The Shadow of Dane Tomas: An Open Letter to the Dark Wizard
Offering feedback based on my direct experience of diving deep into Dane's work
Note: I originally tried to give Dane this feedback directly and he said he didn’t want it. I then published a version of this letter as a comment on his Facebook and he deleted it. That’s why I’m publishing this here. I feel people deserve clarity around mysterious figures, and I feel that when someone refuses feedback or censors good-faith public dialogue about their work, the feedback/dialogue is all the more needed.
Dear Dane,
I love you, man.
I deeply appreciate you.
You have been a powerful mirror for me.
Your work has impacted me deeply.
I’m publishing this letter because I believe there are some things you’re not seeing about yourself.
I also believe people deserve a level of clarity and transparency when it comes to certain aspects of your work.
I have endeavored to be balanced herein.
A few months ago on Facebook, you asked people, “Why would you NOT join the Esoteric Entrepreneur Academy?” You were looking for feedback on your latest offering.
I wrote a long reply yet I never sent it. Here is that reply:
Why would I *not* join EE Academy?
Ah man, that's a truly complex, multi-layered question for me. As you know, I previously joined EE last year, only to ask you for a refund a few days later, despite the sales page saying 'no refunds.' Only time I've ever done that for a program. To your credit, you gave me the refund, no questions asked.
You're an amazing human, Dane, and your work has impacted me deeply. It's touched my heart and ignited my soul on many occasions. You've been an uncommonly powerful mirror for me. I took ~6 months off from your stuff after deciding not to join EE last year, then recently I started reading your Medium blog, and found myself freshly captivated by your raw, no-bullshit, heart-full, hilarious, cheeky, seasoned, deeply insightful voice. Soon I found myself listening to your podcast with Kara-Leah, then reading your books 'The Integrated Man' and 'I Became' (both of which were potent, moving, and helpful for me). I have a lot of love for you, man.
When I asked you for a refund last year, I shared with you that it was because I was in significant credit card debt and had made the decision to join in a quasi-manic state. That was true. I didn’t have any business making that investment at that time.
There were other layers to the whole thing too, though. I had journeyed with you quite a lot in the previous year, joining Lightbringer, Obsidian, and Wealth Wizardry 101. Despite joining these programs with the intention to empower myself, my life (in many ways) fell apart during the course of those journeys. I went from being tens of thousands of dollars ‘in the green’ to being ‘in the red’ for the first time in ~4 years. I went through some of the most challenging emotional processes of my life. During Obsidian, beginning in one of the ‘sex magick’ sessions, I seemingly experienced some sort of ‘dark kundalini possession,’ in which I was ostensibly largely ‘hijacked’ by some kind of ‘Dark Dragon Sex God’ for ~10 days or so, during which time I behaved quite outlandishly, strained my relationships, and likely damaged my reputation.
An interesting thing is that I do not put any of this forth from a place of self-pitying victimhood or blame. I deeply feel that the intelligence of Life/God/Mystery knows better than I do. I feel that there are no accidents or mistakes. I am grateful for all of the occurrences I have just briefly described, as they gave me a much-needed humbling, grounding, and taught me a great deal about myself and about life. Also, to be clear, I do not attribute everything that happened to me purely to your programs, though I do feel your containers were a contributing factor. Newfound fatherhood and a fair sprinkle of 5-MeO-DMT feel like other key factors, among many. I’m happy to say that I’ve integrated and balanced out a lot in the past 7-8 months, and am feeling in a really good overall space now.
So, having shared all that important context, I’ll return to the original query… at this point, why would I *not* join EE Academy?
One of the first things that comes to mind is that I believe you underestimate some of the energies you are tapping into. Weekly ‘sex magick’ rituals—especially ‘sex magick’ rituals that play with the dark and the shadows—are *no joke*. I know you’re aware that this stuff is powerful, but I believe you (ironically) turn a blind eye to the ‘shadow side’ of this type of practice. Sexual energy is many-layered, mysterious, often fraught with karmic knots, ties, or unsettling implications. To open up a proverbial ‘melting pot’ of sexual energies, in which everyone in the ritual is essentially contributing to and opening to a collective field of sexual energy, is kind of like a shamanic ‘mad science experiment,’ in which no one really has a clue what’s going to happen.
Doubtlessly there are all sorts of energies exchanged and portals opened in those rituals, especially when additional ‘dark’ beings/energies/entities/archetypes are being invoked, and I believe this is inevitably not always going to produce karmically auspicious outcomes. I believe there is a level of irresponsibility in what you’re doing, as I feel you are not properly educating people about the full energetic implications of those rituals. People may naively feel like they’re just getting a little weird together on Zoom to charge themselves up, while unknowingly opening themselves to energies or entities that are not aligned with their highest good.
As I mentioned previously, I myself was the unsuspecting recipient of some sort of ‘dark dragon possession’ experience in the wake of one of those rituals. Thankfully, I have a lot of experience holding space for odd mystical phenomena in my life, so I was able to traverse that experience and ultimately integrate it in a way that feels beneficial, all things considered. I’m also deeply grateful for some of the things I created during/after that ‘episode’—such as my rap/poetry EPs Dark Dragon God Sex Power and Jesus Satan—which have proved to be potent shadow-work mirrors for me. Others might not be so fortunate, though. Certainly many people would have wanted to check me in to a mental hospital during that time, and we both know how ugly those situations can become.
This piece around sex magick connects to a larger, more ‘meta’ piece, which is this: I feel you are using non-dual philosophy to bypass some aspects of human life that would be ‘inconvenient’ for you to look too closely at. Your sometimes heated or mocking insistence that ‘evil’ does not exist, is interesting and revealing. It suggests to me that something is blocking you from really *feeling* the depth of malevolence that is present in (this realm of) reality. In my view it is true that nothing is *intrinsically* evil, yet it is imperative to distinguish between intrinsic/essential/absolute reality and *pragmatic*, *human-level* reality. Pragmatically speaking, evil exists. Mankind did not just randomly murder 100,000,000 of its own species in the 20th century. There are forces present in this realm that lead people toward destruction, desecration, inner death, and devastation. I believe you underestimate these forces—and how sneaky and sophisticated they can be.
In a similar vein, I believe you underestimate the energetic implications of over-polarizing toward ‘the dark.’ You seem keenly aware of the inauspicious consequences of over-polarizing toward ‘the light,’ so it is somewhat ironic that you’ve gone so ‘all in’ these past few years on the ‘dark wizard’ aesthetic/brand. I understand that you’re wanting to counterbalance the gooey ‘love and light’ crowd; I understand you kinda like pushing people’s buttons; I understand that ‘the dark’ is misunderstood. At the same time, as Vonnegut put it, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” There are karmic-energetic repercussions to over-polarization in any area, and as you know, symbology can have powerful ‘magickal’ effects and consequences.
Here again I feel you engage in non-dual bypassing when you more or less deny the existence of ‘black magick,’ or suggest that there isn’t really a difference between what has been called ‘white magick’ and ‘black magick.’ There is a crucial difference there that even Crowley emphasized. Yes, the labels ‘white’ and ‘black’ are probably largely arbitrary and unfortunate, yet the difference is real. And since these labels have been used for centuries, a *lot* has been projected onto them—and thus the terms develop a certain egregore-like gravity around them that leads in a certain direction. So to over-polarize toward an image of being a ‘dark wizard,’ has effects that I feel are worth pondering.
Another piece for me is around subtle leaks in your personal integrity. I recently heard you talking about not liking coaches who lock people into long ‘no refund’ contracts, yet your original sales page for EE was literally selling people on a 1-year container with a no-refund policy. (Granted, you did give me a refund when I asked for one, yet that is what your page said.) You also claim that you’re not one to ‘hard sell’ people, yet you really pull out all the stops when it comes to pushing ‘urgency’ and ‘scarcity’ and ‘FOMO’ and other psychological buttons in order to sell your products. You’ll also say things like, “This is your last chance to get in at this price,” then a couple months later a person can still get in at the same price, or you announce that you’re actually lowering the price. Or you say “SALE ENDS IN 24 HOURS” for a course launch, then end up extending it a few more days. Or to take another example, I bought your NFT which promised certain special benefits in relation to the ‘Dane Tomas School of Magick,’ yet the School didn’t materialize and I never heard anything about those benefits (If anyone wants this NFT, I’m selling it here at a significant markdown). Those of us who joined Lightbringer were also promised an NFT in late 2021—it has not yet materialized. There have been quite a few times over the years where I’ve noticed subtle things like this with you—where you say one thing and do another.
There’s also a piece for me around your aversion to children—which has led you to publish angry rants about loud children in your vicinity, or to make jokes about ‘eating babies.’ There’s something there to look at, I feel. Someone once told me, “Father energy is King energy.” Your reactive distaste for children feels like the opposite of heart-centered Father energy. I believe you are connected to your heart in some profound ways, yet I believe there are still some wounds there that block you from a deeper Love. I feel this also distorts your understanding and integration of the King archetype.
Another piece for me is around ‘magick’ and ‘manifestation.’ You place such a strong emphasis on ‘creating yourself’ and ‘creating reality,’ even noting that you changed your own name to mark the day you decided to ‘create yourself.’ A friend recently told me that after experimenting with magickal manifestation, he concluded that it’s kinda like this: You do a ritual to get an apple, the apple eventually does show up, and yet it has a sorta sour, bitter taste that somehow does not satisfy. This resonates with my experience as well. For me the paradigm of ‘magick’ relies too heavily on using ‘will’ to bring about changes in one’s reality. There is a strong (unconscious) undercurrent of an egoic fantasy of control and endless power.
One can certainly try to force or trick or will reality into producing a certain result, and it may seem like reality has indeed granted the desired result, yet in the final analysis, something will ring hollow. This is because the truth is that there is a great deal we do not create and cannot control. It is only by the Grace of Divinity that we find ourselves here at all, possessing a sense of participatory co-creative power. If this is not properly acknowledged—if the ego latches onto an idea of its own infinite power and control—then, well, that supposition is not rooted in truth, and “pride cometh before a fall.” As such, I’m not convinced that your “you can have it all” promise works the way you say it does. You yourself seem rather angry and troubled a lot of the time.
When I originally bought EE, something kinda weird happened. I hadn’t really been in the sort of mind-space in which I would drop thousands of dollars on EE, yet suddenly and unexpectedly, shortly after you launched it, something ‘switched’ for me. It was like the ‘Dark Dragon Sex God’ possession-thing from a few months before, was suddenly reactivated for a few days. I found myself in a totally different mode, feeling egotistical and manic and power-hungry, and I felt like I needed to take the leap and do EE. Once I ‘snapped out’ of this state and asked for the refund, I’ll be honest that I had a distinct sense that it was no mere coincidence that this state had been reactivated right when you launched EE. It felt kinda like something had been energetically seeded within Obsidian—something that was then ‘switched back on’ when you launched EE, almost like a ‘magick spell.’ I am not saying you did something like this consciously, yet personally I feel this is the type of thing that can happen with more egoic forms of ‘magick’: There are karmic and energetic consequences affecting other people, that often go unperceived.
On another note, there’s also something here around authority for me. You cheekily play with the words “cult” and “cult leader,” and this has the effect of defusing the charge around those terms for your fans. This humor also seems to make people less prone to questioning the fact that your containers at times feel pretty, well, cult-y. You clearly enjoy being in the spotlight, feeling powerful, intelligent, authoritative, commanding. That’s understandable, I enjoy that too. Yet I don’t know, there’s something slightly ‘sticky’ for me here that I can’t really articulate. May just be my own projection. You are often preternaturally ‘hypnotic’ to listen to, in a way that feels like it might be a ‘red flag.’
Lastly, there’s something present for me around your lack of openness to feedback. At the end of Obsidian, I asked you if you wanted some feedback from me about my experience & your work, and you said, “No.” When I first shared this letter as a comment on your Facebook, you deleted it. I’ve also seen you joke publicly about denying people when they offer to give you feedback. This does not feel like wise leadership to me. The more power we gain in this world, the more it becomes essential to receive radically-honest feedback from people who will give it to us straight. Your rejection of feedback suggests a level of arrogance, closed-off-ness, and not wanting to look in the mirror.
To wrap this letter up, I’m certain EE holds a lot of value. As I said at the beginning, you’re a profoundly talented and insightful man. You have tremendous wisdom on many aspects of life, as well as a ton of real expertise when it comes to business. Your work is potent and made a significant impact on me. Yet I feel there are some key things you’re not seeing about yourself, and that is why I wrote this letter.
Much love. I mean that. I really, truly, deeply Love you, Dane Tomas.
Sincerely,
Jordan Bates
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Jordan Bates is a men’s leadership coach specializing in creativity, authenticity, pragmatic wisdom, grounded spirituality, psychedelic integration, & holistic life mastery. He is also a teacher, philosopher, mystic, artist, rapper, space-holder, and celebrator of God. He offers one-to-one coaching, men’s circles, self-guided courses, & retreats. If you feel called to work with him, book a free exploration call to connect heart-to-heart and discover how he may be able to support you.
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