01: Open Day

June 5, 2022·44 min·4 clips

When Burt Potter died, one woman went to view his body just to be sure — another had a party that night.

The episode opens in medias res with two women describing their emotional responses to Burt Potter's death — one felt a 'loosening and lightening' as if a cloak she hadn't known she was wearing had been removed; another had a party. A third woman visited his body to confirm he was gone. Host Adam Dudding introduces himself and the series, framing Centrepoint as a 22-year experiment that ended in wreckage: families torn apart, millions of dollars lost, and many once law-abiding people imprisoned. The episode takes listeners to an April 1981 open day at Centrepoint, featuring an audio recording of Burt Potter greeting visitors and describing the community's spiritual and therapeutic aims. Dudding describes his own proximity to Centrepoint growing up on Auckland's North Shore, attending nearby schools where Centrepoint children were classmates — notable mainly for having long hair and being 'a bit different.' The episode introduces founding member Barry Leslie, who joined in 1977 and stayed for 13 years. Barry describes the genuine warmth of communal motherhood — five women pregnant and giving birth within two months of each other, no postnatal depression — and the beauty of the valley itself. The origins of Centrepoint are traced to a July 1969 Playboy article about the Esalen Institute in California, which Bert Potter read and then visited for three months in the early 1970s. The human potential movement at Esalen blended psychotherapy, Eastern mysticism, group therapy, and communal sexuality. By the mid-1970s Potter had a group of followers; by early 1978 they had purchased land in Albany, Auckland. Founding members are introduced: Keith, a GP and former missionary; Barbara, a single mother seeking support; Robert, a practical man of the land who loved the therapy and the communal building. Robert describes the intense week-long therapy groups, his initial awkwardness around the commune's open sexuality, and eventually embracing it. He also describes the cultural gap between practical landspeople and idealistic professionals who had never bought meat from a farm. Barry describes the pioneering living conditions — some people housed in old car shipping crates near the creek — and an incident where one woman's crate nearly floated away in a flood while she slept. Dudding also recounts an early interview with a dying former Centrepoint member who gave a candid, warm account of the community, then retracted his consent via text message using a classic Centrepoint tactic: turning the question of guilt back on the interviewer. The episode closes by noting that despite hundreds of articles, documentaries, and books, many Centrepoint stories have never been told.

As heard by us

A Centrepoint story that keeps relief, memory, and control in the same room.

The Commune opens on the aftermath of Burt Potter's death, and the mood is less neat mourning than a hard-to-hide relief. It stays with Centrepoint just long enough to ask why people went there at all, and a single urgent interview with a seriously ill former resident pulls the…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a Centrepoint story that starts with relief and keeps getting under the skin.

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