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And it sucks, because I’m inherently ‘spiritual’. I won’t go too deep into my own experiences or stuff to lead me there, but I’ve always been drawn to the ‘other’ information. I’ve never attended a meditation retreat or anything like that, and I personally don’t think you need to in order to be ‘spiritual’.
In fact, sometimes I think the most genuinely spiritual person around is that old man drinking a beer, sitting by the cliffs with his fishing pole.
But this rant is going to target this particular new breed of neo-spiritualism, and the blaring hypocricies.
Here are 4 people that pissed me off, all for your reading pleasure – The Tantra Pirate, Madame Filth, Neo-Tantra Bro, and Miss Manifestor.
Table of Contents
Miss Manifestor
This whole rant really got spurred on by a ‘spiritual’ German lady who sold me a car. She conveniently forgot to consciously remember that the police seized the registration – and I only found that out when we were at the registry and I had already given her the money and bought parts to fix up this junker.
She then said we’ll “manifest” it. Holy crap. What does that even mean? Manifest a registration? We? What, are we going to teleport to the Akashic Records and astral project a shiny new registration? You’re actually joking me.
She said she “acted in good faith.” Funny enough, acting in good faith is exactly that. Acting. Not actually being in good faith – like telling someone that the police seized the registration of the car before you sell it to them…
Anyways, she didn’t want to hear any of my comments about how she’s dishonest and stuff, probably too many ‘bad vibes’ for her.
I guess it’s my fault to be trusting and not do all my due diligence before buying a car off a single mother psuedo-hippy woman who uses clever word salad and mumbo jumbo to half-explain any situation. No wonder raising a kid all on her own..
The Tantra Pirate
I’m guilty of having been a neo-tantra bro myself, but thankfully I caught myself before I went too far over the bridge. Those who went way too over the bridge are insufferable. In one particular case, a guy who, seemed cool at first – came over and played handpan for my housemate and I, while of course wanting to go on more dates with her. He did the usual “you have such a nice energy, goddess, blah blah” spiel on her. It didn’t work – she’s a bit too smart that.
Keep in mind this dude is probably around 40 – he looks a bit like Captain Jack Sparrow, but a poorly-assembled one you’d find from AliExpress. He has a type of charming way of acting, but all that glitters is certainly not gold.
Anyways, he said he was going to a nice rave that weekend – I’ve been to the same location several times before and didn’t have a ride to get out there, and so we planned to go together. And we did.
On the drive over there in his aged motorhome, he first declared his first goal: kiss at least 7 girls and sleep with 2.
That was an odd goal to declare, I thought, but then it got worse. Mr. Tantra actually had a teenaged daughter that he takes care of. Sometimes. Okay..
Anyways, I left my camping gear in his vehicle in case I wanted to sleep overnight after the party. He even invited me to be able to sleep on the floor of his camper if I wanted to.
So we get to the party and he starts chatting up some girls in line. Way too young. Like, barely 18-20. I’m only 26 at the time, and hell, I think 18-20 is a bit too young!
Shortly after admittance we split up and go join the dancefloors as a normal night goes. Somewhere around midnight, during my hours of dancing and people-watching, I notice a dude sticking out.
You see, I have an eye for predators. It’s easy to spot once you know what you’re looking for. And all I saw was a guy conveniently just walking in front of a group of young girls, dancing there for 20 seconds, turning around, introducing, then learning in and trying to go for a smooch.
Failure? No problem, he would rinse and repeat this process several times to girls barely older than his daughter. I watched in disgusted bewilderment at this guy trying over and over again.
Later on, I find him and ask at aprox. what time we want to head home. He tipsily tells me to “fk off” and scampers away. I’m like WTF – I didn’t even interact with him all night, why the hostility?
I find Cpt. Jack Predator an hour later and ask again – “hey, it’s like 3AM – how you feeling? I’m fine to stay for a bit more”, but he starts basically telling me off that “uou’aree like mai daoughter, soo annoying”, and then stumbling away in a stupor.
This guy is seriously unhinged, and partially aggressive. Alright, I’ll just retire the night and get my camping gear from his car. So I find the guy again. This time he’s pissed – he refuses me the keys, refuses to walk 5 minutes to let me grab my stuff from my car, and then literally jogs away.
This pathetic dude keeps trying over and over again on basically anyone with 2 legs and long hair. Running away from me, hiding like a rat, and this circus continues until 6AM, when, the soundsystem shut down and security starts ushering people out the doors.
But, not Mr. Rat – he is literally hiding somewhere venue for whatever reason, and I ask security to help locate this guy because I need to grab my gear so I can go home.
After far too long, we find the dude, and finally he concedes and we start going to grab my stuff. As soon as I have my bags securely in my hands, I let loose on this guy telling him that he’s a predator, a disgusting and pathetic man-child, and that I would turn him to a pulp if I had just reason to.
Madame rent skipper
In that exact same month as Miss Manifestor, some self-described “Spiritual” French lady needed a place to rent, so I offered her a place. She couldn’t afford deposit, she said she would “never do something like that”, so I trusted her.
I left for a month, come back, and the aroma in the house hits me like a frying pan overtop the head. A disgusting, wretched stench. Cigarettes and stinky dog. She smoked a ridiculous amount and her French Bulldog – the stinkiest creature I ever had to endure, literally coated the house. Poor little guy.
And then one day she vanished. A full month of rental money, just gone. Of course she self-described as ‘spiritual’. Meanwhile she smokes a pack a day, drinks too much Pepsi Max, ate poorly, and loved her TikTok/Reels trash.
Anyways – she dipped, owing me an entire month of rent, leaving her room in complete disarray – stinking of garbage, trash everywhere, and immediately blocked me on Facebook before I even got a chance to ask where she is. She was the worst smelling woman I ever encournered.
Neo-Tantra Bro
So in Thailand on the neo-hippy paradise island of Koh Phangan, I had an experience at an Ecstatic Dance.
First of all, people asking “oh hey this must be your first ecstatic dance?” – no I been going for over 7 yrs, I just put on shorts and a t shirt, not a costume to fit in.
So, after dancing passionately, keeping to myself as usual and bearing through an awful sound-traumathing of malharmonious brass bowls at the end of the dance, I ended up talking with a new girl interest.
In the middle of sharing a seizure-death-life story in a quiet conversation, spirit-brother rambles on through and joins our conversation.
I’ve already seen this guy throughout the night – he irritated me by constantly getting up in my dance space and trying to contact-dance every pair of chakras he could.
Anyways, buddy starts his usual charlatan spiel about how great this infinite freedom to travel is, what a blessing, you have such a nice aura, etc. I’ve heard this all a hundred times before, but I wanted to go deeper into this.
I counter and say “nah bro this freedom ain’t free – to perpetually travel you give up having a family, build a home, grow fruits, have a purposeful employment (beyond zoom coachings), develop deep friendships and meaningful connections – it’s an illusion of freedom, and there is a lot of sacrifice in order to have no responsibilities.
Mr. Yoni Healer saw this dismissal as a critique to his endless vagabondism and started “ah I see you are threatened by another male talking to your girl. You see, I am a tantra king – the girls love my skills, your ego gets in the way, why are you feeling threatenend” blah blah seriously he said this stuff..
Yeah bud, I’ve kicked out tons of yupsters like you from multiple festivals – trying to educate me on ‘man’ ego and dynamics now? Holy..
Then pal starts speaking to me like I’m a simpleton “Have you ever done mushrooms before..?” – ffs yeah like over a decade ago and half a hundred times since them… it’s not a competition and psychedelics are not a prerequisite for being ‘conscious’.
At some point in the conversation the guy hits me with the classic “mmmmmmmm, thank you for sharing”, with some pretentious facade like he did me a favour by listening.
Ffs, that was the last straw. “Thank you for sharing” was a cool ‘new’ idiom 7 years ago, but now it’s just lingo for gratitude-sniffers to be artificially sincere and signal compassionate virtues
My mood was clearly just not having it and wanting him to linger any longer, and guy just happily held onto that space. Tantra bro wanted to show his nonchalant coolness is unphased. No dude, I don’t want you around, can’t you read a social cue, please leave?
Anyways, the girl was repelled by my direct unfriendliness to this guy because she recently did ‘plant medicine’ and fried her ability to judge snake from sage. I guess bullet dodged, but irritating overall, nonetheless.
So thats just a few…
Between the 23-year-old ‘life coaches’, multi-level-marketing water-filter schemers, tantra predators, money manifestations, and other new-age swindlers, I discovered one thing in common: Escapism.
Running from reality. From the fact that you are actually not honest to yourself, or others. That turning a blind eye is a privilege. That working hard means actually working. That you are not qualified to teach this course, and that you don’t even pay taxes.
And I’m very, very far from perfect. But I just can’t handle it anymore – the people bastardising great, ancient, beautiful concepts, and souring a gorgeous fruit like a greedy mold.
I find it funny that the closer I got to the “spiritual community”, the more times I’ve been repelled by frankly irritating things.
And I haven’t even scratched the surface here; Hot chocolate rituals (Cacao Ceremonies) at prices 6x the salary of a local worker, business coaches who’ve never had a business, people charging money for meditation classes (Buddha is rolling in his grave at this), and so forth ad-nauseum.
All these idioms; “manifest, gratitude, thank you for sharing, mirror, shadow work, inner-child, trauma, healing, etc” – what ever happened to saying “Thanks” and just drop all the more-conscious-than-you BS?
The Instagram-era popularised, westernised, and monetised all that it possibly could, hidden under a cloak of discount quartz stones and child-slavery-made incense.
Scoffing at anyone who eats meat while purchasing Cartel Avocados or conveniently not paying taxes, meanwhile the impoverished local population pays for the infrastructure that literally cleans your poop. Hypocrisy and blindness everywhere.
Anyways, just a rant I wanted to get off my chest. I love very many spiritual concepts and such and still practice many, but just have such a hard time associating with many of the bothersome folk wrapped up in there.