Bazaar ad evil Cults Still among us
Convinced she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, Hamilton-Byrne headed an apocalyptic sect called the Family, which was prominent in Melbourne from the 1960s through to the 1990s. With her husband Bill, she acquired numerous children – some through adoption scams, some born to cult members – and raised. She used to sleep with famous and rich people to gain money to brainwash children that she takes in her cult. This bitch deserves death in a Mexican prison where she should put in men prison so they can kill her slowly, a piece of shit, I HATE THOSE WHO ABUSE CHILDREN, ORPHANS, THE POOR AND WEAK. This Fk horse of Australia who pretends that she is clairvoyant and Jesus of the new age cults .
For a look at Islamic black magic in Melbourne or the Japanese cult that allegedly detonated a nuke in WA, check out Your 2017 Guide to Cults and Fringe Religions
In 1961, a yoga teacher named Anne Hamilton-Bryne showed up, unannounced, at the home of Dr. Raynor Johnson, the Master of Melbourne University’s Queens College. The two had never met before but, over the course of tea, Anne was able to convince Raynor—a distinguished psychologist—that she was a spiritual being who could see into the future.
This became a cult known as the Family.
The cult is the subject of Rosie Jones and Chris Johnston’s new book, The Family. Both had been separately investigating the group for years—Rosie for her documentary, also called The Family, and Chris for a series of articles for The Age, trying to unpick the vast fortune Anne amassed from her followers, which may have numbered as many as 500 people.
Now a 96-year-old woman living in a Melbourne nursing home, Anne has never been prosecuted for her alleged crimes. Suffering from dementia, she will never be able to answer the lingering question of why: Why was she so cruel to the people who revered her? Not least the 28 children she kidnapped, fed LSD, and raised as her own in a secluded property called Uptop.
In Rosie’s documentary, many of these children talk candidly about the abuse they lived through. Most were adopted into the sect with false papers, snatched from hospitals just after they were born: it’s estimated a quarter of the Family’s members were nurses or other medical professionals. In fact, before meeting Anne, many cult members had been regular, professional people—lawyers, doctors, and powerful political figures brought into the fold by Raynor Johnson. Others had been recruited from Newhaven, a private psychiatric hospital in Kew, which was owned by a cult member, Marion Villimek. Under her spell, many of Anne’s followers handed over their money, their homes, their marriages, and even their children, who Anne raised as her own.
Isolated from the outside world, the children of the Family grew up under the strict supervision of cult members known as “the Aunties” who often starved them and beat them. Even when she was traveling overseas, Anne would call home to Uptop to hear the children be “disciplined” over the phone. The psychological manipulation was intense.
The most iconic photo of the Family is that of the children dressed in matching outfits, their hair cropped and dyed platinum blonde—this was actually designed to convince them that they were all brothers and sisters. Now adults, the survivors recount being indoctrinated into the Family when they were 14 years old—locked away in a dark room for days at a time, and given huge doses of LSD.
The story of the Family has so many elements: the group’s liberal use of LSD, its roots in new age philosophy, its ties to powerful Melbourne figures, the rumours that Julian Assange was a member (he’s not), the fact it’s one of the few cults led by a woman. But reading the book and watching the documentary, the enduring image is one of needless suffering. Even in middle age, Anne Hamilton-Bryne’s “children” still live every day with the horrors they survived. They are still trying to put the pieces back together—tracking down their birth parents, coming to terms with their childhoods, and raising families of their own.
There are dozens of cults that are still active today, despite the very public demise of many well-known ones. Current cults range from New Age mystic groups to hardcore fundamentalist Christians preparing for the end of days. Many have been around for decades, with some as old as a century. But a few others have sprung up only in the last few years.
What these groups have in common is a cult of personality built around a charismatic leader, a devotion to poverty which usually doesn’t extend to said leader, and a belief that they are somehow chosen above all others to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity. Many keep their flocks in thrall, refusing to let them leave, while others disconnect people from their families so they don’t want to.
Here are some of the most well-known modern cults and how they began.
Happy Science
If you’re looking for a mash-up of world religions, New Age hokum, far-right nationalism, and infrastructure spending, then Japanese cult Happy Science is for you. It was founded in 1986 by Ryuho Okawa, a former salaryman who was enraptured by a group called the God Light Association. He soon formed his own cult of personality, called Science of Happiness, and changed its name to Happy Science a few years later.
Okawa believes he is the human incarnation of a supreme being called El Cantare, who combines Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, and every other prophetic deity to create a nine-dimensional heaven with him at the head. He’s also created a massively complex mythology of New Age nonsense – while simultaneously founding a political wing called the Happiness Realization Party.
Here’s where the strangeness goes into overdrive, as his party advocates a violent Japanese nationalism devoted to denying historical atrocities, advocating violent war with China and North Korea, and rebuilding Japan’s infrastructure. The group claims to have 12 million members around the world, has a multi-media arm, and enjoys tax-exempt status in the US.
Raëlism
One of the most notorious cults of the modern era, Raelismbegan in 1974 with a Frenchman named Claude Vorilhon. Calling himself Rael, Vorilhon claimed he had a vision of an alien spacecraft in southern France, and it was full of beings who told him humans were the future and handed him a Bible. Over six days, the head alien (named Yahweh, naturally) explained to Vorilhon how the Old Testament is an actual record of humanity’s early days, and that he must build an embassy to welcome the aliens when they fully return.
For most of the next three decades, Raelians were basically a kooky hippie cult that worshiped space aliens. They opposed violence, championed science, and liked to be naked and have sex with lots of people. They amassed a following of 20,000 and became extremely popular in Asia. Then, in 2002, things got weird. Or weirder, at least. A Raelian-owned company called Clonaid claimed to have done the impossible and cloned a human, a baby girl they named Eve. Everyone went nuts, with the White House weighing in, lawsuits filed, and claims of a dozen other human clones popping up. To date, no evidence of any actual clones has appeared, but the company continues selling an “embryonic cell fusion device” for over $9,000 – despite nobody knowing what it does.
The Brethren
Also known as “Body of Christ” and “Garbage Eaters,” the Brethren are an apocalyptic offshoot of the ’70s Jesus movement, eschewing worldly possessions and earthly pleasures to purify themselves for the coming end of the world. Brethren members essentially live as vagrants, doing odd jobs to survive, and eating trash, avoiding bathing and medical treatment, and giving whatever money they do make to the group.
They also forbid dancing and laughing, until the return of Jesus, bar members from communicating with family, and forbid opposite-sex contact. Group founder Jim Roberts died in December 2015, leaving the future of the secretive cult unclear.
Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints
An offshoot of Mormonism that’s constantly in the news for unsavory reasons, FLDS openly embraces polygamy, which the mainstream LDS outlawed a century ago. The group has anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 members in rural Utah and Arizona, with the group having almost total control of two small, linked border towns in the two states.
While Mormon splinter groups had been around long before, the FLDS was incorporated in 1991 by a group of men who had been excommunicated by the church. They went through a range of leaders who all declared themselves prophets, until being taken over by Rulon Jeffs in 2002. He died shortly thereafter, and his son Warren took over. It was under Warren Jeffs that the FLDS’ practices of child marriage, bigamy, incest, racism, abandonment of teenage boys, and child abuse became public knowledge. Jeffs was sent to prison in 2007 but continues to be the de facto head of the church while his successors squabble for power.
Aleph/Hikari No Wa
Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, famous for its 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, split in 2007 into two different factions. One is called Aleph, and the other Hikari no Wa. Aleph is the true successor to the cult, retaining much of its membership, as well its interest in ushering in doomsday. Hikari no Wa (Japanese for “Circle of Light”) purports to be more peaceful, and interested in spiritual science more than religion.
The groups have about 1,500 members total, with Aleph having the bulk.
Nuwaubian Nation
Formally known as the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, this is
a cult of personality based around founder Dwight York. Combining Christianity, ancient Egyptian iconography, African rituals, and a belief that aliens are coming, the Nation believes that 144,000 chosen people will be taken away in a flying city, spirited to Orion to prepare for the final battle against Satan.
Shockingly (or not), York’s mishmash of New Age, Black Power militancy, and ancient Egyptian religion caught on in both the hip-hop community and in rural Georgia, where York built a massive compound, made with donated funds. York’s mythology grew, incorporating cloning, racial theory, cosmology, anti-government conspiracies, and linguistics. Even as the cult grew, York was under investigation, and he finally arrested in 2002 for running a massive child molestation ring – comprising as many as 1,000 victims. He was sent to prison for life, and his compound was seized and demolished. The group still exists, though in much smaller numbers.
Congregation for the Light
Oh, and it marries old men off to young girls and enjoys tax-exempt status as a religion. The Light only has about 200 members, but they’re kept in virtual seclusion, often born into the cult by member parents. Most of their money comes from pillaging the estates of dead members.
Aleph/Hikari No Wa
Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, famous for its 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, split in 2007 into two different factions. One is called Aleph, and the other Hikari no Wa. Aleph is the true successor to the cult, retaining much of its membership, as well its interest in ushering in doomsday. Hikari no Wa (Japanese for “Circle of Light”) purports to be more peaceful, and interested in spiritual science more than religion.
The groups have about 1,500 members total, with Aleph having the bulk.
Twelve Tribes
Formed in 1972 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Twelve Tribeshave gone by a number of names, and have an international presence. Formed out of the “Jesus movement” of the early 70s by Elbert Spriggs (who calls himself Yoneq), the group started as an offshoot of a prayer group for teenagers, which broke off from their Presbyterian church after a January service was canceled in favor of watching the Super Bowl.
Spreading quickly around the South, the group embraced the peace and love vibe of hippie culture and sought to recreate the first-century Christian church described in the Book of Acts. As such, they have no formal ties to any branch of Christianity, practice messianic Jewish beliefs that teach Jews were responsible for the death of Christ, and seek to establish 12 Israeli tribes around the world to presage the end of the world. They’ve also been accused of being a cult, and exploiting their children for slave labor and tax evasion. They have between 2,500 and 3,000 members.
Nuwaubian Nation
Formally known as the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, this is
a cult of personality based around founder Dwight York. Combining Christianity, ancient Egyptian iconography, African rituals, and a belief that aliens are coming, the Nation believes that 144,000 chosen people will be taken away in a flying city, spirited to Orion to prepare for the final battle against Satan.
Shockingly (or not), York’s mishmash of New Age, Black Power militancy, and ancient Egyptian religion caught on in both the hip-hop community, and in rural Georgia, where York built a massive compound, made with donated funds. York’s mythology grew, incorporating cloning, racial theory, cosmology, anti-government conspiracies, and linguistics. Even as the cult grew, York was under investigation, and he finally arrested in 2002 for running a massive child molestation ring – comprising as many as 1,000 victims. He was sent to prison for life, and his compound was seized and demolished. The group still exists, though in much smaller numbers.