What makes a cult leader tick? The Bearcat digs into the origins of the Family, Australia’s ‘cult of cults’
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Cults are intriguing. The word conjures images of followers with glazed eyes entranced by an extravagant narcissist. Cults also invite curious readers: truth-seekers eager to discover what magnetism draws followers into the orbit of their leader, and voyeurs keen to peer through windows in the hope of witnessing something crazy.
It is a recipe for a good story, one that is eminently marketable.
The Bearcat, the first novel by Georgia Rose Phillips and one of the Guardian’s most anticipated books of the year, concerns itself with the backstory of Anne Hamilton-Byrne, the yoga teacher who became leader of the Australian cult of cults the Family.
Other works have unpicked the story of the Family and what happened at its property at Lake Eildon in Victoria. These include the award-winning three-part documentary The Cult of the Family, released a couple of months before Hamilton-Byrne’s death in 2019 at the age of 98.
The documentary included interviews with cult members and children who had been stolen from their parents and adopted by the sect. The children, famously, all had their hair dyed blonde with peroxide. They were isolated from the world and their birth families were replaced with “Aunties”. They wore uniforms and were drugged with LSD.
The content of the documentary is distressing, including details of abuse, starvation and suicide. The consequences for the children were as serious as it gets. In 2017, several survivors launched a class action against Hamilton-Byrne in the Victorian Supreme Court, which eventually reached a financial settlement in 2022.
Of course, no amount of money can give a person back their childhood and their family, though DNA was used to trace the parents of some children.
Content retrieved from: https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-cult-leader-tick-the-bearcat-digs-into-the-origins-of-the-family-australias-cult-of-cults-254300.
