Inside the cult-like group hidden away in Byron Bay that targets new age festival-goers - convincing them to work 16 hours a day making 'healing products' that sell for $12,500

Daily Mail, UK/October 24, 2016

By Kate Darvall

Australian cult-like group Hermes Far Eastern Shining is targeting unsuspecting festival-goers and university students by offering them the promise of 'enlightenment'.

The group, tucked away in the hills of Byron Bay, is one of the most powerful in Australia, and is now growing fast in other parts of the world including Asia and Europe.

The spiritual group was started in the early 1990s by Gerald Hart Attrill, a clinical psychologist who reinvented himself as a Jesus figure and went by the name Jessa O'My Heart. 

Based on Egyptian philosopher and Alchymist, Hermes Trismegistus, the group works to create artefacts they claim help to enlighten mankind.

The products include Sacred Body of Man Bubblers which claim to be the key to 'unlocking the bodily density of mortal identification' and sell for $12,500 each.

Group leader Attrill died aged 72 in December 2012, but left a devoted group of followers behind to continue his work.

He instructed his followers to recruit at festivals and even target Brisbane university students. 

The group now also takes to social media to recruit its followers. 

Beginning his work with a band of members in Maroochydore, Queensland, he soon moved his followers to Sydney and later to a property at Tyalgum, 70km north of Byron Bay.

It was there in the shadows of Mt Warning, the group established itself more than a decade ago.

Now four years after leader Jessa O'My Heart died, the group has been called out by Senator Nick Xenophon.

Senator Xenophon has called for the spiritual community group to be investigated by an 'anti-sect' government watchdog, according to the Daily Telegraph.

He branded the group's strange tactics 'disturbing' and feared the society was ramping up its recruitment efforts.

He said the group needed to be put under the microscope and highlighted the need for state intervention.

Senator Xenophon's call for action comes as former Hermes Far Eastern Shining followers come out of the woodwork to share their horror stories.

One former devotee Jackie Gate, said she joined the group with her boyfriend when she was 31-years-old.

She said the 'friendly' group took her in and made her feel secure.

But not long after she joined, she said she started to notice its dark underbelly.

When she fell pregnant, Ms Gate said the group tried to turn her against her boyfriend and take control of her and her unborn child.

She said a member told her 'you know this baby is yours and not the dad's, no matter how much you say you will be together. You don't need him, we will help raise your baby as one of us … don't rely on a man for help'.

Ms Gate said this was a turning point for her and her boyfriend.

She told the group she needed to fly to the UK for a funeral, and immediately booked flights home to Sydney.

'I stumbled across something that I thought looked wonderful, but felt dark,' she said.

Another former devotee Anna Fitzgerald said she was 'love bombed' by recruiters and spent eight years with the group after she was initially showered with kindness.

At 50-years-old, Ms Fitzgerald left her life in the UK and moved to Australia where she was given the name Perplexity Swings This and That.

But after eight years of working for up to 16 hours a day, Ms Fitzgerald said she realised she was just a victim.

'I realised I was being conned,' she said. 

Ms Fitzgerald said she hatched up a plan in 2011, and asked some shopkeepers to help her escape.

She was driven to a hotel in Coolangatta where she hid until her family sent money to get back home.

Support group of victims and families of victims, Cult Information and Family Support (CIFS), issued a powerful warning about Hermes Far Eastern Shining.

President Ros Hodgkins said there was a real danger for people in the group to be emotionally exploited.

She said the group isolated its members in an attempt to control their lives.

She also warned the group massively exploited its members financially, by selling products that claimed to be blessed.

The group sells products including Archangel Wands and Sacred Body of Man Bubblers.

The products claim to have healing powers and sell for up to $12,500.

And while some of the products appear to be just coloured water in crystal vials, Hermes Far Eastern Shining claims they can 'awaken the heart'. 

Hermes Far Eastern Shining Australia representative Peaches Land said the group and its products had the 'potential for great numbers of people to receive support in their daily life and be aided in their own awakening process'. 

The group's website claims the group is about 'heart awakening; the transmutation of density and the unenlightened disposition'.

'It is with the support of these artefacts that we inspire individuals to grow beyond their present levels of limitation,' it says.

'Together creating an energetic field which allows the consciousness of love itself to spread like a wildfire across the earth plane.

'That is what Hermes Far Eastern Shining is all about.' 

What products are sold? 

Eternal Light House of Angelic Realms: Viles of coloured liquid and some crystals, sold for $9,800 (claims to bring people to 'Eternal Light') 

Soulfire Octahedron: A small octahedron with orange tubes inside, sold for $4,500 (claims to be the energetic construction of human possibility) 

Sacred Body of Man Bubbler: Coloured balls on a plinth, sold for $12,500 (claims to be the key to unlocking the bodily density of mortal identification) 

Archangel Wands: Tubes with writing on them, sold for $85 each and $1000 for the set (claims to be celestial beings to support and guide) 

Hermetic Salamander: A pendant, sold for $3,240 (claims to be a furnace of empowerment)