You Won’t Believe the Culty Background of The Best Friends Animal Society

05-21-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, thanks for checking out things. And then last night this is an educational comedy podcast, and today we are talking about the Best Friends Animal Society. In this episode, we kind of dig into their history. It's a little sketchy. We find out how culty their background is slight culty, yeah, and how connected they are to some pretty sketchy people in the past. It's a lot of fun, that's true. If you've got a time machine, you can go back in time to some of the shows I did last month. April was very busy for me. May is a little slower, just chilling out, so sorry you missed them. But this is a This is a comedy podcast where we learn stuff. And one of the ways to help us grow this show is to share it with somebody. So please do that. Send this episode, don't even listen to it yet, send it unlistened and share it with a friend. That's and that's that's also pretty culty. That is a pretty culty thing. We're going to get into their weird history. And so they've built this like resort, but the sets and then you're like, let's go volunteer pretty clever. And so I'm going to show you some of their marketing material. And this is I don't know how long I can leave this on screen, so you need to look because we might get to demonetize if I leave this up too long. Oh that is things I learned last night. What's up? Have you ever heard of the Best Friends Animal Society? The Best Friends Animal Society be fast b f A s uh no so. Best Friends Animal Society is a nonprofit organization in canab, Utah. Here's an aerial view of their facilities, a very large animals sanctuary, and you can kind of tell I was gonna say, I can see the little friends size looks first glance off an aerial photo clean setup. Sometimes you see some of these, you know, home farms or whatever. Yeah, that are not Yeah, this is not that. This is very well done. And they even named each of their zones. There's the uh dog Town, cat World, Horsehouse like they've got names Horsehouse. I don't know. I don't know what the horses area is. I made that one up, but they can take it if they want it. They are This animal shelter is famous for a couple of reasons. One in the nineties. They started in the nineties and it was kind of a pioneer in the no kill movement, and so they are like, hey, we don't kill any of our animals. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. There's no retirement plans, no retirement plans. We just let them stay here into Lidden's. They're also famous for taking in about half of Michael Vick's dogs. Oh so they took twenty two of his dogs in. He had forty, They had forty seven. I guess I don't know about all the Michael VICKI we were young when that happened. Yeah, it's pretty sketchy. It's very sketchy. You had like a full ring going on, like a people. I mean I know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was pretty bad. So yeah, they're famous for both of those things. Recently they were in the news again because they had a really great idea. They said, hey, we are a nonprofit organization. Yea, we have a lot of employees that do the work, but there's a lot of work to do. I mean, you saw you see how big this place is. You saw the scale of this. I mean this is a big campus. You got dog Town and cat World. There's a lot of turtle Worsehouse, turtle Turtle Topia, Turtle. There's a lot of places going on here, an airy canopy, there's a lot of work, and they said, you know what, we need volunteers. But here's the thing. Cannab Utah. The thing you need to recognize about cannab Utah is it is I mean, the location is a beautiful area. Yeah, the location is a beautiful area. It's just north of the north rim of uh Antarctica, the Grand Gated Yeah. Uh, just like just northwest of Monument Valley. Uh, just west of Lake Powell, just south of uh, what's that place called I'm drawing a blank. No, I mean it is south of Salt Lake. But not like oh yeah, there's a national park right there that's super cool, like just like the Dues so sick, not the dunes. It's it's another canyon, but it's like a lush canyon and it's like trees and stuff and plants. But it's like it's like the Grand Canyon at the Grand Canyon have plants. Okay, I'm talking about it's super famous. This is gonna drive me crazy. I'm gonna remember halfway through this episode, obviously you know what I'm talking about. Oh, this is Zion Zion National Park. So yeah, so it's it's a beautiful area, but there's also just now a lot of people that live in that area, so they don't have a lot of access to volunteers. So they had a genius idea recently, let's get the Mormons involved. They said, let's build a hotel for you and your pet. So they've got a hotel that's like a pet friendly hotel. So you're supposed to kind of cute though. Yeah, and so like you come in and my wife would love that. The King suites have like like doghouses built into them, so they're like you because that comes out from unerneath the bed. Yeah, so this is a guess like the standard suite. She tells her. I was like, bring your dogs, never your cats. Well they've got they've got everything for your pets. When we moved, we had our cats in the car and we stayed at like two hotels in the way out. Was we to stop and uh in my I love my wife, she doesn't stay in hotels as often as I do. Yeah, And uh so I was like, you know, I'm not going to pay the I'm not going to tell them I'm bring our cats in. I'm not going to pay the thing, yeah, you know. And so she was like, what do they catch us? They're not like, No one at the front desk is like, where are those cats going? Which room are you guys in? No one's made that. Peppa like just walk in with them, yeah yeah, yeah. And so but she was, she was she was looking super sketch. As we have these cat carriers cover with blankets. They look like bags of drugs microwaves, That's what I say. They were guys trying to sneak a microwave into here. Who can't bring microwaves into a hotel. They've already got mic ways in there. You're not allowed to bring your own microwave to a hotel. That's the number one rule of hotels. You can't bring your own microwave. But yeah, they's the number one rule. It's a bigger fine than smoking in the room. Yeah, yeah, it's important to them killing someone they want the microwave. What's the point of them buying a microwave from the room if you just go Most my hotels don't have microwaves anymore. That's so annoying. No hotel in Vegas has microwaves. Do you know that, is there a reason for that? Or refridge? They want you to have a refrigerator in the room. They want you to go down and eat, spend money, yeah, yeah, and they don't want you to have leftovers sacked up. Yeah they don't have You can get a refrigerator in your room for twenty five dollars in night. Did they roll it in like one of those extra beds. Yes, they do, we found on our honeymoon. No, it's it's the smallest. It's not even like the think what a mini fridge looks like, and it's many of that. It's a miniature version of a mini it's a micro micge fridge. Just use the ice, see what you mean. But yeah, so they built this, they built this hotel. Yeah, and it's and it's actually kind of cool. They got the they got the doghouses. But it's not like they put a doghouse in the room. It's like they built it into the walls and it's like they go, they've got a place that can run up through the walls and like come out to. It's like really cool for the dogs. And then they've got like all these places like they've got a dog run. They out a park. I mean they have pet they have cat stuff too, They've got bird stuff. They've got stuff for literally any pet you can. They let you bring your bird and then let my cats chase your bird. So my wife wants us to get I didn't know this. I know we're getting through the episode. Sure, okay, pair it. Yeah, you know like the red blue macaw? Yeah right, yeah. How long do you think those live? Fifty years? Did you know that it's it's like sixty to seventy years. Yeah, that's absurd. So there's a family member that we've got who is trying to figure out who to give her macaw to because she's gonna die before it. Oh yeah yeah yeah, And are you guys trying to get it? Reagan? Reagan's ears poked up whenever that conversation happened. She was like, can I have? I want it? Yeah, because apparently like they'll they're like mischievous, they'll like learn to bark like your dog. If you've got a maca, it would be like and then you'd be like quincy, Yeah the heck the birth well, like be in your bed and it'll pull the blankets over itself, and like they're like a little little sposters man, and that like appeals to Reagan a lot. She's like, She's like, I really want that in my house. So fun. I'm like, okay, we have a two bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. Did you know there are wild parrots in Los Angeles? I didn't know that wild wild like they are they So in the fifties, somebody brought over their parrots. Yeah, like these green macaws and then they either got out or they were let loose. And now that I know how long they live, I'm now thinking like it might straight up be the fifties generation. It might be the same birds. That's crazy and so talk. They're so loud. Yeah, do they talk? They don't. They just say the same stuff that so they whatever a fire and drives by, they go crazy. Guy, He's no, they don't say. We're they're like they are very loud though they talk to each other. They're very like, yeah, they're super they sound like the bird from Aladdin. Yeah, yeah, that's great. But yeah, if you look at the hotel website, like it had lists all these things for the your pets to do while they're there, and they've got pet places and things for them to do pet massage. Yeah, it's all stuff like that. And then they list things to do for people. They literally have them separate nothing. They've got a couple of things. It's like the pool, Vegan Continental Breakfast. Yeah. Pool. The first thing in the list though, is volunteer at the best Friend's Animal Society. And so they built this like resort, but you pets, and then you're like, let's go volunteer. Pretty clever. Actually it's a good business model. Yeah, it's pretty clever. They're they're also famous for angels. Rest is what they call it. This is It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a cemetery. Cemetery, which is creepy. That's fine, I don't know. Cemeteries are scary, especially for animals. You should do we should do an episode on cemeteries because I was looking at a way of how uh Europe does their cemeteries or the United States as our cemetaries, and how our system is literally just nights. There's no way we can keep this up. Really, Yeah, we're gonna run out of room. Interesting. I always thought it was kind of weird how much we respect the dead. Anyways, Hey it's me again. Thanks for being here for this episode. If you like what we're doing, it does cost us money to do this, and so just think about that. You know, that's it. I'm kidding. No, we have Patreon supporters and it really helps us to make this show possible. Honestly, we're so grateful for everyone who listens to the show, but there's there's people who want to make more of it happen, and so they financial support the show, and then you get a lot back for it. You get our private discord where we chat every day. We're hanging out and just getting to bond and hang out. We also do live zoom hangouts for our Patreon supporters. You get exclusive merch. It's a good time. There's a lot in it for you and and it's a lot in it for us because we get to know you better. You know, you're not just a number and a stat board or whatever, but you know you're our friends and we appreciate you a lot. So consider doing that. If not, then you can listen to this dumb little ad because that's how we're gonna get money from you. We're gonna leach from you. Either way, we're gonna get paid. We're in this for the cold hard cash baby. Anyway, here's an ad. How do they how do they get it? Though? I realized I forgot to put a ct A in mind. Oh yeah, they can text tillan to six six eight sixty six. Thanks Jared. Okay, so you're disrespect the dead sounds like what a metal band screams when it's like they'd make the wall, and then it's like dead respect God. I mean, I'll tell you what. My brain does come up with some pretty good breakdown riffs. I shouldn't be a chugger. That's what they're called. I think you're right, that is what they call them. Chugs. Yeah, this is guitarist. This is our basis does our drummer, that's our chugger. This is honestly all I've got to talk about. I think I'm out of no, I'm kidding. Great, here's the thing. Yeah, why does this get interesting? This is? This seems right now, this seems like a paid advertisement for this hotel. They've got wonderful amenities. You can stay there, you can volunteer for their thing. Well, wait to hear the rest of it. It's going to sound a lot less like a paid advertisement. So this the organization that started. The Best Friend's Society is an organization that's been around since sixty six. Yes, but in sixty six it was a little different called the Mormon Church. It's called the Processed Church of the Final Judgment. So this is a it's a cult. So the it's a cult, baby, let's get into it. So it was started by these two individuals, Marianne McLean and Robert Dave Grimston. They were Robert with their mugshots. I assume they've got them. I don't know if their mugshots or sport photos. I can't really tell. Wow, when you see the image of Robert, is that his name Robert Robert grims Did this guy looks like a cult imagine a cult leader. Yeah, that's him. He looks like in my in my opinion, he looks like Zoro That's what I'm saying. Like he looks he looks like he's gonna cut you with the saying, cheek bones, very handsome guy. Yeah, I would follow him at the ends of the year. What do you want me to do? Tell me, tell me, Robert, I'll do it. Whatever you want me to do, I'm doing it. So Robert was an architecture student. That's how all carls began. If you like shapes that much, you're gonna start a weird religion. All architects are psychos man, so he architecture students, not architects. People who yeah, architects. Yeah. So he was an architecture student. After architecture school, him and all of his architecture colleagues kind of lost touch with each other for a while. Okay, because he all of his colleagues went and they got jobs in architecture. Sure, we're going to be architects now. And he said, I'm going to check out this sweet new thing called scientology. And so he went to scientology for a minute, started learning a little bit about what they're doing. And this is early scientology. This is before they scientology learned that if he was like, oh, you guys are just making this up. No, it was before who oh boy, it was before scientology found out that if they made it a religion, then they were like exempt from a bunch of stuff. And so he was learning about scientology and he was like, this is really interesting. But he defected from scientology because he said, hey, what you guys they were using those little e machines or whatever they called them, where they held onto the polls and he's like, all you guys are trying to do is make everybody just little l Ron hubbards. And he's like, he's like, I don't want a bunch of l Ron hubbards. He's like, I think you guys are using the machine wrong. And he's like, if we get the machines, we can find out who people really are and get their enneagram type. He didn't call it that, but that's basically what he was saying. He said, we could figure out who people really are kind of helped guide them through their life in the proper way. Sure, use these machines properly. So he bought a bunch of machines from the people who were manufacturing them, which were chiropractors, and he took one of the scientologists, he met Mary Anne Clean, and he said, let's go to London and let's call up a bunch of my architecture friends. I bet they'll be down to do this with us. And so they go, and at first it wasn't like a church because it again they hadn't even the Church of Scientology hadn't figured this out yet. So This was really really early in this era. They were calling it compulsions analysis, and so it was kind of like almost like a psychology thing, Like they learned a lot from Alfred al Adler, and they were using psychology and these e machine things to understand who you are as a person and help you live as that person and like live Tordure strengths. It really was a personality assessment basically, they were starting. And so they get a group together and they're doing all this research and they're helping people find what they are. And then that came time to name their personality types. And so they said, how can we what what are the four personality types? We got here? And they did what was really logical, and they said, there's four personality types. Right, you're either a Jehovah, a Jesus, a Satan, or a lucifer as the four that they's picked. I don't know why, I know what, Okay and uh. And then they said, hey, we need to come up with a logo and they were like what it was a cross on fire. They were like, hey, we love shapes. We're architects, we love shapes, ok And so I'm going to show you some of their marketing material. And this is I don't know how long I can leave this on screen, so you need to look. And it's going to be quick because we might get to demonetize if I leave this up too long. Oh that is it's exactly what you think it is. It's pretty uh swastik. Yeah, it's very swastik They say it's the four piece there are four piece interlaid next, but they don't look like that. They look very different than that. Yeah it's red. Yeah, it's red, and it's very swastikish. Yeah. Uh and so uh, they got some negative publicity in the community, especially in Europe in the sixties. People are like, I remember that not long ago. This is an insane thing. Enough long ago, but this certainly this is pretty recent still. Yeah, and they these people were like, hey, we're just architects. We just love shapes. Okay, Like it's not we didn't even realize it. You thought that one. You're the one we were minded the gutter in the gutter, Like we're just we're just we're just like cool shapes. That's a cool you can't you gotta admit it's a cool shape. Yeah. So they because of all this negative press, They're like, we need a rebrand, and so they're looking into it and people are saying, our logo looks looks a little suspect. But here's the thing. Subway's original logo too, it's just two essays. I don't know, what do you think? So they, uh, they rebranded. But here's the thing. This was this was during a time when like a lot of people were starting to get into, uh, starting cults, and they're like, hey, if we start a church, like we get this tax exem status and all this stuff, and there's a lot of benefits to being a church, and people are more likely to donate to a church than they are to a business. Right, So they decided they were a church, and so they became the Processed Church of uh, the Processed Church of the Final Judgment. Ironically, they rebranded, didn't change the logo. So, yeah, we're the process Church of the Final Judgment. And their theology was that there it was. It was a a branch of neo gnosticism. I don't know if you're familiar with this, it was really popular in this era. Yeah. Basically that there is that God and Satan were like two equivalent deities that are at war with each other. And in this era, a lot of people in this era, especially in like the hippie world and the cult world, were like, oh, Satan's actually the good guy. God is the bad guys tricking us. Yeah, and so they a lot of them started working Satan. They took it in a different angle. What they said was that Okay, yeah, God is the good guy, Satan is the bad guy. But it's like a Ying and yang. There are two parts of one hole and they are getting ready to merge together, to be unified and back into one deity. And that's going to spark the end of the world. And they're like, and it's coming soon and so yeah, and so they were like, when that happens, we'll have the final judgment. That's why it's in the night. But this is it's it's interesting. I saw somebody mentioned in an interview about this talking about this is the Cold War and so obviously the world was it actually was like and it wasn't like it wasn't it wasn't really out that far. Fast was pretty like we're closer to it now than they were then. Yeah, at the end of the world. Oh, I mean like if if that war broke out. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean there there was, but we just don't live in the fear for some reason. Yeah, we were probably denial, probably should be a little more afraid to be scared. They were terrified. Every top intelligence agency actually says that, you know, because we're all like, oh, would never happen, because we would all shoot each other, and every top intelligence officers just like, ibe, it could happen, It could happen. So anyway, just have fun on your morning commute. Good morning every day. Yeah, And that's how they all felt. They they all felt, and they accurately that at any moment, some person in power could just decide to lost of the nukes and then the world's over yep. And so there was these kind of religious movements of like, hey, the world's about to end, and so we need to prepare for the end of the world. And everybody was kind of defining what that meant. And then they did some sketchy things. They decided, hey, what if we wore these cool robes with our logo on them, it does not get better at all. And then we wore our hair really long and grew out big beards. And then on top of that they were super evangelistic. They would go around in the community and in their robes just like that, and they'd be like, Hey, have you ever heard of Satan? Yeah, I've heard. You know that everything you know about Satan is a lie. Everything you've been told about the Dark Lord is actually incorrect, incorrect. So they they got a pretty bad reputation in the UK, and so they said, hey, things aren't going great here. What if we I don't know, moved to Utah on the beach somewhere. Oh, and so they went to NASA Bahamas and stayed there for a little bit. And in Bahamas, liepol NASA where Nasa? They went to NASA where Nasa Bahamas? What are you looking at me like that? For? Okay, do you think I'm wrong? Is there something that's exactly what I'm saying? Am I saying it wrong? Say Bahamas the Bahamas, Alex, say Bahamas, Bahamas, Bahamas. That's what I'm saying. You're actually like I'm saying it Bamas. I'm tired of your gas lighting me on this. If you're like me, I'm saying Bahamas, I'm saying the same thing you're saying. You're saying Bahamas. I'm saying Bahamas. That's the same thing. It's the same picture. Okay, I'm going to say, I'm going to say three different things. Okay, Bahamas, Yes, Bahamas, Okay, that's obviously different. Bahamas. Yes, that's what I'm saying. No, Oh my gosh, let me tell the rest of the stories. I was not even trying to do one of the oh you're saying it weird, Oh, we know, you're just okay, I was. I was making sure that Bahamas wasn't some place that I didn't know about. I know about the Bahamas, Bahamas, Bahama. You're saying Bahamas, that's where it is. Bahamas, Bahamas, Bahamas is not the same Missouri Missouri, which one's wrong. Different, it's literally not literally the literally the same exactly. So they go to Bahamas and they are there for a minute. Sure, a few months, couldn't really get established that we don't like the beach. Actually there's too much sand. Yeah, they said, what if we were actually in Mexico. So they go to Mexico and they're there for a minute, and they're like, we don't like this, let's go to the count Tampa nets So it still Mexico, but just a different part of it. And they're there for a little while and they love it. They're like, this is the place for us, and so they start trying to like build a village there, but there was another village already there, and they're like, what are you guys doing And they're like, you can't just come in and they're like, Okay, I guess you're right. We should go. And so they go to La for a minute. Leave La in the sixties. Yeah, they go there, but Scientology was there, and Scientology was like, you're using our machines. And they're like, you're right, we'll get out. No, no, our machines. They end up going to Bahamas, they end up going to southern Utah, and then things work out for them. They end up setting up branches in New York, New Orleans, La Mexico, like all these places that they kind of like test it out for their HQ. They start setting up these branches got it, and they had an interesting model that I'm gonna be honest with you, I think somebody's borrowed recently. They said, what if we build these little communes where everyone can live, and then near it, we build a coffee shop, and then we can welcome people into the coffee shop. And while people are there hanging out drinking coffee, reading, we can meet them, build relationship and then tell them about our Lord and Savior Satan who's borrowed it. Oh you know. And also the coffee shop is non taxable because it's part of our church. Part of our church. So it's sketchy, yeah, very sketchy. And so they're setting up all these coffee shops all over the country. I had a friend who told me that what I'm doing because I do comedy shows at churches, yes, I could establish myself as a ministry, and I would have to pay taxes. That's what you know that I'm not going to do that that I pay taxes. I pay taxes because I'm I am not going to take advantage of the system. Well, you don't pay taxes, you're planning to eventually taxes. I'm on a payment plan. I'm playing. I reluctively pay tax reluctant played to pay taxes eventually. But as for me, if there's a way I could get out of it, I would, I try so hard, but only legally. I only do it legally. I don't know. I might become a ministry. We'll see. And so they start like evangelizing this new religion and then something interesting happens. This movement becomes linked to two very significant people. You might note them as Charles Manson and the son of Sam. Wow. Hey, thanks for checking out this episode of Things I Learned last night. If you're here and you're a little shocked because you've been watching as MR videos all night and you woke up to the sound of my laughter, let me help you out real quick and join back in the ASMR. One thing that would help us a lot and the algorithm is if you left some comments or some reviews if you're on the podcast app. We'd really appreciate that and it would help us grow this show. So thanks for your support. But if not, and you're just here trying to sleep, I hope I interrupted it. But here's another advertisement. Well, Charles Manson just straight up says he was a member of the process Church. The sun they claim him we did questionable. Okay, So there is allegedly whenever Charles Manson was convicted, there's allegedly documentation where members of the Processed Church went to the police station to give their reports on him, and the police station said, we don't want your reports. And they said, but we know about him, and they said, we don't want your reports, and then they left. And now, yeah, similar thing with the Son of Sam. There is allegedly documentation where the Son of Sam. Because I don't know how familiar you are with the Son of Sam cases, but there is a very large swath of people that strongly believe that the Son of Sam did not act alone at the time and today, and so they think that there was multiple other people involved in the murders that he committed, but he was the only one who got to complain. And there's some pretty decent evidence that the FBI kind of trashed some evidence that linked back to some other people. Sure, and just let the Son of Sam take the fall for it, and especially his case is very it's hard to believe he could have pulled off what he pulled off alone, sure, because it seemed like yeah, anyways, and I'll say this, I there's a four year report, one hundred and seventy five page four year report on on the Best Friends Society. And it's interesting because in that the majority of it, probably one hundred and twenty pages of it are drawings and marketing material that the church put out that are pretty faded, hard to read. The rest of it is internal memos with the FBI studying the Processed Church in the early days, and then the Charles Manson case, the Son of Same case, and then later the Best Friends Society. In these internal memos, what is interesting in both the Charles Manson case and the Son of Sam case. These are heavily heavily redacted memos, so it's hard to say for sure what's going on, but it does look like they were. When both those cases happened, the FBI was looking into this organization and beliefs that they were connected to them. And in both cases there's a point where they said, we've been reviewing this Process Church and their connection to these murders. We believe that, and then it's redacted list of names were involved. We will not investigate this any further. Here's a lift of list of evidence to be destroyed, and it's like categorized evidence that's supposed to be destroyed. Okay, very strange both cases of both murders. Right. The church after this put out a serious statements saying they weren't involved in any way like the organization as a whole. And and theoretically they the organization might not have been, but there may have been some members because now it's getting like relatively large, the organization, but started facing some heat for this obviously, and and and this is now we're into the seventies. There is the Satanic panic is starting to spread because there was a lot of these cults that thought Satan was the good guy and were really typed on the devil. They actually hyped on the devil. Yeah, yeah, they actually sold out for Satan. Dare to Devil. I was gonna go Dare to die. But that was there to devils. They the church themselves. They had a put out a documentary called Sympathy for the Devil, Okay, and so like they you know, there was they genuinely were like it wasn't like they started a cult like a church to be like just evade taxes, like they were believing what they were. Okay, it's questionable, we'll touch on that again in a second, but Okay, what we need to know is there was a larger public zeitgeist that was against this stuff. Sure, and it was starting to really take shape, and so the church all of a sudden after the potential connections to the murders came out, so they weren't. Nobody involved at the church got convicted out of anything. They were publicly denied any connection, and according to the FBI, they like threw out all connection to them being a part of it. Whether or not they really were, it's a little bit of a gray area. It seems like the public concessus is that they weren't. But I don't know, it's it's grey. Sure, it's great. Uh So the church, Mary Anne decides, hey, we need to start campaigning, like, well, we've got some bad press here, and so she starts saying we should get rid of all the devil stuff. Yeah, we should bring in some puppies. She says, we should just do all the Jesus stuff, like we should just be a Christian church. And so she starts saying we should rebrand again and get rid of all the devil stuff, get rid of all the Satan stuff. It's a pretty hard sell. I think if you went to a church now, we're like, let's get rid of the Jesus stuff. Let's just go hail Satan. Yeah kinda and so she campaigns that they changed pretty much everything. Would you she's campaigning that, would you characterize what she's campaigning as is like saying we should She went to the group. She's like, guys, we're going one direction. We should we should of one eighty and go the other. Yeah, we should repent. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happened. And so she she says, right, she says that not enough strong teaching these days. I'll tell you what, I'm so sick of the mamsy pamsy preachers out here, too afraid to call you out for your sin. You should repent, That's the way. So she was like, we should rename to the Foundation Church of Christ and Okay, get all the forget all the satan and stuff, do all the Jesus stuff, and start to look more Christian and uh yeah, so they're just doing it for the money. George was idea. He was like, I actually do love religion. This is a relationship that I have with our dark loword. And so this splintered the relationship between the two of them. They were married. I don't know if I mentioned this yet. They got married, they ended up getting a divorce. He goes off and he I, kids, you not goes off. He studies aliens. He studies satan, angels, and dolphins. I don't know why those four specifically, but he says, these four things, I'm going to devote the rest of my life towards the rest of my life for aliens. Well, it's because angels and dolphins speak the same language. That's actually overlooked a lot in a lot of biblical translations. It's like all the thousand eyes and wings and stuff. And also, ah, you know, yeah, that sounded more like a He literally claims, I'm not even kidding. He claims that he was meditating once and speaking to some dolphins while he was meditating, and they told him that the way that they keep records is with clamshells. So they the the like carves, the curves you see on a clamshell. That's their language. They're keeping records on clamshells, and that's how they passed down information from generations. Are their money. Yeah, so he gets crazy, but uh, and Mary Anne goes on and she's running this church and she says, what happens next is is foggy, but they're here. And she obviously was always an animal persons dolphins. Now he's gone talking to the dolphins. He's gone. The church is very splintered at this point. It's there's not a lot of unity with the church. She's got the Christian Church. There's still some devil people out there. But she is doing her thing, and there is a through line from this organization from the beginning. There's a story in Religion News of a kid who grew up in the church and the one of their teachings was that they didn't they didn't believe in like the traditional family, and so they all lived in communes, and so the kids were the community's kids. They weren't just it wasn't like this is my parents. It was like I'm part of the community. And so everybody was raised by the whole community. Sure, and apparently they were relatively abusive, not like not enough to get convicted, but like they weren't good to the kids, you know, And the kids always talked about that they were that the animals were always treated better than they were, sure, and so animals were always very important for this organization. They were always vegan and stuff like that, and so it seemed like a natural next step for them to start this animal refuge. They start the refuge honestly kind of just to take care of all their animals, and they realize they've got something here, so they start as a side ministry of the church advertising this other area that you could donate to to help. And as the story goes, this worked so much better than the church. They said, we could put some sad dogs on a piece of paper and people will throw money at us. Yeah, and so they were like, okay, we're the best friends of Animal Society now. And this was actually the latter half of that Foyer report was the FBI investigating them for white collar crime that they just became this five P'T one three C to get donations, and this was their cover story for it because they found that it was really easy to get a lot of donations this way. Again, there's all these internal memos, this all this investigation heavily heavily redacted. But at the end they say, we've decided to close this case, destroy all this evidence in a list of everything to destroy. So whether that means they got to the end of it realized Okay, I don't think we got anything here. Yeah, because this is like a real operation, they're actually taking care of animals or what yeah, or they said, oh, like there's nothing here. I did take our macaw to this place, and then it came back and every morning now we hear us Hail our dark Lord. What was that? Hail the dark Lord. Here's what's crazy, though, I had to bring a priest to my house baptized the macau. Yeah he's doing that. He does that because the cats. It's all, yeah, it's all, it's none of it is true, Hail Satan. The there I listened to an interview de monetized, gosh, we got quit doing this man from a local and she a local from Canab. She talked about the local lady. She was convinced that I think this is the great salt that the animals were. They were taking in the animals for their sacrifices to the dark Lord. Sure, and that they were doing the white collar crime. It was easy for them to campaign for money. They were getting a million dollar donations from the animal sacrifice and they were yeah, they were using that to fund all the stuff that they wanted. Because they have bought a very large portion of this valley for this. It's much larger than what you see in that picture. They just own all this land outside of it. Okay, they're not doing anything with it except for building this really cool hotel. I guess it's really cool hotels, really sick hotel, and dog casino where they they bet with their bones. I'll put a couple of chips down for this. My dog went to this hotel and he came back with the gambling addiction. Yeah, it comes back to the room with two in the morning with a cigar hanging out of his mouth. My dog is four hundred thousand bones in debt. I tell he sounds when he breaths. Now, yeah, yeah, So I don't know if. I mean obviously the Best Friends has come out to talk about this, and they say, hey, the organization that our founder was a part of prior to founding Friends is separate. It should not be considered part of what we do. Like, we're a completely different organization. And they do very clearly do a lot for animals. Sure, they do very clearly have a legitimate operation that is doing what they claim to be doing. Yeah, five one three papers. Whether they're skimming something off the top, I don't know. It doesn't I mean they have to. I didn't pursue anything, So it looks like they may probably aren't. If they have a basement where they're doing sacrifices. Who's to say. We don't know, But what we do know is the background of the Best Friends Animal Society is a little sketch. Their logo is better now though I should say was just Their logo is very different. It's I mean, it's kind of like, honestly in in it do you remember the nineties, like just in general, now, do you remember, like in the nineties all those nonprofits that ran ads and kids shows. That's kind of what this logo feels like. This feels like a kid's television nonprofit logo. Yeah, but honestly, like, if you wanted to, I bet you could make that look like a squastika. I was gonna see make that look like Satan. Yeah, I mean, if you really want to, if you squint enough, that's what the devil looks like in my brain. Now, it's honestly Best Friends. The organization probably most likely pretty legitimate organization doing their stuff. Their found their founders happened to be a cult leader. Very sketchy background, but you know, what are you gonna do? Sometimes people worship the devil and then they go on to do great. Yeah, but that's that's a hazard of anything, honestly, is the people who were involved in sketchy stuff in the sixties and seventies, they're still around. Yeah, and they're doing stuff, you know. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm sure most of our politicians were into satan stuff. I don't know if that's something do you want to put you want to leave that out there? You want to put that out there? That okay, I mean I'm sure most of them were. Sure. A lot of people watching this right now are like, we're and that's the problem. Ah, well, that's okay, all right, who specifically do you think let's name them. Let's start just thoughting ab out there. No, No, you don't want to do it. That's what I thought, That's what I thought. Okay, all right, well you know, I mean, let's let's book it. This is added to our artill and road trip that we got to get going. Yeah, we could stop by, so stop by for sure. Bring a pet. I'll be the pet in your room. Yeah, we'll fiddle off on that. I guess. Golly, what are you talking about? Hey, thanks for watching this episode. If things are last night. If you like this and you want more cult stuff, We've got an episode about Alistair Crowley, who's like the King of Colts. He had his fingers, his toes, every portion of his body in so many different cults just in his hand and all this stuff going on. So that's available to check out. There's a link for it in the description of this episode, or wherever you're watching or listening. Again, the best way to help us grow our show is to one support us on Patreon, But if you're not able to do that or don't want to do that, the very easy and free way to support our show is to leave a comment on YouTube or review whichever podcast after you're listening. I cannot express to you how much it helps get this in front of new people, and we're just really thankful that you're here. So we'll see you again next week on Things on the Last Night, Things are Learned, Last Things I learned Last Night


The Best Friends Animal Society operates one of the largest animal sanctuaries in the country in Kanab, Utah. At first glance, it appears to be a well-run nonprofit dedicated to helping animals. However, a deeper look into their origins reveals some concerning details.

The organization was founded in the 1960s by a couple named Robert Grimston and Marianne McLean. It was called the “Process Church of the Final Judgment” and was classified as a cult at the time. Grimston had previously been involved with Scientology before breaking off to form his own quasi-religious group.

The Process Church used controversial practices like personality assessments and “E-meters” similar to Scientology. Their teachings focused on the idea that God and Satan were two sides of the same coin destined to become unified. Members were designated as having personalities aligned with figures like Jesus, Satan, and Lucifer.

The group’s imagery and symbols caused immediate backlash. Their logo was criticized for its resemblance to a swastika. They evangelized by wearing robes and growing their hair long, upsetting local communities. After relocating several times, they eventually settled in Utah to establish a headquarters.

In the 1970s, the Process Church was linked to notorious murderers like Charles Manson and David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer. While never conclusively proven, evidence suggests the possibility that members were connected to the crimes in some capacity. The ensuing scandals and accusations caused the church great turmoil.

After Grimston’s split with McLean, she tried rebranding the church to focus on Jesus and Christianity rather than Satanic themes. This led to a splintering of the remaining followers. Grimston went on to study topics like aliens and dolphins. McLean eventually shifted to using animal rescue as a way to raise funds for the church.

The animal sanctuary’s efforts surprisingly successfully drew donations from the public. As the church dissolved, the animal organization took on a life of its own. Though murky, this marked the origins of what would become the Best Friends Animal Society.

Critics have accused the nonprofit of being a front to take advantage of lax regulations and taxes around religious organizations. However, the FBI investigated and found no conclusive wrongdoing.

Today, the Best Friends Animal Society operates legitimately as a nonprofit helping rescued animals. But its connection to the troubled Process Church continues to raise some questions. The organization has worked to distance itself from the cult branding, even developing a new logo.

Most members and staff today likely have no direct ties to the organization’s past. Ultimately, the origins reveal an unexpected history before the group evolved into what it is today. While the background should not discount their present efforts, it provides an interesting look into the provocative roots of a group dedicated to animal welfare.

Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning and laughing a lot while you do, you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode right now!

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Sources

Best Friends Animal Society – Wikipedia


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