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

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Wilhelm44 said:

I'm a bit confused now. Was the Discord group not a cult ?

Lol. Let's try recapping:

I think it's a cult, Leo doesn't, and you seemed to initially be skeptical it was a cult (because you were seemingly pulling rope for Leo's definition), but then you seemed to start calling it a cult after I explained more in-depth the "ills" of the cult (as if that is relevant; it's not, in my definition).

Then you just recently mistook me and Elliott talking about Actualized.org while we were actually talking about the Discord and I had to correct you on that (you said "I don't think it's a cult by the way", mistakenly thinking we were referring to Actualized.org).

Or you were just suddenly jumping out of that discussion and you wanted to talk about Actualized.org without qualifying what "it" means or without finding a relevant to quote to quote and instead you just @-ed me.

Edited 4 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Joseph Maynor]

I like how Leo is just laying out of this whole hornet's nest.  

[Elliott]

On 5/15/2026 at 6:38 PM, 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?

@Wilhelm44 this wasn't a cult, Carl is just dramatic.

@Carl-Richard that scenario is pretty common in new-age spiritual communities that use drugs, it's toxic and exploitive but not what rises to what i would call a cult. I think cults have an exceptional amount of manipulation and control over it's members. Apology revoked.

How about this for a red herring, did you ever suspect nahm of being schizotypal?

Edited 2 hours ago by Elliott

[Carl-Richard]

41 minutes ago, Elliott said:

@Wilhelm44 this wasn't a cult, Carl is just dramatic.

@Carl-Richard that scenario is pretty common in new-age spiritual communities that use drugs, it's toxic and exploitive but not what rises to what i would call a cult. I think cults have an exceptional amount of manipulation and control over it's members. Apology revoked.

I had a feeling this weird apologizing and backtracking were just rhetorical quips (as they made no sense), maybe I was right. 

Nevertheless, I find your conversation/debate style sociopathic and not worth my time, but I will engage with you one last time before I put you on my ignore list.

I mean, if you want to call the fact that the leader was entertaining thoughts of a Manson situation "dramatic", sure, it was kinda dramatic. Not sure how you think it's "exploitative" though. Anyways, if one of the members had taken the thoughts seriously and harmed the person in question, would it be a cult then?

 

41 minutes ago, Elliott said:

I think cults have an exceptional amount of manipulation and control over it's members.

Good you finally started taking some stances. Is a doomsday cult a cult if there is no exceptional amount of manipulation and control over its members?

 

41 minutes ago, Elliott said:

How about this for a red herring, did you ever suspect nahm of being schizotypal?

Why do you mention Nahm? You think it was him who led the Discord?

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Elliott]

26 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I had a feeling this weird apologizing and backtracking were just rhetorical quips (as they made no sense), maybe I was right. 

Nevertheless, I find your conversation/debate style sociopathic and not worth my time, but I will engage with you one last time before I put you on my ignore list.

I mean, if you want to call the fact that the leader was entertaining thoughts of a Manson situation "dramatic", sure, it was kinda dramatic. Not sure how you think it's "exploitative" though. Anyways, if one of the members had taken the thoughts seriously and harmed the person in question, would it be a cult then?

 

Good you finally started taking some stances. Is a doomsday cult a cult if there is no exceptional amount of manipulation and control over its members?

Are you not doing exactly what you were bitching at me and Wilhelm about, asking about individual points?

Quote

Why do you mention Nahm? You think it was him who led the Discord?

You mentioned his expulsion here as an equivalent to your Discord groups fracture. I remember that you admire him and his beliefs. I'm confident he's schizotypal and I was always curious about your attraction to him.

Social Anxiety: Intense, persistent social discomfort that rarely eases, even when becoming more familiar with people.

Lack of Close Friends: A preference for being a loner, with few or no close friends outside of immediate family members.

Odd Thinking and Speech: Using words in unusual ways or having digressive, rambling speech.

Perceptual Alterations: Experiencing unusual bodily sensations or illusions.

Paranoia: Excessive suspicion of others' intentions, often leading to hypervigilance.

Eccentricity: Peculiar mannerisms, dress, or inappropriate emotional responses.

Edited 1 hour ago by Elliott

[Osaid]

Leo's cult psychology video is actually good. It's just that he has started to show a lot of the cult dynamics mentioned in the video. It's a result of the narcissism. The cult structure spawns from the narcissism of the leader. Leo mistakes his narcissism as a form of spirituality, so from his POV he's just being honest and blunt about his spiritual experience where he realized he's the most conscious person to ever exist. Obviously a belief like that would spawn cult dynamics. I imagine it would blindside him if he analyzed the behavior from a cult standpoint and realized it was very similar to a cult leader, since from his point of view it was just him doing "honest spirituality and epistemology".

That being said, it seems rare that people take this kind of stuff seriously unless they've been in a cult themselves or gone out of their way to study it. The idea of a cult seems outlandish to normal people because it seems like something from cartoons or movies. For them they can just go "well Leo loves epistemology and made a video on cults so it's impossible" and then they call it a day.

[Carl-Richard]

17 minutes ago, Elliott said:

Are you not doing exactly what you were bitching at me and Wilhelm about, asking about individual points?

Exactly the sociopathic engagement I would expect. No, because as I said earlier, I have given posts upon posts of detail on the exact topic (definitions, examples, comparisons), as the one you quoted just now. Again, I was not simply bitching about giving individual points. I was bitching about giving nothing but individual points; individual points not grounded in the context of a detailed fleshed out position.

 

17 minutes ago, Elliott said:

You mentioned his expulsion here as an equivalent to your Discord groups fracture.

Yeah, hyperbolically put "equivalent" in structure (the right word is "analogous"), but they were two different events (they happened years apart). Why do you mention it?

Edited 1 hour ago by Carl-Richard

[Elliott]

5 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Exactly the sociopathic engagement I would expect. No, because as I said earlier, I have given posts upon posts of detail on the exact topic (definitions, examples, comparisons), as the one you quoted just now. Again, I was not bitching about giving individual points. I was bitching about giving nothing but individual points; individual points not grounded in the context of a detailed fleshed out position.

Interesting

5 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

 

Yeah, hyperbolically put "equivalent" in structure (the right word is "analogous"), but they were two different events (they happened years apart). Why do you mention it?

Psychoanalysis 

I remember that you admire him and his beliefs, i wonder if that is the trauma triggering your emotional response in this thread.

I'm confident he's schizotypal and I was always curious about your attraction to him.

Schizotypal;

Social Anxiety: Intense, persistent social discomfort that rarely eases, even when becoming more familiar with people.

 

Lack of Close Friends: A preference for being a loner, with few or no close friends outside of immediate family members.

 

Odd Thinking and Speech: Using words in unusual ways or having digressive, rambling speech.

 

Perceptual Alterations: Experiencing unusual bodily sensations or illusions.

 

Paranoia: Excessive suspicion of others' intentions, often leading to hypervigilance.

 

Eccentricity: Peculiar mannerisms, dress, or inappropriate emotional responses.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Armchair psychology.

[Carl-Richard]

30 minutes ago, Elliott said:

Interesting

Psychoanalysis 

I remember that you admire him and his beliefs, i wonder if that is the trauma triggering your emotional response in this thread.

I'm confident he's schizotypal and I was always curious about your attraction to him.

That's such a weird thing to do, and weird thing to assume is impacting this thread in particular (maybe you're the schizotypal one), and I don't quite see the point, as you maybe have intuited. 

Anyways, I admired him for the intuitive impact his posts had (especially when directly addressing me), how it seemed to hit something deep inside me, not always knowing exactly how. Truly mystical.

Fun fact: I once thought I was schizotypal/schizoid, then I took an online (probably shit) DSM-5 personality test, and I scored close to zero on those but I maxed out hypomaniac and obsessive-compulsive. That actually recontextualized a lot of things for me.

As for the symptoms, I probably score most on "odd thinking" (depending on how it's defined), but I wouldn't say I talk weird. The other symptoms do not really fit, at most marginally.

Edited 1 hour ago by Carl-Richard

[Inliytened1]

On 6/16/2026 at 1:07 PM, Joshe said:

At the risk of winding up where Zurew warned about, the difference is arrogance doesn't need to reference anyone else. Arrogance can exist without a social hierarchy and without an audience, narcissism can't. For a narcissist, the the hierarchy IS the elevation mechanism. No hierarchy, no elevation. 

An arrogant person isn't really all that toxic since their elevation doesn't necessarily depend on the lowering of someone else. When your strategy for elevation requires there be someone below you to serve as proof that you're amazing, that has a cost and a toxic effect on everyone around you. 

If all Leo did was say he was the best thinker or the best X, that would be fine IMO, even if childish and untrue. But he doesn't say "I'm a very, very, very skilled thinker". He says "I'm a better thinker than you and everyone else". He warns his followers to not think they can outgrow him. That's the hierarchy asserting itself, and it's ALL THE TIME. The structure is out in the open.

When this exists in a teacher with a community, it creates cult dynamics. Because if the teacher is regularly elevating themselves at the expense of their students, the students only have a few paths of relation to the teacher. 1) Ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist or pretend you're just here for the good stuff and not bothered by the base ego behavior. 2) bow down, defer, surrender autonomy, become a sycophant, or whatever other strategy that lets you exist harmoniously with teacher and community. 3) Point to the behavior in hopes something will change. It's more complicated than this but this is my current working model, compressed. 

Here's the rule: When arrogance consistently presents with a hierarchy, you're looking at narcissism.

When the pattern is stable for a decade, you're looking at architecture, which is extremely difficult to change, if not impossible. I feel like if the folks in camp 3 saw this clearly, they'd come to terms with the reality faster and either accept it or move on. Calling/hoping for a change of architecture isn't going to happen, even if you successfully muzzle it. 

People saying things like "he's gotten better" makes me laugh. No, he's only dialed the rhetoric down, he still thinks everyone is fools and beneath him.

Thanks for the additional clarification.  Yeah, i think it can become a problem when people place themselves in camp #2.  I don't think there is anything wrong with camp  #1, necessarily - because it's not that you are pretending it doesn't exist - it's merely that you really don't care that much about the "teacher's" personal life or personality - because you aren't "looking up" to that person or obsessed with that person, you are just seeing what nuggets you can take from them.  And perhaps you resonated (i know i did) with his teaching style ( IN THE VIDEOS).  And he's always represented himself well through email and private message.  But on here is sometimes another matter.  In Leo's videos he portrays (mostly) a very different image than he does on the forum.  Does this mean perhaps he was just acting immaturely on the forum and in his position?  Perhaps, but some of his statements were so outlandish and rude that I don't know how any of us hung around.  We probably hung around because we're all just a bunch of egotistical guys to begin with.  I think a lot of the females aren't even here anymore.   Camp #3 is good, perhaps better than Camp #1, because it shows an additional level of care for this community, the potential dangers of certain conduct here by those looked to as "wiser and more spiritually conscious" and a deeper connection that most of us who have been in here for many years have...I think this thread is good, because although Leo has been mostly taciturn, he could be taking it all in as constructive criticism.  The difference between someone like Leo is that we know per his videos he has the ability to self reflect, unlike a guy like Trump, who will never be able to self reflect and fix character "defects" because to him he is perfection.  I think Leo understands, i think most of us on this forum all understand, that we are not perfect individuals, and that we all have more growing to do both spiritually, intellectually, and physically.   But even with all this, I do not consider this place to be a cult.  For reasons i'll go into later when I have more time.  And also, like @Elliot stated, all of this is armchair psychology on Leo, we don't know who he is as a person, all we see is what we see from the forum.  HOWEVER, that does not excuse his behavior on the forum.  As you stated with camp #3, hopefully he reads this thread and does make some changes, not to just "not appear" narcissistic, but to actually make positive changes in his conduct and start to integrate more humility into his character.  I by no means am claiming to be perfect either, I have plenty of work in those areas, as I think most of us do.  

Edited 40 minutes ago by Inliytened1

[Osaid]

On 6/16/2026 at 3:40 PM, Joshe said:

Maybe y'all don't remember when Leo was having his conversations with God, Neale Walsch style. He shared his conversations. He asked God "Why am I a narcissist?" and God responded "Because you are". 

Anyone else remember this? I mean, this has had no bearing on my position, but when Leo was channelling God, this is one the questions he was curious about. 

I remember. I think it was more like:

"But God, everyone is gonna call me a narcissist for saying this stuff!"

God: "Yes, that's right. God is the ultimate narcissist because it loves itself unconditionally."

Found it:



I guess even "God" agrees with us, GG.

[Elliott]

49 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

That's such a weird thing to do, and weird 

Yep

Quote

Fun fact: I once thoug

I know, you also brought it back up a few posts ago, that's why I mentioned it.

 

I'm post limited

*that's insane to say everyone here is schizotypal

Edited 28 minutes ago by Elliott

[Carl-Richard]

45 minutes ago, Elliott said:

I know, that's why I mentioned it.

Shut up, you're such a psycho 😂

The reason I thought it was the odd beliefs/thinking part. I didn't think about the other symptoms, and turns out those symptoms did not match as much.

And it's funny, again depending on how you define odd beliefs/thinking, all of us here are schizotypal in that sense (compared to the rest of society). And that's the reason for calling it a cult in my definition. Cults are schizotypal in that sense.

And by the way, if you think you just scored some points by thinking you landed a DSM-5 category on me (which you probably didn't), I think all these things are spectrums. We're all on the schizophrenia, autism, OCD, anxiety, etc., spectrum. And if you have an actual diagnosis from a professional, there is a spectrum within that as well, and depending on the diagnosis and the severity, I couldn't give a fuck if you have it (especially ADHD, you can "buy" one of those if you really want).

Edited 16 minutes ago by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

54 minutes ago, Elliott said:

I'm post limited

*that's insane to say everyone here is schizotypal

Well, then it's insane to say that I'm schizotypal for exactly the same reasons. I said (to myself, at that time before testing myself) I'm schizotypal essentially for believing in 90% of the shit that is entertained here (and sprinkle some psychic phenomena in there too which is a bit more fringe).

Remember, I'm psychologically educated, I have to keep the normie mindset in mind when making such judgements. For normies, you guys are fucking wacked out crazy crackpots (unless perhaps you're exclusively hanging out in the society and politics sub-forum or you're literally always disagreeing about everything in the other sub-forums).

But again, I might be misdefining what is meant by odd beliefs/thinking, it might be referring to something more specific, in which case I would (probably?) not be within that symptom either (if it's like "I was a car once, and it smelled fantastic").

Edited 7 minutes ago by Carl-Richard