Internatiional Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 10, 2019 93
The People &the Idiots: Surviving a Cult Childhood
By Daniel Hawes
Reviewed by Joseph Szimhart
Just Write Books: Topsham, ME. 2019. ISBN-
10: 194438622X ISBN-13: 978- 1944386221
(paperback). 202 pages. $21.47 (paperback,
Amazon.com).
Nothing is more telling about an intentional
community than how it treats and teaches
children. In this book, Daniel Hawes describes
in visceral detail his horrifying experience
growing up among the Synergists, led by Johnny
Dolphin Allen. I first started tracking Allen’s
cult in 1975. The People &the Idiots. ..has
given me deeper insight into how pathologically
elitist and inhumane Allen’s teachings were.
We learn from this memoir that verbal and
physical beatings of children (per Hawes, the
“people”) by adults (per Hawes, the “idiots”)
devoted to Allen’s intentional communities,
called Synergias, were so common as to be
expected daily. The model for justifying these
beatings was the leader, John Polk “Johnny
Dolphin” Allen (born in 1929), who used verbal
assault and punching as a useful teaching tool to
bring students into a higher state of awareness.
And that was the goal of Allen’s cult: to create a
“universal human being” (p. 150) by repressing
the lesser ego, or “idiot,” in the body–machine
created by society and evolution.
Allen borrowed and repurposed most of his
ideas from the Fourth Way teachings of G. I.
Gurdjieff (1866–1949), a cult leader of the
Seekers of Truth, which he formed and led early
in the 20th century. Gurdjieff taught that
irrational means, trickery, repetitious bodily
labor, and abuse were necessary to shock the
student into emerging from the “machine” self
into self-remembering. or being acutely self-
aware of action in the moment. The self to be
remembered was a gnostic self, or the divine
spark within—the seed of God, if you will—that
only the elite in society could possibly notice.
To attain this “higher octave” or sustained
gnosis [see
https://www.gurdjieff.org/werbock1.htm], one
needed an already enlightened teacher such as
Gurdjieff. The assumption was that only those
ready for awakening could see the emperor–
guru’s clothes.
If that sounds like crazy circular thinking, it is
and it is exactly how otherwise intelligent and
caring people get caught up in elitist cult circles.
Daniel Hawes had no choice: His misfortune
was to be born to parent–seekers who already
began to submit to Allen’s projects, ideas, and
will. Among other descriptors, the Fourth Way
approach was referred to as the Work and the
way of the Sly Man. The three lesser, slower
ways to enlightenment were the ways of the
mind (yogis), the emotions (monks), and the
body (fakirs). The distinctions between these
ways break down because Fourth Way leaders
seemed to employ all ways. Gurdjieff’s ideas
have had a significant influence throughout
dozens of sects, gurus, and celebrities, including
cult leader Osho/Rajneesh, Zen teacher Alan
Watts, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
This memoir by Daniel Hawes echoes Boyhood
with Gurdjieff, by Fritz Peters (1964), whose
parents were students with Gurdjieff at the cult’s
Prieuré commune in France. Peters was 11 when
he first lived, through his teens, with Gurdjieff
as his cabin boy in France. Gurdjieff devotees
who read Peter’s book may find it revealing
about the master’s foibles, but they also find it
humorous to read how Gurdjieff manipulated
seekers who did not grasp the guru’s intentions.
Gurdjieff believed that tricking the wealthy to
contribute to his cause was ethical because of
the importance of his work. This end-justifies-
the-means tactic tends to run through Fourth
Way cults that use the Way of the Sly Man
terminology, and that includes Allen’s
Synergias.
John Allen was adept at manipulating his
wealthier students, most notably Ed Bass (born
in 1945) who became a Synergist in his twenties.
The People &the Idiots: Surviving a Cult Childhood
By Daniel Hawes
Reviewed by Joseph Szimhart
Just Write Books: Topsham, ME. 2019. ISBN-
10: 194438622X ISBN-13: 978- 1944386221
(paperback). 202 pages. $21.47 (paperback,
Amazon.com).
Nothing is more telling about an intentional
community than how it treats and teaches
children. In this book, Daniel Hawes describes
in visceral detail his horrifying experience
growing up among the Synergists, led by Johnny
Dolphin Allen. I first started tracking Allen’s
cult in 1975. The People &the Idiots. ..has
given me deeper insight into how pathologically
elitist and inhumane Allen’s teachings were.
We learn from this memoir that verbal and
physical beatings of children (per Hawes, the
“people”) by adults (per Hawes, the “idiots”)
devoted to Allen’s intentional communities,
called Synergias, were so common as to be
expected daily. The model for justifying these
beatings was the leader, John Polk “Johnny
Dolphin” Allen (born in 1929), who used verbal
assault and punching as a useful teaching tool to
bring students into a higher state of awareness.
And that was the goal of Allen’s cult: to create a
“universal human being” (p. 150) by repressing
the lesser ego, or “idiot,” in the body–machine
created by society and evolution.
Allen borrowed and repurposed most of his
ideas from the Fourth Way teachings of G. I.
Gurdjieff (1866–1949), a cult leader of the
Seekers of Truth, which he formed and led early
in the 20th century. Gurdjieff taught that
irrational means, trickery, repetitious bodily
labor, and abuse were necessary to shock the
student into emerging from the “machine” self
into self-remembering. or being acutely self-
aware of action in the moment. The self to be
remembered was a gnostic self, or the divine
spark within—the seed of God, if you will—that
only the elite in society could possibly notice.
To attain this “higher octave” or sustained
gnosis [see
https://www.gurdjieff.org/werbock1.htm], one
needed an already enlightened teacher such as
Gurdjieff. The assumption was that only those
ready for awakening could see the emperor–
guru’s clothes.
If that sounds like crazy circular thinking, it is
and it is exactly how otherwise intelligent and
caring people get caught up in elitist cult circles.
Daniel Hawes had no choice: His misfortune
was to be born to parent–seekers who already
began to submit to Allen’s projects, ideas, and
will. Among other descriptors, the Fourth Way
approach was referred to as the Work and the
way of the Sly Man. The three lesser, slower
ways to enlightenment were the ways of the
mind (yogis), the emotions (monks), and the
body (fakirs). The distinctions between these
ways break down because Fourth Way leaders
seemed to employ all ways. Gurdjieff’s ideas
have had a significant influence throughout
dozens of sects, gurus, and celebrities, including
cult leader Osho/Rajneesh, Zen teacher Alan
Watts, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
This memoir by Daniel Hawes echoes Boyhood
with Gurdjieff, by Fritz Peters (1964), whose
parents were students with Gurdjieff at the cult’s
Prieuré commune in France. Peters was 11 when
he first lived, through his teens, with Gurdjieff
as his cabin boy in France. Gurdjieff devotees
who read Peter’s book may find it revealing
about the master’s foibles, but they also find it
humorous to read how Gurdjieff manipulated
seekers who did not grasp the guru’s intentions.
Gurdjieff believed that tricking the wealthy to
contribute to his cause was ethical because of
the importance of his work. This end-justifies-
the-means tactic tends to run through Fourth
Way cults that use the Way of the Sly Man
terminology, and that includes Allen’s
Synergias.
John Allen was adept at manipulating his
wealthier students, most notably Ed Bass (born
in 1945) who became a Synergist in his twenties.
