This is a term that I take credit for coining. This is not saying much since I have heard nobody else use it.
Basically, I use it to refer to somebody who feels a need to be master of a great secret.
We all can get lost in excitement about a new idea or insight. I know I have. But this is something different. It is something about how the individual needs something to be true. You often see it with conspiracy theorists. They get wrapped up with UFOs or 9-11 as a US government sponsored bombing. (I think everybody agrees it was the result of a conspiracy, the argument is about whose.) But this is something different. The person equates their personal value or status with their insights and knowledge of these theories. Because of this, they become unhinged from the reality of the evidence and lack the ability to learn. Often these are really smart people that you would expect to know better too. They often jump from one theory to another over time, but will generally never disavow a theory. You can also see this with health fads, MLMs, and religions. Some individuals get mixed up in some or all of these.
As a sad example, take example X. He was a professor of physics at BYU. He got put on administrative leave shortly 9-11. He was convinced that the Twin towers came tumbling down due to government planted implosive and or thermite devices. The problem wasn't that he thought there was a consipracy. The problem was that he was tarnishing the University by publishing papers and holding special lectures about it where-in he failed to present any real evidence or research. Further, he did this in stead of some of other research etc. I watched one (that is to say I watched only one) online video of him in a BYU lecture hall filled with impressionable students. He honestly seemed very enamored with the attention and took time to make a fair number of jokes at the expense of others. He was always a jovial professor, so making jokes in and of themselves was not out of character. However, after about 30 minutes of speaking, the only evidence he had given was time stamp on a video that looked like the tower fell faster than free fall. This is intriguing, but he failed to address several key questions that needed to be addressed in the process such as, was the time stamp accurate? Would this be characteristic of all implosive demolitions and only of implosive demolitions? Would this be characteristic of all demolitions of exo-load buildings? (I made up the work exo-load. I don't know what you call it. But I do know that most sky-scrapers are designed so that the weight of the building is carried by a core structure, while the twin towers were designed so a large portion of the weight was carried by the external skin so it is possible that the middle of the building had fallen first and via rebar etc was pulling the outer skin down faster than gravity) Those are just the first three questions that came to mind. In 30 minutes, I don't remember any plans to investigate these or similar questions, nor do I remember any reporting on such investigations being done. Perhaps it was intended as a charismatic lecture.
