With Best Friends, Who Needs Enemies?

by Ms. Jade, TheDogPress Legislative Reporter

Editor’s comment: We are breaking this into several parts…. small doses are easier to digest.  Jade has set the table with a chronological, impeccably researched course for every person who might ever be tempted to donate to this group (as most of us did with PeTA before we learned the real agenda) or who is still uninformed or only partially knowledgeable about Best Friends.  See it through and gag on the inescapable conclusions to be drawn from its inception right through to the impact it is having on BSL and general public perception of dogs, thanks to CBS and other media outlets.  Remember the reports on butchered dogs, the connotation of animal sacrifices that were attached to the TV reports… Read this two-part series and the dots all start connecting.  Then warn your friends!

Best Friends has Katie Couric and the CBS evening news to help solicit donations.

Best Friends wants laws to criminalize dog breeding.

Best Friends wants laws to grant citizen “rescuers” the power to steal your animals.

Best Friends is promoted on the Animal Liberation Front website.

Best Friends claims that some dog breeds are inherently dangerous.

Best Friends is no friend of mine.

Besides being the richest, and self-proclaimed "largest animal sanctuary in the United States", what is Best Friends Animal Society? (aka: The Process, Church of the Final Judgment, aka: the Four-P Movement, aka: The Foundation Church of the Millennium, aka: The Foundation Faith of God, aka: Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.)

The book “Best Friends - The True Story of the World's Most Beloved Animal Sanctuary” professes to be a complete history - but the religious incarnations are conspicuously missing. Why do you suppose that is? Best Friends President Michael Mountain (aka: Hugh Mountain, aka: Father Aaron) has been a Processean since the early days. He claims the omission was the author's idea, and not a marketing decision. Yeah, right Huey.

Thank dog for the internet! Where buried treasure may be discovered by even the amateur archaeologist. Let’s start by unearthing the skeletons in their closet. The sordid past they would rather keep buried. A passport may be in order for this globe trotting expedition. Grab a shovel and let’s start digging.

Once upon a time, over a half century ago, three friends were avowed pseudo-Satanists*; Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (aka: L. Ron Hubbard) – the founder of Scientology, Aleister Crowley (aka: The Great Beast)** the head of the Ordo Templi Orientis “OTO” in England and John W. “Jack” Parsons (aka: Marvel Whitesides Parsons) – hand picked by Crowley to be the leader of the Pasadena California branch of the (OTO)***and a physicist who played a major role in founding the aero-space department at Cal Tech.

 Fast forward to 1963. Our first stop on the Best Friends magical mystery tour begins in London. While auditing at the L. Ron Hubbard Institute on Fitzroy Street, architect Robert DeGrimston Moore (aka “the Teacher”) met S&M prostitute/madame (and ex wife of boxer Sugar Ray Robinson) Mary Ann McClean (aka “The Oracle”). They eventually left Scientology, and twisting it with Adler’s post Freudian ideas created a self-help process called “Compulsions Analysis”. Mary Ann convinced Robert to drop the last name Moore (they only used the name to travel incognito) and adopt DeGrimston when they married in 1964.L. Ron Hubbard declared them "suppressive persons" by December 1965.

After initiates would undergo “the process”, they began initiating others – at a steep fee paid to the “Founders”, of course. This allowed them to rent an office on Wigmore Street where the group began to experience the mind effects of the collective. It was in 1965, that they officially became The Process Church of the Final Judgement. ("Process" meant "pro-cessation," or "for the end" and, according to doctrine, the Final Judgment will bring "the purifying presence of fire in the world... ") Processeans did not know exactly when the end would come, but they expected it before the turn of the century.  I hope they weren’t too disappointed.

When a member inherited, they leased a mansion on Balfour Place– owned at the time by actor Richard Harris, in London’s exclusive Mayfair district. There they first hung the official logo on the front door. The young followers were directed to leave home and turn over assets to the DeGrimstons. Soon after, Bob and Mary Ann each acquired a large Alsatian (German Shepherd) Dog. Acolytes followed suit. As one member of the Church explained, "Dogs are much more high-level beings than we are...They're pure.... Animals don't have conflicts of choice. They do as they're supposed to. They're not conflicted." Apparently, Process members believed that the dogs could sense the coming apocalypse.

As members withdrew further, the rest of society was starting to feel like a bad trip. In June of 1966, the DeGrimstons,  6 Alsatian dogs, and about 30 other Processeans - including Best Friends founders Michael Mountain and Faith Maloney (aka:  Mother Hathor) packed their bags and took the show on the road in search of a retreat. After 3 months in Nassau (Bahamas) they traveled to Mexico City where they were divinely inspired to follow the Yucatan coast to the Eden envisioned in group meditation. A place of “Mayan ruins” called Xtul; pronounced 'Shtul' the word meant 'terminus' or 'end' in Mayan.

They set up camp in an abandoned salt factory. Mountain claims that the property owner had dreamt they were coming the night before. "So if there was any time when we felt that there was probably something mystical there, that was probably it."  If Processeans had contemplated the end times, then the concept must have really hit home in September when Hurricane Inez pummeled the Yucatan for three days straight and the “shtul” hit the proverbial fan.

Members had sought shelter at one end of the building and the wall at the other end collapsed in the 200 mph winds. "The idea that we would abandon Xtul was out of the question," said Mountain. “If the storm meant the end, so be it.” They must have felt a sense of empowerment having been chosen as survivors of a disaster that killed well over a thousand people. A huge spiritual transformation had taken place. The God forces had spoken. The therapy group had become a religion. (inset: The salt factory at Xtul, 1966)

In “Sympathy for the Devil”, former OTO member Gary Lachman wrote “They returned to London filled with a sense of purpose. Their return, however, wasn't a total triumph. While at Xtul, the parents of some underaged Processeans sent a solicitor to retrieve their children. In paradise, the solicitor encountered a bikini-clad Mary Ann DeGrimston, fawned on by ragged and underfed Processeans; he made a note of her long, silver-polished fingernails, and talked to the press. The Sunday Telegraph ran a negative story on the "Mind Benders of Mayfair." The 'alternative' press wasn't too keen on them either; a highly critical article appeared in the counterculture gazette, Oz. But the DeGrimstons weren't deterred. Back at Balfour Place they opened a 24-hour coffee bar called Satan's Cave.

The group had made a sudden shift. They began to wear black capes and black turtle necks, and to sport shiny silver crosses. They also wore badges featuring the sinister Goat of Mendes…They set up a lecture hall and bookshop, and an Alpha Room, where they held their Sabbath Assemblies. (Novelist Robert Irwin, whose Satan Wants Me is set against the backdrop of occult 1960s London, recalls some deflowered virgins at Process gatherings, but doubts if there were any virgins in London then.) A movie theatre ran films dominated by destruction and violence. They gave classes in telepathy, self-expression and communication, and got on their soap-box in Hyde Park to preach the apocalypse trip.

Processeans hit the streets asking for donations. …cult members were told to say the money was going to ‘animal welfare’, although most of it landed in the DeGrimstons' pocket.”

“The Unity of Christ and Satan is Good News for you. If that conflict can be resolved then yours can be too.”

While the Process publicly courted celebrities such as Paul McCartney, Mama Kass and John Phillips, Mick Jaggar, his girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, Salvador Dali and others, the DeGrimstons became more reclusive. As if fused into one psychic entity, senior Processeans, “the Teacher” and “The Oracle” became known as “The Omega”. Their secret rituals became a matter of speculation among the lower ranks.

Although strict sexual abstinence was enforced upon the acolytes, the same rules did not necessarily apply to the Omega. Robert instructed followers to "release the fiend that lies within you" and “he had several ideas about how to go about that, some of which may have included bestiality” according to Lachman. (Coincidentally, a practice casually tolerated by animal rights pioneers Newkirk and Singer.)

In late 1967, they found their way to The United States. Perhaps because they lost a lawsuit over zoning violations at “Satans Cave”, or perhaps the dogs did not return to London because of the lengthy quarantine. While in the New Orleans French Quarter, the group legally incorporated as a nonprofit with the help of a former lawyer from the Catholic Church. Supposedly, they requsted but were denied the name “Church of the Process of Unification of Christ and Satan”.Their mission? To conduct "spiritual and occult research."

Well pack your cape and goat head because now we’re off to San Francisco, to Haite Ashbury and Charlie Manson, (Yes, the same infamous Manson whose “family” was responsible for the gruesome Tate – Labianca murders.) as chronicled in the controversial first edition of Ed Sander’s “The Family”, chapter 5, “The Process”…         

Process “Superiors” – LOVE that goat head!   
Robert "DeGrimston" Moore

The Processeans 2

Powered by Christ - Something Wicked

According to Sanders (a member of the musical group “the Fugs”), “the Process Church more or less taught Manson everything he knew.” Sanders detailed the similarities between Manson and the DeGrimstons, and here’s a few tasty tidbits.

Ø Both believed Revelations prophecy that a violent Armageddon was imminent and that it would destroy all but 144,000 of the "chosen people", The Process calling it "The Final Judgement"; Manson calling it "Judgement Day" or "Helter Skelter".
Ø Both courted biker gangs like the Hells Angels believing them to be the shock troops of this Armageddon.
Ø Both Manson and DeGrimston believed themselves to be Christ incarnate. Their followers also believed this.
Ø Both believed that they could recognize the "Seal of God" in the foreheads of their followers; Manson and his followers carved X's into their foreheads, which were later altered into swastikas.
Ø Both preached of the unity of Christ and Satan.
Ø Both changed the names of their followers.
Ø Both referred to their followers as “the family”.
Manson often ended many of his lectures, both written and verbal, with "As It Is", a Process phrase.
Ø Both had studied Scientology.

“In 1968 Charlie sent Family member Bruce Davis to visit Process headquarters in London; while there Davis, too, had a brief stint with Scientology. Two Processeans visited Manson in jail; Manson later contributed a stream-of-unconsciousness rant for the Process ‘Death’ issue, calling death ‘total awareness, closing the circle, bringing the soul to now.” Death Issue Handy Link #1

“The Process was keen on the Nazis”, said Sanders. (Dr. Mengele was a member of the Illumnati and the OTO has its roots firmly planted in the land of Alsatian dogs). Mary Ann was reputed to believe she was Joseph Geobbels reincarnate. The Minister of Propaganda, how fitting! “All the Jews in Hitler's Germany walked into the gas-ovens of their own free will” was one of her favored examples of owning your destiny.

The book was outrageous and sensational. A former Processian claims that “The Family” contained 80 factual errors and that Scientologists could have theoretically fed stories to Sanders, thereby diverting attention away from their own influence on Manson. 

Hey, it was 1968 in California. Memories might be a little fuzzy and Best Friends Board Members probably won’t participate in a rousing game of six degrees of Satinism, but Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi did – and I will too. Indulge me and play along. It goes something like this…Manson did at one time live only two blocks away from Process member Victor Wild (aka: Brother Ely) on Cole Street in The Haight. Process meetings were open to the public and it’s likely that Manson’s curiosity drew him in. He would have had ample access to their literature. It's also possible that Manson had met “The Teacher” during a visit that DeGrimston made to a Manson Family hangout in Topanga Canyon, CA. Process groupie, Marrianne Faithful had a relationship with underground film maker and Crowley/OTO devotee Kenneth Anger who may have also been involved with the Process Church and he made a 40 minute movie about Satanic ritual starring future Manson follower and convicted killer and future neo-Nazi Bobby Beausoleil. Whew! However, their may be yet another tenuous connection between Manson and the Process through “Orange Sunshine” LSD kingpin and CIA operative Ronald Hadley Stark.

Bugliosi was not entirely convinced by Process denial of any involvement with the Tate-LaBianca case, but lacking concrete evidence, he never brought any Process members into court during Manson's trial.

By now you probably think I’ve been basking too long in the orange sunshine myself but Father Adam, head of the Boston, Massachusetts chapter of The Process told a reporter that, "Manson has obviously got hold of some of our ideas from somewhere and distorted them in a particular way. It is unfortunate."

Take some Dramamine and brace yourself because from San Francisco this becomes a bad trip akin to fear and loathing in Los Angeles meets Pet Cemetery meets Faces of Death. Author Michael Newton wrote that the cult, “is also deeply involved in white slavery, child pornography and the international narcotics trade.” Sanders alluded to serial “weird ritual mutilations and animal sacrifices” apparently committed in the Santa Cruz Mountains by a Process incarnation called the Four Pi. (Remember, the Process symbol cleverly incorporates four of the stylized letter “P”) I’m envisioning a whole new definition of the term no-kill movement.

"Beginning in June 1968, authorities in San Jose, Santa Cruz, and Los Gatos began recording discovery of canines, skinned and drained of blood without apparent motive. As the director of the Santa Cruz animal shelter told Sanders, "Whoever is doing this is a real expert with a knife. The skin is cut away without even marking the flesh. The really strange thing is that these dogs have been drained of blood."

Another “hotbed of activity appears to be New York, where 85 German shepherds and Dobermans were found skinned in the year between October 1976 and October 1977”. And it wasn’t just four legged animals…(see below- Dog Sacrifice Handy Link #2)

“According to reports from the self-styled members of the Four Pi cult, its victims were mainly hitchhikers, drifters and runaways, with an occasional volunteer from the ranks. One such, a young woman, reportedly went to her death with a smile in November 1968, near Boulder Creek, but even sacrifice of willing victims is a risky business, and the cult was said to mount patrols around its rural meeting places, using guards with automatic weapons and attack trained dogs to guarantee privacy. In early 1969, the cult reportedly moved southward, shifting operations to the O'Neil Park region of the Santa Ana Mountains, below Los Angeles. The move produced -- or was occasioned by -- a factional dispute within the group, one segment striving to de-emphasize Satanic ritual and concentrate wholeheartedly on kinky sex, while more traditional adherents clung to Lucifer and human sacrifice. The group apparently survived its schism and expanded nationwide”.

According to Mountain on the Best Friends website, ”We stayed in America for six months until our tourist visas expired, moving on from New Orleans to San Francisco to Los Angeles and to New York, gathering a small following as we went, interacting with many of the movements and subcultures of the time…And in the summer of 1968, we headed back to Europe.” That’s a very interesting itinerary.

While in California, they also visited the offices of the underground newspaper the San Francisco Oracle. The Oracle must have been unconvinced that Satan would be a big seller so they allegedly tried to form an alliance with Anton LaVey, - head of the Church of Satan, but the Black Pope reportedly dismissed them as "kooks" and The Church of Scientology may have turned them in for expired visas. Perhaps that was their exit cue.

After establishing the chapter in New York, they opened chapters in several European cities; in Germany they apparently sent representatives to the neo-Nazi NPD. It was during this time that the Process suddenly published an anti-vivisectionist book entitled “The Ultimate Sin” but it didn’t stop the rumors and neither did the libel suit. Maybe Peter Singer and Ingrid Newkirk have read the tract.

Mountain and others were still recruiting in Europe when Ed Sanders book came out and their lawyer was blunt: "If you do not sue, you will be stuck with this for the rest of your lives." They lodged a $1,500,000 suit against Sanders and his publishers, and a $1,250,000 suit against a similar series of magazine articles Sanders had written. Dutton, Sanders' publisher, settled out of court. A thoroughly freaked out Sanders skipped the deposition altogether. Published copies were withdrawn, all reference to the Process deleted in subsequent editions, and a disclaimer written by the Process was added but you can find the expunged text at: Handy Link #3 Manson 1 and Handy Link Manson 2 - #4  It’s a must read. No wonder they wanted it erased!

“Interestingly, the Process Church's attorney was member John Markham. Markham was later hired by U.S. Attorney William Weld (the Weld family made its fortune in the opium trade). Weld invested money in the counterculture tabloid Real Paper, which published a major article on the Process Church.”

With flourishing branches in New Orleans, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, Mountain and other Inner Process members returned to the America in 1970 to set up shop in Boston and Chicago. They were working the main stream angle. They were in the phone book.

I hope I haven’t lost you somewhere on a grassy knoll. You might want to pop some lithium for this next episode – Next Edition - Part Two

#1 Death Issue Death Issue Handy Link

#2 Sacrifice Dog sacrifice Handy Link

#3 Manson_1  http://www.charliemanson.com/sanders-1.htm
#4 Manson_2  http://www.charliemanson.com/process-2.htm

Ms. Jade

Handy links: __________________________________

For More Best Friends Articles:

Best Friends Sanctuary?  Or a high-speed political vehicle for a carefully driven wreck pointed at Dog Owners? Barbara Haywood explains for the most informed dog owners in the world! Read and think....

Best Friends History Exposed!- Part One a chronological, impeccably researched course for every person who might ever be tempted to donate to this group!  Part One reveals sacrifice, the Manson connection, and more to chill you to the core.  Connects the dots you would never have suspected were hidden behind rescue and religion.

Best Friends Part Two... Remember the reports on butchered dogs?  Human and animal sacrifices?  Read this and the dots all start connecting.  Then warn your friends! by Ms. Jade, TheDogPress Reporter

Best Friend's Summit on Dangerous Dogs, re BSL Legislation, Breeder/Breeding 10/06. Summary by Randi Bolton, in a word - scary!! Details of agenda will scare you too!

Click PAWS for in-depth serving of alphabet soup, i.e. HSUS, ASPCA, etc.

More Columns by Ms. Jade:

Backyard Breeder

I Vote on Behalf of My Dog
Media Bias - Pit Bull Sensationalism

"Chicken Soup" - Leaves a bad taste

Best Friends History Exposed!- Part One

Best Friends Part Two...

T'was the Night Before X-mas

Still Life Pets 

Pass The Ammunition

Dog Bite Stats