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Hello and welcome back to Cult Leader. I'm your Cult Leader Spencer Henry and this is my 100th time saying that if you are new here, Cult Leader is a podcast about Cult, Moida and the General Spooky Yuki.

Every week for the past two-ish years, I've spent 22 minutes on average talking to you guys and man, what a journey it has been. Whether you listen in your car, at work, on a plane, in bed, thank you for letting me be a little part of your week. Your guys' support means the world to me. I think you guys are the coolest. Last night I was checking in on the Cult Leader Facebook group and I saw somebody got Cult Leader as their license plate, which is wild and so cool.

So we're 100. What does it mean? Age is just a number, they say. Now I really thought a lot about what I wanted to do for today's episode. I have a few collabs that I've done recently. One of them was with Brittany Furlin that came out last week for her podcast worst first and that was so much fun. Although it was so weird to me because she video records her podcast as well.

And I don't like seeing myself on video and I'm like, I don't want to be on video ever again. I want to just sit and be ugly in peace.

No, but that was actually so much fun to do and we really hit it off. So I'm hoping that she will come be a guest with us soon because she knows a lot about aliens.

And that is something that I don't know a lot about but would like to know more about. So we talked about it. We're going to try and figure that out soon. I also did another collab with some people that are secret and that will be out soon as well.

But for today, we're going to keep it casual. We're going to do it cold like we are going to just it's you and me. All right, we're sitting here. We're coming. I'm sitting over here. We're you sitting. I'm right here. This is this is actually my seat. You might need to get up.

As you can tell from the title of today's episode, we are talking about the family. If you're not familiar, you're going to you're about to get familiar. And I'm going to leave you guys with some really good resources for today's episode because there has been a ton of great interviews.

There's a 60 minute segment. There's a docu series. There's just so much good stuff that I can't wait for you guys to watch. It's probably one of the most culty cults that I have ever talked about that I've ever learned about their practices. Everything is just so bizarre to me.

We've got blonde bull cuts. We've got LSD. It's the 60s and everything's fucking weird. We're actually going back to Australia today, which is where we were. I believe last week. We just can't stay away from the down under. Let's take it from the top.

We are going to start by introducing Evelyn Grace Victoria Edwards who was born on December 30th of 1921. One of seven children born to Ralph Edwards and their mother Florence Hoyle. Now, Edward, he had a story in and of itself. His life prior to his marriage with Florence was tragic.

He had his first wife that passed away during childbirth while he was serving in the First World War. After he returned as when he met Florence and it was very much a fresh start. The couple was elated with their children with the birth of Evelyn. They lived in this small farming town. I believe it was sale. And the mom Florence was...

Let's just say she was eccentric. We've got some stories about her. Shortly after Evelyn's birth, Ralph actually took off. And throughout her childhood, he was definitely not a constant. He would come and go as he please. And eventually just kind of disappeared from their lives altogether.

Florence was absent in a different way, mainly mentally. She was a self-proclaimed medium. We love it. Who could talk to those on the other side. The voices and the visions she was having were later determined by medical professionals who ended up diagnosing her with schizophrenia. Florence ended up spending more than half of her life in psychiatric hospitals. And it's later where she passed away as well.

There's this one story I heard where she went out in the middle of the street and let her hair on fire. Definitely some strange happenings going on in that small town.

Without the care of her parents, the majority of Evelyn's childhood was spent in an orphanage which definitely took a toll on the young girl. And it would have a major lasting impact for the rest of her life. And really who she was at the core of it all.

The chaotic childhood, longing for a true family, struggles with self-balladation. Evelyn was desperate for a sense of normalcy. Little is known about her life in the 30s, but in 1941 at the age of 20, Evelyn resurfaced as an entirely new woman. She had reinvented herself. Now going by the name Anne Hamilton. Who was Anne Hamilton?

Well according to her, she was the ascendant of royalty. She would later tell people, oh yes, my mother was from a family of French aristocrats. It's a story she told a lot of people including Lionel Harris, who she met and married that year.

Lionel was in the army at the time and Anne didn't want to lose him. You can't go back there, she'd tell him. The couple ended up moving to Victoria and spent all of their time together making future plans.

Eight months into their newlywed life, Lionel was arrested by military police for this little A-Wall experience and ended up serving another year before being honorably discharged.

What do you know? You can't just leave the army for your love life, but after he was discharged like finally, finally they could settle down and start a family and desperately wanted a child of her own to give them the childhood that she never had.

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