Gareth Medway
Magonia 76, November 2001
Magonia 76, November 2001
In 1976 three naked Witches did a ritual on a Cornish seashore, Their purpose was to summon up an ancient legendary sea monster named Morgawr, and sure enough, sightings of the said beast began to be reported The saga was followed by Fortean Times based on material sent to them by "our Cornish correspondent Doc Shiels, the wizard of the west" 🔻🔻🔻
Shiels, his doctorate is said to have been purchased in the USA for $5 was an artist and a professional entertainer who had written several books on conjuring, specialising in the production of 'supernatural' effects.
In Entertaining with ESP, 1974, he wrote: "At one period of my thaumaturgical career, spooks were my speciality. I haunted a good many houses and raised spirits by the score purely for the purposes of enjoyment I hasten to add". Another title, Daemons, Darklings and Doppelgangers, explains such tricks as 'Red Devil', 'The Ghost Who Walks', 'Ectoplasm', 'Screaming Skull', and 'BEASTIE For Pure Scare Effect!'. I have not seen a copy of his seminal the Shiels Effect, but I understand that it appeared in 1976 and dealt with how to hoax UFO and monster sightings.
You would not therefore have to be a CSICOP debunker to be suspicious of the fact that Doc Shiels was at the centre of the wave of monster reports that began in Cornwall at that time. It happens, for instance, that the three Witches who did the ritual were Shiels' wife and two daughters.
On 5 March 1976 the Falmouth Packet published two photographs of an apparent sea-serpent which had been sent to them by a woman identified as 'Mary F." of whom the only other thing known is that she later gave Doc Shiels permission to use them. Interesting features of these pictures include their being out of focus, a significant point to which I will return; the fact that the monster produced no ripples; and that although Archimedcs' Principle dictates that a large floating creature should be nine tenths submerged, Morgawr, like the Roman soldier, had no respect for Archimedes and was apparently half out of the water. I think someone must have pointed this out to Shiels, for he eventually wrote an article suggesting that Morgawr might not be what she appeared to be, that is a plump worm-like creature, but only a small part of a vast Lovecraftian horror. [1]
Another obscure witness was 'Andrew', who approached Doc Shiels on the beach near Trerose and gave him a picture of Morgawr he had taken himself. Doc Shiels himself was privileged to see the beast on more than one occasion once in company with his friend David Clarke of Cornish Life magazine. Both took pictures, though neither were of good quality. Doc Shiels apologised that this weakened their value as evidence, but to my uncritical eye the result is still good enough to be fairly sure that the creature concerned was a seal. [2] Another time his whole family saw it, though it was his wife who wrote to the Packet to report it. The reason for this was that the media had developed an unfair distaste for the good doctor.
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As he himself wrote to Fortean Times: "During the last few days, the local press boys have expressed an opinion that the whole thing must be a fake, simply because I was on the spot and I'm known as a magician ... The editor of the West Briton will now only print reports of Morgawr sightings if my name is never mentioned ... The editor of the Falmouth Packet avoids me carefully these days. The BBC showed an interest in the fact that David had seen and photographed Morgawr ... but lost it when my name was mentioned". [3]
Altogether there were about twenty two known sightings of Morgawr. It would be tedious to list them all here, but it is worth noting there was a definite pattern to them: the witnesses were either Doc Shiels, or friends of Doc Shiels, or relatives of Doc Shiels, or reported their sightings to Doc Shiels (and to no one else), or else wrote letters describing what they had seen to newspapers and were never interviewed by anyone. Since a letter to a paper might in reality have been written by someone other than the ostensible sender (say, by Doc Shiels), all of this proves either the existence of an acausal connecting principle, or the centrality of Doc Shiels to the saga.
Altogether there were about twenty two known sightings of Morgawr. It would be tedious to list them all here, but it is worth noting there was a definite pattern to them: the witnesses were either Doc Shiels, or friends of Doc Shiels, or relatives of Doc Shiels, or reported their sightings to Doc Shiels (and to no one else), or else wrote letters describing what they had seen to newspapers and were never interviewed by anyone. Since a letter to a paper might in reality have been written by someone other than the ostensible sender (say, by Doc Shiels), all of this proves either the existence of an acausal connecting principle, or the centrality of Doc Shiels to the saga.
Morgawr sightings tailed off after 1976, but she did make a couple of comebacks. On 9 November 1980 a BBC crew went out in a boat with Shiels and two of his friends. While the television men were looking one way, Shiels and chums looked the other and saw a black hump, which had however submerged by the time the BBC crew had turned around or so they said. In 1985 there was a sighting by Shiels' friend Sheila Bird and her brother Eric. This was very considerate of Morgawr, since the occasion chanced to provide free publicity for Bird's book on local history which had just been published, and included a sketch of Morgawr. [4]
In 1991 Mark Chorvinsky of Strange magazine shocked the Fortean world by proclaiming Morgawr to have been a hoax perpetrated by Doc Shiels. As evidence he produced a copy of a tape recording allegedly made in by Shiels in 1976, in which he discussed plans for faking monster pictures. [5] In an interview with Fortean Times he naturally denied this: "I didn't create them. However in 1976 I experimented with photographs of a plasticine model monster, stuck on a sheet of glass with water the Helford River in the background ... they were used very briefly as shamanic lures or 'decoys' ... sympathetic magic. It's an old trick, like painting a bison or woolly mammoth on the wall of a cave." [6] This is exactly the method Chorvinsky claimed he used: for it to work the camera must be focused on the middle distance, so that the 'monster' and the sea are out of focus by the same amount, as they are in these pictures; also it would explain why Morgawr produced no ripples in the water.
Shiels seems to be an admirer of John Keel, the British edition of whose classic The Mothman Prophecies appeared in 1976. [7] As if in affectionate imitation there then came report of a Cornish counterpart, Owlman. This entity was even more selective in his appearances than Morgawr: he showed himself only to adolescent girls on holiday, who afterwards would chance to meet Doc Shiels, tell him their stories, and never be seen again.
Three of the girls produced drawings of what they had seen [8], though there is some doubt about one variously described as "by June Melling", or "based on the sketch by June Melling", which is not the same thing. If it is her original, then like the other two, she had remarkably excellent draughtsmanship for a pre-teenager; in fact one might have guessed all of the pictures to have been the work of a professional artist (e.g. Doc Shiels).
Barbara Perry and Sally Chapman both wrote a brief description of the 'monster' underneath their drawings. Their handwriting is of interest. Graphologists know that there are some writing habits that can be consciously altered, for instance whether the letters are joined up or not, whereas others are very difficult to disguise. Chapman's and Perry's hands are very different in their alterable habits Perry joins up some of her letters but Chapman does not but remarkably similar in their unalterable ones. The ways they wrote "monster" are virtually identical, and they share several other habits, both putting the dot over the i to the right of the letter and beginning the crossbar of the t at the upright stroke. One could almost conclude they were one person pretending to be two.
Barbara Perry and Sally Chapman both wrote a brief description of the 'monster' underneath their drawings. Their handwriting is of interest. Graphologists know that there are some writing habits that can be consciously altered, for instance whether the letters are joined up or not, whereas others are very difficult to disguise. Chapman's and Perry's hands are very different in their alterable habits Perry joins up some of her letters but Chapman does not but remarkably similar in their unalterable ones. The ways they wrote "monster" are virtually identical, and they share several other habits, both putting the dot over the i to the right of the letter and beginning the crossbar of the t at the upright stroke. One could almost conclude they were one person pretending to be two.
Years later Jonathan Downes, the portly Devonshire cryptozoologist, did his own investigation of Owlman and located a man who said he had seen it when a boy; though his sketch of it looks like an imitation of the originals rather than an independent drawing from life. The same is true of a letter sent by an American student who had seen it while on holiday. Though she gave an address in Chicago and stated herself to be a student of marine biology, when Downes tried to contact her she was not registered as living there, and no department chief he spoke to on the telephone had heard of her. [9] Downes' best known contribution was to star in the Owlman video, which also featured the director's wife as a naked lesbian Witch, while a professional sceptic was depicted as a maniac gay Nazi.
In 1977 Shiels turned his attention to Loch Ness. Unlike most Nessie hunters, who have to scan the waters for months or years before being blessed with a sighting, the beastie appeared in front of Shiels, or so he claimed, the day after he arrived (21 May 1977): as he watched the Loch from the ramparts of Urquhart Castle, the creature's head appeared about a hundred yards away, and he was able to take two pictures before it submerged again. This head clearly is in the water, not on a glass screen near the camera; nonetheless, it is producing no ripples, suggesting that it may be a dummy monster's head stuck on a float.
Again, it was John Keel who observed that: "Camera malfunctions are remarkably common among would-be UFO photographers, and even those who try to take pictures of the serpent at Loch Ness. It almost feels as if some outside force fouls up cameras when monsters and UFOs are around." [10] Inevitably this curse affected Shiels. After the Glasgow Daily Record had examined them, and one of them been published on the front page of the Daily Mirror (9 June) Shiels made a glass negative of the second picture then mailed the original to an American named Max Maven: when the envelope arrived the picture was missing! Soon afterwards he accidentally dropped the glass copy and broke it. The ten holiday snaps preceding the two monster pictures were "temporarily misplaced" by the Record, and no one has seen them since. This unfortunately makes it harder for independent researchers to evaluate Shiels' claims. [11]
In the early eighties Shiels travelled to Lough Larne in Ireland, reputed home of something called the piast bestia. This investigation produced some more tasteful pictures of the Doc with sky clad Witches, but no good ones of the monster. He did claim that, the very night of their first experiment, a couple that he knew saw a lynx run into the beam of their car headlights. Later, when talking in Maguire's pub to a man from Cork, Shiels asked him "if he had heard of the Ballyvourney Lynx"; the man thought he meant golf links, which Doc thought a good example of a 'lexilink' (groan). [l2] Actually, I should think this would be a good way to put a rumour into circulation: ask enough people if they had heard about a sightings of a lynx, and eventually people will start to see it.
Years later, Shiels did receive a better picture of the Lough creature from a man named Kelly whom he met at Kerry. Kelly claimed to be a descendant of Doctor John Dee's sidekick Edward Kelly, and said that his father had discussed the Loch Ness monster with Aleister Crowley in Paris in 1933, a truly remarkable occasion, since Crowley was deported from France in 1929. He gave Shiels a picture resembling the old Mary F. snaps, and probably taken by the same plasticine on glass method. It seems Kelly has not been seen since. [13] By now it is apparent that the Doc has overlooked the greatest and most disturbing enigma, that is, the mysterious disappearance of the witnesses, on a scale comparable with the sudden deaths of people who entered Tutankhamen's tomb or witnessed the assassination of President Kennedy.
The ultimate motivation of the Shiels monster saga seems to have been simple entertainment. By contrast Sean Manchester's vampire hunts and investigations into Satanism are part of a general campaign to demonstrate his own transcendent genius to the world, as indicated by the titles he lays claim to: Dr Manchester, Lord Manchester, Bishop Manchester, Knight Commander of the Order of the Sangrael, Grandmaster of the Universal Brotherhood of Magicians, Britain's No. 1 Psychic, etc.; and in due course we anticipate King Sean, Pope Manchester, and finally the Lord God Manchester. During a recent television studio debate some people questioned whether his episcopacy was genuine, and the argument continued afterwards in the lobby, reaching a climax when the bishop pinned one of his critics to the wall and punched him in the face, whereupon he was removed by security guards. [14]
In 1970 Mr Manchester, an out of work London photographer who would later be employed as a milkman, approached the Hampstead & Highgate Express, which had printed a string of letters about sightings of a ghost in the vicinity of Highgate Cemetery, the last resting place of Karl Marx. He suggested that the figure might be the "King Vampire of the Undead" (a phrase he borrowed from Bram Stoker's Dracula), a medieval Wallachian nobleman, whose followers "eventually brought him to England in a coffin at the beginning of the 18th century". The Ham & High (commonly so called) liked his theory enough to publish it on the front page of the 27 February edition.
He was quoted as saying that: "We would like to exorcise the vampire by the traditional and approved manner drive a stake through its heart with one blow just after dawn between Friday and Saturday [sic], chop off the head with a gravedigger's shovel, and bum what remains. This is what the clergy did centuries ago. But we'd be breaking the law today."
The outcome of this, and a similar statement that he made on television a fortnight later, was a huge influx of vampire hunters who, whatever they may have done for the undead, were undoubtedly responsible for a large amount of vandalism in the already rundown graveyard, which eventually had to be sealed off to the public. [15] The Western half had a number of Victorian vaults where the bodies were sealed away behind now rusted doors, hence in practice fairly easy of access. One corpse did indeed have a stake knocked through its breast, another was decapitated, and a fire was lit under the coffin of a third. [16]
Though these were the very methods recommended by Manchester, this is not to suggest that he was personally responsible; his main activity at first was taking pictures for sale to the media of others going round the cemetery with crosses and stakes. In August he told the Ham & High that "These same Satanists that desecrate Highgate cemetery are disciples of the 'Evil One', the vampire and intend to spread the cult in the hope of corrupting the world" (Compare this statement with the preamble to the film Brides of Dracula: "Count Dracula, Monarch of all vampires, is dead; but his disciples live on to spread the cult and corrupt the world.")
The headless corpse of a woman had been found by schoolgirls on the ground outside a vault. The Hornsey Journal reported that Manchester believed that "the desecration was done by Satanists" (rather than by vampire hunters), specifically "a full coven of 12 devil worshippers", and that an exorcism had therefore been carried out: "Seven crucifixes, four white candles, and four cups of holy water from a Catholic Church, were used in the fifteen minute ceremony ... Incense was burned and holy water was sprinkled near the vault, and the banishment of evil powers, including words in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and English, was read by Mr Sean Manchester, president of the British Occult Society." [17]
Some weeks later this 'secret' rite was reenacted for BBC television. Incidentally, Manchester had been expelled from the original British Occult Society, but any man can call himself "president of the British Occult Society". He also claimed to have founded it, notwithstanding that he later distributed fliers bearing the legend "British Occult Society (Founded 1839)".
Some weeks later this 'secret' rite was reenacted for BBC television. Incidentally, Manchester had been expelled from the original British Occult Society, but any man can call himself "president of the British Occult Society". He also claimed to have founded it, notwithstanding that he later distributed fliers bearing the legend "British Occult Society (Founded 1839)".
The following January a church in Islington was desecrated, supposedly by Black Magicians. So Sean Manchester turned up and offered to do another exorcism, which was accepted by the priest in charge. This got the latter into trouble, since his bishop did not learn of it until afterwards. He ordered an inquiry, since a priest wishing to perform an exorcism must first ask his bishop's permission, and in this instance permission would not have been given before Manchester's credentials had been checked.
On that occasion Manchester was assisted by a striking blonde in a minidress. When he came to write some of these events up, in The Vampire's Bedside Companion, he referred to her as 'Lusia', and stated that he had met her after her sister wrote to him in response to the original Ham & High article. [19] He gave no suggestion that they were anything but professional friends, yet in the original press articles about the exorcism the pair had been described as "Manchester and his wife". [20] Moreover, in April 1971 Manchester told a court on oath that a rival vampire hunter with whom he had fallen out, David Farrant, had made obscene telephone calls to his wife that had so upset her that she had miscarried her baby. [21] Farrant has naturally denied that this was true, and so by implication has Manchester himself, for in 1988 he declared that there had been single until he married Sarah Crook in 1987, and implied that any rumour of a previous wedlock was a lie circulated by Satanists. [22]
Anyway, in the Vampire's Bedside Companion version of events, in 1969 he had met a teenaged Highgate girl who had recurrent nightmares about something trying to get into her room. He noticed two small marks on the side of her neck, and she was pale and losing weight. He managed to cure her with the appropriate application of garlic, holy water and crucifixes.
The sister of 'Lusia' then made contact with Manchester to express concern that she had started sleepwalking. One night (after the manner of Lucy Westenra in Dracula, who she also resembled in having "two tiny pin pricks" visible on her neck) Lusia left her flat. They followed her into the cemetery, where she stopped outside a vault. They carried her back home, and next day she had no recollection of what had happened.
Coming back to the same place in daylight they found "a body which appeared neither dead nor alive", though the vault was a hundred years old, and had had no recent admissions. Manchester took up an aspen stake, but one of his assistants protested that this would be sacrilege. Hence they were content with an exorcism. He then quoted the report from the Hornsey Journal given above, though it will be recalled that then he had said nothing of vampires, but claimed to be exorcising a Satanic desecration. The vault, he claimed, was bricked up on "our recommendation", though the cemetery authorities have asserted more prosaically that this was done to keep the vandals out rather than to keep the vampire in.
1975 saw the publication of four numbers of a magazine named New Witchcraft, which was illustrated mainly with photographs of nubile young Witches in various stages of undress, accompanied by articles and short stories. The final issue had a contribution by Manchester entitled 'The Haunting of Hell House', an account of a night spent by himself and two other psychic researchers investigating a ghost at a house in Crouch End. The title is strikingly similar to that of the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Even more so are many of the details: a cold spot which everyone could feel but which no thermometer registered, and a reluctance of the house to let people go, causing a car to crash on departure. There were even almost identical phrases:
"Hill House ... had stood so for eighty year and might stand for eighty more ... silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there walked alone' ... 'I leave before dark comes' 'It knows my name' ... "
" ... this obelisk of another century might stand for a hundred years more ... whatever walks the broken staircases of Hell House, walks alone ... 'I Leave before dark comes' ... 'It knows my name'" [23]
The centre of the disturbances was an upstairs room in which, he wrote, they found a magic circle painted on the floor, and other signs that a ritual had been performed there previously. A photograph of this circle was included, in which, however, the candles at the quarters can be seen to be alight. So far from proving the truth of the story, this indicates what can be learned for a fact elsewhere, that Manchester had taken the picture immediately before the ritual, and that the participants were well known to him. Though the story ended with the trio being scared off by the place, it concluded: "One day I will return to continue the investigation."
A version of Manchester's story published in 1978 again left the vampire exorcised but otherwise intact: "Manchester never staked the body inside the coffin".
The same was true of an interview he gave with the French actress Sylvain Charlet in 1979. [24] Yet by 1980 he was trying to find a publisher for a manuscript entitled The Vampire Exhumed, of which a New York vampirologist who read it complained that it was too similar to Dracula, right down to the beheading with a kukri knife. That detail, but not the staking, had disappeared when his British Occult Society finally published it as The Highgate Vampire in 1985.
The narrative followed, firstly, that in The Vampire's Bedside Companion; and secondly that in 'The Haunting of Hell House' "whatever walked the broken staircases walked alone". In this retelling, however, the investigators did go back to the House, the morning after their original adventures, and this was stated to be in the early winter of 1973. In the basement they found a coffin (as in the stage version of Dracula, inside which was the same body they had encountered in the vault in Highgate cemetery a few years earlier. This time our hero was not so squeamish, he put a stake through its heart, at which it emitted a terrible roar and started to decay, whereupon they took it out into the garden and burnt it. [25]
But this was not the end of the evil, for somehow the vampire had bitten Lusia. A few years later she died of a blood disease, and was buried in the Great Northern London Cemetery. Anyone who has read Stoker's Dracula will recall that after Lucy Westenra was buried in a churchyard near Hampstead Heath, children in the vicinity started going missing at night, being found the next day and stating that they had been with a 'bloofer' (a child's word for 'beautiful' lady: "Some of the children, indeed all who had been missed at night, have been slightly tom or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or small dog ... "
It is no surprise to hear a similar report from the vicinity of the Great Northern London Cemetery: "My worst fears were strengthened after interviewing the small boy who had been playing in the nearby park after dark. He described his 'lovely lady all in white' as being 'very blonde with big staring eyes'. It would seem that she allured him into the cemetery's wood, whereupon he felt drowsy and must have fallen asleep beneath a tree. He woke with the familiar small incisions on his throat which his parents ascribed to animal or insect bites" [26]
It is no surprise to hear a similar report from the vicinity of the Great Northern London Cemetery: "My worst fears were strengthened after interviewing the small boy who had been playing in the nearby park after dark. He described his 'lovely lady all in white' as being 'very blonde with big staring eyes'. It would seem that she allured him into the cemetery's wood, whereupon he felt drowsy and must have fallen asleep beneath a tree. He woke with the familiar small incisions on his throat which his parents ascribed to animal or insect bites" [26]
A relative having refused him permission to exhume her corpse, Manchester kept a vigil by Lusia's grave, inside a protective magic circle, and recited necromantic invocations. Eventually a giant spider appeared, but it was unable to get inside the circle to get at him. He had brought a long stake with him, and was able to drive it through the body of the horror. (By now it is evident than Manchester doesn't have many original ideas; lest anyone be at a loss where he got this one from, he included at this juncture a still from the film The Devil Rides Out, the scene where the heroes are in a protective magic circle, just prior to a giant spider appearing outside it.) In the first light of dawn the body of the spider turned back into that of Lusia, which he hastily reburied. [27]
The book was well illustrated with pictures of Sean Manchester striking a variety of heroic poses, Lusia's cleavage, and one of the original vampire in its last moments, this being increased to three in the second edition. Manchester's nemesis, David Farrant, however states that these images are stills from an 8mm home movie about vampire hunting that was made by Manchester in the late 1960s. Manchester himself quite unconsciously indicated this in an open letter to Thames & Hudson (complaining that Matthew Bunsen's The Vampire Encyclopedia, which they had published devoted only one sentence to Sean Manchester), where he referred to his 'stills' as opposed to photographs, of the Highgate Vampire. [28]
Though he has often since been featured on lightweight TV chat shows, Lord Manchester has never gained the serious recognition he evidently desires. One problem is that his companions on these missions have never come forward to confirm his version of events, so that all we have is the 'material evidence' of the pictures of the disintegrating King Vampire. In response Bishop Manchester habitually threatens legal actions against his detractors, and engages in harassment campaigns against editors who publish anything uncomplimentary about himself.
Dr. Manchester's investigations into alleged Satanism are rather less amusing, since they tend to name and defame real live people Admittedly, his best known work in this field, the booklet From Satan to Christ, was somewhat anticlimactic. Having stated that he was a Christian who had worked to 'infiltrate' Satanism, and getting off to a good start with descriptions of cat slaughter and blasphemous rites, the story drifted off into a tedious romance between himself and a Witch he met in Islington, culminating in his only actual undercover mission; that is, his attendance at a fancy dress party where the rest of her coven were also present. In the end he persuaded her to leave the group and marry Sean Manchester. Another lost sheep was saved!
Former members of the coven that he named (real, but it ceased to meet about ten years ago) state that Manchester's allegations about their practising sacrifices and sexual perversions are a pack of lies but then they would, wouldn't they? Against them we have the testimony of Sean Manchester, whose integrity speaks for itself.
Former members of the coven that he named (real, but it ceased to meet about ten years ago) state that Manchester's allegations about their practising sacrifices and sexual perversions are a pack of lies but then they would, wouldn't they? Against them we have the testimony of Sean Manchester, whose integrity speaks for itself.
In 1970 members of the British Occult Society (the one that had expelled Manchester) started getting anonymous letters threatening them with the use of Black Magic powers. That October a woman received telephone calls in a similar vein. She recognised the voice as being that of Sean Manchester, so her husband went around to Manchester's flat, pushed him to the ground and kicked him. They ended up in court, the husband pleading provocation, Manchester denying having made the calls. The magistrate believed the former and gave him an absolute discharge, but bound Manchester over to keep the peace. At this the threatening messages from the Satanists stopped. [29] One may guess that his ultimate intention would be that he would come along as a Christian white knight to save the world from the Satanic conspiracy he had created.
In 1977, inspired by popular books such as Occult Reich, and the contemporary resurgence of the far right, Manchester attempted to uncover a legion of Satanic Nazis in Barnet, north London. He began promisingly with an article in the Borehamwood Post, 29 September 1977, which claimed to expose a group called the League of Imperial Fascists who practised military exercises and recruited from among local school children.
Photographs (with the faces blacked out) showed a man with a swastika armband outside a school; a female 'combatant' in a military cap and Imperial eagle T-shirt; and 'The Commander' who wore a full Third Reich uniform, brandished a riding crop, and who according to the text spent his time listening to Wagner records while spouting a pastiche of neo-Nazi cliches: "Our aim is to protect and promote the Aryan race and its western culture by forming a monolithic international force to combat and utterly destroy Communism and Zionism. All over England cells like this one exist and the chill North wind flaunts their swastika banners as they wait in eager anticipation of our inevitable victory". A second article was to have revealed that the League were linked to Satan worship, but circumstances prevented its appearance.
Photographs (with the faces blacked out) showed a man with a swastika armband outside a school; a female 'combatant' in a military cap and Imperial eagle T-shirt; and 'The Commander' who wore a full Third Reich uniform, brandished a riding crop, and who according to the text spent his time listening to Wagner records while spouting a pastiche of neo-Nazi cliches: "Our aim is to protect and promote the Aryan race and its western culture by forming a monolithic international force to combat and utterly destroy Communism and Zionism. All over England cells like this one exist and the chill North wind flaunts their swastika banners as they wait in eager anticipation of our inevitable victory". A second article was to have revealed that the League were linked to Satan worship, but circumstances prevented its appearance.
At this time Manchester used to visit the home of David Farrant, with whom he now had a 'truce'. Farrant had taken in a sick white dove with the hope, eventually realised, of nursing it back to health and releasing it. (He often did this, and was therefore nicknamed 'the Birdman") Manchester asked if he would pose with it for a picture that he wanted to illustrate a French magazine article. A bemused Farrant ended up holding the bird over an improvised altar on which Manchester had placed two black candles, an antique Gurkha knife and a small 'doll' which he had cut out of cardboard. After, he took the doll away with him. [30] The picture appeared in L 'Autre Monde in February 1980 illustrating the Sylvain Charlet interview mentioned above.
Manchester then went to the Islington Gazette with a photograph of a woman, whom he termed his secretary, pointing angrily to the same doll. The accompanying story alleged that they had been sent this 'witchcraft doll' in the post, and that they believed it had been sent by a group of Satanists who were endeavouring to prevent a forthcoming talk by Manchester which would expose their evil doings. He assured the Gazette that the meeting would go ahead regardless. [31]
Obviously, apart from getting free publicity, the ultimate intention (fulfilled years later) was to 'discover' that the same doll was used in both photographs, and pretend this to the world as proof that David Farrant had sacrificed a dove in order to hex Manchester. Yet the picture in L 'Autre Monde was credited 'Photo S. Manchester', which would have made it surely the only time a cursing ritual had been photographed by its prospective victim.
Emboldened by his feature in the Borehamwood Post, Manchester had sent the same material to the Sunday People, who were however, suspicious of it. It contained nothing that they could directly investigate for themselves. But they recalled that Manchester had had a public feud with Farrant, so they asked the latter to come around to their offices and give them his opinion. Farrant knew nothing about the League of Imperial Fascists, but he recognised the faces in the pictures (which had been sent without the blacking out): the Nazi outside the school gates was in fact a friend of Manchester's named John Pope, the female 'combatant' was Manchester's current girlfriend, and the 'Commander' was none other than Sean Manchester himself! Farrant put them in touch with Pope, who confirmed that the pictures were fakes, and said in real life he had nothing to do with far right politics. The editor of the Borehamwood Post admitted he had not tried to check the veracity of the story.
Just as he was preparing to give his talk, Manchester was asked to visit the Sunday People offices. Reporter Frank Thorne challenged him as to what evidence he had for his claims. "The only proof I have of the truth of the local paper article is my word", he replied. In 'We Unmask Phony Nazis' in the Sunday People, 9 October 1977, Thorne quoted this, and concluded the article, as I will mine, with the comment: "And that, Mr Manchester, is simply not good enough".
References:
- Doc Shiels, 'Mother Nature's Jumbo Jet', Fortean Times 42 (Autumn 1984), p.62.
- Fortean Times 17, (August 1976), pp.1415; Tony 'Doc' Shiels, Monstrum!, Fortean Tomes, 1990, pp.645 and plate 7.
- Fortean Times 19 (December 1976), p.16.
- Sheila Bird, Bygone Falmouth, Phillimore, Chichester, 1985.
- Chorvinsky, Strange, 9, 1991.
- Fortean Times 62 (April 1992), p.51.
- Panther retitled it Visitors from Space, which is not only less poetic, but wholly inapt, since the main argument of the book is that UFOs are not spacecraft.
- See Janet and Colin Bord, Alien Animals, Panther 1985, plate 22. 9.
- Jonathan Downes, The Owlman and Others, Domra Publications, Corby 1988, p.67 72.
- Keel, Visitors from Space, p.41.
- Shiels, Monstrum!, pp.767.
- Fortean Times 38, p.41.
- Shiels, Monstrum!, pp.901.
- Man, Myth and Manchester, Series 1, issue 4, forthcoming.
- David Farrant, Beyond the Highgate Vampire, British Psychic and Occult Society, fourth edition, 2002 (sic according to the title page), pp.19-21.
- Reported in numerous newspapers, e.g. The Times, 13 June
- Hornsey Journal, 28 August 1970.
- Islington Gazette, 22 and 29 January 1971.
- Sean Manchester, 'The Highgate Vampire', in Peter Underwood, The Vampire's Bedside Companion, Leslie Frewin, 1975, p. 107.
- News of the World, 24 January 1971; North London Press, 29 January 1971.
- Hornsey Journal, 16 April 1971.
- Sean Manchester, From Satan to Christ, Holy Grail, 1988, p.61.
- Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House, Michael Joseph, 1960, pp.7, 36,123; Sean Manchester, 'The Haunting of Hell House', New Witchcraft 4, (1975) pp.52,54.
- Mike Samuda, Unsloved Mysteries, Edwin Arnold, 1978, p.16; Sylvain Charlet, 'Les Nouveaux Vampires de Londres', L'Autre Monde, February 1980
- Sean Manchester, The Highgate Vampire, British Occult Society, 1985, p.91113.
- Bram Stoker, Dracula, chapter 13. Manchester, The Highgate Vampire, p.123
- Manchester, The Highgate Vampire, pp.140, 143~6.
- Quoted in Kevin Demant, 'The Irrefutable Evidence', Suspended in Dusk 2, 1998, p.33.
- London Evening Standard, 4 November 1970; Daily Mirror, Daily Sketch, Sun, Daily Express, 5 November 1970; David Farrant, The Vampire Syndrome, Mutiny! Press, 2000, pp.212.
- Man, Myth and Manchester, Series i, Issue 2, 2001, pp.1618.
- Islington Gazette, 7 October 1977.