Empire Energy Corporation Intl. (fka EEGC)

[pitts77h]

Wonderful article about MadMal from the Tasmanian Times. I wonder how I missed this gem!

http://www.tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/article/will-malcolm-bendall-launch-a-new-religion

Tasmania’s own wannabe oil baron Malcolm Bendall1 has spent over 30 years convincing people to give him their money to pursue what I consider to be a grand delusion of finding vast quantities of oil in Tasmania on the basis of a supposed vision from God.

In refusing to renew a licence for the latest company linked to Bendall to explore Tasmania for what is now one of the world’s least desirable energy resources, oil (The Mercury, 8th Sept. 2016), the State Government has finally done what it should have done decades ago.

Now I can’t help wondering what Malcolm’s next move will be? He’s perennially claimed to be just on the verge of something really big since at least 1983 (when he bored me in the Doghouse Pub about the big oil rig that was on its way from Texas to strike oil big-time on Bruny Island really, really soon; fortunately for me I already knew enough about Malcolm back then to know where to file that information).

Malcolm has managed to suck some pretty big egos into joining his little scheme at various stages along the way, possibly allowing them to prove that they weren’t really as smart as they thought they were, as there has never been a return on investment.

Given Malcolm’s purported visions from God, it seems to me that Malcolm’s logical next move could be to start a new religion. Starting a religion has always been a good way to make money and gain power. I wonder whether Malcolm has already been writing his scriptures, ready for them to be “revealed” to him in his next chat with God?

After all, one of the most successful new religions of the past 200 years or so was started in a remarkably similar way, by a persuasive character named Joseph Smith who started out convincing people to give him money to tell them where his mysterious powers had revealed gold treasure waiting to be dug up.

After a few run-ins with disgruntled punters, Smith apparently realised that the smarter thing to do was to purport to have dug up the gold himself following a vision of an angel, and to have thereby become privy to a revelation which enabled him to collect followers and start his own religion3. The fact that none but a few close collaborators of Smith ever claimed to have actually seen the gold plates turned out to be no barrier to the success of his religion at all, evidence after all being by definition irrelevant to religious belief.

If Malcolm does indeed come through with a new religion, he might contribute something of actual value to society. He will give psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists the opportunity to observe and better understand a contemporary example of the ways in which religions originate and take hold in the minds of the gullible and insecure.