Update: In Which Jess Calls Me Names (See Below)
First, a note on TEAL's moniker: I can't keep up. Teal Bosworth Scott Swan has simply changed her name too many times for me to keep updating and adapting. She now seems to be identifying as Teal Swan, but when she first married Sarbdeep Singh Swan, she announced that her professional name would be TEAL, in all caps. For a while she signed all her obnoxious self-quoting info-graphics that way. At some point, she changed that to Teal Swan, but I am past caring. Because I have no idea how many times her last name will change, I am sticking with her suggestion of a stand-alone first name. However, I refuse to do the all-caps thing all the time. It's annoying to keep cap-locking as I type a body of text, so what I have adopted instead is the use of her first name and in all one case. In titles and at the beginnings of sentences, that is all caps, and in other text, all lowercase. This also solves the problem of having her name constantly SHOUTED, as that is what all caps means in internet-speak. So, for the most part, she is now identified in most of my text as teal.
After I posted my first blog on then Teal Scott, which focused largely on her mistreatment of her ex-boyfriend Fallon, I learned of another member of her inner circle who was similarly targeted, scapegoated, and vilified. The name Cameron Clark came up repeatedly in comments. The Shadow House episode in which teal had subjected her to a range of verbal assaults had gone down the memory hole, but it was the stuff of legend. As she had done with Fallon, teal instigated a shaming and shunning among her followers that was gruesome. Anyone who defended Cameron also got scorched, in some cases directly by teal.
Some time later Cameron reached out to me and we discussed some of her teal related concerns privately. When she felt ready to break her public silence, she also made some comments on my blog, to the great relief of many people who had been very concerned for her well-being. I am thrilled that Cameron now feels ready to tell her whole story publicly. In the player above, she is interviewed at length by Jessica Schab.
It's a long conversation, over five hours, but for anyone who wants to know what life in teal's orbit is really about, it's worth taking the time to weed through it. For reasons that should be obvious, I do not agree with Jessica's framing. I don't think teal is emblematic of the new age, of non-traditional spirituality, or of any kind of religion. I think she falls firmly into the category of religious abusers.
That she abuses her authority was apparent to me when I read in her blog posts that she had erroneously diagnosed her own boyfriend as a psychopath, blurring the lines between lover and client, between uncredentialed healer and therapist, between reality and something else entirely.
In the time since writing that first post, I have learned that the problems with teal are far worse than I could have imagined. Much of that knowledge has come from former followers and acquaintances -- some, like Cameron, who've been on the inside track.
What Cameron describes is a life lived on a roller-coaster, rising and falling with the many moods of an emotionally unbalanced woman. She is capricious, manipulative, and sexually inappropriate, moving people around, by her own admission, like chess pieces. (See: Noncast: The Bottomless Rabbit Hole, page search: rabbit)
The most disturbing revelation comes toward the end of the first hour. At one point teal seemed to urge Cameron toward suicide.
It caught me off guard the first time I experienced one of Teal's borderline tirades where she flipped a switch and began berating me for all of my shortcomings a few weeks after I arrived in Utah. It started when she became extremely irritated with me and accused me of questioning her integrity, after she told me her cat Cosmos was actually a holographic soul projection from the planet Sirius, and that he had been talking to me and telling me that my blood sugar was off... I casually mentioned that I had just happened to read about blood sugar and it's effect on the body in the book called The Woman Code that she had coincidentally recommended I read just two days before. Despite my offhand manner, she claimed that I was "attacking her" and pled her case to Fallon, Graciela, and Flavia. I was dismayed by her reaction, but she claimed to have read my energy and accused me of energetically "throwing a dagger" and not trusting her. Then, in front of those guys, Teal immediately jumped to trying to convince me that I was suicidal (despite the fact that I wasn't and had never been suicidal before). I explained this,to her, and she went so far as to tell me that I was "passively suicidal" instead, and informed me that I was "uncommitted to life." She asked why I had never considered suicide before... I told her that despite the fact that she may believe that life is just an insignificant video game from "source perspective".... I happened to believe that suicide would hurt my family and I would never consider doing anything that selfish. Teal responded flippantly saying, "Hm, It's about time you were selfish, isn't it?"
Teal compared me to her client that she lost to suicide, and even went so far as to say that I looked like her. She went on to tell me among other things, that she could see my thoughts and my vibrations and that I was a match to breast cancer, and that I had stomach ulcers... This was news to me, as I had never had any symptoms. I am not someone who has ever easily let people hurt me, but by the end of her tirade, Teal finally had me in tears. Only Flavia who was extremely taken with Teal at the time, expressed that she thought Teal was being really hard on me. This didn't go over well, and the rest of the group remained silent. Teal told me to get in my car and drive to decide whether I was committed to life or not. Thank god by that time, I had the wherewithal to recognize that Teal was clinically insane, so I got in my car and drove to my apartment with the intention of packing up my things and moving back home to Washington. According to Fallon, Teal then became frantic and was in tears after I actually left and she had him call and text me asking if I was okay. I couldn't believe she had the audacity to believe that I would actually kill myself because she told me to. In hindsight, I do believe that someone who trusted Teal, was already depressed or suicidal, and was unaware of Teal's own mental instability may have fallen for her line of BS and decided to kill themselves. I would be shocked if Teal's client who killed herself (Teal referred to her as Leslie) knew of all of Teal's various mental problems at the time she was being "treated," and neither did Leslie's husband who repeatedly called to yell at Teal after he found his wife dead. I believe that Leslie's husband would’ve been able to take legal action against Teal if he had access to this information. [emphases mine]
The Leslie in question was a woman I had hoped, when I wrote this post, was a fiction. I was saddened to learn that a client of teal's had, indeed, committed suicide. As I wrote then, I found it disturbing that, not only did teal appear to know her client was suicidal, she seems to be the one who suggested the idea. This is how teal recounted her sessions with this client:
And so we had that very serious sit-down talk where we had to say, alright, we're either committing or not committing to life because every time I gave her a suggestion she'd stop in two days doing the suggestion. [emphasis mine] So then we have to ask the question do we really want this to work. And what's interesting is that when she asked herself that question the answer was, "No. I'm done." There's nothing that any healer could ever do for that type of vibration which is totally fine. From source energy there's nothing wrong with death from that perspective. So, she chose to commit suicide.
Note that in both of these cases, teal apparently phrased things in terms of their needing to decide whether or not they were "committing" to life. Also, in both cases, the issue seems to have come up around teal's frustration with people not doing what she wanted them to do. They were both being difficult. A while ago teal's not psychopathic ex-boyfriend Fallon wrote a blog post entitled "After living in two cults." He has since removed it, but in it he had also claimed that teal had urged him to kill himself, and again, it was because he was being difficult.
In the alien cult, the matriarch tried everything and nothing worked for me!! NOTHING!!! She eventually told me that there was no hope for me and that I should go and kill myself. (Man, that girl was hurting)
So, among the things this self-described Spiritual Catalyst is catalyzing is suicidal ideation. And at least one former client is dead.
Also quite alarming, a mere six days after this poor woman killed herself, teal posted this video.
Here she elaborates on the idea that suicide is a valid, if less than optimal choice. She thinks it's unfortunate that we have so many judgments around suicide and explains in her typically ahistorical fashion that it's because of a control agenda on the part of the early Christian Church. Suicide is simply a product of an incomplete "expansion" process and opportunity to press a "reset button." The video contains such gems as an explanation of how it's perfectly normal for the bereaved to feel a sense of relief because suicidal people are so negative and burdensome.
Absent from her description is any advice on how to respond proactively if you suspect someone is suicidal. When someone is feeling suicidal -- which is apparently something she feels the need to inform some people of because it can be subconscious or "passive" -- her approach is to force a decision on whether or not that person is committed to life. If they choose not commit to life, well, there's "nothing that any healer could ever do" to prevent that suicide. That someone who is supposedly in the business of helping people is that ready to accept their "choice" to off themselves is disturbing on many levels.
Do I even need to point out that teal is exactly wrong on this issue? That many suicides are prevented by suicide hotlines, therapeutic intervention, and simple human kindness? For instance, there's this fellow in Australia who has reportedly prevented 160 suicidal leaps near his rather auspiciously placed home.
Don Ritchie lives across the street from the most famous suicide spot in Australia: A cliff known as "The Gap." Most people would move, but Ritchie's stayed for almost 50 years—saving an estimated 160 people from suicide.So what's his big secret? Ritchie wakes up every morning and looks out the window for "anyone standing alone too close to the precipice." If he sees someone who looks like they might be contemplating a jump, he walks over and... strikes up a conversation.
My husband tells me that in two suicide prevention courses he's had to take in the Marine Corps, they advised people to acknowledge each other in passing and say hello. They cited the case of a Marine who was headed back to his room intending to eat his gun, but who was prevented by just such an act of basic courtesy. Yes, just smiling at a suicidal person and acknowledging their humanity can prevent suicide. Think about that for a moment. Random strangers can prevent suicide by saying hello, but the Spiritual Catalyst doesn't think there's anything anyone can do when someone says they can't "commit" to life.
This at best passive endorsement of suicide as a solution becomes even more concerning when you consider that she has at least twice delivered convoluted apologia for Jim Jones. (See: Noncast: The Bottomless Rabbit Hole, page search: rabbit)
A little before the midway point of the fifth video in the interview, Cameron and Jessica discuss teal's strange fondness for villains and despots. She has also crafted apologetics for Hitler and for the "virgin killer" Elliot Rodger. As per Cameron, she is deeply fascinated with Hitler and views him as a catalyst for positive change. Some of her Hitler commentary gets even stranger as discussed here. (See: Noncast: Messiah Complex, page search: hitler)
Her passionate justification for Elliot Rodger was also deeply concerning. According to teal, anyone who'd lived the life he had would have gone on a killing spree. To arrive at this conclusion, she completely rescripted his life story, shifting all blame to his parents, well, except for the blame that she shifted to his victims. (See: Noncast: Sympathy for the Devil, page search: devil)
What has emerged as a theme is that she doesn't believe that there's such a thing as an evil or malevolent intention. She has repeatedly tealsplained that evil acts are misguided attempts to feel good. The pursuit of personal pleasure, in teal's mind, is always positive. It is a thoroughly narcissistic construction, justifying such things as rape, thrill-killings, massacres, and genocide.
As for the victims of such actions, well, you can't protect them from the law of attraction, says teal. It's all good because they learn important lessons.
What also becomes abundantly clear from Cameron's recounting is that teal's pursuit of personal pleasure is relentless and injurious to other people. This is a woman who has publicly stated and then self-quoted the following:
If we fear manipulative people, it is only because we do not realize that every being on this earth (including ourselves) is manipulative. Manipulation is not evil. It does not mean that someone intends to hurt or use other people for their own benefit. So what does it mean to be manipulative? To be manipulative is to speak and act in a way that guarantees that we get the response we want to get from other people. So you see, manipulation is how most of us try to get love. Manipulation is how most of us try to get safety… because we do not trust the world to be kind to us. Everyone is manipulative, we are simply more or less aware of that aspect within ourselves.
In short, she is relentlessly and unapologetically manipulative.
In my first post on teal, I stated concerns, my own and those of others, that teal used sex to manipulate viewers of her videos. What I did not and could not know then was the extent to which she sexually manipulates everyone around her. She has alluded to inappropriate sexual contact with clients during sessions. She uses sex to control both the men and women around her. Starting at around minute 17:00 in the the third video, Cameron talks about teal's sexual aggressiveness, which ranged from innuendo to direct sexual come-ons.
Tellingly, she had told Cameron at one point that she didn't understand why straight women would even want to be her friend. That she seems to see her entire value to other people as sexual is very sad. But it also raises deep concerns due to her position of authority as a self described "leader of the New Age." She doesn't seem to be comfortable with people who don't desire her sexually. Ultimately this may have been one of the factors in her turning so viciously on Cameron. Cameron just wasn't into her.
The salacious aspects of this aside, this part of the interview is must listening. That teal finds herself at odds with straight women is deeply troubling. She characterizes them as jealous of her, out to sabotage her, and as inevitable betrayers. That this plays into sexist tropes of women as petty, jealous, and back-biting is disturbing enough. Goodness knows that attitude is pervasive among her supporters, who go out of their way to tell me how jealous I must be of the beautiful and talented teal. Women just can't be critical of other women for real, substantive reasons now can they. Bitches just be shallow. But more than that, it demonstrates something that should come as no surprise -- that teal doesn't trust people she doesn't think she can manipulate.
In addition to leveraging her sex appeal, teal manipulates with constant self-focused drama. She is in constant pain as a result of her alleged Mormon Satanic Ritual Abuse. This includes a seizure disorder that somehow doesn't prevent her from holding a license and driving her car.
It is also evident from Cameron's recollections that teal plays people against each other. She uses her claimed psychic abilities to tell people what their connections are to each other and to her. Early in the second video Cameron relates how teal informed her that she had been abducted by Fallon in his alien form. Fallon, you see, is really a rogue reptilian who is acting as a kind of self-appointed emissary on behalf of humans. Of course, to prevent future abductions -- of which Cameron was informed she had suffered many -- she needed to help teal complete her mission. All of teal's inner circle were bound to teal by such agreements in their various roles assigned by a galactic counsel.
What is interesting about this maneuver is that it simultaneously binds Cameron and Fallon and places a wedge between them. Who can ever be really comfortable around someone with whom there is such violent history?
I have never called teal's organization a cult. I have characterized it as cultish and noted that there a number of cult-like indicators. But I find it interesting that at least two former insiders have called it a cult. They have said that they were brainwashed, controlled, deprived of sleep, had lost their sense of identity, experienced personality changes, and were implanted with false memories.
A bit under the halfway point in the second video, Cameron talks about how teal wound Fallon up to the point that he wanted to hunt down and kill teal's alleged abuser. She observed that teal's eyes lit up at the idea. Fallon himself alluded to this in a comment on my blog, admitting that he was so turned around when he was with her that he would have killed for her. As noted here, teal loves her knights in shining armor and frequently dog-whistles to prospective rescuers to rush to her defense. (See: Noncast: Chasing and Burning, page search: chasing)
If there is one thing teal is good at, it's speaking directly to the darkness in men's souls. Her growing obsession with her absolutely distorted version of shadow work, or what she calls Spirituality 2.0, is a cause for growing concern. As discussed here, this is neither shadow work nor healthy. It's a witch-hunt through the psyche that is potentially really damaging. (See: Noncast: What's the Point of 3, page search: 3.0)
At every turn, something darker and stranger seems to emerge with this woman. Early in the fourth video, Cameron and Jessica discuss her bizarre use of the Necronomicon symbol in one of her paintings. Of course teal's penchant for plagiarism is something that we have discussed ad nauseum in the comments, but this bit of image pilfering is completely bizarre. As I learned from a helpful commenter a while back, her Soul Retrieval painting also contains a Reiki symbol that is used to amplify energy. Why would paintings that are supposed to convey the way she sees energy patterns include existing symbols? And what on earth could the Necronomicon have to do with shamanic soul retrieval? Does she think people need to retrieve Lovecraftian demons? That would be the stuff of nightmares! H.P. Lovecraft, for the uninitiated, was a horror writer. The Necronomicon is a fictional book that he alluded to in his stories. The symbol comes from one of three attempts to turn this literary in-joke into a cash cow, by penning an actual book.
But there it is -- this quasi-demonic image in one of teal's "frequency paintings." It is strange, even comical, but just a little chilling.
I don't know how anyone can listen to even a little of this interview and not have grave concerns about where this is all going. Near the end of the fifth video, they discuss some of teal's grand visions for the future. She intends to buy up entire countries. It is hard to imagine what someone with teal's evident psychological problems might do with that much power. As discussed, we can take some comfort from the fact that it is a fantastical notion from someone with a child's grasp of finance and geopolitics. (See: Noncast: The Bottomless Rabbit Hole, page search: rabbit)
The unlikelihood aside, that teal is hatching such megalomaniacal schemes is profoundly concerning -- more so because of her penchant for absolving Hitler and Jim Jones of any responsibility for historic atrocities. She would tell you that buying countries is part of her special Arcturian mission to reach people all over the world and affect some expansive vision to improve our troubled world. But teal thinks Hitler was one of the greatest change agents in history -- no one thought about world peace before all that nasty business with the Holocaust. Okay, history is not her long suit.
So what exactly is this mission the galactic counsel sent her here for? What does an Arcturian Eucharist actually do? Does she intend to further our "expansion" by engendering still more conflict, division, and drama? Or could it potentially be far worse? None of it looks like a unifying or peaceful vision.
A complete transcript of Cameron and Jessica's conversation can be found here or here. For more information and supplemental documentation, see this page.
Update: September 6, 2015
I am, for the second time, updating the link for the transcript of Jessica's conversation with Cameron. I'm still not clear on what's going on or how this will all shake out, so I'm posting two and hoping at least one will continue to work on into the future. Unfortunately, there seems to be a bit of drama associated with all this which should be clear from the text on this version of the transcript. It reads in part:
Note: The interviewer [sic] is from a private conversation between Jessica and Cameron, and was stolen by guruethics who do not act in good faith or credibility to work with after Jessica refused to work with them when finding out that guruethics in fact have no ethics since they stole this material with out [sic] Jessica’s permission or giving her credit. It is clear that guruethics does not know what they are talking about, they are not legit and they are doing great harm to people who have suffered from cults. guruethics [sic] and a woo woo so called ‘psychic’ quack who refuses to claim any sort of responsibility for the irrational, delusional, mumbo jumbo she is spreading to fragile minds, [sic] she does not care who she hurts as long as she is the one to have the main scoop on teal as its [sic] her ticket to fame. This woman I am talking about is named La Vaughn of celestial reflections/confabulations. Her [sic] and guru-no-ethics were so petty and threatened by jessica, Diego and their EOF project that they even made an attempt to discredit them by doing an internet radio interview with sacredradio spreading lies...
I'm not working for Ethics and the Modern Guru, nor have I done a radio interview with them. I believe the interview in question is this one. Any fool can hear that I'm not involved in this discussion. I did listen to the interview. Does that count?
I know some members of the Guruethics team. I am on friendly terms with them. But, I have done no writing or interviews for the magazine.
I have spoken to some of them to find out what in the heck is going on with this bizarre attack that, for no good reason I can think of has, also includes my name. This is what I have been told.
Guruethics did not "steal" the interview. Jessica removed the interview from her site. This was observed by one of the reporters from the magazine on July 30. And, yes, the interview was removed. I was ultimately alerted to the problem and updated the link on this post to reflect the new url for the interview.
The original link downloaded a Word document, not a pdf. I still have it. That much is clear from an older version of this page taken from the Internet Archive. In the last paragraph, the hypertext link that says "this link" points to this url.
Funnily, by pressing that link, I accidentally downloaded another copy of the original Word doc of the interview. However, if you remove the web archive prefix, and use the original link, you get a 404, because the document was, indeed removed.
The magazine needed the interview as a reference, so Cameron re-edited it from her own copy to remove Jessica's text and "scrubbed" all references to the EOF. Jessica was notified to that effect on August 2.
This new version was posted on the Guruethics site to provide context and some references for their upcoming issue on August 2.
I was tagged into a Facebook post on the evening of August 2 when it was posted. I remember being very confused and wondering why so much of it sounded familiar, but it was eventually explained to me that Jessica had removed the original and that this was a re-edit.
If you look at the post itself, its clear that it was posted on August 2.
At some point, however, Jessica and/or Diego apparently got into their time machine and went back to July 29 to post a new version of the interview headed by this screed.
Confused yet? I know I am.
Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.
