Child abuse allegations to accusations of ‘keeping people close through fear’ – the infamous ‘cult’ Hugh Jackman calls his ‘pillar’

Hugh Jackman has spent decades building one of the cleanest images in Hollywood. He is known for being genuinely kind, deeply charitable, and remarkably grounded for someone of his fame. But one long-standing choice in his personal life quietly sits at odds with that image, and it is one that very few people have questioned him about.

Since 1991, as GQ reports, Jackman has been a member of the School of Economic Science (SES), also known as the School of Practical Philosophy. In a 2010 interview with GQ Australia, he described it as the spiritual centre of his life: “The spiritual pillar for me has become the School of Practical Philosophy. I’m a regular attendee there and I suppose that has become my church.” He has said he attends classes every week, wherever he is in the world, and meditates twice a day as part of its teachings.

But the organisation Jackman calls his spiritual home has a deeply troubled past. Actress Emily Watson, who was raised in the SES by her parents, has spoken openly about what she witnessed. She said the organisation kept “people close through fear,” and described “extreme behaviour, cruelty and unpleasantness that was very damaging for some people.” Watson was eventually expelled from the organisation in 1996 after appearing in Breaking the Waves, a film the SES strongly disapproved of.

The group’s history goes well beyond a few unhappy members

The SES founded a network of schools for children, the most well-known being the St James Independent Schools in London. A private inquiry set up by the school’s own governors in 2005 found that children had been “criminally assaulted” during the period between 1975 and 1985. Boys were punched, kicked, struck from behind, and hit with objects. The inquiry was blunt: “Whatever the provocation, nothing could justify this mistreatment. It was clearly unreasonable and criminal.”

In December 2020, nearly $1 million in compensation had been paid to dozens of former students. Around 45 former students who attended between 1975 and 1992 received payments of up to $30,000 each, all settled without any admission of liability. The label of “cult” is one the SES has always rejected, but it is a word that has followed the organisation for decades, and it is not the only group in recent years to face that kind of scrutiny.

Jackman has never publicly addressed any of this. He has spoken about the organisation only in warm terms, crediting its teachings with shaping how he sees the world and his place in it. He is, by all accounts, a thoughtful man. He has spoken at the United Nations about ending global poverty. 

The X-Men star has talked openly about Socrates, about conscience, about sitting with uncomfortable questions. In one interview, he even quoted his mentor Tim Costello, who told him that “the only thing that matters is that you stay close to the question.” For someone who otherwise seems so willing to examine his own choices, as seen in his recent appearances that have drawn criticism and questions about where his loyalties really lie, the silence on this particular subject stands out.

It is a fair question to ask, then, whether Jackman has ever turned that same honesty toward the organisation he has quietly supported for over three decades. Staying close to the question, as he puts it, would seem to require it.