The Family

The cult of Anne Hamilton-Byrne sounds like a nuclear family parody of The Stepford Wives. She started establishing a colony in Victoria, Australia, in the 1960s, which eventually included 28 adopted children—many of them were obtained illegally and persuaded she was their biological mother. The kids were subjected to severe domineering physical and emotional abuse in addition to being clothed in the same traditional garb along gender lines, having their hair harshly groomed the same, and wearing the same traditional apparel.

In the same way that Hamilton-Byrne had turned to yoga to help her deal with the traumatic loss of her first husband, she eventually turned to psychedelics as well. There, she came to believe that she was Jesus Christ and that her family should take LSD with her while she preached. She also told them that they would be the master race after the end of the world. Due to the marginalization of LGBT people at the time, she was also able to enlist a number of wealthy ladies in unhappy marriages.

Two youngsters were eventually forced to flee their incredibly sick home in 1987, and their reports led to a police raid. When the enormously affluent Hamilton-Byrne was finally apprehended after two years of eluding the law, she was only found guilty of one offence and paid a small fine before senility set in and it was decided she was no longer competent to stand trial. She passed away in 2019, still substituting a doll for her young victims. Speaking of apocalypse, Dustin Koski and Jonathan Wojcik wrote Return of the Living, a book that explores how ghosts coexist after the world has been destroyed.