ELIAS CLURE, REPORTER: Melbourne’s media has descended on the small central Victorian town of Clunes for the second time this month.
REPORTER: Detectives are trying to piece together exactly what happened here.
ELIAS CLURE: Locals were still coming to terms with the alleged murder of 23-year-old Hannah McGuire when they learned a Melbourne woman had died inside this quaint looking gift shop – The Soul Barn
CLUNES RESIDENT: I think everyone is shattered actually.
SANDRA NICHOLS, CLUNES RESIDENT: I can really say the whole town is grieving.
ELIAS CLURE: It was earlier this month when Rachel Dixon -a 53-year-old health professional from Melbourne’s eastern suburbs made the two-hour drive to Clunes north of Ballarat to attend Soul Barn’s Creative Wellness Centre.
First responders who attended the scene say by about midnight she was dead.
(Video from Soul Barn)
ELIAS CLURE: Soul Barn is run by Michelle Mullins who runs sound healing sessions.
The space is also hired out to tarot card readers, alternative medicine and healing practitioners and beauty and massage therapists.
Sandra Nichols is a friend of Michelle Mullins.
SANDRA NICHOLS: I love the Soul Barn. It’s a beautiful space. You can go there to buy crystals, beautiful soaps, all sorts of interesting things.
I know that she runs a yoga class, sound healing as well as some spiritual people that come in.
ELIAS CLURE: Sandra Nichols hopes to hold her own seminar here which is called Overcoming Eco Anxiety.
SANDRA NICHOLS: She leases out the back part of the building to various workshop practitioners and she’s very popular in town.
ELIAS CLURE: The details of the event attended by Rachael Dixon remains a mystery but 7.30 has been told by a first responder who is a local here that he was alerted to the incident via an app and when he arrived, he performed CPR on Rachael Dixon and tried desperately to save her but she tragically died shortly after the ambulance arrived.
Two other people were taken to hospital under observation but were released shortly afterwards.
Further requests by 7.30 for details about the event have gone unanswered by Michelle Mullins who denies she was at this venue when Rachel Dixon died.
In a statement on social media Michelle Mullins described her deep sorrow and shock at the tragic incident.
The owner also said the event attended by the Rachael Dixon was a private event and those facilitating it do not work for or represent Soul Barn in any way.
Police are investigating whether Rachael Dixon’s death came after ingesting a drink made with mushrooms and have not ruled out them being toxic or psychedelic.
You have never heard of people doing any sort of illicit activity inside?
SANDRA NICHOLS: Absolutely not, no, Michelle wouldn’t tolerate that, absolutely not.
ELIAS CLURE: The death of the 53-year-old from Ringwood North has thrust alternative medicine and therapies into the spotlight.
REPORTER (2021): We know that Jarrod Antonovich had used kambo. He had also used another substance with its origins in these shamanic rituals.
ELIAS CLURE: In 2021, a Melbourne man died in Byron Bay after taking part in a six-day psychedelics ceremony. A coroner is now investigating.
The inquest comes after the New South Wales coroner found earlier this year a 39-year-old woman from Mullumbimby died of a heart attack after taking psychedelics.
JON WARDLE, CENTRE FOR NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE: I think these things are becoming more popular and more mainstream with people because traditionally, you know, they may have fallen in the recreational drug category, and people may have thought of these as fringe therapies or not necessarily available or not necessarily for them.
ELIAS CLURE: Professor Jon Wardle has been practising as a naturopath for three decades. He’s observed a growing number of Australians seeking out illegal psychedelics, prescribed or recommended by unregistered practitioners.
JON WARDLE: It has increased considerably over the last decade. So, you know, previously, you know, even 10 years ago, you might have seen that, you know, one in 10 people were using psychedelics as a largely recreational tool, then, but now it’s closer to a quarter to a third of the population in Australia have had, you know, at least one experience, and that’s actually growing year on year.
ELIAS CLURE: Illegal use of psychedelics is shrouded in secrecy, but 40-year-old mum of two Emily Culican is willing to discuss her foray into the world of mind-altering substances.
EMILY CULICAN: You kind of need to have these controlled parameters.
ELIAS CLURE: About three years ago, a naturopath recommended she try psychedelics to treat her depression.
EMILY CULICAN: Initially, it was a naturopath that had mentioned kambo.
ELIAS CLURE: Kambo, is the dried skin secretions of a giant South American frog which is absorbed by the skin.
EMILY CULICAN: And I was like, this sounds really interesting. and I looked into that and started using that and the impact on my health and my mental health, for about 30 days afterwards, was pretty amazing.
ELIAS CLURE: Emily’s curiosity led her to try ayahuasca – an extremely powerful plant-based psychedelic, magic mushrooms and bufo which is the venom of a toad.
What does it look like?
EMILY CULICAN: It really depends on the medicine. Like sitting in a circle around a fire, ayahuasca but for other medicines, it might be that you’re on your own, away from the group and that you have a facilitator coming around to be with you during that process.
JON WARDLE: We need to make sure that people offering these experiences and journeys actually have some form of health training so that they can actually identify, you know, when symptoms do become serious, and actually take appropriate action when that, when that occurs.
ELIAS CLURE: You said you’ve had a lot of positive experiences. Any really negative ones where you’ve thought, geez, I’m not doing that again?
EMILY CULICAN: Yes, but it’s all it’s been after the fact. It’s been in the, in the integration where I’m like, oh, this is just bought up all of this horrible stuff for me, what have I done?
Now in the process of bearing that and processing it, I’ve come out the other side and been like, ah, okay. Yeah, I’ve gained so much and so much wisdom.
ELIAS CLURE: Australia’s medical regulator does not register naturopaths as medical practitioners and ayahuasca, kambo and other South American psychedelics are not TGA approved and are illegal.
JON WARDLE: We really need to take the potential of psychedelics as a therapy seriously, but we do need to make sure that the adequate protections, regulations, and safety nets are actually there for people using them.
ELIAS CLURE: Back in Clunes, locals are still coming to terms with the tragedy and police are hoping a toxicology report, due to be completed in about a month will shed some light on what killed Rachael Dixon.
SANDRA NICHOLS: It’s quite devastating for a lot of us in Clunes that this terrible tragedy has happened.
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