Review of Joe Rogan’s Interview with Telepathy Tapes Host Ky Dickens: The Stuff of Conspiracy Theories, Fantasy, and Urban Legends (Part 4)
Today’s blog post is a continuation of a review of Joe Rogan’s interview with Telepathy Tapes host Ky Dickens (links to prior blog posts below). Normally, I don’t spend multiple blog posts on one interview, but there’s so much misinformation and disinformation in the interview, I thought it was important to take a closer look at the claims being made in the interview. I could actually write more about the Rogan/Dickens interview, but today’s blog post will be the final installment in the series.
Ky Dickens talks with Joe Rogan on “The Joe Rogan Experience” (February 2025)
As a brief review, Ky Dickens wants her followers to believe--on faith--that nonspeaking individuals with autism have telepathic and other “God-given” abilities (e.g., like putting their hand on a book and being able to absorb all the information contained within it without opening the book or reading it). She’s been trained as a facilitator using a form of FC called Spelling to Communicate (S2C) and not only sticks to the FC party line in demonizing critics of the technique but adds her own spin on it by pushing for a “paradigm shift” of the science without taking into consideration the large body of work that already exists that defines autism, debunks FC, and seriously calls into question proponent claims of communication independence.
Dickens, like many proponents, doesn’t believe S2C is FC because the facilitators (allegedly) don’t touch their clients. And, without physical touch, proponents claim, the facilitators can’t influence letter selection. But a close analysis of FC/S2C shows us that 1) there is no reliably controlled evidence to back up proponent claims of communication independence with any facilitator-dependent techniques (regardless of whether facilitators touch their clients or not) (See Systematic Reviews), and 2) S2C facilitators can and do cue their clients by using visual cues (e.g., hand signals, head nods, body movements) and auditory cues (e.g., giving “directions” to indicate where to touch on the letter board like “right next door” or “up, up, up” or saying the sound of the target letter at the end of a phrase like “your turn-a”).
In addition to the visual and auditory cues, even facilitators of “no-touch” forms of FC occasionally touch their clients’ arm, shoulder, neck, other body part, or clothing (e.g., shirt sleeve or pant leg) while controlling access to the letter board by holding it in the air and taking it away to “reset.” By paying close attention to facilitators’ behaviors, we can get a better understanding of just how much work the (literate) facilitators are doing during the FC sessions while their clients often stare off into space or randomly poke a finger toward the letter board when it is presented to them by the facilitators.
Claiming she is a “science nerd,” Dickens conducted “telepathy tests” for her podcast but in doing so, she failed to conduct authorship testing for FC before moving on to test the so-called telepathic abilities in these individuals. The protocols she used for the testing were meaningless, since she showed the facilitators the test stimuli and blinded the clients. In scientifically rigorous testing, the facilitators would be blinded from test stimuli, not the clients. Through her testing, Dickens proved what critics of FC have known for decades: that the FC-generated responses during the testing were based on information the facilitators had access to. That’s not telepathy or magic. It’s facilitator control over letter selection (whether the facilitator is consciously aware of the cueing or not).
While the production value of The Telepathy Tapes is quite good (Dickens is skilled as a documentarian), the approach Dickens takes at “proving” the claims she already believes in is amateurish at best. She purposefully ignores the existing science behind FC (or the lack of it) and only invites onto her show people who either can’t or won’t question her belief system. She’s put a lot of time and money and energy into promoting the idea that nonspeaking individuals (being subjected to FC/S2C/RPM) can:
See disease or illness in someone and diagnose that person before there’s something wrong,
Read auras (around animals, humans and plants),
Speak multiple languages without having been taught those languages,
Play instruments, know music, or access almost any song with perfect pitch,
Visit people in dreams,
Speak to people from “the other side.”
This autistic man is able to identify the correct day of the week when given the day, month and year. This ability is considered a “savant” skill. (Prisoners of Silence, 1993)
Dickens (erroneously) believes ESP is a savant skill. This article from ScienceDirect defines savant syndrome as “a condition characterized by exceptional abilities in specific areas, such as memory, music, or art, in individuals with overall cognitive impairments. It can manifest in two forms: congenital, present from birth, and acquired, developing after brain injury or disease.” And, of the claims Dickens mentioned in the Rogan interview, I could only find one (e.g., replicating a song after hearing it once) listed with any regularity in academic articles about autism and savant syndrome.
Nowhere have I been able to find ESP listed as a scientifically proven savant skill (or, for that matter a scientifically proven skill for anyone, regardless of their intellectual capacity). There are, however, plenty of anecdotal stories (what Dickens calls “evidence”) from parents who believe their autistic child has telepathic abilities. As I’ve pointed out in the past, anecdotes are often the starting point for scientific inquiry, but these stories are not evidence.
One of Dickens’ experts in The Telepathy Tapes, Diane Hennacy Powell, mentions that autism researcher Bernard Rimland endorsed ESP as a savant skill, but, as I wrote in a previous blog post, when I followed a reference from one of Powell’s journal articles to a book that included a chapter written by Rimland, that’s not exactly what he said. Rimland briefly mentions ESP as a savant skill in reference to questionnaires he sent to a bunch of parents asking them to describe the skills their autistic children had. Of the 119 useable responses he got back, four of the questionnaires included comments that mentioned ESP. He noted that the responses were “surprising.” He included the responses in a chart he made of savant skills in autistic individuals (as reported by parents). I couldn’t find any documentation where he confirmed or denied the ESP claims. As far as I’ve been able to discover, he simply reported what the responses were on his survey. Nothing more. (If you have further information about Rimland’s stance on ESP as a savant skill, please let me know).
As for the rest of the skills on Dickens’ list (e.g., reading auras, visiting people in dreams, and diagnosing disease or illness in others), none of them have been proven (in anybody) under reliably controlled conditions, although there is a fairly lucrative industry involving spiritualists, psychics, and others who claim they have psychic and telepathic abilities.
In all the hours I’ve spent listening to Dickens (on her podcast and in interviews), she only mildly gives lip-service to “evidence” and “scientific inquiry” while resoundingly rejecting any meaningful investigation into the phenomena she claims to have already proven. I believe Dickens believes facilitator-dependent techniques such as FC/S2C/RPM can produce independent communication because she’s seen it with her own eyes and listened to facilitators tell her it’s what they believe as well. For some reason, Dickens—untrained in speech/language development or autism treatments or scientifically rigorous test design—believes she knows better than all the researchers who’ve come before her who’ve set up reliably controlled testing (both for FC and for telepathic or psychic abilities). She also rejects the position statements of major speech/language and autism organizations who oppose FC/S2C/RPM. (She rails against the American Speech/Language/Hearing Association and their opposition to FC/S2C/RPM in Episode 7 of her podcast). For Dickens (and her followers), FC “works” because people using FC say it works.
I’m not as concerned about whether someone can see an aura in animals and plants as I am with the idea that nonspeaking individuals (being subjected to FC) can “see” disease or illness in someone and “diagnose” them before there’s something wrong. In a variation on this theme, we’ve also come across stories in pro-FC literature of parents taking their children off life-saving medication based on FC-generated messages (to give just one example, I suggest Googling an individual named Niek Zarvaas. He died after his anti-seizure medication was stopped based on FC-generated messages saying he no longer needed it). In another case, the facilitator (Gigi Jordan) fed her son an overdose of drugs based on FC-generated messages claiming he wanted to die.
Image by Kristine Wook
But, let’s follow Dickens’ assertion for a moment. To be qualified to diagnose or treat diseases, medical doctors spend anywhere from 11 to 15 years of post-secondary schooling and supervised training to earn that ability (e.g., 4-year bachelor’s degree, 4 years of medical school, 3 to 7 years residency, plus an additional and optional 1 to 3 years fellowship training in a specialized field). But, according to Dickens, nonspeaking individuals with telepathic abilities (being subjected to FC/S2C/RPM), can skip all this education and training.
It should be noted here that most individuals being subjected to FC have profound autism with severe cognitive disabilities that inhibit their understanding and use of verbal and written language. Many of these individuals need 24/7 care, exhibit self-harming behaviors, elope into the street or towards bodies of water without any sense of danger, smear their own feces, etc. Most have spent their academic careers in life-skills programs. And, although proponents have managed to get several FCed individuals through college, none of these “graduates” have done so independently (e.g., without interference from a facilitator).
When pushed, Dickens, straight-faced, explains that these nonspeaking individuals telepathically visit an imaginary place called “The Hill” where they can (cosmically) tap into all the world’s knowledge. But, as much as I’d love to believe there is cosmic library in the sky, I, personally, think it’s dangerous to foster such beliefs without fully understanding the consequences. It’s not a huge leap to envision a scenario where someone takes the (facilitated) advice of someone they imagine to have super-human abilities and ends up harmed in some way (see Anna Stubblefield) or dead (again, see Gigi Jordan).
A commenter on one of my YouTube videos recently accused me of “gaslighting” believers in FC and telepathy when I said I wouldn’t accept their anecdotes and testimonials as proof of their claims. I don’t mean to be alarmist, but there’s a dark—and getting darker—underbelly to FC use that many people don’t consider when they first hear about the technique that requires a hefty dose of skepticism. While I would, indeed, like practicing facilitators to question their belief in FC/S2C/RPM by participating in reliably controlled authorship testing, I don’t believe I’ve gaslit anyone. Rather, I’ve been straightforward about what my beliefs are about FC, what my experiences have been, and why I speak out against the technique. I also try, where possible, to provide readers of my blog posts (or viewers of my YouTube channel) with recommended readings. (Readings the commenter rejected in a “big Pharma” style conspiracy about organizations like the American Speech/Language/Hearing Association, The Association for Science in Autism Treatment, and the like because the organizations oppose FC/S2C/RPM).
I share my own story as a (former) facilitator as cautionary tale, but I provide references to the topics I discuss in these posts to articles by people who know a whole lot more than I do about the language development of individuals with autism, setting up reliably controlled testing for FC authorship, and the like. I didn’t start out knowing the difference between an anecdote and reliably controlled evidence. It’s something I learned by talking to legitimate Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) specialists, psychologists, autism specialists, and other experts after I stopped using FC.
On some level, I can understand if proponents feel that their dearly held belief in FC/S2C/RPM is being challenged. As I learned from my own experiences with FC in the early 1990s and from reading pro-FC literature and watching pro-FC films, much of the FC training is built around an “us against them” mentality. The Rogan-Dickens interview, to my ears, sounds conspiratorial, defensive, and rather like a sales pitch for FC/S2C/RPM. People love to hear stories of the sudden emergence of literacy or math skills in individuals who were thought previously not to be capable of sophisticated communication and of “underdogs” who’ve triumphed over adversity. But, to me, the interview conjures up images of Icarus flying too close to the sun as the claims by FC proponents get bolder as each year passes. At some point, I believe the bottom will fall out of this current iteration of FC, but not before a whole lot of people get hurt.
I also know from personal experience and from scientifically rigorous studies that there’s a high degree of certainty (100% if you go by the controlled studies) that facilitators, not their clients, are controlling letter selection when they use techniques like FC/S2C/RPM. And, as I listen to Dickens’ and others promoting techniques that, for all practical purposes, erase the identities of nonspeaking individuals with autism, I must ask at what—or at whose—expense?
Note: Since writing this series, I’ve heard through the grapevine that Dickens, Powell, and two other professors (I believe Marina Weiler and Marjorie Woollacott) from the University of Virginia. are planning further telepathy tests on nonspeaking individuals with autism who are, presumably being subjected to FC/S2C/RPM. If I remember correctly, Woollacott appeared in Episode 6 of The Telepathy Tapes podcast. For me, this plan for telepathy tests on nonspeaking individuals with profound autism raises further questions:
Since these are experiments on humans, has UVA’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the testing? And does the testing include authorship testing for FC/S2C/RPM, since we already know that these are facilitator-dependent techniques?
What controls will be put in place to ensure that the facilitators are not influencing/controlling letter selection?
What controls will be put in place to ensure that no external stimuli will influence the so-called telepathic transference of information?
Does UVA’s Autism Treatment Center (which, I believe, supports evidence-based treatments for autism) endorse these experiments? I believe in the past they have publicly spoken out against the use of FC/Spelling to Communicate. (See my blog post here).
References and Recommended Reading
Rimland, Bernard. (1978). Savant Capabilities of Autistic Children and their Cognitive Implications. In Serban, George. Cognitive Defects in the Development of Mental Illness. New Yor: Brunner/Mazel. 43-65
Resources to Evidence-based materials about language development and treatment options for individuals with autism are available here.
Questions to ask about FC/S2C/RPM are available here.
Blog posts in this series:
Review of Joe Rogan’s interview with Telepathy Tapes host Ky Dickens: The Stuff of Conspiracy Theories, Fantasy, and Urban Legends (Part 1)
Review of Joe Rogan’s interview with Telepath Tapes host Ky Dickens: The Stuff of Conspiracy Theories, Fantasy, and Urban Legends (Part 2)
Review of Joe Rogan’s interview with Telepathy Tapes host Ky Dickens: The Stuff of Conspiracy Theories, Fantasy, and Urban Legends (Part 3)
Reviews of the Telepathy Tapes Podcast can be found in the Podcast section of our website.