by David S. B. Mitchell
Released toward the end of 2024, the popular podcast The Telepathy Tapes (or simply TTT) has evoked polarized opinions and reviews from the generally negative (e.g., Jarry, 2024; Marriott, 2025; Novella, 2025; Price, 2025) to the critically positive (e.g., Morgan & Sobhani, 2025; Noël, 2025; Rogan, 2025; Scheurman, 2025; Weiler, 2025). TTT not only points to the potential for further hypothesis testing and development of protocols to study telepathy and other advanced human capacities (Tarrant, 2025, para. 1; Powell, 2024; Powell & Williams, 2024) but also directs our attention to the possibility of nonlocal communication between humans and other entities in our ecosystem. As such, the podcast series and its offshoots offer an opportunity for true curiosity and respectful inquiry. Such is the stuff of open science and mutual understanding. Because of the podcast’s tremendous impact and potential, herein I reflect on the acerbic, anti-psi culture around its negative reception.
Anti-Psi Attacks Against the “Impossible”
Scientism is a belief system that upholds scientific ways of knowing, valuing, and testing reality over and above all other modes of inquiry. It can prematurely and negatively constrain one’s boggle threshold (i.e., the degree to which one is willing to consider information that challenges their preconceptions about how the world works; Barušs & Mossbridge, 2017; Haynes, 1980). Due to scientism, fringed disciplines (Mitchell, 2024) representative of anomaly and anti-structure (Hansen, 2000) have tended to be deemed pseudoscientific and unworthy of study both inside and outside of academia (e.g., Bauer, 2014a).
Due to scientism, fringed disciplines representative of anomaly and anti-structure have tended to be deemed pseudoscientific...
Further marginalizing these areas of study is the veiled practice of pseudo-skepticism, which the late professor of sociology Marcelo Truzzi discusses as follows:
Over the years, I have decried the misuse of the term “skeptic” when used to refer to all critics of anomaly claims. Alas, the label has been thus misapplied by both proponents and critics of the paranormal. Sometimes users of the term have distinguished between so-called “soft” versus “hard” skeptics, and I in part revived the term “zetetic” [from the Greek zētein, meaning “to seek for or inquire”] because of the term’s misuse. But I now think the problems created go beyond mere terminology and matters need to be set right. Since “skepticism” properly refers to doubt rather than denial—nonbelief rather than beliefs—critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves “skeptics” are actually pseudo-skeptics and have, I believed, gained a false advantage by usurping the label. (Truzzi, 1987, para. 1, emphasis added)
Truzzi’s “pseudo-skeptic” is essentially the same as chemist and former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration Henry Bauer’s “self-styled skeptic” (Bauer, 2013, p. 690). Moreover, both terms are umbrellas for the more specific “anti-psi author,” who tends not to be properly doubtful of psi phenomena or to cultivate more cognitive space around the subject (e.g., negative capability, Evrad & Beauvais, 2020), but instead tends toward wishful certainty that there is nothing at all substantive behind parapsychological claims (Cardeña, 2019, p. 593). Similarly, as Bauer (2014b) notes elsewhere, approaches based in scientism and self-styled skepticism are attempts to “conjure certainty where there is actually none to be had” (p. 493).
For example, we turn to the words of professors of psychology and prominent anti-psi authors, Arthur S. Reber and James E. Alcock. In two commentaries on noted parapsychologist Etzel Cardeña’s (2018) meta-analysis of psi effects, the authors state that “parapsychology’s claims cannot be true” (Reber & Alcock, 2019, para. 4) and that psi is “impossible” (Reber & Alcock, 2020, p. 391), essentially because the phenomena violate their apparently scientistic worldview. Further, they make the sweeping conclusion that, “…well-demonstrated principles of modern science…rule out the existence of psi. It is all an elaborate illusion…” (Reber & Alcock, 2020, p. 398). Such remarks may be evidence of these anti-psi authors’ own illusory belief that they hold some sort of monopoly on what constitutes a proper understanding of reality. Fortunately, a number of scholars, including Cardeña himself, have penned insightful rebuttals to Reber and Alcock’s tenuous claims (e.g., Cardeña, 2019; Westcombe, 2019).
Such pseudo-skepticism is discussed in part through the words of the late, eminent physicist and scholar of consciousness studies Charles Tart (1937-2025). While writing about footage of non-speakers’ psychic abilities that psychiatrist Diane Hennacy released some years ago (Powell, 2014), Tart astutely opined that the media would surely attempt to debunk such asserted evidence (Tart, 2014, p. 32).
Unfortunately, his words were and still are valid, as the following examples illustrate.
Self-styled science communicator Jonathan Jarry (2024, December 13) has directed ad hominem attacks at Diane Hennacy—herself a centerpiece in the research on nonspeakers and a figure featured prominently in the Tapes (e.g., Duggan, 2020; Powell, 2015, 2016)—in part through casting aspersions at her professional standing by claiming that her medical license was lapsed. He also made incorrect claims about parapsychology by stating, for instance, that for the past two centuries, “skeptics” (para. 16) have proven time and again that there is nothing scientifically substantive about psi. Insightfully, Hennacy has co-authored a critical response to many of Jarry’s ill-founded and unsupported statements about her career and parapsychology (Powell & Williams, 2024). Notwithstanding such efforts, consistent attempts to deny and debunk parapsychologists, advocate scholars, and the variety of psychic phenomena discussed in the podcast series are illustrative of a clear and ever-present community of anti-psi tensions.
To be sure, psychologist and author Stuart Vyse of the Skeptical Inquirer has proclaimed that TTT “is a veritable cornucopia of pseudoscientific beliefs” (Vyse, 2025, para. 2). This statement is made alongside his rather baffling pronouncement that his life’s work (which was admittedly at least in part dedicated to working with children with severe autism) was therefore fruitless because TTT was not only extremely popular, but was promoting information that he felt was anti-scientific. He made this claim despite not having listened to the Tapes at the time. Such myopic and melodramatic proclamations fly in the face of well-reasoned and balanced critique.
Echoing Vyse’s catastrophizing is James Marriott of The Sunday Times, who has hypocritically proclaimed that the Tapes are “animated by contempt for all the values that underpin science: respect for evidence, a willingness to be wrong, a commitment to what is actually true instead of what you wish were true” (Marriott, 2025, para. 2). And much less condescending but still negatively critical, Vice author Mattha Busby concludes that the draw of TTT arises from its audience’s desire for “seductively simplistic answers” to “incredibly complex questions” (Busby, 2025, para. 10), trivializing the show’s insights and the intelligence of those who find it to be compelling.
Contextualizing the anxiety and acrimony that seem to pervade the pseudo-skeptical or cynical mind, we turn to professor of comparative religion Jeffrey Kripal’s reflections on the buffered self—that is, a more “thickly” protected sense of oneself perceived to be secured and sectioned off from outside influences (e.g., paranormal phenomena), and which stands in opposition to a more porous self (Bialik & Cohen, 2025, 47:56-48:15). Kripal suggests that on one hand, the buffered self has largely shut off the Western collective psyche from accessing information in ways that traditional cultures have done (e.g., telepathy between humans and animals), but on the other hand has closed off this psyche from being harmed or “haunted” by a variety of influences that may be problematic (Bialik & Cohen, 2025, 48:24); indeed, Bialik herself comments that many people are afraid of the kind of reality that TTT portrays, just as others of varying beliefs on the existence of psi (e.g., Rogan, 2025; Schick, Jr. & Vaughn, 2014, p. 199) ponder its negative potential if used for nefarious means. Similarly, eminent parapsychologist Jeffrey Mishlove comments that when he asked Arthur C. Clarke whether or not he believed in ESP, the latter replied, “No, I do not believe in ESP because I don’t want anyone to read my mind” (Mishlove, 2025, 24:00-25:00). Such is the buffered self.
Since the birth of psychology, efforts have been made to buffer this discipline from its perceived problematic predecessor (i.e., psychical research; Alvarado, 2014; Coon, 1992), an engagement in what has been termed boundary work (that is, attempting to define discrete categories of what is and what is not considered a valid subject of disciplinary inquiry). For example, at least since Freud (Barušs & Mossbridge, 2017), members of the profession have found themselves commenting on and struggling against the import of telepathic communication (e.g., Rogo, 1989).
Such tension is also illustrated in Truzzi’s (1987) remarks that when there is the mere possibility that evidence might have been fabricated or hoaxed, pseudo-skeptics tend to dismiss the entire subject of study. Importantly, Truzzi was a co-founder of the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP, which was the previous incarnation of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (e.g., Hansen, 1992; Irwin, 2007). The fact that he became quite disaffected by the organization’s scientism, anti-psi engagement, and groupthink and eventually resigned is therefore quite notable (e.g., McLuhan, 2013; Playfair, n.d.). Further, as Barušs & Mossbridge (2017) contend, groupthink that erodes critical thinking. Aftereffects thereof include the hypocritical pseudo-intellectualism and pseudo-scientific thinking that anti-psi agents project onto the very fringed pursuits that they denigrate (e.g., Marriott, 2025). Such tensions are arguably illustrated in the backlash to TTT.
Taking a bird’s eye view on such problematics, I often turn to what Cardeña (2015) has quite poignantly termed an “unbearable fear of psi” (p. 601). For a mind tending toward pseudo-skepticism or scientism, that fear may result in an overgeneralized, hypervigilant reaction to all manner of imagined threats. Rather than “thinking impossibly” as Kripal urges (i.e., by not reducing a phenomenon to one’s own worldview;” Bialik & Cohen, 2025, 32:00-32:05; Kripal, 2024), or revising their own thinking based on available evidence (e.g., French, 2021), such buffered psyches in the extreme tend to seek safety in their own biases, deeming abilities and phenomena such as telepathy to be “impossible” (e.g., Reber & Alcock, 2020, p. 391; Westcombe, 2019, p. 619). Again, the negative reception to the Tapes very much exemplifies this scenario.
The Most Beautiful, Helpful, Empowering Way
Thankfully, TTT as a project and perspective, if I may, is less about problems than potentials, such as continued cultivation of a culture that is supportive of nonspeakers’ experiences and abilities, and the transmuting of pseudo-skeptical and pseudo-intellectual efforts into holistically beneficial outcomes. Cardeña (2019, p. 597), for example, closes his rebuttal of Reber and Alcock’s (2020) claim that psi is impossible by citing William James, the man credited with founding American psychology, who himself considered it an ultimate deceit against understanding reality to assign a phenomenon to the realm of impossibility. James’s conceit is generally in line with Kuhn’s (2012) discussion of a revolutionary or extraordinary science that makes room for, rather than denies, the anomalous.
Challenging the outright dismissal and “reflexive exclusion” of telepathy among nonspeakers, cognitive psychologist and TTT project member Jeff Tarrant aptly states that, “the boundary between science and pseudoscience is best defined by methodological rigor, not the perceived plausibility of a phenomenon” (2025, para. 1). Regardless of one’s penchants or positionality, any researcher involved in fringed disciplines would do well to practice such a tenet.
Further, as parapsychological journalist Craig Weiler notes, the work that creator of the TTT, Ky Dickens, has engaged in is,
…about showing the prevalence of [telepathy among nonspeakers], the impact of discovering this whole underserved and misunderstood community[,]…how the community responds to the cultural taboos[,] and how they have to battle against outdated prejudices against using spelling boards. It’s a very important story that needs to be told. (Weiler, 2025, para. 7)
Weiler further pushes against the idea that the Tapes and Dr. Hennacy should be held to some unrealistic standard for extraordinary evidence. Such behavior is in line with pseudo-skeptical usage of the Sagan standard to attack parapsychological claims (e.g., Hines, 1988, p. 78). The standard (i.e., that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; Sagan, 1979, p. 73) is a repurposing of a statement (i.e., that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof; Deming, 2016; Truzzi, 1975) extending back at least as far as Truzzi himself and, arguably, much further (Deming, 2016). However, not only did Sagan not clearly define what counts as extraordinary (Deming, 2016), but immediately following his now-famous standard, he stated, “I believe that the extraordinary should certainly be pursued” (Sagan, 1979, p. 73, emphasis added). Many proponents of so-called skepticism (e.g., the Guerilla Skeptics of Wikipedia, aka the GSoW; Buyniski, 2018; Ford, 2025; Palmer, 2018; Science, Technology, and the Future, 2020) apparently forget this admonition.
Illustrating this point, the TTT Wikipedia article is largely negatively critical of the show (e.g., Wikipedia contributors, 2025b, para. 1; Wikipedia contributors, 2025a, para. 1), falling in line with the modus operandi of the so-called skeptical movement (e.g., Loxton, 2013) and the GSoW writ large. Those who wish to protect open science and the dissemination of factual information would do well to inform themselves about such anti-scientific efforts.
I think that genuinely acknowledging existential fear of psi and creating holistic and helpful practices to address it may be both sufficient and necessary conditions for proper change.
To be fair, pseudo-skeptics (at least via lip service), autism advocates, scientists, and more seem to agree that ethical treatment of telepathic nonspeakers with autism deserves the utmost attention. Similarly, Kripal notes that individuals like himself (read: those with considerable academic credentials and expertise) can cultivate space for nonspeakers to share what they are capable of and what they have experienced, and that doing so can lead to “a kind of healing” (Bialik & Cohen, 2025, 49:35-49:48). For example, an upcoming documentary (e.g., Noël, 2025; Rogan, 2025) based on the podcast will highlight the works of scholars such as Hennacy, Tarrant, and Mossbridge, as they engage in this kind of cultivation.
We should remember that violating previous tenets of mainstream science (e.g., extreme reductive materialism; Cardeña, 2025) is precisely what has led to necessary change in the academy (Westcombe, 2019). It would also do us well to reflect on Hennacy’s admonition that to advance science, one cannot simply throw out phenomena (Mishlove, Winter 2024; Mishlove, 2024) or dismiss nonspeakers’ potent capacities (e.g., Mishlove & Vadnais, 2025) when our worldview is called into question. As such, I think that genuinely acknowledging existential fear of psi and creating holistic and helpful practices to address it may be both sufficient and necessary conditions for proper change.
As efforts such as the Skeptical About Skeptics initiative demonstrate, It it is up to those of us who respect and support fringed disciplines to empower ourselves. Part of that mission is to understand and uproot pseudo-skeptical and pseudo-scientific efforts to disarm and deny valid, anomalous phenomena. Given the extent to which psychic abilities among nonspeakers illustrate the vastness of human potential, supporting them and their capacity should be done in ways that are as ethical and holistic as possible.
Finally, following Dickens’ invocation to “evolve in the ways the nonspeakers say we can and should” (Dickens, 2025, 36:08-36:12), and to approach any research involving nonspeakers in “the most beautiful, helpful, empowering way” (Shetty, 2025, 17:08-17:12), we must deeply listen to them, to their caregivers and scholar advocates, and last but certainly not least, to those hidden and potentially unattended parts of ourselves.
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Welcome to Mindfield 17(2) on neurodivergence and communication. In their editorial, Jacob W. Glazier and Anastasia Wasko highlight the popularity of The Telepathy Tapes, connecting public interest and research in neurodivergence with extrasensory communication. They urge honoring the humanity of neurodivergent people while imagining a future that integrates psi into everyday life. They also present …
by Diane Hennacy with Jacob Glazier and Anastasia Wasko
by Julia Mossbridge, Maria Welch, and Jeff Tarrant
