"I like David [Farrant]; a lot more than some people I could mention - he's a very easy going and polite gentleman with a great sense of humor [sic]. ... Who has actually 'won' re Highgate - everyone is still clutching at straws. I would suggest Farrant could be the 'winner' as his theory of it being a 'tupla' (or thought form) could be close to the truth; read as 'psycho-social construct' if you are sceptical! ... Being nominated as a Bishop is a vocation and spiritual path - it has nothing whatsoever to do with Highgate or 'winning' or 'losing.' One could argue that Farrant has followed his own spiritual path - which has been a harsh one at times." - Robert Moore (ASSAP Secretary, commenting on Farrant and Seán Manchester on Hogg's Facebook hate group, 19 November 2016)
Being a consecrated bishop with a vocation and spiritual path, and exorcising evil, whether at Highgate or elsewhere, are not mutually exclusive pursuits. Being the secretary of the ASSAP, a registered charity, requires impartiality as a condition for remaining a charity; something Moore has failed to demonstrate over and over again. The influence of Farrant, Hogg and Swale is palpable.
Farrant's latest fad is a "tulpa" to explain away what he used to call a "ghost" (described by him in March 1970 on Thames Television to Sandra Harris as a dead body emanating evil). Now it has become a projection of the mind. This will ingratiate him with the people he surrounds himself with nowadays and relies upon for what publicity he can garner, eg sceptics like Moore, Hogg and Swale.
Robert Moore talks of Farrant following his own sometimes harsh spiritual path, being easy going and, moreover, a polite gentleman with a great sense of humour? Really? Can Moore be serious?
Farrant's only path has been the selfish pursuit of self-publicity at the cost of other people. Those who actually know him, and knew him almost half a century ago, are all too aware that he believes in nothing spiritual. Even his witchcraft and black magic capers were manufactured for publicity. As for Farrant's sense of humour, if he has one at all it is a sense of humour that is certainly sick and cruel.
Those who really knew and in some cases still know David Farrant have a very different tale to tell:
Actually, it's the same Muswell Hill bedsit he was found by his Probation Officer forty years ago!
Farrant was arrested in December 2002 and charged with the harassment of Seán Manchester, Sarah Manchester, Diana Brewester, Keith Maclean and others. The Crown Prosecution Service did not proceed with their case, however, due to him taking great care to stagger the frequency of incidents so that they fell just outside the remit for the minimum number of offences required per month for a case to be successfully prosecuted via the precise charge brought under the section of the Protection from Harassment Act invoked. This was confirmed by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. Had the police merely charged him with sending malicious mail, Farrant would have undoubtedly been found guilty but his punishment would have then only been a fine. Whereas the actual charges for harassment brought by the police were more serious, and if the CPS had allowed the case to be taken to trial it could have resulted in him receiving a custodial sentence.
Diana Brewester, Seán Manchester's friend and London secretary died of cancer in December 2003, having been harassed and libelled by Farrant in her latter years. Farrant invariably sent his malicious pamphlets to his victims. One such item contained Diana's private address which he published and circulated via the pamphlet. He also published false and disgusting claims about her private sexual life, none of which were true. Farrant has absolutely no regard for the way he maligns people, steals, lies and causes grief to whomsoever he pleases. Throughout his life he has not shown any remorse for his behaviour and crimes. Indeed, he has always sought to capitalise on them; bragging to the press and regurgitating them in self-published pamphlets crammed with libel and copyright infringement. His entire life has been predicated on the execution of grievances, vendettas and depraved pranks. Apart from a week or two as a porter in late 1970, he has received state benefits his entire life. Yet this same man has managed to hoodwink latter-day academics and journalists.
Farrant's many criminal convictions began in 1972 with an indecency charge in Monken Hadley churchyard under the Ecclesiastic Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860. Victoria Jervis was also found guilty. Her revelations under oath when called as a witness during Farrant's Old Bailey trials at the Central Criminal Court two years later are damning, to say the least. This is what she said:
"I have tried to put most of what happened out of my mind. The false letters I wrote to a local paper were to stimulate publicity for the accused. I saw him almost every weekend in the second half of 1972 and I went to Spain with him for a fortnight at the end of June that same year. I was arrested with him in Monken Hadley Churchyard. That incident upset me very much. Afterwards, my doctor prescribed tranquillisers for me."
Facing David Farrant in court to address him, Victoria Jervis added:
"You have photographed me a number of times in your flat with no clothes on. One photograph was published in 1972 with a false caption claiming I was a member of your Society, which I never was."
On another occasion, she recalled, how she had written pseudonymously to a local newspaper at Farrant's request "to stimulate publicity for the accused."
Back in 1972 during the indecency case, "Mr P J Bucknell, prosecuting, said Mr Farrant had painted circles on the ground, lit with candles, and had told reporters and possibly the police of what he was doing. 'This appears to be a sordid attempt to obtain publicity,' he said." (Hampstead & Highgate Express, 24 November 1972).
Speaking at the April 1996 Fortean Times Convention, Maureen Speller commented: "The programme came up with ‘His investigations had far reaching and disturbing consequences’ which I said meant he’d been arrested a lot. Strangely enough, this is more or less what he said. God, I felt old being the only member of [my] group who could remember this nutter being arrested every few weeks.”
“The wife of self-styled occult priest David Farrant told yesterday of giggles in the graveyard when the pubs had closed. ‘We would go in, frighten ourselves to death and come out again,’ she told an Old Bailey jury. Attractive Mary Farrant — she is separated from her husband and lives in Southampton — said they had often gone to London’s Highgate Cemetery with friends ‘for a bit of a laugh.’ But they never caused any damage. ‘It was just a silly sort of thing that you do after the pubs shut,’ she said. Mrs Farrant added that her husband’s friends who joined in the late night jaunts were not involved in witchcraft or the occult. She had been called as a defence witness by her 28-year-old husband. They have not lived together for three years.” (The Sun, 21 June 1974).
“All he talked about was his witchcraft. He was very vain.” (Julia Batsford, an ex-girlfriend quoted in the Daily Mail, 26 June 1974).
"Au pair Martine de Sacy has exposed the fantasy world of David Farrant, self-styled high priest of British witchcraft, for whom she posed nude in front of a tomb. Farrant was convicted last week by a jury who heard stories of Satanic rites, vampires and death-worship with girls dancing in a cemetery. Afterwards, 23-year-old Martine said: 'He was a failure as a lover. In fact, I think his trouble was that he was seeking compensation for this. He was always after publicity and he felt that having all these girls around helped. I'm sure the night he took me to the cemetery had less to do with occultism than his craving to be the centre of something.' ... While Martine told her story in Paris, customers at Farrant's local — the Prince of Wales in Highgate, London — chuckled over the man they called 'Birdman.' One regular said: 'He used to come in with a parrot on his shoulder. One night he came in with photos of Martine in the nude. We pinched one, and when she next came in, we told her he was selling them at 5p a time. She went through the ceiling.' ... Farrant called his estranged wife Mary, in his defence. She said: 'We would go in the cemetery with my husband's friends when the pubs had closed. We would frighten ourselves to death and come out again. It was just a silly sort of thing that you do after the pubs close. Nobody was involved in witchcraft or the occult'." (News of the World, 30 June 1974).
“The jury were shown folders of pictures of naked girls and corpses, and told about a black-clothed altar in Farrant's flat with a large drawing of a vampire's face. When questioned, Farrant said: 'A corpse was needed to talk to spirits of another world'.” (George Hunter & Richard Wright, Daily Express, 26 June 1974).
“The judge said any interference with a corpse during black magic rituals could properly be regarded as a ‘great scandal and a disgrace to religion, decency and morality’.” (The Sun, 26 June 1974).
“Judge Michael Argyle QC passed sentence after reading medical and mental reports. He said that Farrant — self-styled High Priest — had acted ‘quite regardless of the feelings of ordinary people,’ by messing about at Highgate Cemetery.” (Hornsey Journal, 19 July 1974).
Farrant's journalist collaborator Frank Thorne dubbed him the "Prince of Darkness" (Sunday People, 16 April 1978).
The person closest to an accurate appraisal is author Dennis Wheatley who stated "I cannot believe for one moment that he is a serious student of the occult. In fact I believe [him] to be evil and entirely to be deplored." (Daily Express, 26 June 1974).
In the same article Canon Pearce Higgins said "I think he's crazy."
Farrant sued the Daily Express, Canon Pearce Higgins and Dennis Wheatley but lost the action, receiving a bill for £20,000 court costs, none of which has been repaid.
He told readers of New Witchcraft magazine, issue #4, the following in an unedited article penned at the behest of the magazine's editor from his prison cell:
"The intrinsic details regarding this part of the ceremony however, must remain secret; suffice it is to say here that the entity (in its now omniscient form) was to be magically induced by the ritual act of blood-letting, then brought to visible appearance through the use of the sex act. ... I disrobed the Priestess and myself and, with the consecrated blood, made the secret sigils of the Deity on her mouth, breast, and all the openings of her body. We then lay in the Pentagram and began love-making, all the time visualizing the Satanic Force so that it could — temporarily — take possession of our bodies."
On his 1975 article, Farrant later recalled (to his friend and collaborator Kevin Demant):
"When I had time to spare I wrote a few articles. I sent one to New Witchcraft which was used, and I mean, every single word was used. It was written on old scraps of paper, anything I could get together because obviously, they wouldn't have given me official writing paper to do that, apart from which, it would have been stopped anyway. That was smuggled out and used. I also wrote one for Penthouse, because ... they'd played up the sex angle in court and all the papers were implying ... I thought, well, it's a magazine, they could be half-serious. I mean, bloody hell, it was sold in W H Smiths!"
Being a consecrated bishop with a vocation and spiritual path, and exorcising evil, whether at Highgate or elsewhere, are not mutually exclusive pursuits. Being the secretary of the ASSAP, a registered charity, requires impartiality as a condition for remaining a charity; something Moore has failed to demonstrate over and over again. The influence of Farrant, Hogg and Swale is palpable.
Farrant's latest fad is a "tulpa" to explain away what he used to call a "ghost" (described by him in March 1970 on Thames Television to Sandra Harris as a dead body emanating evil). Now it has become a projection of the mind. This will ingratiate him with the people he surrounds himself with nowadays and relies upon for what publicity he can garner, eg sceptics like Moore, Hogg and Swale.
Robert Moore talks of Farrant following his own sometimes harsh spiritual path, being easy going and, moreover, a polite gentleman with a great sense of humour? Really? Can Moore be serious?
Farrant's only path has been the selfish pursuit of self-publicity at the cost of other people. Those who actually know him, and knew him almost half a century ago, are all too aware that he believes in nothing spiritual. Even his witchcraft and black magic capers were manufactured for publicity. As for Farrant's sense of humour, if he has one at all it is a sense of humour that is certainly sick and cruel.
Those who really knew and in some cases still know David Farrant have a very different tale to tell:
Actually, it's the same Muswell Hill bedsit he was found by his Probation Officer forty years ago!
Diana Brewester, Seán Manchester's friend and London secretary died of cancer in December 2003, having been harassed and libelled by Farrant in her latter years. Farrant invariably sent his malicious pamphlets to his victims. One such item contained Diana's private address which he published and circulated via the pamphlet. He also published false and disgusting claims about her private sexual life, none of which were true. Farrant has absolutely no regard for the way he maligns people, steals, lies and causes grief to whomsoever he pleases. Throughout his life he has not shown any remorse for his behaviour and crimes. Indeed, he has always sought to capitalise on them; bragging to the press and regurgitating them in self-published pamphlets crammed with libel and copyright infringement. His entire life has been predicated on the execution of grievances, vendettas and depraved pranks. Apart from a week or two as a porter in late 1970, he has received state benefits his entire life. Yet this same man has managed to hoodwink latter-day academics and journalists.
Farrant's many criminal convictions began in 1972 with an indecency charge in Monken Hadley churchyard under the Ecclesiastic Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860. Victoria Jervis was also found guilty. Her revelations under oath when called as a witness during Farrant's Old Bailey trials at the Central Criminal Court two years later are damning, to say the least. This is what she said:
"I have tried to put most of what happened out of my mind. The false letters I wrote to a local paper were to stimulate publicity for the accused. I saw him almost every weekend in the second half of 1972 and I went to Spain with him for a fortnight at the end of June that same year. I was arrested with him in Monken Hadley Churchyard. That incident upset me very much. Afterwards, my doctor prescribed tranquillisers for me."
Facing David Farrant in court to address him, Victoria Jervis added:
"You have photographed me a number of times in your flat with no clothes on. One photograph was published in 1972 with a false caption claiming I was a member of your Society, which I never was."
On another occasion, she recalled, how she had written pseudonymously to a local newspaper at Farrant's request "to stimulate publicity for the accused."
Back in 1972 during the indecency case, "Mr P J Bucknell, prosecuting, said Mr Farrant had painted circles on the ground, lit with candles, and had told reporters and possibly the police of what he was doing. 'This appears to be a sordid attempt to obtain publicity,' he said." (Hampstead & Highgate Express, 24 November 1972).
Speaking at the April 1996 Fortean Times Convention, Maureen Speller commented: "The programme came up with ‘His investigations had far reaching and disturbing consequences’ which I said meant he’d been arrested a lot. Strangely enough, this is more or less what he said. God, I felt old being the only member of [my] group who could remember this nutter being arrested every few weeks.”
“The wife of self-styled occult priest David Farrant told yesterday of giggles in the graveyard when the pubs had closed. ‘We would go in, frighten ourselves to death and come out again,’ she told an Old Bailey jury. Attractive Mary Farrant — she is separated from her husband and lives in Southampton — said they had often gone to London’s Highgate Cemetery with friends ‘for a bit of a laugh.’ But they never caused any damage. ‘It was just a silly sort of thing that you do after the pubs shut,’ she said. Mrs Farrant added that her husband’s friends who joined in the late night jaunts were not involved in witchcraft or the occult. She had been called as a defence witness by her 28-year-old husband. They have not lived together for three years.” (The Sun, 21 June 1974).
“All he talked about was his witchcraft. He was very vain.” (Julia Batsford, an ex-girlfriend quoted in the Daily Mail, 26 June 1974).
"Au pair Martine de Sacy has exposed the fantasy world of David Farrant, self-styled high priest of British witchcraft, for whom she posed nude in front of a tomb. Farrant was convicted last week by a jury who heard stories of Satanic rites, vampires and death-worship with girls dancing in a cemetery. Afterwards, 23-year-old Martine said: 'He was a failure as a lover. In fact, I think his trouble was that he was seeking compensation for this. He was always after publicity and he felt that having all these girls around helped. I'm sure the night he took me to the cemetery had less to do with occultism than his craving to be the centre of something.' ... While Martine told her story in Paris, customers at Farrant's local — the Prince of Wales in Highgate, London — chuckled over the man they called 'Birdman.' One regular said: 'He used to come in with a parrot on his shoulder. One night he came in with photos of Martine in the nude. We pinched one, and when she next came in, we told her he was selling them at 5p a time. She went through the ceiling.' ... Farrant called his estranged wife Mary, in his defence. She said: 'We would go in the cemetery with my husband's friends when the pubs had closed. We would frighten ourselves to death and come out again. It was just a silly sort of thing that you do after the pubs close. Nobody was involved in witchcraft or the occult'." (News of the World, 30 June 1974).
“The jury were shown folders of pictures of naked girls and corpses, and told about a black-clothed altar in Farrant's flat with a large drawing of a vampire's face. When questioned, Farrant said: 'A corpse was needed to talk to spirits of another world'.” (George Hunter & Richard Wright, Daily Express, 26 June 1974).
“The judge said any interference with a corpse during black magic rituals could properly be regarded as a ‘great scandal and a disgrace to religion, decency and morality’.” (The Sun, 26 June 1974).
“Judge Michael Argyle QC passed sentence after reading medical and mental reports. He said that Farrant — self-styled High Priest — had acted ‘quite regardless of the feelings of ordinary people,’ by messing about at Highgate Cemetery.” (Hornsey Journal, 19 July 1974).
This is how Sue Kentish's feature article in the News of the
World, 23 September 1973, opens:
"But for the results
of his actions, this scruffy little witch could be laughed at. But no one can
laugh at a man who admits slitting the throat of a live cat before launching a
blood-smeared orgy. Or at a man who has helped reduce at least two young women
to frightened misery. Farrant runs his wretched cult from a cluttered flat above
a chemist's shop in Archway Road, Highgate, London. When I first met him, he
seemed normal enough. But over the course of a few weeks, I got to know him
better. I found him to be totally besotted by witchcraft and the occult and
ready to do anything in pursuit of both."
Farrant is later quoted as
saying:
"My curses have never failed, as far as I know. Situations have
always righted themselves after I put a curse on. Others will tell you how I
reduced one man to a mental breakdown and in the end he begged me to remove the
curse."
Sue Kentish
continues:
"With a shrug of the shoulders he admitted mercilessly: "If somebody crosses me or my friends, I will use a curse, but only if it becomes necessary as a last resort'."
"With a shrug of the shoulders he admitted mercilessly: "If somebody crosses me or my friends, I will use a curse, but only if it becomes necessary as a last resort'."
Wiccan high priest Stewart Farrar said of Farrant:
"He gives witchcraft a bad name" (Daily Mail, 26 June 1974).
Farrant's journalist collaborator Frank Thorne dubbed him the "Prince of Darkness" (Sunday People, 16 April 1978).
The person closest to an accurate appraisal is author Dennis Wheatley who stated "I cannot believe for one moment that he is a serious student of the occult. In fact I believe [him] to be evil and entirely to be deplored." (Daily Express, 26 June 1974).
In the same article Canon Pearce Higgins said "I think he's crazy."
Farrant sued the Daily Express, Canon Pearce Higgins and Dennis Wheatley but lost the action, receiving a bill for £20,000 court costs, none of which has been repaid.
He told readers of New Witchcraft magazine, issue #4, the following in an unedited article penned at the behest of the magazine's editor from his prison cell:
"The intrinsic details regarding this part of the ceremony however, must remain secret; suffice it is to say here that the entity (in its now omniscient form) was to be magically induced by the ritual act of blood-letting, then brought to visible appearance through the use of the sex act. ... I disrobed the Priestess and myself and, with the consecrated blood, made the secret sigils of the Deity on her mouth, breast, and all the openings of her body. We then lay in the Pentagram and began love-making, all the time visualizing the Satanic Force so that it could — temporarily — take possession of our bodies."
On his 1975 article, Farrant later recalled (to his friend and collaborator Kevin Demant):
"When I had time to spare I wrote a few articles. I sent one to New Witchcraft which was used, and I mean, every single word was used. It was written on old scraps of paper, anything I could get together because obviously, they wouldn't have given me official writing paper to do that, apart from which, it would have been stopped anyway. That was smuggled out and used. I also wrote one for Penthouse, because ... they'd played up the sex angle in court and all the papers were implying ... I thought, well, it's a magazine, they could be half-serious. I mean, bloody hell, it was sold in W H Smiths!"
"If I never see nothing more this man writes it will be too soon! He should take a few lessons from David in how to treat people decently. I've never had any issues with David Farrant . He never writes blogs belittling me, my position in ASSAP and my views! And now he mocks my family name as well. This is the man who gets upset when I look at mugs." - Robert Moore (Facebook, 20 November 2016)
ReplyDeletePerhaps if you stopped talking about me in a negative light on social media it might be more productive?
I fear that any lessons taken from Farrant would be to the detriment and cost of other people, as so many have amply attested throughout the dissolute and often cruel life he has led.
You look merely to the veneer presented by this man, and see nothing beyond its shallow surface. Perhaps you want to see nothing other than a thin layer covering very different content?
Farrant has no reason to critcise you because you are instrumental in providing him with the very thing he has always craved ... publicity!
I have never belittled your position in the ASSAP. I and others have simply questioned your impartiality as its secretary in relation to its charitable status requiring an impartial approach. That is all.
The FoBSM merely made a play on words to produce a harmless title. How is that mocking your family name?
You are too sensitive by far to be engaging in the cut and thrust of a history you appear to have very little knowledge about, and administrating two Highgate Vampire groups (one open, the other closed) will obviously invite attention. It would be incredibly naive to imagine otherwise.
P.S.:
I did not get upset at you asking Farrant for a "Bishop Bonkers" mug, which he duly supplied. I merely questioned how that could be viewed as an impartial act.