The Process Church of The Final Judgment

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The Process, or in full, The Process Church of the Final Judgment, commonly known by non-members as the Process Church, was a religious group that flourished in the 1960s and '70s, founded by the Englishman Robert DeGrimston (originally, Robert Moore) and Mary Anne MacLean. It originally developed as a splinter client cult group from Scientology, so that they were declared "suppressive persons" by L. Ron Hubbard in December 1965. In 1966 the members of the group underwent a social implosion and moved to Xtul on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, where they developed processean theology, which differs from process theology. They later established a base of operations in the United States.

They were often viewed as Satanic on the grounds that they worshipped both Christ and Satan. Their belief is that Satan will become reconciled to Christ, and together will come at the end of the world to judge humanity, Christ to judge and Satan to execute judgment. They are comparable to the Yezidis^{[original research?]} in their worship of a being generally considered evil but which they believe had become good, and this has created the impression that they are Satanists. Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor of the Charles Manson Family trial comments in his book Helter Skelter that there may be evidence Manson borrowed philosophically from the Process Church, and that representatives of the Church visited him in jail after his arrest. According to one of these representatives, the purpose of the visit was to interview Manson about whether he had ever had any contact with Church members or ever received any literature about the Church. As a result of a lawsuit, the publisher of Ed Sanders's book The Family agreed to remove the chapter about the Process from this book.

In April, 1974 Robert DeGrimston was removed by the Council of Masters as Teacher. They renounced The Unity, his exposition of the above-noted doctrines, and most of his other teachings. De Grimston attempted to restart the Process Church several times, but he could never replace his original following. Following DeGrimston's removal the group underwent a significant change in orientation and reformed as the Foundation Faith of the Millennium. This organization has since ceased to operate.

A detailed account of the history of and life within the Process Church as told by a participant-observer is contained in William S. Bainbridge's book Satan's Power. (He employed a pseudonym for the name of the group, referring to it as "The Power", and disguised the names of people to preserve their identities, a procedure used for sociological studies of living groups to ensure privacy.)

[edit] Processean theology

The term "processean theology" distinguishes these ideas from the process theology derived from the thoughts of Alfred North Whitehead.

At Xtul was the first 'channeling' of God. After Xtul, Jehovah was the only recognised God. Later, with Jehovah, Lucifer and Satan were recognised as "The Three Great Gods of the Universe" and Christ as the Emissary to the Gods. The Three Great Gods represent three basic human patterns of reality:

Jehovah, the wrathful God of vengeance and retribution, demands discipline, courage and ruthlessness, and a single-minded dedication to duty, purity and self-denial.
Lucifer, the Light Bearer, urges us to enjoy life to the full, to value success in human terms, to be gentle and kind and loving, and to live in peace and harmony with one another. Man's apparent inability to value success without descending into greed, jealousy and an exaggerated sense of his own importance, has brought the God Lucifer into disrepute. He has become mistakenly identified with Satan.
Satan, the receiver of transcendent souls and corrupted bodies, instills in us two directly opposite qualities; at one end an urge to rise above all human and physical needs and appetites, to become all soul and no body, all spirit and no mind, and at the other end a desire to sink beneath all human codes of behavior, and to wallow in a morass of violence, lunacy and excessive physical indulgence. But it is the lower end of Satan's nature that men fear, which is why Satan, by whatever name, is seen as the Adversary.

In between these Three Great Gods and man, is an entire hierarchy of Gods, beings and superbeings, angels and archangels, demons and archdemons, elementals and guides, and fallen angels and watchers.

There is all this and more too, in heaven and in hell and on Earth.

The Process believes that, to varying degrees, these "God-patterns" exist within all of us. The main doctrine of The Process is the unity of Christ and Satan, who exist as opposites. Jehovah and Lucifer exist as opposites and when Christ and Satan are united this will unite Jehovah and Lucifer.

(The descriptions of the Gods comes from a teaching called "The Hierarchy" published in December 1967, as a part of "The Tide of the End".)

[edit] Further reading

Bainbridge, William Sims (1978). Satan's Power: A Deviant Psychotherapy Cult., Univ of California Press. ISBN 0-5200-3546-1

Rowlett, Curt (2006). Labyrinth13: True Tales of the Occult, Crime & Conspiracy, Chapter 10, Charles Manson, Son of Sam and the Process Church of the Final Judgment: Exploring the Alleged Connections. Lulu Press. ISBN 1-4116-6083-8.