25 Facts About Stewart Farrar

Frank Stewart Farrar was an English screenwriter, novelist and prominent figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, which he devoted much of his later life to propagating with the aid of his seventh wife, Janet Farrar, and then his friend Gavin Bone as well.

Stewart Farrar was responsible for writing episodes for such television series as Dr Finlay's Casebook, Armchair Theatre and Crossroads, and for his work in writing radio scripts won a Writer's Guild Award.

Stewart Farrar published a string of novels, written in such disparate genres as crime, romance and fantasy.

Stewart Farrar was born at his family home of 239 Winchester Road, Highams Park, Essex during the First World War, and as such his father was away serving in the British army, stationed in Salonika in Greece.

Stewart Farrar's family were middle class and well educated, and were Christian Scientists, a denomination of Christianity that notably emphasised a belief in spiritual healing over conventional medicine, and which had been founded in 1886.

Stewart Farrar's sister, Jean, was born in 1920, and he subsequently doted on her, but at the same time was known as a bully towards other children at primary school.

From 1930 to 1935, Stewart Farrar attended the privately run City of London School, meaning that he had to commute daily into the city from his rural home.

Stewart Farrar was moved to Pembrokeshire in Wales, where he began having an affair with his secretary.

Stewart Farrar wrote an instruction manual for a Bofors gun.

In 1958, Stewart Farrar published his first novel, The Snake on 99, a whodunit crime story involving a Welsh detective known as Elwyn Morgan.

In 1961, Stewart Farrar was sent by Pathe to Saudi Arabia, where the company was producing a documentary, and during this trip he visited the deserts of both Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Jordan.

Pity About the Abbey was a story in which Westminster Abbey was destroyed to make way for a by-pass, and satirised what Stewart Farrar saw as the current trend to demolish significant or beautiful structures.

In 1967, Stewart Farrar's wife fell in love with one of his best friends, Norman, and so he granted her a divorce, but remained both her and Norman's friend, carrying no resentment towards them.

Stewart Farrar was sent by Reveille to a press screening of the film Legend of the Witches.

Sanders, "impressed" with the interview, invited Stewart Farrar to attend an Alexandrian Wiccan initiation ritual, and prompted Stewart Farrar to write an entire book on Wicca.

Stewart Farrar began work on his first non-fiction book, What Witches Do, and began taking classes on witchcraft from the Sanders'.

On 21 February 1970 Stewart Farrar was initiated into Alexandrian Wicca and joined the Sanders' coven.

Stewart Farrar met his future wife, then Janet Owen, in the coven.

Janet Stewart Farrar asserts that the couple were both elevated to the second degree "in an unoccupied house in Sydenham" by the Sanders on 17 October 1970, and that they received the third, and final, degree of initiation in their flat 24 April 1971.

Janet Stewart Farrar remembers the initiation well, as Maxine invoked Sekhmet to banish one of her coven members.

Recently their 3rd Degree initiation has been disputed by some Alexandrian "revisionists", unaware that Stewart Farrar kept an archive of all his correspondences with the Sanders and possessed copies of both his own and the Sanders' coven records that unequivocally prove that the initiation took place.

Stewart Farrar later backed away from the assessment, although he did later state that he believed that Sanders "was both a charlatan and a genuine magician".

The relationship between Alex Sanders and Stewart Farrar became one of mutual respect after letters began to be exchanged between them in 1977.

Stewart Farrar left Reveille to pursue a full-time freelance writing career in 1974.

Stewart Farrar died on 7 February 2000 after a brief illness.