Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Teal Swan

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

Known to her loyalists as the “spiritual catalyst” but to her critics as the “suicide catalyst,” New Age influencer Teal Swan is a controversial 30-something self-help guru who some say has saved lives and others say has ended them. Having launched a social media career in the mid-2000s (and still going strong), Swan doesn’t post about beauty products and travel inspo but rather spiritual-meets-“scientific” teachings on a wide range of topics from addiction to chakras to vaccines to suicide. Some of her most committed adherents follow her down to Costa Rica to experience her shady self-actualization techniques IRL. Swan is the subject of the new Hulu docuseries The Deep End, based on the fascinating 2018 podcast The Gateway, which was created and hosted by this week’s guest, Jennings Brown, who’s here to talk with Amanda and Isa about the fanatical “cult” Swan has built online. Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders AND two free pillows for our listeners at HelixSleep.com/cult. For listeners of the show, Dipsea is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/CULT. For listeners of the show, Everlywell is offering a special discount of 20% off an at-home lab test at Everlywell.com/CULT.

Hey everyone, before we get started, we wanted to let you know that this episode does contain stories related to suicide, which may be triggering to some listeners, so do take care. The views expressed in this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable, this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Hello everyone. Before we come into this life, we begin with a core intention. We intend to experience this thing that we intend to experience, and that is what creates the chain of events leading to our physical life. Without this

intention, this pre-birth intention, we would not even come into life. Life could not exist. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cult we all follow. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book Cultish the Language of Fanaticism, and I'm Issa Medina, a comedian. Every week on our show, we discuss a different zeitgeisty group that puts the cult in culture, from MLMs to theater kids, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult. What is it really? To join our cult and see culty memes and BTS picks, follow us on Instagram at SoundsLikeACultPod. I'm over there in the cult of Instagram at Amanda underscore Montell, and I'm on Instagram at Issa Medina, I-S-A-A-M-E-D-I-N-A-A. As you guys

know, I am a comedian, and the best way to support me is by giving me a follow so I can get booked on shows it would mean the world to me. But also, I am going to start posting podcast bloopers, and let me tell you, some of these episodes have been recorded hung over, so you definitely want to see that. And feel free to check us out on YouTube where you can watch our show, or hit us up on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult where our show is available ad-free. Now, let's go underwater. Yeah, Teal Swan doesn't just sound like a cult, it looks like a cult, it smells like a cult. It feels like a cult, so it's like... Yeah, you know, on our show, we don't tend to really cover the Jonestowns and the Heavens gates

and all of those groups that you could categorize as suicide cults. However, I can think of one woman who has gained a significant amount of attention and authority in these modern times, who could be classified as a suicide cult-y cult-ish leader, and that woman is Teal Swan. An intensely worshipped and much criticized New Age influencer who originally became famous for her mesmerizing self-help YouTube videos and continues to grow her cult following on TikTok. I think the reason it's important to talk about her on our podcast is because despite all the coverage she's been getting lately and for years because there's been multiple other podcasts covering her cult-like behavior, she's still going. Oh, she's at large. She's still out there doing

her thing. She is very much alive and recruiting people every day and she's good at it. She's really good at it. When we were doing research for this episode, I was trying to find other people who have covered it already to see what angle they took and how we can dive deeper. And when you look her up on YouTube or just general web searches, you're not going to see a lot of criticism. You just see her content because she started on YouTube. And her SEO marketing strategies are incredibly strong. What does an SEO stand for again? Search engine optimization. Oh, yeah. Super good. She's got that down. Yeah. She has these growth hacking strategies that would work for any Silicon Valley company or startup,

but she's used them to start this pseudo-spiritual mental health empire that some people worship and say has really helped them and saved them, but she's also caused a lot of destruction and potentially the ends of some people's lives. So we wanted to do this episode and we've gotten a ton of requests about it on the heels of the Hulu docu series about her called Deep Water. The Deep End. The Deep End. Sorry. Oh my God. Literally everything. There are so many TV shows and movies called things like Deep Water, Deep River, Deep End. When did you first first hear about Teal Swan? I heard about Teal Swan when we started this podcast. Oh, from me. Yeah. From you. When Amanda and I were like developing this podcast, we worked on it for like a year before

releasing it. Yeah. And we had interviewed Jennings Brown for another episode on another topic. And so I heard about it from Amanda, her book, and then Jennings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Jennings Brown is the creator and host and journalist behind an amazing podcast that deep dives, deep waters in Teal Swan called The Gateway. I first listened to The Gateway in 2018 and was totally riveted by this story. You know, we covered Instagram therapists earlier in our season two. We referenced this one person in particular who we refuse to name because we're afraid she'll harass and sue us. And we talked about how it's possible and now common to start social media, cultish communities online. But Teal Swan was one of the OGs. It was like early mid-2000s when

she started on YouTube. Yep. She was trying a bunch of different things. She hadn't immediately found her spiritual guru vibe. She tried to essentially like go viral in a lot of different ways and then found her audience. She started posting videos in 2007. She would post videos and tutorials and meditations, if you will, on everything under the sun from how to overcome addiction to how to open your third eye. And this is very Teal Swan. She basically marries legitimate issues having to do with mental health and addiction, marrying language that you might find in the DSM with these much more spiritual concepts, the Akashic records, your oraths, your chakras, etc. So to her loyalists, her followers, she's known as like a spiritual catalyst.

But to her critics, she's more known as a suicide catalyst because she kind of glorifies suicide and death as a way to heal yourself. It's pretty controversial. It's pretty perturbing. And we'll talk about some of her most flagrant controversies. But let's first talk about her charisma. So basically, she is this very conventionally beautiful 30-something thin white woman with a powerful gaze that stares directly into the camera when she's talking about these topics. She has long dark hair. She has this very sort of like witchy, nurturing, maternal energy. Yeah, she's beautiful, but it's like a relatable beauty that you kind of can fall into. To me, she almost has the vibe of like, live Tyler in Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, total, total elf. We've spoken a lot on this podcast before about how a lot of times dangerous criminals and cult leaders will become sex symbols. Like Ted Bundy and Jim Jones was regarded as like so handsome or whatever. I don't fucking see it. I think Jim Jones looks like who's the villain in Back to the Future, Biff. You keep asking me references of movies that I don't watch. That are too old for you. Also, it's like because like not to be like, I'm an immigrant, but right. But I am. And so like, there's some things that I never watched because it was like culturally

not there with my parents. Totally fair. Totally fair. Teal Swan 2 has become something of a sex symbol. There have literally been articles written online about her goddess-like beauty, her long dark hair, her piercing green eyes, her skincare routine. One New York magazine essay said, I can't stop thinking about her pores. But I also think that sex appeal is not just about your appearance. That's so true. It's about the ability to manufacture a sense of intimacy with your followers. And it's a vibe.

It's a vibe. Like I cannot stop saying vibe these days. I think also one of the most attractive parts of Teal and what makes her videos and her TikToks and her YouTube content so alluring is her voice. It sounds like a sort of sirens hypnotic lullaby. And, you know, Jennings has mentioned that people told him they would just put playlists of her videos on and listen to them as they fell asleep at night. Oh, and I would totally believe that people do that. I mean, she puts on this soft hypnotic voice on purpose.

She doesn't, it's not an accident. She's like putting on this act. And, you know, I think she has completely embodied this sort of DIY self-actualization mommy persona. Yeah. And there is something maternal about being rocked to sleep by this woman who's claiming authority on all these things. She has no accreditation in. Yeah. I think my final take is that also everyone always talks about like daddy issues this,

daddy issues that. And I feel like a lot of us have mommy issues, you know? For sure. And she's kind of like tapping into that. That's so true. You know, we don't talk about mommy issues enough. Don't. Oh, except these people do it.

That's the problem with a lot of these sort of like new agey spiritual mental health gurus like Tilswan is that some of what they say is true. Yeah. And when they talk about things like the mother wound, some of that is legitimate and compelling. It's just they bastardize it and warp it according to what will serve their own clout. The mother wound is such a pretentious way of saying mommy issues. It reminds me of Goop and Gwyneth Paltrow that she'll post

some legitimate articles on her website, but some entirely illegitimate claims. So then it's like everything is sandwiched in between legitimacy, illegitimacy, and like you don't know what to believe anymore. Yeah. A hundred percent. And who the fuck has time to fact check all of that? Nope. May.

Not May. Not Hermione. You. All right. Can't stop saying that. Nope. And not May. Not Hermione.

You. So good. That's like that TikTok definitely lives rent free in my head. Yeah. Yeah. I said it the other day. Yeah. No, literally whenever I say not me, I just immediately jump to that.

Me too. Me too. It's so good. But she describes herself as an individual who travels the world, teaching people the truth of the universe, helping people to see the truth of themselves, and teaching them how to transform their emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual pain. But how does she do that is the question. I mean, classic cult leader claims she traffics in the waters of personal transformation.

She's specifically targeting people who are maybe lonely or struggling with their mental health, who might be on their computer searching something like, I'm all alone, or why does this hurt so much? Or should I kill myself? And those key words are exactly what she's capitalizing on. And those key words are what leads to her content. She was so early on the idea that when people Google or look up, I want to kill myself. What do I do?

They immediately go to her because you're in the most vulnerable place of your life. You're immediately captured by her when you are seeking help, when you're seeking advice or community. They're in a position to defer to someone who's looking straight into the lens and telling you, it's OK, I know how to heal you, follow me and no one else because clearly nothing else has been working. Now, not everyone who follows Swan becomes like a cult follower-follower, but those who do might receive an invitation to say, join the Teal Tribe, which is her exclusive Facebook group dedicated to her most committed adherents. Or eventually, they might attend one of her in-person workshops or fly down to her pricey

retreat center in Costa Rica to undergo the completion process, which is her signature and very disturbing trauma healing technique. So some people will go as far as to join these in-person retreats that you're mentioning now. But my question is, how do people trust her enough to meet her online and then take the step to move forward with an in-person meeting? And I think to me what it is, and this is classic cult leader, but they always talk about their upbringing and their struggles and what made them go on their own spiritual journey. And she talks about how her journey and her healing began during her childhood.

When she realized she didn't quite fit in at home or at school, and she said she suffered from hypersensitivity. I'm not making fun of her, I'm only giggling because I looked up what hypersensitivity means. It essentially means that sounds or noises or like actions can bother you. I'm laughing because I'm like, I'm definitely a highly sensitive person. So exactly, she will use language to make people feel like I never knew there was someone else just like me. I never knew that there was a label for what I'm experiencing and here's someone who struggled

in the way that I'm struggling and self-actualized and found enlightenment. Of course I want to align with this person. And I feel like if I was insecure about myself and my hypersensitivity, like if I hadn't worked on it for years in therapy without knowing what it was, I would be susceptible to her being like, I too have hypersensitivity. Her background is a huge part of what lends her this authority, authority in scare quotes for people watching the YouTube. You could see the scare quotes, but she has no actual mental health accreditation.

Instead, she uses an assortment of sort of dubious pseudo-psychological treatments like recovered memory therapy. And this is a very controversial practice of unearthing repressed memories. This was popular during the satanic panic and Swan claims to have undergone this process to uncover lost flashbacks of satanic ritual abuse. So for those who don't know, the satanic panic was this period in the 1980s, following the Jonestown massacre of 1978, when cults were put on the map as something that everybody should know about and fear.

It was this period when suburban families were paranoid that satanic cults and satanic ritual abusers were terrorizing their wholesome neighborhoods. Well, you can't really like question her experiences or what she claims to have happened. But a lot of modern psychologists say that this exercise can actually implant false memories and can be deeply traumatic for patients. So it's controversial at best. Yeah, it's so tricky because when someone talks about their truth, especially in relation to their personal memories, we don't have access to people's memories.

So like we can't question her, you know, and especially when it's in relation to abuse, like if that's your truth, that's your truth. But it's so dangerous because like you said, these exercises have also been shown to literally implant false memories. The danger of that is they're not false to you if all of a sudden you believe them. It's this trauma that is like reverse traumatizing you and you're present. That's right. Classic cult leader technique of where you break someone down to build themselves up.

And what she does is kind of a mind fuck because she's causing people to sort of like traumatize themselves. It is incredibly nuanced subject matter though because for those who have read The Body Keeps the Score, you'll know that like, you know, repressed memories are real. Traumatized people who've been to war experienced extreme sexual assault. Like you can repress those memories and have them unearthed in therapy, group therapy, legitimate therapy later, but that's not what she's doing. She's made up some completely like algorithmic completion process with no basis to it.

And that's what's dangerous. Yeah. And she claims that she doesn't want to have formal training because she is like anti-establishment pretty much classic guru. Classy. The way we always say it's like good to have multiple sources. If you're training to be a professional in something, I feel like even if she got like more legitimate psychology training and went to school for it, she wouldn't have to apply it.

I think she could just have those, you know, those tools in her toolbox and then still do what she feels she could do. That's true. But the Instagram therapist that we talked about in our cult of Instagram therapy story, she was licensed for a time. Her therapy license lapsed. But the problem is when you give this sort of absolutist mental health advice on mass, when mental health advice should be so individualized.

Yeah, you're right. I guess it's not necessarily about the credentials as much as it is the like mass consumption of advice. At that point, when she's using these like SEO growth hacking strategies, it's so clear to me that she's not trying to help individuals. She's trying to build a cult. Yeah, that kind of reminds me of politicians. It's like when people get so caught up in like making large change that it's not affecting

individuals. I am 100% not a Republican, but it's like at Democratic party. I'm like, hello, can you guys do more? Yeah, well, but actually when you were talking about how she's completely rejected the establishment is like my system and only my system can help. Yes. It reminds me of MLMs. It reminds me of the prosperity gospel.

It reminds me of Donald Trump. When he had that quote, like I have a very good brain and only my brain. Like I am my own best expert on foreign policy because of my own brain. Teal Swan claims to be so radical and such a visionary, but she's just recycling a bunch of old wisdom and then using influencer tactics to promote that wisdom quote unquote as her own. So how much of a radical is she really? She's basically just the indie Elizabeth Holmes of mental health.

She does speak in these really broad absolutist terms about a wide variety of subjects, which is a red flag in and of itself. She has this very unique vocabulary of tealisms back on my linguistics bullshit, but she uses that to establish herself as this trustworthy, not only spiritual, but scientific authority. So she'll invoke the language of like Eastern metaphysics and combine that with mental health disorder diagnoses. So in the same sentence,

she could talk about synchronicity frequencies in the Akashic records while also talking about borderline personality disorder, PTSD and clinical depression. She continues to grow with technology as technology grows. Exactly. So she started on YouTube, but she's like, she's not an old lady. You know, she's with the times she created a tick talk. She's feeding into these algorithms of present day and like continues to grow despite this criticism. So we're going to talk about some darker subject matter regarding some of

Teal Swan's biggest controversies. At least two of her personal mentees have taken their own lives. Yeah, critics attribute these tragedies to the fact that Swan uses a range of highly triggering terms to talk about suicide. She claims vehemently not to support or encourage suicide. She will make those disclaimers all that she wants while also saying things like, death is a gift you give yourself. Suicide is like pushing the reset button.

Saying suicide is pushing a reset button is encouraging suicide. Who doesn't want to reset? I wake up every day being like, what did I tweet about last night? Or like, thank God for Instagram close friends because I post the most embarrassing shit on that. When she says things like the suicide lifelines do nothing, it personally upsets me so much because I spent a year volunteering on a suicide lifeline for youth. And the training that you have to go through is so nuanced and so full of care and changing all the time according to research as research comes in.

And she's just completely dismissed that and says things like, if my healing techniques are not working for you, then life really just doesn't agree with you. Yeah, and she claims to have lived like a million lives. And so she's saying that she's reset a million times and like she's at the top of that pyramid of like having become her best version of herself. She's the most enlightened person in the world. That's so dangerous because she also doesn't let people know her on a really personal level. If you idolize someone so well and you can't see their mistakes, their cracks,

and like that every human is imperfect, you might be like, oh shit, like, yeah, maybe I will kill myself and get to that next level of perfection in my other life. It's totally possible. And the fact that she not only discourages pushback and questioning, but will make people who question her go through really, really disturbing rituals, and we'll talk about one of those with our guest, is just one of the biggest red flags that a cultish leader can have. So we talked a little bit about how two of Teal Swan's mentees did take their own lives.

And like, we don't know whether it was like directly associated or not, but they were her mentees. But in a little bit more detail, one of them was named Leslie Wingsgard. She stopped taking her antidepressants. She started having thoughts of suicide. And she did approach Swan for guidance. Swan was someone that she trusted for years. She was her mentor. She was this guru.

And she told Leslie that she didn't seem to want her methods to work. She told her she either had to commit fully to life or commit fully to death. And Leslie ended up taking her own life in May 2012. And later, Swan stated that there was nothing that any healer could ever do for Leslie's type of vibration, not her, not anyone. To me, Swan saying that there was nothing no one could ever do is kind of saying like, I'm responsible. Yeah.

Yeah. It reminds me so much. And I don't know if you thought of this, too, of the Michelle Carter case. Yeah, it was just thinking that. Yeah, that Michelle Carter court case. I actually referenced that in my book, too, because it really did highlight the power of language to materially affect someone in a life or death way. But I think because Teal Swan's relationship to not just one person,

but a massive swath of followers and acolytes, many of whom she's never even met, because her relationship to all these people is oftentimes parasocial and because she just has so many followers. Yeah. It's really hard to attribute direct blame enough to prosecute. Yeah, I wonder, though, if like because she was a longtime mentee of Swan, if they had a more personal run on one relationship. Oh, they did.

What did those text messages look like? You know, what did that conversation look like? I know with Michelle Carter, like she literally told him to like get back in the truck. Right. So there was like a direct action. So I don't think it was that direct in this case. But Teal Swan is still doing her thing. Teal Swan is still very much in power, leading retreats, and in the documentary.

She allowed reporters and documentarians to get really, really close to even her most disturbing controversial practices. And our guest is going to lend some insight into what it's like to know Teal Swan in person and what that experience of being in her cult in real life feels like. So up next, we're going to hear from Jennings Brown. He's a journalist, editor and podcaster based in Brooklyn. He created the podcast The Gateway about Teal Swan. And his latest podcast is Revelations about the Fellowship of Friends.

The Fellowship of Friends is a truly fascinating, horrifying cult that Jennings covered in his most recent project. We had a whole separate conversation with Jennings about the Fellowship of Friends that you can listen to. If you head us up on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult. If you're into really spooky cult stories, you'll definitely not want to miss this one. Can you start by telling our listeners who you are, what you do, and how you're connected to Teal Swan? Yeah, so my name is Jennings Brown.

I am an investigative journalist and podcast and documentary producer. I cover all sorts of things. I mostly have kind of drawn to kind of fringe communities and online extremism, at least at the time. This was like 2016, the lead up to the election. I was reporting on a lot of like conspiracy theories and extremists. Like I said, and like my Google algorithm was probably pretty weird. I mean, I was also reporting on like suicide forums and just like dark corners of the internet.

And so YouTube started recommending I watch these Teal Swan videos. I just kept seeing this like this woman staring deep into the camera, like popping up on my recommendation bar. Finally, I clicked and was just immediately transfixed. I mean, it was this attractive woman staring deep into the screen with this swirly background behind her kind of hypnotic and her voice was very droning. I mean, she has videos on everything like depression, crypto, weight loss, necrophilia. I mean, you know, it's like all kind of so you don't really know what you're getting into.

But sometimes it starts pretty simple, basic, and then it just, you're kind of lulled into it and it just takes a dark quick turn. And I also kind of, I think I fit the demographic. I was between jobs. I was just starting to work at Gizmodo. I was dealing with a breakup and reporting on these dark things. And so I started watching her videos. My spidey senses were tingling.

I was like, I think there's a bigger story here. You know, I looked into it and there were kind of some suicide allegations that, you know, she was maybe influenced people's decisions to kill themselves. Yeah, I was curious and I pitched it. I was working at Gizmodo and I thought it was kind of a story about a woman building this kind of spirituality empire on the internet, using the tools of the internet. YouTube, you know, she has videos on everything and people find her very easily. There was a period like when I was reporting it where if you typed in on YouTube,

I want to kill myself. The first thing that popped up was her video titled, I want to kill myself, parentheses, what to do if you're suicidal. Where my concerns initially were is that, I mean, she was saying some very problematic things around suicide and depression and self-harm. In the video, you know, she would say like, suicide is a reset button. It can feel very good to die, to release. It's like a new beginning because she's lived many lives and has died many times.

So she, it was almost like romanticizing it. I mean, not, not directly encouraging it, but saying like, you know, it, it feels very good to die. I understand why you want to do it, but you shouldn't. There's also, I mean, we don't have much research on suicide. It's like one of the, like the top, the 10th leading cause of death. I think at the last time I know, maybe it's got nothing, it's gotten higher in the pandemic. But there's not much research on like what encourages the best way to like de-stigmatize it.

So I don't know. I mean, she may be helping. It's true, you know, like suicide is an incredibly taboo topic, mental health in general. A good approximate 18% of what she says is helpful and true. Yeah. And that's the trickiness. So I interviewed you about Teal Swan for the first time for my book, and I remember on your podcast, The Gateway, which covers Teal Swan,

you being very careful about if and when to use the word cult, whereas we throw it around all over the place. Can you talk about Teal Swan's relationship to the word cult and why you had to be so careful? Well, when I'm reporting a thing, especially for, you know, a news publication, you know, we have to be very careful with making sure it's not litigious and it's fact-checked. And I went to this whole process with Revelations, the next, the podcast it afterwards, like you're going into these groups that may or may not be litigious, may or may not have like a lot of money.

And so you don't want to mess up anything or use language that, you know, seems defamatory. And with a group that or a person that is fairly early on in their development or career, when there's not that much written about them and you're the first person, like doing this big thing, this, writing this big article or putting out where it's like, kind of attaching yourself to this thing is the first person who frames, like how people should think about it. And if you're the first to kind of use that word, which is very loaded. So yeah, when you interviewed me for Cultish, yeah, I was at a place where I was like,

I don't want to be quoted in a book, like the first person who calls it this. And I wasn't really sure. It's kind of its own thing because it's this sort of thing that she's building online. Whereas like Fellowship of Friends, that's a group that I like, a lot, there's been articles about before. So it's a little easier to say like, this has been called this. I have strong thoughts and opinions about people who claim to be cult experts. Like I am the definitive authority on whether something is a cult or not,

because no matter how long you study it, it really is very subjective. I also feel like in the time period between when Amanda interviewed you, and now there has been like an uptick or like a rise in people claiming to be expert on things that they aren't expert on, like the rise of TikTok, the rise of the pandemic, and everyone being like, oh no, I know that COVID isn't dangerous, like people pretending to be like medical experts. And so now all of a sudden we've almost like de-stigmatized, pretending to be an expert on things.

Because we all want answers so badly and people even interact with us like this. They're like, no, we want you to tell us is this a cult or not. And we're like, babe, we can't. If you just claim something to be true and you scream it loud enough and you say it loud enough, people might believe you. Like I used to date this guy that had in his bio, he like was not famous or anything. He just had in his Instagram bio, like genius boy. He was like, if I just tell people that I'm a genius,

like they're going to think I'm a genius. And I was like, that's so stupid, but we dated for like a couple of months. And then I was like, is he a genius? Oh my God. This is like totally a side track, but I'm writing a new book and I'm writing a chapter on overconfidence bias and how it manifests in the information age. And TikTok and social media platforms, and this probably lends itself actually

to our topic at Handtale Swan, really like reward people who just confidently shoot their shot, shoot their shot, upload, upload, claim authority on everything, claim confidence on everything. And if you bluff hard enough that you've even bluffed yourself, people will believe you and they'll flock. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's the thing. It's like with all this cult dynamics. I mean, that's where I think a lot of people who start cults,

they, it's normally because they're just a little confident or like they did something and somebody's like, hey, that, that was a great solution. Like, thanks for the advice. The positive feedback. And then they have that, yeah, they have that positive feedback. And then they like, all of a sudden they're, they have, they've got enough people to buy it by a compound.

But with TikTok, I mean, the algorithms have just, and all the social media, it's like just enhanced that cycle where that, that shit can happen overnight. Speaking of that confidence, right, that like we now see in so many more people, Teal Swan was one of the first to like do it online. How would you describe her charisma? Like I was rewatching her videos just before this interview and I was like, okay, creepy lady, weird voice, like low res videos.

But why do you think that she's so appealing to so many people? And were you yourself drawn by her? Well, I mean, low res is important to point out because she was, she was doing it early on. I mean, a lot of those videos are pretty old. Like Blake, her business partner, former, former boyfriend who has now left the group. I mean, he, he really helped build that. I mean, he encouraged her to start filming this stuff,

not to take anything away from her. I mean, what she's done is objectively remarkable. I mean, the fact that she's built this spiritual empire, you know, I mean, in a male dominated industry. I mean, it's, it's impressive. It's cool. Like she was a pioneer. Like I give my,

Yes, go off queen. Yeah, we need female cult leaders too. We love a culty girl boss. That's a part of her story that I think resonates with people in the same way it does with Elizabeth Holmes or any of these things. Like you kind of like where you're kind of rooting for, for kind of doing something that's independently badass. It was like early TikTok.

She made videos about everything. So it, there's probably a video on there that resonates with you. And so many people I met that were like, yeah, I put this intention to the universe and I saw a video about exactly that. And you know, that's the universe. And I'm like, I think that's, you know, the algorithm, but I'm not going to diminish your, your spiritual wicking. But yeah, her charisma, it's something it's,

it's very alluring. Like whether you are terrified of her or attracted to her or fascinated. It's like, I saw the videos and again, they just kept staring at me, that little thumbnail. And I was, I was super intrigued by it and clicked and just like, it was kind of like, for me, it was like a car wreck. I'm like, I'm terrified and fascinated. Yeah. It's like, again, she like stares through the screen.

It's like, she's looking into your soul and then people just keep watching them. I met people who said they, they watched them. Like they would just have them on repeat overnight. And like you mentioned, because she was like one of the first to do it, we weren't yet used to it. So like, we couldn't even like, what's the word? Like when you throw something off to the side, because it dismisses. We couldn't even dismiss it.

We couldn't even, you know, I call them these like parasocial gaze offs. It's like, it's obviously not you having a connection to someone like that. And we know that now. I mean, we still fall prey to it because it's so compelling. But like, we know that now we're a little bit more wary of that now. In 2008, 2010, early YouTube, you probably really did think that you manifested that and she was talking to you directly. People who aren't themselves creating and posting, like,

they don't realize that the algorithm like feeds you things that you want. The majority of people just like go on social media, you know, for a break and they don't realize that their applications give their phone access to their microphones and their cameras. Because I came at it initially from a tech reporter perspective, I was sort of seeing the smoke kind of developing of the stuff happening with Facebook and YouTube and how it's kind of like radicalizing people and its effect on the election.

And I was both like reporting on like politics from, from like the internet side. And then, and seeing kind of what Teal was doing. And I was like, I was getting all this stuff. And that's why I think just as a tech journalist, I sort of recognized a little earlier on not that I like was the first to find Teal or report on it. I was like, what she's doing online is uniquely fascinating and worth, worth studying a little.

And now she, yeah, it's like she's blown up on TikTok and like even my, my ex, like I, I introduced her to Teal because she listened to the gateway when we started dating. And now she's posting Teal Instagrams and she's got into Teal. And I was like, yo. Like genuinely? Yeah. She's into Teal.

Let's pivot to talking about like what it's like to actually interact with Teal Swan in person. When you actually went to visit Teal Swan's retreat, can you explain what that experience was like and what were the cultiest aspects of it? What did you say? I'd spoken to her on the phone and I was surprised that she just invited me out. It was Philly a center where she, like she does her retreats in Costa Rica.

It's like sort of beautiful, like well landscaped, little like statuettes of deities and, and there's this big gate that closes and you're like, Oh, I'm in here now with whoever's in here. They're doing channeling exercises where they're like screaming bloody murder because like you get possessed by people's emotions or other like dead people or whatever. And that's a whole other thing. Very Scientology.

But then I arrive and everybody's sitting in this circle waiting for Teal. It was kind of like summer camp. Like everybody was kind of excited. And it was a few days into it. And I was sort of this outsider coming in this journalist and then Teal kind of descended this stone staircase and had these two women on either side of her. And she was dressed very colorfully and it was somebody who's dressed in black and white and it just felt theatrical.

She sat down and she was immediately like, Okay, we're all going to go through a death exercise. I want you all to imagine your death. Oh, she said, we're going to get suicidal for a moment. And I was like, am I being punked? Like she's like in my first call with her, she said she was upset that people call her the suicide catalyst and that's not her focus. And she was trying to diminish that.

And then I get there and she the first thing she says like a minute in is like, we're all going to get suicidal. Look, the death meditations are not new. I mean, she pulls from a lot of other things. Like it wasn't, I'm not saying the death meditation is bad. I'm just saying like, there's a better way to say it rather than like, we're going to get suicidal. And then she played this music.

That word is triggering for a lot of people. She's almost like trolling herself and trolling everyone else out of like the desire for attention or something. Yeah, it was fascinating. It was just immediately on the edge of my seat. Like I'm like, what's she going to do next? Like what's going to happen? And then people are like convulsing around me and getting really into it. And I'm like, what the fuck?

Like I, and then I'm like in this world, then everybody's kind of breaks off and starts doing their own kind of the channeling exercises after this process of realization about your death. And she's kind of going around and monitoring and she came up to me and I just, I didn't even notice like she kind of snuck up on me. She was there. This person I've like watched hours for videos and she like kind of just gracefully sort of, as I recall, try to give me this hug.

And I was like, even though I'm like coming as journalists, I'm like this person that everybody here idolizes like and she's embracing me. And I was like, it's like when a yoga and structure like touches your shoulder yoga, you know, and you're like, oh, they're choosing me. But I, and I was like an awkward like teenage boy like, yeah, like didn't know how to hug her. I was like the most awkward hug of my life. You know, so I spent a few days there and then I interviewed her and like we had a proper like sit down interview.

And then people were like pressed against the windows. Like they seemed like very jealous of this one on one time I had with Teal. And that got to me. I mean, that that's sort of the social dynamics of that are fascinating. When you know, I mean, I've interviewed people I admire celebrities like before that, I never interviewed somebody that people think is like maybe some kind of a deity or has access to the Akashic records or so that influenced me. And I thought it was an amazing. I was like, I killed that interview.

And then my producer was like, we can't, we can't even use any of that. Like she totally got in your head and listening back. Oh my gosh, that's how hard it is. That's how fucking hard it is. As an interviewer, you think you're going to grill someone and then it's also so easy from afar to claim that an interviewer should have been harder on their interviewee. But when a person is right in front of you, your instinct in that moment is to see their humanity and connect and believe them. I mean, oh my God, interrogation is a skill that you just really have to practice and we're still learning how to best incorporate more of that. And to incorporate more of that energy in a much later hearted way. Of course, when we interview Kulti guests on this show, we empathize because it's really, it is hard.

You know, anytime I'm like, start to ask about something dicey, she would say something like about her past trauma or something very triggering. And it's like, I would clam up and like, oh, let's go. Let's talk about something else. And I thought I was in control and really it was like, she was totally in control. And then for the, we had, I had a chance to do one more interview. I was in Utah and I prepared, like I trained for that. My producer pretended to be teal. We did like, we ran through scenarios.

So I was a little more in control and that's the final interview in the podcast where it's a little more, you kind of get, see a different side of her. We've spoken about how that is one of the definitions of charisma is not the ability to like command an audience or make people think you're special, but the ability to make the person that you're talking to feel like they crushed it. Yeah. And like, imagine like the confidence that she must have in her ability to manipulate people that instead of like being nervous or scared that a journalist was coming to interview her, she was like, I can turn him like, you know, and she almost did. It's kind of shocking objectively that teal allows reporters and documentarians so close to her to see all of the things that she does with her followers when some of those things really are so disturbing. But then again, so many cult leaders in history have wanted to be documented, like that's why there was so much footage of Keith Ranieri in the next year. I'm documentary the vow because he'd been filmed for years. So why do you think that teal has allowed outsiders like you into her inner circle?

Like, does she really have no idea that what she's doing is wrong? Does she like the attention? Does she think it'll help her control the narrative? What do you think? I mean, she's very open that she wants to be, you know, bigger than the Pope. I mean, huge, like she wants to be a celebrity and she knows she needs that media attention. So when I reached out and it was early on, I was like, I think what you're doing is unique. You're building this online spiritual empire.

That was an angle she hadn't really heard before. And so she's like, yeah, come see what I'm doing. And then I just kind of followed where it led me and it led to more of the controversial stuff. She wasn't really excited about where it was going, but to their credit, like they cooperated until the very end, like helped me fact check things. We were still wrapping up the last episodes as the first episodes were coming out. And I wanted to at least give them the chance to comment and they were open to it. But then after the gateway came out, a lot of production companies reached out because they wanted to develop it into a TV show or docuseries or something. I was a little nervous then because some of the companies, like their work was, you know, a little more like salacious and sensational.

And this is a very, very messy topic where you're dealing with like recovered memories of horrific sexual abuse, satanic ritual abuse. You're dealing with suicide and mental health issues. And I didn't want like... To dehumanize anyone. Yeah. Teal or anybody. The documentary group, they were the clear choice. I knew they'd be very trauma informed in their approach to this.

They have good journalistic sensibilities in the past work they've done. So we made an agreement with them. This was the gateway for Gizmodo, which is a tech news site. So they own the intellectual property of the story. And then they were like, OK, do you think we can get teal? I was like, oh, let's see. So I reached out to Teal's team and I was like, hey, somebody wants to develop the gateway into some sort of TV show documentary. I think they were kind of like, how dare you reach out to us?

They were not very happy with how the gateway turned out. I don't know if Teal listened to it, but she, you know, she said like it canceled events that she was doing and stuff. So she wasn't happy about it. Well, I mean, it's like... Yeah. What do you expect? So at first they were like, how dare you come out? I was like, OK, well, somebody wants to make a TV show about Teal.

And they're like, OK, I'll talk to them. Because I think... They're like, oh, camera time? Yeah, we'll do it. And I was like, just meet them, hear them out. And so by that point they picked the director, John Caspy, who is incredibly talented. He's the magician with like, I'd seen his past work and I mean, he's very like, verite, cinematic. And so he met her and they, they vibed.

And then I just kind of handed over all my notes and everything and they made something entirely unique and incredible, I think. We have to talk about the drowning moment in the documentary. Like, did you witness anything like that when you were there and like, what is your take on that? That's, it was horrifying. So for those who haven't seen the series yet, I'm referring to a moment when Teal Swan basically made some people that were working for her water board. One of her members because she was questioning her and saying that her practices weren't working on her. And she basically needed like a radical reset. And watching this happen on screen was just truly disturbing in every possible way.

So I, yeah, I wasn't involved in any of the decisions, you know, with like the filming or the editing because now Teal's talking a lot about that. So that's stuff I can't speak to. But when I was reporting the gateway, I was going into it focusing on kind of her influence and her empire and like more of like how she affects the larger group. But when I was at Philly and I saw the way she works in her circle and like how she like pits people against each other and kind of that sort of interpersonal dynamics was, I was like a documentary crew would just have a field that like there's so much here to observe how she like really works with people. You have to see to really understand and not have like, you know, male journalists like speculating about her love life or whatever. Like, you know, that was my place. So I was glad they were able to kind of capture that.

I think the breathing stuff, the water breathing, that was totally new. I was unaware. And there were, yeah, there were certain things because she's, she'd sort of evolved in the time because I was filming it. Yeah. As I was working on it like 20, 16, 17, 18, she was more of a YouTuber. Now she's evolved into like TikTok and like really leaned into like kind of conspiratuality and COVID stuff. And you can speed up the process like YouTube and see what resonates. But I think when I was there, she was starting to get into combo, like the frog poison stuff.

And that is now, I don't know. Maybe she's been doing it before, but that seemed kind of new. Yeah. The waterboarding that was, that was pretty. The waterboarding, that was just another thing. It was very, yeah, very intense. But, you know, it's like she's, I think, contested that. I don't know.

I've just seen some of her videos responding. But I know it's like a lot of people are focusing on the water thing. And it looks, it does, it looks, it looks very intense. The nod, the nod she gives, it's like mafia boss shit. I feel like a lot of people who like lead them are insulted by the fact that they're called a cult. But we were talking about this in another episode, unless they literally do something like illegal, like it's not illegal to have a cult. So that makes sense why a lot of cult leaders are willing to be interviewed.

Whereas like when you look at other documentaries made on fraud and embezzlement, or people like Jeffrey Epstein, they can't be interviewed. And that's why they're not in the documentaries. But Teal Swan is like, you can't catch me. What's a crime? We're just a bunch of people doing legal things on our own volition. Yeah. That's the thing. It's like society just doesn't understand.

I mean, they're changing norms. They're challenging norms. Yeah, we found some stuff like minor things. Like she was using on her like some sort of certification. She was using the Utah state seal to sort of made it look like, you know, that they were a little more legitimate and like things like that. But I think ultimately they're pretty clever about not doing anything overtly illegal. Yeah, it's like when brands put like organic certified, or like they put like little staples on their food

that make them like look more organic than they really are. It's like 100% beef doesn't mean 100% beef. Yeah. It's like, oh, if you take the claim seriously, then that's on you. So what do you think Teal Swan is? Do you think she's a live your life, a watch your back, or get the fuck out level cult? I think it's a watch your back.

She has built something again, remarkable. There's a lot of people who are really, really struggling. And that community is helpful to them. I mean, I met one guy who at Teal's retreat center, he told me he survived the Rwandan genocide. And, you know, he'd like stepped over his friends' bodies. And he said, you know, spirituality helped him kind of overcome that darkness, but most spirituality was so woo-woo and happy and uplifting.

And he was like, it wasn't until like I discovered Teal that like her darkness and what she had been through with her story of her past, he was like, that was on the level of what I'd been through. And so that's why she was able to help him, as he said. And I think like, again, because there's so much stigma around suicide and stuff like that, I mean, the Teal tribe, the community that she's built, I think, really helps people. You know, with a lot of these groups or cults,

I mean, they pull from a lot of great teachings, from like Eastern religion to like 90s law of attraction stuff. Like it's all pulled, like they're good tools there, but a lot of those things need a update. And Teal has provided an update and like memified them and given her own little Tealisms. And so it's like they're helping people discover some really cool things that can help them and resonate with them.

So I'm not going to condemn what Teal's done, but I just think that she needs this, especially if she's like using therapy language. Yeah, like why doesn't she just get more formal training? Like if she's so into this. It's part of her whole MO. Like a huge element of her appeal is that she is alternative and she's not brainwashed by the system.

It's good to challenge the medical establishment and it's true we don't incorporate enough alternative or even spiritual practices into mental health treatment, but Teal is stepping so outside of her expertise and claiming such authority with her sometimes really dangerous practices. And that's where the real problems lie. Yeah, I don't know.

My views on it have kind of evolved and softened, maybe just with distance. I'm not in the depth of it. You also see Teal as a person and a human. Yeah, like I said, I now know people who like my ex, who's like look the teachings that she posts on Instagram like resonate with me and I like them and so I'm going to repost them. Teal has all of the skills to become a viral influencer.

I'm disturbed that her angle as a viral influencer is so high stakes. The reason why your ex loves her is because she's such a good influencer, not because she's such a good mental health practitioner. I would agree with that. I think she says she has some wisdom and she thinks she's intuitive

or has some sort of special abilities. Okay, we're going to jump over to one of our favorite games. Would you rather Teal Swan Edition? Would you rather every time someone sneezes have to say the Teal Swan quote, a thousand times we die in one life, we crumble, break and tear apart until the layers of illusion are burned away and all that is left is the truth of who we are

and what we really are. Or every time someone coughs, you have to say Bill Gates created COVID-19 to depopulate the earth where we go on, we go all. I'm going to pick Teal on that one because that could just be like a weird charming quirk that just confuses people. But it's so much longer.

I'll take the length over, just something that's become so... Because that's like... I'm branded as the anti-COVID-19 guy. And it also, like the first one, even though it's so long, it makes no sense. It doesn't mean anything. It's kind of wacky and charming.

It's my new personality quirk. I'm going to try it. It could be good. Would you rather have to brand the words the Teal Tribe onto your hip bone or have to get Spotify's logo branded onto your hip bone? I'll do, yeah, Teal. Sorry, Spotify.

What? Okay, are you in love with Teal? Again, it's like stuff that like 99% of people won't know. Maybe this is just me sucking up to Spotify if you guys are listening. I kind of like the Spotify logo. I think it's cute. It's true.

Next one. Would you rather let Teal's henchmen almost drown you but just once or have to live your life as a practicing Scientologist for five years? Oh, that's... I definitely... The drowning.

I think I'd rather drown than be in like a Sea Org for five years. Yeah, also the thing with Scientology is that like once you're in, even once you're out, you're still in. Like it's like they know everything about you. They have all your things. Like you can never really leave

even when you do leave. Last, would you rather have to spend another six months living with Teal undergoing the completion process or spend another six months with the Fellowship of Friends? The completion process, I think, is where things got really freaky for me

because that's where you're really messing with people's like memories of their family. I mean, I went into it even knowing that like a lot of people do the completion process and they had covered these memories, these questionable memories of their parents abusing them from a time that they didn't, they really have ability to form memories.

Operative word questionable. Yeah, I mean, like defying the laws of physics often like being sewn into corpses and very horrific things. So I went into it knowing that this happens, but I'm not gonna, I'm like, I'm not gonna, because I want to understand it, but I was like, I won't go into my family.

But I still like uncovered this memory of being stuffed into a, like my cousin's bullying me, the twin cousin stuffing me in a clothes hamper and leaving me and feeling very stuck and like maybe that's why I'm claustrophobic. I don't know if that happened. I asked both my cousins, they don't remember. Maybe they just don't remember,

but I, to this day, it is now, now that I talked to them about it, it has become a very real memory. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. I went into that and that was with the guards up. So I would be terrified of however long you said, like what I would uncover. I think anybody is susceptible to this.

And especially with an authority figure that you've paid either somebody that's trained by Teal or Teal and they know things about you. I mean, especially when Teal does it, but even her practitioners, they try to be like Teal and have this confidence of like, this is why you are the way you are. You just need to do this work to understand it.

So that's what I, I mean, that's ultimately what the gateway ended up focusing on more as the memory and how Teal had her own therapist who helped her uncover these memories of being in a satanic cult and being abused and sewn into corpses. Which do we even know if those are real memories? That therapist was involved in the satanic panic

and was found to be planting memories in her family member's heads. Teal didn't really speak about these things. Then she went to the therapist and had uncovered these memories of, again, being sewn into a corpse, which is not a thing that you can physically do, no matter how big they are, no matter how small you are.

I don't want to question her stories of abuse. I mean, I interviewed her alleged abuser. But it's like, anyway, there is a pattern of people uncovering memories that are very questionable. And so I would be terrified of doing that for six months. That's where it gets really freaky. That's where it gets to watch your back territory or maybe get the fuck out.

Yeah, that makes total sense. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast with us. If anyone wants to follow your work, where can they find you, follow you, hear you? Yeah, you can follow me at T. Jennings Brown on Twitter and Instagram, where I kind of post the stuff I'm working on. I also get a lot of people messaging me for tips

if there are any groups that you want to look into. You can DM me or email me at JenningsBrown at protonmail.com. The Gateway is a teal swan podcast. It's available wherever you listen to podcasts. And Revelations is a Spotify exclusive. And that's about the fellowship of friends. So, yeah, give it a listen. Fuck the logo, though.

Yeah. I like the logo. It's just a little auto. What if I lifted my bangs and I was like, I have the logo on my forehead. So, Issa, the cult of teal swan, do you think it's a live your life? A watch your back?

Or a get the fuck out level cult? Okay, so before we had talked to Jennings, I totally would have said get the fuck out. But I don't know something about Jennings saying that it's a watch your back and him knowing it so well makes me feel like it's a high level watch your back. But in my core, in my soul,

I think it's a get the fuck out. You got to go with your soul because if our Instagram therapist was a get the fuck out, that's what I'm saying. This is a get the fuck out. But then it made me reassess everything. I'm like, have we been too hard? No, I think it's get the fuck out.

I just thought it was interesting when Jennings was like, maybe I've softened with time. He's not like in that world anymore. Yeah, he took like a mental health break from it. And like, you know when you like go so deep on one side to something like you come out on the other side and I feel like he's now probably like, maybe I was too harsh.

But I think it probably ebbs and flows and the parallel that I'm thinking of is with like toxic romantic partners, abusive lovers that you dated in the past. You go through this process of like, you get out of the relationship and you're like, fuck them. I hope they get arrested.

I hope they're miserable. I hope they lose all their followers on Instagram. How fate worse than death. No, I hope they have like itchy genitalia for the rest of their life. But then maybe six months later, you're like, you know what, I've healed. And then you're like, no, I actually,

I've forgiven them, blah, blah, blah. But then maybe six months later, you'll get triggered again and you'll be like, no, fuck them. They ruin my life. Jennings also isn't in the world observing the people that Teal Swan is still having an impact on. Like I think the reason Teal Swan is a get the fuck out

is because she's still doing the same shit. Like she hasn't changed her practices. She hasn't readjusted to her criticism. She is moving forward, marching on. Doubling down. Yeah. It's the doubling down for me. I'm extremely wary of her intentions.

I'm extremely wary of her strategies, of her attitude. Like I don't think anyone should follow Teal Swan either down to Costa Rica or on their phones. Yeah. Just, I mean, if you want to get an idea of what she's about, watch the documentary. Yeah.

And then leave it at that. Leave it at that. Leave it at that, babes. Don't listen to me. Don't listen to Hermione. Listen to you. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening.

We'll be back with a new cult. Over the next five weeks as we prepare for our season three, as we do our research and interview guests, we are going to be taking a cult girl summer break. Don't worry. We're not going anywhere. This is just a five week semi break where we'll still be here launching new episodes.

But these episodes are going to be bonus episodes. Where we're going to air bonus materials, hot takes and much requested part twos to episodes we've already done. We cannot wait for you to hear what we have in store. It will be a cult girl summer to live your life for. But in the meantime, stay culty, but not too culty. Sounds like a cult is created, hosted and produced

by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina. Kate Elizabeth is our editor. Our podcast studio is all things comedy and our theme music is by Casey Colb. Thank you to our intern slash production assistant, Noemi Griffin. Subscribe to sounds like a cult wherever you get your podcasts. So you never miss an episode.

And if you like our show, feel free to give us a rating and review on Spotify or Apple podcasts and check us out on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.