Why ‘The Cult of NatureBoy’ feels so familiar
TheGrio...
OPINION: Hulu’s “The Cult of NatureBoy” chronicles the rise and fall of Carbon Nation and the longing for Black liberation that is often exploited.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
From the jungles of Costa Rica to the beaches of Puerto Rico, the islands of Hawaii, the short-term rental homes of Georgia, and beyond, many Black communities know the name NatureBoy.
3God may also jog the memory for some, as well as Eligio Bishop. They are all the same man who, around 2015, launched “Carbon Nation,” a community that amassed a massive online following and promised Black liberation but ultimately delivered the opposite, particularly where its Black female members were concerned.
Bishop and Carbon Nation are the subjects of Hulu’s new docuseries, “The Cult of NatureBoy,” which retells their story in riveting detail across four parts, featuring former members alongside several of the investigative reporters and internet sleuths who followed the group from the start. While the details are shocking, audiences are also recognizing a familiar pattern.
Part true crime, part Black internet memory, and part cautionary tale, “The Cult of NatureBoy” exposes how Black women and children can become casualties in men’s pursuit of “freedom,” “healing,” and “higher consciousness.” It is also about the specific spiritual language Bishop used to justify control and abuse, and the unsettling reality that social media continues to amplify and enable similar “healing” communities today.
Bishop, who hailed from Atlanta, Georgia, built an entire social media persona around the idea of escaping systemic oppression in America for paradise alongside him. What began as an invitation to what sounded, to many, like salvation through off-the-grid living in lush tropical paradises quickly evolved into a chaotic world of control and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, often broadcast live for the internet to witness in real time.
“I felt like I was inhaling life,” Velvet Marquez, a former member who ultimately became Bishop’s queen, said during the documentary while reflecting on the group’s early days.
She and many of the other members described him similarly. He felt like a guru, a father figure, someone to be revered. He spoke directly to feelings of isolation and the difficulty of surviving under racism. He was preaching during a period marked by heightened awareness around police killings of unarmed Black people, the rise of President Donald Trump, and the overt white supremacist ideology associated with MAGA. So when he claimed the universe was compelling him to enter into sexual relationships with all of the women recruited, regardless of whether they were already involved with other members, compliance followed quickly.
When the physical abuse came — whether through members being ordered to physically punish one another, women being forced to fight, or Bishop himself becoming violent — many within the group remained convinced the targets somehow deserved it because Bishop was to be obeyed.
At one point, in a terrifying moment broadcast live on social media, that unwavering loyalty nearly led the entire group into arrest as Bishop ordered members not to comply with authorities attempting to understand who they were and why their passports had not been stamped.
Many of the members came from similar backgrounds. Some were from small Southern towns where racism was overt, while others were grappling with loneliness, depression, or a search for spirituality that centered the Black experience. One by one, men and women traveled to remote locations — the group was repeatedly kicked off islands and out of short-term rentals by local authorities, or simply moved once too much attention arrived — from roughly 2015 to 2021, joining the group and severing ties, including abandoning their names, with their previous lives.
When confronted in 2020 about whether Carbon Nation was a cult following the group’s arrest in Hawaii, Bishop said:
“The first time I heard that, I thought it was kind of cool,” he told KTLA. “Me? A Black man, a cult leader? I’m from the hood.”
He then added, “We’re a group of African Americans that are protesting our conditions by leaving them… They just make us look crazy on the internet.”
Ultimately, what brought Bishop down were the abuse and control tactics directed at women within the group, including sexual coercion, assault, false imprisonment, and revenge porn. He was arrested in April 2022 after a former member went to the police alleging he raped her and later posted footage online without her consent after she attempted to escape. In March 2024, Bishop was convicted on charges including rape, false imprisonment, and revenge porn-related offenses. He was sentenced to life without parole plus an additional 10 years.
The group has called to mind several cults of the past, particularly Black-centered movements from the 1970s, including the infamous Jonestown Massacre, which resulted in the deaths of more than 900 people and had a membership that was roughly 70% Black. Others have compared Carbon Nation to groups like Nation of Yahweh under Yahweh Ben Yahweh or Nuwaubian Nation led by Dwight York, which similarly used isolation, spiritual manipulation, and abuse against women. All of them, including Carbon Nation, preyed upon a specific kind of Black pain born from generations of surviving within a white supremacist society.
But as with so many cults before it, the leader is rarely truly after collective salvation. Whether they believe their own rhetoric or not, their version of “freedom” almost always requires the sacrifice, obedience, and control of others. You would think that in the age of information, in an era where cult leaders recruit openly on Instagram Live, people would be better equipped to resist them. Instead, social media often allows these movements to spread farther and faster.
In fact, similar groups continue emerging globally. In the United Kingdom, authorities have recently grappled with a group known as the Kingdom of Kubala. While its leader, Kofi Offeh, was deported earlier this year, the group itself remains active, as these movements rarely disappear as quickly as their founders do.
And there will likely be others. NatureBoy may now be behind bars, but the conditions that allowed his ideology to flourish have not disappeared. The loneliness, spiritual searching, distrust in institutions, desire for escape, and yearning for Black-centered healing that drew people toward Carbon Nation still exist today. Some former members and loyal supporters also remain committed to his teachings online, even after his conviction.
Kay Wicker is a senior lifestyle reporter at theGrio, where she covers the multifaceted ways Black people live and enjoy their lives, focusing on health, wellness, travel, beauty, and fashion. With over a decade of experience in digital and print media, Kay has built a diverse editorial background, reporting on everything from high-profile celebrity news to critical social issues.