I used to think the only type of message that could be part of telepathy were thoughts that came into a person's mind.  I have since learned that with energy, there are many types of communication beyond just thoughts and messages.  I have personally experienced smells, tastes, sounds, and images coming from other sources into my mind.
Smells and Tastes
Years ago my spouse and I were meditating together and at the end of the meditation we kissed and he tasted like chocolate.  I asked him what happened in his meditation and he reported how he was in a house and saw some chocolates on a table so stopped and ate one.  He had that chocolate flavor and smell on his lips and tongue.
Sounds
When I was taking an acupuncture class, the teacher reported how you can feel the Qi at an acupuncture point.  We then were each instructed to locate an acupuncture point on a fellow student and see if we could feel the Qi.  What I noticed was I could HEAR a swooshing sound whenever I was at an acupuncture point.  I could hear the sound of the energy flowing at a point.
Images
When I started doing energy work to help people heal, I noticed it was as if their bodies were sending me images about what was going on in their body.  I could see the image of the joint, the blood vessel, the organ with the problem and/or the solution which was needed.
All of these types of non-physical messages are a type of telepathy.

The ability to integrate with the Tao is a spiritual gift. The development tools for telepathy are those associated with integrating, contacting, connecting, communicating, traveling, and relating to the Tao.  
The spiritual gift of telepathy is associated with the seventh chakra; the chakra usually considered to be positioned at the top of ones head. The 7th chakra has the ability to connect and utilize the TAO. 
Here are the seventh chakra spiritual development tools to help you refine and align your seventh chakra energy to this gift:

• Food = Water (the giver of life)
• Sex = Completely prone; the male is prone, face up, and the female lays on top of him, face down, also prone.  
• Sound = Note of “B”.  The note of B is a higher note on the musical scale. The sounds or tones which are higher in the musical scale are more conducive to telepathy as opposed to that are more base sounding notes. Sounds which are more in harmony with the note are readily helpful to the particular gift of telepathy.
• Color = White; pure white light. The 7th chakra is the crown or highest chakra as you recall, and it draws upon all aspects of the other chakras to combine to form this highest point, just as the TAO is the total combination of all so the chakra most clearly associated with the TAO is the combination of all. Therefore, when one combines all the colors of the chakra, then the color produced is white.
• Ritual = Summer (most sun)
• Meditation = Female meditation (a position where the male excites the female until climax during a meditation.)
• Integration = Direct connection with (and to) the Tao

Preparation
To prepare oneself to use telepathy, you have one person to send a message and another to receive. For it to work properly then both must tune in with the telepathy.  Both must be prepared for the experience. You may send telepathic messages to as many people as you desire but unless they are receptive, they will not pay attention to the experience. 
Projection
In telepathy, what the individual is doing is projecting their mental thoughts through the astral plane to a particular location or person. They do this by first becoming in-tune with the astral and then mentally concentrating and mentally willing a thought or concept to that location they choose. 
Conduits
There are conduits between the earth and the astral plane and these conduits can link or tie energy locations together. You can instill within yourself spiritual energies of the proper frequency to produce mental communication and tap into and use those energy conduits to carry and project your messages. 
Receiver
The other person you wish to contact needs to establish an energy frequency that is compatible with the one you are establishing yourself. This is the easiest form of communication when both are one a similar frequency; therefore a conduit can easily be established between you. 
Energy Location
As you gain experience, it may become possible for the one who is wishing to initiate the contact to establish the energy location and then through their own spiritual energies, project a conduit to a person who is unprepared. And even with more experience or energy, one may be able to establish the conduit to a specific location such as a room, a point of history, or future, or within a past or future life of their own. 
Various Communications
As you gain experience and depth of understanding, the various forms of communicating begin to merge in their totality. In other words, the difference between traveling and telepathy is that as you travel you experience or feel or visualize the events taking place. In telepathy, you may be able to communicate at first in a one sided manner and then later in a two-way communication. 
As you gain spiritual energy then the two gifts may begin merge and not only visualize and feel the experience, but communicate as well. 
Preparation
How does one prepare oneself to the proper frequency?  By using the 7th chakra tools.
In your telepathic communication you may choose the particular frequency that you wish to communicate on or you may choose the total frequencies of all. For example, suppose you wish to telepathically communicate with someone and you are feeling very strongly about lets say the 4th chakra. The 4th chakra is related to the color green. The 4th chakra is also related to the sexual position #4. You can engage in the sexual experiences of the 4th chakra position and you can energize each other in that particular frequency. Therefore, when you wish to communicate with each other, you can visualize the frequency of green. You will then more easily able to focus the conduit upon that person. 
Now, if you wish to contact a individual or location and are unsure of which frequency to use, then the 7th chakra is the combination of all frequencies and a visualization of white is helpful. However, because you are using multiple conduits of freq. energies, the energy requirements are greater. 
Projection Across Channels
So when you wish to contact in the 7th chakra frequencies then, it is very important to have sufficient astral energies to project your mental thoughts or feelings or communications across those channels. 
Here is an example of how a telepathy experience may work. First of all, you first became comfortable. Focus your attentions and your mind on the object of who you wish to contact. If you recall, this is called addressing. Now, visualize the message being sent. Visualize rays of energy leaving yourself and traveling to the other person. Choose the frequency is in the color of the rays or message. As you meditate or are in the meditative state, visualize these messages leaving yourself, then the color which you see them, and yourself or the other person in the frequency of light which you are going to send or communicate your message. If you visualize multiple colors, you are visualizing multiple frequencies, which will take more spiritual energy to send or receive the message. 
Can Be Used with Other Spiritual Gifts
The spiritual gift of telepathy can be used with all other spiritual gifts. Telepathy can therefore produce a totality of spiritual understanding. For example, your dreams can become more understandable or certainly more poignant if you could communicate with them. You can do this by using the gift of telepathy. This is another form of telepathy and a spiritual gift to help and compliment the ability to interpret dreams. 
Communicate with Higher Self
Telepathy can be developed to communicate with your Higher Self, your Spiritual Guide(s), and with other beings on other planes of the Tao.  The gift of telepathy can be used with all other spiritual gifts and can produce a totality of spiritual gift understanding. Telepathy is a spiritual gift that compliments all the other spiritual gifts and draws upon all other gifts for it to be successful.
Recognizing Telepathy From Own Thoughts
The experience of telepathy can be very disconcerting to realize that you are receiving someone’s thoughts that are not yours, but as the mind settles down and accepts the experience, you will recognize that you can start, stop, and change the subject. The telepathic thought, however, seems to appear without warning or notice. You cannot change the content at will, but you can stop their reception by desiring to stop the message. In other words, you no longer seek the other person’s thoughts. It does take considerable effort to gain telepathy, but is considerably easier to restrict it.