From secret agent to God’s messenger
Seven years ago, I spoke at a conference in London organised by an organisation called the Freedom Forum. I was there representing the Internet Watch Foundation – which I chaired for six years – defending the blocking of access on the Internet to images of child abuse.
Another speaker at the event was David Shayler, a former MI5 agent who had blown the whistle on the organisation and later spent seven weeks in prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act. I didn’t actually speak to him; I was more interested in having a conversation with his girlfriend, Annie Machon, who had also been an MI5 agent. The media dubbed her “the spy who love me”.
Over the years, Shayler’s pronouncements have become more and more bizarre and conspiratorial and in an interview this week with More4 News – reported in a piece in the “Daily Mail” – he claimed to be God. It seems that he has seen a psychic who he believes channelled the spirit of Mary Magdalene and anointed him as the Messiah. He claims that his new-found divinity gives him the ability to change the weather and that his meditation had stopped the summer’s attempted bombings in London.
Now Shayler is not the first person by a long way to claim to be God or least God’s messenger. As an atheist, I’m intrigued how many religious people decide to accept some of these claims and not others. As someone who shared a conference once with Shayler, I’d be interested to know if Annie Machon is still standing by her man.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I’m not an expert on these matters but I think it sad that someone who seems to have a mental illness is put in the press in this manner to make an ‘interesting’ story.
I’m not sure ‘many religious people’ accept these kind of claims. Perhaps an absolute minority, but certainly not many.