The Final Shadow Teachings from Carolyn Elliot

Like thousands of other esoteric shadow working witches around the world, I was a student of Carolyn Elliot for a time. Like many of the stories and share’s I’ve seen since her death a little over a week ago, her book Existential Kink found me at the perfect time in 2020 as I was navigating the underworld of Saturn Return, covid lockdowns, Pluto transits, a car crash and another round of chronic fatigue and health issues.

I loved the way she blended nonduality, Tantra and shadow work with pleasure and eroticism. I loved the kinky references. I found the practices she shared to be transformational for where I was in my life and I use some of those practices to this day in my retreats and coaching. She impacted me, I was grateful for her work, so I have been impacted as well by her death.

When someone is a teacher on our spiritual path, we form a karmic bond with them. The deeper we go with them, the deeper the bond between us. This is why stepping into a role of a public teacher of spirituality, transformation and psychological processes is no joke, and a big responsibility.

Since her death, there have been countless hot takes, and countless more posts about how terrible people are for having a hot take. Speculations and assumptions about why she did it, and real facts about why from people who were close with Carolyn and talking to her about these issues until the day she decided to take her life. People taking the high horse and judging how people are processing, people in shock and wanting to understand, people using the attention for personal gain.... As you’d expect — people peopling and the internet churning content about a taboo and shocking act that left people rattled and processing. (Oh no, and now I’m one of those people!)

Because I engaged with some of these posts, my algorithm has been handing me dozens of posts about this, both recent ones from Carolyn herself, and from others (many I don’t know) sharing about her death and what was really happening behind the scenes before she decided to end her life. All these little pieces and snippets acting like puzzle pieces as I and other tried to comprehend how someone who seemed to adept at navigating the underworld of life managed to succumb to it.

Carolyn was a dedicated teacher of Truth, Shadow and Liberation. She was a self proclaimed Bodhi Sattva (and I’ve heard her refer to herself as a ‘power hungry witch’). She was full of contradictions and she owned it. We had very different approaches to this work at many times, and very similar approaches at other times. From what I know of her through her courses and the shares of her close clients and students, I don’t think she would make any of the way that people are processing her death ‘wrong’ in the way that plenty of people are making each other wrong right now.

Yes, even the people making posts about her death and selling something underneath.

(maybe she’d be a bit annoyed by the born-again types using it as proof she was evil and that tantra/magic is evil… that was pretty low)

She taught people to inquire deeper, to get curious about their stories and assumptions, to notice where they’re getting a kinky thrill out of being superior to others, and where we’re giving away our power. She also taught people to use attention, energy and polarization to alchemise the intensity for personal will, which is where our approaches differed greatly. I honestly think if she’s out-of-body watching the world react right now, she’ll be cackling and munching popcorn while enjoying the show and seeing how much influence she has had on people... But hey, thats just my projection on her. I didn’t know her personally.

Her suicide is her final big shadow lesson for all her students on the grand stage of the this kinky wild word. Some people think these conversations and inquiries and attempts to understand are dehumanising, wrong or distasteful. I’d hope we all know she was a messy human like we all are, and most of us did not know every-day Carolyn and never will. We knew badass magician shadow work alchemist Carolyn. The human and the teacher. And as she had these different roles in different lives, there are 2 parallel grieving processes happening: The friends and family who knew the ‘real’ Carolyn and are grieving her as a full person they actually hung out with and interacted with, and those of us karmically entangled with the messy magician as students trying to grasp how our teacher did this thing (especially with 2 young kids!). And while friends and family grieve and attend her funeral, the rest of us are left processing in our way, sometimes in the way she taught us — through inquiry, questioning and looking at how her story parallels our own and what shadows they reveal.

This is for those who are students of hers, who are also shocked and confused and grieving from the role of student of a teacher.

It’s absolutely understandable for students of a spiritual teacher who commits suicide to want to rigorously inquire into where the work went wrong and why it happened. The same way we would do an inquiry if it turned out a teacher we follow is doing something else ethically-questionable or problematic. We do not want to be replicating teachings that may lead to our own deaths. I don’t want to be teaching something that might contribute to a students suicide. If something she taught might lead us so far down a path that we consider that, we should look honesty and ruthlessly at them, to separate the baby from the bathwater and to know what to discard. We can do this while honouring her humanness, her suffering and her complexity and contradictions.

If you don’t agree, I recommend you stop reading now. If you prefer to just look at nice memories and you don’t want to analyse or inquire in this way, no one is forcing you (but I’ll gently invite you off your high horse about how you personally want to process this)

From what I’ve witnessed, explored, learned and chewed on myself, I’m going to touch on a few different topics surrounding this and invite you into an inquiry alongside me with prompts you can journal with or sit and ponder through the article.

The first days after Carolyn’s death were the mirror. When you heard she died, before more details of the ‘why’ came out, what did you assume? Was she a victim? Stupid? Selfish? Chemically altered? Possessed? Insane? I saw assumptions for all these things, and of course I had my own.

Before it was known she took her own life, when had just heard she died, my first assumption was that it was suicide. When that was confirmed, my assumption was that it was a type of backfire of the magic she wielded and potentially a psychosis. This was based on my interactions with her work, what felt like a ‘NO’ in my system around her approaches, and my instincts.

I was not on her mailing list for years, so I didn’t know the details of how she had gone bankrupt and got divorsed until later. But I do know why I stopped working with her or recommending her work beyond the book (I would tell people to read the book but that I didn’t recommend doing any courses or going further into her work beyond that), and the red flags I saw in her containers that made me unsurprised that she would take her own life eventually. More on that soon.

Some assumed she was a victim, that people had taken too much from her. Some assumed she had been cursed or possessed. Some assumed it was purely financial. Some assumed because she was previously an addict that she relapsed.

What does you assumption say about your own story?

What might be intuitive, or what might be pure projection?

When we are prone to depression and suicidally, it always seems to lingers waiting for us to fall and be taken by it. I know because I have been there many times, and many dear friends battle with this too. I have almost taken my life on a few occasions, and I have been prone to depression my whole life (I shared recently in my article on being depressed for 4 years recently due to serotonin/inflammation issues). Sometimes on particularly bad days, or even sometimes on psychedelics, the pull to the abyss returns. The seductive allure of oblivion and being done with this often exhausting world. It might not be anywhere near as strong as it was in my teen years, but I can imagine in certain circumstances (like if my husband dies before me or the world goes into full apocalyptic water-wars or I get extremely sick again) I could be tempted to go there. My relationships with others have always been my lifeline — my guilt at the burden and pain it would cause them stopping me. It’s understandable people think it’s selfish and feel anger that someone would do that to not just themselves but their family and friends. But we’re not sane in those states.

Since her death, many people have started talking more candidly about suicide. High performing, materially successful people especially. People who seem to be ‘living the dream’ and ‘having it all’. They talk about how trapped you can feel when you’ve got so much attention and so many people relying on you. How you can build a spiritual ego around your success that crumbles (more on that soon). How you can feel trapped by finances and expectations and debt until you feel there is no way out. That depression isn’t just for the poor ‘failures’… but even for people who seem to have everything. Not just celebrities in the matrix kinda fame… like spiritual-rockstar-wellness-entrepreneur types.

This stripping of shame around these thoughts and patterns is essential. When we feel so abnormal and shameful around having these thoughts, it becomes worse. We isolate. We spiral. We don’t get help. Especially if we sell personal development and healing work for a living, we get trapped by our own story of healing and wellbeing to the point that we can barely admit to ourselves how bad it’s getting.

Through my own journey with depression and suicidality, I have come to realise a death is usually needed but NOT a physical death. An ego death. A death of your current life. Burn it all down if you must. Make a radical change. Get help. Be humbled way the fuck down. And rise from the ashes as your next evolution. Physical death is ending your story before the change of the rebirth, which is usually a rebirth into a life better than you dreamed if you let it be.

How comfortable are you around talking about depression and suicide?

Do you admit it when you’re low, or cover it up?

Carolyn confessed before she died that she was bankrupt. She had made millions at the peak of her fame, and through bad investments and her divorce, she ended up unable to pay back debts and was relying on her most recent launch to survive. I don’t know all the details of course, but also many entrepreneurs have come forth speaking about going through bankruptcy in response. Yes, even ‘7-figure success story’ leaders. I actually had no idea how common this was, I’d heard a few stories, but I didn’t realise how prevalant it was until this week. I can only imagine what it’s like to have debts that go into five or six figures. To charge so much for your work yet to be still living week to week. To have ‘made it’ and lost it all.

Financial stress is hard on any human. Going bankrupt results in suicide way too often. Trying to be a teacher and spiritual worker in the modern scene is brutal at times. There are 1000 ‘pleasure and abundance coaches’ out there selling a dream of making easy money and being wealthy and sexy and spiritual, and their diagnosis: You’re just not ‘in your pleasure’ or ‘aligned’ or ‘on the right path’ if you’re broke. Just pay them $10k and you’ll learn their secret! And hey- maybe some of those techniques work for a while, but they’re rarely sustainable. Often years later they then share how they were technically making big money... but were over-spending on support and team, stressed out of their minds and out of integrity.

When you’re constantly comparing yourself to all these other people who are bragging about making so many thousands (or millions) of dollars by being hot, magical and magnetic, and you’re not, you feel like a total failure. Like something is broken with you. I’ve been there... I have to unpack and unpick those threads all the time and learn to turn down the noise in this scene to come back to my own sense of abundance and rightness in the now moment, beyond figures in a bank account or hype marketing. I have to work to tune back into the abundance of the earth and love around me, especially when the bank account is low and there are things I want or need but can’t buy. And it’s a constant practice, not something you do one time and suddenly you’re never comparing yourself again or feeling shit seeing some mediocre person talking about how many K they made and you’re there budgeting your groceries.

I can only imagine how it feels to have not only become one of the success stories but to then loose it all. To have built a brand identity around using magic to get wealthy (and therefore your wealth being a measure of your magical abilities and spiritual power) and to then have it all implode.

Some of the best teachers, coaches, facilitators and healers in the world are broke.

Some of the biggest charlatan narcissist who give next to no value are making bank.

While I’d love to see more amazing teachers thriving and more fakes getting booted from the scene… what if actually being broke, having a smaller network and having less impact is actually…. good? What if being wealthy, powerful and influential is actually a trap? We can find evidence for either story. People happily poor with so much love and nourishment, living fun and enjoyable lives and people stuck in stress, pressure and expectation being wealthy. And wealth and power altering their reality (like I covered in this article)

What stories do you have about your financial wealth being a reflection of your power/magnetism/worth?

If you lost everything you had, what story would you make about what that means? Are you cursed? Broken? Wrong? Punished by god? Is that true?

One of the biggest cautionary tales for any spiritualist, magician or mystic is around how we build our identity around our wins, and how painful that can be when things change. Whether it’s the idea that being spiritual aligned means you’ll be healthy, that being sexually empowered means you’ll be magnetic and desired, or whether spiritual power is linked to financial abundance... all of these are TRAPS.

They are stories that feel good when they are ‘working’, but they try to assign permanence to impermanent things. We are always going through life in waves and cycles, it’s not linear. Times when we are healthy and fit, then times when illness and disease claim us. Times when we are attracting abundance and wealth, and times when things are stuck and struggling. Times when we are juicy and attracting lovers and desire, and times when we are repelling people. There is no fixed point where you ‘get it’ and unlock some secret code that prevents any of lifes challenges from reaching you, and if you believe that you’re in for suffering. And actually our failing, falling, suffering and struggling is always going to be necessary for our evolution and to shed and evolve. So learn to surf the failures or die trying.

(Honestly I love astrology for this. When I’ve been in major failing flailing times in my life, it’s always corresponded with an astrological transit that says I am literally meant to be failing at that time. Then I get a cycle that’s about abundance and flow, and life seems to oblige. It makes me realise we have less ‘free will’ than we think, and maybe it’s not all about how we play the game but when we’re destined by fate and the pattern to win or loose. I recommend the app called ‘The Pattern’ to track your cycles and maybe take it less personally when you’re in a fail cycle)

I’ve seen this in both Carolyn and my other past teacher Layla recently in different forms. Carolyn made her business and identity around using magic to get power and influence. She was successful at that for a time, and she built an identity and brand around that success— it’s easy to do.

From her friend and colleague Laila on this:
“... I always thought Carolyn was the most incredible and powerful magician I had ever met. She really made me believe that shit was for real. But - I saw her lust for result go bad - the results became the evidence that she was magical. The money, the accomplishment, the attention, the following, the business, the family - she manifested it all!

And then, it stopped coming. Because the magic, in my opinion, took her where she needed to go next - which was to the dropping of the material results as the evidence of her wonderfulness. The magic said something like: “Can you sit in your power and your magnificence raw and unmanifest and still know that its true?”

And that’s where my beloved friend hit the wall of incongruity. I’m proud of her, really proud of her, to have learned from reading her journals that she “knew*, with her signature clarity, that that’s where she was at.

And I am profoundly, wailingly, abyss-openingly sad that she rattled apart from within in the interference field between the core and the surface.”

- Via this post which also references the disco ball I posted at the start

Carolyn taught ‘having was evidence of wanting’, so she seemed to believe her having this low point was proof she wanted it. It could have been a powerful ego-death of the story that you’re successfully magical and spiritual if you’re wealthy, but instead it broke her. It could have humbled her, brought her into a new depth of connection to spirit beyond circumstances, but it didn’t get to rebirth her in that way.

This is not just about wealth. My past teacher Layla recently got long covid for the second time, and has been confessing in videos about her spiritual ego (and internalized ableism without those terms) as a result. She had a story that if you’re in connection to the goddess, if you’re doing your practice and living in pleasure and joy, you’re going to be healthy and have lots of energy. This is a pretty lie of privilege that many people swallow, especially in the spiritual/wellness world. It doesn’t hold up to actual scrutiny and inquiry, and it dehumanises people who are ill and assumes they have brought it upon themselves or just failed at getting to the level where they are magically well and healed. And when you hold that story, and you do eventually be human and get sick (apparently by 50, 80% of us will have a chronic illness by current statistics, maybe more with autoimmune illnesses rising about 13% per year) and especially with something where recovery is sometimes not possible, it will crack something in you because you’ve already set the stage with your story about the evidence. If being healthy = spiritual aligned and on purpose, getting ill MUST then mean you are NOT spiritually aligned and on purpose.

The reality is, terrible people who eat crap all day and do horrible things (like many politicians, gangsters, army generals etc) rarely get sick and manage to live long lives doing horrible, heinous shit. They have good generics, and got lucky. Meanwhile, kind-hearted yogis who eat healthy and do breathwork every day die young of brutal illness. Children get sick before they’ve even had a chance. People like me are born with genetic issues that make life significantly more difficult from the get-go. ‘Fairness’ and a direct correlation between health and spiritual depth is a lie that healthy people tell themselves to justify why other people are sick and not them. It’s called the The Fallacy of Fairness. If/when they actually do get sick (or broke, or cheated on, or…) they will then suffer much more, not just suffering because of illness but because their past story implied that they are not wrong/unspiritual/unloved if they are sick. To imply one side of this story is to imply the other and make meaning of something that is really quite random most times.

I actually stopped working with both of these teachers because of both of these patterns. In Tantric psychology, this is considered ‘the God Realm delusion’ where spiritual ego takes over and a kind of grandiose elevated perception of self comes in. My spiritual path has taken a much more surrendered, humbled journey through chronic illness, failure, being a misfit, getting things wrong and finding a deep trust and connection to the divine despite any and all external circumstances. This has resulted in a resilience that is much deeper than any of these spiritual stories and identities can get us, and a focus on parts of life that are more simple, soul-nourishing and unglamorous (like growing plants, spending time with my dogs, learning Thai and building community)

We have to be willing to give it all up for true liberation. To be willing to let go of all attachments, stories and comforts, even the ones we like. We can embrace material wealth and the delights of the world — but if we make them our identity while saying we’re here for awakening, life will inevitably take them from us. If you say you’re here for truth and liberation, life will eventually strip you of everything… and not in the sexy way — in the brutal, humiliating, humbling way that shatters all your stories, but teaches you that there is a deeper truth and love beyond anything reflected externally. So be careful what you ask for… Kali will come for you head ;)

Going broke, getting chronically ill, being betrayed, loosing everything, getting cancelled... all of these can be seen as ‘fierce grace’, an act of the divine or dark Goddess that initiates us to deeper levels of reality in an intense way. It cripples us, strips away everything we held onto and all the stories we had about ourselves. It asks radical honesty and a rebirth of us. And on the other side can be a more genuinely grounded, compassionate, deeper perspective of life that isn’t from a place of privilage or hype but a deeper wisdom that only this stripping away can reveal.

So be mindful of any stories you tell yourself that material results in your life are a direct result of your spiritual progress, worthiness or lovability. They might make you feel good for a while, but they can tear you apart.

Life moves in cycles. Sometimes abundance and ease is here — be grateful for that and enjoy it fully. But it is impermanent. It will go. Let the fact that it will pass make the beautiful moments even more beautiful. Shit will happen, your body will age and decay and your connection to the divine and your inner power must transcend circumstances to be truly a lifeline.

What story do you tell yourself about success, health, wealth, ease etc being tied to your spiritual path?

What do you make it mean when it’s not there?

And is that really true?

Tales as old as time warn us of how the use of power and magic can backfire. I’m a fantasy nerd, I love mythology and story... and woven through so many of these stories is the discussion of the risk of using magic for power, fame, wealth and seduction. It’s a risky, dangerous game at times — and magicians who choose to wield this power for personal gain (which is grey-black magic, comparatively to white magic which is much safer) are playing with fire, the way that extreme sports enthusiasts are taking risks often for that sweet adrenaline rush. (I was a fire-breather and aerialist in my past life/20s, I was an adrenaline junkie and risk taker who probably should have died a few times from risks I took, so I say this all as someone who has played with fire and not on a high horse judgmental stage)

There is a sensitive but necessary conversation about magic and manifestation that I believe wants to be had, especially with Carolyn’s suicide and how these occult teachings have hit the mainstream. I think the cautionary tails and myths must come back to warm and redirect people away from potentially life-threatening explorations.

I left Carolyn’s work, and stopped recommending it, because what she was teaching was bordering the edges of what could be considered black magic in some moments, even if the core of the work was more loving and harmless. I don’t say this as some uptight Christian pointing fingers and clutching pearls, but as a fellow witch/seeker who has felt the temptation of the wielding of power for personal will and control. She taught to use attention and polerizing energies for personal gain and wealth, things that are usually ‘grey’ but with certain manipulative tendencies could cross over. (For reference, white magic is protective/rejuvenates. Grey magic is for personal gain, power, money etc. Black magic overwrites others will or harms). She worked with rituals that involved deals with ‘the devil’ which can be said to be a psychological/archetypal figure, but likely has more power than one would admit and could open us to psychic issues/possession/entities. She confessed to having used love magic to try to seduce a guy she liked and having it go wrong (over-writing someone’s will by trying to make them fall in love with you is considered black magic). She ideolised Alistair Cowley, a highly questionable magician who played with black magic and was eventually a heroine and cocaine addict with extremely questionable morals. She taught some of these techniques to people with little safeguards, grounding or pre-requisite in a way that crossed a line for me, even if plenty of others have no issues with it. In the last week, I’ve heard actually multiple colleagues and friends of mine share they had all also joined her Wealth program, felt the ick and left because of this — we knew the red flags and were not comfortable with the direction it was going. So I know I’m not actually alone in my concerns and it wasn’t just my personal morals or personality type flagging this.

Using magic to get what you want can work. I’ve manifested lovely homes, new students and cool experiences with sex magic before. Wielding these powers, techniques and approaches can work — but it is in a way forcing your personal will over the natural flow of life, to get what you think you want. And it may work for a time, but it also can snap back and rebound with reprecussions. Humans have an interesting way of thinking we know what will make us happy, thinking that more money/fame/success is the answer to all our problems despite the multitude of stories we have that prove the opposite, where celebrities go mad and end up deeply wounded and corrupt souls. While it may seem innocent enough to dabble with sex magic to make some fast money, there is also an inherit risk — because if that money or success isn’t actually destined for you by fate (or maybe within the timeframe you’re pushing for), it will find a way to reclaim and realign you.

I’ve often wanted to compare myself to people like Carolyn Elliot. I have fantasised about the opportunities that could open up if my book sold as well as hers did, about all the people I could serve and what I could do with the money. It’s easy to let my ego imagine that more = better and more happiness lives over there with more success. But I have found my path is not one of pushing personal will onto the world, but one of surrendering and aligning with the divine will of life, and what is actually meant for me.

If my work ‘blew up’ like hers did, if I had all that attention and all those opinions of me aimed at me, all the projections and hate and love and energy my way... I can imagine I’d feel quite trapped and exhausted by it all. I can imagine it getting to my head. I can imagine it causing issues with my husband and I. I can imagine it weighing on me and pressuring me more to keep up the image and with the expectations. I can imagine my health flaring up even worse. Especially if it happened earlier in my life before I got to the stable and grounded place I’m in now. I could use my sexual energy to try to force things. I could tell myself that it’s needed and necessary. I could imagine happiness is found in more students and more numbers in my account.

Or I can learn to find all that love, worthiness, happiness and beauty right here, right now, in the simplest of moments, regardless of circumstance.

That is a power that can not be taken away.

That’s what my path has been forcing me towards through circumstances beyond my control — over and over again.

Wielding magic in the past required extensive initiation processes and guardrails because they knew it was an ‘extreme sport’ of the psyche. It had risks and consequences.

I do believe Carolyn knew this, and she consented to it, the way a base jumper consents to the risk when they dive off the mountain. I don’t think she’s a victim. I think she was someone here to test the limits and stretch the imagination, and maybe to remind us of the risks and concequences.

Not everyone is here for a safe and long life. Some people are here to push the limits of human experience. Some of us are here to burn bright and burn out. I always thought I was meant to be one of those people, I didn’t think I’d honestly live to be over 34, whether I’d take my own life or do something risky and stupid to end it. But I found myself drawn down a similar yet different path, one that is not about personal gain or power but of surrender and trust, where I don’t believe my mind’s story about what will make me happy, and instead offer myself to life and trust it to guide me to something beyond what I could have imagined.

What risks are you willing to take to get what you want?

What are you willing to risk to stretch the edges of what is possible?

Are you really sure of the concequences?

Many of us are now wondering... which of these teachings that we loved and integrated from Carolyn should stay, and what should go?

What is truly liberatory, and what might be setting us up for self destruction?

Carolyn had a unique set of circumstances that led to her leaving us. None of us have the same exact neurotype (she was one of those genius/mad types with an addiction streak), none of us have the same business, the same path, the same relationship to risk.

I don’t think doing existential kink practices is the problem. I do think certain belief systems and practices as discussed here can put us at risk.

‘Having is proof of wanting’ is one I mentioned earlier. It’s a bit of a reframe of ‘the secret’ and the belief that we consent fully to every terrible thing that happens to us. I think this is a ‘near enemy of the truth’ (which, by the way, is a great book to inooculate spiritual seekers from some of the most harmful teachings in our scene and covers a lot of these topics well) that can be helpful or harmful.

When your life collapses, is it proof you wanted to destroy yourself? Did she use that as evidence that she wanted to leave? We can’t know.

A video from Carolyn popped up where she spoke about feeling this hate towards her husband that was like ‘the fire of 1000 suns’ and how she was inviting that part in to her with love. It sounded like wise spiritual wisdom, of course we want to love and accept all parts — but sometimes extreme feelings, especially of hate, are a serious warning sign of something needing more care and help. Like the screen shot of hers I shared earlier, some of the ‘normalising’ talk she was bringing about her circumstances might not have been the best way to approach them.

Sometimes shit happens, and sometimes we are genuinely victimised, and the best thing we can do is to surrender to the pain of it and let ourselves be held and loved through it.

Sometimes our shadow is a protective mechanism that stays because we’ve created a life full of intensity and drama, when actually we need a slow and soft space to take off our armour and let our shadow take a nap because it’s not needed.

Sometimes we’re romanticizing and dramatizing things that are really just coping mechanisms and we need to find another way to work with them.

Sometimes getting what we think we want isn’t really what is best for us.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is fail hard and fail well and not make it wrong.

Is our power really derived from our ability to influence the world and others? I do not think so. That is why I stepped away from her work, even though she was a genius and I loved some of what she offered. This is why I wasn’t surprised it went wrong, the way I wouldn’t be surprised to hear someone who backflipped motorcycles had a crash and died.

We can consent to the risk, but do we really know what we’re consenting to, and what we’re missing out on?

I hope wherever you are now Carolyn, you’ve found your peace and you’re enjoying the way you’ve impacted the world. That you’ve made us think, cry, get confused as fuck and question everything.

I hope your daughters will recover from this, and that you’ll find a way to serve them from outside your body now that you left them motherless.

I hope we can all learn and evolve from this.

Feel free to share below what came up for you, I’m on this inquiry alongside you.