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

[Joseph Maynor]

3 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

The VIP members list.

According to the unknown tao.  Of course.

[Thought Art]

Stay well everyone, I will focus on my project here. 
 

1,2,3,4!!!

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I'm sensing you haven't been able to express your anger in a normal way or so you state.  

Wildly incorrect. I am extremely emotive and angry in expression, often. I show all kinds of emotions and do not suppress. 

I would like to know what you mean by "normal way"

I simply do not direct it AT someone (I genuinely try not to, at least) and try never to attack back. My defence is normally stonewalling. I give others nothing back to further energise their anger when it is directed at me. Most people who are in a highly energised attack state want that energy bounced back to feed them.

You've mischaracterised me a few times now. And again - it comes down to what you yourself consistently reinforce; you have little idea what I am like, expressively, in real life. Totally different to the impressions I probably make here 🫠

@Thought Art banter and calling the chippies and trades names is par the course - especially on Australia. I've only had to face really hard aggressive anger when it's someone I do not have rapport with. 

But when I know someone, I can tell them to fuck off and they understand there is no actual personal ill wishing on my behalf of there wellfare. Context matters 100% 

I am never one to suppress. I get called unprofessional due to my emptying, more than anything else. But I do not, or try not, to direct my emotions at someone. Or weaponised them. I throw things at the office frequently. I abuse inanimate objects a lot when angry 

Like you raised it's a big challenge in stocism. It's not about repressing. But holding space for you own emotions, as well as anothers.

Edited 14 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[UnbornTao]

4 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Just watch who asks the leading questions... Telling

And the strawmaning of @zurew's position.

Definitely.

[Wilhelm44]

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I'm saying the experiences of personal abuse, belittling, etc. has been worse. There were other aspects of the cult that were more destabilizing (the very wacky beliefs and eventual doomsday ideations). I stay here for various reasons.

If you're experiencing abuse here worse than in an actual cult, it is a bit strange that you still deciding to stay. Must be some massive benefits then.

(Also the real cult that you referring to is something that happened on Dischord apparently. You can hardly compare that to something like the MAPLE cult discussed by @Consilience in the other thread.)

It sounded to me like Leo felt insulted by you guys insinuating that this is a cult, and he said something to the effect of: makes me not want to teach you guys anymore. Kind of similar to something I heard a teacher say many a time with regards to an unruly class. You said you felt personally threatened by that.

No disrespect, but I think it's hardly comparable to the type of personal threats one would probably receive in a place like MAPLE.

"I could be wrong though."

(Adding this phrase as a caveat at the end, so that @zurew doesn't think I'm running a cult.)

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Wilhelm44

[Thought Art]

If you being abused here (which I doubt). You should probably leave. If this community, Leo, and his videos are not helping you or supporting you and you feel this way you should leave. Take a break. Always free to come and go. 
 

But, it’s obvious to me you guys don’t watch his videos. I know a lot of you have admitted this and then you wonder why this is so confusing. His epistemic responsibility video for example answers so much of your guys criticisms, and clears Leo’s attitudes towards these things. 

[Joseph Maynor]

1 minute ago, Thought Art said:

If you being abused here (which I doubt). You should probably leave. If this community, Leo, and his videos are not helping you or supporting you and you feel this way you should leave. Take a break. Always free to come and go. 
 

But, it’s obvious to me you guys don’t watch his videos. I know a lot of you have admitted this and then you wonder why this is so confusing. His epistemic responsibility video for example answers so much of your guys criticisms, and clears Leo’s attitudes towards these things. 

I don't think anyone is attacking Leo that directly, do you think?  I think people are just discussing what they feel is important.  It could be topics that go beyond Leo.

[Thought Art]

@Joseph Maynor Hmmm, well, you’ll have to decide I don’t know what you mean by attack. There have been people here actively accusing Leo of being a cult leader, many mods and members. 
 

This video destroys cults, belief, etc. A cult leader could not and would not make this video. 

[zurew]

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. 

[Wilhelm44]

Start a separate thread then where you focus on the actual complaints. Throwing in the cult word prematurely has not been very productive at all, it just leads to a shit show. 

[Wilhelm44]

"My point wasn't to paint all moderators with a single brush. My critique is strictly operational: when internal friction gets weaponized publicly, it drains the engine."

Spot on.  @LordFall

Edited 8 hours ago by Wilhelm44

[Carl-Richard]

 

7 hours ago, Wilhelm44 said:

If you're experiencing abuse here worse than in an actual cult, it is a bit strange that you still deciding to stay. Must be some massive benefits then.

Why are you turning what I clarified and added nuance to back into the same black and white issue I clarified, and why are you invoking a should? I gave you exactly the distinction I gave.

There is an awful a lot of "shoulds" in this thread when it's really just about what a cult is. You are playing Leo's script well. This is exactly what he would want, people pushing back for him when people call it a cult, suggesting they do a lot of things rather than just have a discussion. I wonder what would've happened instead if he took the MAPLE/Bentinho/Heaven's Gate route and just embraced the concept. "Yeah, of course it's a cult. And?"

Edited 3 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Wilhelm44]

1 minute ago, Carl-Richard said:

 

Why are you turning what I clarified and added nuance to back into the same black and white issue I clarified, and why are you invoking a should? I gave you exactly the distinction I gave.

There is an awful a lot of "shoulds" in this thread when it's really just about what a cult is. You are playing Leo's script well. This is exactly what he would want, people pushing back for him when people call it a cult, suggesting they do a lot of things rather than just have a discussion.

I'm not playing games, I asked a very logical and reasonable question.

[Carl-Richard]

7 hours ago, Wilhelm44 said:

(Also the real cult that you referring to is something that happened on Dischord apparently. You can hardly compare that to something like the MAPLE cult discussed by @Consilience in the other thread.)

I felt existentially threatened and rattled for years after the cult. Why the need to delegitimize people's experiences? Why the need to make denigrating comparisons? Could it be that there are different kinds of cults, different reasons why one would be compelled to call something a cult? Maybe actually study what a cult is on your own without soelly relying on the videos by your cult leader.

Edited 3 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Wilhelm44]

1 minute ago, Carl-Richard said:

I felt existentially threatened and rattled for years after the cult. Why the need to delegitimize people's experiences? Why the need to make such comparisons? Could it be that there are different kinds of cults, different reasons why one would be compelled to call something a cult? Maybe actually study what a cult is on your own without soelly relying on the videos by your cult leader.

If you recall, I said "with all due respect" I just don't see how an online cult could be in the same class as something like MAPLE for example. Now I could be wrong. The real point I made was that Leo saying he doesn't feel like teaching you anymore, is something I have heard many a frustrated teacher utter at one point or another. But I acknowledge that you experienced it as a personal threat.

If all you really want is a practical definition of a cult, what have you come up with so far ?

ie What is your definition of a cult ?

 

[Carl-Richard]

22 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

If all you really want is a practical definition of a cult, what have you come up with so far ?

ie What is your definition of a cult ?

Social group with deviant beliefs compared to the surrounding society, often religious in nature. The way I was rattled without being personally threatened in personal interactions with the leader was that the beliefs were very fear-based, relied on subtle phenomena and paranoid. Normal everyday people were claimed to be carriers of negative harmful energies for example.

But even if my experience in the cult was a heavenly experience, I would still be inclined to call it a cult. I would be inclined to call for example a doomsday cult a cult even if their experience in the cult is absolutely a-ok.

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Wilhelm44]

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Social group with wacko beliefs compared to the surrounding society, often religious in nature. The way I was rattled without being personally threatened in personal interactions with the leader was that the beliefs were very fear-based, relied on subtle phenomena and paranoid. Normal everyday people were claimed to be carriers of negative harmful energies for example.

 

I'm sorry you went through that, sounds really freaky. Does this cult still exist ?

Edited 2 hours ago by Wilhelm44

[Carl-Richard]

10 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

I'm sorry you went through that, sounds really freaky. Does it still exist ?

Officially no, it sort of collapsed, but who knows what sub-groups spawned after it and what their beliefs are (and if so, God bless them). I gave a summary of what happened in this post:

 

On 16.5.2026 at 0:38 AM, Carl-Richard said:

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 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Wilhelm44]

5 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Officially no, it sort of collapsed, but who knows what sub-groups spawned after it and what their beliefs are (and if so, God bless them). I gave a summary of what happened in this post:

 

 

God, it sounds like a nightmare, I didn't realize there were so many cults.

[Carl-Richard]

11 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

God, it sounds like a nightmare, I didn't realize there were so many cults.

And it's really curious, because like I said, me and probably others did not (as far as I can remember) feel personally threatened or exploited in personal interactions with the leader, but despite that, it evolved to a place where a suggested solution was to essentially remove somebody from the surface of the Earth. So we went quickly from what somebody like you guys in the thread (at least earlier) would be very firm is not a cult, to a Manson or Jim Jones situation. All through some odd beliefs and a charismatic leader presenting them as an option with their conviction and trance-inducing charisma.

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard