The People & the Idiots

Daniel Hawes's Dedication of The People & the Idiots
To all children
(young and old)
who were raised in abusive cults
and now seek freedom.

The People and the Idiots by Daniel Hawes is a true account of a man who grew up in a cult. His parents had joined a group of people who called themselves synergists, led by a man named John Polk Allen. Hawes had experienced torment and abuse at the hands of the synergists he grew up with, split from his mother, his father, and his two siblings. The book details his life from when he, at a very young age, remembered his parents joining this group to when he got his life going his way as a young man.

From being forced to work hour after hour and day after day, to mandatory drama practices, to being ordered around and battered by the adults, Hawes’s tale is one of child abuse and neglect in this cult environment. He made friends only with the other children, who were called people, and collectively hated the adults, called idiots in the Synergias they called home. While names have been changed and faces blurred, the experiences themselves are very real. The recollections are sure to bring a chill to the spine of any reader. “... Everyone had been abused in some way, some much worse than I.”

In 1994, between his time fighting fires in Montana and moving to Maine, he and others who had grown up in and left the Synergias came forward and spoke of their experiences for an article published in the Arizona Daily Star. Later on, he was urged by the late Herb Rosedale, Esq. to write The People and the Idiots, in order to expose the truth of the Synergias to the world in a wider scope than one article.

“Ultimately, Hawes’s narrative is one of triumph, as he manages to escape the cult, adjust to life in the larger world, and forge an independent identity, Hawes has a remarkable, often shocking story to tell, with wide resonance for the world today. In The People & the Idiots, he tells that story in precise and often heartbreaking detail. Readers will not soon forget this vivid memoir.” ~ Professor Shawn Rosenheim, Williams College.

“Nothing is more telling about an intentional community than how it treats and teaches children. 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 gave me deeper insight into how pathologically elitist and inhumane Allen’s teachings were.” ~ Joe Szimhart, Cult Study Expert

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Just Write Books, an independent publishing company based in Topsham, Maine, publishes Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories. JWB uses its trademarked High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals. This year, JWB added the High Point Books imprint to expand its reach beyond the borders of Maine.