Santiniketan Park Association
Encyclopedia
The Santiniketan Park Association, also known as The Family and The Great White Brotherhood, is a controversial New Age
group formed in Australia under the leadership of the Yoga
teacher Anne Hamilton-Byrne.
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.
The association consisted of middle class professional people; 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. 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.
was a private psychiatric hospital
owned and managed by Marion Villimek, a Santiniketan member; many of its staff and attending psychiatrists
were also members.
Many patients at Newhaven were treated with the hallucinogenic drug LSD. 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 Dr John Mackay and Dr Howard Whitaker. One of the original members of the Association was given LSD, electroconvulsive therapy
and two leucotomies
, also called lobotomies, during the late 1960s.
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. The Newhaven building was later reopened as a nursing home
with no connections to its previous owner or uses.
s or deed poll
, all being given the surname 'Hamilton-Byrne' and dressed alike even to the extent of their hair being dyed uniformly blonde.
The children were kept in seclusion and home-schooled
at Kia Lama, a rural property usually referred to as "Uptop", at Taylor Bay on Lake Eildon
near the town of Eildon, Victoria
. They were taught that Anne Hamilton-Byrne was their biological mother, and knew the other adults in the group as 'aunties' and 'uncles'. They were denied almost all access to the outside world, and subjected to a discipline that included frequent corporal punishment
and starvation diets.
The children were frequently dosed with the psychiatric drugs Anatensol
, Diazepam
, Haloperidol
, Largactil
, Mogadon
, Serepax
, Stelazine
, Tegretol
or Tofranil
. 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.
with other Eastern and Western religions on the principle that spiritual truths are universal. The children studied the major scriptures of these religions and also the works of fashionable gurus including Sri Chinmoy
, Meher Baba
and Rajneesh
. The group had an inner circle who justified their actions by their claim to be reincarnation
s of the Apostles of Jesus.
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
in the Catskill Mountains
in 1979 and 1981, and purchased a nearby property as her own base in the USA. However, she later became disillusioned with Muktananda and helped other disaffected members of his movement to disconnect.
Anne Hamilton-Byrne and her husband, William, remained outside Australia for the next six years. Operation Forest, an investigation involving police in Australia, the USA, and the United Kingdom resulted in their arrest in June 1993 by the FBI
in the town of Hurleyville
in the Catskills in New York. 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. Elizabeth Whitaker, wife of the psychiatrist
Howard Whitaker, was their co-defendant. The Hamilton-Byrnes pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of making a false declaration and were fined $5000 each; the charge against Whitaker was dropped.
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
group formed in Australia under the leadership of the Yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
teacher Anne Hamilton-Byrne.
Beginnings
Around 1964, Raynor JohnsonRaynor Johnson
Raynor Carey Johnson was an English physicist and author.Johnson was born in Leeds, England. He earned an MA at the University of Oxford and a PhD in physics at the University of London. He taught physics in London and Belfast, working for a time with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory...
was hosting regular meetings of a religious and philosophical discussion group led by Hamilton-Byrne at Santiniketan, his home at Ferny Creek
Ferny Creek, Victoria
Ferny Creek is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 33 km south-east of Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges. At the 2006 Census, Ferny Creek had a population of 1536....
in the Dandenong Ranges
Dandenong Ranges
The Dandenong Ranges are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately 35 km east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
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.
The association consisted of middle class professional people; 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
Hatha yoga
Hatha yoga , also called hatha vidya , is a system of yoga introduced by Yogi Swatmarama, a Hindu sage of 15th century India, and compiler of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika....
classes. 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
Olinda, Victoria
Olinda is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 36 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges. At the 2006 Census, Olinda had a population of 1568.-History:...
or another property in the area known as the White Lodge.
Newhaven
During the late 1960s and the 1970s, Newhaven Hospital in KewKew, Victoria
Kew is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Boroondara. At the 2006 Census, Kew had a population of 22,516....
was a private psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
owned and managed by Marion Villimek, a Santiniketan member; many of its staff and attending psychiatrists
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
were also members.
Many patients at Newhaven were treated with the hallucinogenic drug LSD. 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 Dr John Mackay and Dr Howard Whitaker. One of the original members of the Association was given LSD, electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy , formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Its mode of action is unknown...
and two leucotomies
Lobotomy
Lobotomy "; τομή – tomē: "cut/slice") is a neurosurgical procedure, a form of psychosurgery, also known as a leukotomy or leucotomy . It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain...
, also called lobotomies, during the late 1960s.
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
Deep Sleep Therapy
Deep sleep therapy , also called prolonged sleep treatment or continuous narcosis, is a psychiatric treatment based on the use of psychiatric drugs to render patients unconscious for a period of days or weeks.-History:...
. 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. The Newhaven building was later reopened as a nursing home
Nursing home
A nursing home, convalescent home, skilled nursing unit , care home, rest home, or old people's home provides a type of care of residents: it is a place of residence for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living...
with no connections to its previous owner or uses.
Kia Lama
Anne Hamilton-Byrne acquired fourteen infants and young children between about 1968 and 1975. Some were the natural children of Santiniketan members, 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 certificateBirth certificate
A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a child. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuing registration of that birth...
s or deed poll
Deed poll
A deed poll is a legal document binding only to a single person or several persons acting jointly to express an active intention...
, all being given the surname 'Hamilton-Byrne' and dressed alike even to the extent of their hair being dyed uniformly blonde.
The children were kept in seclusion and home-schooled
Homeschooling
Homeschooling or homeschool is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school...
at Kia Lama, a rural property usually referred to as "Uptop", at Taylor Bay on Lake Eildon
Lake Eildon
Lake Eildon is the impoundment created by Eildon Weir on the Goulburn River in southern Victoria, Australia. At 3,334,158 megalitres when full, it contains six times as much water as Sydney Harbour and is the second largest water storage in Victoria after Dartmouth Dam...
near the town of Eildon, Victoria
Eildon, Victoria
Eildon is a town in Victoria, Australia. It is located near Lake Eildon, on the Goulburn Valley Highway, in the Shire of Murrindindi local government area. At the 2006 Census, Eildon had a population of 1186.-History:...
. They were taught that Anne Hamilton-Byrne was their biological mother, and knew the other adults in the group as 'aunties' and 'uncles'. They were denied almost all access to the outside world, and subjected to a discipline that included frequent corporal punishment
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...
and starvation diets.
The children were frequently dosed with the psychiatric drugs Anatensol
Fluphenazine
Fluphenazine is a typical antipsychotic drug used for the treatment of psychoses such as schizophrenia and acute manic phases of bipolar disorder. It belongs to the piperazine class of phenothiazines....
, Diazepam
Diazepam
Diazepam , first marketed as Valium by Hoffmann-La Roche is a benzodiazepine drug. Diazepam is also marketed in Australia as Antenex. It is commonly used for treating anxiety, insomnia, seizures including status epilepticus, muscle spasms , restless legs syndrome, alcohol withdrawal,...
, Haloperidol
Haloperidol
Haloperidol is a typical antipsychotic. It is in the butyrophenone class of antipsychotic medications and has pharmacological effects similar to the phenothiazines....
, Largactil
Chlorpromazine
Chlorpromazine is a typical antipsychotic...
, Mogadon
Nitrazepam
Nitrazepam is a type of benzodiazepine drug and is marketed in English-speaking countries under the following brand names: Alodorm, Arem, Insoma, Mogadon, Nitrados, Nitrazadon, Ormodon, Paxadorm, Remnos, and Somnite...
, Serepax
Oxazepam
Oxazepam , is a drug which is a short to intermediate acting 3-hydroxy benzodiazepine derivative...
, Stelazine
Trifluoperazine
Trifluoperazine is a typical antipsychotic of the phenothiazine chemical class.- Uses :...
, Tegretol
Carbamazepine
Carbamazepine is an anticonvulsant and mood-stabilizing drug used primarily in the treatment of epilepsy and bipolar disorder, as well as trigeminal neuralgia...
or Tofranil
Imipramine
Imipramine , also known as melipramine, is an antidepressant medication, a tricyclic antidepressant of the dibenzazepine group...
. 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.
Sarah Hamilton-Byrne memoir
A few children managed to escape. One adoptive daughter, Sarah Hamilton-Byrne, later wrote a book, Unseen Unheard Unknown, in which she claimed, among other things, that children were stolen. She claimed that her biological mother had come to get rid of a baby and that members of the medical establishment in Melbourne and Geelong took part in a process where women were told that their babies had died at birth, when they had actually been taken away and eventually passed on to Anne Hamilton-Byrne.Religious claims
The Santiniketan Park Association taught an eclectic mixture of Christianity and HinduismHinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
with other Eastern and Western religions on the principle that spiritual truths are universal. The children studied the major scriptures of these religions and also the works of fashionable gurus including Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy
Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, also known as Sri Chinmoy was an Indian spiritual teacher, poet, artist and athlete who immigrated to the U.S. in 1964., the founder of the religious organization "Sri Chinmoy Centre Church, Inc." better known as "Sri Chinmoy Centre"...
, Meher Baba
Meher Baba
Meher Baba , , born Merwan Sheriar Irani, was an Indian mystic and spiritual master who declared publicly in 1954 that he was the Avatar of the age....
and Rajneesh
Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
Osho , born Chandra Mohan Jain , and also known as Acharya Rajneesh from the 1960s onwards, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the 1970s and 1980s and as Osho from 1989, was an Indian mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher who garnered an international following.A professor of philosophy, he travelled...
. The group had an inner circle who justified their actions by their claim to be reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
s of the Apostles of Jesus.
Siddha Yoga
For a few years Anne Hamilton-Byrne developed a special connection to the Siddha YogaSiddha Yoga
Siddha Yoga is a spiritual path based on the Hindu spiritual traditions of Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism. The Siddha Yoga path was founded by Swami Muktananda Paramahamsa . The present spiritual head of the Siddha Yoga path is Gurumayi Chidvilasananda...
movement, receiving shaktipat
Shaktipat
Shaktipat or Śaktipāta refers in Hinduism to the conferring of spiritual "energy" upon one person by another...
initiation from Swami Muktananda
Muktananda
Swami Muktananda is the monastic name of an Indian Hindu guru and disciple of Bhagavan Nityananda. Swami Muktananda was the founder of Siddha Yoga...
and taking the Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
name Ma Yoga Shakti. She took some of the children to stay with Muktananda at his ashram
Ashram
Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....
at South Fallsburg
South Fallsburg, New York
South Fallsburg is a hamlet in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was 2,061 at the 2000 census and 2,121 according to a 2007 estimate.South Fallsburg is located within the town of Fallsburg on Route 42....
in the Catskill Mountains
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
in 1979 and 1981, and purchased a nearby property as her own base in the USA. However, she later became disillusioned with Muktananda and helped other disaffected members of his movement to disconnect.
Police intervention
On 14 August 1987 a police raid on Kia Lama released the children still being held there.Anne Hamilton-Byrne and her husband, William, remained outside Australia for the next six years. Operation Forest, an investigation involving police in Australia, the USA, and the United Kingdom resulted in their arrest in June 1993 by the FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
in the town of Hurleyville
Fallsburg, New York
Fallsburg is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The town is in the eastern part of the county. The population was 12,234 at the 2000 census. The town takes its name from a waterfall on the Neversink River...
in the Catskills in New York. They were extradited
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
to Australia and charged with conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
to defraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
and to commit perjury
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
by falsely registering the births
Civil registry
Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database is called civil register or registry, or population registry. The primary purpose of civil registration is to create legal documents that are used to...
of three unrelated children as their own triplets. Elizabeth Whitaker, wife of the psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
Howard Whitaker, was their co-defendant. The Hamilton-Byrnes pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of making a false declaration and were fined $5000 each; the charge against Whitaker was dropped.