‘All those rooms full of people
For 13 years, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman governed the lives of more than 300 men, women, and children from his big cane chair at Centrepoint. Tonight, a new docudrama sheds fresh light on the startling story of human influence and its consequences,
‘‘All those rooms full of people screaming, that was our lives,’’ recalls Rachel King, who witnessed the Centrepoint spiritual community at the age of 12.
‘‘Rooms full of people, naked or clothed, screaming at each other, cuddling, doing inappropriate things. It was just so random, the whole atmosphere the time I was there. It was a jumbled mess of weirdness…’’
‘‘It was a Utopian dream corrupted,’’ says Natalie Malcon, director of Heaven and Hell – The Centrepoint Story. ‘‘What drew people to Bert Potter? What drew people to Centrepoint? What were they looking for and how did it get so badly corrupted?’’
Bert Potter had been a top salesman for Electrolux. Then he read How to Win Friends and Influence People, a popular selfhelp manual written by another former salesman, Dale Carnegie. The book was a revelation to Potter. Visits to the Esalen growth centre in California and the Rajnesh commune in India quickly developed his ideas.
Returning to Auckland, Potter founded Centrepoint, which purchased 30 acres of Albany bushland, north of the city. There were controversial media stories and television programmes revealing the community’s group therapies and open living arrangements – which only encouraged more members.
In 1990 and 1991, Centrepoint became the focus of arrests and police raids, exposing institutionalised sexual abuse of minors and drug offences. A 2010 study by Massey University revealed that one in three children at Centrepoint were sexually abused. Self-realisation had become something entirely different.
Moving to Centrepoint with her mother and two siblings offered many things to 12-year-old Rachel King. ‘‘There was a sense of freedom in terms of the spaciousness of it: large, semirural, lots of native bush, places to explore, a swimming pool, a tennis court… A place that had a lot of fun stuff to do… Living with your friends, when they became friends, that was good.
‘‘But there were so many bad things – it is hard to put it in words: feeling afraid all the time, just generally anxious and afraid of being hurt really, of being preyed upon.’’
The Centrepoint toilets, baths and showers had no doors. Privacy was non-existent and photographs show communal sleeping arrangements. King had also arrived late in Centrepoint’s evolution. The original ethos had changed. A community ‘‘making a unique living experiment’’ had gone bad. Potter, the community’s ‘‘spiritual leader’’, had taken them all to a very strange place. King remembers drugs being provided to her as a very young teenager.
‘‘There was no preparation in terms of what we were going to feel, what was going to happen. It was just a free-for-all really.’’
Police would later discover ecstasy, LSD and ketamine on the property. ‘‘I think we were given ecstasy, but I can’t be sure,’’ King says. ‘‘We didn’t even know what we were being given.’’
During her first ecstasy experience on a grassy area the community called The Glade, she found herself in a sexual encounter with three or four adult men.
‘‘There are glimpses and memories which later turned into flashbacks which could instil a panic attack,’’ she says.
‘‘The memories were in there somewhere but not readily accessible.’’
After she left Centrepoint, King would be instrumental in having one of her assailants charged with sexual offences.
For Simon Horrocks, it was a different story. A serious motorbike accident meant he had to use a wheelchair from when he was 20. A decade later, in 1980, he joined Centrepoint.
‘‘I was very interested in the whole growth movement and, having become really injured myself, I was exploring what my potentials might be,’’ he says.
Being a wheelchair user meant Horrocks was limited to being in Centrepoint’s main operations area – the kitchen, dining room and lounge – so there were many things that he simply did not witness.
‘‘Most of the adult sleeping areas were up the side of the valley…. There were challenges because it wasn’t built for wheelchairs.’’
His experience with drugs was also quite different from King’s.
‘‘Taking ecstasy for the first time made me realise that I had far greater depth to who I was, and I realised I had these incredibly deep positive emotions that just felt rocksolid. It gave me heaps of confidence and, even to this day, I feel like I can tap into that confidence.’’ For both King and Horrocks, life after Centrepoint has meant confronting their experiences.
‘‘The hardest thing for me was having children, and having them turn the age I was when I was going through those things,’’ says King.
‘‘I have grown up, tried to imagine how people perceived
me, become an adult, and then fiercely protected them.’’
Eventually she wrote a book, Surviving Centrepoint, to clarify and describe events.
When Horrocks left the community in 1991, he had nowhere to live and no job. Centrepoint became something he didn’t want to think about. Then he read King’s book.
‘‘I was just really surprised by the story she told and how upset she was, and also I realised just
offences. what an incredible shock it was for young people like her.’’
Horrocks contacted King, and they began a dialogue that continues today. Heaven and Hell – The Centrepoint Story features intimate and revealing photographs by the photographer, Phil Fogle, himself a former Centrepoint resident.
There is also startling footage from Centrepoint: A Spiritual Growth Community, a controversial 1980 TVNZ programme directed by Geoff Stevens. Heaven and Hell’s director, Malcon, blends this material with uncaptioned re-enactments.
‘‘It is a docudrama,’’ she says, ‘‘and it is clear that there is drama on occasions.’’
‘‘Having spoken to so many people who have lived through the Centrepoint experience, there is still so much unpacking to be done,’’ she says.
‘‘That’s why Rachel and Simon were behind it, because they acknowledge this and hope the documentary might be a starting point.’’
Heaven and Hell – The Centrepoint Story premieres on TVNZ 1 tonight.