Danielle Johnson was worried about the eclipse.

The astrology influencer and “divine healer” who went by the name Danielle Ayoka online called the upcoming astronomical event “the epitome of spiritual warfare” and told people they needed to “pick a side,” in posts on X on April 4.

Less than three days later, in the early morning before the partial solar eclipse, Johnson left a trail of tragedy in her wake: her partner stabbed to death in the kitchen of the family apartment in Woodland Hills, her 8-month-old baby dead after being pushed from Johnson’s moving Porsche Cayenne on the 405, and Johnson herself dead after crashing her car on Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach.

    • nifty@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Secular people, or people without religious membership, tend to look for substitutes.

      We need normalization of post-graduate secular community organizations that have a set schedule of yearly events, and regular, ideology based meeting times. The Freemasons kind of come to mind, but they have their own set of historical issues. Something like co-ed fraternities for non-college going adults, but without superstitious concepts associated with membership. The only criteria should be “no conning other people” or something similar.

      The Satanic temple has done a good job of framing a reasonable humanitarian charter, but I don’t like their religious movement framing. Supernatural concepts and superstition needs to be removed from such community membership.

    • dudinax@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      WAKE UP the sea surface temperature anomaly is far exceeding last year’s and last year’s was record breaking.

      • fishos@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It still implies you’re the only person aware of it and not like that very article on global temps was on the front page today. So yeah, it actually does make you seem a bit crazy.

  • catloaf@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Under the Ayoka moniker, Johnson issued a torrent of antisemitic screeds, conspiracy theories and alarmist warnings on April 4 and 5. These included a repost of a debunked apocryphal speech attributed to Ben Franklin about how Jewish people “depreciated” societies wherever they settled, a video about Jews promoting pedophilia in the entertainment industry, and unproven theories about the origin of COVID-19.

    Yeah I’m gonna say that mental illness played a part in this.

    Also apparently the kid that pushed out of the car survived. I hope they’re able to handle it.

      • protist@mander.xyz
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        7 months ago

        I’ve seen enough people experiencing severe mania yell racist obscenities who later stabilized and were mortified at their previous behavior to know that no, this is not “just hate.” This is either severe mania with psychotic features or straight up severe psychosis.

          • protist@mander.xyz
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            7 months ago

            I’m a psychotherapist with over a decade of experience in acute inpatient psych

              • protist@mander.xyz
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                7 months ago

                That article talks about the pathologization of “life’s misfortunes,” which is absolutely a problem. It goes on to describe how this relates to the diagnoses of depression, bipolar II, PTSD, and personality disorders.

                I’m not talking about a diagnosis with “fuzzy boundaries” here, I’m talking about a woman displaying clear paranoid delusions:

                WAKE UP WAKE UP THE APOCALYPSE IS HERE. EVERYONE WHO HAS EARS LISTEN. YOUR TIME TO CHOOSE WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS NOW. IF YOU BELIEVE A NEW WORLD IS POSSIBLE FOR THE PEOPLE RT NOW.

                THERE IS POWER IN CHOICE. THERE IS POWER IN CHOICE!!! REPOST TO MAKE THE CHOICE FOR THE COLLECTIVE

                IF ANY SPIRITUAL ACCOUNT IS NOT REVEALING THE TRUTH RIGHT NOW THEY ARE FAKE. THEY ARE LIES. THEY HAVE SOLD OUT AND ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE. WAKE UP!

                And then murdering her husband, pushing her children out of a moving car, and crashing into a tree at 100 mph.

                Of course neither I nor anyone else could make an accurate diagnosis without directly evaluating her. My entire point was responding originally to someone who was trying to dismiss this is “just hate,” because it clearly isn’t. Among the differential diagnoses for this woman would be a severe manic episode, indicating bipolar I, or a psychotic episode, indicating a number of possible psychotic disorders, among other possibilities we could not know without evaluating her. We’re not talking about “where should psychiatry draw the line between depression and sadness?”

                • steakmeoutt@sh.itjust.works
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                  7 months ago

                  So now after all the sophistry and unwarranted attitude now you admit you cannot make a diagnosis from third hand sources. She could have shown the same behaviours from a minor stroke, a tumour or some other brain injury, she might have been traumatised or goaded into killing her family. We and especially you do not have any real evidence and here you are AGAIN making further diagnosis from her writing. Tell me, professional psych, do you also practice phrenology and analyse hand-writing?

    • lennybird@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Reminds me of that flat-earther Behind The Curve documentary. Such conspiracy theorist and woowoo believers basically fall into the grifted, and the grifters. Those outcast and outsiders who lack critical-thinking skills and who find community in like-minded eccentrics, and the ones just exploiting the gullible for money.

      Similar with maga cult, too.