How Phillip Scott took advantage of me
I feel compelled to write my story about my experiences with Phillip Scott not out of any sort of vengeful attack on him, but rather to protect other people who may come into contact with him so that they are warned of his decades long patterns of behavior. I have been in contact with many people who have been students of his for various periods of time and the first person stories I have heard vary in levels of severity, but the theme is always and consistently the same. All of these people, and they are numerous, do not know each other and have never been in contact of any kind with each other, but the consistency of their stories and experiences are remarkably identical to my own. I will be specific in telling my story in the hopes that more people will come forward and share theirs on this blog so that we may collectively protect current and future students of Phillip Scott’s destructive and predatory behavior as well as lending support to his former students so that they may feel less alone and heal from what Phillip Scott has done to them.
IT STARTS IN SUBTLE WAYS - I APPRENTICED WITH PHILLIP SCOTT FOR FIVE MONTHS
I first met Phillip Scott in June of 2022 through another student of his who recommended him to me. I was extremely fragile at the time, coming out of a months-long depression and felt completely lost. I had a few healing sessions with Phillip during which he helped me work through my depression. He invited me to attend an intensive, during which I continued deep healing work for which I am grateful for, even to this day.
I decided to accept his invitation to study with him as an apprentice as I was very moved by Phillip’s work as Native American Chief and wanted to continue learning about his peoples’ ways under his tutelage. On June 29, 2022, I met with Phillip for my initiation ceremony and first monthly session. Since I live abroad, he had me come in again on July 5th, 2022 so that we could get my second monthly session in person. After the second session, he told me that I owed him for two months of apprentice fees at $275. This was the first red flag. It immediately felt wrong as he was asking for money for an entire month of apprenticeship tuition because my first session was on June 29th and that meant that I was paying for an entire month. His explanations did not make sense and were confusing to me in the psychologically fragile state. Later, I spoke with him, telling him he imposed this on me without making his policy clear beforehand. He refused to even consider pro-rating the month of June. He knew very well that money was very tight for me at the time and I reiterated this, but he replied with a hard “no” with no sensitivity nor real listening to my position. Against my intuition, I agreed to pay for the two months, feeling it was wrong, but I was so vulnerable and grateful to have someone help me out of the desperate emotional state I was in.
During my subsequent monthly sessions with Phillip Scott, our sessions were merely conversations about how I was doing, what was going on in my life, etc. He gave me written assignments, books to read and suggestions as to how to handle my personal struggles. It felt more like some sort of “therapy” sessions rather than true apprenticeship or healing sessions. And it felt like I was merely just speaking with a therapist rather than the spiritual teacher he claims to be. He did not want to review the written assignments that he asked of me, nor did he teach me ANYTHING about what he told me the apprenticeship program was all about. He did tell me stories about Native Ways, but these were by no means a form of apprenticeship teaching.
When Phillip Scott found out I lived in Portugal and that I had the space and land where he could teach, he immediately invited himself to my home. Before I had accepted, he announced publicly that he was coming to my place to teach, build a sweat lodge, a teepee, teach an intensive and perform a land blessing for me, which made me feel extremely uncomfortable. This was the second big red flag. I finally did agree to it but something within me didn’t feel right. Again, I was not in a good state of mind at the time and he knew it and the fact that he was bestowing his presence at my home felt good in that he was giving me a lot of attention, but there was a voice within me that was telling me not to do it. I felt he was taking me under his wing and in the very vulnerable state I was in at the time, I welcomed this as it gave me a sense of purpose, something to live for. And I was truly hoping that my involvement with Phillip and proximity to him would support my healing work.
In September of 2022, we started finalizing the plans for him first going to Munich, Germany, to teach, do a lodge, offer healing sessions and a naming ceremony. He was then to come to my home in Portugal. That is when he changed what I had initially agreed to from building a lodge and teepee to simply offering healing sessions, an intensive and a land/home blessing for my home. This was the third red flag. I was disappointed, but again went along with it.
Very quickly, I realized that Phillip, without making it explicit at all, put me in the sole position of making all marketing efforts, coordinating the schedule and getting people to attend the events at my home. He did send out an email to his “contacts” in Europe and Portugal, but none of these people came. I was willing to help out, but I was not willing to be head coordinator/manager of his entire programs in Portugal. And once again, I went along with it, even though I felt manipulated and thought he was unprofessional. He had told me that he gifted the intensives to the people who host him and help him out with coordinating his events, so I felt that I was getting that in exchange and that I would continue.
I then proceeded to spend a lot of time getting the word out via various social media, friends and contacts. I’ve only been living in Portugal for three and a half years, so I do not know many people or groups and associations that might be interested in attending, but I plowed forward as I had made a commitment. At the time I first agreed to host Phillip, I made it very clear to him that he could not charge Northern California prices in Portugal, a historically poor country in which the minimum wage is 740 Euros per month.
Phillip insisted on charging 160 Euros for healing sessions and a 160 Euros for each day of the two day intensive, despite my continued advice that this would not fly in Portugal. He also did not want the prices advertised on social media platforms, which I found very odd and not transparent on his part. He also refused a sliding scale or work exchange to open his teachings to those who could not afford. If they could not pay what he demanded, they were out. Phillip treated me in a debasing way because I could not get people to pay him what he thought he could get. He continuously told me that the medicine and effort he brings to people is very valuable and that people should be grateful to him and pay what he demanded.
He directed me to negotiate with people when they contacted me. “Start at 160 Euros and then see what they can afford and you can go down to 130 Euros” he said during one phone call. Now I was to negotiate money for spiritual teachings and try and get as much money for him as possible. This is morally bankrupt and predatorial behavior and I was not going to take part in this sort of scheme. I told Phillip, I would, but never did it.
I have worked as a retreat manager for many years with other teachers and have participated in many retreats with various teachers for 30 years and I have never seen a teacher not put things in writing nor be clear about the financial part of teacher student relationship. It is vital that spiritual teachers bring their teachings from a place of clarity and good faith, especially when they are in relationship with the spiritual realm and all the vulnerabilities that students bring with them into these sacred spaces.
And the predictable happened. People laughed in my face when I told them the prices and it was embarrassing. Here was yet another American teacher coming to Portugal to take advantage of people. I continued to press Phillip on this issue and it proved to be very challenging. During one phone call, he went into an angry monologue about how the Portuguese had been responsible for the colonialization and eventual genocide of “his people” and that it was up to individual Portuguese people to pay reparations for these past sins directly to him. I was absolutely shocked and dumbfounded. I have absolutely no dispute with the role of the Portuguese when it comes to Empire and Colonialism and that reparations should be paid to the First Peoples of America and other countries they plundered and destroyed, but Phillip Scott the man is not a leader, representative or emissary in any sort of truth and reconciliation efforts. The money he makes goes into his own personal pockets. And this is how he operates. He imposes his view as the only truth and if you disagree, he accuses you of being part of the colonizers and guilt trips you and make you feel shame. It’s his way or the highway.
After more painfully uncomfortable conversations about pricing, I was able to get him to go down to $130 Euros for healing sessions and for each day of the intensive. People could still not afford this and as soon as I told interested people the price, they went away. Finally, I got Phillip to agree to charge 95 Euros for the healing sessions and each intensive days. I then began to get some interest and had a few people sign up for the intensive but no one for the healing sessions.
During the months before his arrival to Europe, Phillip continuously complained and debased those of us whom he charged with enrolling students. We were all doing our best to support him as a teacher, but it was very challenging. Neither the people in Germany nor myself were ever told that we were completely responsible for getting people to sign up. And this, along with his constant complaining that people were not willing to show up to see him as if he was some sort of messiah, was very disrespectful to our efforts. He told me that I was not doing enough. I know that Phillip was not invited back to the community he taught in in Portugal a few years ago under shady circumstances which I will not write about here as I was not a witness to it, but the issues are the same.
From the beginning of our marketing efforts, I made it clear to Phillip that I did not want my home address to appear on any marketing materials and that I would send my address to students once they signed up. Phillip then began insisting that my address be public, telling me that his students are protected and that nothing can happen to me because they were under his protection. I told him that I had recently been robbed and he had nothing to say. I told him very clearly that I live far out in the country-side and as a woman I did not feel safe putting my address out there. He told me that this was very unprofessional of me and the conversation turned into an argument with him bullying me into submission. Phillip completely disrespected me by not listening to anything I was saying. I agreed, but a few hours later, I changed my mind, found another location to hold the intensive and wrote to him to let him know. He refused this idea and kept on bullying me over a WhatsApp conversation telling me that in the 30 years of teaching, no location had ever had a problem. And here again, he had no respect for me. I maintained my position and he finally angrily conceded.
After understanding Phillip’s relationship with money, and afraid that he would take advantage of me, I asked him what I needed to know about the land blessing ceremony he was going to perform for me. He had not said anything about an exchange of money so far. He then told me that it was up to me to decide “what it is worth to you, knowing that I put a lot of effort into it.” Again, the alarms went off inside me. There is a big difference between what something is worth to someone and what one can afford. How much do I pay? What does he expect?
AND THEN IT ALL WENT TO SHIT
Since no one signed up for healing sessions with Phillip, I offered to take him for some tourism. I took him to a medieval village for lunch, which I paid for lunch as I would any guest. We walked through the village and he did his Christmas shopping. I took him to the bakery for a hot chocolate and he ordered some baked goods. I paid for that too. On the way out of the village, he directed me to get some roasted chestnuts and I paid for that too. I then took him to the beach and we had drinks in a restaurant. I paid for this too. There was no gesture at all to treat me to even a glass of water and every time, he sat back and watched me pay. When we arrived back at my home, he thanked me for the day. And earlier he mentioned that it was good for him to get out as he was being attacked by people on the internet and that a former student named Louis had website attacking him.. That’s how I found out about this blog! He presented himself as a victim many times during the time I spent with him. He told many stories of people who were out to get him and this is a recurring theme with him during which he asks his students to protect him because he is being unjustly attacked. I have also heard this first hand from other former students.
The next day, I had my monthly session with him. I told him that I did not want to study with him any longer and that this decision was several months in the making. There were some personal reasons for me to leave, but I conveyed that it was mainly because of him and his behavior. I told him that I felt taken advantage of by him and that I now understood that he expected me to pay for EVERYTHING, his stay in my home, his meals out at restaurants, etc. I also made it clear to him that I was not happy with the way he entangled me into being his retreat manager without my knowledge, among other things. He was completely surprised and said he was planning on gifting me the land blessing ceremony to thank me for everything I had done for him. I was touched that he did this. His manner was on one hand sweet and soft, but then he accused me of having a “Western” which reneges on solemn commitments. He told me that it’s normal to be triggered having him in my home and then he went into the space of the colonized mind. He then went back into being sweet and charming, agreed to some changes I wanted to make and then declared “it’s all settled then, right?” It wasn’t settled in the least, but I just wanted to get out of the room and away from him. I clearly saw the manipulation, the pulling authoritative rank over me and that there was no place for me to have an opinion let alone be respected. I decided to get through the weekend with elegance. I knew that I would not welcome him back into my home, but I still may study with him…I would wait and see how the weekend went.
The next day, I proposed to take Phillip to a Christmas market in town after the first intensive day, but that evening I was exhausted after three days of cooking, cleaning and taking of Phillip. I also suffer from irritable bowel syndrome and my stomach was acting up. I told him that I needed to stay home and go to bed and explained why and offered him my car so that he and another student could still go out. Again, a hard no. And again, I was stunned by his ability to not give a shit about me and his attitude that I was there to serve him. I took him to town, feeling awful and tired. We had dinner out and he did treat me to dinner and we went to the market, where he lingered, merely taking his time shopping and enjoying himself.
A few days later, the morning of his departure, he told me that I owed him 200 Euros for the intensive, which he had already gifted me some months before, also charging me more than the advertised price. I got angry and was blunt in my response telling him that he, once again, was demanding payment from me after the fact. He said “noted” and insisted that he should be paid for his services. I just wanted to get Phillip out of my house and away from me, so I agreed to pay him but only at the advertised prize.
The next day, I felt dirty and ashamed of myself that I had, once again, let this man impose his will over me. I had been forewarned of his behavior patterns from what I had heard from people in Munich where he had been just before coming to Portugal, so I was not completely caught off guard and I was ready for it, but I was still shocked and dismayed to see it in person. And of I had heard the stories about how he yells and attacks people when they leave or disobey his directives and I was afraid of him. That day, I read the stories in this blog and understood that I was not the only one he had done this to. I recognized so much in the other stories. I had seen how manipulative he could be and I had seen how he came to my house to make money, had me pay for everything and then made it clear that being in his presence should be enough for me. And this is textbook cult of personality and predatorial behavior. I kept hearing more and more stories from friends and ex students and I have to say that I am very fortunate that I live so far away from Phillip that he could not get to me like he has so many others.
That same day, it was clear to me that I needed to get away from Phillip Scott as quickly as possible. I felt badly that I reneged on a sacred commitment and that still gnaws at me, but I made my commitment thinking that Phillip’s intentions were good and truthful and I trusted that his heart was in the right place. But Phillip lacks the maturity and grace to be an authority in the spiritual realm. He walks this earth full of extremely deep inner division and brokenness that he has no business placing himself in a position of power over others. And he teaches and treats his students from this place and we, as students, will take these on and it will be perpetuated even though it belongs to him and not us. His constant rhetorical dogma about him being a victim of attacks shows that he is very insecure within himself as he is so effected by them.
I sent Phillip a letter, breaking off my relationship with him on all levels explaining in great detail why I was leaving. I chose to write instead of speaking with him directly to protect myself as I had been warned by other former students of the vitious attacks they had endured. I am deeply grateful to those who supported me and confirmed, through their experiences, that Phillip is a dangerous and predatorial man and that even though he helped me through a rough period, I could not ignore the other very dark sides of his personality.
As predicted, Phillip’s response was angry, accusing me of being a colonizer, writing that I disrespected him, his alter and his traditions. He used my personal struggles against me and kept insisting on a video chat meeting for “closure” but I did not trust him to be fair and just and refused. By pulling on my personal threads, I got the sense that he was still trying to somehow retain me as a student or bully me into silence. At this point, there was nothing he could say that could hurt me. I am fortunate to be a mature and solid enough person to see how amateurish his responses were. I asked him to not contact me anymore. We had several more exchanges on WhatsApp in which he continued his diatribe and personal attacks.
Phillip’s responses very clearly confirmed my sense of him as a predator. He wrote that people who host him pay for everything and do everything he needs and that I should be thankful for him having graced me with his presence, using himself as an example on how he welcomed mentors and teachers into his home. I have been close to a good amount of the great spiritual teachers of my lifetime and none of them have ever treated me as if they were some kind of messiah or God like figure nor did they ever ask me to be their personal servants. This is sick behavior and a complete betrayal of the Medicine and Traditional Native American Ways he claims ownership over. He uses his deep knowledge of these Ways to feed his personal ego and make money off vulnerable spiritual seekers. This is wrong.
I then notified Phillip that I would not be paying him for the intensive that he had previously gifted and then charged me for after the fact along with other money that I would use as reimbursement for all of the expenses that I incurred while hosting him while he used me and my home to make money. I had all the intentions of paying him, but when it came to actually doing it, I felt dirty and I just could not continue to support him financially. I simply could not betray myself by letting Phillip continue to prey on me. I wrote to him that I would be donating the exact amount of what he said I owed him to a not for profit Native American organization who uses donations to directly impact those in need their community. I wanted my money to benefit the people who have endured so much evil over the centuries and who are the true instruments of preserving the Sacred knowledge and Medicine that Phillip uses to colonize the minds of his students.
This is the last message I received from him:
“Truly fascinating how you fabricate false narratives to justify your position and actions (or lack thereof)…..Now you change the story to suit you and deflect responsibility. Yet another colonized strategy. You have my Prayers, Justine – You definitely require them. Fare thee well.”
LESSONS LEARNED FROM WORKING WITH PHILLIP SCOTT
Over the 20 years I have been studying with my great teacher, Adyashanti, he has repeatedly tells students that if he ever says anything that doesn’t resonate with them, they are to immediately throw it out the window. He also frequently says that just because he happens to the one sitting on a stage and in the form of a spiritual teacher that that doesn’t give him any authority over his students and that we are the one and only authority over ourselves. Any true spiritual teacher and leader with integrity will never force their will upon their students nor wil they ask for personal pledges of loyalty from them. They do not extort money, abuse hospitality, treat their followers like shit or elevate themselves as some sort of Christ like figure and expect their students and followers to treat them as such.
Phillip Scott has no business calling himself a spiritual teacher or leader, nor should he have the authority to be a teacher. His documented behavior has spanned well over two decades with the same destructive behavioral patterns. I was fortunate to have many years of practice under my belt along with a backbone to see through Phillip early on. And I was warned by other former students about him. I was also very lucky that I live far away from him so that he could not try and indoctrinate me further like he did so many others. As humans, we all have our struggles, but Phillip has not proven to have worked on the deep wounds and divisions he obviously holds. He teaches one creed, but lives by another. Phillip is a predator and grooms his students into his cult of personality.
I NEVER WANTED TO MAKE MY STORY PUBLIC, BUT I HAVE TO. I HAVE TO PROTECT OTHERS.
Since leaving Phillip’s tutelage, I have spoken with and heard many, many other former students’ stories. They all follow the same pattern and themes of predatory and immoral behavior to various degrees of seriousness. And, again, none of these people know each other, but the stories are eerily similar. The pain and suffering Phillip has inflicted on people over the decades simply has to be known. I feel a deep seated sense of responsibility to current and future students of his to protect them by making my story public. Solid information from a multitude of different sources and past students is vital information for future students so that if they choose to enter into any kind of relationship with Phillip Scott, they will so with their eyes wide open. And if Phillip sees this article as an attack or a take down and continues his attacks on me, then so be it. I can handle his venomous anger as it does not belong to me, it belongs to him.
AND NOW IT’S YOUR TURN TO JOIN ME IN PROTECTING OTHERS
As stated in the very beginning of my testimonial, I did not want to make my story public. I just wanted to get Phillip out of my life and move on. And it still feels scary to be doing this but there are so many of us former students who are alone in dealing with the aftermath of being involved with Phillip Scott. I have had the privilege to be supported by wonderful people who were also involved with him. And I am so grateful to Louis to have had the courage to make his story public and for creating this blog for others to have a voice. I realized that I had a responsibility to make my story public for the benefit of all former, present and future students of Phillip’s
If you see someone being abused, speak up and help them.
Please do not let Phillip hurt more people.
Do not stay silent.
Silence is consent.
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