Game of Thrones actor Hannah Murray says she suffered a catastrophic psychotic break after joining a wellness cult at age 27, describing how an “energy healer” introduced her and how the experience escalated to psychiatric care and a later bipolar diagnosis.
Hannah Murray says the moment she realized something had gone dangerously wrong didn’t start with a dramatic warning—it started with belief.
The Game of Thrones alum. 36. told The Guardian in an interview published on Saturday. May 23 that she suffered a catastrophic psychotic break after joining a wellness cult. She said it was “easy to go. ‘Well. that would never happen to me. ’” before adding that people underestimate what can happen to them.
Murray described joining at age 27 and said she didn’t expect it to lead to the kind of collapse she experienced. “I had no idea I was going togo through any of the things in the book. ” she said. explaining she would have assumed she couldn’t—because she believed she was safe. “I was well educated, from a middle-class family; everything should have been fine.”.
She continued with a blunt admission that the choices she made afterward didn’t match the confidence she had in herself. “I thought, ‘I’m smart. I make good choices.’ Well, I made terrible choices.”
In her telling, the harm wasn’t just the break itself—it was the way people can be dismissed afterward. Murray said it matters to understand why individuals get pulled in. “It’s important to understand why people do these things. rather than going. ‘Oh. they must be idiots.’ Or. ‘How stupid could you be?’”.
Murray declined to name the wellness cult, referring to it only as the “organization.” She said she was introduced to it through a so-called “energy healer” whom she met through her personal trailer on the set of Detroit.
She also described how the relationship between believers and leaders can be hard to step away from. The leader of the wellness cult. also not named. allegedly wrote a “symbolic necklace and carried a giant Starbucks cup” with him everywhere he went. Murray said she spent thousands of dollars to obtain “wisdom and specialness.”.
The consequences, however, were not symbolic. She said the psychotic episode became so intense that she was admitted to a psychiatric unit and later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
In the middle of her recovery, she turned her experience into a book. Murray documented what happened in her new memoir, The Make Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness.
Now, she says she stays away from the wellness industry entirely. “Even the tame stuff can feel quite distressing,” she explained. She said she doesn’t meditate anymore. wouldn’t go into a crystal shop. and doesn’t do yoga—adding that she doesn’t know “what might come up that might feel a bit too woo-woo for my personal threshold.”.
Murray also described how easily these practices can be treated like universal solutions. She said people she doesn’t know will offer them as remedies when she is struggling. “You’ll say. ‘I’m not really sleeping. ’ and they’ll say. ‘Have you tried meditation?’ It’s everywhere. seen as an inherently positive solution.”.
In her view, even versions that seem harmless can become dangerous when they promise a full fix—especially to someone vulnerable to the appeal of “a magic wand or silver bullet.” “But as someone looking for something to fix me entirely… the promise felt seductive and addictive,” she said.
The pattern she describes is stark: what begins as reassurance about safety can quickly become something far more severe—until the person left behind has to rebuild their life without the very things that once felt like answers.
Hannah Murray Game of Thrones Gilly wellness cult psychotic break bipolar disorder energy healer memoir The Make Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness Detroit