Anyone Need A Messiah for Palestine?

The Messiah. Image from Creative Commons.

With an ongoing war in the Middle East, what the world needs is the return of the Messiah.

Fortunately, Messiahs are a dime a dozen, but not all are worthy of the name. As Monty Python infamously suggested, “He’s NOT the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”

Many moons ago, before social media poo-pooed a dreamer’s faux reality, it was easy to pass yourself off as The Second Coming. You didn’t have to die a martyr for Islam to bag a harem of virgins - all you needed was a convincing back story.

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In 1562, Elizeus Hall was sent to prison after claiming he was a messenger from God. Hall regaled to the desperate a fantastical two-day journey through the gates of Heaven and Hell. A fervent Catholic, the Church of England took a dim view of Hall’s blasphemous attitude. He was convicted by the Church and sent to Bridewell Prison to be hung by his hands until he confessed. The finishing touch was a dawn audience with the Drawn and Quartering Master.

William Hacket, messiah #628, was paraded through the streets of London in a cart. Hacket thought the best way to gain attention was to anoint himself the King of Europe and then threaten to bring down a plague on all blasphemors. Queen Elizabeth was decidedly not amused and had him arrested for treason before executing him.

1795 was the turn of Richard Brothers. The UK resident, inspired by the crusades, prophesied that he would lead the Israelites back to Palestine from across the world. And you thought the Zionists were the originators of the Israel state? He was locked away for eleven years in the Canonbury Tower for his deluded fantasy. He never stopped believing. Brothers moved from the tower to an asylum for the criminally insane where he spent the remainder of his years designing flags, uniforms, and palaces for the New Jerusalem.

Jesus meanwhile was everywhere.

Frank Dutton Jackson set up the Temple of the Occult in the early years of the twentieth century. Anyone organizing an occult, marking their place as an occult and labeling their pamphlets, ‘by the Occult’, is obviously NOT the second coming. Jackson was a century too early to rely on viral content to spread his malicious misinformation. Jackson, renaming himself Theo Horos, managed to convince hundreds of virgins, many of whom were barely in their teens, that he was the one and only Jesus Christ. The horny women took part in debauched religious ceremonies with poor lighting and incense wafting through the air. Horrible Horos would be trialed at the Old Bailey and convicted of raping and procuring girls for immoral purposes.

“All Eyes on Zevi” campaign was responsible for at least one Jewish messiah conspiracy.

Shabbatai Zevi claimed messiahship only to get cold feet at the last minute when he realized how much work was involved. Zevi hired a barge to take the believers to the promised land where he would be anointed the Messiah. As the month drew close to his meeting with God, Zevi, a Turkish Jew, fled back to Constantinople and was immediately captured by the Sultan. As Jews prepared for the second coming in London, Samuel Pepys noted that you could secure 10–1 odds for Zevi taking control of the Ottoman Empire.

The Sultan, a fair man unconcerned about the future of the powerful Ottoman Empire, offered to free Zevi on one condition — he renounced his views and convert to Islam. To help persuade Zevi of conversion, his archers would fire arrows at the messiah. Levi saw sense and renounced his Messiah status. It’s 1666 and London is ablaze! Blood libels are almost as old as Judaism where it was suggested a distraught Jew set fire to London after hearing Zevi was no longer the second coming.

In 1651, Bishopsgate saw the birth of the Muggletonians.

A radical Puritan sect that managed to survive as late as the 1970s. Lodowick Muggleton and John Reeve believed they were the Two Last Witnesses as foretold in the Book of Revelation: “I will give power unto my two witnesses and they shall prophesy one thousand two hundred and threescore days clothed in sackcloth.” Obsessed with impending doom, Reeve insisted he knew who God had chosen to be saved. Both landed in prison for cursing a vicar who subsequently died.

Benjamin Creme had a slightly different angle. The old rogue didn’t want to pin his hopes on just the one messiah, he would claim all religions were waiting for Lord Maitreya. Creme, an artist from London was very inclusive. When asked how the public would recognize Maitreya he responded:

“When Lord Maitreya appears, it will be as different beings to different people. He will appear as a man to a man, as a woman to a woman. He will appear as a White to a White, as a Black to a Black, as an Indian to an Indian.”

Way to cover our bases, Ben. When the day arrived, Creme invited all the London journalists for a giant piss-up in a pub but the Messiah failed to materialize. The no-show left the journos disappointed and incredibly drunk. The headline the next morning read: ‘Once again, I am afraid God did not show’.

One more for the road?

Enter Thomas Tany, a silversmith, and bringer of light. A man who rowed vigorously across the Thames to deliver a petition. Armed with a sword and pistols, Tany was on a mission. He would claim to be the direct descendant of Aaron, Moses’s brother and High Priest of the Israelites. Tany wanted to be called, Thearaujohn, believing he was the man anointed to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem with himself as High Priest. Tany fell fowl of the Muggletonians who condemned him as a ‘counterfeit high priest and pretend prophet, the spawn of Cain’. Tany served time and was last seen heading west to Jerusalem to recover the land for the true Jews. He was lost at sea.

At least in the modern age, you can no longer be burned at the stake or hung, drawn, and quartered for false prophesy.

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