Drama Alert! Another YTber is calling us a cult! 😈☦️

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@No1Here2c So you claim it should be possible through intuition?

[Lila9]

This is not a cult.

But it has some cult-like elements that probably exist in many groups.

There is conformity, spiritual bypassing, virtue signaling, bootlicking, passive aggressiveness, power dynamics, ego, scapegoating, bullying, over-intellectualization, misalignment between the teachings and the actual behavior, lack of tolerance for others, over-judgment, etc.

[Basman]

16 minutes ago, Lila9 said:

There is conformity, spiritual bypassing, virtue signaling, bootlicking, passive aggressiveness, power dynamics, ego, scapegoating, bullying, over-intellectualization, misalignment between the teachings and the actual behavior, lack of tolerance for others, over-judgment, etc.

People are maybe dicks but your not actively being censored and punished for having a different opinion unless your actively misbehaving. Your average subreddit is way more cult-like.

Edited 19 hours ago by Basman

[Lila9]

3 minutes ago, Basman said:

People are maybe dicks but your not actively being censored and punished for having a different opinion unless your actively misbehaving. Your average subreddit is way more cult-like.

Sure. 

[caspex]

On 14/5/2026 at 0:59 PM, zurew said:

 Leo still uses this confused talk  about "proper" definitions.

There is no such a thing as a "proper" definition (you can define any fucking term, in any fucking way you like and there is no law of the universe that tells you about what any given term is supposed to mean irrespective of use), but there is such a thing as investigating and firguring out how a given word is used by a given group of people (and yes, you can empirically investigate how society broadly uses a given term or how experts who study that given area use the  term).

But we can just drop the confused "proper definition" talk and just lay down multiple different definitions and then give an analysis under which ones actualized.org would be considered a cult (assuming Leo and people give more fuck about substance, than about getting lost in semantics). 

 

 

For instance using this definition:

I dont think even Heaven's gate would fall under this. It seems to be the case that Marshall Applewhite genuinely believed his own bullshit (he literally unalived himself along with the other members).

So under your use of the term 'cult' , Heaven's gate wasnt a cult.

 

 

if you are the standard of what counts as "proper epistemology" then we are fucked. If other people would apply the lack of rigor that you apply to make sense of the world and to reach conclusions about things, then we wouldnt get anywhere.

If treating the conclusions drawn from very weak inductive inferences about other people’s knowledge, experience, or awakening with absolute certainty counts as "proper" epistemology, then hundreds of millions of people on Earth already qualify as examples of "proper" epistemology. 

Like you unironically have a "God revealed to me that you are wrong and dumb" kind of epistemology.

And just to be very clear - you still have 0 reply to the issues that I and others have pointed out about the limitations of the mystic kind of epistemology and you have never ever replied to those and just brush them off or just simply ignore them (as if that would be a substantive reply to the issues that are brought up).

You are in a constant cycle of "of course I can be wrong" when pressed, and when not pressed - you immediately pivot back to "of course im the standard of proper epistemology, and Im more right than everyone else and all of you fuckers are completely wrong and have no fucking clue what you guys are talking about"

 

 

Also the double standards that you use and that you expect about how other should treat you and your owrk vs how you treat others and their work  is still very cute:

You expect and require other people to always run with such an interpretation of your statements and your work and your behavior, where you look the best and where you never contradict yourself and where there isn't any negative entailments to what you are saying that you would be uncomfortable with, but when it comes to you doing the evaluation of what other people are saying or what the entailment of their work is , then you dont do your most basic due diligence to try to check or reinterpret what they meant by certain statements.

When you interpret statements and the work of other people, you either project the most uncharitable and worst interpretations on their statements under which interpretation their statments become either obviously false  or insanely inplausible or just simply dumb ; or you just simply force your own frame and own use of words on their work and their statements (again your confused "proper" definition view in action)  and then pretend that they used those word the exact same way as you do (this is btw another sign that you are nowhere near the system thinker you think you are - you are extremely rigid and unsophisticated ,when it comes to entertaining alternative positions and alternative interpretations of things).

 

You mistake your lack of capability to entertain multiple different interpretations and hypotheses at the same time and you forcing your one and only understood frame on everything  with you thinking for yourself and being sovereign.

 

So what we are left with is something like:  

if anyone ever thinks that Leo Gura has ever contradicted himself or if anyone thinks that you ever said anything dumb or false, then your reply will be "the only reason why you interpreted my statements that way is because you are not intelligent enough to see that im right or that I was right, and of course and its obviously true, that all of my past statements has to be interpreted in a way under which what I said is true and under which there isn't any such entailment or consequence that I would be even remotely uncomfortable with"

If you have a conclusion that contradicts Leo Gura's view of things, then you better do more spiritual work or more psychedelics, because its impossible that the most awake person in the Universe is wrong and that there is someone who is more right about something related to spirituality and if you think that its possible that there is someone who is more awake than Leo, then you are just dumb and not intelligent enough to see the obvious truth.

Should Leo Gura do more work and should Leo Gura entertain that he shouldnt "settle" all disagreements about spirituality with "you are wrong , im right, do more work" , naaaah, the dude is already awake and knows his shit better than you do.

 

I agree with @zurew here, he points to a lot of problems I have seen with Leo.

The thread has gotten lost into understanding what it means to define stuff when in reality this is the real issue at hand. This is what needs to be discussed. I would appreciate a more thorough response from @Leo Gura on this than a simple 'you're wrong because you aren't conscious enough'. Just this once.

 

 

As for the definitions. Here's my two cents - 
Clearly there is something there when you try to define a cult. You wouldn't define a cult as 'a red ball' because it's clearly not that. There is some elephant everybody is trying describe from their perspective. 

I don't know what a cult is, but I know what a cult is not: Being able to openly criticize the leader and having no bars to leaving the community, not even epistemic. (Example: You'll go to hell if you leave!)
Actualized.org allows for both open criticism of Leo and puts no epistemic, financial or physical restrains on you to stay. There's no peer pressure on you to stay within the community either. If you criticize Leo there is no crazy backlash either. This is enough to show me Actualized.org is not a cult.

But as things are progressing, I do feel the community is becoming a little less conscious and with those retreats coming up I am very curious to see how Leo prevents this place from becoming more cult-like.

[Human Mint]

16 hours ago, zurew said:

Also Its not like you couldn't teach a puppy using the word "chicken" to teach it to sit.

But then you would have to say "sit" so the dog goes hunting for chickens.

[No1Here2c]

14 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@No1Here2c So you claim it should be possible through intuition?

Intuition is but one limited human aspect that may play into it. It is not the full scope of what i am saying.

15 hours ago, No1Here2c said:

This requires a hyperaware, hyperfluid state

 

[integral]

@zurew  I have a question: what makes Heaven's Gate and Flat Earth communities different from actualized.org?

If we take the definition Leo gave of a cult very strictly like it's some list of rules (Playing devil's advocate), then Heaven's Gate won't fit into that definition of a cult.

Leader 100% believed his worldview and everyone in the community went on board and fully adopted and altered their identity to match that worldview. Well let's say actualized.org did something similar pushing everyone to be epistemically responsible. And aligned with the higher Vision possibly that Leo has created.

Why is actualized.org not just another complete load of arbitrary Belief systems like every other community?

[Rigel]

Internet outrage will win over independent thinking any day of the week🥰

[Carl-Richard]

Once upon a time, there was a Discord server lead by a charismatic spiritual person. People talked together about spiritual stuff, had group meditations, things were going great.

Then the leader had a series of psychedelic experiences that radically shifted their perspective. Then they started to believe that harmful energies were pervading the server and that they had to find a way to eliminate them. They started screening people for their energy (through readings) and if you had what was considered bad energy, you had to leave or take a break (you certainly couldn't join as a new member).

The energy problems worsened over time according to the leader, until they "realized" that one of the higher-ups and most advanced members were purportedly the cause of the energy. Not only that, the leader said that if the energy would not be stopped, it would eventually spread to the entire world and that would be the end of the world as we know it. And when asked how the energy could be stopped, he answered "you know how..." in a somber tone.

After that, the Discord fractured and some went with the accused faction, others stayed with the leader, and eventually it all fizzled out (as far as the official server was concerned; who knows which offshoots still exist, and mercy be on their soul) and the leader later re-surfaced in a YouTube video saying they were sorry for the pain they had caused and that they had entered a psychosis at that moment in time.

Everybody was free to leave, nobody had to pay anything, nobody was sexually abused (as far as we know, it was an online Discord community). The leader could be challenged, the leader was always open to discussion (as a default, perhaps it deterioated a bit at the end).

Was it a cult?

Edited 4 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Osaid]

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Was it a cult?

Sounds like it. Particularly the "you have to leave if your energy is deemed bad" aspect. That would fall into purposeful isolation and conformity. Also the "us vs. them" mentality, among other things.

I would say it's quite similar to the DSM, especially because of the narcissistic leader. One cult dynamic doesn't make a cult. One narcissistic trait doesn't make a narcissist. But if you check quite a few, then it fits the structure of one.

Most people don't understand this stuff unless they've personally been through it or thoroughly researched it for whatever reason. Or both.

I think most people probably see one cult dynamic in some aspect of society and just loosely say "omg it's a cult bro". Very similar to how if you brag about something someone might say "stop being a narcissist bro".

Edited 4 hours ago by Osaid

[Carl-Richard]

33 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Sounds like it. Particularly the "you have to leave if your energy is deemed bad" aspect. That would fall into purposeful isolation and conformity.

Leave / take a break (until you get a clear reading, that was a practice as far as I can remember).

A bit like if you post while drunk, you get moderated. A bit like if you break the guidelines, you get moderated. A bit like if you get moderated enough times, you get kicked out.

 

33 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Also the "us vs. them" mentality, among other things.

Replace "Discord" with "forum" and "harmful energies" with "non-duality" and "one of the most advanced members" with Nahm and you have the ousting of Nahm and other events (Leo's 30-day 5-MeO experiment, Leo's "mean phase"/"psychosis", the fractioning into an accused faction who left to establish a different community and the rest who stayed, Leo's eventual apology for being mean). The difference is that here, the leader and members are still active.

If you feel compelled to call what I described a cult, then you might sympathize with the person in the video above calling this place a cult. It essentially boils down to "look at these weird people with these weird beliefs" (which is essentially what most scholars define cults as anyway: social groups with deviant beliefs compared to society, often with a religious nature).

Edited 4 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Osaid]

9 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Leave / take a break (until you get a clear reading).

A bit like if you post while drunk, you get moderated. A bit like if you break the guidelines, you get moderated. A bit like if you get moderated enough times, you get kicked out.

Still applies. It could be a subtle way of saying "I don't really want you here" under the guise of some spiritual procedure. But still, it's a way of instilling conformity. It's based on the approval of some leader.

18 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Replace "Discord" with "forum" and "harmful energies" with "non-duality" and "one of the most advanced members" with Nahm and you have the ousting of Nahm and other events (Leo's 30-day 5-MeO experiment, Leo's "mean phase"/"psychosis", the fractioning into an accused faction who left to establish a different community and the rest who stayed, Leo's eventual apology for being mean). The difference is that here, the leader and members are still active.

I see the parallel, this would be a cult dynamic in the sense of instilling conformity. I think Leo made it pretty clear around this time he didn't want more "non-dual talk" or something like that. Or rather he might have phrased it as "Neo-Advaita" to make it lose credence. I feel like he cooled off with this energy though.

16 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

If you feel compelled to call what I described a cult, then you might sympathize with the person in the video above calling this place a cult.

Meh. It makes the term "cult" lose practical or significant meaning. I view it the same as someone calling someone a narcissist out of outrage. Is Actualized.org perfect? Hell no. But we need to be clean with our terms otherwise no one knows what anyone is saying.

23 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

It essentially boils down to "look at these weird people with these weird beliefs" (which is essentially what most scholars define cults as anyway: social groups with deviant beliefs compared to society, often with a religious nature).

That's a horribly weak definition though haha. It's important to have good definitions, otherwise you will fall prey to cults more easy.

It's like if someone defined a crocodile as "a green animal" vs. "a green water-dwelling animal with dangerous teeth". Both are technically correct, but one is more dense and practical.

[No1Here2c]

3 minutes ago, Osaid said:

It's like if someone defined a crocodile as "a green animal"

"Oh my God its a f*cking crocodile!"

[No1Here2c]

Crikey!

[Carl-Richard]

19 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Still applies. It could be a subtle way of saying "I don't really want you here" under the guise of some spiritual procedure. But still, it's a way of instilling conformity. It's based on the approval of some leader.

It was a quite structured practice of readers (like moderators) ensuring a minimum level of quality of the members.

 

19 minutes ago, Osaid said:

I see the parallel, this would be a cult dynamic in the sense of instilling conformity. I think Leo made it pretty clear around this time he didn't want more "non-dual talk" or something like that. Or rather he might have phrased it as "Neo-Advaita" to make it lose credence. I feel like he cooled off with this energy though.

Meh. It makes the term "cult" lose practical or significant meaning. I view it the same as someone calling someone a narcissist out of outrage. Is Actualized.org perfect? Hell no. But we need to be clean with our terms otherwise no one knows what anyone is saying.

That's a horribly weak definition though haha. It's important to have good definitions, otherwise you will fall prey to cults more easy.

It's like if someone defined a crocodile as "a green animal" vs. "a green water-dwelling animal with dangerous teeth". Both are technically correct, but one is more dense and practical.

I'm giving the position that gives credence to the common crowd of people who make such videos as above and also the scholars (the majority) who say the same thing. If you want to somehow make it more strict for some credence of, I guess simply being strict, or perhaps downplaying the different things that may occur in a "weak definition" of a cult, then that's your prerogative. But if you ask me, I don't think defining the Discord described above or the forum described as similar to it as "weakly defined" changes the fact that they may have various dynamics which may warrant some caution and perhaps a label (if not the label "cult" as is).

Edited 3 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Osaid]

28 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I'm giving the position that gives credence to the common crowd of people who make such videos as above and also the scholars (the majority) who say the same thing.

Yeah, but I'm saying that's actually detrimental. You have to be strict with definitions.

Truth is most people misuse the term narcissist. If I gave credence to that common crowd, no one would know what a narcissist is. Then it would seem like everyone is a narcissist, or everything is a cult. By your definition, much would seem like a cult.

28 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I don't think defining the Discord described above or the forum described as similar to it as "weakly defined"

I do think the server is a cult. Even if some moderators are fair, they're still reporting back to a leader that thinks people need to die. So it seems like the psychosis spiked a high degree of paranoia/narcissistic traits, if it's true that it was psychosis and not actually calculated from a more sober state.

30 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

they may have various dynamics which may warrant some caution and perhaps a label (if not the label "cult" as is).

Fair. If you really wanna bring cults into your critique, you could highlight cult dynamics and the potential for it to turn into a cult, and then what you need to know to prevent that, etc. etc.

[Carl-Richard]

15 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Yeah, but I'm saying that's actually detrimental. You have to be strict with definitions.

How strict? Give us your definition.

 

15 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Truth is most people misuse the term narcissist. If I gave credence to that common crowd, no one would know what a narcissist is.

What about scholars?

 

15 minutes ago, Osaid said:

I do think the server is a cult. Even if some moderators are fair, they're still reporting back to a leader that thinks people need to die.

Things started collapsing as soon the implication that the cause of the energy had to be removed from the Earth somehow had been made. The moderation practices occurred up to that point. After that point, I'm not sure any moderation practices occurred in any structured degree. It was sort of like the rug was pulled from beneath the picnic party and people's bare asses landed in the dirt and the ants started crawling and people started fleeing.

 

15 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Fair. If you really wanna bring cults into your critique, you could highlight cult dynamics and the potential for it to turn into a cult, and then what you need to know to prevent that, etc. etc.

 

On 12.5.2026 at 0:28 PM, Carl-Richard said:

There is like a spectrum of the alleged authority of the leader:

• At the very top-end, nobody is like the leader and nobody will ever be like them. That's like the peak Heaven's Gate type cult (not sure how accurate this is, but you get the point).
• Then under that you have where nobody is like the leader currently but that may change or is promised as a possibility. That's where Actualized is at.
• Then you have where the leader does not treat themselves as supreme and there are other examples of the same level of realization or teachings (but they still claim to be pointing to an Absolute truth). That would be perhaps some contemporary non-duality communities (maybe Sadhguru, Spira, Tolle).
• Then you simply have leaders or communities that claim special knowledge that is not necessarily absolute (or the leader is just charismatic) and they draw people in and exist on the margins of society. Perhaps Charles Manson's cult (I'm actually not sure of any of the examples, but again, you get the point).

Regardless of this, the point is that the more power is given to the leader, deliberately or not, the more cultish the dynamics become. The siloing from the larger society and the various psychological dynamics become stronger. And it doesn't matter that the concrete teachings are about independence of thought or becoming aware of self-bias or whatever clever and virtuous teachings that make the members feel like they're in control. The fact that the leader proclaims to be in that position of power, creates conflict with such teachings, and it will play on the members' psyches in pernicious ways. And such teachings will be used to protect the teacher. "You're just not openminded enough". "Be aware of your projections and biases". "You're too attached to your survival story". You can watch the Bentinho testimonies for all this.

Cult dynamics are notoriously tricky and shifty and may play in large part under the surface in line with ego defense mechanisms of the members (suppress, deny, accommodate) and systemic effects across members (scapegoating, keeping the peace, maintaining group harmony, etc.). And again, the concrete teachings can create a false sense of security and even perpetuate the very cult dynamics they are purported to prevent.

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Osaid]

3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

How strict? Give us your definition.

There has to be a hierarchical structure with a single leader at the top. All depends on maintaining this hierarchy. The leader employs psychological manipulation in order to maintain this hierarchy. This maintenance usually involves the promise of special knowledge or some special future goal where you can be involved. The maintenance of a hierarchy like this is inherently narcissistic, because the person at the top always holds more power. This also inherently leads to a need for manipulation, like hyper-conformity and isolation. I would say, the simultaneous occurrence of all of these traits would create the foundation for a cult.

All the different manipulation methods, like hyper-conformity, isolation, "us vs. them" mentality, etc., fits into this "psychological manipulation". This psychological manipulation is indicative of narcissism, and it is the same manipulation a clinical narcissist would use to manipulate others. And it is the same psychological manipulation humans have used to exploit each other throughout history. We can say that the tendency to exploit other humans is what "narcissistic traits" are. That being said, the leader is often a clinical narcissist themselves. 

This definition from Google is pretty succinct as well:


 

56 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

What about scholars?

I would assume and hope so, but I'm not sure.

In regards to narcissism, I'd hope psychologists have a basic idea of what NPD and narcissism is, since it's their job or whatever. I think the DSM is for maintaining the standards in that regard.

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

There is like a spectrum of the alleged authority of the leader:

• At the very top-end, nobody is like the leader and nobody will ever be like them. That's like the peak Heaven's Gate type cult (not sure how accurate this is, but you get the point).
• Then under that you have where nobody is like the leader currently but that may change or is promised as a possibility. That's where Actualized is at.
• Then you have where the leader does not treat themselves as supreme and there are other examples of the same level of realization or teachings (but they still claim to be pointing to an Absolute truth). That would be perhaps some contemporary non-duality communities (maybe Sadhguru, Spira, Tolle).
• Then you simply have leaders or communities that claim special knowledge that is not necessarily absolute (or the leader is just charismatic) and they draw people in and exist on the margins of society. Perhaps Charles Manson's cult (I'm actually not sure of any of the examples, but again, you get the point).

Regardless of this, the point is that the more power is given to the leader, deliberately or not, the more cultish the dynamics become. The siloing from the larger society and the various psychological dynamics become stronger. And it doesn't matter that the concrete teachings are about independence of thought or becoming aware of self-bias or whatever clever and virtuous teachings that make the members feel like they're in control. The fact that the leader proclaims to be in that position of power, creates conflict with such teachings, and it will play on the members' psyches in pernicious ways. And such teachings will be used to protect the teacher. "You're just not openminded enough". "Be aware of your projections and biases". "You're too attached to your survival story". You can watch the Bentinho testimonies for all this.

Cult dynamics are notoriously tricky and shifty and may play in large part under the surface in line with ego defense mechanisms of the members (suppress, deny, accommodate) and systemic effects across members (scapegoating, keeping the peace, maintaining group harmony, etc.). And again, the concrete teachings can create a false sense of security and even perpetuate the very cult dynamics they are purported to prevent.

Oh nice. I didn't read that, and I agree for the most part.

Indeed, the idea of a hierarchy and someone at the top of consciousness is inherently delusional and isolating. Definitely a cult dynamic. I don't think Actualized.org is authoritarian enough yet, though.

I also don't think a real non-dual teacher would actually say they have more consciousness or something like that. Yeah, they "point", but pointing isn't enough for a hierarchy, that would be your own assumption or projection onto the teacher which does commonly happen.

It's kind of like if Newton had the apple hit his head, then he had the insight about gravity and tried to tell everyone, then everyone started to think "hes above me and has better consciousness or genetics" or something. Which is completely irrelevant to gravity, lol.