Process Church of the Final Judgement

The Process Church of the Final Judgment, commonly known as the Process Church, was a religious group established in London in 1966. Its founders were the British couple Mary Ann MacLean and Robert de Grimston (also known as "The Teacher," and Robert Moor) and it spread across parts of the United Kingdom and United States during the latter 1960s and 1970s.

The Process Church was established by MacLean and Moor in London in 1966. The pair had met several years previously, when they were both members of the Church of Scientology. The duo were ejected from the Church in 1962 and married the following year. They started a Scientology splinter group called Compulsions Analysis, which gained new religious elements and developed into the Process Church. Its members initially lived in a commune in Mayfair before moving to Xtul in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. They later established a base of operations in the United States in New Orleans. Prosecutors investigating the San Francisco murders committed by the Manson Family in 1969 suggested that there were links between Charles Manson and the Process Church. Although no proof of such a connection was ever provided, the allegations damaged the Church's reputation.

In April 1974, Robert de Grimston 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 de Grimston's removal, the group underwent a significant change in orientation and renamed itself the Foundation – Church of the Millennium. In 1978, the Foundation was renamed the Foundation Faith of the Millennium and in 1993 the Foundation Faith of God. The organization eventually became Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, UT, later renamed Best Friends Animal Society.

Various commentators have described the Process Church as a religion, and it has also been characterised as a new religious movement. The anthropologist Jean La Fontaine noted that it was "difficult to decide whether it was a truly Satanist organization". The sociologist of religion Massimo Introvigne included the work in his study of religious Satanism, although added that "its doctrine was not Satanism in the more classical sense of the term". He distinguished it from other religious Satanic groups in that it did not have its origins in Anton LaVey's California-based Church of Satan, and thus was "born on a different field from other contemporary satanic groups."

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