Notorious Process Church comes out of hiding promoting the Feral House publication of LOVE SEX FEAR DEATH written by Timothy Wyllie (mainly) where ex-members finally tell their story. This is an excerpt of the Sabbath Assembly Ritual (and Salon) performed at Anthology Film Archives Oct. 4, 2009 with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge as the "Sacrifist."
Wyllie was an inner processean, a very privileged and high-ranking member. However, he says in his book that he never bought into the group's ever-changing theology that much. He was more interested in its psychological roots.
ReplyDeletePatty suspects that in this regard, The Process may have been a lot like The Family (and a lot like the readers of this blog for that matter). Various people were involved for various reasons and bought the dogma to varying degrees.
While Patty believes that Wyllie never sacrificed anyone, she can see how a fringe element of a group wearing the Goat of Mendes on their chests may have been into, shall we say, darker pursuits?
The Process Church's original magazines are being reprinted in book form, available next month on Amazon.
ReplyDelete... "Propaganda and the Holy Writ of The Process Church of the Final Judgment".
That's interesting. I was reading about them the other day and found out they have meetings by my house every few months.
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody believe that CM had anything to do with these people? I'm not sure if he did and only posted the image of the house because they're mentioned in various books.
It's probably like Harold True said in the interview that brownrice mentioned:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/user/qjxbljsc6?feature=mhee#p/u/29/UZfRsYavQ90
"You ever had a party of 300 people and remember everybody?"
He likely crossed paths with some of them, but my opinion is that he borrowed bits of scientology for his guru rap from his exposure to it in prison.
Don't think there's anything confirmed linking CM to The Process.
ReplyDeleteIIRC, he'd left Cole Street in SF before they arrived to take up residence in the adjoining Fell Street (next door to someone noted in an address book of one the Zodiac_Killer's victims , and across the street from another of his victims.
... And NO, I don't subscribe to a Z-Manson or Z-Process connection. Just a weird factoid IMO).
Seems fairly likely to me that CM would have come across Process ideas on his travels or from acquaintances.
A mix of Process "Love, Sex, Fear, Death" plus Hubbardology & Charlie's own scramble-jive kinda rings true. But nothing with anything to corroborate it.
CM got most of his ideas for his group funtioning from "Strangers in a Strange land."
ReplyDeletewhat do you think about the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary being founded my the Process Church? Wasn't there a rumor that they sacrificed animals at one time?
ReplyDeletei have been involved with best friends since the early 1990's before i became interested manson. i was shocked when i found out the cult i always wondered what had happened to, i was sending money to all along.
ReplyDeletebest friends does not sacrifice animals. the people that founded best friends believed in animal rights long before it was popular. it was a splinter cult called the four pi that may have killed animals. best friends went to new orleans and helped with the animals after the hurricane, and haiti after the earthquake. they are a very good organization and i think they are on the up and up.
The Process animal-sacrifice myth was propounded in Maury Terry's "Ultimate Evil" book IIRC.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great read, even if you don't buy into Terry's Son-Of-Sam/national satanist murders conspiracy speculation (& the mysterious Manson2... surely one's enough!!!).
@beuders: I didn't mean to imply that Best Friends sacrifices animals. I meant the people who founded the sanctuary were in the Process Church & there were rumors that they sacrificed animals. I have read about Best Friends for years & watch their TV show Dogtown. The only thing I do not approve of is their gift shop. The money from gifts purchased does not go to Best Friends, it goes to another company listed on the back of their greeting cards. That company is owned by the owners/founders. But they do not state that. Maybe things have changed since complaints were filed, my info is a few years old. I do think their facility is amazing.
ReplyDeleteThere is a rumor that EVERY Pagan or magio-religious or metaphysical group sacrifices animals, at one time or another.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, the only ones who DO are Afro-Cuban based groups like Santaria and Efa. And they do so for religious reasons, in a relatively humane manner.
Jewish and Muslim people do rites before slaughtering animals for food. Not so much difference, really.
Seriously doubt that the Process did animal sacrifice. That is something that occult groups are accused of routinely, because most Christians fear magick and seek to "demonize" its practice. Pretty hypocritical, when you consider that most Christians eat meat. Seriously, animal sacrifice accusations? How many cows does McDonald's consume in one day???
As mentioned before, Charles Manson's occult knowledge is minimal. He did not belong to or routinely interact with the Process Church.
Cease2, the "Satanic Panic" conspiracies of the 1990s were discovered by the FBI to be a complete hoax... after hundreds of innocent people had their lives ruined by false accusations of Satanic ritual abuse.
ReplyDeleteThere was not and is not Satanic conspiracy, ever. Period.
Such witch-hunt hysteria led to the accusation and condemnation of the West Memphis Three. After serving 18 years in prison, these young defendants were finally released, based on solid DNA evidence. They had been accused of a Satanic ritual murder of three cub scouts, when in reality, one of the boys' stepfather likely perpetrated that crime. You can read about it on the Magickal Media website, if you wanna. http://www.magickal-media.net/news.html (blatant plug!)
Author Kerr Cuhulain, a Wiccan Priest and police officer, wrote many in-depth analyses of the Satanic Panic and debunked every level of accusation.
AC Fisher Aldag, that's talking!
ReplyDeleteI've never yet met a "Satanist" who didn't start out as a Christian.
ReplyDeleteamerican satanism is just an inversion of christianity--they have to believe jesus christ exists in order to fight him.
ReplyDeletei do believe there is an element that does sacrifice animals in satanism but they are the solo groups that affiliated with any groups or mentally ill. a true satanist respects nature and animals it's human's who are in danger. even though i grew up near santa cruz (in half moon bay) to those of you in the know and i remember in the early and mid 70's hearing about killed and skinned animals being found in hills above santa cruz. this was when the four p was reportedly active in those same hills. they also had three serial killers/mass murderers there during this time--ed kemper, herbert mullin, and john lindsey frazier. zodiac was active north in san francisco. then of couse jonestown happened in 1978--a cult frpm san francisco. people wonder way i'm interested in such strange things-i was surrounded by it as a child.
Yes AC, Terry's book was riding on the ludicrous "Satanic Panic" wave, and you make some good points. A product of it's time for sure, and filled with speculation & apocryphal stories.
ReplyDeleteOver here in the UK, Christianity declined long ago. So it's interesting to observe (from a distance) what looks like a pretty major resurgence of it the States since the early 80s. Unfortunately, as it is organised, well funded & wide open to the power-plays of extreme characters, most other belief systems in the US will no doubt be subject to continued "demonization". And media sound-bite culture guarantees that those other beliefs will be mis-labelled.
Awesome discussion. Patty remembers the Satanic Panic - how back in the 80's the minister at our church would tell us about the dangers of backwards masked messages in the Devil's rock and roll music. I agree with Beauders - the Panic was an inversion and by-product of Christian fanaticism.
ReplyDeleteYes Cease, it's frustrating seeing how the US right wing tries to tie in Christianity with patriotism. If you don't go to church in Sunday, support a stronger military, and disapprove of gay marriage you are somehow unpatriotic.
ReplyDeleteThese witch hunts and mob mentality spring up every now and then. The worst abuse I can remember was the McMartin preschool day care sexual abuse case.
There is an idiot on youtube who posts videos claiming groups such as The Beach Boys are satanic. He uses the Manson case to try back up his claims. He also attacks George Harrison as a Devil worshiper. When I informed him of what a tit he was, he claimed I was an agent of Satan. I told him that as I didn't believe in the concept of Christianity, how on earth could I believe in the devil which is an invention of the Christian Church. I then got treated to a whole bunch of Old Teststament quotes. I can't believe that there are still people like this in the world today!!
ReplyDeleteIn the 80's, I can remember my mom making me & my sister watch the tv shows that showed "backward masking". Then my mom took all my sister's albums & tried it. She swore my sis was into "devil music". I was only about 10 & was pissed that I had to sit through these "family meetings". It was her music not mine.
ReplyDelete"Backward masking" was used by many musicians and many have admitted to doing it. Judas Priest admitted it in court. Led Zeppelin has, Black Sabbath, Twisted Sister, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, plus most others.
ReplyDeleteSubliminal messaging is a powerful tool in marketing. A song has the same purpose as any ad or commercial on T.V., it is to get you to spend your dollar. If subliminal messaging works in advertisements, why not put them in a song too. The purpous of the subliminal message is to help sell a product and that is what a song is.
Subliminal messages tend to have a shock value to them for them to work. Using so called Satanic messages would have a shock value to a lot of people. The big "backwards masking" of the 80's only happened because people found out they were there.
I advertise for my business and use subliminal messaging. After doing so, my potential client incressed by 25%. Matt, Patty and Liz, take a look at my website and see if you can find them. They are in big letters on every page. If you can't find them, I'll point them out to you.
So-called "backwards masking" is really just a matter of running an old-school tape, record or (these days) audio file backwards or in reverse. It makes a vocal sound like weird gibberish crossed with Arabic. When applied to a guitar, piano or whatever, it sounds very "trippy". First popularised by the Beatles on their single Rain in 1966, they used it repeatedly from then on... as did many other bands... more for psychedelic or humorous effect than anything else.
ReplyDeleteIn the 80s (with all the satanic panic), many of these bands were accused of using this techniques to implant subliminal messages.
Ironically, most of the supposed examples of this (Stairway to Heaven is a good example) have no real reversed sounds in their mix but hinge off the fact that when you play the track backwards it allegedly sounds like a satanic message or whatever.
This presupposes that the human brain can unconsciously decipher a backwards message (never proven) and that the technology exists to mix a backwards message with a forward vocal and make it sound like a convincingly "normal" vocal (from a sound engineering point of view difficult at best).
There's quite a few web sites that feature examples of this but for my money they always just sound like a tape played backwards. Given enough ingenuity on the behalf of the beholder, all sorts of meanings can be "heard". Most of the ones that actually sound like a clear message are pretty obviously taking the piss.
Subliminal messages very definitely work Ken, but I suspect they're most effective when they're visual rather than audio. When they're seriously used in audio, usually it's a forward message mixed in such a way that it's just below the conscious threshold. Either that or just straight-up clever word plays. Neuro Linguistic Programming uses a lot of this.
How do you get a record player, tape player, or CD to play backwards? I don't think I ever had one that would do that.
ReplyDeleteOrwhut said:
ReplyDeleteHow do you get a record player, tape player, or CD to play backwards? I don't think I ever had one that would do that.
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Back in the day it was most commonly done with reel-to-reel tape recorders. When a tape got to the end, instead of rewinding it ya just flipped it over and played it backwards.
According to John Lennon, he discovered the process when he got home from the studio one night really stoned and put a mix of Rain on his tape deck backwards by mistake. He liked it so much that he included it on the end of the final mix.
The cheaper record turntables could also be spun backwards by hand though the speed tended to fluctuate.
These days, ya have to convert your cd track to a sound file ("wav" on p.c., "aiff" on mac), and then load it into an audio-editing programme with a "reverse" function.
Thank you Brownrice,
ReplyDeleteI have enough of a problem understanding lyrics when played forward. Maybe I have an auditory perception problem.