A sexual abuse survivor who was groomed and sexually touched by a new-age breathworker purporting to “heal” her has shared how she was pressured and bullied into retracting parts of her story to save a business’s reputation.
She was told by the owner of breathwork training company Breathless that her choice to detail her experience to the Herald, including suffering suicidal ideation on a retreat, “looked terrible” on her, that it would ruin people’s lives and hurt the wider psychedelic therapy field.
Deborah Sarah has spoken out about her harrowing experiences.Credit: Louise Kennerley
It comes as Breathless has vowed to undergo a quality review and strengthen its protocols following the report in this masthead, and two more women have spoken out about their uncomfortable experiences.
Breathwork combines conscious breathing with mindfulness to promote emotional and physical wellbeing, but it’s not a regulated profession, and practitioners can be registered or unregistered.
The Herald revealed Deborah Sarah was sexually abused by William Solis, a self-described body psychotherapist whom she met at a retreat run by Breathless in late 2022.
Solis used convoluted spiritual language to suggest he could help her. Eventually, he sexually touched her without consent under the guise of “healing” her trauma from a childhood sexual assault. He was convicted of sexual touching and supplying drugs and was sentenced to a two-year community correction order.
Breathless owner Johannes Egberts fired Solis upon becoming aware of his crime and is not accused of any wrongdoing.
However, the Herald put detailed questions to him before Friday’s publication about how Solis was allowed on a Breathless retreat after he was convicted of a sexual offence and also regarding Breathless’ alleged unsafe practices.
Sarah had described becoming suicidal on a Breathless retreat after being given magic mushrooms, or psilocybin, and doing hours-long healing ceremonies in the blistering heat.
While Egberts declined to comment, the Herald can reveal he repeatedly texted Sarah warning that “the course of action” she had taken would ruin his life and business, as well as harm the wider breathwork and psychedelic therapy field.
“There are literally hundreds of people who have volunteered hundreds of hours into our research in the past two years, and it is about to be made completely useless by this action if you proceed,” he wrote in one of several lengthy messages, which stated he had always supported her.
Johannes Egberts runs company Breathless.
Despite Sarah telling Egberts she was having a panic attack, could not talk and felt he was forgetting she was the victim, he continued to pressure her to retract her story.
When Sarah said she did not want to be bullied anymore, Egberts questioned her about her comments regarding suicidality on his retreat.
“Where does the part about suicidal ideation come from then?” he asked, adding, “Deb that also looks terrible on you … not for the story, but for the future”.
She told him she would retract her statements about her retreat experience. However, once she processed his behaviour, she realised withholding parts of her story to protect a business would be succumbing to bullying and harassment.
“I felt he was using his power to manipulate me into thinking I am to blame for anything bad that might happen to anyone else for sharing my truth about how I was treated,” she said.
Since publishing Friday’s story, two more women have come forward to share their stories of feeling unsafe around Solis or on a Breathless retreat.
One woman shared her uncomfortable experience with Solis and asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. She said Solis charged her $200 for a breathwork session and tried to convince her she had been sexually abused as a child.
William SolisCredit: Instagram
“This [the abuse] never happened,” she said.
“At one point, he made me sit across from him holding my hands and [was] staring into my eyes, and I got really uncomfortable and moved away. He looked visibly shocked.”
Another woman, who chose to be anonymous due to being afraid of being contacted by others in Breathless, said mushrooms were provided on a Breathless master instructors retreat in late 2022. She said doses were not calculated properly, and no mental health professionals were there to supervise.
When one man did not respond well and walked into the bush while crying and yelling, the woman said Egberts told her to follow him to help him because she had a good relationship with him.
“I was not in any way qualified to deal with that situation, so I said ‘No’,” she said.
When contacted by the Herald, Egberts said that, in hindsight, he should not have contacted Sarah.
“I’m deeply sorry that by doing so it may have caused her further pain in an already difficult situation,” he said. “I regret making the contact, am genuinely sorry and have apologised to Deborah.”
Egberts did not comment on the inappropriateness of what he actually said to Sarah.
The Herald has seen an email Egberts sent to the Breathless community following Friday’s article in which he said he was aware of allegations raised by the media and was taking them seriously. He added that Breathless would undergo a quality review and strengthen training, research and protocols.
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