Hannah Murray began her acting career at 17 in the series ‘Skins’. She rose to fame shortly after thanks to ‘Game of Thrones’, where she played Gilly from 2012 to 2019. Her last role before turning her back on Hollywood was as a voice actress in ‘Shady Part of Me’ in 2020.
Hannah Murray’s career was skyrocketing after her role in ‘Game of Thrones,’ but for no apparent reason, she dropped everything. Now, in her memoir, she recounts how a wellness cult triggered a psychotic episode that required her to be hospitalized in a mental health facility.
Hannah Murray spoke about her experience in this cult in an interview with The Guardian ahead of the release of her memoir, ‘The Make-Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness’.
The actress criticizes the commodification of well-being. The moment it becomes an industry, its objectives are corrupted, ceasing to be merely self-care.
Murray also reflects on the profile of people who can be recruited by these types of cults. As she herself states in the interview, it can happen to anyone, so you shouldn’t let your guard down: “It’s easy to say, ‘Well, that would never happen to me,’ but we do ourselves a disservice when we start saying that, because you never know.”
She uses herself as an example: “I had a good education, I came from a middle-class family; everything should have turned out well. I thought: ‘I’m smart. I make good decisions.’ Well, I made terrible decisions,” she says in the interview.
Hannah Murray told The Guardian that she first came into contact with the sect through an energy therapist she had met on the set of her 2017 film ‘Detroit’, in which she played an 18-year-old who had been abused by the police.
The theme of ‘Detroit’ took a toll on the actress emotionally, so she sought the help of an energy therapist named Grace, whom she hired only for a ‘healing’ session, although after this first encounter with her, she would begin to meet other people.
The 36-year-old actress said there were times when Grace would do nonsensical things, such as talking about activating her “spiritual DNA” to bring light into her body. As much as she realized how pointless these statements were, she “chose to overlook, minimize, or ignore these little things.”
Later, Hannah Murray met another woman through Grace and from there moved on to another and another, immersing herself in a world of spiritual rituals in a sort of scam.
Eventually, Hannah Murray met the cult leader, a man she called Steve. “He exuded a power like I’d never seen in anyone,” she said.
The turning point came while attending a five-day course in London with other members of the sect. Murray began to hallucinate and had a painful psychotic episode in which she felt as if she were “giving birth through her skull.”
But instead of calling emergency services quickly, Hannay Murray recounts how the other members of the organization surrounded her and began chanting, “Get out, evil spirit of Hannah!”
She was eventually taken to Gordon Hospital in Bloomsbury, London, where she was admitted for 28 days under the Mental Health Act. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
She reflects on mental health, a topic that’s been discussed more frequently lately. But for the actress, whenever mental health is discussed, it’s usually anxiety and depression that are the focus, but there’s still “a huge taboo surrounding the idea of people being hospitalized by court order. They’re considered abnormal.”
Now, the former ‘Game of Thrones’ actress avoids anything related to wellness, such as meditation, yoga, and crystal healing.
Hannah Murray reflects on how nowadays these types of therapies (meditation, yoga…) are recommended to lead a calmer life, but they cannot be considered as “a magic wand or a miracle solution”, since that is when they can become toxic.
Murray has spent all these years after leaving Hollywood and the cult writing er memoirs, ‘The Make-Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness’, which will be published soon.
