As the prime minister of Parliament and the man who put the fun into Funkadelic, pilot of the Mothership and later overlord of the P-Funk All Stars, George Clinton created a kaleidoscope of collaborations whereby an illustrious supporting cast could help him populate a musical universe of his own creation. If this makes him sound a little like the leader of a religious cult, then the analogy is not misplaced, for while the highest virtues in Clinton’s personal values system (irreverence and sensuality) would have seemed like vices to the faithful, his gospel hit the streets with the full force of scripture.

At least part of the template for Clinton’s brand of proselytization was drawn from a formative entanglement with a soon to be sensationally disreputable underground institution. The Process Church of the Final Judgment started life in the mid-1960s as an occult subsect of Scientology. It was led by a British couple named Robert Moor and Mary Ann MacLean who had given themselves the grand-sounding last name “de Grimston.” By the time they crossed paths with George Clinton several years later, the de Grimstons were running coffee shops and programs in a number of American cities.

Clinton’s description of the Process Church in his autobiography, Brothers Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?, paints them like the Black Panthers, only with capes instead of berets: