Bite Me, Bite Me Not

The editor of Bite Me magazine, Arlene Russo, must be viewed as dwelling at the other end of the spectrum to the scholars and academics who should have shown impartiality instead of allowing their personal prejudices get in the way. Her hopelessly inaccurate and misleading entries for the Highgate Vampire and the still unresolved Kirklees mystery in her book Vampire Nation (2005) really have to be seen to be believed. This is not a case of her expressing an opinion. What she claims on pages 79, 85 and 86 of her book are a complete misrepresentation of what is recorded in the public annals, never mind the vast research archive by those who were involved in what she writes about.

For example, on page 79 of Vampire Nation, Russo writes: “In 1990 he [Seán Manchester] and two assistants visited the [Kirklees] grave. Apparently one of the helpers became so frightened as they entered the woods around the grave, that he fled into the night.” This simply did not happen and is a complete fabrication. Was Russo present at the time? She was not. Did she read this from an account given by someone who was present at the Kirklees vigil in April 1990. She did not. Nowhere has it been suggested by me, or anyone else present at the Kirklees vigil, that anyone “fled into the night.” My account about the vigil of 22 April 1990 in The Vampire Hunter's Handbook and also The Unexplained magazine is absolutely clear about this.

Neither was it “an unofficial mini exorcism at the gravesite,” as alleged by Russo. It was a vigil, albeit one where three words of prayer were uttered at one point during the culmination of events. She recklessly makes false statements about an event which significantly alters the recorded facts. Who told her that one of those present fled into the night in terror as the group entered the woods? Certainly not anybody within that group. So why did she invent this episode? I suspect it is to convey an impression she wants to propagate which is different to the known facts and introduces doubt about those participating. On page 85, for example, Russo misleadingly states: “Manchester claimed that a local girl, named Elizabeth, had fallen under the vampire’s sway and that only he could save her.” I, of course, did not state that I was the only person who “could save her.”

The same page states: “Manchester’s claims set off a hysterical reaction: graves were smashed and bodies exhumed. … the normally quiet suburb had become gripped by the drama as the satanic rituals increased.” Russo is trying to lay at my feet blame for desecration and vandalism at Highgate Cemetery. It is somewhat ironic that the source of all this misinformation upon which she came to rely - David Farrant - was convicted of desecration and vandalism at Highgate Cemetery. Needless to say, I have no criminal convictions.

My theory was not made public until 27 February 1970, prior to which there had been newspaper reports, readers’ letters about the phenomenon and sundry goings-on. The vandalism, desecration and black magic incidents significantly lessened following two television programmes (13 March 1970 and 15 October 1970) on which I discussed the supernatural occurrences at the cemetery. It should be recognised that desecration and vandalism had been taking place throughout the 1960s. My putting a spotlight on the situation made it untenable for vandals and diabolists to continue their clandestine activities. Nefarious nocturnal activities dwindled from the spring of 1970 due to all the publicity.

Vampire Nation erroneously states on the same page: “Events came to a head on 14 March 1970 … Manchester claimed to have located the vampire in a vault, and also claimed to have impaled the ‘king vampire’ in its lair.” I did not, of course. claim to have “impaled” anything in Highgate Cemetery, and have never employed the term “king vampire” as explained in The Vampire Hunter's Handbook (page 72), a work that makes clear the attribution originated with the sensationalising of what I said to a local newspaper in 1970. Arlene Russo would know this because she has read my concise vampirological guide where the matter is clarified comprehensively.

She even gets the date of the “mass vampire hunt” wrong in Vampire Nation.

Still on the same page, she states: “… new reports of incidents around the cemetery started up” when, in fact, the new incidents arose at a completely different graveyard - the Great Northern London Cemetery - several miles from Highgate Cemetery.

On page 86 Russo writes: “They [sic] hunters eventually claimed to have killed this beast too …” Nobody, least of all me, claimed to have “killed” anything, whether beast or vampire. What was being dealt with cannot be “killed” as it is demonic and can only be “expelled” from its corporeal host and the scene of contamination. The same page finds Russo repeating the falsehood: “Manchester … is still adamant that he personally killed two vampires” when I am not in the business of “killing.” I am a trained and seasoned exorcist with decades of experience in the field.

Russo's mention of the Highgate and Kirklees cases are premeditated and intentional misrepresentation of the facts. She offers no evidence to support any of her allegations. How can she? What serious researchers might also find laughable is the preposterous claim made by mimetic-vampiroid Arlene Russo that she is “the UK's foremost vampire expert.” This statement will be found on the fly to her dust-jacket. Her books (she followed this one with another, The Real Twilight (2010), comprise cobbled together articles that serve to misinform. 

Like her academic counterpart Bill Ellis, Arlene Russo had input from David Farrant and this connection, more than anything, coloured her version of events when she came to write about Highgate and Kirklees in Vampire Nation. She is certainly no expert on vampires; her preferred area being vampiroids and vampiroidism, ie people who either pretend to be, or believe themselves to be, vampires.. This has nothing to do with the traditional vampire or anything else remotely supernatural. I cover vampiroidism and its attendant subculture in a chapter in The Vampire Hunter’s Handbook.

Arlene Russo is published by John Blake Publishing Ltd who assured me that no reprinting of Vampire Nation is planned. John Blake himself wrote in January 2006 to confirm that he would consult with me before considering a further edition. I have heard nothing since that time. There are those who are even beneath Arlene Russo’s standard. They are the self-published pamphleteers, most recent of which is Patricia Langley (now called Patsy Sorenti). She was born in 1960 - aged ten when the Highgate Vampire case hit the headlines - and is a self-styled witch, medium and spiritualist.

What Langley describes as a “casebook” comprises fifty stapled pages bearing Farrant’s address and imprint, ie “British Psychic and Occult Society,” as publisher. This pamphlet has no ISBN and the page bearing her name and Farrant’s address is pasted inside the front cover so it might be omitted for the purpose of being forwarded anonymously to those suspected of being unsympathetic toward the publishing source.

It does not take long to discover why she might want her work to appear anonymous. The front cover contains a stolen image, as does the rear cover which displays a stolen photograph of me. Even inside (on page 47 near the pamphlet’s conclusion) is another stolen image reproduced without permission from page 182 of The Highgate Vampire. There is no photograph of Langley, however, who opts to be known as “Patsy.”

Farrant apologist Gareth Medway wrote the Introduction to Langely’s pamphlet. He is the only person to have lent his name to the printed pages, and quickly runs out of steam reprinting the same invective we have seen dozens of times before in Farrant’s malicious tracts which concentrate on pursuing his principal obsession. Medway likes to think of himself as a “pagan scholar” when he is nothing of the sort. For even pagans and witches - the sincere, albeit misguided, ones, that is -  have nothing but absolute contempt for Farrant, as invariably revealed whenever his name is raised.

David Farrant with Gareth Medway during a "witchcraft" ceremony over a grave in 2005.

Only one other person has co-published libellous nonsense with Farrant, and that is Kevin Demant toward the end of the last century when his Whitechapel address and imprint “Mutiny! Press” - the exclamation mark being necessary as another Mutiny Press exists - appeared on the same page as the “Highgate Vampire Society” imprint above Farrant’s Muswell Hill address for a pamphlet crammed with misinformation. This proved to be Demant’s last venture in support of Farrant whom he has since distanced himself from for what Farrant describes as “nebulous reasons.” Demant has opined on his own website that he found Farrant’s obsessive hate campaign every bit as obnoxious to him as my Christian ministry and crusade against the Devil. Unlike Langley and Medway, Demant is not a witch or an occultist. He is primarily a political animal, having in the past supported anarchist groups such as Class War. His interest in the supernatural centres largely on fantasy films and literature; though he also has an interest in such horrors as the "Jack the Ripper" murders. John Pope fascinates him, which might have contributed in a small way to his initial attraction to Farrant. He first made discovery of these two characters in the 1985 edition of The Highgate Vampire, but his fascination dimmed as their deceitfulness and chicanery became more obvious.

Kevin Demant, David Farrant and Gareth Medway.

Patricia Langely experimented with tantric yoga and Zen Buddhism until she found her niche with the “old religion,” as witches sometimes call their craft. When she is not reproducing Farrant’s propaganda verbatim, her self-styled “casebook” is padded out with tedious historical background information gleaned largely from the internet. Her intention is a transparent attempt to undermine my account in The Highgate Vampire. Yet every statement made by her to that effect is self-evidently false. My book, she complains, “speaks in rather arcane, old-fashioned language … full of long words.” She is the first to level this accusation. Her rhetoric quickly turns into a series of questions which only I or the team with me at the time can address. Yet Langley did not approach me or anyone else connected to the case to answer any of her questions.

It is not too long before she is singing the praises of Farrant who “actually witnessed the phenomenon,” we are told, and “has a wealth of information on the case.” She then makes the astonishing claim that Farrant “personally knows … the young girl who was allegedly attacked by the beast.” It soon becomes clear Langley is referring to Elżbieta Wojdyla whom Farrant has not met, nor communicated with in any form. In recent times, I asked Elżbieta if she, or anyone known to her, had been contacted by Farrant. She was adamant that neither she, her family or her friends, had been contacted.

The questions asked in Langely's pamphlet apply to Farrant far more than me. “Why did he not ask for the key … or acquire permission from the Home Office to enter the tomb?” she rhetorically begs. My answer is that the door to the tomb was not locked, and I already had permission from the private cemetery company to conduct an exorcism, which consent was repeated when the BBC filmed a reconstruction of same in October 1970. It never occurred to Langley that her friend Farrant did not have the consent of anyone to enter Highgate Cemetery in the dead of night to conduct a black magic ceremony with a naked Martine de Sacy in a mausoleum for the purpose of squalid publicity.

Photo taken of Martine de Sacy by Farrant during 

a black magic ritual inside a Highgate mausoleum.

When she talks about the supernatural phenomenon itself, Langley applies natural laws in a vain attempt to usurp its existence; all of which is rather silly when examining demonology and vampirism. “The strangest and most unsolved mystery,” she insists, is the “decaying vampire” because it changes from how it seemed before it was exorcised. Regarding a secondary contagion recounted in The Highgate Vampire that was exorcised in part of a graveyard which was soon to be demolished, Langley falsely attributes to me the claim that it “took place on another plane.” Needless to say, I have not communicated with Langley and have not said anything of the sort. Her pamphlet consists of the authoress assuming answers to her own questions, falsely attributing statements that were not made and describing actions that were not taken. Langley comes across as being merely a product of her diabolical mentor Farrant. Among her bibliographical sources are found Bill Ellis’ book, David Farrant’s pamphlet - even more concise than her own - and a work by the French Satanist Jean-Paul Bourre who befriended Farrant in early 1980. Arlene Russo, Rosemary Ellen Guiley and Carol Page are also credited with having had their books consulted.

Somewhat bizarrely, Langley includes “A Strange Wind Blows Through Highgate” - a curious article on the internet by an American woman, Loren Rhoads, where it is suggested that the Highgate Vampire was actually David Farrant, attributing this theory to Rosemary Ellen Guiley.

Two factors link Bill Ellis, Jacqueline Simpson, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Arlene Russo and Patricia Langley on the matter of the Highgate Vampire case - a separate agenda to the one imagined by readers of their commentary, an agenda which takes precedence over any factual evidence placed before them, and, of course, Farrant’s influence which in Rosemary Guiley’s case was via Jeanne Youngson of the Vampire Empire (formerly the Count Dracula Fan Club). All are sympathetic to witchcraft and occultism, including Bill Ellis and Jacqueline Simpson whose unrecognisable and watered-down form of "Christianity" is so liberal and heretical as to be non-existent.