7 episodes
The Gateway: Teal Swan Gizmodo
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- Society & Culture
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4.6 • 11 Ratings
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The Gateway is a six-part series about Teal Swan, a new brand of spiritual guru, who draws in followers with her hypnotic self-help YouTube videos aimed at people who are struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. Some followers move to Teal’s healing center, a spiritual startup where they produce content and manage social media accounts. Teal insists her therapy saves lives, but her critics say Teal’s death-focused dogma is dangerous. Gizmodo reporter Jennings Brown traveled to rural Utah and to the forests of Costa Rica, with extensive access to Teal and her inner circle, to understand Teal's teachings and investigate the deaths of some of her followers.
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Part 1: Catalyst
In April 2017 YouTube recommended reporter Jennings Brown watch a self-help video from Teal Swan, a spiritual guru with a global online following. He’d spend the next year trying to understand whether or not she’s dangerous.
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Part 2: Origins
Jennings travels to Utah, where Teal grew up and began her spiritual career. He learns more about the upbringing that shaped her teachings on suicide, and he meets the people who were closest to a Teal follower who took her own life.
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Part 3: Philia
Jennings meets Teal at her retreat center in Costa Rica. He spends a week there, observing her therapy methods and getting to know some of the people who leave their lives behind to live with Teal and run her spiritual startup. It all starts with a death meditation, and it only gets stranger from there.
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Part 4: Tribe
In this exploration of Teal’s online empire, we’ll meet some of the people whose lives have changed because of her teachings.
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Part 5: Memories
A look back at a strange chapter of American history known as the Satanic Panic—and how it connects to Teal.
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Part 6: Shadows
After months of reporting, Jennings goes to Utah for one final interview with Teal.
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Customer Reviews
Poor journalism spoils potentially captivating subject matter
This podcast suffers from the negative bias and, frankly off-putting, prejudice of its reporter/producer/host Jennings Brown. From beginning to end he has clearly already made up his mind against Teal Swan and is out gathering “evidence” to support his negative bias against her. He is not driven by true curiosity or openness, instead asking only leading questions and steering the show in the direction of his own pre-formed opinion. There is no honest investigation here. All this makes for a very boring, one-sided perspective. It’s a pity, really. The topic is interesting and Teal Swan is a compelling subject. This podcast may have once had potential and could feasibly have been a captivating, profound inquiry into the nature of faith, relationship, power, connection, trauma, community, uncertainty, trust, and much more. Unfortunately, in actuality, the podcast is a wasted opportunity. Moreover, Jennings Brown fails to hold himself accountable throughout the process, and demonstrates little if no self-awareness, insight, reflection, or self-inquiry in regards to his own ongoing relating to Teal Swan and her practice(s). This further exacerbates the judgmental, condemning tone. All in all, this podcast falls short journalistically, ethically, creatively, and in terms of storytelling craft.