Influencer Kaelan Strouse Offers 48 Gateways to Your Ecstatic Self

Kaelan Strouse shows up to our Zoom call looking relaxed and happy – and ripped. Typically shirtless when he appears on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) to share his thoughts or offer his spiritual musings, Strouse is more than comfortable in his own skin.

If that seems strange for someone of such a spiritual bent, consider this: Strouse was a contestant last month on this year's BateWorld's "Great BateWorld BateOff," an explicit reality show in which half-a-dozen contestants competed to see who could get the viewing audience hottest with their videos of getting off solo. It's no surprise that along with his YouTube channel and spiritual counseling, Strouse maintains an OnlyFans where he's equally relaxed and present in creating explicit erotic content. (If you think his massive chest and sculpted arms are impressive, you maybe haven't yet seen the biggest thing about him; check out his other X account, which is, if not explicit, then certainly relaxed when it comes to the option of clothing.)

This combination of callings might seem odd, but things are put strangely into context when the first comment Strouse makes is to the effect that he's spent the morning dealing with raw sewage.

"Apart from that, I am good," he says, with perfect equilibrium. "After three hours of trying to fix it myself, I had to call the plumber." With that, he's cut through the fence. Why create divisions and distinctions between the physical world and the divine when there's no need for it?

Still, seeking clarification, the first thing EDGE asks as the interview gets underway is how his spiritual coaching interfaces with – and, maybe, enhances – his parallel career as somebody who creates explicit content.

"It's not parallel," Strouse explains. "It's the same. You are the same person when you're in prayer or meditation or at church; the same individual when you make love with someone you care about or go to a sex club or engage in a dirty fantasy."

"In this society, we separate ourselves into different people," he continues. "That fragmentation means there is no wholeness. Just because you might see me jerking off on the internet does not mean I'm any less sacred in that moment than I am when I'm in prayerful reflection. My body is sacred, my penis is sacred, every part of me is sacred."

The author of two previous books – "Journey to the Ecstatic Self" and "I Dreamt of Flight" – Strouse's newly released third book, "48 Gateways to the Ecstatic Self" is many things in one: a guide for meditation, a prompt for journaling, and a voyage through philosophical and spiritual reflections. But that doesn't mean exiting your body. If anything, Strouse's message comes back again and again to the simple observation that your body is where you live – and that's the way it's meant to be.

"In this time where we are so disconnected from our bodies and from each other, where we don't know how to reclaim our bodies as sacred," he tells EDGE, "to re-enter our bodies and see the beauty there is a wild act of reclamation. As a society, we've been avoiding integrating the body, mind, and heart, so that's where the work is."

Read on to see what Strouse has to say about sex, spirituality, and the beautiful queer life he's crafted for himself.

EDGE: You've synthesized your spiritual understanding from different influences and traditions. Do you get pushback from traditionalists of various faiths?

Kaelan Strouse: It's not only traditionalists; everybody has an opinion. I'm a big believer that there are many right paths to God. I spent seven years living in a yoga ashram that was part of a Kashmir Shaivite tantric tradition, which is very traditional and very structured, but as a queer-bodied person who has found a lot of spiritual revelations in my body and in the natural world, those things aren't part of that tradition. Learning from trees, learning from rivers, learning from orgasms is not part of that lineage. I don't see what I do as being so much an amalgamation of other traditions so much as a rediscovery of what is inherent in the world when you slow down and observe it from the place where you are – [in my case,] a neurodivergent, queer individual.

EDGE: One of the things that spoke to me in your book is the need to let go of the need for control.

Kaelan Strouse: In Hindu cosmology there's this idea of devas and asuras. It's typically translated as "gods and demons," but asuras are not actually evil. They have tremendous spiritual abilities, according to lore, but there is a high level of will: They want to control things. They want to contort reality to their desires. They want to accumulate gold and wealth and status. They couldn't enter a state of acceptance and flow. They couldn't just say, "Life, bring me what you will."

I think it's a fine balancing act, whether you're a seeker or a guide for other people. There are times where we need to direct the flow a little bit; we need to ensure that we create safe boundaries. But by and large, I live from this place of letting things go where they will. I don't promote myself. I have a book coming out – that's what we're talking about – but I find it very difficult to reach out to podcasts and be like, "Hey, interview me about this." I'm making an offering. Let people find it. I try to let the universe take me to where it wants to, because when I do that, things turn out so much better than I could have devised.

It begins with seeking peace. I believe that the first step is to acknowledge that I'm in a state of disruption. The first chapter is that active choice of saying, "I'm not willing to follow the script society has given me that is leaving me feeling discontent. I'm going to choose to find peace, even if I don't know what that means." Then the book proceeds through the next 47 different spiritual principles [and comes] full circle, back to that idea of just being at peace.

EDGE: That also brings us back to the to the idea of surrendering – seeing what will surprise you, instead of trying to plan everything out in advance.

Kaelan Strouse: In my early 20s I was working as an actor, I was identifying as straight, I was putting myself in relationships with people who did not really care about me. I was constantly putting myself in rooms where you have to deal with a tremendous amount of rejection, moving to Los Angeles and feeling like this did not reverberate with my soul. Doing all those things that I thought would give me a "good life" ended up making me miserable.

I started to pull them apart one by one and say, "Okay, what if I allow myself to explore my sexuality and let myself feel whatever it is I feel? What if I allow myself to envision life that is free of external approval?" Little by little, I started choosing intrinsic value, intrinsic worth, intrinsic joy – rather than extrinsic things.

EDGE: There's a constant clamor for change, for something better, but we never seem to get there. Why is that? What are we still doing wrong after all these millennia?

Kaelan Strouse: I don't think the inherent issue is in the seeking; we will always be seeking, and there is no right answer to joy. I think it's just that we have to continue to seek and not be complacent with what has been, because that hasn't served us well.

But I do think that there are answers out there. I'm not here to say that I have answers, because really all I have are questions. But what I can say is the state of daily joy and peace that I live with is tremendous in comparison to what I lived with 10 years ago. Even today, I literally had to deal with shit flooding through my apartment. You know what? Pretty much every day of my life is really good, not because I don't have challenges but because I wake up most days feeling in alignment with my life, with my partner, with my soul, and with the world. None of that was unintentional. It is an immensely joyful life – but I had to let go of what I thought would make me happy in order for this to arrive.

That doesn't mean I'm traipsing through a rose garden every day and dancing through the firefly meadows. Sometimes it means wrangling with anger, with loss, with shit, and seeing that even then you're getting to have this human experience. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't it wonderful that I get to cry right now? Experiencing pain means I'm alive. It means I'm doing the human thing.

"48 Gateways to the Ecstatic Self" is available now. For more about Kaelan Strouse, including information about one-on-one coaching, his socials, and more, see his LinkTree.