Teal Swan

[Umbra]

I'd like to hear what the forum thinks of Teal Swan, the YouTube prophet. I was introduced to her after she was featured on mainstream media as "one of the most influential spiritual leaders in the world". In general, I'd be interested to hear what kind of "vetting process" you have for spiritual teachers. How do you know who is worth listening to?

In short, Teal Swan claims to be clairvoyant (sees emotions and other energies) since birth. She lives in Costa Rica, I think, with a commune of her followers and hosts workshops around the world in addition to selling books and art online. Her metaphysics sound pretty solid to me. Everything is Source/God, and we humans have parted from Source with an intention to do or experience something in this form. The world is fundamentally energy, or vibration. She does have some wilder claims too, like "gemstones have a will" and stuff about aliens/entities originating from other star systems, which I'm not in a position to verify or falsify. Her main message and project is something I can get on board with, though: she wants to help heal humankind by facilitating the integration of one's identity through something essentially like shadow work: seeing and accepting your "bad" or forbidden sides.

The main problem I have with Teal Swan is she speaks very authoritatively, like her every word is coming directly from God. I wonder how consciously she does this - does she really think she's infallible, or does she pretend to be in order to be a strong leader? I don't doubt that she has had genuine experiences of God/divinity (is there even such a thing as an false mystical experience? How do you view Joseph Smith, for example?), but it would seem unlikely that after 3000+ years of fallible human vessels, she's the first perfect transmitter of the Truth.

[Kenazis]

For me “signs of NO” are:

1) there are money involved as one of the central things (workshops or products that are expensive)
2) There’s “hype” around the person.
3) With her/his fame, the person tries to sell other things and use it for other purposes
4) The smell of modern American New Age
5) “Guru-attitude” / pretending to be a mouthpiece of God(s).
6) acts and words are not in harmony
7) different rules for oneself
7) Then there are many signs to be spotted when listening to what that person says or what he/she does.

“ Everything is Source/God, and we humans have parted from Source with an intention to do or experience something in this form. The world is fundamentally energy, or vibration.”
There are multiple spiritual/religious views that support this kind of philosophy.

About 2 months ago I first heard about Teal Swan. Joseph Smith is more familiar fellow.

[Smaragd]

I can think the whole world to be my teacher, and thus if I happen to hear something valid from Teal Swan compared to my own experience and judgement, I might get something helpful out of it. But I see I prefer teachers and sources where the teachers builds openly on an existing base or tradition that I can generally agree with, without getting a feeling of a leaking pipe. Traditions have the advantage of different kinds of temperaments adding to it and building a stronger foundation without falling into individual blindspots. It feels a teacher is also more responsible coming from, and openly basing on, a tradition that has clear enough principles, so that the teachings can be questioned, built on and maybe even confirmed by teachings from other teachers, from a bit different angle, with similar vocabilary and terminology.

New age oftenly bases on some tradition in such a loose way that I tend to get the feeling of a leaking pipe. Gurus can just jump up from the bushes (ecspecially in the Youtube context) and start to blaze on without any context for the teachings, or for the pupils backgrounds. This leaves an immense area of possibility for the pupil to misuse the teachings in a very one pointed way. I mean without basic principles like the one of truthfulness, any teaching can be used in wildly harmful and selfish ways. Or a sort of vampiristic dynamic can form where the teachers glory finds a dislocated area of the pupils need of blazing action or idealism and answers to this need in a way that can't fulfill the true need behind and leaves the pupil lost and further disintegrated from the world.

The main problem I have with Teal Swan is she speaks very authoritatively, like her every word is coming directly from God. I wonder how consciously she does this - does she really think she's infallible, or does she pretend to be in order to be a strong leader? I don't doubt that she has had genuine experiences of God/divinity (is there even such a thing as an false mystical experience? How do you view Joseph Smith, for example?), but it would seem unlikely that after 3000+ years of fallible human vessels, she's the first perfect transmitter of the Truth.

I can understand why one would speak like that. It sort of keeps the mind focused on that powerful spot where the words sort of blaze out effortlessly. To keep the self-questioning principle too much at hand easily stops the train of thought and cuts the thought up, while the point is to bring forth clear presentation of the subject. But it is healthy to remind that this is just how I see it at this moment, as I've seen some responsible teachers doing.

All in all this was more a general answer than pointed towards specificly at Teal Swan. I only watched ~a third of one of her videos and am not aware if she tells about her background more in somewhere else. The problem with Youtube is, individuals can just look one video, a buch of them out of context, or a third like I did, and move on with their life. The platform doesn't ask for deeper integration of the information. It is the same problem as with the negative sides of religion shopping chaos magic.

[Cerastes]

For me “signs of NO” are:

1) there are money involved as one of the central things (workshops or products that are expensive)
2) There’s “hype” around the person.
3) With her/his fame, the person tries to sell other things and use it for other purposes
4) The smell of modern American New Age
5) “Guru-attitude” / pretending to be a mouthpiece of God(s).
6) acts and words are not in harmony
7) different rules for oneself
7) Then there are many signs to be spotted when listening to what that person says or what he/she does.

Agreed.
One reason why I avoided any form of shared spirituality for the longest time is the fact that at some point people confuse their own god-complex with the „source“.
Besides, I usually have a problem when someone makes videos in which s/he gives life tips to suicidal or clinically depressed people. This can be very dangerous and relatively often there are comorbidities like schizophrenia etc. which may never have been diagnosed. You can't solve this with a YouTube video, it needs individual treatmant.
Such videos are aimed at desperate people who may grasp at straws. These people like to pay large sums of money they don’t even have for the hope of recovery and I think it is highly immoral to take advantage of such a situation.
I have to say that I only watched one or two videos so maybe I'm doing her wrong here.

I can understand why one would speak like that. It sort of keeps the mind focused on that powerful spot where the words sort of blaze out effortlessly. To keep the self-questioning principle too much at hand easily stops the train of thought and cuts the thought up, while the point is to bring forth clear presentation of the subject. But it is healthy to remind that this is just how I see it at this moment, as I've seen some responsible teachers doing.

Teal seems intelligent to me and I like her businesslike way of speaking. Okay, maybe I'm a bit too German here but with many American speakers, the excessive emotionality annoys me because it distracts from the content. When I see the enthusiastic and emotional way politicans in other countries speak, I think this might be a cultural imprint. When Merkel smiles, it kind of looks like the PR guy forced her to do so.

[Soror O]

From my perspective her teachings are consistent (given that the truth itself is multi-layered and thus contradictory). Personally I don't see where the cult-accusations are coming from, since she is promoting self-actualization and free will, always encouraging people to use their own Self as a compass. I've not been getting that authoritarian vibe from her, nor I have ever come across any content where she'd encourage people commit suicide. (My personal opinion is also, that if a person kills himself being encouraged by someone, he is prone to do it anyway. And I don't even see suicide as the worst choice there is to make, so.)

Moreover, I don't mind people acting like they are God, (which we all are). Yet, I'm also prone to investigating/guessing people's intentions, human as I am. The commercial crap around any spiritual thing annoys me, yet I don't see why making money out one's spiritual teachings would be wrong per se. It's just that I'm not interested in buying it.

To me the clearest indication of her sincerity (and it can be argued what this means) is that she has openly told being subjected into (satanic) ritual abuse. Also she has mentioned being a being of nonhuman origin (an extra terrestrial). A person who'd want influence over people would not want to associate herself to things like that, since the chance for ridicule and ad hominem arguments is obvious. I personally don't know what are the incredients she's made out of, I've weighed her words against my mind and soul and some of that has been somewhat useful.

[Kenazis]

In her official page there’s info that:

She was born with a range of extrasensory abilities, including

A) clairvoyance,
B) clairsentience, and
C) clairaudience.

About these abilities, my attitude is that extra-ordinary claims demands extraordinary evidence. I would love to hear how these extraordinary abilities manifest themselves.

“Spiritual figures have been promoting this "un-enlightenment" for thousands of years by demonstrating a facade of enlightened perfection whilst in the public eye. They have expressed their divinity while suppressing their humanity. This serves to create a split within the being. This split is then emulated by the spiritual practitioners who learn from them. It causes people to drift further away from self actualization. “

This “façade of enlightened perfection” is good point. There are many these kinds of people around. About the importance of self actualization is hazy. What this time seems to need imore than self actualization is self transcendence (which I see an act of Self actualization), meaning reaching outwards to others, for others, and not concentrating on your self. The meaning of self is important here. Are we speaking about the “Self “or “self”.

She is speaking about integration and wholeness as core methods and goals of spiritual progress. I think that is also the case, but before Teal there’s again many traditions saying this same, and Ken Wilber and his posse is saying this for 20 years or more. So, in this revelation there’s nothing new.

To me the clearest indication of her sincerity (and it can be argued what this means) is that she has openly told being subjected into (satanic) ritual abuse. Also she has mentioned being a being of nonhuman origin (an extra terrestrial). A person who'd want influence over people would not want to associate herself to things like that, since the chance for ridicule and ad hominem arguments is obvious. I personally don't know what are the incredients she's made out of, I've weighed her words against my mind and soul and some of that has been somewhat useful.

My opinion here differs with you, Ave. You get influence over every one who has similar history of childhood abuse by openly speaking about this. This however might be best message from her. To told people and give example that you can overcome even this kind of horror-experiences of past and live healthy life. Claiming to be non-human extraterrestrial is in my eyes just another way to say I’m special, very special, that can be seen as making yourself an extraordinary authority. And I think saying someone that she/he should commit suicide is always wrong option.

There’s many things to criticize and other things to say she might be doing good job, but at least she’s beautiful and rich (and not old yet)…

Ps. Just visit her official page and look the shop, and you can see what I mean making money with “spirituality”.

ps.ps. Even heavily criticizing Teal, there’s of course good many good things about her, and just a glimpse of her teachings and pages I really cannot say much more.

´

[Smaragd]

The money thing led me think of how someone who gets the bread on the table by selling spiritual teachings propably faces immense challenges that most likely are the kind that won’t let you go further from some specific initiation. Acknowledging this is quite a sacrifice, which can be seen as some sort of initiation itself, but it might actually be the initiation to the lateral path of earthly power, wealth and mammon. Thus ”the lineage” formed by such teachers sort of loses the ascending spiritual influence from some point on. The Kings of our world can teach people about things of power, confidence and other psychological tools improving outward composition, if not health to some point.

I guess the feeling of a leaking pipe I wrote in my previous post comes from the need for the ascending path which doesn’t compromise that much when it comes to the spirit, but tries to find the nucleus of the spirit, which doesn’t base on these separations anymore. Talking about lateral and ascending paths is seemingly separating, but when we understand they talk about the spirit, we can see how with such cloaks of separation we can point how the lateral path is still following a separating (not wholesome and striving towards oneness) spirit ie. ideolody. By following I mean ultimately basing on. I think most of us are following the falling angel aswell, but have that base under our feet that has confirmed us the falling ie. separating arch can include a purpose for the ascending arch.

[Soror O]

You get influence over every one who has similar history of childhood abuse by openly speaking about this. This however might be best message from her. To told people and give example that you can overcome even this kind of horror-experiences of past and live healthy life.

Yes, it just could be so that amongst abuse-survivors she's given extra-credibility by coming out of the closet with her experience.

Claiming to be non-human extraterrestrial is in my eyes just another way to say I’m special, very special, that can be seen as making yourself an extraordinary authority.

I understand that it can be interpreted like that (also). I tend to think that it hasn't been scientifically proved that we all are human either, so we are relying on harsh, assumptive generalisation about that. (Of course arguments like this are pure nonsense to someone who has a scientific/materialistic approach to the universe. Although, given the fact that we are made out of extra-terrestrial chemical elements - such as hydrogen - one would argue also that we indeed are extra-terrestials, haha.)

The money thing led me think of how someone who gets the bread on the table by selling spiritual teachings propably faces immense challenges that most likely are the kind that won’t let you go further from some specific initiation.

The relation between "holyness" and "money driveness/ materialism" is an interesting one. Different paradigms of spirituality have for centuries looked down on mundane pursuits as if they'd automatically be out synch with the "higher spiritual realm". I don't have a clear stand on this myself and it would be interesting to hear more of your insights on this. I've noticed that something about the monetary realm makes my spirit very uneasy though. For example, the clothes that are sold on Teal Swan's webshop are propably made in sweatshops that are in a way an expression of structural violence (hundreds of years of western imperialism, tyranny etc.). From the Source's/Divinity's point of view such violence is nothing more than a cosmic play, but as a human(oid) (and bound to the karmic order) I wouldn't want to be a part of such violence. But isn't Earth a one mind-fuck-of-a-planet to live on - you cannot actually live without killing and devouring other beings (plants, animals, people, organism of all size). I'm prone to think that it's not so much about what you do - it's how you do it (and that's were the holyness of your being is privately weighted).

[Cerastes]

The relation between "holyness" and "money driveness/ materialism" is an interesting one.

Yes, it is.
„10 For the love of money is the root of all evil [….]“ (1 Timothy 6:10)
This is often misunderstood.
I don’t believe that spiritual teachers need to be poor to keep up their moral obligation. It is in fact not the amount of money but the love for it that might drive them away from spirit. Taking money for occult teachings is not bad per se but if the love for money grows higher than the love for knowledge it will harm others. This form of greed seeks a justification from without and quite often, this is the point were teachers start to believe that they are chosen by god or super-special.
Teal Swan raises a lot of mistrust in this matter because selling shoes has nothing to do with esoteric teaching. For me it seems that she turned herself into a brand, more than a teacher.
I don’t want to point finger at others because I’ve been very money-driven myself when I was thinking in a more nihilistic way. But besides the Karmic burden, there are many things that turn out to be very dangerous and harmful if they are rated by their economic outcome. Examples are animal husbandry, medical treatment, psychological treatment and (esoteric) teaching.

Of course all of this does not imply that her teachings are not valuable for some people or that we can’t learn something from her. But, like you said, I would not spend money on this or buy stuff from her shop and it is always good the question every teaching as well as own beliefs and pattern once in a while.

[Umbra]

Thanks for your replies and insights. The money question is a big one for sure. I'm also very easily put off by people asking for money for spiritual services, but I think a big part of it is my Christian upbringing. In my old church, money was considered completely evil and to express a wish for wealth was a sure sign of corruptness. I don't think asking money for spiritual work is necessarily evil, I frame it more as "asking money for time" nowadays. What I do see as a huge warning sign is spiritual "services" that are designed to keep you coming for more. The same goes for health or intellectual services. I have no problem with paying for a therapist's or teacher's time for him or her to pass her knowledge or message to me, but any talk of "needing a lot more work" or "not knowing how long this will take" is very suspicious.