User:Sardaka

I am a published writer and photographer living in Sydney, Australia.

I have semi-retired from Wiki because I am sick to death of the stalkers, wankers and assorted idiots who haunt this place and ruin it for everyone else. Sardaka (talk) 08:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

At the moment I have semi-returned, still doing some editing and at the same time keeping an eye on my stalkers.

If I wanted to make one suggestion for improving Wiki, it would be that "editors" (too complimentary a term for a lot of them) should not be able to access the contributions of other editors, because that's how the stalkers do their stalking. There is no serious reason why any of us needs to follow someone else's contributions, and it is being constantly abused by the idiots.

My other suggestion would be that we should not be able to put particular articles on our watch lists, because this too is being abused by the assorted stalkers and idiots. What these people do is that they put every article on a particular subject on their watch list; then, as soon as someone makes an edit to one of those articles, they pounce on it and proceed to pass judgment on it. If it doesn't completely meet with their approval, they undo what the other person did. "What's wrong with this"? you might say. What's wrong with it is that the idiots develop a proprietorial attitude towards that group of articles and start acting as if they are in charge of them. Everything has to meet with their approval and other editors often can't get a word in edgewise. If someone has a special interest in a particular article, they can go and look at it anytime. The watch list system is making it too easy for the idiots to behave as if they are in charge of various articles, eg the Sydney suburb articles (they know who they are).

Sardaka (talk) 08:19, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Articles I have written

• Depression and natural therapies
• Australian bush flower essences
• Oakland Ashram
• Gurudev Siddha Peeth
• Walter Liberty Vernon
• George McRae
• Howard Joseland
• Mortimer Lewis
• Sarah Hamilton-Byrne
• Lucy Prebble
• The Sugar Syndrome
• Mount Solitary
• Mount Hay
• Mount Banks
• Hartley Vale, New South Wales
• Little Hartley, New South Wales
• Bruce's Walk
• Albion Street, Surry Hills
• Marshall Street, Surry Hills
• Victoria Street, East Sydney
• Old South Head Road, Sydney
• Grosvenor Street, Sydney
• Sussex Street, Sydney
• The Abbey (Sydney)
• Reussdale
• Bronte House
• Highroyd (Sydney)
• St John's Anglican Church, Darlinghurst
• Chatswood South Uniting Church, Sydney
• Heritage homes of Sydney
• Gladesville Mental Hospital
• Aboriginal sites of New South Wales
• Milbrodale, New South Wales
• Michael Guider
• List of Blue Mountains subjects

Galleries

The Abbey and Witches Houses, Annandale

Watsons Bay, Sydney

Hunter Valley, New South Wales

Sydney Architecture

Campbelltown Heritage

Federation Architecture

Australian Architecture

Hanging Rock, Victoria

Glebe, Sydney

Woollahra, New South Wales

Mountain scenery, New South Wales

Miscellaneous odds and ends:

customizing signature

How do I go about customizing my signature?

Sardaka (talk) 09:50, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Click on "my preferences" (in the default Monobook skin, it's at the top right), then type the Wikicode corresponding to the signature you want in the "Signature" textbox. Be sure to tick the "Raw signatures (without automatic link)" box! Xenon54 (Frohe Feiertage!) 11:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and you may see also Wikipedia:How to fix your signature and Wikipedia:User_Page_Design_Center/Style#Text_formatting (some very useful tips on changing fonts, colors, etc!) --PeaceNT (talk) 11:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Sarah Hamilton-Byrne (born July 8,1969) is an Australian writer and doctor who spent her childhood in The Family, a religious cult run by Anne Hamilton-Byrne, a former yoga teacher. She was instrumental in getting the group investigated by the police in Victoria, Australia. She later went on to become a doctor and to write a book about her traumatic experiences in The Family. She is now known as Sarah Moore.

Life in The Family

Sarah Hamilton-Byrne's real mother was an unmarried teenager who put her daughter up for adoption in 1969, not knowing that the girl was one of several children who would be adopted by Anne Hamilton-Byrne (AHB from here on). The latter was a charismatic yoga teacher who gathered a number of followers around her and convinced them that she was the incarnation of Christ. The children she adopted were meant to be the "inheritors of the earth" after a holocaust took place. AHB had many followers who worked in the medical and nursing professions, and who manipulated the adoption process so that no less than fourteen children were adopted by AHB. These children -- including Sarah -- were told that AHB was their real mother.

Along with the other adopted children, Sarah Hamilton-Byrne was brought up in houses that were owned by AHB, who had several properties in various countries (Sarah later estimated that AHB might have been worth $150 million). Sarah spent the first 4-5 years of her life at a house called Winberra, in the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne, Victoria. After that, she was moved to Kai Lama, a cult house at Lake Eildon, also in Victoria.

Life for the children at Kai Lama was unremittingly strict and even brutal. AHB herself was usually not there, so the children were supervised by cult women who were known as Aunties. These women disciplined the children by inflicting severe beatings for the most trivial reasons or no reason at all. Another disciplinary measure that was common was food deprivation. The children lived in fear and were deprived of all love and affection. In spite of this, they always hoped for some show of affection from AHB, who they believed was their mother, and who visited Kai Lama from time to time. They were also led to believe that the world outside was an evil and dangerous place, and that they they would end up in the gutter (or worse) if they ever left The Family.

Another form of discipline that was commonly used on the children was the administering of prescription drugs that were obtained by the followers in the medical and nursing professions. These drugs were routinely used to pacify the children. When they were older, they could also be forced to take the hallucinogenic drug LSD as a kind of religious ritual. This was known as "going-through", and was supposed to promote self-awareness, helping the person to let go of blocks. Sarah Hamilton-Byrne was forced to "go-through" in 1984, when she was 15. The experience took place at a cult property in England, and went on for some days because she was given repeated doses of the drug. She found it a traumatic experience and later was convinced that she had suffered lasting damage from the drug.

As Hamilton-Byrne grew up, she became more assertive and began arguing with those who supervised the children, including AHB herself. After arguing once too often, she was expelled from the cult by AHB in 1987, at the age of 17. Fortunately for her, she was taken in by a family she had met. After a time, she was introduced to a private investigator, known only as Helen D, who had been investigating The Family for several years. From Helen D, Sarah learned that AHB was a fraud and that Sarah herself was not AHB's daughter at all; she had in fact been adopted.

Helen D introduced Sarah to two policewomen who won her confidence; this eventually led to a police raid on Kai Lama on Friday August 14, 1987. A number of children were taken into custody, then placed in care, along with Sarah. A number of Aunties faced criminal charges and were eventually convicted of fraudulently obtaining money from the Department of Social Security. AHB and her husband Bill were overseas at the time; they were extradited from the United States in 1993 and faced criminal charges, but were only convicted of making false statements in regard to the adoption of Sarah and other children. They were each fined $5,000.

Life after The Family

Once free of The Family, Hamilton-Byrne went on to study medicine and become a qualified doctor. As a doctor, she did extensive volunteer work in India and Thailand (where she worked with Karen refugees on the Thai-Burma border), but still returned to Australia, where she carried on a medical practice in the Dandenong Ranges. She also wrote a book -- Unseen Unheard Unknown -- detailing her experiences in The Family; it was published by Penguin in 1995.

Unfortunately, she suffered from a problem with chronic pain, possibly as a result of a wound inflicted on her at Kai Lama. As a result, she forged a number of prescriptions for the pain-killing drug pethidine, but was found out and charged with a number of offences. In July 2005, she avoided a gaol sentence at Ringwood Magistrate's Court in Victoria. She was allowed to give an undertaking to be of good behaviour for four years and to do community service. She had pleaded guilty to forging prescriptions to obtain pethidine between November 2004 and April 2005.

Before committing these offences, Hamilton-Byrne had developed bipolar disorder, suffered a miscarriage and developed post-traumatic stress disorder. The magistrate who saw her said that she had suffered a childhood that no-one should have to endure, but had still risen above it like a phoenix. A consulting psychiatrist said that Sarah thrived on helping others and it was "fundamental to her sanity" that she continue practising as a doctor.

More emotional and physical trials were to come. In December 2008, she was in hospital and lost her left leg as a result of what she considered to be mistreatment by hospital staff.

In August 2009, she had an emotional reunion with Anne Hamilton-Byrne, which was covered by the Herald Sun newspaper. AHB, who was then 87 years old, said she was now "ready to die" after being reunited with her "favourite daughter". The reunion took place at AHB's sprawling compound at Olinda, Victoria. AHB said that people who accused her of mistreating the children were "lying bastards" and she would love to "put them right" but could not. She stated that she could have sued her critics but had decided against it. Sarah Hamilton-Byrne said she loved Anne but had mixed feelings about her. She still regarded AHB as being responsible for the abuse of the children, but the cult leader blamed the Aunties. That was as far as AHB would go in acknowledging any wrongdoing, Sarah said; otherwise she was unrepentant. She described AHB as a powerful and charismatic person and thought that the cult leader initially meant well in creating the cult and collecting the children. These acts, she thought, were AHB's compensation and "delusional repair" for her own childhood, which involved having an absent father and a psychotic mother. She explained elsewhere that she had decided to see AHB again after going through a form of therapy called the Hoffman Process, after which she thought it was important to forgive.

In spite of her problems, Hamilton-Byrne continued to develop her own skills and qualifications, which include PhD, MBBS, MA (Psych. studies), Dip. Clinical Hypnotherapy and Dip.Fam.Therapy.

Barefoot Basics

Eventually, Hamilton-Byrne -- who by this time had changed her name to Moore -- set up an organisation called Barefoot Basics, a charity that aims to provide health assistance to indigenous and displaced people in countries like India. The charity was approved for tax deductible purposes.She does charity work overseas whenever she can afford to make the trip.

Buddhism

Hamilton-Byrne became a Buddhist in 2009 after meeting a Buddhist lama who inducted her into the belief system of Buddhism. She has said this brought her enormous relief and joy and meant that she was now rid of her burden. She felt she now had the support of a teacher/guru (the Buddha), the dharma (a word usually translated as "righteousness", and denoting the righteous or spiritual path) and the community of Buddhists. This new belief system made sense of her life and gave her a perspective on things, particularly where she had gone wrong by taking on too much, spiritually and emotionally. Having found a guru whom no-one could find fault with, she had a psychological and spiritual support she had not had since she was expelled from The Family.

External link

• Sarah's Stuff (blog)

Timeline

• 1961: Anne Hamilton-Byrne meets Raynor Johnson and they found The Family.
• 1964: Johnson buys land at Ferny Creek, Victoria, and builds Santiniketan Lodge, which becomes the headquarters of The Family.
• 1965: AHB marries South African naval officer, Michael Riley, but the marriage does not last.
• 1960s: The Family begins recruiting members from patients at Newhaven Clinic and starts giving them LSD.
• 1968: AHB begins adopting children along with her partner Bill. Both change their name to Hamilton-Byrne but do not marry at this stage.
• 1970s: AHB buys Broom Farm in England and property in Catskills, New York, near Muktananda's ashram. She also marries Bill.
• 1983: Australian Federal police go to Kai Lama looking for missing girl, Kim Halm.
• 1986: Newhaven closes and is later the subject of a lawsuit brought by relatives of deceased cult members. AHB wins.
• 1987: Sarah Hamilton-Byrne is expelled by AHB and later talks to police, resulting in raid on Kai Lama. Children are taken away from the property.
• 1988: seven female cult members are gaoled for social security fraud.
• 1989: Victorian police establish Operation Forest to investigate The Family.
• 1990: former cult solicitor Peter Kibby starts cooperating with police and confesses forging birth records on orders from AHB. Former auntie Patricia McFarlane gives information to police about adoption scams.
• 1993: AHB and Bill are arrested in the Catskills by the FBI after phone calls are traced to Australia.
• 1994: AHB and Bill are extradited to Melbourne, plead guilty to perjury through documents and are fined $5,ooo each.
• 2001: Sarah Hamilton-Byrne visits Bill before he dies. AHB attends his funeral in her only public appearance since her conviction.