A Story of Forgiveness

Article By:
Jason Freedman
Po. Box 496
Salt Lake City, UT 84110
JasonFreedmanjournalism@gmail.com

The Tragedy to Triumph Story of Teal Scott

It was a cold, gray March morning at Greenhouse Effect Coffee in south Salt Lake City. I had arrived early so as to set up my notes and place my order. Earlier that same week, I had tripped across a story which had struck me so deeply that I knew I would never be the same. And that morning I was to meet in person, the very subject of that story. Her name was Teal Scott, a woman who wasn’t supposed to be. Yet she is here to show others the way. She is here to show others the way out of powerlessness and the way out of pain. She made that journey herself, it was a journey where revenge and anger were road signs but not answers. Now, after years of torture inflicted upon her by a mad man and the cults he belonged to, she has no desire to see her abusers prosecuted or to have the iron hammer of justice brought down upon their heads. To her, they are just victims of loveless situations, broken families, and a cycle of separation that exists far beyond the bounds of this story you are reading now.
In the first years of her life, it became immediately apparent that Teal had been born with unusual talents that set her apart from other children. They were extrasensory talents which did not go away with age. Teal was raised in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest of Utah, a location with an intensely religious climate. Because of this, word of her unusual abilities got out very quickly and were not only frowned upon but also feared by many in the community. Like many children growing up as a religious minority Teal was ostracized as a child and the extent of difficulty in her life might have stopped at that, except that it was because of Teal's misunderstood, extrasensory talents that she caught the attention of a local sociopath who suffered from an extreme form of dissociative identity disorder. This man had many personalities, one of which belonged to a local Christian cult called The Blood Covenant. This man managed to infiltrate Teal’s family and position himself between Teal and her parents as her mentor. Among other things, he managed to convince Teal that he was in fact her real father. It was because of this man that Teal was inducted at six years old into this local cult and was routinely ritualistically tortured and programmed by this man and the members of the cult he belonged to for thirteen years.
It should be said that Teal does not think it is beneficial to drag people into the horrific details of everything that was done to her but order to understand just how horrific this situation was I think it is important to note that over the course of those thirteen years, she was tortured physically and sexually in religious rituals, forced to participate in sacrifices, repeatedly raped and starved. She was forced to undergo 3 abortions (all fathered by this sociopathic man himself who was in his sixties at the time) he performed them himself because his job allowed not only the meager instruments to do so, but also the “know how”. She was photographed for sadomasochistic pornography, sold for money to men for sex out of motels and outdoor gas station bathrooms, kept hogtied in basements and kept in a hole in the ground in this man’s back yard. She was exposed repeatedly to electro-shock programming, forced to undergo isolation torture and left overnight tied up in lava caves in southern Idaho. Teal was also forced to participate in bestiality and necrophilia and was drugged with Ketamine, Dormator, Xylazine, opiates and speed (all of which the man had unlimited access to due to his career). She was repeatedly chased through wilderness by him "playing" tracking games in which he would hunt her and put her through any of a list of horrific punishments if she was caught and she was also used as a lure to other children that ended up also being hurt. Teal managed to escape at 19 years old.
Of course the question on everyone’s minds upon hearing this story is why did her parent’s not know about this? During an over the phone interview with them, they admitted there were definite red flags which they did not recognize. They said "Everything is clear to us in retrospect, but at the time we did not understand what was wrong with Teal and despite what we were seeing, it did not occur to us that abuse could be what was causing it. We ended up trusting this man. It also never occurred to us that #1 this or any family acquaintance of ours could be into that kind of thing and #2 that things like that even went on in the world". They also said "Our reality of Teals childhood is very different obviously from Teal's reality of the childhood which she experienced otherwise we would have put an end to her relationship with him". and they also said... "It is very painful for us to have this situation which tore our family apart frankly... pulled up into the public eye, we are just hoping that some good will come of all of this some day".
Since Teal’s escape she has scraped with success several times, managing to make the US Telemark ski team and becoming a competitive long track speed skater. It is important to note that people who come from abusive backgrounds quite often gravitate towards sports because it involves physical pain. Victims of repeated abuse have a very unusual response to pain which is demonstrated by the fact that many victims of abuse develop addictions to self injury. It was because of this altered relationship to pain that Teal has the ability to completely dissociate pain. Teal commented on this by saying “The reason I did well in sports has nothing to do with my amazing prowess as an athlete, as you can see, I am not built like an athlete. It has to do with the fact that I can shut off my pain response system because that was the only way to cope with the torture I had no choice but to endure as a child. It is a familiar state for me and therefore I am able to push the envelope of physical stress further than most people”.
The real heart of this story however comes to the forefront with the fact that like many ritual abuse victims, Teal was given a “death date”. It was a date upon which (according to the cult) Teal’s time upon this earth would run out. That day was Teal’s 26th birthday. Teal managed to survive that day which meant not only was the cult wrong, but that Teal was now embarking on a new life. After having gone through Five years of specialized psychotherapy for acute PTSD, Teal decided to use her experience for the greater good of man kind. In the past year, Teal has assumed the title of “The Spiritual Catalyst” and is developing a growing following as she embarks on a mission as a contemporary spiritual guide in order to remind people of the united, energetic nature of this universe and to teach people how to find bliss in the midst of even the most extreme circumstances.
Early this month, Teal released her first book. Her book, The Sculptor in the Sky is not an account of what happened to her as many would expect. Instead, it is about spirituality. It is a book which unravels people’s limited views of reality and God and the universe and then proceeds to show people how to achieve lasting happiness. But what will really blow you away is the fact that Teal has become healthy and found joy to such an extent that she has completely forgiven her abusers. In fact Teal has maintained the stance that no one needs be brought to justice after what was done to her.
Teal’s abuse did become a matter of the state however. Due to a confidentiality clause which was nullified by certain details of Teal’s abuse, her psychologist at the time presented her the option that she willingly tell the authorities what went on or she would have to contact them with or without Teal’s consent with the details of the abuse. So, in 2005 she told the local authorities the horrendous story of her past. It turned into an investigation, which went cold after quite some time when the district attorney decided the state could not provide enough substantial physical evidence to win a case. When interviewed, Deputy County Attorney Barbara Lachmar acknowledged the existence of Scott’s case, but she would not speak about it other than to say “no charges to date have been filed.” This was an unsatisfying answer because the phrase “to date” leaves things fairly open-ended. Teal’s presented an unusually noteworthy case because unlike many women who go into therapy to heal from ritual abuse, none of Teal’s memories are recovered memories. It is important to note that accounts of ritualistic child abuse are not new to Northern Utah. Rumors and allegations of this nature were widespread in the 1980s. In fact, one case in Ogden does stand out as a stark example that such things do indeed happen. In her 2008 book “Hell Minus One,” Anne Johnson Davis writes a horrifying account of sexual torture and abuse at the hands of her parents and fellow devil worshippers. Her mother and stepfather confessed the abuse to investigators with the Utah Attorney General’s Office. Also noteworthy in the context of possible cult activity in the region was the recent discovery in Ogden of a shrine that included the remains of sacrificed animals along with two human skulls.
When I asked Teal about her views on the status of her case she said “Most women who escape from situations like I did do not ever tell about it. I did tell, but even the physical evidence I had was not enough given the years that had passed since the last incident that occurred. And I am glad for that in retrospect because you could say …I don’t want torture and abusers in this world… so we must punish all of those that torture, and torture the torturers so to speak. Contrastingly, instead of saying…I don’t want torture…one could say …I want compassion… and show those same actors of violence compassion that they perhaps have never been given before. Happy people who feel loved do not hurt other people”. A cornerstone of Teal’s teachings is the concept that the world in which we all live, is a reflection of none other than ourselves. It is Teal’s belief that the de-humanizing environment of jails and prisons do not rehabilitate criminals, they create even worse criminals. She says it is impossible to punish someone into wellness, that punishment for crime is like fighting fire with fire, and so it is time for the justice system and the environment of jails to change
When I asked Teal why she wrote her book about happiness and the universe instead of her amazing story she said “While I acknowledge now that this story is out of the ordinary and has the potential to inspire people greatly, not much good comes out of me writing a book where the dominant message is…Look at how amazing I am that I overcame all of this… However, overwhelming good comes of me writing a book where the dominant message is…Look how amazing and powerful and free you are that you can overcome anything like I did, and find happiness no matter what you are experiencing as reality today”. I asked her to elaborate on her opinion about happiness and she said “One thing that makes it so people can not find happiness is that they think it is some permanent state you have to achieve or some place you have to get to when the truth is that happiness, like enlightenment either is or isn’t in the moment. It is a constant process”. She went on to say “No one is meant to come here to this life and stand in perfection, or live up to something that stands in judgment of us. We are meant to come here to life in order to find happiness. Evolution is an inevitable byproduct of following the path to happiness. Not one person here, as much as you may expect it from them, stands in perfection. Perfection is an illusion. To expect perfection from yourself or others is to be resistant to where you or where someone else is and as long as you are resisting what is, you can not move forward from what is”.
As our meeting came to an end, I found myself awestruck at this woman who stands today in a light of forgiveness and mercy after having lived a life of torture and pain. She demonstrates an attitude which many who have fallen victim to abuse have been incapable of achieving. She comes from a past that gives her the credibility to be able to say that a person can achieve happiness, health and success no matter what they have done in their life and no matter what was done to them. This revolutionary space is where we find Teal Scott. And if you take her message to heart, this revolutionary space is where any of us can find ourselves.

To see more about Teal Scott visit: www.thespiritualcatalyst.com