Borrowing from cybersecurity
In cybersecurity, threat modelling is the practice of systematically identifying what could go wrong, who might cause harm, and what defences are appropriate. The same structured thinking applies to spiritual and metaphysical spaces — not because spirituality is dangerous, but because any space involving trust, vulnerability, and authority can be exploited.
A threat model asks four questions:
- What are we protecting? — Autonomy, financial wellbeing, psychological health, and the freedom to form genuine spiritual connections.
- What could go wrong? — Manipulation, financial exploitation, emotional coercion, isolation from support networks, and identity erosion.
- Who might cause harm? — Bad actors range from individual grifters to organised high-demand groups, from well-meaning but harmful teachers to sophisticated commercial operations.
- What can we do about it? — Pattern recognition, community awareness, and tools that make manipulation techniques visible.
The attack surface
Spiritual contexts have a unique attack surface because they involve:
- Trust by design — Spiritual relationships often require openness and vulnerability. This is not a flaw; it is inherent to genuine practice. But it creates opportunities for exploitation.
- Unfalsifiable claims — When teachings reference non-physical realms, past lives, or channelled entities, standard verification is impossible. Authority becomes self-referential.
- Altered states — Meditation, breathwork, ceremony, and other practices can produce states of heightened suggestibility. Content encountered during these states may bypass normal critical faculties.
- Identity investment — People often build significant parts of their identity around spiritual beliefs. This makes it psychologically costly to question a teacher or tradition, even when warning signs appear.
“You would not give your banking password to someone who claimed spiritual authority. Your psychological boundaries deserve the same protection.”
Threat categories
The SI Protocols tool analyses text across several dimensions that map to common manipulation techniques:
| Category | What it detects |
|---|---|
| Vagueness | Language deliberately imprecise enough to seem universally true |
| Authority claims | Appeals to unverifiable or unnamed sources of authority |
| Urgency patterns | Artificial time pressure designed to prevent careful consideration |
| Emotional manipulation | Simultaneous use of fear and euphoria to create dependency |
| Logical contradictions | Opposing claims in the same text (e.g. empowerment and dependency) |
| Source attribution | Unfalsifiable sources presented as unquestionable truth |
| Commitment escalation | Gradual increase in demands, classic foot-in-the-door technique |
These categories are not exhaustive, but they cover the most common and measurable patterns observed across spiritual traditions worldwide.
Proportionate response
Threat modelling is about proportionate response, not paranoia. Not every vague statement is manipulation. Not every authority claim is false. The tool produces a score on a spectrum — it highlights patterns for your consideration, not verdicts.
The goal is to move from “I feel uneasy but I cannot articulate why” to “I can see three specific patterns that are worth examining more closely.” That shift — from intuition to informed awareness — is the core of spiritual intelligence.
Explore common threats to see these patterns in action.