Raynor Johnson

Raynor Carey Johnson (1901–1987) was an English parapsychologist, 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 published scientific works on spectroscopy.

He became increasingly interested in parapsychology and became connected with the Society for Psychical Research in London.

Johnson's religious background led to work in Australia, where he was master of the Methodist Queen's College at the University of Melbourne from 1934 to 1964.

Johnson published several books on mysticism and psychical research during the 1950s and 1960s. His beliefs and writings eventually created concern within the Methodist Church and he retired from his university position in 1964. In the early 1960s Johnson visited India, where he met Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and lectured on spirituality. He also met the Indian mystics Vinoba Bhave and Swami Pratyagatmananda.

Johnson was an advocate of Douglas Fawcett's philosophy of Imaginism which he believed could explain God and the purpose of human life.

He owned a property called "Santiniketan" ("abode of peace") at Ferny Creek in the Dandenong Ranges outside Melbourne. There he hosted regular meetings of a religious and philosophical discussion group led by the yoga teacher Anne Hamilton-Byrne. This group became known as "The Family", a cult that adopted a large number of children and treated them cruelly until Victorian police rescued them on 14 August 1987. Hamilton-Byrne and her husband Bill were extradited from the United States six years later and faced criminal charges.

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