Prepare to Have Your Mind Blown

I'm obsessed with "The Telepathy Tapes."

I’ve been listening to the most extraordinary podcast. It’s called “The Telepathy Tapes,” and it’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of days. I’m not going to tell you what it’s about yet, in case you’re just looking for a mind-blowing listen but want to go in cold. If that’s you, stop reading now. If that’s not you, keep reading because I’m going to discuss it in depth.

Don’t push “play.” I just screenshotted the image from their homepage.

Regular readers already know about my interest in all things consciousness. If you’ve never spent any time pondering consciousness, here’s the first question: what is it? Seems like a simple enough question except here’s the problem:

Science doesn’t know.

Kind of a remarkable statement all by itself, no? There’s no universally accepted definition of consciousness. In fact, even the most basic statements about consciousness are problematic. Here’s one from the National Institute of Health:

“There is no consensus about how it is generated, or how best to approach the question, but all investigations start with the incontrovertible premise that consciousness comes about from the action of the brain.”

Here’s the problem: the premise that consciousness comes bout from the action of the brain is certainly not incontrovertible, and may actually be utterly and completely false. To my mind, “The Telepathy Tapes,” upsets the entire applecart of what we think we know about consciousness: all consciousness, not just the human variety.

I’m not going to do a better job than the show’s creators describing the premise. Here it is:

The Telepathy Tapes dares to explore the profound abilities of non-speakers with autism – individuals who have long been misunderstood and underestimated. These silent communicators possess gifts that defy conventional understanding, from telepathy to otherworldly perceptions, challenging the limits of what we believe to be real.

That’s a lot to unpack so I’ll take a moment to explain what you just read. There are thousands of non-verbal or minimally verbal autistic people who communicate – sit with this for a moment – telepathy. Put simply, they read minds. And that ability, as the podcast tells us, is only the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s the trailer for the film they’re making, which I would encourage you to watch because it puts some faces and voices behind the claims I’m making.

In that trailer, you’re witnessing psychic tests. The mom holding an Uno card behind her non-speaking child, who can “see” the card even though its out of his field of vision. You can see children correctly sorting and stacking objects by color despite not being able to see the objects. And we meet Dr. Diane Powell, who has been studying this phenomenon for years. Again, the trailer barely scratches the surface of how deep the podcast goes.

For example, perhaps you can believe that a parent and a child can develop some sort of rudimentary “telepathic bond” based on years of subtle cues between the two. One might be able to anticipate the other’s needs, for example, or sense when something’s not quite right. What if these non-speaking people could have entire conversations in this manner? What if they could communicate with others in the same way? What if they could do this despite being in different physical locations? Moreover, what if they could psychically gather together by the thousands on a place they call “The Hill,” which is like a telepathic chat room?

Because that’s what’s happening.

Let me reiterate that for a moment because I find it so startling. There is a non-physical place where non-speaking people with autism - sometimes upwards of 1,500 at a time - gather to hang out and talk with each other. They assemble there from different states, and even different countries.

And, again, that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Because what all of this implies, if the research is validated (it may already be validated, I don’t know) is that consciousness is non-local. It means that we somehow exist apart from our bodies. If that’s true then consciousness does not arise from the brain. In fact, the opposite might be true. Our brains may have arisen because of consciousness.

And if that’s true, it would imply that consciousness itself is foundational to our universe. Put another way, it’s entirely possible that the universe didn’t create consciousness. Consciousness created the universe.

I know, I know. Genesis has been saying this forever. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.” If you’re like me, you always thought that was so much poetic hogwash. But what if it’s true? Not that the biblical God as He’s been handed down to us across the centuries is “real” but that there might be some sort of intelligence that gave rise to This.

These theories are not new, but with “The Telepathy Tapes,” it seems like we might be a step closer to having a way to test the idea. For example, a famous subset of those with severe autism are the “savants.” These are people who develop extraordinary gifts in a diverse array of subjects: math, music, art, languages.

Take languages for a moment: many of these non-speaking people understand and communicate in a variety of languages to which they have had no exposure. One girl “speaks” English, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, and can read hieroglyphics. She can read hieroglyphics?!?

Some can play instruments they’ve never been taught.

Some communicate with the dead.

Yes, they communicate with the dead. We learn of more than one student who can talk to his teacher’s dead relatives, relatives the child had no way of knowing about. This feat is then replicated by other children in the classroom. This happens in other classrooms among students and teachers who do not know each other.

There are also teachers who have learned to “hear” their students telepathically and are able to respond telepathically. One mother and son who have lengthy conversations on a semi-nightly basis entirely within their shared lucid dreams.

We also meet a parrot owner who has trained her parrot to speak over 1,500 words and apparently has some level of understanding in terms of what it is saying. In other words, it’s using language appropriately. Cool, right? Now, what if I told you they’ve also proven the parrot can read its owner’s mind?

We’re introduced to Dr. Rupert Sheldrake who has spent his career studying animal telepathy. His conclusion: it’s real and it’s common. Here’s the telepathic parrot.

(Quick illustration: last night when I got home from playing poker, I decided to test this with my dog. I stood in front of him and thought to myself, “sit, sit, sit.” He sat. Then I thought, “Treat? Treat? Treat?” My dog looked over at the cabinet where the treats are kept. Hardly scientific and probably coincidental, but pretty f-ing cool.)

Obviously, all of this is “impossible” if the universe is a purely materialist construction. If everything, including consciousness, arises from physical processes beginning with the Big Bang, then such a thing would not be possible because there is no physical explanation for these events.

But, if consciousness is primary, we can imagine that it exists in a kind of “field,” permeating everything. Most of the time, our world and our consciousness rests above this field, rarely interacting with it beyond the surface. But what if some people could access it? The field would contain all information. In the New Age realm, people sometimes refer to this information as “the Akashic Records.” Here’s a description:

“Akashic Records is a concept describing a space that contains information about everything in existence since the dawn of time.1 If one were able to peer through the layer of reality separating us from it and access this infinite database, they would essentially be able to attain absolute knowledge on a scale that surpasses anything a normal human mind can comprehend by far.”

I’m not asserting that such a realm is real or not, only asking what would happen if some people were able to access such a thing? We would see exactly what we’re seeing: people developing gifts and abilities, and acquiring knowledge that they should not be able. This includes examples of precognition – one girl predicted a mass shooting, which she did not have enough information to prevent.  One girl predicted her father would slip on ice and injure himself despite the fact that the family lives in Arizona where there is no ice. A few weeks later, the father went on a business trip, slipped on some black ice, and injured himself.

It also implies that consciousness exists beyond death. Stories of Near Death Experiences make a lot more sense when viewed through this frame. So, dare I say, do so-called alien abductions.

Again, I’m just a poor country lawyer. I don’t nuthin’ about nuthin’, but the series makes a compelling case that there’s something deep and profound we do not understand about ourselves and our world. Moreover, just as a human, it tells us that these children and adults that so many people have given up on are highly intelligent, communicative, and capable of extraordinary things. As soon as I started listening, I texted my buddy who has a non-speaking daughter in her early twenties. I said, “You have to listen to this podcast ASAP.” He hadn’t heard of it yet, but he told me he would give it a listen. This is what he wrote back:

This warmed my heart, which is why I put a little heart emoji over his response.

Again, I make no claims about the podcast’s validity. I’m only saying it’s an incredible listen. Maybe it resonates with you. Maybe not. If nothing else, it’s fascinating.