What a Frightening Story. I had no idea. I started reading about this and vaguely remember hearing about The Family years many many years ago. Following their timeline, it would be awesome to be able to identify their "children". These kids were put on LSD. Unbelievable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_(Australian_New_Age_group)
Timeline
1960s: The Family begins recruiting members from patients at Newhaven Clinic and giving them LSD.
1961: Anne Hamilton-Byrne meets Raynor Johnson and they found The Family.
1964: Johnson buys land at Ferny Creek, Victoria and builds Santiniketan Lodge, which becomes the headquarters of The Family.
1965: Hamilton-Byrne marries South African naval officer Michael Riley, but the marriage does not last.
1968: Hamilton-Byrne begins adopting children along with her partner Bill. Both change their name to Hamilton-Byrne but do not marry at this stage.
1970s: Hamilton-Byrne buys Broom Farm in Langton Green, England and a property in the Catskills, New York near Muktananda's ashram. She also marries Bill.
1983: Australian Federal police go to Kai Lama looking for missing girl Kim Halm.
1986: Newhaven closes and is later the subject of a lawsuit brought by relatives of deceased group members. Anne Hamilton-Byrne wins.
1987: Sarah Hamilton-Byrne is expelled by Anne and later talks to police, resulting in raid on Kai Lama. Children are taken away from the property.
1988: Seven female group members are gaoled for social security fraud.
1989: Victorian police establish Operation Forest to investigate The Family.
1990: Former group solicitor Peter Kibby starts cooperating with police and confesses to forging birth records on orders from Hamilton-Byrne. Former "auntie" Patricia McFarlane gives information to police about adoption scams.[26]
1993: Anne and Bill are arrested in the Catskills by the FBI after phone calls are traced to Australia.
1995: Sarah Hamilton-Byrne's book Unseen Unheard Unknown is published by Penguin.
2001: Sarah Hamilton-Byrne visits Bill before he dies. Anne Hamilton-Byrne attends his funeral in her only public appearance since her conviction.[27]
2009: In a spirit of forgiveness, Sarah Hamilton-Byrne takes the initiative in seeing Anne at her compound in Olinda, Victoria.
2013: It is reported that Anne is close to death with dementia in a Melbourne nursing home, and that there is a power struggle within the cult over Anne's successor as leader of the group.[28] In an interview with ABC Local Radio in Ballarat in response to these reports, Ben Shenton, who had been adopted by The Family at the age of eighteen months, said the group had become a "toothless tiger".[29]
2014: Secret diaries of Raynor Johnson are released to the public that give an authoritative insiders view on how the cult started, what its aim was, and how it grew.[30][31][32][33]
2016: The Family documentary is released at the Melbourne International Film Festival; it is produced by Anna Grieve and written, directed, and co-produced by Rosie Jones.[34]
Looking Around the Headquarters of Australia’s Most Notorious Cult (Newhaven Clinic)
In 1987, police raided properties owned by the 'The Family' to confirm they'd beaten, starved, and drugged 14 children raised in isolation.
Based in the hills outside of Melbourne in the mid-60s, "The Family" was a new age cult brought together by a yoga teacher named Anne Hamilton-Byrne. In the usual way, Anne declared herself Christ incarnate and disseminated a religious doctrine mashing together Christianity with Eastern mysticism. Then, despite being the subject of a numerous disturbing allegations, the Family quietly grew over the next two decades, amassing a small fortune along the way.
In 1987 the Australian Federal Police raided a Family property at Eildon to remove six children brought up in virtual isolation. Mostly adopted, a total of 14 children had been raised between Eildon and Mt Dandenong to believe they were the biological offspring of Hamilton-Byrne, and were dressed in identical outfits with hair dyed the same peroxide blonde. They'd been beaten, starved, and regularly forced to take psychedelic drugs, including LSD.
Pictures of the Property
https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/4wb4nm/sneaking-around-the-headquarters-of-australias-most-notorious-cult