To Catch A Thief

"I expect most of you will have heard by now (especially those who have been following the Highgate ‘vampire’ saga over years) that the current video from the Highgate Vampire Symposium 2015, 'The Vampire Theory' Part 2, was suspended by You Tube recently following a complaint made by one Sean Manchester again myself for ‘copyright infringement’. [Seán] Manchester insisted that he had undertaken Court action and demanded the permanent removal of this session while Court proceedings were pending. This would have a perfectly reasonable request . . . if true. The only problem was – it wasn’t! While it is true that [Seán] Manchester made the complaint cited above, it is NOT true that [Seán] Manchester had instigated any legal action to substantiate his complaint against myself and was therefore unable to supply any evidence to YouTube to the effect he had done so. Accordingly, the video was restored on December 10th and people are now able to view it." - David Farrant (19 December 2015)

Seán Manchester made no claim whatsoever that he had "insisted that he had undertaken Court action and demanded the permanent removal of this session while Court proceedings were pending." 

Farrant's allegation is preposterous nonsense. The only action Seán Manchester took was to issue a DMCA in view of copyright material from the British Occult Society's archive being published in the video without the consent of the lawful copyright holder. And that is all Seán Manchester did.

The entire video was taken down. Seán Manchester would have been content with just the portion where illicit material appears being excised. YouTube made the decision to take down the entire video. Farrant then made a counter claim to YouTube even though he is not the copyright holder.

This is what Seán Manchester received from YouTube:

"We have received the attached counter notification in response to a complaint that you filed with us.

"We're providing you with the counter notification and await evidence (in no more than 10 business days) that you've filed an action seeking a court order against the counter notifier to restrain the allegedly infringing activity. Such evidence should be submitted by replying to this email. If we do not receive notice from you, we may reinstate the material to YouTube.

"If you have any questions, please contact copyright@youtube.com

"Display name of uploader: David Farrant

"The video does not contain material which was or is known to me to be copyright of Mr. Sean Manchester. I request that further info is supplied ASAP re: the alleged copyright breach. I can supply copyright info, as known at the time of publication.

"I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good-faith belief that the material was removed due to a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.

"I consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the district in which my address is located or, if my address is outside the United States, the judicial district in which YouTube is located, and will accept service of process from the claimant.

"David Farrant

[House number DELETED by FoBSM] 
Muswell Hill Road

London, London N10 3JE GB

[Email DELETED by FoBSM]

[Telephone number DELETED by FoBSM.]"

Seán Manchester replied to YouTube:

"Regarding the New Copyright Counter-Notification: 

"David Farrant, the person responsible for the video infringing my copyrighted photograph, does not claim that he is the lawful copyright owner of the image in dispute.

"David Farrant, the person who has infringed my copyrighted photograph, does not claim that he knows the lawful owner of the image. If he does make such a claim, I have not been advised who he attributes it to.

"David Farrant, the person who has infringed my copyrighted photograph, does not claim that he was given consent to use the image. If he does make such a claim, I have not been advised by whom.

"Nobody appears to be actually disputing the fact that the photograph is my property. Indeed, recently published statements on the internet made by David Farrant capitalise on the fact that the photograph does belong to me.

"I issued a DMCA for copyright infringement of my picture. Farrant issued a counter notification in which he merely states that it was unknown to him at the time that I am the copyright holder. 

"I see no evidence of any copyright information he might be alluding to in his notification, but one thing is certain: David Farrant is not claiming that he is the lawful copyright holder. Whereas I am.

"In view of the above, how can my DMCA be cancelled and the video containing my photograph be restored on the say-so of someone who admits elsewhere that I created the photograph and does not lay claim to its ownership?

"Sincerely,

"Seán Manchester"

YouTube did not respond Indeed, nothing further was heard from them and the video was restored when the ten days expired.

Not quite "[Seán] Manchester insisted that he had undertaken Court action and demanded the permanent removal of this session while Court proceedings were pending," is it? Once again, David Farrant demonstrates that he is a pathological liar who is willing to steal and perjure himself.

Medallion Man

"This medallion, often visible in David Farrant’s public appearances on television and at public talks, in many ways sits on the boundaries between great mountains of wisdom. David is often asked about its provenance, and is generally reluctant to discuss it. However, he can reveal that it was brought back from Egypt by a guru who had travelled there to immerse himself in the cults of the ancient Egyptian Deities, who were to impart to him the Mysteries of the Ages.  It was presented to David in the early 1970s, following his initiation into the ancient fertility religion, Wicca.  It has been magically consecrated, charged and sealed; and is regularly purified and re-consecrated should it come into contact with negative energies. This ancient gold medallion possesses great magical properties, and will protect all those honoured enough to wear it from any psychic attack levelled at them by those with negative intentions or impulses, especially those who follow the Left Hand Path. It also affords the wearer, once attuned to its powers, the gift of remote viewing." - Della Farrant

Here is the Medallion Man wearing his Ancient Egyptian "magically consecrated"  brass medallion ...

... showing it to convince folk he received it after his "initiation into the ancient fertility religion."

We quite appreciate why he is "generally reluctant to discuss it," given its actual provenance. In the 1970s, Seán Manchester performed in a number of small art house films in both France and England. Here is a promotional still from a short film called The Duel that was shot on location in England. Notice anything familiar about the brass medallion worn as a theatrical accessory around his neck?

The medallion is identical, but obviously not the same one, as that Farrant claims to be an ancient amulet charged with special powers and oozing with occult significance. Unsurprisingly, Farrant is both unwilling to discuss it, or subject it for forensic analysis to determine the medallion's true age. 

Seán Manchester had this to say about the medallion both he and Farrant acquired in the 1970s:

"The sphynx medallion we used as a prop on the set of The Duel was by no means unique. These medallions were commonplace in the 1970s in the wake of the Tutankhamun Exhibition at the British Museum in 1972. They were available on stalls, shops and other outlets exploiting the incredible fascination the public evinced at the time in all things connected with Ancient Egypt. I believe they cost less than a couple of pounds to acquire back then. There were all manner of similar trinkets appertaining to Egypt's past. Made of brass and modern, they hold no occult or magical properties."

The medallion mass produced circa 1972.

Another trinket from 1972 with the same theme.

Not the Vampire Theory (conclusion)

Patricia Langley, an accomplice of David Farrant, claims "I had a friend, I still have him, I still know him. His name is Roger" whose surname has conveniently been bleeped out on the video, so we cannot even begin to trace him. Anyone would have thought that "Roger" is a vital witness Langley would have wanted present at the Symposium to lend weight to her allegations, but no sight or sign of "Roger" was evident except on the lips of Langley. Had she have produced a willing dupe to be a false witness, of course, his claims could have been challenged and eventually revealed to be lies.

"[In the year 1990] Peter Underwood was completely dismissive of the whole phenomenon of vampires." - Patrica Langley (forty-seven minutes into the video)

This attribution by Langley about the late Peter Underwood, now no longer able to defend himself, claiming that by 1990 he would not have entertained the idea of vampires, does not accord with the known facts. In that year he published his book Exorcism! where Seán Manchester's vampire account up to the year 1970 is retold in Underwood's own words in Chapter Six, which is given the title Exorcism and Vampires. It is clear, reading this chapter where a full page photograph of Seán Manchester with accompanying accoutrements appears, Peter Underwood supported vampire belief.

Seán Manchester can be seen (above and below) attempting to exorcise the suspected tomb at the heart of Highgate Cemetery in 1970. The exorcism was covered by the BBC and also in the Hornsey Journal which had earlier reported on a satanic outrage close to the same sepulchral location.

David Farrant attributed words to Seán Manchester which anyone examining the programme (Today, Thames Television, 13 March 1970) will find he did not actually utter. Farrant can also be heard in the video denying that he intended to hunt out the cemetery vampire even though, when interviewed by the Hampstead & Highgate Express, 6 March 1970, he is quoted as saying: "I for one am prepared to pursue [the vampire], taking whatever mean might be necessary so that we can all rest." 

Farrant follows this by claiming at the Symposium, "Mr Manchester was nowhere to be seen on that night." The night he is talking about, of course, is 13 March 1970 when a massive public vampire hunt took place at Highgate Cemetery. How would Farrant know? He did not venture anywhere near the graveyard himself, and spent most of that evening in the Prince of Wales pub which is where history teacher Alan Blood discovered him before Blood proceeded alone to Swains Lane with its gathering throng. David Farrant, needless to say, stayed away from Highgate Cemetery that night.

By which time, Seán Manchester was already inside the cemetery with his hand-picked assistants. Some of that account can be read by clicking on the newspaper headline from the following day:

"We were also honoured with the presence of Dr Jacqueline Simpson. Dr Simpson first became aware of the case of the Highgate ‘vampire’ through the work of her American colleague, Professor Bill Ellis. The ostension approach posited by Ellis is postulated by Dr Simpson, with consideration of the Highgate ‘vampire’ flap." - Della Farrant aka Anna Hinton (18 November 2015 )

Enter Jacqueline Simpson twenty-four minutes into the video. Simpson is dismissive of ghosts, vampires and all things supernatural. When Langley started bleating on about ley-lines, which she explains has no supernatural aspect, Simpson's facial expression turned quite sour as eyebrows raised and eyes rolled in a most disapproving manner. Simpson rambles on with her historical folkloric anecdotes until we reach the question period with those posing questions anonymously.

"In 1993 we [Folkore Journal] got sent a very interesting article on the Highgate case by a man called Bill Ellis who came to London specially to research the Highgate story and he met David [Farrant], interviewed David, took lots of notes from David, and he wanted to interview Seán but Seán did not wish to be interviewed, got on his high horse, and said he had put all that behind him and needed the time to devote to his Church. As a result, Bill Ellis' article is full of references to David, and full or quotations from newspapers [provided by Farrant], and does quote from Manchester's published book, but he has no interviews with Manchester. Consequently, as those of you who know the man will readily appreciate, in a few months there was an explosion." 

FACT: Bill Ellis was given a clear choice to either interview David Farrant or Seán Manchester. It was widely known and appreciated at that time that the latter would not participate in any project which involved the publicity-seeker Farrant. Ellis knew this, and chose to involve Farrant. When the article was published Seán Manchester contacted Folklore to point out some serious errors which were acknowledged by both the journal and Ellis who omitted the most offensive material in his article when he regurgitated it as a chapter about the Highgate case in his book Raising the Devil.

There was certainly no "explosion." Such a term is Simpson's way of currying favour with her host, David Farrant, at the Symposium. Seán Manchester and Bill Ellis had a very convivial correspondence throughout the entire episode. Jacqueline Simpson was rather more abrasive - and economical with the truth! By the time she co-wrote The Lore of the Land and long before she spoke at the Symposium, she was in possession of a CD (The Devil's Fool) on which Farrant can be heard being interviewed across the decades. When interviewed in the 1970s he makes clear that he hunted a vampire at Highgate Cemetery and is quite unapologetic about the fact. Details of his attempt are provided by him when interviewed. Simpson knew this, but remained tight-lipped when Farrant denied having any part in this ambition. It did not suit her anti-Seán Manchester agenda to rock the boat.

This is Bill Ellis' correspondence of 22 February 1996 to Seán Manchester:

(click on image to read letter properly)

In his correspondence, Bill Ellis writes:

"We agree that the contemporary press handling was often inaccurate, and most subsequent discussions were even more distorted. Mr Farrant, since he brought the matter to the papers and was repeatedly arrested for his activities in and around Highgate, clearly was 'central to events' in this sense. Credible, I don't say: I give his explanations for what they're worth and expect that most readers would also recognize that a judge and jury found them unconvincing."

Not the Vampire Theory (Part 2)

(Click on image to view video)

The second part of the Symposium's supposed coverage of the vampire theory descends into a tissue of lies from the onset with Paul Adams coaxing David Farrant to tell all about an early witness recounted in Peter Underwood's anthology The Vampire's Bedside Companion by Seán Manchester and in even greater detail in The Highgate Vampire by the same author, Seán Manchester. An image of the witness, Elżbieta Wojdyla, published illegally at the Symposium for the audience but not in the video, can be seen below. Farrant's rambling, unsubstantiated claims are interspersed by rebuttals.

One minute and forty seconds into Part 2 of what is really not the vampire theory, Farrant alleges:

"I needed the girl's address that appeared in Peter Underwood's book, The Vampire's Bedside Companion, I can never pronounce her second name. Is it 'Wojdyla'? She's Polish. So I got this [unidentified] friend of mine to 'phone up her parents and it was either the mother of the father, I can't remember which way 'round it was. She said she wanted to speak to Elizabeth. For example, suppose it was her father, he said 'I can't speak English' and passed her to Elizabeth's mother who spoke really good English. And said, 'I'm sorry but I'll give you her work [telephone] number."

FACT: Elżbieta Wojdyla's father spoke excellent English. Indeed, considerably better than Farrant's stammered assault on English grammar. Her mother was not English. Neither was she Polish. Her accent was quite strong; probably stronger than that of her husband. They were warned about Farrant when they were both alive and were asked if anyone had ever contacted them as Farrant describes. (He has made this claim in the past). They stated unequivocally that they had not been contacted.

"My friend 'phoned and actually spoke to Elizabeth - she was very surprised - and said 'I'm looking for the address of Seán Manchester.' Elizabeth said, 'I'm sorry, I don't know. He used to live not many streets away from me, but I don't actually know the address.' And my friend said, 'Well, I thought you might do because I saw a picture of you, and I contacted the publishers and managed to trace your address. That's how I got your 'phone number and your mother gave me your work address'."

FACT: At the time that Seán Manchester and Elżbieta Wojdyla lived as close as anything being attributed in this fabricated conversation she visited him at that address and would have obviously known it. At the time Farrant claims her parents were contacted by his unnamed friend, Elżbieta Wojdyla was not living with them and her actual address was some distance away from where they lived. The publishers (Leslie Frewin Books and, later, Coronet) had absolutely no information about Elżbieta Wojdyla and could not have possibly disclosed her telephone number. Even Peter Underwood did not have any personal details of this kind about her. Only Seán Manchester did. It should also be added that Elżbieta Wojdyla's parent's telephone number was unlisted (ex-directory).

"[Elizabeth] said she hadn't seen Peter Underwood's book, and when it was described to her, and the caption read out, she burst out laughing. My friend asked her, 'What about those vampire marks on your neck?' [Elizabeth] said, 'Oh that was Seán just playing a joke."

FACT: When the paperback edition appeared in the year following the first edition's publication, Elżbieta Wojdyla was spoken to by a national newspaper when they reviewed the vampire anthology. She supported what had happened to her, as she did when interviewed much closer to the time. 

Click on the book in question (below) on which cover her image from the 1960s is visible, and listen to her own testimony in person, fifty-five seconds into the video True Horror: Evidence of Vampires:

One minute and thirty-seven seconds into the same video, Elżbieta Wojdyla can be heard saying:"One day I woke. I went downstairs, and there were two lumps on my neck. They weren't lumps. They were like pin holes." In the full interview recording (available on CD), Elżbieta Wojdyla tells of nightly visitations and specks of blood appearing on her pillow after such nightmarish experiences. Her brother even asked if she had been bitten by a vampire when the marks became more prominent; indeed, developed into open punctures.

Farrant claims she told his "friend" that the marks were Seán Manchester "just playing a joke." Listen to the brief extract from Elżbieta Wojdyla's recorded testimony from 1969 again. Then decide whether it was "just a joke."

Seven minutes into the video we hear from Patricia Langley who collaborates with Farrant's fabrications to the point of making up ones of her own. She is frequently described by Farrant as the "secretary" of his "British Psychic and Occult Society," which he invented circa 1983 after being repeatedly exposed in the media as having fraudulently hijacked the nomenclature of the British Occult Society, one of the first organisations to publicly expose Farrant as an inveterate charlatan and  impostor.

"About 2003 to 2004, when I began researching this case, I had a friend, I still have him, I still know him. His name is Roger [surname bleeped out on the video], and he is a computer scientist. In the 1960s [when Patricia Langley herself was a young child; she was barely ten when the case first hit the headlines in the following decade], he was studying computer science at the University of London and my friend Roger was into the vampire scene, the vampire sphere. And the sphere, the whole paranormal was something he was into and is still into. And he came into contact with Mr Manchester and became a good friend of his. And Roger, in 2004, told me when I was researching, 'Do you know about the film that was made?' And I said, 'Well, I know of it. Can you tell me about it?' And he said, 'Well, yeah, I can tell you about it because he invited me and a few other students that were studying at the University of London to go to a screening at his house one Saturday evening and this Jacqueline was there laying on a few nibbles, and drinks and things, and they settled down to watch this film, The Vampire Exhumed."

FACT: Seán Manchester wrote a manuscript, later a screenplay, in 1979 that he gave the title The Vampire Exhumed. A French art house film was made soon afterwards with an independent director, starring the French film actress Sylvaine Charlet who was a very close personal friend of Seán Manchester. The film was titled Le Vampire Exhumé. This was made professionally by a French production company at the turn of the 1980s. Seán Manchester did not meet a computer scientist by the name of "Roger" and had no contact with any students at the University of London. Nor did he entertain this mythical "Roger" and his student friends, or indeed anyone else, in the way described.

"And this Vampire Exhumed was the story of a vampire hunter who chases out a vampire, seeks out a vampire, in Highgate Cemetery. Made in colour, but it had no sound. It was full colour, but it didn't have any sound. Mr Manchester on film was playing both the vampire hunter and the vampire. And so I said, 'Well, this is the second independent case of the film actually having been seen by someone other than David [Farrant]  who saw it with others, and for which Mr Manchester categorically denied it. And Roger then revealed some quite good technical details about the film. He said, or he offered to me, details about the decaying scene of the vampire. What it was, Mr Manchester covered himself in flour, wet flour on his face, let it dry and after a little while it dried and fans were used and a hot breeze was used to blow the flour from his face so it looked as if his skin and the muscles and everything of the vampire's face and body was disintegrating. And I knew at that time Mr Manchester was a very good photographer. Very adept in technical effects of this kind. And Roger told me that this is how the effects of the vampire decomposing were achieved."

FACT: This is the steadily evolving account that owes its origin entirely to David Farrant who has even claimed that images of the vampire corpse in The Highgate Vampire were taken from this non-existent film. "Roger," of course, will never come forward to be identified because he does not exist. Langley claims that she "knew at that time" that Seán Manchester was "a very good photographer"and "very adept in technical effects of this kind." In fact, Seán Manchester was a portrait photographer with his own studio and a permanent staff of five people, but he did not have any expertise in ciné film, much less technical effects using ciné film. How would Langley know such a thing? She would have been practically a babe-in-arms at the time. Farrant is her exclusive source.

"When I put this to Mr Manchester in my research - it wasn't just David I interviewed, I did eventually ask for an interview with Mr Manchester and I did put these points to him in 2004 - not only did he categorically deny that this film exists, existed, but [he] told me I was all wrong, a complete liar, that I was a member of Farrant's evil cabal, and so on."

FACT: Seán Manchester has never spoken to Patricia Langley and has never discussed anything to do with the Highgate Vampire case with her. She did not interview him. The whole thing is fabricated. Langley was born in 1960, and was therefore still in junior school when the Highgate Vampire case first hit the headlines. She is a self-proclaimed witch, spiritualist, medium and number one fan of Farrant whose phoney witchcraft and pseudo-occultism has been exposed many times by investigative journalists and the law courts. The latter saw fit to sentence him to a term of almost five years’ imprisonment for crimes associated with his publicity-seeking behaviour at Highgate Cemetery in the early 1970s where he threatened witnesses in the case of his demented and perverted associate John Pope, a self-proclaimed Satanist found guilty of sexual assault on a boy.

What Langley describes as her “casebook” comprises fifty or so stapled pages bearing Farrant’s address and self-styled imprint “British Psychic and Occult Society” as the work’s publisher. The publishing address is Farrant’s attic bed-sitting room in London’s Muswell Hill Road. The copy we have seen bears a front cover containing a stolen image, as does the rear cover which displays a copyright protected photograph of Seán Manchester. Inside (on page 47 near the pamphlet’s conclusion) is another stolen image reproduced without consent from page 182 of Seán Manchester’sThe Highgate Vampire. No photograph can be found of Langley, who opts to be known as “Patsy.”

Farrant apologist Gareth Medway provides the Introduction to Langely’s stapled effort. He is the only person willing to lend his name to the printed pages and quickly runs out of steam reprinting the same invective we have seen dozens of times before in Farrant’s malicious tracts that concentrate on pursuing his principal obsession. Medway, an apologist for Left-hand Path occultists and sundry diabolists, also has an axe to grind with Seán Manchester. Like Patricia Langley, he has never had contact with Seán Manchester, but is a very close friend of Farrant with whom he has conducted publicity stunts involving an illicit, albeit phoney, “occult ritual” over a private grave in April 2005.

Patsy Langley’s little “casebook” is a clear attempt to make money off the success of Seán Manchester’s The Highgate Vampire, and she is reliant on an ex-convict waging a personal vendetta.

Twenty minutes and twenty seconds into the video, David Farrant makes the following claim:

"A person also on the programme [Today, Thames Television, 13 March 1970], being interviewed by Sandra Harris stepped forward and he said, 'No, it's definitely not a ghost. It's a vampire. And, as if to emphasise this point, as he said that he pulled a large wooden stake out of his trousers and produced a very large silver-plated crucifix."

FACT: No such words were uttered by Seán Manchester, as examination of the transmission will confirm, and no "large wooden stake [came] out of his trousers." Nor did he at any time "produce a very large silver-plated crucifix." At least, not in the Today programme of March 1970. Farrant did, however, produce a large cross and stake from inside his trousers, as confirmed four minutes and forty seconds into a video of him reconstructing for BBC the night in August 1970 when he went vampire hunting. Seán Manchester was also asked to demonstrate a Christian exorcism, as had taken place earlier in the year at Highgate Cemetery, and elucidate on the ancient practice of impalement, which he did by revealing a small wooden stake. Click on image below to view video:

Occult Duel

Jacqueline Simpson was born in 1930 and is a resident of Worthing, Sussex. She was president of the Folklore Society from 1993 to 1996 and has also been its honorary secretary. She published exceptionally misleading and grossly inaccurate statements in a book she co-wrote called The Lore of the Land, having placed reliance on her American colleague Bill Ellis whose flawed material inRaising the Devil is equally, if not more, unreliable. Some of the press cuttings referred to in Ellis' book are wrongly attributed and his writing is exceptionally biased, as is Simpson's for the same reason, because the supernatural is summarily dismissed. Ellis wrote the following response when Seán Manchester brought to his attention irrefutable evidence - in the form of copies of original reports - of his many erroneous and false attributions: “... we agree that the contemporary press handling was often inaccurate, and that most subsequent discussions were even more distorted. ...”

Jacqueline Simpson’s terse response to Seán Manchester's concern over her damaging mistakes being repeated in a pending second edition of The Lore of the Land were to appear on the internet:

“Wording changed to 'young people' and 'young man'. Name of organisation dropped, Farrant referred to simply as a 'member' of 'a group of young people interested in the paranormal.' Words 'which the paper called' inserted. No reference now to who did the challenging. Instead, neutral phrasing in allusion to press reports: 'rumours spread that a magical duel ...' The other points are rejected, and no changes will be made there.”

Unlike Bill Ellis, she has always refused to engage in any correspondence with Seán Manchester who kindly sent her copies of newspaper articles and a complimentary CD relevant to the Highgate Vampire case. While she proved most unfriendly towards Seán Manchester, she gladly agreed to speak at Farrant's Symposium held over a Highgate pub in July 2015 in order to dismiss the Highgate case further whilst inserting unprofessional, untrue and snide comments about Seán Manchester.

This is how some supposed “scholars” apparently operate. Simpson's paperback edition contained an incorrect date for a crucial newspaper article about the mysterious death of foxes even though she had cleared that up to her own satisfaction in advance. All reference to Seán Manchester's episcopal standing, albeit not entirely accurate in the first edition, was completely expurgated. She seems to know next to nothing about the case apart from what other people have published or claimed on the internet. Yet Jacqueline Simpson is entirely responsible for the Wikipedia entry about the Highgate Vampire. What she has written is full of error and totally reliant on her colleague in the United States who opted to interview Farrant in July 1992. It had already been established that he would not be able to interview both David Farrant and Seán Manchester. He had to choose. Farrant obviously provided Bill Ellis with highly prejudiced material and selected press cuttings most favourable to himself.

Bill Ellis coverage of the so-called occult duel is based on whatever press cuttings he was given by David Farrant. Ellis, therefore, provides only Farrant’s perverse version of what was described in the sensational press as a “magical duel” in 1973. Ellis writes in his book Raising the Devil: “Shortly before the event, a tabloid press article muddied the water by claiming that both Manchester and Farrant intended to slaughter a cat in front of an assembly of naked witches.” Ellis does not identify the newspaper in his text, but this is what the Sunday Mirror, 8 April 1973, actually reported alongside a photograph of Farrant with a naked girl: “The bizarre ceremony will involve naked witches, demon-raisings and the slaughter of a cat.” Seán Manchester is quoted, saying: “My opponent intends to raise a demon to destroy me by killing a cat - I will be relying solely on divine power.” Farrant insisted: “Blood must be spilled, but the cat will be anaesthetised.” The Sun newspaper, 23 November 1972, had earlier quoted Seán Manchester stating that Farrant’s boasts ought to be put to the test: “The quickest way to destroy the credibility of a witch trying to earn a reputation for himself is to challenge his magical ability before objective observers.” Yet unlike the print media, who did invite versions from both sides, no balancing comment was sought from Seán Manchester by Ellis, and certainly not by Simpson. Seán Manchester told what really happened in a work Ellis refers to in passing in his text - From Satan To Christ - which he nonetheless chose to completely ignore. The notorious posters advertising the “duel” were traced at the time to David Farrant who had engaged a small printing company used by him on earlier occasions. Ellis repeats Farrant’s falsehood to imply that Seán Manchester was responsible for these posters. Yet even Brian Netscher, editor of New Witchcraft, revealed in his magazine’s first issue: “As to the ‘test of powers’ challenge, it is a matter of public record that Mr Farrant not only accepted it but publicised it widely in the national press and by means of a rather crudely-made poster.” Seán Manchester wrote in From Satan To Christ: “There was no sign of Farrant. He had been fearlessly called to account and, like so many others who use witchcraft to instil dread, could not fulfill the least of his claims when the day of reckoning arrived. … Farrant’s excuse was that he would have been lynched by the crowd of onlookers whose arrival was entirely due to the publicity he had created in the preceding weeks.”

Ramsey Campbell, Probably Not

Ramsey Campbell (born 4 January 1946 in Liverpool) is a pulp fiction horror writer who has been publishing things morbid, monstrous and malevolent for fifty years. Two of his novels have been filmed for non-English-speaking markets. None have been filmed for the English-speaking market.

Robert Hadji has described him as "perhaps the finest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition" (The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, 1986). Yet there is a side to Campbell every bit as dark and disturbing as the fantasies in print that have sprung from his mind.

David Farrant (born 23 January 1946 in London) is nineteen days younger than Ramsey Campbell. They have never met, but share a kindred ambition as far as the author and exorcist Seán Manchester is concerned. Those who use Farrant's propaganda against Seán Manchester also support Campbell and at least two, namely Anthony Hogg and Carl Ford, have assisted Campbell with additions to his reprint of a collection of essays in which the author of The Highgate Vampire and the case he investigated almost half a century ago is seriously misrepresented. 

A Farrant flunkie and general dogsbody wrote the following on Facebook on 2 November 2015:

"In a development that is sure to give Seán Manchester nightmares worthy of Hallowe'en, horror supremo Ramsey Campbell has revisited his cult title - a collection of essays on the genre - for this new reprint. Originally published by PS back in 2002, Campbell has since expanded some of his essays, added others and generally tinkered around with the general running order for this new edition. This book is of special interest to Highgate Vampire enthusiasts due to the inclusion of 'The Strange Case of Sean Manchester' - an essay first published in the fanzine Shock Xpress in which Campbell critiqued both editions of Manchester's [The] Highgate Vampire book and listed a shocking number of revisions and outright contradictions in his narrative. Manchester, naturally was none too pleased by this level of academic scrutiny and threatened both author and publisher with legal action. Well our mole has reliably informed us that Campbell has also expanded his Highgate Vampire piece - thanks in the main to the provision of rare and previously overlooked material by case researchers Anthony Hogg and Carl Ford." - Redmond McWilliams (Facebook, 2/11/2015)

If  Seán Manchester has any concern at all it would be due to the fact that Ramsey Campbell quite obviously harbours exceptional hostility towards him; so much so that he libelled Seán Manchester's wife in Stefan Jaworzyn's Shock Xpress, 1 (Titan, 1991) to which Campbell made a contribution. Not only were Seán Manchester's books in print attacked and misrepresented, but the most outrageous allegations imaginable were levelled against his wife whom Campbell does not know and has never met. Seán Manchester threatened to take legal action. Titan promised to make it right, and extracted a written apology from Ramsey Campbell whose anti-Seán Manchester articles in Shock Xpress comprise some of the essays in the recently enlarged collection referred to by McWilliams.

On 3 November 2015, Seán Manchester wrote to the founder of PS Publishing, Peter Crowther:

"Mr Campbell has not once consulted me to iron out anything he might require clarification on, but, according to those in touch with him on the internet, has consulted and used material provided by people with an axe to grind. Those who have apparently been most influential in my denigration all have a connection, directly or indirectly, with a man who was found guilty and sentenced to a term of imprisonment for satanic crimes at Highgate Cemetery in the 1970s. He is the source of the majority of antipathetic material where I am concerned. My being a Christian traditionalist has made me a target. All the aforementioned share a sympathy for the dark occult. Therein lies the agenda.

"I have only met Ramsey Campbell once, which was on 26 April 1990 when I featured throughout the morning on BBC’s 'Open Air' and did a concentrated interview with Eamonn Holmes around 10.00am. Mr Campbell appeared in a slot on the same morning to talk about his books that I witnessed him carefully assemble out of a case and display in readiness. However, I cannot remember any conversation taking place between us. He was totally preoccupied with arranging his paperbacks and didn’t want to be distracted, or at least so it seemed. The second and ony other time to my knowledge that I have been in the same space as Mr Campbell was on the occasion of my Central Weekend Television appearance before a studio audience on 14 September 1990, which audience included Ramsey Campbell among its number. I did not meet Mr Campbell on that occasion, as I was the featured guest with scant opportunity to talk to any audience members. I was afterwards whisked away via the stage on which I entered

"I am puzzled, therefore, in view of this total lack of communication between us why Mr Campbell harbours such exceptional resentment toward me."

Peter Crowther ignored a request from Seán Manchester to see the publication in question and indeed did not respond to emails to the publisher's office or the private message from which a section appears above courtesy of its author. On November 5th, however, Seán Manchester managed to reach Crowther via the publisher's office telephone and calmly raised his concerns. He was brusquely told to speak directly to Ramsey Campbell. The publisher did not regard the matter his responsibility and, after telling Seán Manchester to buy the book, abruptly put the telephone down.

Ramsey Campbell had confirmed his conspiracy to further denigrate Seán Manchester by publishing the following comment on one of Anthony Hogg's anti-Seán Manchester Facebook groups:

"If I may indulge in self-promotion, this considerably expanded and revised reprint includes a longer Highgate Vampire piece, thanks to both Anthony Hogg and Carl Ford, who supplied me with rare material I'd previously overlooked."

It was posted prior to Redmond McWilliams' commentary and was probably the inspiration for it. Hogg has trolled Seán Manchester on the internet for a decade with incitements, plus propaganda sourced to David Farrant. Carl Ford has openly promoted Farrant and disseminated Farrant's self-published pamphlets and books - all of which infringe Seán Manchester's copyright and defame him.

CLICK ON INDIVIDUAL SCREENSHOTS TO READ:

Trying to Undermine Underwood

(Click on image to view video)

Eleven minutes into a rambling avoidance of actually discussing the vampire theory, which never seems to get examined, Paul Adams mentions in passing that the late Peter Underwood knew both Montague Summers and Seán Manchester. He falsely describes Montague Summers as a "self-styled priest" and incorrectly titles Seán Manchester as "Mister" throughout. In fact, Montague Summers was a bona fide priest and, in the last years of his life, a bishop. Likewise, the correct formality for the Right Reverend Seán Manchester is "Bishop" and not "Mister." But when was Adams ever interested in paying attention to facts that might upset his collaborator David Farrant?

Adams also intimates that without Underwood's The Vampire's Bedside Companion the public would have been none the wiser about the case as it unfolded. This flies in the face of the fact that Seán Manchester was already planning to publish his full and unexpurgated account as soon as the case was satisfactorily resolved. His contribution to Peter Underwood's aforementioned anthology, by far the largest section of the book, was merely a precursor to his own The Highgate Vampire which, curiously, is a work that Paul Adams does not mention or refer to in this first part of the Symposium's alleged discussion of the vampire theory. Yet the account, first published by the British Occult Society and currently available in hardback from Gothic Press, was instrumental in acquainting the wider public with the investigation from start to finish. Peter Underwood's book contained a summary of the case up until and including the exorcism attempt in the summer of 1970.

  

The vampire theory, as far as Highgate is concerned, becomes forgotten as the video progresses, but not before Paul Adams concedes that, more than anyone else, Peter Underwood believed Seán Manchester knew what really happened. A mean-spirited attempt is then made by Adams to excuse Underwood's open support for Seán Manchester's account, but it can be seen for what it is, and does him no favours. The video concludes just as Adams turns to Farrant with mention of the convent girl identified in both Peter Underwood's and Seán Manchester's book who bore bite marks on her neck. Those attending the Symposium were shown on the screen behind the panel a photograph of the girl with the marks on her neck. This is occluded in the video version because no consent was given by Seán Manchester for its use. Its use and abuse, therefore, falls foul of copyright law. No doubt the second part of the Not the Vampire Theory session will commence with Farrant making false and unsupported allegations about a person and incidents of which he knows absolutely nothing.

As already stated, Paul Adams refers to Montague Summers as "self-styled." Here are some facts:

Montague Summers grew up in a wealthy family living in Clifton, near Bristol. Religion always played a large part in his life. He was raised as an evangelical Anglican, but his love of ceremonial and sacraments drew him to Anglo-Catholicism. After graduating in Theology at Oxford he took the first steps towards holy orders at Lichfield Theological College and entered his apprenticeship as a curate in the diocese of Bitton near Bristol. A year or so later he converted to Roman Catholicism. He had been made a deacon within the Church of England, and was diaconated again within the Roman Catholic Church, but it was not until he embraced the Old Catholic Church that he was ordained into the sacred priesthood. He celebrated Mass publicly when travelling abroad, but at home in England he only performed this sacrament in private. This was probably due to the fact that he was ordained into the priesthood outside the regular procedures of the Church. Old Catholic holy orders, albeit valid, are irregular in the eyes of Rome and Canterbury (the latter, of course, being the Church of England, is not accepted as being remotely valid by Rome). Montague Summers, in whose memory Seán Manchester would dedicate the revised and enlarged edition of The Highgate Vampire, entered the Old Catholic priesthood (having been diaconated in 1908 in the Church of England, and later joining the diaconate in the Roman Catholic Church, which he entered a year later). Bishop Summers was consecrated for the Order of Corporate Reunion on 21 June 1927 by Dominic Albert Godwin. He was later consecrated sub conditione on 21 March 1946 by Roger Stephen Matthews and appointed Nuncio for Great Britain. Like Bishop Seán Manchester, he wrote books about demonology whilst placing great emphasis on exorcism. Summers' biographer is the Carmelite Father Brocard Sewell.

None of Montague Summers' close friends doubted the sincerity of his religious faith. Dame Sybil Thorndike wrote of him: “I think that because of his profound belief in the tenets of orthodox Catholic Christianity he was able to be in a way almost frivolous in his approach to certain macabre heterodoxies. His humour, his ‘wicked humour’ as some people called it, was most refreshing, so different from the tiresome sentimentalism of so many convinced believers.”