Documentaries can be powerful. They can use the mature art-form of cinema in order to convey a specific narrative. The viewer can get drawn into that narrative, unaware they are being exposed to a very one-sided or limited take on a complex topic. I recently, for example, participated in a fun review of the Earthing Movie which was basically propaganda for the absolute nonsense that is earthing.
The Telepathy Tapes, which is primarily a podcast, suffers from the same problems as the Earthing Movie. In each case, the documentarians are not scientists, and they themselves get sucked into a world of pseudoscience that they are not equipped to properly evaluate. They become true believers, and then they turn their documentary skills toward promoting dangerous nonsense.
In this case, the header picture tells the entire tale, but let’s dive into the details. The core claim being promoted by this podcast is that non-speakers with autism or other neurological conditions actually have a rich inner intellectual life, they are simply not able to communicate their thoughts because of physical (but not intellectual) limitations. However, using various techniques, their communication can be facilitated, revealing their rich thoughts. If all this sounds familiar that’s because it is – this is 100% facilitated communication (FC), which was utterly disproved by the early 1990s.
The Telepathy Tapes takes FC one step further. Not only do these non-speakers have vastly more intellectual capability than is apparent, but they are also psychic. They can read minds, and even tap into a cosmic library of information, and spiritually communicate with other telepathic non-speakers. Let’s quickly review what FC is (although I do recommend reading some of the linked articles above for more background) and you will see why this outcome was likely inevitable.
In FC a facilitator allegedly helps their client to communicate in one of two basic methods. They can hold the arm of the client to “help” them either type or point to letters on a board. For those clients who have the ability to raise an arm, the facilitator can also hold a letter board up in front of them so that they can point. In each case the facilitator is capable of influencing, and in fact completely controlling, the output. They are moving the client’s arm, or they are moving the letter board, to get to the “right” answer.
Even if you have not heard of FC before you are likely thinking that there is an easy way to test the question of who is doing the communicating, the client or the facilitator, and you would be completely correct. Just blind the facilitator to the target information and see if the client can still communicate it. Show the client but not the facilitator a simple object and then have them name what they just saw. When this basic control is put into place, the client’s illusory ability to communicate vanishes.
FC had a brief moment in the mainstream of speech therapy but once the scientific evidence showed it was entirely bogus, responsible professionals abandoned it. But of course FC did not go away. It persists among true believers, some of whom have rebranded it as Spelling to Communicate or some other branding.
Within the pseudoscientific world of FC, however, there is a complete disconnect between what is actually happening inside the minds of the clients and what is being communicated in their name. This is horribly damaging and exploitative (even if well-intentioned). Because of this disconnect the claims made for FC clients can get increasingly extreme. At first it was thought that even non-speakers could engage in basic communication. But then FC was used to show that they can read (despite never being taught to read), and even read way above their age level. Some can apparently speak foreign languages they were never taught, while others attend college and are awarded degrees (all through FC).
The Telepathy Tapes, therefore, is just the next perhaps inevitable step in this sequence —autistic non-speakers, through FC, appear to also be psychic and transcendent. I can certainly see how this might be a comforting fantasy for parents who care for their children who cannot otherwise communicate. This creates a powerful emotional motivation to accept FC pseudoscience.
The documentarians did not do their due diligence. It does not appear that they consulted with appropriate experts, or wrap their heads around what FC is and why it is pseudoscience. Instead they did their own “tests”. As they say:
“The tests in The Telepathy Tapes library were conducted by director Ky Dickens and a small film crew in the homes of non-speakers and their families. These proof-of-concept sessions aimed to authenticate telepathic claims and assess the viability of a documentary. Their results underscore the need for deeper exploration and rigorous scientific study with tighter controls.”
So they went back in time almost four decades to do pilot testing of FC (as if it were a new technique) and then concluded that more study is needed. This seems blissfully unaware of the fact that those rigorous scientific studies with tighter controls have already been done, and FC failed those tests which conclusively demonstrate that the facilitators, not the clients, are doing the communication. They then bypassed any academic or scholarly review and went straight for public promotion. At least they got a successful podcast out of it.
This is not benign entertainment. The Telepathy Tapes project explicitly promotes versions of FC, and explains away the lack of rigorous scientific evidence (in ways familiar to promoters of alternative medicine), further contributing to the watering down of scientific and academic standards in our society. This further alienates the public from those pesky “experts” with their fancy research. It’s much more satisfying to just believe these kids are psychic.
And let’s also not forget that FC gets to many very dark places. Not only do these apparent savants dispense made-up medical advice, but under FC caregivers have been falsely accused of abuse. There are multiple cases of individuals being charged with felonies, undergoing long expensive trials, and losing their jobs because of bogus allegations made entirely using FC. There is also the notorious case of Anna Stubblefield who sexually abused a male client and claimed that he had given consent using FC. FC is like the “spectral evidence” of the medieval witch trials.
The Telepathy Tapes is simply abusing another generation of non-speakers, and convincing another generation of listeners that FC is something other than the completely discredited pseudoscience that it is.
