Wayne Saunders listens keenly during an interview at the Gleaner North Street offices, on Thursday, February 22. - Andrew Smith/Photography Editor

Paul H. Williams, Gleaner Writer

When Emperor Haile Selassie I visited Jamaica on April 21, 1966, it was alleged that many who had gone to see him collapsed on to the tarmac at the Norman Manley International Airport.

They were expecting to see a big, strapping black-skinned man disembarking the plane. But, what they saw was a diminutive light-skinned Abyssinian with small piercing eyes. And, they foamed at the mouth. Well, so I heard.

However, I didn't do any such theatrics when I saw the protagonist in this story. I was guided by history. Over the phone, he told me though he was dark brown, he looked very much like Selassie I. In fact, he claimed he was Selassie I reincarnated.

The 'reincarnation' took place in December 1966, almost nine months after Selassie I left Jamaica, when a baby, named Wayne Saunders, was born at Victoria Jubilee Hospital in Kingston. Six years after, he went to Jones Town Primary School, where he was the school bully. From there, he went to Charlie Smith Comprehensive High School, where the bullying continued. But just like Saul on the road to Damascus, he was to be converted.

One evening after school, Wayne met a Rastaman at a bus stop in downtown Kingston. This chance encounter changed his outlook on life, and he became a member of the Ethiopia Africa Black International Congress (Bobo Church), at Bull Bay, St. Andrew, which he still attends today.

Confirmed Rastafarian

At age 16, he became a confirmed Rastafarian, and he began to grow dreadlocks. He re-embraced his spirituality, which he claimed had been dormant for a while. "A was born a spiritual person, but somewhere along the line I got contaminated - working with the devil - but a not sinning anymore," he admitted. Psalm 119 is his guide, as he uses the Word as a 'light unto his feet and a lamp unto his path'.

For him, Rastafari is the true faith. Obedience to the 10 commandments and observing the holy days are some of his beliefs. As a Rastaman, he believes in God, and that Selassie I is God.

But Wayne is no ordinary Rasta; he claimed he has four eyes, the physical two, the one in his heart and the one in his mind. He said, "My physical eyes are limited, but my spiritual eyes are not limited, they can see at a distance." As such, he's into the realms of seeing spirits and visions. Seeing spirits and visions have been a reality in his life from his early youth.

In some of these visions, he had seen pestilences trying to attack him. They occur anytime at night, anytime at day. He said, on one occasion when he went to bed and left his grille open, he heard a spirit saying, "Wake up, wake up, and go and lock the grille!" He got up just in time to see 'a man a come through the gate, a strange face man, and a strange face woman', who disappeared upon seeing him. To him these were evil spirits.

Visions

"I have been having these visions for many years, but I couldn't understand them, I couldn't interpret them - sometimes when I get some visions, I get scared because I didn't understand it - and a just start find myself speaking in tongues, and couldn't understand it until the interpretations come," he recollected.

One such interpretation is that "the Father and the Son are one, the Father and the Son be a witness of everything, there is nothing done on this Earth without a witness."

Now, he is no longer scared of these visions. He understands them and can interpret them. But, the vision that really changed how he viewed himself was the one in which the angel told him he was the Anointed, just as David was. The news of his anointing came when 'one night I get a vision, the angel come to me and give me a white piece of paper - and when him give me the paper and a tek the paper outta him hand, and a look pon it, a see nothing write on it, him give me another paper - and I see nothing write up on it, and him give another paper - and I see nothing write on it and him say to me that, 'You are Christ, you are Christ!' He emphasised, "I don't think I am the Anointed, I know I am the Anointed.

"In the morning when I wake up, my little daughter look up at me and say, "My Lord you know that you are Selassie I, you know that you are the Almighty God in flesh, you know when the spirit talk to you, you must be obedient to the spirit?" At the time, she was about four years old. Now, He is the Anointed and Selassie I in one. "I don't think I am Selassie, I know I am Selassie," he stoutly declared. And, to those who might want to question his sanity as a result of this declaration, he said, "I would react to them with open arms and a warm spirit because you see once you don't know something you are going to be ignorant of it." This ignorance of which he spoke perhaps was the beginning of the end of Zekes, the former Matthews Lane Don.

In one of his visions, he got a message about Zeke's imminent downfall. The message was to tell Zekes to repent lest he be dethroned, and if he did not, he was not going to know himself until he was in captivity. He went to warn Zekes, but he could not get through the impregnable human shield that surrounded the strongman. "The brethren them who was around him don't want me to see him because when a carry the message and write what the Lord told me to tell Zekes to stop tell lie, to repent, to cleanse him hand from the bloodshed, they took the message and the Bible from me. But when they read the message and see what was in the message they were disturbed and ask me to leave, so I left."

But Matthews Lane did not know whom they turned away. It was the man who said, "I am 100 per cent God and 100 per cent man in flesh. I am the Messiah who you read about in Malachi Chapter 4 about Elijah, I am Elijah The Prophet who the Father send to warn the people before the great and terrible day of his judgement."

Fair share of judgement

Wayne Saunders has had his fair share of judgement from people who cannot understand his utterances. They are not concerned about his complexities. That's perhaps why this divorced father of three was taken to Bellevue Hospital several times. But, he said he was not mad. He believes he's generally misunderstood, and his children tend to agree. He described the relationship with them as 'excellent', more so with his daughter whom he raised from she was three years old. He said, "She always told me that she see me as her father and her mother - and they don't think I am crazy."

So, if he is not as crazy as many persons think he is, then his complexity is of great human interest. Because, his story has many dimensions. Today, we looked at two - the personal and the spiritual. Next week, we conclude it with the strange and the perfect. You would want to know about his descent into the realms of demons, what he did to his father and one of his dogs, and how he feels about sex, celibacy, nudity and masturbation, as he struggles to be the perfect man.

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