Goop-affiliated holistic psychiatrist Kelly Brogan may have once had the public’s respect for her New York Times-bestselling book A Mind of Your Own. But after a full-blown COVID truther spiral in March, the once-credible doctor has been forced to fringe social media and messaging apps that have attracted the far right.
“The cool kids are heading to Telegram [nerd face emoji], currently the most secure and censorship-free communication app,” Brogan said via Instagram late last month, referring to the app that’s been popular among extreme right-wingers, including Laura Loomer and Milo Yiannopoulos.
The doctor, who gained professional respect for helping patients taper off psychiatric drugs and public renown as a holistic psychiatrist, has now completely doubled down on COVID denialism and rejection of the Western medical model, moving beyond even Goop-level fringe anti-vaxxer as America enters the third quarter in the pandemic.
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Though still currently licensed as an MD in the state of Florida, she has seemingly focused her efforts on spreading COVID-19 and Big Brother-style government conspiracies—which experts have said have no scientific basis—on social media and through her paid membership program, Vital Mind Reset.
Over the summer, Brogan merged the community forums of Vital Mind Reset with her alt-health guru husband Sayer Ji’s audience on the messaging app Telegram, which has been used by protesters, alt-right personalities, and terrorist recruiters alike. Ji started his Telegram channel in April “to ensure we have a free and open means of communicating as censorship and privacy violations ramp up around the world,” and has since amassed more than 27,500 followers on the platform.
Citing Facebook and Instagram’s censorship of her ideas after some of her posts violated the site’s content policies, Brogan has also migrated to MeWe, a less moderated social media platform that has become the refuge of MAGA supporters and white nationalists.
After she announced a formal Telegram move, just over 5,000 people have subscribed—a massive downsizing from the 121,000 Instagram followers she maintains. On the new page, Brogan regularly shares anti-mask mandate and COVID conspiracy memes mixed in with spiritual self-empowerment quotes.
One posts rails against “traumatizing children with masks.” Another slams “fear and blind obedience.”
On Nov. 24, she shared a misleading quote attributed to Kary Mullis, the inventor of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test who died last year, suggesting the tests don’t “tell you when you’re sick.” Public health experts say PCR tests are, in fact, highly reliable at detecting the virus.
“Covid-19 has never been isolated, identified, or demonstrated to cause any symptoms. Neither has any virus, ever. Germ theory is an instrument for bio political control,” a post by Brogan from last month reads.
She blames concerns over the coronavirus—which has killed nearly 250,000 Americans—on “fear-based propaganda.”
“[If] you believe a phantom shadow projection in the form of a ‘virus’ exists, you are vulnerable to all sorts of fear-based propaganda. If you have done the research, however, you are impervious to the manipulation. Look under the bed, there are no monsters there. I promise,” she assured her followers in a recent post.
Many of the posts link to her husband’s anti-vaxx website GreenMedInfo.com, while others direct followers to a site she started with Ji, questioningcovid.com, which claims masks are ineffective and accuses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of “data manipulation,” among many other debunked theories.
As of Oct. 25, Brogan also announced that she’d stopped using a smartphone. “Today, something shifted in me and I’m ready to take a next step in my soul’s reclamation journey,” Brogan’s unplugging post began. “[Y]ou see that what we barter in exchange for convenience apps, endless interpersonal accessibility and stimulation is, in fact, our vital force energy.”
This fall, Brogan went on YouTube with fellow COVID denialist doctor Thomas Cowan and paleo nutritionist Sally Fallon Morrell, who co-authored a book, The Contagion Myth, which rejects the germ theory of disease. The book, whose central premise Cowan explicitly says is that “no actual scientific evidence exists that any novel coronavirus exists,” was ultimately rejected from being sold on Amazon. It also continues to spread the 5G network conspiracy theory, which claims the new global wireless network is responsible for the pandemic.
Amazon confirmed the title was not for sale. “As a bookseller, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints,” a spokesperson said. “That said, we reserve the right not to sell certain content as described in our content guidelines for books.”
Since a Daily Beast report on Brogan’s COVID denialism earlier this year, Goop, which once listed Brogan as a site contributor, has distanced itself from the NYU-trained doctor, who began publicly denying the novel coronavirus’ existence in March. Brogan once attended Goop’s 2018 wellness summit, appealing to women with her 2016 book, A Mind of Your Own, which advocated for treating depression as a disease necessitating major lifestyle changes over psychotropic medication.
Unfortunately, the internet remembers everything. Although Paltrow’s Goop wellness brand may have scrubbed website articles by Brogan, a digital internet archive still shows that its website published two now-deleted Q&As featuring her advice.
In one deleted Goop post on managing painful emotions, she references parapsychology theorist Rupert Sheldrake’s widely discredited idea of morphic resonance, which suggests a telepathic connection exists across nature, to support her advice. In another on the root causes of mental illness, Brogan mixes more mainstream recommendations on nutrition and lifestyle with talk of electromagnetic detoxification and a barrage of medical tests that she purports can help in treating mood disorders.
Medium’s GEN publication has also reported on Brogan’s rise, arguing that it is part of a broader strain of virulent health libertarianism, with journalist Matthew Remski dubbing the movement “conspirituality” and tracing its links to QAnon and misinformation bombs like the discredited, documentary-style Plandemic video. Building off the anti-vaxx sphere’s emphasis on personal freedom, Brogan’s calls to action against the supposed dual tyrannies of conventional medicine and government health mandates use language that appeals to those desperately seeking answers.
“We are in the midst of a mass exercise in trauma-based mind control that has nothing to do with a virus,” Brogan wrote on Sept. 21. She then refers to the global coronavirus pandemic as a “psyop” intent on breaking down an individual’s “determination of their level of health and wellness.”
Brogan’s messaging also appropriates the language of feminist anti-rape culture in defying mask mandates. “My body, my choice,” one recent Instagram post reads. Building off every-person-for-themselves libertarian ideals, her messaging moves easily between the realms of spiritual self-help and government conspiracies about the pandemic.
In mid-October, Brogan and Ji held a Thank You Body Rally, a seemingly benign event that Brogan called a “mass remembrance and reclamation of what it means to be human” on Instagram. “We will grow the energetic field of inspiration that ultimately has the capacity to lead us to our most vital and beautiful unclaimed lives,” Brogan said.
Despite previously resonating with audiences in the millions through Goop and Joe Rogan’s podcast, which she appeared on in 2017, Brogan and her work may be now perpetually relegated to the fringe of both public and scientific discourse, even with a small base of online devotees. As major social media platforms finally attempt to tamp down on misinformation and more targeted, nefarious disinformation, it’s likely she may stay that way.
