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.