Teal Swan on the Cult Allegations, The Deep End, and Why She's Misunderstood

Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel

Teal Swan joins Rachel Uchitel on Miss Understood to directly address long-standing cult allegations, her controversial philosophical stance on suicide, and the

Key takeaways

• Teal Swan admits she structured her company similarly to historical cult leaders after watching the Wild Country docuseries about Osho, acknowledging potential liability for actions taken by those she delegated control to.
• Swan defends her stance on suicide by arguing that society's expectation to suppress suicidal ideation is harmful, asserting that deeply engaging with a person's pain and unmet needs is more effective than toxic positivity.

Main topics

• Cult allegations and The Deep End docuseries
• Childhood trauma, ritual abuse, and psychic abilities

Notable quotes

"I don't believe that it's helpful for people to deny, suppress, and disown the fact that they are feeling suicidal, which is what the majority of society expects suicidal people to do."

Conclusion

The episode provides a rare, unfiltered platform for Swan to address her most contentious claims while

Transcript preview

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Before we get started, I wanted to let you in on a little secret. What you're about to hear Speaker 2 (1:02) is only part of the conversation. Every Speaker 3 (1:04) week, we keep talking over on Patreon, where you'll find exclusive bonus episodes, behind-the-scenes footage, after-show conversations with my guests, and personal stories from my life that I don't share anywhere else. If you love Misunderstood, Patreon is where you'll get the full experience. Just head on over to patreon.com slash misunderstood with Rachel. You could tell. or click the link in the show notes. I'd love to have you join us. Speaker 3 (1:33) She has millions of followers who say she saved their lives and critics who say she's running a cult. This is Teal Swan, one of the most polarizing spiritual figures on the internet. A self-described spiritual leader with no formal training in psychology, she built an empire on YouTube talking about trauma, depression, and healing. And thousands of vulnerable people followed her to retreats in Costa Rica. But in 2018, an investigation accused her of targeting people with suicidal thoughts. thoughts and encouraging them to act on them. She says the controversy comes from a philosophy most people aren't ready to hear. I Speaker 1 (2:11) don't believe that it's helpful for people to deny, suppress, and disown the fact that they are feeling suicidal, which is what the majority of society expects suicidal people to do. My issue is I don't support the concept of suicide. Then came Speaker 3 (2:24) 2022 and the docuseries The Deep End. Cameras followed Teal and her inner circle for three years, and when it aired, the Speaker 1 (2:32) whispers got louder. Is this a cult? If somebody was going to sort of throw that accusatory statement at me, I'd be like, okay, and what does it mean to be a cult leader? If you were to break it down to creates control tactics to keep people in and huge consequences for them leaving. No. Speaker 3 (2:47) She says it all started with her own pain. 13 years of what she calls horrific ritual abuse and trafficking as a child. Speaker 1 (2:55) It was really capitalizing on an opportunity to set up a horribly abusive dynamic for the period of 13 years. And it was... like horrific ritual abuse and trafficking. But Speaker 3 (3:04) even she admits she's structured her company the same way one of history's most notorious cult leaders structured his. And the parallel scares Speaker 1 (3:12) her. I set myself up almost exactly this way. I've actually set myself up like he did. There are things that have happened in my company that I never even heard about that I could definitely be liable for. So it's like, it's scary as hell. So who is Teal Swan? A spiritual Speaker 3 (3:27) healer the world refuses to understand or a cult leader? cult leader hiding behind enlightenment. We asked her ourselves this week on Misunderstood, our conversation with Teal Swan. Speaker 3 (4:10) Teal, it's so exciting to have you here on Misunderstood. How are you? I am doing fabulous. How are you? I'm good, thank you. So I wanted to start by asking you, how did you come up with the name Teal Swan? I mean, I know you were born Mary Teal Bosworth, which is something you don't really look like. So you have this ethereal name. How did you get it? Speaker 1 (4:33) So it's ironic that my name was legally when I was born Mary Teal because I didn't even know that I had a first name until I was like 12. My parents always called me Teal. So Teal was always my name. And it's like this weird thing in the 80s that some people did where they just called you by your middle name, right? Speaker 1 (4:50) So that was my name originally, and then I married a Punjabi Sikh man whose last name was Swan. So it's real funny because people think that my name is like this made-up mystical name, but it's actually totally... you know, universally orchestrated name, you could say. Right. Speaker 3 (5:05) Oh, wow. Well, it's beautiful. So, you know, in thinking of how to sort of talk to you, I wanted to, instead of me discussing what you do, I really wanted to get an idea from you on how to describe what it is that you do, because there are so many names for what you do, you know, healer, artist, spiritual leader, catalyst, influencer, you can go on and on and on. So it's better to just ask you, how would you describe you and what you do? Speaker 1 (5:32) I would describe myself as a new thought leader. I am here to change humanity's mind, specifically in the direction of what alleviates suffering. I see myself as an expert in human suffering, first and foremost. So I want to answer to the things that people are struggling with. And you can do that in a myriad of different ways, whether it's, you know, creating one of these frequency paintings behind here, or whether it's releasing a video about some kind of a relationship pattern, or whether it's hosting an event. There's so many different ways to approach the struggles that people are facing. So that's why it's like I'm a jack of all trades. Did you grow up spiritual? That's a kind of hard question to answer because I always had spiritual abilities. And I could never really plug into this physical time-space reality the way that other people can. So I was born this profoundly spiritual being, but into a family which was not spiritual. My family was comprised of real scientific people, like highly educated scientific environmental people, and if they had a religion, it was the outdoors. Speaker 1 (6:37) Right. Speaker 3 (6:37) And you have always talked about how you were sort of born into this world different than other people. Can you explain in better terms what that would mean? Speaker 1 (6:48) Yeah, so the best way to conceptualize this is to think about it like if you come down to this physical life, most people are able to actually plug into this time-space reality that we call life on Earth in the same way that if you were to become an avatar in a video game and then forget the you that's sitting on the chair, you are inside that video game and that is your reality. And the way to understand my dynamic is that I want you to imagine that when a person plugs into this video game, let's say, let's call it life. their ability to fully plug in is not there. So it's almost like the filters are blown. And so you're seeing an overlay of different dimensional realities all the time. Nor are you able to forget the you that's sitting on the chair. So, you know, a person usually goes throughout their life becoming aware of their non-physical aspect. You know, the part that they might call their soul. And that was something that I never forgot and had to find again. It's like I came in here with full knowledge of exactly what I was doing here. you know, what it was, what I was here for. I mean, all these kinds of things. So. But how did that go? It's a it's a very it's like a curse. I'll be honest, you know, I mean, everybody's sort of sitting here being like, wow, that would be amazing, you know, to be able to see past lives and to be able to talk to entities that are not physically incarnated and to see energy fields and to be able to perceive things before they've even happened. And the real truth of it is that when you're receiving that much information, life is pretty terrible. I had a really hard time. Speaker 3 (8:22) And pretty loud, I would assume. Yeah, it's overwhelming. Yeah. Yeah. What was that like, though, as a kid? Because you must have been very misunderstood by your family or anyone you tried to verbalize this to, to see if they were having the same experience. I mean, what was that like? Speaker 1 (8:42) All children start out assuming that everybody sees and perceives what they see and perceive. And I was no exception. So I was kind of, you know, thrust into this world where I thought everybody was experiencing this and just somehow everybody's having an easier time dealing with it than me to realizing very quickly once I was put into school that this is not the reality that other people are living in. And I got myself in a lot of trouble because of it. Because it wasn't like I was born in the Eastern world where they have a real good concept of people who are like me. In that type of a culture, I would have been immediately put in with a sage and I would have been trained up into a position in some kind of a spiritual capacity. But we don't have those positions in the Western world. And so it's essentially labeled as mental illness. Right. Speaker 3 (9:31) That's what I was going to ask. Were your parents or people at school? Calling you names, trying to label you Speaker 1 (9:37) in a different way? Oh, yeah. But it's like you either get that the scientific people kind of label you as mentally ill and those really religious people, they label you, which they did with me, as, you know, demonic. So it was a real, yeah, I was not received well. I mean, I scared the crap out of people. Right. And were you scared? Speaker 1 (9:59) none of the stuff that I was seeing most of the time. It took me a while, you know, to deal with the projections that some people, when they die, right, when they're trying to connect with you, they will show you images of how they die. And so when you're quite young, you have to deal with some pretty horrific images. That, I remember being a real struggle. Also, it just being real frustrating that like I can see and talk to spirit guides, but it seems like it increases a bystander trauma because even when you're going through really painful stuff, a lot of times they're just sort of sitting there watching what's happening. Like it's a show. And so you're kind of like, come on, throw me a bone and they're not doing it. And so it was more painful than it was a comfort to me when I was younger. Speaker 3 (10:42) Was there one moment that you remember from your childhood where you were like, I'm different. I now understand that I can predict something. Either you predicted somebody dying or I don't know what it was for you, but was there a moment where you were like, okay, I have a power, so to speak. Speaker 1 (11:04) I think a lot of that was around medical intuitive stuff. So when I was younger, I was wanting to go and put my hands on people and do energy healing without ever being taught energy healing. And I think, you know, it was well received, more well received when I was able to tell people that they had certain physical ailments and then they would go to the doctor, it would be confirmed. And so I had that sort of corroboration. And then the reflection I was getting off that was not as bad as say when, you know, when I would talk about somebody's dead relative wanting to say things to them. Yeah. Speaker 3 (11:37) Right. A little bit more about your childhood. You had a very rough start. You've openly talked about suffering abuse at the hands of someone else. And I only bring that up because, you know, cause I know you've talked about it before, but I think it's important because you've used that experience to turn it into expertise. And I think a lot of people don't follow that concept a lot. Do you know what I mean? Like they don't get that about you. And, researching a ton of stuff about you, I really felt that it, it seems correct me if I'm wrong, that it's been important for you to talk about what you've been through. Number one, because it makes you relatable to people that have gone through it, but, um, because that's where you derive your mastery from. Um, and so I, I do want you just to touch on it a little bit about what you went through. And then the real question is, how did you personally find the wherewithal to get yourself out of it, to say, I'm worthy of being someone else, or I can get out of this. Speaker 1 (12:38) That's like a lot. Yeah. Sorry. To super, I don't know like how deep to go because. It's real intense, but because of my abilities, I essentially caught the radar of somebody who is in the town that was close to where I grew up, who had a real interest in this kind of non-physical stuff. And he approached my parents as a mentor of sorts. And my parents, of course, didn't know what to do with me. I was this miserably unhappy, hypersensitive kid. They didn't understand what was going on with me. They've got... These doctors saying I'm mentally ill, you know, these other people that are like, whoa, she's got an incredible gift. They just didn't know what to do. Right. So when this mentor essentially came in and said, look, she loves horses. She doesn't know what to do with her gifts. Trust her with me. Basically, I know what to do. And they said yes. And the reality was quite different than what he had put forth. It was really capitalizing on an opportunity. Speaker 1 (13:35) just set up a horribly abusive dynamic for the period of 13 years. And it was horrific ritual abuse and trafficking. So yeah, my childhood was a living, like a literal living nightmare, like the kind of thing that belongs on CNN. It's totally not normal in any way. Speaker 3 (13:54) Yeah. So I Speaker 1 (13:54) escaped when I was 19. And Speaker 3 (13:57) when you say escape, did you physically escape or was it something where finally you were able to, um, you know, be old enough that you can make your own decisions and get, get out? Speaker 1 (14:07) It's kind of both because, you know, men like had me in my childhood. Um, Speaker 1 (14:14) They create so much mental programming that ultimately they want to be able to have control over you without having to go chase you because you don't really own somebody's psychology if you have to go chase them in a car. Speaker 1 (14:27) That being said, there's definitely a risk of some retrieval like that happening. So it was a little bit of both. I ended up, after a really horrific experience with him when I was 19, jumping into a car and driving, just physically running away, driving to a place where I had met a man only twice before this, but for some reason I trusted him and I broke into his house, actually. That was the beginning of me staying away. So to begin with, it was like... There's such huge consequences for running away. I don't know what I just did. Why did I just do that? I should just go back. And then it's like one day turns to two days, turns to a week, turns to now I'm in real serious trouble if I go back, turns into a month, turns into I think I actually have to go into hiding at this point. Yeah. Speaker 3 (15:16) Today's episode is brought to you by Wavy Talk. I think hair can say a lot about how you're feeling. Some days you want to polish, blow out. Other days you want to try something completely different. Wavy Talk makes hair tools that give you room to play with your look, from dryers and curlers to straighteners and styling tools. What I like about their approach is that you don't have to be a professional to make time for your hair. Their tools are designed to make everyday styling feel easier and more accessible, whatever look you're going for. To explore Wavy Talk, scan the QR code on your screen or click the link in the description. Speaker 3 (15:55) And at any point, I mean, you know, you hear these stories nowadays of people that are kidnapped by their captors and kind of fall for them or end up trusting them. Was there any bit of that with what you went through when you were younger? This man was my Speaker 1 (16:09) life. He convinced me that he was my real father, in fact. And that, you know, basically there's an excuse for why I, you know, look different than my parents might look because I look more like he does. And I'm just elaborating stories, but yeah, there's no way to not bond with somebody who's got that much leverage over your life. It's impossible. It's human psychology. That's unanimously what will happen when a person perceives themselves to be in a powerless or captive environment. You will bond to the perpetrator. And I 100 % did that. In fact, getting to the place in therapy in my early 20s to realize that maybe the things that he was doing was not out of love was one of the hardest things to get myself to. I remember just fighting like with the, this ritual trauma therapist, just fighting, you know, for the things that he's doing or loving, because that's of course the excuse they love to give, you know? Yeah. Speaker 3 (17:01) Yeah. I mean, I think people always wonder, you know, like somebody. recent would be like an Elizabeth Smart. It wasn't that recent, but people couldn't understand why she was in broad daylight walking around with her captor. And when she was finally caught, she wasn't like, it's me, Elizabeth Smart, get me out of here. It took her a while. And so therefore then I think people think that someone is lying about their experience. And I think in the absence of truth or understanding or just fear being present, people really make up all sorts of scenarios that are just not true. Speaker 1 (17:33) Yeah. Well, I mean, most people don't have a thorough understanding of psychology as it applies to situations like that, that they don't really want to accept happen in the first place, you know? Right. Speaker 3 (17:42) Right. Okay. So, so how, what point were you at where you were like, okay, I can take this experience and help other people. You started out with YouTube, right? Is that your first place that you went to sort of give some advice? Speaker 1 (17:58) Actually, I first started. With one-on-one sessions, that was kind of like me opening the door to being like, you know, maybe I'm going to use some of this stuff again instead of turn against it. Because, you know, mind you, all the abuse in my childhood essentially happened because of my ability. So I wanted nothing to do with this at all. So when I turned back in the direction of, okay, maybe I can't run away from myself the rest of my life, it was literally as simple as I'm going to see people in my house, like occasionally on certain days, and just kind of tell them what it is that I see. Speaker 3 (18:28) So I think a lot Speaker 1 (18:29) of people Speaker 3 (18:29) have questions, though, about you doing things like this, like a session or being the one to speak on such topics when you haven't had actual, you know, doctorates on the subject or, you know, you haven't gone to school for it, which, again, I can understand that train of thought. But as I listened more to you and watched more of your stuff, I realized, you know, there are people that go to school. for years, decades, and they have no life experience about what they're teaching. So, you know, who is to say who is the better teacher? Someone who's been through it, lived it, knows exactly what you're feeling going through and knows exactly how they got themselves out. Or someone who's been taught in a school and just read books and studied and got, you know, did well on a test. So, you know, so you started what in your early twenties, seeing people and giving them advice or how did that work? 26 about, Speaker 1 (19:20) yeah. Speaker 3 (19:22) And it made no difference that people weren't asking for credentials back then, I guess. Speaker 3 (19:29) No, Speaker 1 (19:30) I mean. The point at which somebody goes to the alternative route, usually everything has failed them already. Every doctor, every therapist, it's like they're literally in a place where they're like, you know what? At this point, I don't care what kind of needles I have to have put in my body, what type of alternative realities I have to consider. They're pretty desperate, right? No, I mean, I did not really run into that. It was just more people would sit down and be like, what do you see? And I'd tell them. It was shocking to me the amount of information that I had that I take for granted, which is the case when anybody has a serious gift, you know? It's this way when somebody's like incredible at organizing. They don't even usually consider it a gift. Then they go to somebody's house who has a terrible time organizing, and that person's like, whoa, a superpower. So I was no exception. I was telling like just sideways comments about the way the universe works, stuff that I took for granted to such an extreme degree. And they would be like, whoa, and life changing. The next week it would be a shift like you couldn't get in 20 years of therapy with somebody. And I'm like, okay, I am now not okay with the fact that this is where we are. And it's no longer okay for me that. The only people who will know this information are people who have X amount of, you know, 100 bucks to go see somebody in person. That's not the reality for a lot of people. So I started to have this