S2E38: From Skeptic to Advocate: Becca Cramer Returns | Talk Tracks

Media. In this series, we explore the threads that weave together our understanding of reality, science, spirituality, consciousness, and even unexplained phenomena. Because every era has ideas once dismissed as impossible until someone was willing to investigate them seriously, and on this show, we do just that.

If you want to see our incredible guests in person, we have a video version of this episode

on the telepathy tapes YouTube page. Today we're with Becka Cramer, an unbelievable person who is a former nuclear engineer, and when she first heard at the telepathy tapes, she did what few people do, which is go back and look at all the initial research around spelling, telepathy, non-speaking autism, and ended up on the other side of very different person and now an activist, so I'm thrilled

to have you here Becca. So good to be here.

“You've had such a journey, and some people remember that you were in our Talk Tracks last”

year about your journey and spelling, but for those who didn't hear that Talk Tracks episode, could you just give us your version of your backstory how you end up on this couch? Yes, absolutely. I listen to the telepathy tapes, loved it. I'm writing a book about honestly it's about spirituality and pain and science, and I thought,

okay, this telepathy is incredible, I gotta include this, and I started researching it,

tried to debunk it, and couldn't. So you were a scientist, you were a nuclear engineer, so maybe talk about your background, your mind set, like are you pretty rational, do you like to have a lot of evidence? You know, talk about just you and your career path and how that's influenced how you see the world.

So I am nuclear engineer by training, worked in the nuclear industry for over seven years, worked in healthcare after that. I grew up Mormon, and went from Mormon to secret to atheist, then I had a bunch of health issues and chronic pain, which sort of gently nudged me back into seeking mode, and that I was in that head space when I found the telepathy tapes.

And just to ask you about that, because I have some friends who are ex-Morman, and what happened to your thoughts around belief and believing when you left the Mormon church, because it's

“hard. I think the Mormon community can be wonderfully grounding for a lot of people, because”

there's such a sense of community and love and looking out for each other, and I know it can be extremely hard to leave. So are you able to talk about what made you leave, and what happened in your mind and heart in that process? Yeah, absolutely, and I much of my family is still Mormon, and very close to a lot of them,

and like you said, it can be very grounding for some people, and I've just gotten to this very flexible view of belief, but for a long time, I was very staunchly against it. I felt against what, against religion, organized religion. I felt it was very divisive. I felt like I had been fooled, and I felt like people I loved were being controlled by malicious people, rather than a higher power. And I've learned more since, and my

view is continued to change, but yeah, it was like I will not be fooled again, you know, is the feeling, and I've met a lot of people like that. Like I was, as I considered myself an atheist for a long time, and most of the people in my life are still atheists. So it's getting into this space while, you know, keeping my feet on the ground, and continuing to love that people I love on both sides has been really interesting, and I love it,

but it is hard because spirituality is such a personal question. Yeah. It's such a personal thing, but I think it's been harmful, how much we've put it into the closet, and how

little we let ourselves talk about it, because it's such an essential part of being human,

“I think, and I don't think you have to have God necessarily to be spiritual. No. Yeah.”

Yeah. And I think that was beautiful because I wanted to really understand what happened to around belief because I think one thing I've learned in this journey with the top of the tapes is most of us don't want to be fooled in either direction. You know, I think the majority of people don't want to be just spoon fed something and told this is real believe it, or be told nothing's really you can't believe anything and you're still

you're uneducated. I think the truth from most of us is somewhere between, and I was so grateful that, you know, here's a stranger, but it's kind of what I went through, because I remember when I first started hearing, "Oh, well, spelling can't be real" and this and this, I went through my own cognitive dissidents for about eight months going through all the paperwork,

of non-speakers, saying some of their parents didn't know typing about things in a cadence

that their parents didn't do not have. And it was like, what? And then the telepathy to your point, spending so many times with families were like, they knew when I was feeling sad and was crying, they knew where things were hidden, I would think about where the Christmas presents were,

“and they'd go get it, like all sorts of stuff, or I'm like, I can't add this up. So I think to even”

like further the conversation, there's two different things going on that the non-speaking communities up against. One is their communication being valid, right? That spelling is an affirmed, a communication, and these individuals are authoring their own thoughts, not being joysticked by

some parent, or whatever it is, or being cute or being prompted, and then there's a second element,

which is telepathy. And I guess to start, do telepathy and spelling go hand in hand, or are they different things that can exist separately? I think it's prudent to separate them. So I was arguing the other day on the phone, or having a lively professional discussion with one of the leading researchers that's anti-spelling, and we're talking in the conversation basically gets down to, you know, thinking they're being cute, and I'm arguing that they're not

“being cute to be cute in that way. That's impossible. And it gets down to, I think, to telepathy”

is more likely than this queuing theory that's been established. But then in that moment, I have this light bulb of, oh my gosh, it doesn't matter. You don't have to say, yes, telepathy is happening in order for, for the communication to be valid. And so it's happening as we're arguing about, you know, is it telepathy? Is it queuing? But what really matters and what's really going to move the needle for non-speakers is, are there words valid? And what I'm shocked to find is

the speech and language pathologist, Asha, they believe that every word spelled by a non-speaker is influenced that it's controlled still. They can see all these very independent typeers. And when I say very independent, yeah, they still have a partner in the room. They're not even being touched. But because there's this potential for influence, and they've just grabbed on to this one test that, you know, they have to do a message passing test. It's not appropriate

science. But at the same, you're not even, you, we're not even asking the right researchers. So we all want to be evidence-based. That's important evidence-based is good. What we know is that influence is possible between a stellar and their partner. We don't know how that influence is happening. There's very convincing information that it's probably to let the, but to stay scientific, we can say that is an unknown. That the influence is just a black box and unknown.

And we can do science like that. You know, you identify your unknowns and you move forward. So we say influence is possible. We can look into that further. But then spelling, saying that it's valid, saying that it's beneficial, saying that they are choosing to spell those words. That can all be separated from telepathy. And it needs to be because I think we don't want to link it too strongly

to telepathy because that's going to be really hard to study evidence-based is critical.

I think that's true that they can be very separate. You know, I know a few non-speakers who say telepathy is not a part of anything I've ever understood to be true. And then other non-speakers who are like, yes, this is absolutely part. And I can hear voices all the time and just, but that doesn't

“mean that what someone is thinking you're always going to spell. And that's why it's such”

important thing to call this out because what I've talked to CRPs, they say, if I can empty my mind completely and not be thinking any thoughts, it's essential to then have the their true thoughts and feelings coming out. I mean, have you heard that at all? Definitely, yes, I've definitely heard that that it helps to consider your internal experience when you're being the partner so that you're not influencing them. And you could say, okay, influencing them by queuing, influencing

them by telepathy, either one, we can all agree influences possible. But where it becomes madness, an unacceptable is to make this giant leap. It's a massive assumption that turns into the huge human rights issue saying that every single thing may spell is influenced. Yeah. It's like, you know, whenever you talk to anyone, you're going to be influenced by who you're speaking

supports what the non-speakers are saying. We know it's a neurodevelopmental problem. It is not a

behavioral problem. It's neurodevelopmental. We diagnose it based on behavior because that's just

“the nature of the DSM. That's how we work in the world. But we're evolving and we're learning,”

oh, it's the internal experience. It's the nervous system. That's where the autism truly lies. So when we're only diagnosing based on behavior, one, we're missing a lot of neurodevelopmental people by doing that. And I think we're missing what really matters. Yeah. When you say DSM, what does that mean? The diagnostics statistical manual or like it's what psychologists and psychiatrists use for diagnosing mental disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders are also in there like ADHD

and intellectual disability and autism. We know their neurodevelopmental. They're in the DSM for

diagnostic reasons and it can be severe or it can be not a severe. And it's just there's a spectrum. So, you know, I'd love for you to kind of go through some of the common arguments that have been

“leveled against spellers or diapers. And why those arguments might not hold water. And I think”

starting with what was that horse's name Clever Hans? Maybe explain who Clever Hans was, what the argument was and how that wouldn't translate to a letterboard from minor standing because you'd have to cue every single letter which would take a long time. So maybe could you talk about that? Yes. So Clever Hans, it's like 1907, there's a horse that the owner is convinced that the horse is intelligent because you can ask the horse any question and the horse will stop. It's of

however many times to get you to the right answer. You could ask true false. You could ask how old someone is a lot of different questions. What they found is, you know, even scientists came into the study this horse. They couldn't figure it out. But then they did some studies where they blindfolded the horse and the horse couldn't get the answers right when it was blindfolded. So they realized somehow the horse is going off of a visual cue to know when to stop tapping its

hoof. So I did a Clever Hans deep dive tune. It sounds like let's say your child was 14 and you said to Clever Hans. Okay, how old is my kid? And then it was sort of the hoof going. And when you got to 14, people would usually lean in and clap or smile really big and then the horse would stop. Right? So the horse would pick up on a subtle cue and know when to stop. Exactly. Okay, yes. Okay. So now fast forward. How did that get tangled in with spelling? So it's idiom motor.

In fact, we make subtle movements subconsciously and we all do this and that is how mentalist work. They learn how to read people's subconscious cues very subtly and they can pick up a lot of different information that way. So because the partners with the non-speakers, they are not trying to fool anyone. They are not trying to do anything. They believe in the words that the non-speakers are saying. So to explain that, they would say, well, then the partner must be doing something subconsciously.

Something the partner is doing subconsciously is controlling the non-speaker. It's controlling the letters the non-speakers selecting. Which pause there? Because what's so weirdly offensive about that? It's rooted in this idea that these people cannot be competent. That non-speakers aren't competent. Because they're looking at behavior, right? They're seeing someone who you asked them a question. They walk away or you tell them to sit down and they might stand up, which is a function of a

praxia. Your body is not able to do what you want it to do. But just because you're not speaking or not able to control your body doesn't mean you're not smart. But the idea that in order to

“spell something, you have to be cute or joysticked by a human body is deeply problematic for me”

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Okay, so you're looking at some of these tests. The people point to as, you know, do bunking spilling and what do you see? They were seeing telepathy and needed an explanation. And so instead of believing the words, the non-speakers were spelling, we create this materialist explanation for how they can be spelling what their partner knows. So we create this explanation and then it just grows and grows and grows from there. And it re, I mean, it put the science of autism back

so far. But now we've got psychologists and we've got motor planning scientists looking into autism as well and finding that what the non-speakers have been saying is true from a experiential perspective. We do know that they have motor difficulties and motor differences. Sensory motor differences. You know, there's a praxia. Like speech is a fine motor. We know that loops are very common that they'll get in this, there's a mind-body disconnect. We can see that in level 1,

2 and 3. And they level 1, 2 and 3 for people new to this. Those are levels of autism based on quote unquote severity. Yeah, level 3 would be non-speakers. Yeah, exactly. So what's fascinating

which makes it unbelievably heartbreaking that they had access to communication. We shut it down

“because it didn't hold up to materialist tests and now how do we, how do we come back from that?”

How do we make up for that? How do we, I mean, it's a lot of a lot of people. So bring people back there. So in the just, when did facilitated communication start? What did that look like versus now? What was problematic and like when did things start to unravel? And how do we still feel the repercussions of that today? 40, almost 50 years later? Yeah. So facilitated communication started in the 80s like in Australia. They brought it over to the United States and everyone was really

excited about it. Educators and it was adopted very quickly and people were communicating

sort of a thought for the first time. You have this massive population of people

that are now gaining voices and not only that, how comes our improving? You know, it isn't just that they're gaining voices that they're seeing results. They're seeing improvements in behavior, things you can measure. But you know, relationships seem to be forming in ways that they hadn't before. But then they do these tests, message passing tests, which were just one, the message passing test was just invented by a speech and language pathologist. It's not like this wasn't some

fine science like vaccines or medicine or, you know, things that have a lot of specialists involved. This was, this is very niche science. So I just think that's important for listeners to know like questioning this is, it's manageable. There are many other forms of science that I wouldn't even go near because it's just too complicated. This was fairly simple and it's remarkable how few people really control it. And so you make this test, the message passing test, where the non-speaker and the

partner are asked different questions. And so they don't know what the other was asked. They're asked different questions. Let's make it really simple. The non-speakers shown a picture of a cup. The partner is shown a picture of a dog. The non-speaker, when asked what picture did you see

“the non-speaker spells dog. And so how could the non-speaker do that? How could they know?”

The partner must be in control somehow. And no matter how far away they were sitting,

no matter what the context it was just always, if they failed, they're being cute. And because

they failed consistently because the way the test was set up, it was stressful. It wasn't taking into account. A lot of things that we've learned from non-speakers, they would fail. And it was just assumed that every word from that point on is controlled. What do you think was happening? I mean, so I guess skeptics of spelling would say, okay, they were being somehow cute or someone was moving the board or something like that. What's the alternative to what was happening in those tests?

I think it was telepathy. Yeah. Honestly, I wouldn't have even made that jump until I saw the footage. You know, it's a young girl and she's pointing to letters. And I just had to put myself in that position of like trying to work with someone, holding a board. And in any way, trying to get them to put their finger on the right letter, that would what, like that just seemed so hard and almost impossible. But I also get that, yeah, telepathy, many people think is impossible. But since my

“mind had opened the potential of telepathy just enough, you got, oh my gosh, what if that's how they're”

doing that? Yeah. And I love, because that's where I ended up looking back at some of that research, too, was like, if you watch how quickly some of these individuals are spelling, and the fact that if it was idiom motor, you'd have to cute every single word. You'd have to float over A and get a Q. You'd have to float over B and get a Q. You'd have to float over C and get a Q. And you've seen spellers at this point, I'm sure they spell so fast. I don't know, waiting for Q. Sometimes the word is out.

Before, you know, no one even knows what's happening, right? It's just so fast. Especially if you're typing like the spellers that we feature aren't being touched. Sometimes they're typing into an iPad on their own,

If they're saying what's in the parent's mind or what the parent saw? And if it's not Qing,

it's telepathy, but to your point in the 90s, I think that would have sounded bananas. I mean,

“it sounds bananas to people even now. So if you want to isolate telepathy, then they just do”

everything that's thrown out the window, right? Because it's like none of this can be possible. Okay, so as far as the people doing those message passing tests, so they weren't scientists with like IRB approval, which is like approval from big universities. This were these like peer-review gigantic tests that were put out in journals and studied or was it just like, like tell me how what you think regarding how like these early 90s message passing tests became the baseline for

dismissing communication from entire graffiti. Yeah, I think at first they weren't IRB, but then

they were, and I think once you get the failed message passing tests, that's where the air happens. Once you are sure that they're communicating, the partners sure that they're communicating, they do a test, you're, you're not even touching them, and yet they spell what's in your mind.

“Once everyone became aware that that's a possibility, I think that really solidified”

the message passing test. That's we know influence is possible and very surprising ways, so we have to get a message passing test. And so this is what my big aha moment recently has been even if everyone kind of comes around to the telepathy piece, we have the other hurdle of presuming competence, and if people come around to, well, they can potentially read minds, it still begs the question of, well, are there thoughts their own, are there words their own?

And that's where the research going on right now, that isn't getting included by Asha Scientists, because it's being done by psychologists, showing, you know, the eye tracking studies and really focusing on proving authorship rather than obsessing about this potential for influence, it's, we can move on from there, from a spelling science perspective, we know they can be influenced.

Instead of staying in this how, why, which we may never know, especially if it's telepathy,

we may never know, how do we just ensure that their words are their own? And I've thought about this looking at how hard it is to spell, how much effort, and if you're the parent of a neurodivergent person, you know how hard it can be to get them to do anything that they don't want to do.

“So I think it's, it's not a wild assumption to say that they are spelling what they want to spell.”

And that's just the most humane to me, obvious explanation is they're spelling what they want to spell. It might be something I thought you're having, but they want to be spelling it if they're doing that. Yeah, and what's interesting too, and this was the big aha moment for me, was, and why it felt important to talk about the telepathy piece is because I've met so many parents and CRPs now who will say, or communication regulation partners who will say,

when I'm spelling with this person, I will completely empty my mind, I have no thoughts of my own, and if that becomes hard, I'll sing a song over and over in my head, or I'll say the word orange of banana, something over and over and over again, and what's really funny is like, I've been in a situation before watching a spell or type something, some beautiful message, and all of a sudden they'll say, stop saying banana, and I'm thinking, what is happening?

But they're talking to the partner, you know, or just clear your head instead of saying banana, just really funny things that are like, that's actually really annoying to me right now, like can you just clear it? So I can spell, you know, and not say banana over and over. So I think, you know, there's those moments that are really quite humorous but also telling, and I just want to add this thought too, you know, which it took me a long time to really

understand this, um, ableism, right, that like, what does that even mean? But I think for some people just to think about it is that we have a box of what feels comfortable for us to validate something, right? Like, oh, just do it this way, and if you can't do it that way, it's like, oh, they can't do it, but that's pretty ableist because you're coming at it from a point of view where you're used to a neurotypical body, responding to your thoughts, responding to the

directions, firing from your brain, saying to do something x, y, z, or even if you have a difficult time around controlling your body and need someone they're to regulate, and non-speakers

on the ground or my back up straight, it helps me to communicate to function. And so to say, your words only count if a person isn't in the room helping you with that, again, it feels it's come we're coming from an ableist point of view, our point of view what works for our bodies, not what we're working for there. And I think that is the big shift. I'm exactly that it's to view support as control, to say that, you know, communication needs to be 100% independent

“is ableist. And so it's not flinging insults, that's what we mean when we say this is ableist.”

It'd be like, you know, not letting someone have an interpreter, it's support, but their words are still their own, right? Or one example of you before is like if someone needs to read a book, but needs reading glasses, if you take away the reading glasses, it's a support. You're not saying the reading glasses are why you're reading. I mean, it's a support. And I think if you think about a communication regulation partner in that similar way, it's just a support.

Mm-hmm, absolutely. Can you talk about any of the research you see happening right now in terms of mind exploration, proving authorship, you mentioned eye tracking studies, what are those, what have they discovered from eye tracking studies? Yeah, so I'm Vikram Jalswahl out of the University of Virginia said lab and they do great work. And the one study, it's eye tracking study where they're measuring the eye movements and they can show that the non-speakers eyes go to the

letter before they select it. So it makes Q&A theory even that much harder because then it puts it in the realm of like Morris code or something. So you know, there's these eye tracking studies, they just came out with a commentary and autism research journal, which is owning this potential for influence, obviously not talking about telepathy, but just we know that they can be influenced, we know all these message passing tests have failed. But wow, what a leap to go from influence

to shut it down. And obviously there are much more eloquent and scientific in their explanation for why we need to revisit the science of assisted typing, they call it assisted typing.

“But I think that's good for all the parents, people up there that are curious, if you're not”

down with the telepathy piece, that's fine. This is not dangerous and it isn't going against science. It's just there are different silos and science. And we have a perfect storm of this has been in the wrong silo for way too long. And then getting it out of the speech language pathology silo, it needs to be in physiology and neuroscience and psychology, like moving it over there and there's great work going on, more researchers are needed, though, and we need

much more people in this space. And and I also want us to be ready for there will always be the

potential for saying, well, maybe they were influenced. It's like, okay, so because we have so much research showing the influence is possible, how do we get past this potential for influence? And you go, you verify, if anything is set of consequence, we validate it with an independent spelling partner, done. And that's like this whole fear around not letting us spell, not letting them spell because abuse allegations are inevitable. And that is damaging and very hard to deal with.

But we can deal with it. But it really is going to be changing the science of autism. This is a big shift to say, oh my gosh, non-speakers are much, much more aware, present, capable than we previously

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“formed. This is just the beginning, I think, for the science of autism, especially, like really”

understanding how we can support all levels. I know you've now met some spellers and their families and CRPs. Have you had conversations? Because again, it's something I've seen often where a speller will be spelling something the parent doesn't want to do. It doesn't agree with has no knowledge about, it's frustrating because they will speak within long sentences when they want to quick answer. Have you seen any of that? Because that to me fits into a column of just

common sense. If you're curing something, you would want it your way all the time. Yeah, we were having a really fun night with Katie and Libby. It was after filming, I think, a little while back. Katie, who we mentioned before, is Houston's mom, and Libby is John Paul's mother, and they were all featured in season one of the 12-up of the tapes and the upcoming film. Yeah, and Houston was there. And I asked Houston something, and he was like, it's time to go to bed,

and I knew Katie did not want to go to bed. So just like little things like that. And I've heard plenty of stories definitely, where it's surprising. And I've asked multiple parents, because if you're in the camp of like, I can accept the telepathy piece, it does beg the question. Okay, if we're open to telepathy, how do you know everything they say isn't just, you know, what you want to hear? How do you know, it's really coming from them? And there's just so many

examples. Like when I've asked parents that, you know, they say they're learning their child's or adults' personality. They're learning likes and dislikes, and you know, I want to go to the beach, and they'll go to the beach, and they'll love it. And I mean, there's just so many solutions.

“And that's why I've said it'd be really great to track the outcomes, the mental health improvements,”

the relationship improvements. How do we show the benefits of them getting voices on top of just getting your voice? Yeah. But I don't know, I like to think of like, what's the most valuable way we can research this, but it truly is right now we say inconclusive, and we have to let spelling across the board happen, because we know how to mitigate the dangers, and it sure looks like

who are so locked into wanting to disenfranchise and dismiss spelling as fake, you know,

a lot of people at Asha, or there are like a lot of really intense lobbyists and people who are making sure spelling stays in the fringes? Do you think there's any amount of research that changed their stance, or do you think there could be an emotional desire not to, because it would show how wrong they've been, and being wrong about who won the Super Bowl or something two years ago is one thing. Being wrong about denying people education, life, relationships, friendships,

autonomy, or where they eat, where they go, what they do is massive. It is a crime. I can't even fat them. And if I helped bolster that narrative, I personally would be very scared of being called

out wrong. But who knows? Like what do you think about that? Do you think they want to accept a

change? Or is there too much at risk? I completely agree. It's so massive, and it's been going on for so long, and through the research I've done, I can see people that deeply care for non-speakers that it isn't coming from a place of negative. It's really is coming from a place of believing they're protecting them, which is the, it's almost like the worst type of trying to help. It's like when I was trying to help by digging into the science of telepathy, and I do, I think it helped,

but then I had this moment of like, oh my gosh, did I make something worse? Did I actually hurt them?

“So that's same, you know, a lot of these researchers are just trying to help in the best way they”

know how, but I think studying it, validating it, it's going to be difficult. And because we know influence is possible for whatever reason, how do we incorporate that into the science? I love, I love what you brought up around trying, and maybe there's research going on around this if there is, let me know. But trying to study the mental health and almost like behavioral outcomes in a family when someone starts spelling because what I've witnessed many times now is truly

someone being able to say what they want for dinner, or what they can't eat. Like I remember hearing about a young Speller who was just like, I actually cannot eat eggs. They make me feel so bad, and she was having all sorts of stomach issues and all sorts of stuff, and then like they stopped eggs, and they're morning got way better, you know, or like you said, like there's a non-speaker

I know who can serve, and that would have never crossed their parents mind. But when he starts spelling,

he said, I want to go to the ocean, and I want to learn to surf. Well, that sounded bananas from

“someone with a praxis who cannot control their body, and he can do it. And so I think those are the”

things where it's like, then as a family member or a parent, you're like, oh, we had the people hurt me share the story when we were filming Nina, who's in our film. She was really disregulated, having a really hard time with our film team was there, and I thought we can't film today. She's screaming and upset, and it was, you know, just I respect for the family, and she took the, we were all about to go and we're outside, and she spelled out in a letterboard, "No, bring me to the forest."

And I was like, okay, and it's like we had to, you know, change everything, go to the forest, and the family was already for everything at that home that day. You know, it was going to be like, you know, it was a shoot. It was a kind of a major thing. We were all there. So we all go to the forest, and she becomes so calm and relaxed, and which is like, this is my happy place. I'll tell you why. I can jive with plants in this beautiful way and understand them, and this is grounding.

“Well, that was her talking. So I think that to look at those outcomes, right, of when”

non-speakers have autonomy and agency over the decisions on their life, does it benefit the family? Does it benefit that individual? Does it benefit the greater society? And I think that research is going to be the stuff that moves the needle. Absolutely. And do you think those at Asha, and again, those people who are fairly against spelling, thinking that they're protecting non-speakers, do you think they'd be open to research like that? I don't know. I wonder if they would put it in

the same vein as like acupuncture or certain forms of therapy. Like if they'll say, yeah, it works, but they're not really communicating. I wonder if they would still hold to this, their influence is possible. Therefore, it's all influenced that that I think will be the hardest one to shake. Because this is such fragile, divisive, fiery territory. Nothing in this

an autism community. It's like so much. But for my point of view, the telepathy piece is essential.

Because if people can understand it, that is happening. And I deeply at this point, not believe it is, then you can actually sort of a real conversation around spelling. And understand, there might not be queuing happening. It's telepathy. And how do you clear your mind or clear your thoughts so that authorship can really prevail? To me, it's like a very simple thing, but until telepathy is accepted, the conversation will still go in loops like it has for 30,

40 years. And we don't know how they're saying what they're looking at. Someone in the other room,

“they looked at a cup in this room, they're spelling about a cup. Like, how can that happen?”

I mean, they're having message passing tests in other rooms. And it's like, how can someone be queuing someone from another room? It's telepathy, right? I mean, it's like, that is the only logical leap. It's what is the other leap? I don't even know what the leap is. Like, even the appeal and his mom, that video, they go, well, you know, she's, she's making sounds, any kind of perceptible sound, anything, but it's because I think that we really hold strong

to materialism. And I think a lot of people are scared to be the fool, and to, yeah, to not know. And I even think something really damaging Osperlman saw the telepathy tapes and came out and said, oh, yeah, they're, I know what they're doing there. And, you know, assumed that, you know, the partner, and they could be communicating, like, you know, when you have a two-man act for mentalism, you could, in theory, fool people. And it's like, there's no one trying to fool anyone.

“No one thinks that's what's happening. And so it's like, and I've seen researchers, even point”

to mentalism. Journalists, serious journalists are like quoting mentalists about how mentalists can figure out how that's not telepathy. They're doing this. And it's like, you guys don't know what you're talking about. It's physiological. This isn't a show. This isn't. No one's taking their kid around the country, trying to get money. Like, I've heard people discount spellers words because they wrote a book. And they are either just, you know, trying to make

money to write a book. It's like, of course, they're writing a book. This is incredible what's happening

to people. Yeah. And just because someone earns a living off of their experience is not a reasonable way to discount. Yeah. They're experienced. It's interesting because I often thought that as well. It's like, the majority of, I would say, all of the parents who have come forth, maybe there's like a few outliers that I haven't met. But like, of all the parents and teachers I know, they're legitimately all saying the same thing. I can't hide something. The non-spirgrower

break into my computer with password. They'll know things that are private. They'll start responding to a text message that someone else just got all sorts of things that they were like, we can't

“explain this. We are looking for answers. Can someone please help the only thing that makes sense”

is telepathy. And then they ask the child and the child will say something that no one wants to hear. Yes, I can read your mind. I don't want my kids reading my mind. If I was a teacher, I certainly don't want my students reading my mind. So you think there's, okay, now hundreds of cases of parents and teachers saying this, are they on kuhuts and all planning magic shows on the side? I mean,

and what's so interesting is if you understand a praxia, I've never been around a non-speaker

who can get up when you say get up or sit down when you say sit down. There's no way with a praxia you can be like, we are going to control your body. If you can't control your body every realm of your life, can you sit down and do a 30 minute magic show? I mean, it's so, to me, it's so disassociated from reality and such a banana's leap. That to me is a bigger leap than to up at the, to be like suddenly a praxia can melt away and this parent who's looking for answers

who is so busy and raising other kids maybe and has another job and exhausted because they're up all night. They're taking care of it, be often grown up for 24/7. You know, they're going to plan a magic show. Like, it's so ridiculous to me. That is precisely what they, they try to explain away when non-speakers get very proficient at spelling and there's footage of them typing, spelling words and they're so fast to pass. And the explanation is that, oh, well, they just had them at

home and trained them, how to do that. And then when they get in camera, then they do it or because

is used against them. All of that is used to say, oh, see there, oh, they moved there. That was

“controlled. That was controlled. That's, I think the most important point of this whole thing,”

they are not being controlled. They have a praxia. It is very hard to control them. Like you said, they can't get their bodies to do all kinds of stuff. And that's supported by neuroscientists. That's supported by psychologists. So speech and language pathologists can judge the behavior, which is what they do. They're judging the behavior and they know how to get up because he just went up and got a snack. And now he won't get up. He's choosing not to get up. Now I can get on a

soapbox. I think that's the biggest misunderstanding with neurodivergence in general.

So neurotypical people will observe a neurodivergent person's behavior and assume it's what they want to be doing. That's the number one disconnect is with neurodivergence. You lack the ability to do what you want to be doing. And so when science assumes all behaviors based on what you want, you wouldn't be doing that if you didn't want to. You wouldn't be doomsgrowing if you didn't want to. There is this paralysis that can happen in neurodivergent people. And then just imagine that

“times 10 where you just have, it's so hard to control your motor. And I think that's what the”

non-speakers are dealing with. And the science is coming around, but not fast enough. And so that's what's like spell. Go spell. We can do it safely. And so I'm I am pro science. I'm so pro science. Spelling is scientific. It is based in science. It's just based in psychology. Physiology. It's based in different sciences, not behaviorist science. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And this has been in the behaviors camp for a long time. And for audience members who are like what are they talking about.

Behaviorism is when you look at someone's behavior and judge their intellect, right? I mean, is that a quick and easy way to define it? Yeah, just we psychologists. We want to science needs to be objective. We can objectively measure behavior. And so that's just how it's evolved. So if you look at the way we diagnose mental disorders, you have a list of behaviors. So like depression is not clinical depression until it's really affecting your behavior. And then it becomes

clinical. But neurodivergence is different because it's an internal experience. And what if you're really good at we call it masking? What if you're really good at hiding your internal experience showing the right behaviors, but inside it's so pained and it's not okay. And so that's where

“things are evolving. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if you look to the future, what do you think is happening?”

I mean, now there's a landscape where at least telepathy is entering the conversation. There's more research being done. There's more funding going into this. I think there's more families starting to get on letterboards. We're hearing about new families all time, you know, trying and more people wanting to get betrayed as a CRP or communication regulation partner for again, audience members who might be new, those are the people who will sit with a non-speaker

who has a praxia and coach their motor, right? Okay, put your backup straight. Okay, look ahead of you. Okay, it looks like your loss, we're putting the board right back down in front of you. They're not saying the type of these words, they're helping their body be in the best place to perform. The same way if my son is doing a free throw, I say, okay, use one hand and look at the hoop and don't, you know, it's a coaching motor getting people set up to win and something we all do, right? It's

in life. So with all of this happening, where do you think this is going to be in five or 10 years? I know that no one can tell the future, but you have a science mind. You've been in the science landscape. It is anything different now, do you think change could possibly in the air, be in the air for diapers and spellers? Definitely. I think it's getting to the point where it's undeniable and also now that we're seeing more researchers than other silos, psychologists and

people focusing on motor and sensory motor, those are the type of researchers we need looking at this because the more serious researchers we get to say, they're in there, this is happening, this

critical piece. We've missed this. We need to make this right. So I think the truth will always

which always takes a long time. So really the way the medical industry works is you've got some

things that work, some things that are just placebo that are on the edge. Eventually the research

“catches up and says, "Oh wow, this is really beneficial, insurance will cover it." I think that's what's”

going to happen with spelling is we're going to start seeing really trying to measure the benefits, measure the outcomes, measure the less crises. There's so many health benefits that once we can show that, then insurance should start covering it. I know it is follow the money because once you realize there's going to be less medical interventions. We can curb maybe an allergy or problematic thing

that a non-speaker can spell and communicate with. I need this for regulation. I want this to eat,

this actually makes my tummy hurt or whatever. It's a stomach. Sorry, I'm like, I say such a mom. I'm like, "My stomach hurt." You're going to have less trips the ER or the doctor, you know, nutritionist. That's hopeful, right? Once medical gets behind it, then it'll be a wonderful tool for AIDS and Paris to learn how to use it because it'll be so regulating. It'll be interesting to see how it evolves. We spend a lot of money on autism care right now. I have several friends with their

kid. It is expensive. We are spending a lot of money right now. We could shift how we're spending that money. Probably spend less money and get way better outcomes if we start approaching this in the right way as a mind-body disconnect, a proxy, a coaching motor. I mean, the benefits. It's

“going to be remarkable, I think. So, and then I guess it kind of brings us full circle. You know,”

one of the things that was shocking to me is when, as our meeting more spellers and their parents were stunned and often in denial about some of the things that children were spelling or students were spelling, often it was about to love the thing, but also sometimes things that were totally beyond the pale, you know, communicating with the other side or seeing things that parents couldn't see. And seeing oras, just things like that that were like, "What?" And again, these are parents often

who were atheist, agnostic, didn't have a spiritual life of their own. This was never something

that they would choose to spell if they were forcing the language right. Where do you interpret all that stuff coming from someone who went from a Mormon to leaving your faith to becoming an atheist and now seeking again? Where do you land on all of those spiritual revelations that are coming from the non-speaking community? That was a really tricky piece for me because we're getting differing views on things as big as God and the nature of heaven and non-speakers are saying

different things. And I think, you know, if you're just skeptic, not curious, you're going to say, "It's all baloney." You just next stay in the real world. I'm going to ignore that. But I think it's opening up our ideas of what another realm could be. What is true for one person may not be true for another? And is there a way we can think of that space if telepathy is occurring, it could be like an information field? What does that mean? And then for me, I'm a very practical

person and it's like, "How do I bring that into my life now?" What does that mean for my day-to-day with chronic pain? Or, how do we, why do we care? Why is it even worth looking at? During it, it gives, it's hope, it's love, it's connection, it's beauty, it adds sparkle to life, you know. Yeah, be safe, but still, it makes life sparkle. It's been really lovely to learn kind of get a spiritual education. I thought that was a part of my life that was just done. So, yeah,

I feel the same though. I mean, you can't, you can't, you can't be too far and either stream,

“I think to understand the world, you have to find a way to analytically experience or be curious about both.”

Yeah. All right, any closing thoughts? Any final things you want to say I didn't ask you about? It's been just a joy. I love working with non-speakers and I think it's, it's hard, but it's an exciting time. Yeah. Not just the paradigm shift, but really, wow, we're going through a paradigm shift and on top of that, we have this massive population of people that need our help. So to me,

science, the science of consciousness, this space, they can apply that to actually helping people

“right now. And I hope we see more and more people really putting in their efforts to help non-speakers,”

because it's, the way it is right now, it's not okay. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you for coming here.

Yeah. That was wonderful. It's great. That's it for this episode of The Talk Tracks. But new episodes will be released every Wednesday. So stay tuned. As we work to unravel all the

“threads, even the veiled ones that knit together are reality. And please remember to stay kind,”

stay curious, and that being a true skeptic requires an open mind. To dive in deeper, subscribe to our backstage pass by visiting our website with it. You'll unlock access to

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for more info on how to subscribe to our backstage pass. Thank you to my amazing collaborators,

producers Katherine Ellis and Selena Kennedy, technical directing audio mix and finishing by Jeremy Cole, opening and closing music by Elizabeth P.W. and original logo and cover art by Ben Condor Design. I'm Kai Dickens, your executive producer, writer, and host.