Stalkers Sully the 46th Anniversary

Forty-six years ago today the Highgate Vampire case was taken into the public domain for the first time in the form of a front-page news feature article headlined "Does A Wampyr Walk In Highgate?" There was no mention of David Farrant in the article which focussed on the findings of the President of both the British Occult Society and the then fledgling Vampire Research Society. Many have since attempted to jump on the publicity-bandwagon that ensued, but none perhaps have been so desperate and compulsive as Anthony Hogg and his collaborators Trystan Lewis Swale and Erin Chapman who are currently trying to track down two females who have hithertofore enjoyed a very private existence.

A response from the author of The Highgate Vampire, Seán Manchester:

"Hogg, Swale and Chapman make clear their intention to pursue two women who I happen to know will resist any attempt to have their privacy compromised after all these years, but the trolling trio show no interest whatsoever in finding eye-witnesses identified with names and addresses in the Hampstead & Highgate Express in the early months of 1970. These eye-witnesses only differ from Elizabeth (I do not include Jacqueline because she is not 'Lusia' as falsely alleged by the stalkers) in one regard. None of them have any connection to me. Had they a connection to me they would doubtless be pursued to the ends of the earth by these obsessive non-entities out to grab their undeserved fifteen minutes of fame at the expense of innocent women and, of course, on the coat-tails of my book The Highgate Vampire and myself. What they are doing is morally unacceptable, and should not be encouraged or helped in any shape or form." - Seán Manchester (27 February 2016)

Kenneth Frewin, R Docherty, Julian McKennar, Audrey Connely and Nava Arieli (aka Nava Grunberg) were all identified as first-hand eyewitnesses in the Hampstead & Highgate Express, February — March 1970. Trystan Lewis Swale, Anthony Hogg and Erin Chapman are content to ruthlessly pursue Elizabeth Wojdyla while ignoring the other self-proclaimed eye-witnesses. Elizabeth Wojdyla was not identified by name in 1970, albeit she was referred to anonymously on television programmes that year. Mary Farrant and Colette Sully, although sympathetic to David Farrant at the time, might bring fresh evidence and certainly an unheard perspective. Females much less sympathetic to Farrant who were also identified by name in newspapers and magazines, eg Victoria Jervis, Nancy O'Hoski and many others, might equally shed new light on the goings-on in the 1970s. They have unique and privileged information. But you will find neither Hogg nor Swale nor Chapman showing the slightest interest in these females because they have no association with Seán Manchester.

As David Farrant, now turned seventy, falls further into an undead slumber, Anthony Hogg, Trystan Lewis Swale and Erin Chapman have become his replacement, using pernicious propaganda originating with Farrant to pursue an identical vendetta against the exorcist Seán Manchester. They are this generation's clones of a clown who nobody took seriously back in the 1970s. Swale, who regards Satanists as being mostly atheists and is one himself, declared on his site yesterday that Seán Manchester "doesn't know much about Satanism." The implication is that these clones do and their undisguised empathy with the dark side provides common ground with the source of all the malice.

Further reading on this topic:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=573468252812286&id=230568517102263

http://fobsm.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/a-low-and-hollow-place_9.html

http://fobsm.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-unholy-trinity.html

http://fobsm.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-italian-connection.html

Seán Manchester's final comment in 2013 on the Highgate Vampire case:

"It was necessary to tell the full story, even though this was not an easy decision, due to the overwhelming public interest in the case, but I really now feel the subject has been exhausted and all there is to say about it has been said. It has also exhausted me after decades of television and radio interviews, film documentaries and related projects concentrating on this one topic. There will always be people seeking to cash in and exploit my work for their own ends. Many, of course, will be too young to remember the happenings at Highgate. That notwithstanding, my book The Highgate Vampire is optioned for cinematic treatment, but that is not something I wish to elaborate upon here.

"I am willing to quietly and privately set the record straight where need be, but I gave my final interview about this case to the broadcast media some years ago and have no intention of returning to the topic despite persistent requests from television and radio programmes for me to do so almost every week. I still make contributions on unrelated matters, but this subject of intense public fascination — in some cases obsession — concerning events at Highgate Cemetery more than forty-four years ago is not something I have an appetite to return to any longer. Having said that, my memoir in its unexpurgated form obviously mentions the case in a proper and fitting context to my life. However, I have no plans to have my memoir published — now or ever.

"Unimaginable horrors were experienced by folk at the time of the contagion and these I feel are best not evoked. They should be left undisturbed. The reality that I and others, most now sadly deceased, experienced all those many years ago no longer exists, and next to the hunger to experience the supernatural, albeit in this case at its most maleficent and deadly, there is perhaps no stronger hunger than to forget.

"Should an individual have a particular query about those mysterious happenings, I will give that person an answer (but not an interview); otherwise I have too much in the present with which to be concerned without reliving nightmares from the past."

Does A Wampyr Walk In Highgate?

"On Friday, 27 February 1970, the front page headline of the Hampstead and Highgate Express asked does a vampire walk in Highgate? There would be no going back. The die had been cast." (Seán Manchester, The Highgate Vampire, Gothic Press, p. 70)
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The banner headline "Does a wampyr walk in Highgate?" appeared across the front page of Hampstead and Highgate's most prestigious newspaper in February 1970. The editor himself had written the piece after meeting privately with the president of the British Occult Society and founder of the then fledgling Vampire Research Society. He allowed himself to get slightly carried away by introducing the journalistic embellishment "King Vampire of the Undead" - a term that Seán Manchester did not employ, as stated by him on page 72 of The Vampire Hunter's Handbook, but what else did the editor get wrong that day? Apparently more than you might imagine!

After warning that a vampire might be active in Highgate Cemetery, the article goes on to correctly describe Seán Manchester as a photographer (he had run his own photographic studio throughout the previous decade) and the president of the British Occult Society (a position he held from 21 June 1967 to 8 August 1988 when the BOS was dissolved). He is then quoted accurately enough before reference is made to a King Vampire of the Undead which is not attributed to him in actual quotes but attributed nonetheless.

A very important residence in Highgate somehow manages to transform into a different house in London's West End. For house "in the West End" one should actually substitute Ashurst House, which once stood at the western end of the site now occupied by Highgate Cemetery, as would have been explained by Seán Manchester who told the editor at the time that Ashurst House was sold and leased to a succession of tenants of whom one was a mysterious gentleman from the Continent who arrived in the wake of the vampire epidemic that had its origins in south-east Europe. This is not quite the same as what was reported and, of course, does not have anything like the same sensationalist impact as "King Vampire from Wallachia"which Draculesque adornment the newspaper clearly preferred.

There then follows reference to a group of Satanists attempting to"resurrect the King Vampire." This time the reference to a King Vampire is included in quotes even though the term was not uttered.

Next we are misinformed that the British Occult Society had "no formal membership" but instead corresponded with "50 to 100 interested people."Completely untrue. The BOS had a formal membership of over three hundred people with at least one hundred actively involved in ongoing research and investigation.

Then we learn that the British Occult Society "believes in countering magic by magic" when all that was said is that the supernatural will not submit to scientific methods to measure and prove its existence.

The newspaper correctly states that some BOS members had "spent nights in Highgate Cemetery" which was obviously for the purpose of observing the strange nocturnal goings-on in the place as had been reported by people in the previous decade and was still being reported up to the time of the article.

Readers are then offered in quotes "the traditional and approved manner"by which folk must rid themselves of this hideous pestilence without it being properly clarified that this is how clergy dealt with the problem in centuries past and was not on the agenda as far as the British Occult Society/Vampire Research Society was concerned with regard to Highgate Cemetery.

That Montague Summers' books bore some influence on Seán Manchester's understanding of vampirism is mentioned in tandem with  the suggestion that Bram Stoker's novel is based on fact. That Stoker was influenced by genuine cases and read about real vampires before writing Dracula is not in doubt, but the clumsy journalism of the Hampstead and Highgate Express clouds what is trying to be conveyed by the man they are interviewing in the pursuit (presumably) of economising on words for the sake of space.

Finally we come to a quote attributed to "one of Britain's busiest exorcists, the Rev John Neil-Smith" (they couldn't even get his name right - it was actually Christopher Neil-Smith) by attributing to him the following: "I believe the whole idea of vampires is probably a novelistic embellishment." He said nothing of the sort.

The Reverend Christopher Neil-Smith (1920-1995) was an Anglican priest, originally from Hampstead, most celebrated for his practice of exorcism and his paranormal interests.[1] Like Seán Manchester, whom he knew, Reverend Neil-Smith believed that evil is an external reality and should be treated as such rather than as an abstract concept.

A vicar at St Saviour's Anglican Church at Eton Road in Hampstead, London, he performed more than three thousand exorcisms in Britain since 1949. In 1972, the Bishop of London authorised him to exorcise demons according to his own judgement.[2] Two years earlier, he was misquoted in the Hampstead and Highgate Express, 27 February 1970, saying that vampires are "probably a novelistic embellishment," but, as Seán Manchester subsequently pointed out, Reverend Neil-Smith claimed to have actually exorcised vampires, as confirmed in a book written by Daniel Farson and Angus Hall which records:

"Yet not far from Highgate Cemetery lives a man who takes reports of vampirism seriously. The Reverend Christopher Neil-Smith is a leading British exorcist and writer on exorcism. He can cite several examples of people who have come to him for help in connection with vampirism. 'The one that particularly strikes me is that of a woman who showed me the marks on her wrists which appeared at night, where blood had definitely been taken. And there was no apparent reason why this should have occurred. They were marks like those of an animal. Something like scratching.' He denies this might have been done by the woman herself. She came to him when she felt her blood was being sucked away, and after he performed an exorcism the marks disappeared. Another person who came from South America 'had a similar phenomenon, as if an animal had sucked away his blood and attacked him at night.' Again, the Reverend Neil-Smith could find no obvious explanation. There is a third case of a man who, after his brother died, had the strange feeling that his lifeblood was being slowly sucked away from him. 'There seems to be evidence this was so,' says Neil-Smith. 'He was a perfectly normal person before, but after the brother's death he felt his life was being sucked away from him as if the spirit of his brother was feeding on him. When the exorcism was performed he felt a release and new life, as if new blood ran in his veins.' Neil-Smith rules out the possibility of a simple psychological explanation for this, such as a feeling of guilt by the survivor toward his brother. 'There was no disharmony between them. In fact he wasn't clear for some time that it (the vampire) was his brother.' The clergyman describes a vampire as 'half animal, half human,' and firmly refutes the suggestion that such things are all in the mind. 'I think that's a very naive interpretation,' he says. 'All the evidence points to the contrary'." [6]

The Reverend Christopher Neil-Smith, contrary to editor Gerald Isaaman's false attribution of 27 February 1970 in a local Hampstead newspaper, concluded that there really are such a things as vampires.

References:

1. a b Beeson, Trevor (2006). "The Reverend Christopher Neil-Smith". Priests And Prelates: The Daily Telegraph Clerical Obituaries. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0826481000.

2. Sands, Kathleen R. Demon possession in Elizabethan England. Praeger Publishers. "At around the same time, Father Christopher Neil-Smith, an Anglican priest, received a standing license from the Bishop of London authorizing him to exorcise freely according to his own judgment." 

3. Neil-Smith, Christopher. Praying for daylight: God through modern eyes. P. Smith.

4. Cramer, Marc. The devil within. W.H. Allen. "with the noted exorcist, the Rev. Christopher Neil-Smith, author of an anecdotal book entitled The Exorcist and the Possessed."

5. Spence, Lewis. Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology.Kessinger Publishing.

6. Mysterious Monsters (Aldus Books, 1978) by Daniel Farson and Angus Hall.
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Vampire Research Society 45th Anniversary

Peter Underwood R.I.P.

Author of over fifty books on the paranormal and Britain's foremost ghost hunter Peter Underwood has died. He made Seán Manchester a Life-Member of The Ghost Club (and later an Honorary Life-Member of the newly formed Ghost Club Society). Peter Underwood, along with life-membership, was to become a Fellow Associate of the Vampire Research Society in 1973. He was already a member of the British Occult Society, an organisation that investigated the paranormal and occult phenomena, which was formally dissolved on 8 August 1988. Its last President (1967-1988), Seán Manchester, collaborated with Peter Underwood on an anthology titled The Vampire's Bedside Companion (1975) that would include the first published account of early events in the Highgate Vampire case. He left it to his esteemed colleague to tell the full and unexpurgated story which he did ten years later when The Highgate Vampire was published by the British Occult Society in 1975.

As already stated elsewhere by Seán Manchester: the sad passing of Peter Underwood irrevocably marks the end of an era.

Seán Manchester's obituary for his close friend and fellow investigator can be read by clicking on the image:

Highgate Cemetery Vampire Hunt

 

The Ghost Writers

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With the benefit of hindsight and a great deal of solid evidence we now know there was no ghost; indeed, we know that Farrant himself was the only "ghost" making an appearance at Highgate Cemetery in early 1970.

The following letters to the editor of the Hampstead & Highgate Express appeared immediately in the wake of Farrant's own letter claiming three sightings of a ghost-like figure at London's Highgate Cemetery. The first is written by Kenny Frewin, complete with Frewin's genuine address at the time. 

Kenny Frewin was and remains a close personal friend of David Farrant and often acted as his "minder" throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He also collaborated in further stories manufactured by Farrant in the press, but changed his name to "Kenny French" (on Farrant's advice) for that purpose. 

The second is also written by a close friend of Farrant. He knew both Audrey and her husband Michael Connely, the latter joining him and his first wife, Mary, whom he married in August 1967, on drunken forays with others to Highgate Cemetery after the pubs closed. Farrant altered her married status from "Mrs" to "Miss" when he came to write the letter using her name and address.   

The third letter is written by someone by the name of R Docherty who was also an acquaintance of Farrant. Docherty allowed his name and address to be used. There were others, Yossel Baker being one, who did not give permission for their name and address to be used. Farrant used it anyway.

The fourth counterfeit letter to the local newspaper is attributed to "Nava Arieli" who, in fact, is Nava Grunberg (later to become Nava Jehans) who was undoubtedly Farrant's closest friend (and occasional girlfriend) at the time. The address is not hers. She lived in Hampstead Lane, and still does. The next couple of fake letters are no less interesting. Yossel Baker often drank in the Prince of Wales pub where Farrant was present with a couple of mutual friends, including Tony Hill. Baker's real name and address was used on the fraudulent correspondence without his knowledge. Farrant assumed that Baker would not be especially bothered about his identity being used in this way. 

Finally, we come to a bogus letter written by a certain J McKennar of Muswell Hill Road, N10. By a curious coincidence that is David Farrant's current address where he has resided for decades; indeed, ever since his parole release from prison in 1976. When Farrant wrote his original hoax letter of 6 February 1970 he resided in Tony Hill's coal bunker in a communal cellar belonging to 9 Priestwood Mansions, 294 Archway Road, N6. Tony Hill, his wife and mutual acquaintances such as Audrey and Michael Connely, was well and truly in on the hoax. Hill offers the following testimony:

One, Two or Three Vampire Sightings?

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"For a start, my letter to the Ham and High in 1970 badly misquoted myself (not deliberately I concede). I did not say that I had seen the figure (ghost) ‘on three occassions’: I was describing a figure that I said ‘had been seen on at least three occasions’. This is true – it had. But on these occasions, the witnesses were other people whom I had witnessed by this time." - David Farrant (Arcadia, 12 December 2009)

Is it really plausible that Farrant's letter was so monstrously altered by the editor of a highly respectable newspaper to mean something quite different to what he had actually written? Is it likely that Farrant would not have insisted on having such a tampered version corrected in the following week's issue if this had really happened? There is no record of him having asked for any such correction. There is no record of an amendment appearing even though his contact with that newspaper remained ongoing for the next few weeks. There are records of Farrant sticking with his personal "three sightings" account until October of that year when it suddenly reduced to "two sightings." Now it has become "one sighting." One is bound to wonder whether a further passing of time will establish "no sighting"?

What certainly exists as evidence from early 1970 is what Farrant wrote in the Hampstead & Highgate Express, 6 February 1970:

"On three occasions I have seen what appeared to be a ghost-like figure inside the gates at the top of Swains Lane. The first occasion was on Christmas Eve. The second sighting, a week later, was also brief. Last week, the figure appeared, only a few yards inside the gate. This time it was there long enough for me to see it much more clearly."

The next month Farrant stated to Today interviewer Sandra Harris on British television: "The last time I actually saw its face." Does this not suggest there was a time previous to the one he is referring to in that interview? I sense it does. But there is more. There is the BBC's 24 Hours interview broadcast on 15 October 1970.

Laurence Picethly’s interview with Farrant for BBC television was sandwiched between footage of the President of the British Occult Society that had been filmed at the society’s north London headquarters and on location at Highgate Cemetery. The man representing the British Occult Society was obviously not Farrant even though the latter would fraudulently adopt that title two years later. In fact, the British Occult Society had distanced itself from what Farrant was doing as far back as March 1970. The interview Farrant gave in late 1970 is important, however, because there are no editors for him to blame for altering what he had written in published correspondence to a newspaper. In the BBC programme he is seen speaking to the interviewer and the viewing public. The words can be heard from his own mouth and there is no escaping what he said.

Here is the 24 Hours television interview Farrant gave in October 1970:

Laurence Picethly: “On August the seventeenth, Allan [known locally as ‘Allan’ - his correct name being ‘David’] Farrant decided to pay a midnight visit to the cemetery to combat the vampire once and for all. At the cemetery, Farrant was forced to enter by the back wall [footage shows Farrant entering via the rear of the cemetery], as he still does today. He armed himself with a cross and stake, and crouched between the tombstones, waiting. But that night police, on the prowl for vandals, discovered him. He was charged with being in an enclosed space for an unlawful purpose, but later the Clerkenwell magistrate acquitted him. Now, in spite of attempts by the cemetery owners to bar him, Farrant and his friends [no friends were discovered by the police or subsequently identified by Farrant] still maintain a regular vigil around the catacombs in hope of sighting either the vampire or a meeting of Satanists.”

David Farrant: “We have been keeping watch in the cemetery for … [pauses] … since my court case ended, and we still found signs of their ceremonies.”

Laurence Picethly: “Have you ever seen this vampire?”

David Farrant: “I have seen it, yes. I saw it last February, and saw it on two occasions.”

Laurence Picethly: “What was it like?”

David Farrant: “It took the form of a tall, grey figure, and it … [pauses] … seemed to glide off the path without making any noise.”

Farrant's interview ends at this point. It is reproduced above in its entirety.

Farrant was acquitted of the charge that had led to his arrest, it being that he was found in an enclosed area for an unlawful purpose. Highgate Cemetery is obviously not “an enclosed area” and that is all he was charged with in August 1970. The BBC report now returns to the President of the British Occult Society.

Three things are of significance in that BBC television interview from October 1970.

The reconstructed footage of what Farrant was doing on the night of 17 August 1970 clearly shows him hunting a vampire with a rosary around his neck, a large cross in one hand and a sharpened wooden stake in the other hand. There is no ambiguity about what led to his arrest in this report where he is featured reconstructing what he was doing at the time of his arrest at midnight in Highgate Cemetery. The image above is taken from the 24 Hours programme as Farrant reconstructs the actions which led to his arrest.

The second thing of significance is that when Laurence Picethly asks whether Farrant had ever seen the vampire, Farrant dis not attempt to correct the person interviewing him by saying it was something other than a vampire. Nor did Farrant make clear that he did not believe in vampires, or that what he witnessed was not a vampire. Indeed, this section of 24 Hours was titled Vampires.

The third thing of significance is that when asked if he had seen the vampire Farrant responded: “I have seen it, yes. I saw it last February, and saw it on two occasions.” He can be heard saying that he had two sightings of the vampire in early 1970, but in the interview he gave Andrew Gough for Arcadia Farrant states that he had only one sighting and this was in December 1969, not February 1970 as stated by him in his BBC television appearance some four decades ago.

So was it one, two or three sightings Farrant had in 1970 of the infamous Highgate Vampire? He nowadays tries to disingenuously convince everyone that he never claimed any belief in vampires and did not attempt to hunt one in Highgate Cemetery with a cross and stake. Images of him from newspaper articles at the time tell an entirely different story. A small sample appear below:

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He Avoids Ugly Ones

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In this 1994 News of the World report about David Farrant are claims about his prowess as a "High Priest" of witchcraft. Yet today Farrant states he abandoned wiccan beliefs and ceased to be a witch as far back as 1982. He is also described as "a High Priest of the British Occult Society." The British Occult Society had no "High Priests" and existed purely to examine hidden phenomena. Furthermore, David Farrant owed absolutely no association with the British Occult Society who were quick to refute his fraudulent claims wherever they appeared. (Click on these press cuttings to read them more easily).

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Prison Correspondence from Lone Vampire Hunter

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Prison correspondence (with the envelope in which it arrived that was sent care of an address where David Farrant had been ensconced in a coal bunker belonging to its occupant, Tony Hill, in Archway Road) from "A D Farrow" (a pseudonym given to police by Farrant when he was arrested in Highgate Cemetery on the night of 17 August 1970) to Seán Manchester, president of the British Occult Society, an organisation for the study and research of hidden phenomena.

"speak for me. I don't know if they have" [missing words from top line]

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Below is a signed note written a week prior to the prison correspondence that was hand-delivered by David Farrant to the north London office of the British Occult Society for the attention of its president.

And below is a much later sample of David Farrant's still very recognisable handwriting in 2005 as it appears on the label of unsolicited mail sent to Keith Maclean care of the "Holy Grail Church."

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Why Hunt The Wampyr?

The person who was at the epicentre of the Highgate Vampire investigation from start to finish was Seán Manchester. He was president of an occult investigation team within the British Occult Society who, probably as a consequence of the quickly unravelling Highgate case, founded the Vampire Research Society on 2 February 1970. The VRS has always maintained its integrity with high quality membership comprising clergy, scholars, academics, professional researchers and authors of the paranormal, which he purposely kept to a relatively small number, as with most specialist organisations, despite the incredible public fascination the topic still holds to this day. The VRS at no time sought to be a subscription club and membership over the last two decades has been only by invitation. Nobody, therefore, is better placed to comment on the wampyr believed to have once walked in Highgate. Seán Manchester was recently asked (on the internet) why he ever hunted vampires in the first place and continues to exorcise them when found to this day. His answer (edited for reasons of space) follows. In it he speculates about the supernature of the wampyr ...

"First, I am a Christian and therefore commanded to drive out demons (see Mark 16: 17) of which the vampire is a variant.

"Second, I am an exorcist who specialises in vampirology, a sub-branch of demonolatry, whose task is to cast out demons.

"Third, there is a dearth of exorcists willing to engage in this particular ministry. The only true exorcists I know are Christian. There are those I would not classify as true exorcists whose employment of the word 'exorcism' is unrecognisable to a Christian exorcist. This looser application can embrace activities such as banishment rituals using ceremonial magic which efficacy I cannot vouchsafe to have practical effect. For a Christian the authority to cast out demons requires at least baptism into the Christian faith. Catholics, and some other major denominations, require priests to perform major exorcisms and only then with the permission of the diocesan bishop.

"We are each limited within the constraints of our particular discipline. A Catholic priest, for example, must have permission from his bishop in order to carry out a major exorcism. Minor exorcisms in certain circumstances may be carried out by priests and laity alike without consent. Though the sacraments are not corrupted by a tainted priest, and are still valid despite the medium through which they are provided, the exorcism rite will probably not meet with much success when a corrupt person attempts the traditional formula. Indeed, it might prove extremely dangerous for someone thus tainted to attempt an exorcism. Though exorcism is not a sacrament itself, the use of the Blessed Sacrament (the Host) might be applied in certain situations. The efficacy of the Host will not be lessened by the priest's degree of corruption provided the intent of the exorcist is genuine. The bishop does not select priests for exorcism. Those who are called to the exorcism ministry already exist. If, however, they are under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, permission must be sought by any priest who is an exorcist to execute the major rite, but not the minor or smaller exorcism ritual.

"The vampire of history is a contradiction in itself, an oxymoron, a non sequitur, or as the French would say je ne sais quoi, meaning the subject matter is indefinable; it cannot be described or conveyed in a manner readily understood. Today's secular mind finds no apparent reason for the vampire's existence. The exorcist, however, must remember that although the vampire is supernatural and originates from the ranks of fallen angels, it is simultaneously a physical entity which is capable of death and destruction. It is this unearthly combination of the corporeal and the demonic which instils such dread where the vampire is concerned. The term 'undead' is certainly applicable, but what does that mean? If the vampire is sentient then why use 'undead'? What a curious word to describe a revenant. Yet we know these vampires are not living people, but neither are they God's true dead. The Devil's undead is perhaps a term more apt than we might at first imagine. Certainly no other description can come as close to conveying the meaning of this phenomenon. Perhaps the vampire's ingestion of blood into the living cadaver is similar to the manner by which the vampire bat is able to ingest blood and obtain nourishment from it? No doubt there is some level of nourishment to be obtained from blood, but most people if they ingest more than a mouthful will vomit. There are proteins and iron to be found in blood and perhaps that is what nourishes the physical aspect and enables the wraith to remain as a corporeal manifestation? The biological aspects of vampirism notwithstanding, how does one explain the immediate and rapid deterioration of the corpse once exorcism has taken place? It will fall apart and decay as do other corpses, from a few days to many years according to its true age, once the stake has impaled the undead heart. It collapses into a pile of dusty bones where centuries have elapsed. As I attempted to explain in interviews with the American broadcasters Art Bell and George Noory a few years back, it would seem that time catches up with the vampiric wraith at the moment of its destruction. It returns into what it always was and ought to have been. Impaling the heart is sufficient in and of itself to end the pollutions of the vampire, more so if cremation follows, but the real danger with these undead is that they are totally evil and, of course, biocidal. They should not be compared with vampire bats who take a few drops and move on. Vampires are evil and a potential threat to human life. They are a form of Antichrist and should be dealt with accordingly."

Why Do The Foxes Die?

Why Do The Foxes Die?

The above banner headline appeared across the front page of the Hampstead & Highgate Express, the areas most prestigious newspaper, on 6 March 1970. Their report follows:

"The mysterious death of foxes in Highgate Cemetery was this week linked with the theory that a ghost seen in the area might be a vampire. Tobacconist Mr David Farrant, 24, who reported seeing the ghost [as he had previously described the phenomenon] last month, returned to the spot last weekend and disovered a dead fox. 'Several other foxes have also been found dead in the cemetery,' he said at his home in Priestwood Mansions, Archway Road, Highgate. 'The odd thing is there was no outward sign of how they died. Much remains unexplained, but what I have recently learnt all points to the vampire theory being the most likely answer. Should this be so, I for one am prepared to pursue it, taking whatever means might be necessary so that we can all rest.' The vampire theory was suggested last week by Mr Seán Manchester, president of the British Occult Society, who believes that 'the King Vampire of the Undead' [a phrase, not used by Seán Manchester, which had been coined by the newspaper itself a week earlier] walks again. Mr Farrant and Mr Manchester met in the cemetery at the weekend. ... Mr Farrant pointed out the spot where he saw the spectre and Mr Manchester with prayer book in hand [compared the location with that of other sightings made in the graveyard]. Mr Manchester, when told of the dead foxes, said: 'These incidents are just more inexplicable events that seem to complement my theory about a vampire.' ... Would-be ghost hunters were warned this week to keep out of the cemetery. 'Anyone coming in here after closing time will cop it,' said a spokesman."

Five months later, David Farrant carried out his threat to "pursue it, taking whatever means might be necessary."

The Daily Express, 19 August 1970, reported that Farrant told the court: "My intention was to search out the supernatural being and destroy it by plunging the stake [found in his possession when arrested in Highgate Cemetery by police] in its heart."

The newspaper's report continued: "David Farrant pleaded guilty at Clerkenwell, London, to entering St Michael's churchyard, Highgate Cemetery, for an unlawful purpose. Farrant told police he had just moved to London when he heard people talking about the vampire in Highgate Cemetery. In a statement he said that he heard the vampire rises out of a grave and wanders about the cemetery on the look-out for human beings on whose blood it thrives. Police keeping watch for followers of a black magic cult arrested him. He was remaded in custody for reports. Last night, Mr Seán Manchester, leader of the British Occult Society, said: 'I am convinced that a vampire exists in Highgate Cemetery. Local residents and passers-by have reported seeing a ghostlike figure of massive proportions near the north gate'."

The British Occult Society, prior to its dissolution on O8.O8.88, was presided over by Seán Manchester. The BOS made its television debut on 13 March 1970 when its president featured on Today (Thames Television) to represent the Society’s investigation into reported happenings in and around Highgate Cemetery, London, that had been accumulating since early 1967. A number of witnesses to an alleged vampire spectre were also interviewed by Sandra Harris for Today. These consisted largely of children and a young man. When asked what he had seen by Sandra Harris, the young man, David Farrant, described what he alleged to have encountered a few weeks earlier as looking as though it had been dead for a long time, insisting that it was evil. Farrant's description would alter radically in later years. It eventually became mist with two red eyes when he described it a quarter of a century later. Throughout 1970, at least, David Farrant made no pretence of any association or membership within the British Occult Society. Needless to say, he was not then, or at any time, a member of the British Occult Society. Seán Manchester, then as now, held fast to traditional Christianity, having studied the occult. During the 1970s and 1980s he sometimes operated covertly within occult circles to gain first-hand intelligence. This much became apparent in 1988 with the publication of From Satan To Christ and again in 1997 would be confirmed in The Vampire Hunter's Handbook.

From 1971, David Farrant began to describe himself as a wiccan high priest and occultist, who was also involved in spiritism. In August 1995, however, he revealed in an amateur Dutch magazine home-produced by vampire enthusiast Rob Brautigam that he was "in fact no longer a wiccan as such" and was "no longer dependent on any man-made creeds or inflicted doctrines." That notwithstanding, prior to the autumn of 1970, he was neither wiccan nor occultist, and seemed closer to something more resembling Roman Catholicism; wearing, as he did, a Catholic rosary with crucifix around his neck for press and television interviews.

Seán Manchester and David Farrant have only appeared on the same television transmission twice, both times in 1970, when Seán Manchester represented the British Occult Society on the Today programme, 13 March 1970, and, some months later, on the BBC’s 24 Hours programme, 15 October 1970. Farrant’s appearance on Today was as one of a number of witnesses who claimed to have seen a vampire, and on 24 Hours as someone who had been arrested in Highgate Cemetery whilst attempting to stalk and impale the rumoured vampire. In the second of these television interviews, filmed by the BBC on location at Highgate Cemetery, Farrant demonstrated his stalking technique with a home-made cross and wooden stake, whilst adorned with a Roman Catholic rosary around his neck. This film report was reshown by the BBC in May 1999 and clips have subsequently been transmitted this century on various independent television channels. There was no mention of his being involved in wicca or the occult. He did, however, echo the fact that Satanists had used the cemetery for clandestine ceremonies. This view was also held by the British Occult Society, the police, the media, and many members of the public.

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The turning point in the Highgate Vampire case was August 1970 when discovery was made of the tomb and its unearthly contents. A spoken exorcism was carried out by Seán Manchester with the consent of the private cemetery owners. It was to prove ineffective. This exorcism was later reconstructed in a film documentary for BBC television that was transmitted on 15 October 1970.

Something else happened in August of that year. Lone vampire hunter David Farrant was arrested by police in Highgate Cemetery and held on remand at Brixton Prison. He, too, was interviewed by the BBC and he faithfully reconstructed what he was doing on the night of his arrest. The BBC filmed him prowling around the graveyard, wearing a white rosary with a crucifix, and holding a wooden stake in one hand and a large cross in the other. Farrant claims to have returned in the following year to Highgate Cemetery to summon the vampire using a sinister necromantic formula which included sex magic with a naked girl smeared with fresh blood. He also claims to have been "temporarily possessed by the satanic entity" in an article he submitted to New Witchcraft magazine from his jail cell. Within three years of this diabolical evocation he was arrested and tried at London's Old Bailey for crimes relating to Highgate Cemetery and for threatening people with black magic. Farrant received a prison sentence of four years and eight months in June 1974.

When The Wampyr First Went Public

"On Friday, 27 February 1970, the front page headline of the Hampstead and Highgate Express asked does a vampire walk in Highgate? There would be no going back. The die had been cast." (Seán Manchester, The Highgate Vampire, page 70)

Does A Wampyr Walk In Highgate?

The above banner headline appeared across the front page of Hampstead and Highgate's most prestigious newspaper in February 1970. The editor himself had written the piece after meeting privately with the president of the British Occult Society and founder of the then fledgling Vampire Research Society. He allowed himself to get slightly carried away by introducing the journalistic embellishment "King Vampire of the Undead" - a term that Seán Manchester apparently did not employ, as stated by him on page 72 of The Vampire Hunter's Handbook. On page 48 of the same work, Seán Manchester states:

"I do not give newspaper interviews and have only released statements in the far distant past when these were in the public interest (ie balancing comment, disclaimers and warnings of malefic goings-on)."

The vampire revelations of 27 February 1970 clearly fell into the latter category.

The Hampstead & Highgate Express introduced their readers to "Seán Manchester, president of the British Occult Society ... [who] ... claims to have carried out 'extensive research and investigation into the matter.' Mr Manchester, a photographer, said: 'The phenomenon reported by Highgate people in letters to the Ham and High is not merely the apparition of an earth-bound spirit, which is relatively harmless, but much worse - that of a wampyr or, as it is more popularly known, a vampire'."

The newspaper continued to quote the BOS president:

"We would like to exorcise the vampire by the traditional and approved manner ..."

Books & CDs About The Wampyr

The revised and updated edition of Seán Manchester's The Highgate Vampire (Gothic Press, 1991) is the definitive account in hardcover of the investigation, illustrated generously throughout. It is the only edition that remains in print. Many illustrations and case file photographs can be found in The Highgate Vampire, most controversial of which perhaps are the images of the corporeal shell soon after exorcism.

"The Highgate Vampire" chapter that formed a major part of Peter Underwood's The Vampire's Bedside Companion (1975 & 1976) is out of print and unavailable. The Highgate Vampire first edition published by British Occult Society in 1985 is out of print.

The Highgate Vampire is a quality hardcover edition, illustrated with photographs and line drawings, revised and updated, published in 1991 by Gothic Press, and still in print.

The Highgate Vampire: The World of the Undead Unearthed at London’s Highgate Cemetery (Published 1985, British Occult Society - Revised & Updated edition 1991, Gothic Press)

Carmel though presented as a novel is nevertheless based on some real incidents. A generously illustrated large format paperback, this book offers the wider picture as actual experience mingles with a familiar history. Much can be revealed in the guise of a novel, of course, that could not otherwise be told. Published by Gothic Press in 2000, and still in print.

Carmel: A Vampire Tale (Published 2000, Gothic Press)

The Vampire Hunter’s Handbook also revisits Highgate in some of its chapters; while exposing many of the false attributions made by certain journalists, authors and even academics; some of whom were too young to remember the events at the time. Illustrated with photographs, published by Gothic Press in 1997, this popular work remains very much still in print and available.

The Vampire Hunter’s Handbook: A Concise Vampirological Guide(Published 1997, Gothic Press)

Archive recordings that include the voices of very early witnesses, interviews at Highgate Cemetery and other interviews with those at the periphery can be heard on "The Highgate Vampire CD" (comprising two discs).

The Highgate Vampire CD: Double CD of archive recordings.

The Black Witch Project is another CD of archive material from the period. This time in the voice of one whose "occult obsessions following an alleged encounter with the Highgate phenomenon led to his slow descent into darkness thereafter." (The Highgate Vampire, page 43)

The Black Witch Project: CD of someone at the very periphery of events discussing his pseudo-occult beliefs and activities. These are complimented by his colleague who can also be heard discussing some of the same incidents.

The Devil's Fool: CD of the principal bandwagoneer contradicting himself in a series of interview extracts that span over three decades and concentrate on the Highgate Vampire.

Wampyr Story On French Television

Links to extracts from a film made for French television.

Click on each link to view videos:

Le vampire de Highgate - Londres 1970 - 001

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2tsbk_le-vampire-de-highgate-londres-1970_blog

Le vampire de Highgate - Londres 1970 - 002

http://www.dailymotion.com/related/4748960/video/x2ttgz_le-vampire-de-highgate-londres-1970_blog

Le vampire de Highgate - Londres 1970 - 003

http://www.dailymotion.com/related/4750451/video/x2tvhw_vampire-de-highgate-londres-1970-00_blog

Le vampire de Highgate - Londres 1970 - 004

http://www.dailymotion.com/related/4753076/video/x2tw2i_le-vampire-de-highgate-londres-1970_blog

Encountering The Wampyr

“Ever since I became aware that Highgate Cemetery was the reputed haunt of a vampire, the investigations and activities of Seán Manchester commanded my attention. I became convinced that, more than anyone else, the president of the Vampire Research Society knew the full story of the Highgate Vampire which is probably the most remarkable contemporary account of vampiric activity and infestation ~ and cure. Can such things as vampires really exist? The evidence seems to be overwhelming and the author [of The Highgate Vampire] is to be congratulated on his knowledgeable and lucid account of the case which is likely to become one of the classic works on this interesting and mystifying subject.” (Peter Underwood, President of the Ghost Club Society; Life-Member of the Vampire Research Society; author of over fifty books on the paranormal)

In 1990, Peter Underwood retold the events of the Highgate Vampire case (up to the discovery of the suspect tomb at Highgate Cemetery in August 1970) in his book Exorcism! (1990). He commented in chapter six:

“The Hon Ralph Shirley told me in the 1940s that he had studied the subject in some depth, sifted through the evidence and concluded that vampirism was by no means as dead as many people supposed; more likely, he thought, the facts were concealed. … My old friend Montague Summers has, to his own satisfaction, at least, traced back ‘the dark tradition of the vampire’ until it is ‘lost amid the ages of a dateless antiquity’.”

An encounter is alleged by Brian as early as July 1965. Brian claims the following:

"At the time I was residing in Islington, and I'd been invited along to a student party. I was dubious as to whether to attend or not as I was worried how the hosts' several cats would react to my dog, an aged Lurcher, but assured that this presented no problem - if needs be the cats could be locked away - and lured by the promise that a girl I was set on would be putting in an appearance, I decided to give it a try. I parked my car at The Flask public house at around 8 o'clock and set off along Swains Lane with my dog. It was a beautiful, warm summer's evening, but as we proceeded along the cemetery's outer wall, I became uncomfortably aware of a curious silence. All the birds had suddenly stopped singing. The silence ... the only way I could describe it is that it was rather like being enveloped in a large woolly blanket. This should have given me some apprehension, but my mind was on the girl at the party and I just disregarded it. I was ten yards from the North Gate when I happened to look across at it. What I saw was what appeared to be black treacle flowing down and running over the wall. It touched ground and actually flowed like a big black pool of liquid into the centre of the path about six feet before me. There was an icy coldness which grew more intense with the passing seconds, literally an Arctic cold. The hairs on my neck, for the first time in my life, actually stood on end. With dusk falling full on the perimeter wall, the path was in shadow, but there was a shadow discernible within that shadow. I thought 'What am I watching ? What the f**k is this ?'. The most horrible part was - and I still have nightmares about it, still wake up in a cold sweat - it reared up. I'd estimate its height at between seven or eight feet. I'm five feet eight inches tall and it towered over me. It was enormous! It was neither solid nor transparent. My overall impression was that it was a black figure wearing dark garments which flowed and stirred in the wind - but there was no wind. The edges of what it was wearing were moving. No face. Where eyes would have been if it were human, there were just two red pits, red glows, and I was very conscious that it was looking at me. At that point I realised that I was up against an entity that was both powerful and malignant. It was radiating evil, that's the only way I could describe it. This wasn't a ghost, this was an entity. There was nothing remotely human about it. It simply was not human. As an ex-Army Officer I'd come up against life threatening situations, but faced with that thing the fear was worse than anything you could imagine. I tried to do a banishing pentagram, tried to pronounce a Latin incantation to repel evil. I could do neither. I couldn't move. My limbs were like lead. My dog was a placid old thing. It never growled as a rule, but it did on that occasion and it was ... indescribable. The growl of a wolf. But it had no effect on the entity whatsoever. The next thing I can recall, I found myself up against the wall at the top of Swains Lane. The dog had beaten me there. Its fur was actually standing on end. I've no recollection of running, but I must've done. I made my way to The Flask. The first thing the landlord said as I entered was 'No dogs'. I really needed that. I tied the poor dog up, had a couple of brandies, but I was still shaking. Eventually, I called my friend on the pub phone and asked him to pick me up. I wasn't in much of a party mood by then. I think what should be emphasised is the incredible speed with which events took place. The appearance of the entity was very swift and from the time I first saw 'the treacle' to the time it was in front of me could only have been seconds ... although it seemed longer at the time. I am unable to canvass my dogs views on the subject as it returned to 'The great kennel in the sky' a few weeks after the incident. Whether this was coincidence or not I feel is conjectural. But it did become ill a couple of days after the incident, and died not much later. From old age, according to the vet. The dog was eight years old! And the girl ? She called around to ask why I hadn't attended. Not wishing to ruin my street-cred with her I told her I 'wasn't well'."

In the anthology, The Vampire's Bedside Companion (1975) which contains a chapter with photographic evidence from the Vampire Research Society, written and contributed by Seán Manchester, Peter Underwood wrote:

“Alleged sightings of a vampire-like creature ~ a grey spectre ~ lurking among the graves and tombstones have resulted in many vampire hunts. … In 1968, I heard first-hand evidence of such a sighting and my informant maintained that he and his companion had secreted themselves in one of the vaults and watched a dark figure flit among the catacombs and disappear into a huge vault from which the vampire … did not reappear. Subsequent search revealed no trace inside the vault but I was told that a trail of drops of blood stopped at an area of massive coffins which could have hidden a dozen vampires.”

And probably did! In the previous year, two schoolgirls had reported seeing the spectre rise from its tomb.

Two seemingly unconnected incidents occurred within weeks of one another in early 1967. The first involved two 16-year-old convent girls who were walking home at night after having visited friends in Highgate Village. Their return journey took them down Swains Lane past the cemetery. They could not believe their eyes as they passed the graveyard’s north gate at the top of the lane, for in front of them bodies appeared to be emerging from their tombs. One of these schoolgirls later suffered nightly visitations and blood loss. The second incident, some weeks later, involved an engaged couple who were walking down the same lane. Suddenly the female shrieked as she glimpsed something hideous hovering behind the gate’s iron railings. Then her fiancé saw it. They both stood frozen to the ground as the spectre held them in thrall. Its face bore an expression of basilisk horror. Soon others sighted the same phenomenon as it hovered along the path behind the gate where gravestones are visible either side until consumed in darkness. Before long people were talking in hushed tones about the rumoured haunting in local pubs. Some who actually witnessed the spectral figure wrote to their local newspaper to share their experience. Discovery was made of animal carcasses drained of blood. They had been so exsanguinated that a forensic sample could not be found. It was only a matter of time before a person was found in the cemetery in a pool of blood. This victim died of wounds to the throat. The police made every attempt to cover-up the vampiristic nature of the death. Seán Manchester informed the public on 27 February 1970 that the cause was most probably a vampire. He appeared on television on 13 March 1970 and repeated his theory.

The Vampire Research Society, whose specialist unit within a larger investigatory organisation (the British Occult Society, formally dissolved in August 1988) had opened the case twelve months earlier, established a history of similar hauntings that went back to before the graveyard existed. A suspected tomb was located and a spoken exorcism performed. This proved to be ineffective. The hauntings and animal deaths continued. Indeed, they multiplied. By now all sorts of people were jumping on the vampire bandwagon; including film-makers and rock musicians. Most were frightened off. Some who interloped became fascinated by the black arts with disastrous consequences. Meanwhile, serious researchers considered the possibility that a nest of vampires might be active in the area. Yet there seemed to be one principal source which the media had already dubbed a “King Vampire of the Undead.”

Seán Manchester led the thirteen year investigation from beginning to end. There was seemingly more than one vampire for him and the Vampire Research Society to confront. However, in early 1974 he tracked the principal source of the contamination, known as the Highgate Vampire, to a neo-Gothic mansion on the Highgate borders. Here he employed the ancient and approved remedy. No vampire has been sighted in or near Highgate Cemetery and its environs since that time. The exorcised remains of the Highgate Vampire appear on page 144 of his bestselling book The Highgate Vampire.