Why I don’t follow male spiritual teachers

There have recently been revelations about a particular influential spiritual teacher having had a friendship with Epstein.

You probably know who I’m referring to, but I will not mention any names. And the reason for that is that I don’t want to give them more attention than necessary. Because it’s not about the specific people, it’s about the structures, 

I have actually never followed him much, but I have heard some other women I follow within this field saying that they are not surprised. Disappointed maybe, but not surprised. 

Like I have said before about spiritual teachers in general, just because someone seems to have spiritual insights or abilities that others don’t seem to have, it does not necessarily make them a person with spiritual authority that we should listen to. 

I am especially careful with spiritual leaders or teachers who seem too sure about what the truth is and that their perspective is the right one. 

And as we know, the patriarchy has given men the privileges of feeling that they have authority and that others should listen to them. There is a brittle, overinflated ego that gets created from this type of entitlement. 

If you also give a person influence in any field, even spirituality, or maybe especially spirituality, this can get out of hand. 

Now the example I mentioned is serious given the circumstances, even if the person allegedly hasn’t committed any crime, but there are many instances of male spiritual cult leaders and yoga teachers committing serious abuse towards women in their following. One famous example is the founder of Kundalini yoga. 

But there are also less serious or less obvious examples of male teachers or coaches taking liberties, and using abusive and gaslighting practices to make women doubt their own inner knowing and guidance, or just abusing their position and thinking they are authorities when they are not. 

They just have inflated egos and use their influence to prop it up even more. And many of these still have large platforms and many followers. 

These men I’m referring to are not even people I have ever really followed much at all but it’s sometimes hard to avoid coming across some of these examples even just from other women mentioning it. 

I don’t have my own story of being duped by these men and waking up from it. I guess I was fortunate because it could have been me. I’m not better or less able to be fooled or manipulated. Anyone can be manipulated at some point in our lives, but once you see it and once you know, you become very aware of it. 

As one of my mentors says, ‘Any teacher or coach who does not lead you back to what feels right and true for you is not worth listening to’. 

Spiritual pride is one of the worst and most insidious forms of pride, because it can hide behind a surface of enlightenment, righteousness and special abilities. This can exist in both religious leaders and in alternative spiritual teachers, psychics and coaches. 

Discernment is very important when navigating this world.

This applies to teachers, both men and women, but with men there is the added layer of patriarchal conditioning. 

They are schooled, whether they admit it or not, to think that women’s perspectives are secondary or not valid at all. 

I have heard accounts from women who genuinely wanted to advance their spirituality and had experiences with male teachers that were disappointing at best and damaging or traumatic at worst. 

Now there are teachers (especially historically) that can be exceptions but they are few and far between. 

Because even the most well meaning male spiritual teachers will still not be able to teach women very well, unless they have really deconstructed their role in the patriarchy over a long time.

Even if he has amazing spiritual insights, he is still a man in a patriarchal world. 

The male, patriarchal ego is not immune to getting ahead of itself when endowed with spiritual authority of some sort. 

I guess in a way, these people I have mentioned that have committed abuses or abuse their positions, they really are spiritual teachers, in the sense that once we see through the veil of deception, it strengthens our intuition and our dedication to our own inner guidance. 

But preferably we should not need to go through bad experiences to have these realisations. 

I was fortunate to have my divine feminine awakening early on in my spiritual awakening, so the ones that have mostly influenced me are women. 

I also feel naturally more drawn to women in this field, and in all fields, and now I hardly follow any male teachers at all. 

If I occasionally do, it’s for some specific knowledge that I need at the moment, but I don’t see the person as a general authority. I don’t even put women teachers or coaches on a pedestal but I can look up to some of them to a certain extent and I am not as wary of them as I am with men. 

I heard someone say that men in general never or very rarely have to experience ego death, which is something that women experience all of the time. 

Just by walking around in this world we experience ego death continually. 

Also, women already largely possess all of the spiritual virtues that are often talked about in different spiritual traditions. Humility, kindness, selflessness, a loving heart, empathy, healing abilities, and the list goes on.

That takes me to the realisation that women have spiritual authority. Women are the actual, real spiritual leaders. They always were as far back as our history has shown us. 

If you think of examples like the Oracle of Delphi or the Völvas of the Norse tradition (which is my ancestry), who were able to cross over to the spirit world through entering a trance state and communicate with the spirits. 

In both these examples and cultures, these women were highly revered and people saw them to get answers to important questions.

It’s not a coincidence that these people were women. Women are the spiritual authorities in this world. Why otherwise would the patriarchal, institutionalised religions have tried to suppress these abilities. Because they knew the power and potential that women had to communicate directly with the divine.