There is no doubt that The Process Church of the Final Judgment has left a dark, indelible watermark of a sort upon the psyche of many who grew up during the 1960s and 1970s. Much of its mystique was due to the ultra-secret constraints placed upon members of the cult by the leadership, coupled with certain atrocities perpetrated by those with tenuous connections with the cult, such as the Manson family.
Over the decades since the cult's ostensible demise, conspiracy theorists and yellow journalists have woven a rich tapestry of innuendoes and lies which have blossomed to monstrous proportions, from Ed Sanders' The Family to Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter and to Maury Terry's phantasmagoria tale and sensationalist screed The Ultimate Evil and many lesser tomes in print and on the internet.
Compounding such wild-eyed speculations were the group's own visual style and strident theological manifestos bearing such titles as The Gods On War and Humanity is the Devil.
Love Sex Fear Death will, I am sure, be a big disappointment to many of those intent upon cheap thrills and titillations. The truth is generally far less prosaic, and in this case, certainly not sensationalist in any sense of the word. It is instead an insightful and factual account written by those who were there and a part of the cult.
Timothy Wyllie has written a sober, heartfelt chronicle of the cult. He was there from the inception of the group and was a classmate of one of the two principal founders and leaders of the group: Robert Moore DeGrimston.
Such sermons in print, whether symbolic, metaphorical or literal, certainly lent credence to such theories and provided a ready handle for paranoid speculations. Add to all of this the group's external attire and symbols, and it would be easy to feel that something wicked this way has come and arrived.
In both of the two primary sections of the book written as personal accounts by former insiders in the cult's hierarchy, we are presented with the fact that, however photogenic and verbally adept DeGrimston and his writings may have been, the real leader and ultimate fuehrer of the group was his wife, Mary Ann MacLean, a former London call-girl whose specialty was the role of dominatrix.
And dominatrix extraordinaire she was, taking the trade to a new level and unique application. Based upon the two primary accounts by Timothy Wyllie and Malachi McCormack, Mary Ann was a master manipulator brimming with charm and guile. She apparently had learned her stuff during her previous profession and learned its lessons well, and knew exactly how to apply these insights into human psychology to her customers and later to her followers. She knew how to seduce them and twist them around her finger and kept them coming back for more. Those who encountered Process members often spoke of the high level of intelligence and civility of its members. Unfortunately, well mannered, intelligent types with academic backgrounds were little match for the well honed instincts and intuitions of Mary Ann.
Most deplorable was her manipulating her own breeding program among the members and the manner in which she had the children treated in a fashion less kindly than the dogs of the group were treated. Mary Ann was a childless and barren woman, and it seems she was disposed to a contempt and resentment of those with normal maternal instincts in regards to how the children were treated and nurtured.
Her counterpart, Robert, seemed little more then a medium for her message and a window-dressing for the group. When he no longer served his mistress, he was conveniently cast to the wayside. She and Robert composed what they called the Omega of the group (the pinnacle of its power) and lived like the reigning Queen and King off the labors of the membership. Their lifestyle and travels were like that of the rich and famous. Large, expensive apartments, palatial estates were their lot in life as the membership of the cult often subsisted on leftovers from supermarket dumpsters.
Mary Ann seemed to take her dominatrix skills to an awesome level. She seemed worldly wise beyond her followers, many of whom viewed her as a goddess incarnate (in this case, Hecate) and worshipped her and served her whims with unquestioning loyalty and obedience, thinking all the time that her callous manner was somehow geared toward a spiritual growth or revelation.
Timothy Wyllie's account is clear and concise, informed and thoughtful. There are shorter chapters by a number of members of lesser stature in the group, all who in one way or another corroborate Wyllie's more lengthy account in the main. All the dispositions have an essentially subjective First Person accounting. That, I think, is to be expected in a group so very compartmentalized.
The book itself is handsomely packaged and providing nearly half of the volume with colored and black and white samples of the beautiful and artistic publications from the Process. Adam Parfrey has outdone himself on the editing and aesthetics of his production, and Timothy Wyllie no less can share that credit.
Though the book broadens knowledge of the inner dynamics of the cult, it is not so much a definitive history of the Process writ large, but is instead many personal accounts of individual experiences in the group. As Wyllie makes clear, there are probably as many stories as there were individual members.
There are still some relevant questions that were not addressed here and perhaps were beyond the personal knowledge of the authors. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the Process as well as the period of history covered here. It serves as an essential and primary building block in understanding the social and cultural aspects that have helped to shape the world we currently abide in.
