Atlas›Domain XIV · Western esoteric, divinatory & new spiritual movements›Guide 150
Guide XIV-150

Love Has Won and etheric surgery

Amy Carlson2007Crestone, Colorado, USA
A 29 · L 55 · M 1621 interventions in the Trinity explorer5 described for recognition only
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: Love Has Won as described in the World Religions and Spirituality Project (WRSP) profile by David G. Bromley and Katie Toomey (2022), with events, the coroner's findings and the charges as reported by CBS Colorado, Rolling Stone, the Denver Gazette and Business Insider (2021–2023). The group's own website is offline [source: WRSP], so it is described through these sources rather than its own texts.

Love Has Won was a small, largely online new religious movement in the contactee, starseed and ascension family, centred on Amy Carlson (born 1975), whom followers called "Mother God". It grew out of New Age online forums in the mid-2000s; in 2007 Carlson moved to Crestone, Colorado, and early video output appeared as "The Galactic Free Press"; around 2013 the group used the name Galactic Federation of Light [source: WRSP]. Followers held that Carlson had lived hundreds of previous lives and was engaged in a struggle with a hidden "Cabal" linked to reptilian and Anunnaki beings, and that she was guiding humanity's "ascension" to a "5D" (fifth-dimensional) reality [source: WRSP; Rolling Stone; Business Insider]. These are the group's beliefs, described as the group held them.

The group's model of change, as reported: illness and suffering stem from low "vibration" and energy imbalance; progress comes through devotion to Mother God, purging "egonic" (ego-driven) traits and receiving her "etheric" or "spiritual surgeries", which members believed removed negative energy [source: WRSP; Westword]. Members rejected conventional medicine and promoted colloidal silver and gold [source: WRSP]. Evidence status in one line: there is no clinical evidence that colloidal silver prevents or treats any disease, and the FDA has warned it is not safe or effective for any condition [source: NCCIH]; evidence that remote "etheric surgery" affects physical illness: none found in the sources consulted.

Carlson died in 2021. The coroner attributed her death to alcohol abuse, anorexia and chronic colloidal silver ingestion, and determined the manner of death to be natural [source: CBS Colorado; Rolling Stone]. Under the Love Has Won name the group is reported to have dissolved, but successor groups continue its teachings and practices [source: Business Insider; WRSP]. See the Harm account below.

This is an organisation, not a therapy. This guide therefore (a) outlines what the group did, as reliable sources describe it, so the therapist can recognise it, and (b) sets out the psychotherapist's work with current members, former members, families and bereaved relatives. The therapist never performs, endorses or imitates the group's practices [synthesis].

2. Framework

The organisation as reported

  • Leadership: Carlson held sole authority over direction and appointed and replaced successive male partners titled "Father God" [source: WRSP].
  • Core: a "First Contact Ground Crew" of roughly 12–24 people lived communally on group properties, produced online content and protected Carlson; about 20 lived together at the time of her decline [source: WRSP; Business Insider].
  • Periphery: auxiliary groups abroad and roughly 100–200 online "ambassadors"; daily livestreams watched by thousands; a Telegram channel with tens of thousands of followers [source: WRSP; Business Insider].
  • Entry: new members received new names (often angel names) and went through an "ego death ceremony"; public rebuke or confession of "egonic" traits followed [source: WRSP]. Public outline only; no ritual content is given here.
  • Income: donations, members' savings, livestreams, sale of essential oils, crystal items and colloidal silver through affiliated online shops, paid "etheric surgery" (described as one of its most profitable offerings) and a paid "Ascension Guide" [source: WRSP; Business Insider; Westword]. The group obtained US tax-exempt status in 2019 [source: WRSP]. Prices [uncertain: not verified].
  • Successors: 5D Full Disclosure (founded by two former members; Vermont-based; continues etheric surgeries, a "Crystal Schools" programme, livestreams and merchandise) and Joy Rains (led by a former "Father God" partner; offers paid healing sessions) [source: WRSP; Business Insider].

The psychotherapist's framework [synthesis]

No source gives a treatment protocol, session count or format for clients affected by this group; the phases below are clinical synthesis. Move between them by readiness, not by schedule.

  1. Safety and engagement. Goals: medical, nutritional, substance and suicide risk screened; immediate safeguarding for any child addressed; a non-judgemental alliance formed. Move on when acute risks are routed and the client wants to continue.
  2. Cultural and spiritual formulation. Goals: the client's own account of the group, its meaning in their life and their present relationship to it, using the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) and its Religion and Spirituality supplementary module [source: APA CFI]. Move on when you and the client share a working formulation.
  3. Differential assessment. Goals: distinguish group-shared belief from psychosis, mania, dissociation, OCD, trauma responses and complicated grief without pathologising belief. Move on when diagnoses (if any) are clarified and referrals made.
  4. Working phase. Goals, chosen with the client: coercive-control mapping, financial recovery, identity and name reclamation, religious trauma, grief and ambiguous loss, family repair, conspiracy-belief entanglement, managing media exposure.
  5. Consolidation and ending. Goals: sustained supports outside any group, a relapse and recruitment plan, a clear route back to services.

3. Guiding principles

  • Describe, do not decide, belief. Practical meaning: use the client's words ("5D", "ascension", "Mother God") with a short gloss; neither affirm nor ridicule them [synthesis].
  • Safety before meaning. Practical meaning: colloidal silver use, restricted eating, alcohol misuse, avoided medical care and suicidality are screened in the first contact and routed to medical services [synthesis; source: NCCIH for colloidal silver risks].
  • Never advise on medicines or remedies. Practical meaning: you do not tell a client to start, stop or change any medicine or product; you route these decisions to a physician and, if ingestion is acute, to poison control [synthesis].
  • No doses or product details. Practical meaning: if a client describes products, record the fact of use and pass details to the physician; do not discuss amounts or sources [synthesis].
  • Safe messaging. Practical meaning: speak of deaths factually, without sensational or graphic detail, without romanticising ascension or departure, and always alongside routes to help [source: Action Alliance; synthesis].
  • No labels from the therapist. Practical meaning: use the client's own label; if the client uses a pejorative label for the group, explore what it means for them rather than adopting or correcting it [synthesis].
  • Naming restraint. Practical meaning: speak of roles ("the leader", "a former partner", "senior members") rather than naming individuals; never name other members, victims or children [synthesis].
  • Autonomy and choice. Practical meaning: a client may remain in a successor group; your task is safety, informed choice and keeping relationships open, not extraction [synthesis].
  • Coercion is assessed, not assumed. Practical meaning: reported practices (sleep and food regulation, public rebuke, renaming, giving up savings) are explored as the client experienced them; some former members contest abuse accounts [source: Business Insider; WRSP].
  • Children first. Practical meaning: any child currently living with a group household is a safeguarding question, assessed under your local law [source: Denver Gazette; CBS Colorado; synthesis].
  • Role clarity. Practical meaning: the therapist is never healer, channel, "surgeon" or spiritual authority; no energy work, readings or spiritual diagnosis in therapy [synthesis].
  • Cultural humility. Practical meaning: spiritual seeking that led people in is often sincere and meaningful; honour the longing while examining the harm [synthesis]. Spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists (Vieten et al. 2013) are relevant [uncertain: not verified].

4. Intervention inventory

Part A outlines the group's own practices, as reliable sources describe them, so you can recognise and explore them; they are not for use. Part B gives the psychotherapist's interventions. All step-by-step guidance in Part B is [synthesis] unless a source is named, because the sources consulted give no published clinical protocol for this group.

A1. "Etheric" or "spiritual surgery" (group practice; outline only)

  • Purpose (as the group held it): to remove negative energy from a person's body; Carlson also claimed to perform spiritual surgeries including "brain repair" [source: Westword; CBS Colorado].
  • Structure (public outline): performed by the leader in person or remotely; she claimed over 100,000; sold as one of the group's most profitable offerings; members believed the strain of the work damaged her health; the successor group 5D Full Disclosure continues to offer etheric surgeries [source: WRSP]. No procedure, words or method are given here.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You mentioned you paid for a surgery. What were you hoping it would change, and what happened afterwards?" / "Were you told it could replace seeing a doctor?"
  • Watch for: a physical illness treated only by surgery; debt or repeated purchases; guilt when the "surgery" did not work ("my vibration was too low"); a family member's illness going untreated. Route any untreated condition to a physician.

A2. Renaming and "ego death ceremony" (group practice; outline only)

  • Purpose (as reported): to mark a break with the old self; new members received new, often angel, names [source: WRSP].
  • Structure: an entry ceremony followed by ongoing public rebuke or confession of "egonic" traits [source: WRSP]. No ritual content is given here.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Which name feels like yours today? I'll use whichever you choose."
  • Watch for: shame on hearing the given name; self-criticism framed as "ego"; difficulty making decisions without permission.

A3. Regulated daily life (group practice)

  • Purpose (as reported): food and sleep were viewed as obstacles to ascension and daily life was tightly regulated [source: WRSP]. Former members described rules that banned alcohol, limited sleep and required members to stand constantly, while also saying the leader had a drinking problem [source: CBS Colorado].
  • Example language (illustrative): "How much sleep did you get on a typical day there? How is your sleep now?"
  • Watch for: ongoing sleep restriction, restricted eating, guilt about rest; physical sequelae needing medical review.

A4. Products and the "Ascension Guide" (group practice; outline only)

  • Purpose (as reported): colloidal silver, essential oils and crystal items sold as health and spiritual aids; a paid guide recommended practices including sun gazing and cold showers [source: WRSP; Business Insider]. No amounts, sources or durations are given here.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Are you still taking anything the group recommended? I'd like your doctor to know, so they can check it's safe with everything else."
  • Watch for: bluish-grey skin (possible argyria, usually permanent), use alongside prescribed medicines, eye complaints after sun gazing [source: NCCIH for argyria and interactions; synthesis for sun gazing]. Route to a physician; acute ingestion concerns to poison control.

A5. Livestreams, conspiracy narratives and online community (group practice)

  • Purpose (as reported): daily livestreams promoted the leader; narratives treated wars, shootings and pandemics as engineered or illusory and included Holocaust denial and QAnon elements [source: WRSP; Rolling Stone; Westword].
  • Example language (illustrative): "When you watch now, how do you feel afterwards: calmer, more afraid, more alone?"
  • Watch for: hours of nightly viewing, fear-driven isolation, hostility toward outsiders, antisemitic content being repeated; re-recruitment through successor channels.

B1. Engagement and client-led meaning exploration

  • Purpose: build an alliance with a member, former member, partner or relative, and learn what the group meant before examining harm. Use at first contact.
  • Steps: (1) ask the client how they describe the group and their role; (2) ask what drew them or their relative in (the seeking, the community, the hope); (3) reflect the meaning without endorsing claims; (4) agree what the client wants from therapy; (5) explain confidentiality and its limits, including child safeguarding.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Before we talk about what went wrong, I'd like to understand what it gave you, or gave your sister."
  • Watch for: testing of the therapist ("Do you think I'm crazy?"); fear of being judged; relief at being heard. Working: the client speaks more openly and returns.

B2. Cultural Formulation Interview with the Religion and Spirituality module

  • Purpose: structure the client's own definition of the problem, its causes, supports, coping and help-seeking, including spiritual meanings [source: APA CFI].
  • Steps: (1) use the core CFI domains: cultural definition of the problem; perceptions of cause, context and support; factors affecting self-coping and past help seeking; factors affecting current help seeking [source: APA CFI]; (2) add the Religion and Spirituality supplementary module, and the Social Network and Caregivers modules where family is involved [source: APA CFI]; (3) use the Informant Version with relatives [source: APA CFI]; (4) paraphrase the questions in your own words; (5) write a short formulation with the client. The CFI informs, and does not alone make, a diagnosis [source: APA CFI].
  • Example language (illustrative): "How would you explain what has happened to you, in your own words?" / "Has your faith been a support, a burden, or both?"
  • Watch for: help-seeking blocked by beliefs about doctors or "low vibration"; supports limited to group contacts.

B3. Differential assessment without pathologising belief

  • Purpose: separate shared group beliefs from psychiatric conditions needing treatment.
  • Steps: (1) note that beliefs shared by a community (ascension, the Cabal, "Galactics") are not by themselves evidence of psychosis; (2) look for features beyond the shared belief: idiosyncratic content, hallucinations outside group norms, thought disorder, functional collapse; (3) screen for mania (sleeplessness with elevated energy, grandiosity beyond group doctrine), dissociation and derealisation after intensive practice, trauma symptoms, OCD-like scrupulosity about "ego" or "vibration", substance misuse, eating disorder and complicated grief; (4) collect a family or informant history; (5) refer for psychiatric assessment where warranted. The DSM-5-TR "Religious or Spiritual Problem" (Z65.8) may fit some presentations [source: ICD-10-CM Z65.8, Unbound Medicine]; DSM-5-TR wording [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Lots of people in the group shared these ideas. I'm asking about anything that feels different for you, more private, or that scares you."
  • Watch for: a client inferring that belief equals illness; sleep loss persisting after leaving; voices or messages experienced personally. Working: a clear picture with or without a diagnosis.

B4. Medical, nutritional, substance and product safety screen

  • Purpose: identify physical risk linked to the group's practices. Use in the first sessions and whenever the client is still exposed.
  • Steps: (1) ask about current and past use of colloidal silver or other group-recommended products, without asking for amounts or brands; (2) ask about eating, weight change and restriction, alcohol use, sleep, and avoided or delayed medical care; (3) encourage a physician review and, with consent, share the information; (4) for a suspected eating disorder, refer for assessment and give the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline (866) 662-1235, weekdays 9am–7pm ET, staffed by licensed clinicians who give referrals; it is not a crisis line [source: National Alliance for Eating Disorders]; (5) for acute ingestion or poisoning, route to poison control or emergency services; (6) never advise starting, stopping or changing any medicine or product [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'm not the right person to judge what is safe to take, but your doctor is. Would you be willing to let them know what you've been using?"
  • Watch for: skin discolouration; reduced effect of antibiotics or thyroid medicine, which colloidal silver can impair [source: NCCIH]; refusal of all medical care; rapid weight loss; withdrawal risk with heavy drinking (route to a physician) [synthesis].

B5. Suicide and self-harm risk assessment, with safe messaging

  • Purpose: assess risk after leaving, after the leader's death, after a relative's death or during public exposure.
  • Steps: (1) ask directly about suicidal thoughts and self-harm using current standard practice; (2) explore beliefs that frame death as ascension, reunion or a move to "5D" without debating doctrine; (3) agree a safety plan, including lethal-means counselling limited to safe storage and removal; (4) give crisis routes: in the US call or text 988 or chat via 988Lifeline.org [source: Action Alliance]; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123; elsewhere, local emergency and crisis services; (5) discuss deaths factually, without graphic detail [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Sometimes when someone loses a leader or a whole community, they have thoughts of not wanting to be alive. Have you had thoughts like that?"
  • Watch for: talk of joining the leader in another dimension; giving away possessions; intense shame or hopelessness after media coverage.

B6. Mapping coercive control in the client's own terms

  • Purpose: help the client see how pressure worked, reducing self-blame.
  • Steps: (1) invite a timeline of joining, deepening and leaving; (2) ask how rules on sleep, food, speech, contact with family and money were set and enforced; (3) reflect patterns using the client's words (e.g. "egonic" rebukes); (4) name processes (public rebuke, renaming, control of sleep, financial dependence) as reported elsewhere [source: WRSP; CBS Colorado] and ask whether these fit; (5) leave room for positive memories and for disagreement.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When you were rebuked for being 'egonic', what happened inside you? What did you learn to do afterwards?"
  • Watch for: defending the group strongly (respect it, slow down); flooding with shame; the realisation "it wasn't my fault" (working).

B7. Financial exploitation review

  • Purpose: assess and reduce financial harm from donations, savings given, purchases and paid surgeries [source: Business Insider; WRSP].
  • Steps: (1) ask what was given or spent and what remains; (2) check current payments, subscriptions or recurring donations to successor groups; (3) refer for debt, benefits or legal advice; (4) where fraud or exploitation of a vulnerable adult is suspected, discuss reporting options with the client [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Money is often the hardest thing to talk about afterwards. Would it help to list what's still going out each month?"
  • Watch for: shame preventing disclosure; continuing payments; housing or food insecurity after leaving communal living.

B8. Supporting a decision to stay or leave

  • Purpose: support informed choice for clients still involved with a successor group.
  • Steps: (1) explore what staying and leaving each offer and cost; (2) agree minimum safety conditions (medical care, sleep, food, contact with one outside person); (3) plan practical needs (housing, documents, money, phone); (4) keep the door open whatever the decision. No confrontation scripts are used [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'm not here to pull you out. I'm here so that whatever you choose, you're safe and you have people outside."
  • Watch for: abrupt departure without housing; pressure from the group after disclosure; ambivalence (normal).

B9. Identity, name reclamation and religious trauma work

  • Purpose: rebuild a self after renaming, ego-negation and loss of a total belief system.
  • Steps: (1) let the client choose their name in therapy; (2) explore values that predated and survived the group; (3) work with fear-laden beliefs (e.g. about the "Cabal" or punishment for leaving) at the client's pace; (4) use trauma-focused methods where trauma criteria are met, with consent and grounding; (5) support new, chosen community.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What mattered to you before the group, and what still matters now?"
  • Watch for: dissociation in sessions (slow down, ground); grief for lost certainty; anger as a healthy sign of boundaries.

B10. Grief and ambiguous loss

  • Purpose: support former members grieving the leader or community, and relatives grieving a member who is alive but estranged or who has died.
  • Steps: (1) acknowledge the loss as real, whatever the client thinks of the leader; (2) explore spiritual reinterpretations (e.g. that the leader "ascended") without arguing; (3) attend to disenfranchised grief and public stigma; (4) screen for complicated grief and depression; refer where needed.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You can grieve someone and also be angry at what happened. Both can be true."
  • Watch for: anniversary reactions; reactivation from documentaries or news; survivor guilt.

B11. Work with family members

  • Purpose: support relatives of current or former members. Families raised concerns about coercion and finances with authorities, and an organised family group alerted police before the leader's remains were found [source: WRSP].
  • Steps: (1) hear the family's fear and grief; (2) help them keep warm, low-pressure contact; (3) discourage ultimatums and confrontation [synthesis]; (4) plan responses to requests for money; (5) clarify when to contact police or child protection (a child at risk; someone medically endangered); (6) support their own care.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Your job right now isn't to win an argument. It's to stay the person they can call."
  • Watch for: family burnout; covert rescue plans; conflict between relatives.

B12. Child safeguarding

  • Purpose: protect children in or leaving group households. Child abuse charges were filed against members in 2021 (later dropped), and a parent's call about a young child being held at the residence preceded the discovery of the leader's remains [source: Denver Gazette; CBS Colorado].
  • Steps: (1) ask about children in the household, their schooling, medical care and food; (2) where faith-based refusal of medical care, restricted feeding or a high-control upbringing puts a child at risk, follow your jurisdiction's mandatory reporting duties; (3) refer for developmental or medical assessment; (4) involve children with age-appropriate assent and parental consent [synthesis]. Never name the child.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I need to ask about the children, because keeping them safe is part of my role."
  • Watch for: missed medical care, weight loss, exposure to deaths or remains, fear-based conspiracy content.

B13. Conspiracy-belief entanglement

  • Purpose: reduce fear and isolation linked to Cabal and hoax narratives.
  • Steps: (1) adopt a curious, non-shaming stance; (2) explore what each belief protects against (helplessness, uncertainty); (3) examine effects on relationships and health rather than debating facts; (4) gently note harms of specific narratives (e.g. Holocaust denial) where they affect others [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What would it mean for you if that story weren't true?"
  • Watch for: rapid re-attachment to new online communities; antisemitic or dehumanising talk.

B14. Managing media and public exposure

  • Purpose: help clients cope with documentaries, news and online commentary (e.g. the 2021 Vice documentary and the 2023 HBO series) [source: WRSP; Business Insider].
  • Steps: (1) plan whether and how to watch; (2) prepare for seeing oneself or relatives on screen; (3) consider limiting online searching; (4) discuss boundaries with journalists and others who make contact.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You don't have to watch it. If you do, let's plan for afterwards."
  • Watch for: intrusive memories, shame, harassment.

B15. Referral and coordination

  • Purpose: connect the client with services beyond therapy.
  • Steps: (1) physician, psychiatry, eating-disorder and addiction services as indicated; (2) legal, debt and housing advice; (3) child protection and police where duties apply; (4) with the client's consent, faith or community leaders the client trusts [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would it help if I spoke with your doctor so you don't have to tell the whole story twice?"
  • Watch for: referral seen as rejection; loss to follow-up.

B16. Role boundaries for the therapist

  • Purpose: prevent the therapist from becoming a substitute guru.
  • Steps: (1) offer no healing, energy work, readings or spiritual verdicts; (2) keep any personal spiritual practice separate from therapy; (3) limit self-disclosure about beliefs; (4) avoid dual relationships [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'm not a spiritual teacher, and I won't tell you what to believe. I can help you work out what you think."
  • Watch for: the client seeking a new authority in you; idealisation followed by disappointment.

5. Handling problems

No source addresses therapy problems specific to this group; all responses below are [synthesis] unless a source is named.

  • Client defends the leader or group. Do not argue. Reflect what was valuable, then return to the client's own goals and safety. Defence often softens when it is not opposed.
  • Client is still taking group-recommended products. Do not advise stopping or changing them. Ask permission to involve their physician; share NCCIH information on argyria and medicine interactions if the client wants it [source: NCCIH]. If acute symptoms, route to poison control or emergency care.
  • Restricted eating or significant weight loss. Arrange medical assessment promptly; refer for eating-disorder assessment and give the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline [source: National Alliance for Eating Disorders]. Avoid weight or calorie targets in therapy.
  • Heavy drinking. Refer to a physician before any change in drinking, because stopping heavy drinking can need medical oversight; do not set a plan yourself.
  • Overwhelm or dissociation when describing the group. Slow down, ground in the present, shorten disclosure, return to stabilisation before trauma processing.
  • Stuck in fear (the "Cabal", punishment for leaving). Work with the function of fear, build safety behaviours that are not belief-driven, and avoid prolonged debate.
  • Non-attendance or abrupt drop-out. Send one warm, low-pressure message leaving the door open; consider whether group contact or a successor group's pressure is involved.
  • Rupture ("You think I'm brainwashed" or "You're like them"). Acknowledge, apologise for any judgement conveyed, and re-agree the frame: the client decides what they believe.
  • The client asks you for healing, energy work or a spiritual verdict. Decline kindly and explain your role (see B16).
  • Successor-group recruitment or online re-contact. Plan responses, block or mute options, and an outside person to call.
  • Media requests or a new documentary. Use B14; consider whether participation helps or harms the client.
  • Suicidal crisis or talk of joining the leader in another dimension. Use B5; follow your service's emergency procedures.
  • A child is at risk. Follow mandatory reporting duties under your local law even if the client objects; explain the process to the client where safe to do so (B12).
  • Families pressing for a rescue or confrontation. Explain the risks of ultimatums, keep the focus on contact and safety, and refer to legal routes where a crime is suspected (B11).
  • Your own reactions (disgust, fascination, rescue urges). Use supervision; avoid sensational curiosity about the leader's death.

Harm account

What was actually done

  • Rejection of medical care and use of colloidal silver. The group rejected conventional medicine, held that illness came from energy imbalance, and promoted and sold colloidal silver and gold; it also promoted colloidal silver as its answer to COVID-19 [source: WRSP; Westword]. Product details and amounts are omitted here.
  • Leader's decline. Carlson developed bluish skin, attributed to argyria from colloidal silver; she said she had cancer (not confirmed) and said in a September 2020 television interview that she was paralysed from the waist down; members reported she had been ill for some time [source: WRSP; CBS Colorado]. In a September 2020 video a member said they refused to take her to hospital [source: WRSP]. Members reported a drinking problem despite the group's alcohol ban [source: CBS Colorado]. Her health was framed as the strain of performing etheric surgeries and processing the planet's negative energy [source: WRSP].
  • Relocation. In 2020 the group moved to Kauai, Hawaii, met protests and left the island, then returned to Colorado [source: WRSP].
  • Death and its handling. On 28 April 2021, Saguache County sheriff's deputies and Colorado Bureau of Investigation detectives found Carlson's remains in a residence in Casada Park, west of Crestone, Colorado, after a tip; followers had kept a vigil over the body for weeks and members described her as having ascended to "5D" and being "out of communication" [source: Denver Gazette; Business Insider; WRSP]. CBS Colorado reported that the discovery followed a father's call about his young child being held at the home, and that a teenage girl was also there [source: CBS Colorado]. The date of death was not clearly established [source: WRSP].
  • Coroner's findings. The coroner attributed death to alcohol abuse, anorexia and chronic colloidal silver ingestion, and determined the manner of death to be natural; the findings were reported in December 2021 [source: Rolling Stone; CBS Colorado]. The autopsy was performed by the El Paso County medical examiner's office; the Saguache County coroner investigated the scene [source: Denver Gazette, 10 December 2021].
  • Charges. Seven members were arrested in spring 2021. The Denver Gazette reported that three were charged with tampering with human remains and two misdemeanour counts of child abuse each, one with abuse of a corpse and two misdemeanour counts of child abuse, and that charges against all seven were dropped by September 2021; the district attorney did not comment on the reasons [source: Denver Gazette; CBS Colorado; Rolling Stone]. No member was convicted. Members are not named here.
  • Members' experiences. Scholars and former members describe renaming and an "ego death ceremony", public rebuke or confession of "egonic" traits, tightly regulated food and sleep, and rules requiring members to stand constantly [source: WRSP; CBS Colorado]. Followers gave up savings; income came from donations, products and paid surgeries [source: Business Insider; WRSP]. Complaints about coercion and finances were reported by families and involved the Saguache County Sheriff's Office and Crestone's town clerk [source: WRSP]. Some former members alleged abuse and exploitation; others disputed those accounts [source: Business Insider].
  • Documentaries. A Vice documentary (2021) and the HBO docuseries "Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God" (2023, directed by Hannah Olson) covered the group [source: WRSP; Business Insider].

How it caused harm

  • Physical harm through substitution and ingestion. Colloidal silver has no known benefit when taken by mouth; it can cause argyria (bluish-grey skin discolouration that is usually permanent), can reduce absorption of some antibiotics and thyroxine, and has some evidence of kidney, liver or nervous system problems [source: NCCIH]. Within a belief system that rejected medicine, it could replace care for real illness [synthesis].
  • Untreated eating disorder and alcohol misuse. Anorexia and alcohol abuse were recorded causes of death [source: Rolling Stone; CBS Colorado]. Group doctrine that treated food and sleep as obstacles, and the reinterpretation of decline as spiritual work, could delay recognition and treatment [synthesis, from WRSP's account of doctrine].
  • Refusal of hospital care. A member's statement that they refused hospital trips [source: WRSP] shows how loyalty and doctrine can override medical help for a person in visible decline [synthesis].
  • Psychological harm to members. Reported harms include sleep restriction, public shaming, loss of name and identity, financial loss and estrangement from families [source: WRSP; CBS Colorado; Business Insider]. Likely sequelae (shame, trauma symptoms, complicated grief, loss of community) are clinical inference [synthesis].
  • Harm to children. Children lived in or visited group households; child abuse charges were filed and later dropped [source: Denver Gazette; CBS Colorado]. Exposure to a death, to remains and to fear-based narratives is a safeguarding concern [synthesis].
  • Harm through narratives. Holocaust denial, hoax claims about mass shootings and QAnon elements spread through the group's channels [source: WRSP; Westword], harming others and deepening members' isolation [synthesis].
  • Who was most at risk [synthesis]: the leader herself (a person with anorexia and alcohol misuse surrounded by people committed to refusing care); children; isolated seekers giving up savings and housing; people with illness who bought remedies or surgeries instead of care; online followers under fear-driven content.

Recognising it today

  • Successor groups. 5D Full Disclosure continues etheric surgeries, a "Crystal Schools" programme, livestreams and merchandise, and Joy Rains offers paid healing sessions [source: WRSP; Business Insider].
  • Phrases and rationales: "Mother God", "Father God", "5D", "ascension", "Galactics", "the Cabal", "egonic", "low vibration", "out of communication" (for a person who has died) [source: WRSP; Rolling Stone; Business Insider].
  • Practices: paid remote or in-person "surgeries" for physical illness; colloidal silver or similar products promoted for illness or pandemics; renaming; public rebuke; restriction of food and sleep; giving up savings; a leader's visible illness described as spiritual labour [source: WRSP; Westword; CBS Colorado].
  • Escalation signs [synthesis]: a leader's health crisis that the group refuses to treat; refusal of hospital care; apocalyptic or ascension urgency; isolation from families; relocations under pressure; secrecy after a death.
  • Red flags in a colleague's or service's practice [synthesis]: offering energy or etheric "surgery" for medical conditions; selling products to clients; discouraging medical care; spiritual diagnosis of clients; asking clients for donations.
  • How legitimate spiritual communities differ [synthesis]: they encourage medical care, allow members to leave freely, keep finances transparent, and do not regulate sleep and food as a test of faith.

What to do instead and how to help those harmed

  • Safer alternatives: medical assessment and treatment for physical illness; eating-disorder assessment and treatment (National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline (866) 662-1235, weekdays 9am–7pm ET, not a crisis line) [source: National Alliance for Eating Disorders]; physician-led care for alcohol misuse; spiritual seeking within communities that support medical care [synthesis].
  • Assessment of affected clients: B3 differential assessment; B4 medical and product screen (no advice on medicines or products; physician and poison-control routing); B5 suicide risk with safe messaging and 988 in the US [source: Action Alliance]; CFI with the Religion and Spirituality module [source: APA CFI].
  • Treatment considerations [synthesis]: stabilisation before trauma work; coercive-control mapping (B6); financial recovery (B7); identity and religious trauma work (B9); grief and ambiguous loss (B10); family work (B11); managing media exposure (B14).
  • Bereaved relatives and former members: acknowledge the grief and public scrutiny; avoid sensational detail; discuss deaths factually with routes to help [source: Action Alliance; synthesis].
  • Ethical, reporting and legal duties [synthesis]: mandatory reporting where a child is at risk; adult-protection or emergency services for a medically endangered adult under local law; documentation; confidentiality and its limits explained at the start; no naming of members, victims or minors in reports beyond what the law requires; police or legal advice for families where a crime is suspected.

Sources

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