I didn’t even notice him until the last five minutes of a four-day workshop.
Martyn-a name so close to my own it was almost ridiculous-sat somewhere in the Zoom grid of forty faces. And when I say I noticed him, I mean I really noticed him. He looked almost exactly like me. Not vaguely similar. Exactly. Like someone had reached into the future, pulled out a version of me from about a decade ahead, and dropped him into a breakout room on a healing course.
I remember thinking, “Well, that’s cosmically significant,” and filing it away as one of those odd synchronicities that spiritual circles love to interpret as meaning something. My doppelgänger. With my name. In the same workshop.
Then, in the final group session, Martyn spoke up. And everything changed.
What Happened in Those Four Days
The workshop was a four-day, mind-body healing programme run on Zoom. There were about forty of us scattered across the globe, most of whom had never met before. The format was solid: the facilitator would teach, then we’d break into pairs for practice exercises, then reconvene as a group.
On paper, it was good work. The facilitator had credibility. The framework was sound.
But something went wrong in those pair exercises.
Martyn kept getting paired with different practitioners-people learning the method, trying to apply the techniques. And in almost every session, he’d hear the same feedback: “You’re blocked.” “You’re resistant.” “You’ve got issues that need to be resolved first.”
The blame was always on him. Despite the fact that these practitioners were doing the exercise for the first time, despite the fact that they had minimal experience, despite the fact that the dynamic wasn’t working-somehow, it was Martyn’s fault.
And then he got paired with an assistant instructor. Someone with actual experience and credentials. And instead of that being a relief, it got worse. Because the assistant instructor reinforced everything. “Yes, you’re definitely blocked. Yes, you’re resistant. Yes, the issue is you.”
Four days of this. Forty people in the group. About eight of them telling him, in various spiritual-therapeutic ways, that he was the problem.
The Moment of Truth
It wasn’t until the very last group session-maybe the final five minutes of the entire workshop-that Martyn got to speak.
The facilitator opened the floor. Take your microphones off if you want. Ask questions. Give feedback. It was a gesture toward transparency, toward creating space for the unspoken.
And Martyn spoke.
He said he felt disappointed. He said he was upset. He said that the feedback he’d received amounted to spiritual gaslighting, and he was sick of it. He knew he was fine. He didn’t appreciate being told otherwise by every single person he’d worked with.
And then he added something that landed differently: “Every course I go to, I get the same critique. It’s a toxic community.”
And then-this is the part that stays with me-the facilitator thanked him for his feedback and moved on. Didn’t engage. Didn’t explore it. Didn’t offer to discuss it further. Just… moved on.
The workshop ended. The Facebook group for alumni was set up. And Martyn wasn’t there.
He’d vanished. Mysteriously. Magically. Like someone had waved a spiritual wand and erased my cosmic doppelgänger from existence.
I actually wanted to find him after the course. I wanted to tell him I believed him. I wanted to know more about his experience. I looked for him-in emails, in the group, in any record of the workshop. Nothing. It was as though the universe had decided his voice didn’t deserve to be heard.
(And yes, I’m aware of the dark humour in that. A version of my future self, silenced and disappeared for speaking the truth. The universe, apparently, has a sense of irony.)
What Actually Happened Here
Let me be precise about what I witnessed, because spiritual gaslighting is subtle and it’s often dressed in language that sounds like care.
Gaslighting, in its most basic form, is making someone doubt their own reality. It’s a form of manipulation where the perpetrator denies the victim’s experience, insists their perception is wrong, and gradually convinces them that they can’t trust their own mind.
Spiritual gaslighting is gaslighting dressed in spiritual or therapeutic language. And it’s insidious because it uses the vocabulary of healing as a weapon.
Here’s what happened to Martyn:
He had a legitimate experience: the pair work exercises weren’t working, and he was being blamed for it. That’s his reality. That’s what happened.
But instead of the practitioners examining their own skill level, their own application of the technique, or the dynamics that weren’t working-instead of any of that-they pathologised him. They reframed his legitimate feedback as evidence of his own spiritual or emotional deficiency. “You’re blocked.” “You’re resistant.” “You have issues.”
Notice what’s happening: his reality is being invalidated, but it’s being invalidated using spiritual language that sounds like insight. They’re not saying, “I don’t agree with you.” They’re saying, “Your resistance is showing me where you need to do your work.”
It’s brilliant, actually, in the most predatory way. It’s gaslighting that comes wrapped in the language of care.
Why This Works So Well in Spiritual Spaces
Spiritual gaslighting is particularly effective in healing spaces because of the inherent power dynamic and the framework we’re already primed to accept.
The practitioner is assumed to be right. In a healing workshop, there’s an implicit agreement: this person knows something you don’t. They’ve done the training. They have the credentials. So when they tell you something about your own experience, you’re already inclined to believe them over yourself.
Spiritual concepts become tools of avoidance. If a practitioner isn’t skilled, or if they’re not taking responsibility for their part in a dynamic, they can use spiritual language to shift blame. “Resistance” becomes the client’s problem. “Blocking” becomes the client’s deficiency. The practitioner never has to examine their own competence or accountability.
Your own experience becomes suspect. When someone uses spiritual language to invalidate you, it triggers something deep. You start to wonder if maybe they’re right. Maybe you are blocked. Maybe your perception is off. And if you can’t trust your own experience, you’re completely vulnerable to manipulation.
Silence is enforced through spiritual concepts. When Martyn spoke up, he wasn’t engaged with. He was moved past. And the message was clear: your experience doesn’t belong here. Your reality isn’t welcome. And if you keep pushing it, you’ll be removed (which he was, from the alumni group).
Accountability is replaced with spiritual platitudes. The facilitator didn’t say, “Let’s talk about this. Let’s explore whether the pair exercises are working. Let’s examine the dynamics.” Instead, they said thank you and moved on. Which is a way of saying, “Your feedback isn’t important. Your experience isn’t valid. What matters is maintaining the narrative that this workshop was fine.”
The Real Damage
Spiritual gaslighting doesn’t just hurt someone’s feelings. It damages their ability to trust themselves.
Martyn had already been through this at other courses. He was starting to internalise the message: “Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I’m the one who’s blocked. Maybe my perception is unreliable.”
That’s what gaslighting does. It slowly erodes your confidence in your own knowing. And when that erosion happens in a space that’s supposed to be safe, in the name of healing, it’s particularly damaging.
It also teaches people that their voice doesn’t matter. Martyn spoke up at the end, shared legitimate feedback, and was effectively silenced. The message received: don’t bother speaking up. You’ll just be dismissed.
And it perpetuates the cycle. Because a community where voices are silenced, where accountability isn’t required, where practitioners can pathologise clients instead of examining themselves-that community becomes increasingly toxic. And people like Martyn leave. They disappear. And the community becomes an echo chamber of people who’ve accepted the narrative without question.
How to Recognise Spiritual Gaslighting
I want to give you clear markers, because this can be hard to see when you’re inside it.
Red flag 1: Your experience is reframed as your deficiency. You say something isn’t working, and instead of exploring it, you’re told there’s something wrong with you-you’re blocked, resistant, not evolved enough, not ready.
Red flag 2: The practitioner is never accountable. When something goes wrong, it’s always the client’s issue. The practitioner’s skill, approach, or responsibility is never examined. The system is always right; you’re always the problem.
Red flag 3: Speaking up gets you removed or sidelined. You raise a concern and either get pathologised for it or quietly excised from the community. Your feedback isn’t engaged with; it’s dismissed.
Red flag 4: You’re made to doubt your own perception. You walk away from interactions questioning whether your experience was real. You start to wonder if maybe you are the problem.
Red flag 5: Spiritual language is used to avoid accountability. Instead of practical discussions about what went wrong, you get spiritual concepts. Instead of “I wasn’t skilled enough,” you get “You weren’t ready to receive this work.”
Red flag 6: There’s no room for legitimate critique. A truly safe healing space welcomes feedback. A toxic one treats critique as spiritual rebellion.
What Actual Accountability Looks Like
Here’s what should have happened after Martyn spoke up:
The facilitator should have paused. Should have said, “Thank you for that feedback. That matters.” Should have engaged with him. Should have said something like, “I’m hearing that the pair work exercises didn’t feel productive, and that you experienced that as blame being placed on you. Let’s talk about that. Let’s examine whether my instructions were clear. Let’s look at the dynamics.”
That would be accountability. That would be safety.
Instead, what happened was silencing. Which is gaslighting. Which is the opposite of a healing space.
And the cosmically ironic part? A version of me-a future iteration-showed up to witness that silencing. And I wanted to say something. I wanted to find him after and say, “You were right. Your experience was real. You shouldn’t have been treated that way.”
But he’d vanished. Spiritually removed. My doppelgänger, gone.
The universe, apparently, had decided his voice didn’t deserve to be heard.
The Gentle Reality Check
If you’ve been spiritually gaslit, you’re not crazy. Your perception isn’t broken. And the fact that you’re doubting yourself is not evidence that you should doubt yourself-it’s evidence of how effective the gaslighting was.
Real healing spaces don’t require you to give up your own knowing. They don’t use spiritual concepts to avoid accountability. They don’t silence dissent. They don’t pathologise your legitimate experience.
Real healing spaces say: your experience matters. Your feedback matters. We’re accountable to you. We’re willing to examine ourselves. And if something doesn’t feel right, we’re going to explore that together rather than blame you for not being ready.
If you’re in a space where that’s not happening, you don’t need to evolve more. You don’t need to be less resistant. You don’t need to work on your blocks.
You need to leave.
And if you do-if you find the courage to walk away from a spiritually gaslit situation-know this: you’re not abandoning your spiritual path. You’re protecting it. Because real spirituality doesn’t require you to betray yourself.
Before you go: If you’re recognising spiritual gaslighting in your own life, consider this your permission to trust your own experience. That voice telling you something’s wrong? That’s not your ego. That’s your wisdom. Listen to it.
