However, was I really infected by the Dimonds, or by the devil directly, and I just used the Dimonds to bolster my supposed case?
Because of my whole experience with scrupulosity, I know that many of these people who say ridiculous things are not Marranos, but are mostly battling with pride. I think the devil makes certain people WANT to be the last Catholic on Earth -- it makes them feel heroic.
It is noticeable to me that some of the smartest people are in the most danger. The Dimonds are very smart; Gerry Matatics is very smart; I am no pea-brain myself. Something else I've noticed is that those who try to be notable laymen, who go on the lecture circuit, who make YouTube videos, put themselves more at risk of intellectual pride ( not to say vanity ). Someone like John Lane became a notable layman very naturally, but others thrust themselves out there in a really pushy way, like Gerry Matatics. He was apparently well-known as a Protestant and it's like, as soon as he became Catholic, he has to go around lecturing, he has to be an authority. Was that God's will?
I'd say all these little home-alone movements are caused by intellectual pride rather than infiltrators. It's about people desiring to be the center of attention and then contriving some excuse to make it happen, some new theory to get others to rally around. I'm sure many heretics started like this, just wanting to be original and get noticed. It's like you feel you need validation for your intelligence, so you break with God's will and you step out on your own, you trick yourself into thinking you have some mission that you don't have.
The solution, as St. Augustine says -- who was not unlike Gerry Matatics at all, a man very vulnerable to intellectual pride, as a quick glance at his painfully prolonged conversion shows -- is "If thou wouldst be great, make thyself the least first." It is other people who will decide if we are great, if we should be listened to, not ourselves. Many saints gradually built respect over long years of good works and sermons, after shunning the limelight it was thrust upon them. Today people do the opposite, they seek the limelight.