On a long road trip over winter break, I listened to all 10 episodes of this podcast called

The Telepathy Tapes. The show is about a group of non-speaking autistic kids who are able to

communicate using a method sometimes known as spelling or facilitated communication. Essentially,

someone, the facilitator, helps guide the kids using a keyboard

or an iPad to spell out messages. That already is a kind of magic, because kids who have been

unable to communicate can now share their thoughts. But this podcast takes it to a whole new level of magic. It's not just

that they can communicate. These kids can read minds. I'll bring Houston up to them and just

think of one little thing.

And he writes it out on the board.

So he's read your friend's minds.

He has read my friend's minds before I've seen it firsthand.

By the end of the series, the kids are not just reading minds.

They're commuting with the dead, predicting disasters,

and generally outclassing the neurotypical mortals. So, again, she always tells me about these God visits, as she calls them, that happened at night.

And so I said, did he talk to you again last night?

And she said, yes, unfortunately.

And then she does dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

On that road trip, my partner and I got into a big argument about this podcast.

The mind reading scenes sounded so believable on the podcast.

But telepathy?

What is this phenomenon happening?

Why are his mind and my mind completely connected?

...