He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very nutty boy

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Had I not missed the story totally at the time I would certainly have posted something about David Shayler and his new incarnation. Sadly it passed me by until I received the new issue of the Fortean Times a couple of days ago.

A former MI5 employee, David Shayler originally hit the headlines ten years after he disclosed information about MI5 activities to The Mail on Sunday. Among his claims were that the agency was paranoid about leftists and had investigated Labour ministers Peter Mandelson, Jack Straw and Harriet Harman at the time of the 1992 election (there was a good chance that the Tories would be defeated at that election but it was not to be) . He subsequently claimed that MI5 had failed to stop the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London in 1994.and that it had plotted to assassinate Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.

After the Government decided to prosecute him under the Official Secrets Act, Shayler left for France. He eventually returned voluntarily to the UK in 2000. He was found guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act and sentenced to Seven months imprisonment. Apart from standing against Tony Blair in the 2005 election and apparently alleging that the planes seen crashing into the World Trade Centre were in fact missiles disguised by holograms, he seemed to have disappeared off the radar. That is until a couple of months ago.

In July Shayler announced publicly that he was the new Messiah stating that his revelation had been largely attained as the result of drug-induced altered states of consciousness. The following month he was interviewed by the Daily Mail

“I am the messiah and hold the secret of eternal life.” He bagan his interview “First I started meditating, then I learnt how to channel the "light", and the more research I did - into Freemasonry, the Knights Templar, Kabbalah - the more convinced I became that I was the Christ." However he went to great pains to assure that he was not Jesus but he was " crucified with a crown of thorns and nails then incarnated as Astronges, a Jewish revolutionary put to death by the Romans at around the end of the last century BC ... It was in June that a psychic channelled the spirit of Mary Magdalene and anointed me the messiah and, finally, my whole life made sense. I realised why I seem to get such a strange deal from the universe, when I've spent my life trying to tell the truth about everything." He also believes he was George Washington, Pythagoras, Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Mark Antony and Lawrence of Arabia (I would have thought Grimaldi the Clown would have been among the list somewhere)

As the Messiah he claims he can affect the weather, prevent terrorist attacks and influence football results. It was back in April that he performed what he calls his first and greatest miracle - securing his beloved team Middlesbrough a place in the UEFA Cup Final. "It was the quarter-final against Basle and we were 3-0 down after the first leg and needed four goals in the second match to win. I sat there, said to the creator, "give me a sign" and meditated... I managed to focus and we played like we'd never played before, winning 4-0." He did it again in the semi-final, against Bucharest. "Again we were 3-0 down, again I meditated and, bang, we won - a real miracle."

However Middlesbrough lost 4-0 to Seville in the final: "Ah... I got drunk and it turns out it doesn't work if you're drunk. You can't focus." (It seems that he can only do one miracle at a time. Turning wine into water took up all of his mystical faculties). He was subsequently advised by the 'creator' that influencing football results was not an appropriate use of his powers. "On 28 June, I was told I had to remove darkness from London. I wasn't sure what it was all about, but I stayed up all night meditating and....( by sunrise the darkness had gone?) , the next morning, I heard a bomb had been found but no one had been hurt. That was my miracle."

Shayler is not concerned about being compared to David Icke who, in 1991, announced on the Terry Wogan chat show that he was 'the son of God' and believed the world was ruled by secret 12ft shape-shifting reptiles called 'Illuminati'. However he is somewhat sceptical of the other David: "He has a lot of interesting things to say, but I don't think he always gets it 100 per cent right. For me it's very simple - no turquoise tracksuits, no cults, it doesn't work like that." (no Messiah would have that lousy dress sense eh?)

It’s heartening to se that Britain can still produce nutters to an international standard. It remains to be seen whether he can crack the “big league” with a major following, book deals, lectures etc or if he will end up like Stanley Green, the guy who used to be seen on Oxford Street selling his booklet “Eight Passion Proteins With Care”