I found out from a website that there's a form of mental illnes going around Israel, particularly Jerusalem, that people think that they're the reincarnations or resurrected figures from ancient Judaism like Elijah, Isaiah, etc.
And you can find people like this around the Carlebach group and around Diasporah Yeshiva. I've tried to exorcise any last residue of what these organizations did to me.
The third Jewish commonwealth triggered off a lot of messianic fervor in some circles. Great things were supposed to happen and I personally, as a young child, believed that we were in the throes of the messianic redemption.
I r ead books by people like Aryeh Kaplan and Pinchas Stolper about the end times and had acces to Maimonides "Guide for the Perplexed" ("Moreh Nebuchim" in Hebrew). All of which added up to great things were supposed to transpire in my life.
Especially according to Kaplan, great changes in nature were supposed to happen. People living to more than a hundred, fruit of immense size, and of course, "the lion will lay down with the lamb".
Has anyone seem any of this recently? I sure haven't.

This is nothing new. When I was in Israel, all the way back in l986 a couple of John the Baptists were pointed out to me, along with other biblical figures. I guess Jerusalem attracts these types just like California does.

Israel is where 3 major faiths originated at least spiritually. And as such, Israel, particularly Jerusalem, attracts lots of unstable people. And many of them are on Israel's welfare system, "Bituach Leumi" so they don't have to work and be connected to reality as most of us know it.