All language subtitles for True.Believers.S01E04.720p.WEBRip.x264-BAE[eztv.re].en

♪♪

-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?

♪♪