006 THE PROCESS CHURCH - Satan, Sex & Self-Help! This Cult Had It All Then Lost Their Minds!

Dressed like sexy priests selling salvation they called it “the process”. This week, the Henchmen reveal what was really happening behind the cloaks. What starts as self-help ends in heatstroke, hallucinations, and divine delusion. The deeper they went, the harder it got to tell enlightenment from insanity.

Transcript

Michelle 0:15

The transmission started now. Is mukbang the name of the website?

Greg 0:22

No, no. I think it's just the the activity, the activity itself of like doing that. Just eating crazy amounts of food.

Michelle 0:30

So if it doesn't exist, I'm buying that domain name right now.

Greg 0:34

It definitely exists. Is it no, it's parked. Someone does own it.

Michelle 0:37

Okay.

Greg 0:38

I might have spelled it wrong.

Michelle 0:39

They don't know what to do with it. I get it.

Greg 0:41

How did you how do you spell it? Maybe it's like M-U-K-B-A-N-G-G.

Michelle 0:49

I'm not even gonna bother to get off the conspiracy journal network.

Bobby 0:55

We don't want the mukbangers to track us.

Michelle 0:58

That's right.

Bobby 0:58

Yeah. Um are we ready to get into it? Are we doing it?

Michelle 1:02

What are we getting into?

Bobby 1:03

We are getting into the church. No.

Michelle 1:05

Fuck the church. No, dude. We're not getting into it.

Bobby 1:08

We're getting into the process church of the final judgment.

Michelle 1:13

Okay, tell me more. Okay.

Bobby 1:17

Yeah. Kind of that's kind of their thing is being fucking cool.

Michelle 1:21

All right.

Bobby 1:25

They're not short on the like business knowledge of being cool sells.

Michelle 1:30

Yeah.

Bobby 1:30

You know, that's that's so they're like kind of sexy. Yeah, you'll just wait for it. Okay. Just wait for it.

Michelle 1:35

Okay, I can I'm waiting.

Greg 1:37

Yeah, that's what I think a lot of people. A lot of churches are missing that. It's just like the sexiness of church.

Michelle 1:43

There's zero sexiness.

Greg 1:45

Yeah, I know.

Michelle 1:45

As a matter of fact, it's the opposite of sexy in there. You know?

Bobby 1:50

They want anti-sex.

Michelle 1:51

They went they really killed the boners.

Bobby 1:53

Speaking of boner problem, Robert De Grimston, born 1935, Shanghai, China.

Michelle 1:58

Oh, uh, okay. I was gonna say something racial.

Bobby 2:00

Chinese, born to an elite family. His father was an official in the British colonial service. So were these types of people. Uh high-end boarding schools, he served as an officer in the British Cavalry in Malaysia in the 1950s. So kind of that that vibe going on. Later went back to London, studied architecture, dropped out to pursue interests in psychotherapy and spirituality. A lot of boners in there.

Michelle 2:23

Yeah.

Bobby 2:24

He joined the Church of Scientology in London in the early 1960s.

Michelle 2:29

Did he go C org?

Bobby 2:31

Uh I think this might be pre-Corg. This is very early. Like Dianetics came out in the late 1950s, I believe. And there were there was a few things that went on. It didn't Dianetics, the book itself didn't exactly take off like L. Ron Hubbard thought it would or wanted it to. At some point, he actually even lost the rights to it. And so he kind of regrouped. And then in the early 1960s, he he got the rights to Dianetics back. And he I don't know if it was the original headquarters, but he started he got like a not a facility, like a headquarters at a place called St. Hill Manor in London. So that was really kind of the Scientology as we know. Present day, we're not talking about Scientology today. But this is just a little bit of the backstory because some of it does take place there. Um that was kind of the the OG headquarters as I understand it for for Scientology, or one of the early headquarters areas. And he's like around at this point.

Michelle 3:21

Elrond, you mean?

Bobby 3:22

El Ron is around, he's like running the show at this point. Sick. I think I remember himself in person. Yeah.

Michelle 3:28

I think I remember he may have gotten into a little bit of trouble in the States. And so he like Yeah, dude didn't want to pay his taxes. Well, that's a whole different story, but he uh he fled to London and I think he was there for a while.

Bobby 3:41

Yeah, we got a lot of geographical changes in the story today. That's like if you are like uh starting a church or a religious organization or a cult or whatever, it's like if you're not doing geographical changes, you're not really doing it.

Michelle 3:54

That's right, that's right.

Bobby 3:55

You ain't getting a notion, you gotta get some secondary locations going.

Michelle 3:58

Yeah, definitely.

Bobby 3:59

Yeah, you gotta get your people together and then you gotta move them away from everybody who cares about them. That's right, that's right. So, speaking of Marianne McLean, born 1931, Glasgow, Scotland, grew up in poverty, a childhood marked by hardship. Um, she was often cared for by relatives, her mom kind of dipped out. It's not really said specifically what happens to her, but it's kind of intimated that like some pretty fucked up shit might have happened to her when she was when she was a small child. Like she had a pretty rough go of it. And this is like this is Scotland in the Great Depression era. So it's like if you're going out of your way to say she had a hard time in that era, where like everyone was having time, uh then she probably had a pretty hard time.

Michelle 4:36

Yeah.

Bobby 4:37

So um at age 16, she moved to London. She left Scotland and moved to London. Um, and according to her, she became involved with some Maltese pimps and started to work as a high-end call girl in the parlance of the times. Yeah, girl. Um through this business, she developed a relationship with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.

Michelle 4:55

Shut up.

Bobby 4:56

And uh who is known as being one of the maybe the best boxer of all time, pound for pound, is a pretty common accolade that's bestowed upon him. So she moved to the US with Sugar Ray in the early 1960s, lived with him for about a year. After whatever happened, she came back to the UK and joined the Church of Scientology. And she met our good friend Robert De Grimston at that point. He was born Robert Moore, changes his name a little bit later to de Grimston, but just for the the sake of the story, we'll be calling him that. So they are in the the Church of Scientology. Again, they're at St. Hill Manor. Scientology is popping off. Marianne loves it. She becomes like a really well-known auditor in the church at that point. Yeah. She's very well respected in the the high-level Scientology circles. And she really liked the dynamic of auditing, which we'll get into a little bit in a minute. But she really, really takes to the feeling and the idea of knowing someone better than they know themselves, which is like this power. So she she finds the this power element um and that power dynamic that that's kind of baked into the auditing element of Scientology, she really loves and she really thrives in that. So she starts doing a little like kind of side auditing, doing, doing her own thing, kind of maybe freestyling, starting to ask some different stuff, her own questions. And so some people in Scientology uh kind of like they set up a little sting and they're like a recorder asking some some sideways shit, and they're like, You and your fucking husband, this guy, they're not married at that point, but you and Robert tell Ron Hubbard that you're suppressive persons. You gotta be a couple of SPs and you gotta get the fuck out.

Michelle 6:35

Yep.

Bobby 6:35

So not before Marianne ganks an e-meter on her way out the door. Of course, taking one of these. That's right. Her and Robert they marry.

Michelle 6:44

Okay.

Bobby 6:44

So we're in 1963. So her and Robert have just been bounced right out of Scientology. Uh, but they got the e-meter, and Marianne, even though that happened, like she's still she's like, there's a lot of value in this in this element of of Scientology. And so she they form a a business called compulsions analysis based on uh the Scientology techniques, but like stripped of uh all the the science fiction, science fact element of it. Um all of that stuff taken away, along with the uh ideas of the psychologist Alfred Adler, um, who is like really interested in exploring people's like innate inferiority and then breaking through that and getting to developing feelings of superiority. That was kind of he had this transition thing, and so that fit very well with the e-meter Scientology processing of like breaking down all of these walls uh within yourself, uh asking probing questions, getting through like the social masks that people wear. They were really big on this. Um, I thought this was this was just very funny to me. Uh Alfred Adler, the psychologist, in 2002, the review of general psychology ranked him as the 67th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century. He's up there.

Michelle 7:59

Yeah, it is.

Bobby 8:00

He made the list. At what at what at what position on the list do you like not put it on your resume? Right. Yeah, you know what I mean? I'm the 67th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century.

Greg 8:10

Well, he gets to just write he's one of the most. Right. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely.

Michelle 8:14

How long is the list? That's what I really want to do. 67. 68.

Greg 8:21

That's right. Ronald McDonald is like 68.

Bobby 8:24

And I mean, I don't, it's it's so funny. Like I had forgotten kind of, it had been a while since I had dipped into the world of Scientology at all, and I'd kind of forgotten about the e-meters. And it's just like there's like the two things that you hold in your hand, and it like reads the the electrical charges, and and and so kind of like the the theory behind it is that when they ask you a question that matters to you, this meter goes up, this charge goes up. I just can't, I just keep thinking of kids with the tin cans and the string. Yeah, that's exactly what it looks like.

Michelle 8:52

It that's okay. So as a little baby, I was probably like a teenager, and I was in the subway in Times Square, which is like a major hub, and there's a lot of like hallways and stuff where you can, you know, walk down this walkway to go to the two train, you walk the other way to get to the shuttle and whatnot. There's big openings. Sometimes there's breakdancers or singers, and one day there was a table set up of Scientologists. They had Dianetics out and they had the e-meters, and I was into it. So I walk up, I bought a book, I still have it. Never read it, it was unreadable. I cut I kept trying, couldn't get through it, but I did the e-meter, and it is very much like I it actually I always think of the tin cans and a string, but it was more like I don't know if you guys ever made in science class, like a light bulb on a piece of wood with like an on-off switch. It was more like that, you know, that level of uh electric middle school electrics. Um, and it was just like two cut pipes, if you will, that you put your hands on with two wires that went to just like a little gauge. And yeah, it's like as they're asking you questions, they're they're noting whatever the gauge is saying, and it it's it's lunacy, you guys. It's like it's pure lunacy.

Greg 10:14

And by lunacy you mean scientifically facts. Yeah, I mean, this is obviously how to like get down to the core of a person.

Michelle 10:20

But I have to tell you, how much different is it from a lie detector machine?

Greg 10:24

I mean this this I think uh works less.

Michelle 10:27

Yeah, it works less. You know what though? If you would put some like you know, um defibulator things on the thing with like maybe it would be a lie detector test.

Greg 10:37

The e-reader though is like it's arbitrary what they would read the like read out, like the little things would be. So it's like if you start like talking about someone's gay or something, like they want you to like acknowledge that and be like, are you gay? And you're like, no, and it's like, well, this is saying that it just jumped a little bit. So let's talk about it a little bit more like that.

Michelle 10:55

And like have you ever had gay thoughts?

Greg 10:57

Yeah, exactly. And like there was so many gay people, you would just go down this rabbit hole, it doesn't matter what the topic was, but you just go down this like long list of things that just like of course you're ruining your own brain at this point.

Bobby 11:09

This is what the titular process of the Church of the Final Judgment is is is this yeah breaking down the these these barriers or pursuing these lines of questioning. They believe that uh people had become fragmented by societal norms and had become like pulled in so many directions that we're gonna process you to deal with those fragments until you become a whole person again.

Greg 11:30

Well, see, I can agree with that.

Michelle 11:32

I got I'm I'm ready to sign up. I'm kind of on board. Yeah, and so like sounds like all the work I did in in therapy.

Bobby 11:40

That's exactly that's exactly right. This is effective, this works, this makes people feel better about themselves, okay and makes them have breakthroughs, and so they start to get the some of the young people around London and kind of bring them in. Um, and this is you know, this is the the early 1960s, you know. So we still got a lot of post-war stuff, there's a lot of hippie stuff going on. That's kind of not the thing for everybody, but people are exploring a lot of different stuff. There's a lot more freedom to explore these things, and so yeah, that's exactly right. Like you're on board, these people are on board, these young people, they're like, this breaks down a lot of the walls, a lot of the stuff that's been projected upon me. That I I feel confident, we're breaking, we're going against societal norms, so there's an anti-establishment intellectualism to this whole thing, which is appealing to young people, late teens, early 20s, we're in that zone, and so Marianne and Robert, they're fucking savvy, and like you'll see throughout this is Mary Ann. Marianne is a fucking boss.

Michelle 12:39

I already was like, hold on, homegirl used to be an SW, you know, and now she's her own pimp, and she's stole that E-meter and she's on one.

Bobby 12:51

And she's not only her own pimp, not necessarily in a sexual way, but like she's about to get a stable. She's developing a stable. I could be the tagline for this episode. I'm my own pimp. Yeah, yeah. That's right. And so she she's also she understands the the times that we're in and and what's going on. So Robert looks good. He's uh he's a good looking, like strong-looking dude, you know. So they have this thing. So Robert is the face of a lot of this organization, but Marianne ultimately is is is pulling the the strings behind the scenes. And so again, they're they're hip, they're savvy. This thing is kind of working, and so they're like, let's get some rich, weak teens and exploit them. Yep, you know, brilliant. So that's what they that's what they do. They attract all of these people, or not all these people, but then we're in tens of people at this point. Yeah, sure. And so they move them into uh this basement in a house in the the Mayfair area of London, which is a super affluent area.

Michelle 13:48

Okay.

Bobby 13:49

We're like a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace. Okay, like Buckingham Palace is immediately adjacent to Mayfair. Okay, got it across the street, you know. And so we're in that zone. So there's a lot of people to pull from, and they're pulling from uh upper class social circles, uh young aristocrats, heiresses, university students, and they're like young, good-looking, intelligent people. They're good at the the branding of of everything and their their texts, their teachings, they're they're actually helping people, they're making them feel good. And like where they really get traction, they start to send people out when they send them out to recruit. They uh and it's gotta be Marianne the that loves this. They got German Shepherds. They got they got German Shepherds, black cloaks, long capes, black turtlenecks.

Michelle 14:35

I'm already in me up, dude. I'm in.

Bobby 14:38

We got we got Baphomet medallions, you know, goat, goathead pentagram, but also a lot of crosses, you know. So like that's kind of the like Roman Catholic Church, they've got cool dresses.

Michelle 14:51

Yeah, for sure.

Bobby 14:52

They dress like crazy, and and and so they pull from a lot of that, and and you'll see as we go through this story, but a lot of what we like think of now today with Church of Satan heavy metal stuff, yeah.

Michelle 15:06

I'm like this with them. Yeah, we're in a goth phase or heavy, they're starting phase.

Bobby 15:12

So, like, there's like hot young people out on the street, black cloaks with pentagrams and German shepherds, and you're like, who the fuck are these people? Nice. I want to hang out, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So they're like really good on that. Um, so they're getting a lot of people in that way, and also anybody who's like maybe oh, hippie love is not quite for me, and this is the opposite of that. Yeah, so it's a great way to push back against that, even you know, so you can kind of double push back against the societal norms, yeah, the structures of that at this point. Um, they're charging money to process people.

Michelle 15:46

Hell yeah.

Bobby 15:46

Let's get it.

Michelle 15:47

How much do we know?

Bobby 15:48

We don't know. Okay, um, I think probably, I mean, it sounds I don't I don't know this. I'm I'm speculating, but again, Marianne's pretty hip, so it's probably like how much you got.

Michelle 15:56

Fuck it.

Bobby 15:57

Yeah, I mean spiritual liberation has never been free.

Michelle 16:00

So no, no, no, no.

Bobby 16:01

And I feel like you know, the work is commeasure it with what you're exactly, what you're able to afford. You know, if you come from a very rich family, it's gonna cost you a lot to get processed.

Michelle 16:09

That's right.

Bobby 16:10

You know, you got a lot of bullshit. I was gonna say yes, you have more to get through, I guess. Exactly. Exactly.

Michelle 16:14

There's always more.

Bobby 16:15

So they uh they become self-sufficient through this, uh, and they move into a mansion, uh Balfour place in Mayfair. So they've like leveled up. And again, we're still in this super affluent neighborhood. We're doing great at this point. Um, Marianne is kind of known as like the oracle or goddess in this circle. Uh Robert's more of the public face and is known as the teacher. Um again, Marianne's kind of pulling the strings, and it's at this phase, the Balfour place phase. The Robert Moore changes his name to Robert DeGrimston. Just sounds cooler. We're doing the whole whole goat head thing. Yeah, you know, de Grimston is way more. I support it. I support this move.

Michelle 16:52

We'll we'll never call you Moore again.

Bobby 16:54

Yeah, yeah. We're doing some, we're in some heavy metal shit. So and so at this, at this point, we've already we've kind of got the look and the feel, but at this point we're still we're moving from psychotherapy into religion at this point. We're starting, we're starting, we're starting to transition.

Greg 17:11

Okay, well that's how like all good cults start. Then you gotta like figure out yourself, and then it's just like, oh yeah, by the way, this is costing money, and there's gonna be some like weird shit that you have to do in order to like continue on with everything.

Michelle 17:26

Every time, man, almost I'm not even kidding you. Almost every single cult story I hear, the whole beginning self-help part. I'm like, sign me up, I'm in. I'm totally in. And then it fucking turns every time, and I gotta blow somebody, and it's just not right.

Greg 17:40

I was uh I was listening to Charles Manson. I remember this like the very clearly. Um, it was like Charles Manson giving like some sort of talk. It wasn't a talk, he was like being interviewed after all the crazy shit he did. Um, but I turned to we were like watching this interview in school for something, I forget what it was, and I turned to my buddy Tom, who was sitting next to me, and I was like, yo, I probably would have been following Charles Manson. Like we both looked at each other like, yeah, I'm like, it's probably good that we didn't know him then. Jesus Christ.

Bobby 18:11

Yeah, yeah. I remember a friend of mine, he showed me a video of this guy called Osho, and he was Osho, yeah. He was he was dropping some real legit Eastern wisdom, like some knowledge. Uh and I was like, Yeah, man, that's absolutely legit. I'd studied a lot of Buddhism at that point, like Dominic Bapasna stuff, you know, it was pretty familiar in hip to the game, and this was real great stuff. And then like five years later, that documentary Wild Wild Country came out on Netflix.

Michelle 18:35

I was like, it's fucking Osho, dude.

Bobby 18:38

He had a different name at that point, and that was the crazy thing about that was Osho was post-Wild Wild Country. Yeah, all that shit went down, and after that, he had rebranded himself. He didn't go by Osho then, right? He had rebranded himself to Osho at that point, was uh having success because these ideas they do help.

Greg 18:53

They do, and and people And when you try to like mass market it, that's when things really take a turn for the worse.

Bobby 19:00

And then, yeah, when you try to make everybody blow you.

Michelle 19:02

That's where it always turns for me, you know?

Greg 19:05

Yeah, yeah, we we can we can have a fun, loving time, and just you know, the orgy doesn't have to always be part of it.

Bobby 19:12

Exactly. Exactly.

Greg 19:13

Ram Das was never trying to fuck everybody. I know, yeah, and he had a lot good, yeah.

Bobby 19:20

Yeah, so we know of, yeah. So we've been doing this like psychotherapy thing, and but they're also, you know, it is like the 60s hippies stuff, so they're into this kind of different side of things, but they are still into meditation and whatnot. You know, when they start to catch some some different peoples, like the Beatles spiritual advisor is part of their group, he's doing their jam.

Michelle 19:40

So Mara Hishi, the transcendental different, different spiritual, different phase, different spiritual advisor earlier than that. Right, right, yeah.

Bobby 19:48

Okay, so so that's kind of like their religious stuff, and they're kind of getting into that meditation zone, and you start to sprinkle in a little bit while I'm you know, I had talked to God while I was meditating, you know, or like I heard a thing, you know, like all that stuff. Um, and Marianne starts to dabble into like classic cult shit. She's arranging a little marriage, you know, like making it more a little communal lifestyle. Yep, yep, yep. Um, which is like I remember in my notes just writing communal lifestyle is taking everyone's money. I feel like when you like transition your followers to a communal lifestyle, it's that's when I'm gonna hold all your assets for you, and all everyone's assets are gonna go for the betterment of our organization. And so uh at this point, Marianne she receives a revelation from God or whoever.

Michelle 20:39

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Bobby 20:41

And that the world was ending. Uh huh. We need to leave London immediately. Shit. So here's where we get to like the fire festival phase of this fucking cult. They're like, we're going to the Bahamas. We're gonna go to the Bahamas and we're gonna find an island, and it's gonna be fucking awesome.

Greg 20:57

What was it that they were actually running from?

Bobby 20:59

And because the end of the world. She had this revelation.

Greg 21:02

I know, but like that that usually comes up because like they know like the government's. Yeah, yeah. That's usually that's when like they have these revelations, right? As like they need to get out.

Bobby 21:12

I I really think that at this phase, I I think she I really think that she's experimenting with control, how much control and influence she has and how far this can go. That's a huge test. To this point, it's we're fucking, we're wearing cool clothes, we're in London, we're having a good time. So, like, how far will you go from me?

Michelle 21:30

This is dark, man. That she's not, I feel like men are usually running from the IRS or whatever the equivalent would be in London, the parliament's out to get me or whatever. Um, whereas women are like, yo, what can I make these fuckers do? You know? And maybe I really want to go to the Bahamas. So let's go there.

Bobby 21:50

This is a an interesting thing in in its uh it's it's it's actually I think it's quite dark. Uh, but I but I think that there's a lot of truth to it that. I think that things that happened to Marianne in her life uh when she was a young woman, I think that she was like, I will never be controlled by a man again.

Michelle 22:09

Yeah, right on.

Bobby 22:10

I will control all the men.

Michelle 22:11

Yes, you will.

Bobby 22:12

And largely, this group was mostly men. There were women around, but it's largely young men that are in this group.

Michelle 22:18

Fuck yeah, Marianne.

Bobby 22:19

And that's a b that's a big part of it. Yeah. Yep. And it it is so different, you know, the the motivations of a of a cult led by a man versus this. But it like absolutely tracks, and she's doing it well. She's like, she's she's getting it, she's working it. So they go to the Bahamas, but it's if I can say that one thing that young white people from inner city London are known for, it's their survival skills in the wild.

Michelle 22:42

Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're gonna be fine. They're gonna die of sunstroke in the first 45 minutes.

Bobby 22:49

So they, yeah, that's right. So they they go to the Bahamas, they're like, we're gonna find an island, we're gonna buy an island. You know, it's a little bit like whatever. And it's like, yeah, certainly the Bahamian people haven't already like settled everywhere, you know, found all the spots that are decent and habitable, you know. Certainly that hasn't happened. So it's pretty pretty quick there in the Bahamas for just a short while, and they're like, okay, maybe this isn't the place for us. Like, turns out we can't just come in and get an island like we thought we were gonna. So they go to Mexico City and they're like, let's regroup. Um they're finding all the worst places to be dressed in black. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Also, while this is still happening, German Shepherds. Yeah, they still they're they got the German Shepherds.

Michelle 23:31

Hell yeah. German Shepherds love the heat too. Yeah, they're thriving.

Bobby 23:35

Yep, exactly, exactly. Uh, so they're in Mexico City. I think somebody gets a vision that's like, we need to go over here to the Yucatan Peninsula. So they go over there. Uh oh, they they rent a bus, they drive out to the Yucatan. The bus driver's like, what are you guys even doing?

Michelle 23:53

What are you guys?

Bobby 23:54

Are you gonna pay me? Like, what's going on? And so they get out there, they get dropped off, they're just on the beach, and they're like getting fucked up. They don't have food or money or anything, and they're just getting fucked up by the weather. Like mosquitoes, yeah, exactly. And so they're like, but they're like believing, you know, they're young, so they got they got some stamina to withstand some bullshit. Of course, of course. So they're all like meditating together, and uh, this was so funny to me. One of them had a vision, and the vision just I I see crystal blue water, coconuts, and and uh and and palm trees, and it's just a slightly different version of the beach that they're on, and so they like walk up the beach and then they see that and they're like, Oh my god, the vision has been realized. It's so lazy, yeah. It's so it's it's crazy, and so a short ways up the beach, you know, I maybe maybe 10 or 15 miles or whatever up the beach. There's like uh this abandoned coconut plantation and salt factory. Perfect, and it's it's not even a it's worse than it's ruins. There's like no roof, yeah. There's like this, and so they're like, this is the place, this is the vision, this is incredible, and uh get there and they look out in the water, and there's like a there, there's a fish that comes to the shore from the fucking ocean, and they're like, What is that? And Marianne's like, It's a fish. She's like, I told you we would be provided before. And they're like, and their minds are blown that the ocean produced a fish.

Michelle 25:21

Fucking white rich people from London, man.

Bobby 25:23

They're all like, it's so crazy. They're all like their fucking minds are blown, and they're like, This is a sign from God that we are meant to be here, you know? And it's like, you mean I love how our brains work, but the most abundant natural resource in the whole fucking planet.

Michelle 25:35

You're like, oh my god, dude.

Greg 25:37

Like when you're looking for like a like a miracle, you will find it. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Like you'll make an excuse for like our brains are fascinating. Yeah. Real thirsty.

Bobby 25:46

You drink some water. What is this magic elixir? And so it's real, it's just I mean, they really like they all like want to be on this journey and they like really want it to work so well. So they're they're in they're in that zone, and they just like they find the owner of this factory and they're like, Can we stay here? And they're like, in the fucking ruins, like, yeah, go ahead. Like, fuck this. Is also it's like far away from town, like they're not close to anything. So they're they're like out here, uh, they're fucking dying. Yeah, they're like getting heat stroke, they're dehydrated, they're malnourished. It's part of the process. That's part of the process, too. Absolutely. We're processing, we're becoming the whole self, just a much smaller, withered version of ourselves.

Michelle 26:25

Only Marianne can eat the fish.

Bobby 26:27

That's right. That's right. The dogs are fine, they're fine in critters and stuff, yeah, that's other bodies of the people that are dying. Exactly, probably. Yep. So um, there's like out there, they're getting fucked up. And this is just it's so interesting to me about the the lack of awareness once you get into these crazy scenarios. And so we're already a little under the influence, you know, and then we're we're malnourished, we're sunstroked, we're meditating a lot. We start to have some visions. Yeah, of course. It's like, yeah, you're gonna you're gonna have some vision span, you're gonna have a little psychosis because that's how that fucking works. So that happens when I stand up too quick. Yeah, truly.

Michelle 27:08

If I don't eat all day, I'm having visions.

Bobby 27:11

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I always thought that that was, you know, people talk a lot about like methamphetamine psychosis, you know, and like part of it is the substance, but a lot of it is that you haven't slept for days. And anybody that doesn't sleep for days is gonna start to hallucinate like very quick after two or three, four days. Hallucinating, no problem. So they're all in that zone, they're meditating, but all these hallucinations, they like mean something, they really have some meaning. We're communicating with God. One guy's like, I had a message from God. I want you to stone me to death. Jesus, please stone me to death.

Michelle 27:42

Um, and dude, I kind of relate to this guy.

Bobby 27:45

Marianne's like, she's like, That's just I don't think I want to do that. So they like stone his feet. They stoned through stumbles on the feet. You know, it's like a rising of like a fetishist that you're like, okay, all right, I can't just like look away but do the thing that you want me to do. So they like stone his feet. Um and he's like, whatever, praise be to God. Um, so they're they're there, they're doing their thing. They're just like, they're just like I mean, they're losing their minds. Yeah, when you're in London, you're like, let's go live on the beach, man. And then when you dude, the beach with no resources is fucking a hard place, dude. Y'all seen Castaway, dude. That's what they're yeah, that's where they're at. Um, they've got no resources, no skills. Uh in September of night, so they came out here in June. September of 1966, Hurricane Inez comes. Dude. Hurricane Inez.

Michelle 28:34

They don't have an they don't even have a roof.

Bobby 28:36

Yeah, that's right. Hurricane Inez is a category five hurricane.

Michelle 28:40

Oh, dude, we're dead.

Bobby 28:41

It kills a thousand people.

Michelle 28:42

Oh my god.

Bobby 28:43

And it like bounces all over the Caribbean, it's Florida, Mexico, uh, Central America. It's wreaking havoc. So yeah, they're huddled together for hours in their little ruins and the little like scraps of roof that this place has, and they just get fucked up. But surprise, like they had some visions while the hurricane was happening. Um, and fucking Robert De Grimston is God has spared us, you know? Not anybody else. Those other thousand people must have been terrible pieces of shit because God spared us because we're fucking awesome. So he uh got some revelations and he really like amps up the the doctrine at this point. So we've gone from like some e-meter stuff to now there are four deities. Jehovah, Lucifer, Satan, and Christ.

Michelle 29:31

Okay, give it to me again.

Bobby 29:33

Jehovah, Lucifer, Satan, and Ringo. Christ is the last one.

Michelle 29:42

I feel like we have a duplicate.

Bobby 29:44

Are they all worshipped uh equally? Yes. The well so Jehovah is God, Christ is God's son, Satan is Satan, and Lucifer is the fallen angel. Essentially.

Michelle 29:58

So all my life. Okay, all right. Bear with me, everybody. I never read the Bible. This is true. So I don't know.

Bobby 30:05

In your defense, you didn't have this shit feasted upon foisted upon you as a child.

Michelle 30:09

I was not feasted upon by the devil. That's right. That is the Catholic Church. Um so sorry, Lucifer and Satan are not the same person.

Bobby 30:20

So Lucifer was an angel in heaven who did something and then fell into hell.

Greg 30:24

He like opposed God's will. Like he was like the rebel.

Michelle 30:28

I made up a whole story.

Bobby 30:29

Before that, he was like he was the highest. He was good, but like really good. Yeah, yeah. They love Lucifer in heaven. Super good. Yeah.

Michelle 30:36

Fell hard. Hard. And I thought when he fell hard, that created hell, and he became the devil. Where the five is.

Greg 30:44

Now there's uh there's a lot of misconception as to like all the deities, like Baphomet. They're like, oh, that's Satan. It's like that's not Satan.

Michelle 30:52

That's Lucifer.

Greg 30:53

That's Satan. That's not Satan.

Michelle 30:54

These are these are all separate So I'm not the only one who thinks all this shit. You know why? Because the people don't want you to know the bad half of the story, so they don't tell you it's misinformation. You know what I mean? This is why I'm dying in ignorance. It's because they don't want to tell me the truth.

Greg 31:12

It's the same thing that happens, like with uh most of what Christianity did throughout the years was when again going back to the idea of adopting um all these like Nordic and like pagan rituals and stuff like that. Yeah, of course, like Easter and like incorporating all of those ancient traditions into like this other thing to get more people on board with their religion. Anything that isn't in their doctrine is essentially considered a cult and pagan and it's bad, and it's if it's not in their specific like rituals, then it's Satan. So anything outside of a Christian belief is not a sort of thing.

Michelle 31:47

So Lucifer could be Satan, but because he's just well, it is because they say that's right, right, right. Because everything bad is Satan.

Bobby 31:55

And like, yeah, in your defense, that's super common. Yeah, Lucifer is referred to as Satan.

Michelle 32:00

Thank God for the Satan.

Bobby 32:01

There's like the phrase like uh speak of the devil, it's Lucifer himself, you know, like that.

Michelle 32:06

Yeah, they make it confusing.

Greg 32:07

They do. Well, that's why even uh in um the Codex Gigas, and like it's called the Devil's Bible, right? The devil and Lucifer are essentially the same person, but they are different things. Like to be a you could be a devil, but Lucifer is like its own separate entity.

Michelle 32:26

Right, right, right, right. They may get so confusing.

Greg 32:28

And even like we can dive into that like on a separate thing, but like, yeah, Lucifer is just when you think of like conceptual deities and conceptual ideas of what good and bad is, and the idea of like knowledge and things like that. That's and like the bad that can come with too much knowledge is usually what's attributed to Lucifer.

Michelle 32:46

Right, the Lucifer, the the it's the bringer of light and knowledge, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Bobby 32:52

So much of this shit is just people just be saying stuff. Because like right before this, I cut it out.

Greg 32:56

Best way to simplify everything that's gone.

Bobby 32:58

I cut I cut it out because it was just like a thing that didn't need to be mentioned. Originally, there's three deities Jehovah, I think it was Jehovah, Lucifer, and Satan, and then he's like, well, there's four. So it's like that's how much fact is like existing in here, then the people just be saying it's stuff, you know. And so he does kind of bring it back around. Rob Robert De Grimston brings it back around, which is likely that's like Marianne's like, tell him this, tell him this stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michelle 33:25

I want to call him Richard Moore again because he lost his cool name.

Bobby 33:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he he they do bring it back around to like if you acknowledge they they they say that all four of these deities exist in each person. So Jehovah, Lucifer, Satan, and Christ.

Michelle 33:40

And there's I'm back on board.

Bobby 33:42

There's kind of like uh Jehovah and Christ are are the light, Lucifer and Satan are the dark. And then if we acknowledge the light and the dark in ourselves, then we can become a unified being.

Michelle 33:51

Yes.

Bobby 33:52

You know, and again, this is so this is kind of back to like the process. We're gonna break through the walls and we're gonna become, but we're doing a little more biblically.

Greg 34:00

Carl Jung would like talk about this in like in terms of our shadow, and it's just like you have to address it and acknowledge your shadow and like the darkness in you.

Michelle 34:08

He can have his cool name back. Okay, okay, okay.

Bobby 34:10

Robert De Grimston. Yeah, at your service. Uh Christ and Satan would eventually unite and judge humanity, and to survive it, you had to have balance these things. You had to unite that light in the dark and become a whole person in order to survive the final judgment. The church or the process of the final judgment. We've reached our our full name at this point. Got it. So also they're doing some orgies. So just bring it back. That's happening too on the side of stuff. Um, they're also uh it's just like a weird side note that I think needs to be mentioned, but there's like nowhere to go on it. They're also like having kids and like the the members of the the cult at that point. It's kind of wild. They like even way after the fact, you can still they tell they still have stake in a lot of these ideas, but when they talk about the children that they hadn't raised, they're like, oh, we fucked those kids up.

Michelle 35:06

They're like, we did a terrible job with those kids.

Bobby 35:08

And so they raise the kids, I think designate certain people to raise the kids to like take them away from their parents. They said they see them about once a week, you know, and so they have different structures, but kind of across the board, goddamn, we did a number on those kids. So I was just like, again, there's nowhere to go with that, but I feel like it bears mentioning.

Michelle 35:25

Jesus Christ.

Bobby 35:27

I would like to speak to one of these kids.

Michelle 35:29

I know. I have questions for these kids for sure. Actually, I want to just start with like photos. Like, what do you look like nowadays? Like, how did you turn out? You know what I mean? You are you alive? Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, did you make it out of the roofless coconut factory on the beach?

Bobby 35:45

Yeah. And there's some like there's there's not a lot of things that come out of the direct actions of the cult, but there is like some some shit going on, like when they're okay, the hurricane happens, fucks them up real bad. Let's go back to London.

Michelle 36:02

Oh shit. Okay. Do we still got that mansion or we gotta go somewhere else?

Bobby 36:05

Uh yeah, I think we're doing good financially. Great. So we go back to London, we're doing the thing. Um, and so at some point there's a guy that's like kind of privy to the teachings, he commits suicide. One of the poor duty. Exactly. One of the women that they took with them, um, her like family and some other families that were involved hired some cult busters of the time to like come come get them out, you know. And so like this woman talks and like she got like ripped away from her family essentially, and she's like, it took eight years to recover. You know, so there's like real trauma being done to a lot of these people, and there's like some dark things happening. Um, and again, like they're not like happening directly inside of this group, but they're happening directly because of the actions of this group. So they go back to London, they get legally incorporated as the process church of the final judgment, a nonprofit religious organization. Um, and we really amp up the aesthetics. Robert De Grimston at this point, he's like got a Jesus goatee, he's got the fucking hair. Um, they're all wearing their black capes and cloaks. There's a lot of pictures of somebody wearing a purple cloak, which looks fucking dope. You know? So they got the crosses, the hair, the whole thing.

Michelle 37:12

We're back.

Bobby 37:12

We're back. We're Christmas streets with the fucking German Shepherds again, we're doing great. And there's like where they were in Mexico is like uh it's spelled X-T-U-L, but it's they stool, stool is like where they were at. And so there's like a lot of people that like the people that were there and like lived through that, they really feel like it's like this apocalyptic event that happened to them. Yeah, you know, they like went through this thing and they've all been like it kind of cemented their like involvement in this organization.

Michelle 37:37

How do you leave after that bonding experience? You know, exactly. It would be like in Castaway when Wilson floats away.

Bobby 37:45

It's exactly like that.

Michelle 37:46

Yeah. It's exactly like that. That's I know, that's why I said it.

Bobby 37:50

So they they're really like leaning into the the look. They have this like four Ps logo, which is four Ps inverted on each other.

Michelle 37:59

Sorry, it looks like a bit I was envisioning P's, like the edible piece, like little.

Bobby 38:03

That would have been better because this one looks like a swastika. Oh, yeah.

Greg 38:07

I can imagine what this looks like.

Bobby 38:09

It looks like a swastika, which like again, it kind of fucking flows with their vibe that they got going on. So they've got this whole like ico iconography thing.

Michelle 38:18

Um, you know, and also too soon, guys. It's only the 60s. Yeah.

Bobby 38:23

And so people around London like see them, they've got a presence in the streets. People around London are like, these fucking nutters, dude. They all think that they're brainwashed, which you know, whatever. Um they buy their own printing press, they start a magazine called The Process. Fuck yeah, and it's like again, we've got all this cool iconography and imagery, and like each image of the magazine has a theme like death, fear, or sex. Yeah, dude. They're getting access to these people, like they interviewed Mick Jagger, you know, and celebrities like that, have them on the pages with you know, a lot of their own like teachings and writings. And I don't know if it it it's it's hard to say in like retrospect, but there's like a quote from Mick Jagger that's these are dangerous people. You know, and so I don't know if him being like, Yeah, they're fucking dangerous, you know, or if it's him stay the fuck away from these people, like they took me out of context, speak to my attorney. Yeah, you know, uh it's a little bit unclear as to that, but they do have access to these people and there's this involvement. And apparently, in at that time and and probably still to become a church in England, you have to be a church for like a hundred years. So they're just incorporated as this nonprofit religious organization, but not so in America. Let's go to America, be a church, getting money.

Michelle 39:34

That's right, but not paying taxes.

Bobby 39:36

Yeah, so they um just following in the footsteps of uh El Ronald. That's right. He is he's and they like to go back to the beginning, um to really follow in those footsteps. I think Marianne must have learned from him or or or just they were just smart in this way. Uh they she stole the E-meter and they're using that, but they renamed it a P scope.

Greg 39:58

Yeah, does it and they're like taking a lot of the Is it Peace or P P P scope?

Michelle 40:03

Yeah, we're obsessed with the letter P.

Greg 40:05

Yeah, the process. That's why I was curious.

Bobby 40:07

Yeah, yeah.

Michelle 40:07

Um this episode is brought to you by the letter P.

Bobby 40:10

That's right. So they they call it a P scope. They're like they take a lot of the axioms and and phrasings from Scientology, but they kind of rebrand them as part of the process. Just they stole a lot of shit from Scientology, changed the name so they can't get sued.

Michelle 40:23

Right on.

Bobby 40:24

So yeah.

Michelle 40:24

So I support this.

Bobby 40:25

Yep, taking taking notes.

Michelle 40:26

It's what everybody does.

Bobby 40:28

Taking notes. So they they come to the U.S. we're in the late 1960s. Um, they settle largely in New Orleans and San Francisco. So late 60s.

Michelle 40:37

Spooky.

Bobby 40:38

Yeah. Counterculture, all that is really popping off. And so they catch some of the the eye of people like John Waters. John Waters was cruising around. It's really fun to hear John Waters talk about him because he's just like, yeah, they look fucking cool. We're running around, these fucking cloaked. He's basically like, they weren't shit. Yeah, you know, it's kind of what he says as well. Um, so yeah, they just like really had the like branding down. They got involved with George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic.

Michelle 41:04

Fuck yeah, dude.

Bobby 41:05

So they were like they went on tour with P Funk at some point and they were doing doing some stuff doing their costumes, essentially. Yeah, exactly. You know, they know how to brand, having this vibe, yeah. This really like uh yeah, there's just something about it that people are so interested in, you know. Growing up in the in the Catholic Church, they get it. There's like power and gravitas that comes from this type of dress and imagery.

Greg 41:27

It was kind of the same thing with uh the Church of Satan did. And like Anton LeVay had like the same aesthetic, the same idea, even like his kid Zina, like she kind of took over like the reins after he died, and it was like that same look and like gathering celebrities and like gathering rockers and stuff like that, where it was just like it looks cool as fuck to be part of this.

Michelle 41:49

Fuck yeah, dude. I definitely wanted to join. I'm a priestess. I got I I paid and got my little card. Got your card? Yeah.

Bobby 41:57

It's a couple degrees removed, but half the stuff for sale at Hot Topic is because of these groups. Yeah, for sure. It just like does things slightly tweaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg 42:07

Yeah, for sure, yeah.

Bobby 42:09

Uh Robert DeGrimston, like as the the process church, wrote the liner notes for Parliament's 1971 album, Meg It Brain, is the process's teachings. If you get that album and look at the liner notes, it's their their stuff.

Michelle 42:22

Cool.

Bobby 42:22

Um and so as this is happening again, we're in the late 60s, and so people are seeing these people on the streets in these black cloaks, robes, fucking Baphomet, you know, all that stuff. So they're like, satanic panic, you guys are in it.

Michelle 42:38

Ah, yeah, dude.

Bobby 42:39

You guys, you guys are like part of the deal. And so there's a lot of like press and authors that are like, these fucking the process church, they're fucking Satanists, they're fucking up to some Manson family shit, you know, because they're like insular, you know, and they're they've got the fucking dogs, dude. So it's very like it's not a stretch for people to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're up to some manson family shit.

Michelle 42:58

Yeah, for sure. And and they believe in the devil, that's uh put them in jail.

Bobby 43:03

Exactly. You know, and and uh they get kind of lumped in with uh son of Sam gets like thrown into them that he's part of this subterranean offshoot of cults that's from the process church, and that the killings that he did were uh ritual killings is part of this. Um, so there's a big part of that. Um, they do not help themselves, I'll tell you about in a second. They're like there's a a quote from Charles Manson that he, I mean, he was the the quite the showman sensationalist.

Michelle 43:29

For sure.

Bobby 43:29

Um, so people are like saying these things about the process church, and he's like, Oh yeah, de Grimston and I, we're one and the same. We're the same, man. You know, and so there's like these, but like he just says shit, you know. And so I mean, if somebody's like Charlie, what do you think about the process church and Robert De Grimston? He's like, Oh, we're the same. You know, it's he'll say whatever the fuck he's just you know, he was really he was really good at that church. Thank you.

Greg 43:52

Can you do a little of uh Manson scatting?

Bobby 43:54

Because he would do a lot of me and the grimston and one Hey man.

Michelle 44:02

Yeah.

Bobby 44:03

Um so yeah, then they like uh they did successfully sue one of these authors that's like we're not part of the Manson family. They won.

Michelle 44:11

Okay.

Bobby 44:12

Because they weren't. Uh but then they this happens, and then they go, they're like, let's go interview Charlie. So they interviewed Charlie and published the interview in their magazine, you know. So they like weren't, but they're like, like I said, they're not helping themselves.

Michelle 44:26

Yeah, but I mean it's a little bit rock and roll.

Bobby 44:28

But it's also super on-brand for them. Yeah, you know, like they're very much provocateurs, you know, and that's kind of been their jam from day one. It's like we're gonna we're gonna provoke people. Um, it seemed like not everybody, but a lot of the people that were involved in the group were just the kind of people that get off a little bit from making other people uncomfortable. Yeah, you know, they they attract definitely attracted some of those people, which I mean Charlie fits that bill for sure. Um free Charlie. That's a little bit of an understatement. Um famous, I'm gonna go on record. Charlie's a creep.

Michelle 45:00

Yeah. I'm gonna go on record and say he's dead.

Bobby 45:04

So yeah, yeah. So um that's kind of going down in the late 60s, and they're still like they're just doing their thing. The the the church is expanding. They got people sent all over the US kind of doing their thing, and just I think just quietly getting money, it seems, you know, from from all this expansion and and processing and all that. Um I don't I'm not sure exactly when, but it at least before 1974, Robert starts fucking a young lady in the cult. How young of a lady? Not a child. Okay.

Michelle 45:35

Okay.

Bobby 45:36

Probably early 20s.

Michelle 45:37

Okay. I feel differently than I did.

Bobby 45:39

Maybe 19.

Greg 45:40

Two seconds ago.

Bobby 45:41

Yeah, two seconds ago.

Michelle 45:42

I was like, ooh.

Bobby 45:43

When I say young lady, I meant young lady, not child.

Michelle 45:45

Okay, all right, okay.

Bobby 45:47

I would have approached that differently if it turns out that he was molesting kids. Sure, sure, sure.

Greg 45:52

I think it is just like a normal progression of things.

Michelle 45:55

Yeah, it's a little bit what I'm waiting for. You know, when's this gonna get really, really bad? But how does Marianne feel about this young lady?

Bobby 46:02

She's I don't know if she feels about the young lady. She's not stoked with Robert.

Michelle 46:07

Yeah. Yep.

Bobby 46:09

At this point. So there's like some infighting, there's some leadership disputes. And again, like this has been popping off over a decade now. You know, they've been rocking and rolling, fucking moving around, doing this thing. Um, all this stuff is going on. And Marianne, uh, at this point, she's she wants to move the group toward a more traditional Christian focus, a little bit more towards Jehovah, less towards the Satan. Robert's like, let's keep the Satan stuff. Yeah, because it's cool.

Greg 46:36

It comes with the cool clothes.

Bobby 46:37

It comes with the cool clothes. That's kind of my image. Yeah, they when he was in London, they called him the Christ of Carnaby Street because he just like had the fucking Jesus vibe. Um, but like as we said early on, dude, who's the fucking brains of this thing? Fucking Mariander. Basically, it has a coup, orchestrates it. Robert's out. You're out, dude. He's excommunicated.

Michelle 46:55

Take your young lady and get out of here.

Bobby 46:57

Get the fuck out. And so she's way better. She keeps the majority of the members and the assets. Um, and Robert, he he tries. He like goes to Mexico, he goes to Canada, he goes to London, he's talking to people. Like, he's really trying to get this movement going. Like, he really does put quite an effort in for a couple of years to like get his own branch of the process church or to keep the process church kind of under his control to do the thing. But uh ultimately he gives up, moves to Staten Island, gets married to uh the young lady, gets an office job, ends up as uh executive at the phone company. So very standard.

Michelle 47:37

That is I can't even. What an ending. Fucking I am so sorry, Robert, that your life ended that way. That's a miserable ending. I don't even know. Yeah, I don't even know if you're actually dead, but you might as well be. Like, fuck, that sucks, bro.

Bobby 47:52

It's a really it's it's honestly like we've gone on some twists and turns, but that's kind of the wildest turn so far. We're not done, by the way. But like that's kind of the wildest turn so far. Yeah, yeah.

Michelle 48:02

I gotta say, I didn't see that coming. Yeah, yeah.

Greg 48:04

Yep.

Michelle 48:04

Huh. Staten Island.

Greg 48:06

Staten Island is his like going out in a blaze of glory, and he's just like, I finally found my island that I can set up shop on. Yeah, that's right.

Michelle 48:13

And then fucking half of it was a dump.

Greg 48:16

Yeah.

Michelle 48:17

You know, like they made a golf course on top of it now, so it's not there anymore. But back then there was a lot of seagulls, and it was very smelly.

Bobby 48:25

Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of it's double, it's like a double stab for old Robert, because early on, like in the 60s, when he was really on top of the world and hot, hot young Jesus, when he had that going on, he would often talk about the gray world, which is like normal people with normal jobs in their lame fucking lives, just doing their gray bullshit.

Michelle 48:46

Should it be more gray, working at the phone company in Staten Island?

Bobby 48:54

That's right. That's exactly right.

Michelle 48:56

He did have a vision, he fucking saw his life, dude.

Bobby 48:59

Yeah, damn. So yeah, that's uh that's what happened to Robert. Marianne's she's still cooking with the church. She's still doing the thing, she's still going. They rebrand a few times. Um, they did kind of shed the satanic image because that was her thing. They turn in the to the foundation church of the millennium, then 1977 they were the foundation faith of the millennium, then the foundation faith of God. In 1984, the core group, there's about 30 people left at this point, they moved to Kanab, Utah and purchased a large ranch in Angel Canyon.

Michelle 49:31

Oh, where is Kanab Utah?

Bobby 49:33

Just outside of Zion National Park.

Michelle 49:35

Oh, sick. Okay. It's beautiful. It's fucking absolutely beautiful.

Bobby 49:38

Um, their spiritual mission at this point switches over to service, and they feel that that's best expressed through saving animals. And in 1991, they formally rebranded as the Best Friends Animal Society.

Michelle 49:49

Uh, I'm a member. I'm just kidding. I'm not.

Bobby 49:53

So they you fucking might be. They uh the Best Friends Animal Society today is one of the largest, most influential no-kill animal rescue organizations. Yo, I might be. They kind of led the no-kill movement. They do have a presence in New York.

Michelle 50:07

Okay.

Bobby 50:08

Um, they they were big in the start of the no-kill movement. They have like a hundred million dollar operating budget annually. It's a huge organization.

Michelle 50:15

Dude, I feel like one of those guys has stopped me on the street in front of City Hall Park and I gave them a dollar.

Bobby 50:20

Yep.

Michelle 50:20

So I think I am a member.

Bobby 50:22

They do acknowledge on their website kind of their roots as the process church. It's just like a spiritual quest, you know, to to this point.

Michelle 50:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Respect. You know, it's not like we're not gonna talk about it. Exactly. It was part of the process.

Bobby 50:33

We're gonna we're gonna say it. But yeah, I mean, it's a huge, huge animal rights organization.

Michelle 50:38

I love this story. It's kind of I I didn't have to blow anybody.

Bobby 50:43

Yeah, you know? Not yeah, not unwillingly. Yeah, yep, yep. You may you may you maybe you were in an orgy.

Michelle 50:53

I mean, but I was hallucinating. I was so dehydrated. I didn't know.

Greg 50:56

You wanted to be in that orgy, probably. Sometimes you have to go on those like uh spiritual quests to get to this outcome, though. Yeah, you gotta walk through the dark to see the light, sort of thing. It is just animal rescue now, like it started out cool.

Michelle 51:08

They had dogs back then, so they were already caring for always loved animals, always since the beginning of the story. That's right.

Bobby 51:14

And and Marianne remained the the leader of that, um, kept to herself, didn't do interviews, like just like was in on the compound until her death in 2005.

Michelle 51:25

2005.

Bobby 51:26

Robert De Grimston, still alive, 90 years old on Staten Island, probably.

Michelle 51:30

Probably dude.

Bobby 51:32

You know?

Michelle 51:32

Oh man, I love this story.

Bobby 51:34

It's kind of like crazy that the we just end with she she loved dogs and he worked for the phone company.

Michelle 51:41

It's very I did not think I was waiting. I was waiting. Uh when you said the young lady, I was like, here it is, you know. Um, but he is alive, but we all know dead in Staten Island. His soul is dead for sure. I I mean beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, you thank you for telling me this story.

Bobby 52:01

You're welcome. You really, yeah, you really are like geared up for a fucking dark turn, and it kind of doesn't happen.

Greg 52:06

Just kind of fizzles out, like all these cult stories always end up in some like shootout or like some, and it's just like, no, it's an animal rescue and a phone company and something.

Bobby 52:16

Which is like I I checked this for myself. This is just this is just like an interesting coda to the story. Um when I got to that point, Best Friends Animal Society is it's a unique name. And I saw that it was in Canab, Utah, and I was like, fucking hold on, dude. And I got I got out on Google Maps. I remember I was driving, I was driving through Utah. I was going to Zion National Park and uh I love a big cat. Um I don't love like I think a lot of those places, obviously Tiger King, are a little bit crooked and weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't I don't know I don't like to go to them because I don't know exactly who I'm supporting, but I do want to see the cat. So sometimes when I see a big cat rescue, I'll do a little drive-by. And uh Best Friends Animal Sanctuary has big cats, and I saw that and that I drove by and I fucking drove down the road to this place to see if I could see a big cat through the fence. Yeah, could not.

Michelle 53:07

Okay.

Bobby 53:07

Uh but I have been here. I've been to the Best Friends Animal Society. I know exactly what's that. I looked on the map and because I had like camped just across the road for like four days from this area.

Michelle 53:17

We're both members. If you would have told me, I would have been like, yo, let them know I gave a dollar to one of their guys here in New York and to let you in and see the cat.

Greg 53:25

Yeah. I wonder if you could like show up in like in their old traditional robes. Yeah.

Michelle 53:31

And like you just they would just be like welcome, brother.

Greg 53:35

Yeah. Yeah. There's some like some little word that you could say. Yeah, just like if you brought a German Shepherd with you.

Michelle 53:42

Yeah.

Bobby 53:43

Yeah.

Michelle 53:44

Ah man, Marianne.

Bobby 53:46

Yeah.

Michelle 53:47

Lady Pimp.

Bobby 53:48

Yeah, so that's I mean, this church, and I mean like the the like follow-through is again in just like things that are still like the industrial music and and goth, like bands like Skinny Puppy and Ministry, you know, and just like the whole aesthetic and vibe of so much heavy metal of our youth came like from the aesthetic of the processed church. So they really like they're not really well known by name, but like a lot of the legacy that they left really lives on ever present for sure.

Greg 54:21

Yeah, I'm just imagining like cyber goth chicks. Yeah, and they're just like, yeah, fucking church.

Michelle 54:26

Yeah. I love this story.

Bobby 54:30

So that's that, you know, check us out at conspiracyjournal.com. The conspiracy journal The Strange Exchange.

Michelle 54:37

Oh, The Strange Exchange. Yeah. If you were in a cult, if you were part of this cult, if you work at Best Friends right now, give us a call at the Strange Exchange. It's 929-445-3705. Call us and tell us your story.

Bobby 54:55

Foster some dogs.

Michelle 54:56

Yeah.

Greg 54:57

Cats too.

Michelle 54:58

Be my best friend.

Greg 54:59

Yeah. We have to separate that. We're we're not saying, you know, we have dogs for adoption. Yeah, we don't. We don't.

Michelle 55:04

No, we don't have any dogs or cats for adoption.

Bobby 55:07

But if you don't, you could foster some.

Greg 55:10

Yeah. You could do that on your own, yeah.

Bobby 55:12

That's why I'm talking to the listener. Not you two specifically. You do whatever you want. I'm talking to the listener.

Michelle 55:17

Okay. I do have my own cat, so I'm good. I'm full. I'm full. Okay, fair enough. Yeah.

Greg 55:22

I'm full of animals.

Michelle 55:23

I'm full, yeah. I've hit my quota.

Bobby 55:24

You got full-time foster?

Michelle 55:26

Yeah.

Bobby 55:26

Yeah.

Michelle 55:27

I'm already being fostered by my cat.

Bobby 55:30

Fair enough.

Michelle 55:30

We all know she's in charge.