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Teal Swan
251 Plays8 months ago
This week on the Mothers of All Crime we are talking about Teal Swan. Teal got very popular offering a specific type of spiritual guidance online. She styles herself as a spiritual guru, a medical savant, a revolutionary and comparable to Jesus Christ. Teal claims to have the perfect recipe for a cult while having morals that prevent her taking advantage of her "desperate" followers. We cover many different questions raised by this beautiful, charismatic, terrifying woman. Despite her claims is Teal a dangerous cult leader? Is she helping people who are extremely depressed or preying on them in times of crisis? Is Teal really doing anything illegal or wrong? How has her son and 5 ex husbands been impacted by her infamous practices? Would we follow Teal if we had less information?
Listener discretion is advised.
May contain explicit language and unfounded accusations.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Mothers of All Crime. This is a podcast where we deep dive into mothers involved in infamous crimes and scandals. I'm Monica and this is Crystal.
Who is Teal Swan?
00:00:22
Speaker
Our mother of the week is none other than Teal Swan. yeah teal swan is an interesting one have you heard of her prior to us kind of starting to dive into this and i know she was in the media a couple times with like documentaries and such but did you hear about her before that came out i was curious yeah so i watched the deep end when that came out i think i may have watched one thing that was earlier about her And I listen to a lot of podcasts, so she's definitely come up, but it was interesting to find out more about her um and really pay attention to it because there's kind of a lot to unpack, also nothing. yeah um She's sort of a mysterious figure.
00:01:06
Speaker
Absolutely.
Monica’s Encounter with Teal
00:01:07
Speaker
So I actually first learned about her when I was in college, and a friend, not really a friend, a classmate, floor mate, whatever you want to call them, um was actually very interested in her and started kind of like, there's like two groups of teal swan followers, there's the masses that I think actually can get some help to a degree from her and then you have like her inner circle where I think is when it gets a little bit more like culty and unsafe um but I originally heard of her when for one of these mass like lectures that she would do and about just overall like mental health and awareness and spirituality
00:01:56
Speaker
She kind of has like this glam guru like name attached to her, which I think is kind of funny, which is different than a lot of the other ones that we've talked about.
Teal’s Charisma and Credentials
00:02:08
Speaker
She's an influencer, primarily, I would say. She's a content creator. She got huge on YouTube, is essentially how she became famous. And I am lucky, I think, that I did not stumble on her at in bad periods of my life.
00:02:24
Speaker
um because I do think that she is compelling in a way that I don't often find cult leaders. um She's very, very charismatic. She definitely styles herself as a spiritual guru though, and which is good because she doesn't have any credentials that would make her be a mental health professional of any kind. But she does speak with a lot of authority on many topics.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, and well, I think her, because I wondered why she didn't end up going and getting qualifications, because it seems like she's a very intelligent person.
Teal's Appeal and Cult-like Following
00:03:00
Speaker
And at least she projects herself like that. And I think that contradicts kind of what she's selling.
00:03:08
Speaker
her cell as a spiritual leader is that she has the ability to kind of see the inner you to read your aura to help you heal those inner traumas by just simply looking at you she can like reflect your pain as a mirror and help you heal from those traumatic experiences and I agree with you. She is one of the first ones that i we've talked about and I've done the research where I get it. Like I understand how people end up in this one.
00:03:47
Speaker
There are some like Scientology, I think that in this day and age, I just don't understand how they're getting new followers. But like 50 years ago without the internet, I totally get it. But Teal Swan, I totally see how people could get drawn to her. And for people who have never seen a picture of her, she is the kind of stereotypical standard of beauty. She's tall, thin, long, beautiful, dark hair. And she has these like piercing blue eyes that even in a video and a computer on your phone, it feels like she's looking directly at you, which is creepy and also like comforting. Unlike anything that I've seen anyone else do.
Teal as a Feminist Figure
00:04:36
Speaker
Like, it's quite impressive, honestly.
00:04:41
Speaker
she doesn't have a lot of the factors that would deter me from joining other people's cult, which we could get into if teal swan is a cult leader or not because that is a controversy and not everyone thinks that she is but let's just say Let's just say she was trying to sell me on her cult. She doesn't have a lot of the things that would normally deter me. She's not preaching religion necessarily. She's preaching spirituality, self-understanding, mindfulness, meditate. like It's all kind of new agey healing practices, but they're not religious in nature. She makes some kind of references and interviews to like
00:05:22
Speaker
being raised with like a Christian understanding. She grew up with a lot of Mormon people, wasn't Mormon herself, but she definitely has some Christian references, which who doesn't, you know, I mean, that's just living in America, it's being part of the world. But that's not her main shtick.
00:05:38
Speaker
And she is, as you said, beautiful. She's charismatic. She's a woman, which in some ways makes me feel a little bit less guarded. Not in entirely, but just if I'm being 100% honest, I'm a little bit less physically scared of her. So I'm a little bit less intimidated in general. um She also So she, she is like a girl's girl, kind of in some ways where she's, she's a feminist when it's when it suits her to her audience, and she's always talking about how men are dragging women down. And I could definitely see how, especially if someone was having like
00:06:19
Speaker
I mean, any kind of depressive or interpersonal issue that someone was having because she also the way she frames things around mental health, it kind of takes a lot of the the blame and guilt off of you.
Teal’s Spiritual Calling
00:06:34
Speaker
And it's more about just like how we can fix this going forward. I like a lot of her approach. Yeah, I don't actually think all of her advice is bad where that line draws is the There are a lot of people from the external masses because she's putting on lectures for hundreds and thousands of people that pay to listen to her talk. And I think those people probably can get some really good
00:07:01
Speaker
like advice and help, but I also think the few that get hit at that wrong time, it can be really dangerous. And I agree with you, she has this projection where, oh yeah, she kind of presents that she never wanted to do this. She was called to this by some kind of like exterior higher power because in interviews and documentaries, she openly is like, I never wanted to get into spirituality. I didn't want to do this, but how do you like not help people when you know you can kind of vibe and
00:07:46
Speaker
I think she's, this is going to be weird to say, but I think she's kind of a pioneer where how many women do you see in these charismatic roles and being accused of cults and leaders of organizations like this? You don't really see them. 99% of them are men.
00:08:05
Speaker
So, it's kind of impressive. Right. Or at least they have right at least they have some sort of main male figure. Even with Mother God, there was always a father God.
Claims of Special Powers and Abuse
00:08:19
Speaker
um they heal She has been married and divorced five times by my internet research. which But she also gives a lot of marriage advice. But none of those guys, like,
00:08:30
Speaker
were focal points, because she also doesn't have a church. So she doesn't have to conform to a lot of the mainstream cult like archetypes that would normally give me pause. It's just her. It's just her making YouTube videos. She runs a lot of lectures and she's hosted many retreats and she's had spiritual compounds and that's all very problematic and cultish, but she she claims that she just has a lot of gifts, like she's a medical savant.
00:09:04
Speaker
for example, that she has access to all the thoughts of the universe, every thought that's ever been thought, she has access to it and can review it all instantly. So it's like, how do you not help people if you have these incredible gifts that she's claiming that she has? It's interesting when you think about the gifts is she claims, and this I have noticed kind of consistently with a lot of these gurus is they kind of talk about their trauma and how they had this horrible history and this trauma that they endured, which awakened them in order to help other people. And it does create that level of security, where, oh my God, what they went through is so much worse than I did. They definitely can help me.
00:09:53
Speaker
And for Teal, she was born in New Mexico, but she was raised in Utah, which as we've talked about on past episodes, Utah is a huge religion-based kind of state as a whole. And at a very early age, she said that she could see people's emotions, read people's minds, that she could see dead people, which gave me, like, bizarre.
00:10:25
Speaker
Yeah, synesthesia stuff where she could see feelings, she could hear colors, all kinds of different sensory experiences.
The Dangers of Recovered Memories
00:10:34
Speaker
She got put into therapy. but She was highly sensitive. Honestly, if my kid came up to me and was like, I see dead people, I'd be like, counseling. yeah Like, here we go. And it's just, she got tons of diagnosis, none of which that she believes or agrees with. And her reasoning is because like people just didn't understand this gift that she had, so they just put labels on her.
00:11:04
Speaker
Right, exactly. um but I do want to talk about what you would diagnose her with if we were in the position of diagnosing. um i mean She did have a very meaningful, it seems, experience when she went to China. i mean Her parents really tried a lot of different types of therapy. they brought her plate They tried to have her spiritually healed, psychically healed, psychologically healed. I don't know if it did a lot of good. I mean, it definitely exposed her to a lot of terminology, which actually
00:11:36
Speaker
maybe it was a bit problematic. A lot of her information about psychology seems to come from previous experiences that she's had in therapy. Some of which are extremely questionable because one of Teal's big claims is that she survived ritualistic cult abuse, that she was yeah in essentially the satanic panic. And I mean, I don't believe that and there is no proof of it. um And she did try to have charges pressed and there weren't there was no proof of it. I mean, I think that she had a very suggestive therapist and I don't think I believe that memories are repressed in the way that she describes it or that she tries to have her followers dig up. I i mean, I think memory is very complicated and you don't remember things as a video.
00:12:32
Speaker
But the idea that you could be ritualistically abused for years in a devil-worshipping cult and have no knowledge of it, I mean, that has not been proven to be true in any other instance with the satanic panic. So yeah, so for people who don't know, the satanic panic basically was a period in the 80s, very soon after kind of the Jonestown met catastrophe that went on. And a bunch of suburban families started to get scared that satanic cults were like infiltrating their neighborhoods and were going to terrorize their children. And it was definitely kind of an unfounded fear that just grew. I'm sure there were groups because there are people who
00:13:22
Speaker
claimed being a part of stuff like this. Um, but it was definitely not as bad as people thought it was. And it was one of those things that she went into a therapist who did recovery memory theory. And modern therapy now is like, it's super dangerous. It actually implants false memories. And I think that's where you get that idea. Like like you said, it can't be all true.
00:13:53
Speaker
um because that investigation record opened was basically closed due to lack of evidence and she made claims about like being hooked up to electrodes and abused and then they would put up like videos and pictures of like dead animal carcasses and every time that one would change they'd shock her and she didn't remember this but all of a sudden it got developed in her brain that she had killed these animals and that's what they forced her to do and it just kept evolving. But one thing that I do actually think that it happened that through if you weave through all of the quote trauma history she has, she did say that there was this man in his upper 60s that came into her life during her parents
00:14:50
Speaker
attempt to try and help her. Again, like you said, they were doing all types of different options because nothing seemed to be working. They found one man who said that he could help her and he understood the problems that she was claiming and he ended up sexually abusing her for years. That I actually, yeah, according to her. According to her. yeah Which maybe it's true, but it is just alleged. True to me, just because what if you watch her talk about that one versus a lot of the other ones, like her facial expressions, there's a slight difference I noticed where I don't know if it probably happened to that extreme, but I do feel like that something, there's a seed of truth in that one story compared to all of the other ones that she talks about.
00:15:43
Speaker
I mean, they're very well maybe. So I listened to the Gateway podcast, which is excellent. And I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to know more about Teal Swan. And Teal has never publicly named the person that she says ah sexually abused her.
Inner Circle and Isolation Tactics
00:15:58
Speaker
But it is a known it is a known thing, apparently, who it is. And he was interviewed in that podcast. And he is weird. And he did say weird things about like how she probably just misinterpreted all of the hugs that he would give her. And it's like, well,
00:16:18
Speaker
It's like, all right, so maybe you did some weird stuff. I agree. I don't think there was a devil worshiping cult. I mean, we definitely should do an episode at some point about the mcon McMartin preschool and all of the, because it is a larger issue, but it's just important for the context of Teal Swan that her therapist was someone that ascribed to that and was yeah had other people uncovering memories in that way. um But I think that you're right that there maybe was some real abuse.
00:16:47
Speaker
um and Also, I think even if you you didn't actually experience those kind of traumas, I mean, I heard one interview where they were saying that Teal claimed that she was sewn inside of a dead body who as part of her ritualistic cult abuse.
00:17:06
Speaker
i mean if she even believed that for five minutes, which I don't really think she did. But if she believed any of that stuff, like that's extremely traumatic. Because and that's the whole problem with the her now helping people uncover their traumatic memories is it may not necessarily be true.
00:17:26
Speaker
But ah your perception of reality is your reality. So you are still having to deal with all of these uncovered memories and your relationships with those people that were involved in those memories. Whether it was true or not, you are still dealing with the consequences as if it was true. um Deep something deep end deep. There was a docuseries that was done.
00:17:51
Speaker
Um, deep end. There's so many deep somethings out there. So I didn't want to say the wrong one. But there was actually a girl in there that did that exact thing where she, her first start of her kind of interview is she had a very normal childhood from what she remembered. And then through her processing,
00:18:13
Speaker
found and recovered memories that were traumatic from her parents and you gotta wonder how real that is because there's so many people in her circle and her Teal tribe that all of a sudden don't talk to their parents and all of a sudden believe that there was abuse when everyone around them and their family saying none of this happened Teal is brainwashing them but it It can't all be like real, you know what I mean? Like you can't have every single one of your followers just all of a sudden develop this and then isolate themselves from their family. It's too convenient.
00:18:58
Speaker
It's convenient, and Teal herself has said that she has the perfect situation if she wanted to have a cult. She has all of the ingredients for a cult, but she's so moral and so scrupulous that she would never have one. But one of the critical components, according to Teal, is to have people who are desperate and to have people who are isolated. And if you take someone who's already in a terrible mental situation and tell them, convince them, make them relive how abusive and horrible their families are, it's not going to endear them closer to their families. It's not going to improve their isolation. It's only going to draw them into Teal Circle, into her intentional community.
00:19:48
Speaker
and That's what a lot of cult leaders do, because if you have a strong supportive family system, if you have a big group of friends, if people are looking out for you, then you're more likely to be resistant to this type of way of thinking and this type of living that you would just to go full on and be a teal supporter. Oh, absolutely. And I think you look them down the head where one of her big things is you need to relive your trauma in order to heal from it.
00:20:19
Speaker
And she puts on these like retreats and workshops, mainly kind of out of Costa Rica. She's distanced herself a little bit from the United States, where most of her in-person stuff is international, which
00:20:39
Speaker
is smart and dependent. I mean, Costa Rica was a good choice because there's not a ton of history there. But the United States is starting to become a lot more aware of these types of groups and the ability to prosecute them. ah Kind of looking at like Keith Ranieri is a big, big one lately where they found laws that they could actually criminally charge him with. And other countries have started putting coercive control laws into place, mostly like European countries and things like that. But Costa Rica isn't one of those countries that had any crazy stories, at least not that I'm aware of. So I think it was very strategic for her to put herself there.
Is Teal’s Group a Cult?
00:21:32
Speaker
I agree. I don't think that was she said that she was led there um spiritually that it was just meant to be that she'd never been to Costa Rica and she just bought that property.
00:21:44
Speaker
sight unseen that she had there that she was running up all of her sessions out of and people would come and spend thousands of dollars to stay there with her i mean if you wanted to go for a week it was over four thousand dollars even if you were still sharing a room but i think that it's no so it's no coincidence that she picked somewhere with less laws where she was going to be a little bit more off the radar I mean, I think that America is probably the worst place to be if you want to have a cult with no consequences. do Would you consider Teal to be a court? I think she treads the line. Like, I don't know, because I really go back and forth depending on what parts of it is. I think her inner circle definitely is cult like, but she also
00:22:42
Speaker
at the same time from a larger perspective because her inner circle is not very big but she affects thousands around the world and I don't think at that scale she is because she does keep this inner circle super small and she doesn't go out when we recruit, she doesn't go out and try to bring people into this inner circle which I think is a key part to be a true cult leader I think she definitely treads that line though where her inner circle is very hard to get out of. It is super controlling. There's a list of like mandatory things you have to agree to to be part of it where Teal is the primary. You can't have personal boundaries with her. You aren't allowed outside associations that are not approved and all these other things.
00:23:38
Speaker
where that part I think she is, but I think from a greater scale, I i think she toes that line where technically she's not. What are your thoughts?
00:23:55
Speaker
So I feel like she has a lot of cult vibes for sure. She seems like a cult leader in a lot of ways, but the pay structure to be in the cult is not typical. um She doesn't make most of her revenue from her members, it's she makes a lot of it from YouTube and creating content. So in the sense that she needs followers on the internet, I mean, she could be cult like in that way. But her in person members, that's not where she's making all of her money. Those are more of just people from her to hang out with all the time and henchmen. And I don't it's more of like a mob kind of a situation because I don't think that teal is looking to have
00:24:47
Speaker
a dozen, a hundred, a thousand members. I mean, to your point, she wants it small. And she wants to sell her books. She wants to tour. She wants to do these retreats. She wants to make tons of videos and have a lot of likes and follows and things like that. But she's not looking, she doesn't have memberships the way that a lot of other cults do.
Cost and Mental Health Concerns
00:25:12
Speaker
um And there isn't scripture holding everybody together. I think there are plenty of cults that don't involve scripture. I think they're just less popular because you have groups like, I don't know, like Nexium, for example, which is a self-help group. There are like a lot of political cults that I'm sure we'll get into at some point.
00:25:33
Speaker
But it's an interesting one where a lot of those ones do stay under a radar. And she is so public about her stuff, which I think is why it's so intriguing. And you're right, she's an influencer. So she kind of has tapped into that market of TikTok and YouTube and Instagram. And I looked at her like pricing structure on her website,
00:26:03
Speaker
Like you mentioned, there's like a two week completion process that you can sign up for, which is about $5,000, but then, yes. So I think that's the most cold like thing, but then a lot of things going down, you have the yearly exclusive insights for 599. You have courses like the ancestral healing, which is,
00:26:31
Speaker
like 600 had a thrive in a crisis, a little under 400, self love 200, sexual healing 270. And then you have the completion course that you can do on your own for $1,997. And this one I think is the most interesting from her pay structure because this is the where they kind of advertise you have a 15 day money back guarantee.
00:27:01
Speaker
However, the course is nine weeks long.
00:27:08
Speaker
So like, ah how do you decide if it is worth a money back or not? If it's nine weeks, you got two weeks to figure it out. but
00:27:24
Speaker
I mean, that's, I guess you could take like the first class and be like, nevermind. But otherwise, yeah, you're right. That is a scam, for sure. Sounds like it. Oh, man. I mean, I'm more scared, I feel like, about the people who have actually done the completion and are now doing, are now coaches for others.
Teal’s Grandiose Aspirations
00:27:46
Speaker
um It's very, but you know what, it's like all of these groups, like these high control groups, which I guess we could call it, they have a lot of similar things in the sense that yeah you're teaching people to teach people your message.
00:28:01
Speaker
And I think that the completion process, part of it what really scares me is she has real doctors that do the completion process and become like Whatever it's, I don't know what it's called. remember I've never, I find it kind of. I don't know if there's a word for it. It just adds validity to it though, for her. If you have people with legitimate degrees supporting you, it builds a legitimacy for what you're claiming. And if they're putting you above themselves, again, putting her on this pedestal where you have her people basically comparing her to Jesus.
00:28:40
Speaker
And her goal to be more influential than the Pope and that and internationally, which, again, is a very big thing to be like. I want people to listen to me more than this basic ancient position that has is world for now. Like everybody knows who the Pope is.
00:29:02
Speaker
regardless of your religious beliefs, and they understand the authority that comes with that position, and she wants to outrank him. is that That's like her goal, but which is wild to me.
00:29:20
Speaker
You're right. I mean, she has more powers than Jesus did. And she compares herself pretty directly to him. But I think she definitely thinks that she's an improvement. I don't think that she thinks that she is like the next Messiah. It's kind of beyond that, where she's like, not even like she is, she's not an alien, but she's otherworldly. Yeah, she's like magical, the things that she can do. And she can, because she can see into your body and she can see your blood moving and she can see your heart beating. Ew, why would you want to see that too? Earlier today and if you're inflamed from the gluten. I mean it's, I don't know why she would want to see it, but
00:30:04
Speaker
something I thought was really interesting, though, was in one of the interviews, um Jennings, who is Jennings Brown is the guy that does the podcast he also made the deep end, he asked her, well, if you know everything that's ever been known, and you know, every thought that's ever been thought, and you have all this access to all of this information, and you know everything, then why don't you speak any other languages?
00:30:31
Speaker
And she was like, oh, yeah, I have been meaning to look into that.
Teal's Charismatic Influence
00:30:35
Speaker
I don't know why that is. yeah it's like She's so she's so good when she's confronted, but she speaks with such authority and then she gives us authority to other people who have credentials. And there are real psychiatrists that do the completion process and advocate for teal and her methods and are trying to help her put together clinical trials, which have not actually but it was funny, I listened to another interview with him years after all of these were done.
00:31:08
Speaker
And when he first met with Teal before either of the documentaries started, he did an interview with her, brought it back to his whatever company he was working for, because I think it was like a journal article or magazine or whatever it was. They flat out were like, we can't use this because she got to you. Like he, the first time he met with her and interviewed her, she was so charismatic and so convincing.
00:31:35
Speaker
that his interview turned into basically a praise of how amazing she was and how great and like they had to scrap the whole thing. We had to start over. So like it kind of just shows you, even if you go in skeptical and you go in with like a plan of, Hey, we're going to uncover this. She has all these accusations she has this ability to turn people without even realizing that you're being turned. He had no clue until his editor was like, this is this is bad.
00:32:04
Speaker
but
00:32:09
Speaker
absolutely i mean she comes off really well, and she seems kind of amazing. sometimes like I watched some of her more recent YouTube videos, and I went into those videos having a lot of knowledge about the problems with Teal Swan, and I still was like, huh. Yeah. Huh. It's kind of scary. like I feel like if I was in a really bad spot, she could get me. um And I think we should talk about the really bad spot that a lot of people find her in, which
00:32:41
Speaker
I, maybe we should have warned people at the at the start, but I think if you're at all familiar with Teal Swan, you know that suicide is a huge topic that comes up a lot.
Teal’s Controversial Views on Suicide
00:32:52
Speaker
um And Teal has certainly structured her teachings and her YouTube and everything around suicide because that is a very difficult topic for psychologists, for psychiatrists, for all mental health professionals. it's It's difficult to treat. It's hard to talk about. People are worried about contagion or worried about all kinds of things. And Teal is not worried about any of those things. She wants to talk about it. And she has even invested in SEOs. like
00:33:29
Speaker
search engine optimizations that if you type in suicide or other things that are similar to that, her videos will pop up. All of her website, everything will pop up. She is looking for the acutely distressed people. Yeah. And I think when it comes to the search audiences, it is also just how much content she pumps out to about how high on those search engines she does come. And I agree if anybody has any concerns with this topic, you this might be a good place to stop um or put yourself in a positive mindset with it because there are going to be some quotes that we probably will discuss that can be a little triggering. um But she based this foundation off of her own suicide attempt that she had as a teenager and was actually admitted to a psych ward for.
00:34:24
Speaker
and she presents this idea that it depends on how you ask her because she presents it that she doesn't actually support suicide she doesn't want this for people she wants people to heal and be the best selves that they can and it's you listen to some of her one-on-ones and it it is very supportive to a degree and then you listen to other one-on-ones and she
00:34:56
Speaker
pushes people to really uncomfortable thoughts and make statements like, then why are you still on this earth? Your, but then it contours with your life might be worth sticking around for. And it's that back and forth that gives her like plausible deniability for a lot of it. But you have comments like,
00:35:19
Speaker
Absolutely. Her reincarnation, that's I think a connection too, is she claims that she lived all these multiple lives and experienced death in multiple ways, some of which is suicide, some of it is just natural. And she says things to people directly, like death is a gift you give yourself or suicide is like pressing the reset button because you're just going to come back as something else. And if you're in a fragile state and absolutely already in certain kinds of pain and questioning, comments like that, I can see how it drives people to consider it more versus the opposite.
00:36:08
Speaker
Yes, I think that if you looked at it It depends on your lens, which of course is the problem because she is targeting people who are already struggling immensely. But depending on your lens, because you could say like Teela is encouraging suicide. But I think that there's another way to look at it is what she's saying is if it's a reset button, if it's always an option, that there's no reason to rush towards it.
00:36:40
Speaker
and that you might as well try to live your life. You might as well try a lot of things because yeah there's oh it will always be there. And yeah, I don't know. I don't think it's a terrible point to make, but I think like if you're acutely depressed, maybe that's not a good thing to say. challenging when people express it that is one thing that they're even more strongly considering. She flips it and then will make statements like, if you're asking the question, if it's my time is done on this earth, then your time isn't done yet. and And again, supporting that, okay, then maybe there's options. And I do think one point that she made during one of her lectures is people have a fear of death.
00:37:29
Speaker
That is a very real thing. Regardless if you are suicidal and or not, having a fear of death is very common for a lot of people. And her perspective is that's an unnatural thought because regardless of how you die, everybody does. So she approaches suicide from that one lecture as in hello you you have to make up your mind. Are you going how you're going to die? Are you going to do it yourself? Is going to be natural? Is it going to be by someone else's hand? It's her in a way empowering the individual's decision, I think is that other perspective to look at too. And so you have three options that we have now where it really depends on the mental state of the person listening to her.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely does. And she talks about, I mean, it's brought up a lot that her first client that died by suicide, Leslie, um She was, Teal claims that this woman was, had already tried everything else, had already tried doctors and medication and all types of other treatments other than going to Teal. And she just, there was no hope for her, basically is how Teal tells it now. But when she did pass away, she was reincarnated within two days.
00:39:05
Speaker
So in that sense it was a reset button and she was asked about it many years later and when asked if she did anything wrong with Leslie, she says no. She said she did everything right and that was a good outcome basically. It's like there's nothing wrong with suicide is basically her
00:39:29
Speaker
which necessary I disagree with, I guess. right But it's it's the point of encouraging it. yeah It's very, very scary. I think that's where a lot of people have their concerns is because the people listening to her are typically very vulnerable. um But then when you start diving into people's numbers on how many people have actually followed through, and there's only two that I could find that have been confirmed followers of Teal that have taken their own lives. There's a lot of skepticism thinking that there's probably a lot more because again, she's so, you could just watch her on your computer one night, never watched anything else and have go, yep, confirmed, and then have consequences. And there's no way to track that. And I think that's where people are icky.
00:40:23
Speaker
Right. Because it's like right but makes you ah what makes you a follower of Teal? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you even could not even ever, ever see anything that Teal has made, but it could be one of her proxies that's done the completion process, that's that views Teal as a mentor, that's posting their things, that's talking to people in real life. It would be impossible to track it down. I do know that there's been many attempts by group members.
00:40:54
Speaker
But i I don't know. she She really, she scares me in the way that she talks about it. But I don't know that it's so terrible also. I mean, sure. There's some true sense to what she says. I think that's what makes people both scary as well, comforted by her, as well as scared by her. Because It is a topic that people are very uncomfortable with that most people, if they're having those thoughts, don't typically express either. And she has conversations that people don't want to have. And I think that's what she plays on to get support as well. And it would be interesting to try and kind of figure out what level that these people are
00:41:54
Speaker
collecting on saying that there's only two, quote, followers, but how many people has it actually touched that had some kind of listened to her or saw a video or TikTok or whatever the case was. It would be interesting if there was any way to count that and there's not. but um
00:42:18
Speaker
I mean, maybe if she did her clinical trials, amazing power she would be able to know. But also,
00:42:31
Speaker
but also it's like, even if her followers were dying by suicide, it wouldn't necessarily, it would be hard to say that it's all Teal's fault or that it the blame or that it wouldn't have happened without Teal being... in like Because you don't look at someone's... You don't look at a doctor, a hospital, like parents, whatever. You don't look at them and say, that's the reason they failed and this is why this happened.
Unconventional Healing Practices
00:43:03
Speaker
It would be that gray area. It really just depends, I think, on the case probably.
00:43:08
Speaker
um it
00:43:12
Speaker
It's very gray. But then she has these weird ritualistic sides to her too that come up where she does like healing journeys, but uses frog poison and has you ingest it. And then it basically vomiting out your like issues and dealing with your trauma and reliving it while that's happening, which I also think is crazy.
00:43:38
Speaker
and you wonder why people get so attached to her is because they have these super intense moments like that or in the deep end there's a clip of someone who challenged her and then basically gets punished more or less with like a waterboard scene and to teach her to like relive certain trauma that she had. I don't know how She gets away with some of that. And her followers are just like, yep, on it. We'll go do XYZ. And they don't question. And I think that's where, again, they go a little bit more culty. Just, Teal said it. Gotta do it. Got it.
00:44:22
Speaker
Absolutely. But I guess it's also like, there are adults that are consenting. And is that really illegal? That's the thing. She has nothing that I found other than her... I don't think so. Rules for the inner circle, which I couldn't find a full, like, actual list. But from what I've heard, there are legal things on that list.
00:44:45
Speaker
um from the the United States standard, but again, they're not in the United States.
00:44:53
Speaker
But she's not doing anything illegal. She's not directly putting her hand to someone or like handing them a knife or doing something traumatic herself. It's all this alluding, you do it to yourself. You visualize doing this or you relive this. it's her guiding them to, which I don't think is technically illegal. But I guess you could approach the avenue of like, I don't think it is. If you encourage someone to go kill someone, you're still held responsible for that murder. Like, okay, Gypsy Rose, she claims she had no involvement, but she basically
00:45:42
Speaker
influenced it, you're still responsible. So I think that's the answer they would probably take with Peel, if they were to try to make that case.
00:45:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I think that if she told her members to kill someone, and they did, she would maybe be prosecuted for that, she probably would be.
00:46:08
Speaker
But anything short of that, I have a hard time believing that she would actually be prosecuted. I could see more like if she's not paying taxes or if she's doing something illegal on that end, I could see that easily being a problem that could come up for her like legally. But I don't think that she's going to And for her too, what is kind of weird is she doesn't, she's not super wealthy.
Teal’s Personal Life and Relationships
00:46:32
Speaker
Like you said, there's not a ton of money coming in. And She does seem to pay for everything herself. So there is this community compound basically, where you go to these retreats, but also her and her in a circle live on and it's a gated little compound basically in the middle of Costa Rica. And the people there are quote, volunteers, where you're getting free room and board.
00:47:02
Speaker
but you're not paying for anything else, but you're volunteering all of your time and working 24-7. But I think, yeah, but she's paying for the bills of the property and yeah food and lights and all that stuff. So it is interesting where that weird balance, so she doesn't, I think the number I found is her net worth is only like a million dollars.
00:47:30
Speaker
which for how long she's been around, I would have guessed would have been way higher.
00:47:38
Speaker
And she's been married five times and struggles making those connections on herself. But also you would think if you've been married, you would have some kind, I don't, is she paying them money? Like she has one son that we know almost nothing about.
00:48:06
Speaker
I know. And I did try to find picture, I mean, information about him. I could find some images of him scattered throughout her Instagram and stuff. But there's very little information, which is good for him, obviously. And I hope for him that he is like safe and that he has a normal childhood existence. But I don't think she's super hands on or involved. I mean, maybe he's with her all the time. And she's just not constantly sharing pictures of him. But I kind of find that hard to believe. I think that she's that's where I kind of left with it. So his name is winter, which I actually kind of like.
00:48:50
Speaker
Um, Winterscot and he is pretty much an adult now at this point. Um, but again, he's very removed from a lot of her stuff. And I, my guess is because that he's probably with dad and it's an easy way to avoid that. And she does seem to protect him.
00:49:21
Speaker
Cause there are blog posts that I found where she briefly kind of talks about him, but also that she goes down a different avenue and she, there aren't pictures and there aren't conversations. Any conversation I saw that they brought up her son, she instantly almost was like switched it back to the inner child and not her kid. So she does seem to have some kind of maternal bond for him where she does try to protect him and he is removed from a lot of stuff versus a lot of other people in her type of positions where they capitalize on the fact they have children. She seems to do the exact opposite.
00:50:13
Speaker
She definitely does not promote herself as a mom, a mom figure, momfluencer, agreed. um I just know they just looked it up and it looks like winter is 15. Yeah. um Well, I found a birthday post that she did when he turned 11 in 2020.
00:50:32
Speaker
So I'm just doing some quick math on that. Yeah, but he's, I mean, he's older. um Like he's not a baby for sure. He's not a little kid. He's in high school. um But yeah, I don't think, I don't think it really fits with, I think most of her personal life doesn't fit with the things that she's trying to promote. So she just leaves it out. And Like, because she does offer a lot of family marriage advice, and she doesn't have a lot of success with that in her real life. So I think it just doesn't look good. yeah So she just doesn't mention it, which isn't about driving. absolutely. And it is also kind of interesting how she only had children with her first husband, um Mark, and all of the ones after that.
00:51:28
Speaker
They were all very short-lived, obviously, but she didn't have children with any of them. So you've got to wonder what connection she had with Mark and how that was different and how that ended. I'd be super curious. I couldn't find anything about her actual marriages and the development or download.
00:51:51
Speaker
um
00:51:55
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't either. I found some information about two of her husbands, but she says that she's had five husbands, and I believe her, I guess. I think that Teal is probably very captivating to initially date, and people get infatuated with her, and then you can't maintain that kind of level of infatuation in your life. The only one is Blake, who was like her right hand man for 20 years. They were romantic for one year.
00:52:24
Speaker
and then we can just stayed friends. But she, it's kind of funny during the docu-series, she got very jealous when he had met someone new. And she would bring up like, how do you how do you think your new girl wife basically they end up getting married? How did your wife feel about like your attraction to me? And he was like, listen, yeah, I think you're attractive. He's like, but that's It's over. Like he very kindly put it like, which was interesting. She got very right possessive, I think with him. And currently he actually left the group altogether. So he's not even with her anymore. Now that he found someone who I think showed him a different perspective than Teal with isolation and
00:53:22
Speaker
I could only find the first three husbands personally. I agree. I couldn't find the last two. But it was 2012, 2014, 2016. And then she apparently had two more after that. But 2024, she's been single for a while. So they wonder if they were just kind of for like 10 years, big, big boom. And I was like, okay, now we're done.
00:53:50
Speaker
I think that she takes things that she needs, she soaks up attention, she thrives on attention. um And I wouldn't be surprised if she got certain things out of each marriage. I mean, she got Swan out of one of her marriages. like I thought that Teal Swan was a made up name before looking into this. But Teal is her real middle name. And then Swan is one of her former husband's last names. So Teal Swan.
00:54:18
Speaker
is kind of her name. It's a good name. Yeah. and i I mean, I think it's great, but I think that she Absolutely. but i think I think she's a little callous. I think that she is a bit cutthroat and that she is very intelligent but she and she has a lot of ability to read people, but she's not so good at maintaining her connections because I don't think it lasts long term. and She has a lot of people who are extremely passionate in her groups and then they don't stay.
00:54:51
Speaker
And there she says there's no penalty to leave. So maybe that's part of it. But I think that it's the kind of thing where you get extremely interested in it and then it kind of fades away. Maybe doesn't hold the test of time. That's true. But that's kind of perfect for the internet.
00:55:09
Speaker
for YouTube, for Instagram, for TikTok. And again, it makes it harder to challenge a lot of what she says if they're all temporary relationships. Which I think is why she keeps that inner circle so tight is because it's easier to defend herself if there's less people to claim that she's reading their minds against.
00:55:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. That makes a lot of sense, too. Oh, absolutely. I think she's very strategic. She has no question. But she is the one that I think is kind of a mystery to a degree, where she has invited documentaries into her life and shown these insides. But I finished watching some of them. And I have more questions than I do answers, because it provokes different things. And she's very strategic on what she shows.
00:56:06
Speaker
and When you look her up, there's not a ton of, other than the one dark cloud, there's not a lot of negative talk about her, frankly, for how widespread on the internet she is. There's not a lot of negative about her, which is in this day and age where everyone just attacks everyone because you're behind a screen and it's easy to do, is kind of shocking.
00:56:37
Speaker
I mean, honestly, I had some trouble in the beginning when I was trying to look into this person, this case, whatever we want to call it before the podcast, I was having trouble finding a lot of negative things about her. Like if you look at the first 20 things that come up, if you just look up Teal Swan, it's a lot of very positive things or just her content, which she comes off extremely well in a lot of. So I was like, yeah what are we going to talk about basically? And I had to look to other people that have done more investigations because on the surface, it's kind of fine.
Potential Dangers of Teal’s Advice
00:57:16
Speaker
But I i think that
00:57:18
Speaker
if you go a little bit further with it, or if someone's in a very vulnerable position, I think that teal could be really dangerous. um But I think that there isn't a great alternative a lot of the time for people who are So for people who are really, really struggling mentally and are contemplating self-harm or suicidality, I think that it is really hard to find help. And to find a doctor that would really be willing to engage in even talking about it is difficult.
00:57:56
Speaker
um And I think Teal tells people what they want to hear. Like, oh, well, if your medication is not working for you, just throw it out. Just flush it. Like, who cares? That stuff doesn't work. You don't need to call your doctor. It doesn't work. Just throw it out. Like, I think those kinds of things can be really, really dangerous. She doesn't believe in medication, but telling someone to just go off of an SSRI in itself is very dangerous.
00:58:22
Speaker
ah Things like that need to be weaned. It's very complicated, and she's not actually a medical savant, so she doesn't know what she's talking about. What are you talking about? Her website says she's one of the top 100 healthcare care and health leaders in 2021.
00:58:40
Speaker
Yes. I mean, that's very impressive, but I know that she doesn't have any medical training at all. You know, what she reminds me of is the savior complex.
00:58:54
Speaker
where it's just like I have decided that I know all of these things and I have all of these powers and I'm going to heal everyone through my thoughts, which is yeah which is inherently very harmful. I think she's a tough one to because it just depends on what your mindset is when you look at her and listen to her and kind of what perspective you want to take because you really could defend her from any any angle, which is kind of different than a lot of the ones that we've talked about and will talk about.
00:59:31
Speaker
i I agree. I think it's kind of ambiguous. I don't know that she's necessarily a criminal. um Scandalous for sure. Controversial for sure. I think she's one of those ones that you have to barter back with.
00:59:47
Speaker
like she has potential to do some very dangerous things but there is also testimonies of there being some good in there. So I also got to say though she has paintings that she sells that apparently will hear heal you if they're just present with you and I've never wanted to spend useless money more in my life. Have you seen these? So for people who have not, they're these like abstract kaleidoscope looking paintings that aren't that expensive, frankly. And if you buy them and you put them up in your room and you look at it every day, it's supposed to heal you. And I have never
01:00:38
Speaker
I feel like I know personally, I don't believe in that kind of stuff where this picture is going to heal me. If it did, I will buy 50 of them and I will plaster them in every single room in the house. But it's... Oh, I guess we should wait for Christmas maybe, see what Santa's going to bring you. One old idea and people buy it.
01:01:03
Speaker
people spend money on these paintings and put them up in their house because it's going to make them feel better. And that's where I think she tapped in on, and this is my perspective of that kind of stuff, of the placebo, where if you are told this is going to make you feel better, it's going to make you feel better, because you convince yourself that it's working.
01:01:29
Speaker
And I think with things like that, that's exactly what she has done where she's in a position of authority. She says, this is going to make you feel better. You then believe it and you look at it and as you're looking at it, wow, I do feel better.
Teal’s Hypnotic Media Presence
01:01:43
Speaker
Like you do it to yourself. She doesn't even need to do anything else after that.
01:01:51
Speaker
Yeah. Exactly. She kind of keeps her hands close. That was my, that was one of my favorite things. They are pretty. I will say they are pretty. I mean, I know that. Yeah. I mean, she's got an aesthetic for sure. She's very creative. And I think part of her appeal on some of her videos is that she talks kind of monotone, and she'll have like a psychedelic background. And if you're just kind of casually watching it, you're still absorbing the information.
01:02:28
Speaker
but it's a bit, it's almost hypnotic to watch, which is very Warren Jeffs of her. But yeah, but I don't think that's, I think everything with her is very intentional, which to me is problematic. I think that the painting, she just, she wants to yeah be in the background of everyone's thoughts. Yeah, she's a, she's a character.
01:02:54
Speaker
All right. Well, that was everything I had. Is there anything else you can think of with Ms. Teal Swan that we haven't covered? Yeah. So if you were to, what do you what's your favorite thing of with her that, not maybe favorite is not the word I want, but like the thing you found most intriguing now that we kind of dove into her a little bit.
01:03:22
Speaker
Hmm. I mean, I think her saying that she could literally see into people's bodies really got me. um I just, she has a lot of audacity. And I love when people make like outrageous claims. And she can see your thoughts. She, I mean, she knows, that she knows everything. And I found that as like a standout. Yeah, kind the thing the com and everything about the confidence is unreal.
01:03:52
Speaker
um How about you? For me, I think is just very similar. It's the presentation that she does, where she is both charismatic, but also very comforting.
Final Reflections on Teal Swan
01:04:06
Speaker
She's not necessarily telling you to do something specifically. She alludes to a lot of things. And I think she's the first one that I i truly kind of go,
01:04:21
Speaker
All right. I see where people are coming from for her. So it was just a different perspective than what we've been used to lately.
01:04:34
Speaker
Yeah. No, I don't agree with that. All right. Well, thank you for talking with Ms. Teal Swan. I thought she was kind of a fun one.
01:04:45
Speaker
Yeah, she was. It was kind of light, almost. I mean, you know, some mental health stuff came up, but other than that... No, not yet. She's not actively murdering people, which... And I don't think that she's sexually abusing people here. A nice reset for the future ones.
01:05:05
Speaker
oh ah Very Well, I'm excited for our next mother coming up. We have some interesting ones coming up, for sure.