Process Church writings

All of these writings were originally written for my Facebook account, and thus certain statements may not make sense outside of that context.  I apologise in advance.  I have other writings I am slowly but surely migrating over here, but I wanted to move all of the Process material here first.

And the Phoenix is Reborn [The Process, Church of the Final Judgment, fin]

The Process Church is long dead, now, but it still lives online and in print media.

Most cults of that era are long gone by now, but the Process lives on.  Almost 30 years after Mary Ann and Robert parted ways, and Mary Ann and her followers 'exorcised' Christ and Satan in each Process Chapter house (literally, with a bell, book, and candle), Robert's original vision is what remains.

Mary's does, too, of course, in a sense - the Best Friends Society certainly is a testament to her unique anti-animal cruelty stance within the cult.  Long gone is the worship of Jehovah, or the preeminence of Jewish members (both aspects of the Foundation Faith), and certainly long gone are Satan, Lucifer, and Christ.

In a sense, it never really left.  After Sanders' book, the Process achieved a certain noteriety that, while not at all condusive to garnering converts, certainly made them well-known, and despite PR attempts to refashion their image, the Process never recovered.

However, they lingered in the popular imagination, due to the lurid prose of Sanders.

In 1978, sociologist William Sims Bainbridge published a book known as "Satan's Power."  Unfortunately, it was an academic study, and thus unlikely to be read by a mainstream audience, but in it, Bainbridge recorded his experiences with "The Power" - his code-name for the Process Church.

It's been quite some time since I've read it, and it's very pricey these days ($120 used, on Amazon) and I can't find any review I wrote of it anywhere online.  Weird.

All of that being said, the book showed the cult to be a weird, but generally non-dangerous group of religious oddballs.  They didn't literally 'worship' Satan (or the other gods), they were Scientology based, etc.  He described some of their rituals, and was there when the Omega split, communicated with Robert as he tried and failed to re-start the Process, was involved when the Process was rechristened the Foundaition Faith of the Millennium, etc.

Unfortunately, as I said, the work was academic in scope and not really for the lay reader, so it made no impact on the public at large, in which hushed voices claimed that the Process was involved in all sorts of scary, nefarious deeds.

One of the biggies started with the shooting of two young women in a vehicle, at point-blank range, on July 29th, 1976.  Terror, due to the media-dubbed ".44 Caliber Killer," gripped New York until August 10th of 1977, when David Berkowitz, the so-called "Son of Sam" was arrested by the NYPD and the shootings ended.

While Berkowitz was enjoying his reign of terror, journalist Maury Terry began investigating the case, writing articles that suggested multiple gunmen in New York papers, based on eyewitness accounts and wildly differing sketch artist renderings of those accounts.

Even after Berkowitz was arrested, Terry remained unconvinced that he was the sole culprit, and continued to contend for a multiple-killers angle.  Correspondence and interviews with Berkowitz only enhanced his belief that something weird was going on.  Reports of bloodless, skinned german shepherds, like those in Santa Cruz almost a decade earlier, were surfacing from Untermyer Park in Yonkers, not far from the home of Berkowitz.

In 1987, Terry released THE ULTIMATE EVIL, a key book in the late 80s "Satanic panic" craze - in it, he outlined a purported Satanic network responsible for a large number of deaths, as well as drug trafficking, prostitution, child pornography, and all other manner of vice.  It should be noted that, like the notorious Four P movement, Terry doesn't pin the blame on Robert and Mary Ann - splinter groups from the Process were involved.

I'll probably discuss the Son of Sam case at some point on here (see my obsessions?) but needless to say, this book fed into interest surrounding the cult.

However, oddly, I will note that despite the prominence of the Process Church in conspiracy lore, I don't recall any Christians ever picking up on the meme.  In the 70s and 80s, the evangelical and fundamentalist circuit was filled with testimonies of "former witches," like Mike Warnke and Michelle of "Michelle Remembers" fame.  Most of these have since been proven to be frauds (Warnke's timeline doesn't work at all, Michelle was clearly being used by her therapist) - not even John Todd seemed familiar with the Process, despite the fact that he claimed to be a high Satanist, Mason, Illuminati agent, and claimed to possess evidence that JFK survived the assassination and was the Beast foretold in Revelation.

Wherever there's the hint of evil or general "naughtiness," people will flock, and among those to first adhere to the defunct Process as more than just a Satanic-panic meme was Brit Genesis P-Orridge, of Psychic TV, Temple of thee Psychic Youth, Throbbing Gristle, and other noise/electronica bands.

P-Orridge is a weird, weird, weird person - occultist, transgendered, fan of the esoteric, excellent and prolific musician and author - but eir (here I use the spivak pronouns because I am not sure what gender is proper for Genesis) interest in the Process brought it to the attention of the 80s underground.

As a Brit alive during the 60s, Genesis no doubt was familiar with the Process in eir own country, and I would imagine that E was instantly attracted to their flamboyance, garish artwork, and bizarre, misanthropic, theology.  When Genesis made the Process known to the industrial underground, other artists, like Nivek Ogre of Skinny Puppy, also picked up on it - Skinny Puppy even made an LP called Process.

The Process meme worked its way through the underground to men like Adam Parfrey, of Amok media, Feral House media, etc. where some of DeGrimston's writings were published in Apocalypse Culture - since The Process was very much convinced of an Apocalypse, they meshed well with the theme of Apocolypse Culture, and their Scientology/Christian gnosticism was refreshing in an age of begging televangelists who were constantly being caught with their pants down and droves of cash in their pockets and Satanism was just Ayn Rand with robes.

I remember being interested in the Process when I first got the Internet, all of those years ago - and one of the earliest sites I found contained the old writings of DeGrimston from the magazine, many of which had probably been transcribed by P-Orridge and uploaded to FTP sites and circulated amongst industrial music newsgroups before http became prominent.

I was never much part of the industrial subculture - give me hippie folk music, sorry - but it was good to read the writings of this allegedly Satanic group that I'd learned about in books like SATAN WANTS YOU from Arthur Lyons and, of course, THE ULTIMATE EVIL, which I'd read in high school, along with Sanders.

Now the Process has become something of an underground touchstone, I suppose - especially with the release of LOVE, SEX, FEAR, DEATH, the Feral House reprints of the old Process magazines, and the Sabbath Assembly albums (both of which are excellent, btw...)

The final verdict is that they were hardly "the ultimate evil."  They were sincere spiritual seekers in an age awash in them - and with the changes in society, the Vietnam war, the racial violence, etc. the Process were hardly the only people calling for the Apocalypse.  People familiar with a very sanitised version of the 60s - all peace, and love, and smoking grass - are unaware of the fact that the decade that more or less began with the assassination of a sitting president and ended with the brutal murder of a beautiful young acctress was filled with terror, horror, dark visions, fear, and a belief in the imminent end of all things.  This was a belief that stretched from the burgeoning Jesus freaks to the mainstream conservatives to the radical leftists to, yes, even the crazy cultists.  Your old men will dream dreams and your young men will see visions, as the book of Joel says.

Rather a shame, though, that the imminent end of humanity didn't come, though, isn't it?

Instead, the ultimate evil still occupies its positions of power in governments and in banks, and no end is in sight.  Let's hope for more crazies that can, for a moment at least, give us hope that our desire for liberation from the evil of wicked men is possible before they finally crush us all under their boots.

Incidentally, in the conspiracy lit, even written about by Adam Gorightly, there's claims that Mary Ann founded an occult shop in Toledo, Ohio as "Lady Circe," part of the "Circe (or Kirke) order of Dog Blood," a cult centering around murdering dogs in ritual.

Lady Circe is dead, but she was a lady known as Jeffrey B. Cather (that's a lady's name, weirdly enough) and not Mary Ann at all.

Christ, You Bring the End [The Process, Church of the Final Judgment, part 9]

From the so-called Four P/Pi Movement came a legion of conspiracy theories, connecting the "Process Church" with all manner of Satanic groups, and the range of this supposed group would make any cultist or evangelist envious - from Wyoming and North Dakota, to California, to New York City, to possibly even Florida, the "Four P Movement" spread out across the country, enlisting Satanic worshipers to carry out murders, drug smuggling, white slavery, prostitution, and even child pornography.  The claims are many, but the evidence is little.

While the "Four P" was allegedly spreading across the country, the Process Church itself was breaking down, slowly but surely.  It all began with the attention on the cult from the alleged Manson connection.  The cult brought charges against Sanders, but didn't force monetary compensation - they simply wanted the offending passages excised from the book.

According to Wylie, this was a strategy that Mary Ann proposed, in order to make people feel that the cult wasn't merely out for money, but were 'nice guys' that were just trying to protect their name.  Unfortunately, Wylie surmises, it made them look like pushovers.  As I've written earlier, the passages were excised from the US editions, but remained in the British editions, making the cult look worse in its home country.

All of this negative attention also brought the group under closer scrutiny by law enforcement officers and those who worked against cults and brainwashing, from civic leaders to members of orthodox religious clergy.

After Manson, too, the cultural outlook on devil worship went from chic and trendy to downright scary.  Roman Polanski had played with that stuff in Rosemary's Baby, and look where it got him, people reasoned.  People left the occult, instead seeking out self-help movements, human potential groups, and the fluffier elements of the New Age movement.  A blockbuster movie in 1973 said it all about the public's fascination with Satan:  The Exorcist.

In response, the Process dropped the German shepherds and the scary black cloaks, opting instead for gray leisure suits and an air of respectability.

It didn't work.

In 1974, things finally came to a head.  Robert's visions of the unity of Jehovah, Satan, and Lucifer in Christ were declared heretical.  According to the church leaders, all of their problems began with Robert's visions.  He was removed from church leadership, and his unification doctrine was anathema.

On a more carnal level, Robert, who had had dalliances with lovely young cultists in the past, was becoming more blatant about it, trying to convince Mary Ann to share him with a particular lady who had caught his fancy.  Mary Anne refused, and Robert was removed from the church - it was named The Foundation Church by Mary Ann, who now held complete control.

The Omega was splintered, the gods were removed, and Robert's name and thoughts were stricken from official church records.

Robert tried at first to re-found the Process, but it never took off.  According to one story, one day in 1975, whilst crossing the Boston Commons, Robert, with his current fling and a band of followers, turned and said, "I'm just going to leave you now, ok?"

Taking the hand of his fling, she and Robert walked off to obscurity.  Robert changed his surname to Moore and, at last reports, works for AT&T in upstate New York, and gives lectures at NYU.  He has since put the Process behind him, and those who have phoned the Robert Moore in question have described a polite man with a British accent, who makes it abundantly clear that he does not want to be bothered with the Process Church or its fans.

Mary Anne continued on with the Jehovan theology she embraced, renaming the Foundation Church to the Foundation Faith of the Millinneum, then the Foundaition Faith of God.  She also remarried, to a Jonathan (Gabriel) DePeyer, an early supporter and member of the Process itself.

While Mary Anne was lucky in love, she was less fortunate when ti came to religion, and finally the Jehovan cult reinvented itself again, this time as the Best Friends Animal Society, in 1984.  Best Friends is an animal sanctuary in Utah, that originated in Arizona.  It is is billed as the largest no-kill animal shelter in the United States.

Mary Ann died in 2005, after two years of living in a coma, and it appears that Jonathan DePeyer has since remarried to a woman named Jana.

Nowadays, the Best Friends Animal Society makes millions in donations, and does indeed appear to operate the US's largest no-kill shelter, and for that, they should be commended.  The Society has come under attack due to its former life as the Process Church, but in reality, it seems that there's a lot of smoke with very little fire.

I have no doubt that Satanists existed, that animals were skinned and bled, or that there were human sacrifices in the wastes of the mountains.  It was a genuinely weird time, and there are always going to be weird people who do horrible things.  I just don't think that the Process Church was behind it.

They ought to have been more responsible, certainly.  All of the talk about letting the fiend within you out, the glorification of Satan and Jehovah, the talk of war and slaughter and the Apocalypse - I have little doubt that it influenced some easily influenced minds, and may have given people ideas or an impetus that they didn't initially have, to pursue the dark side of life.

However, if we blame Robert and Mary Ann for the actions of unstable people, we will have to also blame, say, Francis Ford Coppola if someone sees the Godfather and decides that killing others is the way to accomplish their goals.  If someone delusional is influenced by Alexander the Great to try to conquer their neighbour's home, perhaps we ought to ban Plutarch.  If I decided to burn down a mosque and give my inspiration as King Josiah, perhaps we can also ban the Bible.

You can see how silly such a blame-game is.  It accomplishes nothing except renders any art whatsoever useless - the Teletubbies make people gay, the Bible and Godfather make people violent, etc etc.  Perhaps we should all be locked up, individually, in a white room for our entire lives to ensure no one gets any outside influences - then we will have a perfect society.

The two main players of the Process, the Omega, are not talking - they either cannot or will not.  Other members are, and the picture painted is hardly menacing - it mostly seems simply weird and a bit silly.  In the end, while the cult itself may have been strange, the Society is not, and it should not be judged due to misdeeds of non-members ("Four P"), or writings from over 45 years ago ("Humanity is the Devil," etc.).

Next up, I will write a bit about the Process "revival."  Then, I think, this comes to a close, but of course, I will continue writing on other subjects.

So be it.

"I have a problem..." [The Process, Church of the Final Judgment, part 9]

Though it seems clear that Manson wasn't involved with the Process, it was Manson who, ironically, gave the church the sort of longevity in the public imagination that it may not have ever achieved on its own.

Bugliosi writes that Manson spoke about the Process when he was first arrested for his murders, but that Process members visited him and he shut up about the Process quickly thereafter.

He also writes that Manson was asked if he knew Robert DeGrimston, and replied that he did not.  When asked if he knew Robert Moor, he said, "You're looking at him.  He and I are one in the same."

Insofar as the first claim by Bugliosi goes, it proves little beyond Bugliosi's own subjective estimation of Manson's discussion of the subject, while the second claim seems very Manson-esque in his "I am he and you are he and you are me and we are all together" philosophy.  It doesn't prove anything.

It also seems unlikely that Manson, a homeless drifter and pimp, was aware of DeGrimston's real name.  Bugliosi shrugs it off, writing that he assumed it merely meant that Manson felt that he and Moor shared similar worldviews, though he (Bugliosi) was visited by the very members ("Father John" and "Brother Matthew") of the Process that later visited Manson and purportedly made him silent on the subject of the Process.

These members came from Cambridge, Massachusetts, incidentally.  I really should get up there some time...

In the end, the only definitive link between Manson and the Process is the fact that Manson did semi-write an article on death in the "Death" issue of the Process magazine.  This was before he was convicted, and all it really illustrates is that he was a hot topic at the time and that his name meant that more people would read the magazine.

Manson wrote half of the article, and his views were contrasted with Malcolm Muggeridge's views.  That is all.  Tacky?  In poor taste?  Perhaps, but this was before Manson had been convicted and I imagine a number of counterculture people, in the early days, thought that it was likely that Manson was a scapegoat because he was "weird."

And the "straight" world has mass murderers write books routinely, and they sell - if you disbelieve me, look for books by Henry Kissinger or Oliver North at your local book store, or check for those books written by President Obama.

It's hardly a novel statement, but some murderers are held in the highest regard, while others are condemned.

More interesting, however, are claims of Process-related crimes that do not originate from the group itself, but from splinter groups.  One such crime involves a two men picked up on July 13th, 1970, by the CHP - Stanley Dean Baker and his friend Harry A. Stroup.

Baker

Stroup

Both men hailed from Wyoming, and had been hitch-hiking together, but decided to split up in order to get a ride.  Baker got a ride with a man named James Schlosser, and had camped in Yellowstone National Park with Schlosser.

During the night, Baker murdered Schlosser by first shooting him in the head twice, then stabbing him over twenty times, then, cut off his fingers, and cut out his heart, which Baker then proceeded to eat.  Baker then beheaded Schlosser's corpse, and cut the legs off below the knees, then dumped the headless torso, the severed head and limbs, and the gun, into the Yellowstone river.

Baker then took the fingers for something to munch on and stole Schlosser's Opel Kadett car.  After picking up Stroup, the two men went to California, whereupon the Opel Kadett was involved in a minor hit-and-run 30 miles from Big Sur.  CHPs were alerted, since the corpse of Schlosser had since been found and his vehicle had been stolen.

Randy Newton, a CHP officer, caught up with the two men.  Oddly, Baker was happy to talk, emphasising that Stroup was not involved in the murder, then offering this classic line:  "I have a problem.  I'm a cannibal."

Both Baker and Stroup still had some of the 'finger foods' on them, and Baker showed them to the cop, noting, "these aren't chicken bones."  Reportedly, in addition to the fingers, Baker had a copy of LaVey's Satanic Bible on him, and a handwritten recipe for LSD.

Baker talked about a "blood drinking cult" that he belonged to in Wyoming called the "Four P Movement" (or Pi), which was headquartered in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and led by a man designated the "Grand Chingon."

Curiously, Manson was called "Grand Chingon" by some of his own followers in the presence of Ed Sanders.  This term is considered synonymous with a term of 'Head Devil,' even though in Spanish, a Chingon simply means someone who is "good, great, bad-ass," etc.  To be a "Grand Chingon" would therefore be the Grand Bad-ass.  Hardly diabolic, unless you consider being skilled or being 'awesome' or whatever to be Satanic.

The 'Grand Chingon' of the Santa Cruz cult was said to be a wealthy LA businessman, and Sanders also records talk of this cult.  Cops at the time do, apparently, report finding the skinned, bloodless corpses of dogs, specifically Dobermans and German Shepherds.  Reportedly, eating the heart of the sacrificed animals was part of the ritual.

How is the Four P movement tied to the Process?  Predominately in the fact that the Process logo looks like Four Ps - and also resembles a swastika.  According to Sanders, the Four P people were also very racist and admired Hitler - much like Manson and like Mary Ann MacLean.

However, the murder of dogs seems completely unlike anything Mary Ann would promote.  While her love of Hitler hindered her love for her fellow man, it enhanced her love for animals.



If the Four P Movement (it is, as I said, sometimes called the "Four Pi Movement," but I cannot imagine what in the world the mathematical concept of Pi has to do with devil-worship or religion in general, so I tend to assume that it is merely a typo) is not merely a spectre - if it was a real group - then it seems likely that it was a branch of renegade Processeans who were striking back against Mary Ann by slaughtering animals that she adored.

Whatever it was, the Four P movement was, depending on how you look at it, either a minor blip of weirdos who were guilty of animal and human murder or the origins of a world-wide Satanic group that resulted in, among other things, the Son of Sam.  I may write about these groups at a later date, as the topic is rather interesting in its own right, but not here.  Suffice to say that it appears such a group did exist, and may have been involved, at least peripherally, with unsolved crimes, but very little concrete can be said on the subject since there have been no convictions.

As for Baker, he also confessed to the murder of a 40 year old lighting designer named Robert Salem, who was stabbed 27 times and again nearly decapitated.  His left ear was cut off, presumably for later munching.

Baker and Stroup were extradited to Montana for the murder of Schlosser (Montana was Schlosser's home state) and were both convicted, Stroup of manslaughter and Baker of murder.

Attempts were made to extradite Baker to California for the murder of Salem (apparently Baker's fingerprints, in blood, were found at the scene, proving that his confession had some weight to it) but for some reason, he was never extradited.  From what I've read, the judge in California selected refused to hear the case.  It seems that the state of Montana did not want to extradite Baker until after Stroup's trial had finished.  The judge declared that this would violate Baker's right to a speedy trial.

I don't understand it either.

Salem's murder is still officially unsolved.

Before the conviction, a blog comment shows the sort of man that Baker was at the time:

My brother worked in the Montana state mental institution in Warm Springs in 1970. What a summer job! He was there when they brought in Stanley Baker. Prior to his arrival, some of the moreignorant orderlies had riled the most paranoid of the residents, telling them if they didn't behave that Stanley the Cannibal would be there soon and they would arrange to have him be their room mate.
Stanley did indeed arrive, hip and wrists with drag chains on his annkles accompanied by several Hiway Patrol cars, local and county police. My brother said there were at leas half a dozen vehicles. Stanley had to be evaluated before trial.
Amazingly enough, kind of like in the Movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest when Jack Nicholson as RP McMurphy gives out a hoot when he first walks in...so too did Stanley, only he broke free long enough to scream "I'm goin to eat you all!"
The whole place erupted in a panic. My brother was scared to death himself after that.

After conviction, Baker recruited for his Satanic cult while in prison, had home-made weapons confiscated from him several times and howled at the moon on full moons.  Incredibly, Baker was paroled in 1986, and was allowed to change his name.  He has apparently since died.

Stroup was allowed out in 1979, but kept his name, and according to a document I found dating from August 31, 2012, was denied an appeal over his prosecution on federal drug charges.

Sympathy for the Devil [The Process, Church of the Final Judgment part 8]

After the Manson slaughter and arrests, a hush came across the counterculture community.  Manson and his followers were archetypal hippies, at least in the way they looked - scruffy, beareded men and lovely young women who eschewed makeup for natural beauty, who lived in a communal atmosphere.  The sordid sex and drug tales coming out of the Spahn ranch tittitated straights and devastated freaks.

Certainly, there were some who embraced Manson and his girls as heroes.  The Weather Underground, for their part, celebrated him.  Bernadine Dohrn, wife of Bill Ayers, friend of our Drone-Master in Chief noted how awesome it was that the Family, ".. killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate's stomach! Wild!"

Most hippies, however, who simply wanted to smoke pot, grow organic crops, and spend their lives peacefully, were less accepting of Charles' actions.

Among them was Sanders, who went to California to figure out just what the hell had gone wrong with the countercultural movement.  His book, The Family, went on to infamy, but at the time, Sanders just wanted to find out what the hell was going on, and discovered a that certain elements of the LA scene had gotten very, very dark, and that Manson was connected to them in some way.

I used to actually own a copy of an original hardcover of The Family - whether I still own it anymore remains to be seen.  It might well be in the storage unit, it might well be gone forever.  It's hard to say.  But it is filled with all manner of dark stories, two of which tie Manson to the Solar Lodge and to the Process Church.

The Process chapter has been cut from all American releases aside from the original hardcover, due to a successful lawsuit by the Church (and by the Solar Lodge OTO, for their chapter), though the case rests less on its legal merits and more on the fact that Sanders' American publishers decided to capitulate to the cults.  In the UK, the Process, at least, if not the Solar Lodge as well, lost their case and had to pay Sanders' legal fees.

While Sanders' language is vivid, it is far from academic or neutral - he really does consider the Process Church to be terrible, and is not ashamed to admit it.  Describing them as, "black-caped, black-garbed, death-worshiping" and "hooded snuffoids," though even Sanders' evidence doesn't provide a direct link, but rather a "this stuff was in the air, these guys were dangerous, and their message may have inspired Manson."

And, it is hard to not be sympathetic to Sanders' stance.  Possessing, as I do, a copy of the Feral House Holy Writ publication, there are in fact misanthropic screeds, writings about sex that strongly suggest corpse desecration (at least in fantasy), and Jehovah as a god, in Process theology, was very much devoted to war and death for purification, while Satan as a god was devoted to war and death for "kicks."  There's no evidence that Manson was involved with the Process Church, however.  None whatsoever.  Is it possible that Manson read their literature?  Quite possible, as the covers were garish, morbid, and eye-catching - but there's no evidence beyond the fact that the two operated in a similar mileau and that both believed in the unification of God and Satan - although Manson went beyond Process theology, which taught a unification of opposites, but saying that the two were unified in himself, not in an abstract metaphysical sense, and that he was Christ on top of it.

Again, it is possible that Manson was influenced by the group, but given how tightly Robert and Mary Anne held the reins, it's highly unlikely that Manson would ever have been a member.

There are a number of curious things about Manson I will recount when I write about him, but for right now, it seems very unlikely that he was involved with the Process in any realistic way, though whether he was involved with peripheral groups is less difficult to ascertain, and those peripheral groups will be discussed next - or at least, what little is known about them

Turn Off Your Mind [The Process, Church of the Final Judgment, part 7)

The Process and the Solar Lodge OTO were not really related.  They had rather draconian female leadership, and were based upon vaguely occult principles (the Solar Lodge OTO, however, based on Crowley's magick, was much more set-in-stone than the 'making it up as we go along' Process).  They both had bases in southern California, and no doubt, in those heady days of anything-goes exploration, they both probably got some of the same seekers - of thrills and spiritual enlightenment alike.

Occultism - in both its vulgar definition and its literal definition - was all the rage.  People were seeking out the hidden in the late 60s.  Conventional, mainline Protestantism had failed, and people, especially the young, were seeking other avenues.

Based on their desire to experience and live God, rather than just talk about Him - or, more likely, gossip about fellow church-goers - at a Sunday social, this took a number of forms.  From using psychedelic drugs like LSD as a guide to the divine, to yogic postures and rythmic breathing, to Catholic rituals, to Native American ceremonies, to a revival of the olds gods, to Pentecostal hands-on healing and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to ceremonial magic, to witchcraft, and to devil worship, all paths to an experience of the numinous were explored, torn down, re-shaped, and combined with other paths.

Many gurus stepped into the fray, among them DeGrimston, Brayton, Mel Lyman, L. Ron Hubbard, Jim Jones, James Baker ("Father Yod"), Lonnie Frisbee, Richard Thorne ("Om"), and many others appeared on the scene to guide the young to enlightenment - or more likely, destruction - and these were just those with religious claims, and even then, the line between secular and religious was thin.

Frisbee and Baker were able to largely keep their cults of personality intact, and are forgotten because of it.  Both men had tragic ends - Baker died while skydiving, while Frisbee died of AIDS and was written out of the history of Calvary Chapel as a result.

On the outskirts of these groups were even more groups, even more shadowy cults.  No matter where you step, there's something strange going on.

One of the most notorious, in retrospect, was an older ex-con named Charles Manson.  Manson was short of stature, but he had a charisma and an appeal that drew people in.

His history was a series of incarcarations and criminal activities; auto theft, pimping, burglary, forgery.  I will most likely cover Manson in an entirely different series - however, Manson is ultimately integral to the Process story.

He was never an established member, though it is very likely that he came across Process missionaries and literature after his release from prison in 1967.  It is reported that he lived on Cole Street, which was where the Process also had a base, but he lived there before the Process moved in.

However, the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders, their brutal nature and seeming randomness, led to a lot of people investigating the milieu around Manson to find explanations.  One of those people was Ed Sanders.

Sanders, a Lower East Side radical, formed the band The Fugs in 1963 with Tuli Kupferberg.  Both men were politically radical, eschewed conventional "Love Me, I'm A Liberal" liberalism for direct, non-violent action, flagrant obscenity, and held an anarchist worldview.

Their band, the Fugs, was named after the euphemism for the word "fuck" in Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead.  It was very underground and very satirical and sexual, with songs titled "Kill For Peace," "Group Grope," "Boobs a Lot," etc.

Sanders is a very colourful figure, but for the purposes of this piece, it is enough to note that he very much supported the hippie dream.  He was into sex, drugs, and rock n' roll as means for fun and social change, and his poetry and music was gleefully counterculture.

When the Tate-LaBiancia murders happened, Sanders asked, "How?"  How was it that the "turned on" went so very wrong?

It shattered his beliefs and he saw it as a betrayl of the hippie movement.  So he went to Southern California to investigate.

Strange days have tracked us down [The Process, Church of the Final Judgment, part 6.66]

We left young Master Gibbons locked in a storage shed.  A storage shed that was just another A-Frame, measuring 36 feet.

The next morning, a member of the group, who worked at the bank of America as her day job, was headed to Los Angeles, and asked the man who had been in charge of Gibbons, Steve Quilley, if he needed anything.

Quilley had been placed in charge of Gibbons since the last fire was set, and was the one who discovered him trying to set fire to the kitchen, the one who called Gibbons' father, and the one who locked him up.

The member, Julie Oster, noticed Gibbons in the crate, and told Steve to let him go.  When Steve refused to do so, she became angry, she left, first trying to find the boy's mother and, unable to find her, went to Margie Myer, the mother of Kathy, and told her about the boy in the shed.

However, according to Hoffman, Myer was 'vindictive' toward the group.

Unbeknownst to the group, Marge was vindictive towards the group. She felt indignation towards the group for "stealing" her brother (she was a devout member) from her, and resented the group's rules of celibacy. Instead of finding Beverly, Saul's mother, Marge contacted the police. The police gave her all the assistance she needed by sending her Larry Creech -- a police informer, who was later accompanied by Michael Childs, and undercover agent.

The idea of a group based on Crowley's thought enforcing a strict celibacy rule is pretty hilarious, but beyond that, let's look at what happened next.

The two posed as hippies and went undercover, claiming to want to borrow a car jack and look at horses that Margie had for sale.

Instead of looking at horses, however, Creech went looking for the storage shed, and found it.  The  men left quickly thereafter, but upon their return they brought the weight of the Riverside County Sheriffs with them.

Everyone present was arrested, although Quilley managed to escape, and a warrant was put out for Brayton's arrest, which she evaded for quite some time.  Included in the arrest sweep was Julie Oster and Gibbons' mother, Beverly.  A list of all arrested follows:

CLIFFORD ALAN REOS, white male, age 21, 5'10", 160 pounds, brown hair, and green eyes;

MICHAEL JOHN FOXWORTH, white male, age 20, 6'20", 175 pounds, brown hair, and brown eyes;

GARDNER HERBERT REYNOLDS, JR., white male, age 22, 5'11", 180 pounds, brown hair, and hazel eyes;

JAMES EDWARD HUNGERFORD, white male, age 22, 6', 175 pounds, brown hair, and blue eyes;

VIRGINIA CELESTE MICHEL, white female, age 21, 5'3", 110 pounds, brown hair, and blue eyes;

PATRICIA ANN MOSHER, white female, age 26, 5'3", 105 pounds, brown hair, and blue eyes;

JACK REVEL NEECE, white male, age 22, 5'8", 140 pounds, brown hair, and blue eyes;

JOHN FRANCIS NICHOLSON, white male, age 21, 5'8", 148 pounds, brown hair, and blue eyes;

JUIDH LYNN OSTER, nee Angelson, also known as Julie Oster, an employee of the Bank of America;

BEVERLY JUNE GIBBONS, white female, date of birth 5/13/33, 5'4", 105 pounds, brown hair, and brown eyes;

JEFFERY FLYNN

Here, stories diverge.

The press reported that the boy was locked in a 6x6 shipping crate for 56 days, where he was left without regular food or water in the hot California summer sun.  They attribute this treatment to a fire started by Gibbons alone, and claimed that he was punished thusly because he destroyed precious Crowley artifacts owned by Brayton.

These claims were based upon Creech's testimony.  The group claims that Creech was already in trouble with the law, that he lied on the stand, and that he recanted his testimony.

Another member, Clifford "Al" Reos, turned states' evidence, and spied on the group, then testified against them.

Hoffman, in the LA Free Press, claimed Reos was, "driven by paranoid delusions and nerve-crushing fear."

Maybe, maybe not.

One of the problems with researching this sort of thing is that the source documents are just not there.  Or rather, they are, but they're not online.  They're in microfiche archives in California.  For a researcher in Mass., that's not exactly accessible.

Still, there are options, and the case has achieved some level of notoriety.  There's an image of Gibbons, scanned in from an old newspaper, but the text is indecipherable.

Fortunately, there is a transcript of this article, here (http://sracases.tripod.com/GIBBONS2.HTM) with another picture of a continuaton of the article, which is much more legible.

Crucially, this is the boy's testimony.

In it, he states that he was placed in both the A-frame storage unit, AND a box.  He claims that Brayton torched his fingers after the fire, then that he was placed inside of the A-frame.

He was in the A-frame for 20 days, and had been confined there by a fellow cultist, Spud Reynolds.  He was only allowed to leave for showers, and he was accompanied by Jeffrey Flynn when he did this.  Another article from the era says he was also allowed to do "chores."

After being in the A-frame for those 20 days, the boy testified that he was moved to the crate.  In both the A-frame and in the crate, he had a chain around his ankle.  However, in the A-frame, he was only fed bread and water.  In the crate, he was fed full meals, but was given cans to dispose of his waste and his trash in.

The Distract Attorney, according to the article, held up very damning evidence - a photograph of the box, with a plate, cans, a spoon, a plastic bottle, and "some other items."  Anthony also reported that he was bitten all over by insects.

While doctor reports stated that the boy was in good condition, he did not see a doctor until three days after the arrests.

He was also able to recognise all of the cultists except for his own mother.  He testified that he rarely saw her around.

Because Brayton and her husband, the boy's father, and a few other cultists fled the country after the arrests were made (they went to property Brayton owned in Mexico), the FBI was brought in, and the FBI file, aside from strikes of a black marker over certain things, is available to the public.

It is worth quoting:

Riverside County Sheriff's Deputies proceeded to the commune, where they found SAUL GIBBONS sitting on a mattress in a 6' by 6' box. A heavy metal chain was padlocked to his left leg and the other end of the chain was locked to a large metal plate. The box also contained a No. 10 can partially filled with human waste and swarming with flies. Also, the box contained an uncovered plastic jug with drinking water, a food encrusted plate, and a small washtub filled with dirty water. The stench was nauseating, the flies were swarming, it was hot, and the boy could not recall how long he had been in the box. The recorded temperature in Blythe since 7/1/69 reached 117 degrees with 12 days reaching 110 degrees or more.

Investigation determined that on 5/20/69 the Quonset hut at the commune, with many of the cult's belongings, burned down. This fire was not reported to authorities.

Cult members determined that SAUL GIBBONS set the fire and about three days later, GEORGINA BRAYTON, RICHARD BRAYTON, and ROBERT DUERRSTEIN, as well as other cult members, proceeded to the commune from Los Angeles.

XXX former O.T.O. members, stated that GEORGINA BRAYTON is the leader of the group and ROBERT DUERRSTEIN is second in command. The group is strictly disciplined and JEAN BRAYTON finalizes all decisions.
Upon arrival at the commune in May, JEAN BRAYTON is alleged to have held lit matches to the hand of SAUL GIBBONS as punishment for burning the Quonset down and for killing two goats which were destroyed by the fire. She allegedly made SAUL bury the goats after which he was "beaten all day" with bamboo sticks by the adult members of the commune while the BRAYTONS and DUERRSTEIN watched. SAUL was then put in an "A" frame building by the "cow pens" and chained to the heavy metal plate. He allegedly stayed in the "A" frame two weeks, during which time he was fed only bread and water. Thereafter, he was transferred to the 6' by 6' wooden box in which he was found on 7/26/69.

A week or two after SAUL's original punishment at the commune, a meeting was held at the O.T.O. Temple, 2627 Menlo, Los Angeles. JEAN BRAYTON told those present that as punishment for setting the fire she had burned SAULS's hands with matches, made him dig the grave and bury the carcasses of the two goats. and then chained him in an "A" frame, where he was to sit in Asana, a yogie position. She then said that when it was convenient, she was going to give SAUL LSD and set fire to the structure in which he was chained and give him just enough chain to get out of reach of the fire. She asked if anyone had any objections or better ideas. No one, including SAULS' mother, BEVERLY GIBBONS, who was present at the meeting, had any objections. ROBERT DUERRSTEIN suggested they kill the child, but JEAN BRAYTON said this would not be necessary. BEVERLY GIBBONS allegedly remarked during these conversations that it was "sacrificing one to save many".

Absolutely harrowing reading.  The former members of the Solar Lodge claim that this was a gigantic conspiracy among the conservative community at Blythe to 'get back at them' for their 'weird beliefs.'

For some reason, I have my doubts, although the group WAS getting attention.

The Solar Lodge bookshop, The Eye of Horus

One of their members was busted before the Gibbons fracas for selling marijuana in front of their bookstore, called The Eye of Horus.  Reportedly, even by people who claim that the Gibbons case is mostly disinformation such as Frater Shiva, Brayton was enraged that the man was conducting his own business, outside of the group.

Even from a sympathetic perspective, Brayton doesn't seem to come across as a very nice individual.  She, like Mary Ann MacLean of the Process, was the head of all operations.  She had the money to purchase large amounts of land (MacLean tried to do the same, but was often in dire financial straits), and was very strict and possessive towards her 'wards.'

Celibacy was the order of the day, with the claim that sexual energy could be transformed into magicakal workings.  No one was allowed independent thought, children were separated from their parents (again, according to the sympathetic account by Frater Shiva, Brayton sought to destroy 'the family').  She was a desperately jealous god.

However, Shiva's account is based upon the claims by loyal Lodge members and his own experience - he claims every time he saw the boy, the boy was engaged in re-building efforts.  This doesn't conflict with Gibbons' testimony.  It doesn't necessarily mean that he was not chained up otherwise.

Brayton was also a thief, who stole Crowley relics from Sascha Germer (the widow of Karl Germer, who was the head of the OTO in the US until his death). These were relics that the boy supposedly burned when he started setting fires (or was accused of doing so, anyway).

From Cornelius93's account (http://www.cornelius93.com/EpistleSolarLodge.html) which is otherwise pro-Solar Lodge:

A  group of individuals, believing the O.T.O. was dead, took it upon themselves to break into certain homes and steal the Crowley libraries -- just as Soror Meral had feared would happen. Their intent was to preserve what they felt was rightfully' theirs and to re-establish the O.T.O. This sounds like a noble gesture but, regardless what these individuals thought, they had no right to other people's personal property. Wanting to jump-start the O.T.O. was one thing, but their methods of obtaining Crowleyanity was felonious and nothing less than pure thievery

The first break-in occurred in the summer of 1965, the second in1966. Both were at Mildred Burlingame's house, an old Agape Lodge member whose husband had died shortly before the first incident. The third break-in occurred shortly afterwards and was at Israel Regardie's house while he was away. The fourth house which was ransacked was at West Point, Califomia, the home of Sascha Germer.

...

Unlike the earlier cases, Sascha Gerrner was home during the theft. It began when someone knocked at her front door. She asked who it was and a reply was heard that it was a member of the O.T.O. Unfortunately when she opened the door she was immediately sprayed in the face with a gas, knocked to the floor and overpowered. A drug was then injected by a syringe which knocked her out cold. When she came to she found that her house had been ransacked and that many books in the second floor library had been stolen. Aleister Crowley's personal robes, many O.T.O. documents and ritual papers were also missing. Sascha tried to call the police but found that the phone lines had been cut. When she finally did notify the local Constable, he took her story, along with a few photographs, but no fingerprints were taken or any serious investigation was done. Soror Meral has stated that it was obvious that "they put her story down to the wanderings of the demented mind of a lady who had been alone too long." In other words, they didn't believe her. Her house was dirty, being normally in disarray, and they weren't sure she was actually burglarized.

...

[Sascha accused a fellow member's daughter of the theft, The member, Soror Meral, said that her daughter had no interest in Crowley, and began her own investigation]

Soror Meral immediately began a personal investigation to discover the identities of the real thieves and to clear her daughter's name. One of the people who responded to her letter of inquiry was an Agape Lodge member named Mildred Burlingame. It was during a visit with Mildred that Soror Meral learned that her house, like Sascha's, had been burglarized. She was quick to learn that Mildred had her own suspicions as to who was responsible for the thefts. She believed that it was a former student of hers named Georgina 'Jean' Brayton. The first time Mildred's house was broken into it showed absolutely no signs of forced entry. Since Jean had keys to her house, she became a suspect. Mildred decided to change the locks and because of such, the next time her house was burglarized a back window was jimmied open.

While this does not prove that Brayton was responsible for the burglary at Germer's, it does seem as if burglary was not unfamiliar to her.

Like MacLean, she also had an aversion to cameras (I can find absolutely no pictures of the woman anywhere).

A drawing of Brayton, 1973, from http://xdell.blogspot.com/2008/08/devils-in-slide.html

Former cultists also claimed that Brayton had a tendency towards racism and a belief in an apocalyptic race-war that would destroy civilisation (shades of Manson, again).  Others, of course, claim that this is false and come up with theories as to why people would slander Brayton.

Ed Sanders, who I will detail later, wrote thus:

One grim anecdote tells how the cult had managed to instill its racism into the six-year-old Anthony Gibbons. After the arrests, the lad was sent to a foster home where he was cared for by a black lady. The boy requested a sword from her so that he might perform a magic ritual called "The Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram."

The woman remained nearby as if to observe the ceremony but Anthony announced that "we don't let niggers watch."

For those who are not hip to their occultism, the Ritual here, known also as the LBRP or LBR, is a ritual from the Golden Dawn that is performed to banish all impurities in the magician's area.  It's a very basic ritual, in that it is used routinely by occultists of different stripes, to cleanse the ritual space.

On its own, the Solar Lodge is pretty obscure.  The only reason this case is even remembered is because of Sanders, and because of his connecting the group with the greater dark occult scene in LA, that the Process and Charles Manson, were also members of.  There's no connection between the Solar Lodge and the Process, except that they both had very apocalyptic views (as did Manson).

In fact, the Solar Lodge OTO was not even a legitimate organisation, insofar as the official OTO of the US is concerned.  Brayton had been intiated appropriately, but she had no authority to create a new temple.  Of course, she did anyway.

After some convictions were scored against the people arrested during the police raid, the Solar Lodge of the OTO changed its name to the far more unwieldy "Velle Transcendental Research Association, Inc."  Brayton remained on the lam for about eighteen months, before finally returning, her husband and Gibbons' father in tow.  They received surprisingly low sentences, especially for being federal fugitives.

Brayton's husband was found not guilty, while Brayton herself pleaded no contest and received probation and a fine of $500.  For federal child abuse charges.

Gibbons' father pled guilty, but I can't find what his conviction was.  It was probably fairly small, too.

Brayton and company claimed they fled the country because they were afraid of a "biased" trial.  The "Velle" group still exists to this day.