Every now and then, you have to wonder just why someone takes it upon themselves to castigate an organization. However, when the individual is shown, by their writings, to be in need of professional counseling, it's much more understandable. Obviously, diagnosing mental disease by the behavior of someone from a few emails and when one is not licensed to diagnose, it's all assumption. However, in the case of Brian Samuel Williams, even the most casual reader would come to the same conclusion: 'He needs HELP!'.
Mr. Williams, born in 1977, lives in Toronto, Canada (and more about that later!). In July, 2013, he blazed upon the Masonic scene with a flurry of long (VERY long), rambling messages sent to Grand Lodges whose email addresses he had garnered from the web. In most cases, these went to clerical staff who simply deleted them. Someone (likely not more than 1-2 people - if not simply the imagination of Mr. Williams) seemed to have replied trying to 'correct' him and his fevered blatherings against Freemasons and Freemasonry.
Laced with profanity and barely understandable, they were hardly the things which might entice anyone to adopt a negative position about the organization, least of all those who were in its employ.
It initially looked as if the messages were passing through the huge ISP GoDaddy, to whom several apparently sent complaints. Their efforts were in vain, though, because Mr. Williams was actually using a local ISP which provided his TV service as well. We identified them and filed a complaint. The incessant emails (coming at the rate of 1-3 per day) stopped immediately! Problem solved - or so we thought.
Then, about two weeks later, he was back, ranting and raving even more obscenely than before. We were away on business for a couple of days while the nonsense raged but upon our return, we immediately filed a complaint with his new ISP. Because the recent messages had, however, also included death threats, this time we alerted the Toronto Police Department. The emails stopped immediately - and as of this writing, have not begun again.
Hopefully, police involvement has gotten Mr. Williams the professional help he needs. It's hard to categorize him as a true anti-Mason since he was clearly under the control of his demons. We've not put any of his emails here because of their profanities and more. However, Grand Lodge personnel who saw them had good reason for being disturbed.
Is
it the water in Toronto?
Mr. Williams mentioned in several posts that he lived in Toronto - and, as long-time readers of this website know, one of the most pertinacious anti-Masons from years past was our old nemesis, Mike Restivo. We've done several pages on Mr. Restivo beginning here. Having been to Toronto from time to time, we wondered if Mr. Williams and Mr. Restivo might have ever come in contact. Well, less than 1.8 miles separates the two residences. They're on intersecting streets with only one turn separating them. What are the odds, eh?
And then, just as the messages from Williams were ending, the newspapers and television channels started reporting on the bizarre behavior of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford who admitted using crack cocaine and more. We'd remembered hearing Mr. Ford's name before and - when looking back at some of our archive material about Mr. Restivo's aborted attempt to run for Toronto City Council, there it was: Mike praising him as 'mentally strong'. Birds of a feather, it would seem.
Must be something in the water there.... <shrug>
Created January 2, 2014
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