I arrived at the residential training expecting one thing and found something entirely different.
A week. That’s all it took for me to realise that the gap between calling yourself spiritual and actually being spiritual is vast enough to drive a bus through.
I was there to deepen my practice, to learn from people who’d dedicated their lives to spiritual work. What I found instead was bitchiness, backstabbing, and an undercurrent of insincerity so thick you could cut it with a knife. And yet, on the surface, everything looked peaceful. Everyone smiled. Everyone said the right things. Everyone performed spiritual enlightenment perfectly.
It cracked something open in me. And I need to tell you what I learned, because I think it matters.
The Setup: What I Expected vs. What I Got
When I signed up for the week-long training at this spiritualist community, I had a specific picture in my mind. Genuine seekers. People who’d chosen a path of service and spiritual growth. Authentic connection. The kind of community where you could let your guard down because everyone there was committed to the same values.
I was naive.
The community was mostly women, mostly people who’d been involved in spiritualism for decades. This was their world-the churches, the gatherings, the teachings, the rituals. It was all very organised. Very institutional. Very much like a religion with rules and hierarchy and established ways of doing things.
And at first, that wasn’t a problem. Structure can be comforting. Tradition can be grounding. But as the week progressed, I started noticing something darker underneath all the politeness.
The way certain people were treated as special, elevated, “more spiritual” than others. The way newer members were subtly excluded or made to feel like they didn’t quite belong. The passive-aggressive comments disguised as spiritual wisdom. The way people smiled at each other while clearly harbouring resentment.
It was all so polite. So well-mannered. So completely inauthentic.
The Dissonance: Spiritual Language, Unspiritual Behaviour
What struck me most was the cognitive dissonance. Here were people spending their days talking about love, unity, compassion, and higher consciousness. And in the breaks? The eye-rolling. The whispered complaints. The cliques that formed and reformed based on who was “in” and who was “out.”
One moment someone would be discussing the divine nature of human connection, and the next moment they’d be complaining bitterly about another member behind their back.
One moment they’d be talking about forgiveness and letting go, and the next they’d be holding onto a grievance like it was a lifeline.
It wasn’t that these people were bad. They weren’t. But there was a profound disconnect between what they were saying they believed and how they were actually behaving. And nobody seemed to notice. Or if they did, nobody said anything.
Because that wouldn’t be spiritual, would it?
The Wake-Up Call: Being a Spiritualist Isn’t the Same as Being Spiritual
Here’s the thing I didn’t know when I arrived: being a spiritualist is institutional. It’s organised. You can be born into it-raised in spiritualist churches, part of spiritualist families, part of a spiritual lineage that’s been passed down.
It’s a lot like being born Christian or Jewish or Muslim. You inherit the label, the community, the rituals, the framework. And that framework can be meaningful and grounding. But inheriting a spiritual label doesn’t mean you’ve done the spiritual work. It doesn’t mean you’ve examined yourself honestly, confronted your shadows, or genuinely transformed.
Some people in that community were genuinely spiritual-I met a few people who carried a real integrity, a real peace that came from actual inner work. But many others were just… going through the motions. Wearing the label. Showing up to the events. Speaking the language.
And because everyone around them was also wearing the label, speaking the language, showing up to the events, nobody had to question whether any of it was real.
It’s a perfect system for self-deception, actually. You’re surrounded by people doing the same thing you’re doing, so it all feels validated. Confirmed. True.
The Uncomfortable Truth I Can’t Unsee
What I learned in that week is this: just because someone says they’re spiritual doesn’t mean it’s true.
It sounds obvious when I say it out loud. But think about how often you’ve taken someone at face value when they’ve claimed spiritual credentials or authority. How often have you assumed that someone in a spiritual community is more evolved, more enlightened, more together than they actually are?
We do this all the time. We see the label-therapist, coach, healer, spiritualist, guru-and we assume it means something. We assume it means they’ve done the work. That they’re integrated. That they’re living in alignment with their stated values.
Sometimes they are. And sometimes they’re just really good at the performance.
I watched it happen in that community. The people who were revered as the most spiritual were often the ones who were the best at looking spiritual. The best at saying the right things. The best at performing enlightenment. Whether they’d actually transformed anything about themselves? That was secondary.
And the people who were genuinely doing the hard internal work-confronting their shadows, sitting with their difficult emotions, staying honest about their struggles-they often got overlooked. They didn’t have the polish. They didn’t have the performance.
Why This Matters Beyond That One Week
I’m not telling you this to trash spiritualism or spiritual communities. Plenty of them are genuine. Plenty of them are filled with people doing real work and living with real integrity.
But I am telling you this so you’ll ask better questions.
When you’re part of a spiritual community or considering joining one, don’t just look at what people are saying. Look at how they’re behaving. Look at how they treat people who disagree with them. Look at how they handle conflict. Look at whether they practise what they preach.
Do they talk about compassion and then gossip about members behind their backs? Do they preach non-judgment and then subtly shame people who don’t fit the mould? Do they claim to be about authenticity and then create an environment where only certain emotions are welcome?
These are the tells. These are where you’ll see the gap between the label and the reality.
And here’s the thing that really matters: if you’re in a community like this, you’re likely internalising the same gap. You’re learning that it’s okay to say one thing and do another. That performance is more important than authenticity. That fitting in is more important than being honest.
That’s a spiritual education I’d rather you didn’t get.
The Questions You Need to Ask
So let me ask you directly: In the spiritual community you’re part of, are people actually living out their values?
Not perfectly-nobody’s perfect. But genuinely? Is there integrity there? Is there an acknowledgment of the gap between the ideal and the real? Or is the gap just papered over with more spiritual language?
And are you? Are you living out your stated values, or are you performing them? Are you doing the hard internal work, or are you showing up and looking the part?
These aren’t easy questions. But they’re important ones.
The Path Forward: Authenticity Over Labels
What that week taught me is that the most spiritual thing you can do isn’t to join a community or adopt a label or learn the language. It’s to get brutally honest with yourself about whether you’re actually transformed or just dressed up.
The real spiritual work happens in the gap between who you’re pretending to be and who you actually are. It happens when you’re willing to see that gap, sit with it, and do something about it.
And it happens in communities-if they exist-where people are willing to do the same. Where authenticity is valued over performance. Where the person struggling and honest is honoured more than the person who’s got it all figured out and can speak beautifully about enlightenment.
I don’t know if I’ll go back to that community. Probably not. But I’m grateful for what it taught me. Because now when I see someone with a spiritual label, I don’t automatically assume they’ve earned it. I wait to see if their actions match their words.
And I hold myself to the same standard.
That, I think, is the real spirituality.
