I sent Steve a series of emoji: Ant emoji. Bee emoji. Duck emoji. Unicorn emoji. Dolphin emoji. I hoped he would understand what I meant by them. That he would be able to interpret my hidden message. My code. As the days passed in the hospital, I could not stop myself from continuing to message Steve. He was the only person I could share all this with.
In 2016, I was at a crossroads in my career. My first professional role had been the anorexic Cassie in the teen drama Skins, and I was currently best known as Gilly in Game of Thrones, a young woman who had had her father’s baby. I knew how to access pain, how to explore and, perhaps, exploit my own traumas onscreen and onstage. But with my newest and biggest project yet, a film directed by Kathryn Bigelow called Detroit, I wanted to take my acting to another level. I wanted to open myself up as much as possible and channel things that felt distinctly other. I wanted to enter a world of make-believe. I wanted to feel like a shaman.
Then I was introduced to Steve and his organization, and I discovered that magic was real. After my time with them, I had never felt so powerful or alive. I was on the last day of an energy-healing course held in the basement of a hotel in London, hours away from my initiation ceremony, when I was taken to the hospital. Even after I was told I was being involuntarily committed, I was not concerned. Steve told me I had been possessed by a demon while filming Detroit. He had performed an exorcism on me. So I was concerned only with the energy I could feel spiraling up through my body and the voices I could hear in my head. And with Steve: my King, my God, my great love and my most frequently contacted on WhatsApp.
