Adeptus Psychonautica

The point I am making has nothing to do with winning or whether you want to beat people up. Its specifically about losing No I would not say that being raped (I can only assume this is what you are talking about) as being beneficial to a rape victim, but I also don't equate being on the losing side of a fist fight with being raped. So while I get you were extrapolating the "loss of control" part into an extreme, its such an extreme that it changes the scope of the conversation.

I would take it a step further and say "How much can you know about yourself if you have never LOST a fight?" I'm talking about getting absolutely twatted here. It teaches you the reality of the world, that there are situations where control can be completely taken away from you, and you are powerless to do anything about it. It humbles you, you realize you are not invincible, and you will learn not to do whatever got you into that situation in the first place. Perhaps it will motivate you not to be the guy on the bottom lying in a pool of his own blood, so you will seek out appropriate training to prevent that. Its not a pleasant experience, but it is a valuable one.

I wouldn't class my videos as enlightenment or self development, but to answer your question I created them because I thought there was a lack of rational voices in the psychedelic community. It has effected my life positively in that it has given me a creative outlet, created opportunities to interact with people I respect, provided an additional source of income, and given me a platform to highlight things I think are worth discussing. The negative is that it can be very time consuming so I would really only recommend it to someone who already enjoys things like writing and video editing. I wouldn't say I get "a lot" of criticism but that is certainly an element of doing this kind of thing. The overwhelming majority of it is mindless, regurgitated soundbites, which the person has not put any real thought into, and I quite enjoy dealing with those. I would say that if you do not have a thick skin for criticism, are not capable of defending your opinions, or admitting when you are wrong, then its probably not a good idea to broadcast things on the internet.

I don't think that's true. Cults form everywhere from politics, to activism, to nationalism, the only difference is that those subjects are perceived as "real", so belief in such causes is seen as valid and normal, whereas spiritual stuff is seen as spooky and irrational. If you strip away the belief though and just look at the behaviour then there is little difference IMO. In regard to the inherent danger then I don't see anything special about spiritual cults compared to political ones - go look at the bodycount in Maoist China or North Korea (both fit all the criteria for a cult) and you will see that spiritual cults have rookie numbers in comparison. That's not to say we shouldn't be concerned about spiritual cults because I absolutely think we should, but I think we need to start recognizing that cult-like behaviour is a bug/feature of human behaviour that is not exclusive to spiritual groups, and that such groups are a tiny fraction of those who are exhibiting that behaviour.

Somewhere in the middle of those two options. It was a lot fairer than I would have expected. He had certainly done his due diligence in getting a lot of different perspectives and talking to everyone involved. …but IMO he was clearly working the “this weird chick keeps talking about suicide, suicide is taboo therefore dangerous cult” angle. I don’t think that in itself is a bad thing because it is an angle worth unpacking, but I don’t think he fully followed his own argument through to its logical conclusion, and if he had done so then it would have been a completely different narrative which I don’t think he wanted. His argument is essentially “this woman attracts LEGIONS of vulnerable people who are already suffering from suicidal ideation. She talks very openly about suicide in ways that people find shocking. She is not a trained therapist - we should be concerned “ The logical conclusion that jumps out to me is that if she is indeed attracting an audience of deeply suicidal people, and that ONLY ONE of those went through with it - then thats actually an amazingly good argument that what she is doing seems to work. That would be a better result than any western therapy which would tend to be focused on antidepressants or antipsychotic medications. Here’s an analogy - If I deliberately cultivated an audience of thousands of raging alcoholics, and out of that audience only ONE went back to drinking, am I doing something good or bad? Would you question my method because I am not medically trained, swear like a motherfucker, and make videos about getting off my tits on DMT? I do think she has some of that guru arrogance, pettiness, and I think she is susceptible to talking out of her ass for dramatic effect, but she is walking the walk getting out there meeting people, doing events, building the retreat, and getting results (so it seems), and its all pretty consistent. Compare this to our favorite YouTube potato who devotes the bulk of his time and energy into a shithole forum, so that he can tell his followers they are idiots, that if they disagree with his teachings he will fucking kill them, and who might actually have a higher number of suicides within his community than the woman labeled “the suicide catalyst” - then like I said at the beginning, I don’t think we are in the same ballpark here.

I lean mostly towards the former with a few caveats. I think the "danger" element is being overblown. Given that her audience contains a large percentage of people with suicidal ideation, and that confronting suicidal ideation is her bread and butter, then if what she was saying was considered dangerous enough to push people over the edge then I would expect to see a fairly long list of corpses - that isn't the case. Instead we have this one particular case of a woman who was troubled years before she ever met Teal Swan, and who was also seeing a therapist throughout the same period - i'm honestly not sure that anyone could have saved her based on the story told in the podcast. The whole satanic abusive cult baby murdering thing I think is complete fantasy. Whether she actually believes that or not I have no idea, but my gut feeling is that its something she said when she was younger, and now its just been so long that she probably realizes how ridiculous it sounds and just can't get out of the lie. Does this discredit her whole message, I would say not because its not the core of what she is preaching, its just an anecdote. She is not my cup of tea at all just because of all the new age quantum mysticism, but if the worst thing on her is that she had one already suicidal follower commit suicide, then I think its hard to justify the claim that she is dangerous. I think its more that people just aren't comfortable with her talking about suicide so brazenly - which I think is a good thing tbh

@Jonas Long I’ve listened to some more of the podcast. Rather than me writing my individual thoughts on each episode, is there some specific part of it you would like to discuss?

I just listened to the first episode, and its intrigued me enough to listen to the next one. As expected the main angle seems to be the suicide stuff, I get why that seems shocking to people, and I would agree that there is an air of recklessness about her delivery. The main sticking point seems to be that she (Teal) has a tendency to collapse everything down to a choice of "make a choice if you want to live or die". For me personally, I completely agree with what she is saying here (not necessarily the way she says it). Being alive is absolutely a choice, and NOT making that choice can be far more destructive than making it - terminal eating disorders are a good example here. Where I live in Switzerland we have legal assisted suicide, so its not as taboo a subject as it is in some parts of the world, and I have zero problem with this aspect of Teal Swans shtick. The part where it gets chewy in this episode was the allegations that Teal would weaponize her "supposed ability to see auras" to tell people who didn't feel suicidal, in particular people she was falling out with in her inner circle, that they actually ARE suicidal and they just don't know it yet, and that they are so internally toxic that they are going to get cancer. That claim was just anecdotal in this episode so we will have to see if any evidence emerges to back it up. Needless to say this would be pretty gross if true, but we'll have to wait and see. I will give her credit for being incredibly transparent in her interview with the podcast host, she certainly doesn't try and dance around or act evasive. To balance things out I will point out something which irked me which was her cringeworthy exaggerated claims about how she is the only spiritual guru who has ever existed who needs security at their events, and just how much she is a pioneer at what she does - this is certainly where comparisons with Leo come to mind.

You describe it as fascinating and I enjoy cult stuff in general, so I will give it a whirl and report back. To answer your original question though in general terms... I think the answer is yes, or at least it is for me. If I start seeing what I can identify as dishonest behaviour then I will write that person off as a trusted source and tend to apply higher levels of scepticism and fact-checking to what they say. That has nothing to do with me agreeing/disagreeing with what they say, or even if they are right/wrong, its about if they are being dishonest, and that could come in the form of blatant dishonesty, subconscious dishonesty, or intellectual dishonesty. If someone is dishonest then THEIR message (not THE message) absolutely suffers IMO, and at some point it will be too much work to sort out the wheat from the chaff so the source will be a write-off. It doesn't mean that EVERYTHING they say is garbage, but its probably a good idea to find a better source rather than combing through the turds looking for flecks of gold. I think its worth unpacking that agree/disagree part. There are people here on this forum who I absolutely disagree with on many topics, but that doesn't make me write them off as a source because I believe they are being honest, logically consistent, and that they are willing to have a conversation to work stuff out. They might be right or I might be right, or maybe its not even a right/wrong discussion, and on topics I am less familiar with then I will happily defer to their expertise. Unfortunately there are some folks who are simply a fire hydrant of frothing bullshit... Bringing it back to Teal Swan, it will be interesting to see if she is questionable because the podcast is telling me she is questionable in pursuit of a juicy narrative, or if I think she is questionable by my values.

Glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for reposting it because it gives me a chance to remind myself of that intention to live life to its fullest.

My two cents is that Teal Swan is not in the same ballpark as Leo. After I did my first video on Leo I was inundated with people messaging me saying something like "Do Teal Swan next", so I looked into her and I didn't find anything that raised as many red flags as Leo did. A large part of that is because I tend to to come at things from the "psychedelics" angle, and that is not really a major pillar of Teal Swans content as it is with Leo's, so there is not a lot there for me to comment on other than typical new-age stuff. At the time I looked into her - I thought her message is far from perfect but not egregious, she is clearly working through some stuff - although to her credit she does actually seem to be working through it. She was way too new-age for my tastes (rainbow aliens and blah blah blah), but when she was talking about more grounded spiritual stuff then it seemed fine to me. Some of the content she gets criticized for was related to promoting suicide so I watched videos on that topic that people sent me, and although her language can be a bit spicy, I didn't find anything I thought comes close to promoting suicide. On that particular topic I would say that she could be more careful with how she says things, but it would be a VERY bad faith take to say that she is actively telling people to kill themselves, and I agreed with a lot of what she said. I haven't kept up with her in the years since but I heard there was some drama around her having a live-in, mini-cult house setup, and some manipulative controlling jealousy stuff going on, but it was fairly average human drama at that point so I wasn't interested enough to follow it. Just like with Leo, I think the main problem with these kinds of gurus is the cult of personality that emerges around them, which the "leader" themselves is not necessarily in control of.

No everybody does not NEED to have an opinion on everything, but there is nothing wrong with them having an opinion on the things they have an opinion about, particularly when that opinion is invited by posting something in a public forum - the very act of which is inviting opinion. I don't think discussion is ever a bad thing if done in a good faith way. In regard to validity of opinion - who is to say who's opinion is valid? How do you know what my experience is in the trans topic (or anyone else who posted here)? I would propose that we don't all need to disclose our trans credentials before posting, and instead we can just be adults and engage purely based on the merit of what we write. You earlier stated that you have strong opinions on abortion so much so that you made YouTube videos about it, but it could be argued that its none of your business and so your opinion has no weight. I think that is nonsense and your opinion as is valid as anyone else's and can be judged on its own merit, why would the trans topic be any different? I think there is something disingenuous about this line of "people shouldn't voice their opinions", because it seems to be applied selectively by people looking to dismiss opinions that differ to their own, but after they have made efforts to voice their own opinion. It seems you were fine with opinions that aligned with your own, even when they were aggressive in tone and validating factual inaccuracies. That kind of mentality will only create echo chambers. As to why people might have an opinion on this topic - it is because it is having a significant effect on society and as a result there are things which need to be worked out. Those changes are impacting across many cultures, so its not just right wing conservatives having a huff on. If someone like Contrapoints can acknowledge that there are some things to be worked out, then surely even the pro-trans side can recognize that these are valid topics which and should be open to discussion, discussion which isn't going to be resolved by "everyone else should just shut up". In regard to body modification then I agree with you to a point, and I certainly agree that once you are an adult then you are free to do what you want with your own body. I think its worth parsing out that there is some considerable difference (at least in my opinion) between cosmetic modification (a nose job) and having your uterus, breasts, or testicles removed because a doctor has told you that doing so will cure your psychological condition - particularly when this is done at an age before someone is fully capable of comprehending the consequences of that surgery. There are enough heart-breaking stories of de-transition out there that its entirely reasonable for people to be scrutinizing what is happening here, and questioning under what circumstances should transition be prescribed.

Sure, its that thing that happens each morning before I get up and go for a piss.

Long time anime fan since the 80's. My favourites Kill la Kill - I absolutely love this show Macross Plus (most of the Macross series but Plus in particular) Gurren Lagann Code Geass Evangelion

That is incorrect. Both dysmorphia such as anorexia, and dysphoria as seen in trans cases, are diagnosable conditions under the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria#section_0 Now again Jonas, the point of the anorexia comparison was to highlight the difference between the person, the condition, the ideology surrounding it. I have made this perfectly clear on multiple occasions and you are not unintelligent, so please stop with the bad faith interpretations and reductive arguments. You are jumping between different narratives and wordings in order to justify outrage in what could be a perfectly civil and reasonable conversation. If you want to have the conversation I am happy to do so, and despite your claims to the contrary it clearly IS a complex topic which I think is worth hearing different viewpoints on. We have already agreed that there is valid concern over the situation with minors, that the real life practice of this care is not always happening in an ethical way as seen by the example of the Tavistock clinic (I would recommend you read up on this, its a fascinating lesson in how things can go wrong in this area of care), and that there are concerns raised by trans people themselves like Contrapoints and Buck Angel. These are valid concerns, many of which are coming from the pro-trans side of the debate, and to merely acknowledge them in a good faith way like on this forum them does not equate to genocide or the removal of rights - so stop trying to drag it down into this straw man nonsense. To answer an earlier point you made - Yes trans/gay people (I don't think its appropriate or relevant to combine these two, but you did it) have existed through the ages, but these transition treatments have not, they are extremely new and experimental. Medical institutions can and do get things VERY WRONG, as we have seen historically numerous times in regard to lobotomies, hysterectomies, and even the recent debacle around the pandemic. So just because a certain treatment is happening does not automatically make it the correct course of action - for some people it will be and for others it won't, and the line between when these cases apply is being manipulated by ideology, politics, economics, and other factors. That's a problem IMO for a situation where the primary driver should be the well being of the individual human. Just to pre-emptively dodge another fallacious assumption - believe it or not I am pro-trans, but that doesn't mean that everything that comes under the trans umbrella gets a free pass. Just as with psychedelics then I think a certain amount of skepticism, fact checking, and critical thinking is warranted, and I think that is lacking in your comments here.

If your assumption is that psychedelics will create a uniform set of values and beliefs in the people who take them, then you are simply confused. They don’t, and that you find this revelation surreal shows a severe lack of understanding about these substances. Yes, it is indeed true that psychedelics, and in fact most substances, affect everyone differently. I would suggest you take some time to educate yourself on the nature of these substances to prevent further surreal revelations.

There is a condition to be fixed/cured (using your terminology here). The condition is Gender Dysphoria as defined in the DSM-5 (current established scientific consensus), and the fix/cure YOU are advocating for is transition via various means (social, chemical, surgical). https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria#section_0 So clearly there is a condition, and there is a “cure” even by your own standards (transition). The debate playing out within society is if the cure is correct, in what cases it should be applied, and the ethics of that application particularly in the case of minors, and there is a significant stack of cases that show this debate is worth having. Now clearly you aren’t capable of engaging with that debate, or even understanding the nature of it. Maybe instead of looking inward into your own biases, look outward and try and bring in some alternate perspectives. But you are correct that rational good faith conversation is not possible, at least with you as demonstrated by your comments here.

Elaborate please.

1. Nowhere did I state that conversion therapy isnt a problem. 2. Nowhere did I state that being transgender is a disorder, although according to the scientific literature there are disorders which can lead to a person becoming transgender. 3. Nowhere did I state that the way people express themselves is my business. What I will say is that you have perfectly encapsulated the stereotype of the hysterical ideologue who is incapable of rational good faith conversation - I think it is people like YOU who are “the problem”.

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@Jonas Long of course, but seeing that this was the only gender clinic in the UK, and that there are similar reports from some clinics in the US, then we shouldn’t assume that “a lot of fairly rigorous assessment” is just happening - particularly when the ideology is clearly in favor of the transition of minors. Anyway my overall point is that this is in no way some simple clean cut debate, with good guys on one side and bigots on the other. It’s incredibly complex, there are valid concerns on both sides and actual people bang in the middle. I think anyone approaching this topic needs to do so in a very rational and good faith manner. My two cents.

There is also well documented “not so fairly rigorous assessment” like at the Tavistock clinc in the UK, which was recently closed down after many of its employees, who are all pro-trans, blew the whistle that protocols were not being followed, that harm was being caused, and that children are indeed being fast tracked onto puberty blockers, hormones, and in a small number of cases surgeries.

@Jonas Long I don’t think Tarak needs to offer a solution in order to have an opinion. If someone like Contrapoints can live their life in that community, acknowledge that this is a complicated multi-faceted discussion, and still not have a solution to her own concerns, then why expect that of someone less immersed in it, or even assume that the current goal of trans activism is the correct solution? Its a complex topic. Assuming you are correct, if it isn’t hereditary then the root cause must be either cultural or environmental. If the culture/environment is making people uncomfortable in their own bodies to the point of requiring medical interventions then that sounds like something worth discussing.