Speaker 1: School of humans. The holy city of Rishikesh, India buzzes
Speaker 1: with those seeking spiritual sustenance. Elabrad ashrums full of foreign
Speaker 1: revelers echo with the holy prayers and songs of sat Soong,
Speaker 1: led by a Guru or Sadu draped in saffron robes
Speaker 1: and guiding their devotees with a contemplative voice of authority.
Speaker 1: Incense infuses the air during Puja, a religious ceremony performed
Speaker 1: on the gats of the River Ganges. A line of
Speaker 1: men adorned an intricately designed robe with s gaze out
Speaker 1: at the holy water, rhythmically chanting while they present their
Speaker 1: offerings in a circular motion to the Hindu deities they worship.
Speaker 1: And the sprawl of yoga studios that have burgeoned in
Speaker 1: succession after Rishikesh was recognized as the birthplace of yoga,
Speaker 1: thanks him part to the father of transcendental meditation, the Maharishi,
Speaker 1: whose foresight and wisdom lured the Beatles to Rashakesh, where
Speaker 1: holiness hangs heavy in the air and the simplicity the
Speaker 1: Beatles were forced to adopt that the Maharishi's ashrum led
Speaker 1: to a creative clarity that birthed the White album. It's
Speaker 1: February third, twenty twelve. Twenty eight year old Jonathan Spalen
Speaker 1: walks over the narrow, heavily trafficked bridge. He's got pale
Speaker 1: skin from his Irish lineage, dark hair of that hangs
Speaker 1: around his shoulders, and a beard evidence of the over
Speaker 1: two months he's been traveling through India. But unlike the
Speaker 1: other Western seekers he passes who are carrying yoga mats
Speaker 1: or in a daze from deep meditation, Jonathan doesn't romanticize
Speaker 1: the spiritual offerings of Rishikesh. On his last trip to India,
Speaker 1: he interviewed Pralad Johnny, a wiry monk with wide blue
Speaker 1: eyes and a vacant gaze. If prala Johnny looks a
Speaker 1: little out of it, it's because he and his followers
Speaker 1: claim that he lived without food or water for eighty years.
Speaker 1: He was called a breathrean monk because he survived on air.
Speaker 1: Jonathan met with Johnny to write an article about him
Speaker 1: while the monk was still alive, and though some people
Speaker 1: assumed that he was a follower, Jonathan was not influenced
Speaker 1: by Johnny. As a journalist, it was just another job.
Speaker 1: Jonathan has worked in journalism and Cairo, Abu Dhabi and
Speaker 1: Hong Kong. In a two thousand and ten article he
Speaker 1: wrote for The National about Nanog, a Kashmiri village, his
Speaker 1: curious and empathic prose easily drop readers into the day
Speaker 1: to day of the Kashmiris, not only giving us a
Speaker 1: taste of their lives, but an awareness of the peaceful,
Speaker 1: simplicity of their culture, which Jonathan states in his article,
Speaker 1: I knew I was idealizing romanticizing life in Nananog, but
Speaker 1: the real benefits of living there were too great and
Speaker 1: too many to ignore. As Westerners consumed with our phones, tablets,
Speaker 1: the overall noise of our culture and the expectations, it's
Speaker 1: easy to idealize an escape, which is something many parts
Speaker 1: of India can offer. On this trip, Jonathan's third to India,
Speaker 1: he's at a crossroads in his life and as contemplating
Speaker 1: whether to continue journalism or go into documentary film. This
Speaker 1: question hangs in the air as he prepares for a
Speaker 1: solo track he's going to make into the dense wooded
Speaker 1: terrain of the Himalayas outside Rishikesh. His visa is about
Speaker 1: to run out, so instead of going to Delhi as
Speaker 1: originally planned, this will be his last hurrah in India.
Speaker 1: He calls his mom, Linda's balin back in Dublin to
Speaker 1: tell her about his track. They're close and have been
Speaker 1: keeping up on his travels through India a text and
Speaker 1: sporadic calls here and there. When Linda hears of his
Speaker 1: planned a trek through the Himalayas solo, she asks that
Speaker 1: he consider going with a guide. Jonathan shrugs off from
Speaker 1: eternal instinct with a simple answer, I want to do
Speaker 1: it on my own, kind of a spiritual thing. If
Speaker 1: you google India syndrome, Jonathan's Wikipedia page is listed under
Speaker 1: the definition, and part of that is because of this
Speaker 1: throwaway comment he made to his mom before a solo
Speaker 1: trek he would never return from. As we've discussed, India
Speaker 1: syndrome is defined as a psychosis that hits Westerners in
Speaker 1: India seeking some sort of spiritual enlightenment, and through expert interviews,
Speaker 1: we've deciphered that India syndrome is a theory, not a
Speaker 1: medical diagnosis. But it's also a speculation that's plagued Jonathan's
Speaker 1: disappearance since he was reported missing on February twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, I wanted to interview Jonathan's mom, Linda on
Speaker 1: her thoughts about her son's widely publicized comment about his
Speaker 1: solo track being a spiritual thing. Was it blown out
Speaker 1: of context or was her son actually seeking something and
Speaker 1: the solitude of the Himalayas. Linda and I connected and
Speaker 1: spoke several times the past few months, and I've heard
Speaker 1: her thoughts on many things, but I never got an
Speaker 1: official interview, and therefore will not be sharing our communication
Speaker 1: and this episode. And this is why, Hey, hello, you
Speaker 1: sleep deprived as hell. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I know where this anxiety is
Speaker 1: coming from. But this is Gabby as Stray, supervising producer.
Speaker 1: I'm in my voice over booth. She's in her room.
Speaker 1: We live literally two blocks away from each other, and
Speaker 1: this is what we do during the pandemic. We meet
Speaker 1: on zoom in separate homes in the same neighborhood and
Speaker 1: interview people. But today we're having a different conversation. Hi,
Speaker 1: here's Akita, our third in the Estray producing trio. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I've told you this, but I did.
Speaker 1: I loved you a voice moment, but Linda dropped out again.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Spalin's story jump started this podcast, a podcast focused
Speaker 1: on India, a country halfway around the world, which made
Speaker 1: this past year during COVID pretty tricky, especially while navigating
Speaker 1: our original plan to investigate Jonathan's disappearance on that solo
Speaker 1: track through the Himalayas. Yeah, I heard that, and you
Speaker 1: were thinking of your integrity, doubting it. After the investigation
Speaker 1: blew up because of pandemic related reasons, Linda backed out,
Speaker 1: which was tough because she and I had formed a
Speaker 1: relationship and I had come to value her opinion along
Speaker 1: with genuinely wanting to help her answer questions surrounding her
Speaker 1: son's disappearance. Ultimately, I knew how important Linda's voice would
Speaker 1: be in telling Jonathan's stories, so I re engaged her
Speaker 1: in the process and had at least two episodes devoted
Speaker 1: to Jonathan because his story is one that really impacted me.
Speaker 1: But she backed out again literally two days ago, which
Speaker 1: just put us in a scramble. We've been working so
Speaker 1: hard to make her feel comfortable with this process, even
Speaker 1: sharing the outline with her, and I just feel like
Speaker 1: she's disappointed in the process. But also, and I think
Speaker 1: Gabby you might have said this. I think she's also grieving.
Speaker 1: This is the month where Jonathan went missing. And but
Speaker 1: I just feel like we've built this relationship and now
Speaker 1: it's just blown up, and like I've disappointed her, and
Speaker 1: then it makes me feel like I'm a bad person,
Speaker 1: Like am I exploiting her son? You know? Like I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just feel really I feel really torn
Speaker 1: about it. Obviously I was emotional after she backed out.
Speaker 1: I questioned myself my motives for doing this podcast, the
Speaker 1: intimate human stories I'm sharing of these men who have disappeared.
Speaker 1: When you investigate stories like this, you get pulled in
Speaker 1: and cases form relationships with the families. And that's tough
Speaker 1: because our job is to expose information, and sometimes there's
Speaker 1: conflict in that clarity, because people don't want that information
Speaker 1: to lead to further speculations when they don't even have
Speaker 1: clear answers themselves. Throughout this process, I felt like I've
Speaker 1: been skating this line between entertainment, which you all tune
Speaker 1: in for, an ethics, which should be at the core
Speaker 1: of all journalism, especially in true crime investigations. But when
Speaker 1: Linda dropped out, I questioned all of it, and even
Speaker 1: writing his episodes really hard. I mean, you're trying to
Speaker 1: answer to your questions and unfortunately you have to do
Speaker 1: that by using examples, and Jonathan is an example of it.
Speaker 1: So you're not doing anything that's unethical because you are
Speaker 1: putting in the work to answer questions and like make
Speaker 1: a contribution to our conversations around spirituality. So that's Gabby
Speaker 1: talking me off a ledge, but it's also a peak
Speaker 1: behind the curtains blow up. In true crime, you're dealing
Speaker 1: with loss, be it someone's disappearance or death, and as
Speaker 1: podcast facilitators, we have to navigate the heavy emotions and
Speaker 1: grief that surround that, which can either fuel an investigation
Speaker 1: or put an end to it. This stopped being only
Speaker 1: about Jonathan a long time ago, but now it's not
Speaker 1: even like he's the main person around who the entire
Speaker 1: story revolves. There are many more people now, there are
Speaker 1: many more families and keep his right. Originally this was
Speaker 1: supposed to be a single true crime investigation about Jonathan's
Speaker 1: spawn's disappearance, but after it ended the first time, the
Speaker 1: investigation morphed into something bigger as we found more stories
Speaker 1: and felt compelled to examine deeper questions. I wanted to
Speaker 1: get to the why rather than just unravel the how.
Speaker 1: Though the how in Jonathan's case is still extremely ambiguous,
Speaker 1: which for this episode, Linda wants to keep that way,
Speaker 1: and honestly, we don't know what happened to Jonathan, you know,
Speaker 1: and she's never taken spirituality or the sort of spiritual
Speaker 1: question off the table. She's always been like, well, I
Speaker 1: want to keep everything open. So I guess I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to be really aware of that, like, as we
Speaker 1: sort of come into the era of true crime, how
Speaker 1: can we have bridge of the gap between entertainment and ethics.
Speaker 1: I'm going through my own existential crisis about how to
Speaker 1: roll out this episode. I respect Linda wanting to steer
Speaker 1: clear of assumptions and sensationalism, and honestly, because there's nobody
Speaker 1: it's not fair to adhere to one speculation. And though
Speaker 1: Ryan Chambers parents, especially as brother Aaron, have leaned into
Speaker 1: the larium theory, they've never closed the door on any
Speaker 1: of the other possibilities surrounding Ryan's disappearance and Jonathan's episode.
Speaker 1: Instead of deep diving into a story with Linda, which
Speaker 1: we had planned, to do. I'm going to tell his
Speaker 1: story with someone Linda respected. Yeah, we had a really
Speaker 1: nice conversation, and I know I remember her saying that
Speaker 1: she felt like the story had been misrepresented, you know,
Speaker 1: other people trying to sensationalize things that they didn't have
Speaker 1: answers to right, And so I was honored that she
Speaker 1: was willing to talk to me. This is journalist Jessica
Speaker 1: Rabbits speaking about a conversation she had with Linda that
Speaker 1: informed the twenty fourteen CNN article she wrote about Jonathan's disappearance.
Speaker 1: She didn't pump up the drama or settle in any
Speaker 1: one speculation, so out of respect for Linda, I think
Speaker 1: it's only fair to have Rabbits, a journalist who I've
Speaker 1: also come to appreciate, helped tell Jonathan's story. A colleague
Speaker 1: heard I was going to India, to rishie Kesh in particular,
Speaker 1: and she came up and told me about a former
Speaker 1: colleague of hers and her previous job who had gone
Speaker 1: missing in rishie Kesh, and that was Jonathan Spalin. In
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, It's traveled to Rashikesh for a poignant article
Speaker 1: she wrote about her own spiritual awakening like Jonathan, she
Speaker 1: witnessed this spiritual mecca firsthand. But Risha Kesh is not
Speaker 1: all love and light. There's something dark lurking there too,
Speaker 1: being in Rishikesh. I mean just it's a spiritual Disneyland,
Speaker 1: and everyone there is trying to teach and be a
Speaker 1: guru and gather a following and maybe rip people off financially.
Speaker 1: Like you know, there's so much that you could fall
Speaker 1: victim to. This is the more ominous side of Rashakesh
Speaker 1: when we see all too often in the States the
Speaker 1: consumerism of spirituality, which can lead to false prophets, scams,
Speaker 1: and a handful of other frauds used debate trusting seekers.
Speaker 1: I remember very, you know, kind of stopping in my
Speaker 1: tracks when I saw the Jonathan Spallen poster, and I
Speaker 1: think it's because, you know, I had his face on it,
Speaker 1: and I'd seen his face, you know, in searching for
Speaker 1: stories about him online, but it was very faded when
Speaker 1: I saw it. Jonathan had been missing for at least
Speaker 1: two years at this point. At the top of Jessica's article,
Speaker 1: there is a picture of Jonathan's missing poster. On the
Speaker 1: poster are two photos of Jonathan and one his dark
Speaker 1: brown hair is down, his charming bearded face smiling, his
Speaker 1: eyes connected to him. Ever is taking the photo. He
Speaker 1: looks easy going, present, like someone you'd sit down for
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes with and lose two hours. And the other photo,
Speaker 1: Jonathan's hair is pulled back, he has the sunglasses on
Speaker 1: his head, He's not smiling, his eyes are detached. He's
Speaker 1: somewhere else. David Hammerback, the academic I interviewed in episode two,
Speaker 1: commented on these missing posters, saying they looked like they
Speaker 1: belonged on the side of a milk carton. He believes
Speaker 1: Jonathan was painted as a victim by the media, with
Speaker 1: the perpetrator of the crime being India. Though I'd agree
Speaker 1: that Jonathan was not a victim of India at the country,
Speaker 1: Who's to say Jonathan wasn't a victim of something or
Speaker 1: some one dangerous while he was there. Though there has
Speaker 1: been no evidence of Jonathan's body, there was evidence found
Speaker 1: nearest belongings, evidence that led some authorities to believe that
Speaker 1: Jonathan didn't disappear by accident but by choice. A broad
Speaker 1: shouldered Indian police officer walks through dense woods. He speaks
Speaker 1: directly to a camera following him on a trail of
Speaker 1: lush greenery, brambles, rocks shutting through the earth. There's a
Speaker 1: look of concern in his kind eyes as he maps
Speaker 1: out the spot near Garuchati Waterfall, a hot spot for
Speaker 1: tourists and Rishikesh, especially during the monsoon when the waterfall
Speaker 1: flows at seven different levels. This is also the spot
Speaker 1: where Jonathan's belongings were found. This is Kundaneggi, the lead
Speaker 1: officer on Jonathan Spalin's case. It's been five years since
Speaker 1: Jonathan has reported missing on February twenty seventh, two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve, which was two and a half weeks after
Speaker 1: Jonathan's last conversation with his mother, Linda, when he told
Speaker 1: her he was going on a track through the Himalayas
Speaker 1: alone and that it was kind of a spiritual thing.
Speaker 1: A March eleventh of twenty twelve, an American couple discovered
Speaker 1: Jonathan's belongings in a wooded clearing not far off the
Speaker 1: main trail where the officer Kundaneggi is now leading a
Speaker 1: BBC camera crew. The belongings consisted of a bag with
Speaker 1: Jonathan's passport, phone charger, clothing and some Hong Kong coins
Speaker 1: still inside. According to a BBC article written by Roland Hughes,
Speaker 1: a colleague of Jonathan's, and Abu Dhabi, there was also
Speaker 1: a hospital record and ultrasound scan in the bag, which
Speaker 1: showed that Jonathan had been suffering from kidney stones at
Speaker 1: some point during his stay in India. Next to his belongings,
Speaker 1: a sleeping bag was laid out with a book on
Speaker 1: top of it. Nothing had been touched. It looked like
Speaker 1: a site that was set up to come back to,
Speaker 1: not disappear from. It was also reported that people who
Speaker 1: had seen Jonathan and the weeks leading up to his
Speaker 1: disappearance had noticed he'd lost weight and appeared frail. They
Speaker 1: also said he was walking with a slight limp due
Speaker 1: to a recent fall on a trail. So if this
Speaker 1: is the case, he wasn't in the best condition to
Speaker 1: endure a strenuous solo track. This seems obvious, but what
Speaker 1: stumped authorities, leading them to question if Jonathan chose to disappear,
Speaker 1: was evidence found a few days after his belongings a
Speaker 1: route to the city of Patna. What was found on
Speaker 1: a narrow trail or bawled up identification cards and papers,
Speaker 1: including Jonathan's health card and Hong Kong travel pass. According
Speaker 1: to Hughes's BBC article, these discarded identification items pointed to
Speaker 1: one conclusion. Jonathan was doing what some foreign seekers do
Speaker 1: in rashaksh deliberately shedding his possessions and pass life to
Speaker 1: renounce who he was so he could follow a new,
Speaker 1: enlightened path. And according to Hughes, the photocopies of articles
Speaker 1: on spiritual matters found in Jonathan's bag indicate that this
Speaker 1: was something he was considering. Directly after Jonathan's disappearance, a
Speaker 1: local newspaper in India said the case was new proof
Speaker 1: of the phenomenon of individuals, mostly male, disappearing at the
Speaker 1: religious hotspots of India and around Knoxman Julia Suspension Bridge.
Speaker 1: The article quoted a senior police officer who ascribed the
Speaker 1: trend to renunciation fueled by spiritual awakening. So I think
Speaker 1: that originally I was reached out to just in terms
Speaker 1: of did you know him? Do you have any idea
Speaker 1: what might have happened to him? This is Sudvi Bagwati
Speaker 1: Saraswati or said Viji for short. She's a spiritual leader
Speaker 1: living in India who fueled by a profound spiritual awakening
Speaker 1: did renounce her life in California in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: For one she felt called to in Rishikesh, India, where
Speaker 1: Jonathan disappeared, Saidviji has the presence of someone touched by
Speaker 1: a higher power. When she appeared on the zoom with
Speaker 1: the pristine sounds of nature surrounding her, I could suddenly
Speaker 1: breathe deeper. So I think they then probably wanted to
Speaker 1: keep talking to just get some idea of some clarity here.
Speaker 1: I was another foreign person who had made a decision
Speaker 1: to renounce, and so they may have thought that I
Speaker 1: could give some advice in that way. Sadvigi is Hindu,
Speaker 1: and through renouncing, she exchanged worldly assets for spiritual ones.
Speaker 1: But was this Jonathan's intention? That's what authorities in Jonathan's
Speaker 1: family wanted to find out, which is why they reached
Speaker 1: out to Sadvigi after his disappearance, to get some sense
Speaker 1: of understanding around someone choosing to renounce their past life
Speaker 1: in the West for one in India, which, as we've discussed,
Speaker 1: some of the evidence near Jonathan's belongings points to a
Speaker 1: little bit later, they ended up finding papers and passport
Speaker 1: kind of torn up and thrown along pathways somewhere, and
Speaker 1: when after a lot of searching, they didn't find his
Speaker 1: body somewhere. Usually, if someone drowns in Gana, either accidentally
Speaker 1: or on purpose, eventually a body will wash up downstream,
Speaker 1: not after that long. Genga is also known as the
Speaker 1: Ganges or Mother Gaya. It's the holy river that runs
Speaker 1: through rashakesh As. They were not having any luck with
Speaker 1: any clues suggesting that he would have drowned in the river,
Speaker 1: and they were getting more clues that either he or
Speaker 1: someone had thrown his identity papers around. They started thinking
Speaker 1: that maybe he had wandered off, just wandered off into
Speaker 1: the Himlaas. Again, this sounds like a Chris McCandless tale,
Speaker 1: an Eastern into the wild, with someone retreating into the
Speaker 1: solitude of nature. But there is a romanticism around this
Speaker 1: idea of renouncing one's life. It's a clean slate, exchanging
Speaker 1: the noise and societal expectations of the West for the
Speaker 1: pea and purity of the East, which is something Jonathan
Speaker 1: apparently idealized when he wrote his article about life in
Speaker 1: the Kashmiri village nerinag But what a longing for peaceful
Speaker 1: simplicity make someone renounce their life, leaving their beloved family, friends,
Speaker 1: pets behind, choosing to vanish. So no one renounces their life.
Speaker 1: What you renounce is a way that you were formerly
Speaker 1: identified in your own mind, a way that you thought
Speaker 1: of yourself certain roles or relationships or ways of living.
Speaker 1: We renounce sensual pleasures, so we take vows of celibacy.
Speaker 1: We renounce ownership, so we take vows of simplicity. We
Speaker 1: dedicate our lives to God. We renounce the idea of
Speaker 1: a family being just you know, three or four or
Speaker 1: five members. When we speak about renunciation of the family,
Speaker 1: what it means is that we recognize that the whole
Speaker 1: world is our family vasude. This is a Sanskrit phrase
Speaker 1: in India meaning the entire earth is our family or
Speaker 1: one family. So renunciation is not this romanticized idea of
Speaker 1: leaving your past life behind. Choose a simpler one said,
Speaker 1: VG renounced to be in service of a higher calling
Speaker 1: and the world. So if Jonathan renounced, he would be
Speaker 1: of the world, not someone who dropped out of it. Also,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that Jonathan was deeply connected to his
Speaker 1: mother Linda. Their bond was evident not only from the
Speaker 1: way Linda speaks about her son, but because of his
Speaker 1: consistent communication with her when he traveled, and this third
Speaker 1: trip to India was no exception. There are times during
Speaker 1: his travels where he would drop out for a week
Speaker 1: or so due to bad cell phone service or to
Speaker 1: conserve his phone's battery, which is something he warned Linda
Speaker 1: about on their call before he took off on his
Speaker 1: solo track. But dropping out of his life entirely seemed
Speaker 1: out of character for Jonathan. I wasn't able to speak
Speaker 1: with Jonathan's father, David Greene, but I do know when
Speaker 1: he was reported missing, David flew to India to assist
Speaker 1: with the search effort, and according to an Irish Times
Speaker 1: article written in April twenty twelve, a month after Jonathan disappeared,
Speaker 1: David was quoted saying, there is some evidence to suggest
Speaker 1: Jonathan was interested in a spiritual pathway. My trip to
Speaker 1: India shed a light on him. For me, I have
Speaker 1: at times thought I was looking at somebody completely different
Speaker 1: to the son that I knew, to suddenly discover that
Speaker 1: there may be a whole spiritual aspect to his life,
Speaker 1: though he hadn't really touched on is astonishing. Linda Spalen
Speaker 1: and David Greene have not spoken to Jonathan in nine years,
Speaker 1: which I can imagine for parents who deeply loved their
Speaker 1: son and fervently searched for him, would be complete anguish.
Speaker 1: According to Sadvigi, the fact that Jonathan has not reached
Speaker 1: out to his parents says even further evidence that he
Speaker 1: did not renounce in the spiritual sense. My Guru made
Speaker 1: it very clear to me. He said, Ay, I had
Speaker 1: to take their blessings before I took some nas, but
Speaker 1: b I also stay in touch with them. Sadvigi is
Speaker 1: speaking about the communication she had with her family before
Speaker 1: she renounced and her ongoing relationship with them. When we
Speaker 1: speak about renouncing the family, it has to do with
Speaker 1: renouncing those relationships and attachments that thwart us on our
Speaker 1: spiritual path, those that hold us hostage in a specific identity,
Speaker 1: in a specific attachment, in a specific role, in favor
Speaker 1: of the spiritual freedom of living as soul spirit consciousness.
Speaker 1: That's where the renouncing of family in the vows of
Speaker 1: segnas come in. But it's not about bringing pain and
Speaker 1: suffering to those who have given you birth. That wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a spiritual thing. Mostly, it's important to realize that
Speaker 1: renounciation is not running away, it's embracing something very very
Speaker 1: beautiful and very real, very true. It's not a moving
Speaker 1: away from it's a moving toward. So if Jonathan didn't renounce,
Speaker 1: like some authorities and media speculated, then what happened to
Speaker 1: his body? Garachati is one of the most popular tourist
Speaker 1: spots in rashaksh so it's unusual that while Jonathan's belongings
Speaker 1: were found, he was not. Kundanegi, the lead officer on
Speaker 1: Jonathan's case, ends the BBC video shot three years after
Speaker 1: Jonathan was reported missing, saying I believe that he is
Speaker 1: alive and I'm still hopeful that we will find him.
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows. In two thousand and one, seventeen
Speaker 1: years after his disappearance, when his parents and the Austrian
Speaker 1: embassy in India had lost all hope of his being alive,
Speaker 1: an Austrian national reappeared, saying he went missing by choice
Speaker 1: in India so he could live in complete peace. This
Speaker 1: case was reported and a twenty eighteen article for the
Speaker 1: Tribune in India. There was also someone they talked to
Speaker 1: who said that he was reading Shanta Dam the book,
Speaker 1: and so they thought, well, maybe that inspired him to
Speaker 1: kind of disappear off the grid. That book found on
Speaker 1: top of Jonathan's sleeping bag. It's been reported that it
Speaker 1: was Shantam. If reading Catcher in the Rye is a
Speaker 1: write of passage for angsty teens, that's Shantam for foreigners
Speaker 1: in India looking to reinvent themselves or fall off the grid.
Speaker 1: Influenced by the life of the author Gregory David Roberts,
Speaker 1: the two thousand and three book Shantam follows a convict
Speaker 1: to escapes an Australian prison and flees to the chaos
Speaker 1: of India, where he chooses to vanish into the slums
Speaker 1: of Bombay. He becomes absorbed by India, living through many
Speaker 1: significant experiences that eventually lead him to build an honest life.
Speaker 1: The title Shantaram has spiritual significance. It means man of
Speaker 1: God's Peace, which is a name given to the protagonist
Speaker 1: Len by an Indian woman and a native him and village.
Speaker 1: Though Jonathan was spotted with Chantaram before he went missing,
Speaker 1: a book that reveres this idea of falling off the grid,
Speaker 1: it's yet another speculation, not a fact, which I can
Speaker 1: only imagine would be hard for Linda when I talked
Speaker 1: to her. I think she still needed to hold onto hope.
Speaker 1: I don't know where she's at now. This is Jessica
Speaker 1: Rabbits again speaking about her conversation with Linda. I remember
Speaker 1: distinctly her talking about how she loved the idea of,
Speaker 1: you know, if she could believe that he was sitting
Speaker 1: in a cave in the Himalayas meditating like that was
Speaker 1: a beautiful way to think about where he might be.
Speaker 1: And I, you know, I'm not I'd never had children
Speaker 1: of my own. I cannot understand the pain that she
Speaker 1: had been grappling with and and now yet accepting that
Speaker 1: he might be gone forever was where she needed to be.
Speaker 1: And I respected that. I mean, I understood that, you know,
Speaker 1: the not knowing at least allowed her to hold onto
Speaker 1: a shred of hope. And who's to say that hope
Speaker 1: is unjustified at this point? When examining what happened to
Speaker 1: Jonathan Spalen, all possibilities are open, which means every speculation, theory,
Speaker 1: or synchronicity needs to be considered, including something all three
Speaker 1: of the missing men, Ryan, Justin, and Jonathan had in common.
Speaker 1: The first three stories we've covered in this podcast have
Speaker 1: some things in common. Yes, Jonathan, Justin, and Ryan were
Speaker 1: all Westerners who disappeared in India, but there are also
Speaker 1: three men. And you rarely hear stories about men and
Speaker 1: true crime. These mysteries or murderers usually revolve around women.
Speaker 1: I brought in true crime expert psychologist Amanda Vickery to
Speaker 1: talk about this, not only because it's interesting, but she
Speaker 1: might be able to pinpoint some other commonalities. So if
Speaker 1: you look at crime statistics, men are much more likely
Speaker 1: to be the victim of a violent crime. People kind
Speaker 1: of get this skewed idea of a women are out
Speaker 1: there getting killed all the time, and also, of course
Speaker 1: a skewed idea of how likely it is to happen
Speaker 1: which I fall victim to all the time. I convince
Speaker 1: I'm going to be killed by a serial killer on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, when rationally I know the statistics of
Speaker 1: that happening are very very slim. But yes, men are
Speaker 1: for sure more likely to be the victim of a
Speaker 1: violent crime, but not the types of crimes that are
Speaker 1: covered or focused on and the media as much, not
Speaker 1: always as sensational, which is what's interesting because the cases
Speaker 1: you're looking into of men missing in India is very unusual.
Speaker 1: We don't often get as much coverage of men going missing,
Speaker 1: as you said, compared to women, it's less likely to
Speaker 1: happen in a sort of sensational manner. All of the
Speaker 1: cases we've shared so far on this podcast feature men,
Speaker 1: and their stories are sensational. But that's not just because
Speaker 1: of the media's influence. It's because of the mystery surrounding
Speaker 1: coal cases with nobody, little evidence, and zero answers. My
Speaker 1: next question to Amanda was about risk taking, a trait
Speaker 1: that was obvious in justin Alexander Schetler's makeup and possibly
Speaker 1: in Jonathan's. If you give someone a personality survey, men
Speaker 1: are much more likely to be risk takers and to
Speaker 1: be sensation seekers and things like that. And that's something
Speaker 1: I'm actually investigating in a study I have going on
Speaker 1: right now. I'm still collecting data on it. I'm curious
Speaker 1: to see if men and women who are more into
Speaker 1: sensation seeking and risk taking things like that, are they
Speaker 1: more interested in true crime podcasts. And that's something I
Speaker 1: don't know the answer too yet. It's ongoing. I guess
Speaker 1: I ultimately throw that question back on you, the listener.
Speaker 1: I'm admittedly not risk over. I mean, I'm doing this podcast,
Speaker 1: but I also listened to true crime in the same
Speaker 1: way many women do, not just to unravel the how,
Speaker 1: but to understand the why. My research showed that women
Speaker 1: people in general, and women especially are into crime oftentimes
Speaker 1: because it's almost like a survival factor. They're learning what
Speaker 1: happens so that they can prevent it from happening to them.
Speaker 1: And I sometimes wondered the unsolved cases that should make
Speaker 1: it even more relevant because this person or whatever's happening
Speaker 1: could still be out there, which is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I wanted to investigate Jonathan's disappearance in this podcast.
Speaker 1: What if Jonathan's not alive and whatever or whomever got
Speaker 1: to him is still out there. Yeah, he definitely had speculations.
Speaker 1: Jessica Rabbit's track down Kundanegi, the lead officer on Jonathan's investigation,
Speaker 1: for an interview in twenty fourteen, two years after Jonathan's disappearance.
Speaker 1: Nagi was also on Ryan Chambers case, but like I said,
Speaker 1: the Chambers didn't get a lot of help from the
Speaker 1: Indian authorities and weren't as supported by Naggie. As Linda Us,
Speaker 1: Linda will forever be grateful for Naggie's persistence, whatever the outcome.
Speaker 1: She considers Naggie a man of great integrity and determination
Speaker 1: in a system which is gravely lacking in resources from
Speaker 1: a Western perspective. But Naggie, like any police officer immersed
Speaker 1: in a cold case, does have speculations about what happened
Speaker 1: to Jonathan. Oh. He wondered if maybe Jonathan Spalen had
Speaker 1: wandered off with a sadu or a holy man who
Speaker 1: practiced black magic, for example. I'm going to check in
Speaker 1: with Ikita about this because it sounds sort of like
Speaker 1: the Justin Alexander Schetler scenario, and I want to get
Speaker 1: her thoughts on this whole black magic thing. First of all,
Speaker 1: there is no scientific basis for anything called black magic,
Speaker 1: but among people who do believe in it, the general
Speaker 1: bust up enough. A black magic practitioner would be someone
Speaker 1: who knows a certain magical or supernatural rituals that can
Speaker 1: be used to harm someone else. That is the typical perception.
Speaker 1: You know, Justin went with the sado on this spiritual track.
Speaker 1: We don't know if this guy practiced quote unquote black magic.
Speaker 1: But I guess my question is why would a Westerner
Speaker 1: seek out someone who practices black magic. I guess it
Speaker 1: would be the lure of mystery and also a journalist
Speaker 1: mindset of finding out what really lies beneath something that
Speaker 1: has not been explored enough, or something that claims to me, say, supernatural.
Speaker 1: But that's just one speculation. Here's Jessica Rabbits with more
Speaker 1: thoughts from Kundennik. He also speculated that there had been
Speaker 1: a great month soon in flood in July of twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: and that maybe he had died in that. But I
Speaker 1: know there had been speculation that maybe he'd been eaten
Speaker 1: by a wild animal because he had wandered into the
Speaker 1: Himalayas on his own on a trek. So it's hard
Speaker 1: to know, you know, there are so many options of
Speaker 1: what could have happened to him up there, and other
Speaker 1: people there told me that if Jonathan Spalen was wandering
Speaker 1: up there, you know, a white guy wandering in the
Speaker 1: Himalayas would have been noticed by others and in the searching,
Speaker 1: you know, no one had said that they'd seen him,
Speaker 1: So could he have also drowned? Could he have been
Speaker 1: eaten by a wild animal. Those were some of the
Speaker 1: ideas that were being thrown out there. Like I've said before,
Speaker 1: and out of respect for Linda's wishes, with no evidence
Speaker 1: of a body, all possibilities are open. So a slew
Speaker 1: of speculations still abound, and Jonathan's disappearance remains an unsolved mystery.
Speaker 1: I hope one day Linda Spalen can get answers around
Speaker 1: her son's disappearance. She deserves that, but I respect her
Speaker 1: knowing her boundaries, and in solidarity with her wishes, I
Speaker 1: ask all of you to please keep all the options
Speaker 1: surrounding Jonathan's disappearance open, like Linda has. To narrow the
Speaker 1: focus at this point with no real evidence would do
Speaker 1: Jonathan a disservice. I don't know if Jonathan would have
Speaker 1: called himself a seeker, but I saw a lot of
Speaker 1: myself in his story. A curiosity and hunger for an
Speaker 1: understanding of humanity, a willingness to seek stories and connections
Speaker 1: outside of his comfort zone, a compulsion to live fully.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful to have met Linda and gotten to know
Speaker 1: her because her son's story has helped me reflect on
Speaker 1: my own. Jonathan's story was highly publicized not only because
Speaker 1: of who he was or because his disappearance was shrouded
Speaker 1: in history, but because of where he disappeared. Yes, in India,
Speaker 1: but more specifically Rishikesh, India, the holy city some consider
Speaker 1: a spiritual vortex, while others argue that is the Bermuda
Speaker 1: Triangle of missing people? Is that area? It is not that,
Speaker 1: not the spiritual Bermuda Triangle. I promise we will uncover
Speaker 1: the allure of the spiritual mecca that allegedly swallows body's
Speaker 1: whole and the next episode of Astray. Today's episode of Astray,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Spalen was produced, written and narrated by Me, Caroline
Speaker 1: Slaughter and Quita anand is my co producer and Gappie
Speaker 1: wants as our supervising producer. Special thanks to Jessica Rabbits.
Speaker 1: Astray was sound produced by Tunewelders, with score and sound
Speaker 1: designed by Jason Shannon and mixed by Harper Harris. Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Brian Lavin, Brandon Barr and Elsie Crowley. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. School of Humans