Philosophy?
"Interesting that Stephan Pickering should show up here, as he himself has a long history of mental illness. He is also a vocal Internet troll, claiming scholarship on all manner of things about which he actually has no clue. His replies are copy-and-paste of things he has written dozens of times on other sites. If challenged, he claims anti-Semitism."
https://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/the-philosophy-of-mental-illness/
Pretending to be a Scholar
"The only people who empathize or understand incoherent ramblings in the guise of deep intelligence are others with similar problems. There are patterns to this kind of writing — making new words, writing incoherently in a faux-academic way, pretending to understand esoteric matters but displaying no comprehension. It is especially a sign of mental illness if the same patterns of posting and attacks and problems are repeated in places that are different. Zero self awareness. Delusions. Not codeswitching or responding to environment or audience. Wrapped up in needs to express an inner world, which has nothing at all to do with reality. These are signs of very severe psychiatric problems."
Pseudologia Fantastica
Pseudologia fantastica is also known as mythomania, compulsive lying, or pathological lying, "falsification entirely disproportionate to any discernible end in view, may be extensive and very complicated, and may manifest over a period of years or even a lifetime". People with this disorder are deceptive, they mix the truth with lies, in order to add plausibility to their tales. The lies are designed to protect the liar, by allowing him to feel truthful when defending statements. The tendency to lie does not fade. People lie to present a false self, or fake outward image, to the world. The importance of being perceived as brave vs. cowardly, strong vs. weak, good vs. bad, et cetera, may be a prime motivation for compulsive lying that paints the liar in a positive light. Embellishment of stories, in order to make the person with this disorder seem more powerful and impressive, may be a part of this mental health disorder.
Lying is defined as knowingly and intentionally creating false statements. Pathological lying is a mental health disorder, due to its ability to override rational judgment and send the liar into a non-real world. Telling a lot of lies is a common symptom of a variety of mental illnesses. The lies are typically very easy to see through, and can seem rather absurd, as they often serve no purpose. A pathological liar will suffer a loss of reputation, loss of relationships, and loss of respect among rationalpeople.
To avoid others being misled it is best to counter each and every lie, especially in social media where the liar will seek out a following of similarly deluded individuals to reinforce the delusions.
[link fails as Stephan Pickering was once more removed from a group for incitement to racial hatred and abusive behavior]
...your Hebrew gibberish, your phony Latin titles you've endowed yourself with...
(expanded response) (expanded response to that)
Sadly the UseNet Newsgroup rec.music.dylan cannot ban wreckers.
Expecting Rain
Hundreds of Admins have apologized to their members once they finally ban Stephan Pickering "While I was open to Mr. Pickering's opinions about the importance of Judaism on Bob Dylan's work, I was put off by his condescension. In fact, I often felt he was using Dylan to make arrogant remarks about issues important to him rather than to Dylan or his fans." — Scampi Cat
Steve Pickering wants negative attention for very specific reasons. He needs to feel or be persecuted for validation. It excuses him for taking responsibility, whatever the outcome of what he does or produces. If he does something well, he has been victorious against the oppressors who want to destroy him for being Jewish. If he fails, he can blame the persecutors - the totally imagined ones - for misunderstanding his position so he is correct, no matter what facts are presented or for attacking him so much so he cannot complete his work. It also provides a sense of identity. Take away the oppressed Jewish victim persecution status, and he has to stand alone as an individual - to succeed or fail by himself, but he has never created ANY coherent content himself. His entire being in all aspects depends on him being Jewish and being persecuted. If it doesn't exist, he has to create it... because without it he cannot operate. His homeostasis depends on him taking the position and identity of oppressed Jewish victim in every interaction. He cannot ever be just 'Stephan' because there is no 'Stephan'. Just as he cannot post a comment or send a message anywhere without that convoluted signature to make him even more an object of ridicule. The signature is him... So much anger about things that are actually delusions. Empty. Elements of schizophrenia, delusions, his paranoia and his lack of theory of mind seem to indicate something on the schizophrenic path.
"There are cases where people will take a focus point (the Holocaust would be Steve Pickering's... although it could be race, gender, religion, aliens, dinosaurs, pickles...) and they will use it as a weapon against others as a way of dealing with frustrations and fear. This gives them power when they feel powerless and inferior. It allows them to feel like they have control and moral superiority when they are in reality weak and useless. It is not about whether the repliers have done or said anything antisemitic, it is that they have made Pickering feel weak and useless and he has to find the strongest weapon to throw at them to avoid seeing himself as he is. It works. People abandon any dialogue as pointless facing such unfettered insanity."
Is this our Steve? Or just a psychological report on a similar patient: "Steve has a grossly inflated view of his self-worth and importance, a truly astounding egocentricity and sense of entitlement. He sees himself as the center of the universe, as a superior being who is justified in living according to his own rules. He is glib and manipulative, lacks empathy and social awareness, blames others for his misfortunes, lacks self-awareness, and has no guilt or remorse about treating others badly. He has poor behavior control, and will lash out when criticized or questioned. This is out of proportion to the situation, and unprovoked — often down to misunderstanding through lack of insight. Although he has a hair trigger when he gets annoyed, his reactions are far from uncontrolled. They are often cold and follow a set pattern of accusation and insult that is pre-planned or has been used before. It may be unwise to release him into care in the community."
"Often the patient will be hyper for a week or so. Posting over and over in a very odd way. It seems that he is frantically googling and posting from many sources without even looking to see where they are from. This is evident with his cut and pastes of the work of others then ludicrously claiming the work was his from years ago. Yet the people who do the work he steals often publicly prove beyond any doubt he is lying. Then he gets vicious, tries to incite racial hatred and viciously insults anyone helping him.
He is a classic thief and liar. He does not seem to realize that listing the chapters of his imaginary monograph does not prove he is writing anything, or that anything is his own work. Doing something scholarly himself would be entirely out of character. It has never happened.
He has taken people's work, mixed up the language in his confused style to blur the lines, and lied about the origination. Simply being intellectually dishonest.
He also makes himself look ludicrous by writing posts about his 'monograph in progress'. Either get it written and publish it, even with a vanity press, or just work on it in silence. Otherwise it remains a sad joke Dylan fans mock him about.
Does he not realize that something he wrote at home and has the only copy of is not something he can cite in posts? He cannot come back to a question or someone wanting him to cite his sources by saying 'I wrote about it in chapter 4...' But he craves ridicule, persecution and being taken to be a complete fool.
Everyone literate knows what is going on. Some people just are so full of themselves. What happens psychologically is that some people have the need to feel superior to everyone else... they need it like oxygen. They need to be right, they need to be on the high ground all the time. In order to maintain emotional and mental homeostasis, they must create a persona to fulfill their aims. They develop strategies to avoid or deflect criticism. They cannot resist trying to outdo others, and need to have a fallback position… As they are in reality profoundly inferior to others and they have little ability themselves, they are playing a comic part, nothing they create has value. So they steal from those who do create.
He has the need to be 'special', with a unique connection to his subject matter (whatever he chooses) and to pretend to be on a higher plane than everyone else. He needs to know more than everyone else - like a code that only he knows the answer to.
But he has invented the code, and even the language, so that when people realize the code is ridiculous, he can point to them being 'illiterate' in that they don't understand his invented use of words. He mixes Hebrew into it to further specialize the language and format, and exclude more and more people.
He craves the Jewish victim-hood and oppression - the power of the Holocaust - as an unassailable protection. That is why he links his Bob Dylan posts to Judaism... because it then makes every criticism directly about being antisemitic (in his deluded and childish mind). It is not about Pickering as a man, or Dylan as a performer or writer... or about the songs themselves. It is about religion, his race and POWER. It is controlling situations and discussions. It is about intolerance and only allowing one voice to be heard and be right. No intellectual interchange. No references to real sources. No open mind.
It is the totalitarianism that he himself rails against in others.
But he needs it psychologically.
He needs to be the most superior and tuned in person in any forum or discussion... he needs to make others completely wrong in his deluded mind... because if he stops and looks at the reality of the situation, he will realise just how out-of-touch with reality he is himself. Then his self esteem and efficacy - his internal concepts of self-actualisation - would come crashing down and mentally / emotionally he will have / be nothing.
There is no real 'Stephan Pickering'. There is only the persona he has built for himself. One who must follow patterns of behaviour and language to stay intact.
Like a cartoon character.
Bugs Bunny will always be laid back and only retaliate when attacked first or hunted.
Daffy Duck will always be out of touch with reality, driven by the need for fame and fortune and recognition.
Stephan Pickering will always want to be seen as an insider with specialist knowledge no-one else has. He will always need the protection of ultimate persecution accusations against detractors. He will always resort to immature insults (often the identical phrases over and over again in different forums) because that is the only way to keep the persona of 'Pickering' intact. It is his identity.
One psychological point is very relevant, though.
Pickering also has the alien abduction delusion. People who in laboratory testing are more likely to create false memories in the lab and scored high on measures of fantasy -- proneness and schizotypye personality characteristics that include perceptual aberrations and magical thinking...
That is always a consideration too.
Plus, the abduction also marks 'experiencers' as different and special - the chosen people... (Jewish and an abductee... and met Dylan onstage? Wow!). Except there is no evidence other than from Pickering himself of any of his claims other than meeting Bob Dylan. With a normal person there would be corroboration from other sources, online, in print, people met, relatives, and the like for all the other claims.
No scholar has engaged with him. No institution has employed him or invited him to speak. He has published nothing peer-reviewed. So we have no reason at all to think he is a scholar as he claims in the least scholarly rants heard outside of a mental hospital.
We have no reason to think he is Jewish. He has no synagogue or rabbi. His Kabbalah research institute has always been well known to be a fantasy. Pickering is an English surname. No one Jewish considers his theories about Jewish religious matters coherent.
We have no reason to think he was abducted by aliens and has been in their spaceships and received special knowledge from them.
We have no reason to think his dinosaur theories are coherent. They are dismissed as nonsense by all who have seen them.
We do know he spent possibly 20 minutes with Bob Dylan in 1974 and was photographed with him. His whole life has revolved around this one incident, captured in the picture where Bob Dylan looks rather frightened. It is bizarre to shut down all other aspects of life and viciously persecute anyone who relates the facts about all of this."
