Physicists and Astronomers May Sound Like Poor Scholars of Life and Mind

 One of the biggest fallacies in people's thinking about scientists is that scientists are people who "know all that science stuff." The different topics of science require very deep study to know well, and scientists these days tend to be specialists who concentrate their knowledge in a single field of study. A scientist very knowledgeable about physics may know little about biology, and vice versa. A scientist very knowledgeable about chemistry may know very little about biology, and vice versa. A scientist very knowledgeable about earth science may know little about psychology, and vice versa. 

Keeping these limitations in mind, we should be very suspicious whenever we read an astronomer estimating the probability of  extraterrestrial civilizations existing close enough for us to have any chance of us communicating with them. Properly estimating such a thing requires deep knowledge in very many subjects. But the typical astronomer may lack deep knowledge about most of those topics. 

Adam Frank is an example of an astronomer who lectures us on the likelihood that intelligent life is common in the universe, but who sometimes sounds like someone who is a poor scholar of life and minds. In the article here, Frank makes this statement:

"So, in the end, there may be nothing mysterious about when we appeared on Earth. As the planet and the biosphere co-evolved, a series of 'windows' opened for different kinds of evolutionary adaptations. Humans for example need high levels of oxygen for our big brains. That means we could not have appeared 3, billion, two billion, or even 1 billion years ago. There simply was not enough oxygen in the air for us to evolve into existence. Once that window did open up, about half a billion years ago, the ball got rolling. And here we are."

This sounds like the kind of thing that would be written by someone who was not a good scholar of the vast levels of fine-tuned functional complexity in human bodies, not a good scholar of the many levels of hierarchical organization in a human body, not a good scholar of the innumerable molecular machines and innumerable interdependent marvels-of-engineering components in the human body, and not a good scholar of the innumerable problems in explaining human minds and their very many capabilities, particularly given all of the physical shortfalls of human brains which suggest that brains cannot be the source of the human mind. Frank's "just get oxygen and start the ball rolling" talk is the kind of cheesy drivel we get from Darwinists who are so frequently  very guilty of requirements underestimation. The co-founder of the theory of evolution (Alfred Russel Wallace) explained at length in an essay why so-called natural selection is not an adequate explanation for the human mind. The reasons he gave are only a very small fraction of the reasons why Darwinian explanations are hopelessly inadequate to explain the origin of the human race, some of which are explained here and here and here. 

 Not a good answer

In his article Frank is promoting a 17-page paper that is a poor piece of reasoning that gives us the impression that its authors are poor scholars of life and mind. We have this very false statement in the paper:

"The nature of the singularity of human intelligence is also very unclear. As discussed above, anthropologists struggle to find any single trait that can explain modern humans’ superlative capacity for technology that is unique to humans. Nearly all individual aspects of modern humans that seem necessary to our clearly special technological capabilities—tool use, creativity, abstraction, sense of self, social behaviors, transmission of learned behavior across generations, and communication—clearly exist in other lineages."

This is more of the "apes are pretty much just like us" nonsense that started when Charles Darwin told the big lie that "there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties." This extremely glaring falsehood was told by Darwin on page 99 of The Descent of Man. It is a very obvious fact of human experience that there are the most gigantic fundamental differences between the mental faculties of man and other higher mammals.  Whenever anyone claims differently, he always sound like a very poor scholar of human minds. And when the authors of the paper state "the basis for seeing 'human intelligence' as a 'hard step' is uncertain," they sure sound like poor scholars of the human mind. 

Another bad answer

What the paper discusses is whether there were "hard steps" that needed to be climbed in order for you to end up with creatures such as humans. It is misleading to be using the term "steps" to refer to the giant leaps in organization needed to get to something like a human. The term "step" implies something simple. The things referred to as "hard steps" were more like miracles of organization and giant leaps of functional innovation. What is being referred to are things such as these:

(1) The origin of the first self-reproducing prokaryotic cells. 

(2) The origin of the first self-reproducing eukaryotic cells, vastly more organized the prokaryotic cells. 

(3) The origin of the multicellular organisms that were large visible organisms. 

(4) The origin of land-dwelling organisms. 

(5) The origin of sexual reproduction, something completely different from non-sexual reproduction. 

(6) The origin of organisms capable of locomotion on land and the manipulation of tools by the use of limbs such as arms and legs. 

(7) The origin of intelligent organisms with minds as good as humans. 

(8) The appearance of civilized, city-building, language-using organisms. 

Such progressions should not be called "steps" but huge revolutions of  functionality or gigantic innovation breakthroughs. The purpose of the paper Frank is promoting is to persuade us that such revolutions of functionality were not "hard steps." The paper completely fails to do that. 

Of supreme importance to the topic being discussed by the paper is the difficulty of explaining the origin of protein molecules, which are very complex inventions requiring hundreds or thousands of well-arranged parts, with there being a fine-tuning requirement as great as the fine-tuning that must go on for hundreds or thousands of characters to produce a useful, well-spelled paragraph. The human body has 20,000+ types of protein molecules, each its own separate complex invention. The 17-page paper makes no relevant mentions of protein molecules, failing to ever mention their complexity. The paper fails to ever mention protein complexes. The paper also has no description of the complexity of cells like in the human body, and no description of the complexity of the simplest cells.  Nowhere in the paper do the authors sound like they are deep, thorough scholars of biological complexity and human minds.  

For other examples of physicists and astronomers who sounded like poor scholars of life and mind, see my posts here and here and here. One of the astronomers was the late Carl Sagan, who made many a misstatement when talking about biology. 

Sagan's 1963 book Intelligent Life in the Universe was a book in which Sagan often sounded like a poor scholar of life and minds. I can give some examples, which are only a portion of a much larger collection of misstatements in the book that I will discuss in a future post. 

On page 9 Sagan made this very untrue statement: "It is now apparent that the origin of life can be explained, to a large extent, by studies in the field of chemistry." No such studies had occurred when that statement was written, and no such studies have ever occurred

On page 188 Sagan makes a false claim about a topic of the greatest importance: whether a cell contains instructions on how to make an entire organism and its cells. Sagan asserts that a cell must have such instructions, even though at the time no one had found such instructions in a cell. Such instructions have still not been found, even though DNA and its contents have been exhaustively cataloged. To support his claim, Sagan gives us a piece of bad, fallacious reasoning. He states this:

"It [a cell] reproduces. How does it reproduce? Think of the enormous number of characteristics which familiar animals have. There is the gross anatomy, the overall architecture of the organism. Then, there is the physiology, the dynamic functioning and articulation of the different parts of the organism in carrying out its functions. It has inherited behavior patterns -- how to build a nest, how to bury a bone. It has ten trillion or so cells, each one of which is itself an enormously complex structure. At the present time, we are making only the first fumbling steps towards assembling a cell from scratch. Yet the information to construct the entire organism is somehow contained in the genetic material, because, with striking regularity, animals look like their parents."

This was sophistry and falsehood --  misleading reasoning that reached a false conclusion. You are not entitled to conclude "the information to construct the entire organism is somehow contained in the genetic material, because, with striking regularity, animals look like their parents." The fact that animals look like their parents provide no warrant for such a conclusion. The only thing that could possibly justify a conclusion that "the information to construct the entire organism is somehow contained in the genetic material" would be the actual discovery of such instructions in the genetic material. And no such discovery has ever occurred. The only instructions that have ever been found in the genetic material (DNA and its genes) are low-level chemical instructions such as which amino acids make up a particular protein, not high-level anatomy construction instructions. DNA and its genes do not specify how to build a human body or any of its organs or any of its cells, as many scientists have confessed. DNA has no blueprint for making a body, and does not have any blueprint for building a cell. 

Those who adequately understand the sky-high complexity and organization of human bodies and their components may realize why you could never explain the origin of a human body by speculating about a body specification in DNA -- the reality that if such a specification existed, it would be so complex that nothing in a womb would be capable of understanding such instructions and acting on them to produce a human body in a womb. We should always remember that blueprints don't build things, and that things get built with the help of blueprints only when there is an intelligent agent that reads and understands blueprints. 

On page 238 of the book, Sagan said, "The laboratory synthesis of life, at least in the sense of a molecular system capable of evolution by natural selection, may be proved in a decade; some say it has already been accomplished." This was a very untrue statement. Nothing like any such thing had been done when the book was published in 1963, and nothing like any such thing has been done as of the year 2025. 

On page 253 of his 1997 book Billions and Billions, the astronomer Sagan sounded like a third-rate scholar of life and mind when he made this hugely untrue statement:  "The most significant aspect of the DNA story is that the fundamental processes of life now seem fully understandable in terms of physics and chemistry." To the contrary, scientists lack any credible explanation of even how human cells are able to reproduce; they lack any credible explanation of the most basic mental processes such as thinking and memory; and since DNA is not a specification for making a human, or any organ, cell or organelle, scientists lack any credible explanation for the progression from a speck-sized zygote to an adult human. 

Problems a hundred miles over our heads

The newspaper article below suggests that another type of scientist (geologists) may sound like poor scholars of life and mind. We read of a geologist who merely asked a self-described psychic for her predictions about when and where earthquakes would occur. Apparently he lost his job at a university because the people at his geology department thought this was some great transgression. Notice the message being sent -- that it is strictly forbidden to test whether paranormal phenomena exist. Senselessly at some meeting 13 out of 16 of the geologists endorsed the extremely false claim that there is no such thing as a psychic phenomenon.  The evidence for paranormal psychic phenomena is actually enormous, and the literature that documents such evidence is enormous and 200 years old. We can safely assume that none of that evidence was ever studied by any of the geologists who made this statement. 

Autistic Telepathy Evidence Vexes ESP Denialists

 There are two centuries of written evidence for the reality of clairvoyance, and the written evidence for telepathy and ESP goes back almost almost as far. I will discuss such evidence later in this post. Recently there has been published additional evidence in favor of the reality of telepathy. It comes in the form of reports of telepathy in autistic children, coming from parents who often sound like such an effect was not something they expected or hoped to ever get. The evidence also comes in reports of very successful experiments with such autistic children. 

The video here gives us Episode 1 of a "Telepathy Tapes" podcast that has attracted wide attention.  Host Ky Dickens discusses how Diane Hennacy Powell received quite a few reports from parents of autistic children, claiming that an autistic child was telepathic. Around the 8:30 mark we hear of experiments Powell did with an autistic child named Hailey, in which the child was asked to guess a random number that someone else was viewing, with a divider between the two. At the 9:03 mark someone called a "neutral observer" says that in such tests Hailey was 90% accurate. 

At the 11:42 we hear of Powell getting reports from scattered locations around the world, with a remarkable consistency. In each case some parent had a child diagnosed with non-speaking autism, but reported that the child had telepathic abilities, which showed up after the child started to use some device such as an I-Pad to communicate or spelling board to communicate. A spelling board is a board with large squares showing each letter of the alphabet, and a person with speaking difficulties can use it by pointing to particular letters. 

At around the 30:50 mark we read of tests done with an autistic child named Mia. We hear that the child was blindfolded using a Mind Fold blindfold, which you can buy on Amazon. 

We hear that various people outside the family tried on this blindfold, and report that you cannot see anything when wearing it. I have an eye mask just like this which I wear when sleeping to block out light. When a blindfold of this type is pulled down sufficiently low to cover both the nose and the eyes, it is 100% effective in preventing a person from seeing anything with his eyes. However, if the device merely blocks the eyes, without also blocking the nose, a person can look down through a crack at the bottom, and see a little directly below the nose. 

The possibility of seeing through the bottom crack of a blindfold has long been an issue in tests of telepathy and clairvoyance. Very many careful experiments of clairvoyance completely excluded this possibility, by using additional methods such as using both a blindfold and thick wads of cotton stuffed into the blindfold, or by applying plaster over closed eyes, or by using a technique in which an experimenter used his fingers to hold shut the eyelids of someone being tested. Other ways to exclude the possibility of seeing through the bottom crack of a blindfold is to do tests in which the person being tested never is tested with anything he can see just below his nose, but is tested with something held up at eye level, or something in a closed box, or something behind a barrier or in another room. You can also exclude the possibility of seeing through the bottom crack of a blindfold by doing a test in which a blindfold like the MindFold is positioned so that it covers not just the eyes but also the nose of a person being tested, as shown in the visual above. 

At the 32:36 mark in Episode 1 of the Telepathy Tapes we are told "there's a blindfold on Mia, and she is on the other side of a partition from her mother."  This sounds like a setup that should have been sufficient to exclude any possibility of cheating by looking through the bottom crack of the blindfold. Around the 33:20 mark we are told that in tests in which Mia was asked to type a 3-digit randomly generated number seen by someone behind the partition, she consistently was able to type the correct number -- something apparently impossible to do, unless telepathy was occurring. At the 34:29 mark we are told that well over 20 tests like this were done, and that Mia gave the correct number every time. 

A result like that cannot be achieved by chance. There are 900 digits between 100 and 999. The probability of you guessing each of 20 consecutive random three-digit numbers is equal to about 900 to the 20th power, which is equal to about 1 in 10 to the 59th power. It's a probability less than the chance of you correctly guessing the 9-digit social security numbers of six consecutive strangers. 

We next hear about tests with colored Popsicle sticks, in which Mia while blindfolded is asked to put little wooden sticks of different colors in a matching container of the right color.  She seems to be able to do this very well.  This would be a convincing test, if we had been told that the MindFold blindfold had been pulled down far enough to block both Mia's and her nose (because in that position you cannot see anything through such a blindfold).  But we have not been told that, so this test does not seem (at least as described in the audio tape) to be convincing. When a blindfold such as the MindFold blindfold only covers the eyes, and not the nose, someone can see through a little crack at the bottom, allowing you to see things underneath your nose, such as something held close to the chest. 

At the 38:16 mark we read of a different type of test, using a book Mia has never seen. One person opens up a book, while Mia is standing in the opposite direction. The first person asks  which page number the book is on, and Mia answers correctly. Later  the first person points to a particular word or image on the book, and Mia correctly identifies the word or image, even though she is facing in the opposite direction from the person holding the book. One of the identified images is that of a pirate, something very unlikely to be matched by a chance guess.  The results seem impressive, but we don't get an assertion that there was a streak of successes like was reported with the random number tests. So the reported result is not as compelling as the result with the random numbers. 

Around the 46:34 mark, Episode 2 of the Telepathy Tapes suggests that sometimes Mia's mother was touching her during the test, but only by putting a motionless finger on her forehead. When asked whether this could have involved some transmission of information through something like Morse Code, a camera man chuckles and says, "Definitely not." He says, "Her finger was just on her head. It's not moving." Episode 2 also gives evidence of an untouched autistic person displaying telepathy. 

In Episode 3 of the Telepathy Tapes at the 23:25 mark we read a mother who says this about her autistic son, talking about a text message received on a phone: "He never  saw the text and he spelled out what was on the text." At the 24:56 mark we read of the brother of an autistic son (Houston), who was skeptical Houston could read minds, but changed his mind. The brother (a US Marine) claims that he had Houston demonstrate telepathy to the Marine's friends, by identifying a word thought of. He says of Houston, "He has read my friend's minds." 

At the 27:17 mark we hear of tests with Houston.  Powell gets a random 4-digit number from a phone, using a random number generator, and shows it to Houston's mother Katie.  Houston (looking at random locations, and apparently never seeing the number) types the correct number. The test is repeated, with the same correct result. As evidence, this account is imperfect, because we do not hear mention of either a blindfold or a partition. 

More convincing is the account from a production assistant named Sam. At about the 28:52 mark, he says he went into a garage, away from Houston and his mother Katie, and  (alone by himself) wrote the word "friend" on a piece of paper. He says upon quickly returning and mentally thinking the word "friend," Houston promptly wrote the word "friend" using an electronic device or spelling board.   The account would be more convincing if Sam told us he put this piece of paper in his pocket (presumably he did). 

At the 31:54 mark we hear that many random number tests were done with Houston, and that he was correct every time. In the rest  of the episode we hear of successful card tests in which Houston names random cards of a UNO deck he could not see, and successful tests in which Houston is able to tell which randomly selected Bible verse his mother is reading, apparently while not being able to see the verse.

Around the 13:30 mark of Episode 4 of the Telepathy Tapes, we read of tests done with an autistic person named John Paul, in which Diane Hennacy Powell wrote down four-digit numbers or words that his mother (Libby) could see, but which John Paul could not see. We are told John Paul did not miss a single item, but we are not told any specific numbers. This episode is weak from an evidence standpoint, but it does have a good discussion of autistic savants. It is not disputed that some people on the autistic spectrum have extraordinary special abilities, such as the ability to very quickly name the day of the week, given any date in the past 100 years (an ability called calendar counting or calendar calculation). You can read here for some stunning examples, which include the ability to recite pi to 22,514 decimal places (Daniel Tammet), and the ability to read 2 pages in 8 seconds, with 99% retention (Kim Peek). Kim Peek (who inspired the Tom Cruise movie Rain Man) reportedly remembered everything he had read in 7000 books. 

At the 36:46 mark of Episode 4 we hear that Powell worked with a boy named Ramsey who was able to read 8 different languages at the age of 2. 

In Episode 5 of the Telepathy Tapes we hear of a 1990's researcher who produced video tapes showing evidence of telepathy in autistic children. She mailed out lots of tapes to experts, who turned a deaf ear to the evidence. Around the 14:16 mark we hear from a teacher named Jess who became convinced that children with speech difficulties she was teaching were engaging in telepathy among themselves. She said she eventually got telepathic messages from one of them. At the 27:53 we hear that Carrie in Pennsylvania thinks that her special needs students communicate telepathically. 

Around the 31:14 mark we hear a licensed speech pathologist named Susie Miller saying she saw a "body of light" floating above an autistic child, and that she then got a telepathic message from the boy saying "that's my light body." 

Episode 6 of the Telepathy Tapes mentions some very good evidence for telepathy (the well-replicated Ganzfeld studies discussed elsewhere in this post), and other results less convincing. Early in Episode 7 of the Telepathy Tapes, we hear of a Maura in Wisconsin who claims that her daughter Amelia could read her mind. Around the 5:10 mark someone named Katie  says that she asked Amelia whether she knew Katie's  password (apparently never revealed), and she answered with the correct password. At about the 7:46 mark a Jodi says that when she arrived one day, Amelia was able to specify (without being told of such a thing) that Jodi had been involved with three turkeys that day, which Jodi says blocked her path when she drove that day.  

Episode 7 also begins to drop hints there may be other possible psychic abilities of autistic people (things like xenoglossy and precognition and mediumship), but since this long post is only about telepathy, I'll avoid discussing that very fully. I may note, however, that around the 20:30 mark we hear a claim by a teacher Maria that an autistic person listed the names of Maria's deceased relatives, and listed "very specific details" of Maria's interactions with such relatives, listing facts that the person was never told. The last resort skeptics have often appealed to to explain such cases (abundantly documented in the case of Leonora Piper) is the claim that "it was just telepathy, not communication with the dead." But you can't make such a claim if you are denying that telepathy exists. And if you do make such a claim, you're appealing to a kind of super-telepathy involving an ability of one person to dive in and read another person's memories. 

Overall the evidence discussed in the first seven episodes of the Telepathy Tapes stands as additional evidence for the existence of telepathy.  We have a great deal of substantive anecdotal evidence for telepathy, and  also quite a lot of experimental evidence which seems fairly weighty, although it falls quite short of methodological perfection (and the rather skimpy audio reporting of the experiments is not the very detailed written results that we should demand before calling any experimental evidence Grade A evidence).  But we should remember that a large amount of evidence varying in strength can still add up to substantial evidence.  People are very often sent to prison for life on a body of evidence consisting of a diverse set of evidence consisting of items  that vary in strength and quality, based on the collective weight of that evidence. 

Serious scientific investigation into clairvoyance occurred between 1825 and 1831, when a committee of distinguished doctors appointed by the French Royal Academy of Sciences engaged in the most careful inquiry into reports of mesmerism and clairvoyance. The committee issued a report in 1831 that found resoundingly in favor of clairvoyance. You can read their report here, and you can read my post about their investigation here. In the page here of the report the investigators tell how they "proceeded to verify the phenomena of vision with the eyes closed."

Clairvoyance was abundantly documented in the nineteenth century, by quite a few doctors and authorities such as Professor William Gregory. William Gregory (1803-1858) was a professor of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh (founded in 1582, and the sixth oldest English university).  Gregory (the author of a conventional chemistry textbook) was the author of the long book Letters to a Candid Inquirer, on Animal Magnetism, which you can read online here.  The book is a very fascinating work on hypnosis (the title uses a term for hypnosis which went out of vogue shortly after the book was published, being replaced by the word hypnosis). Most of the second half of the 384-page book is a discussion of paranormal effects observed under hypnosis, mainly clairvoyance. Gregory provides very many fascinating accounts of clairvoyance that he personally observed in hypnotized subjects. Examples can be read in my post here, which quotes long passages from the book in which Professor Gregory was citing evidence for clairvoyance. 

Clairvoyance (the ability to perceive something not seen with the eyes, sometimes described as being like vision without eyes) is different from telepathy (a paranormal ability to tell what another person is thinking). A great deal of convincing laboratory evidence for telepathy was gathered in the early 20th century.  Some of the main evidence were the very convincing experiments of Duke University professor Joseph Rhine (discussed here), and the supremely convincing experiment of CUNY Professor Bernard F. Riess (discussed here). The abstract of the paper is here.  The Riess experiment is discussed on page 167-168 of Rhine's book Extra-sensory Perception After Sixty Years ( see here or here).  Another discussion of the experiment is here.  It was experiment in which a woman in a separate building attempted to guess a symbol on randomly selected cards that had five possible values.  The person drawing the cards was in a different building. 

The result in "Series A" of two series of tests with the young woman: in a test requiring 1850 card guesses, the woman guessed an overall average of 18.24 cards correctly per 25 cards, rather than the expected average of only about 5 cards correctly per 25 cards, with the number of correct guesses being 979 more than expected by chance.  We would never expect chance to produce such a result if the universe was filled with inhabited planets, and each person spent half of their lives doing such a test. 

As I discuss in my post here, in 1941 the editors of Scientific American conceded that telepathy had been proven. While discussing an award they were offering for proof of paranormal events at a seance, they stated the following (the red circled part is a confession of the reality of telepathy):

The Ganzfeld experiments in recent decades have been laboratory experiments that very well-replicated the phenomenon of ESP shown by Rhine's experiments, with results consistently showing an average hit rate of 30% or more, much higher than the expected by-chance hit rate of only 25%.  The latest result of a university ESP test is the result reported on page 62 of the year 2025 document here. It is a test of 240 participants conducted at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland's largest university), by two professors. The researchers used the long-successful Ganzfeld protocol, which for many years has produced results of around 30% to 32%,  well above the result expected by chance (only 25%).  The tests were done in a "ganzfeld laboratory" in a "quiet and secure basement room of a university building," in the years 2023 and 2024. We read that "Seventy-two hits were obtained out of 240 sessions, a 30% hit-rate," a success well above the result expected by chance, only 25%.

The "Telepathy Tapes" series of podcasts attracted very widespread viewership.  Normally the policy of materialists is just to not mention evidence for the paranormal, and hope that people do not examine such evidence.  But in the case of the "Telepathy Tapes" the public paid too much attention for such a policy to be followed. So we have had some responses from skeptics.  Every one that I have read has been utterly lame, consistent with the idea that the authors never decently studied the content of the "Telepathy Tapes." 

An example is the interview given by psychologist Stuart Vyse that you can read here. Engaging in gaslighting,  Vyse attacks the Telepathy Tapes, while showing almost no evidence that he has studied them. He attacks the validity of something called Facilitated Communication, which involves an attempt to get an autistic person to communicate, in which one normal person is in close physical contact with an autistic person, with output then arising on a keyboard. Whether such a technique is valid seems to be an entirely separate question for whether the tapes provide evidence for telepathy. 

What seems to be going on is that skeptics of the Telepathy Tapes are trying to use complaints about a 1990's keyboard method of communication with autistic children, which is not even the main method being used by the autistic children discussed in such tapes. The current methods being used are more modern methods such as Spelling to Communicate, demonstrated in the video below (and more modern methods leveraging easy-to-use  touch-screen tablet devices that can be fine-tuned to allow alphabetic inputs from the neurodivergent and the handicapped). 

In his zeal to deny the evidence for autistic telepathy, Vyse  also tries to cast doubt on the well-documented evidence for autistic people communicating by spelling boards. He takes a position contrary to an eye-tracking study published in the leading journal Nature, which found this: "The speed, accuracy, timing, and visual fixation patterns suggest that [autistic] participants pointed to letters they selected themselves, not letters they were directed to by the assistant."

Without showing much of any evidence that he has actually studied any of the tapes, Vyse falsely states, "Of course, the evidence for this is weak—in fact, there is no real evidence at all." That's not true. The tapes provide substantial evidence for telepathy, and Vyse does not say anything substantial to discredit such evidence. 

A search for Wyse's papers or articles on Google Scholar shows  someone who tries to position himself as some expert on the topic of superstition, and he has written various psychology papers on such a topic.  He does not seem to be a deep and serious scholar of parapsychology or psychical  research. 

I looked at Vyse's main book "Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition," and found a work that  often mentions topics such as telepathy and psychic phenomena, while showing very little or no evidence that Vyse has seriously and deeply studied the research on any such topics. Containing  many false claims, this book contains much gaslighting and mudslinging, in which millions believing in various spooky things well-supported by evidence are contemptuously disparaged and denounced as people "superstitious," and falsely painted as believers in magic. 

A look at the references at the back of the book (and the bibliography at the back of the book) seems to confirm my suspicion that Vyse did no deep and serious scholarship of parapsychology or psychical research while writing this book.  For example, the bibliography of hundreds of books does not mention any book or paper by Joseph Rhine, by far the most famous telepathy researcher of the 20th century. The book does not even mention Rhine. The book also makes no mention of the Society for Psychical Research, the main organization that has produced research on paranormal phenomena in the past 140 years. The book mentions only in one sentence the Ganzfeld experiments, in a reference buried in the back-of-book footnotes, while not telling us anything about their results (the experiments have consistently produced positive results indicating telepathy, far in excess of what is expected by chance). I was left with a strong "did not do his homework" impression. 

An equally bad piece on the topic of these Telepathy Tapes comes recently from a blogger who produces a long post talking mainly about Facilitated Communication, while failing to show that the topic has much relevance to the results reported in such tapes. We get no evidence in the article that the writer has studied the evidence for telepathy given in the Telepathy Tapes. A look at the author's many posts seems to show zero signs that she has done any study of the topics of parapsychology and psychical research. 

In my life I have got firsthand experience sufficient to convince me of the reality of telepathy between family members. For example, in my very interesting post "Spookiest Observations: A Deluxe Narrative" (containing many accounts as interesting as the one below), I report this true account of what happened around 1975:

"I did a mind-reading test with my sister, in which a person would think of an object somewhere in the house, and the other person would try to guess that object. The guessing person could only ask questions with a 'yes' or 'no' answer, and as soon as there was a single 'no' answer a round was considered a failure. Including the basement, the house had four floors.  There were at least ten consecutive successful rounds in which all the answers were 'yes,' with the correct object being guessed. This involved roughly 50 or 60 consecutive questions in which every single question was answered 'yes.'  After each round the guesser was switched, so it couldn't have just been a case of my sister always saying, 'yes.'  The odds of something like this occurring by chance are less than 1 in a quintillion.  After we were scolded by an older sister for being enthusiastic about the result, we never retried the experiment."

In the same post and in the post here I report other firsthand experiences strongly suggesting telepathy or ESP between family members. I suspect that to some degree or another telepathy or ESP is common between family members. In my post here I discuss a casual method for testing telepathy or ESP between yourself and your family members or friends. My suggestion involves occasional tries of a casual "guess what I saw" or "guess what I dreamed" guessing game, an approach that seems to produce results higher than expected by chance. I have noticed in such tests a kind of "warm up" effect, in which the first guess often fails, but the second, third or fourth guess often succeeds. Tests involving attempts to transmit thoughts of physical objects (particularly some form of life) may succeed better than tests involving mere abstract symbols or numbers. 

Reports of telepathy show up abundantly in accounts of near-death experiences, as I discuss in my post here. 

Postscript: Around the 29:00 mark of the video here, we have a live event in which an attempt is made to demonstrate telepathy involving an autistic 14-year-old child. We have various tests in front of the public, which seem to be imperfect from the standpoint of methodological rigor.  For one thing, there is a possibility of auditory cues from the audience (rather easy to block by having the person being tested wearing a sound-blocking device over the ears).  After a  quick review of the results I cannot recommend it as an airtight "slam dunk" demonstration of psychic powers, although it probably qualifies as prima facie evidence of psi abilities. But it is at least encouraging that an autistic person  claimed as having paranormal abilities is willing to engage in public demonstrations. We may reasonably hope that future video  demonstrations of this type will be more convincing, particularly if those in charge of such a demonstration improve their demonstration methods so that common objections are ruled out. It is a fact that in the 19th century Alexis Didier was highly famed for very often producing what very many called the most convincing demonstrations of clairvoyance, made both in demonstrations to small groups, and also in larger public demonstrations. You can read about some of the reports of his successes here. 

Quantum Gravity Theorists Spin Out Contorted Cobwebs of Speculation

Two of the biggest theories of modern science are quantum mechanics (which deals with the subatomic world) and general relativity (a theory of gravity that works on a large scale, dealing with large massive objects). For decades, scientists have had the hope of uniting the two into a single theory. Einstein spent the last years of his life working on such a project, but came up empty-handed.

In the past few decades, some physicists have continued to work on theories that attempt to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity. Such theories are called quantum gravity theories. One class of these theories is called loop quantum gravity.

But whenever you hear the phrase “quantum gravity” you should also think to yourself: not even half-baked. Or perhaps it might be better to think: not even tenth-baked. This is because it is perhaps centuries too early to be advancing a theory that tries to unite quantum mechanics and gravitation. One reason is that there are too many mysteries involved in gravitation and quantum mechanics. Uniting quantum gravity and gravitation might have to wait until we solve such mysteries.

The following might be a logical plan:

1. We solve the basic mystery of what causes gravitation, something we don't understand. We know that gravitation is proportional to density of matter, but as it is easy to imagine a universe with no gravitation, we don't really understand why gravitation exists.
2. We solve the mystery of why gravity is a trillion trillion trillion times weaker than all of the three other fundamental forces of the universe.
3. We solve the basic problem of the nature of the collapse of the wave function, something which is still furiously debated by quantum mechanics theorists.
4. We solve the incredibly perplexing problem of quantum entanglement, and how this spooky mysterious “action at a distance” can be occurring.
5. We solve the mysterious “observer effect” in quantum mechanics, the bizarre fact that matter can behave very differently depending only on the way we observe matter.
6. We clarify the mysterious “double slit” experiment, which suggests that both electrons and energy photons can switch back and forth between wave behavior and particle behavior.
7. Then, after gaining a vastly clearer understanding of both quantum mechanics and gravitation, we attempt to create a single theory uniting both of them.

But some of our physicists have jumped straight to item 7 in this list before understanding the first six. This seems to make no sense. How can you unite quantum mechanics and gravitation into a single theory, when there are so many unsolved mysteries involved in both of them?

As physicist Carlo Rovelli recently said about quantum mechanics and general relativity (the prevailing theory of gravitation), "When you try to put the two theories together, they appear to result in all sorts of contradictions and paradoxes."

Quantum gravity is a nice little niche for some physicists. If you are a quantum gravity theorist, you can spend your year working on some theory that no one will expect to work, piling on one far-out speculation after another. If anyone complains about a lack of verification or predictions, you can say: come on, this is quantum gravity, what do you expect? I'm reminded of that Broadway song with the lyric: nice work if you can get it.

Perhaps the main type of quantum gravity theory is what is called loop quantum gravity theory. Such a theory is based on the idea that time is quantized. You can get kind of an idea of quantized time by imagining that each second is a stack of time-slices, and that there are a limited number of these time-slices in each second.

I think this idea is misguided. The idea of quantized time reinforces the assumption of a strict segregation between this instant and the next instant. But rather than thinking in such a way, we should perhaps be moving in the opposite direction. Although it may shock our expectations, experiments on precognition suggest that there may well rarely be some kind of partial intermingling or information exchange between the future and the present. The same thing is suggested by many human experiences very well described in the book The Science of Premonitions by Larry Dossey MD. A particularly striking example is given on page 41 of the book. On May 2, 1812 an Englishman named John Williams had a dream of the assassination of the British prime minister Spencer Perceval. Williams had the dream three times on the same night, and the dream included very specific details. Nine days later Perceval was assassinated. As Dossey puts it, “The details of the assassination were identical to those of the dream, including the colors of the clothing, the buttons on the assassin's jacket, and the location of the bloodstain on Perceval's white waistcoast.” (See here for another author's discussion of this incident.)

I have a series of posts discussing similar cases:

When Dreams or Visions Foretell a Death

More Dreams or Visions That Seemed to Foretell a Death

Still More Dreams or Visions That Seemed to Foretell a Death

Still More Dreams, Visions or Voices That Seemed to Foretell a Death

Even More Dreams and Visions That Seemed to Foretell a Death

Some More Dreams or Visions That Seemed to Foretell a Death or Disaster

When the Future Whispers to the Present

When Dreams or Premonitions Seem to Act Prophetically

Dreams, Visions or Premonitions That Seemed to Correctly Predict a Death

Sometimes Dreams, Visions or Premonitions Seem to Foretell a Death

Dreams, Visions or Premonitions That Seemed to Foretell a Death

It is hard enough to explain such experiments and experiences with our normal assumptions about time, and it seems even harder to explain them under some assumption of quantized time. If physicists wish to create some exotic new theory of time, they would do better to create one that can help explain experiments on precognition and human experiences of premonitions that came true. Rather than imagining a rigid “one-way street” leading between the past and the future, such a theory might allow for the possibility of a limited degree of mingling or communication between the past and the future, possibly in both directions. Such a theory might describe a separation between the past and the future that is more fuzzy and blurred than we normally imagine.

But such a theory may be a long way off. And quantum gravity may be centuries away from being ready for prime time.

But despite having no predictive successes and no grounding in evidence, quantity gravity recently got a reverent treatment by the frequently scientist-fawning Quanta Magazine. When I go to the site on the day I wrote this post, I see my entire screen filled up by a huge photo of the  face of quantum gravity theorist Carlo Rovelli. We read of a 12-hour conversation with him. We hear him making groundless speculative claims such as this: "Basically, loop quantum gravity implies that space is not infinitely divisible — it’s made of elementary chunks, which are linked together into loops." We do not hear of any evidence backing up such claims. It isn't quite the usual "nothing but softball questions" interview we tend to get when scientists are questioned, because a few tough questions are asked. But the interviewer fails to ask the "where's the evidence?" type of questions that should be directed to a theorist spinning out cobwebs of speculation not backed up by evidence. 

We have this confession from Rovelli that there's no experimental evidence for quantum gravity, mixed with not a report on actual observational results, but mere wild fantasizing about observational results that might occur:

"The main shortcoming is the lack of experiments supporting it. However, there’s hope on the horizon. There are some proposals to use loop quantum gravity to make sense of signatures in the cosmic microwave background radiation that’s left over from the Big Bang. And there’s another new idea I’m very excited about: If loop quantum gravity is right, there should exist tiny black holes weighing around 10 micrograms that are long-living and that interact only gravitationally. We’re thinking about ways to detect a background 'wind' of these particles. And perhaps these tiny black holes are actually what we call dark matter, a mysterious widespread astronomical phenomenon that we have not yet understood."

These cobwebs of speculation sounds as substantive as someone fantasizing that he may one day meet Bigfoot, and also that he may encounter a flying saucer that he can walk inside and inspect. 

We are told this about Rovelli: "A decade later, he proposed a new 'relational' interpretation of quantum mechanics, which goes so far as to suggest that there is no objective reality whatsoever, only perspectives on reality — be they a physicist’s or a pigeon’s."  In the same interview, we read this quote by Rovelli: "We must not confuse the knowledge we have with the reality of the world." Elsewhere Rovelli said, "At the foundations of physics there is today confusion and incoherence," a statement which may apply to his own assertions.

The Google Ngram page (which you can use at the link here) can be used to get a feel for the popularity of references of a topic in Google Books, over a period of time.  The image below shows the relative frequency of references to three types of physics theory: string theory, supersymmetry and quantum gravity. The graph suggests that supersymmetry and string theory were failing efforts.  Quantum gravity seems no more popular than string theory and supersymmetry after both suffered a sharp decline. 

Using the same tool, I get the graph below, which suggests that people are getting much more evidence for apparitions than for quantum gravity. But that's to be expected. People see apparitions, but don't see quantum gravity. 

But a recent article in Quanta Magazine suggests that the quantum gravity guys may be trying to catch up by injecting a little "ghost glamor" into their speculations:

The History of Sleepwalking Provides Evidence for Clairvoyance

When writers refer to artificial somnambulism, a term often used before 1900, they mean the same thing as what is now called a hypnotic trance, produced by a hypnotist acting on some subject, trying to put the subject into a state of trance. There is very much written evidence for clairvoyance occurring during such a state of artificial somnambulism or hypnotism. You can read about such evidence in my post here and my post "Taboo Truth: The Reality of Hypnotic Clairvoyance and Hypnotic Telepathy," which you can read here. 

When writers refer to natural somnambulism, they refer to a natural phenomenon often called sleepwalking. One major difference between artificial somnambulism (hypnotism) and sleepwalking (natural somnambulism) is that in sleepwalking (natural somnambulism) there is no agent such as a hypnotist attempting to bring people into some abnormal state.  

In the fascinating 1839 book Curiosities of Medical Experience, we read this:

" Somnambulism was well known by the ancients ; and Aristotle tells us, 'there are individuals who rise in their sleep, and walk about seeing as clearly as those that are awake.'...There is no doubt but that in somnambulists the intellectual functions are not only active, but frequently more developed than when the individual is awake. Persons in this state have been known to write and correct verses, and solve difficult problems, which they could not have done at other times. In their actions and locomotion they are more cautious, and frequently more dexterous, than when awake."

Later in the same work we read this account of a sleepwalker or somnambulist:

"She also became capable of following her usual employment during the paroxysm. At one time she would lay out the table for breakfast, and repeatedly dress herself and the children, her eyes remaining shut the whole time. The remarkable circumstance was now discovered, that, during the paroxysm, she had a distinct recollection of what had taken place in former attacks, though she had not the slightest recollection of it during the intervals. She was taken to church during the paroxysm, and attended the service with apparent devotion, and at one time was so affected by the sermon that she actually shed tears ; yet in the interval she had no recollection whatever of the circumstance, but in the following paroxysm she gave a most distinct account of it, and actually repeated the passage of the sermon that had so much affected her. This sort of somnambulism, relating distinctly to two periods, has been called, perhaps erroneously, a state of double consciousness."

 In Volume 2 of his 1876 book The Mechanism of Man, Edward W. Cox discusses natural  somnambulism, also called sleepwalking. He states this, using the term "somnambule" to refer to a sleepwalker:

"With the vast majority of Somnambules the eyes are firmly closed, so firmly that considerable force is required to open them. The countenance is extremely placid, the face very pale, the extremities abnormally cold and clammy, the breathing regular and full, with frequent sighing, or rather, deep inspirations that make the sound of a sigh, but are not like sighing, expressions of mental emotion.

But here the resemblance to sleep ends. The conditions differ from those of sleep in many particulars. The muscles are not flaccid, but retain all, and often more than, the ordinary tension of waking life. The limbs are not relaxed, but in energetic action. The head does not droop. If the eyelids be forcibly raised (and they are always lifted with difficulty, so firmly are they pressed together), the eyeballs are found in an unnatural position, drawn upwards and inwards, so that the direction of the line of vision would fall within the upper orbit of the projecting frontal sinus — a position in which the exercise of sight would be impossible, even if the eyelids were raised. This remarkable position of the eyes is especially to be noted, for it is the characteristic of the somnambulist condition and distinguishes it at once from ordinary sleep, in which the eyes always preserve their natural position. It is important also in this respect, that it cannot he voluntarily assumed. No effort of the Will can place the eyes in the position exhibited by a Somnambule. It will be noted also that, when the eyeballs are in this abnormal position, they are not still, as in sleep, but in a state of rapid and constant quivering.

All the senses appear to be closely sealed. No sounds sensible to pain. Taste, touch and smell are paralysed. The strongest snuff does not cause sneezing. There is not the slightest wincing from the application to the nostril of the most powerful ammonia. Sight is impossible, for in the position of the eyes no ray from any external object can fall upon the retina.

Nevertheless, in this apparently helpless state, deprived of the assistance of all his external senses, the patient rises from his bed and walks with facility and firmness in the dark as well as in the light, avoiding obstacles as readily as if he could see or feel them. Thus he passes, without fear and with perfect ease and safety, over places dangerous even to the waking footstep— on the ridge of a house roof; across a narrow plank above a stream; down a steep and perilous path by a precipice over which he would be hurled if the footstep erred but a few inches ; through rooms crowded with furniture, threading his way without stumbling or mistaking.

Nor this only. The Somnambule, with his eyes closed and all his senses sealed in the darkness of the darkest night, will perform his daily work, however intricate— write, read, thread a needle, draw and paint, and do other acts requiring keen sight, manual dexterity and delicate touch. During the entire of this, all his external senses are paralysed. He neither sees, hears nor feels with the bodily organs. The Mind only is awake. Manifestly the Mind, in this condition of somnambulism, receives impressions of external objects and guides the actions of the body without the assistance of its usual informants, the senses. And these things are done, not tentatively nor with hesitation, as by one feeling his way or seeking for something in darkness, but firmly, unhesitatingly, easily, perfectly, and without mistakes, as if he had been awake and was acting in the daylight instead of in the dark."

In the five pages beginning on page 170, Cox cites quite a few cases of people who performed extremely complex activities while sleepwalking. In each case quoted we are told that the person's eyes were closed during such activities.  

A bit later Cox concludes this:

"But with the Somnambule the external senses only are sealed. All the faculties of his mind are wide awake. He has perceptions of external objects, although certainly through some other medium than the five senses, and he acts upon the impressions so abnormally received as perfectly and as rationally as when he is awake." 

We do not know the ratio between eyes-closed sleepwalking and eyes-open sleepwalking. You sometimes may read statements claiming that sleepwalkers walk with eyes open, but such generalizations are not backed up by scientific studies, and may be made sometimes by those trying to "sweep under the rug" the clairvoyance-suggesting anomaly of skillful movement by sleepwalkers with closed eyes. I find quite a few statements claiming that sleepwalkers "often" have eyes open, an indication that such a thing is by no means invariable for sleepwalkers. There are many observational reports of sleepwalkers walking or moving very skillfully either with eyes closed, with eyes turned upward or in a state of darkness (some of them being quoted in this post); and in the quote above by Cox we read that "with the vast majority of Somnambules the eyes are firmly closed." Even when sleepwalkers have eyes open, there seems to be no real perception with the eyes. 

In the literature of sleepwalking, it is often reported that when sleepwalkers walk with their eyes open, their eyes are turned upwards in a way that would make normal vision impossible. So, for example, pages 60 to 61 of the document here reports a sleepwalker with the most astonishing physical dexterity in avoiding obstacles while sleepwalking; and page 62 says, "eyes were alternately shut and open, but when the latter, they were convulsively turned upwards, showing nothing but the whites, so that he could not have seen with them."

It seems rather clear that sleepwalking (the same as somnambulism) provides evidence for ESP or clairvoyance. This is the conclusion that was made by a writer in 1838, who stated this:

"II. Clairvoyance, or vision without the eyes. — In the most simple cases of natural somnambulism this phenomenon occurs. The person who rises in the night, dresses himself, moves from room to room, and performs with nicety and precision a variety of minute actions, presents us with this anomaly in its most familiar form. There are few sceptics who do not acknowledge cases of this kind ; for after all, somnambulism is a very common occurrence, and is observed to be hereditary in many families. Yet when this faculty becomes more perfectly developed, manifesting itself by finer discriminations, the very same philosophers, forgetting the fact which is universally accredited in domestic life, open their eyes with astonishment, and declare the whole thing utterly incredible. This is unreasonable. It is a notorious fact, that all sleep-walkers are clairvoyants."

The fascinating page here has an interview with Lee Hadwin, who has long produced remarkable art works in his sleep. The page has a headline of "Interview: Man Makes World-Famous Art in His Sleep But Has No Creative Talent While Awake."  We read this of Hadwin: "While he’s asleep, his creative side comes alive and he crafts portraits, landscapes, and abstract drawings that only someone with amazing artistic prowess can produce."  We hear that he sells some of his pieces created during sleepwalking for thousands of dollars a piece. We read that in his sleep Hadwin produced three portraits of Marilyn Monroe. The article shows one of them, which is of stunning quality. This is even though Hadwin has apparently had no artistic training. 

In the 1905 newspaper story here, we have a description of sleepwalking consistent with the description of Cox above:

At the link here, we have an article entitled "Teen Awakes From Sleepwalking 9 Miles From Home, Police Say." We may presume that something more than moving in a random direction is involved when journeys so long occur.

In the newspaper article here (in the right column and entitled "Somnambulism"), we have an account of a sleepwalker. We read of him writing intelligibly during sleepwalking. The last paragraph suggests telepathic or clairvoyant abilities during sleepwalking. 

"In the capital of the island of Syra, there is a young man from a town on the border of the Black Sea, -aged about eighteen years, tall in stature, and of robust constitution, who went to Syra to follow his studies at the Gymnasium. It frequently happens that, almost immediately after falling asleep, he gets up and makes remarkable declamations. Sometimes he recites very long speeches from Xenophon with perfect correctness although when awake he cannot remember more than a few lines. One night he wrote the theme he had to deliver the next day. In the morning having overslept himself, he was vexed at not having time to prepare himself for his tutor, but great was his astonishment at finding on his table his stipulated composition, written with his own hand, folded, and ready to be given in. The professor was surprised at finding it so well done and still more so when the young scholar became embarrassed, and unable to answer certain questions put to him on the subject. Doubts were entertained as to its being his own work, but a companion who slept in the same room with him came voluntarily forward and declared, that in the night he saw his fellow-student at the writing table writing, and calling upon his father to assist him in composing his theme.

When in a slate of somnambulism, he plays at cards, and uniformly wins. This is attributed to his having the faculty at that time of knowing what cards are in the hands of the rest of the party. When in this state, also, he has been taken by his companions to a tavern, and when, after eating and drinking with them, he awoke, he was greatly astonished at finding himself where he was. It appears that in his somnolescent state, his sense of feeling is entirely suspended, while all the other senses are alive and active. At first, the slightest touch would wake him; but now he is totally insensible to any violence, even that which would in others, or in himself when awake, produce acute pain. In general, on coming out of his state of somnambulism, he is so weak and languid as to faint away. One fact is more extraordinary than the rest: one day, when in his dormant state, he announced that three persons, whom he named, were coming to see him. In an hour after, these three persons entered his room.”

The 1834 book "Somnambulism : the extraordinary case of Jane C. Rider, the Springfield somnambulist" by L. W. Belden M.D. can be read here. We read of Jane sleepwalking many times in the dark, acting just as if she could see things  just fine. On the page here, we read this:

"Her  eyes  were  generally  closed,  but  at times  they  were  stretched  widely  open,  and the  pupil  was  then  very  considerably  dilated. These  different  states  of  the  eye  seemed  to occasion  no  difference  in  the  power  of  seeing — she  saw  apparently  as  well  when  they were  closed,  as  she  did  when  they  were open."

On a later page we read this:

"The  members of  the  family  in  which  she  lived  were very  early  convinced  that  she  saw  both when  her  eyes  were  closed,  and  in  the  dark. They  were  irresistibly  led  to  this  conclusion, when  they  saw  her,  night  after  night,  perform that  which  seemed  impossible  for  her to  do  without  the  aid  of  vision,  when  at  the 

same  time  they  could  discover  nothing which  indicated  the  want  of  sight.  She never  betrayed  any  thing  like  hesitancy  or 

indecision — there  was  no  groping,  no  feeling after  the  object   which  she  wished  to  lay hold  of,  but  the  motion  was  quick  and direct,  as  if  perfectly  aware  of  its  precise 

situation.  When  obstacles  were  placed  in her  way,  or  the  position  of  a thing  was changed,  she  always  observed  it,  and  accommodated herself  to  the  change."

On the next page we read of a test performed:

"No  direct  trial  of  her  power  of  vision  was 

made  until  Sabbath  evening,  November 

10th,  when  it  was  proposed  to  ascertain 

whether  she  could  read  with  her  eyes 

closed.  She  was  seated  in  a corner  of  the 

room,  the  lights  were  placed  at  a distance 

from  her,  and  so  screened  as  to  leave  her 

in  almost  entire  darkness.  In  this  situation 

she  read  with  ease  a great  number  of  cards 

which  were  presented  to  her,  some  of  which 

were  written  with  a pencil,  and  so  obscurely, that  in  a faint  light  no  trace  could be  discerned  by  common  eyes.  She  told  the date  of  coins,  even  when  the  figures  were 

nearly  obliterated.  A visitor  handed  her  a 

letter,  with  the  request  that  she  would  read 

the  motto  on  the  seal  which  she  readily 

did  although  several  persons  present  had 

been  unable  to  decipher  it  with  the  aid  of  a 

lamp.  The  whole  of  this  time  the  eyes 

were  to  all  appearance  perfectly  closed." 

On another page we read of another test performed ten days later:

"On Wednesday, Nov. 20th, I took a large black silk handkerchief, placed between the folds two pieces of cotton batting, and applied it in such a way that the cotton came directly over the eyes, and completely filled the cavity up each side of the nose — the silk was distinctly seen to be in close contact with the skin. Various names were then written on cards, both of persons with whom she was acquainted, and of those who were unknown to her, which she read as soon as they were presented to her...Being desirous, if possible, to prove that the eye was actually closed, I took two large wads of cotton, and placed them directly on the closed eyelid, and then bound them on with the handkerchief before used. The cotton filled the cavity under the eyebrow, came down to the middle of the cheek, and was in close contact with the nose. The former experiments were then repeated without any difference in the result."

On a later page we read this:

"Her eyes were then covered with a white handkerchief folded so as to make eight or ten thicknesses, and the spaces below the bandage filled with strips of black velvet. She then took a book and read audibly, distinctly, and correctly, nearly a page." 

Page 74 of the document here gives us an account of sleepwalking with eyes eyes, combined with apparent clairvoyance:

"A servant girl aged fourteen, fell suddenly into a state of somnambulism, whilst in church. She had previously been visiting the grave of her sister’s child, to which she had been much attached, and by whose death she was deeply affected. She rose from her seat during the service, and, with her eyes closed, walked straight home where she was found half undressed, lying on the bed. She gave no answer on being spoken to, and when raised up remained without motion in the sitting posture. Thinking that she was only in a profound sleep, the people about her endeavoured to rouse her ; but after fruitless attempts to make her open her eyes, they left her sitting, and watched her. In a few minutes her head was suddenly drawn backwards by a spasm ; and on this giving way, she jumped off the bed and endeavoured to escape, her eyes continuing firmly closed. On finding her intention frustrated, she quietly went to a table, and took up the hymn book which she had brought with her from church, and after turning over the leaves quickly, she found the place in which they had been singing, and commenced reading from where she had left off in church. She afterwards became liable to frequent paroxysms of somnambulism..."

This apparently was an example of "sleep reading" with eyes closed.  After reading that the girl much later apparently sleep-walked two-and-a-half miles to her doctor (who wrote her a prescription) we read this on page 76:

"The girl delivered the prescription at the apothecary’s, and waiting for the medicines, put them into her basket, and went towards home, still continuing profoundly asleep. The doctor followed her at the distance of about fifteen or sixteen paces, and was astonished to observe, with what address she avoided the many vehicles on the road, and got out of the way of all obstacles, pursuing her road calmly and safely. After walking for half an hour, she suddenly awoke, and looked about her, bewildered and alarmed. The doctor then went up to her and accosted her, and found that she had no idea how she had got there or where she had been to."

On pages 76 to 77 of the same document, we read this about another girl:

"Dr. Dyce of Aberdeen relates the case of a servant girl, who, during similar paroxysms of day somnambulism [sleepwalking], used to continue her usual occupations. At one time, she laid out the table for breakfast,; and she repeatedly dressed herself and the children of the family, her eyes remaining firmly closed the whole time."

By providing evidence for clairvoyance, sleepwalking helps to undermine "brains make minds" ideas. The utter incompatibility of evidence for clairvoyance and "brains make minds" ideology is shown by the fact that those holding "brains make minds" ideas typically refuse to believe in clairvoyance. It is senseless denialism to deny the reality of clairvoyance. We have 200 years of written evidence for its reality, much of it written by doctors and scientists. You can study some of the evidence by reading my series of 14 posts here, continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom right. The best test subjects such as Alexis Didier very often passed "with flying colors" the most stringent tests of clairvoyance, both in public exhibitions and private demonstrations to careful observers. At the link here you can read a report of 52 pages describing clairvoyance tests of Alexis Didier. 

"The distinguished Parisian Professor of Medicine, Rostan, gave at the time his corroborative testimony to the existence of this power in the article ' Magnetisme,' in the ' Dictionnaire de Medecine,'  wherein he remarked : 'There are few facts better demonstrated than clairvoyance' ....Innumerable instances are recorded of the possession of the faculty of clairvoyance by persons in the normal state, in sleep [hypnotism], and in some abnormal conditions of the system, " -- Edwin Lee, MD, "Animal Magnetism and Magnetic Lucid Somnambulism" page 103 and page 133.