This Podcast Blew My Mind. So, I Listened To 10 Hours In One Day.
What if everything we thought we knew about human potential was just the tip of the iceberg?
On Sunday, December 29, I started listening to a new podcast I had heard about, The Telepathy Tapes. By the end of the day, I had listened to all 10 hours of the show. Since, then, I’ve spent another 10 hours going down the rabbit hole.
The podcast is exceptional on multiple levels:
Ky Dickens is an amazing storyteller, which made it impossible for me to stop listening.
She went out of her way to design the tests rigorously so that the results, one way or another, would be indisputable.
It lets you experience a compelling series of live telepathic tests, complete with her team’s immediate reactions and resulting transformation from skeptic to believer.
It’s the first podcast to tell the story of non-verbal autistic savants and the teachers and parents who love and support them.
Telepathy is just the tip of the iceberg of abilities that are talked about.
The implications of these abilities existing are profound. It forces us to confront how reality works at a fundamental level (time, space, consciousness, interconnectedness).
Normally, I am extremely skeptical of ESP claims.
However, the host, in collaboration with nonverbal savant researcher Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell, did a truly masterful job presenting the research and stories.
During the series, you hear example after example of these young people guessing the exact numbers or images written on a paper while completely blindfolded again and again. Hearing test after test unfold in real-time adds a unique impact that's hard to ignore and triggers curiosity.
And, I’m not alone. As I write this, Telepathy Tapes is the #1 podcast in the world…
So, if you’re looking for a new podcast to kick off your 2025, I highly recommend it.
What You Get In This Post
Free Subscribers
Get access to 8 curated video documentaries and clips that highlight the amazing and inspiring abilities of savants.
Paid Subscribers
I also got the full transcript of the entire podcast and uploaded it to NotebookLM along with the book, The ESP Enigma, by Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell who is the main research collaborator on the podcast.
As a paid subscriber, at the bottom of this post, you get access to:
The 30-minute AI-generated summary of the podcast (it’s actually really good)
The transcript so you can upload it to NotebookLM and ask questions of it.
Now, let’s dive in…
Even more than entertainment, I particularly enjoyed the series because of what it implies for human potential…
Toward Human Superintelligence
Over the years, I’ve been fascinated by savants, because some display the furthest reaches of human potential. Common savant abilities include…
Near perfect memory of nearly every moment in their life
The ability to speak multiple languages without ever being taught
The ability to play music masterfully without ever having been taught
The ability to do extremely complicated math in seconds
Cumulatively, they perhaps foreshadow abilities that could be tapped into by all of us. For example, researchers like Allan Snyder are using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to inhibit certain parts of the brain and stimulate others to trigger abilities. Other nonconventional methods that are currently interesting to me are:
Hypnogia (tapping into the creative state between waking and sleeping like artist Salvador Dali)
Visualiztion (recognizing and decoding our innate intuitive visualization abilities using techniques like the Image Streaming like Einstein)
Meditation (I’m particularly interested in exploring Jhana meditation via my friend’s company Jhourney)
Psychedelics (I’ve had several experiences that have been life-changing)
With that said, below are a few clips that have caught my attention over the years that you may enjoy as well if you want to go down the rabbit hole…
9 Videos That Are Testaments To Human Potential
#1: Brain Man: The Boy Genius With The Incredible Brain
#2: Divergent Minds (VSauce)
#3: How One Man’s Brain Injury Turned Him Into A Math Savant
#4: Leslie Lemke - ABC's That's Incredible (1981)
#5: Derek Amato: Musical Savant
#6: Kim Peek - The Real Rain Man [Full Film]
#7: Spellers (documentary about non-verbal autists)
This documentary is the only one that I’m aware of about non-verbal autists, but it’s not about telepathy.
#8: Medium Tyler Henry Has His Brain Scanned
I thought this episode was fascinating on a few levels.
First, Tyler Henry was born with a cyst in his head and also had a traumatic brain injury. That may not be related to anything, but I thought it was interesting in that it is similar to how some savants develop their abilities after brain injury.
Second, he has his brain scanned for the first time. And when he is “channeling” there is a massive change in his brain:
I find that interesting because regardless of having an exact explanation of what’s happening, something clearly is. Even if he is somehow tapping deeper into his ordinary intuition and recognizing patterns at a much much deeper level, that itself is interesting and consequential for human superintelligence.
#9. Harvard Scientist: "These Kids Are Telepathic!” [Telepathy Tapes Documentary]
Some Caveats On Woo
I’m still holding a certain level of skepticism while I actively explore
There can be surprising advantage in the “woo”
I follow my curiosity, and sometimes that will take me into woo territory.
Thoughts on ESP and the scientific method
Neurodiversity runs in my family
#1. I’m still holding a certain level of skepticism while I actively explore the topic
The audio of the podcast is extremely compelling. At the same time, I don’t know what I don’t know about the experimental conditions. For example, many nonverbal autists need some of form of help in communicating using their spelling device. Without seeing the video, I’m not sure what this facilitation looks like and how it might have impacted the results.
I also really appreciate this back-and-forth between an academic skeptic, Jonathan Jarry (molecular biologist) and Dr. Diane Powell (nonverbal autistic telepathy researcher):
Detailed discussions like these between academics are extremely beneficial for people outside the field. They help outsiders understand subtle points that would otherwise require months of in-depth research to uncover.
#2. There can be surprising advantage in the “woo”
Speaking frankly, I feel a little weird sharing this post.
Telepathy is one of those things that it’s easy to reject out of hand. Therefore, part of me worries that some people will consider me too woo-woo and unfollow me as a result.
On the other hand, I would feel weird not sharing it since it’s also a direct expression of my curiosity about human potential, just like other articles in this newsletter.
On a deeper level, my friend, Stephen Zerfas, who has built a $1M+ data-driven meditation education company captures my sentiments about the practical value of woo:
When I hear "woo" I think "alpha?" An under-appreciated "secret" of our time may be that many woo experiences are not exaggerated, they're just poorly understood. There's plenty of noise. But alpha always comes with noise. That's what reverse engineering, anthropology, and open-minded experiments are for.
Clarification: It’s not “woo beliefs” that contain alpha, it’s reports of powerful experiences that only have woo explanations.
#3. I follow my curiosity, and sometimes that will take me into woo territory.
As I get older, I develop more and more confidence in following and sharing my authentic and holistic curiosity wherever it takes me. Here’s why:
There is deep authenticity in our curiosity. We all have unique, evolving curiosities. And being unique is one of the keys to creating value.
There is deep wisdom in curiosity. Curiosity is our evolved, intuitive sense that something is worth paying attention to even if we don’t understand exactly why rationally. When curiosity is triggered, our motivation, enthusiasm and learning rate skyrocket.
It’s worth the risk to be ourselves. Each curiosity will turn off some people and excite others. And life’s too short to try to please the people who are turned off by the things that are most alive for me. So, I’m ok taking the risk even if it means less financial success or reputation. My hope and ask of my audience and of myself is that we open-mindedly explore our own aliveness and potential together.
My goal for this newsletter is practical curiosity about human potential. At the same time, the context of this newsletter isn’t about sharing everything going on in my life. It’s about me following my curiosity, synthesizing what I learn, and making it practical so that you can apply it and get transformative results in your life. Hopefully that comes across.
#4. Thoughts on ESP and the scientific method
I deeply believe in the scientific method. I became fascinated the the scientific method in my late 20s. I wanted to understand the thinking philosophy that led to so many of the critical inventions and discoveries that power the modern world. I wanted to know how we went from horses and hand-written letters to space ships, computers, and the Internet in just 250 years. How crazy is that?
The scientific method is often confused with scientific dogma. Unfortunately, for many, the scientific method has been transformed into a dogmatic philosophy that rejects ideas out of hand that are hard to believe or challenge fundamental theories. There is a gap between the spirit of the scientific method and how that method is actually practiced in much of academia.
This is the heart of the scientific method according to Karl Popper. I deeply resonate with science philosophy Karl Popper’s idea that the heart of the scientific method is conjecture and refutation. Said differently, the heart of the method comes down to two things:
Conjecture. Proactively detecting anomalies and coming up with as many diverse and credible explanations for these anomalies as possible.
Refutation. Deeply examining all claims with skepticism and having a high bar to pass in order to replace other explanations.
Bottom line: Many people associate science with methodical, mathematical experimentation and undervalue the intuitive, creative parts of generating novel explanations.
#5. Neurodiversity runs in my family
Beyond the implications for Human Superintelligence, I’m also fascinated by the topic of neurodiversity because it runs in my family. I’ve seen firsthand how it can lead to challenges in integrating with society and the school system, and at the same time, it can lead to unexpected gifts. So the series was also interesting to me on that level.
Paid Subscriber Bonuses
I got the full transcript of the entire podcast and uploaded it to NotebookLM along with the book, The ESP Enigma, by Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell who is the main research collaborator on the podcast.
As a paid subscriber you get access to:
The transcript so you can upload it to NotebookLM and ask questions of it.
The 30-minute AI-generated summary of the podcast (it’s actually really good)