Alternate Timelines with Ian Vogel

Polyamory Re-branded? Why Aubrey Marcus’ New Pitch Is Bombing

• Ian Vogel • Episode 11

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Aubrey Marcus just tried to re-label polyamory as “radical monogamy”… and the spiritual internet ERUPTED.

In this reaction I unpack why the re-brand feels so gross to so many people and what it reveals about power, influence, and spiritual narcissism.

If you loved or hated this video drop a thoughtful comment—unlike the AM podcast, the chat is wide open.

#aubreymarcus #reaction #polyamory #spirituality #spiritualbypassing

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Timestamps:
00:17 Spiritual Marketing Gone Wrong
02:07 Who Told Him This Was A Good Idea?!
05:09 Power Dynamics in Relationships
07:41 Navigating Relationship Dynamics
09:36 Personal Growth Through Challenges
11:45 Conclusion and Call for Feedback

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Hey, I’m Ian Vogel—host of Alternate Timelines. My journey started on a small farm in the midwest, where I always felt a little out of place. After years of skepticism and even a stint as an atheist, a near-death experience changed my perspective on everything. Since then, I’ve explored plant medicine, past life memories, and the mysteries of consciousness. Now, I’m sharing those experiences to help others navigate their own awakening. Through real stories, deep conversations, and wild explorations of the unknown, we’re building a community where it’s okay to question reality. You’re not alone in the unknown. 👽✨

Aubrey Marcus has managed to set the online spiritual community on fire with the release of his recent podcast. Now, this is an incredibly deep and nuanced topic, and I believe that there are still a couple of aspects and angles that people haven't really looked at in regards to this whole situation. My initial surface level perception of this whole fiasco is that this is a marketing scheme gone wrong. Now, Aubrey Marcus is an incredible business person. As an entrepreneur, as a salesperson, and as a marketer. He's done really well for himself. It really feels like he's trying to rebrand polyamory as this new thing that it's just not, what is it? Radical monogamy is not a thing. It just doesn't exist. It really feels like he's trying to sell us Coke Zero and tell us that it's much better for us than regular Coca-Cola because it doesn't have sugar in it, which is absolutely not the case. I think a lot of people who follow him and who are watching the situation almost feel offended, it's like, this is blatant. You can't just do this. This isn't a real thing. We're not gonna buy this product. And again, like this to me feels like a marketing flop, like a complete marketing disaster. It's almost as if he's trying to apply something he learned in his business acumen to the spiritual space, and it's just not connecting. When it comes to polyamory and having open relationships and multiple lovers, it's all good. Do your thing. Let your freak flag fly. As long as everybody in this situation is a consenting adult, go for it. And don't try to dress it up in spiritual jargon and word salad to make it seem like it's something it's not. Just own what you're doing and let that be it. Going back to the frame of marketing, nobody is buying this product called radical monogamy. Where did that even come from? It sounds like he's getting advice from one of the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles on how to market this thing. It just feels weird and pretty much everybody has seen through it. Now there's a really interesting question that I haven't heard anyone ask, and that is. Is there nobody around him that is giving him objective feedback? It's like, how does he get to the point where he puts out this podcast very confidently saying, oh, we invented this new thing, this is an evolution of the relationship and love without somebody telling him like, this just isn't it, this isn't real, what you're saying. This is just a different iteration of a situation that we've seen play out over and over again. When people in the spiritual community, often men get to the position of having influence and notoriety, people start to flock to them. People are attracted to that status and eventually they surround themselves with yes people, and they stop receiving objective feedback from those around them. Their inner circle becomes filled with yes men and yes women. There are many well-documented instances of people who find themselves in this situation, often men, and it does not turn out well. This is not a new thing that we're observing. I believe that the intense response that this podcast has elicited in many people is a testament to the fact that we're moving into a new energy. What Aubrey is doing is a manifestation of an old paradigm, a top down, hierarchical, masculine driven, patriarchical approach to spirituality. Now that shows up in our banking system, that shows up in our governmental system. Now it that sort of energy is not solely manifest in the spiritual community. We're seeing it in all areas of our society and the planet is moving into a new phase. A new consciousness is emerging in humanity and on planet Earth, and this new energy just is not going to tolerate this sort of behavior and this sort of spiritual narcissism and ego dressed up as spiritual pursuit anymore. Like that's, it's done. This is an example of people recognizing that old pattern and saying, no, I'm done with this. I'm not gonna participate and I'm not gonna stay quiet about it. I can speak up about this and not only can I speak up about this. I should speak up about this. This is something that I'm observing that doesn't jive with reality and is not moving us in the direction of a more open and honest and inclusive society. In watching the responses to this podcast, there was something that came up over and over and over again that I felt like a lot of people were just missing the mark with, and I would love to hear your perspective. This is an open conversation. Unlike the Aubrey Marcus podcast, I'm not gonna shut down the comment section to this, so please leave feedback and I'd love to hear other people's perspective on the idea of the power dynamic of this relationship. in the majority of the responses that I watched. People continuously brought up and pointed out the fact that there is a power dynamic in the relationship between Aubrey Marcus and the two women that he's associated with And that kinda struck me as odd after I sat with it for a while in the context of their relationship, which is what this podcast is about. How does he have any specific sort of power over them? From what I understand and what I observed, everybody has entered into this relationship consenting, they're all adults. I think Alana is 29 years old and she's the youngest, so everybody in this situation is there because of their own free will. They're choosing to be there. So how exactly i s the fact that Aubrey Marcus, yes, he does have influence, he does have plenty of money. He does have status in society, how exactly is he using that power to force either or any of these women to stay in that situation? From my perspective, they could leave whenever they wanted. They're not prisoners to this whole fiasco. They could walk out the door and be gone the next day if they wanted to. The problem that I have with the power dynamic conversation in regards to this context specifically. Is that it almost presupposes that the women are in a disadvantageous situation or that they are inherently disempowered just because Aubrey has influence. I'm certainly not saying that a power dynamic doesn't exist, or that there are power dynamics in relationships that aren't potentially harmful in situations. But in this situation, everybody's consenting, nobody's being held here against their will, and the women that are with Aubrey know full well that he's a public figure and that these sort of things are likely gonna end up on a podcast. This isn't the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last time the conversation of polyamory is had on the Aubrey Marcus podcast. I saw quite a few responses where people seem to put a lot of emphasis on the power dynamic. Again, if the women are free to leave whenever they want. What power does he have over them? Yeah. There are relationship dynamics, but the words that we use are important. They mean something and calling a relationship dynamic a power dynamic gives it a certain overtone. It almost makes it feel like something sinister or something that we need to be aware of or look out for. Every relationship in our lives has some sort of dynamic. You could call it a power dynamic, but it's something we all have to deal with. Parents and children have a certain dynamic. Is that a power dynamic? People in relationships, committed relationships. Even when you go into a restaurant, there is a relationship dynamic between the person sitting at the booth and the server. Those aren't inherently bad. This is a part of life. This is a part of being a human, is learning how to navigate these different interpersonal sorts of communications and situations we find ourselves in. There are some really important lessons that we have to learn in our life, and we can only learn those through different relationship dynamics. So framing a power dynamic as something that's inherently problematic. I don't think that that's the, the appropriate way to look at this. I just don't see that we all have to learn where our boundaries are and you, you never really know what you're not comfortable with until you experience somebody stepping beyond your boundary or you experience a relationship dynamic that you're not comfortable with. That's how we learn and grow and trying to present this as like, this is something that Aubrey is imposing or he is being manipulative. Who knows, like maybe he is and, and I think clearly based on the fact that he's trying to present this as something that's not the polyamory, there's an aspect of subtle manipulation or overt manipulation in that yes. And we all need to learn how to deal with manipulative people, and we can't do it by watching YouTube videos or getting advice from somebody who is in a relationship with a narcissist. These are situations that we have to learn from in our own lives. When I look back at my own life, I see situations where I was in some challenging relationship dynamics with people. You might even call it a power dynamic where I was in the position where I didn't have as much power as somebody else. And I learned a lot from those situations and looking back on it, I'm grateful for those people who were manipulative or gaslighting or narcissistic or whatever they were doing because without those experiences, I wouldn't be where I am now. I wouldn't be who I am today. I wouldn't have the perspective that I have on the world, and I wouldn't be able to navigate my current relationships the way that I can. Now, I'm not saying this to condone bad behavior or manipulation or gaslighting or anything like that. I'm simply pointing out the fact that there's a lot that can be potentially gained from being in these sorts of relationship dynamics. Yes, it's gonna be something that's challenging to work through in the moment, and if one of my good friends was in a situation like that that was displayed in that podcast, I would probably have a sit down with them and just wanna see where they were at and where their heads were at. And it's totally up to them. I'm never going to assume that they're being victimized by a situation, I guess for me. That's just not part of my belief system. I believe that every situation in our lives is presented to us by God to help improve us and help us learn and help us be better versions of ourself. And that isn't always gonna look like a fun loving Instagram, like what you see on Instagram as far as relationships that's gonna require challenges and pain, and figuring out where your boundaries are. And you can't figure out where your boundaries are and when it's time to leave until your boundaries are crossed and you really sit with yourself and say, what do I value? So there's a lot of potential things and experience and knowledge that can be gained from the kind of a relationship dynamic that those guys are in. And you know, they had so much as admit it and talk about that in the podcast, like this is a catalyst for their growth. And I am really grateful for Aubrey and Valana and Alana for having this conversation and playing this part, being the catalyst for this bigger, larger, and broader conversation about relationship and truth and reality. This has been really eyeopening and I've heard so many deep and really impactful conversations come out of this. So I always try to look at things from a positive perspective. I. I believe that everybody who's involved with this situation is going to learn something really profound from it. I know I have, and if you're watching this, you probably have as well. Please leave a comment below. I'd love to hear people's reaction to this and your thoughts on the situation as a whole.