Original subtitles

♪♪

-Do you know what this is, Dominic?

You don't know what it is?

Does anybody know what it is? - No.

-This is what's left of my daughter.

This... This is the remains of my daughter.

She took her life.

I took her home in the hospital,

and she was just not much bigger than this box.

-Most people make the mistake of thinking

that just because you're here in life, you re committed to life.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

You're never gonna make the kind of life that you want to live,

unless you're willing to completely commit

to life itself,

the same way that your soul originally did

when you came to this life in the first place.

-Teal Swan is a Web-savvy self-help guru

with controversial ideas and an unlimited reach

to an audience desperate for answers.

-What suicide is, is pushing the "reset" button.

It's not a good or bad decision in and of itself.

♪♪

-As I'm watching Teal's YouTube videos,

I get the feeling that she truly gets something

at a higher plane than everyone else.

-Guess what?

There is no future.

We live in a universe

where all that exists is, in fact, the now.

-Teal's social media channels are her church.

♪♪

And salvation is always just one click away.

♪♪

-I thought, "What does this gorgeous woman know

anything about the truth of the universe?

I have to click on this."

-Now, for the first time in history,

anyone with a message to share

has a direct line into our homes.

♪♪

-They're taking advantage of every new advent of technology

in order to recruit people.

-But in this new age of unfiltered access,

what are the consequences?

-I actually, interestingly enough,

lost my first client to suicide this last year.

Interestingly enough, it took her about two days

before she was reincarnated again.

[ Laughter ]

♪♪

[ Siren wails ]

♪♪

-I first came across Teal Swan one night.

I was working on my master's degree

in mental health counseling.

I just hopped on over to YouTube,

like I would do sometimes to just check out random videos.

And on the sidebar, she was there.

-Hello, there, everyone.

Our bodies are more like ecosystems

than they are like organisms.

-I was completely transfixed, honestly.

Something about just listening to her speak

was kind of addictive, actually.

-Once you feel as if you have reached

a place of understanding with your heart,

take some time to express gratitude.

-Teal Swan's message is a mix of New Age healing,

occult mysticism, and non-religious spirituality...

-The way to purify your life

is to realize

that even though life is complicated,

it's actually very simple.

- delivered in short stream-of-consciousness sermons

that promise to unlock the secrets of health,

joy, and freedom.

-You wanted to hear more. You didn't want her to stop.

You just wanted her to keep talking.

When I would look at my phone and see a notification

that said "Teal Swan" anything, ooh, I had, like,

a million billion, you know, electrons

bursting through my body.

I was absolutely, completely hooked.

-Learning how to activate the third eye

is the key to experiencing higher, more multi-dimensional

aspects of consciousness.

-I met Teal for the first time

at this bookstore called The Cosmic Spiral.

She was wearing this all-red, flowing outfit

and had this long reddish-brown hair.

She seemed so poised and so confident...

almost magnetic.

She felt very powerful.

We became pretty much inseparable.

-The topic for today is: what is the purpose of life?

I'm going to start this lesson by drawing a diagram.

Now, here you are, in your physical self.

-I saw what she was capable of with her creativity.

So, once she got started on YouTube,

she started to amass this following.

-The Teal Tribe, as her devotees will come to be known,

is born in 2011,

when Teal's YouTube channel goes live.

[ Chime ]

Her videos quickly rack up millions of plays,

turning casual viewers into true believers overnight.

♪♪

-Hello, everyone.

Today, I'm going to teach you basic energy healing 101.

I could sweep the energy down, out her arm.

-Teal was mainly just talking about New Age theory.

She would talk about things like chakras and auras and...

Uh, and aliens.

-A self-labeled spiritual catalyst,

Teal claims her clairvoyant powers come from a past life...

on another planet.

-She had told me that she was

a being that was thousands of years old

that had come from a planet called Arcturus.

She was here to usher in this new age of humanity.

-I am non-physical energy that is perfect...

Projected forth into an Arcturian body.

Before I even came down,

there was an entire panel of beings...

Arcturian beings, six-dimensional beings...

Who even chose the way I would look in this life.

-In New Age circles, Arcturians are believed to be

multidimensional space travelers come to rid planet Earth

of the reptilian aliens enslaving humanity.

♪♪

The intergalactic origin story gives Teal mystical street cred,

but her followers are coming to her

for something much more human:

help to cope with the overwhelming effects

of emotional trauma.

-Most of my demographic,

they're people who have been failed

by the mainstream medical community,

they are people who have been failed by psychology,

they are the people who nobody has answers for.

[ Click ]

♪♪

-I grew up in

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,

otherwise known as Mormonism.

My thoughts and feelings that were inappropriate

were shoved down so deeply to be pure for the Lord

that I was just psycho.

Like, I don't know what else to say.

Like, I had so much self-hatred.

I was 27 when I tried to kill myself.

♪♪

I felt so much pain and anguish,

I just didn't know how to fix myself.

And that's when I found Teal Swan.

-If you are no longer in resistance to where you are,

which is lost,

then you will begin to allow yourself to be found.

-As I watched Teal's YouTube videos,

she sounded like she had the answers,

that she knew something I didn't...

and that she could help me.

-Pretty soon, you will find

that you have gone from lost to found.

Have a good week.

-Teal is a guru with magnetic appeal.

She's also a savvy businesswoman.

-Teal Swan is very gifted at recognizing

how to use content and meta content

to make sure that when somebody is struggling,

when they put something in that Google search bar,

it's likely to pull a Teal Swan video

or product that's related to that.

-Hello, everyone. In response to popular request,

I'm going to do today's video on obesity and weight gain.

Honestly, most pet ownership in the world today

is, in fact, slavery.

It's a trauma to be born

in our mainstream medical facilities today.

-Teal is selling her brand, and she's very good at it.

-If you liked this video,

be sure to share it, like it, and also subscribe to my channel

so you can see more content like this.

The truth is, I am very good at content.

What I create is content, and I am a leader.

-The interesting story here is not Teal Swan.

It's the algorithms that are driving people to Teal Swan.

That's where the real story is.

-Like most YouTubers, Teal Swan makes her money

from advertisers who pay per view.

But staying ahead of the competition

in a crowded web of wellness

means turning teachings into clickbait.

-What is suicide?

It's giving up completely on life.

So let yourself physically give up on life

by falling on the floor.

-And nothing sells better than the secrets of life and death.

-When you re on the floor, I want you to imagine dying.

Now here's the thing,

you've been loosely and mostly subconsciously

toying with the idea of suicide.

Imagine every grisly detail.

Imagine who is there, how they will react.

Become aware of the impact you wanted to have on other people

and why you want your suicide to have that impact.

♪♪

-When you tell vulnerable people

who have nothing to live for

that you have all the answers,

that suicide is a "reset" button,

then people will kill themselves.

She knows this, but she doesn't care.

-Death is always a choice.

♪♪

-Within months of starting out on YouTube,

Teal Swan's self-help videos

are connecting her with people all over the world.

-[ New Zealand accent ] I grew up in a large family.

-Among them is Yona Curtis.

-My parents were Pentecostal Christians,

and they were very involved in the church.

My parents believed pretty heavily in demons...

possessing people.

My dad would perform exorcisms.

They would command demons of alcoholism

or smoking or gambling out of people.

I suffered trauma when I was four.

Between four and five,

I was molested by a guy who used to... mow the lawn.

After that, I was pretty, um, reserved.

-By the time she is 18, Yona Curtis is married.

-My ex-husband was an extreme neo-Nazi white supremacist

and was fully immersed in the culture.

During our whole relationship,

he was extremely physically violent.

♪♪

It was when he tried to attack me in front of my son,

who was, like, four or five at the time,

and I went home and packed my bags and left.

After the separation,

I started to need to find some answers,

so I started investigating

different avenues of spiritual beliefs.

And so I...

ended up finding Teal online.

♪♪

-Hello, there, everyone.

Today I'm going to bring back a golden oldie

of spiritual practice.

-She was so confident, and she was charismatic.

It just seemed like...

here was this, you know, miracle of a person

who knew everything.

From then on, I kind of dove in headfirst.

-In 2011, Yona volunteers to manage

the private Teal Swan Facebook group,

where Teal's followers openly share their darkest thoughts.

-There was multiple comments and posts a day

from people who were suicidal,

people who were suffering from mental health issues,

people who were completely vulnerable

and felt isolated and alone

and wanting to be part of a community.

-Suicide is an action which is the byproduct

of the feeling of total powerlessness.

-The topic of suicide is a common subject

among the tribe.

♪♪

-You cannot say that suicide is wrong

without also saying that death is wrong.

-And discussing it is part of Teal Swan's therapy

for trauma victims.

-We shouldn't just assume that living is always right.

And there is no point, from a universal perspective...

There's no point really being on this planet

if we're going to be dragging ourselves

to be here all the time.

-The idea is to visualize death and embrace it

as a way to, paradoxically, reconnect with life.

-The minute that you realize what death is like,

it makes a lot of other things much worse than death.

-Teal says she developed her alternative methods

to overcome her own dark past.

-At the beginning of our newscast,

we introduced you to Teal Swan,

a young girl who grew up in Idaho

and says she escaped the abuse.

-She had been a part of a cult

from the time she was very young.

-Teal Swan says she endured 13 years of abuse

in the wilderness of Idaho.

-This man found her when she was about eight or nine.

He was a friend of her parents.

Eventually, he began abusing her ritualistically.

He was a member of a satanic cult.

-Life, according to Swan, consisted of abuse,

both physically and sexually, and murder.

It wasn't until a ritual deep in the woods

that she said she knew she had to run.

-I didn't know what to believe, really.

The things that she'd said about the abuse that she endured,

it didn't make sense to me, because it was so outlandish,

but at the same time,

I didn't want to disregard anything.

She was a victim.

-The Internet wellness guru now known as Teal Swan

is a former model named Mary Teal Bosworth,

who grew up in 1980s Utah at the epicenter

of a moral hysteria that's sweeping the nation.

-If there is ever...

If there is ever an appropriate case

for the death penalty in the state of Arkansas,

you've got it in your hands right now.

♪♪

-It's called satanic panic,

and it's got Teal Swan in its grip.

-[ Wailing ]

-The only way to rid oneself of carnal desires

is to release them fully.

-When Sheriff Robert Harris tracked a burglary suspect

to remote North Kaufman County,

he found this A-frame containing an altar,

walls covered with what seemed to be satanic symbols.

The suspect told the sheriff

about robed worshippers chanting in the night.

The sheriff says it coincided with nearby cattle mutilation.

-Fueled by the media,

the satanic panic sweeps across America in the 1980s.

-What is new is that law enforcement

is finally recognizing the telltale signs

that point to cult worship.

This week, each of 20 Kaufman County deputies

is attending an eight-hour course on cults

taught by Dallas County Sergeant Harry Johnson.

Johnson shows deputies typical cult markings.

-The hysteria gives rise to thousands of unverified reports

of ritual sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by satanists,

including the man who Teal Swan

claims drew her into a satanic cult

and regularly abused her as a child.

-After brief interviews with those children...

intake interviews... It became obvious

that these children knew

much more than they had initially said.

-At the heart of the satanic panic

is a fringe psychological theory

with a dubious but vocal champion, Barbara Snow.

-Barbara Snow was a therapist who was seeing children

and working with them,

supposedly to resolve their issues of abuse.

And she would suggest to these children

that, you know, there was some repressed memory,

that they were so traumatized they could not deal with,

that they needed to face.

-The children were familiar and were capable

of drawing all types of pentagrams and stars

and satanic symbols and crosses.

-Young Teal Swan is one of Snow's patients.

During their sessions, Teal allegedly uncovers

repressed memories of her time with the cult...

Memories that include a revelation so shocking,

she reports it to the police.

-How many children did you watch him kill?

-I can remember... Well, him specifically,

not the group... five.

-So, you physically watched him kill five?

- Yeah. - How many did the group...

did you witness? - [ Sighs ]

Probably seven over the course of my life, I think.

Yeah. - To my knowledge,

there is not one credible shred of evidence

of sustained satanic ritualistic abuse

in the United States of America.

-This is what caused controversy around Barbara Snow,

is that she would manipulate people to believe

that things had happened to them that never occurred.

-You can suggest things to people,

and they will mirror it back to you.

You can implant memories in people

of incredibly bizarre things that never happened.

-Did you ever doubt that maybe this is just some sort of...

nightmare that you had and you just relived it,

or do you ever doubt that this happened to you?

- No. - Ever?

- No. - When she made a police report,

it was not followed up on, because apparently

the police felt that there was no substance to it.

And eventually, authorities would find out

that these claims were false.

-Whether Teal's memories are real or imagined,

Barbara Snow is the inspiration for the rapid-fire

repression therapy that she now peddles to her tribe,

both online and in person.

-This is sort of simulating what I like to do when we're onstage

in the city.

I want you to be thinking about

how what she says applies to you.

♪♪

-The completion process is Teal's own branded process,

wherein she has designed a way

for people to take their childhood traumas

and then resolve them

in the space of an hour or two.

It's trauma-healing work, essentially.

I felt like, "I don't care what body part I have to sell,

I need to get to this training."

-What's the pain of having to commit?

-I feel like I'm going to make the wrong decision.

-And if you make the wrong decision?

-[ Sighs ]

It actually feels like... like

someone's dumping acid on my body.

-There were maybe 15 people, 18 people

that were being trained, as well,

and we're all in this very large living room space.

And at times there would be a second chair next to her,

which she called the "hot seat."

So, for her to practice on people,

she would bring them up into the hot seat.

-[ Sighs ]

-And I want you to affirm, "I choose this."

♪♪

-You had to really, like, say.

If you were raped, you had to say that.

If you were abused by an alcoholic parent,

you had to say that.

You really had to go to those dark places.

There was no question about it.

-[ Sobs ]

♪♪

-Repressed memory technique

is based on a false theoretic assumption

that people who are struggling with depression or anxiety

or are feeling out of sorts or who have trust issues

have those experiences because they were abused as children,

but their mind is protecting them

and repressing that memory.

There's a good chance, based on the research,

that in the process of helping them "uncover" this memory,

you're going to create a memory that's untrue,

that's complete fantasy, that's going to be traumatic.

It, in fact, instead of reducing trauma, creates trauma.

- Okay? - Yeah.

Thanks. - Thank you.

-[ Chuckles ]

[ Sighs ]

♪♪

-Leslie Wangsgaard was Teal's client.

She had very severe

mental health problems and depression,

and she would see her for one-to-one sessions

at Teal's home.

-Leslie's completion process sessions

continue for nearly two years.

In them, she uncovers memories of past abuse

using repressed memory techniques.

And by May of 2012,

Leslie is dead.

-[ Sighs ]

I actually, interestingly enough,

lost my first client to suicide this last year.

-John Wangsgaard, Leslie's husband,

discovered her... Her body, essentially.

-And this was a woman who was absolutely miserable.

I am talking, every moment of her life was a nightmare.

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."

-I think the first person he called was Teal.

He was screaming and crying, saying,

"She's gone. She's gone. Leslie's dead.

She's gone." He was screaming.

-And what's interesting is, when she asked herself that question,

the answer was, "No, I'm done."

-Hello, everyone. Welcome to podcast number 27.

Today, we're going to be talking about

pulling ourselves out of a negative spiral.

Teal, what is a negative spiral?

-[ Chuckles ]

I think a negative spiral is pretty self-explanatory.

It's just when... When it rains, it pours.

♪♪

-I was at a period in my life where I was lost.

I was looking for answers.

I was looking for guidance.

I looked at different speakers online,

and then I came across this very interesting

and mesmerizing young woman called Teal.

-During orgasm,

your awareness of your own identity or your own ego,

as they call it, is dissolved.

For this very reason, sex, and orgasm specifically,

has been used in spiritual practice

to attain enlightenment.

-By late 2013, Teal Swan is at peak influence,

with thousands of followers driving views

on her YouTube channel and across social media.

-Her first workshop in London had 450 people attending,

which was massive.

She just had this beauty and presence about her.

It was just incredible.

It really... I mean, it was just...

She was magnetic... Absolutely magnetic.

That was when I realized...

she's sort of seen as, like, this deity-type figure,

because it... it was beyond

just people that wanted to see her work.

They were looking to her for the answer.

They were looking to her to cure them, to heal them.

But she was almost like a Jesus-like figure to them.

-Sarbdeep Swan is so taken with Teal

that the two are married just four weeks after meeting.

-There was an energy between us. It was there.

I mean, it was undeniable.

-It was a union of spirit and of convenience.

-It was a brilliant marketing tool for her

to have someone with a British accent

but also with an Indian background.

It legitimized her in the New Age sort of community.

Hello, I'm Sarbdeep Swan. - And I'm Teal Swan.

-You're watching "Tea Time with Teal."

-Your spot for raw, spiritual conversation.

-And it was just bang, it was there.

When we worked together, we were in sync.

Today we're going to talk about

the importance of inner child work.

Everything was very new and very beautiful,

and it seemed to be working.

And... then very quickly, the mask started to slip.

-Weeks after their wedding, as Sarb is getting to know

his new wife and her online empire,

he discovers the chilling connection

between Teal's unconventional therapy

and Leslie Wangsgaard's suicide.

-I was seeing this woman named Leslie Wangsgaard.

I was doing what I normally do with people.

"Let's have awakening,

I'm going to give you some strategies."

-The more that people open up to Teal Swan

through the completion process,

the more she is able to manipulate them,

because she understands what their vulnerabilities are,

where their weaknesses are.

Having recovered all that information from these people,

she knows exactly how to control them.

-She was under the care of a psychiatrist and a psychologist.

She was on medication.

She was suicidally depressive and anxious.

I was helping her with my own methodologies...

Alternative methodologies for how to approach these issues.

What I noticed very quickly is that she wasn't applying them.

♪♪

-When Leslie hits a low point, one weekend in May 2012,

she reaches out for a lifeline.

But Teal is on vacation and unreachable.

-It was this horrible scenario for me,

where when I got back into cellphone range,

there was a series of messages.

One of her is being in distress,

one of her husband saying they really need to see me.

In the next one, her husband's screaming hysterically, crying,

saying that Leslie had killed herself.

[ Police radio chatter, sirens wailing ]

I went into a crisis about it.

"Oh, is it my fault because my phone was turned off?

I should have been there.

Why did she do it? Why wasn't it working?"

Everything. I went into a collapse for three days,

which is typical of the first time

you ever lose a client, basically.

I was in a total collapse about it and feeling guilty.

-But some inside the tribe report something different.

-After Leslie's death, the message didn't change.

She was still telling people suicide was a reset button,

and now she had a bigger audience.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

During this time, her fan base was growing,

her star currency was increasing,

she was doing big workshops,

and something in me just went, "Oh, [bleep]."

Something just clicked,

and I was like, "Oh, [bleep], I think I made a mistake."

-She is a tool that you can use to understand reality,

and she teaches you how to remember yourself.

-There was only one way where this is going.

You know, more danger, more deaths, more suicides,

more damage to mentally vulnerable people.

♪♪

-The amount of posts that where people were expressing

that they were feeling suicidal...

just seemed to skyrocket.

It went from one person probably two or three months,

which already is excessively high,

to two or three posts a day

where people were expressing

that they were feeling so desperate.

-I really want to commit suicide.

♪♪

I think I want to commit suicide.

[ Sobbing ]

♪♪

-I think, if you're honest with yourself,

sometimes when you live with somebody,

you don't always see the things that you should.

♪♪

I had no idea what she was looking at

and what she was doing online.

-In the winter of 2016,

Carrie and Michael Lazarz' teenage daughter, McKenzie,

is one of the youngest of Teal Swan's devoted followers.

-McKenzie was full of life.

♪♪

She just made your heart sing.

She was...

[ Whimpers ]

She was just a lovely kid.

-Like most Tealers, McKenzie discovers Teal's content

while searching YouTube for self-help.

She's emotionally distraught after a recent breakup

and plagued with suicidal thoughts.

♪♪

-She had told me that she was going to

go off and collect a check.

She stood in the doorway for a long time,

and that was just the excuse.

♪♪

When she was standing in the doorway,

she was saying goodbye.

I didn't... I didn't realize it.

♪♪

She got in my car and...

drove to a commercial building,

called 911...

and told them what she was going to do

and... went over and lay on a patch of grass

and took her life.

♪♪

-McKenzie is the second of Teal Swan's followers

to commit suicide in the space of just four years.

♪♪

-We have to decide

whether we're more committed to death

or more committed to life.

The reality is, if we're apathetic,

we're actually committing passive suicide.

-The question is to what extent did the people that died

that were involved with Teal Swan

accept this belief system,

and did that prompt them to kill themselves?

♪♪

-After McKenzie passed, I went on a rampage,

an all-out quest to try and connect the dots.

That's when I became and made aware of the Teal Tribe.

♪♪

Somebody had sent over the video

of Teal's prompting them

that if you don't like the life that you're living now,

that there's a reset button for a life somewhere else.

-As the Lazarzes dig deeper, they make a startling discovery

about McKenzie's secret online life.

-She messaged the group,

saying that she had contemplated suicide.

Nobody was calling McKenzie off the cliff

and saying, "Hey, I think we should stop this."

It was more of an atmosphere of, "Do it! Do it! Do it!"

♪♪

-As admins, we were given zero support.

People who were suffering with severe mental health issues

weren't encouraged to see doctors.

They were just directed back to her content.

♪♪

If you just understood what she was saying,

then you would get better.

♪♪

I think Teal is significantly responsible

for McKenzie's death.

Her opinions on suicide...

encouraged people to commit suicide.

-Inside Teal's inner circle,

the fallout is a wake-up call.

♪♪

-I believe I'd entered into a relationship

with a cult leader.

And when I realized what she actually was,

I decided to get out.

-Sarbdeep files for divorce

after just six months of marriage,

but Teal doesn't tolerate dissent in the tribe.

-So she tried to use all her psychological [Bleep] on me.

She tried to control the situation

by trying to convince me that I had been abused.

I had never been abused.

-It's a tactic she deploys

to any follower trying to break away.

-Teal talked a lot about repressed memories.

And eventually, one day,

she's like, "Okay, are you ready?

This is it. You re going to finally know about your life."

And so she had me lay down and just start saying

whatever came to my mind about my childhood.

And I created the most fanciful stories

of terror and murder and abuse, that I was, like,

a serial killer sent to kill her.

Like, she guided me to uncover these memories

and then, like, kicked me out.

-The fact that people are saying

that it's me causing them to commit suicide

or that I want that to happen is completely outrageous.

-And the last thing she told me...

is that, "If I were you, I would just go kill myself.

There's no help for you. There's nothing anyone can do."

♪♪

-By 2017, a year after McKenzie Lazarz' suicide,

Teal Swan is no longer just an online guru.

She's also operating a real-life wellness retreat in Costa Rica,

where programs cost $5,000 a week,

and the mounting pressure from law enforcement is a world away.

♪♪

Teal is now under a cease-and-desist order

from the state of Utah, cited for

practicing mental health therapy without a license.

-I have always been clear about this,

and I'll say it again now: I am not a doctor.

I am not a licensed therapist.

I'm not a psychologist.

What I am is a spiritual leader.

What I am is a revolutionary

in the field of personal development.

-Then, in 2019, an investigation by the BBC

and other news agencies suggests Teal might be

leading some of her followers to commit suicide.

The revelations spark a public firestorm.

-She's a liar, a deceiver.

-She had a patient kill herself.

-She's sharing information about narcissist abusers,

but she is a narcissist abuser.

-We can't let someone tell everybody

that suicide is a reasonable thing to do!

-And she is simply trying to make a buck.

-There was all this dysfunction going on,

and it was just... It was just growing

louder and louder and louder and louder.

♪♪

-In reaction, social media giant Facebook deplatforms her group.

-She realized very, very quickly

that she had to get hold of this situation,

because it was about to get out of her control,

and her career may go under.

-For the first time, Teal Swan is doing damage control.

-To be crystal clear, I'm against suicide.

When you're feeling depressed, when you're feeling panicked,

when you're feeling powerless, suicide is not the answer.

-Teal Swan takes down much of her controversial content.

♪♪

Her YouTube channel is now focused on anything but suicide.

♪♪

-It's best to eliminate your dependence

on your physical vision through these two eyes

when you're working to activate your third eye.

-A master communicator who understands how to

exploit the algorithms that spread her content,

Teal's wellness empire builds back stronger than ever,

despite the blowback.

-The reason I'm doing this video

is because there's a lot of rumors about her.

For example, some people say, like, she's a cult leader,

some people say she's an absolute fraud.

And my opinion is absolutely the opposite.

Her information is so empowering.

♪♪

-By the spring of 2021,

Teal is back on tour, holding completion therapy workshops

for her true believers.

-She's just helped me save my own life

and so many other people save their own lives.

-Honestly, I think she's so badass.

I just really... I really love everything

that I've seen online, all of her videos.

-Teal Swan has changed my life so much

that I don't think I can put it in words.

I think I would have killed myself by now

if it weren't for Teal Swan.

♪♪

-But for those left scarred by Teal's message,

her resurgence is something to be feared.

-Life is precious.

Life is not something that comes with a reset button,

where if you're not happy with the way that things are today

that you can just hit it and have a new tomorrow.

-People like Teal, she doesn't care about them.

They're just a resource. They're a market. That's all they are.

And as soon as she's used them, she'll move on to someone else.

-Teal now has nearly 1 million subscribers

on her YouTube channel,

and her videos have been viewed over 100 million times.

-She was too into her fame, the money, the power.

That was her focus,

and that was her goal, no matter what.

-What I want to do is to introduce media.

And I feel like it's a large majority of why

I even have a background in modeling,

why I love the camera,

why, you know, any of these things.

I want to introduce this type of media

where when people are watching it,

they're getting conscious.

-Yet Teal's sights remain set on expanding the tribe

and amplifying her message.

♪♪

-In the future, as you watch me transition

out of this big social platform, basically,

where I'm trying to get myself out and my messages out

to turn into a big entity, basically, within the world,

what I want to do with that, which is phase two,

which I'm most excited about,

is then create actual lasting change.

With the amount of fame, with the amount of money,

the amount of social pressure, the amount of contacts

that I have, what I want to do is

then take it and actually institute major changes

to the society that we're living in.

-How could you have people visualize...

their own suicide and death

and become okay with it...

without studying and learning of the ramifications

of saying such things?

-Anybody who's changing things within society

is going to put you in the position

to have to choose which side you're on.

One thing that I would wish is that people would stop

focusing so much on me and start focusing on the content.

-It's never her fault.

She acts as though it's never her fault,

whatever happens to somebody else.

Basically, people are there to support and adore

and give money to her.

And then whatever happens to you beyond that...

that's up to you to figure out.

-Either the content that I'm providing is good

and has value to you or it doesn't.

If it's good, use it.

If you don't like it, you have the power

to turn off your computer.

♪♪

-I think that if enough eyes

from enough people who are mentally healthy

see what she's up to,

and see the things that she's been saying,

her cancellation on social media is inevitable.

-I want you to ask yourself what you're really afraid of.

What is it about Teal Swan that scares you so much?

♪♪