empty posturing

Synonym: Pretentiousness

Anthony Lavey's Satanic Bible describes "empty posturing" as:

Empty posturing can be most irritating and isn’t applying the cardinal rules of Lesser Magic. On equal footing with stupidity for what keeps the money in circulation these days. Everyone’s made to feel like a big shot, whether they can come up with the goods or not.

If it were not for all his empty posturing I would have never questioned his intent.