David Icke

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David Icke

David Icke (born April 29, 1952) is a former professional football player, reporter, BBC television sports commentator, and British Green Party national spokesperson. Since 1990, he has been what he calls a "full-time investigator into who and what is really controlling the world." [1].

The Green Party distanced itself from him in 1991 after he announced during a television interview that he was a "son of the Godhead." He began to dress only in turquoise and later maintained that the world was ruled by a secret group called "The Elite", or "Illuminati", which he linked to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic tract. In 1999, he published a book claiming that the world had been taken over by a race of reptiles called the Babylonian Brotherhood, and that some prominent people were in fact lizards, including George Bush, Bill Clinton, the Queen Mother, and Kris Kristofferson. He has also claimed that members of the Bush family perform human sacrifices and drink human blood; that Henry Kissinger rapes young men; and that Queen Elizabeth II is a satanist.

Icke has further claimed that a small group of Jews, particularly the Rothschild family, financed Hitler and supported the Holocaust. These claims have led to his speaking tours attracting the interest of British neo-Nazis, particularly Combat 18, as well as facing opposition from Jewish groups and anti-racism activists. In response to these allegations, Icke has strongly denied that he is an anti-Semite, and has stressed his belief that the Illuminati, which, he says, includes the Rothschild family, are lizards, not Jews.

Icke argues that he has developed a moral and political worldview combining a passionate denunciation of what he sees as totalitarian trends in the modern world with a New Age spiritualism. According to Political Research Associates, an American research group that tracks right-wing extremists, Icke's ideas are popular in Canada, where the New Age aspect of his philosophy overshadows his more controversial beliefs. [2] He received a standing ovation after a five-hour speech to students at the University of Toronto in 1999. He is the author of fifteen books explaining his views.

Life and career

He was born in the city of Leicester in the English Midlands, into a working class family and raised on a council estate, or public housing, according to the biography on his website. [3] He left school to play football for Coventry City and Hereford United in the English league, playing as a goalkeeper until forced to retire at the age of 21 because of arthritis.

He found a job with a local newspaper in Leicester and became a reporter, moving on to local radio, regional television, and eventually national television with the BBC, where he became a sports presenter. He left the BBC to become an activist for the Green Party, rising swiftly to the position of national media spokesperson.

In his online autobiography, he writes that, in March 1990, he received a message from the spirit world through a medium. She told him that he was a healer sent to heal the earth, chosen for his courage, and had been directed into football to learn discipline. He was going to leave politics and would become famous, writing five books in three years. One day, there will be a great earthquake, and the "sea will reclaim land", because human beings are abusing the earth. [4]

When Icke told the Green Party leadership what he had experienced, he was immediately banned from speaking at party public meetings. [5] He began to wear only turquoise and in different interviews claimed that he was God or the son of God. In an interview on the Terry Wogan show in 1991, his announcement that he was "a son of the Godhead," and that Britain would be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes, was met with laughter from the studio audience, derision in the press, and suggestions that he was mentally ill. His supporters say that he was in fact describing all humans as children of God, or of some sort of deity, and that the confusion resulted from his scrambling to explain his spiritual apotheosis.

After being widely ridiculed, he disappeared from public view for a short time. He has written that, for several years, he was unable to walk down the street without people pointing and laughing, and that this experience helped him find the courage to develop his reptilian ideas, because he was no longer afraid of what people thought of him.

[O]ne of my very greatest fears as a child was being ridiculed in public. And there it was coming true. As a television presenter, I'd been respected. People come up to you in the street and shake your hand and talk to you in a respectful way. And suddenly, overnight, this was transformed into 'Icke's a nutter'. I couldn't walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule. [6]

He lives in Ryde on the Isle of Wight, where he makes occasional public appearances. Some newspapers stated in 2004 that he might appear on the UK Big Brother television programme in 2005, but Icke later said that he was interested in "the REAL Big Brother, not adding to the diversions that allow him to operate unchallenged".

Conspiracy writings

Icke has published ten books outlining his views, which are a mixture of New Age philosophy and apocalyptic conspiracism, combined with what many interpret as neo-fascist or anti-Semitic views. Michael Barkun, in his 2003 study of conspiracy theory subculture, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, writes that Icke is "the most fluent of conspiracy authors, which gives his writings a clarity rarely found in the genre."

At the heart of Icke's ideas is the belief that the world is being controlled by a secret government. In 1996, in his book ... and the truth will set you free, he claimed this government was financed by Jewish bankers and businessmen such as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. According to British journalist Simon Jones, Icke claims that:

Ordinary people are being massively duped into believing that the ordinary course of world events are the consequence of known political forces and random, uncontrollable events. However, the course of humanity is being manipulated at every level . . .

Now you may be wondering just what nefarious activities these people could possibly get up to. Icke, of course, has the answer. These individuals arrange for incidents to occur around the world, which then elicit a response from the public ("something must be done"), and in turn allows those in power to do whatever they had planned to do in the first place. [7]

Icke cites the Holocaust, Oklahoma City bombing, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the war in Bosnia, and the September 11, 2001 attacks as examples of events caused by the secret government.

The New-Age aspect of Icke's philosophy, writes Jones, argues that people live in a "multi-dimensional consciousness," and should abandon the false existence the world government provides, which will cause the hierarchy to collapse.

In 1999, Icke wrote and published The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World, in which he said the planet was being run by a New World Order controlled by a race of reptilian humanoids called the "Babylonian Brotherhood". He wrote:

My own resaerch [sic] suggests that it is from another dimension, the lower fourth dimension, that the reptilian control and manipulation is primarily orchestrated. Other people know this as the lower astral dimension, the legendary home of demons and malevolent antities [sic] in their black magic rituals ...

According to Icke, the reptiles' "hybrid reptilian-human DNA" allows them to change from reptilian to human form if they consume human blood. He has drawn parallels with the 1980s science-fiction series V, in which the earth is taken over by reptiloid aliens disguised as humans.

The reptilian group involves many prominent people and practically every world leader from Britain's late Queen Mother to George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Bob Hope. These people are either themselves reptilian, or work for the reptiles as what Icke calls slave-like victims of multiple personality disorder:

The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, the British royal family, and the ruling political and economic families of the U.S. and the rest of the world come from these SAME bloodlines.

It is not because of snobbery, it is to hold as best they can a genetic structure — the reptilian-mammalian DNA combination which allows them to "shape-shift".

Icke describes "shape-shifting" as "the phenomena in which witnesses have reported seeing people (most often those in positions of power), transform before their eyes, from a human form to a reptilian one and then back again". According to Christine Fitzgerald, a confidante of Diana, Princess of Wales, Diana believed that the British royal family was connected to reptiles and said that they could shape-shift.

Icke has since published a number of additional books on the same theme. His latest work sees George W. Bush, also a reptiloid, playing a key role in what Icke alleges is a September 11, 2001 conspiracy. (See also Bush family conspiracy theory.)

Anti-Semitism and the far right

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Icke during his five-hour speech to students at the University of Toronto.

Icke's core belief is that the world is controlled by shape shifting repilians, otherwise known as the Illuminati, who mercilessly manipulate humanity for their own profit and advantage, and restrict wealth and power to members of the "reptilian bloodlines". He believes that this group is led by the Rothschild family, which is Jewish (see his Rothschild Occupational Government; The Round Table and other writings). Icke's theories have been attacked as anti-Semitic, but this argument is contentious. In Icke's opinion, the Rothschilds are not really Jewish at all, but are actually shape-shifting reptilians [8], who assumed a Jewish identity in advance of rising to prominence around 1800 as part of a long term plot to use the Jewish people and the state of Israel for personal profit. The other reptilian/Illuminati conspirators are nearly all non-Jewish and have ranged from John Ruskin and Cecil Rhodes [9], to the British Royal Family, to the Rockerfellers (and in Icke's opinion Bill Clinton was a Rockerfeller), to British Prime Ministers such as Harold Wilson and Tony Blair. Icke has strongly denied that his reptiles represent Jews. "I am not an anti-Semite!", he told The Guardian, "I have a great respect for the Jewish people." [10] He maintains that the reptilians are not humans, but are "extra-dimensional entities" that enter and control human minds. He also says that what he calls the "white race" is most susceptible to reptilian influence, particularly white people with blue eyes. [11]

Icke believes that the Rothschilds planned Hitler's rise to power. This has been denounced as anti-Semitic by Jewish groups and others, but Icke's argument is that "HITLER WAS A ROTHSCHILD!!" quote is half way down) and that the Rothschilds, "use and sickeningly abuse the Jewish people for their own horrific ends. The Rothschilds, like the Illuminati in general, treat the mass of the Jewish people with utter contempt. They are, like the rest of the global population, just cattle to be used to advance the agenda of global control and mastery by a network of interbreeding bloodlines" 9th paragraph.

However, Icke's statements that inter alia a cabal of Jewish bankers planned the Holocaust and financed Hitler's rise to power are regarded as anti-Semitic by Jewish groups and others. Icke has cited white supremacist, neo-Nazi and other far-right publications in his books. Simon Jones notes that the bibliography of and the truth will set you free lists The Spotlight, formerly published by the now-defunct Liberty Lobby, and which Icke calls "excellent," and On Target, published by the Australian League of Rights, which has organized speaking tours for Holocaust denier David Irving. During a question-and-answer session after one of his lectures in 1996, Simon Jones asked Icke why he had referred to these publications in his book. Icke answered:

I believe that people have a right to believe, to read, and have access to all information, so that they can then make up their own minds what to think. If something is a nonsense, and if something doesn't stand up, it will be shown to be a nonsense in the spotlight of the public arena. [12]

At the same Q&A session, Jones repeatedly asked Icke whether he denied the Holocaust but Icke ignored the question.

In 1999, Icke's books were removed from Indigo stores across Ontario, and several venues on his speaking tour were cancelled, after protests from the Canadian Jewish Congress. The University of Toronto allowed his planned speech there to go ahead, despite the presence of 70 protesters, including the Green Party of Ontario, outside the Hart House Theatre. Icke received a standing ovation from the audience after speaking for five hours.

University of Toronto law professor Edward Morgan wrote on September 30, 1999 to the university's president, Robert Pritchard:

Having been involved in a number of the more renowned cases in Canada dealing with hate literature, it is my view that this is precisely the type of vilifying material with which the Supreme Court was concerned in its decision regarding the Criminal Code ban. The publications praise classic anti-Semitic tracts, and are replete with references to a secret society carrying on a global conspiracy led by a manipulating Jewish clique. The material which I have reviewed finds no place in the Canadian marketplace of ideas. [13]

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Protesters outside the University of Toronto before Icke addressed students there in 1999

Sumari Communications, which hosted Icke's tour, denied the allegations:

I dispute the anti-Semite issue because the Jewish community has chosen to isolate anti-Semitic quotes in David's books which he himself uses quotes from Jewish authors to prove his theories. No one is forcing these people to be here, but what is important is that they have the choice. It is called freedom and David doesn't even mention the Jews in his talks.

British journalist Louis Theroux, reviewing Jon Ronson's Them: Adventures with Extremists, cautioned against accusing Icke of anti-Semitism:

Not only might it be unfair to Icke, but by implying that he is so dangerous that he has to be censored, the watchdogs are giving a patina of seriousness to ideas that are — let's face it — very, very silly. [14]

However, after speaking with Icke, Simon Jones warned:

It's tempting to dismiss David Icke as a confused and ignorant man, manipulated by extremists in order to present their philosophy in a socially acceptable format. But Icke clearly understands the implications of his words. [15]

See also

• Alex Jones
• Erich von Däniken
• Illuminati
• Neofascism
• Reptilian humanoid
• Schizophrenia
• Zecharia Sitchin

References

• David Icke's website
• Icke's biography
• "David Icke And The Politics Of Madness: Where The New Age Meets The Third Reich" by Will Offrey, PublicEye.org, Political Research Associates, February 29, 2000
• "The Icke-onoclast" by Simon Jones, Word Smith, April 3, 1996
• "U of T provides accused anti-Semite with mike" by Dorsa Jabbari, Varsity News, October 12, 1999
• "Beset by lizards" by Jon Ronson, an extract from his book Them: Advertures with Extremists, The Guardian, March 17, 2001
• "Stranger than fiction: Are 12ft lizards running the world?" by Louis Theroux, The Guardian, April 7, 2001
• "The ten worst sportsmen in politics" by Nick Greenslade, The Observer, September 5, 2004

Further reading

• Illuminati, The New World Order & Paranoid Conspiracy Theorists (PCTs), The Skeptic's Dictionary
• The Reptilian Agenda