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  4. 24th November 1992

Kenja Cult

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SpeakersMutch The Hon Stephen
BusinessAdjournment

KENJA CULT

The Hon. S. B. MUTCH [6.30]: Tonight I wish to speak on behalf of concerned parents who have lost their daughter to the destructive cult known as Kenja. This organisation is controlled by a person named Ken Dyers, in partnership with long-term companion, Jan Hamilton. The name Kenja is a compilation of their first names. In Sydney the cult operates from 243 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills. It is listed in the yellow pages as a personal evolvement centre under the category Training and Development. Department of Consumer Affairs business names extracts reveal that the person carrying on the business is Bernard Thomas Price of 6 Edward Street, Bondi. The cult also operates under the name Kenja Personal Ability Centre at the same address. The person operating the business is listed as Jan Hamilton who gives her address as unit 10, 158 Bellevue Road, Double Bay. Jim and Marea Capell of Cronulla have asked me to sound a public warning about the destructive nature of this cult which has claimed their daughter Sue, who is now one of the senior members of the group and operates a Kenja centre in Melbourne at 388 Bourke Street, Melbourne. I am informed that Kenja also operates in the Australian Capital Territory under the name Canberra Communications Centre at unit 7, first floor, 24-26 Mort Street, Braddon, Australian Capital Territory.
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Operating under the guise of personal development and leadership training, Kenja is a sinister organisation designed to fill the pockets and stroke the egos of its founder Ken Dyers and his partner Jan Hamilton.

From discussions with past members of Kenja, I am satisfied that this organisation utilises dangerous and covert hypnotic induction techniques to exert mind control for unscrupulous purposes over recruits who are drawn into the organisation by deceit. Unsuspecting people are surreptitiously brought under the control of Ken Dyers and Jan Hamilton so that they become virtual slaves, involuntarily giving over their minds and incomes to Kenja. Dyers professes to have acquired God-like knowledge and to have developed a theory of energy conversion which brings with it unique insights into the meaning of life. The truth is that Ken Dyers is a seedy con man and his theory is mumbo jumbo garbage. He is not even original. His methods have been lifted straight from Scientology - another dubious organisation to which he once professed to belong. People who are recruited by word of mouth to attend personal development sessions and seminars are invariably asked to pay in cash. I am informed that receipts given do not reflect the totality of income received which amounts to large sums of cash. Ken Dyers claims that he has no financial interest in the organisation and that Kenja is run on a non-profit basis. However, I am informed that he is keen to have cash delivered to him personally for security and safe keeping. He is a liar, a cheat and a bully. This man lives in a large house at Bundeena. He lives on the backs of people he has deceived and abused - people who are isolated from their families and friends. I thank Mr and Mrs Capell for their community spirit in coming forward to reveal for the benefit of others their tragic experience. I believe they will get their daughter back when she eventually realises that she has been hypnotised and deceived by an unscrupulous con artist and his equally guilty partner. In an informative book entitled Combatting Cult Mind Control, the author Steve Hassan, a former cult member, says:
      The only solution to the damage done to people in destructive cults is to immunise the general population against mind control groups. The most effective way to do so is to expose people to information about how the groups work.

I believe the community has a right to know what occurs in destructive cults, and I intend to continue exposing the practices of this particular cult until people like Sue Capell find freedom from a very real and very dangerous mind control. To me it is a fundamental question of civil liberties.



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