In part three of this five-part W5 investigation: “Fake Filtered Cult Leader,” CTV News’ investigative unit examines a self-described spiritual teacher whose online presence helped attract followers around the world. Drawing on interviews and extensive reporting, W5 explores concerns raised by former members and the questions surrounding the organization behind the carefully curated public image.
When Riley Lawson saw the Instagram message, she sat on the floor and cried. She knew her life would never be the same.
Riley is from Saskatchewan and was an online “student” of a Hawaii-based self-styled spiritual teacher who went by the name of Liana Shanti. She had just completed an online meditation guided by Shanti’s recorded voice with a hypnotic drone-like soundtrack. The meditation was titled, Journey to the Chamber of Wounds.
“It was meant to be a meditation that allows you to uncover wounds that you’ve experienced in your life. Anything -- from somebody just making fun of you on the playground, to abuse,” she says to W5 in an interview at her home in Saskatchewan. “We were encouraged to [listen] several times a week.”
In a trance-like state, Riley says a horrifying thought occurred to her. Could her father have sexually assaulted her when she was a little girl? It was not something that she had ever thought of before.
She immediately messaged Liana Shanti on Instagram.
“I think I saw my dad molest me as a kid. Is that what I saw?” she recalls.
W5 has seen the screenshot of the exchange with Shanti.
Liana Shanti wrote, “Yes, I’m so sorry. He did.”
The ‘psychic’ confirmations of abuse
The reason Riley Lawson believed that Liana Shanti could confirm such a thing is because Shanti claimed to have a supernatural power that many of her students passionately believed.
“She claimed to be psychic,” says Riley. “She spoke about her spiritual abilities and how she was privy to information that not every normal person has.”
The fallout was catastrophic. Riley told her mother, who believed her, and it led to her parents divorcing. Both she and her mother temporarily cut him out of their lives. Riley says “he was broken” and was forced to move into a basement apartment.
Riley now says she knows that memory was false. Her father did not abuse her as a child.
Riley says she and many students felt pressure to find and publicly reveal traumatic events of abuse and when they did, they were celebrated.
“If I get there and uncover this, then this magic will happen in my life. And I wanted the magic so bad that I created the memory to get there. I think that’s what happened,” she says.
A ‘sick and twisted’ agenda
Riley Lawson was not the only follower for whom Shanti falsely-confirmed sexual abuse. Amanda Brady, also from Saskatchewan, was a committed Liana Shanti follower for eight years and says she witnessed Shanti confirm sexual abuse many times.
“The amount of screenshots that we have of her telling people that they were abused is astounding,” she says.
W5 has reviewed several screenshots of those false confirmations of abuse. One follower told Shanti she had a “gut feeling” that she was sexually abused and asked if it was her grandfather or her father.
Shanti responded, “I see your father.”
Another follower asked Shanti if a cousin who used to babysit her sexually abused her. Shanti wrote, “Yes, a molestation that occurred that you can now clear.”
Amanda Brady says Shanti offered to “clear” or free followers from past traumas or negative energy. She would charge a fee for those sessions.
“She told me once that my grandfather on my mom’s side sexually abused me when I was young and I didn’t believe her,” she says. “I knew in my heart that that was not true.”
Amanda says she believes Shanti did it for a purpose.
“I believe that she has her own very sick and twisted agenda and it’s part of her isolation tactics. Because you need to cut off contact with those people,” she says.
A disturbing pattern emerges
Cult expert and host of the podcast The Cult Vault Kacey Baker says a vast number of former followers tell similar stories of Shanti confirming sexual abuse. Baker has interviewed more than 30 former Shanti followers, their families and other cult experts.
“What former members have described is a pattern that feels unbelievable,” she says from her home studio in Liverpool, England. “Multiple reports…of women experiencing the same type of abuse at the same point in their childhood and all of these repressed memories seem to be coming up after sessions…or affirmations from Liana Shanti.”
But Kacey Baker says that psychic reputation held power and Shanti herself didn’t need to do anything to reinforce it.
“If you are a new member within the community, you might have a whole host of people come to you and say, ‘She is psychic, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen her do things, I’ve seen her predict things,’” she says. “That social proofing along with confirmation bias is almost like a perfect storm for people to believe everything that she says.”
Even fabricated allegations confirmed
Baker says some claim to have baited Shanti to see if she would confirm something they know didn’t happen.
“Former followers have gone to Liana Shanti saying, ‘Did my uncle do this to me?’ knowing that that’s not true because they didn’t live in proximity to that uncle. And she has come back and said, ‘Yes, it happened at this age in this way.’”
Kacey Baker has produced an 11-part podcast on Liana Shanti, called The Instascammer.
Liana Shanti refused requests from W5 for an interview. In emails, she wrote that she is on a campaign to advocate for people who have been abused and to publicly reveal the alleged abusers.
“The actual story is how violent abusers and pedophiles weaponize the family court system, coercive control, and the extreme lengths they go to silence a woman with the courage to expose them because I couldn’t be gagged,” she wrote in an email to W5.
In August, Liana Shanti, whose real name is Liane Wilson, sued three Canadians for defamation in a Honolulu court. She alleged they called her a cult leader and a “fake, con artist master manipulator.” The Canadian defendants counter-sued, saying Shanti called them child abusers, pedophile supporters and Satanists. A jury rejected Shanti’s claim and awarded the Canadians C$56 million.
W5 has verified numerous Instagram and Facebook posts where Shanti claims to be psychic.
When questioned in court, she testified: “I don’t use the word ‘psychic.’”
Riley Lawson, who falsely accused her father of sexual abuse, is trying to repair the damage done. When she asked for his forgiveness, he gave it immediately.
“I said there’s nothing to forgive – you’re my daughter. I knew that she was in trouble,” he says outside his Regina basement apartment. “I can tell from the look in her eyes that she is back on track. So that makes me very happy.”
Watch the one-hour special presentation of W5’s Avery Haines Investigates Saturday at 7 p.m. ET live on W5’s official YouTube channel and on CTV and Crave
