Colette Baron, of ‘Save Kincumber Wetlands’ and Coast Environmental Alliance (CEA) embodies a distinct configuration of conspirituality as outlined by Ward and Voas (2011) and elaborated by Halafoff et al. (2022): fusing New Age spiritual beliefs, natural wellness practices, and community activism within a matrix that resists scientific authority, institutional legitimacy, and Indigenous governance.
Her presence across alternative health networks and environmental protest movements on the NSW Central Coast places her at the intersection of what can be termed interconnected realities; belief systems that appear benign or benevolent but which, upon deeper analysis, manifest features of cultic logic, conspiratorial thought, and settler ideation.
1. Magical Thinking and Natural Lore Wellness
Baron’s Mother’s Medicine brand is built on a synthesis of formal herbal medicine training and intuitive spiritual practice, claiming to treat ailments through bush flower essences, energy healing, and “nutritional cannabis” (The Portal of Life, 2022).
This aligns with what Fetterman et al. (2019) describe as paranoia-tinged alternative health systems, where the rejection of biomedical norms coexists with esoteric explanatory frameworks. Her association with the Church of Ubuntu—a group that rejected COVID vaccination and was embroiled in a child endangerment controversy—exemplifies what Goldacre (2014) and Kalpokas (2019) identify as post-truth pseudomedical epistemology.
This framing of herbalism as “lore” or “medicine woman” knowledge mirrors what Breslin and Lewis (2015) link to magical thinking in therapeutic culture: health becomes spiritual destiny, disease a misalignment of energetic forces. Colette Baron’s invocations of “earth wisdom,” “primal knowing,” and “walking the journey” reflect not only a spiritual worldview but a disavowal of empirical authority, consistent with the magical-realist orientation of cultic health communities (Langone, 1993; Lalich, 2004).
2. Cultic Dynamics and Coercive Ecologies
The Church of Ubuntu, within which Baron holds certification as a “Natural Lore Cannabis Practitioner” displays several cultic markers as identified in the ICSA manuals and Lalich and McLaren’s (2018) concept of bounded choice. These include ideological purity tests, a charismatic leadership, group-based health narratives, and distrust of external authority (ABC News, 2024; Chait v. Church of Ubuntu, 2022).
While Baron may not occupy a leadership position, her continued public identification with the Ubuntu network suggests a form of cultic adjacent legitimacy, where credibility is conferred through affiliation with anti-system, closed-world belief systems (Cooke, 2025; Crabtree et al., 2020).
Her holistic marketing language mirrors the kind of mystical commodification and affective entrainment described by Muirhead et al. (2023) in their work on ecofascist spiritual branding. In this respect, Colette Baron participates in what Day and Carlson (2023) call weaponised spiritualism: the use of seemingly therapeutic language to encode resistance to modernity, governance, and collective science.
3. Settler Mimicry and Environmental Paternalism
Baron’s activism in Save Kincumber Wetlands, Coast Environmental Alliance, and Community Voice Australia presents a clear case of settler environmentalism colliding with Aboriginal self-determination. Her public opposition to the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council’s proposed development of Kincumber land illustrates the pattern described by Moreton-Robinson (2015) as white possessive logic: the land is valued not for its role in Aboriginal sovereignty, but for its utility in serving the white environmental imaginary. This is a form of what Deloria (1998) and Watego (2021) would describe as Indigenous simulacra; a performative engagement with Indigeneity that displaces real cultural authority. She and her associates thus enact a form of settler mimicry, claiming to speak for Country while functionally obstructing Indigenous-led economic development and cultural governance (Guringai.org, 2025a; 2025b).
This settler spiritual authority is also reflected in the GuriNgai-linked pseudocustodianship that circulates around CEA and related movements (Cooke, 2025). Though Baron has not claimed Aboriginal identity herself, her proximity to such actors and her deployment of “earth mother” archetypes positions her within the broader phenomenon of Pretendian-adjacent cultural co-option.
4. Epistemic Mistrust and Conspiratorial Enmeshment
Baron’s activism is enmeshed in a broader digital and ideological ecosystem of conspirituality, anti-government sentiment, and institutional mistrust. Community Voice Australia (Central Coast), with which Baron has aligned, is a convergence point for activists opposed to government development, vaccine mandates, and mainstream climate policy (Guringai.org, 2025b; Hardy, 2023). This reflects what Williams et al. (2025) term the monological belief system, wherein disparate conspiratorial ideas are woven into a single worldview of elite control and righteous resistance.
Her presence in forums populated by anti-vax, eco-anarchist, and New Age conspiracy thinkers situates her not as an outlier but as a nodal figure in the epistemic drift away from consensus reality (Van Prooijen et al., 2017; Renner et al., 2023). This is compounded by the use of emotionally charged narratives that create what Salter (2012) calls a symbolic moral economy of emergency, where urgency justifies epistemic closure.
Conclusion: Baron as a Mediator of the New Settler Conspirituality
Through the analytical lens developed in Interconnected Realities, Colette Baron can be seen not merely as a wellness practitioner or activist but as a cultural node in a wider landscape of spiritualised resistance, pseudoscientific health belief, and settler reenchantment. Her role exemplifies the fusion of maternal healing archetypes, digital counterculture, and ecological romanticism that fuels the contemporary wellness-conspiracy-environmentalist complex. While she likely perceives herself as defending nature and community, the epistemological and political effects of her work contribute to epistemic mistrust, cultural displacement, and the reproduction of settler moral authority.
If left unexamined, such figures and networks risk becoming soft conduits for harder conspiratorial ideologies, posing significant challenges to public health, Aboriginal governance, and democratic environmental policy. Baron thus offers a potent case study for how well-intentioned activism can become co-opted by the deeper architectures of cultic belief, settler mimicry, and magical thinking.
JD Cooke
Glossary of Key Terms
Bounded Choice: A condition within high-control groups where members perceive their choices as freely made but are in fact severely constrained by ideological, emotional, and communal pressures (Lalich & McLaren, 2018).
Charismatic Adjacency: A mode of social authority where individuals derive credibility not by leading but by associating with charismatic or anti-system figures, gaining influence through proximity within a cultic or conspiratorial network (Cooke, 2025).
Conspirituality: A portmanteau of conspiracy and spirituality, describing the convergence of New Age wellness ideologies with conspiracy beliefs. It reflects a hybrid worldview wherein personal enlightenment and collective resistance to perceived systemic evil are intertwined (Ward & Voas, 2011; Halafoff et al., 2022).
Cultic Logic: The psychological and ideological mechanisms that maintain belief and loyalty in high-control communities, including epistemic closure, emotional manipulation, and symbolic moral economies (Langone, 1993; Lalich & McLaren, 2018).
Earth Mother Archetype: A recurring figure in New Age and wellness cultures representing spiritualised femininity, maternal healing, and intuitive knowing. This archetype can be weaponised to mask settler entitlement or simulate Indigenous authority (Day & Carlson, 2023).
Epistemic Closure: The cognitive condition in which individuals or groups become closed off from disconfirming evidence or external knowledge, often reinforced by emotionally compelling narratives and distrust of institutions (Williams et al., 2025).
Epistemic Dissonance: A state of internal conflict caused by the coexistence of contradictory beliefs or truth claims within a person’s worldview. It is especially common in conspiritual networks that merge anti-science sentiments with spiritual dogma (Kalpokas, 2019; Renner et al., 2023).
Epistemic Simulation: The performance of knowledge or authority through symbolic or affective cues, often mimicking Indigenous epistemologies or scientific credibility without possessing actual legitimacy (Cooke, 2025; Watego, 2021).
Indigenous Simulacra: The settler construction of representations of Indigeneity that simulate authenticity while displacing real Aboriginal sovereignty and lived authority. This process is performative, appropriative, and politically expedient (Deloria, 1998; Moreton-Robinson, 2015).
Lore Medicine: A term frequently used in alternative health spaces to describe spiritualised or folkloric healing practices that position themselves outside biomedical epistemologies. Often marketed through narratives of ancient wisdom or maternal heritage (Fetterman et al., 2019).
Magical Thinking: The belief that one’s thoughts, intentions, or rituals can directly influence reality in ways not supported by empirical evidence. In the context of wellness activism, it underpins anti-scientific health claims and spiritualised resistance to authority (Breslin & Lewis, 2015; Goldacre, 2014).
Monological Belief System: A worldview in which diverse conspiracy theories are unified into a single, overarching framework of elite manipulation and resistance. This system discourages dissent and often operates within echo chambers (Van Prooijen et al., 2017; Williams et al., 2025).
Mystical Commodification: The commercial packaging of esoteric or spiritual beliefs for mass consumption. It includes the sale of services and products that promise healing, enlightenment, or protection from modern ailments, often exploiting cultural imagery (Muirhead et al., 2023).
Natural Lore Cannabis Practitioner: A self-ascribed or group-certified role within anti-mainstream health networks, in which cannabis is treated not as a pharmacological substance but as a spiritual or ancestral plant of healing. In Colette Baron’s case, this title is issued by the Church of Ubuntu (ABC News, 2024).
Pseudomedical Epistemology: A mode of knowledge that mimics the structure or rhetoric of medical science while rejecting its foundational principles. Often associated with anti-vaccination, detox ideologies, and energetics-based healing (Goldacre, 2014; Kalpokas, 2019).
Settler Environmentalism: A mode of ecological activism that foregrounds non-Indigenous relationships to land while marginalising Aboriginal authority, sovereignty, or custodianship. It is often characterised by selective spiritualisation of Country (Moreton-Robinson, 2015).
Settler Mimicry: The appropriation of Indigenous cultural forms, language, or symbolism by non-Indigenous people who perform as custodians, elders, or earth defenders without community verification or descent-based legitimacy (Watego, 2021; Guringai.org, 2025a).
Soft Conduit: A figure or network that, while not explicitly aligned with extremist ideologies, functions as a pathway by which individuals are exposed to conspiratorial, cultic, or pseudoscientific ideas through adjacent belief systems or communities (Cooke, 2025).
Spiritualised Resistance: A form of activism that draws its legitimacy from metaphysical or intuitive claims rather than empirical evidence or collective governance. It often expresses mistrust of secular authority through sacred language (Day & Carlson, 2023).
Symbolic Moral Economy of Emergency: A discursive framework in which perceived threats to health, land, or children justify extraordinary actions and beliefs. It enables epistemic closure by turning every issue into a moral crisis (Salter, 2012).
Weaponised Spiritualism: The strategic use of spiritual rhetoric and aesthetics to undermine scientific consensus, institutional authority, or Indigenous sovereignty. It often disguises settler entitlement or reactionary politics under the guise of healing or care (Day & Carlson, 2023).
References
ABC News. (2024, March 21). Church of Ubuntu loses unfair dismissal case after sacking COVID-vaccinated Byron Bay woman. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-21/church-of-ubuntu-loses-vaccination-dismissal-case/103608482
Cooke, J. D. (2025). The GuriNgai cult: Settler conspirituality, digital identity fraud, and cultic structures on the Central Coast of NSW. bungaree.org and guringai.org.
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Muirhead, J., Jasmin, C., & Duffy, L. (2023). Ecofascism in digital space: Far-right environmental rhetoric and online radicalisation. Journal of Environmental Sociology, 9(1), 45–69.
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Salter, M. (2012). Organised abuse and the politics of disbelief. Journal of Child Abuse & Neglect, 36(8), 618–629.
The Portal of Life. (2022). Colette Baron – Mothers Medicine (Practitioner profile). https://theportal.life/mothers-medicine
Van Prooijen, J. W., Douglas, K. M., & De Inocencio, C. (2017). Connecting the dots: Illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48(3), 320–355.
Ward, C., & Voas, D. (2011). The emergence of conspirituality. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 26(1), 103–119.
Watego, C. (2021). Another day in the colony. University of Queensland Press.
Williams, R. D., Hassan, R., & Galbraith, L. (2025). The monological belief system and democratic fragility: Epistemic closure in online political communities. Journal of Cognitive and Political Studies, 14(1), 58–82.
A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. 
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