The Gateway, Teal Swan, and the message vs the teacher

[Jonas Long]

There is a very fascinating podcast called the Gateway about Teal Swan.  I knew nothing about her before listening to it, but, there are lots of parallels with her and leo gura, and its a perfect example of the very real dangers in modern day gurus.  How important is the credibility of the person you are hearing the message from? Does it matter, if the message is good?  If we ourselves are sophisticated enough to "take the good and leave the bad", should it be a concern of ours that other people don't have the wherewithal to leave the bad, and sufer incredible consequences for it?  Is it on the person who takes the "wrong message" and comes to a sad end, and on them alone, because they really attracted their own sad end?  Should there be intervention in a case of potentially dangerous actors like these? If you see something, should you say something?  

Edited September 13, 2023 by Jonas Long

[Mandy]

I think it's more dangerous to discredit or credit someone based on who they are thought to be as a person, because it's already based on deception. I think that assumption is the root of how cults, spiritual abuse/misleadership and giving one's power away or the flip side, persecution, begin. I am the shame and I am the blame. I think it's of great benefit to any spiritual community or any community at all for that matter that we start to talk about the particulars of what's said by someone and not the credit or discredit assigned to person themselves. 

[Jonas Long]

14 minutes ago, Mandy said:

I think it's more dangerous to discredit or credit someone based on who they are thought to be as a person, because it's already based on deception. I think that assumption is the root of how cults, spiritual abuse/misleadership and giving one's power away or the flip side, persecution, begin. I am the shame and I am the blame. I think it's of great benefit to any spiritual community or any community at all for that matter that we start to talk about the particulars of what's said by someone and not the credit or discredit assigned to person themselves. 

I think that's a good idea too, but it's just not generally where we seem to be at.  People still want to join cults, and people still want to lead cults.  We are still generally deep in the wanting to give our power to someone who presents as someone who is giving us our power.  So signal boosting a cult leader because they share a message that anyone could share it's almost like, why didn't you just share the message directly, why post the video of them saying it, if the message is the important thing, and not who it's coming from? 

 

Yes, if discrediting the person causes someone to discredit the message, that sucks.  But does that mean teachers shouldn't be held accountable for anything? That's insane!   

Edited September 13, 2023 by Jonas Long

[Jonas Long]

It's dangerous to credit in the first place, that I can agree on.  If there was no initial crediting there'd be no need to discredit.  But, crediting has occurred. 

[Jonas Long]

The age of Pisces is a dying tree, dropping the last of its rotten fruit. 

[Mandy]

I have a close friend that I love very much but whenever you tell her something is bad for her, or wrong in any way, she'll just double down on it. I think most people are like that. 

 

I think that everyone should be held to the same laws as everyone else, and reporting abuse appropriately, and not in order to just make money or get a following yourself is very important. That's another thing that's popular these days, is name dropping to get the views, and then criticizing the famous name. 

Who can prove if the rat foot was really in the soup? However if a teacher is teaching certain things that I immediately know and feel viscerally are off, I don't need someone to make a youtube video or a podcast telling me why it's bad for me. Even if they are caught in it completely, usually it's like how my friend reacts to anything. It takes way more than moralization and demonization and warnings to help someone out of a cult, or a series of highly discordant and limiting beliefs. 

[Jonas Long]

4 minutes ago, Mandy said:

I have a close friend that I love very much but whenever you tell her something is bad for her her, or wrong in any way, she'll just double down on it. I think most people are like that. 

 

I think that everyone should be held to the same laws as everyone else, and reporting abuse appropriately, and not in order to just make money or get a following yourself is very important. That's another thing that's popular these days, is name dropping to get the views, and then criticizing the famous name. 

Who knows if the rat foot was really in the soup? However if a teacher is teaching certain things, that I immediately know and feel viscerally are off, I don't need someone to make a youtube video or a podcast telling me why it's bad for me. Even if they are caught in it completely, usually it's like how my friend reacts to anything. It takes way more than moralization and demonization and warnings to help someone out of a cult, or a series of highly discordant and limiting beliefs. 

I would never have thought to bring her up if you hadn't!  

 

You might want to give the podcast a listen before prejudging it, I doubt it's what you think it is. 

 

Again, it's good that you have the sophistication to be judicious, but there are obviously people who don't.  Is it a concern if bad things are happening for those who fall victim because of lack of good judgment? 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Jonas Long

[Jonas Long]

Related or not, for anyone who knows or cares, I did take down all my old videos about leo gura, I did not make them because I wanted a lot of views, and I did recieve feedback from several people that they left his cult thing after watching them. 

[Mandy]

@Jonas Long Have you listened to all her videos? I haven't listened to many, not enough to recommend or not recommend her channel to anyone. I love to go about spirituality like I do music, I don't have to love everything about the musician and how they've lived their life, not do I have to love most or ANY of their other songs to allow myself to love the song. It's all vibration, it's all resonance. The credited or discredited source of it is a poor substitute for connection with Source. 

[Mandy]

8 minutes ago, Jonas Long said:

Related or not, for anyone who knows or cares, I did take down all my old videos about leo gura, I did not make them because I wanted a lot of views, and I did recieve feedback from several people that they left his cult thing after watching them. 

Again, no one can say as a rule that criticism is bad or good, effective or ineffective. 

 

I do think it would be much more direct and helpful to address the particular views or comments than the person as a whole be cause that's where it gets impossible to pin down. 

[Jonas Long]

9 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Again, no one can say as a rule that criticism is bad or good, effective or ineffective. 

 

I do think it would be much more direct and helpful to address the particular views or comments than the person as a whole be cause that's where it gets impossible to pin down. 

Its very concerning that anyone is still giving fuel to the satanic panic of the 80s, and claiming they were in abusive satanic child murdering cults and that that's what Satanism is.  That's one thing.  

It's concerning that a person told someone who  trusted them that they had to choose between life and death then and there, and either quit being suicidal and mentally ill, or end it, which is what happened. And that that person now has a cult in which more suicides have occurred and they still use the same rhetoric regarding suicide. 

It's concerning that someone with so much clearly unprocessed trauma has an astoundingly powerful grip over other people's lives, and knows it, and abuses it. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Jonas Long

[Jonas Long]

16 minutes ago, Mandy said:

@Jonas Long Have you listened to all her videos? I haven't listened to many, not enough to recommend or not recommend her channel to anyone. I love to go about spirituality like I do music, I don't have to love everything about the musician and how they've lived their life, not do I have to love most or ANY of their other songs to allow myself to love the song. It's all vibration, it's all resonance. The credited or discredited source of it is a poor substitute for connection with Source. 

Right, and that's you, and that's great. 

 

Should we be concerned when there is a pattern of people without support networks, and with poor mental health who are predictably and continually falling into abusive relationships with teachers offering them an end to their loneliness and suffering? 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Jonas Long

[Mandy]

@Jonas Long There's a lot of people suffering. This separate self thing is an epidemic, mostly because we aren't separate and so none are suffering in great numbers but yet still, it's all on us.

 

If there's a bunch starving people on the streets and no one is doing anything except someone who goes by and gives them their old unwanted Halloween candy, would it not be more appropriate to just go to supermarket and buy some good food to hand out than to attack the person giving away their candy corn? I'm not saying this about any teacher whatsoever, however, if someone has thought to do SOMETHING to move in the direction of what they want, is that not better than nothing whatsoever? 

[Jonas Long]

7 minutes ago, Mandy said:

@Jonas Long There's a lot of people suffering. This separate self thing is an epidemic, mostly because we aren't separate and so none are suffering in great numbers but yet still, it's all on us.

 

If there's a bunch starving people on the streets and no one is doing anything except someone who goes by and gives them their old unwanted Halloween candy, would it not be more appropriate to just go to supermarket and buy some good food to hand out than to attack the person giving away their candy corn? I'm not saying this about any teacher whatsoever, however, if someone has thought to do SOMETHING to move in the direction of what they want, is that not better than nothing whatsoever? 

This is just a false equivalent, big time. 

 

Saying something IS doing something, no?  It has an effect, a noticeable, tangible effect. 

[Mandy]

I think people are threatened by how truly mind-blowingly awesome everyone else is because they somehow have this twisted sense of self that it's a poor reflection on them. 

 

Key disclaimer here, "awesome" does not mean good, moral or consistently good or moral. But everyone is mind-blowing awesome. The good, moral consistency thing becomes such a sticky subject but it's only so problematic because of the ignoring of real time, now, here, Aware, feeling guidance. I don't have to feel if I can figure out who I can trust. 🙂 But that always depends on me trusting myself based on how smart I judge myself to be.  Interesting that devote starts with the same first three letters as devil. 

[Jonas Long]

18 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Interesting that devote starts with the same first three letters as devil. 

Develope, devolve, deviant, devine... 

[Mandy]

6 minutes ago, Jonas Long said:

Develope, devolve, deviant, devine... 

Divine. But divine, divide, still interesting. 

 

Woah, that was cool. https://www.etymonline.com/word/development Etymology is the best. Love seeing how words evolved in their meanings, often in a way that's astray or what an aligned way of using it would be. 

[Jonas Long]

1 minute ago, Mandy said:

Divine. But divine, 

I meant like, to remove a vine.

[Jonas Long]

4 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Divine. But divine, divide, still interesting. 

 

Woah, that was cool. https://www.etymonline.com/word/development Etymology is the best. Love seeing how words evolved in their meanings, often in a way that's astray or what an aligned way of using it would be. 

Devolve https://www.etymonline.com/word/devolve#etymonline_v_8490

 

[Mandy]

Just now, Jonas Long said:

I meant like, to remove a vine.

"I am the vine." -Jesus

 😂

"No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine."