Living in the COVID World ... and Beyond #61: What is Possible?

I grew up believing in the philosophy of materialism.  By materialism, I’m not referring to consumerism or consumption.   Materialism, as a philosophy, states that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, that all things are a result of matter interacting with each other.   Most, if not all, of science is based on a materialist approach – what we can observe and measure.  

I have never really questioned this philosophy.  It has just seemed to me to be the way that things are.   But recently I have begun asking myself questions.  And it has led me to make connections with other things that I have learned that gives more credence to my questions.

It all started when a good friend strongly recommended to me that I listen to a podcast series entitled “The Telepathy Tapes.”    I was not immediately interested.  I was skeptical about the possibility of telepathy.   But my friend was enthusiastic about the insights that she was getting from listening, and even followed up with me the next week to see if I had listened to an episode yet.

I listened to the first episode of “The Telepathy Tapes”, and then the next one and the next one.   I have listened to five episodes so far.  They have stimulated me to think about what I believe is possible in human communication.

Before I explain what I have been learning, and the associations that it has generated for me, let me first state that I am somewhat scared to even be communicating to you about these ideas.   What will you think of me?   At the extreme, will you think that I need to be “locked up and the key thrown away’?    There is a reality in the United States, and maybe throughout the world, of people being oppressed for their unconventional beliefs.   A long time ago, it was for believing that the earth rotated around the sun or that the earth was round.   Still today, there is a somewhat hidden put still pervasive oppression of people who do not think and/or act in a manner consistent with societal norms.  The impact of this oppression is to cause people to go silent, hold their thoughts privately, and “pretend” to conform.

“The Telepathy Tapes” are an effort by a documentarian to tell the stories of autistic young people who are non-verbal and their ability to communicate telepathically with their mothers, their teachers, and among themselves.    Various experiment and studies have been done with these young people that seems to demonstrate without question that these autistic children have telepathic skills.   In simple words, the experiments show that these young people can ”read the minds” of their mothers.   One simple experiment was using a random number generator, letting the mom see what the number was but carefully shielded from the autistic young person, and that young person would be able to report what the number was, time after time after time.  

It was mind-blowing to me to listen to these podcasts.   Is telepathy really possible?   And why is it happening with autistic children specifically?

I remember learning, maybe in college, that people who grow up with a deficiency in one of their five senses are often able to develop superior qualities in other senses.   For example, a person who grows up without sight, might develop very good hearing and smell to compensate for the lack of visual information.   These cases are about building extraordinary capability in skills that we all have.     Is the inference that maybe all of us have the capability to communicate telepathically but we have not needed to develop that capability because we have verbal language and writing for communication?    This possibility has more credence to me as I have talked about “The Telepathy Tapes” with friends, and several moms have told me that they had telepathic-type experiences with their young children when they were very young and then it discontinued as their children gained verbal skills.  

In recent years, I have read about trees being able to communicate with each other.    This was a completely new idea to me and maybe to science in general.   Supposedly this happens through some combination of interlacing root structures and through the air using scents.   Wow!   So, if trees can communicate with each other non-verbally, why can’t humans be as capable and as intelligent as trees?

I’m sure we have all had the experience of picking up the phone to call someone only to have the phone ring with that person on the line … and saying: “I was just thinking of you.”   Maybe this is purely coincidence or maybe we somehow connected telepathically with that other person.

I don’t know what is possible.   I’m definitely interested in exploring these ideas further.

Do you have thoughts or ideas that you hold privately because you are afraid of what people would think if you shared them publicly?  

What experiences have you had that would support the possibility of telepathy among humans?