0:00

Hello, conspiratoriality listeners. It's

0:02

Matthew here. This is a special

0:04

unlocked episode from our Patreon

0:07

early access Swan Song series.

0:10

We'll be dropping these periodically into

0:12

our main feed. Thanks so

0:14

much for your support.

0:17

Welcome to an episode of a concert

0:19

reality podcast bonus collection.

0:21

The Swan Song series, a tour

0:24

through the pair paradoxes of teal swan,

0:26

an influencer who embodies the

0:29

tangled history and whiplash contradictions

0:31

of our beat. This collection

0:34

will be accessible first through our Patreon

0:36

feed, but we will release each

0:38

episode to the public over time.

0:40

our regular feed in addition to our Thursday

0:43

episodes. Topics will

0:45

revolve around the method, the myth,

0:47

the impacts and implications of one of

0:49

the most unsung settling and spirituality figures

0:52

alive. Content warnings

0:54

always apply for this material. Themes

0:57

include suicide and child

0:59

sexual abuse. To

1:01

our Patreon subscribers, thank

1:03

you for helping keep our platform ad

1:05

free and editorially independent. And

1:08

to everyone else, thanks for listening,

1:10

including followers of teal swan.

1:13

We hope this is all useful to you as

1:15

you consider your relationship to teal

1:18

story and influence.

1:22

Hello listeners. Welcome to installment

1:24

three of the Swan Song series. This one

1:26

is called listening to Teals mom

1:29

and dad. Hey, Julian. What's

1:31

going on?

1:32

Oh, you know, Matthew, just another day of

1:34

reading, writing, and talking about the cultural

1:36

impact of these amazing

1:39

fantasies about how the devil works in

1:41

the real world. I have to say,

1:43

you know, most of what we're talking about in this series,

1:46

it's not really news to me, but digging

1:48

into the history, the details, and then

1:50

sort of seeing the connective tissue between

1:53

all of these stories. It's it's still just

1:55

kinda wild in terms of this perennial preoccupation

1:59

with with how

2:01

Satan is behind everything

2:03

bad. Yeah. It's not

2:05

news to me either, but I am

2:07

having this feeling of coherence

2:10

beginning to dawn, which there

2:12

are positive aspects too.

2:15

Things are seemed to be moving inside me from

2:18

what the fuck was that to, oh,

2:20

so that's what happened. Anyway,

2:23

last time on the song song series,

2:26

we discussed Open Shadow by

2:28

Palomarino, and we

2:30

rolled an interview that I did with her. in

2:32

that interview, I asked about the bonus footage

2:34

from her sit down with the Bosworth's

2:36

Tiersdorf's parents. And

2:38

I think that that is some of

2:40

the most valuable material that has

2:42

emerged from that project

2:46

given that they haven't spoken to anyone else.

2:49

and given that I'm not sure that they will.

2:51

I just think it adds a lot of depth

2:54

to the whole Swan landscape, particularly

2:57

because its parents speaking

2:59

vulnerability and transparently about

3:01

their baffling child, which

3:03

means that we can really lean

3:05

into this almost primal stuff

3:07

that preexists the more clinical,

3:09

political, and and charged questions

3:12

about whether she's running a cult, whether she's

3:14

encouraging suicide, and so on.

3:16

But I have a question for you

3:19

to start, which is

3:21

with the Bosworth interview, we

3:23

have something really unique. I

3:26

can't think of another instance in which we have the parents

3:28

of one of our subjects on record about their origins.

3:31

And I think it exists because as

3:34

Paula mentioned, she presented an open

3:36

and neutral space for them to speak. Now,

3:39

before you even hear their voices and

3:41

what they have to say, Julian, and

3:43

speaking as a parent, I'm a parent

3:46

too, can you imagine

3:48

yourself in this very strange

3:50

position? Yeah. It's a

3:52

it's a weird position to

3:54

be in, right? Because you're sort of reflecting,

3:57

I would imagine, as

3:59

Teal's

3:59

parents I would

4:02

I

4:02

would be reflecting back

4:05

a decade or two on

4:07

sort of impressions of a

4:10

of a complex an unusual

4:12

child who had struggled

4:15

a lot and who also was

4:17

obviously gifted and

4:20

sort of just trying

4:22

to piece together an

4:25

understanding of who they

4:27

were then and how that serves

4:29

as sort of a a prologue

4:32

to to who they are now. It's

4:36

it's not it's an inexact

4:38

science, shall we say. Right? Yeah. You

4:41

know, and I'm as I'm listening to you, I'm realizing

4:43

that we often focus upon childhood

4:46

memories or at least we have through this particular

4:48

context. But I'm

4:50

realizing now that parental

4:53

memory is very similar actually,

4:56

that there are all kinds

4:58

of instances that

5:00

I recognize and I

5:02

remember from my own parenting life,

5:04

but it's by no means complete. It

5:07

seems very watery in fact. And

5:11

it just makes me reflect upon the fact

5:13

that it seems that we are also

5:18

In a way, we are reconstructing

5:20

our own histories of parenting

5:23

as we go. Of course. Of course. And

5:25

it's also, I mean, I on this a lot because, you

5:27

know, my my daughter's a lot younger than your

5:29

boys are. And so we're we're in

5:31

that place that I know you will recognize where

5:34

so much is happening every month,

5:36

sometimes every week, and

5:39

very often we turn around my wife and I

5:41

look at each other and say, wow, you know,

5:43

she was in this phase just a couple months

5:45

ago, but it seems so long ago now, or this

5:47

thing that happened was so long

5:49

ago, but it still feels really recent. And

5:52

and also those moments when talking to other

5:54

parents who have kids who are older, where they say, oh,

5:56

you know, it goes so fast and, you know, hold on

5:58

to the the precious moments and enjoy every

6:00

bit of it. and you sort of realize, like,

6:04

so so many powerful, beautiful,

6:06

touching, meaningful things

6:08

have happened that I know I don't

6:10

fully remember because it's just too much.

6:12

And there's between the stress and

6:14

the emotional intensity and the demands

6:17

and the lack of sleep the lack of personal

6:19

time. That's all just part of these first few

6:21

years. It is hard to remember. And then

6:23

that also puts me in mind of something that

6:25

I've noticed a lot through the course of my life, which

6:27

is that when parents

6:30

talk about their grown

6:32

children, there's a mythologizing

6:34

that happened. Right? There's a there's a you

6:37

were you were all they were always oh, you could

6:39

always tell that they were like this. And it's

6:41

like, how much of that is AAAA

6:44

carefully kind of selected

6:47

joining of the dots around particular

6:49

themes that, you know, in

6:51

in hindsight prove something beautiful

6:55

or important or special about their kid.

6:57

Or what is beautiful or important

6:59

or special about them as

7:02

parents to be just a little bit

7:04

more cynical about it. Yeah. Or or even

7:06

more cynical, avoid their own

7:08

responsibility in some of the

7:10

the darker traits that that kid might be expressing

7:13

as they've grown up. It's such interesting stuff.

7:16

There's another thing that I want to mention,

7:19

which is that there's principle

7:21

that I've been guided by for years

7:24

that's being challenged a bit by this

7:26

series. And that

7:28

is that you've you've probably heard this, you've

7:31

Over years, you've heard me dismiss

7:33

considerations of the charismatic or

7:35

cult leaders internal life or

7:38

intentions or even their personal history

7:40

as being speculative beside the point

7:43

and ultimately distracting when

7:45

it comes to evaluating the systemic

7:47

harm of a cult. And I

7:49

have pretty good reasons for having held

7:52

that view. There's one example

7:54

that I think shows how solid

7:57

it necessary it can be. And

7:59

that's that when I was doing that

8:01

book on Petave Joyce, the founder of

8:03

Ashtongue yoga, I was able to

8:05

show with reporting and testimony

8:08

from almost twenty women

8:10

that he sexually assaulted his students on

8:12

a daily basis over decades. He

8:14

would basically hump them or

8:16

grab their genitals under the guise of

8:18

adjustments. And

8:21

a key complicating factor in

8:23

that reporting was in

8:25

how senior students who

8:27

actually derived their authority

8:30

and their social status from him

8:32

would rationalize or even spiritualize

8:35

the abuse. saying that he didn't mean it or

8:37

that he was too pure or

8:39

that he did mean it, but in some kind

8:41

of pure way that no

8:43

one who wasn't enlightened could possibly understand.

8:46

I I know that you're familiar with this particular

8:48

argument. Yeah. I

8:50

mean, it's a it's it's sort of an old hobby

8:52

host of mine that you're familiar with at once.

8:55

Once any individual gets

8:57

put in a special category of

9:00

being kind of beyond beyond

9:03

ordinary everyday human

9:05

judgments, then all bets

9:08

are off. Right? And then you can you can make

9:10

these kinds of rationalizations. It's

9:12

a whole idea of crazy wisdom. That's somehow

9:14

when the enlightened teacher is

9:17

doing despicable things, you

9:20

can't judge them by the same measurement

9:23

that you would judge ordinary human beings because

9:25

they they know something that you

9:27

don't know about the nature of reality. And so

9:29

therefore, maybe what looks bad

9:32

is really love

9:35

and guidance and enlightenment sort

9:37

of in disguise. And in fact, that

9:40

disguised as part of their genius

9:42

because Absolutely. -- in fact, they

9:44

are using this

9:46

this means to get at your hang up. They're tricksters.

9:49

They're tricksters. Yes. They're trolling you.

9:51

Absolutely. They're trolling you.

9:54

My god. Yeah. It's the it's the legit

9:56

nature answer. Right? When people would ask him about

9:58

the fleet of Rolls Royce's and all the diamond watches,

10:00

and he would say, it's a it would appear that

10:02

you are very you're very triggered by

10:04

this because of your attachments to me, they mean

10:07

nothing. So I'm free to enjoy them.

10:09

Yeah. And then he takes a big sort of drag

10:11

on. But was he what was he huffing at

10:13

the time? laughing

10:16

out. Right. Laughing out. I forget the name

10:18

of it. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Okay.

10:20

So this is how this

10:23

particular rationale accelerated

10:26

or was further bolstered by

10:28

senior students. They,

10:31

these students of Joyce would dismiss

10:33

the notion that Joyce was assaulting

10:35

women by noting that no one ever

10:38

saw him have an erection. So

10:40

he's groping, he's fondling. I reported

10:43

on instances of digital rape,

10:45

and we have people saying, oh, it couldn't

10:47

have been sexual. he wasn't aroused.

10:50

Now there are many huge problems

10:53

with this obviously. First of all, sexual

10:55

assault is not defined by arousal. but

10:57

by non consensual contact of a sexual

11:00

nature. And so, you you know, the most

11:02

recent understanding is that sexual

11:04

assault isn't really about sex and in the

11:06

intimate sense. It's about power perpetrated

11:08

in an intimate context. And,

11:11

you know, secondly, by focusing on whether

11:13

Joyce has a boner or not, otherwise,

11:16

you know, what his intention is because,

11:18

of course, you know, the body doesn't lie or

11:20

you know, focusing on the state of his inner desires,

11:23

the attention is just diverted away from the victim's

11:25

body and experience. And when that

11:27

happens, the focus actually remains

11:30

on the perpetrator as the subject

11:32

of empathy. So long

11:34

story short, this whole sort

11:36

of you know, investigation.

11:39

This part of the puzzle came to exemplify

11:41

the flaws for me in looking at intentionality

11:44

when thinking about copiers. because

11:46

usually that searches speculative often

11:49

relies on a false premise. And

11:51

probably most importantly, it distracts us

11:54

at least in this instance and instances

11:56

like it. And so for years, I've come to think

11:58

of the question, well, do you think that O'Sho

12:01

was a good guy? at heart? Do you

12:03

think Jim Jones had good intentions? Did

12:06

Trumpa really wanna wake people up? How about

12:08

Vision at Avananda? Was Yogi Bhashan really

12:11

evil and an asshole? Or was he

12:13

just sort of misguided? All of those questions

12:15

I just sort of classify as Patel's

12:18

dick. Right? Those questions

12:20

are literally just a Tavi's

12:22

dick. It's it's his, it's

12:25

I don't care whether it's hard or soft. It

12:27

should stay his responsibility.

12:30

I don't wanna think about it. And

12:32

also, this

12:34

dismissive attitude was influenced

12:37

by conversations I had with a number

12:39

of cult researchers One of them was

12:41

the late Kathleen man who insisted

12:43

that all writing on cult leaders was

12:45

just bullshit because it

12:47

missed the point But also,

12:50

she implied that it broke the goldwater

12:52

rule, which, you know, comes

12:54

out of a lawsuit that

12:56

buried goldwater launched

12:58

against some newspaper because they

13:00

made some claims about his internal mental states.

13:03

And in response, the American Psychiatric

13:05

Association released a

13:07

statement that says that, yeah, psychiatrists

13:10

should participate in public

13:13

in the public, you know, sphere.

13:16

But they should not

13:18

give a professional opinion on people they haven't

13:20

treated, and they should discuss,

13:23

you know, speculations about their mental health

13:25

and public health statements, and public statements.

13:28

So this topic first came up

13:30

with man when I asked her about a book

13:32

called prophetic charisma by

13:35

the Australian psychologist and cult

13:37

survivor, Lynn Oakes,

13:40

who happened to interview, I

13:42

think, about ten cult leaders, which is

13:44

a very interesting story in itself. And

13:47

he came up with an archetypal template

13:49

for how these figures develop. I don't know if

13:51

he interviewed them directly. My memory

13:53

seems to have that he also looked

13:56

at their notebooks, diaries, things like that.

13:58

Anyway, man thought that Oaks

14:00

was full of shit and unscientific. And

14:03

she thought the same thing about Daniel Shaw's work

14:05

on traumatic narcissism. which

14:08

attempts to illuminate the anxious horror

14:10

of being a cult leader. Now,

14:13

to be fair and honest, man seemed to

14:15

think everyone but herself and

14:17

a few exceptions were full of shit. It didn't

14:20

seem to matter to her that cult survivors

14:22

found Oakes and Shaw really useful.

14:25

So, yeah, I just that's

14:27

how I'm sort of changing on this topic

14:29

a little bit, and so I wanted to ask

14:31

you, how do you how do you feel about all

14:33

of this stuff? I

14:36

think that it's it's a fascinating

14:38

question that comes up sort

14:42

of inevitably for anyone who thinks about

14:44

this stuff. And so I I'm always a little bit frustrated

14:47

when come up against that thing and you and

14:49

in others where they say, well, it doesn't matter and

14:51

you can't spec late on their internal state. Right?

14:53

I I, of course, we can't know for sure.

14:55

But to me, it goes to this question of

14:58

sort of it's like the human

15:01

condition. Like, what what is what

15:03

goes on with this

15:05

type of person? And do they start off that way

15:07

and get corrupted? Or do they do they know

15:09

they're relying the whole time? Are they delusional? Do

15:12

they do are they sincere in the beginning?

15:14

And then over time, it kind of wears in and then they

15:16

find themselves in this position where they have

15:18

all this power and and and that's a,

15:20

you know, a terrible situation

15:22

for them and their followers. And

15:25

it's interesting because, you know, we're in we're in

15:27

the latest round of edits on our book and

15:29

it's one of the things that the editor is asking

15:31

us to think about, like how many of the conspirators

15:34

that you cover. are full

15:36

on charlatans and how many of them really

15:38

believe what they're saying. III

15:40

would argue that even though we can't make

15:43

definitive statements that it it's

15:45

still a worthwhile thing to think about

15:47

and discuss as long as we have

15:49

the relevant caveats in place. And

15:53

you know, I'm going to be talking

15:55

to someone for NPR

15:58

next week and in the

16:00

prep work for that. they ask something

16:02

similar as well. So it's clearly something that

16:04

comes up for people, especially once

16:07

you start identifying individuals as

16:09

being sort of malicious

16:12

operators who are well networked, who are

16:14

profiteering off of their stuff like

16:16

we do. That's question that arises.

16:20

And with regard to psychiatric

16:23

diagnosis, I

16:26

think it's such a complex topic. One

16:29

of the things that I have a hunch

16:31

might be useful if we were ever

16:34

to dig into that more deeply, would be to consider

16:36

that what we think of as

16:40

psychiatric Conditions

16:42

probably exist along some kind of spectrum.

16:45

And right, and that

16:48

and that it it need not be ableist,

16:51

especially if one is careful about

16:53

how the topic is discussed. To

16:56

suggest that it may be a contributing

16:59

factor towards all manner

17:01

of criminal behavior

17:04

or idiosyncratic

17:06

beliefs. You

17:08

know, I also have to own something

17:10

given that you talked about how

17:13

it made you frustrated when you came up

17:15

again this rigid, no, we can't really

17:17

talk about that or that's not

17:20

irrelevant. My thinking

17:22

in this has also been influenced

17:24

by the echoes of the,

17:26

you know, the French literary theory that I read

17:29

in college, specifically the work

17:31

of Hrolland Barth

17:33

on the death of the

17:35

author where his,

17:37

you know, main point is that when

17:39

you encounter a text, that's all

17:41

you have. You have the text.

17:44

You do not have access to the to the author's

17:46

intentionality. You don't you

17:48

may be able to historicize things in a

17:51

somewhat interesting way, but even that is

17:53

going to be infinitely interpretable.

17:55

Mhmm. you really have

17:57

the text. You have the text,

17:59

and that's what he means by the author is

18:01

dead. And I would bet that you

18:05

know, the point at which you feel frustrated is

18:07

the point at which I feel like I've made

18:09

a really cogent logical

18:12

point that you can't argue your way out of, and

18:14

that's really good for me because you're such a logical

18:16

person. And so,

18:19

yeah, that's in there too as a kind of, like,

18:21

triumphant philosophical rigidity

18:24

that, you know, that I was able

18:26

to beat you with at times. But I think what you're

18:28

doing is you're saying, I

18:30

think we should be able to talk about these

18:33

things if

18:35

we do it really nicely. It's okay.

18:37

We can really talk about them. We it doesn't have to

18:39

be a bad thing. And I mean,

18:41

I think that that that observation is

18:43

obviously so powerful. Right? It's it's

18:45

powerful because it says, on

18:47

the one hand, I think that that that

18:50

the analytic kind of muscle that

18:52

that Barth's observation gives

18:55

us is it enables us to say,

18:57

look, the author

19:00

is is a product of multiple influences

19:02

and and they're kind of situated within this cultural

19:04

context where whatever

19:06

they intend there may be meanings

19:09

and there may be layers that we

19:11

can tease apart within

19:13

this text that that even

19:15

they didn't know that they were putting there.

19:18

Right? Or that they intended

19:20

the opposite? Exactly. They And

19:22

that's where the psychoanalysis piece of that literary

19:24

theory comes in -- Yeah. -- because

19:27

they might actually be

19:29

sealing something that they're not aware. They may somehow

19:31

be showing their ass. And in fact,

19:33

they might be waiting for in some sense

19:36

the reader to find them out and they

19:38

have no control over it. Yep. Anyway,

19:42

uh-huh, I am not sure

19:44

what has changed for me here with regard

19:47

to tier one. I think that

19:49

a few things have come together, first of all, watching

19:51

the deep end and its overdetermined

19:54

story has had an impact

19:56

on me. I think

19:58

also that when you recognize that if

20:00

you exaggerate anything about Till

20:02

Swan, you kind of recycle satanic

20:04

energy and you feed this diversion

20:07

machine. I also

20:09

think I'm developing maybe with your

20:11

influence a little

20:13

bit of more vigilance

20:15

with regard to polarization. I'm

20:18

realizing that journalistic integrity is

20:20

fragile. I've always known that, but

20:22

I think I feel it even more.

20:25

And at the same time, it also provides this

20:27

kind of crucial catch net for reality.

20:30

But maybe most simply, there's

20:32

an availability heuristic going on.

20:35

which is that there's just so much out there

20:37

about Swan's childhood now and it seems

20:39

like it would be a huge oversight not to

20:41

look closely at it. not

20:44

to rehabilitate her or ignore

20:46

her damaging content, but to better

20:48

understand how these dynamics emerge

20:50

in resonance with the needs of her followers.

20:53

So with

20:55

all this in mind, what we're

20:57

going to do is examine several

20:59

clips from that Bosworth interview,

21:02

which is available through the bonus

21:04

footage presentation on the

21:06

Open Shadow site. And I just

21:08

wanna say a couple of things before we

21:11

begin about, you know,

21:13

context and and boundaries. Tiel

21:16

herself has said, and I find this quite

21:18

disturbing, that she

21:20

blames her parents for her childhood drama

21:23

more than she blames her abuser. And

21:25

so it's not surprising to me that they've kept to themselves.

21:28

Jennings Brown told us that they declined to

21:30

speak with him and I've

21:32

elected not to reach out because it seems

21:34

clear to me that they're seeking privacy. Nonetheless,

21:38

we do know through Marino that

21:40

they consented to this public record

21:42

disclosure. So I feel fine

21:44

about discussing what's actually on record.

21:47

Now, you're gonna hear that

21:49

Marino does not ask in these clips about

21:51

their views on Teal's ritual abuse story.

21:54

And she doesn't ask in any of the other published

21:56

footage either. However, in our

21:58

interview, if you listen to that, You

22:00

would have heard her explain that she did

22:02

in fact ask and the

22:05

Bosworth's answered, but they requested

22:07

that their answers kept off record. So

22:09

that's just all stitched up. There's

22:11

nothing to be done about that. You're also

22:13

going to hear that Marino believes that

22:15

what she heard from the Bosworths off

22:18

record lends some credibility to

22:20

Teal's origin story. And

22:23

I wanna say too that you don't have

22:25

as listeners visuals for these clips

22:27

But I think it's worth noting that

22:30

the Bosworths exude a kind

22:32

of relaxation and a spirit

22:34

of being forthcoming as

22:36

they speak. Teel's dad looks

22:38

warm and approachable and

22:41

handsome as like he might be part

22:43

of the Mitt Romney family or something like that although

22:45

part of their story is that they're not actually Mormon.

22:48

And Teal's mom looks like she could have

22:50

been the lead singer in nineteen sixties folk band.

22:53

So really good vibes from both of

22:55

them in my view. So we're

22:57

gonna go clip by clip here, hearing

23:00

how they described teal growing

23:02

up. And we'll also cross

23:04

reference at a few points with

23:06

what Diana Hanson Rivera has

23:08

said about her childhood with

23:10

Till on the Mormon Stories podcast,

23:13

but also via email through

23:15

me. And yeah,

23:18

so that's how we're gonna do

23:20

it. This first clip is

23:22

called little miss sensitive.

23:29

we know now, but at the

23:31

time,

23:32

you know, we were

23:34

not knowing

23:35

that she hasn't much more heightened

23:37

sensitivities than most people. Mhmm.

23:40

So she was extremely sensitive to

23:42

sound. If

23:43

I would take cotton out of an aspirin

23:45

bottle and just rub the cotton,

23:47

she'd go like that. I mean, it was like

23:49

and she would sleep. Sometimes

23:52

I'd find her under her bed or buy

23:54

her bed. She didn't like sheets. no sheets.

23:56

Right. She only likes satin. She and

23:58

it had to be soft and

23:59

close. Certain clothes no

24:02

way would she wear them. You know, she would

24:04

pick the clothes you would wear, and those clothes you would

24:06

not wear. And a lot of it was feel,

24:08

so very sensitive to feel.

24:10

We called her little miss sensitive for a wall.

24:13

a long time because she just, you know,

24:15

seemed to be so attuned to every

24:17

little sound and, you know, she

24:19

was always sort of looking. And that's

24:22

how the beginning was.

24:26

I love the music. Yeah. So

24:29

I know you're gonna unpack this

24:31

idea in a moment. I just wanna

24:33

say, think that things like

24:35

sensitivity to sensory stimuli, as

24:38

well as to sort of emotional empathy.

24:41

These are probably traits that exist on

24:43

a spectrum. Some people are obviously more

24:45

sensitive than others. But

24:47

I find that often in New Age circles,

24:49

the idea of being a highly sensitive

24:52

person can often be code for

24:54

I'm really psychic or I'm really enlightened. I'm

24:56

not of this world. I come from elsewhere.

24:58

I'm an alien hybrid. I'm an indigo child.

25:01

And that's fine as far as it

25:03

goes, but the shadow side of

25:05

that can often be a sort of unbounded

25:08

certainty about, I know what others are feeling

25:10

because I'm an empath. or an

25:12

overconfidence that my intuitively felt

25:15

truths about all manner

25:17

of things are inviolable

25:20

and that others are just too dull to pick up on

25:22

them. I have a

25:25

hunch that the greater sensitivity

25:28

might be supported better by really

25:31

grounded and contained therapy than by

25:33

this, you know, ethereal validation

25:36

of of being some some special, you

25:38

know, person with with incredible

25:41

attributes. And and to

25:43

hear that this was the case for

25:45

her from such a young age

25:49

does, you know, does suggest that there's

25:51

already something going on prior

25:53

to any actual or

25:56

shall we say, fabricated traumatic

25:58

history? You mentioned the term

26:01

a highly sensitive person, which is

26:03

something that I brought into our discussion before

26:07

before we started because

26:10

this description from the Bosworth's just

26:12

rang that bell for me. I'd I'd heard about

26:14

it. I I'd done some reading in it before.

26:16

It's a term coined by a

26:19

psychologist named Elaine Aaron who

26:23

says that, you

26:25

know, there's a subset of the population

26:27

who are high

26:29

in sensory processing sensitivity

26:33

and that they display increased emotional

26:35

sensitivity, stronger reactivity to both

26:37

external and internal stimuli like pain,

26:39

hunger, light, and noise, but also

26:42

a complex inner life. She

26:45

also writes that they

26:48

are thought to be more disturbed by

26:50

others, by violence, tension, or feelings of being

26:52

overwhelmed. They

26:54

may as a result make concerted efforts

26:57

to avoid situations in which such things are

26:59

likely to occur. And on

27:01

the more positive end of the trade. High sensitivity

27:03

is thought to be linked to greater levels of creativity,

27:06

richer personal relationships, and a greater

27:08

appreciation for beauty. So I'll

27:12

also include a link to

27:15

an interesting article in The

27:17

Wall Street Journal from twenty

27:20

fifteen. It's by Elizabeth Bernstein.

27:22

It's called, do you cry easily. You

27:24

may be a highly sensitive person. She

27:28

covers Aaron's work by

27:31

telling the story of forty four year old

27:33

Houston guy who cries

27:35

at the drop of a hat. An

27:37

emotional overwhelm is is one of the traits.

27:41

And and I guess as part of this

27:43

project of of humanizing this

27:45

landscape and all of these stories, I just

27:47

wanted to point out that this is actually really familiar

27:49

to me from earlier in my life like

27:52

I too would cry at music primarily

27:54

while in the choir, you know,

27:56

fifty fifty other boys in Sutans

27:59

and I have tears streaming down my face.

28:01

wondering why everyone else

28:03

can't feel what I obviously

28:06

am feeling as being true and authentic.

28:08

Yeah. I'm right there with you. I'm right with you.

28:11

Yeah. And but there's there's

28:14

it's interesting how that it would be

28:16

it's very easy, and I think I stepped

28:18

onto this bridge a couple of

28:20

times or at least part way that

28:22

goes somewhere else, which is this

28:24

feeling that I can perceive more than others.

28:27

then normies are asleep

28:30

at the wheel, that they're fine with

28:32

that, that they're self satisfied. Mhmm.

28:36

you know, it's it's kind of this is this is

28:38

why when I first, you know,

28:40

encountered through my

28:43

my stepdaughter, the Harry

28:45

Potter world, the that's the whole feeling

28:47

of the muggles. Right? Mhmm. Mhmm.

28:51

You know, And and meanwhile, if

28:53

you're awake, if you if you

28:55

have some kind of magical perspective,

28:59

you know that everything is changing. You know

29:01

that everything is fading away. You know that people

29:03

are getting sick and dying. No one seems to

29:05

be noticing. And

29:08

I think that always gave me a

29:10

deep sense of urgency about

29:14

life and setting up so

29:16

setting aside the satanic panic, setting

29:18

aside, you know, megalomania,

29:21

whatever narcissism Swan

29:23

has got running, looking at

29:26

her content through this

29:28

particular lens, I think, seems very

29:30

approachable, almost very

29:32

organic. Okay.

29:35

So we've got a second clip

29:37

here where they're talking about

29:39

her social interactions as a child.

29:43

social interactions were difficult. She's

29:45

I always called it shy because I was shy as

29:47

a child. So I know and we know that shyness as

29:49

a gene. So I just kept saying, oh,

29:51

she's shy. But I think,

29:53

actually, as she got into kindergarten, it was more

29:55

than that. I think she would be

29:58

easily overwhelmed around

29:59

other kids and tend to be

30:01

very quiet and with drawn. And

30:04

and then once school started, I

30:06

think for her, it was she'd come home just

30:08

exhausted and overwhelmed.

30:10

And I think what was happening that we didn't know

30:12

was just this amazing sensitivity that

30:15

she was picking up what the teacher is feeling, what

30:17

the kids are feeling.

30:18

Yeah.

30:20

You know, for me, this is this is

30:22

what I think of as the golden child explanation

30:25

for why get a shy or awkward

30:27

or sensitive. They

30:29

they may indeed be special in certain ways, but

30:31

who who knows how much of this is just

30:34

a difference in temperament or something

30:37

psychiatric or neurological, how much

30:39

of it is the result of trauma. I

30:43

just think we're seeing totally understandable tendency

30:45

for some parents to play into

30:48

myth making around their very special

30:50

little girl. And when she

30:53

references that there are,

30:56

you know, there's a shyness chain she's

30:59

she's not wrong. There are really

31:01

there really are studies on the shyness genetics.

31:03

Some researchers suggest that genes may account

31:05

for thirty percent of shyness. I really

31:08

wonder how this stuff is measured by the way. But

31:11

you know, the other factors beyond the thirty

31:13

percent would be environmental, know,

31:15

including difficulty fitting in.

31:17

We have to remember that the

31:20

Bosworths are a very rare non

31:22

Mormon family in town, and

31:24

that really sets them apart. Mhmm.

31:27

But I think this social piece follows

31:29

on highly sensitive person responses

31:31

to sensory stuff. And

31:33

I think also it makes sense that

31:36

it would heighten social urgencies and

31:38

also a sense of like things

31:41

are very exhausting. Everything has to be

31:43

everything is going to be a really heavy

31:45

slog. And,

31:48

you know, I I found it curious

31:51

that someone who begins here

31:54

ends up with what seems

31:56

to be Swan's type

31:58

of extra version. or

32:01

her ability to be on stage or be a public

32:03

figure. But but I also

32:06

wonder whether the kind

32:08

of online influencing or

32:10

the gurudome that we so often study in the podcast,

32:13

and extra version are actually

32:15

even related. And

32:18

I'm sometimes I'm not so sure because I think

32:20

of people like Sam Harris or

32:22

or Jordan Peterson the cult leaders

32:24

that I have known. Each

32:26

has a paradoxical

32:29

trait of both being and wanting

32:31

to be highly visible, but also unapproachable.

32:35

And I think in the online world,

32:37

the technology can facilitate those boundaries

32:40

because it drives peri social

32:42

attention one way only. And

32:45

I think I've referenced this before, but, you

32:47

know, I went to see Peterson at a

32:49

quote unquote lecture event here in Toronto

32:51

and people cheered like they were at rock

32:53

concert and he responded by launching into

32:55

this impermeable transstate.

32:58

It was like he entered into a

33:00

literal bubble like

33:02

a like an acrylic dome

33:05

was around him. with some

33:07

sort of, like, resonator inside so you could

33:09

hear his voice. And he maintained

33:12

that isolation for hours. eventually

33:14

winding up on the steps of the theater outside

33:17

surrounded by, like, two hundred young people

33:19

who were basically silently

33:21

geniflecting in front of him as he kept

33:23

talking and talking. So I've never seen

33:26

someone both so public

33:28

yet so alone. It's such

33:30

an incredible description because what I

33:32

got from that description is

33:35

your talking about someone who

33:38

who in them has has in

33:40

the in the privacy of their

33:42

own solitude has been able to reach

33:45

out through the power of the Internet and affect all

33:47

of these people. And then when when they're

33:49

in the real life situation with all of those

33:51

people, the magic is to be able to

33:54

draw them into your

33:56

own introverted space and then pretend

33:58

that they're not even there as you continue with

34:01

that trans state kind of thing.

34:03

And so so

34:05

what I what I get from that picture is that

34:07

he's never he's never really treating them

34:09

as subjects. They're they're

34:12

they're just part of his his

34:14

fueke state. Yeah. His fueke

34:16

state is diorama. It's

34:18

like Yeah.

34:20

He's he's on a he's on a movie set.

34:22

It kinda reminds me of I don't know if you've

34:24

seen any of the background

34:27

documentary for the making of the Mandalorian.

34:31

Maybe your maybe your maybe your daughter

34:33

isn't old enough. I know she isn't like,

34:35

the nine year old here is old enough to watch

34:37

it. And so we watch how it's made, and

34:39

they actually have a

34:42

surround stage green,

34:46

I guess, green what's it called? Green

34:48

screen? Green screen. Yeah. Well,

34:50

okay. This is three hundred and sixty

34:53

degrees. around

34:55

them. And the camera

34:57

is the cameras are on tracks

35:01

that roll around of

35:04

this circular space. And

35:06

basically, they can create they

35:08

can make three people

35:10

in a sound studio, wherever they are in

35:13

LA, look like they are

35:15

in Tunisia or

35:18

in, you know, the

35:21

the mountains of Jamaica or wherever

35:23

it is. And and it's absolutely

35:26

seamless And that's the feeling

35:28

that I get from my

35:30

memory of Jordan Peterson is that he

35:33

could be anywhere in the world

35:35

because the backdrop is is projected.

35:39

And he's yeah. He's really

35:41

he's really sealed into it. Okay.

35:46

Here's the next clip in which the

35:48

parents talk about how TILS-one

35:50

is self talk. Is

35:52

self talk? because we talked to New Zealand

35:54

for almost a year

35:55

when she was two. We went to New

35:57

Zealand to work on a sheep station, and

35:59

and I had her in the pool. I remember she

36:01

looked at me and she was two at the time and said,

36:04

no, mommy. I'll teach myself. I

36:07

will teach myself. And that was kind

36:09

of a theme Even though she went

36:11

to school, she really I don't

36:13

I think she absorbs like learning

36:15

in a different way, and she

36:18

doesn't particularly like to be taught and

36:20

she kind of feels it herself. And

36:23

then as she got into

36:24

school, it was kind

36:27

of the same.

36:28

She would come home and just not

36:30

a lot of respect for the teachers, just more

36:32

of a feeling of do I really have to go

36:34

there than when she got a little older, and I

36:36

can't remember exactly what age she started

36:38

writing in this different language and

36:40

we didn't know what to make of it. We thought

36:42

at first it was like a game where she was making

36:44

little symbols like a treasure map or something

36:46

because we used to do treasure maps

36:49

for the kids' birthdays. But

36:51

this she started writing in it

36:53

a lot, and it looked a little

36:55

like hieroglyphics And

36:58

that was the first real signal

37:00

to me anyway that something unusual

37:02

was going on. I mean,

37:05

I I don't wanna be mean to these people

37:07

at all. They're they're talking about their

37:09

experiences with their young child,

37:11

but I mean, might my daughter has said things

37:13

like that since she was about two years old as well.

37:15

She wants to teach herself, she knows how to do

37:17

it, she will often turn the tables and say

37:19

here, I'll show you how to do it know, even

37:21

if she doesn't really know what she's doing. So

37:23

I don't think it's that unusual. I think kids

37:25

at that age are are trying to gain

37:27

agency over the world in small ways because

37:29

there's incredibly dependent on you that

37:32

they all have these moments of, like, no. I know

37:34

how to do it, and I and I can do it for myself,

37:36

and I don't need you to do Right. And

37:39

obviously, look, Till. Till is a very,

37:41

very smart, unusual human being.

37:43

There's no denying that. But

37:46

again, to me, these are the kinds of

37:48

somewhat naive interpretations that then

37:50

lean into the precociousness as having

37:52

some kind of mysterious metaphysical

37:55

meaning. I mean, she literally was making

37:57

little symbols like a treasure map or something.

37:59

As I said, it's it's not

38:01

something more than that. Right.

38:04

I'll get to this in a moment, but it's just

38:06

wild to me that, you

38:09

know, that that I the podcaster

38:12

comes along twenty years later

38:14

or whatever it is and actually translates those

38:17

symbols -- Mhmm. --

38:19

which are unknown to the family. Right?

38:22

Yeah. Anyway, one of the first big

38:24

moments in the deep end related

38:26

to this self taught, self teaching

38:28

mode is that and this really raised

38:31

my Culte eyebrows, was

38:33

that first exchange with Simon in which

38:35

he asked Swan who her own mentors

38:37

and accountability partners were, and she basically

38:40

blows off the question. and she

38:42

compares herself to a world class runner

38:44

who needs no instruction because of course she's the

38:46

fastest in the world. Now that scene has

38:48

since been complicated by Swan revealing

38:51

raw audio from that exchange. And

38:53

the dialogue is actually way more stretched out and

38:55

more nuanced than CASB presents. This

38:58

is a smaller misstep in the

39:00

film, I think, but I think it's important because

39:03

it's important that it's a misstep because she

39:05

can now fold it into her victimized by

39:07

the media narrative. Anyway, still

39:09

her rejection of authority is quite visible

39:12

and functional in that scene. Right?

39:14

Yeah. Absolutely. No no matter what

39:16

how that scene played out, she is still

39:18

asserting that she is

39:21

the world champion of everything. And so

39:23

why should have anyone else telling her what to do?

39:25

Yeah. Or or, like, or advising her

39:27

or giving her feedback. You know, and and I I just wanna

39:29

flip back to the other to

39:32

the previous point about being in a trans

39:34

state is that I think the

39:36

thing that is I

39:39

mean, it's not just a

39:41

power struggle in that moment.

39:44

It's not just Simon saying

39:47

to teal hey, I'm gonna challenge

39:49

you on this particular point and teal

39:51

slapping it down. There's

39:53

also an aspect in which that kind of

39:56

dynamic allows

39:58

for or it's it's the site at which

40:02

the the subject or

40:04

the or the follower is interrupting

40:06

the trans state of the charismatic leader.

40:08

Totally. And that's not acceptable. Right?

40:11

Like, that's the thing is that is that when

40:13

anybody asks actually asks

40:16

Jordan Peterson a question. He

40:19

he will sort of wade

40:22

around and flail until

40:24

he gets back into his groove because his

40:26

object his objective is not to answer

40:28

the question. It's to get back

40:30

into his fucking acrylic bubble. It

40:32

has nothing to do with information. It's

40:35

about trying to restore a kind of,

40:37

you know, in communicative core or

40:39

a kind of confident state. Yeah.

40:42

Yeah. And and with that example, she

40:46

when she presents

40:48

the longer footage, you know, in in the aftermath

40:50

in terms of how she's showing, what she thinks of

40:53

as as CASB's distortions and betrayals.

40:56

What gets revealed is that Simon Simon

40:59

is someone who's been an executive

41:01

leadership function and he's been told

41:04

that he needs mentoring. And he

41:06

has come to her seeking mentoring.

41:08

And in that very process, he's saying,

41:11

you know, if I am realizing a

41:13

blind spot where I didn't realize I

41:15

needed mentoring and I'm coming to you,

41:17

I just wanna ask you this because I wanna be sure

41:19

that you don't have the same blinds thought because then

41:21

how are you gonna mentor me? And so it's

41:23

actually really a legitimate line of inquiry,

41:26

and she can't actually handle it. Even

41:28

though she, like, says, hey, here, look at the whole conversation,

41:31

it it it actually underlines that she

41:33

doesn't really know how to handle that particular topic.

41:36

Amongst all of her objections, that

41:38

one is kind of the silliest actually

41:41

because the extended conversation

41:43

doesn't really add any new information. I think

41:45

that she has an explanation

41:48

to him that's something like, well,

41:51

you know, if you get to the point where everything

41:54

is coming from source or something like that.

41:57

Then you don't need an outside authority

41:59

or you don't need mentorship or something like that. And

42:01

she so she's describing her enlightened state.

42:04

And I think she's meaning to say to her

42:06

followers, hey, look, the deep end

42:08

didn't pick up my real explanation here.

42:11

So here it is and

42:13

doesn't it make sense? Well, no, it doesn't. It doesn't

42:15

really so. Yeah.

42:17

Now about that coded writing, we

42:20

know that Jennings has,

42:24

you know, had it translated. So

42:26

we've broken that story little bit.

42:29

and that it concealed some pretty

42:31

normal things, like

42:33

fantasies and self doubt. But

42:36

You know, I've also been in communication with

42:38

Diana Hanson Rivera, who's

42:40

Till's childhood friend. Some

42:42

of you may have seen her very informative appearance

42:44

on the Mormon stories podcast will link to that.

42:47

I reached out to discuss some of those details

42:49

with her. In a follow-up

42:52

email, she described the she was familiar

42:54

with that coded language. So she writes,

42:56

I didn't create the language with her,

42:58

but we wrote it together. We wrote together

43:01

in it. There was a key to the language,

43:03

but I'm pretty sure she memorized it later on.

43:05

She has an amazing memory and is obviously very

43:07

creative. She wrote the stories that we

43:09

created together along with her own stories. She

43:12

had started creating it before I met her.

43:14

She was very proud of it having more letters than

43:16

the more basic English alphabet. She

43:18

considered her made up alphabet more superior

43:20

to the very small English alphabet that only

43:22

had twenty six letters. We made up

43:25

fairy and magic stories mostly

43:27

The elves were one of our favorites from

43:29

Lord of the Rings, so Gladriel, Darwin,

43:32

Elrond. I wasn't into

43:34

Lord of the Rings as she was. I liked it,

43:36

but I didn't memorize the maps, alphabets, and

43:38

so on. I was more of a Harry Potter fan.

43:41

We watched the Dark Crystal, the Black Stallian,

43:43

Pocantas, the Matrix movies,

43:45

unicorns, fairies, elves, which is

43:47

magic, etcetera.

43:50

So,

43:52

yeah,

43:53

just like very normal,

43:56

very human stuff,

43:59

a a big interior fantasy

44:01

life. you know, and

44:04

then we have this and some kind

44:06

of bridge that leads

44:09

towards becoming a satanic panic

44:11

influencer. when

44:13

she might have just wound up on,

44:16

you know, Tumblr and and

44:18

gaming sites or something like that. So

44:22

okay. Next one is Auris and Healing.

44:25

When she would start to use these colors, these

44:27

crayons, and color pictures, She

44:30

would she described I

44:32

remember at that point that, oh,

44:34

that that's the color that's by

44:36

you or that's the color that's

44:38

behind her. And We

44:41

didn't know what an aura was. We were not in

44:43

that world. No clue that what that she was actually

44:45

seeing or when she was looking at

44:48

either one of us, colors

44:50

emanating around her body and different colors

44:52

for different people. really slight

44:55

differences she could tell -- Yeah. --

44:57

that she later figured

44:59

out had a lot to do with a

45:02

person's temperament or their mood

45:04

or their health or health? particularly. We've

45:06

watched your heal people. And and I

45:08

can say that as She's worked

45:11

on his boss. Yeah. She has on me,

45:13

but I mean, any dad would say anything

45:15

about the kid, but to watch her work with

45:17

people who come in with some pretty

45:20

significant long term

45:22

chronic illnesses and come

45:24

away either saying

45:26

I'm well or saying or

45:29

her telling them, you know, you need to see somebody

45:31

else because here's you're talking

45:33

about this issue in your body, but

45:35

here's where your problem is, pointing

45:38

to pancreas or to a lung

45:40

or And then have that And then you have that yeah.

45:42

Have those people go seek medical

45:45

Western medical attention for

45:48

trauma or and sure enough.

45:50

She's right.

45:51

I think the way to see this psychic and

45:53

that we went to, she

45:55

was

45:57

really good recognize

46:00

Teel right away. I mean, it was one of those weird

46:02

things we drive all the way up there. Fox crosses

46:04

the road as we're driving in. That's Teel's spirit

46:06

animal. And she was like, oh my god. mom,

46:08

it's a fox. And we got in

46:10

there and the woman, was so skeptical. I've

46:12

got to be honest about that. And she

46:14

said to me, you're

46:15

gonna get very cold because there'll be a lot of spirits

46:18

in

46:18

the room. And I remember thinking, yeah. Sure.

46:19

Yeah. I mean, we're we have science background. So

46:22

it's it's all I get in the room she can't

46:24

see me like two blankets and I'm holding them

46:26

in my lap and she and Teals start

46:28

talking about what they see and what it's

46:31

like and all of this and it's like their kindred

46:33

spirits. And by the end of the time, I

46:35

had both blankets wrapped around us

46:37

freezing. And it

46:39

was really, for me, again, for

46:41

both of us, it was a

46:43

world that we, you

46:45

know, we heard about it, but it

46:47

wasn't one we ever really interacted

46:49

with.

46:50

Alright. So here's where the

46:52

Bosworths are empathizing with

46:55

their daughter to the extent of a kind

46:57

of familial teal

46:59

pilling, really? It

47:02

seems Julian, what comes up for

47:04

you when you hear them moving into this

47:06

zone? I'm

47:08

gonna keep sounding like the grouchy skeptic

47:11

here. I mean, to me, this is precisely

47:13

why being informed about

47:16

universal human cognitive vulnerabilities

47:18

to things like confirmation bias or cold

47:21

reading, barnum statements, and

47:23

like the the narcissistic specialness that

47:25

that all of this can kind of serve. I

47:28

I think it's really valuable just to to know

47:30

about this stuff. In my experience,

47:32

these kinds of personal anecdotes are

47:34

a dime a dozen in New Age circles. They're

47:36

usually taken as undeniable evidence

47:38

because how else do you explain that there was

47:40

a fog or that the room suddenly felt

47:42

cold. It must be the thing that it that

47:45

it is claiming to be rather than

47:47

some sort of, you know, just process of

47:49

of how you interpret things. I

47:53

think when will I know

47:55

that when you look at these kinds of claims

47:57

carefully, they they tend to evaporate

48:00

their their ethereal. It's

48:02

a trick of the mind, and all of us

48:04

are susceptible to these kinds of tricks of

48:06

the mind, and certain people are very good

48:08

at exploining those vulnerabilities even

48:10

when they're sincere and

48:12

they don't really realize that that's what they're

48:14

doing. You you actually they they say

48:17

we we'd heard about this world, but we don't really interact

48:19

with it. Well, now you've stepped over into that

48:21

world, and it's largely a self created world

48:23

that relies on all of these

48:25

sort of cognitive vulnerabilities

48:28

and and slippery interpretations.

48:30

Yeah. And once in that world, they

48:33

start looking for help because things

48:36

turn turn little

48:38

bit south. We started

48:40

thinking, you know, why

48:43

is she so sensitive and

48:45

And I feel like we try started

48:47

trying lots of different things to

48:49

figure out, you know, at first,

48:51

it was just shine sensitive and then

48:54

know, by the time she got to be a teenager, it

48:56

was starting to be she was very unhappy.

48:59

And that's when we started taking her to

49:01

psychiatrists psychologist say,

49:03

okay, what's going on here? And

49:05

in my humble opinion, our mental health system

49:08

is so broken in this country. that

49:10

really all they've got is a very

49:12

haphazard, ridiculous

49:14

the

49:15

way of diagnosing people and then

49:17

just throwing pills at them. and

49:19

we went through that phase and

49:21

said no. So then we

49:24

talked a lot and I got permission from

49:27

the place I was working at to take a

49:29

leave of absence for a month and I took her to

49:31

China. Yeah. because I just thought

49:34

this system in the United States is going

49:36

to just

49:37

ruin her. Yes. And

49:39

there was nobody that could tell us what

49:42

you know, what should how to

49:44

look at this in a way that that

49:46

rang true. Every every diagnosis

49:49

than -- Was different. -- we're different from

49:51

every professional. And the guy we liked

49:53

the best, it was a psychiatrist said,

49:56

I cannot tell you. what

49:59

this is. Well,

49:59

it sounds like that was that was someone who

50:01

was who was had the courage to be honest

50:04

in that way. I really feel for them they

50:07

must have been having a really tough time

50:09

with this unusual and unhappy

50:12

and obviously gifted child and trying

50:14

to figure out how to take care of her.

50:16

Perhaps by the time we get to this age, maybe

50:18

she was being traumatized as we've discussed.

50:22

Perhaps she has some very hard to

50:24

diagnose combination of organic and developmental

50:26

issues. I've certainly known people like

50:29

that. Perhaps the psychiatric

50:31

care they got was substandard. We

50:33

know that that's, you know, that does

50:35

happen. But the idea then of saying

50:37

we're gonna go to China to get out of this Western

50:40

medical model to find answers in a remote

50:42

mountain community where the guru claims to heal

50:44

cancer energetically. I

50:47

mean, it does paint a picture of being quite desperate

50:49

and I have a lot of empathy for that. It's it's

50:52

it's also quite naive. It

50:54

also brings us to a really crucial

50:56

theme, which is that the normie world cannot

50:58

help their daughter. Shranks

51:00

are shrugging their shoulders, they're not

51:02

really taking or seriously haphazardly

51:05

diagnosing and prescribing. And

51:08

this happens to be a

51:10

real world encapsulation of

51:13

what's happening in many

51:15

sort of pockets of popular

51:18

culture and news

51:20

media as well in terms of popular

51:22

culture. It's only, you know,

51:25

fifteen years before this

51:28

this sequence is taking place that or

51:32

maybe I guess it's twenty by that point.

51:34

that we have a film like the Exorcist

51:37

in which whole teams of psychiatrists and

51:39

urologists can't help

51:42

Regan, the twelve year old at all,

51:45

in which father Carys, who's

51:47

trained as a as a psychiatrist, has

51:51

no option for treatment but to appeal

51:53

to the diocese to have them call up father

51:55

Mira, who's played by Max von Siedau to

51:57

perform an old timey exorcism.

51:59

it's

51:59

just an incredible, incredible movie.

52:02

I I think for me because all

52:05

of these themes of demonic possession and

52:07

Satan and ghosts they've

52:09

they've always just seemed to me more like

52:11

fascinating psychological fantasies, but

52:13

knowing that they play very heavily on on

52:15

a kind of Catholic mythology, They've

52:19

they've seemed interesting to me in that

52:21

way more so than terrifying, though

52:24

I know lot of people are very terrified

52:26

by these kinds of films. especially the Exorcist.

52:29

I've always wondered what

52:31

percentage of people who have been subjected

52:34

to Exorcism were in the midst of psychotic

52:36

episodes what percentage had

52:38

been fragmented by the sort

52:40

of more mundane brutality of of real

52:42

abuse within their own families. even

52:45

less dramatic than that how many

52:48

of these people might just be tormented developmentally

52:51

by parent dynamics that rejected

52:53

and shamed healthy attachment needs,

52:55

while also imposing sort of the unbearable

52:58

demands of apparent who might have narcissistic

53:01

or borderline personality and just put so

53:03

much pressure on a kid to where they're they're

53:05

kind of exploding and acting

53:07

out and maybe just don't

53:09

have a very steady sense

53:12

of self or emotional regulation. Right.

53:14

And the theme of

53:19

possession or inferred possession is

53:22

somewhat laundered in

53:24

Michelle remembers in which

53:27

Pasteur's psychiatric malpractice

53:29

really on his on his patient, Michelle Smith,

53:32

provides the opening for her to

53:34

convert to Catholicism and

53:36

then be rescued from her recalled memories

53:38

by the Virgin Mary Well, and not not only

53:40

as she rescued, she's also she's also healed,

53:42

so there's no medical evidence of any of the terrible

53:45

things that were supposedly done to her. Amazing.

53:47

Right. There there are photographs

53:50

of her having a skin rash

53:52

on her neck. But,

53:56

yeah, otherwise, but

53:58

this is a storyline

53:59

of

54:00

the normies can't help that

54:03

is here now further, I would say, laundered

54:05

and secularized in the

54:07

Bosworth's telling because when

54:10

they give up on psychiatry, they

54:12

find something more old health, more

54:14

globalized, this Chinese

54:17

qigong master, and they make a pilgrimage.

54:20

Now we don't know what

54:23

Palomarina was asked to leave out of

54:25

this public footage but

54:27

we do know that there are plausible reasons

54:29

and science for why Swan was struggling

54:32

during this period. And these are

54:34

reasons that go beyond the

54:36

notion that she's highly sensitive, but

54:38

they stop short of her being

54:40

a survivor of satanic ritual

54:42

abuse. Now as Jennings Brown

54:45

pointed out in episode one hundred and

54:47

eleven, there are reasonable questions

54:49

to ask about Swan's relationship

54:52

with Dock. This is the family

54:54

friend against whom satanic

54:56

panic therapist, Barbara Snow, initiated

54:59

an investigation into his

55:01

alleged abuse of Swan. Now,

55:04

Swan eventually backed away from that police

55:06

action, and so the

55:08

case is closed, but the question kind

55:11

of remains open. Now you'll you're

55:13

gonna hear me ask where, you know, whether she heard

55:15

anything in the off record footage that

55:17

gave her confidence Anne

55:19

Swan's story of survivorship. And she

55:21

said yes. But then

55:23

there's also something else. So

55:26

here's Diana Hanson Rebera talking

55:28

about what Swan was getting

55:31

into at around twelve

55:33

or thirteen years of age.

55:35

I am. It

55:36

just it

55:37

gets so crazy and I didn't ever wanna talk

55:40

about this before because it was so shameful,

55:42

embarrassing to have been in

55:44

this situation. to have been scared to

55:46

kinda talk about parts of it, but

55:48

there was

55:50

there was an

55:53

like,

55:53

when she would have been twelve or thirteen,

55:57

started

55:58

looking up

55:59

pretty pretty disturbing pornography.

56:02

So I'd never seen any form of pornography at

56:04

that point. And

56:05

she goes straight to showing

56:08

me Like,

56:11

well, I mean, see, I still hate hate seeing

56:13

it even now. Like, SNM

56:15

porn and So

56:17

BDSM bondage, state

56:19

of masticism bondage -- Yeah. -- the

56:21

porn, the kind of more hardcore porn.

56:23

Oh, yeah. So

56:25

And I would have been about ten years

56:27

old at the time. So it was just, again,

56:30

didn't wanna seem like I wasn't cool

56:32

that I was judging her, a lot of

56:34

just following wanting to be as

56:36

cool as my my friend was.

56:40

And the reason I mentioned this pornography thing

56:43

is because I feel like it played

56:46

into some of the things she came up with later

56:48

on. and there was even the

56:51

most disturbing one. This is a funny

56:53

and embarrassing story. She

56:56

came down to my house and on our

56:58

computer. We had a better computer than hers.

57:00

And she's like, you have to see this crazy thing I

57:02

found and starts pulling up.

57:05

the googling, bestiality,

57:09

mortified. That

57:11

that was the one where I was like, I don't think we should do

57:13

this. Like, this is scary my mom's

57:15

gonna come home any minute and lo behold my

57:17

mom starts driving down the driveway. And

57:20

back in the day, some people might know this pop ups

57:22

were a big thing on a computer. Once they started, they

57:24

wouldn't stop. I panicked, unplugged the

57:26

computer, and we ran up

57:28

to her house later on, my mom's like, hey,

57:30

I plugged in her computer. There's a lot

57:33

weird things on there. I'm like, weird. I don't know

57:35

how that got there. So and

57:38

she didn't push it, which I think she was

57:40

very uncomfortable

57:41

by it too. So there's a

57:44

a kind of tender or contentious

57:46

issue that we come to the edge

57:48

of here, which is about

57:51

the supposed links between pornography

57:55

and abuse. Now, this

57:57

has been a line of research for

57:59

many years, perhaps driven by moral

58:01

concerns. that has attempted to

58:03

correlate porn consumption with increased

58:06

tendencies towards violence, sexual aggression,

58:08

the self reported willingness to increase

58:11

to to the willingness

58:14

to commit rape, especially amongst young

58:16

men. So to leave

58:19

this data sort of hanging out there

58:21

about Swan can give the impression

58:24

that she is somehow predisposed to

58:26

aggression because, hey, she was into porn at twelve

58:28

or thirteen years old. And

58:31

this is in that, you know, sort of making of

58:33

a monster category. of

58:35

thought, but there are newer studies that

58:37

dispute that correlation, that

58:40

criticize the poor design of previous studies

58:42

that failed to disambiguate other influences

58:45

that might predict violence such as witnessing

58:47

real violence. So we'll we'll post some of that

58:49

in the show notes. The

58:51

other line to follow here

58:53

is a reversal of that

58:55

sort of correlation flow, which is

58:57

to look at how acting out

59:00

sexually as a young person. And think swan

59:02

showing handsome, violent foreign qualifies there

59:05

may indicate an abuse history. You

59:07

know, there's an old principal at play. freight

59:10

called it repetition compulsion, a

59:13

more recent term, is trauma reenactment. And

59:15

the general idea is that a traumatized

59:17

person might seek out materials or

59:19

situations in which the content of the experience

59:22

is similar to the

59:24

initiating event in order to understand

59:26

it better or to adopt a more confident

59:28

position in relation to it, in other words,

59:30

to to master what had mastered them.

59:33

Then found a really good explainer

59:36

on the Health Canada website of

59:38

all places actually. It's called when children act out

59:40

sexually a guide for parents and teachers. And

59:43

they say, Although there is evidence that

59:45

sexually abused children can act out against

59:47

other children, the reason they do so isn't always

59:49

clear. People often assume that

59:51

abused children would try to avoid repeating

59:54

writing and distressful activity. However,

59:56

in many cases, children who have been sexually

59:58

abused repeat the experience with other children

1:00:00

in an effort to make sense of what

1:00:03

happened to them. and to regain

1:00:05

a sense of control. For example,

1:00:07

the boy may have been forced to perform oral

1:00:09

sex on an older boy. The activity

1:00:12

may have made him feel frightened, confused,

1:00:14

and sexually excited all at the same

1:00:16

time, repeating the activity

1:00:18

with younger child takes him out of the confused

1:00:21

and helpless role and into a new

1:00:23

and more powerful role. He is now

1:00:25

less frightened and less anxious and

1:00:27

better understands why the older boy

1:00:29

wanted oral sex performed on him.

1:00:33

So that line

1:00:36

led me towards something else

1:00:38

that I had remembered from years before, which

1:00:40

is what I referenced earlier,

1:00:43

Julian, the notion of post traumatic

1:00:45

play. And

1:00:49

this is

1:00:51

a term that was coined by a doctor named

1:00:53

Leonor her. And I'll

1:00:55

just read from the abstract of

1:00:58

her nineteen eighty one paper.

1:01:00

I believe it was published in, it's called

1:01:02

Forbidden Games. post traumatic child's

1:01:04

play. She found

1:01:06

eleven characteristics of

1:01:09

play. So compulsive repetitiveness,

1:01:12

unconscious link to the traumatic event,

1:01:14

literalness, failure

1:01:16

to relieve anxiety, wide

1:01:18

range of players, varying lag time

1:01:21

prior to its development, carrying power to

1:01:23

involve non traumatized children,

1:01:26

contagion to new generations, dangerous

1:01:30

art and talk as alternative modes

1:01:32

of playing and usefulness of tracing

1:01:34

post traumatic play to an earlier trauma.

1:01:38

And so as

1:01:40

I'm thinking about that, it's kind of mind

1:01:42

blowing to begin

1:01:45

to view if Telswan is actually

1:01:49

you know, at the center of cultic dynamics,

1:01:52

it's kind of mind blowing to view

1:01:54

cultic formation and

1:01:57

the abuses therein as expressions

1:02:00

of highly organized, post traumatic

1:02:02

play. You know, setting

1:02:04

aside what's going on personally

1:02:06

for someone. You know,

1:02:09

just think about how

1:02:11

these markers are descriptive. of

1:02:13

the content that we see. So compulsive

1:02:16

repetitiveness of themes

1:02:19

and practices, literalness,

1:02:22

Like, the need for, you

1:02:24

know, the the actual event

1:02:28

the the traumatic event to be literally true

1:02:30

or to attain a degree of

1:02:32

of kind of clarity or

1:02:35

or concreteness that, you know,

1:02:37

memory probably can't provide. the

1:02:39

failure to relieve anxiety, which I think

1:02:41

is pretty clear because, you

1:02:44

know, there there are many people who

1:02:46

will fall away from Swan's content

1:02:49

after having used it for a long time. And

1:02:51

and they'll say, well, you know, there are

1:02:53

people who say they'd improve their lives, but there are

1:02:55

also many who will say, you know, actually

1:02:57

it just made, you know, made me, it didn't improve

1:02:59

anything. But then

1:03:01

carrying power to involve non

1:03:03

traumatized children and contagion

1:03:06

to new generations is

1:03:08

kind of like they sound like

1:03:10

principles of of of recruitment and

1:03:12

indoctrination. Right? Yeah. And

1:03:14

and you're also you're you're

1:03:17

this is a, I think, a

1:03:19

really helpful way of reframing

1:03:22

perhaps in certain situations how

1:03:25

we think of the word -- Absolutely. --

1:03:27

right, that this is this is a ritualized

1:03:30

activity that is symbolic that

1:03:32

is a re an unconscious reenactment of

1:03:35

something for a variety

1:03:37

of different reasons that that

1:03:39

is that is taken as having some other

1:03:42

function or as being a literal expression

1:03:44

of something that's happening right now instead of what

1:03:46

it really represents. you know, what's interesting about

1:03:49

Leonor Torres is that she she was also an advocate

1:03:51

of repressed memory theory. Uh-oh. Yeah.

1:03:54

Now, I think you you looked a little bit

1:03:56

farther and and it's seems like she

1:03:58

she she dropped that idea over

1:04:00

time. She seems to still begin good

1:04:03

academic standard. Yeah. Well, III the

1:04:05

I think what I did find is

1:04:07

that she continued to remain,

1:04:10

yeah, academically legitimate and

1:04:12

to speak at conferences and to have,

1:04:14

like, a, you know,

1:04:17

some kind of special event where she was being

1:04:19

honored in terms of her body of work

1:04:21

over time. So I would

1:04:23

wonder I don't know this for

1:04:25

sure if it's true or not, but I would wonder if

1:04:28

maybe she dipped into the repress

1:04:30

memory stuff because what everyone was talking

1:04:32

about in the late eighties, early nineties,

1:04:34

and then maybe transitioned out of it and

1:04:36

continued to make good academic

1:04:39

contributions and to do good work in

1:04:41

the world that did did not

1:04:43

become sort of completely swept up

1:04:45

in satanic panic. So repressed memory

1:04:48

theory has by the

1:04:50

wayside, but post traumatic play

1:04:53

has not. And in fact,

1:04:55

we'll post another article

1:04:57

this comes from two thousand and seven

1:04:59

by Valerie

1:05:01

Dripchak. And

1:05:04

she goes on to describe two

1:05:06

types of post traumatic play.

1:05:08

And I think this is where things get really

1:05:10

sort of interesting with regard to what

1:05:13

TL-one actually provides. There's the positive

1:05:15

type and the negative type. So

1:05:17

in the positive type of post traumatic play,

1:05:20

the child reenacts the trauma, but is able

1:05:23

to modify the negative components of the

1:05:25

trauma with the guidance of the therapist. And

1:05:28

in the process of positive post

1:05:31

traumatic play, the child is able to gain

1:05:33

mastery over the experience. But in the

1:05:35

negative type of post traumatic

1:05:37

play, the repetitive play as unsuccessful in

1:05:39

relieving anxiety and fails

1:05:41

to help the child attain resolution or

1:05:44

acceptance. So In the

1:05:46

positive version, children feel happy and in

1:05:48

control of their fantasy world. It

1:05:50

helps children to learn and express feelings, but

1:05:52

in the negative type children usually

1:05:54

look anxious and restricted. They

1:05:57

are not in control of their fantasies, and

1:05:59

their repetitive play does not alleviate

1:06:01

their internal conflicts. This type

1:06:04

of play depicts a perceived danger

1:06:06

and the child is stuck in these traumatic reactions

1:06:09

and the risk of the negative type of

1:06:11

post traumatic play is that it may actually

1:06:13

worsen the traumatic effects and cause developmental

1:06:16

regression. The child needs

1:06:18

some kind of intervention, some

1:06:20

kind of some kind of help to

1:06:22

to move on. And so DhruvTrak

1:06:25

advocates for, like, an Ericssonian inter

1:06:28

subjective approach to interventions

1:06:30

that on one hand help the child

1:06:32

find a new ending to the story. And

1:06:35

secondly, they involve caregivers

1:06:38

in that process very importantly.

1:06:40

So In many instances,

1:06:43

the therapy is considered to be more successful

1:06:46

when the primary caregivers are reintegrated into

1:06:48

the process and the therapist actually steps

1:06:51

aside and

1:06:53

allows the family to be repaired.

1:06:56

That's I like that. model

1:06:58

makes a lot of sense to me. It's a great find.

1:07:00

I think it's a very important

1:07:03

angle on all of this material. And,

1:07:06

you know, it goes again back to this complex

1:07:09

and tricky nature of memory,

1:07:12

as well as how unaddressed trauma can

1:07:14

play out in different ways as the psyche tries

1:07:16

to find resolution. I

1:07:18

mean, I would speculate that

1:07:20

the likelihood that teal

1:07:23

would just happen to come across extreme

1:07:25

hardcore pornography in the

1:07:27

late nineteen nineties and

1:07:29

find it interesting enough to

1:07:34

be preoccupied with showing it

1:07:36

to other kids. It's it's

1:07:38

age in a Yeah. That's an additional step. Right?

1:07:40

Yeah. It's like an additional step. It's it's not

1:07:42

just it's not just that you found it. Mhmm.

1:07:44

But that but that it it has to be

1:07:46

shared. Right. And so that feels like

1:07:48

an an additional step Yes. And that

1:07:51

act of sharing it with other kids

1:07:53

seems like a reenactment, possibly

1:07:55

of it being shared with her by an

1:07:57

adult. and then heard

1:07:59

going through all of the confusing, you know,

1:08:02

feelings about about that.

1:08:05

I I just from from what I do

1:08:07

know, I think that would be a

1:08:10

red flag to most child psychologists cycle

1:08:12

something's going on here. I have

1:08:14

one more thought about

1:08:17

the repressed memory specter.

1:08:21

you know, we we know we've established that

1:08:24

in relation to the satanic panic

1:08:26

and countless claims of recalled

1:08:28

abuse, that many,

1:08:30

many families have been ripped to shreds

1:08:32

by terrible therapeutic missteps,

1:08:35

including your own family, as you shared with

1:08:37

us in the first part of this series.

1:08:40

But I think there's something at

1:08:42

play in the

1:08:44

general notion of repressed memory

1:08:47

that I think we have

1:08:49

to look at squarely in order to understand how

1:08:52

appealing it is. And

1:08:54

the and

1:08:55

We've spoken about the escalating charge

1:08:57

involved, I think, in endlessly

1:08:59

searching for the worst possible

1:09:02

crime. You you spoke about that

1:09:04

in the circle of Ana Forests.

1:09:06

If you could get to the worst possible thing,

1:09:08

then there would be some sort of success. Now

1:09:10

when we look at Michelle, remember starting next episode,

1:09:12

We're gonna see how this plays out in better detail

1:09:15

through really abusive intrusive

1:09:17

therapeutic techniques. You

1:09:19

know, perpetrated by Lawrence Pasteur

1:09:22

through his absolute abdication of

1:09:24

his training. If he got any around

1:09:26

managing his own needs, his

1:09:28

counter transference, So there's

1:09:30

a trauma bonding story there that plays out

1:09:33

many, many times in, you know,

1:09:35

therapy sessions all over North

1:09:37

America and and some in Europe

1:09:39

through the eighties and early nineties, and

1:09:41

then it explodes into waves of fruitless

1:09:43

criminal prosecutions. But I

1:09:45

think that it also draws

1:09:48

or it proposes or points to something

1:09:51

archetypal to to get a little union,

1:09:53

maybe a little you know,

1:09:55

a little collective unconscious e.

1:09:59

As in, just how

1:10:01

powerful is it to have a cultural

1:10:03

meme to begin to circulate in the nineteen eighties

1:10:06

like this as globalization

1:10:10

kicks into high gear. as

1:10:12

the history channel explodes in

1:10:15

popularity, as there are,

1:10:17

like, all of these holocaust documentaries coming

1:10:19

out in memorials, and

1:10:22

then holocaust denialism beginning

1:10:24

to rise up at the same time. And

1:10:26

all of that is increasing in scope

1:10:28

and volume people are starting

1:10:31

to murmur about abuse in

1:10:33

in the Catholic church. First

1:10:35

nations people have been

1:10:37

speaking about genocide since it started

1:10:39

happening, but they're starting

1:10:41

to get heard in the eighties

1:10:44

a little bit. And then

1:10:46

we have popular books that

1:10:48

are heralding on the

1:10:50

environmental front, the global

1:10:53

population crisis, and

1:10:55

the possibility of climate collapse. nightly

1:10:58

news completely changes as

1:11:00

it goes local and becomes this fire

1:11:02

hose of sensational sort of

1:11:04

domestic disasters. and anything

1:11:06

involving child abuse has just bumped into the

1:11:08

lead. And so it feels

1:11:10

to me like the entire post war era.

1:11:12

or at least after the the

1:11:15

the alcohol wears off of the

1:11:17

mad men episodes, the

1:11:20

whole time period is this explosion

1:11:22

of revelations, scandals, betrayals,

1:11:25

and disillusionments. And they're all playing

1:11:27

out on accelerating and expanding

1:11:30

platform. I mean, don't forget, this is all

1:11:32

wonderfully described. It's also all happening

1:11:34

under the fear of of nuclear holocaust. Absolutely.

1:11:38

And so and beneath all of that,

1:11:40

there seems to be I I feel like there's

1:11:42

this constant question that

1:11:45

is is the

1:11:47

drone of my own first

1:11:49

ten years on the planet being born in

1:11:51

seventy one, which is what the fuck happened.

1:11:54

to all of us. And

1:11:57

so I think against this backdrop, I

1:11:59

believe that for a while, during

1:12:02

that tortured ten, fifteen, twenty years,

1:12:05

the alleged survivors of

1:12:07

satanic ritual abuse are viewed

1:12:09

like canaries in the coal mine. as

1:12:12

well as they are being viewed and

1:12:14

exploited as cash cow subjects

1:12:17

for people like Oprah Winfrey and Haralda

1:12:19

Brevera, And

1:12:22

on one level, on the superficial

1:12:24

level, they and the very

1:12:26

real legal level and personal

1:12:29

level, they are accusing parents and

1:12:31

caregivers. But then on a

1:12:33

symbolic level, on a cultural level,

1:12:35

I think they're expressing a larger accusation,

1:12:38

which is against a culture and history that's

1:12:40

seemingly out of control, seemingly

1:12:43

beyond repair. You

1:12:45

know, but like I think on the level

1:12:47

of just the facts, ma'am, we

1:12:50

we just don't know what happened to Tierswan.

1:12:52

We never will. her parents don't fully

1:12:54

know, Diana doesn't fully know, and

1:12:56

Swan herself has exaggerated and changed her

1:12:59

story enough that it might be that this point,

1:13:01

she doesn't really know either.