Finis tantum principium est

"Where the beginning is, there the end will be. Happy is he who stands at the beginning: he will know the end and will not taste death."

Vera ecclesiae

Extract from Seán Manchester's autobiographical works:

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Having not been baptised as an infant ― my parents wanted to leave such an important decision entirely up to me ― I was “first baptised at the age of eleven in the Anglican Church and given conditional baptism in the Catholic Church at the age of twenty-two.” (The Grail Church, Holy Grail, 1995, page 56). When I joined St Luke’s Church as a choirboy, it came as something of a shock to the vicar when he made discovery of the fact that I had not been Christened.

The Reverend W A F Lee was a very large and somewhat humourless man who rode around on a twenty-eight inch wheel, outsize bicycle. He duly baptised me, appointing himself my godfather, as I continued in the choir and also in the Boy’s Church, which had special outings and field trips, sometimes in the company of the Boys Scouts, to the Hertfordshire countryside and, on one occasion, to Dover Castle.

Along with a school chum, I attended the regular functions and evening scripture lessons at the Boy’s Church, but, following the vicar’s invitation, joined the choir alone and under my own steam. This was a happy time for me; especially when I succeeded David Stump as head choirboy. Stump and I had a falling out about something unrelated to my promotion. It erupted in the vestry one Sunday evening before the service, and could have easily turned into a scrap. I have no recollection of what it was over, the incident itself was quickly forgotten, and life went on as before.

After a couple of years, Edward Keating succeeded me as head choirboy. This decision was hastened by two factors, neither of them to do with my prowess as a boy soprano. Keating had joined with his younger brother ― whose name escapes me ― and usurped me. This perturbed me slightly for, as I grew to know him better, Keating’s distinctly dark side revealed itself. He smoked, despite his young age, introduced cigarettes to the choir vestry, and proved himself to be manipulative on some occasions. I came to quite dislike him after a while. In the interim, I had found some new friends, who invited me to attend their church service ― a Mass.

The Rev'd William Alexander Frederick Lee

Peter and Pauline were twins who were about the same age as me. Aware of my passion for visiting churches when services were not in progress and, irrespective of the denomination, enjoying the atmosphere, sacred surroundings, architecture and music if the organist was practicing, the twins invited me to their church, where I experienced my first Roman Catholic Mass. It was still then the Old Rite, known as the Tridentine Mass.

Vicar Lee somehow learned of my clandestine attendance at a Roman Catholic Mass, and was less than pleased. The vicar and his no less gargantuan sister, who was installed in the vicarage as his housekeeper, had come over from Northern Ireland before the war. He did not approve of Roman Catholicism, and consequently the writing was on the wall as far as my future in St Luke’s choir was concerned. Coupled with the aforementioned factors were debates in the Boy’s Church every Tuesday evening at 6.00 pm, after hymns and study. One of my frequent debates was the just war theory. I found it incompatible with Christ’s teachings. It was only a decade after the war had ended, but I opined against Britain declaring war on Germany. This was a view I have held throughout my life. I have opposed all wars ― most vocally both Gulf Wars, actively campaigning and speaking against the actions of various UK governments have taken in this respect.

The vicar asked me where my ideas were coming from, and enquired whether my father was a Communist, which even now I find an extraordinary deduction to make. My ideas are found in the New Testament where it is explained that those chosen to follow Him “out of the world” are “not of the world” and will be hated; the commandment not to kill is upheld; moreover, expanded so that we are required to turn the other cheek. And, of course, in so far as we did it to the least among us, we did it to Christ.

On reflection, my replacement by Edward Keating, and subsequent expulsion from both the choir and Boy’s Church, was an important lesson. I learned how wrong it is to make favourites. Much later on, when someone I came to know socially joined the lifeguards, and failed miserably to carry his weight, expecting everyone else to absorb his duties, I sacked him. No favouritism would exist, or be seen to exist, whenever I was in charge. This person was astounded by my action, but, in the long term, it did not affect our friendship ― which remains to this day as strong as it did all those years ago. One or two of the lifeguards sometimes found me too disciplined, and told me so. They had received an easy time at other establishments. Now they were obliged to do their duty. Those who criticised me most were the very ones who years later made a point of telling me that I had been right. One in particular had learned a lot from my regimen, and went on to be in charge himself.

Eleven years after my baptism at St Luke’s, and much soul-searching, I was baptised again by Father Keane at the same Roman Catholic Church where I had experienced my first Tridentine Mass. He was often present at some of the dance hall venues where I was engaged to perform as a musician (tenor saxophone) for a showband called Amor Alcis. Showbands very often placed as much importance on performance as on the music itself. I would later be confirmed at London’s Westminster Cathedral.

Father Keane was not the obvious choice during my months of intensive study to become a Roman Catholic. His consumed copious amounts of alcohol, was sadly a Modernist, and had little time for what he described as “hearts and flowers” priests. He was also a prison chaplain, and no doubt did some very good work, but I sometimes wondered why he ever became a priest. He was not especially popular, despite his apparent holding of the record for celebrating Mass faster than any of the other priests at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Yet Modernists like Father Keane would multiply in the years ahead, as the older Traditionalist priests became an endangered species.

Father Keane

I found a sense of discipline and special devotion in the Roman Catholic Church at that time, which was not apparent in the Church of England. Yet, when finally received into the Church, the torrent of change ushered in by the Second Vatican Council had already begun. Father Keane welcomed “opening the shutters” to the outside world. I was less certain. Many of the landmarks were being swept away. The old ways were becoming obliterated for the sake of change ― the signposts blown down. The beautiful Old Mass was replaced with a liturgy, at best, uninspired and, at worst, banal. The New Mass left little time for meditation. It had transformed from a private devotion between the communicant and Christ into a communal service. I missed the atmosphere of solace for worldly pain so evident before. Disillusionment set in, as the Vatican appeared to throw the baby out with the bath water in its rush to catch up with the modern world. Its attraction for me had been the fact that when I first became acquainted with Catholicism it was to provide a much welcome escape from the corrosive effect of modernity in the latter half of the twentieth century.

My multifarious discussions with Father Keane over months of instruction for preparation to enter the Roman Catholic Church left entire areas unresolved. “Would God allow His Church to be misguided in this matter?” seemed to be the stock answer to virtually all my difficult, searching and challenging queries. The doctrine of papal infallibility was a hurdle I never surmounted. “Well it makes sense when you think about it,” is the response I was given. “If that’s all that you have a problem with, we’re not doing too badly, are we?” was another reaction from the priest. He asked for my trust. I gave it, and became a Catholic in the mid-1960s.

However, the Second Vatican Council reforms took away the discipline and devotion that distinguished Roman Catholicism from the Anglican Communion I had just quit, but, as I pursued my religious studies over the years, I became increasingly aware that the foundation of my new spiritual home was not so much Jesus Christ as Imperial Rome ― the very imperialism emulated by men who were very much "of the world." The Roman Catholic Church owed its existence to the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century who perverted Christianity when he included it in the empire’s extant pantheon of pagan cults. It was Constantine, not the Bishop of Rome, who ruled the “Christian” Roman Empire from the year 312. In the introduction to my published work on Christian history, I observe:

“When Constantine made Christianity a tolerated religion inside the barbaric Roman Empire, the Faith of the early Christians became seriously distorted. They ceased being pacifists and beat their ploughshares into swords. Previously Christians would neither be allowed, nor want to be, in the army. In 416, however, by an edict of Theodosius, only Christians were allowed to enlist. Tertullian had written two centuries earlier: ‘The world may need its Caesars, but the Emperor can never be a Christian, nor a Christian ever be Emperor.’ The emperor’s title, Pontifex Maximus, would later be assumed by every pope, but for now it was the emperor, not the pope, who was the head of the Church. The Bishop of Rome was obliged to prostrate himself and pledge his loyalty to Constantine who delayed his own baptism until he was on the point of death and, even then, was not baptised by a Catholic bishop or priest, but by the heretical Arian Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia.” (The Grail Church, Holy Grail, 1995, pages 11-12).

I qualify my disenchantment on the same page by noting that the Roman Catholic Church has still produced the likes of St Francis of Assisi, and other mystics. However, St Francis “observed the incompatibility of the Church with the life of Christ and His apostles.” Furthermore, I remark: “No saint would provide greater inspiration for the work ahead. Like the Celtic Christians, St Francis appreciated the beauty and wonder of Creation and he was certainly no stranger to supernatural experience. It is therefore not too surprising to learn that in his youth St Francis sought the Grail itself.” (The Grail Church, Holy Grail, 1995, page 91).

It became clear, as I would publicly state in 1988: “Simply calling oneself ‘Christian’ and subscribing to what can only described as ‘Churchianity’ is to no avail. The Church in the past was far too eager to make ‘Christians’ of everyone and not followers of Christ as perhaps exemplified by Francis of Assisi who founded his Order outside of the Church.” I also observe in the same book: “The emergence of a satanic revival, stronger than anything seen since the Renaissance, is taking place worldwide.” (From Satan To Christ, Holy Grail, 1988, pages 5-6). Subsequent events have more than served to confirm what I wrote back in 1988.

*       *       *

Though we should strive for perfection, I am well aware that we are all sinners and imperfect, aspiring to achieve something higher by facing the right direction in life. We tend to forget that St Francis was exquisitely dressed as a young man, spending such large sums on fashionable costume that his Perugian captors took him for the son of a gentleman rather than a merchant. He also had the ability to ignore unpleasantness. Physical ugliness repelled him to the degree that he really had to force himself to kiss a leper. The conflict with his father was never resolved, and he came to despise materialism so much that money made him feel sick. He acted with panache, even after conversion, and was never less than dramatic in all he did; being prepared to cast himself into a fire before the Sultan al-Kamil on one occasion. Visions and mystical experience were commonplace to him. It is not difficult to see how many in the 1960s, who felt themselves to be on a mystical path, could easily identify with this medieval aesthete who eschewed all the trappings of glamour and wealth for his Lord.

My own mystical experiences commenced when I came into contact with the Light. When barely five years old, my bedroom one night filled with a dazzling light. I lay very still, sensing all that was happening around me. Then I heard the name “Jesus” ― as if someone was whispering it directly in my ear ― but nobody was in the room apart from myself. I told my mother the next morning about the incident, and she just smiled. Years later she shared some of her own unexplained experiences. The most striking was her hearing shots and seeing flashes, like gunfire, on the night before the assassination of President John F Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963, just before she fell asleep. She rarely talked about such experiences. In later life she never spoke about them.

I find that I am most sensitive where an affinity with a person or place becomes apparent. Then I pick up all sorts of intelligence whether I want to or not. This is not especially uncommon for people of the requisite sensitivity. It is nothing to do with the supernatural, and certainly nothing to do with being in touch with spirits etc. It is extra “sensitivity” ― not “power” of any sort — and many people harbour it wittingly and probably also unwittingly. It happens most when relaxed and in a spontaneous frame of mind. Such sensitivity belonged to St Francis of Assisi, plus the mystical experience of stigmata which, of course, is supernatural.

St Francis of Assisi in the grotto of our retreat.

Unholy Bond

Extract from Seán Manchester's autobiographical works:

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Graham Bond, a promising and clearly talented rock musician, was born in Romford, Essex, on 28 October 1937. John Pope aka “Therion” (who would later give himself a host of satanic titles) was born in north London on 11 July 1953. David Farrant was also born in north London on 23 January 1946. These three individuals came to be linked by one single factor — rivalry within the transparently satanic religion of Thelema that had been concocted by Aleister Crowley before any of them were born.

Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley in Warwickshire in 1875, was the self-proclaimed “Wickedest Man in the World” and the “Great Beast 666.” He also considered himself to be the “avatar of the Age of Horus” which was supposedly a 2000-year-old aeon, beginning in 1904, that would supplant Christianity with “Crowlianity” — the false religion of Thelema. Crowley had rebelled against a strict religious upbringing and was thus initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1898, after leaving Cambridge University. He left the Order after a row with its founders and then travelled to Mexico, India and Ceylon, where he was introduced to yoga and Buddhism which replaced his interest in the occult until an experience in Cairo in April 1904. Crowley was asked by his wife, Rose, to perform an esoteric ritual as an experiment. During the ceremony, she entered a trance-like state and became the medium for the words of a communicator. “They are waiting for you,” she said to Crowley. “They,” she said, being Horus, the god of war and the son of Osiris, according to the beliefs of ancient Egypt. The communicator told Crowley to be at his desk in his hotel room between noon and one o’clock on three specific days. He agreed and in these periods he wrote, via automatic writing, a document called The Book of the Law. This tome spoke of a race of supermen and condemned traditional Christianity, pacifism, democracy, compassion and humanitarianism. The foundations for Crowley’s bizarre tenets of Thelema and much of modern Satanism were laid.

Aleister Crowley

Ordo Templi Orientis, once headed by Crowley, today boasts a membership of three thousand in forty countries, half residing in America, and there are many more rival organisations describing themselves as the OTO. All but forgotten at the time of his death as a poverty-stricken heroin addict in a run-down Hastings boarding house in 1947, Crowley was rediscovered two decades later by drug-crazed hippies of the 1960s counter-culture, and was also popularised by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin who bought Crowley’s home in Scotland. From 1973, Crowley was imitated by “Therion,” whose belief in Crowlianity was absolute, and David Farrant who believed only in his own desire to court publicity and the achievement of same. Farrant and “Therion” supposedly attempted some of Crowley’s more notorious demon raising ceremonies, including the “raising of Pan,” which led to both being charged with arson. “Therion” described himself as the “spiritual son” and “successor” to Aleister Crowley. Farrant offered his own description as merely “high priest of witchcraft.”

"What do witches really do?" was the question posed by Robert Kilroy-Silk on 21 June 2001 on BBC television’s Kilroy programme. Farrant sat in the studio audience. He had been invited as a self-styled “high priest of British witchcraft” along with Kevin Carlyon who claimed an identical description. Neither are recognised by other witches or pagans outside their own virtually non-existent covens. Briefly interviewed, Farrant placed much importance on being properly initiated into wicca. Carlyon, apparently subscribing only to “self-initiation,” felt that any initiation by others was unnecessary. Questions nonetheless arose over Farrant’s own “initiation” and whether or not he is a witch even by his definition, because headlines in national newspapers some three decades earlier describe him as a “phoney witch.” Michael Fielder, for example, writing in The Sun, 4 July 1974, titled his article about David Farrant: “Phoney Witch Sent Out Dolls of Death.”

These days Farrant claims the year 1964 for his initiation into witchcraft. But when asked about this matter in interviews given throughout earlier decades, he invariably told reporters that he had been initiated by his mother as a minor. The age of thirteen was occasionally proffered. This age wavered in the telling to different reporters, but any “initiation into witchcraft” was obliged to remain prior to 1959 (when he would have been thirteen) because this is the year his mother died. Farrant nowadays says that he was initiated by a woman named “Helen,” but fails to confirm the identity of “Helen.” Such conjecture becomes academic for those who are familiar with his story, as they would be more than aware that his “wicca” is merely a publicity ploy.

Farrant married his first wife, Mary, in a Roman Catholic Church in 1967 where they had the full nuptial blessing. This is a strange choice for a “high priest of witchcraft.” When Mary appeared as a defence witness during his Old Bailey trials in June 1974, she affirmed that she had no knowledge of his interest in witchcraft and the occult. His Highgate Cemetery antics were described by his wife, under oath, as being nothing more than a bit of a laugh and a joke. In the early months of 1970, when he began his pursuit of publicity, he was frequently photographed in disingenuous attitudes of prayer before Christian crosses. He posed for photographs wearing crucifixes, rosaries and even holding holy water. He was still doing so in August 1970, six years after he was supposed to have been initiated according to the latest date on offer from him. A photograph taken in 1970 shows him holding a wooden stake in one hand, a bottle of holy water in the other, and wearing a silver cross around his neck. It can be found on page 54 of The Vampire Hunter's Handbook (1997). Strange accoutrements indeed for a witch. There is no doubting from autumn that year, however, he turned to something altogether more diabolical to hold the media’s interest. Dr J Gordon Melton records: “In the summer of 1970, David Farrant, another amateur vampire hunter, entered the field. He claimed to have seen the vampire and went hunting for it with a stake and crucifix — but was arrested. He later became a convert to a form of Satanism.” (The Vampire Book: Encyclopedia of the Undead by J Gordon Melton, Gail Research, 1994, page 298). My own view is that opened himself to manipulation by dark forces because he was an empty vessel waiting to be filled. His being more ignorant than the ordinary man in the street about the occult made this far easier. He took a sinister delight in malicious pranks, which, coupled with having little imagination, little intelligence and scant education, made him an ideal candidate for whatever possessed him.

Graham Bond in the early days of his career.

Graham Bond was an orphan, adopted from the Dr Barnardo’s home, who came to prominence in 1962 at the Marquee Club in London, as a featured musician with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated. In 1963 Bond formed a trio, then a quartet, before founding in 1964 the Graham Bond Organisation. It was during the following period that he took an unusual interest in the occult and the works of Crowley. He was not alone in that respect. David Bowie and Mick Jagger both became fascinated with Crowley’s writings, and the singer Sting apparently used to read Crowley’s books when touring. Yet Bond went even further and became a practicing Thelemite himself  from which moment his fate seems to have been sealed. He renamed his band the Graham Bond Initiation; its final appellation being Holy Magick (adopting Crowley’s spelling of the word “magic”).

In the early days Bond was noted as being a silent, humble figure with a plastic alto saxophone; always on the outskirts of what was going on, never part of it. The thing about him was that he was not noticed. This would change. The versatile keyboard player and saxophonist, who also did some vocals, developed an obsession with the occult, especially the brand of Satanism devised by Crowley, known as Thelema. Like his mentor, he also became seriously addicted to drugs and alcohol. According to the posthumous biography The Mighty Shadow, written by Harry Shapiro, Graham Bond sexually abused his stepdaughter. “Therion” would claim to be Crowley’s “spiritual successor” — employing the title “Son of the Beast” — but Graham Bond went one better. He claimed to be an illegitimate son of Crowley. In the Left-hand Path world of the dark occult nothing is too sacred or taboo for exponents of Thelema.

On 8 May 1974, Graham Bond fell, or perhaps jumped, in front of the wheels of a London Underground train at Finsbury Park station, and died. In the previous year, he had been called in by another rock star, “Long” John Baldry of Muswell Hill, London, to help in a so-called “exorcism,” as the media insisted on describing it. Baldry had been receiving threats and curses from David Farrant, who confirmed this to be the case in repeated boasts published in his local newspapers at the time, eg front page headline story of the Hornsey Journal, 28 September 1973. Baldry had reason to believe that his missing cat Stupzi had been sacrificed by Farrant in a witchcraft ritual. Whilst not denying the ritual sacrifice of cats during this period, Farrant maintained that the one he killed in Highgate Wood was not Stupzi, but a stray. On one occasion, Baldry and Bond arrived at Farrant's bed-sitting room in Muswell Hill Road to confront the sender of voodoo threats, but only found “Therion” whom Farrant had been using to deliver the clay effigies with accompanying menacing poems (as confirmed by “Therion” in later interviews). Farrant himself was out at the time, or possibly in hiding. When the rock star met with his unfortunate death, “Therion” immediately claimed that he had killed Graham Bond with a black magic curse, which he reiterated in a tape recorded interview.

Graham Bond in the Daily Express, 26 June 1974.

Mystery has always surrounded the untimely demise of Graham Bond and many commentators in the media have looked for simple answers, sometimes erroneously describing Bond as a “white magician.” There is nothing “white” about the magic that springs from Crowley’s Thelema. I spoke to Baldry in person, following a live television programme we both appeared on about on occult dangers, and assured him that Farrant was phoney and “Therion” was demented. Yet he  grew ever more terrified of the curses he had received and quit England for Canada, never to return. Farrant issued threats to all manner of people throughout 1973 at which end he was arrested by Scotland Yard detectives, who discovered an occult altar with black candles below an image of the Devil in his small bed-sitting room. Farrant was held on remand until his trials at the Old Bailey in June 1974, resulting in a four years eight months prison sentence. “Therion” remained free to pursue his undisguised brand of Satanism despite being found guilty of sexual assault on a minor. 

Graham Bond died a month before Farrant faced his own fate in front of a judge and jury at the Old Bailey..

“Therion” intended to “form a new coven that will rule the world” and “abolish the system whereby children are forced to learn Christian worship,” according to an interview he gave to Reveille magazine, 21 November 1975. When this failed to happen, he became increasingly unstable, declaring direct blood descent from the Patriarch of Judah, Jesus Christ, actor Bela Lugosi, the outlaw Robin Hood and the still unidentified Jack the Ripper. Farrant would frequently refer to this sole supporter behind his back as “that silly little imbecile.” 

“Therion” took to providing “horror tours” to paying voyeurs who want to see the haunts of Jack the Ripper in London’s East End where “Therion” resides in the flat of his late uncle (William Binding) flat. The tour included the house of the serial murderer Dennis Nielson, which is located just around the corner from the Muswell Hill attic bed-sitting room occupied by Farrant since his release from prison on parole in late 1976. Highgate Woods, once the scene of their mutual displays of theatrical Satanism, is also on the tour’s agenda.

Inde est Christus satanas

Extract from Seán Manchester's autobiographical works:

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In the autumn of 1985, I was invited to a performance of Byron in Hell at the Offstage theatre in London’s Chalk Farm. It was a far cry from my own one man show, An Evening with Lord Byron, some years prior, but the actor, Ian Frost, a personal friend of a mutual acquaintance ― my London secretary, Diana Brewester ― wanted to meet me. After the show on December 11th, Frost, still in costume, bowed deeply as he shook my hand.

Four days later, I gave a piano recital at a soirée in Highgate hosted by an American socialite to honour the publication of my full account of the Highgate investigation. I regarded this as closure on that part of my life, plus it was time to move on in other ways. Mary Sweet-Escort, a dear friend, who had enjoyed my recitals and poetry readings, took me to dinner where we exchanged conversation and reflected on the state of both our relationships. Hers appeared to be in the doldrums, and I had been seeing Kate Dwyer, the niece of a Roman Catholic archbishop of that name. That, too, was going nowhere. Kate later left our shores for California.

  

Kate during our time together.

On 19 April 1986, in the following year, the 162nd anniversary of Lord Byron’s death, Diana Brewester and I joined the Byron Society on their thirteenth annual pilgrimage to Newstead Abbey and Hucknall Torkard in Nottinghamshire, the county of my birth. None of the excitement of earlier pilgrimages was evident on this occasion ― only the sense of a vanishing world of chivalry, dignity and honour, which, at least, was still apparent among members of the Byron Society. The day was enjoyable enough, but the decade of the 1980s witnessed the advent of creeping mediocrity, now laced with the unattractive condiment of cynicism.

In July 1985, I had left Hampstead Garden Suburb to live in a modest cottage in South Hertfordshire, which would become both retreat and safe house. Contracts were exchanged on my birthday. Kate was gone. My personal life was on hold. Originally named “Grouse Cottage,” owing to the grouse that were to be found in a neighbouring field, I renamed the Victorian dwelling “Grail Cottage” ― and set about making it suitable for my work and studies. Visitors were quick to remark on the many crucifixes adorning the walls.

Travelling to Islington to visit my parents, friends and colleagues, I sometimes stopped off at the junction where Holloway Road and Seven Sisters Road, not a stone’s throw from my old photographic studio. It was on such a detour, talking to a friend next to a newspaper vendor on the corner, around midday on Monday, 6 October 1986, that something occurred to reawaken dormant feelings held within one's heart and soul.

The girl I met in October 1986 .

Pale and thin, dressed in a flimsy top, she walked along the pavement in a northerly direction as the autumn sunshine danced on the heads of passers-by. Yet something drew me to her. We spoke, not as strangers, more as friends who had known each other for ever. This encounter was quite brief. Had I not asked for her telephone number, and shown an interest in the symbol she was wearing around her neck, I doubt she would have provided it. All I really knew about her was her name ― Sarah.

When we next met, however, I would discover a great deal more, including the presence of the silver pentagram. A drama and dance graduate, Sarah had arrived in London in May 1984, only to become enmeshed in witchcraft like so many others. When I encountered her at the crossroads in Holloway, she was a member of a coven who were outwardly wiccan and inwardly satanic. This was not unusual. In my experience, groups on the Left-hand Path operate exactly in this way. Yet Sarah seemed to be such an open and honest person from the very start that her fascination with the dark occult belied everything I saw. Clearly she had been duped by those in the coven whose members I would soon meet.

Gerald Gardner ~ UK witch.

The story of modern witchcraft definitively began with Gerald Gardner who was born on 13 June 1884 at Great Crosby, near Blundell Sands in Lancashire, England. Gardner definitely accumulated an extensive occult background.  His formative years were spent in South East Asia where he became a Mason (in Ceylon) and also a nudist. In 1939 Gardner returned to England an avid occultist. He immediately became a member of the Rosicrucians and through such associations met a certain Dorothy Clutterbuck, known as “Old Dorothy,” who allegedly initiated Gardner into the New Forest Coven in September of that year. However, research suggests that Gardner did not discover a pre-existing witchcraft group. A paper by Gardner disclosed that he took the magical resources he acquired in Asia and a selection of Western magical texts and created a new religion centred upon the worship of the Mother Goddess which is precisely what has become the focus of modern witches. There is no evidence that witchcraft existed in ancient pagan cultures that predate the Bible. While it is true that ancient pagans practiced various rituals, it is not possible to substantiate, for example, Margaret Murray’s thesis in lieu of the scattered history of pre-industrial societies. It is just too difficult to piece together so many eclectic fragments of various beliefs and practices endemic to cultures wholly unrelated to each other. Moreover, a single organised matriarchal religion cannot be traced.

Ten years after his self-proclaimed initiation, Gardner published a fictional account of witches called High Magick’s Aid. Then, following the repeal of the witchcraft laws in Britain in 1951, he followed this with a non-fiction book, titled Witchcraft Today, published in 1954. His high point must have come when he was invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace in 1960. Gerald Gardner, the founder of modern witchcraft, died on 13 February 1964 while returning from abroad on the SS Scottish Prince.

In addition to Margaret Murray, the influence of Aleister Crowley, Theosophy, Freemasonry, ritual sex magic etc all blended eclectically in the writings of Gerald Gardner. Out of the cauldron of his mind emerged modern witchcraft, or as it is commonly called, wicca. Robin Skelton, himself a witch, confirms in his book The Practice of Witchcraft Today that “Gardner’s work influenced the Old Religion deeply. His rituals owed much to the occult and kabbalistic tradition. His admiration for the occultist Aleister Crowley led him to include some of Crowley’s words and rituals … the sexual rituals and practices of Hindu Tantrism crept into occultism in the late nineteenth century and deeply influenced Aleister Crowley who, in turn, influenced Gerald Gardner and therefore Gardnerian witchcraft.” Gardner’s connection with Crowley has a deeper shared philosophical root. One of the founders of Ordo Templi Orientis was the Freemason Franz Hartmann, a companion of the theosophist Helena Blavatsky. Prior to Gardner’s discovery of witchcraft, he was a member of a Rosicrucian fraternity, the Fellowship of Crotona. This was an offshoot of the Temple of the Rosy Cross, which was founded by Annie Besant, the British leader of a second theosophical society that sprang up after the death of Madame Blavatsky. An OTO writer in Pagan News (August 1989) maintains that “Crowley wrote the Gnostic Mass as the public ritual of the OTO … it should be remembered that sections have been incorporated into the Great Rite, the third and highest wiccan initiation.” Some hold that Gardner actually paid Crowley to write the rituals that have become fundamental to modern witchcraft. As far back as 1915 Crowley had advised: “The time is just ripe for a natural religion … be the founder of a new and greater Pagan cult.”

The principal instructions and rituals mingled Crowley’s magic with Masonic symbolism and ingredients from the East. And from this a new generation of advocates for a new feminist spirituality has emerged. Among these are Alexander Sanders, Sybil Leek, Raymond and Rosemary Buckland, Margot Adler, Jim Alan, Jessie Wicker Bell, Gavin and Yvonne Frost, Doreen Valiente, Zsuzanna Budapest, Donna Cole, Ed Fitch, Janet and Stewart Farrar (replaced after his death by Gavin Bone), and numerous others, including many rogues and charlatans. Alex Sanders had the greatest impact in England during the 1960s at the time of the counter-culture, occult explosion, satanic revival, and the fast growing mass media. I confronted the self-styled “King of the Witches” on Radio London in January 1971 at a time when Sanders was threatening to raise a demon before an audience on the stage of the Hendon Classic cinema in north London. The event went terribly wrong. Sanders blamed it on the fact that someone sitting in the audience near the stage was wearing a silver Christian cross. It was not me, as some thought, but I did oppose what he did.

Alex Sanders ~ “King of the Witches.”

Sanders’ early life is mysterious and various published accounts are undoubtedly fictional for the most part. He was born Orrell Alexander Carter in Birkenhead on 6 June 1926, the son of a Harold, a musician, and Hannah Carter. His Welsh grandmother, Mrs Bibby, was apparently a cunning woman and medium who gave him an early interest in the occult. His mother was also a medium, as was Alex and all his brothers. The young Alex Sanders (he later changed his surname to Sanders by deed poll) became quite well known as a trance medium where he lived. The claim by him that he was initiated into witchcraft by his grandmother when he was seven years old, after he interrupted one of her solitary rituals, is largely dismissed even by other witches. Mrs Bibby was a cunning woman from the foothills of Snowdonia, but not quite a witch. The initiation story is probably an elaboration of Mrs Bibby’s influence on him that (along with his mother) introduced him to spiritualism and the occult. An almost identical story was later claimed by phoney witch David Farrant concerning his being “initiated” at a young age by his mother, who, according to him, was also a medium and a spiritualist. The Sanders’disciple Stewart Farrar revealed: “Neither Alex nor the family had any idea [Mrs Bibby] was a witch, but she gave him no time to brood. She had the clothes off him, initiated him on the spot, and told him that he was now a witch too and that various dreadful things would happen if he betrayed the secret.” Bearing in mind that Sanders was a seven-year-old child at the time, the claim is more redolent of child abuse than wicca as promoted by today’s practitioners. His assertion that his “Book of Shadows” was given him by his grandmother is, therefore, almost certainly false. The Sanders’ “Book of Shadows” is fundamentally a Gardnerian one with some differences and some of the prose sections missing.

Sanders gave a very vivid account of his early manhood in King of the Witches by June Johns with tales of his falling into the ways of the Left-hand Path when he was adopted by a wealthy, childless couple. He supposedly immersed himself into a life of hedonistic orgies dedicated to the dark powers, describing this as his “black magic phase.” According to the same work, Sanders rescued himself by undergoing the long exhaustive ritual of purification in the magical system of Abramelin in order to purge himself of his excesses. He nevertheless died in abject poverty with lung cancer in a hospice on the East Sussex coast of England, close to where Aleister Crowley had also died four decades earlier, and where “high priest of British witches” Kevin Carlyon resides in a nearby small seaside resort. The date of Alex Sanders’ death at the age of sixty-one is 30 April 1988, celebrated as Beltane on the witchcraft calendar.

The sheer number of modern-day witches suggests a wide variety of beliefs and practices. However, despite the pluralism and diversity, distinct principles derived from Gardnerian wicca are common to most modern witches. First and foremost is the belief in the Great Mother Goddess. Historically she has manifested in numerous forms: Artemis, Astarte, Aphrodite, Diana, Kore, Hecate etc. The consort Pan (the Horned God) is the male principle of wicca. He, too, possesses a varied nomenclature, including such names as Adonis, Apollo, Baphomet, Cernunnos, Dionysius, Lucifer, Osiris, Thor etc. The Mother Goddess is represented by the moon and the Horned God is represented by the sun. Each year, Pan dies and is brought back to life in a ceremony called “Drawing down the Sun.” The ceremony associated with the Mother Goddess is called “Drawing down the Moon.” Each coven varies in the ceremonial details. Wiccans, or witches, nonetheless have a calendar that is common to all groups. High festive days pinpoint key phases in the seasonal progress of mother earth. There are eight seasonal festivals, known as Sabbats, identified as follows: Imbolg (February 2); Spring Equinox (March 21); Beltane (April 30); Midsummer Solstice (June22); Lugnasad (July 31); Autumn Equinox (September 21); Samhain, also known as Hallowe’en (October 31); Winter Solstice (December 22). Imbolg, Beltane, Lugnasad and Samhain are known as the Greater Sabbats, while the four equinoxes are the Lesser Sabbats. Additional meeting times for covens are Esbats.

Witches practice clairvoyance, divination, astral projection, spells, curses, and herbal healing. They are supposed to follow a principle of ethics known as the wiccan rede where the effects of magic are believed to return threefold upon the person working it for good or ill. Not all adhere to this voluntary code. Their very belief in gods and goddesses, whether symbolic or not, identifies witchcraft groups as embracing a polytheistic conceptualisation of the universe. Modern witches, however, do not necessarily believe in a pantheon of male and female deities, but that reality itself is understood in many different ways. Truth is not a matter of correspondence between language, the world, or any one conceptual model. Put differently, there is no singular expression of truth. Truths that are contradictory are held to simultaneously. Symbols that accompany wiccan lore include the amulet, the talisman, the ankh, the pentagram (as worn by Sarah when I noticed her walking along Holloway Road, London, on 6 October 1986), the athame (ritual dagger), the cup, the pentacle, the rune, the sigil, the wand, the tarot, the cauldron, the altar, the fith-fath (effigy) etc.

Wicca is sharply at odds with Christianity because divination, spiritism, magic, sorcery, witchcraft, and all the dark arts in general are condemned in the Bible. The polytheism in witchcraft is also a blatant contradiction to the strict monotheism of Christianity. Like most other non-Christian religions and religious cults of the world, witchcraft obliterates the distinction between Creator and creation. Wiccans deify nature in such a way that both God and nature are identified as synonymous. Furthermore, since divinity lies in nature and in the cosmos, it also resides within each person. Here it can be observed that wiccan thought closely parallels Hinduism and other Eastern paradigms. Traditional Christian thought holds that witchcraft has its source in Satan, the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4: 4). Some wiccan groups, but not all, are an introduction to overt diabolism and Devil worship, and this was undoubtedly what Sarah had become embroiled in prior to our meeting in late 1986.

Sarah’s story is told comprehensively in From Satan To Christ, where I remark: “Within a couple of years of becoming a witch Sarah had drastically lost weight and was constantly run-down with the result of regular illness. Her skin, hair and eyes had become dull and suffered from acute tiredness. … The young woman I met on that bleak October day in 1986 was a mere shadow of her former self. Three years earlier she had been a stunning beauty with an abundance of health and energy. The pitiful, anaemic creature with dark circles beneath her eyes that I beheld was now a Satanist. Yet, against all odds, her heart shone through that sad exterior.” (From Satan To Christ, Holy Grail, 1988, page 57).

I felt obliged to embark on one last undercover mission where I risked detection in order to rescue this young person from the fate that awaited her as a traveller on the Left-hand Path. The outcome was my incurring the anger and wrath of the cult leaders at the end of a successful operation where not only Sarah, but eventually everyone else in the coven, especially after the publication of From Satan To Christ, recognised the truth and turned against the coven leaders. Some of them, Sarah included, contributed to television programmes and film documentaries exposing the dangers they had faced.

I recognised straight away that Sarah was special. The coven leaders also thought so, because, unlike the other female members, Sarah had been kept apart from their more squalid and disgusting lifestyle choices, and was not forced to attend their ritual animal sacrifices. She was apparently being kept pure for what the leaders described as the “Mars rituals.”

These initiations began during the time I came to know her, and consisted of acts of humiliation, discomfort, and a gruelling survival course. It became apparent that they would end in Sarah either becoming “filled with the essence of Mars” and giving birth to a demon possessed child with possibly her own death in the attempt to do so. It was essential to break the stranglehold the coven had on her, and this was only possible through engaging in yet another covert operation.

“[The coven leaders] could barely contain their anger when Sarah expressed how she felt … [and they] decided that Mars had put me in Sarah’s path as a test of her devotion. This managed to cause her some distress where other attempts had failed. The inaccurate press reports [about me, courtesy of the collusion between a journalist and Farrant] dug up and waved in her face did absolutely nothing. Claims of every kind had been made to lower Sarah’s opinion of me. All had been ignored. Now her loyalty to the coven and, moreover, the 'gods,' was brought into question in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to regain total control over her.” (From Satan To Christ, Holy Grail, 1988, pages 62-63). 

But Sarah now had my love, protection and sanctuary.

“No longer could she remain at her flat in Islington ― not if I was to attempt to rescue her. I watched her cry herself to sleep and when she woke the next evening I took her home where she would remain for as long as she needed. … No harm would befall her within the walls of her new-found sanctuary. Her safety would, for the time being, depend on her remaining under my protection. … The days and nights ahead would be crucial as the Light and the forces of darkness fought for a girl whose soul was still intact and heart was largely innocent.” (From Satan To Christ, Holy Grail, 1988, pages 67-68).

Wiccan thought offers a variety of views concerning the existence of evil and very few would deny its existence. However, the most common view among witches is to understand evil, not as a separate reality apart from good, as do Manichæans, Satanists, and other groups, but rather as a necessary aspect of good. Yet is the evil that human beings encounter in the world and in history an acceptable and healthy aspect of a reality that, according to wiccan thought, has no flaws to begin with? How can such a view of evil be reconciled to the wiccan rede: “That ye harm none, do what ye will”? Is not evil harmful? To the victims and families of a murderer it certainly is. If there is no one absolute standard or set of truths exclusive of all falsities, how can even the wiccan rede be regarded as true? To grant that it is, is to grant that there is at least one absolute truth. Many witches are willing to live with this blatant contradiction because of either naïveté, intellectual dishonesty, or just convenience.

For Christianity, God is the source of all truth, and the Bible is God’s revelation of such truth, deemed necessary for the world.

The Satanic Revival

Extract from Seán Manchester's published writings on Satanism:

The major axioms of Satanism, as it would later develop in the 1960s, were contained in Aleister Crowley’s Liber Legis, or The Book of the Law. The credo of the book was summed up in the now infamous phrase “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” Crowley’s next important literary contribution was The Equinox (1909). Many of the ideas contained in this latter work became the basis for modern Satanism. Weighing 3.5 lb per volume, these were the journals of his newly formed Order of the Silver Star aka Argenteum Astrum. In 1929 came Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice. His American publishers, Dover, made a selling point of the claim that the book contains Crowley’s admission that he himself carried out ritual killings of children, a point not lost on a certain Henry Bibby at the beginning of the twenty-first century. On 12 February 2001, Bibby, who had changed his name to “Edward Crowley” in 1998 owing to his obsession with the Edwardian Satanist, was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey for carrying out a Crowleyite ritual of child sacrifice on an innocent twelve-year-old victim named Diego Pineiro-Villar. He stabbed the boy over thirty times in Covent Garden, London, on 8 May 2000.

Having recommended to his readers the choice of “a male child of perfect intelligence,” Crowley later acknowledges that some of his acolytes might be squeamish when it comes to ritual sacrifice and offers the following conscience clause: “Those magicians who object to the use of blood have endeavoured to replace it with incense … But the bloody sacrifice, though more dangerous, is more efficacious; and for nearly all purposes human sacrifice is best.” Crowley offered no comforting disclaimers. He described his opus as a course of training, to help people from all walks of life “fulfill themselves perfectly.” And he promises that “the student will discover … a practical method of making himself a magician.” Within the same work, Crowley makes reference to unspecified progressive forms of blood sacrifice and he advocates self-mutilation, the offering of blood and virginity, and animal sacrifice by crucifixion. Crowley notoriously baptised a frog and called it “Jesus Christ” and then crucified it. This was in 1916, while living in New Hampshire, USA, during his induction ceremony to raise himself to the rank of magus. The remainder of Crowley’s life is a long legacy of perversion and evil. He believed that degrading sexual practice and drug use destroyed the consciousness of any sense of morality. This in turn enabled the consciousness, deprived of any sense of “ought” or “law,” to come under the influence of powerful supernatural beings. Jerry Johnston in The Edge of Evil (after the Enyclopedia of Occultism and Parasychology) has it that Crowley’s own son died a ritual death.

Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist, started a branch of Crowley’s Thelemic Satanism in Pasadena, California. He later changed his name to Belarian Armiluss Al Dajjaj Antichrist, and pledged himself to fulfill the work of the Beast 666, having supposedly been Crowley’s appointed “spiritual son.” Much of present-day American occultism can be traced back to the formation of Parson’s Pasadena chapter of the Ordo Templi Orientis during World War Two. In March 1946, Parsons was to try to call down the biblical Whore of Babylon into the womb of a living woman by a combination of strenuous copulation and incantation for three days. The female was a member of Ordo Templi Orientis. Keeping detailed records of Parsons unsuccessful black magic rite was friend and scribe Lafayette Ron Hubbard. Four years later Hubbard lay the foundations for his own religious cult, Scientology which, in turn, spawned the DeGrimstons, a British couple who were to establish the overtly satanic Process Church of the Final Judgement that took root in the counter-culture of the early 1960s. Founded by Robert Moore and Mary Anne MacLean, who were later to rename themselves the DeGrimstons, according to their literature, they worshipped a trinity of Jehovah, Lucifer and Satan. The role of Satan as executioner was further expressed in the following utterance by the church: “My prophecy upon this wasted earth and upon corrupt creation that squats upon its ruined surface is: THOU SHALT KILL!”

Contemporary Satanism is divided into three distinct realities: solitary Satanists, prohibited underground cults, and neo-satanic groups. The Christian Church has always abhorred Satanism and its practice. The biblical warnings against all occult practices are clear (Leviticus 19: 26 – 31; 20: 6; Deuteronomy 13: 1 – 5; 18: 9 – 14; Isaiah 8: 19 – 22; Jeremiah 29: 8 – 9; et al). Additionally, the Bible speaks of Satan as being the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4: 4) who is the deceiver of the human race (Genesis 3: 4 – 13) and the arch-enemy of God (Matthew 4: 6; John 8: 44; 2 Corinthians 2: 11). Satan afflicts the righteous (Job), reigns in dominion over sinners (Acts 26: 18), attempts to reclaim Christians for himself (Ephesians 6: 12), and inspires deceptive and lying wonders (2 Thessalonians 2: 9). Traditional Christianity has steadily continued to defend the classical paradigms despite some modernists no longer subscribing to a literal supernatural reality that personifies evil. Yet nobody can deny the existence of Satanists who worship the Devil. Satanism continues to attract interest and involvement among people at each of its various levels. It is a complex issue, not easily dealt with concisely. There are many who merely dabble, mercenaries who use it for commercial interests, others who use it for hedonistic purposes, and finally those who immerse themselves with the utmost seriousness in ritualistic worship of Satan and commit violent crimes in their zealous quest to carry out their master’s bidding. It is virtually impossible to discover the number of authentic Satanists because of their axiom of silence and their clandestine nature.

Satanic symbols in a Highgate Cemetery mausoleum in the 1970s.

What, then, is authentic Satanism? A contemporary British satanic magazine, Fenrir, published by the Thormynd Press in Shropshire, England, featured an article in its third issue titled “A Gift for the Prince.” The following are extracts: “Human sacrifice is powerful magick. The ritual death of an individual does two things: it releases energy … and it draws down dark forces. Sacrifice can be voluntary, of an individual, or involuntary … or results from events brought about by satanic ritual and/or planning (such as wars). Voluntary sacrifice usually only occurs every seventeen years as part of the ceremony of recalling. … An involuntary sacrifice is when an individual or individuals are chosen by a group, Temple, Order. Such sacrifices are usually sacrificed on the Spring Equinox. Great care is needed in choosing a sacrifice: the object being to dispose of a difficult individual or individuals without arousing undue suspicion. … The bodies are then buried or otherwise disposed of, care being taken if they are found, for suspicion not to fall on any of those involved. Those involved, of course, must be sworn to secrecy and warned that if they break their oath their own existence will be terminated. Breaking the oath of sacrifice draws down upon them the vengeance of all satanic groups. … Those who participate in the Ritual of Sacrifice must revel in the death(s): it being the duty of the Master and Mistress to find suitable participants.” Earlier in the text the unnamed author describes as the choicest victims for sacrifice: “interfering Nazarenes [Christians], those attempting to disrupt in some way established Satanist groups or Orders (eg journalists) and political/business individuals whose activities are detrimental to the Satanist spirit.” Another satanic publication, called the Black Flame, asserts: “The end times are here, the final days of the rule of the cross. The world will be swept by a wave of satanic individuals who will stand forth to claim their birthright as humans, proud of their nature. … An elite of the able will move forward towards the true destiny of our species, to master ourselves and the Universe.”

Twelve years before the end of the last century, I wrote: “All evidence points to the growing belief that the age of the antichrist has arrived, announcing the final age as foretold by Paul in his second letter to Timothy: ‘This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.’ (2 Timothy 3: 1-5). … The final confrontation is approaching ― the one piece of information the Satanists cannot shrug off and therefore include in their pernicious propaganda. … Even the Satanists themselves are aware that the Second Advent of Christ is extremely close which would explain why they are being driven to such excess. They cannot win. They must not.” (From Satan To Christ, Holy Grail, 1988, pages 75-76).

Crowley’s influence on modern witchcraft cannot be overestimated, but the Edwardian occultist was quintessentially a black magician who was to become the major inspiration behind the satanic revival in the 1960s. Someone who helped to perpetuate the cult of Aleister Crowley is the American film maker Kenneth Anger. Born in 1930 in Santa Monica, California, Anger grew up in the shadow of Hollywood and participated in his first film rôle at the age of four years. From his late teens he became obsessed with homo-erotic themes and diabolism. This led to him becoming, in his own words, “a disciple of the Satanist Aleister Crowley.” His most infamous film is Lucifer Rising which was begun in 1966, but production came to a halt when its lead actor died and the person to replace him then stole all the central footage. Anger released the remaining footage in 1966, followed by a 25 minutes’ version in 1973. The completed 45 minutes’ version was finally released in 1980.

I had been engaged in covert operations within the occult underworld from early in the 1970s. This became increasingly difficult following the 1985 release of my unexpurgated account covering the Highgate case, plus publication of another book three years later, which meant that it was no longer safe to continue undercover.

From Satan To Christ ended my covert operations.

A television crew were filming at Pond Square in Highgate where, helped by journalist Iris Peters, I had managed to gain the confidence of a number of notable Left-hand Path occultists. Only three people present during that afternoon’s filming were aware of my real credentials and what the purpose was of the filming. The cameras rolled. A member of the crew moved some candles nearer for the close-up shots. One of my colleagues expressed concern about the large number of people present, but it was probably by now too late to do anything about it. Filming continued when suddenly there was an almighty explosion.

Flames shot in all directions. Filming was abandoned, and an emergency meeting called that evening. A verdict of sabotage was reached. I had been rumbled either prior to the day, enabling an explosive mixture to be planted in a container where a candle would be lit, or possibly even on the day itself. It would have been relatively easy for the mixture to be added by someone present. Either way, it no longer seemed a good idea to work undercover in this way. One final operation would nevertheless await execution. It came like a bolt out of the blue. I had not anticipated being drawn back; yet I had no choice.

*       *       *