About David Icke & James Redfield

[Laura]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

I've merged three thread that have Icke as the main topic. Adding here some interesting info. This is an edited extract from Them: Adventures With Extremists, © Jon Ronson, 2001.

Beset by lizards

David Icke, one-time goalkeeper, TV presenter and self-proclaimed Son of God, has re-invented himself as a travelling guru. Would Canada take seriously his warnings of power-hungry extraterrestrial reptiles or would he be dismissed as an anti-Semitic bigot?

* Jon Ronson
* The Guardian, Saturday 17 March 2001

In a meeting room in a community centre in Vancouver, the blackboard said "Strategy" and the leaflets said "Bigot Alert". A coalition of prominent anti-racist organisations shook hands and took their seats, notepads at the ready. A "leading racist" was about to land in Canada on a speaking tour. TV and radio stations were vying to secure chatshow bookings. There would be celebrity appearances, meet-and-greet-the-fans sessions and high-profile book signings. This was, the coalition felt, an unusual and disquieting turn of events. The media do not, as a rule, scramble to book racists for celebrity appearances. But this was an unusual racist, they said.

"Above all," began the chair of the meeting, "David Icke represents a political threat. His writings are anti-Semitic. David Icke states that the global elite, the Illuminati who dominate every aspect of our lives, are genetically descended from an extraterrestrial race of reptiles who came to earth some time ago in the form of humans, who are capable of changing their shape, who engage in ritual child sacrifice, who drink blood . . ."

The coalition shook their heads wearily. In terms of code words, they had now heard it all.

"What is this crap, this metaphorically hidden language?" asked a member of Anti-Racist Action, a visiting scientist from Somalia. "Who is a lizard? It's bullshit. Bullshit! As a human being, you have to use proper language."

"What do these words imply?" I asked him.

"What do you think they imply?" he replied. "Lizards? Reptiles? Cockroaches? Amphibians? They imply hatred. Racist hatred."

"Do you think that, when David Icke says lizards, he means Jews?" I asked.

"Of course!" he said. "What is lizard? What is amphibian? It is a pile of rubbish. Why he's using those terminologies such as lizards? This vile language. Vile bullshit. I'm totally, culturally shocked."

"So," continued the chair, "what are we going to do about this?"

Wheels had already been set in motion. The Canadian hate crimes unit had been alerted. So had the media. The coalition had also written to the former Canadian prime minister, Brian Mulroney, to inform him that David Icke was accusing him of being a reptilian, child-sacrificing paedophile. But so far, to the coalition's bafflement, Mulroney had declined to initiate legal action. Indeed, every individual accused of reptilian paedophilia by David Icke had so far failed to sue, including Bob Hope, George Bush, George Bush Jr, Ted Heath, the Rothschild family, Boxcar Willie, the Queen of England, the Queen Mother, Prince Philip, Kris Kristofferson, Al Gore and the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group.

"Why do you think that is?" David Icke had asked me when I interviewed him about this matter in London. Then he turned to my notepad and thundered, "Come on, Ted Heath! Sue me if you've got nothing to hide! Come on, George Bush! I'm ready! Sue me! I'm naming names! Come on, Jon? Why are they refusing to sue me?"

There was a silence. "Because they are twelve-foot lizards?" I suggested, smally.

"Yes!" said David. "Exactly!"

"Keep in mind that this is not a meeting to debate what David Icke stands for," announced the chair back in Vancouver. "This is a meeting for people who are opposed to David Icke's presence in the community. I would like to know if any people here consider themselves supporters of David Icke?"

There was a silence. "I . . . uh . . . haven't made up my mind yet," said a man in a beige jacket whom nobody recognised. "I don't know what David Icke stands for. I have been fighting Nazis for 20 years, but sometimes it is difficult to tell who the Nazis are."

This man was unshaven. His blond hair was long and lank. Anti-racists shared quiet glances. Strictly speaking, this man had - by failing to have made up his mind - contravened the stated rule. This meeting was for people who had made up their minds. But the tacit consensus was not, at this stage, to demand his removal from the room.

"David Icke is opposed to community values," explained the chair patiently. "The purpose of this meeting is to organise against David Icke. If that is not your purpose, you might want to reconsider whether this is a meeting you want to be at."

A beat allowed this thought to linger, and then the subject was changed. "He's clearly out to act as a conduit to the patriot movement," said Tony from the British Columbia Socialist Caucus, "the far-right anti-Semitic racist militia movement."

It was at this moment that the stranger in the beige jacket made a startling announcement. "I have been in the militia movement of the United States for four years," he said, "and I only ever met one racist there."

The action that followed this declaration was swift. "I think at this point it may be unproductive if you continue to remain in the room," said the chair.

The militiaman looked shaken by this rapid response. "If you . . . uh . . . want to rule me out, fine," he stammered, "but I just wanted to see if I could do anything to help."

"I think that people are uncomfortable with you sitting at the meeting."

"I came to hear what David Icke was about and whether I could help," he said. "Could I just ask two questions?"

"But this isn't a debate," smiled the chair.

"Okay. Okay. I'll go. But could I just ask . . ."

"Please, no."

"I'm gone," he said. "I'm gone." Then he left.

A break was called. In the car park, informal suggestions were thrown around over cigarettes by the younger and more rebellious activists. Someone offered to launch a physical attack on David Icke at his hotel. I suspected a giant misunderstanding was in danger of spiralling out of control. Knowing what I did about David Icke's past - specifically, his startling announcement on the Terry Wogan chatshow on BBC1 in 1991 that he was the Son of God - I guessed that when he said that 12ft lizards secretly ruled the world, he really was referring to lizards. But what did I know? The code words did seem to be increasingly abstruse. I elected to remain an impartial observer to the unfolding events in Vancouver in the hope that some clarity might develop in the days ahead.

Wogan. The blue comedian Jim Davidson was top of the bill that night (this was primetime BBC1, in the autumn of 1991), but most of the viewers had tuned in to see Terry Wogan's first guest. There had been rumours in the tabloids all week that something unexpected had happened to David Icke, the popular BBC sports personality, once a professional football player, now the host of Grandstand and a household name. The tabloids said that David Icke had started wearing only turquoise, that he was predicting cataclysmic flooding and earthquakes - and that he was claiming to be the Son of God.

I had watched a videotape of this broadcast before leaving London for Vancouver. It was startling to see how David Icke looked, how haggard and exhausted and terribly nervous - so unlike the genial BBC soccer and snooker correspondent whom the British public had come to feel so comfortable with - and dressed from head to toe in a turquoise shellsuit (turquoise being a conduit of positive energy) as he stepped out on to the stage.

"Why you?" asked Wogan with an incredulity that reflected the mood of the land. "Why have you been chosen?"

"People would have said the same thing to Jesus," David Icke replied. "Who the heck are you? You're a carpenter's son."

"When might we expect tidal waves, eruptions and earthquakes?" asked Wogan.

"They will certainly happen this year," said David.

This conversation took place amid howls of laughter from the studio audience.

"Why should we believe you?" said Wogan.

"I'm saying that these things are going to happen this year," said David, "so we'll see, won't we?"

"And what will happen to you if they don't happen?" asked Wogan.

"They will happen," said David.

He said this with such ferocity, such conviction, that the audience stopped laughing for a moment. However wise and modern we are, this kind of thing can still shake us up. You could feel it sweep across the television studio, sweep across the land, a stirring of some primordial paranoia. Could David Icke actually be a soothsayer? At that moment, I think the nation looked to Terry Wogan for guidance. How would he respond? Which way would this go?

"The best way of removing negativity is to laugh and be joyous, Terry," said David. "So I'm glad that there's been so much laughter in the audience tonight." There was a small silence.

"But they're laughing at you," said Wogan. "They're not laughing with you."

There was a gasp, followed by rapturous applause. So the Canadian coalition was unaware of the moment that David Icke's career had crashed so dramatically in Britain. Had they known, would they have felt differently about the reasons why he said that giant lizards secretly ruled the world? Furthermore, the coalition seemed to have disregarded the fact that many of the lizard-people Icke had publicly named and shamed were not Jewish. There was a piece of compelling evidence that David Icke did mean Jews when he said lizards. Buried somewhere in the middle of his hundreds of thousands of published words is a short paean to the Protocols of Zion - the absurd 19th-century Tsarist forgery proclaiming to be the minutes of a meeting of the Jewish secret rulers of the world: "Protocol 9: The weapons in our hands are limitless ambition, burning greediness, merciless vengeance, hatred and malice. It is from us that all-engulfing terror proceeds . . . We will not give [the people of the world] peace until they openly acknowledge our international Super-Government."

It is incredible that this document, which portrays my people as cackling villains from a Saturday matinee, formed the template for contemporary anti-Semitism. It is so obviously a fake. Even if some of us do possess "limitless ambition, burning greediness, merciless vengeance, hatred and malice" (and I know I do), we'd never come right out and admit it to our peer group. There are appearances to uphold.

But then, David Icke has declared that the Protocols of Zion is evidence not of a Jewish plot, but of a reptilian plot of Illuminati lizards. And nobody would be concerned about David Icke if it wasn't for the fact that his career is now a global sensation; that he lectures to packed houses all over the world, riveting his audiences for six hours at a time with extraordinary revelations; and that pop stars and movie stars request private audiences, with both PW Botha and Winnie Mandela happy to associate themselves with him. Indeed, in terms of the size of his following, he is the most influential racist on the lecture circuit - if, that is, he is a racist.

The airport. Two Canadian immigration officers discreetly scanned the queue at passport control. They were holding clipboards. One turned to the other and murmured, "That's him."

Although David Icke had overheard this exchange, and was preparing himself for the worst, he feigned breezy innocence by humming Que Sera Sera. He looked different now. The turquoise was long gone. He wore a comfortable sweater. His eyes were messianic-blue, and his grey hair was guru-long. There was little ridicule in his life now. "Good evening!" he sang, handing over his passport. It was swiped through the scanner, and two words immediately appeared on the screen: "Watch for." At this, David Icke's composure was shattered. "So this is life in the free world?" he boomed. "It's pathetic! Simply pathetic!"

He was quickly bustled towards a holding room, protesting his innocence along the way. "I am not an anti-Semite! I have a great respect for the Jewish people. Is this a Jewish plot? No, no, no!"

The authorities eyed him with some distrust. When David Icke said he didn't believe it to be a Jewish plot, was this code? Did he really mean that he did believe it to be a Jewish plot? What, exactly, was he thinking?

I was, of course, not there to witness what happened to David Icke inside the holding room. But from his own description of the events relayed to me later, I have attempted to piece the scene together. A man in rubber gloves scattered the contents of his baggage across a table - his clothes and toiletries and reading matter - and began to scrutinise them for some tangible evidence of anti-Semitism.

"Yes." clarified David Icke, "the families in positions of great financial power obsessively interbreed with each other. But I'm not talking about one earth race, Jewish or non-Jewish. I'm talking about a genetic network that operates through all races, this bloodline being a fusion of human and reptilian genes." He threw up his hands. "And now, suddenly, the idea is that I'm saying it is a gigantic Jewish plot. But let me make myself clear - this does not in any way relate to an earth race."

David Icke's line of defence was clear. When he said lizards, he really was referring to lizards. He was not talking about cockroaches, or amphibians in general, contrary to the suggestions mooted at the meeting in Vancouver, but Annunaki lizards, specifically, from the lower fourth dimension.

The immigration officers glanced at each other, attempting to square this denial with the memo they had received from a coalition of respectable and trustworthy anti-racist groups, accusing David Icke of anti-Semitism. Finally, after four hours of questioning, they concluded that when David Icke said lizards, lizards was what he meant. He was free to enter the country. There was no law against this. How could the lawmakers anticipate that sort of thing?

David Icke shook hands with the immigration officers, collected his things and wandered outside to the concourse, where his entourage was waiting in a car to pick him up. It was 2am.

"It is certainly not a misunderstanding," said David, as we were chauffeured from the airport to the hotel. "They are assassinating my character."

"But why would they want to do that?" I asked.

"Because I am getting too close to the truth." He looked out of the window. "I miss my little boy," he said. "I cannot tell you the agony of being away from my little boy. But you've got to keep walking and talking."

We reached the hotel, checked in, retired to our rooms for showers, and met again in the foyer. David was jetlagged and downcast. "Would I want to do other things with my life, something other than all this frigging travelling? God, yes."

"What would you be doing if you weren't doing this?" I asked him.

"Something related to sport," he said. "I still love sport."

"I guess you've burnt your bridges with the BBC," I said.

"Oh, I'd never go back to that." he said. "The thought of presenting the same programme day after day, year after year. I think I'd have taken the pill by now. But do I want to go around radio station after radio station, book signing after book signing, interview after interview? No."

We had breakfast and then we walked the three blocks to the studio of AM 1040 Radio One, where David was booked for a celebrity appearance on the morning show. David was now more alert and cheerful. Smiling, he entered reception. We were greeted by the station manager, a small man wearing glasses and a friendly striped jumper.

"Hi!" David smiled, extending his hand. "David Icke. I'm due to be on a programme at 10.15."

"Okay," said the station manager. He coughed. "I've reviewed the material that was submitted to us, and I've also reviewed the radio regulations of 1986 . . ."

"I don't believe this," murmured David.

"And I don't feel comfortable having you on."

"Why?"

"I just don't feel comfortable. That's it. Thanks for coming in." The station manager clapped his hands together. "Thanks very much."

"You invited me to your radio station," said David patiently. "I turned up on time, and now you stand here and say without any substance or explanation that you're not having me on?"

"Thanks for coming in," said the station manager.

"You know what?" said David, leaning across the reception desk. Their faces were now inches apart. "It's pathetic. You say you believe in freedom? You couldn't spell it."

He turned to me. "This," he said, pointing at the station manager, "is one of the architects, unknowingly, of the destruction of our freedom."

"You did say you were sick of doing radio interviews," I offered.

"That's not the point," said David. "The information is being suppressed by unknowing, frightened little men like him."

"Oh, thanks," said the station manager.

"This is unbelievable," said David. He was now addressing my notepad. "Oh no, there's no conspiracy, no cover-up, no suppression, ladies and gentlemen of the world."

"Please leave," said the station manager.

That night, at Rosie's Bar in downtown Vancouver, David and some of his entourage drank mournfully until closing time. Word had just reached them that another media interview and a personal appearance in a bookshop had been successfully prevented by the coalition. There was only so much to be gained from being the maligned victim, the speaker of truth in a venal world. This was now becoming a serious problem. Book sales were at risk.

David's entourage attempted to buoy him up. "At least this blows the myth of a free media in Vancouver," said a quiet, bearded Austrian called Henrick. "Clarity is good, right? At least this clarifies things."

"Yeah," said David, wearily.

I could not determine how Henrick fitted into the Icke camp. He just seemed to be there all the time, one of perhaps a dozen men and women in Vancouver who drove for David, picked up the hotel and restaurant bills, took him aside to whisper things that I couldn't hear, transported the books and the videos, organised the media engagements, kept the cottage industry rolling.

But the most surprising presence within David's entourage was that of Brian Selby, a veteran local journalist from the left and a one-time prominent Greenpeace activist. (The coalition was mystified by Brian's apparent defection to the far right. It had been the subject of much debate during their anti-Icke meeting.)

"I've been in this town 15 years," said Brian, "and I've gotta say that this is the most twisted political cluster-fuck I've ever seen. You've got the weirdest coalition. You've got the draconian powers of the Canadian Jewish congress. Then you've got people with a history of being progressive. The Seattle protesters . . ."

"Nobody does all this against one person unless there's something much bigger going on behind the scenes," added David.

"You've got to have a lot of power to call up a radio station and get the plug pulled on a show," agreed Brian.

"They're sending us a message. They're saying, 'Don't fuck with us now or forever more.'"

There was a silence. "Who is pulling the strings?" said David.

After David went to bed, Brian and Henrick elected to take matters into their own hands. "We need to defuse this whole concept that David Icke is an anti-Semite," said Brian.

"But how?" I asked.

Brian said he still had some friends inside the anti-Icke camp from his days as a leftist activist. He would use his contacts to initiate a meeting. But how to convince them of David's innocence?

Here, Brian and Henrick fundamentally disagreed. Henrick argued that the coalition needed to understand that David Icke's lizard claims were "politically relevant" (the lizards being the hidden hand behind corporate globalisation) and that they had a "factual core" (there was much talk here of archaeological evidence linking ancient cultures with reptilian invaders).

Brian, however, wanted to keep the lizards out of it all together. "I mean it," he said, severely. "Don't mention the lizards. The lizards just confuse things. Jon?"

"The lizards muddy the waters," I agreed.

"Okay," murmured Henrick, sullenly.

"So what's your argument?" I asked Brian.

"Two words," he said. "Noam Chomsky."

"The Jewish intellectual?" I asked.

"David, at his most controversial," explained Brian, "is saying nothing that Noam Chomsky hasn't himself written regarding, for example, powerful Zionists." He paused. "What do you think?"

"It isn't unconvincing," I said.

"This is open and shut," said Brian. "Chomsky is the darling of the left. There's no way they can argue with that. Do you reckon?"

I shrugged. "It will be interesting to see how they might argue with that," I said.

The next evening, Brian and Henrick and I met Sam, the coalition's unofficial organiser, on neutral ground at a downtown bar. The stakes were high. More media interviews had been prevented by the coalition. Furthermore, the anti-racists seemed to be on the verge of convincing the Canadian hate crimes unit that Icke's books should be seized and literally incinerated, and Icke himself deported.

"Hello, Brian,"nodded Sam, formally.

"Sam," nodded Brian. "This is Henrick."

Henrick nodded formally.

"Jon," nodded Sam.

"I'm just here as an impartial observer," I said. "I'm just going to sit here."

"Okay," agreed the two camps.

The formalities were over and the discussion began.

"So," said Sam, "you say that Icke is not an anti-Semite." Brian held up his finger to say "wait a minute" and he rifled through his briefcase. He retrieved a sheaf of photocopies, which contained the writings of Noam Chomsky. Brian had marked passages that convincingly reflected his thesis - that David Icke was no more anti-Semitic than this respected Jewish scholar.

Sam studied the photocopies. He nodded thoughtfully. "This might be true to an extent," he finally agreed. "But there is a very big difference between Noam Chomsky saying it and David Icke saying it."

"Which is?" asked Brian, his eyes narrowing.

"Well, firstly," said Sam, "Noam Chomsky is Jewish. Secondly, Noam Chomsky is not mad. Thirdly, Noam Chomsky is, in fact, an intellectual. And, finally, Noam Chomsky is not an anti-Semite."

Henrick shuffled uneasily in his chair. He clearly felt that Brian's modus operandi was falling apart before their eyes. Yes, Henrick had promised to leave the lizards out of the discussion, but these were desperate times, and they called for desperate measures.

Henrick shot me a glance. "Go for it," I mouthed.

"There is full documentation," announced Henrick, which proves that 20 reptilian races have interfaced, intermingled and interbred with the human race, and are now controlling society from above."

Brian stared daggers at Henrick.

"Twenty?" said Sam, leaning forward.

"Approximately 20," said Henrick. "Certainly it is somewhere between 15 and 25."

"Have you got the names of these reptilian races?" asked Sam, producing a notepad from his bag.

"Yes, I have," said Henrick, obviously pleased that Sam was showing an interest. "Okay. Firstly: Grays."

Sam wrote down Grays.

"Next there are the Adopted Grays."

Sam wrote it down.

"Then there are the Troglodytes."

"They're the ones who live in caves, right?" said Sam.

"In caves," confirmed Henrick. "Then there are the Crinklies."

"What do the Crinklies look like?" asked Sam.

"They are cuddly, pink, with old-looking faces," said Henrick.

"Can I just point out," interrupted Brian, sharply, "this Chomsky passage regarding the oppressive subtext of the Talmud . . ."

"Then there are the Tall Blondes," said Henrick.

"What do they look like?" asked Sam.

"Kind of like Swedes," said Henrick. "Next come the Tall Robots."

"They're the ones covered in aluminium foil, right?"

"Right," said Henrick. "Then there are the Annunaki."

"The Annunaki," said Sam. "They're the ones David Icke goes on about the most."

"Exactly," said Henrick. "George Bush is Annunaki."

Sam excused himself so he could step outside for a cigarette. He returned to discover that Henrick had taken the opportunity to grab his notepad and add further names of reptilian races to the list.

"The Elderbarians," he had written. "These are the crop-circle makers. The Zebra Repticular. The Albarians. The Interdimensional Sasquatch. The Goat Sucker or Goat Eater often found in Mexico."

"Is there friction between these alien races?" asked Sam.

"Yes," said Henrick. "Constant friction."

"Do they actually fight each other?" asked Sam.

"Yes," said Henrick. "They are constantly battling for control of the 15 dimensional portals. One is in Jerusalem. One is in Tibet. Nobody knows where the other 13 are."

"This," said Sam. "is a very interesting conversation."

"That was very weird," said Sam to me after Brian and Henrick had gone home.

"It was weird," I agreed. "You know, I've been trying to keep an open mind, but now I'm pretty certain that David Icke really does mean lizards when he says lizards."

But the anti-racists were still not convinced. "It's the hidden reptilian hand of Judaism coming to take over the world," said a coalition member called Richard Warman. "It's all about dehumanising your enemies. How do we make Jews despicable, sub-human, and worthy of our condemnation? So, yes, I still believe that when David Icke says lizards he means Jews."

It looked as if things could get no worse for David Icke. His supporters had pulled out all the stops to dampen hostility towards him, but even Henrick's intricate lizard dissertation had failed to convince Sam that David was not an anti-Semite. Now he was a martyr. His fans started approaching him on the street, shaking his hand, sometimes even breaking into spontaneous rounds of applause, offering words of support.

"It's so terrible what those awful Jewish people are doing to you," said one old lady.

"Little me!" David put his hand on his heart. "This 'nutter', as they call me. If I'm mad like they say I am, why don't they leave me alone? But ever since I started exposing the reptilian elite, the opposite has happened. Why is that?"

"The Jews are drawing their own parallels," suggested one fan. "Nothing that you have ever said could in any way be construed as anti-Semitism. They're just paranoid. It's not true. You are not an anti-Semite."

"Jewish people have suffered as much if not more from this global manipulation as anyone else," agreed David. "Far from being the perpetuators of it, they are massive victims of it. And, in terms of racism, my own daughter's boyfriend is himself black."

"You've changed my life," said another fan. "I used to be a sheep, I used to be like them, but you've changed my life."

On Thursday, the anti-Icke camp suffered a public humiliation. VTV, Vancouver's popular local television station, decided to ignore the coalition's request to cancel David's scheduled TV appearance. Instead, it put him on live - head to head with an eminent local psychology professor called Bill Bierstein:

Host: "Professor, why do you think Mr Icke has such a following when a lot of people would think his ideas are out of this world?"

David (turning furiously to host): "What research have you done on that? Nothing! Nothing! Nonsense!"

Professor: "People like to enchant themselves. They want there to be grand conspiracies by superpowerful beings, rather than just a bunch of mistakes made by decent people . . ."

David: "Professor!(To host) Is he going to go on forever?"

Host: "Let's get Mr Icke to respond to that."

David: "Professor, did you major in patronising the people of British Columbia?"

Professor: "Well, there's no need for insulting comments."

David: "Okay, tell me about the Bilderberg Group."

Host (interrupting): "Let's talk about why . . ."

David (thunderously): "Don't tell me what I'm going to say. Tell me about the Bilderberg Group!"

Host (listening anxiously into her earpiece): "Mr Icke, we don't want to talk about that right now. Let's talk about . . ."

David (a knowing smile): "I'm sure you don't!"

Host: "Why are Jewish groups calling you anti-Semitic?"

David: "Because I'm getting too close to the truth."

Professor (laughing): "Don't get into these convoluted paranoid fantasies that people are trying to shut you up . . ."

This was, under the circumstances, the wrong thing to say. David could be accused of many things, but fantasising that he was being censored was not one of them. David smiled a little, and then he went in for the kill.

David: "I have had three major interviews pulled this week. I've had book signings cancelled. You wanna read the papers a bit more, mate! There Are Lizards And There Are Lizards."

The Professor faltered. Professor: "Well, uh, if you have nothing better to do than to insult me, then I'm sorry for your process of thought . . ."

But it was over. The professor had blown it. In the days that followed this TV debate, some of the coalition began privately admitting to me that the whole thing was beginning to backfire. David Icke's fans were not, by and large, anti-Semites. It was more alarming than that. They were, in fact, the coalition's core constituents - liberals and anti-racists and left-wingers concerned with the perils of global capitalism. These people were beginning to look upon the coalition as the villains, as the hidden hand, as "them".

 

[Laura]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

Beset by lizards (part two)

* Jon Ronson
* The Guardian, Saturday 17 March 2001

"Having visions," agreed Rob from Anti-Racist Action.

"The nutcase stuff," said Sam. "Do we want to hang him on that?"

But the others argued forcibly that the coalition should avoid these areas. "We're not here to do a psychological analysis on him," said a woman called Julia. "Just leave it. Let's leave it."

When three representatives of the coalition appeared on a radio phone-in show to drum up support for a mass protest against David Icke, they received a volley of antagonistic questions. Why were they obsessed with denying freedom of speech to someone who clearly wasn't an anti-Semite? Who was really behind the coalition? What were they hiding? And so on.

The coalition hastily convened a meeting at a downtown coffee bar to discuss new tactics. Sam suggested producing a press release announcing that David Icke was suffering from some form of mental illness. "To me, he sounds schizophrenic," he said. "Hearing voices."

But as the evening wore on, the gathering began to seem more like a postmortem than a strategy meeting. A young activist called Ali said that she felt she had pinpointed the coalition's tactical error: they had made young people feel stupid. "Young people are seeing this big task before them," explained Ali, "trying to combat economic global corporatisation. And a lot of them have read David Icke and thought, 'Hey! He's on our side. I'm looking for answers and he seems to have them.' And we've made them feel stupid, like they've done something bad by getting sucked in." Ali paused. "And now theyÍre saying to us, 'Don't tell me IÍm stupid!Í What we should have said to them was, ïYouÍre not stupid. We understand why you thought he was okay.'But we didn't. And now they think we think theyÍre stupid."

The next morning, the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith - the most powerful and respected groups within the anti-racist alliance - cut their losses. They telephoned Sam to say they were withdrawing their support from the coalition. This was a tremendous blow. Now, the only people left battling Icke were Sam and his young friends from Anti-Racist Action. On Friday night, these tatters of the opposition met at the Havana Bar on Commercial Drive. It was a melancholy occasion.

"I guess it's over," I said.

There was a silence.

"No!" said Michael. "It isn't over."

Michael is young and handsome. He had been pepper-sprayed in Seattle and trampled by Mounties in Vancouver. You could still smell the pepper spray on his bandana. "Thousands and thousands of people," said Michael, "went down to Seattle, risked their lives to try and address the problems created by the evolution of global capitalism, and now this pompous wingnut, this buffoon has flounced into town . . ."

Michael didn't need to finish his sentence. We knew. David Icke had flounced into town with his lizard thesis on the dangers of international capitalism, and he was cleaning up, winning the hearts of those Michael himself had hoped to convert by serious debate about global economics, swiftly followed by some kind of direct action. Rational thought was being vanquished, and the lizards were winning. "He can discredit the whole movement," said Michael. "I can see the World Trade Organisation saying, 'If you oppose us, youÍre just scared of some . . . some . . . lizard conspiracy.' And that's the most scary thing to me."

I think that, in David Icke, Michael was seeing an omen of the blackest kind. He was seeing the future of thought itself: a time when irrational thought would sweep the land, much as racism had done the previous century, when Washington DC was a blaze of white, the white of a million Ku-Klux Klansmen marching past a Klan-friendly White House and a Klan-friendly Capitol Hill.

Then Michael said, "This ridiculous guru has blinded the people of Vancouver, and there's only one thing for it."

"Which is what?" I asked.

"Icke needs his pomposity pricked in public," said Michael. "He needs to be humiliated, disgraced, he needs to become a laughing stock. Only then will his followers see him for what he is - a self-important, humourless clown."

And, as we sat on the terrace of the Havana Bar, Michael understood how he could make that happen.

It was Saturday morning at Michael's house. Michael and Sam and a few of their friends were making the final preparations for today's physical assault on David Icke.

"Are you nervous?" I asked them.

"I'm getting butterflies," said a woman called Linda. "It's exciting. I just hope no militia wingnut acts in a hostile way."

"Oh, it'll be just new-age flakes there," said Michael.

"No it won't," said Linda. "Just look at Mr Militiaman who turned up at the meeting last week. He was dangerous."

"The point is," agreed Tony, "if someone is unstable enough to believe that lizards run the world, God knows what they might do to us."

The plan was this: at 2pm, David Icke was scheduled to make a personal appearance at Granville Books in the centre of town.

Sam and Linda would arrive first to create a distraction.

"Some chanting," said Sam.

"Any kind of confusion," said Michael. "And then IÍll just run in, get to the front of the queue, and smack the meringue pie right into IckeÍs face!"

"Excellent!" said Sam.

"A flaky pie for a flaky guy!" said Michael.

The anti-racists envisaged a devastating result. The mask would slip the moment Icke's face was publicly splattered with meringue. His self-importance would blow up into the most hilarious tantrum, and he would be seen for the pompous fool he was.

"We're going to ridicule the idiot," said Michael. "Are we ready, my fellow les entartiers? Let's go . . ."

At 1pm David Icke and I walked the three blocks from the Rosedale Hotel to Granville Books. I was feeling terrible about my passive role in the impending pie attack. I believed that Michael was correct in his analysis of how David would respond to this public humiliation. But I had decided to remain an impartial observer, and so I gave him no clue as to what was about to happen. David was in high spirits. He started reminiscing about the events of the early 90s, the bad days that followed his appearance on the Wogan show. "You know," he said, "one 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."

David carried on walking and talking. "You have to keep walking and talking," he said. In the aftermath of the Wogan show, David told me, he had exiled himself from Britain. He took to travelling in the US and South Africa - countries that knew nothing about his predictions of cataclysmic flooding. Their failure to materialise had damaged his credibility in Britain even further. Nonetheless, he began to blame the media for the ridicule he suffered at the hands of the general public.

"Yes, I said some pretty astonishing things back then," he explained, "but the media still managed to massively exaggerate them. And what I realised, with all the laughter and all the ridicule, was just how easy it is to get vast numbers of people to believe anything. You just have to print it in enough newspapers. So I started to look into who was in a position to orchestrate this kind of global manipulation. And that's how I learnt about the Bilderberg Group."

David became an avid reader of Big Jim Tucker and his magazine, the Spotlight. Blaming the global elitists, in part, for scheming the assault against him in the British media, he researched and wrote two books about the spiderÍs web of secret societies that controlled the planet. He wrote that the global elite are hopelessly drawn to strange rituals, that they run around in robes and burn giant wicker owls at a secret summer camp called Bohemian Grove in the forests north of San Francisco. Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller are rumoured to be among the berobed.

David came to believe that the global elite were not just stealthily influencing free-trade legislation so as to ease the way for complete global domination; they also operated, out of the White House, a harem of kidnapped and hypnotised underage sex slaves.

Shocked by his findings, he looked to ancient times, hoping to find some validating evidence. He discovered primitive cultures that had carved effigies of lizard-men descending from the skies. He put two and two together. This was the key. The reptilian invaders were the secret rulers of the world. Now he was ready to publish.

It was a hit. His career went into turn around. He was invited to speak all over the world. "And, you see," said David, "it all turned out all right. Now my children can hold up their heads and say, 'That's my dad. You laughed at him. But look at him now.'" Granville Books was packed with fans and TV crews and journalists. "Nobody's going to travel miles and hours just to come and see an anti-Semitic madman," suggested a fan to me. "Whatever Mr David Icke has to say is more than fascinating."

David's entrance was greeted with whoops and applause. "You are one of the great thinkers of truth!" yelled a lady from the back.

"Hooray!" responded the crowd.

"Thank you," said David. "Once we free our souls, the hierarchies of all religions, the Muslim hierarchy, the Jewish hierarchy - I call them 'OppoSames' - can't touch us." This statement was greeted with cheers and spontaneous applause, and autographs were signed.

It was 30 minutes later that Sam and Linda entered the shop to create their distraction. They noisily elbowed their way into the middle of the crowd.

"Tell us why you're against Jews!" yelled Sam, the television cameras now on him. "Tell us about the Protocols of Zion."

"Don't care!" screamed the supporters. "Don't care! Get out of here!"

Two old ladies grabbed Sam and pushed him - with unexpected savagery - against a display of new-age literature.

"Out!" they chanted with ferocity. "Out! Out! Out! You're not welcome! Get out!" Michael slipped into the shop. His face was hidden by a scarf, his pie buried beneath his trenchcoat. He noticed me and he winked.

I looked away.

Michael quietly walked towards the front. ïOut! Out! Out! . . ."

Fans and TV crews blocked his path. He hesitated for a moment. But then, miraculously, a gap appeared, a window of opportunity. Michael opened his coat, retrieved his pie, and took aim. The meringue pie flew through the air. It lightly brushed DavidÍs sleeve and continued its journey. It splattered, with a devastating thud, all over the childrenÍs book section.

"Well," murmured David, brushing the pastry flakes from his jacket, "that massively backfired."

"We're just booksellers,'" said the store manager softly. "You're wrecking the store."

"Shame," said some old ladies. There were sad tuts of disapproval.

The manager produced a sponge and began gently to clean the children's books. "Please leave," he said.

And, as the anti-racists slipped quietly away, a few members of David's entourage grinned behind their hands. Later, over dinner, I heard one of them murmur, "Well, the fat Jews fucked up."

David didn't hear this comment. When they saw that I had, they blushed and fell silent and said nothing like it again

© Jon Ronson, 2001. This is an edited extract from Them: Adventures With Extremists, by Jon Ronson, to be published on April 6 by Picador, at £16. Jon Ronson's four-part television series, The Secret Rulers Of The World, begins on Channel 4 in May.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/mar/17/features.weekend1

 

[Mona]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

I was an avid reader of David Icke's books myself years ago. As a matter of fact his books lead me to search for more answers as I felt that what he was presenting in his teachings was too vague for me. It seemed to me that he must have hit some kind of a wall one day and then there was nothing else for him to study and write about. I continued to read his books but at the same time I was also looking for more meaning into our reality. Hitting that wall myself was not what I was looking for and I could not stay there for long anyway. I remember David Icke talking about Cathy O'Brien's experience with possible reptilians in his books; some of you might be familiar with the book 'Trance Formation of America' by O'brien and Phillips. I even had the real treat to attend Cathy's presentation when she was visiting Calgary some years ago. What she presented in her book and presentation was I must say quite shocking. Here was a woman, who went through such horrific experiences that, to tell you the truth, I myself would have probably commited a suicide if half of what she went through happened to me personally. And here she was looking so confident in her own skin as if nothing that horrific has ever happened to HER personally. It was strange to see her like that, but then I though that there must be stronger people out there than me, because I would have ended up dead or in a mental institution for sure.

And then I read in one of Laura's books, according to CC's, that Cathy did not experience everything that she described in her book. That was quite shocking to read at first, but if you met Cathy in person and read her experiences in her book, it was not that shocking after all; it actually made sense. CC's mentioned many times that life is about experiences. We learn from them and then we move on. Holding a grudge against David or Cathy for lying to their devoted readers is not something I am interested in. It would make more sense to have a grudge against myself if I let myself to be deceived by lies longer than needed.

To be honest with you it is hard to judge David Icke too harshly as I do believe that he means well and maybe, just maybe, he is unaware of how he is being manipulated. Those who continue believing in David's work 100% are unaware how much they are missing, but maybe one day they will wake up and see the veil that is blinding their view of the unseen reality that is purposefully hidden from us all. It is, I must say, a lot of work to keep going, because as I discovered that there are way too many obstacles that will always try to stop the individual from finding those bits and pieces of the puzzle. It can be a frustrating, at times very hopeless journey, especially for those who truly want to know the truth, no matter what the truth is.

 

[shijing]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

To be honest with you it is hard to judge David Icke too harshly as I do believe that he means well and maybe, just maybe, he is unaware of how he is being manipulated.

I get that impression as well -- Icke comes across as eminently likable, and it is really hard to doubt his sincerity. I had read all of his books before settling in here at Cass, and actually found the Cass transcripts the very first time by doing a Google search on 'David Icke' and 'David Wilcock'. I found it somewhat interesting that Alex Jones hosted him on Infowars for the first time last spring, and admitted that until this year he used to refer to Icke as the 'turd in the punchbowl' of conspiracy theory, but for some reason changed his mind and decided to become buddies with him (I hope the language isn't too offensive, but mods, please say so if it is -- its a direct quote).

I actually still have a particular fascination with Icke for the specific reason that his own story parallels specific themes here in so many ways. The reptilian connection is obvious (I know Cass lizards and Icke reptilians are like apples and oranges in many ways, but your average person on the street won't see the difference at first), as well as the anti-semite label that gets thrown at anyone who criticizes Israel, as well as the general synthetic approach to studying hierarchical power structures. Its almost as if someone in 4D saw Cass coming on the scene in the 90s, and said 'hey -- let's do some damage control and set up a Cass lookalike ahead-of-time, so when Cass actually gets rolling, someone will have already been there, done that.' In my opinion, a really good example from the above article that Laura just posted that shows how the devil is in the details is the following:

Michael didn't need to finish his sentence. We knew. David Icke had flounced into town with his lizard thesis on the dangers of international capitalism, and he was cleaning up, winning the hearts of those Michael himself had hoped to convert by serious debate about global economics, swiftly followed by some kind of direct action. Rational thought was being vanquished, and the lizards were winning. "He can discredit the whole movement," said Michael. "I can see the World Trade Organisation saying, 'If you oppose us, you're just scared of some . . . some . . . lizard conspiracy.' And that's the most scary thing to me."

Its something to really think about, because if you have a serious (not to mention ambitious) goal of trying to change the world for the better through something like FOTCM, how do you avoid situations where people say 'If you join them, you're just scared of some . . . some . . . lizard conspiracy.' Food for thought!

 

[JEEP]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

Its something to really think about, because if you have a serious (not to mention ambitious) goal of trying to change the world for the better through something like FOTCM, how do you avoid situations where people say 'If you join them, you're just scared of some . . . some . . . lizard conspiracy.' Food for thought!

But isn't that the truth . . . there really is a lizard conspiracy?!! At some point won't FOTCM have to acknowledge that reality?

 

[shijing]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

Its something to really think about, because if you have a serious (not to mention ambitious) goal of trying to change the world for the better through something like FOTCM, how do you avoid situations where people say 'If you join them, you're just scared of some . . . some . . . lizard conspiracy.' Food for thought!

But isn't that the truth . . . there really is a lizard conspiracy?!! At some point won't FOTCM have to acknowledge that reality?

Yes, I think so -- I don't think that we should try to deny it, the trick is how to navigate. David Icke has provided one case study in how this can be done, and the results of his strategy are there for study. The question is, can we do it smarter and/or better? One thing that we have on our side is that we are able to contextualize 'our lizards' into an articulated cosmology and realm framework. Icke always had the reptilians from the 'lower fourth dimension', but it was always fuzzy exactly what that actually meant.

But I think the big question involves what sort of amounts to external consideration on a very large scale -- figuring out exactly how to place what information where, so that we are not obfuscating the truth, but also not giving knowledge where it is not asked for. In my understanding, the FOTCM is going to be there primarily for members to detox body, mind and spirit, whereas all the more 'exotic' stuff is going to stay here -- a subset of FOTCM members may eventually want to know more. The problem is, for the people who figure out that the founders of FOTCM also believe in lizards, grays, etc, etc, out of context -- what sort of strategic enclosure can we establish that was not obviously a part of David Icke's world?

 

[JEEP]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

Yes, I think so -- I don't think that we should try to deny it, the trick is how to navigate.
[...]
But I think the big question involves what sort of amounts to external consideration on a very large scale -- figuring out exactly how to place what information where, so that we are not obfuscating the truth, but also not giving knowledge where it is not asked for.
[...]
The problem is, for the people who figure out that the founders of FOTCM also believe in lizards, grays, etc, etc, out of context -- what sort of strategic enclosure can we establish that was not obviously a part of David Icke's world?

(In regards to the New Fellowship). . .OK, I think in this day and age when it comes to anything whatsoever, the typical person, and certainly the smart person, would go online to find out what they can about a program they either know nothing or little about before committing themselves. I think it is apparent that a search for Eíriú-Eolas not only leads to the breathing meditation program but also cassiopaea.org which opens the entire can of worms from the C's and the Wave to UFOs and the Lizzies! I mean really, is it realistic to think that this bombshell can somehow be kept under wraps long enough for people to form a positive impression of the EE? Is a lie of omission being inadvertently committed here with potentially disastrous results? Maybe by not being upfront with this aspect of the operation, it'll be torpedoed before it even gets a chance to accomplish anything?

It would seem to be necessary to walk the razor's edge without cutting our feet. And who knows, maybe some unexpected world-shaking event (such as possible government disclosure in Dec. or Jan.) will make this particular problem null and void. Otherwise, the sticky wicket remains a problem to be solved. :/

 

[Laura]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

The thing is, the founders of FOTCM do NOT "believe in Lizards, Grays etc" I have never seen a "lizard being" though I have heard stories of many people who claim to have done so. I have never seen a "gray" though I have heard stories of many people who claim to have done so.

The problem with these stories is that they do not have independent, third party (or third angle) of verification. I HAVE "seen" with my mind's eye "spider-like creatures" and have felt forces, and have seen and experienced some varied marvels. The problem, again, is that there is no third party/angle verification that this is real in a concrete, 3D sense.

Yet, considering the historical elements, the circumstantial evidence (if it was a murder case, there would already have been a hanging), I am confidant that there is some sort of reality to this business. How to deal with that?

I put the issue into a particular context in Secret History as follows (with some added emphases):

Certain ontological problems related particularly to quantum theory suggest that an “observer“ (J. A. Wheeler‘s “Eye”), watching the universe so as to “create it”, may need to be included in our consideration. That suggests the necessity for expanding the scope of what is nowadays considered as “physical entities.” The answer to “observability of parallel universes“ may involve taking into account such an extension.

Now, consider the idea that there are several - maybe even infinite - “probable future yous” as observers. In the picture above, this would be represented as many “eyes” but all of them converging on a single point on the tail - the “now” moment that we perceive, which is the moment of “choice.” It is from these probable futures of infinite potential - of “thought centers” - that reality is projected. It is through human beings that these energies are transduced and become “real.”

You in the here and now - at the conjunction of all of these probabilities all vying with one another to become “real” - have no possibility of “creating” anything in this reality from “down here,” so to say. The realities - the creative potentials - are a projection from higher levels of density. You are a receiver, a transducer, a reflector of the view of which eye is viewing YOU, nothing more.

The phenomenon that these ideas speak to more directly is that of hyperdimensional realities wherein mental energies or consciousness energies are amplified and can be interactive with the environment: technology that suggests not only power for transport that is partly physical, partly “ethereal;” communication that is also partly physical and partly ethereal, as well as powers of “manifestation“ that might seem impossible to us in our present state of technology. All of these properties do belong to hyperdimensional existence, and such a state of being has been reported for millennia as being the “realm of the gods,” including Dragons and Serpents, and critters of all sorts.

If we can describe such realms mathematically and give them a physical reality, as Dirac suggests, then we might also consider the hypothesis that they may be inhabited. Could our “Gods” be inhabitants of this realm?

As many physicists will tell you, all that really exists are “waveforms“ and we are waveforms of reality, and our consciousness is something that “reads waves.” We give form and structure to the waves we “read” according to some agreed upon convention.

And so, certain denizens of hyperdimensional space are “read” as more or less “reptilian“ because that is the “essence“ of their being, the frequency of their “wave form.” We call them the Overlords of Entropy. They are not necessarily physical as we understand the term, nor are they necessarily “alien“ as we understand that term either. We suspect that the perceptions of these levels of reality and their “consciousness units“ are what is behind many religious conceptions and mythological representations of “gods and goddesses“ and creatures of all sorts.

We don't know that reptilian beings are "real" in the sense that we consider things in 3D reality to be real/concrete. What we do know, based on the data, is that they are PERCEIVED in a reptilian configuration and that may have more to do with our perception of their essential nature than it has to do with concrete reality.

 

[shijing]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

We don't know that reptilian beings are "real" in the sense that we consider things in 3D reality to be real/concrete. What we do know, based on the data, is that they are PERCEIVED in a reptilian configuration and that may have more to do with our perception of their essential nature than it has to do with concrete reality.

Actually, that's pretty close to what Icke says too FWIW -- he talks about how we perceive reptilians more or less as a result of how our brains decode waves, as they are essentially ethereal and not physical (as opposed to, say, Alex Collier's reptilians, which are very much 3D if I remember correctly), which is why (in Ickeworld) sometimes someone will see a human transform into a reptilian -- not because there has been a literal physical shift, but because the observer's wave-reading abilities have changed.

So I think what you are saying is that the most accurate way to frame the lizard issue is to say that we have a hypothesis based on a large corpus of indirect evidence that hyperdimensional beings exist, that they can be subjectively perceived as reptilian as a direct result of how we read waves, and that they have interacted historically with humanity in such a way that they have sometimes been seen as gods. That's fair enough, although it still might not completely ameliorate the problem that JEEP has raised. I don't have a better solution to suggest -- I just think that probably will be quite a bit for the average person to take in, as well as a potential angle of defamation. But maybe we shouldn't worry to much about that when all is said and done?

 

[Erna]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

It was startling to see how David Icke looked, how haggard and exhausted and terribly nervous - so unlike the genial BBC soccer and snooker correspondent whom the British public had come to feel so comfortable with - and dressed from head to toe in a turquoise shellsuit (turquoise being a conduit of positive energy) as he stepped out on to the stage.

When journalists do this, I immediately distrust their intentions, because this isn’t so. Every David Icke fan (or ex fan) is familiar with the Wogan video. He did not look “haggard and exhausted and terribly nervous”, quite the contrary. This piece is written with so much obvious bias. Yeah, let’s face it, that turquoise tracksuit…good grief! But turquoise tracksuits don’t make people COINTELPRO agents.

So the Canadian coalition was unaware of the moment that David Icke's career had crashed so dramatically in Britain. Had they known, would they have felt differently about the reasons why he said that giant lizards secretly ruled the world?

Had the above David Icke talk taken place in the early nineties (David Icke’s initial Wogan interview was 1991), then the above might have been relevant. It certainly isn’t relevant in 2009, since, as we know, David Icke’s ‘career’ is flourishing. David incidentally redeemed himself quite nicely on the Wogan follow-up (something this ‘journalist’ conveniently leaves out), not that it was needed necessarily.

Here’s the Wogan follow-up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nMq6gc1yMg

David (thunderously):

More attempts to create an anti-Icke audience. I’ll have to view this particular incident discussed in the article, but if this guy got the Wogan interview so wrong, I’m not holding my breath.

David Icke was also my stepping stone into ‘conspiracies’, and he is a well articulated man difficult to dislike. I am however not happy with his endorsement of obvious disinfo agents (like Alex Jones),

We don't know that reptilian beings are "real" in the sense that we consider things in 3D reality to be real/concrete. What we do know, based on the data, is that they are PERCEIVED in a reptilian configuration and that may have more to do with our perception of their essential nature than it has to do with concrete reality.

Actually, that's pretty close to what Icke says too FWIW

I’m not entirely sure how David hypothesises the reptilian thing these days, whether his understanding grew or changed. What I am sure about is how his audience understands it. They see it as physical, as I have also understood it first when I stumbled upon one of his books. Most likely because of all the accounts of shape-shifting 'people'. This might be at the core of the disinformation campaign, because not understanding the hyper dimensional reality is as good as not knowing about reptilians at all. Apart from that, David also caused the topic to be surrounded by ridicule, causing future people to be dissuaded by the topic. Due to the very nature of the topic, I don't know if this was even unavoidable. Let's face it: "Reptiles rule our world" is hard to break to anyone! ;) ...let alone in the early nineties! The possibility also exists that David was set up for ridicule, I mean Wogan isn't even subtle about it. What better way to put everyone off the reptilian topic than to ridicule the most well-known proponent of the phenomenon on a live television show.

This might be the biggest deception; not educating them about the true reality of the phenomenon, and providing them with the tools to counter it, ie. awareness, knowledge, self development, breathing, esoteric development etc. But then again, the possibility exists that he must first inform people of the control in 3D, before he jumps into the reasons for it.

The problem with David’s following, is that they don’t develop personally and individually. They have a great knowledge of the machinations of our controlled society, but they are left powerless with that knowledge, because they’re not given solutions.

I honestly can’t tell if David does this on purpose, but he’s a ‘saviour’ in the eyes of his followers, yet they are left powerless. He’s giving his audience the conspiracy ‘genre’ almost exclusively, and a vast majority of them are satisfied with it and will look no further.

Having said all this, he has done a tremendous amount to wake people up, only maybe to get them hooked onto the ‘wrong rebellion’. If it was intentional, it was clever; lies wrapped in truth, by keeping the focus on the network of 13 bloodline 'human/3D' families... See once people are told its been going on for thousands of years, they get stuck on the generational thing, and one can only then jump that hurdle once one understands the hyperdimensional reality. If the hyperdimensional reality isn't understood, people consume conspiracies for entertainment, curiosity etc, and eventually move on.

Lastly, as with Alex Jones as well, if someone gets this much exposure in the mainstream, its always a possible red flag to consider. His books have dominated the 'conspiracy' section in bookstores. But anyway, David Icke is a difficult one. I have yet to read 'I am me, I am free' and 'Love is the only truth, everything else is illusion'. Once I've read those I would have a better idea. Anyone read it?

 

[Laura]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

Perhaps it would be useful to compile the "corpus of evidence" - the reasonable stuff, that is, including the historical evidence - and write it up?

 

[Erna]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

Yes, this would help a lot. He also talks extensively lately about the 'human computer', compared to Gurdjieff's 'machine', and recognizing programs and so on... :/

 

[Laura]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

Okay, ya'll start pulling some text and citations together. Putting them in this thread is fine. I'll move it out of CW&NAC

 

[Argonaut]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

I was an avid reader of David Icke's books myself years ago. As a matter of fact his books lead me to search for more answers as I felt that what he was presenting in his teachings was too vague for me. It seemed to me that he must have hit some kind of a wall one day and then there was nothing else for him to study and write about. I continued to read his books but at the same time I was also looking for more meaning into our reality. Hitting that wall myself was not what I was looking for and I could not stay there for long anyway.

I started with Icke too, but stumbled upon SotT and the C's through an unrelated Web search on psychology. When I browsed the site and found stuff about "lizards," I immediately drew parallels with Icke's ideas - until I read enough to see the clear differences. I still clung to David for a long time after that. I read and learned for several months before I finally saw just how vague and incomplete his ideas are.

To be honest with you it is hard to judge David Icke too harshly as I do believe that he means well and maybe, just maybe, he is unaware of how he is being manipulated.

I get that impression as well -- Icke comes across as eminently likable, and it is really hard to doubt his sincerity.

Yes, it's very hard to reject Icke completely; the most common reason being that he "probably means well" and is sincere. The same reasoning is used to defend Alex Jones. I still find myself on the fence about Icke, and Jones to a degree... Although it's clear that they're disinfo agents, I keep wondering if they're just unwitting dupes. But then I think about how psychopaths can hide because we have such trouble grasping a mind that can lie flawlessly, a being who can effortlessly fake sincerity with no conscience whatsoever. And we always want to give someone the benefit of the doubt "just in case." These tendencies give a psychopath the advantage. Still, careful observation is the only way to know for sure. The account Laura posted shows Icke making a dramatic scene whenever he thinks he's being censored or repressed. Jones does the same thing. Could this be a clue that they're acting? Trying to increase loyalty by playing on the emotions of their followers? There can be other explanations, of course, but the more clues like these start adding up, the more other explanations start looking like excuses.

I’m not entirely sure how David hypothesises the reptilian thing these days, whether his understanding grew or changed. What I am sure about is how his audience understands it. They see it as physical, as I have also understood it first when I stumbled upon one of his books. Most likely because of all the accounts of shape-shifting 'people'. This might be at the core of the disinformation campaign, because not understanding the hyper dimensional reality is as good as not knowing about reptilians at all. Apart from that, David also caused the topic to be surrounded by ridicule, causing future people to be dissuaded by the topic. Due to the very nature of the topic, I don't know if this was even unavoidable. Let's face it: "Reptiles rule our world" is hard to break to anyone! ;) ...let alone in the early nineties!

Very true... What Icke actually says could be made so vague that the bulk of his followers (and detractors) just gloss over it, focusing instead on the "flashier" idea of 3D alien lizards. I've noticed most of them doing this too.

Perhaps it would be useful to compile the "corpus of evidence" - the reasonable stuff, that is, including the historical evidence - and write it up?

This would be excellent. Other than Icke himself, maybe a brief analysis of his major info sources would help too (Arizona Wilder, Credo Mutwa, Cathy O'Brien, etc). I have a lot of Icke audio and video I can go through to contribute some data; most of them are official releases from David Icke himself, but it could still be useful.

 

[shijing]

Re: About David Icke & James Redfield

I have yet to read 'I am me, I am free' and 'Love is the only truth, everything else is illusion'. Once I've read those I would have a better idea. Anyone read it?

I've read both -- 'I am me, I am free' includes his darkest written work on physical and sexual abuse and human sacrifice, including the Cathy O'Brien material (but also stuff like George Bush Sr and Bill Clinton going sport-hunting for humans together). Since most if not all of it is unverifiable, I recommend against this book simply because if you have to read really disturbing stuff like that, I think you should only do it if you are reasonably sure its true (for the 'shock value' in the Gurdjieff sense).

'Love is the only truth, everything else is illusion', on the other hand, may be my favorite of his books (I haven't finished reading the most recent, so I can't give an opinion of it yet). It dwells a lot on themes that are actually familiar here, such as history as a time loop, the brain as an interface for consciousness between internal and external reality, and the nature of DNA. I do recommend this book as long as its read critically.

What these two books have in common is that they are both actually less than 500 pages, and aren't heavy enough to be used as paperweights and doorstops, unlike all of Icke's other books ;)

Yes, it's very hard to reject Icke completely; the most common reason being that he "probably means well" and is sincere. The same reasoning is used to defend Alex Jones. I still find myself on the fence about Icke, and Jones to a degree... Although it's clear that they're disinfo agents, I keep wondering if they're just unwitting dupes... The account Laura posted shows Icke making a dramatic scene whenever he thinks he's being censored or repressed. Jones does the same thing. Could this be a clue that they're acting?

I actually don't think its true that Icke 'makes a dramatic scene whenever he thinks he's being censored or repressed' -- you can sometimes sense his frustration, but this is actually representative of a huge difference between Icke and Jones IMO. I have never seen Icke throw a tantrum or treat anyone -- even the people laughing at him openly -- with disrespect. In this sense, he's an adult. Jones, on the other hand, is a mean, loud-mouthed man-child in perpetual delayed adolescence. They may still both be unwitting dupes (the likeliest hypothesis I think), but I think this is one more reason why (as you said) people who aren't attracted to one will be attracted to the other.

Perhaps it would be useful to compile the "corpus of evidence" - the reasonable stuff, that is, including the historical evidence - and write it up?

This would be excellent. Other than Icke himself, maybe a brief analysis of his major info sources would help too (Arizona Wilder, Credo Mutwa, Cathy O'Brien, etc). I have a lot of Icke audio and video I can go through to contribute some data; most of them are official releases from David Icke himself, but it could still be useful.

Actually, I thought that Laura meant to collect evidence about this more general idea:

...we have a hypothesis based on a large corpus of indirect evidence that hyperdimensional beings exist, that they can be subjectively perceived as reptilian as a direct result of how we read waves, and that they have interacted historically with humanity in such a way that they have sometimes been seen as gods.

But correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm right, this could be very challenging (but fun).