Background
My name is Diane Hennacy Powell, MD. I trained as a neuroscientist during my undergraduate and postgraduate years, and went to Johns Hopkins Medical School to become a doctor. I initially planned to become a neurosurgeon, because it fit my goals to both help people and do cutting-edge research to advance our understanding of human consciousness. After I started my clinical rotations, I chose a different path. I became fascinated by psychiatry... especially its unsolved mysteries. Autistic savants are particularly intriguing; they can reliably demonstrate extraordinary skills… but no one understands how they do it.
I was raised to be a scientist by a father who was a professor with three graduate degrees in science. My brother, Ken Hennacy, PhD, is a theoretical physicist and expert in artificial intelligence who shares my interest in consciousness. Over the years we’ve been collaborating on a model for understanding the neuroscience and physics of consciousness. We presented our model for the savant ability of calendar calculation at an international scientific conference on consciousness in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2005.
While working on a model to understand savant skills, it became apparent that the abilities fell into three general categories:
1. Some can be explained by an algorithm and/or prodigious memory, such as calendar calculation. For example, some children can tell you the day of the week any date would fall on… for periods spanning thousands of years.
2. Some posses very highly advanced skills that appear at a young age despite their cognitive limitations. For example, some musical savants can play a complex piece of music after hearing it only once, and without having had music lessons. They otherwise have cognitive problems that prevent them from being able to do basic tasks we take for granted.
3. Some provide information without any explanation for how they access it. For example, Neurologist Oliver Sacks described autistic twins who can call out six digit prime numbers in sequence, back and forth with each other like a volleyball without consciously deriving the numbers or having memorized them. Psychiatrist Darold Treffert witnessed a child draw the periodic table, complete with the symbols for the elements, without any known exposure to it previously, or knowledge that he was going to be asked to do so.
This third category really caught my interest. How do they do that? The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was a lot like psychic abilities. In most reports of telepathy and clairvoyance, the psychics say their answers don't come from analysis… they just pop into their heads!
The late autism researcher Bernard Rimland wrote brief case reports of precognition and other psychic abilities in autistic children. These stories have largely been ignored and criticized. More recently, there have been reports of autistic children who exhibit telepathy to very high levels of accuracy, which is what science demands. Why hasn't it been done? Doing research with autistic children poses its own challenges, and is very labor intensive.
Severely autistic children are trapped in bodies difficult for them to control. They struggle to speak, write, and even sit still. Initiating and stopping movements is particularly hard. Many of them are untapped geniuses who just need technological aids to express themselves. Unfortunately, many of them go unrecognized because they are prejudged to be mentally retarded.
My curiosity about telepathy and autism led to my recent experiments with Hayley, the ten year old autistic child in this video. During this footage, she is relatively quiet and cooperative. Anyone who has spent time with nonverbal autistic children knows that this is not representative of their behavior. During experiments she isn't running around wildly. She is focused and takes pride in her ability, sometimes squealing with delight when she gets the answer 100% right .
I've learned so much from people who spend significant time with severely autistic children like Hayley. Contrary to what many psychiatrists are taught, they love their caregivers as much as any child without autism. They and their caregivers desperately want to communicate with each other. If humans have an innate capacity for telepathy, this set of circumstances might foster its development and expression.
In January 2103 I evaluated
several autistic savants in India, where I had been invited to speak at an
international conference on autism. Their parents told me stories about their
children's telepathic abilities. The experimental conditions for proof
require that there be no contact between the people in the experiment.
Many nonverbal autistic children use facilitated communication (FC),
which involves physical touch, to aid their typing because of their
sensorimotor issues. For this research, I need autistics who don't use FC.
In August 2013, I learned of Hayley**,
the severely autistic girl in this video. Instead of using FC, she can type
independently. Hayley's father contacted me at the recommendation of Darold
Treffert, MD, a world-renown expert on autistic savants, who knew of my
research. Hayley is ten years old, and just recently started to say letters and
numbers, but otherwise can't speak. She also can't do simple math, but she can
give the answers to complex equations. She's not a mathematical savant,
but her parents initially thought she was, because she could answer
increasingly complex equations. Then they learned she doesn't know the answer
unless the person working with her does.
This startling discovery was made by
her therapist while doing math exercises. Without seeing the calculator, or
being told of the change, Hayley's answers switched from ordinary numbers to
scientific notation... right after the display on the therapist's
calculator changed to that. When asked how she had done that, Hayley
typed back, “I see the numerators and denominators in your head.”
Hayley then answered many questions she
shouldn't have known the answers to, such as the surname of her
therapist's landlord, and the name of a book the therapist was thinking
about. Hayley was correct each time! The therapist was shocked. Hayley's
parents were equally surprised when they witnessed it for themselves, but
became concerned about how people might react to their daughter.
Without knowing any of this, another
therapist suspected Hayley was reading her mind. Hayley's errors
were exact copies of her own spelling mistakes. Half-joking, she
asked Hayley to translate “I love you” into German, a language Hayley was never
exposed to. Hayley correctly typed, "Ich liebe dich."
In May 2014, my videographer Kent
Romney and I filmed Hayley and her therapists for over six hours of controlled
experiments using randomized stimuli. I presented the
"jaw-dropping" results at a peer-reviewed scientific conference
in August 2014. http://dailygrail.com/Mind-Mysteries/2014/8/New-Research-Suggests-Autistic-Savants-May-Have-Enhanced-Telepathic-Abilities.
We believe our plans for optimizing the experimental setup
could lead to solid proof this coming year!
I now know of at least three autistic
children besides Hayley who have convinced their parents, teachers, and/or
clinicians that they are telepathic. I want to see if they can
demonstrate this under proper scientific conditions.
*The campaign subtitle refers to Prometheus Unbound, a drama about the torments of the Greek mythological figure who defied the gods by giving mankind fire. He is subjected to eternal punishment and suffering as punishment. Research on experiences labeled “paranormal”, such as telepathy, is blacklisted by mainstream science. Our explorations are tethered by lack of funding and censorship. Please see my archived blog "Sticky
Wiki" for more.
**In order to protect her privacy,
Hayley's actual name is not being used.
The Film
The Telepathy Project will be a
full-length documentary that includes our scientific experiments and
interviews with the children’s parents and therapists. There will be commentary
by recognized scientists and experts on autism, and by a skeptical scientist
before and after witnessing an experiment.
We want to create the opportunity for
you to join us in exploring one of the biggest mysteries in consciousness: is
telepathy real? If you've been frustrated by science's refusal to take
research on telepathy seriously, this is your chance to change that.
I'll share my insights with you as I make discoveries and solve research
challenges along the way.
Why
raise money here?
We have come to the Indiegogo community
because traditional funding sources are not available. Research on telepathy is
labeled pseudoscience. We lose control over the quality of the research
if we receive funding from source such as a television network, because they
are primarily about entertainment. Pioneering scientists have to be
self-supporting. This has really slowed down my progress, especially since my
experimental subjects are scattered around the world and experimental-grade
video is labor intensive.
With your help my videographer and I
can devote the next eighteen months to collecting data from around the world.
All donated funds will be used for the creation of this documentary and the
collection and analysis of data. The level of funding we receive will determine
how comprehensive this research and documentary can be.
We believe you can see
the potential for enormous impact from this project. We also
believe in your desire to help fund what's important… for us, and for future
generations.
Our goal
So far, we have interviews with
Hayley’s parents and both therapists. We also have approximately six
hours of experimental footage using the setup seen in this video. Now that we
have had a chance to work with Hayley in person, we want to return and film her
under optimized experimental conditions. Ideally she would be in a separate
room from the person who knows the answers, but at the time we filmed this was
not possible.
Hayley typed answers
independently when her telepathy was first noticed. After placing a physical
barrier between Hayley and her therapist to avoid eye-to-eye contact during the
experiments, Hayley's behavior regressed. She went back to using stencils
for communication. We believe she will be able to type independently under this
experimental setup. Since she demonstrates telepathy with more than one person,
we will test with one in the room to keep Hayley focused, while the other knows
the answer and is located at varying distances.
We also know of at least three other
autistic children across the globe who are reportedly telepathic, and we
anticipate learning of more. Filming them will demonstrate that Hayley is not
an isolated case, adding more credibility to telepathy.
We also want to film interviews with
scientists, especially those who are experts on autism, as well as a skeptic
who is open-minded and willing to observe one of these children.
Besides creating the documentary, I
will be presenting my research at academic institutions and scientific
conferences, and submit my findings to peer-reviewed scientific
publications. I am also founding a nonprofit 501 (c)3 to be called ISSAC,
Institute for the Scientific Study of Autism and Communication.
The urgency
Hayley is starting to acquire some
ability to speak, and many autistic children reportedly become less telepathic
as their language skills increase. This means there is a critical window of
opportunity to film these children now.
Risks &
Challenges
The biggest challenges will be in
timing. There are unknowns, such as the length of time to acclimate
autistic children to the experimental protocol, because children with autism do
not accept changes to their routine easily. Unexpected delays can also happen
whenever foreign travel and people are involved. If we encounter obstacles and
need to delay delivery of rewards associated with this film, we will keep you
updated and be completely transparent. We are committed to this project and
will do our best to complete it on schedule.
Other Ways You
Can Help
If you can't contribute, you can still
help. Please tell all your friends: by email, social media, and word-of-mouth,
Even people who aren't interested may know someone who is... and please
use the Indiegogo share tools!