For the past few years, Daryl Shawn Kabatoff has been posting messages to many diverse Usenet groups ranging from alt.teens.advice to alt.math.undergrad. His posts can be spotted immediately by his trademark subject header: the name of a person, followed by the person's birth date.
The contents of each of Mr. Kabatoff's posts speak volumes about his mental state and the threat that he poses to his community. Mr. Kabatoff (or "Dar," as he refers to himself) believes that God (presumably the Christian one) gives people their names. For an unknown reason, he has made it his life's work to demonstrate this theory to random people that he meets in shopping malls, restautants, and coffee shops located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which is where he lives.
For each random person, Dar gathers information or "stats" such as the person's name, birthday, and the names and birthdays of the person's parents and siblings (although Mr. Kabatoff refers to them as "siblinks"). Dar then processes all this information, looking for numerical correlations between the person's name and various number sources like the sequence of prime numbers, the sequence of "non-prime" numbers, the Fibonacci numbers, and the Lucas numbers. And of course, he looks for correlations with the Bible. Just consider the following snippet from a post by Mr. Kabatoff:
Dannielle was born on day 22 (7+7th non-prime), Bible Book 22 contains 117 verses. She was born with 343 (7x7x7) days remaining in the year. Her name adds to 232 (the terminating chapter of Bible Book 7). Her first 7 letters add to 59 (the 17th prime or the 7th prime in prime position). Her given names contain an average of 7 letters, her given names contain 7 vowels and 7 consonants...
Of course, it goes on much longer than that. Kabatoff's posts are usually several pages in length. One need only look at one of his posts to understand.
But that's not all. Without fail, by the end of all his posts, Kabatoff writes at least one generous paragraph on a more personal note. These are the subjects that he usually covers:
- Complains that his parents tortured him and gave him up to doctors in order to be "treated."
- Complains that the doctors were all Hindu, and more generally, that the Hindus, Catholics, and Protestants are conspiring against him.
- Complains that no one assisted him when he wanted to flee the country (Canada).
- Complains that no one is willing to buy him so much as a cookie for his work, or pay minimum wage, or send a letter expressing "thanx."
- Observes that the obelisks found on churches are really Egyptian penis-shaped idols.
- Also observes that Christmas trees are false idols that people decorate and worship every year (that may or may not be shaped like a penis).
- Concludes with a colorful medley of name-calling and, of course, prays that god strikes down all of his enemies in accordance with scripture.
Dar's favorite prey for gathering stats are young women, to whom he refers as "nubile sweeties."
One thing that is particularly creepy about Dar's messages is his continued and deliberate misspelling of certain words like "probababbility," "siblink," and "goink." Everything else is spelled correctly.
More recently, Dar's posts have been concentrating on marriage, and a woman called Marcia. The following is from his recent "analysis" of Saddam Hussein:
...if Marcia marries me and then one of Saddam's nieces or cousins marries Marcia and me (Isaiah 4:1), then Saddam is goink to win himself a shiny new Cadillac!!!
I'm not certain who this Marcia is, but she should probababbly be fearing for her life. I'm planning on sending Mr. Kabatoff a letter requesting him to do his analysis on my name. I'll update this article if anything new comes in.
Conclusions
When I read stories of this kind, I'm often left in a state of disbelief, wondering if Kabatoff is really an elaborate prankster looking to stir up some commotion. It's simply hard to believe that there exist people whose thoughts are that twisted and convoluted. I'm genuinely frightened to think about what goes on in his head.
I'm tempted to say, "Thanks again, Christianity!" but that wouldn't be fair, since no one knows the real reason Mr. Kabatoff became the way he is, although religion obviously plays a big part in his delusion.
I will conclude with a few open questions to Mr. Kabatoff about things that struck me as peculiar about his theories.
- Most of your numerology is only valid in base 10. Is there evidence that base 10 is some sort of Holy Base of God?
- Most of your numerology is only valid in the English language. Moreover, you're using an English translation of the Bible. Surely you don't believe that English was the original language of scripture?
- How do you know that people are giving you correct stats about themselves? What if someone lied to you about his or her name or birthday? Would you still be able to find numerological correlations? If you made up a completely random name and a random birthday, would you still find it somewhere in the Bible? If so, wouldn't that invalidate your research?
- What exactly do you expect to gain by educating people that their name is a gift from god? Suppose people start believing you that god gave them their name. So what?
- Why do you expect people to pay you when no one has ever asked you to do this work?
Update!
I've recently received a message from a contributor in Saskatoon who has generously provided several newspaper articles from the local newspaper concerning Mr. Kabatoff:
July 23, 1985 | October 18, 1985 | April 19, 1989 | April 20, 1989 | April 21, 1989 | January 19, 1990
Resources
A very typical post by Kabatoff.
Discussion at Waxy.org
I hereby bring forward the motion that the traditional dish "Spaghetti and Meatballs" be renamed to "Spaghetti and Meatwads."
