The Independent (Pasadena), Nov 21, 1966

British Cultists “Find Paradise”

But Went From Riches to Rags

By Colin Frost

London (AP) — Five English youths have returned home from the Mexican headquarters of a cult known as “The Process” which
their parents say is a form of brainwashing.

Two of them are girls — Sabrina Verney, 19, daughter of the painter Sir John Verney, and Tessa Ventris, 29, daughter of a
prominent architect.

The attorney who brought them home said he found them living in rags in a disused and roofless salt factory in Xtul — pronounced
Stool, a remote village on the Gulf of Mexico.

The cult was founded in London by an English couple, Robert and Mary Ann de Grimston, as an amateur group practicing
psychotherapy.

In June its 22 members — 15 men and seven women — left their six story house in fashionable Mayfair and went first to the
Bahamas, then on to Mexico.

The attorney sent out by the girls' parents — his name was withheld in line with British practice — said the group believed they
had found paradise. “Almost all were in rags and barefoot,” he said.

The only one who was reasonably dressed was Mary Ann de Grimston. She wore a bikini and a light sun coat.

There is no gas, electricity, water or sanitation. The group lives on beans.

“But they all seemed reasonably happy.”

The mother of one group member said: “My son's been completely brainwashed. He speaks like an automation. He keeps ranting
about how he's got to expiate the guilt of the whole world. It's horrible, really!”

Two members of the group who returned voluntarily — Hugh Mountain, 20, and Rupert Ashburton-Dunning, 21— said they will
go back to Mexico after Christmas.

Note:
Mary Ann de Grimston later married Gabriel
de Peyer. She passed away at the Best Friends
Animal Society in Kanab in 2005.

Hugh Mountain is Michael Mountain of Best

Friends Animal Society. He changed his name
after the archangel Michael, as did Gabriel
de Peyer, born Jonathan de Peyer, and his
brother, the late Raphael, born Christopher
de Peyer.