A self-professed psychic tried to “hold the calm and the beauty” as a man collapsed before dying after taking poison and hallucinogens at a spiritual health retreat.
Jarrad Antonovich died of a perforated oesophagus after consuming the plant-based psychedelic ayahuasca and frog-based poison kambo at the Dreaming Arts Festival at Arcoora retreat in northern NSW on Oct. 16, 2021.
As an inquest into his death resumed on Feb. 15, his father Glen accepted an emotional apology and condolences from one of the retreat’s participants Aldo Dezani.
“I’m so sorry this has happened and I hope that something good or positive can come from this in some small way,” Mr. Dezani said through his tears.
“I truly believe that everyone really tried to do their best and I’m just sorry.”
Mr. Antonovich’s father Glen, mother Lorraine and brother Chris attended the Byron Bay courtroom on Feb. 15.
Speaking from the public gallery, Mr. Antonovich Senior accepted Mr. Dezani’s apology but slammed the retreat organisers for only contacting him twice about the tragedy and taking nine days to send the body to the family home in Shepparton, Victoria.
“I accept your apology and your condolences but we will never, ever, ever forget the circumstances that my son, Chris’ brother, died in,” he said.
Earlier, psychic reader and “bodyworker” Dominique Vollaers told the inquest she was seated during the ayahuasca ceremony when she turned to see the 46-year-old falling to the ground.
“I truly felt, with full honour to the family, that he left his body straight away,” she said.
“So for me, I was holding the calm and the beauty and just being with Jarrad leaving.”
CPR was attempted and an ambulance called, but paramedics pronounced him dead on the scene.
After participating in a kambo ceremony earlier that morning, Mr. Antonovich’s neck swelled up and he complained of back and kidney pain.
Typically, the chemical substance is scraped off the back of a live frog with a stick.
Those ingesting the drug normally purge themselves afterwards by vomiting.
Ms. Vollaers said she was acting as a carer during the kambo ceremony, working with the energy of those participating and “grounding them”.
She told the court she stayed with Mr. Antonovich after growing concerned that he hadn’t thrown up.
The 46-year-old disclosed to her that he was an asthmatic, but he hadn’t told anyone organising the ceremony about his health condition, the inquest heard.
“I was disturbed that no one knew that he had that or he had not shared that he had that,” Ms. Vollaers said.
After someone fetched his Ventolin puffer, Mr. Antonovich’s condition remained unchanged, leading to the psychic asking if he wanted to go to hospital.
He grew angry and Ms. Vollaers made the same request to an Indigenous elder standing nearby, Uncle Andrew Johnston.
This proposal was rejected, she told the court.
“Uncle AJ turned around and said, ‘no hospital’,” she said.
Ms. Vollaers said she deferred to the elder, wrongly assuming Mr. Antonovich was also Indigenous.
“I’m just this white girl here, they know more than me,” she said.
Ms. Vollaers trusted Uncle AJ because she worked with energy and “feeling what’s going underneath things”, and felt he was part of that world as well.
She admitted she did not know the extent of the elder’s knowledge of medicine or kambo.
Mr. Johnston previously told the inquest he personally supported the use of ayahuasca and kambo at ceremonies as they were based on the traditional knowledge of the South American people spanning thousands of years.
When asked whether she was misguided in her faith in Lore Solaris, the owner of the Dreaming Arts Festival, Ms. Vollaers said it was a hard question to answer.
“I feel what happened with Jarrad is a rare case and that happens everywhere with everything,” she said.
The hearing continues on Feb. 16.
