The journey to find life again of a boy who grew up in a 'doomsday cult'

Australia's Ben Shenton grew up in a "doomsday cult" convinced the world was coming to an end, but when he was 15, he was suddenly brought back to real life.

Behind the foliage and barbed wire surrounding a house on the shores of Lake Eildon in Australia, seven children wearing identical outfits and blond hairstyles were practicing yoga when they heard a commotion outside.

It was August 14, 1987, when a group of police officers showed up unexpectedly and rounded up the children. Moments later, they ushered them out of the house, back into a new reality that would take Ben years to fully understand.

Children raised in the "Family" cult in the 1970s or 1980s. Photo: BBC

Up until that point, Ben's worldview had been shaped by yoga instructor Anne Hamilton-Byrne, who in 1963 founded Australia's most notorious cult, The Family, and attracted a large following. She went into hiding after police raided her home.

The members believed that Hamilton-Byrne was the reincarnation of Jesus and that when the apocalypse came and the world ended, they would be responsiblefor educating the survivors. Ben and the other children were told that Hamilton-Byrne was their mother. The woman taught the children to stay away from outsiders and if anyone approached, to follow the principle of "see no, hear no, know no."

“It was a very important requirement. You were not to share anything with anyone outside the cult,” Ben recalls. “If I did interact with them, I would have to be very careful to make sure I didn’t reveal even the smallest bit of information.”

A year before founding the cult, Hamilton-Byrne met physicist Raynor Johnson and quickly "confused" Johnson into believing she was the reincarnation of Jesus.

Hamilton-Byrne developed her yoga and meditation classes into a cult group. The followers initially met in Johnson’s living room once a week, then increased to three times a week. They set up a separate center across the street from Johnson’s house to hold their meetings.

The “Family” began recruiting patients from Newhaven Hospital in Kew, a private psychiatric facility run by several members of the cult. They targeted vulnerable patients, giving them high doses of the hallucinogenic drug LSD and electroshock therapy.

Hamilton-Byrne also sought out single mothers from wealthy families who saw her as a savior. They gave the cult cash and their children.

Ben came to the cult under such circumstances. His name had been changed since he was 18 months old. Ben's biological mother, Joy Travelly, one of the parents "brainwashed" by Hamilton-Byrne, agreed to give her the child to raise.

Anne’s trusted aides, known as “aunties,” help the woman care for Ben and the other children. They wake up at 5 a.m. in dormitory-style rooms and follow a consistent schedule: yoga, meditation, study, yoga, meditation, homework, bed. Although there were only a handful of children at the facility when police raided it in 1987, it once housed as many as 28.

The children were fed meager vegetarian meals and were regularly punished. The “aunts” held their heads under water and held their hands over burning candles. Hamilton-Byrne occasionally beat them with high heels.

“Witnessing those scenes alone caused a lot of serious mental scarring,” Ben said. “The atmosphere in the cult was one of naked fear.”

Ben Shenton in 2019. Photo: SBS

Drugs were Hamilton-Byrne's tool for controlling cult members. Children were regularly given sedatives like Mogadon and Valium. Adults and teenagers were required to take LSD at ceremonies called "purifications." Hamilton-Byrne believed that by doing this, she could keep her followers loyal to her.

Lying in bed that first night away from the Eildon lake house, Ben thought over everything he had said, making sure he hadn’t revealed anything that could get him in trouble. Suddenly, Ben realized it didn’t matter anymore. He wasn’t going back to Hamilton-Byrne. “For the first time in my life, I realized I was free,” Ben said.

The real trouble is now beginning.

Ben learns that his mother is not Hamilton-Byrne, but an "aunt" named Joy whom he hates. The children in the house are not siblings. The boy is 15, not 14 as they say. And it is clear that Hamilton-Byrne is not the reincarnation of Jesus.

“Suddenly, I had to try to figure out this new world, what were the rules? How was I going to live, what was I going to do?” Ben said.

At school, Ben had a hard time fitting in. When other kids tried to get close, Ben pushed them away. This was understandable because kids in the "Family" had no chance of bonding, and would be instantly torn apart if they started getting close to each other. Friendship was something Ben had never experienced.

"Usually, when you build a friendship with someone, you and they will have things in common, common interests or common views. I don't have those things," said Ben.

"It will take time. You have to learn how to make friends. Everyone is open, but you have to take the initiative," the teacher told Ben.

Ben took this advice to heart. He began to study how other people behaved, analyze the results of their actions, and draw conclusions.

Ben also started going to church. Gradually, he got used to the new world. Later, Ben married and had two children, now 22 and 24 years old. Ben, now 51, has worked at IBM for more than 20 years.

As he grew older, Ben grew closer to his grandmother and would often visit her home. Ben's mother lived overseas but would visit her whenever she was back in town. In 2006, by chance, they both visited Ben's grandmother at the same time.

They hadn't spoken since Ben learned Joy was his mother nearly two decades ago. At the time, Joy told Ben she wanted nothing to do with him. "Don't ever come to my door again, or I'll slam it in your face," Ben remembers her telling him.

But Joy changed, and the church taught Ben how to forgive. “She promised Anne she wouldn’t have anything to do with me,” Ben said. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about me.”

Joy remained close to Hamilton-Byrne but has since kept in touch with Ben as well. When she visited Ben in 2012, Joy asked if Ben would like to visit Hamilton-Byrne.

At the time, Hamilton-Byrne was living in a nursing home and suffering from dementia. She had never been to jail. After the raid, Hamilton-Byrne and her husband fled the country for six years but were arrested in June 1993 in New York by the FBI in a joint investigation by the UK, Australia and the US. The couple were extradited to Australia and charged with conspiracy to defraud and falsely claiming the births of three unrelated children as their own. Authorities did not have enough evidence to charge Hamilton-Byrne with anything else.

Ben followed Joy's suggestion, partly out of curiosity. Hamilton-Byrne greeted Joy warmly, but she pretended not to know Ben. When he looked through the photo album in the woman's room, Ben quickly realized that it was filled with pictures of his childhood.

That was the last time Ben saw Hamilton-Byrne. She died on June 6, 2019, at the age of 97.

"Seeing the way she created the lie, perpetuated it and caused harm to people, I knew that Hamilton-Byrne would not have what we call repentance," Ben said.

According to him, all the children in "The Family" have suffered varying degrees of trauma. With a stable job, a wife and two children, Ben considers himself a lucky man.

Hamilton-Byrne in Melbourne in 2009. Photo: News Limited

Ben runs an organization called Save the Family, sharing lessons learned from his experiences. By highlighting the destructive methods often used to raise children, Shenton hopes to protect future generations from addiction and depression. “My goal is to explain to people what the purpose of a family is,” he says.

“You have to try to make sense of what happened and why,” Ben concludes of his reintegration. “I adjusted my life to the reality.”

Vu Hoang (According to BBC )

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