Learning to Vett Your Spiritual Teachers

If you follow me for any length of time you know that I am a HUGE proponent of discernment with random "spiritual" people that you follow online.

There's a number of reasons for this.

For one there-unfortunately-is an increase of "fake" legitimate spiritual teachers and practitioners online. With social media and algorithm manipulation just because someone has a lot of followers or is seen a lot on your feed it doesn't necessarily always mean that they are legitimate in what they do. In fact, they probably aren't because they are always on your feed and to be quite honest I don't know many spiritual practitioners who are legitimate who have time for that.

For another as things move online there is an increase in things such as AI use that really makes it difficult to see who is actually--real.

Period.

When you have robots that can look like humans it can start getting pretty dicy to be honest.

As people are opening up to their intuition and reconnecting with their spirituality and/or religion this can start becoming problematic.

In a world where it's so easy to be "fake" online it's hard to suss out the real authentic people sometimes who get lost in an algorithm that honestly isn't designed for authenticity.

So here are a few tips to be able to ensure that you are practicing discernment and are following true, authentic people:

See Who They Follow

Honestly this can sometimes be a hit or miss but typically I find that a lot of inauthentic spiritual workers when you go through their followers they tend to be following a lot of gossip and news channels and not really anything to do with spirituality (or very little). Authentic practitioners don't want that energy in their feed. They don't want to see it. They want to curate an area of the internet that is filled with peace and love and that will be reflected in who they are following.

How long have they been doing XYZ spiritual work?

If you have an 18 year old who is claiming that they have spent 10 years as a practicing witch...that just doesn't jive let's be real. Age isn't a great factor I'm not gonna lie especially when you can't really tell how old someone is from their profile BUT that being said if someone is obviously learning about a particular topic or area it might be wise not to just go and follow them and do whatever they are doing. It’s okay to listen to them and listen to them explain their mistakes (if they do that) and learn from them, but don’t just start copying random practices you see willy nilly. Likewise if someone isn't able to explain how or why they do what they do then...sometimes it's best to steer away. If it’s something I’m really interested in then I always ask for clarification on whatever the topic is, but if it’s not really provided then personally I tend to leave at that point.

Which brings me to…

If they don't like questions...LEAVE

Look, yes it gets irritating when everyone shows up thinking you are a fraud. I'm not going to lie. But when people have genuine questions..you should receive answers. Especially if someone has a smaller following (Honestly if someone has 10's of thousands of people maybe this isn't the most practical thing to expect). But if you have questions about their offerings, or how they do the work they do or anything they share on their platform go ahead and shoot them a DM or an email. Most of us would love to respond to you. (That being said understand that many of us don't have time to school you on complex topics so be a little reasonable in this area. If I have a course that goes in depth in a specific topic I might give you an outline but I will then refer you to my e-book or course so that you can do the work yourself.)

Don't expect to be Hand fed and Avoid People who Try To

If someone is handfeeding you everything to do with spirituality and empowerment and "inner work" then they probably haven't done any of that themselves. It's just not something that you can tell people how to really go about doing. You can support them sure. You can provide ideas of things that worked for you yep. But to go and say that this is how it is done...for most things it won't go over well.

Finally..trust yourself and FEEL into it.

Do they feel like someone that would align with you? Does your stomach turn when you are on their page? Maybe that's not for you then. Pay attention to what your body is telling you. Your body is a massive energetic holding device that can pick up on energies all over--including through a computer screen! Trust it.