Stewart Farrar

File:Stewartfarrar.jpg

Stewart Farrar at home, 1999

Stewart Farrar (June 28 1916 - February 7 2000) was an English author of books on Alexandrian Wicca. Along with his wife, Janet Farrar, he was an influential Neopagan author and teacher. According to George Knowles, "some seventy five percent of Wiccans both in the Republic and North of Ireland can trace their roots back to the Farrar's [sic]" A journalist, scriptwriter, and World War II veteran, Farrar also published a number of works of fiction, including detective novels, many of which dealt with the occult and witchcraft.

Early life and career

Farrar was born in Essex in 1916. He was raised as a Christian Scientist, but gave up the religion in favour of agnosticism at age twenty, which he maintained until he became an adherent of witchcraft. Farrar attended the City of London School boys' school, and graduated from University College, London in 1937 with a degree in journalism. In college, Farrar had served both as president of the London University Journalism Union and editor of the London Union Magazine.

In 1939, Farrar volunteered for service in the British Army. He served as an instructor in Anti-aircraft gunnery during World War II, and wrote an instruction manual for a Bofors gun. After the war's end, Farrar, then a major, continued to work for the military in Germany as a civilian public relations and press officer for the Control Commission for Germany, liaison to the German Coal Board. Farrar was one of the first British officers to enter Auschwitz, an experience that Knowles claims "greatly influenced his personal and political beliefs".

Farrar returned to England after 1947. He began his career in journalism, and from 1953 to 1954 worked in London's Reuters office. In 1954, Farrar joined the British Communist Party, and began reporting for the Daily Worker, but left both the party and the paper in protest over the Soviet response to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. For the six years following, Farrar worked for Associated British-Pathe and A. B. C. Television as a scriptwriter, and also did freelance work for the British Broadcasting Company. His writing for the BBC during the 1960's and 70's included the award-winning radio play "Watch the Wall my Darling", the children's television series "The Boy Merlin" and "Pity About the Abbey", a play for television which he co-wrote with poet John Betjeman.

Farrar published his first novel in 1958, The Snake on 99. By the end of 1963 Farrar had published two more detective novels, Zero in the Gate and Death in the Wrong Bed. Farrar also wrote a romance novel, Delphine, Be a Darling, also published in 1963.

In 1969, Farrar was once again working as a journalist, employed by the weekly newspaper Reveille. It was an assignment from this paper that would introduce Farrar to Wicca.

Involvement in Wicca

Farrar was sent by Reveille to a press screening of the film Legend of the Witches. The screening was also attended by Alex Sanders and Maxine Sanders, the founders of Alexandrian Wicca, who had served as advisors during the film's creation. According to his biography at mystica.com, Farrar was "skeptical about Witchcraft but was interested in Sanders upon meeting him". The paper requested that Farrar interview Sanders and published the interview as a two-part story. Sanders, "impressed" with the interview, invited Farrar to attend an Alexandrian Wiccan initiation ritual, and prompted Farrar to write an entire book on Wicca. According to mystica.com, Farrar "found the ceremony both dignified and moving". Farrar began work on his first non-fiction book, What Witches Do, and began taking classes on witchcraft from the Sanders'. Maxine Sanders remembers Farrar as "a charming man, a sincere student with an active flexible mind". Maxine Sanders also notes that it was in response to Farrar's questions about how to describe their practice in his book that the Alexandrian tradition was named.

On February 21 1970 Farrar was initiated into Alexandrian Wicca and joined the Sanders' coven. Farrar met his future wife, then Janet Owen (thirty-four years his junior), in the coven. Janet Farrar asserts that the couple were both elevated to the second degree "in an unoccupied house in Sydenham" by the Sanders on October 17 1970, and that they received the third, and final, degree of initiation in their flat April 24 1971, but that these events are disputed by some Alexandrian "revisionists". What Witches Do was published in 1971. The book has been called "controversial" because of Farrar's assertion that Sanders should be "ranked above Gerald B.Gardner and alongside of Aleister Crowley and Eliphas Levi in terms of magical achievement". Farrar later backed away from the assessment.

Farrar and Owen had begun running their own coven in 1971, before their third degree initiation ceremony, and were handfasted in 1972 and legally married in 1975. The ceremony was attended by Farrar's two daughters and two sons from three previous marriages - his marriage to Owen was his seventh. The late 1970s saw the publication of several more novels by Farrar, all of which were occult-themed fantasy novels or science fiction. Farrar left Reveille to pursue a full-time freelance writing career in 1974. In 1976 the Farrars moved to Ireland to get away from the busy life of London. They lived in County Mayo and County Wicklow, finally settling in "Herne Cottage" in Kells, County Meath. Both husband and wife went on to publish a number of "classic" and "influential" books on the Wiccan religion and on coven practises. Their 1981 Eight Sabbats for Witches included material the authors claimed to be from the Alexandrian tradition's Book of Shadows. The Farrars, with the support of Doreen Valiente, argued in the book that even though the publishing of this material broke their oath of secrecy, it was justified by the need to correct misinformation. Janet Farrar indicates that some of the rituals contained in the couple's books were actually written by them, and that they left the Alexandrian tradition after the book's research was complete. The couple co-authored four more books on Wicca.

The Farrars returned to England in 1988, but by 1993 had returned to Ireland. They were joined by Gavin Bone, with whom they entered into a "polyfidelitous relationship". The three of them would co-author two more books, The Pagan Path, an investigation into the many varieties of Neopaganism, and The Healing Craft, and appear together at the Starwood Festival in 1995. In 1999 the Farrars received the Aquarian Tabernacle Church charter for Ireland, and were ordained as third level clergy. Farrar died February 7 2000 after a brief illness.

Bibliography

The following books, written by Farrar as the sole author are works of fiction, with the exception of What Witches Do.

• 1958: The Snake on 99
• 1960: Zero in the Gate
• 1963: Death in the Wrong Bed
• 1963: Delphine, Be a Darling
• 1971: What Witches Do: A Modern Coven Revealed (non-fiction)
• 1974: The Twelve Maidens
• 1976: The Serpent of Lilith
• 1977: The Dance of Blood
• 1977: The Sword of Orley
• 1980: Omega
• 1986: Forcible Entry
• 1988: Blacklash

With Janet Farrar

The following are non-fiction books.

• 1981: Eight Sabbats for Witches
• 1984: The Witches' Way
• 1987: The Witches' Goddess: The Feminine Principle of Divinity
• 1989: The Witches' God: Lord of the Dance
• 1990: Spells and How they Work
• 1996: A Witches' Bible: The Complete Witches' Handbook (re-issue of The Witches' Way and Eight Sabbats for Witches)

With Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone

• 1995: The Pagan Path
• 1999: The Healing Craft: Healing Practices for Witches and Pagans
• 2001: The Complete Dictionary of European Gods and Goddesses

External links

• Official website