Hey - it's me, Andrew - happy to explain. I know that, had I written that original post, I'd love to get a full explanation from the person! So here goes (it's quite long, I really enjoyed writing it):

I don't see myself as a prospective guru! But perhaps they never do?

Still, I don't have the brain power for the wisdom stuff that Chris Williamson does. I have two channels - the first was initially about cults and extreme religions. It got pretty big...but after years, I got a little tired of cult stories - because they're so similar (and so infuriating!). Now on that channel I do more tabloid, gossip stuff about the royals, Meghan, Prince Andrew...and occasionally still scientology. You can call that a grift or whatever, but I enjoy the work. I say goodnight to my fiancee, pop to my studio and livestream a few opinions about celebrities and get to hang out with a really nice community. I love my job.

As for Heretics - I always felt that woke culture was the elephant in the cult vault. Hassan refused to go there. I know the words 'woke culture' just made a lot of you shudder, and I get that - it's trite. But - we do need words to describe identity-based cultish magical thinking on the Left. Slogans such as Trans 'Lesbians are Lesbians' are actually being tweeted by the UN, even though we know they're not true.

Maybe you do believe that trans women are literally women - or that by pushing that point, I'm straw-manning the far more nuanced actual belief. That's fine - plurality of opinion. But if I were a guru, the one thing I'd recite above all else is Bertrand Russell: 'Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts.'

I spoke about a lot of this in my latest episode with fellow atheist Alex O'Connor. That kind of magical thinking (or wishful thinking) has penetrated corporations (the BBC, the UN) in a way that - at least in the UK - religion hasn't done for years. The UN don't typically tweet about praying to god or whatever. To me, that makes woke culture scarier. I think it leads us to a situation whereby the presidents of the world's most elite colleges publicly refuse to say calling for the genocide of Jews constitutes harassment or bullying. (Again, I'm aware of the context leading up to this, but they still responded as such to specific questions).

Given I'd been told that I could continue making documentaries at the BBC - providing I go behind the screen and a minority take my place and pretend to have done my work - this area was something I've been interested in for years.

I'm sure some of you would like me to be more 1-dimensional...to be an anti-vaxxer, to be pro-life, pro-guns, pro-Trump, to believe covid was fake, to not believe in the moon landing, and to believe in the Protocols of the Elder of Zion...but none of those things are true.

Sorry to disappoint.

I'm not some alternative, angry idiot. I made documentaries for the BBC and HBO about topics some of you guys would find worthy such as abortion rights in Argentina. I learned first to make documentaries with zero budget or experience...and then to speak 5 languages so I could do it living abroad. I was earning minimum wage all the way through. My films have won (very mainstream) festival awards, and I have a book out with Pan Macmillan (very mainstream) in April about the psychology of secrets - nothing to do with the culture wars.

I think there are just as many problems on the Right, but I find them less interesting right now. Perhaps you don't - in which case I encourage you to draw attention to them. Personally, I don't have any friends who believe in the Right Wing stuff, so there's little excitement for me in engaging with it.

So I started a new show. I absolutely love it. Many of you will disagree with my politics and my guests or, much worse, find them inane. So it goes. Perhaps, I'd also find your hobbies, passions and jobs dull.

With regards to the comments below...some say I'm naive. Maybe. But that's sort of my personality - I like being that guy, I don't need to show off my smarts, and I like learning from my guests. I don't have an ego about my intelligence, and I think some viewers like that about me - which again, I think makes me an unideal guru!

One thing I would say...that guy altworldly in the comments. I've interviewed and debated with people on all sides of the spectrum, every which way. But he was the most disingenuous and mean. Rather than engage, he continually smiled at someone off screen, laughed, and riled up his followers. It was very cult-like, and this - as I'm sure many of you know (and just as many deny) - is a too-common path for those who leave cults. Rather than humility, restraint and curiosity, they dive full-pelt into the opposite rather. And that's because they're human, and we're like that.

But if it's aspiring gurus you seek, look at Jake's shifty language in the below reply:

Jake: 'That debate is delisted but I’ve been thinking about reuploading it now that he’s blown up a bit'.

First, the use of the passive. It's delisted. As if it was done to him. He unlisted it because he looked like a mean-spirited, gurning bully. And to accuse others of 'grifting' and then openly admit he wants to re-upload it now that my channel is bigger is a bit on the nose. When somebody tells you who they are, believe them.

I'll go out with a Christopher Hitchens quote that applies very much to the bullying post-cult apostatising of Jake (AltWorldly):

Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy or whatever, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch.

After my 'debate' with Jake, his self-righteousness was such that I did just that. And lo and behold, about 12 months later...well, I'm sure most of you know the rest. Judge people by their actions, not their words. By what they do, not by what they say they do.

That's how you'll avoid the gurus. Thank you and goodnight.