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.
No comments:
Post a Comment