Speaker 1: School of Humans. It's two thousand and six and Scott
Speaker 1: Karney is leading a bunch of American college students through India.
Speaker 1: This was before Karney became a journalist and bestselling author,
Speaker 1: but even years after, it's an experience he'll never forget.
Speaker 1: It was really fun to sort of bring these students
Speaker 1: on this program, which is basically toward all of you know,
Speaker 1: many of the important holy cities in North India. So
Speaker 1: we started off in Delhi. They visited Varanassi, the holy
Speaker 1: city where many go to die, their body ceremoniously burned
Speaker 1: and thrown into the sacred river Ganges. Then Bogaya, where
Speaker 1: more than two millenniago the Buddha reached enlightenment. This is
Speaker 1: where they stayed for the highlight of their trip, a
Speaker 1: seven day silent meditation. I didn't lead the meditations. We
Speaker 1: had like a Tibetan Buddhist nun, a Swiss German Tibetan
Speaker 1: Buddhist non at this place, the Route Institute in both Gaya,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're meditating on like bliss, on Nirvana,
Speaker 1: on compassion. And you know, one of the meditations you
Speaker 1: do is you meditate on your own death. You meditate
Speaker 1: on the impermanence of life and concentrate on the moment
Speaker 1: of your own death and then use that to give
Speaker 1: yourself perspective on what it means to be alive. For
Speaker 1: seven days, we're doing these meditations and we're not talking
Speaker 1: to anyone. And you know, I have a variety of students.
Speaker 1: I have people who are way out there in sort
Speaker 1: of the spiritual weirdo spectrum, and I have some very
Speaker 1: normal people. And there's this one student, Emily, who was
Speaker 1: probably like the best, brightest, most together student in the
Speaker 1: whole group. You know, she was the type a personality
Speaker 1: who've got things done and you could always rely on.
Speaker 1: Emily was a twenty one year old from Charlottesville, Virginia.
Speaker 1: A devoted meditator and yogi back in the States, she
Speaker 1: came to India to experience something authentic, and after days
Speaker 1: of silent transformative meditation, what she experienced was unexpected. After
Speaker 1: the meditation retreat, you know, I'm not you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not talking to her at this time. I don't really
Speaker 1: know what's going on her head. And she climbs up
Speaker 1: to the roof of the retreat center. It's at four
Speaker 1: in the morning or so, and wraps a scarf under
Speaker 1: her face and jumps off the building to her death.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you're feeling, but when I first
Speaker 1: heard this story, I was shocked and confused. How can
Speaker 1: a spiritual practice like meditation make you do something like that.
Speaker 1: Some would argue that through meditation, Emily reached some sort
Speaker 1: of enlightenment, which is one of the many objectives of
Speaker 1: the four point five trillion dollar global wellness industry. But
Speaker 1: if that's the case, and Emily reached this elusive idea
Speaker 1: of enlightenment, then what is the cost of enlightenment death?
Speaker 1: This is a question I examined thoroughly in this podcast
Speaker 1: through stories of people who presumably died or disappeared on
Speaker 1: spiritual quests. And what I've learned so far from their
Speaker 1: stories and the experts I've spoken to is that enlightenment
Speaker 1: is a tight rope. There's a very thin line between
Speaker 1: healing and harm. Look, I'm not demonizing the spiritual wellness industry.
Speaker 1: My investment in my own spiritual growth the past few
Speaker 1: years has gotten me through some devastating shit. The spiritual
Speaker 1: practices I ascribe to give me clarity make me feel grounded,
Speaker 1: less reactive, more in control of the uncontrollable. They bring
Speaker 1: me closer to something that feels like an inner knowing
Speaker 1: where I trust myself. But I will say that through
Speaker 1: the research I've been doing and some stories will be
Speaker 1: sharing in this podcast, the idea of attaining enlightenment, something
Speaker 1: many of these spiritual or wellness practice is ascribed to do,
Speaker 1: has started to feel like pushing your edge, and some
Speaker 1: instances I describe it as a massochistic indulgence to create
Speaker 1: infinite release, which is something extreme sport fanatics can relate
Speaker 1: to with their bodies. But how do you push your
Speaker 1: edge spiritually and what do you sacrifice when you do?
Speaker 1: If K two is the most savage mountain extreme mountaineers
Speaker 1: are compulsively driven to climb, then India, the mystical mecca,
Speaker 1: is that same extreme for spiritual seekers. I know this
Speaker 1: because I am a seeker and I'm your host, Caroline Slaughter.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what a seeker is, here are
Speaker 1: a couple thoughts from people I've interviewed. Seeking for the
Speaker 1: next level of spirituality basically not being born into a
Speaker 1: human form again, learning all the lessons you have to
Speaker 1: in these human form so you can move on to
Speaker 1: the next realm. I think that's what a lot of
Speaker 1: seekers are looking for, some sort of profound experience outside
Speaker 1: of themselves. Someone who's looking for answers to life. Potentially,
Speaker 1: people who are looking for other options out of life.
Speaker 1: Some of the people that do disappear in India, I'd
Speaker 1: say that's probably a driver with all the stresses and
Speaker 1: things that come with life, you know, seeking another option.
Speaker 1: But at that time I was seeking, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to become a holy man, but I did
Speaker 1: want to become more enlightened. Even that is a bit
Speaker 1: of a con job. I think it's been oversold. Enlightened.
Speaker 1: I think being present with your life is pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's just about living in the light, meaning the truth
Speaker 1: of who you are. A lot of people that will
Speaker 1: hear this podcast will be seekers like, don't go to
Speaker 1: India because this is a venus flytrap for your vulnerability.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this podcast, I bet one of
Speaker 1: those explanations resonated or at least intrigued you, and maybe,
Speaker 1: like me, you won't. So want to know what's the
Speaker 1: cost of enlightenment? I asked Karney this question, which he
Speaker 1: answered with further insight on Emily a pseudonym Karney uses
Speaker 1: to protect a student's privacy. One of the main first
Speaker 1: questions is, well, why did she do it? And so,
Speaker 1: as the director of the program, I read her journal
Speaker 1: and it sort of is this descent into madness. The
Speaker 1: moment we get into that retreat center. You know, she
Speaker 1: has this dream she records about, you know, someone falling
Speaker 1: off a cliff, which is sort of weird. And then
Speaker 1: she starts saying that I'm having all these visions while
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in this meditation, and I know that I'm
Speaker 1: on the cusp of something great. I know that I'm
Speaker 1: becoming something more. Time is changing around me, I am
Speaker 1: achieving something awesome. And the last words in her journal
Speaker 1: are I am a Bodhisatfa and all she has to
Speaker 1: do is leave her body and she will get to
Speaker 1: that next level and Mahayana Buddhism, are you? Sat Fi
Speaker 1: is a person who's able to reach nirvana, but delay
Speaker 1: is doing so in order to help every other being
Speaker 1: in this world achieve the same state. The literal translation
Speaker 1: is essence of enlightenment. According to Carney. Emily wrote in
Speaker 1: her journal that the meditations had given her a profound
Speaker 1: understanding of the universe. She could see how her countless
Speaker 1: past lives had made her a perfect vessel for enlightenment.
Speaker 1: The only thing preventing her from a transformation into something
Speaker 1: greater than herself was her body. You know, when you're meditating,
Speaker 1: the world seems to change, like almost like if you're
Speaker 1: when you're on a drug. You know, you might be
Speaker 1: sitting there and you might not notice the passage of times.
Speaker 1: The sun might appear to arise very quickly. You know,
Speaker 1: that's happened to me a few times, or you might
Speaker 1: you might be having these new types of thoughts that
Speaker 1: you've never had before. You're like, wow, I'm on the
Speaker 1: this is amazing. I have a vision in something new
Speaker 1: and you feel like there's something really big. And I
Speaker 1: think what she wanted is to capture that moment. So
Speaker 1: there's this desire to find stasis. And death is a
Speaker 1: type of stasis, right, death like ending everything is like well,
Speaker 1: I know, I know I can stomp it right here,
Speaker 1: And I think that's what was going through her mind.
Speaker 1: After Emily's death, Karney had the responsibility of getting her
Speaker 1: body back to the States, which wasn't easy with India's
Speaker 1: one hundred and four degree heat, threatening the decomposition of
Speaker 1: her body, and the channels he had to go through
Speaker 1: to get Clarence. This tragedy and it's aftermath shook Karney
Speaker 1: to his core. You witnessed that when he speaks about
Speaker 1: Emily in a twenty fifteen Ted talkie Dead, It's personal
Speaker 1: and its effects stayed with him, making him further question
Speaker 1: her motive. So I began to wonder how many other
Speaker 1: stories out there are there like Emily's. It turns out
Speaker 1: that people going to India looking for transcendence are fairly common.
Speaker 1: Some of them find it, and some of their stories
Speaker 1: don't turn out well. I collected six journals of people
Speaker 1: who had taken their own lives on meditation retreats. I
Speaker 1: came across the names of Ryan Chambers and Jonathan Spollen,
Speaker 1: both of whom disappeared from the Holy City of Rishakesh
Speaker 1: within a few years of each other. I found a
Speaker 1: mental hospital in New Delhi that admits one hundred Western
Speaker 1: travelers a year suffering from a condition that they now
Speaker 1: call India Syndrome. Now, Carney just touches on Ryan Chambers
Speaker 1: and Jonathan Spollen, two stories that we deep dive into
Speaker 1: in this series. And one that I felt a personal
Speaker 1: connection to. So at this point, even though they're involuntary
Speaker 1: poster children of India syndrome, I don't want to lump
Speaker 1: them under that label until we've further investigated this phenomenon
Speaker 1: and you've heard their stories told from their families firsthand.
Speaker 1: But before we get into all of that, I want
Speaker 1: to introduce you to someone. Hey, how are you holding up?
Speaker 1: This is in Qita, my co producer and Delhi. We've
Speaker 1: been working together on this podcast through COVID the US election,
Speaker 1: which we're in the midst of when I recorded this.
Speaker 1: How's everything going there? I'm fine? Oh, all my family
Speaker 1: members have tested COVID positive. The world has been in
Speaker 1: turmoil during the eight months we've been working together, and
Speaker 1: during the short stint of knowing in Quita, both our
Speaker 1: grandfathers have been sick, mine passed away. We've had family nieces,
Speaker 1: dogs hijack our zoom calls and on all the personal
Speaker 1: life stresses that are magnified during this pandemic, and you've
Speaker 1: got an instant friendship between two co workers from vastly
Speaker 1: different places and backgrounds who share more similarities than those differences.
Speaker 1: Someone who's not obsessed with rigidities. Who's not so what
Speaker 1: it about having all the answers but knowing that there
Speaker 1: is as much unlearning in life as it is learning.
Speaker 1: That's in Keita's definition of a seeker, which she would
Speaker 1: consider herself. But she's also a journalist and my north
Speaker 1: star on this podcast. We've only met via zoom. A
Speaker 1: friend introduced us after I told her I needed to
Speaker 1: find an experienced and thorough investigative journalist in India. She
Speaker 1: introduced me to a Keita and I introduced Enquita to
Speaker 1: India syndrome. India Syndrome was coined by the French psychiatrist
Speaker 1: Regis Erroll, working as a psychiatrist affiliated with a French
Speaker 1: consulate in Bombay for a period of sixteen months from
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five and nineteen eighty six, at All saw
Speaker 1: a total of two hundred patients, of which fifty presented
Speaker 1: with psychosis. Of those fifty, twenty one patients had schizophrenia
Speaker 1: and therefore prior histories, fourhead psychosis associated with drug use,
Speaker 1: and fifteen patients had what appeared to be borderline personality disorders.
Speaker 1: It is these fifteen patients thirty percent of patients presenting
Speaker 1: with psychosis who are diagnosed as having voyage pathogen or
Speaker 1: traveler syndrome aka India syndrome. In Adull's psychiatric opinion, India
Speaker 1: syndrome is a travel related psychosis that occurs during travel
Speaker 1: to destinations with high religious, spiritual, cultural, or esthetic value,
Speaker 1: and to Westerners, India is an exotic locale charged with
Speaker 1: spiritual meaning. Here's Carney on this. It's the idea whe
Speaker 1: you go to a new place and you're in a
Speaker 1: totally different cultural context, and when you do that, it's
Speaker 1: an isolating dealing and then you have some sort of experience.
Speaker 1: Usually it's an internal experience, there's a spiritual insight, and
Speaker 1: then that sort of insight it takes you over and
Speaker 1: you go mad. And in India it's India syndrome because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of Westerners who go over there and
Speaker 1: think that they have achieved something truly spiritual, unique and great.
Speaker 1: You don't go on a spiritual journey to India just randomly, right.
Speaker 1: Usually you go there with a bunch of ideas in
Speaker 1: your head already, and then you go there trying to
Speaker 1: find it. Karney's twenty fifteen book The Enlightenment Trap features
Speaker 1: this phenomenon. In the book, he touches on twenty one
Speaker 1: year old Ryan Chambers story, an Australian who vanished in Rashikesh, India.
Speaker 1: According to Karney, Ryan might have been one of the
Speaker 1: many Westerners who flocked to India seeking spiritual ennightenment, and
Speaker 1: there's some evidence will discuss later that points to that possibility,
Speaker 1: but we don't know for sure because no one a
Speaker 1: scene or heard from Ryan since two thousand and five
Speaker 1: will discuss Ryan's disappearance and the syndrome that potentially prompted it.
Speaker 1: After the break. As a seeker with a compulsion for
Speaker 1: travel and curiosity around all things spiritual, I wanted to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of this India syndrome thing. But
Speaker 1: what I realized is that it's just an entry point
Speaker 1: for a handful of other related culture bound syndromes. There's
Speaker 1: Stendall syndrome, which is a psychosomatic condition where a person
Speaker 1: will faint, hallucinate, experience confusion, or a rapid heartbeat while
Speaker 1: viewing an exceptional object, piece of artwork, or phenomena. The
Speaker 1: syndrome is unique to Florence, Italy, thus its other name
Speaker 1: Florence syndrome. Then there's Paris syndrome, which is bizarre and
Speaker 1: noted primarily in Japanese tourists who are disappointed by their
Speaker 1: experience in Paris when there are expectations of Paris's beauty
Speaker 1: are not met. It leads to the same physical symptoms
Speaker 1: as Stenthol syndrome fainting, hallucinations, confusion, but also includes acute
Speaker 1: feelings of persecution. But the one that's the most similar
Speaker 1: to India syndrome is Jerusalem syndrome, which I'll let journalist
Speaker 1: Jessica Rabbits, who's covered religion and spirituality in her work
Speaker 1: and wrote an article for CNN about India syndrome, tell
Speaker 1: you about that. I'd written before about something called the
Speaker 1: Jerusalem syndrome, which is a syndrome where people get to
Speaker 1: this holy city and just become so overwhelmed by the
Speaker 1: power of it or by the expectations of what they
Speaker 1: thought it would be, that they kind of have a
Speaker 1: break and they believe they're the Messiah or any number
Speaker 1: of biblical figures. So I heard about the India syndrome
Speaker 1: and was just fascinated by the idea of it. And
Speaker 1: what I know of it is that it's like the
Speaker 1: Jerusalem syndrome. It's this unusual condition that can afflict Westerners
Speaker 1: who travel to India and become perhaps delusional or in
Speaker 1: extreme cases disappear during these quests for enlightenment, and this
Speaker 1: brings us back to India syndrome. I went down a
Speaker 1: rabbit hole researching India syndrome for this podcast, and I
Speaker 1: was admittedly drawn in by books and articles with the
Speaker 1: cryptic phenomena at their core, including Carney's book The Enlightenment Trap,
Speaker 1: which got my attention with passages about India, like some
Speaker 1: are drawn to India by accounts of the superpowers of
Speaker 1: dedicated practitioners yogis who can levitate, breathe for months while
Speaker 1: entombed underground, or melting giant swaths of snow with their
Speaker 1: body heat, believing that they too will be able to
Speaker 1: accomplish extraordinary things. This quest to become superhuman, along with
Speaker 1: the culture shock, emotional isolation, illicit drugs, and the physical
Speaker 1: toll of hardcore meditation, can cause Western seekers to lose
Speaker 1: their bearings, seemingly seeing people get out of bed one
Speaker 1: day claiming that they've discovered the lost continent of Lemuria,
Speaker 1: or that the end of the world is nigh or
Speaker 1: that they've awakened their third eye. Most recover, but some
Speaker 1: become permanently delusional, a few vanish or even turn up dead.
Speaker 1: This section of Carney's book is salacious and tantalizing. It
Speaker 1: makes spiritual curiosities and travel in India seem dangerous, and
Speaker 1: after what Carney went through with his Studentimily and the
Speaker 1: deep dive he did for his book, The Enlightenment Trap,
Speaker 1: it's a valid point of view because he's witnessed this
Speaker 1: phenomena in real time. But to further examine this theory
Speaker 1: in our podcast, I want to take a look at
Speaker 1: the disappearance of Ryan Chambers, whose disappearance has been associated
Speaker 1: with India syndrome. Ryan was very creative and very artistic,
Speaker 1: and I picked that up at a very young age,
Speaker 1: around the age of five. So we were in a
Speaker 1: family of four logic based people and one creative. That's
Speaker 1: Diane Chambers telling me about her son Ryan. I used
Speaker 1: to say that he had the ability to sit and
Speaker 1: watch paint dry. He used to sit in his own
Speaker 1: mind a lot and always appeared not very motivated. But
Speaker 1: as the years went on and he got older, I
Speaker 1: began to realize that Ryan was motivated by things that
Speaker 1: he was really interested in, so which is the case
Speaker 1: for everybody. But the fact was, I think it took
Speaker 1: him a long time to really find out what really
Speaker 1: motivated inspired him. Jack Ryan's dad explains what happened to
Speaker 1: their son. On Wednesday, August twenty fourth, two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: John and he had been in India for two months
Speaker 1: and they went up north to Varonassi, spent a bit
Speaker 1: of time there, then went to Rishi Kish and from
Speaker 1: our understanding, they are only there for three days and
Speaker 1: one morning he just left the sh ram. He took off,
Speaker 1: left everything behind, He's wallet, his new sea tar that
Speaker 1: he'd bought in Varonassi, all his clothes, his wallet, and
Speaker 1: he just disappeared, never to be seen again. Jack and
Speaker 1: Dianne made the biggest impression on me. They have so
Speaker 1: much love for their son, and their resilience in the
Speaker 1: face of his disappearance is moving. Even though they've lived
Speaker 1: through a hellish rollercoaster ride of multiple investigations, false leads,
Speaker 1: and scams around Ryan's disappearance, they're still helpful and they're
Speaker 1: open to telling his story. He never actually said what
Speaker 1: it was that he wants to go to India four.
Speaker 1: He'd never travel overseas before. He got in touch with
Speaker 1: John and said, do you want to go to India
Speaker 1: with me? In the summer of two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: Ryan backpack through India for two months with his friend John,
Speaker 1: the childhood friend. But when they had Rishi Kash, something
Speaker 1: was off. It was in the evening here and at
Speaker 1: nine o'clock in the evening comes to mind, which is
Speaker 1: probably about right, because I think there's about a four
Speaker 1: or four and a half hour time difference, and there
Speaker 1: was something not quite right then. And I questioned him
Speaker 1: about it, and he said to me, he said, I
Speaker 1: don't know who to trust anymore. He said, I want
Speaker 1: to come home now. He said, I want to come home,
Speaker 1: and I want to come home now, and so he
Speaker 1: just I think he was in a country that had
Speaker 1: shaken him with the reality of what was going on
Speaker 1: and how people lived in how poor people were and
Speaker 1: all of that, and I think his mind started to
Speaker 1: get a bit out of control, and I think he
Speaker 1: knew it. Ryan's reaction to India makes total sense. One
Speaker 1: person I interviewed described India as an assault to the senses.
Speaker 1: It doesn't ease travelers in Kearny has additional thoughts on
Speaker 1: the culture shock people experience in India. It's a very
Speaker 1: chaotic environment. The streets are our madness, the laws all
Speaker 1: seem different. The way people interact with each other's just
Speaker 1: very can be very, very overwhelming. So you go through
Speaker 1: culture shock when you're there, and when so you're already destabilized.
Speaker 1: Let's say you find an ashram and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's like little waste piece. You go from sort of
Speaker 1: like very fight or flight to very very rest and
Speaker 1: digest and sort of like calm. Ryan was at the
Speaker 1: Vadna Khidden us room when he called us mom the
Speaker 1: night before he disappeared. Here's Danne discussing the rest of
Speaker 1: a phone call with Ryan. We talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: him having a chat with John, and he'd had the
Speaker 1: discussion with John and he was actually, you know, going
Speaker 1: to plan to sort of head home. And so then
Speaker 1: I had a bit of a sleepless night that night,
Speaker 1: not really, there was something unsettling going on then. And
Speaker 1: so then when John rang and he just said, look,
Speaker 1: he said, Ryan's gone missing. He said, We've gone everywhere today.
Speaker 1: They'd hired motorbikes and some other people that he'd met,
Speaker 1: and they'd gone to a lot of the places where
Speaker 1: they'd they'd been together and whatever. And I've got I
Speaker 1: think to about four or four thirty in the afternoon there,
Speaker 1: and John started to really worry then, and he said, look,
Speaker 1: he said, we've been looking for him. He said, we
Speaker 1: can't find him anywhere. He said, should I go to
Speaker 1: the police. And I just said, straight away, absolutely, I said,
Speaker 1: I knew. I just knew that something was drastically wrong.
Speaker 1: Hours after Ryan spoke to his mom, as soon as
Speaker 1: the ashram gates were opened, he fled without his wallet, phone,
Speaker 1: a shirt. He wasn't even wearing shoes. He didn't tell John.
Speaker 1: He didn't hurt anyone at the ashram. He just left.
Speaker 1: But it's not Ryan's disappearance that made him the first
Speaker 1: poster child of India syndrome. It's what he left behind.
Speaker 1: Diana is paging through Ryan's diary of intricate pen drawings
Speaker 1: and notes. Yeah, he's some amazing stuff in here. And
Speaker 1: that one is my brain map without chrono, whatever that means.
Speaker 1: Below this drawing our rivets, squiggles and circles making up
Speaker 1: what looks like a brain inside the brain are lines
Speaker 1: like flow or follow, not far enough and will you
Speaker 1: make it? But this Ryan's absolute last entry in his
Speaker 1: diary says as what labeled Ryan a victim of India syndrome.
Speaker 1: If I'm gone, don't worry, I'm not dead. I'm just
Speaker 1: freeing minds. And to do that I had to free
Speaker 1: my own. That entry defined Ryan as a spiritual seeker,
Speaker 1: and you can see why. It's a pretty cryptic existential
Speaker 1: message to leave behind. But it leads me to ask
Speaker 1: why did the entry automatically label Ryan a seeker on
Speaker 1: some sort of spiritual quest? I mean, if Ryan had
Speaker 1: been traveling through Italy at the time of his disappearance
Speaker 1: in this journal entry was found, what does words have
Speaker 1: the same impact, in other words, as the mystique of
Speaker 1: India and the mysterious phenomenon India Syndrome that's pinned to it,
Speaker 1: overshadowing the truth of what happened to Ryan. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: India syndrome is a theory. It's just that a theory.
Speaker 1: Even Carney said it was not an officially recognized disease,
Speaker 1: though he does believe, along with many others I interviewed
Speaker 1: for the podcasts, that it's a real phenomenon and a
Speaker 1: dangerous one. He also believes it affected Ryan Chambers, and
Speaker 1: like other media outlets, penned Ryan a spiritual seeker. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Ryan's last diary entry about freeing minds but first having
Speaker 1: to free his own was cryptic, but unfortunately, because his
Speaker 1: message was found in Ratia Cash, a spiritual hotspot in India,
Speaker 1: it allowed authorities to write him off as someone who
Speaker 1: chose to vanish, and it gave the media free rain
Speaker 1: to identify him as a victim of India syndrome, which
Speaker 1: gave Ryan's tragic disappearance a closure his family still doesn't have.
Speaker 1: But all of this points to a bigger issue surrounding
Speaker 1: India Syndrome, which is Westerners creating a narrative around the unknown,
Speaker 1: in this case India. But as someone born and raised
Speaker 1: in India, I want to get a key to his
Speaker 1: thoughts on India Syndrome. I had not heard about India
Speaker 1: syndrome before you mentioned it, before I started working on
Speaker 1: the podcast. I believe human beings love to label in
Speaker 1: order to understand, no matter how limiting that label might be.
Speaker 1: Were you offended by it at all? I am a
Speaker 1: little annoyed by it by the term India syndrome because
Speaker 1: I have traveled to a few countries in the West
Speaker 1: and my experience hasn't mixed. But I am aware enough
Speaker 1: to know that I cannot generalize a whole place, an
Speaker 1: entire country on the basis of spending a short duration
Speaker 1: of time there, and it depends on a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of factors what make experience there would be
Speaker 1: So to sort of take this big, simplistic term and
Speaker 1: believe that that is a general definition of a place,
Speaker 1: I feel is kind of reckless and irresponsible. The Chambers
Speaker 1: also think India syndrome is off point. I asked Aaron
Speaker 1: Ryan's older brother if he thought Ryan was a seeker,
Speaker 1: as the media claimed, called the India for some sort
Speaker 1: of spiritual quest. No, no, not at all. I don't
Speaker 1: think he was ever seeking enlightenment. It wasn't spiritual in
Speaker 1: that kind of sense. So I don't think he was
Speaker 1: actually seeking for anything. I don't think he went to
Speaker 1: India to try and finances to anything. I don't think
Speaker 1: he went to India. I think he went there to
Speaker 1: check it out. His parents agree. Personally, I don't believe
Speaker 1: in India syndrome. It's just something that journalists pulled out
Speaker 1: of the woodwork, because people do go missing, but people
Speaker 1: go missing in other places. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people like to go to India because it's mystique's but
Speaker 1: whether something takes over when they're there, I really don't know.
Speaker 1: But India syndrome is just a name given by someone
Speaker 1: and I I don't think it's an illness as such,
Speaker 1: or I don't think everyone's looking for enlightenment. The Chambers
Speaker 1: don't believe their son was a seeker, and they definitely
Speaker 1: don't believe in India syndrome. Even though Ryan has been
Speaker 1: consistently linked to the phenomena, they don't think it had
Speaker 1: anything to do with his disappearance. Aaron recounts Ryan's last
Speaker 1: conversation with Diane. His timeline is a little off from Diane's,
Speaker 1: but the sentiment is the same. He called Mum a
Speaker 1: few days before he went missing, saying I've seen all
Speaker 1: I want to see. I want to come home. He
Speaker 1: was scared of something, you know that that was unlike him.
Speaker 1: And I met an Australian guy when I was there
Speaker 1: the first time who was with Ryan the night before
Speaker 1: he left and said he was running around the Ashram
Speaker 1: grounds trying to fly, which is kind of weird, unlike him,
Speaker 1: And apparently he couldn't sleep properly, and he went into
Speaker 1: someone else's room in the ashram, not John's, but another
Speaker 1: person's and asked if he could stay there the night
Speaker 1: because he was just afraid of something. The guy said, no,
Speaker 1: go back to your own room. And then you look
Speaker 1: at his journal. His writing style was great, really comical,
Speaker 1: like he'd described, things were happening in such a vivid way.
Speaker 1: As Aaron points out pretty consistently, this erratic behavior wasn't
Speaker 1: like Ryan. Even his final diary entry was strikingly different
Speaker 1: from the rest of his entries, which says something about
Speaker 1: Ryan Steed of mine when he wrote it. But then
Speaker 1: the last couple of pages, this big scrawl across the
Speaker 1: last two pages in colored markers, just saying something along
Speaker 1: the lines of if I'm missing, I'm not. I need
Speaker 1: to free minds, but first I need to free my own.
Speaker 1: And it look like an alternate personality had written it
Speaker 1: or someone else altogether. But one fact remains a mystery.
Speaker 1: Where is Ryan's body? After almost sixteen years, Ryan's body
Speaker 1: has still not been found, which is rare in Rishi Cash,
Speaker 1: where drowned bodies wash up from the Ganges River daily,
Speaker 1: and where the wooded areas of the Himalayas though vast
Speaker 1: and dense are as one interview, he said, teeming with
Speaker 1: eyes you'll never see. So could Ryan still be out there?
Speaker 1: If we got a call today from Ryan, that would
Speaker 1: be a whole other journey we're on because he's going
Speaker 1: to be in. He's not gonna be the same person
Speaker 1: that left, So like, what does that journey even look like?
Speaker 1: And to be honest, maybe maybe it's better off if
Speaker 1: you don't get that call. Who is that person going
Speaker 1: to be? Yeah, it's not gonna be the person I
Speaker 1: knew fifteen years ago. Bryan's is the first story we'll
Speaker 1: be sharing on this podcast, but throughout the series, we'll
Speaker 1: be investigating three disappearances and one death in India, with
Speaker 1: each case unpacking a different aspect of our central question,
Speaker 1: what is the cost of enlightenment? Are these deaths and
Speaker 1: disappearances the result of a spiritual quest or is there
Speaker 1: something darker lurking beneath the mystical allure of India. He
Speaker 1: woke up in a train station in India, had no
Speaker 1: idea who he was where he was when he was,
Speaker 1: his mind a bit basically white. And she was taking
Speaker 1: all the details and she said, oh a lot. Where
Speaker 1: did he go missing? And I said in India? She said, oh, India,
Speaker 1: of all places, not India. India as such has been
Speaker 1: known as the land of mystics and mischiefs in the West.
Speaker 1: So when you put something like India syndrome, obviously you
Speaker 1: are catching ibots. And I guess you think about it.
Speaker 1: There's a bit of a mystique about someone going missing,
Speaker 1: right like what have they gone seeking? And what are they?
Speaker 1: You know, are they? Have they reached this enlightenment? Have they?
Speaker 1: Are they now one of these kind of mystical people
Speaker 1: in India. If you have any information or tips on
Speaker 1: Ryan chambers disappearance, please reach out to Jog Chambers at
Speaker 1: Jock joc k dot Chambers, C H. A. M. B. E. R.
Speaker 1: S at gmail dot com. Astray as a production of
Speaker 1: School of Humans and iHeartRadio. Today's episode of Astray India
Speaker 1: Syndrome was produced, written, and narrated by Me, Caroline Flodder
Speaker 1: and Kita Nand is my co producer, and Gabby Watts
Speaker 1: is our supervising producer. Special thanks to Tiffany Morgan. Astray
Speaker 1: was scored by Jason Shannon, was sound designed and mixed
Speaker 1: by Tune Welders exactly. The producers are Brandon Barr, Elsie
Speaker 1: Crowley and Brian Lavin. Thanks for listening, School of Humans