Waiting for the Right Moment

Remember that bit in Minority Report when they’re trapped in the shopping mall, with law enforcers closing in fast, and Agatha keeps saying, “Wait…wait…wait…”?

She’s a precog, so John Anderton trusts her, even though his instinct is to run. Then, just as Agatha knew he would, the balloon seller stands in just the right spot to conceal them from their pursuers and gives them time to escape.

As I watched that film yet again recently, it made me smile. My book publishing story has similarities to that.

Blank Refusal

Although mine is the sole author’s name on the cover of A Mind Beyond Words, that’s only because my co-creator wanted it that way. It’s Asher’s story at least as much as mine, and for many years it looked as if it wouldn’t be told at all.

I think he was around 16 when I first suggested to him that our strange and magical experiences would make a good story. His reply was unequivocal: “I forbid you to write my life.”

Fair enough. There was no way I would go against the kid’s wishes. My notes and his messages were consigned to a file in the depths of my computer, which I added to from time to time.

There were many other occasions when I tentatively raised the subject, but still he refused.

“Wait…” the universe was telling me.

Change of Heart

Another 16 years passed before, to my amazement, Asher himself raised the subject of writing a book. He had, and still has, strict stipulations. I was to change all names (yes, even his Mum’s, although two vital letters remained the same — I get asked that a lot!), conceal all locations and make every possible effort to preserve his anonymity so that his family and colleagues didn’t realise it was about him. However, he was now willing, keen even, for our story to be told.

He told me there were many others with autism who were unable to speak for themselves. His story was their story and, for their sake, he said, it needed to be shared.

Because we had, by this time, developed a reliable form of telepathic contact, he no longer had to search for the right words. He merely sent unworded thoughts directly into my mind and my brain somehow transformed them into the ideas that fill so much of the book.

I found myself writing information I’d never heard anywhere else. He told me he was finding it in some kind of interdimensional library where all knowledge was stored. He told me the non-speaking autists had access to it as well, but many of them lacked the means to share it with the rest of us.

Further Delay

The manuscript was written, but there was still a long way to go. Editing took a while, so did getting it accepted by the publisher. Then it took more than a year for the wheels and gears of the printing and publishing process to complete their course.

I was chafing at the bit, impatient to see our creation finished and ready. Asher assured me that the timing was perfect.

“The right people will find it at the right time,” he told me.

Published!

So finally, in the spring of 2024, A Mind Beyond Words was out there. My publicist arranged all manner of interviews and reviews for me and sales started rather well.

At that time, autism and telepathy were fringe interests, to say the least. Oddly, though, I found I was being approached by people from around the world telling me about autistic and physically challenged relatives, pupils and care home residents they knew, who were also displaying psychic abilities or showed signs that they had hidden knowledge or skills. Many told me they’d been uncomfortable sharing their experiences or suspicions with anyone else, for fear of being laughed at or disbelieved. As Asher said in our book:

It is almost impossible for one individual to be able to move beyond the physical enough to reach deeply into Consciousness, while remaining grounded enough to able to explain it in human terms. I can have the knowledge and awareness as I journey alone but I need help to bring it ‘down to earth’. As you share our story, others like you will acknowledge the wisdom and knowing they have seen in children or adults they care for or guide.

It seemed he was right. There were people who needed our story to be told and they, or those close to them, were discovering it.

Lull

Towards the end of the summer, the interviews and reviews were tailing off. So were sales.

I started to take a, ‘well, it was fun while it lasted’ attitude, but Asher was, like that other precog, telling me, “Wait…wait…wait…”

I kept at the social media, my followers and newsletter subscriptions stayed stable or increased by one or two a month. By this point, my sales rankings were down in the millions, but Asher was insistent that it wasn’t over yet.

The Telepathy Tapes

As autumn arrived, so did the first episode of a new podcast series. I listened in amazement as Ky Dickens told how people all around the world had been discovering telepathic abilities in the autistic people they lived or worked with. There were, it turned out, hundreds of us with almost identical stories, and almost all had kept very quiet about it or been told they were delusional.

Excited and impressed by the quality and content of The Telepathy Tapes, I wrote a fan message to Ky, thanking her for the series and sharing a little of our story. When she got back to me and asked for an interview, I was stunned. Asher wasn’t. He knew the balloon seller was on the way. He encouraged me to go ahead and took an uncharacteristic interest in what followed. He even asked to be copied into any future emails with Ky.

This was different from all those other podcasts. I wasn’t there hoping to promote my book. I don’t think it ever got mentioned. I just wanted to add our experiences to the body of evidence Ky was amassing. We turned up in several of the later episodes.

TTT went viral at the end of 2024 and listeners somehow found our website, media and book. The big smiley A in the US twice ran out of copies of A Mind Beyond Words! Suddenly people from all walks of life — not just those who lived or worked with the autistic community — were keen to hear our story, and those of others in this previously silent minority.

The Right Moment

If our story had been written years earlier, it would have been long forgotten by now, and both our lives might have moved on to other things. If it had come out later, I might have been accused of merely jumping on a bandwagon. As it was, the timing was perfect.

Asher had chosen the right moment to make our story public. Ky Dickens had done exactly the same with hers. Suddenly, it seems, there are people around the world who want to know more; some to help and to advocate for the spellers, and others who welcome this new way to look at life.

Another quote from Asher in our book sums up the spirit of the age rather neatly:

Many are disillusioned with religions because the rituals have become dissociated from their original purpose and the gods have been turned into parodies of humans. They’re disillusioned with most of the scientists because they know there is more than the physical universe and the scientists deny that. Many people know their ‘dead’ relatives are still around; they know it doesn’t all stop here. They want it explained, but they want some intellect in there, not just cosy stories.

The Future

Ky and her team are busily working on producing Talk Tracks — a new podcast spin-off, as well as a film and a further podcast series.

Ash and I are compiling our second book, to address questions like, ‘Why can some people use telepathy/psi skills, and why can’t others?’ ‘What is this Shiftish thing so many are talking about — is humanity really changing?’ ‘Why are there so many autists and what is their purpose?’ and, perhaps most importantly, ‘How do our very broken systems need to change?’

Do I wish I could get it written and published faster? Yes! But Asher assures me everything will happen at the right moment.