Opening The Door
by Thoron Woodling
June 10, 2022

My wife and I had been visiting Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone at their home in Ireland for a few days in April [2022]. Their tiny house is identified by a sign declaring it to be “Hearne’s Cottage”. Like many of the country homes in rural Ireland, there is no street number. Yet, mail carriers have no trouble finding them.

We were getting ready to leave for a flight to England on May 1 when Janet wrapped her arms around me, kissed me, and thanked me for “opening the door”. That did surprise me. I think it was actually Gavin who opened her car door. However, Janet was speaking figuratively about a door that I helped open for her and Stewart Farrar back in 1990.

In May 1990, Janet and Stewart Farrar began a four month tour of the USA and Canada, teaching classes, leading rituals and speaking about subject matter related to their books about modern Witchcraft. Their tour began with the Free Spirit Alliance in Baltimore. Our organization served as primary sponsor for the tour. I was the overall coordinator, the person who made arrangements with the secondary sponsors at locations across the USA and Canada.

A Witches' Bible contains Eight Sabbats For Witches and A Witch's Way, which were originally published as two separate books.

Prior to the 1990 tour, Janet and Stewart Farrar had been operating a Wiccan coven in Ireland. They had published some books about modern Witchcraft that were becoming quite popular, but they had not yet traveled across the Atlantic. I learned about the Farrars in 1989 when my wife showed me their book, Eight Sabbats for Witches. She also shared with me some letters she received from Stewart when she corresponded with him about the book. The books and letters gave me the impression of warm, witty, sincere folk with a deep understanding of the subjects they wrote about. I felt they had knowledge and perspective worth sharing with others. So, I wrote to Stewart to ask him if he and Janet would come to visit the USA and talk about it. We exchanged a few letters that eventually led to a rather ambitious project—the 1990 Farrar Tour. This project would be an activity managed by Free Spirit Alliance, a Neo-Pagan organization of which I had been treasurer since it formed in 1986.

By letters, I mean “snail mail”. Most of us did not have any internet connections back in 1989, even if we had a computer.

Discussing my concept of a “speaking tour” with Stewart and Janet was a slow process. The Farrars did not have a telephone. We communicated entirely via international post office, waiting for weeks between each letter. My letters to Ireland went to Hearne’s Cottage, an address with no street numbers or postal codes. Stewart wrote back, so I know every letter reached its destination.

Over several weeks in 1989, I worked out a tentative plan for the Farrars to spend a couple of months on tour, beginning in May 1990. They would spend each weekend with a different tour sponsor, traveling between sponsors on a day somewhere in the middle of the week. Tour sponsors would collectively share in the cost of international airfare. Individual sponsor would be responsible for the costs of their own activities, plus lodging, meals and local transportations at their own sites. Free Spirit Alliance would coordinate the overall program.

My next step was to discuss this wild proposal at the Free Spirit Alliance general business meeting. Our organization was, and still is, democratic. We debate every subject at quite some length before reach a decision, even when we already know we want to do it. I got their approval. There would be a special event in May exclusively featuring the Farrars. They would not be one of the many speakers and teachers we typically have at the annual Free Spirit Gathering.

With approval from Free Spirit Alliance, I then contacted a list of bookstores and similar Neo-Pagan organizations I thought might want to be secondary sponsors. Stewart sent me some additional names to contact. I explained my plan for covering the overall tour costs to be shared collectively. Each prospective sponsor would have to explain what they wanted the Farrars to do—speaking, signing books, leading a ritual. They would also have to explain how the Farrars would be compensated.

For the visit to Free Spirit Alliance in Baltimore, we proposed two activities. They would teach a class for our members at a local bookstore, then speak to a public audience at Towson State University. Admission would be charged at both events. The Farrars would receive half of the admission fees, with a guaranteed minimum amount to be paid to them by Free Spirit Alliance. Volunteers from Free Spirit Alliance would provide transportation, meals, and private accommodations.

Similar arrangements were offered by several other groups and businesses who wanted to be secondary sponsors. We got a flood of eager responses to my requests. Janet and Stewart were pleased with the offers and wanted to accept most of them. However, there were more than we could possibly fit in the three month period I had originally suggested. Stewart commented that it would “be a grueling, long adventure,” but he was willing to expand the plan into a four month tour.

It would not be possible (or ethical) to pretend the Farrar were here as unpaid tourists. For a visit longer than three months, they would need a work visa. So I launched the paperwork process to request H-1 visa status, with Free Spirit Alliance serving as their employer. I also had to arrange for their sponsors to withhold income tax from their speaker fees during the tour, which I expected to eventually reach the $600 reporting threshold.

In response to my request for H-1 status, the federal government asked me to explain why I felt we had to hire some foreigners rather than a local person. I sent them a heavy hardback copy of The Witches’ Way, along with a letter explaining that they were the foremost authorities on the subject of Wiccan theology. They wrote books on the subject, read by Wiccans throughout the country. I do not know whether H-1 application reviewer actually read the book I sent, but I got a letter advising me of the approval within a few days. The Farrars could expect to receive a visa from the State Department.

I had requested a visa covering a four month period. The Farrars received their H-1 visas a few weeks later, but visas issued by the State Department were indefinite. Janet and Stewart were welcome to legally visit the USA as long they wanted.

I sent a proposed schedule of tour stops to each of the secondary sponsors whom Stewart had approved.

The leader of the sponsoring group in Florida wrote back to tell me that she was converting to Christianity to marry her born-again fiancé, so Florida would be dropping out of the tour.

Two of the people who were planning a tour stop in Texas wrote back to let me know they were having difficulty cooperating with each other. That, by luck or blessings of the Gods, happened to coincide with a two-week business trip I was making to Dallas. I visited them during the weekend in the middle of my trip to get issues worked out. Texas remained part of the tour. The four-month Farrar tour schedule was complete, starting with Free Spirit Alliance in Baltimore and ending with Boston.

WCBM Radio in Baltimore called me about a press release I sent to them. They invited Janet and Stewart to be guests of the Rudy Miller Show.

Stewart gave me the address of Headfort Travel Agency in Kells, Ireland. Headfort agreed to serve as travel agents. This would be a complex process. The Farrars would have round-trip fares on Aer Lingus between Ireland’s Shannon International Airport and Boston’s Logan Airport. However, the rest of the trip would be a long string of local flights between cities in the USA and Canada.

Headfort was able to arrange nearly all of the local flights as a single, cheap package deal with US Air. All of the US Air flights had the same price, which made it fairly each for me to calculate costs each secondary sponsor would need to cover. One exception: Fairbanks, Alaska. Headfort could not arrange a flight to Alaska. So, I got in touch with a local carrier who used amphibious airplanes to fly between Seattle and Fairbanks. It cost more than the USA Air flights, but the sponsor in Alaska agreed.

All of the secondary sponsors agreed with the plan. I got final approval from another Free Spirit Alliance general business meeting.

Now I had to buy the Air Lingus and US Air tickets from Headfort Travel, but they needed payment in Irish “punts”. To pay them, I had to visit the downtown office of Free Spirit’s bank in Baltimore for a rather complicated transaction. First, I would buy enough Irish currency to pay the price quoted by Headfort Travel. Free Spirit’s bank would be buying the Irish currency from another bank in the USA before we could pay the travel agency. Then I would have to make an electronic transfer of the money to Headfort’s bank in Ireland. The bank in Ireland was located five time zones away from Baltimore, leaving a one hour window when the Baltimore bank and the Irish bank were both open.

With just a few minutes to spare, the banks made the necessary connections and made the electronic transfer. During the time period between my purchase of Irish currency from the other bank and transfer of payment to the bank in Ireland, there was a fluctuation in exchange rates. The fluctuation swung in our favor and we saved a few dollars on the exchange. That reduced the collective cost to be shared among the tour sponsors.

Headford Travel contacted the Farrars with the good news. They would not have to wait two to three months for my next letter to know that the tour was definitely ON. Remember—I could not contact them by telephone or email, and Facebook did not yet exist.

When Janet Farrar thanked me recently, she was referring to The Door opened for her and Stewart by the 1990 Farrar Tour. At that time, they were teaching classes and leading rituals for Wiccans at their coven in Ireland. During the tour, Janet and Stewart got to meet in person with the people who had been reading their books. Stewart was as charming and witty in person as the words he put on paper. Janet was a gifted speaker, ritual leader and psychic.

The 1990 tour opened a door of transformation for Janet. Since then, she has continued traveling abroad, teaching classes to other Wiccan teachers and serving as a leader of the international Wiccan community. Janet continued traveling and teaching with her current partner, Gavin Bone, after Stewart Farrar died in February 2000. Janet and Gavin have taught on-line virtual classes to students throughout the world, as well as in-person classroom instruction.

A few years before the pandemic, my wife and I attended a class Janet and Gavin taught at a bookstore in Pennsylvania. They led an intensive path-work ritual where I learned methods I subsequently applied in my own Wiccan practices.

I would like to thank Janet for walking through the door I held open for her and Stewart. We were both blessed when she stepped through.

Anyone interested in sending a letter to Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone should address it to:

Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone
Hearn's Cottage
Ethelstown Kells, County Meath Ireland

Aradia home page