Colette Baron, a prominent figure in Save Kincumber Wetlands and the Coast Environmental Alliance (CEA), exemplifies the fusion of New Age spirituality, conspiratorial belief systems, and settler environmentalism. Her public identity is shaped by a conspiritual worldview that merges intuitive healing, anti-government sentiment, and resistance to both scientific and Indigenous authority, aligning closely with the frameworks outlined by Ward and Voas (2011) and expanded by Halafoff et al. (2022).
Baron’s alternative health practice, Mother’s Medicine, draws on bush flower essences, cannabis therapies, and energy healing. It combines formal herbal training with spiritualist notions such as “earth wisdom” and “primal knowing,” rejecting empirical biomedical science. Her certification from the Church of Ubuntu, a fringe wellness group linked to anti-vaccine activism and child endangerment controversies, connects her to a post-truth pseudomedical network that privileges esoteric belief over scientific evidence (Goldacre, 2014; ABC News, 2024).
These practices reveal a cultic-adjacent logic, where authority is grounded in charisma, mystical appeal, and distrust of mainstream systems. Baron’s affiliation with Ubuntu suggests she participates in what Lalich and McLaren (2018) term “bounded choice”: a closed epistemic system resistant to external critique. Her spiritual language and branding also reflect patterns of mystical commodification found in other ecofascist or conspiratorial wellness circles (Muirhead et al., 2023; Cooke, 2025).
Baron’s activism further complicates her public profile, as she frequently invokes Aboriginal heritage to justify opposition to development projects led by legitimate Aboriginal bodies, particularly the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council. However, these invocations lack endorsement from cultural authorities and instead replicate what Moreton-Robinson (2015) describes as “white possessive logics,” where land is valued only through settler-defined ecological ideals. Her participation in such rhetoric constitutes a form of settler mimicry that undermines Aboriginal self-determination and governance (Watego, 2021; Deloria, 1998).
Though Baron has not claimed Aboriginal identity herself, she operates alongside individuals and groups associated with GuriNgai pseudocustodianship, placing her adjacent to a broader phenomenon of spiritualised settler simulation and the performance of Indigenous authority (Guringai.org, 2025a; Cooke, 2025). Her use of “earth mother” imagery and spiritual symbolism further embeds her within the settler reenchantment complex.
Finally, Baron is immersed in a broader conspiritual and anti-institutional ecosystem through her involvement with Community Voice Australia, an umbrella for vaccine sceptics, climate denialists, and anti-development activists. Her discourse reflects what Williams et al. (2025) call a “monological belief system”: a worldview that connects disparate conspiracies into a single moral framework of elite oppression and spiritual purity. These networks function as epistemic echo chambers, reinforcing belief through urgency, emotional narratives, and opposition to government and scientific authority (Van Prooijen et al., 2017; Salter, 2012).
Conclusion:
Baron functions as a conduit between wellness spirituality, environmental protest, and conspiratorial ideation. While she likely sees herself as a protector of community and Country, her practices reinforce epistemic mistrust and white spiritual authority while displacing genuine Aboriginal governance. Her case illustrates how activist wellness networks can evolve into soft-entry points for more radical ideological movements, ultimately contributing to cultural appropriation, policy obstruction, and democratic erosion.
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