouTube once he comes out.

This is a negotiation I feel very familiar with from my own household.

Come, I'll give you YouTube.

Come!

It is overwhelmed today.

He wants YouTube and I've hidden all that.

Knowing that Akil can seemingly read Manisha's mind, I find it very cute that we're whispering.

But more than anything, I want to make sure he's comfortable.

You don't have to ask him right now if he needs alone time, but does he want to do an interview first?

Go walk around outside for a little bit?

Does he want to show telepathy?

I can check with him.

When Manisha comes back into the room, she suggests that we take some of the lights down.

There's a lot of commotion, a lot of newness, and it's simply and understandably overwhelming.

This is overwhelming him.

We'll take the light down.

Now we are going to get rid of everything.

Right, yeah.

I mean, we'll be in here the most, so probably.

So I asked the crew to please take down all the lights and for them to go stand outside.

The weather was beautiful, thankfully.

I wanted to meet Akhil where he was at, and with his permission, I went and sat with him in silence in the closet for a little bit.

And with Manisha's prompting and the safety of his blanket, he settled in at the dining room table.

So it's better now.

So no one's up here now.

It's just Michael and your mom and me, me, okay?

Okay, so I want you to see how Natalie's mind and my mind are connected.

Okay.

Whatever you call it, as a telepathy or you call whatever.

Okay, I'm just going to

clear the paper from here

and I'm going to fold it.

Remember that we don't have Dr.

Diane here, so we're kind of winging it.

Manisha grabs a spiral notebook and sheets of white computer paper.

Manisha is kind of spearheading this test, and I'm a little confused as to what's happening.

We're going to make eight of them.

If you want to do it more, just

make more.

She's folding the white paper and making deep creases so we can easily tear them into little white cue cards.

And then I want you to write one word here.

She hands me the notebook and I like what's happening because she's suggesting using it as a partition.

I'll be able to write a word on one of the cue cards inside the notebook blocking the view of it by holding up the cover.

Okay, write it.

So you decide which words you want.

Okay.

And hold on to them.

I'm going to have my camera guy write over here, too, this way.

It's It's hard.

Yeah, anybody.

Okay.

Michael, let's write these over here so there's no way anyone can see.

Okay, and then we'll put these in the paper bag.

Just give me one in my hand.

Okay.

Michael has made a black backing out of foam core to put behind each slip of paper.

So there's no possible way Akhil could see the paper.

Okay.

So Akhil cannot see this.

This is the first one.

The first one was written by Michael, and the word he chose was onion.

O-N-I-O-N.

Okay, now, Manisha, I'll give it to you.

We're at a a dining room table.

Akil is sitting at the head of the table, and I'm standing with Manisha perpendicular to Akil on the long side of the table.

When we start the test, Akhil is just looking down at the table, and then he grabs his iPad in order to communicate.

Oh,

end.

I.

Oh,

end.

That's awesome, Akhil.

Michael's eyes become huge.

That's so cool.

See his eyes?

He is like, what?

Now I'm going to give you another one okay so manisha come stand here i've taken a step back and changed my body position slightly just in case i reach into the paper bag and the new word is tiger this one

okay okay go buddy

t a

a

g

e

r

tiger wow awesome amazing Dubaquil, can you do it if your mama's farther away?

Yeah.

She could be here, you think?

Yeah.

Yeah, she would be But you can give verbally.

He can give verbal also.

Okay.

So we'll do one verbally.

This is exciting because we haven't done this before.

Akil is minimally verbal, and though it's difficult for him to string together a sentence verbally, he's great at calling out letters.

Akhil's pronunciation might sound different from yours or mine.

He can't form words or sounds effortlessly.

But we go ahead and try this test.

So here.

Akil has moved over to the sofa in the living room, and Manisha is still sitting at the dining room table, which is about 15 feet away.

And she's going to basically show us how Akhil's telepathy works in real time.

So for every letter she writes, he will speak it.

She writes the first letter M.

Next, she writes letter O and she writes the letter V.

Manisha was barely even done writing the word movie when Akhil was yelling it from across the room.

It was pretty unbelievable.

This is a book that my father-in-law wrote about an uncle.

So you can't buy this book on Amazon.

You You can't find it anywhere.

So if you open this book right now and you looked at a picture and said, what am I looking at?

What would he say?

He will tell me what I'm looking at.

He will tell me what I'm looking at.

Do you have to be in the room?

No, I don't have to be in the room.

So one day I was watching a movie of an athlete whose leg was amputated.

and he got into special Olympics.

The family lives in a house with multiple floors.

So one day Manisha was watching a film downstairs in the basement about an Olympian who had his leg amputated.

And I went upstairs to tell Akhil, Akil Akhil, come, come, look, I want to show you the story.

See how people overcome their difficulties and challenges.

He said, yes, I know he doesn't

have a leg and he is in Olympics.

Because he was watching a show or something?

Because I was watching and he was upstairs.

So those thoughts can get transferred.

Wow.

So Manisha had gone upstairs to tell Akhil, I want you to see this movie.

It could be inspirational for you.

And Akhil revealed he already knew the plot line and what it was about, even though Akhil was upstairs in his room.

Manisha shared a few stories like this.

Another amazing one was that she could be reading a book in a different room and later ask Akil a question about the book she was reading.

For instance, where is the main character from?

And he could correctly tell her the answer.

from a book she was reading while she was alone in a different part of the house.

If I'm sitting here, okay, and I'm reading something something in my mind, and if I ask him a question in my mind, he will answer it.

This absolutely blew my mind.

It's something I think about a lot.

And this will be one of many stories you hear like this.

One of the subjects we meet later in Georgia knew all about Harry Potter, even though he'd never read the books.

When his mom asked him how, he noted that his sister had read all of the books, and that's why he could answer any question about it.

But he wasn't in the room with her when she was reading them.

So this onion will just keep peeling back and back and back.

Akhil has walked away.

He's He's in the living room sitting on a couch watching his iPad.

The iPad is a bit of a reward for having so much patience with the test this morning.

Akhil, you can probably tell me yes or no.

I know you're watching YouTube, but is telepathy how we're meant to communicate?

That's what he had explained in the past.

What did he say?

He had said that in my world, in my world, people don't talk.

People just close their eyes and that's how we communicate.

In his world, they don't talk, but they still communicate.

What do you think he meant by that?

So once he came home and he was upset and I typed with him.

So I said, okay, why are you upset?

And he said that I am telling hi to the person, but the person is not replying to me back.

Okay, wait.

So Akhil is saying hi with his mind, but the other child isn't responding to him because he didn't say it out loud.

Yes.

So he thinks, why do I have to use my mouth and my body to answer the question when I'm answering in my mind?

He doesn't get it.

He thinks everyone should be using telephone.

Yeah.

He he literally tells me that teach people how to read my mind.

And I said, I cannot.

He said, I have to read people's mind.

Despite that, I was confused because Akhil said in my world, this is how we communicate.

And I just kept wondering, well, who is the we?

Communication takes two people doing something back and forth.

And what I've learned from talking to so many spellers is they do not misspeak.

The words they choose are precise and thoughtful, often poetic.

So who is the we in his world that he's referring to?

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We take a break for lunch and when we return from lunch, I suggest doing more formal tests with Akil using his speaking device.

I wonder if there's like a random picture generator.

That'd be cool, wouldn't it?

A random word generator.

Oh yeah.

Random word generator.

Aha.

Okay.

Oh look at this.

Weird words, fake words.

Holy, look how weird that word is.

Yeah, perfect.

I'm trying my best to channel Dr.

Powell.

We download a brand new random word generator in front of the camera on the spot, and then we set up the room to get various angles with our cameras.

I'm going to start the shot right here.

So there's nothing back here.

We just have an empty room, a table, or mirrors.

With my camera, I did a 360-degree sweep of the room so people could see that there was no one in front of Akhil giving him clues or mirrors or any reflective devices.

In fact, Akhil was often just looking down at the ground, looking at his hands.

What should I do, Pris?

You gotta hit the blue one?

This?

Exactly.

Hit that one?

Or do another random word generally?

So when you do the random again, just do it again.

Maybe just till like.

Even though the software probably makes the word very random, we have decided to always hit the button twice or three times to make the word super, super random.

Is this okay?

Yep.

The word she selects is Izard.

I-Z-A-R-D.

Manisha is sitting next to Akhil on the couch, and Manisha is closest to me.

And my iPad, which now has the random word generator on it, is facing away from Akil toward my camera.

There's no way that Akhil could see what's on the iPad because it's facing in the complete opposite direction of him.

Z.

A.

R.

T.

Go ahead, and then she's a wizard.

Nice, Akil.

I didn't touch at all.

Manisha just said, I didn't touch at all.

And this is because at the beginning of the day, I asked her to never touch him during any of the tests.

And this is the first test that we've done where they're sitting right next to each other, side by side.

Let's do another one.

Another one?

Yeah.

Akhil is leaning on the couch, his safety blanket draped around his shoulders and the back of his head.

We can see where his eyes are, and once again, there's no way he can see the iPad.

It is facing in the complete opposite direction of him.

Random void.

Okay.

Okay, ready?

Ready?

You're doing great, Akil.

The word Manisha has pulled up is Kith.

K-I-T-H.

Akhil's typing device is sitting casually on the couch, facing up, and she hands it to him so he can start.

Yes.

Akhil types two of the wrong letters here, something you don't see very often, and he kind of looks at his mom, and then he confirms with Manisha that he can watch YouTube when he's done with all of the testing.

And she says yes.

And then suddenly, it's like he's back in action.

K

I

T

H

K.

Awesome, Akil.

Can we please do one more?

Okay, yeah.

Okay, random word generator, go for it.

The word generated is P, A, T, T, E.

P,

A,

T,

T,

E.

Pat.

Good.

Nice.

We continue to do many more tests with random word generators, random number generators, and Akhil continues to be accurate.

But this is where things got fun.

Okay, so I'm going to see see if there's a random picture generator.

One of the things Manisha continually says is that this is not sheer telepathy.

The second information enters her mind, it goes into his mind.

She says it's like they share a consciousness, and sometimes she's not sure if a thought is hers or his or theirs together.

I'm thinking that a random picture generator is one of the best ways to test this because the picture that's generated, it often isn't obvious or clear what it is to Manisha or me or any of the crew looking at it.

And so if telepathy involves sending a signal to someone or sending a picture and they receive it, then what we're about to do is beyond just testing sheer telepathy because she won't be sending a signal because she sometimes doesn't know what she's looking at.

There is a random picture generator.

Okay, good.

Some of them are pretty dumb.

I mean, look at this, it's so abstract.

Yeah, but see, it's interesting.

Manisha is sitting on the couch, but Akhil has gone back into this little nook off the dining room.

It's a small room that we haven't been in yet today.

And as Manisha's pulling up the image, I'm asking Michael to please try to go film Akeel in the room where he's at.

But I think I want him here.

Let's just please try one with him in there.

Okay.

Michael, can you please go film Akeel and I'll cover this?

Manisha hits the button that says generate and an image of red phone booths, the type you see in London, enter the frame.

Okay, what is this?

Tap.

Tech.

Yeah.

Hello?

Hey, Michael, can you go over here and get red?

He said telephone.

And what is the color?

Michael, I have this too.

Red.

Red.

You want me to go there with him?

Just wait nowhere.

Akhil sounds out telephone and then sounds out the word red.

For most of this test, I'm distracted because I really want Michael to be in the other room with Akhil so we could prove that he was far, far in another room.

I've played back this test many times and I encourage you to do the same.

Because yes, Manisha is echoing or repeating the sounds that Akhil is making.

And when you play it back, you'll see that he is always making the sound first and she is echoing it or validating what's being said.

You want me to go there with him?

No, this is good.

She offered to go sit with Akil, but I wanted to capture another test like this with them in totally different rooms.

However, at that moment, Akhil walks back and sits on the couch.

Oops.

Okay, he's here.

He's here.

He'll do it.

He'll do it.

We are in the same setup as before, where Manisha is sitting closest to my camera.

She's holding her iPad toward me, and there's no possible way Akhil can see it.

Okay, random picture generator.

Ready?

Ah, what is this?

The picture that was generated was weird.

You can tell by Manisha's reaction that she isn't sure what it is.

To me, it looks like the remnants of a food fight, like mustard and relish and ketchup on the ground.

Hey, Akil, go.

What is that?

What do you see, Akhil?

B-P-A-I-N-T-Paint.

Akil had typed paint.

Show it up to us, Akil?

Can we accept it?

It's amazing.

We did a few tests like this.

Akil would state what he was seeing, even though often Manisha had no clue what the picture was.

This felt similar to the popsicle stick test that we did with Mia in the last episode.

This was different than just telepathy.

I thought about this test a lot, and after the shoot, I talked with Michael, my cinematographer, about it.

And here's a snippet from our conversation.

I would love to get your take on the random picture generator.

Do you remember that?

Oh, yeah, that was cool.

Yeah, there were moments where...

He's interpreting images differently than we are.

But then once he says it or he does it and you look at it and it makes sense, you can tell that he's thinking about these things as a metaphor.

One of the things that Manisha said to me early on was: It's not just sheer telepathy.

It's almost like sharing of a consciousness.

And she's like, I don't know what that means.

Does it mean consciousness is coming to us from somewhere else and we're both tapping into the same like signal?

Or

what?

And so that was the thing for me, watching the random picture generator.

It's like, okay, if it's possible that my phone can send you a text or my phone can send you a picture

Why couldn't that happen with the brain?

Maybe she's sending him a word or a number or a picture, right?

But then when it came to like looking at a random picture like you said having to interpret this metaphorically Then I was like she doesn't know what she's even sending him because she doesn't even know what she's looking at sometimes.

So

what does this mean?

Is he looking through her eyes?

Like that to me

Yeah, that's that's the that's the difference is like, is he just using her eyes as an instrument, like you said?

The idea that, like, he sees something or he's interpreting something that she's not even interpreting is more just like he's bypassing her brain and just using her eyes.

Our afternoon of testing left us with more questions than answers.

From another room, Akhil could describe exactly what his mom was looking at.

When Manisha wrote a word and then crossed it out, Akhil could name the first word and then the second word.

He even interpreted pictures his mother viewed from across the room.

Was Akhil somehow seeing through his mother's eyes?

Were they sharing a consciousness, or was something entirely different happening?

We took a break to see Akil's college setup in the office.

There, he types independently with a large computer keyboard, and we saw him do some lessons in computer graphics and coding.

If you want to animate a single shape in Game Lab, you can quickly end up with a lot of variables to manage.

Akhil demonstrates his academic prowess.

He's taking college-level classes, and the software program that Manisha has just pulled up teaches animation and coding.

You can control a sprite's properties in your program by using dot notation.

Then we went back to the living room so Akil could work on building robots on the floor.

We stayed there for the remainder of the evening, and it felt very intimate and close.

We did more telepathy tests, in fact, some of my favorite ones, but we did them in between some meaningful conversation.

Akila, what do you think about the parents who say, oh, my child doesn't understand, they're not in there.

N

O

T

Not.

Not T

Go ahead T

O T Not to T

H

I

N

K

not to think

Akil is sitting next to his mom, typing into the speaking device.

And this is how he ended up answering my question about what he'd say to parents who think their kids aren't in there.

The software leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to punctuation.

But what he wrote was,

not to think that.

They have to show, but this is not easy.

Yeah, I know it's not easy.

You make yourself understood so well.

I also asked Manisha what she wants most for Akhil.

Though telepathy is a fascinating and perplexing development in her life and she definitely wants answers, she's got much heavier and bigger concerns.

The kids like Akhil

should be accepted, and instead of trying to fix them, see what their capabilities are, what their skills are, and work on strengths.

Everybody is busy either trying to understand them, research them, make judgments about them, and trying to get them to come in our world and do things what we do.

And this is the crux of everything.

Non-speakers have been judged by their behaviors for decades.

Schools, doctors, really society at large makes judgments on what their body is doing.

But this isn't an accurate reflection of their intelligence.

It's a beguiling trap.

How does society celebrate neurodiversity when we do little to fit them into our world?

Like the blanket which he has.

Can he take the blanket all over the place?

No, the teachers think that's not appropriate and he should not.

But this is house, you know, we cannot take the blanket away from him.

So there has to be an agreement and a mutual understanding between both the worlds.

And both the worlds and both the community have to

bring into a balance.

Akhil operates best when he has a blanket around him.

Why can't we allow this in schools or a workplace?

If they need to be touched, like they need to be touched.

Many non-speakers feel more grounded and better able to regulate their bodies when they're being touched.

But when it comes to communicating via spelling, so often their words are discounted as not even being their own if they aren't typing independently into a keyboard.

And it took Akil years to get to that point.

And some people never do.

Should their words and thoughts be discounted along the way because of this?

And another way we're not meeting them or even trying is by not looking into this.

The idea that non-speakers might have abilities with their minds that the rest of us have either forgotten how to use or just simply can't access.

Have you ever asked him, does he see through your eyes or just does he just know what's in your mind?

He just, it's just automatic.

He gets it automatically in deck time.

And to dig into this further, I came up with a new test on the spot, which ended up actually being one of my favorites.

Akhil is under his blanket, busy with his iPad.

Alright, I'm just gonna do something.

I took out my phone calculator.

Akhil will have to tell us the answer to the equation that we just typed into the calculator in real time.

Okay, I'm gonna type in the first equation.

I type in 11031597 times 4.

I certainly don't know the answer to that.

The answer that pops up is long.

Whoa, is that too long?

Yeah, it's fine.

As noted, we're sitting on the floor.

Manisha is next to Akhil, and I'm sitting in front of her, holding the calculator away from Akhil and toward Michael's camera.

So, again, there's no way Akil can see this number.

Akhil picks up his speaking device off the ground and goes for it.

The answer is 44,126,388.

Four,

four,

one,

two,

six, six,

three,

eight,

eight.

That's what the number was.

Akil.

It's so unbelievable.

I'm gonna have your mom do it so I'm out of the shop.

Okay, so.

So I hand the calculator to Manisha.

She keeps it turned away from Akhil.

Look at me for a second, Akhil.

You ready for another one?

Yeah.

Let's please multiply two numbers and see if he gets it.

Manisha types in 25 times 36.

And as the answer pops up, she points to her head and says the moment it comes here and then she points to Akhil and says it goes there.

The moment it comes here it goes there.

Can you see it already in your mom's head?

Yeah, yes yeah.

The calculator is pointed totally away from Akil right up in Michael's camera and Akhil is under his blanket and his speaking device is on the ground in front of him.

By the way 25 times 36 equals 900.

Okay what is it?

9

0.

0 unbelievable.

We do multiple calculator tests with longer numbers shorter numbers and Akil is right every time.

And the reality of what we're seeing,

there really aren't words for it.

What is this phenomena happening?

Why are his mind and my mind completely connected?

The desperation in Manisha's voice is now something that I've heard echoed over and over again over the course of four years.

Can someone please just explain this?

And it's hard for scientists to get research funded in this realm.

Because as we talked about in episode one, much of our scientific paradigm is materialism, which more or less says the only things that can be real are things that can be observed and measured.

So, scientists who earnestly want to research and look into ESP and telepathy have historically not been given much respect and certainly not money.

And Dr.

Diane Hennessy Powell has been trying, but there needs to be a ton of research looking into this.

And what Manisha says next is classic.

Whoever is asking for data, Akil is a data.

Whoever is looking for data, Akil is the data.

Michael had signaled to me that he needed another battery.

Oh, you need a battery?

Run down and get it because I have to get something, too.

When I got to the camera room, Michael had his head in his hands.

And if you remember from the first episode, Michael often approaches things skeptically.

I would say, and I think Michael would agree, that he doesn't believe in much that can't be measured or explained, and he certainly doesn't put much stock in religion.

When he looked up, he said, do I have to believe in God now?

Coming from Michael, this was totally out of character.

I was actually shocked to hear that question come out of his mouth.

And we couldn't really dig into this or talk about it because we were working.

So I called him afterward.

And I was like trying to find an explanation for these things happening.

I'm seeing this with my own eyes, but what does it mean?

And it's like, okay, does this open up the possibility that there is something bigger than us happening, whether it's like some spiritual thing or something metaphysical?

When you see it, that's an easy road to go down.

The spiritual aspect of this cannot be understated.

And most people who enter this world have their thoughts on science and and spirituality shift, including the parents and teachers who are intimately involved with the nonspeakers.

But when I asked Michael his thoughts on God after having some time to consider everything, he said, The more I think about it, though, for me, it doesn't actually prove the existence of God.

You know, we used to think God made rainbows.

His reference is a great one.

In fact, John Keats, the poet, once said that Isaac Newton was destroying the poetry and wonder of the rainbow by reducing it to just being a prism of colors.

In fact, it's not abnormal for scientific breakthroughs to be met with skepticism.

That happened to Galileo when he proposed that the sun and not the earth was the center of our universe.

It happened to Gregor Mendel when he proposed his theory of genetics.

Many scientific breakthroughs that are rejected or ignored by academics and the public when introduced eventually become accepted as empirical truths about our world.

But I saw these things with my eyes and I believe that they're happening.

So now what I'm thinking about is not whether it's happening, but what's the explanation for it.

When he was saying this, it made me think of this Nikola Tesla quote: The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.

But for now, back to our visit with Akil.

The entire reason that we are here, standing in this basement, is because the telepathy tests we did with Mia in episode one wouldn't pass scientific muster.

And here's Dr.

Diane Powell explaining why.

So, someone who really knows nothing about these children and their abilities,

the testing with Mia was really problematic because the mother was touching her.

It's problematic because there's this concern that she could be somehow transmitting the information to Mia.

Keel is a much better test subject because he's been able to go on and type at a computer.

As a refresher, Mia had just learned to communicate via pointing to a letterboard or typing into a speaking device within the past year.

When Mia first started typing on her own, she needed support near her typing hand or wrist.

And slowly, her mom started putting less pressure on Mia, moving her hand up to Mia's elbow, and then to her shoulder, then to her upper back, and eventually up to her neck.

And now she barely touches Mia with a single fingertip on her forehead.

When I met Mia's family in person, none of this felt suspect to me.

And if I'm being honest, it still doesn't.

It was part and parcel of helping her learn to communicate.

And it reminded me of when my dad taught me to ride my bike.

I wanted him to hold the handles firmly, squeezing my body between both of his arms.

And slowly, when I got more confident, he moved his hands up to my shoulders.

And then eventually he was holding the back of the seat.

And then at some point, he just touched me slightly on my back.

I was balancing on my own, but I needed to know he was there to catch me.

Many of us need emotional or physical support when learning something new.

And this is especially true for someone who has difficulty with motor planning or controlling their body.

The idea that Mia's mom was passing messages regarding detailed words and numbers through a slight touch of a single fingertip that was not visibly moving seemed unlikely to me.

But as Michael is always looking through the camera, often with a much tighter view than I have, I called him up to get his thoughts.

Do you think that Mia's mom was transferring words and numbers and information through the fingertip on her head?

No,

definitely not.

The idea that's like some kind of Morse code thing.

Like,

I mean, it's just her finger was just on her head.

It's not moving.

But regardless of how unlikely we felt it was that entire words and messages were being passed through a finger, we came to New Jersey to witness telepathy without any touching.

And though I understand why Dr.

Diane and other scientists doing this work need to focus on this type of criteria in order for their research to be considered thorough and solid, when it comes to day-to-day communication, it feels kind of ableist and silly for anyone else to dictate how someone else should be communicating in order to have their words counted.

We go back upstairs to wrap things up, and my head is full of questions.

I'm wondering about the origins of consciousness and if it's limited at all by time or space or even death.

And I'm wondering how widespread this phenomenon could be.

So, Manisha, I know Akhil's not in the room right now.

And when he gets back, I do want to talk to him about this as well.

But

has he talked to you about,

you know, like God or spirituality?

We had some episodes and that was a shocking to us.

And what were the episodes?

There were some ancestors who had passed away and Akhil started giving messages from them.

So when you would get these messages from people who passed on, would you go

look into them?

Like, were they usually correct?

Yeah, yeah.

But then we didn't want you to encourage all these things.

So I kept it very limited.

And she told me some stories about about ancestors who had died 20 to 30 years ago and Akhil passed along messages from them and when she went back to India that's when she confirmed that the messages were correct and then I brought up Mia who we met in episode one Mia sees people all the time that other people can't see.

Akhil used to but then when Akil used to Akhil used to see like when my mom passed away and I used to sit down and study with him he would say that that your mom wants you to play with me and I said where is she said she's sitting beside me I said Okay, tell her not to play right now.

And I kept it very limited, and I didn't want him to get connected with the other world.

As a parent myself, I get this entirely.

I would not want my child connected to another world that I couldn't see or be a part of or control.

Akhil came back into the room, and I was excited to see him because I felt only he could truly answer this next question.

Akil, have you been around other

people who have a difficult time speaking where you get a sense you can read their mind?

Like, do you think think for most non-speaking people, they can read minds?

Why, ES.

Yes.

There was no hesitancy.

Why?

E S.

When contemplating telepathy as part of the human experience, the most plausible connection is between a mother and a child.

A mother's intuition is undeniable, and for the survival of a family unit, it almost makes sense.

But Akil is saying that non-speakers can communicate with each other telepathically.

And this is what we will explore next.

Everyone with non-speaking and unreliably speaking autism

have this ability.

John Paul is in his bedroom and he is telepathically talking to his other friends.

They don't even have to be in the same room, the same zip code.

I mean, I'm talking tens of thousands of kids.

Every single one of them has been telepathic.

Every non-speaker has the ability to communicate telepathically.

In the next episode, we head down to Georgia, where we learn that telepathy in non-speakers knows absolutely no bounds.

Thank you to my amazing collaborators.

Original Music was created by Elizabeth P.W.

Original logo and cover art by Ben Kendor Design.

The audio mix and finishing by Sarah Ma, our amazing podcast coordinator, Jill Pachesnik.

The telepathy tapes coordinator and my right hand, Catherine Ellis, and I'm Kai Dickens, your writer, creator, and host.

Thank you again for joining us.

Remember that you can review some of the tests and see some of the film recordings on our website, thetelepathytapes.com.

Thank you so much for tuning in and join us next week as this world expands and deepens.