As for "you guys just don't understand ambition", this response is entirely wrong and misleading. It's not ambitious to say "I am the most conscious being in the universe" or "I am the #1 authority on epistemology in the entire world". Those are claims of what you are, not what you are trying to become. If your ambition is finding the most accurate picture of reality in the entire world, that is entirely different than claiming you already have it.
And if you think you already have a pretty accurate picture of reality and you're currently not convinced that anyone is providing a better alternative, you say "this is the most accurate picture of reality I have found and I'm currently not convinced of any better alternative". You don't say "I'm the #1 authority on what constitutes an accurate picture of reality". That's a "subtle" nuance of epistemology right there.
And notice how sneaky he is in that post saying "I genuinely believe that I can understand Reality better than any human who has ever lived". As if he hasn't already said that he does understand it better than any human that has ever lived. It's sneaky snaky behavior.

I don't know, Rick.
--
You guys are really hung up on that one forum post. It was a hasty post that I regret making. I share raw, personal, aspirational stuff on this forum sometimes. I am sometimes eager so share a new thing I just discovered or am working on. I do get things wrong sometimes. Especially in a forum post. My standards for rigor in a forum post is much lower than a video, blog, or course. I don't even consider my forum posts to be my official body of work. I use this forum to think through my newest ideas out loud. This forum serves as a sounding-board for my ideas. Not all ideas survive. 
--
You began to actually admit your failure above to a degree, and then somehow reverted to the same defense mechanisms.
And now you retroactively emotionally protect your self-image if people start developing some discernment. For some reason, you insist on wanting to appear special. It's usually made through future promises, too.

I appreciate what you've done in allowing me to reach out to people here. For that, I thank you.
That said, buddy, you are profoundly deluded. You have no idea what you are talking about. I'm not talking about emptiness and no-self. I'm talking about something which destroys the notion of all 'degrees' or 'facets' or 'awakening to' things. This is the only freedom. The rest is dream garbage.
This is the sole and only realization. It is not even that. It is not merely intellectual neo-advaita stuff. It is the direct truth. 
You are in the grips of massive narcissistic, egotistical self-deception fueled by delusions of grandeur from psychedelics and from being worshipped unconditionally on this community. It's actually quite a problem. It is going to lead you years or perhaps lifetimes off the true path if you don't take care of it.
If you ever want to talk about it, reach out and I will help you without judgment or a grudge.
I'm going to take this cue to leave this community and thread, which I'd been contemplating for a while anyway.
If anyone wants to reach me -- come to my website. Adios.

Yeah and just a quick reminder - the number 1 guy on epistemology failed to deliver on his claims and never really walked back  or lowered his credence about being able to turn into an alien on camera and about him being able to heal people (Despite having tried both of those things, and the healing claim was seperate from his claims about what awakening can do to you) [1][2]
He ends up stacking and betting everything on an incredibly poorly inferred unverifiable proposition. (on the proposition that he is the most awake)
I want to emphasize the inferred part, because that goes against his epistemology about direct experience.
His epistemology ends up running on propositional knowledge (which he consistently shits on, by the way ) and not on non-propositional direct experience.
You can run through most of his claims using this method -  "Leo, is this assertion an inference, or do you know it to be true from direct experience?" 
 
I would love to see Leo spell out the difference between what he takes to be a very ambitious guy and what he takes to be an ambitious narcissist. And then I would love to see Leo use that notion and demonstrate how his behavior (described in our detailed posts) doesnt match his "ambitious narcissist" notion.
 
I want people to read these links and then tell us with a straight face that Leo is simply just a very ambitious guy.
 
--
The constant use of hyperbole can be used in multiple different ways for your own advantage - one is what you pointed out, the other is defense.  Its good for defense, because you can claim that you didnt really mean the problematic things that you explicitly said, because they were just hyperboles . (again the slimy frame game -  where the ontological status of a particular thing can be suddenly and conveniently changed depending on what makes you look better in that specific cornering session)
--
 
Take a look at what interaction I had with Leo here (particularly on that page). Notice the spineless , slimy shifts there and notice the cognition and character undermining rhetoric that he used against me .  
"I didnt claim that I cant be wrong" when I show him that he did claim that , then he changed his initial claim to "Okay, but just because I claimed that I cant be wrong about that, that doesnt necessarily mean that Im not wrong about it" - which is a seperate issue . (and this is all aside the fact again that he framed me as a hater and never walked it back even though I delivered on my claim with evidence)
And then he ended up ulting on me by using a move that protects him from any possible future criticism:
This is just a low tier move where he equivocates on what he is wrong about. The accusation was  never that self deception is not endless or that he explicitly claimed somewhere that self-deception is not endless, the accusation was that he made a claim that there is at least one thing that he cant be wrong about  (namely, about him being the most awake).
If he seriously wants to imply that anyone who affirms the claim once that "self-deception is endless" can never be wrong about anything from that point on (because if they are wrong about something,then they end up being right about self-deception being endless)  - then he can go ahead, but everyone knows that he doesnt take that to be the case and its obvious that it was just a desperate and slimy move on his part.

The tier 2 inference  "Btw I did an objective 5 minute internet psych test that proved that im not a narcissist "
The dismissive "Let me only focus on definitions and let me label all disagreers as inexperienced people and as  internet trolls.  Let me also not address literally any single fucking thing about my posts and about my behavior that were directly outlined in a structured way with a bunch of links".
"let me ignore the fact that literally half of my moderators think that my behavior is problematic and let me continue engaging in the exact same dismissive, nonresponsive, and undermining behavior that I've been consistently exhibiting for the past decade or so.  ".
 
This is the easy, lazy, coward move. "Let me negatively frame and undermine the cognition and or the morals of all the disagreers so that I dont need to subsantively engage with literally anything".
This move might work against a random youtuber who literally doesnt know anything about you and your work, but this wont work against your own moderators.

[Ref] On the exact topic of Cult Psychology, I read and used all four from the Book List to write a paper on the cult dynamics of Silicon Valley in my Expos 20 class at Harvard. It is still used as a model paper for that class.  And right now, he is committing the precise epistemological fallacies listed in them. I quote:
Deikman: “Lacking interest and information concerning the actual statements and actions of opponents or outsiders.” (1) 
I have seen this play out with engagement of epistemological and intellectual criticism, specifically surrounding stances on rationality, sciences and AI [ref 1] [ref 2]. His imaginary scientists have been a gross caricature and continue to be so despite me and others giving personal, extra-personal experiences, as well as evidence. 
Hassan: "In totalistic cults, the ideology is internalized as ‘the truth,’ the only map of reality." (2)
Stein: “It rejects any knowledge from the outside world in order to create a fictitious world within the hermetically sealed totalist system.” (3)
The reactions to the Alien Intelligence pushback [ref 3] [ref 4] and the refusal to admit fundamental epistemological errors is what warranted the cult-like accusations by @UnbornTao and @zurew.  @Carl-Richard gave an abundant list of the "No one has had my awakening and realizations" [ref 5] and was also one of the un-modded ones. 
Per the references above, the un-modding and banning are reflections of an echo chamber dynamic, especially given the rhetoric and responses. 
@Leo Gura The Actualized.org brand, channel and forum is yours, preach your Truth. But don't be surprised that you are losing viewership. It's not just "the algorithms". 

1) Let's not reduce this to just a “hasty post.”
Here is exactly what you said:
You explicitly said that people would visually see you morph into an Alien Intelligence, and then added, “If I don't, then you can call out my bullshit.” That's exactly what people are doing now, isn't it?
2) Why is it that when you hold people accountable and question their claims, you're being epistemically responsible, but when someone does the same to you, they're “hung up”?
You always encourage others to hold themselves accountable, yet for some reason, you refuse to do the same yourself. A post admitting that you were wrong (being delusional and grandiose, for example) would go a long way for everyone on this forum.

So whats the actual positive case for why he is not a cult leader or for why this place is not a cult?
I want to again - redirect some  attention back to the fact that no one has made a non-adhoc positive case for that yet, where you actually lay down your specific theory in length with evidence and with links and where you account for all the problematic data that was pointed out by me  [1 ,2 , 3, 4] and by other people in these threads [1 , 2, 3] . A case, where  you demonstrate that you are informed (that you actually read most of these threads and have the relevant context ,and you dont need to get walked through literally all the info). A case, where you open up yourself to get defintion and gradience raped by a bunch of users, who will use a bunch of rheotrical questions hidden as "im just questioning parts of your theory"  when in reality, they intend to spend a good chunk of time analyzing and making comments about your motivations   and they intend to spend a good chunk of time fishing for reasons so that they can attack your character and so that they can end up making a bunch of implications about your character and motivations  -rather than, again - directly focusing on and engaging with the overall substance of your theory in good faith and then making a good faith summary why they disagree with the overall case.
Give a comprehensive, holistic case, where you account for all the problematic data taken as a whole stack or as a big configuration of facts (and where you dont just account for just little  bits and pieces , while you also pretend and imply  that you managed to make a good positive overall case or that you managed to defend the positive side by simply asking a bunch of questions ).

I think its worth to bring some attention back to the fact about how little is being asked from Leo and from the community here (regardless whether you agree with the operating definition of cult used by me or by other people who call this place a cult)
It also seemed to have been the case, that even most people here who disagreed with the label, they mostly agreed desriptively with the underlying issues that were outlined here and they also agreed that it would be cool if those things would be resolved - but I personally havent seen any of them bring up these issues to Leo or bring Leo's attention to these issues, and I think thats quite clearly a collective failure.
The defenses provided here were almost never that the provided data and facts arent true or that they arent problematic -  the defense was that the problematic facts  arent sufficient to satisfy your working definition of a cult.
It also worth to bring attention back to the fact how disagreement was largely handled here. After agreeing with you that the things that you outlined are problematic, those same members want you to leave the group rather than collabing with you and putting pressure on the leader to make a change about things that everyone agreed are problematic and whose resolution would make everything better. 

The narcissism critique, the "he is narcissistic" critique, the "lack of integrity" critique, and the "you shouldn't bring attention to the idea or declare yourself to be more awake than every other being in the universe" critique do not rely on the premise that Leo is not the most awake being in the universe.
You can go back and read my previous posts. I provided numerous links throughout this thread documenting the behavior I consider problematic. Feel free to actually go through those examples, respond to them individually and/or comprehensively, and provide an explanation that makes them no longer problematic while still preserving your view that Leo has integrity and that his commitment to teaching is more important than preserving his special image.
 
 
You can criticize the morals, judgment, rhetoric, or behavior of a spiritual teacher without assuming that their spiritual realization is false. These are separate questions.(unless you want to make a weird move, where you want to collapse that seperation, and where you want to imply  that every instance of bad behavior was necessary (that it was the optimal strategy for accomplishing Leo's teaching goals and that only Leo possesses the special knowledge required to understand why behaving that way was both necessary and beneficial).
Lets suppose, for the sake of argument, that Leo actually is the most awake being in the universe. Lets also suppose that he genuinely possesses special abilities that allow him to know (with absolute certainty) the level of awakening of every conscious being in existence.
Even if I grant all of that, the criticism still stands:
You can be the most awake being in the universe and still choose not to repeatedly create threads declaring that you are the most awake being in the universe while explicitly undermining everyone else's cognition. If the stated purpose of this work is helping people awaken, making them more sovereign, encouraging independent realization, and emphasizing that people should "do the work," then repeatedly redirecting attention toward yourself and your own exceptional status is obviously counterproductive.
A Tier 2 guy who is the most awake being in the universe and can telepathically (with certainty) perfectly read everyone's level of awakening somehow failed to recognize how ineffective his "I'm the most awake being in the universe for the 1000th time, and everyone else is a fucking spiritual rat and should be beaten with a crowbar" rhetoric is (even though multiple people have given him very clear negative feedback about it)  -  Especially, again, if his main goal is to teach us, keep us receptive, help us awaken, and make us more sovereign.
If his primary objective is teaching, , helping people awaken, and increasing their sovereignty, then it is very weird why he continued using rhetoric that many of us repeatedly clarified was producing a negative effect.
Again, notice that this criticism does not depend on the claim that he is not the most awake being in the universe.
His rhetoric is problematic (regardless whether he is the most awake or not) :
because of how it comes across; because Leo would never grant comparable claims if they would came from someone else; because many members of his own audience have repeatedly made it clear that this rhetoric makes them significantly less receptive; and because it predictably creates cult dynamics that undermine the very goals he claims to value (especially again if you combine that specialty claim with undermining the cognition of disagreers). More specifically: It undermines people's sovereignty. It encourages exceptional trust in Leo's authority. It encourages people to become increasingly dependent on him while simultaneously distrusting every other spiritual teacher, because all of them supposedly belong to the category of "they don't know what they're talking about." It also encourages people to distrust their own judgment and discernment (If the claim is that every single advanced spiritual teacher in history failed to reach Leo's level of realization, and if no one else truly understands consciousness, then why would anyone on this forum ever trust their own discernment?) And no, the reply that "every other spiritual community has the exact same problems" does not work - because not every other spiritual community has a leader who claims to be more awake than everyone else in the universe , not every spiritual leader undermines the cognition of every single student every singe time when there is a disagreement ,not every spiritual community is set up in a way where your progress can only be evaluated by the leader (again, the "you can validate everything for yourself" doesnt work in practice, because if you do the work and disagree on things, then that can only mean that you havent done enough work and there is no possible scenario under which you can do enough work and disagree with Leo on spirituality  - the "did enough" standard can only be called by Leo and there isn't any independent standard from Leo's judgement. ).
 
 
 
 
Now, let's temporarily stop assuming those two premises: (That Leo is the most awake being in the universe and that Leo can flawlessly determine everyone else's level of awakening.)
And lets challenge the implication that the reasonable default position is simply to grant those premises until someone can disprove them with absolute certainty.
Lets be clear and honest here - Neither you nor Leo would ever consistently apply that standard.
Imagine someone else making exactly the same argument to you.: Imagine a scenario where a teacher behaved in ways you considered manipulative or morally questionable. And then one of the teacher's follower told you:
"The reasonable thing is to simply assume this behavior is necessary because this person is the most spiritually advanced being in existence. He understands the effects of his rhetoric better than anyone else, so you should trust the process, regardless of how much negative feedback his students express."
In what world would you ever accept an implication or response like that?
Now, If your response is something like "Of course I would  grant that someone other than Leo could be the most awake being in the universe." Okay. then let's check how serious you are about that. Grant that special priviledge to me (After all, you cannot be absolutely certain that I am not the most awake being in the universe, right? - And thats the standard you are asking everyone else to adopt) So, from this point forward, assume that I am more knowledgeable than you:
Assume I am the ultimate authority on epistemology. Assume that whenever we disagree (about spirituality, definitions of cults) that I am correct by default and that everyone ought to use the definition of cult that I provided Do not rely on the possibility that I might be mistaken (because again, the reasonable move is to grant those things to me, because if you dont then you are closed-minded or not ready for this advanced work).
And from now on, you need to accept all of my rhetoric and behavior because you don't yet understand how this is going to be beneficial for you and everyone else. You can validate everything that I say, but you need to keep in mind that, as long as we disagree about anything I care about, that that will automatically mean that you are wrong and that you need to do more work. This is because sufficient validation is analytically defined as you agreeing with me on all the things I care about, and there is no standard outside of me that can tell you when you have done enough and proper work. (So, let me take on that role and be an absolute authority on what "enough work" and "enough validation" means - actually let me contradict myself since this work is paradoxical and say that there is a standard that is technically outside of me - this is the standard: Keep doing the work until the point where you agree with me perfectly on everything I care about. Until then, any disagreement simply indicates that you have more work to do)
 
 
 
if you acknowledge  that all of that shit is completely unreasonable and you can entertain for a moment that Leo is not necessarily that special or infallible as he trie to pretend to be - then we can begin discussing Leo's epistemology.
Explain:
Why is there no video demonstrating the alien transformation that Leo repeatedly claimed he both could and would perform on camera? (Also - Why, when confronted about failing to deliver on that prediction, was his response dismissive rather than reflective ( where he acknowledge that he was wrong or at the very least acknowledge that he failed to deliver on that claim)? Why has there never been any healing miracle done by Leo ? How do you explain the repeated situations in which Leo denies making statements that he demonstrably made, even after evidence is presented? (One example that illustrates [this was one of my interaction with him] ,  you can search for my post related to this, its in this thread and I provided relevant links there) This was the situation: Leo said : "I never claimed that I can't be wrong." I then presented him with a post where he wrote: "I can be full of shit, but not on this." His response then shifted from: "I never claimed X." to "Just because I claimed X doesn't mean X is true." (Those are entirely different propositions -  The first concerns whether the claim was ever made and the second concerns whether the content of the claim was correct) This is a sneaky and spineless shift in the discussion so that he doesnt need to take responsibility when he is cornered. He then ended with one of the most manipulative moves, when he uttered (paraphrased):
"I cannot ultimately be wrong because I once uttered the claim that self-deception is endless. Therefore, if I turn out to be wrong about something, that will just confirm my broader claim that self-deception is endless." - Given this logic, you can't be held accountable for any false or incorrect claim, because you can always pivot back to, "But I already told you that self-deception is endless."

Instead of doubling down and trying to shove down your one highly specific and conveniently declared defintion of cult inside everyone's throats in a way where you also imply that everyone who disagree with you on that must be wrong and there is no room for disagreement -  you can just stop playing  superiority games and you can just stop undermining literally everyone else's takes and views on things you care about and these threads are gonna die very quick and they will lose all of their appeal.
 its very very easy for you to stop , but you choose to continue. You continue to play superiority games and you continue to undermine everyone's sovereignty except the ones who agree with you perfectly on things you personally care about.
This is all on you. 
You can at any given moment : stop declaring yourself to be the exclusive and proper standard of epistemology , and stop explicitly saying and stop implying that everyone else is spiritually and or cognitively impaired for disagreeing with you on matters that you care about and you can stop at any moment declaring yourself to be the most conscious human being in the universe.
 
 
Make it very clear, that your belief  about you being the most conscious human being in the Universe and about you accessing the highest states relies on you making assumptions about data that you dont have any access to. You dont have any access to anyone's history on how conscious they are or what states they achieved or what awakening they have had  - you rely on making inferences about those things based on your trips and based on your awakenings . But you know this very well, that making inferences  is not a foolproof epistemic activity, and you know very well, that inferences are subject to be wrong, and you would never ever in your life (including your fans) accept or entertain such an inference to be made by any other spiritual teacher (let alone by any of your non-suckup members), so stop pretending that its a legitimate move  and stop pretending that that claim of yours is unshakeable and that you have grounds to make that claim in any definitive way.
None of the suckups here who rhetorically ask the question of "but how do you know that Leo is wrong about him being the most conscious being in the Universe" ask the same question to themselves in a way where the subject of that question (Leo) is changed to a different person . Leo cant answer this question in any definitive way either  , but for some reason the suckups pretend and demand from non-suckups to give a definitive answer to that question, because if they cant, then they must be closed minded and must not be doing the "real" work.
Most non-suckups dont make the claim that they definitively know that Leo isn't the most conscious being in the Universe, they rather say that no one knows who is the most conscious being in the Universe, because no one has access to all the relevant data to make that evaluation (and this is aside from the obvious issue that there is no definitive and indepedent answer about what standard should even be used to make the evaluation in the firstplace).
To be very very clear on this - Its the suckups and Leo who pretend that they know beyond any doubt what standard needs to be used for that evaluation  and its the suckups and Leo who make that leap of faith (about Leo being the most conscious being in the Universe) and they are the ones who diss non-suckups for not doing the same.
Even granting your whole epistemic frame about Relativity and there being ever deeper awakenings and that previous awakenings and inights are never undermined by deeper awakenings (just only recontextualized) - you never addressed the epistemic issues that comes with such a frame  [1 , 2] and again, granting that such a frame is true, that just gives you even more reason to not make definitive statements about how deep other people have gone, because your depth perception is limited by your current depth and you cant know what set of insights and what set of recontextualiztations lie in deeper awakenings.
But regardless you dont buy into this Relativity thing , you only buy into it at the times, when its convenient for you to do so.
 
Ask yourself this question - Why must everyone hold the belief that Leo is the most conscious human being in the Universe?
If the answer to that is that none of that is necessary, then why continue to engage in that dynamic and why continue to contribute to such dynamic ? A dynamic, that creates more blind suckups and a dynamic, that creates an idol from Leo and distract people away from doing the work.
Why is it not enough to make the claim that there might be more that can be achieved (for instance, if they did x,y,z spiritual practices)? If the answer to that is "because they are the kind of bunch, who are not open to the fact that they can be wrong and that there is more" - in that case, explain to us how is your solution helpful in persuading those people (those, who you actually think are belong in the closed-minded category) by making yourself to be an idol?
Leo tell us again, why is the idolization of yourself is necessary to achieve any of your goals? And before  you will dishonestly make your caveat  again that you can be full of shit - here is a post you making that caveat and clarifying "but not on this issue" (implying that you might be full of shit about everything else, but not about you being the most conscious being in the Universe)
Leo also tell us a story about how you banning people and how you threatening that you will ban them (if they dare to disagree with you on the fact that you are not the most conscious being in the Universe and or that you might be wrong about spirituality ) contributes and contributed to their development, contributes and contributed to their wellbeing?
Leo tell us a story about how you treating everyone like a retarded child the moment they disagree with you on things you care about helps them in any way at all?
Leo tell us how you rountinely Gashlighting people like this and not actually taking responsibility for your actions (the apology that you gave is framing all these issues as just bad rhetoric use) is helpful and useful to anyone here and how does that not make you an abuser ,where you can arbitrarily and conveniently let go of the human frame the moment you need to take any responsbility for the things you did and said? 
Where is the moment where you stop pretending that this is just an issue about a few crashouts and just an issue about your rhetoric and not about your dogmatic beliefs about you being better than everyone else and about you thinking that everyone else are just unconscious rats ? [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. 
You either become a suckup or you have to be subjected to Leo's abusive tactics , because thats when you are serious about the work and thats when you are doing the real work and thats when you are thinking for yourself.
Leo tell us why you treat your non-suckup moderators like this and tell us how  playing these mind games [1 , 2] on them help them in any way at all? Especially the part where you PM them" to talk it out"
Leo, why not for once in your life -  answer these questions plainly in detail with actual substance  without redirecting, without accusing people of not understanding or being purportedly disrespectful for having a different opinion and without you pretending that all of this can be simply explained away by you having a few crashouts here and there and or by you simply using "bad rhetoric" for strategic purposes (which again, you never explained anywhere - how and why that tactic is effective at converting closed minded people) and how that tactic is not just another plausible deniability move from the big plausible deniablity stack that you usually appeal to and that you frequently use (including the new one, where your forum posts apparently and suddenly dont need to be taken seriously and they need to be treated as just casual convos the moment you are cornered about the things you did and said. Even though previously your stance was this on it and not this:

I dont understand a lot of things with respect to the bigger post that that smaller quote is embedded in. (There is a reason why I emphasized that post, I just didnt want to immediately spell out my take on it)
But here is what I see in that bigger post and in his other posts [1, 2 , 3, 4]in that same thread:
 Aside from the fact again, that in the bigger post Leo starts with undermining the validity of your cognitive a spiritual faculties , and he tells you that you are in a cult and you are not thinking for yourself (as long as you disagree with him on spirituality and "arrogant" enough to entertain that he might be wrong on spirituality) and aside from the fact that 1) thinking for yourself, 2) not being a in a cult, 3) being properly AWAKE and 4) not being self-deceived and 5) "Properly" caring about the truth (encourage you to give up/undermine your own personal boundaries related to teacher-student ethics and justifies why the dissing rhetoric needs to be used on you and why you are the one who is reponsbile for and to be blamed for the harshness of the rhetoric and methods anyway)  - disagreeing with his judgements related to the 5 listed things is tied together with the negation of all the 5 things being applicable to you (if you disagree with his judgement related to the 5 listed things, then that automatically means that you dont care enough about Truth,  you are not AWAKE, you are not thinking for yourself and you are in a cult and you are self-deceived all at the same time.
He created a scenario under which he made the students necessarily reliant on him on all sorts of things (as long as they disagree with anything related to the 5 listed things)  and  he gets to directly control the narrative and be the exclusive judge of all the things that are related to the listed 5 things -  he gets to directly control and be the exclusive judge of what kind of teacher-student ethics you need to be okay with, he gets to control and be the exclusive judge of how AWAKE you are, he gets to control and be the exclusive judge of when you are "thinking for yourself", he gets to control and be the exclusive judge of when you are in a cult and when you are not, he gets to control and be the exclusive judge of when you are self-deceived and when you are not.
He also gets to control whats the "right" and "correct" interpretation is of that very post - The post very carefully justifies itself in a way where only his 1 spelled out interpretation of that very post is accurate and is valid, and any negative interpretation of that  post under which he would be seen in a negative light just automatically means sheer lunacy and an utter disrespect for his work.
So you either agree with all the things related to the 5 listed things ( you give up your sovereignty and your control and your alternative interpretations related to the list and related to the content of that whole post) or the negation of the 5 listed things are all applicable to you and you are engaging in sheer lunacy and you are also disrespecting his work and you are gaslighting him and you gets to be a deluded fool like Nahm, WinterKnight, Frank Yank, TJ Reeves, and all the others.
 
This is a lot more than just him using improper rhetoric and him not choosing the right set of words to express himself and him just not caring about your suffering (which are the main things that he apologized for in his original apology blog post).
To my understanding - He never apologized for the gaslighting , for the mind games and for making everyone reliant on him and for him dictating all the narrative related to everything and for him banning and threatening people. (but he doesnt need to apologize , imo he should rather change his behavior and stop sliming around and he should acknowledge the gravity of his mistakes)
And again, this is all aside from the other things that I mentioned and laid down in my main, long post.

I think you missed a cute relevant context there - "Im the standard of epistemology" was literally replied  to establish authority over what should and should not be considered a cult. He didnt just say that you are wrong about cults, he implied that he is literally the proper foundation from which it can be accurately assessed what should and should be not considered a cult.
There is a difference between saying "I disagree with you and I think im right" and between saying that "you are so mentally impoverished that you cant even begin to understand what standards or methods are needed to judge whether something is a cult or not, so let me be that standard and dicatate and control all of  that shit"
Again this goes back to there not being any independent norms and standards from him - He wants to be  standard that tells you your level of development, he wants to be the standard that tells you whether you are wrong or not , he wants to be the standard that tells what is and what is not cult, he wants to be  the standard that can tell you whether he himself is a cult leader or not etc.

Notice how Carl managed to predict perfectly how Leo will respond and notice how Leo's non-answer was a manipulative "you dont understand " tactic for the millionth time.
Like this is perfection, Leo doesnt have a single fucking spine in his body.
He cant fucking respond to anything with substance without implying that you are a retard or mentally or spiritually impaired.
There is no disagreement with him on any issue that he cares about where you must not be dumb or misunderstanding. You either agree or you are just simply wrong.
Fucking perfection, and people here will continue to deepthroat this guy.
 
Also the allegedly non-authoritative guy btw, who wants to dictatate  how his community should use certain words, and also wants to be the exclusive judge of your level of spiritual knowledge  (since there is no one else who knows what they are talking about) and everyone else (inclduing you yourself) is unfit for that (btw you all have perfect sovereignty guys and you are perfectly legit to judge things for yourself as long as you agree with Leo, but if you dont, then we have a problem here, because  that shows that you have no understanding and you should rather ask Leo to be your exclusive judge) 
Contrast current Leo with this past Leo:
 
 

Thats literally what happens in practice though.
Spiritual disagreement with Leo  never ever ends up in a place where you are treated as an individual who isn't self-deceived and or needing to do more work and or treated either as a cognitively impaired or a spiritually impaired person.
Disagreement for him is a sign that you need to be told whats up and you need to be corrected rather than him having a discussion and a disagreement with a potentially mutually developed person from which both person can learn from (he never looks at it as a  disagreement from which he can learn from or that he might be missing something or that he might be wrong )
And he has been consistently claiming to be the most developed person on Earth and that no one else (including all other spiritual leaders) know what they are talking about. (for close to a decade now)
You arent self-deceived and you are sovereign as long as you a lock step with Leo's spiritual views, but if you diverge from it you are self-deceived and you need to do more spiritual work.
Your level of development and how much you are self deceived and how much you are sovereign - all of those things are defined by how much you agree with Leo's epistemology and with Leo's spiritual views.
Demonization of other groups and other school  of thought - You happen to be in groupthink (if you doing practices and philosophy happens to lead you to a different group of people or to a different school of thought), but if you are lock step with Leo's epistemology and all of his spiritual views, then you are free from group think and you are exercising your sovereignty.
 
Bro you are totally free to leave if you are happen to be the undeveloped loser who are dinterested in Truth and more interested in wasting his time and  exploring other school of thought that obviously and must be aiming for falsehood (which just means disagrees with Leo on spiritual matters) and if you want to engage with other group of people  and other spiritual leaders who must be less developed and more self deceived than Leo.

I would reject the underlying premise that the members of other cult like communities have arbitrary belief systems.
They are not arbitrary, you can often times abstract and explicitly spell out their epistemology (the way they acquire their "knowledge" ).
 
But one main difference is the underlying claim that you can independently validate the claims that are made by the leader . The issue in practice though again, is that thats just a facade, because as long as you disagree with Leo, the implication will be that there were issues with your validation process and that you need to do it over and over again (do more drugs, more spiritual work, more contemplation etc) up until the point you agree with the leader. So epistemically there is seemingly an out, where you can independently check things, but socially and cult dynamics like you have the same exact same type of punish-reward system as other cults:
If you agree with the leader you are profound and intelligent and cool, if you disagree, then you are self-deceived and dumb. You are sovereign and you are the ultimate authority as long as you agree, but if you disagree then you should take Leo's opinion over yours  and if you wont, then you are dumb and closed minded.  There is also a internal social force inside the community,  where they will press you with a bunch of different tools to undermine your confidence in that you are more correct that the leader, and that you need to do more work (for instance, "you are not open minded to the fact that Leo is more right than you" etc).
Some other similarities with other cults are - leader has 0 epistemic humility , 100% confidence in main beliefs, 0 ability for the leader and for the group to self correct epistemically, because the norm for what it means for anyone  to be right and or to do the practices right collapses back down to what the leader's interpetation is  and what the leader accepts to be true.
Another interesting subtle dynamic here is that as long as you demonize other communities and point out why they are wrong and why they are dumb , then your sovereignty will be invoked and praised and you will be rewarded for "thinking for yourself"; but if you use your critical thinking and sovereignty to criticize actualized.org, then the claim  will be that you are engaging in unconscious group dynamics and that you are biased towards other communities and that you are just unconciously parroting other people. (and basically its impossible that you managed to arrive at a different conclusion than Leo and that your conclusion can match a different leader's answer or a different community's answer).  And hence, you will be labeled self-deceived and being a conformist towards other ideas and towards other group of people and  your sovereignty  (which was given so much importance and which was praised so much up until the point you agreed with the core main ideas of actualized.org)  will be immediately trashed and undermined.
 
 
And there is more stuff that I left out in my long previous ramble. You can notice that Leo is a big manipulative weasel, not just because he only acknowledges limitation when he is hard pressed and when not pressed he immediately goes back to his natural habitat and acts as an authority on spiritual subjects with 100% confidence, but also because he constantly jumps back and forth in a similar way about his superiority as well .
In one breath, he will say, that he is not human and that  he is above all the limited ,garbage epistemology that humans practice (and so he doesnt care about what any human spiritual leader or philosopher has to say or what objections they have),  but when you press him on that claim , then he will immediately change the meaning of that very claim and will pretend that what he really meant was "the reason why he is not a human is because he is God and everyone is God" - and so he will act like he didnt just remove himself from the limitations that he thinks humans have, and he will pretend that he didnt just treat everyone else as just humans and that he only treated himself as God. 
And the "Im assuming you guys are intelligent enough to interpret my words and posts correctly" in Leo language just means "whatever context we are in right now, and whatever interpretation will make me look the best in this particular situation right now, go with that interpretation and ignore all the previous context that my messages were embedded in; particularly,  if that would make me look bad or if that would make me contradict some of the things I already said".
 
 
 
So in practice and at the end of the day, its not just that the answer to the question of "what is Truth" and what it means to attain the highest levels spiritually will be directly dependent on Leo; and its not just that the norm that decides whether you do the pracitces right or whether you did enough work will be directly dependent on Leo ; and its not even just that its on Leo to tell you what epistemic tools to even use ; but even the very norm that reveals whether you actually act sovereign and whether you actually practice your sovereignty and think for yourself  or not -  even that will be directly depended on and judged and answered by Leo (you are not sovereign if you disagree with the main ideas, because the very fact that you disagree with the Leo's ideas shows that you are self-deceived and that you run by unconscious factors).