The Grail Church

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"The Church of Christ is never a place, but always a people; never a fold, but always a flock; never a sacred building, but always where believers gather in His name. The Church is you who pray, not where you pray. A structure of brick and marble can no more be a Church than your clothes of serge or satin can be you. There is nothing more sacred than you — for your soul is the sanctuary of God."

—  Seán Manchester (The Grail Church)

“Many will have heard the legends concerning Jesus visiting Glastonbury and St Joseph of Arimathea bringing to that sacred place the Holy Grail. This book provides the evidence. It also addresses the systematic erosion of belief in our times and provides disturbing reasons why even some ‘Christians’ no longer accept a personal God or the existence of the Devil.”

— Melvyn Willin (reviewing The Grail Church in Society News)

“Fascinating reading for anybody interested in Jesus’ wilderness years and history of the Apostolic Church of the Holy Grail in Britain from its birth through its disappearance for twelve centuries — and then its rebirth in April 1973.”

— Shaun Marin (reviewing The Grail Church in Encounters)

Christianity came to Britain in the first century. Tertullian of Carthage (circa 208) said that the Christian Church of his day "extended to all the boundaries of Gaul, and parts of Britain inaccessible to the Romans but subject to Christ." Eusebius of Cæsaria (circa 260-340) in his Demonstratio Evangelica said: "The Apostles passed beyond the ocean to the Isles called the Brittanic Isles." Sabellius (circa 250) revealed: "Christianity was privately confessed elsewhere, but the first nation that proclaimed it as their religion and called it Christian, after the name of Christ, was Britain."

On page 87 of The Grail Church, its author writes: "To the native Celts the Grail Church became known as the British Church; so as to distinguish it from the Anglo-Saxon English Church. When the Anglo-Saxons adopted Roman Christianity the British Church receded until it eventually vanished. Yet the memory of the Holy Grail could not be eradicated; indeed, its symbolic potency only grew with the passing of time."

The Holy Grail was considered to be a relic of inestimable value as the Cup of the Last Supper that was later used by St Joseph of Arimathea to collect a few drops of the Saviour's blood. Apocryphal writings credit St Joseph with possession of the Cup.

The Holy Grail was brought to the British Isles by St Joseph of Arimathea where, six centuries later, it disappeared. In later legends, as a result of the Holy Grail being lost, the country was strangely afflicted with large areas becoming an uninhabitable wasteland. Those who ventured there died. And a sixth century monk named Gildas wrote a history (Gildæ sapientis de excidio et conquestu Britanniæ) which spoke of a great famine and disease that rendered the island of Britain virtually uninhabitable, resulting in mass migration to the Continent. He attributes the catastrophe to the Britons' loss of faith. There are parallels with then and now. A steep decline in moral attitudes and social behaviour, plus, more significantly, the distortion and loss of faith, makes us ripe for a coming wasteland. There is a difference, however, because this time it might be on a global scale.

Christianity came to Britain in the first century and, according to the book's author, is the essence of our civilisation. Lose it and we lose everything. He believes the consequence of that loss is already apparent.

Of the Grail Church itself, Seán Manchester writes: “The British Church receded until it eventually vanished. Yet the memory of the Holy Grail could not be eradicated; indeed, its symbolic potency only grew with the passing of time.”

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Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

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Caroline Lamb (née Ponsonby) was born in 1785, the fourth child and only daughter of Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough, and his wife Lady Henrietta Frances Spencer, who was the sister of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. In 1805 she married William Lamb (later Lord Melbourne) against the advice of her parents. This childlike attitude is carefully reconstructed in the character of Calantha, one of the protagonists of her novel Glenarvon, whose strict religious principles and childish behaviour are at the origin of her extreme vulnerability. Calantha is also the name of a character in Seán Manchester's gothic novel, Carmel, which is loosely rooted in fact. Caroline and William Lamb had three children, of whom only one survived, Augustus, who had mental problems throughout his life. Caroline met Lord Byron in 1812, first at Lady Jersey's Ball, where she refused to be introduced to him, and later at Holland House. Their illicit relationship lasted from March to November and was as intense as anything could be when Romantics meet. The affair with Byron was also an evasion from the dullness of her matrimonial life. William kept her in what was virtually a silver prison, treating her as a child rather than a sensible and mature woman and mother. Her only past-time was reading, which, together with her extremely emotional attitude brought her to confuse reality and fantasy. Like many other female admirers of Byron, she had felt attraction for him while reading Childe Harold, which made her desperate to meet the author. Both the reading of Childe Harold and her liaison with Byron helped her to break the rigid codes of femininity and domesticity that had been imposed on her since her childhood. Byron inspired her to transform from the faithful, albeit docile, wife to the overwhelmingly passionate and desiring woman. The idea of a demonic Byronic hero was undoubtedly influenced by Caroline's widely-read Glenarvon (1816) and by her two other novels, Graham Hamilton (1822) and Ada Reis (1823), together with Gordon: A Tale (1821). There is also evidence that Caroline's works influenced John Polidori's The Vampyre (1819) and hence the Byronic tradition that derived from it. Of all the affairs that shook an epoch notorious for its scandals there was none more tempestuous than the liaison between Lady Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron. There can be little astonishment, then, why the subject of Lady Caroline Lamb continues to fascinate. Seán Manchester’s unique biography sheds much light on a life that, together with Lord Byron’s, dazzled and dismayed London’s high society at the height of the Romantic Age in nineteenth century England. Gothic Press is, therefore, delighted to make available a quality hardcover edition of this splendid work, illustrated throughout – including many portraits of Lord Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb – that, by individual request, will be signed and dedicated by the author who is related by blood to Lord Byron, the poet’s only son being his great, great grandfather. Including fascinating photographic material, eg Lord Byron's coffin in its vault and Lady Caroline's forgotten resting place, this first edition signals the very last breath of the Romantic Movement.
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The Vampire Hunter's Handbook

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“All these things happen, and the eyes of ordinary men do not see them.”

— Michael Sendivogius (17th Century)

"This book is not about fictional vampires of the Bram Stoker’s Dracula genre, but real life blood sucking monsters. It should also be pointed out that there is a long tradition of people who hunt down and kill vampires. This book is not for the faint-hearted, or those people who live alone in rambling houses located on deserted moors."

— Shaun Marin (Encounters magazine)

"Sean Manchester is, unsurprisingly, very well read in both classical and more recent sources on vampires and vampirism, and cites them with great authority while taking the reader through a brief tour of vampire lore and mythology. This is a book I’d recommend to anybody with an interest in Manchester or vampires. The parts which deal with vampires are obviously based on years of substantial research and personal experience."

— Joe McNally (Fortean Times magazine)
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The Highgate Vampire

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Elizabeth and Barbara, two sixteen-year-old students of La Sainte Union Convent, were walking home late at night after visiting friends in Highgate Village. Their journey took them down Swains Lane which intersects Highgate Cemetery, a Victorian graveyard in two halves on a steep hill. These intelligent students could not believe their eyes as they passed the cemetery's north gate at the beginning of their downward path between the two graveyards. For there before them, amongst the jutting tombstones and stone vaults, the dead seemed to be emerging from their graves. The two schoolgirls walked in eerie silence until they reached the bottom of the lane. Here they spoke for the first time, having finally found their voice, and confirmed they had both experienced the same terrifying scene. So frightening was their experience that Barbara would not talk about it again. Elizabeth, however, gave the author her account some months later. It was tape-recorded and can be heard in a television film documentary about the Highgate Vampire case. Elizabeth recounted: "We both saw this scene of graves directly in front of us. And the graves were opening up; and the people were rising. We were not conscious of walking down the lane. We were only conscious of this graveyard scene." Demonry later took hold on Elizabeth where her elocuted and very attractive feminine voice would suddenly erupt into a distorted masculine sound, deep and harsh, that issued threats. Her boyfriend, Keith, recalled this phenomenon in an interview he gave for a documentary (True Horror: Vampires distributed by Discovery Channel) which also includes archive recordings of Elizabeth speaking about her vision and the punctures on her neck.
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“Ever since I became aware that Highgate Cemetery was the reputed haunt of a vampire, the investigations and activities of Seán Manchester commanded my attention. I became convinced that, more than anyone else, he knew the full story of the Highgate Vampire.”

— Peter Underwood, author and paranormal researcher, London, England

“I am very impressed by the body of scholarship you have created. Seán Manchester is undoubtedly the father of modern vampirological research.”

— John Godl, paranormal researcher and writer, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

“Seán Manchester is to be congratulated on this fine piece of research work which I confess to enjoying to the extreme.”

— Professor Devendra P Varma, vampirologist and author, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

“A most interesting and useful addition to the literature of the subject.”

— Reverend Basil Youdell, Literary Editor Orthodox News, Christ the Saviour, Woolwich, England

“This book will certainly be read in a hundred years time, two hundred years time, three hundred years time - in short, for as long as mankind is interested in the supernatural. It has the most genuine power to grip. Once you have started to read it, it is virtually impossible to put it down.”

— Lyndall Mack, Udolpho magazine, Chislehurst, England
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From Satan To Christ

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Illustrated with original photographs, this is the true account of an attractive young woman born into an English ‘shire family, who left university, came to London, and was drawn into what ostensibly appeared to be a witchcraft coven which slowly revealed itself to be a satanic cult that engaged in every profanity and depraved act imaginable: devil worship, live sacrifice, demon raisings, blood rituals, death curses, black masses etc. Her story is written by the man who rescued her, helped her recover, and promised to protect her. Today they work together in helping others enmeshed in satanic cults who want to be saved from the destructive presence in their lives. Restored to the Christian Church, she now wants to share her story so that it may serve as a warning. Places and names have not been changed. Her disclosures unveil frightening facts behind today’s rising tide of Satanism. Recent polls indicate that those who subscribe to the occult and “alternative” belief systems, including witchcraft and Satanism, far outnumber Christians in Great Britain. The wider topic is covered with personal revelations about diabolists and occultists with whom the author has crossed paths. These include a notorious figure in the 1970s who was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for quasi-satanic offences at London's Highgate Cemetery and for threatening people with black magic "death dolls," and a self-proclaimed "master of the black arts" and successor to Aleister Crowley who attempted to raise demons with the aforementioned pseudo-occultist. The author draws upon personal experience and observation throughout his telling at the behest of another's initiation into the sinister world of witchcraft which proved to be her introduction into Satanism where her eventual sacrifice was planned by the coven — for which reason she was kept relatively pure and untouched by their sick and depraved behaviour.

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Carmel

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"We are transported into that fearful realm of supernatural evil peculiar to vampires as the author skillfully restores those near-extinct elements from yestercentury. At the centre is a story painfully real. It is the story of the holder of the name of the book’s title. Is she an actual person? Or merely a novelistic embellishment? Just as the case of the Highgate Vampire inspired much of this sequel to Stoker's Victorian vampire tale, so the person of book title's name inspired the persona of the main character. Based on some real events, the effect of CARMEL as a vampire tale will chill your blood. Here is a terrifying exploration into the nether world of the undead where the reader is found wandering betwixt Victorian tombstones as the original contagion spreads its venom in 20th century England. Do not fret - Transylvania is not forgotten." — Katrina Garforth-Bles (National Secretary, V.R.S.)

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“Seán Manchester is the natural writer of any attempt to resume the story of DRACULA.” — Vincent Hillyer (author of Vampires)

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“There is but one person who can write the definitive sequel to Stoker’s original masterpiece . . . one person who will imbue it with the same eerie atmosphere and remain true to the tradition . . . that author is Seán Manchester.” — Devendra P Varma (author of The Gothic Flame)

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“This vampire tale is a most enchanting read. Seán Manchester’s style, imagination and sensibility makes CARMEL quite a jewel. Stoker has, at last, a literary heir worthy of writing a sequel.” — Sylvaine Charlet (authoress of Lits de Pierres)

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“I felt I had to say how much I enjoyed CARMEL - easily the best vampire novel I have read since the original DRACULA. Absolutely enthralling. Tremendous atmosphere and a mounting tension that in my experience has only been equalled by Bram Stoker’s masterpiece. Congratulations! Congratulations!” — Peter Underwood (author of Exorcism!)

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Such Things Exist

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Hello dear Reverend Manchester! Today, as I found your blog, I decided to salute you and give you my best wishes. Also, at the same time, I would like to ask you if you think that there are still some vampiric activities going on at the present time (at one place or another on this earth) and if so, if you also believe that vampirism will be a plague that will follow human kind until the end of times? — Hans Verschelden

We must be careful how we define "vampiric activity," but so long as we understand it to mean predatory demonic interference then, of course, such darkness still prevails in the world, and, yes, I believe it to be a demonic contagion which will be with us until the final days of man and will almost certainly magnify as worldly events worsen.

Two years ago, I decided to start a baccalaureate degree in theology in a University located in Montreal, Canada (I live in Montreal). Unfortunately now, I cannot even tell you how much I am disappointed and disillusioned by what is taught today in theology departments. For example (believe it or not, but I swear it is true), today, in the faculties of theology, they deny the existence of Satan and all of the demons as well (yes, you read right). In fact, during the last term (I dropped from the baccalaureate since and so, i am not studying anymore), a friend of mine raised the problem of evil and of the existence of demons during a given lesson. The teacher (a man holding a doctorate in theology), then answered him (while laughing...), that demons were only inventions of men and that they simply do not exist. I really wonder what Rome would think of such theological teachings which deny the existence of demons? And I even wonder more about how is it that Rome does not know about such innommable teachings by its .... theologians ...??? And (even worse), if Rome is in fact aware of such teachings, how is it that they tolerate them? Aren't they responsible for the faithful? I just cannot believe what is taught there! And so, because of that (what better reason can I have), I do not want to be a part of that Church anymore, a church which even denies the teachings of Christ concerning demons (I cannot believe I am writing this). Dear Bishop Manchester, I told you about this story of mine because I read that you are presiding over the traditional Old Catholic Church in England. So, I would be very grateful to you, if you could tell me if there is a branch of your Church in Canada (as I certainly know that the Church you are presiding is faithful to Christ's teachings). Wishing you all the best. A very disappointed believer. — Hans Verschelden

Our jursidiction does not extend beyond the confines of the British Isles and, whilst a pure branch of Christianity and, moreover, part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolc Church, we are relatively small in number by comparison to the major denominations. It is generally believed by most traditionalists that the Church of Rome was infiltrated at seminary level by those on the Left-hand Path after the Second World War, and that part of the mission of the infiltrators was to introduce heresies such as you outline. Under the guise of liberalism and modernism, this new "theology" barely accepts anything that Christians held doctrinally to be true for two thousand years. The works of the late Fr Malachi Martin (23 July 1921 – 27 July 1999) support this view. He was professor at the Vatican's Pontifical Biblical Institute, and held three doctorates. He was also the sole author of sixteen books covering religious and geopolitical topics, which were published in eight languages, as well as writing additional books under nom de plumes and in collaboration with others. Fr Martin spoke at least ten languages. He had first made explicit reference to a diabolical rite held in Rome in his 1990 non-fiction best-seller about geopolitics and the Vatican, The Keys of This Blood, in which he wrote:

"Most frighteningly for [Pope] John Paul [II], he had come up against the irremovable presence of a malign strength in his own Vatican and in certain bishops’ chanceries. It was what knowledgeable Churchmen called the ‘superforce.’ Rumours, always difficult to verify, tied its installation to the beginning of Pope Paul VI’s reign in 1963. Indeed Paul had alluded somberly to ‘the smoke of Satan which has entered the Sanctuary’ . . . an oblique reference to an enthronement ceremony by Satanists in the Vatican. Besides, the incidence of Satanic paedophilia — rites and practices — was already documented among certain bishops and priests as widely dispersed as Turin, in Italy, and South Carolina, in the United States. The cultic acts of Satanic paedophilia are considered by professionals to be the culmination of the Fallen Archangel’s rites."

These allegations have largely gone unnoticed, possibly because Fr Martin was so careful in his descriptive passages that he might even have been referring to the coronation of Pope Paul VI. But he revealed much more about this alleged ritual in one of his last works, Windswept House: A Vatican Novel (1996). In this story, he vividly described a diabolical ceremony called “The Enthronement of the Fallen Archangel Lucifer” supposedly held in St Paul’s Chapel within the Vatican, but linked with concurrent satanic rites in the United States, on 29 June 1963, barely a week after the election of Paul VI. In this novel, before he dies, a pope leaves a secret account of the situation on his desk for the next occupant of the throne of Peter, a thinly-disguised John Paul II. According to The New American, Fr Martin confirmed that the ceremony did indeed occur as he had described. “Oh yes, it is true; very much so,” the magazine reported he said. “But the only way I could put that down into print is in novelistic form.”

Windswept House is a sweeping novel, set on the grand global stage and the unfolding of the next stage of civilisation, the ominously-named New World Order. It tackles head on a number of heavy issues from abortion to the Third Secret of Fatima, but the essential message seems to be that Satanists lurk in the shadows, from the heart of the Vatican down to the local parishes; manipulating those fooled by the false spirit of Vatican II. They are doing everything in their power to subvert the Roman Catholic Church, while Pope John Paul II, intent on his geopolitical millennial end game, fiddles about, waiting for a sign from the Blessed Virgin while the Church literally falls apart around him. In Windswept House, Fr Martin was quite explicit about the conditions in the Vatican, opening the novel with the above-mentioned satanic ritual. In it, Satan was formally enthroned in the Vatican in the Chapel of St Paul (by all reports a dark and appropriately eerie place). The ceremony was co-ordinated via telephone with another simultaneous rite in South Carolina. (This could be a reference to the claims of “Leo Taxil” who wrote spurious exposés of the Masons and fallen priests as devil-worshippers in the 19th century. He, too, claimed South Carolina — Charleston, to be exact — was a satanic headquarters. This was the hometown of Albert Pike, the only Confederate general memorialised in Washington, DC, who reformed the Scottish Rite and was indeed a self-confessed Luciferian.) As first set forth in Decline and Fall, Fr Martin saw this diablolical compromise as permitting the world’s wickedness to corrupt the Church by exposing it to the temptation of temporal power, though he had made no mention of a pact with the Masons in that earlier book. Though he used transparent psuedonyms, he made it obvious that he regarded John XXIII as a holy dupe and Paul VI, whom he did not like, as an even greater dupe, but a far less spiritual one. Fr Martin regarded the Ecumenical Council as having been virtually taken over by modernist heretics and Soviet puppets. By the accession of John Paul I to the throne of Peter, one of his characters estimated that in effect, half the bishops in the US were in schism, and a third in heresy. (Other sources have confirmed this is indeed a Curial view).

The ultimate villians in Vatican are not corrupt bankers nor priests, nor even Communists, but a force he called the “Universal Assembly” — a Masonic conspiracy of Western plutocrats, undoubtedly the Illuminati. Although other writers have alleged Curial members belonged to the Masons, Fr Martin actually accused Paul VI of being a Masonic Lodge member. Freemasonry and the Catholic Church, of course, have had a long history of antipathy.

Listen to the voice of Fr Malachi Martin at this link.

Dear Bishop Manchester, thank you very much for your fast and detailed answers concerning both of my messages. Be sure, that they are very appreciated. What you are saying concerning Rome being infiltrated is certainly exact. In fact, what other reason could explain why such teachings occured (and are tolerated) in all theology faculties? Today (as you wrote that your jurisdiction does not extend beyond England), I made a google search regarding diverse Old Catholic Churches organisations inside Canada but, unfortunately, I lack any informations about their "credentials" and "philosophy" (in short, I dont know about their theological beliefs). I found some links about "Old Catholic Church." Are these Churches similar to the one you are presiding over (I mean in terms of beliefs and philosophy)? Or even better (and easier): is it possible for a person from a foreign country (in my case, Canada) to become a member of the Church you are presiding? Once again, I thank you very much for your time and advices. Kind Regards. — Hans Verschelden



The majority of jursidictions such as you identify (I have omitted the links from your response) are modernist and liberal. Indeed, the original Dutch Old Catholic Church is now Protestant, and not remotely Catholic. I would go so far as to say that many so-named churches are among the worst examples of heresy with their priestesses, bishopesses and same sex "marriages" etc. There are a few, however, who strive to hold fast to traditional teachings and doctrinal integrity. Looking for them, needless to say, is like searching for a needle in a haystack. We are today awash with heresy, perversion and the outright diabolical. This is what originally led me from the Roman fold to become primate of an autocepahlous jurisdiction. Yet it is a difficult path with much to struggle against; though for some it is the only way forward. That notwisthstanding, as a church is not a building, but rather a place where Christians meet in communion at Our Lord's table, it is somewhat difficult to see how membership from a distance of thousands of miles can be anything more than nominal.

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