Saturday, August 11, 2007

Yet Moron David Shayler

I hate to kick a guy when he's down, but it's not easy to punch him in that position, so the boot will have to do. Shayler's nuttery makes the Daily Mail.

As an MI5 whistleblower and fugitive, former spy David Shayler's powers as an agent of the state were revoked.

But now he claims to have more powers than anyone on Earth could possibly imagine.

For, after a period of reflection following his jailing for breaching the Official Secrets Act, Mr Shayler has concluded that he is the Messiah.


They come up with a hilarious nickname for Shayler: Double-Oh Heaven.

I also dug up this description for his condition: Claridad.

The first step is the Self-Anointing process:
This is when the fool decides he is the One. It can be triggered by any small thing, not just an Ayahuasca journey. A stain appears on the fridge door that looks like Jesus, and a mental voice tells him that he is special among men, and that all his hopes and dreams of becoming rich and famous are about to be made manifest. He has been chosen by a Higher Authority. The Self-Anointing is the mental process of buying the story—believing in it because the claridad sufferer so desperately wants to believe it. It's a narcissistic psychosis that plays to his arrogance.

The second step involves an appeal for Ratification:
Now he quickly needs the dove to appear and a voice from heaven to say "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." In the absence of that he will seek out his master or a guru or some person he considers spiritually elevated to ratify him. In the same way as the Christian kings of old traveled to Rome to be ratified by the Pope.

There is an inverted power-play in the ratification because what the claridad sufferer actually wants to say to the master is, "You thought I was a nobody, an ordinary student, just a back-seat member of the congregation, but I was in hiding. In fact, I am very special—the Anointed One. And by the way master, you are a fool and a nobody because you didn't see it. I am better than you."

The third step involves Debasing Others:
This step follows naturally from step two. The Anointed One has to trash, and get rid of and make wrong all the other shamans, teachers and masters, in order to establish the reality of his authority. So the claridad sufferer fights with others and causes trouble. It's a combative step. But the shaman knows what's happening and he or she won't play ball. They walk away and leave the fool to his madness.

The fourth step involves Soliciting Observers:
How things become 'real' is for the claridad to be observed as the One. So if you are channeling a message from the Higher Powers you need an audience to observe that. If you become President, people observe you in the pomp and pageantry of the presidency, and that is how you are made real. There is never a time when you are not just an ordinary Joe acting out the presidency, but it is in people observing that that the idea of your elevated status becomes real. That is why people buy red sports cars. Red is the easiest color to see and a sports car makes a lot of noise, who will miss noticing the very special person going past? The one that is so very different to all the others.

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