Respected wellness guru Diane Mathews has been fined $3000 after admitting she supplied magic mushrooms to a healing event where a woman died.
Rachael Dixon, 53, passed away at a retreat at Soul Barn in Clunes, near Ballarat, on April 13 last year with the cause of her death remaining undetermined.
Mathews, an alternative therapies practitioner, had rented the space for the night with a number of guests paying $500 to attend and consume psilocybin — the active hallucinogenic found in magic mushrooms.
The Canada-born 54-year-old was charged with trafficking a drug of dependence in January this year and pleaded guilty to the charge in the Bacchus Marsh Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
Prosecutor Senior Constable Kerri Moloney told the court each participant consumed the mushroom tea consensually and with full knowledge of the effects.
Ms Dixon died while two others involved in the event were hospitalised.
An autopsy was unable to determine Ms Dixon’s cause of death and no charges have been laid relating to her death.
Her lawyer, Jon Ross, told the court the incident would continue to affect his client for the rest of her life.
“There’s no other way to describe this than a tragedy,” he said.
“It is important to note there is no evidence of a causal link between the event Ms Mathews hosted and the untimely passing of Ms Dixon.
“It was Ms Mathews who was with Ms Dixon, it was Ms Mathews who called triple-0 and it was Ms Mathews who provided CPR.”
He said his client had been practising alternative therapies such as reiki, sound healing, meditation and breath work for decades after seeing benefits in dealing with her own childhood trauma.
He said Mathews knew she “erred very badly” but highlighted that mushroom tea ceremonies was only a small and recent addition to her practice.
After Ms Dixon’s death she stopped offering the ceremony to participants.
While he accepted she received a financial benefit from the event, he said it had not made her “fabulously wealthy”.
Mr Ross took the court to a series of references from clients who described Ms Mathews in glowing terms — as a trusted, highly skilled and compassionate person working with trauma survivors.
“We’re dealing with someone who through the course of her practice has helped many many people,” he said.
Mr Ross claimed media reports of Ms Dixon’s death had an “intrusive extensive and prolonged” impact on his client.
Noting this was Mathews first contact with the law, co-operation with police and early plea of guilty, Magistrate Julia Barling said she would not record a conviction.
But she disagreed with Mr Ross submission that an adjourned undertaking to be of good behaviour was appropriate, instead fining her $3000.
“Regardless of any views you may hold about the benefits of taking specific substances … that is illegal and will not be tolerated by the community and will not be tolerated by the courts,” she said.
Mathews declined to comment as she left court into a waiting car.