A new podcast that replaced ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ as the number one most popular audio show on Spotify last week covers a highly controversial topic.
‘The Telepathy Tapes,’ co-hosted by journalist and filmmaker Ky Dickens and psychiatrist Dr Diane Hennacy Powell, explores the ‘profound abilities’ of people with autism who can’t speak.
Those abilities, according to Dickens and Dr. Powell, include telepathy, access to infinite knowledge and the power to visit heaven.
In episode one, listeners are introduced to a nonverbal autistic girl from Mexico named Mia, whose telepathic abilities have ‘100 percent accuracy,’ her family says.
Mia’s family explains that she can communicate mind-to-mind with her mother, and Dr. Powell leads Mia through a series of exercises to test her mind-reading skills.
She is asked to use a letter board to spell out the number or word her mom thinks of and name the correct number or word every time.
According to Dickens, the fact that she could do this in a controlled environment suggests she can read her mother’s mind. But not all experts are convinced.
Despite mixed reactions, the podcast has earned a perfect five-star rating from more than 1,400 reviewers since debuting on September 3, 2024.
In episode one, listeners are introduced to a nonverbal autistic girl from Mexico named Mia, whose telepathic abilities have ‘100 percent accuracy,’ her family says
Around 1 in 36 children has been identified with autism in the US, according to the CDC’s most recent estimate.
A 2018 estimate found that only one in 44 children in the US had been diagnosed with the disorder, suggesting that the prevalence of autism has risen in recent years.
Experts have yet to determine exactly why the rate is rising, but possible explanations include increased awareness, screening and diagnostic capabilities, genetic factors and environmental factors.
What’s more, experts are still working to fully understand autism and its underlying causes.
On The Telepathy Tapes, Dickens shares that she has a brother with high-functioning autism, which partly sparked her curiosity about the exceptional abilities of those with the disorder.
While listening to a different podcast that covers topics like astrology, intuition and mediumship, Dickens was introduced to Dr. Powell and her work, which focuses on the supposed ‘telepathic’ skills of autistic children.
Dr. Powell, who earned her medical degree at Johns Hopkins University and former faculty member at Harvard Medical School, has staked her career on the claim that nonspeaking autistic kids are capable of an otherworldly way of communicating.
Even though there is currently no accepted scientific evidence to support this, both Dickens and Dr. Powell are convinced the phenomenon is real.
The girl is asked to use a letter board (pictured) to spell out the number or word her mom thinks of and name the correct number or word every time
The podcast replaced ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ as the number one most-listened-to audio show on Spotify last week
They started The Telepathy Tapes as a way to raise awareness and give a voice to families of autistic children who allegedly exhibit these supernatural abilities.
‘If I had a million dollars, I’d want to open a healing and education center where nonspeakers could work with the best minds in science and math and, you know, healthcare, so they could heal the planet and people and relationships and animals,’ Dickens said in one episode of the podcast.
Dickens claims that all of the tests conducted in the research were designed to prevent any sort of cheating, and states that video clips from the experiment are available on the show’s website if listeners would like to see for themselves.
All of the tests follow the same basic formula. For the case with Mia, her mother is given a thought to hold in her mind, like a number from a random number generator or a word she flipped to in a book.
While she had 100 percent accuracy with her mother, Mia fails to replicate her abilities in tests with her father.
That comes as she has written in her diary that she can read everybody’s mind, but you have to believe in her for her to do it.
In another test, Mia spells out the word ‘pirata,’ or ‘pirate’ in Spanish, which is the correct answer to what her mother was thinking.
But Jarry believes her mother could have influenced her response by controlling movements of her face or using fingers to guide the girl.
‘The mother’s influence cannot be ruled out,’ writes science communicator Jonathan Jarry in an article for McGill University’s Office for Science and Society.
‘The video clip posted to the website clearly shows the mom not only holding the letter board in front of Mia but holding Mia’s jaw as Mia points to the board,’ he explains.
‘In a different test, Mia’s mother is touching Mia’s forehead during the spelling, where it would be easy to subtly press down whenever Mia’s finger hovers over the right number,’ he adds.
Even Dr. Powell acknowledges the limitations of this type of experiment, telling Dickens that none of the tests they performed with Mia would be accepted by the scientific community.
Dr. Powell’s website states: ‘Proof that the phenomenon I’m witnessing is telepathy would require the elimination of any possibilities of subtle cueing.
‘This means being able to test the child and parent/clinician in separate rooms, or with a larger divider separating them.’
Because autistic children are extremely sensitive to change and new people, studying them in this way has been largely unattainable, Dr. Powell’s website claims.
‘However, using behavioral strategies, we can work towards the ideal protocol before filming the next set of experiments,’ it reads.
Despite clear weak spots in the evidence to support Dickens and Dr. Powell’s hypothesis, many listeners have become convinced that nonspeaking autistic children do possess supernatural powers, including Joe Rogan.
Despite the new competition for the number one podcast in the nation, Rogan said he is actually a fan of the The Telepathy Tapes.
On a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, he said he listens to the show, and believes ‘some telepathy is real.’
‘I’m only on episode two, but it’s really fascinating man,’ he told American actor and stand-up comedian Duncan Trussell, who appeared as a guest on his show.
Other listeners have taken to social media to share their thoughts on the show’s wild claims, with some saying they believe in the evidence Dickens and Dr. Powell present.
‘Learned about The Telepathy Tapes two days ago and just finished the final episode. If taken seriously, and if our species can find enough collective humility to listen, implications of these studies will radically shift our paradigm and propel us into a transcendental stage,’ one X user posted.
Another shared a more skeptical final take. ‘I listened through The Telepathy Tapes podcast and I’ve now also (payed for and) watched all of the videos on the website, some of them many times,’ they posted.
‘As someone who has long had an interest in illusion and deception, I can tell you that some of the experiments look like straight up parlor tricks. In one, you can even see the subject’s mother flashing the answer to him.’
Whether you believe in The Telepathy Tapes’ claims or not, it’s undeniable that this podcast has gripped the attention of Spotify users.
After soaring to the top of the charts at the end of 2024, the hosts announced they will be airing a second season, this time focusing on non-autistic ‘telepaths.’
If you ask Jarry, the show’s success underscores something fundamental about human nature: ‘We all want to believe.’
