Skeptical AV Club: Lost Resort (American Reality Series, 2020)

Bronwyn Rideout - 2 September 2024

A couple of years ago, the YouTube algorithm recommended to me a video titled This Reality Show is a Cult by the channel We’re In Hell. I didn’t know what to expect, but at the end of the video’s 1 hour and 19-minute runtime, I never wanted to watch a reality show more in my entire life!

You can watch the first episode here:

While the We’re In Hell video is spot-on about the series, this YouTuber has since been accused of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend. The video can be found here if you wish to watch it:

The show’s premise is that eight people spend three weeks at a Costa Rican resort, seeking healing and resolution to several minor and major problems. From a cached version of the original TBS website:

Greg Haywood – A gay restauranteur with a failing business. Greg was on the show to deal with his anger issues and his lack of direction following the closure of his restaurant
Becca Ehrlich – A Lutheran pastor who was disconnected spiritually after the death of her son in childbirth and being diagnosed with a chronic illness that impacts her ability to have biological children. Her faith was at its lowest, and she hoped that the retreat would help her let go of her grief.
Meco Velez – An LA-based model, performer, and mass shooting survivor. Meco was described as having abandonment issues.
Claudia Lorant – A multiple-divorcee with betrayal and trust issues who wanted to learn her self-worth and start running towards quality men rather than running away.
Vairrun Strickland – A Firefighter who compartmentalises his emotions due to his work but struggled to emotionally reconnect and wishes to settle down and start a family.
Thea Francesconi – A dance teacher whose byline was low self-worth but is actually dealing with childhood trauma courtesy of her abusive father, who later committed suicide. At the time of filming, Thea was trying to make her marriage work, but her husband, Brandon, was unable to join Thea until the final episodes of the show just when she decided to end her marriage.
Robin Covington (mother) and Christine Reddy (daughter) - Described as a co-dependent mother-daughter relationship, the issues are far deeper. Robin had a troubled and abusive childhood as well as a traumatic divorce during Christine’s senior year of high school. Deciding to reclaim her youth, Robin would party instead of being a parent. Christine not only had to adjust to a sudden change in lifestyle, she also became caretaker to her mother and her younger siblings. Christine cut Robin out of her life when Robin started dating and choosing men over her children. Christine was not on speaking terms until a year before the show, and the relationship remained brittle.

As the show progresses, it is slowly revealed that there is significant trauma or tragedy that underpins some of their various sorrows.

During childhood, Greg’s younger brother was murdered by their babysitter. In the years following, Greg struggled with his parents’ failure to love him as the child who was still living.
Meco Velez was abandoned by some garbage cans as a child, and spent time in the foster care system. She is guarded for most of the series, save for her camaraderie with Becca and Christine. She declines to participate in many of the activities, but it is hard to gauge whether she’s a skeptic or if it’s due to her hot/cold relationship with Vairrun.
Claudia was molested by her father. Her mother didn’t believe/support her, and the animosity between them only deepened when Claudia received a sizable inheritance when her father died.
The abuse Robin experienced was so horrific that it couldn’t be shared on air. Which is saying something on a show that includes molestation, infanticide, child abandonment, etc.

Fortunately, the healing they received came from a skilled and sensitive team of skilled psychologists and trauma counsellors.

Yeah… Nah.

What they do get, if the editing is anything to believe, is a hodge podge of culturally appropriated new-age healing “rituals”. This grab-bag of screaming, dancing, sweating, and vomiting (for real, you’ve been warned) is intercut with the occasional one-on-one crying session with the retreat leader, an Australian woman named Chrissie “Fire Mane” Charley:

Chrissie is a character all on her own, which I guess one has to be when you promise to set 8 people on the path of healing.

In her own words, Chrissie was named a chaqaruna, or bridge-person, by the Q’ero community in Peru, and claims to have a background in shamanic psychotherapy and Andean spiritual traditions. Her father is/was a big deal in Australian horse racing, having been the Chairman of the Australian Jockey Club, then the inaugural Chairman of the Thoroughbred Racing Commission while simultaneously being the Chairman of the Asian Racing Commission. Chrissie is also the founder of the MANA movement, which offers courses, retreats, and other events that aspire to help humanity evolve into…

“…a species that is living a heart-led existence and that is developing maturely on a soul level. MANA coursework focuses on the individual and their connection to Self, Community, to Nature and to Spirit to live a heart-led existence. We aim to bring the gift of these teachings to more and more people, to cultivate a humanity free of the limitations to spiritual wellbeing and advancement.”

Which is the standard call of many new age groups.

When it comes to the words of others, in particular this Reddit post, Christina is an anti-vax, January 6th insurrection supporter who appropriates multiple cultures and runs MANA Movement like a cult and/or an MLM. Of course, she responded to aspersions cast upon the MANA Movement in a calm and clear-headed manner; members of the MANA Movement responded with equal levels of disdain when the same comments were made in a different Reddit post three years ago. However, outside of some concerning claims of children being given ayahuasca, and second-hand stories from concerned friends and family members, there are nil first-hand accounts from ex-members.

While the series was released in July 2020, the series was filmed over a year prior, in the winter of 2019. So the Chrissie on screen is pre-covid and pre-Jan 6th insurrection; otherwise, the show might not have made it to air. That doesn’t mean that this show is lacking in egregious claims, pseudoscientific thinking, and emotional manipulation.

There are three, then four ‘healers’ joining Chrissie. Oneika Mays, Benjamin Miller, Atasiea, and, finally, Acqua Xena Heart. Mays and Miller have the least to do during the season. This is especially sad in the case of Mays, who, aside from being a Yoga, Reiki, and meditation teacher, was also the first mindfulness coach at Riker’s Island Correctional Facility; someone who might have had some very different perspectives from her fellow healers. Miller, on the other hand, is a holistic health coach who leads a couple of yoga sessions that are only seen in brief cutaways. Oneika is given her moment to shine in the last episode of the series when she ‘successfully’ connects with the notoriously guarded Meco, Miller’s main storyline relates to late-comer Acqua.

Since this show appeared on my radar early on in my ISTA/Highden journey, Acqua’s appearance as a sexual energy healer rang a few alarm bells. After some searching, I can confirm that Acqua was an ISTA graduate. However, there have been no further mentions of ISTA on Acqua’s social media accounts since 2016. She now presents as “Divine Feminine Codex Priestess of LEMURiA & Pleidian Star Systems. Sovereign New Earth Leader. Ma” More troubling than her ISTA association was her behaviour towards Becca and Ben on the show.

To be frank, Acqua did not make a good impression on Becca. While Acqua was speaking to the entire class about loving their bodies in episode four, that lecture fell flat for Becca because of what her caesarean scar meant and how her body fundamentally wasn’t functioning the way she wanted it to. In the following episode, Becca has a private reiki session with Acqua, which quickly goes South. While it seemed that Becca was making peace with not having biological children, Acqua claimed to have channelled some messages for Becca. Once Becca admitted that she had doubts about having a successful pregnancy and birth, Acqua twisted Becca’s words by saying that she didn’t have enough faith and needed to have faith in both god and her body to have the miracle of a baby. Then, the icing on this poisonous cake is that Acqua claimed to receive a message from Becca’s baby, which was for Becca to have faith. To Becca’s credit, she doesn’t let that go unchecked, and comments that con artist healers use lack of faith to avoid acknowledging that a miracle didn’t occur. Even better, the other healers and Chrissie also called Acqua out for crossing the line.

As for the healer Ben, what had been edited to look like a budding romance with ISTA healer Acqua quickly disintegrated. When Ben withdrew his interest in Acqua, he retreated to his bedroom while Acqua attempted to continue the conversation from the other side of the bedroom door. Again, editing may be at play here, but Acqua came off as predatory.

The final healer, Atasiea (aka Kenneth Ferguson), is an interesting character because, for the time he is given on screen, he does appear to have the wellbeing of the participants at heart. Atasiea practices ecstatic dance and Reiki. Initially, he comes across as the most ungrounded of the Lost: His name was given to him by his “guardian angel”, and his fears about Acqua’s inclusion are based on his belief that some dark people work with sexual energy and can cause harm. However, he is concerned about the safety and emotional wellbeing of the guests. Atasiea doesn’t hesitate to voice concerns to Chrissie when he sees participants struggling through some of her activities, or when the participants themselves say terrible things.

Atasiea admits that he hasn’t co-facilitated a retreat like this before, so it is easy to interpret his actions and gripes as part of a power struggle. Whether that was the case is moot, because Chrissie ended up demanding total loyalty and trust, and pretty much told him to put up or shut up. Of all the healers I was the most curious about what happened to Atasiea after Lost Resort, and it appears he has connected with another New Age project TV show called The Ascension Keys. He’s featured in at least two episodes, and spoke about the work of American prophet Elizabeth Clare Prophet and the ascended masters.

However, Atasiea’s voice of reason is not heard that often, and no one, aside from Becca, calls out the healers or questions their rituals. The show isn’t good by any means, not even in the ‘so bad, it’s good’ kind of way. As a skeptic, it’s pretty hard to watch ordinary people look up to other ordinary people as having special skills or insight, when what actually happened was that someone was pushed past their reasonable emotional and physical boundaries and broke down crying.

In the show’s favour is that the relationships between the guests felt authentic, as a group that must relive their deepest traumas in front of strangers they need to room share with. They don’t necessarily come to love each other, or gush that they found a new family, but some temporary friendships are formed between Meco and Becca, as well as Thea and Christine. Also clearly telegraphed is how Vairrun and Meco, the only two black attendees, are discerning about how they engage with the healers and their rituals; they don’t have the same level of freedom to be expressive of their anger or sexuality as the white guests. It would have been interesting to see if a deeper discussion about that was ever considered by the guests, or the team of healers.

I wouldn’t say that this show is worth a watch. But I won’t deny that I now have a folder about the MANA Movement open on my Google Drive, and have started combing the internet for anything I can get on Chrissie Fire Mane and her alleged cult/MLM.