For decades, Nelson naturopath Chantal shunned the real world… until she broke free. Photo / Tim Cuff
Chantal Moss never imagined she’d find herself under the spell of an online cult delivered under the guise of New Age wellness.
Growing up in Paparimu, a tiny country settlement south of Auckland, she always felt most at peace outdoors and, at 19, decided to train as a naturopath.
Little did she know that working in holistic health would eventually plunge her into a dark counterculture.
“Twenty years ago, it was my dream for the wellness industry to become more widely known,” explains Chantal, 39. “I still love working as a naturopath, but over the years, as more people have adopted this way of life, I’ve become aware of its toxic online underbelly.
“I call it a New Age cult because the ideas and subsequent behaviours are like those of a cult.”
While most people think of a cult as a group ruled by a charismatic leader – where members dress alike, live together, and follow strict rules that control how they think and behave – there are modern movements that don’t fit this traditional description yet include the same dynamics, as Chantal discovered.
She says, “The New Age cult holds beliefs from the most benign, such as the natural world being where we can experience God, to outright harmful, like cancer being treated with detoxes instead of proper medical care.
“You can see how people start down this path – the medical system isn’t perfect and holistic wellness can be incredibly transformative, but it becomes dangerous.”
The indoctrination was slow and subtle for Chantal.
“This ideology slowly moulded me into someone who didn’t question the ‘truths’ I was absorbing,” she tells. “Vaccines were the cause of chronic illness. Anything unnatural was harmful. Pharmaceutical companies are corrupt, therefore all medications are bio-weapons to control our minds and keep us unwell.”
As with all conspiracy theories, Chantal says there are grains of truth, which is what makes them so compelling and insidious.
“I wasted years experiencing depression and chronic anxiety when I should have been on medication, but because of the New Age cult, I believed that medication was a cop-out.”
When Chantal first entered the wellness industry in 2005, she expected to meet like-minded people. What she didn’t anticipate was the power play and elitism.
“At the many trainings I attended, there was an obvious hierarchy,” she recalls. “There was an unspoken expectation that some people were the purest and the most spiritually enlightened – from the way they dressed and spoke, to what they ate.”
Over time, Chantal also fell victim to rabbit holes and conspiracy thinking, but during the pandemic and escalating anti-vaccine movement, she came to the slow realisation that her view of the world was flawed.
“People I trusted were sharing bizarre posts about ‘the tens of thousands’ of vaccine deaths or political conspiracies,” reflects Chantal. “I couldn’t believe the level of warped reality that had infected so many people I was so close to.
“Then a dear friend posted that Jacinda Ardern was secretly behind the Christchurch massacre and I thought, ‘Enough is enough!’”
Moving to the countryside, Chantal began unfollowing friends, isolating herself and ceasing online contact with those she knew in the cult.
With the help of her now-husband Joshua, 32, she began thinking for herself.
“He was my safe place,” tells Chantal. “He approached me with patience and curiosity.
“Through his careful questioning about my stance to not get vaccinated and seeing people I respected getting vaccinated, I gradually came to see how flawed my thinking had become.
“Coming out of the New Age cult was the longest, deepest mental breakdown of my life. I had to annihilate my old identity and rebuild anew.”
Chantal has documented her experiences in a new book called Suspended Belief: Memoir Of A New Age Apostate. What began as a journal in 2022 evolved into a frank account of how she has healed.
“I wrote it to make sense of the madness,” she explains.
“My mum cried reading it. It’s terrifying to go public, but I want others to learn from my mistakes and not fall prey to misinformation.”
Today, Chantal’s life is quiet and grounded. She lives in a Nelson apartment by the sea with librarian Joshua and their 5-month-old daughter Ruby.
Daily rituals of morning walks, evening yoga and tending to her houseplants help keep her centred.
Chantal’s advice to others exploring wellness or spiritual communities is clear.
“You can love nature, yoga, breathwork and rituals without rejecting mainstream reality,” she says. “It’s healthy to question ingrained thoughts and beliefs, but you can integrate wellness into your life without demonising the systems around you.”
Suspended Belief: Memoir Of A New Age Apostate is available now on Amazon and Kindle.