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The Cult Dossier · No. 049 · Occult / Esoteric / Satanic
Process Church of the Final Judgment
The Process; later the Foundation Faith of God
1963 – 1974 · London; Xtul, Yucatán; New Orleans; San Francisco; New York
V. THE POSTWAR ERA 1945–1969
Fully religious — apocalyptic dualist sect
Who led it
ROBERT MOORE, who renamed himself ROBERT DE GRIMSTON (b.1935), and MARY ANN MacLEAN (1931–2005), a former prostitute and girlfriend of the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. Both were expelled Scientologists — they met in Hubbard's London org in 1962.
What it worshipped and taught
A four-god theology: JEHOVAH (the wrathful, demanding purity), LUCIFER (the light-bringer, demanding enjoyment of life), SATAN (with a higher aspect of detachment and a lower aspect of violence and excess) and CHRIST, the unifier who reconciles all three at the end. Members aligned themselves with a god and adopted its emphasis. Doctrine of the imminent End, at which Christ and Satan would be reconciled and judge humanity. Aesthetic: black capes, silver goat-head and cross insignia, German shepherd dogs, and a strikingly designed magazine whose issues were themed on Fear, Sex, Death and Love — one of which contained contributions from Charles Manson and from the Church of Satan.
Who was in it
Robert de Grimston; Mary Ann MacLean; Timothy Wyllie; the journalist Ed Sanders, whose 1971 book The Family made the Manson allegation; Maury Terry, whose The Ultimate Evil (1987) linked the Process to the Son of Sam killings — a claim never substantiated; Genesis P-Orridge and Skinny Puppy, who kept the aesthetic alive in industrial music.
How it ended, or where it stands
THE CONTINUITY IS THROUGH PEOPLE, NOT THROUGH AN INSTITUTION, AND THIS FILE PREVIOUSLY SAID METAMORPHOSED, WHICH OVERSTATES IT. Members moved to Utah in the mid-1970s, dropped the apocalyptic framing, and turned to animal welfare; BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY was founded at Kanab in 1991, seventeen years after the Process dissolved, and GABRIEL DE PEYER — a former Process member who later married MARY ANN MacLEAN — is among its founders. BEST FRIENDS ACKNOWLEDGES THE LINEAGE AND DISPUTES THE CHARACTERISATION; its president has described the Process as young people on a spiritual search, with Satan one of four studied principles and treated as a metaphor for a human trait rather than a god. THAT DISPUTE IS PART OF THE RECORD AND THIS ENTRY CARRIES IT, BECAUSE THE CHARITY IS OPERATING TODAY AND A FLAT SENTENCE ABOUT ITS ORIGINS IS A CLAIM ABOUT LIVING PEOPLE. Checked 2026-09-07.
The dead
None attributable
Of note
Enormously over-mythologised. The Process is cited as the hidden hand behind Manson and Son of Sam in a great deal of true-crime writing; none of it holds up. Its documented offences were psychological control and financial exploitation of young members, not murder.
Its timeline
- 1962–1963 De Grimston and MacLean leave Scientology; found Compulsions Analysis, a psychotherapy practice, in Mayfair.
- 1966 About 30 members withdraw to Xtul on the Yucatán coast; a hurricane there becomes the movement's founding myth.
- 1967–1971 Chapters open in London, New Orleans, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, New York and Boston; the magazine and the street-selling operation become well known.
- 1971 Ed Sanders' The Family alleges a Manson connection; the Process sues and the allegation is removed from later editions. No credible link has ever been established.
- 1974 Mary Ann expels Robert de Grimston, drops the Satan and Lucifer theology, and renames the organisation the Foundation Faith of God, then the Foundation Church of the Millennium.
- 1993 The remnant reorganises as BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY in Kanab, Utah — today one of the largest animal welfare organisations in the United States, whose leadership includes several former Process members.
- 2005 Mary Ann MacLean dies.
Its people
Mary Ann MacLean
Mary Ann de Grimston; the Oracle
Co-founder and ultimate authority, the Process Church · 20 November 1931 – 27 November 2005 · active 1963–2005
A Glasgow-born former prostitute and one-time girlfriend of the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, who met Robert de Grimston in Scientology's London org in 1962. Though he was the public theologian, former members consistently describe her as the real power — reclusive, feared, and unphotographed. In 1974 she expelled her own husband, dropped the Satan and Lucifer theology entirely, and rebranded the organisation. Her final act of reinvention is the strangest in this dossier: the remnant she led became BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY, now one of America's largest animal welfare organisations.
Before the law. Never charged. The Process was never linked to Manson or Son of Sam by any credible evidence, despite decades of true-crime assertion.
Where things stand. Deceased 2005.
- 1962 Meets de Grimston in Scientology's London org.
- 1966 The Xtul retreat in Yucatán becomes the founding myth.
- 1974 Expels de Grimston; drops the four-god theology.
- 1993 The remnant reorganises as Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah.
- 27 November 2005 Dies.
Checked
The Atlas The Door