Rebekah says the healer sexually abused her, coercing her into sexual acts.
“It’s disgusting,” she says. “Because he was a shaman, I thought he had moral superiority in a sense and I trusted him.”
After she was abused, Rebekah left the centre – and the country: “I booked a flight and got the hell out of there.”
She was left with a tangle of painful emotions: “Disgust, repulsion, betrayal – confusion, as well as to why a guide would do this, why a teacher would do this and why they would exploit their power like that.”
Rebekah’s alleged abuser is still the head shaman at his centre – which gets five-star ratings on review sites.
“He is still there,” Rebekah says, clearly deeply angered by the situation. Her hands are visibly shaking. “There are other centres that I know of as well that are still operating. There’ve been multiple women that have been sexually abused in these centres.”