The Family (Australian New Age group)

Around 1964, Raynor Johnson was hosting regular meetings of a religious and philosophical discussion group led by Hamilton-Byrne at Santiniketan, his home at Ferny Creek in the Dandenong Ranges on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne. Also connected was a series of weekly talks he gave at the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne, entitled "The Macrocosm and the Microcosm". The group purchased an adjoining property which they named Santiniketan Park in 1968 and constructed a meeting hall, Santiniketan Lodge.[7]

The group consisted of middle class professionals; it has been estimated that a quarter were nurses and other medical personnel and that many were recruited by Johnson, who referred them to Hamilton-Byrne's hatha yoga classes.[8] Members mainly lived in nearby suburbs and townships in the Dandenongs, meeting each Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday evening at Santiniketan Lodge, Crowther House in Olinda or another property in the area known as the White Lodge.[9][4]

During the late 1960s and the 1970s, Newhaven Hospital in Kew was a private psychiatric hospital owned and managed by Marion Villimek, a Santiniketan member; many of its staff and attending psychiatrists were also members.[4][10][11]

Many patients at Newhaven were treated with the hallucinogenic drug LSD.[12] The hospital was used to recruit potential new members from among the patients, and also to administer LSD to members under the direction of the Santiniketan psychiatrists John Mackay and Howard Whitaker.[13] One of the original members of the Association was given LSD, electroconvulsive therapy, and two leucotomies, also called lobotomies, during the late 1960s.[7]

Although the psychiatric hospital had been closed down by 1992, in that year a new inquest was ordered into the death of a Newhaven patient in 1975 after new claims that his death had been due to deep sleep therapy. The inquest heard evidence concerning the use of electroconvulsive therapy, LSD, and other practices at Newhaven but found no evidence that deep sleep had been used on this patient.[14] The Newhaven building was later reopened as a nursing home with no connections to its previous owner or uses.

Anne Hamilton-Byrne acquired fourteen infants and young children between about 1968 and 1975. Some were the natural children of members of The Family; others had been obtained through irregular adoptions arranged by lawyers, doctors, and social workers within the group who could bypass the normal processes. The children's identities were changed using false birth certificates or deed poll, all being given the surname "Hamilton-Byrne" and dressed alike even to the extent of their hair being dyed uniformly blonde.[15]

The children were kept in seclusion and home-schooled at Kai Lama, a rural property usually referred to as "Uptop", at Taylor Bay on Lake Eildon near the town of Eildon, Victoria. They were told that Anne Hamilton-Byrne was their biological mother, and knew the other adults in the group as "aunties" and "uncles".[4] They were denied almost all access to the outside world, and subjected to a discipline that included frequent, severe beatings – often for little or no reason – and starvation diets.[16]

The children were frequently dosed with the psychiatric drugs fluphenazine, diazepam, haloperidol, chlorpromazine, nitrazepam, oxazepam, trifluoperazine, carbamazepine, or imipramine.[4] On reaching adolescence they were compelled to undergo an initiation involving LSD: while under the influence of the drug the child would be left in a dark room, alone, apart from visits by Hamilton-Byrne or one of the psychiatrists from the group.[4][17]

For a few years, Anne Hamilton-Byrne developed a connection to the Siddha Yoga movement, receiving shaktipat initiation from Swami Muktananda and taking the Sanskrit name Ma Yoga Shakti. She took some of the children to stay with Muktananda at his ashram at South Fallsburg, New York (later known as the Shree Muktananda Ashram) in the Catskill Mountains in 1979 and 1981, and purchased a nearby property as her own base in the US.[4]

Sarah Hamilton-Byrne tells how Muktananda would give a private audience (or darshan) once a week to Hamilton-Byrne's group. He once asked the children if they would like to leave The Family and live with him at his Gurudev Siddha Peeth ashram in Ganeshpuri, India. The children all gave an enthusiastic yes, but were later punished by Hamilton-Byrne for disloyalty. She states that Hamilton-Byrne eventually caused a lot of trouble in the Shree Muktananda Ashram, and some of Muktananda's devotees defected to The Family. Sarah was present when Swami Tejomayananda was initiated into The Family; she states that she could not understand why he would want to join a sect where everyone was so miserable, when it seemed that everyone around Muktananda was so happy.[18]

Sarah Hamilton-Byrne was expelled by her adoptive mother in 1987 because of arguing and rebellious behaviour. With the support of a private investigator and others, she then played an instrumental role in bringing The Family to the attention of the Victoria Police. As a result, a raid took place at Kai Lama on Friday, 14 August 1987, and all children were removed from the premises. Sarah later went on to study medicine and become a qualified doctor. She also learned that she had been adopted and eventually met her biological mother.[19]

After the raid in 1987, Anne Hamilton-Byrne and her husband, William, remained outside Australia for the next six years. Operation Forest, an investigation involving police in Australia, the UK, and the US resulted in their arrest in June 1993 by the FBI in the town of Hurleyville in the Catskills in New York.[20][21][22] They were extradited to Australia and charged with conspiracy to defraud and to commit perjury by falsely registering the births of three unrelated children as their own triplets, charges that was later dropped.[23] Elizabeth Whitaker, wife of the psychiatrist Howard Whitaker, was their co-defendant.[24] The Hamilton-Byrnes pleaded guilty to the remaining charge of making a false declaration and were fined $5000 each. The conspiracy charges against Whitaker was dropped, but she was convicted of falsely obtaining nearly $23,000 between 1983 and 1987.[25][26]

Margot MacLellan, aged 64, was convicted of falsely obtaining $28,000 between 1978 and 1988. Joy Travellyn, aged 56, was convicted of falsely obtaining over $38,000 between 1979 and 1988. Helen Buchanan, aged 49, was convicted of falsely obtaining almost $15,000 between 1980 and 1987.[27]

In August 2009, two individuals received financial compensation from Anne Hamilton-Byrne after suing her. Her granddaughter, Rebecca Cook-Hamilton, sued her in 2007 for alleged psychiatric and psychological illnesses. She alleged that she received "cruel and inhuman treatment" from Hamilton-Byrne and her servants, including beatings, being locked in a freezing shed overnight and being forced to take medications. She also alleged that she was given insufficient food. Her award was estimated to be $250,000.[28]

A former member of The Family, Cynthia Chan, alleged that she paid the sum of $352,115 to Hamilton-Byrne for real estate in Olinda, Victoria, but the property was never transferred to her. She also alleged that she paid the sum of $70,400 to Hamilton-Byrne for another property, but this too was never transferred to her. Hamilton-Byrne said she had no memory of the matter. Chan's judgement was estimated at $250,000.[28]

In the 1980s, police estimated that Hamilton-Byrne's fortune could be as much as $50 million.[28]