Teal Swan
Teal Swan is an American spiritual influencer and author. Swan and her teachings are the subject of documentaries and podcasts. Publications, including Eonline, The Guardian, and the BBC have noted that some of her teaching methods on how to manage mental health issues have been found controversial by her critics, claims denied by Swan and some of her proponents.
Early life
Swan was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on June 16, 1984, and was raised in Logan, Utah. From an early age, she has claimed to have extrasensory abilities, including telepathy and the ability to communicate with the dead. Swan reports that these claims contributed to her being socially ostracized and bullied in her youth. This social ostracism, in turn, led to her interactions with the mental health profession.In 2006, Barbara Snow, a therapist working with Swan, filed a police complaint alleging that Swan had endured twelve years of ritual abuse. Such allegations by Snow were not unprecedented, aligning with a history of similar claims during the period known as the satanic panic, prevalent in the late 20th century. The era was marked by numerous publicized legal cases in the United States, including the McMartin preschool trial, the Country Walk case involving Frank Fuster, and cases in Kern and Thurston counties, some of which were re-examined in later years. The investigation into Swan and Snow's abuse allegations ended due to a lack of evidence, resulting in case closure.
Career
In 2011, Swan released the book The Sculptor in the Sky. That year, she held her first event, at a Salt Lake City recital hall, speaking to approximately twenty people.Her teaching methods sometimes guide participants to envision their own deaths, occasionally by suicide. In 2019, Lebo Diseko from the BBC cited Swan's viewpoint on suicide:
In October 2020, Swan's first young adult novel, Hunger of the Pine, was published.
Documentaries
Swan was the subject of the 2017 documentary film Open Shadow: The Story of Teal Swan.In 2018, a Gizmodo podcast, The Gateway, ran a six-part series on Swan and her self-help spiritual teachings on depression and how her techniques "process past trauma in order to overcome it". The host, Jennings Brown, stated that Swan was not like a regular spiritual leader in terms both of her appearance and how she markets herself.
In May 2022, Freeform released a four-part docu-series on Swan called The [Deep End (2022 TV series)|The Deep End]. The producers of the documentary followed Swan for three years, detailing the rules placed on her inner circle and insinuating controlling and manipulative behavior. Swan has disputed her characterization in the documentary, citing deceptive practices by the filmmakers. She has shared a petition urging the director to release the unedited footage.