*Warning from the author: this article may be highly triggering for some readers. 

Until recently, I was under the influence of the insidious ideology that has become almost mainstream on the internet: twin flames. 

It wasn’t until I came across a video on YouTube by Laura Ansell and Nadine Hope, “The Untold Truths of the Twin Flame Cult,” that the twin flame bubble I had been in for the past five years started to burst.

As I began to dig deeper, I came across the work of Underground Star. The plot thickened. In one video, “The Indoctrination into the Twin Flame Cult,” she explains that whilst there is no specific cult leader, the twin flame belief system is self-taught and sustained by the individual through incessant watching of Tarot readings, energy updates, YouTube videos, and astrological “love readings.” There are also a plethora of Facebook support groups and a variety of different coaching and healing programs offered to the collective—at a premium price.

Thus, the internet plays an enormous part in the indoctrination process and keeps people hooked into the twin flame matrix. One of the main issues is that the industry is highly unregulated: anyone can start claiming to be a twin flame expert and sell various services and products to “support you on the path to sacred union.”

I am ashamed to admit that I was amongst this cohort during my involvement in the cult. I wrote numerous articles about twin flames, began offering coaching services, and hosted a Facebook support group. (I have since permanently deleted and withdrawn all of my associated content and services.)

The unfortunate truth: the twin flame concept is a lie—a false concept. At one point, it may have had some truth to it, but it has since been overly romanticised and bastardised to exploit our traumas, fears, and conditioning. It provides a false promise of “happily ever after” with our true soulmate—our perfect match with whom we will embark on a predestined soul mission to help uplift the planet with our eternal, unconditional love. I’m sorry, but what a load of bollocks!

If you are reading this feeling a surge of anger, confusion, and/or resistance, then you are likely still entrenched in the twin flame cult ideology. Maybe you’re holding onto the hope that your knight (or empress) in shining armour will eventually proclaim his/her undying love for you and offer you the fairytale romance and validation you have been desperately seeking.

I hate to tell you, but the brutal truth is that this is most likely not going to happen. 

As my predecessors explained, the relationship you have with your so-called twin flame is more than likely not a sacred connection but rather a narcissistic dynamic in which you have been subjected to repeated emotional abuse. If you look at the so-called “twin flame stages,” they are disturbingly identical to those of a narcissistically abusive relationship, only they’re using “spiritual” terms. What is referred to as a “bubble love” stage and the “crisis” stages in twin flame language is actually the “idealization, devaluation, and discard” stages of a narcissistic relationship.

After the discard stage of the narcissistic relationship, when your so-called “twin” abandons or rejects you in some way (often to pursue another relationship, whether you are aware of it or not), you start to Google for answers. Hoping to make sense of what you just experienced, lo and behold, the twin flame dynamic is often one of the first things that pop up. From there, you are immediately hooked as a series of articles, Tarot readings, and YouTube videos flood your subconscious mind, programming you with this new false belief system that appears to describe your experience—to a tee.

The trouble is that, unless you know about narcissistic abuse, you are unlikely to find the information (even though there is plenty of it saturating the internet). This is likely because the twin flame cult phenomenon has taken up even more virtual real estate and is infinitely more appealing than the stark reality of narcissistic abuse. This is where the twin flame system sinks its hooks into vulnerable victims—you unknowingly become a devotee of not one cult but two.

Several experts on narcissistic abuse have likened being in this toxic dynamic to being in a cult—a cult for two, but a cult nonetheless. This is because the narcissist often uses underhanded manipulation tactics to groom you through the idealisation and love-bombing stages and continue to control you via various insidious means through the duration of your involvement with them.

I believe that the intoxicating allure of the twin flame cult comes down to the fact that it wraps everything you are experiencing up in a neat little bow by exploiting your traumas, fears, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and conditioned desires all into one false belief system. The cult knows that you likely have rejection/abandonment wounds from childhood, so you will likely have strong empathic/codependent traits. And because of these things, you will probably have strong people-pleasing tendencies—a desire to help “fix” others. (In this instance, it would be your supposed “twin flame.”)

The cult also recognises that you may have experienced a spiritual awakening as a result of your tumultuous, traumatic, and confusing involvement with this person you’ve identified as your “twin,” and that part of this may have involved a plethora of metaphysical experiences: lucid dreams, visions and/or premonitions about this person and your involvement with them.

Human beings are often inherently lazy and idealistic truth-seekers at the best of times. It is far easier to accept an ideology that encompasses everything you have been experiencing on the premise that you have found unconditional love and that you will physically reunite with the object of your affection once you have worked on yourself enough and you are healed.

The main point is that the flame program is a cyber cult, and it is insidious and often damaging, to say the least. This fake ideology has taken off so fast that a wide variety of unsuspecting victims have been caught in the cyber net.

There are young women (and men) in their early 20s who are holding onto emotionally abusive relationships because they believe they have found their twin flame—they are destined to be together. Meanwhile, 20 years pass and they still haven’t heard from their supposed counterpart, or they have been spoon-fed breadcrumbs of attention to keep them stuck waiting in the narcissistic-harem-garage in the hopes that one day he/she will wake up and come and be with them.

This is a serious waste of a life, not to mention the unprocessed, unhealed trauma people accumulate due to years of insidious emotional abuse. It robs people of the best years of their lives. 

I am so grateful to have found the work of Laura Ansell and Underground Star to help me burst through the twin flame illusion when I did. Otherwise, there is a strong chance I would still be in it.

So now it’s my turn to assist in helping as many people as possible get out of and recover from this terrifying cyber cult. It all starts with your willingness to hear and accept the truth, as harsh and brutal as it may be.

Remember that you are not alone, many others have been down a similar path, but we must try and do our best to pull ourselves out of it—reprogram ourselves so that we can really be free.

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