Adeptus Psychonautica

I would offer a different perspective here, because while I would totally agree that Leo is hurting his reputation with you and me - we are NOT his target audience, and I think this has been plainly clear for some time. He absolutely doesn't want people to question him, or have their own thoughts which might compete with his, and he most definitely doesn't like those who criticise him (no matter how valid). Whether or not he is consciously doing this is a different topic, but in my very first video on Leo I said I thought he was selecting his audience for those who would be the most faithful to "his teachings"- and that ain't us mate 😀 I believe Leo is catering to the EXACT people he wants to, which is half baked gullible people with poor critical thinking, who are looking for some kind of meaning without much effort. The kind of people who will whoop and cheer at his "revolutionary" ideas around sex and "outrageous experiments with consciousness" - he doesn't want snarky dissenters calling bullshit on him. So with that in mind I think his professional reputation is completely intact... with those he wants it to be intact with.

I totally agree, and this is where I think you undermine some of your own points, which are completely valid, by saying some other stuff which is factually incorrect. Here is an example "The thing is, the things he talks about and films himself doing in his Vegas videos legally qualify as sexually predatory" This is simply not true. Now I would completely agree that Leo's behaviour is creepy, cringeworthy, and just outright repulsive on many levels, but it does not legally qualify him as ANYTHING - that's you overreaching. If it did indeed legally qualify him as someone who has committed criminal activity then it is your moral duty to go and file an immediate complaint with the police. As I said in my previous post I think there is enough valid criticism that there is no need to make the guy into Satan, especially when these accusations play loosely with the truth around what is or isn't legal. I'm sure most people here are pissed off with the Actualized crew playing fast and loose with the truth . don't we want to be better than them? Aren't we the rational ones who escaped that nonsense? "If someone is vomiting while you are having sex with them, I think it qualifies as date rape" - It doesn't. Again I'm not defending Leo but you should stop making these statements that X = criminal act, this particularly one borders on absurd as there is no legal text which states sex + vomit = date rape. Call him out on his bullshit, point out his unsavoury behaviour...whatever, but to make these statements regarding legality as though you know for a fact that a crime has been committed just looks like hysteria to me. @Joseph Maynor I'm English mate, not Scottish 🙂

@Kevin I think its a common mistake for people to escalate criticism into an irrational witch-hunt, to the point that your original criticism becomes lost in the need to make someone into Satan. Lester Retsel definitely takes things too far in my opinion. I see this A LOT with Leo and frequently get messages telling me his is a pedophile, sexual predator, deliberately trying to harm people… etc. I do not believe there is evidence for any of this, or at least I have not seen it, and videos showing him doing his pick-up routines on drunk girls are not sexual abuse. Its certainly fucking cringe, and his ideas around women/sex/relationships are fairly cretinous, but I see nothing which would warrant accusing him of heinous crimes. There are plenty of valid things to criticize him for within the ideological space which is the focus of this forum, lets try and keep this grounded.

I am going to pretty much disagree with this entire premise of privilege somehow facilitating spirituality, in that I think it offers a very skewed idea of what spirituality is. Lets take the following as an abbreviation of the premise. "Those who are poor, who struggle with severe family problems, who have problems with unemployment, etc. have a much harder time in terms of spirituality than those who live a prosperous and (survival-related) carefree life. " With any proposition you would have to look at what the real world outcome would be if this were true. The expectation would be that in poor areas we would see a decline in spiritual activities, and an obvious one we can look at statistics for is church. Poor areas have VASTLY higher church attendance and express spiritual views than those areas based around high income - just compare New Orleans (poor) with New York (rich) and its fairly obvious which one of these places has a deeper and wider reaching spiritual culture. Now if you are talking about access to some of the more new-age spiritual stuff like yoga and breathwork classes, then sure - that's stuff costs money, but that ain't the be all and end all of spirituality, and I would argue that there is more spiritual soul in your average church Sunday service in New Orleans, than a hipster yoga class will see in its entire existence. Now I am totally with you that the privileged are often completely naive, sometimes to ridiculous absurdity, as to how disconnected their lifestyle is from the average working class person, but that doesn't mean that they are actually getting more "spirituality", it just means that they are paying for it to be spoon fed to them rather than making it happen for themselves. That's one of the cool things about spirituality in my opinion, it doesn't really discriminate between the rich and poor, its available to anyone who puts the work in. Thanks for the YouTube links, they were delicious 🤣

@Cupcake Robed Mystic is a moderator from Actualized who goes by the handle Inliytened1 - https://www.actualized.org/forum/profile/13794-inliytened1/ No idea who WhiteOwl is

I make the occasional electronic bleep and bloop, and for me the key to unlocking creativity was to go with a DAWless approach. I did the DAW thing, and just ended up getting bogged down in the technology, feeling like I was stagnant rooted in one place... it just wasn't for me. So I got myself an OP-Z and some other stuff that I could easily carry around and now I can do it anywhere. I even took my OP-Z down to the Amazon jungle last year and sat making music on the banks of the river. To me that freedom is priceless. I fully appreciate that these simple setups have their limitations, and that especially if your end goal is recording then some kind of DAW is going to become necessary, but I just wanted to offer a different perspective.

@Robed Mystic Your responses to @Joseph Maynor are mostly what I would call Leo-isms. Notice that (Leo-ism) Constantly telling people they are not awake/enlighted (Leo-ism) The delusion that you are somehow qualified to judge if others are awake/enlightened (Leo-ism) The failure to recognize how you manifest ZERO of what you claim to espouse (Leo-ism) An extremely narrow minded view on spirituality (Leo-ism) Will that do for starters? I mean you are basically mini-Leo 😀

@Robed Mystic Sure, which part are you struggling with?

@Robed Mystic duuuuuude… stay focused. I am not being critical of your talking about oneness, I am being critical of your behavior. You cannot maintain a conversation without inserting a bizarre Leo-ism into it, and its really tedious. Now don’t kid yourself mate that you trigger me, I’m simply doing what I do which is call out the bullshit, and you are providing the bullshit. You aren’t anything special in that regard 🤷‍♂️ If perhaps you could stop being so insufferable in your approach then maybe people would actually want to talk to you about your experience with Oneness, but as it stands its impossible to have a good faith conversation with you. @Mandy noted

If it helps you to think that mate then go for it, but it still collapses back to the point that you are acting like a twat in this thread 😀 PS: I was trying to throw you a bone there dummy!

I would agree with @Joseph Maynor 100%, so at the very least it is objectively two of us. Honestly mate if this is a genuine attempt at good faith conversation then it is failing hard. I have had discussions with actual schizophrenics which were less surreal than this. One minute you seem like you want to communicate, and the next post you come out with something completely fucking mental. Just try and purge this bizarre Leo-think from your firmware and start acting like a human being - please 🙏

Its not animosity Dave, its my honest assessment of you from your behaviour on Actualized and the continuation of that behaviour here. I can appreciate that you might not like hearing this, but that is what you asked for - So don't take the victim mentality. ...now where have I head that before? 😉 And to be fair I have seen you say FAR WORSE as part of your bullying over on Actualized, and hey - it was a really fucking long thread 😀 I hope that clears up any confusion around animosity towards you Dave.

I'm sincerely flattered, thank you - and I'm happy that you enjoyed my work 🙂🙏

I am meeting you head on by stating exactly what I think of your contribution here, so all the respect you are due has been given - if you feel that level of respect is less than what you would like then perhaps look at your behaviour and make the necessary adjustments. I am guessing from your tone that you are Dave the Inliytened1 moderator from Actualized? If so then I am happy to recap my opinion on you... you know.. coz you want me to meet you head on...out of respect. You have demonstrated time and time again that you are an immature insecure bullying manbaby with an over inflated ego, who has no business moderating any kind of discussion because you are a living embodiment of the dunning kruger effect within the spirituality community. The idea that you have any intuition around "awakening" with which you feel qualified to judge others is laughable. Was that head on enough for you mate? 😀

My intuition is that you are delusional, and that you manifest none of what you claim within your behaviour, and I doubt your intuition could help you find your arse with both hands. If your idea of enlightenment is to be an obnoxious turd then you can keep it mate. Given the quality of your comments here, the bad faith approach you have to conversation, and that you don't have anything interesting to say other than repeating the lazy slop you have been pre-programmed with, I think its fair for me to disregard whatever you have to say, and I would encourage others to do the same.

I get the point you are trying to make and would 100% agree that it is silly to expect any human being to be some kind of perfect angel, however these examples don't really make sense in the overall context of this discussion. If Alan Watts was declaring that getting blind drunk was the key to enlightenment, that there are multiple levels to being drunk that YOU simply cannot comprehend, that there is some undisputable science HE has discovered that when you drink 10 bottles of vodka your body undergoes a transformational awakening where the universe physically rewires you to become "God-Drunk", and that you are simply incapable of seeing the truth within this because you are afraid to acknowledge the axiomatic truth of drunky drunk the drinky drunk... ...well at that point I think most people would have written Alan Watts off as a bit of a tit, and would have gone and looked elsewhere for their spiritual teachings. Luckily for us Alan Watts had the ability to separate out his drinking habits from his lectures. His drinking does not appear to have a significant presence within his lectures, nor is it a key component of what he teaches. With Leo... not so much - His teaching is about HIM. His delusions and unsavoury behaviours are FULLY INCORPORATED into what he talks about, to the degree that I would say its quite difficult to parse them into distinct entities. As an example - how does one go about separating the "teacher" from the "teaching" when the lesson being given is that Leo is the most awakened being who has ever existed in the history of this planet, no one else has ever come close to the magnitudes of consciousness that he has, in fact the universe has rewired him to spread its highest teachings, and given him superhuman abilities to facilitate this, with which he will be able to cure all human diseases and ailments thus leading humanity into a new golden age. Where is the teaching in this? I can certainly point out where the delusional fucking nonsense is, but the teaching evades me - perhaps I did not do enough 5 MEO DMT? At this point his "teaching" is just a justification for his worldview and accompanying unsavoury behaviour. He believes himself to be an expert at EVERYTHING, and so capable of speaking with absolute authority on any subject. Thus as a result we have content such as drug taking advice from a guy who clearly cannot handle drugs, relationship advice from a guy who views women as objects to be fucked, and spiritual advice from a guy who doesn't manifest anything I would associate with spiritual behaviour. At what point is it reasonable to disregard the teacher? I would say that the above example would make the grade, and lets be honest here that it is just one slice of the delusional pie, there is plenty more to go around. Now that doesnt say anything about the value of EVERYTHING he says, after all if he parrots some non-dual theory then that doesn't immediately disqualify that teaching as either good or bad, and its not like he is inventing this stuff - he is just repeating back things he has read. What it does disqualify though is his ability to accurately interpret and regurgitate that teaching, so the teaching itself might not be bad, but I have better things to do with my time than to parse out nuggets of wisdom from those that are tainted by Leo's personal brand of delusional bullshit. Its simply easier to find a better teacher.

@Blessed2 I think the sense of completeness, the feel alrightness - I think that comes from the journey, rather than any kind of conclusion, and that maintaining that sense of "I'm doing it, this means something" is to keep walking that never-ending path. You can see this in most everyday experiences. Young adults at university = focus, once they leave = lack of focus, who am I? What do I do? Parents with young children = focus, once the kids are not quite as dependent on them = who am I now? I thought I was a parent? What do I do? Middle aged person - I thought this house and car would bring me total satisfaction, but it hasn't. What shall I buy now to give my life meaning? You just have to keep walking that path, changing everything about yourself along the way, in order to get a little bit closer to the over moving goalposts. I actually think that once you get your head around the impermanent nature of the ongoing journey, then its a lot more fun than I have probably made it out to be 🙂

My take is that Leo is a guy who is very detached from what it means to be a human being. Everything from his inflated ego, through to his porn addiction, through to his extremely unhealthy ideas about sex and relationships, and his authoritarian and self serving ideas about spirituality. I personally try and ground my experience around being a human being - love, connection, relationships, growth etc, and honestly when I look at the things that are important to me, and then I look at the stuff that comes out of Leo/Actualized, then the guy is a dumpster fire. I see a lot of comments which will use some variant of the following in order to justify why we should listen to Leo "listen to the teachings not the teacher" which sounds reasonable on face value, but at some point you have to make a judgement call on whether or not the teacher has got any grasp of the thing they are teaching. We aren't just talking about stuff which can be parroted by any chump, so if the person doing the teaching is the aforementioned dumpster fire, then it doesn't matter how good the teachings are, because you will simply end up smelling like burnt garbage. Its also about using common sense to select your mentors. There is no doubt Stephen Hawking is a goddam genius when it comes to physics, but whatever he has to say about breakdancing is practically worthless. Likewise you can assign whatever branch of expertise you want to someone like Leo (I would argue his only real expertise is effective communication), but then acknowledge that when he starts talking about how to have a successful relationship, or how to be physically healthy, or (the list goes on...) then it is bordering on absurdity. He is just some dude, who is very good at convincing confused people he is not just some dude.

@Forza21 Thanks mate, I appreciate that. My take on this life is that we are here to be human beings, and so I intend to make the most of that human experience - even the messy bits 🙂 I absolutely DO NOT think that psychedelics give you viable knowledge about reality, and I think those that are looking for that kind of knowledge in there are somewhat missing the point of what these amazing experiences offer. I think psychedelics offer insight (not knowledge), and so one should always look for personal meaning within these experiences rather than literal truth. The moment you think you have found literal objective truth within a psychedelic experience is pretty much the point at which you have become delusional. What these experiences offer us is PURE MEANING, and the opportunity to be in communion to the transcendent - In my opinion that is more than enough (understatement of the century!), and with that in mind claims around superpowers, hierarchies of awakenings, and esoteric knowledge feel kinda silly.

I agree. Our lives are a never ending journey with ever moving goalposts. If anyone thinks there is some happy end point where you just put your feet up and say "Yay I'm done!" then I would say you haven't been paying attention to your life so far. The phrase "awakening" has become meaningless bollocks, deployed by wannabe guru's in an enlightenment arms race to validate how far along their imaginary path they are - its almost surreal comedy at the point. "Oh... you awakened to god consciousness? Wait until you awaken to God Awareness Consciousness Hyper Non-Awareness - that's the real awakening!"

I first used psychedelics (LSD) when I was around 13 years old, so seeing that I am now nearly 45 its impossible for me to guess at the total number of trips, and I don't think its hugely important anyway. Lets just say it is many many hundreds of separate occasions, across many different substances, but mainly focused around DMT, Psilocybin, MDMA, Mescaline, 5 MEO DMT, and ayahuasca. The things I have publicly disagreed with Leo about are his objective claims of unlocking psychic superpowers, that he could cure all diseases and ailments, and that awakening to God will solve EVERY SINGLE problem in a persons life, also his self aggrandizing claims about having a messianic destiny, along with his dismissal of any other worldviews. In addition to this I have criticized the Actualized community as a toxic shithole which enables all the previous negative qualities within Leo through a cult of personality in which he is above question. I think those criticisms have held up extraordinarily well since I made them two years ago. I have never criticized any of Leo's subjective experiences such as his awakening to "God". These transcendent experiences are beyond description so he is welcome to use whatever language and concepts he wishes to describe them, that is none of my concern. I only criticize his inability to separate his personal subjective experience, from objective reality, and the shitty behaviour he and his community manifest within that objective reality. ...and yes I have experienced the same kind of things Leo discusses, I just approach them in a more grounded and integrated way, as opposed to making YouTube videos declaring myself as the new messiah of mankind. The honest answer is that I do not care. These experiences are some of the most significant moments in my life and that's good enough for me, I do not need some new-age or science based answer to validate them. To answer your question though I think its probably both - clearly there is something biological going on, but clearly that isn't the alpha and omega of the story. In this regard its a lot like having sex with someone you love, yes there is something happening biologically but there is also something playing out in emotional and psychological realms, and again the explanation doesnt really say anything about the value or meaning in the experience. I would guess that we have a lot more in common than what people realize - particularly in regards to our experiences with psychedelics , but as soon as you dare to speak out against someone like Leo who people have an emotional investment in, then they tend to take the lazy approach and just assume you disagree with EVERYTHING they say. Obviously this is nonsense, hence why I try to be very specific about the things I call him out for, and provide evidence and reasoning for those specific cases. I don't follow the guy that closely to know where we align, but I have heard him say stuff I completely agree with - its not like the guy is Satan or anything, and I would be more than happy to talk to him. Yes I tend to think of myself as a spiritual person. I regularly attend ayahuasca retreats in Peru, have spent many weeks working with Shipibo shamans and have friends and teachers within that community. I have a passing interest in most spiritual frameworks and the science of consciousness, but I do not claim expertise in any of these areas. I have had numerous non-dual experiences, I practice meditation, and no I do not do yoga - although I probably should. The most spiritual activity I do is to spend time with my wife and two children.

@DMT Elf Perfect, then my work here is done 😁

I hope you found them useful. To be honest the material kind of writes itself 😀

Hello, as someone who has been critical of Leo and Actualized community for some time, then I must admit I am interested in what is unfolding here, and so thought I would pop my head in to have a nosey around. I wasn't sure what to expect when I heard there was this "fracturing" of the Actualized membership, but what I see here so far it all looks fairly reasonable. I do recognize a few names of folks who were looking to burn me for daring to be critical of Leo, funny how things work out huh? One of my issues with Actualized has been their fanatical defensiveness of "the leader" and that all he says is gospel. I hope you will avoid such mistakes in this community as it grows, and all the other toxic self aggrandizing behaviour which has become the norm over there. I think that enough people have shat in the well over there that the water is no longer fit for consumption, so a soft reboot like this might be just what is needed. Anyway, I wish you all the best with your new community.