Hannah Murray says a wellness cult she joined in her late 20s left her hospitalized for weeks under the Mental Health Act after a psychotic episode tied, she claims, to sessions led by an “energy healer” and the group’s head, Steve.
Hannah Murray didn’t describe her descent like a gradual fade. In her account, it arrived fast—after days of sleeplessness and a sense that something inside her had started speaking back.
The Game of Thrones star opened up in a late May interview with The Guardian about the time she spent in an unnamed wellness cult in her late 20s—an experience she says ultimately led to a serious psychotic episode and hospitalization in a mental health unit. Murray discusses those events in her new book, The Make-Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness.
She traces the beginning to the set of Detroit. the 2017 film she was shooting when she says she was left “trembling with adrenaline” and suffering from nightmares because of its “violent and dark” themes. It was on that set that she was introduced to an “energy healer. ” whom she calls Grace. by her personal trainer.
Murray says she paid Grace $150 for a “healing” session, then ended up taking multiple self-healing classes and courses connected to the cult Grace was involved with. Over time, she met the head of the organization, whom she refers to as Steve.
In describing her first interactions with Steve, Murray said, “He exuded power in a way I had never known anyone to exude it. Magical power … I knew I was in the presence of a magician.” She also recalled sensing a strange sexual energy in the group, while saying it never became physical.
Murray’s concern didn’t get a reassuring response when she shared it with one of the organization’s teachers. She says she told them the group resembled a “s** cult,” and the teacher replied, “That’s hilarious. No. [Steve is] just really good at breaking down your ego. and so a lot of sexual stuff might come up.”.
The most traumatic moment, Murray says, came during a five-day healing course at a London hotel. She described finding her sleepless self speaking “at a million miles a second” before hallucinating and hearing Steve’s voice in her head.
Murray says she then locked herself in a bathroom to manage the pain in her head. which she described as feeling like “giving birth through [her] skull.” From the other side of the bathroom door. she recalled teachers holding bronze tools and chanting. “Be gone. evil spirit in Hannah. ” while her distress escalated.
After help was called, Murray says multiple men in uniform pinned her to the ground and transported her to the Gordon Hospital in Bloomsbury, London. She was held for four weeks under the Mental Health Act, and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Looking back on the choices she now regrets. Murray said. “I had no idea I was going to go through any of the things in the book…. I was well educated, from a middle-class family; everything should have been fine… Well, I made terrible choices. But it’s important to understand why people do these things. rather than going. ‘Oh. they must be idiots.’ Or. ‘How stupid could you be?’”.
Hannah Murray Game of Thrones wellness cult mental health psychotic episode bipolar disorder The Make-Believe Grace Steve Detroit Gordon Hospital Bloomsbury Mental Health Act
That sounds terrifying but also like every cult story ever.
Wait so she was in a “wellness cult” because of an energy healer named Grace? Like didn’t she just stop after the first session lol.
I don’t buy the Detroit set thing. The movie being dark wouldn’t cause psychosis out of nowhere… more like she already had issues and then the group was just an excuse. Still, $150 for “healing” is gross.
Energy healing and then suddenly psychosis and weeks in the mental health unit?? I feel bad for her, but I also hate how people act like this is “magic” instead of actual mental health. Like if she was sleepless for days that’s already a huge warning sign. Also the Steve guy sounds like every mastermind in a documentary, like power + sexual energy in a room = nope.