Is Liana Shanti a Cult?

Is Liana Shanti a cult? Short answer: “cult” has no settled legal definition, so no court has ruled on whether Liana Shanti’s following is one, and this page does not claim one has. What the public record does show is a unanimous federal jury verdict against the lawsuit Liane Wilson — who operates online as “Liana Shanti” — and her company brought, a prior federal felony conviction, and years of reporting and former-member accounts describing behaviour that cult researchers classify as high-control. Below is what is documented, who has said what, and how experts define the term, so you can judge for yourself.

Last updated: October 31, 2026. The litigation is ongoing; see the Source Index for citations and our corrections policy.

Is Liana Shanti a cult? A scale of justice, documents and a magnifying glass illustrate the court record and expert opinion
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Why people are asking

Wilson is a Hawaii-based Instagram personality. On March 3, 2023, The Daily Beast published Jennings Brown’s investigation, The Mysterious ‘Sisterhood’ Tearing Families Apart, a report built on accounts from former followers and families. Brown followed with reports on Wilson being summoned to court and on a federal judge’s questioning of her in April 2023. The question has been asked in public ever since.

In 2022 her website described her as a “psychic, visionary, spiritual teacher” and said she had been “psychic since childhood” (archived June 27, 2022). The copy of that page archived on March 4, 2023, the day after the Daily Beast article, no longer uses the word “psychic,” although her home page still did in July 2023. In a sworn declaration, a former member says she was removed from the community in April 2025, along with other members, and that Wilson then posted hundreds of Instagram stories about them (ECF 84-2 ¶9).

By late 2025 she was promoting “The Relaxed Millionaire,” a business and mentorship brand, and a December 2025 press release called her a “self-made multimillionaire entrepreneur.” That press release came three years after Wilson and her company filed the December 2022 lawsuit, and while the case was pending in federal court; a jury returned its verdict against Wilson and her company on August 13, 2026. Her business mentoring also grew in that period: by her own account, she launched the “12DB School” in April 2022 and said on September 25, 2024 that she had just completed its final class, class 12 (her statement).

What “cult” means — and what researchers look for

“Cult” is not a legal term, and a group is not defined by what it believes. Researchers instead look at how much control a group exerts over its members. Three frameworks are most often used:

  • Steven Hassan’s BITE model — Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotional control.
  • Robert Jay Lifton’s criteria for thought reform — a set of eight themes, first described in his 1961 study of coercive persuasion.
  • Janja Lalich’s work on charismatic authority and “bounded choice” — how members come to take part in their own restriction.

This site applies those frameworks to documented statements and conduct in its BITE model analysis and its Cult Tactics Library. They are analysis, not findings of a court.

How “high-control” and “cult” are connected. In the research literature the two ideas sit on the same scale. The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) cites a definition of a cult as “an ideological organization held together by charismatic relations and demanding total commitment,” and describes cults as being “on the high-demand/high-control end of the social influence spectrum” (What Is a Cult?). It explains that groups run “from low control/low demand at one end to high control/high demand at the other,” and that groups at the high end “run a greater risk of being cultic.” The risk is greater, it says, where there is deceptive advertising or censoring of information, an inner circle with secret beliefs, an extremely narcissistic leader with no checks and balances, no outside oversight, or a lack of transparency about money.

Steven Hassan’s BITE model was developed, in his organization’s words, “to describe cults’ specific methods to recruit and maintain control over people” (BITE Model sheet); Hassan notes that not every group uses every one of its methods.

ICSA also cautions that unusual beliefs alone do not make a group a cult, and that its research focus is the intensity of influence within a group (see also Rosedale and Langone, On Using the Term “Cult”, 2015). Read together with that framework, a sworn description of a “high-control environment” — one where the leader is the primary authority and members’ behavior, beliefs and relationships are shaped through shaming and fear — describes the kind of control these researchers associate with cultic groups. Whether the label fits Wilson’s group is a judgment for the reader. No court has decided it, and where a witness swore to “high-control” rather than “cult,” this page quotes her exact words.

What three specialists told The Daily Beast

In the March 3, 2023 Daily Beast investigation (read it here), the reporter wrote that six former followers and 19 people who say their families were destroyed after a relative began following Wilson shared their stories with the outlet. Three specialists were quoted. As published:

“It’s got all the hallmarks of a cult group, in my opinion. You’ve got this one person who is the end-all-be-all, who offers this all-inclusive belief system where the ends justify the means.”

Janja Lalich, professor emerita of sociology at California State University, Chico, and CEO of the Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion, to The Daily Beast

“Liana Shanti fits the definition of an authoritarian destructive cult.”

Steve Hassan, cult expert and licensed therapist, applying his BITE model of authoritarian control, to The Daily Beast

Cult expert and counselor Joseph Szimhart told The Daily Beast, after researching the Lemurian Mystery School, that Wilson fits the “description of a cult leader.” Szimhart also published a multi-part analysis of her teachings beginning in September 2022 (read it here). These are the opinions of the named experts, not conclusions of a court.

What the court record shows

  • Criminal conviction. In 2019 Wilson was charged with federal bankruptcy fraud and was later convicted of a felony. Court filings in case no. 1:19-cr-00105 are collected on the Court Documents page.
  • Civil verdict. On August 13, 2026, after a two-week trial in Honolulu, a federal jury returned a unanimous verdict for the defendants in Life Mastery Network LLC v. Haygarth, No. 1:25-cv-00297 (special verdict forms, ECF Nos. 245, 247, 249, 251, 255). The claims Wilson’s side brought failed. Read the full account on The Verdict.
  • Sworn declaration from a former member. In a declaration signed under penalty of perjury on January 20, 2026 and filed March 27, 2026 (ECF 84-2), a former member who took part in Wilson’s community from January 2017 to April 2025 responded to Wilson’s own sworn denial that she is a cult leader. She wrote that Wilson’s statement about being “falsely labeled as a Cult leader is inaccurate, in my view,” and that “the group functioned as a high-control environment characterized by significant influence over members’ behavior, beliefs, and social interactions” (¶ 10, p. 4, PageID.1740). She added that “Ms. Wilson clearly positioned herself as the primary authority within the group and exercised control through narrative management, public and private shaming, and the promotion of fear or reputational harm toward individuals who questioned her or left the community” (¶ 11). The declaration uses the term “high-control,” not “cult,” for the group itself. It also says she is “personally aware of no fewer than six women who relocated themselves and their families from Canada to the United States following sustained influence and pressure within Ms. Wilson’s community” (¶ 34, p. 11, PageID.1747). These allegations are examined in The Great Migration, where family members are identified by initials only.

Former members’ accounts: is Liana Shanti a cult?

Former members and relatives have described emotionally coercive practices presented as spiritual growth, pressure around family relationships, and punishment for leaving. Those accounts appear in court filings, in Daily Beast reporting, and in the eleven-part audio documentary The Instascammer from The Cult Vault. We identify private individuals by initials, and we separate what a witness swore to from what a journalist or podcaster reported. See also Podcasts About Liana Shanti and What She Said vs. the Record.

Wilson’s side: is Liana Shanti a cult?

Wilson does not accept this label, and she is entitled to say so. The sworn declaration quoted above was filed in response to a declaration from Wilson herself (ECF 60), in which Wilson swore: “I have been mislabeled as a ‘cult leader’ and I am the target of a smear campaign by an anonymous group sometimes identified as the Liana Shanti Cult Recovery group and Paula Haygarth on her personal social media accounts” (ECF 60, Declaration of Liane Wilson ¶ 5, p. 9, PageID.874). Her other public statements are quoted, with sources, on What She Said vs. the Record.

If you or someone you love is affected

Leaving a high-control group is hard, and the way you feel about it is not a sign of weakness. You are not alone, and you do not have to decide everything at once. Our Survivor’s Guide gathers practical steps and support links. Independent organisations such as the International Cultic Studies Association and Steven Hassan’s Freedom of Mind Resource Center also provide information for former members and families.

Common questions

Is Liana Shanti a cult leader?

Critics, including specialists quoted by The Daily Beast, have used that description, and a former member swore in a federal court declaration that Wilson’s denial of the label is inaccurate in her view. No court has made a finding on the question. See the sections above for who said what.

Is a “high-control” group the same as a cult?

They are closely linked. ICSA describes cults as being “on the high-demand/high-control end of the social influence spectrum,” and says groups at that end run a greater risk of being cultic. See the explanation above.

Is Liana Shanti a convicted felon?

Yes. She was convicted of federal bankruptcy fraud following a 2019 charge. See the court documents.

What was the outcome of the 2026 trial?

A federal jury returned a unanimous verdict for the defendants on August 13, 2026. It also awarded the three defendants a combined $40.1 million in damages on their counterclaims against Wilson and her company, including $30 million in punitive damages (special verdict forms, ECF Nos. 251, 253, 255). See The Verdict.

Where do I start?

Start Here walks through the record in order, and Who Is Liana Shanti? gives the overview.

Sources