Crossposting from Andey Fellowes
In her recent video “Spirituality in The Information Age”, Teal embarks on a long and veiled rant on how she hates when spiritual seekers “teacher hop” - effectively, pick and choose who’s advice they listen to. She also goes hard on the idea that people listen to spiritual teachers, ingest all the information they can and then go off and teach for themselves. Something which, according to Teal, makes her jealous of what it used to be like a thousand years ago, when students were committed to their one teacher, following their every word – hanging on their every word.
From the outside, this might seem like the innocent frustrations of a spiritual teacher trying to help their followers stick to the right path. But, when you study Teal’s behaviour going back to the beginning of her career and before and when you look into the kinds of things that have been going on around her recently, you start to get a clearer picture.
There’s a lot in this video that I want to unpack but I don’t think it’s necessary to go over every single point to show you what I got from it. But please, take everything I’m saying with a pinch of salt and do your own research – draw your own conclusions. I’ll attach links to useful resources to the blog post associated with this video/podcast.
So, first, some backstory. Many people, including myself, have listened to Teal in the past and then, through an understanding of her philosophy, felt empowered to try and teach for ourselves. Teal’s recent ex, Ale, is one such person. He’s begun to position himself as a spiritual teacher and for a time, reportedly, used Teal’s platform to siphon followers from her.
Alluding to this, Teal does a condescending impersonation of someone who might “teacher hop” because they “just want comfort,” where she says, in a strange and insidious tone, “Make me feel good. If you don’t make me feel good then I’m going to abandon you as a follower. Not only that, I might actually turn against you.” She then winks.
The first half of this video is what it says on the tin. A brief and flippant conversation riddled with inaccurate claims about the so-called “information age”. The second is a long and clearly rattled monologue that, in no small way, highlights Teal’s frustrations that the days of information-control in a behind-closed-doors cult-like situation are long gone. Makes me wonder why she got that retreat centre in Costa Rica.
Several times in this video, she claims that she is an authority. The way she does it, seems insecure to me. It makes me wonder if her confidence is shaking. It makes me wonder if, as she’s saying things she thinks are valid, are true, are necessary, that what she’s really doing is accidentally exposing herself. Accidentally revealing how defensive she’s feeling. Accidentally revealing how afraid she is that what she’s building will crumble before she’s done with it.
She goes on then to accuse the kinds of people that follow her of being lazy. And then says that these people have zero loyalty to a specific practice, spiritual path and zero loyalty to a specific teacher. I hope I’m not straw-manning her when I’m saying these things. It did seem to me like all of this is what she meant in the video. If you’re not sure and want to see it for yourself, she hasn’t used anything intended to hypnotise this time, as far as I know.
She quickly anticipates the kind of response I’m giving now then makes the case for mastery though I’d dispute whether following Teal will lead to mastery of anything. I mean, looking at the track record of Teal Tribe members going back to when I was one, people seem to have either stagnated in their lives or left. And, what is she even saying people will master? Her way of thinking? Their emotions? Their reality? I don’t know, sounds really flimsy to me.
She makes a comment about looking like a narcissist a few seconds later which I’m going to just skip over. I don’t really want to attack her personally or use NPD to slander, despite how it does look like Teal may have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That said, despite speaking about being a ‘social media star’ as if it’s a burden and a necessary but ultimately undesirable part of what she does, she seems very excited about it all. Again, I don’t want to attack her personally so I’m just going to leave that there and focus more on what she’s actually saying.
Then a weird meta moment happens. Teal calls out her ‘hater’s. She says that, these days, all you have to do to make a name for yourself is to pit yourself against someone who people care about. I mean, to be fair, that’s true. I have uploaded a few videos targetting what she’s saying, targetting what she’s doing. I get that that is a thing people do. The thing is, ultimately, if someone hears what I’m saying from another source – if they hear what I want to put across from somewhere else – fine. I don’t care.
Really, if Teal wasn’t doing half the stuff she’s doing – if she wasn’t causing the harm she’s causing – I wouldn’t be making videos like that. I’d be talking about atheism and sexuality, which I will be doing. It’s just that, at the moment, this topic’s really got me because I’m seeing that there’s people suffering. I’m seeing that there’s people going through awful things. And she’s sitting there reveling in it, in a sense. And it does bother me, so that’s why I want to make videos like this.
It’s not really about making a name for yourself by pitting yourself against someone people care about as much as it is talking about something you care about. Something you see vulnerable people at a loss because of – people suffering because of.
She says that there’s less to do about these slanderous campaigns than people would hope because you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Well, isn’t that the truth.
Then, when Teal starts referencing hate groups, the video flashes up a picture of a certain racist group dressed head-to-toe in white. I saw that and I was like, “No way is Teal likening herself to innocent African Americans targeted by violent racists.” I don’t even know where to start with this. It’s ridiculous, disrespectful, insensitive.
We’re not talking about an entire portion of a country’s population here. We’re talking about a self-acclaimed “authority” who is happy to make claims she can’t substantiate, belittle and talk down her followers, advocate for suicide and then wash her hands of the people who end up dead because of her terrible advice. Not the same. Unbelievable. And it trivialises the suffering of countless innocent, decent people the world over as well.
But, you know what? Watching this video, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching a person unravel. I couldn’t help but feel like I was witnessing a person watching people in the thousands turn away. It almost felt like watching Regina George gluing Lindsay Lohan’s picture into her Burn Book.
I don’t know, I feel like we might be watching Teal’s undoing. It seems like she’s trying to face things head on but it’s unintentionally telling, I think. Whether she likes it or not, Teal is showing clears signs of grasping at a need for control, a need to listened to, a need to be followed to the last, a need to be cared about above all others. And videos like this make that fact glaringly obvious.
Thanks for reading.
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In her recent video “Spirituality in The Information Age”, Teal embarks on a long and veiled rant on how she hates when spiritual seekers “teacher hop” - effectively, pick and choose who’s advice they listen to. She also goes hard on the idea that people listen to spiritual teachers, ingest all the information they can and then go off and teach for themselves. Something which, according to Teal, makes her jealous of what it used to be like a thousand years ago, when students were committed to their one teacher, following their every word – hanging on their every word.
From the outside, this might seem like the innocent frustrations of a spiritual teacher trying to help their followers stick to the right path. But, when you study Teal’s behaviour going back to the beginning of her career and before and when you look into the kinds of things that have been going on around her recently, you start to get a clearer picture.
There’s a lot in this video that I want to unpack but I don’t think it’s necessary to go over every single point to show you what I got from it. But please, take everything I’m saying with a pinch of salt and do your own research – draw your own conclusions. I’ll attach links to useful resources to the blog post associated with this video/podcast.
So, first, some backstory. Many people, including myself, have listened to Teal in the past and then, through an understanding of her philosophy, felt empowered to try and teach for ourselves. Teal’s recent ex, Ale, is one such person. He’s begun to position himself as a spiritual teacher and for a time, reportedly, used Teal’s platform to siphon followers from her.
Alluding to this, Teal does a condescending impersonation of someone who might “teacher hop” because they “just want comfort,” where she says, in a strange and insidious tone, “Make me feel good. If you don’t make me feel good then I’m going to abandon you as a follower. Not only that, I might actually turn against you.” She then winks.
The first half of this video is what it says on the tin. A brief and flippant conversation riddled with inaccurate claims about the so-called “information age”. The second is a long and clearly rattled monologue that, in no small way, highlights Teal’s frustrations that the days of information-control in a behind-closed-doors cult-like situation are long gone. Makes me wonder why she got that retreat centre in Costa Rica.
Several times in this video, she claims that she is an authority. The way she does it, seems insecure to me. It makes me wonder if her confidence is shaking. It makes me wonder if, as she’s saying things she thinks are valid, are true, are necessary, that what she’s really doing is accidentally exposing herself. Accidentally revealing how defensive she’s feeling. Accidentally revealing how afraid she is that what she’s building will crumble before she’s done with it.
She goes on then to accuse the kinds of people that follow her of being lazy. And then says that these people have zero loyalty to a specific practice, spiritual path and zero loyalty to a specific teacher. I hope I’m not straw-manning her when I’m saying these things. It did seem to me like all of this is what she meant in the video. If you’re not sure and want to see it for yourself, she hasn’t used anything intended to hypnotise this time, as far as I know.
She quickly anticipates the kind of response I’m giving now then makes the case for mastery though I’d dispute whether following Teal will lead to mastery of anything. I mean, looking at the track record of Teal Tribe members going back to when I was one, people seem to have either stagnated in their lives or left. And, what is she even saying people will master? Her way of thinking? Their emotions? Their reality? I don’t know, sounds really flimsy to me.
She makes a comment about looking like a narcissist a few seconds later which I’m going to just skip over. I don’t really want to attack her personally or use NPD to slander, despite how it does look like Teal may have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That said, despite speaking about being a ‘social media star’ as if it’s a burden and a necessary but ultimately undesirable part of what she does, she seems very excited about it all. Again, I don’t want to attack her personally so I’m just going to leave that there and focus more on what she’s actually saying.
Then a weird meta moment happens. Teal calls out her ‘hater’s. She says that, these days, all you have to do to make a name for yourself is to pit yourself against someone who people care about. I mean, to be fair, that’s true. I have uploaded a few videos targetting what she’s saying, targetting what she’s doing. I get that that is a thing people do. The thing is, ultimately, if someone hears what I’m saying from another source – if they hear what I want to put across from somewhere else – fine. I don’t care.
Really, if Teal wasn’t doing half the stuff she’s doing – if she wasn’t causing the harm she’s causing – I wouldn’t be making videos like that. I’d be talking about atheism and sexuality, which I will be doing. It’s just that, at the moment, this topic’s really got me because I’m seeing that there’s people suffering. I’m seeing that there’s people going through awful things. And she’s sitting there reveling in it, in a sense. And it does bother me, so that’s why I want to make videos like this.
It’s not really about making a name for yourself by pitting yourself against someone people care about as much as it is talking about something you care about. Something you see vulnerable people at a loss because of – people suffering because of.
She says that there’s less to do about these slanderous campaigns than people would hope because you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Well, isn’t that the truth.
Then, when Teal starts referencing hate groups, the video flashes up a picture of a certain racist group dressed head-to-toe in white. I saw that and I was like, “No way is Teal likening herself to innocent African Americans targeted by violent racists.” I don’t even know where to start with this. It’s ridiculous, disrespectful, insensitive.
We’re not talking about an entire portion of a country’s population here. We’re talking about a self-acclaimed “authority” who is happy to make claims she can’t substantiate, belittle and talk down her followers, advocate for suicide and then wash her hands of the people who end up dead because of her terrible advice. Not the same. Unbelievable. And it trivialises the suffering of countless innocent, decent people the world over as well.
But, you know what? Watching this video, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching a person unravel. I couldn’t help but feel like I was witnessing a person watching people in the thousands turn away. It almost felt like watching Regina George gluing Lindsay Lohan’s picture into her Burn Book.
I don’t know, I feel like we might be watching Teal’s undoing. It seems like she’s trying to face things head on but it’s unintentionally telling, I think. Whether she likes it or not, Teal is showing clears signs of grasping at a need for control, a need to listened to, a need to be followed to the last, a need to be cared about above all others. And videos like this make that fact glaringly obvious.
Thanks for reading.
