Hogg versus the Bishop ~ Who is Trolling Whom?

Wiggins Of The Night

Academic and self-proclaimed "obscure private intellectual" Steve Wiggins has been at it again. We have edited out of this new Wiggins' article about Highgate Cemetery and its past vampire history his unashamed promotion of a hate site run by Anthony Hogg and Erin Chapman that concentrates on attempting to undermine and misrepresent Seán Manchester. Steve Wiggins was sufficiently impressed by their lame attacks that he linked to the site despite having already been provideed with a rational explanation by Seán Manchester in the comments below an earlier Steve Wiggins' article. 

Wiggins  explains:

"The [Hogg/Chapman] article investigates claims made in Seán Manchester’s book on the subject (reviewed elsewhere on this blog), demonstrating that his locations, photographs, and narrative don’t add up. ... Now I’ll sleep more securely on my next visit to London. I hope." 

"The conclusions are disputed," he admits, but is unwilling to publish why the conclusions are disputed by Seán Manchester whose previous comment beneath an earlier article Wiggins appears to be completely oblivious about. Or is he? Maybe he simply doesn't want to stretch his supposed "intellect" beyond linking to what a pair of trolls have on offer? Why would we say such a thing?

At 4.33am on August 29th (today, in fact), Seán Manchester addressed the claims by repeating his counter-claim. His comment was awaiting moderation and did not appear. However, at 8.35am on August 29th, Hogg commented by thanking Wiggins, plus a link to yet more anti-Seán Manchester propaganda. Hogg's comment was published straight away. Seán Manchester's comment is yet to appear and, many hours later, still awaits moderation by "obscure private intellectual" Wiggins.

Worry not, the unpublished comment made prior to Hogg's follows the expurgated Wiggins' article.

Steve Wiggins eventually briefly published Seán Manchester's comments, and then promptly deleted every comment he had made on Of The Night, and all comments on Staking A Claim save for the first three that were inviting some dialogue with Wiggins. Hogg's links to malicious sites remained.

Mistaking A Claim

Steve Wiggins apparently showed no interest in asking any questions.

Anthony Hogg did indeed hijack the thread with his predictable avalanche of negativity and familiar links to hate sites and blogs created by himself to malign and misrepresent Seán Manchester.

No First Name, Please!

"We still have surnames for strangers and first names for friends." — Katharine Whitehorn (The Guardian, 2 April 2013)

"Since when did first-name terms become acceptable etiquette? I didn't get that memo. ... One minute there was Mrs Thatcher, who would have bopped anyone who called her Maggie, then New Labour came along and we lurched into this extreme form of 'Call-me-Tony/Dave' pseudo-intimacy. In the process, we out-Americanised the Americans (who can, in fact, be curiously formal in their forms of address)." — Celia Walden (The Telegraph, 18 December 2009)

"Shouldn't we all try to be 'social' to each other?" asks Redmond McWilliams. Are we missing something here? Redmond McWilliams is a close personal friend and supporter of David Farrant who, more than anyone else, has waged a malicious vendetta against Seán Manchester for decades, self-publishing reams of libel in booklets containg a plethora of copyright infringement, and inciting others to join in his hate campaign. Redmond McWilliams is regarded as Farrant's right-hand man.

Setting enemies aside, the correct etiquette if unsure of what to call someone is to use a formal address, certainly not to use a first name. This becomes magnified when addressing elders.

A sociopath is someone with a personality disorder manifesting in extreme antisocial attitudes and behaviour. That rather sums up Trystan Lewis Swale perfectly. He has attempted to insinuate himself into every place where Seán Manchester dwells. He has attempted to join groups administrated by Seán Manchester, some of them private, under his real name and also pseudonyms. The Cheltenham clown claims to be all manner of things he is not, including someone working for the "security services" in order to break down people's unwillingness to engage with him. The man, in fact, is not usefully employed as anything. He has turned against people who were previously his friends, and in some cases allies, individuals such as Hayley Stevens, Angie Mary Watkins, Barbara Green and a host of others, all mostly female. He decided earlier this year to start publicly stalking two females who have been closely associated with Seán Manchester in the distant past, at a time when Swale was not even born. One of the two females spoke to Seán Manchester when alerted to what was happening, and reiterated she did not want to have the past raked up after half a century, and would take every necessary precaution to prevent this from happening. The other female made very clear to Seán Manchester when they last had contact that, despite her work as a photographic model and being romantically attached to him in the past, she had every intention of protecting her privacy and would certainly not welcome any intrusion from those seeking to exploit her connection with Seán Manchester. This has not prevented Swale, and his fellow stalker Hogg, contacting newspapers to have their stalking intentions published, but their attempts have come to nothing.

Swale has telephoned Seán Manchester via the latter's ex-directory number. He has pursued people who have a close historic connection to Seán Manchester, and has bought a website domain with exactly the same name as the title of one of Seán Manchester's bestselling books. On his website, as elsewhere, Swale misrepresents, defames and exhibits malice toward Seán Manchester.

Many critics? Seán Manchester's critics pale into insignificance compared to Farrant and his cronies.

How can anyone apply the same maxim to Swale? Seán Manchester has been a well known public figure for almost half a century who has appeared in many films, hundreds of television and radio programmes, plus other walks of life where he is celebrated in other ways. Now a relatively old man, Seán Manchester wants to be left in peace and to have his privacy respected. Swale has no intention of allowing that to happen, and obsessively pursues his quarry from day to day; so much so, that the authorities have had to be alerted to Swale's harassment, and calls to Seán Manchester's telephone number are monitored and recorded. The only other "critics" (to use that euphamism) who pursue Seán Manchester are David Farrant, Redmond McWilliams, Erin Chapman and Anthony Hogg. They, along with Farrant's son, Jamie, are his only real "critics" (trolls). Seán Manchester has been obliged to concisely address some of Farrant's interfering in books, but, apart from briefly and accurately referring to Farrant in a television programme on 13 March 1970, he has never since mentioned the miscreant in the broadcast media. Farrant, on the other hand, has done little else but mention Seán Manchester wherever he can and at every available opportunity. 

Trystan Lewis Swale desperately wants to establish contact with Seán Manchester; indeed, he wants to meet him on public platforms such as the ASSAP event. Seán Manchester, understandably, wants nothing whatsoever to do with Swale, Hogg, Chapman or any of the rest of them.

McWilliams talks about underhand practices, it being "rich" for Swale to be branded a stalker, and also asks what qualifies Seán Manchester or anyone else to determine Swale's mental health?

What qualifies Redmond McWilliams and his close friend David Farrant to hypocritically determine Seán Manchester's mental health by regularly referring to him on the internet (for many years) as "Bishop Bonkers" — disseminating booklets, T-shirts, drinking mugs and a variety of other items with "Bishop Bonkers" written across them plus a supposed cartoon image of Seán Manchester?

 

 

Who are the sociopaths? Who are the trolls? Who are the stalkers?

Red Alert ~ Red Rant

Seán Manchester's comments provided balance and addressed an injustice. He was not talking about the case he investigated. The issues he raised focused on the inappropriateness of a registered charity, which is obliged to be impartial, inviting extremely partial speakers to discuss his case; speakers, moreover, who have a history of stalking, trolling and publishing abuse about him.

The only person who is ever maligned is Seán Manchester, and he is maligned, libelled and has hatred incited against him by the very same speakers who have been invited to the ASSAP event.

Redmond McWilliams reverts to type with his other rant about David Farrant being "central to the Highgate Vampire case." Farrant, to be clear, played no part whatsoever in the Highgate Vampire case. He was not even resident in the UK when Seán Manchester first became aware of the eerie goings-on at Highgate Cemetery, and knew nobody connected to the case when he did return from the Continent. The only ball Farrant started rolling was unwanted publicity due to his "ghost" hoax.

Seán Manchester, as Redmond McWilliams knows because it is a matter of public record and stated in published works, did not utter the "Wallachian King Vampire" remark. Like so much else, it is a false attribution. The banner headline "Does a wampyr walk in Highgate?" appeared across the front page of the Hampstead & Highgate Express newspaper on 27 February 1970. The editor himself had written the piece after meeting privately with Seán Manchester who was at that time the president of the British Occult Society and founder of the then fledgling Vampire Research Society. 

The editor allowed himself to get carried away by introducing the journalistic embellishment "King Vampire of the Undead" - a term that Seán Manchester did not employ, as stated by me on page 72 of The Vampire Hunter's Handbook: A Concise Vampirological Guide. Another 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) is also misquoted: "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, most celebrated for his practice of exorcism and his paranormal interests. Like Seán Manchester, whom he obviously knew, 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. In 1972, the Bishop of London authorised him to exorcise demons according to his own judgement. Two years earlier, he was misquoted in the Hampstead and Highgate Express, 27 February 1970, saying that vampires are "probably a novelistic embellishment," but 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." Christopher Neil-Smith clearly believed in vampires. 

Ironically, Redmond McWilliams dredges up "desecrated tombs," something his pal David Farrant was charged and found guilty of committing, resulting in him receiving a two years' prison sentence for desecration at Highgate Cemetery in the early 1970s. McWilliams also mentions "nocturnal satanic cults." But didn't his own friend and collaborator Farrant also subscribe to their existence at Highgate Cemetery? The police certainly did: especially after clear evidence was found in August 1970. Then, finally, the name of Bill Ellis is evoked. Yet Ellis' article in the Folklore Society journal, and book that followed, Raising the Devil, lays ostensive behaviour and legend-tripping at the door of David Farrant whom he met in London in July 1992. Ellis also wanted to meet Seán Manchester, but once it was learned that the American professor was consorting with Farrant it was ruled out of the question. Even so, Bill Ellis and Seán Manchester were in agreement over Farrant's part in it all.

Façades, Excuses, Sociopathy and Hogwash

No claim has been made that Seán Manchester is blocked from commenting on the ASSAP's Facebook page. To do so, however, would oblige him to become a member of that group and join the antipathetic ranks of Anthony Hogg, Trystan Lewis Swale, Erin Chapman, Redmond McWilliams and David Farrant et al, trolls every one of them ... not company Seán Manchester would especially care to be in. Moreover, the ASSAP group is fundamentally a place where cynics, sceptics and the scientifically-minded all meet to try and ridicule and debunk the paranormal when not providing a platform for the likes of Farrant who gives anything he is associated with a very bad name.

How many façades can Anthony Hogg hide behind? He has claimed in the past to be a Christian, albeit a "non-conformist," an amateur vampirologist, and an impartial researcher. He is none of those things, as it soon became clear when he began stalking and trolling Seán Manchester, who is a devout Christian, over a decade ago and took to recruiting all manner of ne'er-do-wells from the dark side in that process. Hogg is Facebook friends with Farrant's son, Jamie, Farrant's lieutenant, John Pope, who engaged in a series of Crowley-like attempts to summon a demon, and innumerable dabblers in the black arts. Seán Manchester observed about Hogg some years back:

"Anthony Hogg evinces exceptionally unChristian behaviour, eg profane and sacrilegious utterances against an ordained and consecrated Christian. There is hardly a day that passes where Hogg is not trolling and posting harassing comments about me somewhere on the internet. This self-proclaimed Christian's cyber-friends are either immersed in witchcraft and/or diabolism, or boast about their atheism. Constantly critical of me because I am a Traditionalist Bishop, Hogg [began his online presence under his real name] wearing a demonic 'devil' mask to hide his face and identity." 

Hogg came out of the closet in August 2014 when he began using his true likeness for the first time, realising self-publicity is pointless unless he basks in it and everyone is aware of who he is. Hogg offers all manner of excuses for his appalling behaviour, but none of them wash. He has had his account suspended many times by Facebook, and has been banned by a plethora of FB groups.

This is the man who accuses Seán Manchester of being a sociopath. (A sociopath is someone with a personality disorder manifesting in extreme antisocial attitudes and behaviour). Hogg is an unemployed man who lives in Melbourne, Australia, who has been stalking and harassing Seán Manchester ever since he was expelled from a forum a decade ago for refusing to stop posting about David Farrant whom the membership wanted to hear no more about. Hogg immediately began to attack Seán Manchester following this expulsion and started opening numerous forums, blogs, boards and websites with a common aim. One of the titles he uses for some of these vehicles is lifted from the headline of a news feature about Seán Manchester in the Hampstead & Highgate Express, 27 February 1970. His theme is always the same and he appears to many as a totally manic individual who is obsessed with Seán Manchester and events that occurred on the other side of the world long before before the Australian troll was born. Hogg is someone totally outside the four and a half decades' old Highgate Vampire saga who decided to insinuate himself into latter-day arguments long after the history itself had reached a satisfactory conclusion.

His attitude towards Farrant is perhaps more understandable, but he willingly allows himself to be manipulated and uses Farrant's propaganda as if it was his own. In being manipulated by Farrant, Hogg posts libellous material about Seán Manchester which is equal to anything the Farrant coterie resorted to at the height of their malice. In fact, Hogg frequently uses antipathetic sources such as the grotesque Don Ecker (an American friend and ally of Farrant) and seems to take immense pleasure regurgitating Farrant's unsubstantiated garbage, even to the extent of adopting a forename Farrant has erroneously employed when referring to Seán Manchester. There is something deeply disturbing about Anthony Hogg who is patently a stalker with malicious intent and clearly someone with deep psychological issues, possibly a narcissistic personality disorder, ie an inflated sense of self-importance, need for admiration, extreme self-involvement, and lack of empathy for others.

Anthony Hogg has adopted a variety of pseudonyms in the past, but these days is arrogant enough to use his real name, while running various sock-puppet, fake accounts along with two or three in his real name on Facebook. This allows him to spy on anyone who has blocked him, and there are quite a number who have blocked him. Hogg goes to considerable lengths to protect his own whereabouts to prevent prosecution for stalking, harassment, inciting hatred and goodness knows what else. He has adopted a variety of pseudonyms in the past, including The Inquisitive One, The Overseer, Amateur Vampirolgist and tnuocalucard ("Count Dracula" spelt backwards). He has published an address in full (offered for people wanting to receive signed copies of Seán Manchester's books) along with a  stream of vitriolic incitements against the person with whom the address is associated. These days he is arrogant enough to use his real name, but is still extremely careful not to have his address and precise whereabouts divulged in order to prevent an investigation into his harassment.

A typical example of the exceptionally offensive manner in which the self-styled "Christian" Hogg hypocritically and abusively refers to Seán Manchester comes from one of his disabled blogs:

"I'm not going to disclose the identity of this potty prelate, wanker, total cock and blatant hypocrite. On an unrelated note, in the lead up to my blog's closure, I was subjected to repeated DMCA takedown notices issued by Sean Manchester."

Unsurprisingly, the blog on which Anthony Hogg posted his foul-mouthed outburst was suspended. Within days, however, he had transferred his profanity, word for word, to yet another blog.

What was that about being a sociopath? Hogg ticks all the boxes. And that's not Hogwash.

Groundhog Day or Final Conflict?

"Would you have me keep repeating myself for the rest of my life?" — Seán Manchester

Any notion of Seán Manchester entering into a slanging match with David Farrant should be dispelled from the outset, nor would he consider the prospect of sharing a platform with him that is tainted with partiality (as is clearly evident at ASSAP events). Seán Manchester would, however, consider one final confrontation where only he and Farrant participate before completely impartial adjudicators in a non-sensational atmosphere and environment. This could be a university debating chamber, or similar venue where strict controls are in place. The entire session would be recorded for posterity, and the presence of a polygrapher, though not infallible, made available for use by either side.

The neutral venue and impartial adjudicators would have to be acceptable to both parties. It is suggested that the latter be more grounded in law and logic than folklore and esotericism, as nothing supernatural can be proven or disproven. What can be established is the veracity of claims by either side where extant evidence can be forensically examined and put to the test. If one side makes claims about the other party, or indeed himself, his argument needs to be supported by evidence.     

A reasonable period for each side to make their submissions with evidence should then be followed by an informal discussion with the adjudicators who will be free to ask questions of their choosing. If it is felt that anything claimed by either party requires further testing this would then take place. The procedure in its entirety ought to be recorded and this unedited record made available to each party.

To clarify for anyone as slow on the uptake as Hogg, FoBSM obviously includes Seán Manchester among its number, and is therefore privy to whatever he chooses to share. The ASSAP's impartiality is evident in so far as it has only ever invited David Farrant in the past to discuss the Highgate Vampire case, even though Farrant played no part in the investigation of the vampiric entity.

The "terms" set out are suggestions to which Seán Manchester has agreed in principle, but would  Anthony Hogg really prefer if the venue and its adjudicators were not acceptable to both parties, that evidence should not be available for examination, and there should not be a polygrapher present? 

Believe that and You'll Believe Anything!

"There's just never once been anyone that's expressed any interest in hearing from [Seán Manchester about the Highgate Vampire case which he investigated from start to finish]." 

— Dave Wood (ASSAP)

"Paranoia" means unjustified suspicion and mistrust. The bias in favour of Seán Manchester's enemies by giving them a platform at ASSAP events, plus the absence of any balancing voice where the case he and his society led is concerned, as chronicled in The Highgate Vampire book, is self-evident. Seán Manchester cannot be guilty of any paranoia because the observations he makes are patently true and perfectly justifiable. The paranoia manifests from those supported by the ASSAP.

Let's identify exactly who is posting on the above ASSAP thread:

Robert Moore, like Dave Wood, is an ASSAP organiser and decision maker.

Patsy Sorenti, previously known as Patsy Langley, is someone who colludes in Farrant's fakery, fraud and fabrication, and revels in being described as "secretary" of Farrant's non-existent "British Psychic and Occult Society." Fantasy in never far from her fingertips. Sorenti (Langley) was born in 1960, and was therefore aged ten when the Highgate Vampire case first hit the national and international headlines. She is a self-proclaimed witch, spiritualist, medium and huge fan of Farrant whose phoney witchcraft and pseudo-occultism has been exposed many times by investigative journalists and the law courts. She produced a "casebook" comprising fifty or so stapled pages bearing Farrant's box address and self-styled imprint "British Psychic and Occult Society" as the work's publisher. The address behind the box numbered address is Farrant's bed-sitting room in London's Muswell Hill Road. The copy we have seen of her "casebook" 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 infringed image reproduced without consent from page 182 of Seán Manchester's The Highgate Vampire (1991).

Redmond McWilliams has been described as Farrant's ultimate flunkie by various people. He seems to be Farrant's general dogsbody who does much of the fetching and carrying. He runs websites, groups and Facebook pages to promote David Farrant's skewed propaganda and perverse perceptions. In recent years, Redmond McWilliams has confessed to using multiple false accounts in order to either infiltrate closed groups administrated by Seán Manchester and/or create mayhem. 

Erin Chapman is based in Vancouver, Canada, and colludes in a malicious vendetta against Seán Manchester run by Anthony Hogg with Trystan Lewis Swale. She is someone who is so obsessed with vampires that she occasionally takes to dressing up like one with "blood" flowing from her mouth. She assists Hogg, based in Melbourne, Australia, with a website and multiple Facebook groups that focus mostly on attacking Seán Manchester. She also joins in the stalking of anyone historically associated with him. Like Hogg, Swale, McWilliams, Sorenti and Moore, she has not had personal contact or met Seán Manchester. That does not stop her from being obsessed with him.

David Farrant has executed a personal vendetta and hate campaign against Seán Manchester (whom he first came into contact with in 1970) for the past four and a half decades. He has been described as obsessive, compulsive, harassing, deceitful, abusive, cruel, vindictive and malicious. Farrant has admitted sending voodoo death dolls to total strangers he took against, and there have been others he knew personally who received his curses and threats. He was sentenced to four years and eight months imprisonment in 1974 for graveyard vandalism, desecration, black magic death threats etc.