In 1962 Hamilton-Byrne made her most important – and until now largely unknown – connection that would enable her to consolidate the cult that would shock Australia and elude authorities for the next three decades.
Through acquaintances at the University of Melbourne she heard of an eccentric,brilliant academic Dr Raynor Johnson,the head of Queen's College. He was 61,English and on the tail-end of a stellar career in physics. Approaching retirement he had turned his mind to eastern religions and mysticism – from physics to metaphysics. He was also very well connected in Melbourne society and politics. Now he was looking for a ‘‘master’’ or ‘‘teacher’’ to guide him through a journey into deep spiritualism.
Johnson lived on the grounds of the university. Hamilton-Byrne rang his doorbell on a Saturday – ‘‘A day of destiny for me,’’ he wrote.
Six months later Raynor was initiated into Hamilton-Byrne's cult,which was then called the Great White Brotherhood of Initiates and Masters.
She told him he needed to take hallucinogenic drugs (either LSD or mushrooms),which he called “sacred manna”. Raynor wrote that Jesus spoke through Hamilton-Byrne at the initiation at her home in the Dandenongs.
She named him John the Baptist. She would use him,his standing and his connections to give her cult respectability.
Many early members were recruited via his Council of Adult Education (CAE) lectures around Melbourne. She told him she was Jesus returned to Earth in disguise – “I and my Father are one.” He believed her,and he considered her “supernaturally beautiful”. He wrote:“I had met my Master.”
He moved to the Dandenongs,near Hamilton-Byrne,in a house she found and he bought from former deputy prime minister and chief justice Sir John Latham.
At the cult’s peak,one street in the Dandenongs suburb of Ferny Creek was predominantly owned by cult members because she wanted strength in numbers and protection. “Left-hand forces” were out to get her. “They want me dead,” she would say. She used to write her enemies' names down on tiny slips of paper and freeze them into ice cubes in a curse.
She had a chapel built in the Dandenongs and named it Santiniketan Lodge. Raynor's old house is across the road and the brown-brick Lodge is still there,on prime real estate next to protected forest that is owned by a trust on Hamilton-Byrne's behalf. This was where she would give her sermons or “discourses”.
One day Rosie and I were let in. It was both a privilege and a shock to be there;it’s one thing to read files and listen to tapes and talk to people about their memories but to be inside this place,even if it had fallen into disuse,was confronting.
The Lodge cemented the cult and gave it focus. It was where members were given instructions as a group to follow Hamilton-Byrne and Hamilton-Byrne only.
It was here they were told the Uptop children were being protected. It was here they were asked to turn their back on society and suspend disbelief.
Heavy orange curtains were drawn tight that day and the power was off but Anne’s special purple chair was still up the front,dwarfed by a crucifix on the wall. An old “order of service” showed that Handel’s Largo was played as she entered the Lodge,bathed in blue light,after group meditation. Every cult member was ordered to create a blue room,with a picture of her,at their homes to worship in.
At the cult’s peak there were more than 200 cars parked outside the Lodge,shoes lined up in the entrance. Hamilton-Byrne was taking money from her followers and also acquiring property in the Dandenongs from them.
“I started[the group],” she said. “I had to start it. That was divine orders.
Now,as she approaches the death she always said she could cheat,a small band of mostly ageing supporters look after her affairs and visit her in the nursing home. One does her washing. All are preparing to find out whether they will benefit from her significant estate.
Yet as Stevenson-Helmer told us over lunch one day in the Dandenongs,“People will say 'your guru is dead' and that will be true. But the lineage doesn’t cut out. There will always be a Great White Brotherhood on this planet. Always.”
The Family by Chris Johnston and Rosie Jones (Scribe) rrp $32.99. Thefeature documentary The Family written and directed by Rosie Jones and produced by Anna Grieve will screen in Melbourne from February 23 with other states to follow.
VIDEO Hamilton-Byrne with husband Bill Byrne in the '80s.
“I love children”:Anne Hamilton-Byrne