Kenja is a non-religious, non-political personal communication training organisation, designed to help the individual achieve his/her goals and discover his/her purpose by:

• Providing training with a positive, creative attitude towards life -- through an in-depth understanding and control of mental, spiritual and physical energy and its effects on the mind and behaviour of the individual.
• Using Energy Conversion Meditation to locate and let go of destructive considerations the individual has made towards the body, mind, worth, capabilities and potential of him/herself or family or life or society or nation. KENJA -- The word is simply an anagram of the names Ken Dyers and Jan Hamilton -- who co-founded Kenja in Sydney, Australia in 1982. Later, it was discovered that in Japanese, one of the meanings of 'Kenja' is 'wise man'.

Kanja Communications was founded in 1982 by jovial World War II veteran Ken Dyers, and wannabe actress Jan Hamilton.

The pair preach the positive power of a form of one-to-one meditation they call "energy conversion".

Its Sydney base is on the second floor of a nondescript office building in a narrow Surry Hills street.

Dyers, who is now in his 80s, claims on the Kenja website that he "developed a comprehensive background in business and success bringing out the positive potential and creativity towards others, in people".

He also claims to have done work in mental health.

He says his energy conversion work earned him "a name throughout Australia and around the world, as a pioneer in the area of addressing the subtle energy that affects perception and communication".

At this time, his partner Hamilton had just returned from seeking acting work in England and planned a new career offering "workshops in clowning".

The website says: "This combination of Jan's clowning training and Ken's lectures on the findings of his research into Energy Conversion, proved an instant success. It provided the genesis of what is today called Kenja."

But in 1999, Dyers found himself facing charges of sexual abuse of young girls.

He was convicted but a year later cleared by the Court of Appeal.

After his trial, Dyer said: "It was described in court as a political prosecution and a witch-hunt and that is what it has been.

"Kenja has survived this test, more united than ever."

But yesterday, behind the steel shutters of their high-security offices, Kenja workers were less than keen to communicate with the media.

Attempts to talk to them were met with refusals and stubborn silence.

The mentally ill woman wrongly locked in Baxter Detention Centre slid into schizophrenia while a member of a Sydney religious cult.

German-born former Qantas flight attendant Cornelia Rau became an initiate of a secretive Surry Hills group, which practises self empowerment.

Today, The Daily Telegraph can reveal the extraordinary story behind the 39-year-old's mental decline and her membership of the inner-city cult.

The name Ms Rau was using when arrested by police -- Anne Schmidt -- is a composite of the names of two other cult members.

Last night, her sister Christine said: "It was while she was with them [the cult] that she started getting sick.

"We couldn't figure out how she got so ill."

Yesterday, as the Prime Minister ordered an inquiry into the mix-up,The Daily Telegraph identified the cult Ms Rae joined as the Kenja Communication group run by its guru Ken Dyers.

She spent a few months with the group, which runs its classes in secrecy behind steel doors in Surry Hills, in 1998.

Christine said from her home in Kings Langley, western Sydney, it was then that her sister's health deteriorated.
[...more...]