94 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 10, 2019
Bass was largely responsible for supplying tens
of millions of dollars to fund the Biosphere 2
project in Arizona, for example, which Allen
cofounded. Hawes mentions his encounters with
Bass while at a Synergia in Australia, where he
saw how Bass cowered around Allen. From
around age 8 through 16, Hawes labored for
meager room and board for the Institute of
Ecotechnics (a ranch) paid for by Ed Bass but
controlled by Allen. Allen was careful not to
overplay his thumb on Bass, who retained most
of the profits from Synergia enterprises. Bass
always dressed and ate well among Synergists
who struggled to live on extremely low wages
($4 a day in the early 1970s, for example). The
impoverishment was by design to help cult
members to better advance themselves and not
be attached to material wealth. Bass was an
exception, no doubt because Allen needed the
Bass money to augment his grandiose schemes.
As for education, Hawes was never taught to
read or do math, but he was forced to learn to
tend to livestock, cook and clean for “idiots”
maintain and drive tractors and ranch equipment.
Influenced by the adults, he began smoking at
age 9 and learned to use foul language. By age
19, despite not being able to read, Hawes, with a
friend, developed a tidy business for a time
reconditioning dysfunctional Land Rovers in
Australia. Hawes was driven to earn money by a
survival instinct and not by cult encouragement.
Allen mimicked Gurdjieff’s style, with a mixture
of social engineering using hypnosis or
influence-communication techniques, acting and
movement classes, theater projects, tedious
lectures, esoteric wisdom, and “necessary” abuse
[e.g., Fritz Peters wrote of Gurdjieff, “It had
been impressive, enlightening and even amusing
to watch him, at close range, when he reduced
people to a pulp, as he had done to Mr. Orage”
(Peters, p. 117)]. Gurdjieff’s tirade against A. R.
Orage most likely occurred because Orage
developed a variant of Fourth Way teaching, not
knowing that this would outrage the master.
Orage (1873–1934) was a promising, talented
literary figure when he encountered Gurdjieff,
who was a young man at the time. The point
here, as we learn in Hawes’s book, was
submission to teachers or elders (“idiots”), no
matter what, and is a feature of the Fourth Way.
When we ask what kind of person is attracted to
a Fourth Way group, Peters, as quoted in The
Harmonious Circle, by James Webb, observed:
They seemed to me to have been
attracted to his teaching for a variety of
not very good reasons—because of
loneliness, or perhaps because they
considered themselves misfits or
outcasts. Most of them had dabbled in
the arts, theosophy, the occult or
something of the sort, and had come to
Gurdjieff as if in search of another
‘cure’ for their life problems. ..(Peters,
as cited in Webb, p. 414)
Hawes’s parents fit that description. His father,
an architect, finally broke with the Synergias
years after his son did. Hawes defected when he
legally could, at age 16, and more so at age 19
after he had returned to a Synergia to work for a
time to try to reconnect with his mother, Lisa.
But she remained detached, having barely any
contact with Hawes, in compliance with Allen’s
teaching that the nuclear family is destructive to
the goal of self-remembering. Lisa to this day is
a true believer.
Despite efforts by Allen in an imploring,
flattering letter asking Hawes to stay, and
warning him that he could lose his soul in a bad
world, the broken teenager remained firm in his
decision made years before he could legally
defect. He was well beyond feeling any
sympathy for Allen and his abusive system.
Devotion had literally been beaten out of him.
Hawes takes us through chores during a typical
week at the Ranch in Australia near Fitzroy
Crossing. It is hard to fathom what he had to
do—a throwback to child labor in the Middle
Ages, perhaps. Cult members would argue that
this was for his spiritual development of
character, and that he learned things he might
never experience at proper schools. The latter
was certainly true. He would be shouted at or hit
for the least lapse in judgement or infraction by
humorless “idiots.” Once he was struck so hard
by his female manager across the side of his
head that he could not hear in that ear for more
than a week. No one took him to see a doctor.
Bass was largely responsible for supplying tens
of millions of dollars to fund the Biosphere 2
project in Arizona, for example, which Allen
cofounded. Hawes mentions his encounters with
Bass while at a Synergia in Australia, where he
saw how Bass cowered around Allen. From
around age 8 through 16, Hawes labored for
meager room and board for the Institute of
Ecotechnics (a ranch) paid for by Ed Bass but
controlled by Allen. Allen was careful not to
overplay his thumb on Bass, who retained most
of the profits from Synergia enterprises. Bass
always dressed and ate well among Synergists
who struggled to live on extremely low wages
($4 a day in the early 1970s, for example). The
impoverishment was by design to help cult
members to better advance themselves and not
be attached to material wealth. Bass was an
exception, no doubt because Allen needed the
Bass money to augment his grandiose schemes.
As for education, Hawes was never taught to
read or do math, but he was forced to learn to
tend to livestock, cook and clean for “idiots”
maintain and drive tractors and ranch equipment.
Influenced by the adults, he began smoking at
age 9 and learned to use foul language. By age
19, despite not being able to read, Hawes, with a
friend, developed a tidy business for a time
reconditioning dysfunctional Land Rovers in
Australia. Hawes was driven to earn money by a
survival instinct and not by cult encouragement.
Allen mimicked Gurdjieff’s style, with a mixture
of social engineering using hypnosis or
influence-communication techniques, acting and
movement classes, theater projects, tedious
lectures, esoteric wisdom, and “necessary” abuse
[e.g., Fritz Peters wrote of Gurdjieff, “It had
been impressive, enlightening and even amusing
to watch him, at close range, when he reduced
people to a pulp, as he had done to Mr. Orage”
(Peters, p. 117)]. Gurdjieff’s tirade against A. R.
Orage most likely occurred because Orage
developed a variant of Fourth Way teaching, not
knowing that this would outrage the master.
Orage (1873–1934) was a promising, talented
literary figure when he encountered Gurdjieff,
who was a young man at the time. The point
here, as we learn in Hawes’s book, was
submission to teachers or elders (“idiots”), no
matter what, and is a feature of the Fourth Way.
When we ask what kind of person is attracted to
a Fourth Way group, Peters, as quoted in The
Harmonious Circle, by James Webb, observed:
They seemed to me to have been
attracted to his teaching for a variety of
not very good reasons—because of
loneliness, or perhaps because they
considered themselves misfits or
outcasts. Most of them had dabbled in
the arts, theosophy, the occult or
something of the sort, and had come to
Gurdjieff as if in search of another
‘cure’ for their life problems. ..(Peters,
as cited in Webb, p. 414)
Hawes’s parents fit that description. His father,
an architect, finally broke with the Synergias
years after his son did. Hawes defected when he
legally could, at age 16, and more so at age 19
after he had returned to a Synergia to work for a
time to try to reconnect with his mother, Lisa.
But she remained detached, having barely any
contact with Hawes, in compliance with Allen’s
teaching that the nuclear family is destructive to
the goal of self-remembering. Lisa to this day is
a true believer.
Despite efforts by Allen in an imploring,
flattering letter asking Hawes to stay, and
warning him that he could lose his soul in a bad
world, the broken teenager remained firm in his
decision made years before he could legally
defect. He was well beyond feeling any
sympathy for Allen and his abusive system.
Devotion had literally been beaten out of him.
Hawes takes us through chores during a typical
week at the Ranch in Australia near Fitzroy
Crossing. It is hard to fathom what he had to
do—a throwback to child labor in the Middle
Ages, perhaps. Cult members would argue that
this was for his spiritual development of
character, and that he learned things he might
never experience at proper schools. The latter
was certainly true. He would be shouted at or hit
for the least lapse in judgement or infraction by
humorless “idiots.” Once he was struck so hard
by his female manager across the side of his
head that he could not hear in that ear for more
than a week. No one took him to see a doctor.
