The Family (Australian New Age group)

The Family — also called the Santiniketan Park Association and the Great White Brotherhood — is a controversial Australian New Age group formed in the mid-1960s under the leadership of yoga teacher Anne Hamilton-Byrne (born 1921).

Around 1964, Raynor Johnson was hosting regular meetings of a religious and philosophical discussion group led by Anne 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 group consisted of middle class professionals; 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.

The Family teaches an eclectic mixture of Christianity and Hinduism 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 has an inner circle who justify their actions by their claim to be reincarnations of the Apostles of Jesus.

The basis of The Family's philosophy was that Anne Hamilton-Byrne was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and a living god. Jesus was said to be a great master who came down to Earth, and the group believed that Buddha and Krishna were other enlightened beings who similarly came down to help humanity. Hamilton-Byrne was regarded as being in the same category as these teachers. One adopted daughter, Sarah Hamilton-Byrne, later described the group's beliefs as a "hotch-potch" of Christianity and Eastern mysticism.

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