A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers.

The field of ritual studies has seen a number of conflicting definitions of the term. One given by Kyriakidis (2007) is that Ritual is an outsider's or 'etic' category for a set activity (or set of actions) which to the outsider seems irrational, non-contiguous, illogical. The term can be used also by the insider or 'emic' performer as an acknowlegement that this activity can be seen as such by the uninitiated onlooker.

A ritual may be performed on specific occasions, or at the discretion of individuals or communities. It may be performed by a single individual, by a group, or by the entire community; in arbitrary places, or in places especially reserved for it; either in public, in private, or before specific people. A ritual may be restricted to a certain subset of the community, and may enable or underscore the passage between religious or social states.

The purposes of rituals are varied; with religious obligations or ideals, satisfaction of spiritual or emotional needs of the practitioners, strengthening of social bonds, social and moral education, demonstration of respect or submission, stating one's affiliation, obtaining social acceptance or approval for some event — or, sometimes, just for the pleasure of the ritual itself.

Rituals of various kinds are a feature of almost all known human societies, past or present. They include not only the various worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also the rites of passage of certain societies, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school "rush" traditions and graduations, club meetings, sports events, Halloween parties, veterans parades, Christmas shopping and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trials, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritualistic in nature. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello may be termed rituals.

In psychology, the term ritual is sometimes used in a technical sense for a repetitive behavior systematically used by a person to neutralize or prevent anxiety; it is a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Ritual actions

There are hardly any limits to the kind of actions that may be incorporated into a ritual. The rites of past and present societies have typically involved special gestures and words, recitation of fixed texts, performance of special music, songs or dances, processions, manipulation of certain objects, use of special dresses, consumption of special food, drink, or drugs, and much more. Religious rituals have also included animal sacrifice, human sacrifice, and ritual suicide. Ritual lamentation — song performed with weeping — in many societies was regarded as required to ritually carry the departed soul to a safe afterlife (Tolbert 1990a, 1990b; Wilce 2006).

, 1988]]

Religious rituals

In religion, a ritual can comprise the prescribed outward forms of performing the cultus, or cult, of a particular observation within a religion or religious denomination. Although ritual is often used in context with worship performed in a church, the actual relationship between any religion's doctrine and its ritual(s) can vary considerably from organized religion to non-institutionalized spirituality, such as ayahuasca shamanism as practiced by the Urarina of the upper Amazon. Rituals often have a close connection with reverence, thus a ritual in many cases expresses reverence for a deity or idealized state of humanity.

Social functions

The social function of rituals has often been exploited for political ends. Alongside the personal dimensions of worship and reverence, rituals can have a more basic social function in expressing, fixing and reinforcing the shared values and beliefs of a society.

Social rituals have formed a part of human culture for tens of thousands of years. The earliest known undisputed evidence of burial rituals dates from the Upper Paleolithic. Older skeletons show no signs of deliberate 'burial', and as such lack clear evidence of having been ritually treated. Anthropologists see social rituals as one of many cultural universals. Alongside the personal dimensions of worship and reverence, rituals can have a more basic social function in expressing, fixing and reinforcing the shared values and beliefs of a society.

Rituals can aid in creating a firm sense of group identity. Humans have used rituals to create social bonds and even to nourish interpersonal relationships. For example, nearly all fraternities and sororities have rituals incorporated into their structure, from elaborate and sometimes "secret" initiation rites, to the formalized structure of convening a meeting. Thus, numerous aspects of ritual and ritualistic proceedings are engrained into the workings of those societies.

Anthropological studies

Of particular interest to anthropologists has been the role of ritual in structuring life crises, human development, religious enactment and entertainment.

Among anthropologists, and other ethnographers, who have contributed to ritual theory are Victor Turner, Ronald Grimes, Mary Douglas, and the biogenetic structuralists. Anthropologists from Émile Durkheim through Turner and contemporary theorists like Michael Silverstein (2004) treat ritual as social action aimed at particular transformations often conceived in cosmic terms. Though the transformations can also be thought of as personal (e.g. the fertility and healing rituals Turner describes), they becomes a sort of cosmic event, one stretching into "eternity".

See also

Ceremony

Civil religion

Habituation

Liturgy

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Processional walkway

Rite

Ritualization

Ritualism

Religion

Sexual ritual

Superstition

Myth and ritual

Religious symbolism

References

Bell, Catherine. (1997) Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bloch, Maurice. (1992) Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

D'Aquili, Eugene G., Charles D. Laughlin and John McManus. (1979) The Spectrum of Ritual: A Biogenetic Structural Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press.

Douglas, Mary. (1966) ''Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo". London: Routledge.

Durkheim, Émile. (1912) The Elementary Forms Of The Religious Life.

Erikson, Erik. (1977) Toys and Reasons: Stages in the Ritualization of Experience. New York: Norton.

Gennep, Arnold van. (1960) The Rites of Passage. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Grimes, Ronald L. (1994) The Beginnings of Ritual Studies. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Malinowski, Bronisław. (1948) Magic, Science and Religion. Boston: Beacon Press.

McCorkle Jr., William W. (2010) Ritualizing the Disposal of Dead Bodies: From Corpse to Concept. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.

Rappaport, Roy A. (1999) Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Smith, Jonathan Z. (1987) To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Staal, Frits (1990) "Ritual and Mantras: Rules Without Meaning". New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.

Turner, Victor W. (1969) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.

Durkheim, E. 1965 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: The Free Press.

Fogelin, L. 2007. The Archaeology of Religious Ritual. Annual Review of Anthropology 36:55–71.

Kyriakidis, E., ed. 2007 The archaeology of ritual. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology UCLA publications

Seijo, F. 2005. The Politics of Fire: Spanish Forest Policy and Ritual Resistance in Galicia, Spain. Environmental Politics 14 (3): 380-402

Silverstein, M. 2003. Talking Politics :The Substance of Style from Abe to "W". Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press (distributed by University of Chicago). —. 2004. "Cultural" Concepts and the Language-Culture Nexus. Current Anthropology 45:621-652.

Tolbert, E. 1990a. Women Cry with Words: Symbolization of Affect in the Karelian Lament. Yearbook for Traditional Music, 22:80-105. —. 1990b. "Magico-Religious Power and Gender in the Karelian Lament," in Music, Gender, and Culture, vol. 1, Intercultural Music Studies. Edited by M. Herndon and S. Zigler, pp. 41–56. Wilhelmshaven, DE.: International Council for Traditional Music, Florian Noetzel Verlag.

Turner, V. W. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Harmondsworth: Penguin. —. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Wilce, J. M. 2006. Magical Laments and Anthropological Reflections: The Production and Circulation of Anthropological Text as Ritual Activity. Current Anthropology 47:891-914.

Category:Cultural conventions * Category:Anthropology of religion

Name	Shaman/Shaaman
Background	group_or_band
Landscape	Yes
Origin	Brazil
Genre	Heavy metal Power metal Symphonic metal
Years active	2000 - Present
Label	Scarlet Records
Url	Shaman Immortal
Current members	Ricardo Confessori Thiago Bianchi Léo Mancini Fernando Quesada
Past members	Andre Matos Hugo Mariutti Luís Mariutti

Shaman or Shaaman is a Brazilian heavy metal/power metal band assembled in 2000 by three musicians who left the band Angra - Andre Matos, Luis Mariutti and Ricardo Confessori. The band was completed with guitar player Hugo Mariutti (Luis' younger brother - both of them also play in another band called Henceforth).

Shaman changed its name to Shaaman due to legal reasons, but the issue was solved and they renamed it back to Shaman.

In October 2006, Andre Matos officially left the band along with the Mariutti brothers. Confessori is currently reforming the band.

Biography

The band was formed in mid 2000, when musicians Andre Matos (Vocals, keyboards, ex-Viper), Luis Mariutti (Bass, ex-Firebox) and Ricardo Confessori (Drums, ex-Korzus) left the band Angra. At the time the band was assembled, they did not have a guitarist, so Hugo Mariutti (ex-Henceforth) was initially hired to assist in the compositions. Later they permanently integrated him into the band.

The name chosen for the band, Shaman, refers to the religious practice of shamanism, with the word "shaman" generally thought to be of Siberian origin.

They started an initial tour, which went through Europe and Latin America (specifically: France, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Brazil). For live keyboards the band requested the help of musician Fábio Ribeiro (Blezqi Zatsaz, ex-Angra).

Mixing heavy metal, classical music and world music, the band started recording their debut album, entitled Ritual, in January 2002. The disc was entirely recorded in Germany, with the exception of a few tracks which were recorded in Brazil and the US. The production was managed by the producer Sascha Paeth, who also produced albums for Angra, Edguy, Rhapsody of Fire and Virgo and with co-production of Phil Colodetti.

Ritual was released in more than 15 countries. The World Ritual Tour lasted for one year and a half, touring in such places as: Brazil, Asia, Latin America and Europe. There were over 150 shows at that time, some presented twice in the same place.

During 2003, Shaman were among the first place slots for Brazil, with Ritual being awarded the best album of 2002 and 2004 by the readers of Folha de S. Paulo, a Brazilian newspaper. Later in 2004, the band opened for Iron Maiden's show in São Paulo, playing to an audience of over 45,000.

The band then recorded a live show in the Credicard Hall with the participation of several special guests such as Tobias Sammet, Marcus Viana, Andi Deris, Sascha Paeth, George Mouzayek and Michael Weikath. The show was then released on CD and DVD, entitled RituAlive. The engineering and mixing was done entirely at The Creative Studios in São Paulo, Brazil and the production was done by Phil Colodetti together with the Shaman members. According to director of Universal Music of Brazil, RituAlive is still the best DVD of its genre due to its quality and contents.

In 2005, with the second album almost completed and ready to release, they decided to rename the album to avoid a court hearing by another band. The band also decided to add an 'A' to its name as Shaaman. The name change occurred after another band named Shaman was consulted and specified that the meaning and pronunciation of the name were still the same.

In the following months, the new album, entitled Reason, was released. The result of Reason, which was mixed in Germany by the producer Sascha Paeth and recorded in Brazil by Phil Colodetti at Creative Studios, attempted to return the feeling and spirit of 80's heavy metal. Their first single, named "Innocence" from the Reason was played on radio stations and further split the official charts of the highest charting songs in Brazil. The video for the song also appeared on music TV channels.

Shaaman then went on a hiatus which was confirmed on October 12, 2006, when a statement by bass player Luís Mariutti was released on the fansite For Tomorrow that "the band had called it a day."

Ricardo Confessori, the only remaining member of Shaaman, decided to continue the band with a new line-up. Later the album, entitled Immortal, was released in 2007.

Line-up

Members as Shaaman

Andre Matos - vocals (2000–2006)

Hugo Mariutti - guitar (2000–2006)

Luís Mariutti - bass (2000–2006)

Ricardo Confessori - drums (2000–present)

Fábio Ribeiro - keyboards (touring) (2000–2006)

Members as Shaman

Thiago Bianchi - vocals (2007–present)

Léo Mancini - guitars (2007–present)

Fernando Quesada - bass (2007–present)

Ricardo Confessori - drums (2000–present)

Discography

Studio albums as Shaaman

Shaman (Demo) (2001)

Ritual (2002) #101 French Charts # 80 Japanese Chats

* Fairy Tale (single) (2002)

* For Tomorrow (single) (2003)

Reason (2005) # 200 Japanese Chats

* Innocence (single) (2005)

Live albums as Shaaman

RituAlive (2003)

Studio albums as Shaman

Immortal (2007) - #262 Japanese Charts

Origins (2010)

Videography

Music videos as Shaaman

Ritual (2002)

* Fairy Tale (2002)

* For Tomorrow (2003)

* Reason (2005)

* Innocence (2005)

* More (2005)

DVDs as Shaaman

RituAlive (2003)

Music videos as Shaman

Immortal (2007)

* In The Dark (2007)

Origins (2010)

* Finally Home (2010)

Notable gigs

2001

*04/21 - Via Funchal (São Paulo)

2002

2003

*04/05 - Credicard Hall (São Paulo - the RituAlive concert)

*Citybank Hall (Rio De Janeiro - Ritual Tour)

2004

*01/17 - Pacaembu Stadium (São Paulo - as the Iron Maiden opening act)

2005

*06/11 - Credicard Hall (São Paulo)

*Citybank Hall (Rio De Janeiro - Reason Tour, the biggest audience in a exclusive concert as headliner)

*10/12 - Canindé (São Paulo - as the co-headliner of Live'n'Louder Festival)

2006

*21/05 - Bar Opinião (Rio Grande do Sul - the last gig)

Set-lists

Ritual World Tour

01. Ancient Winds
02. Here I Am
03. Distant Thunder
04. Time Will Come
05. For Tomorrow
06. Nothing to Say (Angra)
07. Time (Angra)
08. Over Your Head
09. Fairy Tale
10. Ritual
11. Pride
12. Unfinished Allegro (Angra)
13. Carry On (Angra)
14. Living for the Night (Viper)

+ No More Tears (Ozzy Osbourne) and some other Angra songs

Reason Tour

01. Intro
02. Turn Away
03. Trail Of Tears
04. Distant Thunder
05. Time Will Come
06. For Tomorrow
07. Innocence
08. Reason
09. Be Free (Instrumental)
10. Drum Solo
11. Scared Forever
12. More
13. Fairy Tale
14. Ancient Winds
15. Here I Am
16. Lisbon (Angra)

+ Pride and Painkiller (Judas Priest)

See also

Angra

Sepultura

Dr. Sin

References

External links

Shaman

Shaman - The French Ritual

Shaman in Rockrepublik

Category:Brazilian power metal musical groups Category:Musical groups established in 2000 Category:Symphonic metal musical groups Category:Musical quartets

{{ infobox person | image = David Icke by Stef (cropped).jpg | image_size = 200px | caption = Icke in 2008 | birth_name = David Vaughan Icke | birth_date = April 29, 1952 | birth_place = Leicester, England | residence = Ryde, Isle of Wight | nationality = | known_for = Football, television sports, books on global politics | occupation = Writer and speaker | years_active = Since 1990 | party = Formerly the Green Party | spouse = Linda Atherton, Pamela Leigh Richards | children = Kerry (1975), Gareth (1981), Rebecca (1991), Jaymie (1992) | parents = Beric Vaughan Icke, Barbara J. Icke (née Cooke) | relations = Trevor and Paul (brothers) | website = davidicke.com }}

David Vaughan Icke (born April 29, 1952) is an English writer and public speaker best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world". Describing himself as the most controversial speaker and author in the world, he has written 16 books explaining his position, dubbed New Age-conspiracism, and has attracted a substantial following across the political spectrum. His 533-page The Biggest Secret (1999) has been called the conspiracy theorist's Rosetta Stone.

Icke was a well-known BBC television sports presenter and spokesman for the Green Party, when he had an encounter in 1990 with a psychic who told him he was a healer who had been placed on Earth for a purpose. In April 1991 he announced on the BBC's Terry Wogan show that he was the son of God, and predicted that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. The show changed his life, turning him practically overnight from a respected household name into an object of public ridicule.

He continued nevertheless to develop his ideas, and in four books published over seven years—The Robots' Rebellion (1994), And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), The Biggest Secret (1999), and Children of the Matrix (2001)—set out a moral and political worldview that combines New-Age spiritualism with a passionate denunciation of what he sees as totalitarian trends in the modern world. At the heart of his theories lies the idea that a secret group of reptilian humanoids called the Babylonian Brotherhood controls humanity, and that many prominent figures are reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie.

Some of Icke's theories have attracted the attention of the far right and the suspicion of Jewish groups; for example, he has argued that the reptilians were the original authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a 1903 Russian forgery purporting to be a plan by the Jewish people to achieve world domination. Icke strongly denies there is anything antisemitic about this claim. He was allowed to enter Canada in 1999 only after persuading immigration officials that when he said lizards, he meant lizards, but his books were still removed from the shelves of Indigo Books, a Canadian chain, after protests from the Canadian Jewish Congress. Icke's problems in Canada became the focus in 2001 of a documentary by British journalist Jon Ronson, David Icke, the Lizards and the Jews.

Personal life and career

Early life and education

Icke was born in Leicester General Hospital to Beric Vaughan Icke and Barbara J. Icke, née Cooke, who were married in Leicester in 1951. There was a brother, Trevor, seven years older than Icke, and another, Paul, seven years younger. Beric had wanted to be a doctor, but his family had no money, so he joined the Royal Air Force instead. He was awarded a British Empire Medal for gallantry in May 1943 after helping to save the crew of an aircraft that had crashed into the Chipping Warden air base in Oxfordshire. Along with a Squadron Leader, he ran into the burning aircraft, without protective clothing, and saved the life of a crew member who was trapped inside.

After the war, Beric got a job in the Gents clock factory. The family lived in a slum terraced house on Lead Street, near Wharf Street in the centre of Leicester. When Icke was three, they moved to a housing estate known as the Goodwood, one of the massive 1950s council estates the post-war Labour government built, their new home just across the road from the hospital. The family had nothing. "To say we were skint," he wrote in 1993, "is like saying it is a little chilly at the North Pole." He remembers having to hide under a window or chair when the council man came to collect the rent—after knocking, the rent man would walk round the house peering through the windows to see whether anyone was at home. His mother never explained that it was about the rent; she just told him to hide, and Icke writes that he still gets a fright when he hears a knock on the door.

He was always a loner, and felt different from other children, spending hours playing by himself with little steam trains that he had, and preferring to cross the street rather than speak to anyone. He attended Whitehall Infant School, then Whitehall Junior School, where he spent most of his time feeling nervous and shy, often to the point of feeling faint during the morning assembly and having to leave before he passed out. The family doctor suggested a referral to a child psychologist, but his father put his foot down. He made no effort at school and failed at practically everything, but when he was nine, he was chosen for the junior school's football team. It was the first time in his life he had succeeded at anything, and he came to see football as the only way out of his poverty. He played in goal, which he writes suited the loner in him, and gave him a sense of living on the edge between hero and villain.

Football and first marriage

He failed his 11-plus, a test that was used at the time to divide children between grammar schools, supposedly for the brightest, and secondary moderns or technical schools for the rest, so Icke was sent in 1963 to the city's Crown Hills Secondary Modern. He left at 15 after being talent-spotted while playing football, and was signed up as a goalkeeper for Coventry City. Arthritis in his left knee—which later spread to the right knee, ankles, elbows, wrists, and hands—stopped him from making a career out of football, but he managed to play for Coventry for four years and Hereford United for one, before retiring from the game in 1973 at the age of 21.

He met his first wife, Linda Atherton, in May 1971 at a dance at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Leamington Spa. She was working at the time as a van driver for a garage in Leamington. Shortly after they met, Icke had another one of the huge rows he had started having with his father—always a domineering man, his father was upset that Icke's arthritis was interfering with his football career—so he packed his bags and left home. He moved into a tiny bedsit and worked in a local travel agency during the day, travelling to Hereford in the evenings to practice or play football. He and Linda were married on September 30, four months after they'd met. Their daughter, Kerry, was born three and a half years later on March 7, 1975, followed by a son, Gareth, on December 12, 1981, and another son, Jaymie, on November 18, 1992.

Journalism

team. Clockwise from top left: Francis Wilson, Debbie Rix, David Icke, Nick Ross, Selina Scott, Frank Bough.]] He found a job in 1973 as a reporter with the weekly Leicester Advertiser, through a contact who was a sports editor at the Daily Mail, though he writes that he got the job because he was the only applicant. He advanced quickly through local radio to television, and became a regional sports presenter for the BBC's South Today in 1982, around the time his first son was born, and the year he moved to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, somewhere he had always wanted to live. He appeared on the first edition of British television's first national breakfast show, Breakfast Time, on January 17, 1983, presenting the sports news for them until 1985. He published his first book in 1983, It's a tough game, son! about football and how to break into it. He worked for BBC Sport until August 1990, often as a stand-in host on Grandstand and snooker programmes, and also at the 1988 Summer Olympics, but a career in television began to lose its appeal for him; he wrote in Tales from the Time Loop that he found television workers insincere, shallow, and vicious, with rare exceptions.

His contract with the BBC was terminated in 1990 when he refused to pay his poll tax, a controversial new tax introduced by Margaret Thatcher. He ended up paying it in November 1990, but his initial announcement that he was willing to go to jail rather than pay prompted the BBC, by charter an impartial public-service broadcaster, to distance itself from him.

Green Party

At some point during the 1980s, he began to flirt with fringe medicine and New Age philosophies in an effort to find relief from his arthritis.

Sessions with a psychic healer

Icke writes that it was when he was working for the Green Party, and particularly while he was writing the book in 1989, that he began to feel a presence around him, as though there was always someone else in the room, even when he was alone. He writes in Days of Decision (1993) that it was a time of considerable personal despair for him, though he gives no details. In March 1990, he had an experience in a newsagent's that felt as though a magnetic force was pulling his feet to the ground, and he heard a voice tell him to look at a particular section of books. One of the books was by Betty Shine, a psychic healer, or channeller, in Brighton. He decided to visit her to ask for help with his arthritis. She told him she had a message for him, that he was a healer who had been sent to heal the Earth, and who would become famous but would face enormous opposition, but that they would always be there to protect him. , Peru, that Icke said he had a pivotal mystic experience in February 1991.]]

In February 1991, Icke travelled to Peru, where he visited the pre-Inca Sillustani burial ground near Puno. He writes that he felt drawn to a large mound of earth, at the top of which lay a circle of waist-high stones. As he stood in the circle, he felt his feet pulled to the earth as if by a magnet, just as he had experienced in the newsagent's in Ryde, and an urge to outstretch his arms. His feet started to vibrate and burn, his head felt as though a drill was passing through it, and he felt two thoughts enter his mind: first, that people will be talking about this in 100 years, and then, "it will be over when you feel the rain." He said his body started shaking as though plugged into an electrical socket and new ideas began to pour into him. Time became meaningless, he writes, and he has no idea how long he stood there, arms outstretched. Then it started raining, and the experience ended as suddenly as it had begun. He described it later as the "kundalini"—a term from Indian yoga describing a libidinal force that lies coiled at the base of the spine—exploding up through his spine, activating his brain and his chakras, or energy centres, triggering a higher level of consciousness.

He returned to England and began to write a book about the experience, Truth Vibrations, published in May that year. At a Green Party conference in Wolverhampton on March 20, 1991, before the book appeared, he resigned from the party, telling them he was about to be at the centre of "tremendous and increasing controversy," and winning a standing ovation from them after the announcement.

Turquoise period

What followed became what Icke calls his "turquoise period." He began to wear only turquoise because, he explained, it is a conduit of positive energy. He had met Deborah Shaw, an English psychic living in Calgary, Alberta, in August 1990, and after he returned from Peru, he struck up a relationship with her, which became close and led to the birth of a daughter, Rebecca, in December 1991. At one point, Shaw moved in with him and his wife. Shaw had changed her name to Mari Shawsun, while Icke's wife became known as Michaela, an aspect of the Archangel Michael, and they became known in the press as the "turquoise triangle," though Icke insisted that he and Shaw were just friends. He answered reporters' questions about the relationship with, "if you resonate on this higher level then you see not two ladies, but two bodies with energy patterns."

In March 1991, a week after resigning from the Green Party, he, his wife, and Deborah/Mari held a press conference to announce that he had become a "channel for the Christ spirit," a title conferred on him by "the Godhead." He said the world would end in 1997, preceded by a number of disasters. There would be a severe hurricane around the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans, eruptions in Cuba, disruption in China, a hurricane in Derry, and an earthquake on the Isle of Arran. Los Angeles would become an island, New Zealand would disappear, and the cliffs of Kent would be under water by Christmas 1991. He said the information was being given to the three of them by voices and automatic writing. In In the Light of Experience (1993), Icke wrote that, at the time he gave the press conference, he didn't feel in control. He heard his voice predicting the end of the world, and was appalled by what he was saying. "I was speaking the words," he wrote, "but all the time I could hear the voice of the brakes in the background saying, 'David, what the hell are you saying? This is absolute nonsense'." His predictions were splashed all over the next day's front pages, to his great dismay.

Terry Wogan interview

for an interview on April 29, 1991, during which Icke declared that he was the son of God. He said his children were devastated afterwards, because their dad had become a figure of ridicule. He later said he had been misinterpreted, and that he had used the term "the son of God" to mean an "aspect" of the infinite consciousness. The interview proved devastating for him. As the audience laughed, Wogan memorably pointed out that they were laughing at him, not with him, and his humiliation seemed complete. He disappeared from public life, and for several years was unable to walk down the street without people pointing at and mocking him. His children were followed to school by journalists and ridiculed by schoolmates, and his wife would open the back door to get the washing in, only to find a camera crew filming her. Icke told Jon Ronson:

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.

The BBC was criticised for allowing the interview to go ahead, Des Christy in The Guardian calling it a "media crucifixion." Wogan interviewed Icke again in 2006, acknowledging that his comments had been a bit sharp,

Key ideas

Icke's core ideas are put forward in four books—The Robots' Rebellion (1994), And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World (1999), and Children of the Matrix (2001)— self-published by his Bridge of Love Publications or David Icke Books. Discussion about the nature of consciousness is intermingled with unsourced allegations against named individuals, including that certain senior politicians are Satanic paedophiles, and that the Swine flu vaccinations are a deliberate attempt to cull the world's population. He argues that human beings are the result of a breeding program conducted by a race of reptilians called Anunnaki from the Draco constellation, and that what we call reality is nothing but a "five-sense illusion," or holographic experience. The only reality is the realm of the Absolute. He believes in a collective consciousness that has intentionality; in reincarnation; in other possible worlds that exist alongside ours on other frequencies; and in acquired characteristics, arguing that our experiences change our DNA by downloading new information and overwriting the software. We are also able to attract experiences to ourselves, by means of good and bad thoughts.

Global Elite

Icke argues that humanity was created, and is controlled, by a network of secret societies run by an ancient race of interbreeding bloodlines from the Middle and Near East, originally extraterrestrial. Icke calls them the "Babylonian Brotherhood." The Illuminati, Round Table, Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the IMF, United Nations, the media, military, science, religion, and the Internet are all Brotherhood created and controlled. The Brotherhood is mostly male. Their children are raised from an early age to understand the mission; those who don't are pushed aside. Key Brotherhood bloodlines are the British House of Windsor, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, European royalty and aristocracy, and the Eastern establishment families of the United States. At the apex of the Brotherhood stands the "Global Elite," identified throughout history as the Illuminati, and at the top of the Global Elite stand the "Prison Wardens." The goal of the Brotherhood—their "Great Work of Ages," or the "Brotherhood Agenda"—is world domination and a micro-chipped population.

In The Robot's Rebellion (1994), Icke introduced the idea that the Global Elite's plan for world domination was first laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hoax published in Russia in 1903, which supposedly presented a plan by the Jewish people to take over the world. The Protocols is the most influential piece of antisemitic material of modern times, portraying the Jewish people as cackling villains from a Saturday matinee, as Jon Ronson puts it, widely drawn on by the far right and neo-Nazi groups. Mark Honigsbaum writes that Icke refers to it 25 times in the book, calling it the "Illuminati protocols," and it is the first of a number of examples of Icke moving dangerously close to antisemitism, according to Michael Barkun of Syracuse University.

Reptilians and shape-shifting

from Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, 1690]] In The Biggest Secret (1999), Icke introduced the "Reptoid Hypothesis." He identifies the Brotherhood as originating from reptilians from the constellation Draco who walk on two legs and appear human, and who live in tunnels and caverns inside the earth. They are the same race of gods known as the Anunnaki in the Babylonian creation myth, Enûma Eliš. Tyson Lewis of Montclair State University and Richard Kahn of Antioch University Los Angeles write that Icke has taken his "ancient astronaut" narrative from the Israeli-American writer, Zecharia Sitchin. Icke's idea of "inner-earth reptilians" is also not new, though Barkun writes that Icke has done more than most to expand it.

Sitchin writes that the reptilians came to Earth for its precious metals. Icke argues that the Anunnaki came specifically for "monoatomic gold," a mineral he says can increase the carrying capacity of the nervous system ten thousandfold. After ingesting it, the Anunnaki are able to process vast amounts of information, speed up trans-dimensional travel, and shapeshift from reptilian to human form. They use human fear, guilt, and aggression as energy in a similar way, part of the reason they organise human conflict. The more negative emotion we emit, the more the reptilians absorb. "Thus we have the encouragement of wars," he writes, "human genocide, the mass slaughter of animals, sexual perversions which create highly charged negative energy, and black magic ritual and sacrifice which takes place on a scale that will stagger those who have not studied the subject."

The Anunnaki have crossbred with human beings, the breeding lines carefully chosen for political reasons. He believes they are the Watchers, the fallen angels, or "Grigori," who mated with human women in the Biblical apocrypha. Their first reptilian-human hybrid, possibly Adam, was created 200,000–300,000 years ago. There was a second breeding program around 30,000 years ago, and a third 7,000 years ago. It is the half-bloods of the third breeding program who today control the world, more Anunnaki than human. They have an extremely powerful, hypnotic stare, the origin of the phrase to "give someone the evil eye," and their hybrid DNA allows them to shapeshift when they consume human blood. In Children of the Matrix, he expanded his description of those in charge, adding that the Anunnaki also bred with another extraterrestrial race called the "Nordics," on account of their blond hair and blue eyes, to produce a race of human slave masters, the Aryans. The Aryans retain many reptilian traits, including cold-blooded attitudes, a desire for top-down control, and an obsession with ritual, lending them a tendency toward fascistic militarism, rationalism, and racism.

Lewis and Kahn write that, with the Nordic hypothesis, Icke is mirroring standard claims by the far right that the Aryan bloodline has ruled the Earth throughout history. For Icke, Sumerian Kings and Egyptian pharaohs have all been Aryan reptilian humanoids, as have 43 American presidents and the Queen Mother, who he writes was "seriously reptilian." All have taken part in Satanic rituals, paedophilia, kidnapping of children, drug parties and murder, needed to satisfy their reptilian blood lust, which allows them to retain their temporary human form. The reptilians not only come from another planet, but are also from another dimension, the lower level of the fourth dimension, the one nearest the physical world. Icke writes that the universe consists of an infinite number of frequencies or dimensions of life that share the same space, just as television and radio frequencies do. Some people can tune their consciousness to other wavelengths, which is what psychic power consists of, and it is from one of these other dimensions that the Anunnaki are controlling this world—though just as fourth-dimensional reptilians control us, they are controlled, in turn, by a fifth dimension. The lower level of the fourth dimension is what others call the "lower astral dimension." Icke argues that it is where demons live, the entities Satanists summon during their rituals. They are, in fact, summoning the reptilians. Barkun argues that the introduction of different dimensions allows Icke to skip awkward questions about which part of the universe the reptilians come from and how they got here. The incidents allow the Elite to respond in whatever way they intended to act in the first place, a concept Icke calls "order out of chaos," or "problem-reaction-solution". There are few, if any, public events that are not engineered, or at least used, by the Brotherhood in their bid to sow division and centralise power. He suggested that the 1996 Dunblane massacre, for example, was organised by the Elite to strengthen gun laws:

Red Dresses

In Infinite Love is the Only Truth (2005), Icke introduces the idea of "reptilian software." He says that there are three kinds of people. The highest level of the Brotherhood are the "Red Dresses." These are "software people," elsewhere called "reptilian software," or "constructs of mind," without consciousness, without free will. Their human bodies are holographic veils. A second group, the so-called "sheeple"—the vast majority of humanity—have what Icke calls "back seat consciousness." They are conscious, but they do whatever they are told and are the main source of energy for the Brotherhood. They include the "repeaters," the people in positions of influence who simply repeat what other people have told them. Doctors repeat what they are told in medical school and by drug companies, teachers repeat what they learned at teacher training college, and journalists are the greatest repeaters of all. The third group, by far the smallest, are those who see through the illusion; they are people like Neo from the film, The Matrix. They are usually dubbed dangerous or mad. The "Red Dress" genetic lines keep obsessively interbreeding to make sure their bloodlines are not weakened by the second or third levels of consciousness, because consciousness can rewrite the software.

Reception

Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Holocaust

cites this cartoon, "Rothschild" (1898), by Charles Léandre, arguing that Jews have long been depicted as lizard-like creatures out to control the world.]]

Icke's criticism of Judaism, his reliance on the Protocols, questioning of the Holocaust, and claims about Jewish involvement in the "Global Elite," have attracted the attention of Jewish groups, who fear that his talk of lizards wanting to rule the world is a smokescreen for claims about Jews. Journalist Louis Theroux cautions against accusing him of antisemitism, arguing that it might not only be unfair, but may also lend a patina of seriousness to his ideas. Icke strongly denies that his reptiles represent Jews, calling the claim "friggin' nonsense." "There is a tribe of people interbreeding," he told Jon Ronson in 2001, "which do not, do not, relate to any earth race ... This is not a Jewish plot. This is not a plot on the world by Jewish people".

Icke introduced the idea in The Robot's Rebellion that the Global Elite's plan for world domination was first laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hoax published in Russia in 1903, supposedly a plan by the Jewish people to take over the world. Parts of it were serialised in a Russian newspaper in 1903, and it was published in English throughout the U.S. in 1920 by The Dearborn Independent, Henry Ford's weekly newspaper, becoming mixed up with conspiracy theories about anti-Christian Illuminati, international financiers, and the Rothschilds, a powerful Jewish dynasty involved in banking. After it was exposed as a hoax, Michael Barkun writes that it disappeared from mainstream discourse until interest in it was renewed by the American far right in the 1950s.

Icke's use of the Protocols in The Robots' Rebellion was greeted with dismay by the Green Party's executive, who argued that his book promoted fascist and antisemitic views. They had allowed Icke to address the party's annual conference in 1992, despite the controversy over his "son of God" interview, but in September 1994 they decided to deny him a platform. Icke wrote to The Guardian protesting the party's decision, denying the book was antisemitic, and arguing that racism, sexism and prejudice of any kind were horrific and ridiculous, but in the same letter, he insisted that whoever wrote the Protocols "knew the game plan" for the 20th century. Barkun argues that Icke is trying to have it both ways—offended by the allegation of antisemitism, while "hinting at the dark activities of Jewish elites," Icke explicitly blames a ruling Jewish clique for the first and second world wars and the rise of Hitler—and indeed writes that Hitler's father was a Rothschild—and in And the Truth Shall Set You Free, he appears to flirt openly with Holocaust denial. Alick Bartholomew of Gateway, Icke's former publisher, told journalist Mark Honigsbaum in 1995 that an early draft of the book contained material questioning the Holocaust, and that Icke was dropped because of it. The September 2004 edition still contains material in chapter seven that is arguably revisionist. Sam Taylor writes in The Observer that, having read the chapter in question, he does not believe Icke is antisemitic, but argues that he is "tapping into a seriously paranoid, aggressive strain in U.S. society."

Honigsbaum writes that Combat 18, the British neo-Nazi group, publicised a 1995 talk Icke gave at Glastonbury in its magazine, Putsch. The talk was understood as antisemitic both by Combat 18 and by the Isle of Avalon Foundation, the New Age group that had promoted Icke's tour, which not only disowned him, but started handing out leaflets in protest at his presence. Perhaps unfairly projecting its own views onto Icke, Putsch wrote that Icke had talked about "the big conspiracy by a group of bankers, media moguls etc.—always being clever enough not to mention what all these had in common." Icke dismisses Combat 18's attentions, writing that it is a front for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Mossad.

Protests in Canada

Icke was detained by immigration officials when he tried to enter Canada in 1999, after Ontario's Hate Crime Unit added his name to an all-ports watch list because of complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress. The officers combed his luggage and reading material for evidence of antisemitic material. Jon Ronson writes: "Finally, after four hours of questioning, they concluded that when David Icke said lizards, lizards was what he meant."

While his lecture in a downtown Vancouver theatre attracted an audience of 1,200—attended, according to Icke, by the head of the Hate Crimes Unit—his books were removed from Indigo Books, and several venues on his speaking tour were cancelled. Human rights lawyer Richard Warman, working at the time for the Canadian Green Party, took credit for much of this in an interview with Jon Ronson for the latter's documentary, David Icke, the Lizards and the Jews (2001), in which Ronson catalogues the cancelled radio interviews and book signings that Warman appears to have engineered. In response, Icke's Children of the Matrix (2001) reportedly accused Warman of being an Illuminati "gatekeeper," and of working to stop the exposure of child abuse, which triggered a statement of claim from Warman.

Place within the conspiracism genre

Improvisational millennialism

of Syracuse University writes that Icke is the most fluent of the conspiracy writers. Barkun calls Icke's work "improvisational millennialism," with an end-of-history scenario involving a final battle between good and evil. Because everything is connected in the conspiracist world view, every source can be mined for links, and the greater the stigma attached to an idea, the more attractive it becomes, because the vehemence with which the mainstream rejects it becomes a measure of its validity. For Icke, therefore, the widespread ridiculing of the lizard theory is a guarantee that there's something to it, Barkun argues.

According to Barkun, Icke has actively tried to cultivate the far right. In 1996, he spoke to a conference in Reno, Nevada, alongside opponents of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act—which mandates background checks on people who buy guns in the United States—including Kirk Lyons, a white nationalist lawyer who has represented the Ku Klux Klan. Barkun argues that the relationship between Icke, the militias, and the Christian Patriots is complex because of the New Age baggage Icke brings with him, and he stresses that Icke is not actually a member of any of these groups, but it is nevertheless true that Icke has absorbed the world view of the radical right virtually intact. "There is no fuller explication of its beliefs about ruling elites than Icke's," he writes. Icke regards Christian patriots as the only Americans who understand the truth about the New World Order, but he also told a Christian patriot group: "I don't know which I dislike more, the world controlled by the Brotherhood, or the one you want to replace it with."]] Tyson Lewis and Richard Kahn see Icke as a spiritual philosopher, arguing that it's not clear he believes in the reptilians himself. They write that he has produced an extraordinary, all-inclusive narrative, a consolidation of all conspiracy theories into one massive project with unlimited explanatory power. There is an almost obsessive-compulsive element to his writing, they argue, whereby he ferrets out any minutiae he can find to support a narrative structure that allows him to pole vault from ancient Sumer to modern America in a way that "defies the laws of academic gravity."

His work cuts across political, religious, cultural, and socio-economic divisions, uniting the political left and right—they write that his lectures might see neo-Nazis and Christian Patriots sitting next to 60-something UFO buffs and New Age earth goddesses—and as such he represents a truly global counter-culture and should not, they argue, be dismissed as fringe. He has lectured in 25 countries, his books have been translated into eight languages, his website gets 600,000 hits a week, and his lecture tours attract thousands. The Biggest Secret has gone through six reprintings since 1999, and Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster is a top-five seller in South Africa.

They argue that the lizards may be allegorical, a Swiftian satire intended to demonstrate the emergence of a global fascist state. In Children of the Matrix, Icke writes that, that if the reptilians did not exist, we would have to invent them. "In fact," he says, "we probably have. They are other levels of ourselves putting ourselves in our face." He argues, "We are the reptilians and the 'demons' and, at the same time, we are those they manipulate because we are all the same 'I'." Lewis and Kahn make use of Douglas Kellner's distinction in Media Spectacle (1995) between a reactionary clinical paranoia, a mindset dissociated from reality, and a positive, progressive, critical paranoia, which uses the culture of suspicion to question and confront power. They argue that Icke displays elements of both, writing that what they call his "postmodern metanarrative" may be politically empowering, a way of giving ordinary people a narrative structure with which to question what they see around them.

Works

;Books

It's a Tough Game, Son!. Piccolo Books, 1983. ISBN 0330280473

It Doesn't Have To Be Like This: Green Politics Explained. Green Print, 1989. ISBN 1854250337

Truth Vibrations. Gateway, 1991, 1994. ISBN 1858600065

Love Changes Everything. Harper Collins Publishers, 1992. ISBN 1855382474

In the Light of Experience: The Autobiography of David Icke. Time Warner Books, 1993. ISBN 0751506036

Days of Decision. Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1993. ISBN 1897766017

The Robot's Rebellion. Gateway, 1994. ISBN 1858600227

Heal the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Personal and Planetary Transformation. Gateway, 1994. ISBN 1858600057

...And the Truth Shall Set You Free. Bridge of Love Publications, 1995. ISBN 0953881059

I Am Me, I Am Free: The Robot's Guide to Freedom. Truth Seeker, 1996, 1998. ISBN 0952614758

Lifting the Veil: David Icke interviewed by Jon Rappoport. Truth Seeker, 1998. ISBN 0939040050

The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World. Bridge of Love Publications, 1999. ISBN 0952614766

Children of the Matrix. Bridge of Love Publications, 2001. ISBN 0953881016

Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster. Bridge of Love Publications, 2002. ISBN 0953881024

Tales from the Time Loop. Bridge of Love Publications, 2003. ISBN 0953881040

Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion. Bridge of Love Publications, 2005. ISBN 0953881067

The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy (and how to end it). David Icke Books Ltd, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9538810-8-6

Human Race Get Off Your Knees—The Lion Sleeps No More. David Icke Books Ltd, 2010. ISBN 978-0-9559973-1-0

;DVDs and videos

Speaking Out: Who Really Controls the World and What We Can Do About It

David Icke: Turning of the Tide (1996)

The Reptilian Agenda (1999) (DVD)

David Icke: Revelations of a Mother Goddess

David Icke: The Freedom Road (2003)

David Icke: Secrets of the Matrix, Parts 1–3 (2003) (DVD)

David Icke, Live in Vancouver: From Prison to Paradise (2005) (DVD)

Freedom or Fascism: The Time to Choose (2006) (DVD)

David Icke: Big Brother, the Big Picture, (2008) free Internet Video

Beyond The Cutting Edge (2008) (DVD)

''David Icke Live at the Oxford Union Debating Society

''Secret Space

''Secret Space 2

See also

Erich von Däniken

Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa

List of people who have claimed to be Jesus

Notes

References

David Icke's website

Barkun, Michael (2003). A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, University of California. ISBN 0-520-23805-2

Cowley, Jason (2000). "The Icke Files,' The Independent on Sunday, October 1, 2000.

Channel 5 Television (2006). David Icke: Was He Right?, December 12, 2006, YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Evans, Paul (2008). Interview: David Icke, New Statesman, March 3, 2008.

Gillis, Charlie (2008). "Righteous Crusader or Civil Rights Menace?", Macleans, April 9, 2008.

Greenslade, Nick (2004). "The ten worst sportsmen in politics", The Observer, September 5, 2004.

Grossman, Wendy (1991). "Green Party Cofounder Icke Goes New Age", Skeptical Inquirer, January 1, 1991.

Honigsbaum, Mark (1995). "The Dark Side of David Icke", London Evening Standard, May 26, 1995, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (1983). It's a tough game, son!. Piccolo Books.

Icke, David (1989). "Does the Animal Kingdom need a Bill of Rights?", Royal Institute of Great Britain, YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (1993). In the Light of Experience, Warner Books.

Icke, David (1993). Days of Decision. Jon Carpenter Publishing.

Icke, David (1995). And the Truth Shall Set You Free. David Icke Books; the edition used in this article, September 2004.

Icke, David (1999). The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World. David Icke Books.

Icke, David (2002). Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster, Bridge of Love Publications.

Icke, David (2003). ''Tales from the Time Loop. David Icke Books.

Icke, David (2005). Infinite Love is the Only Truth. Bridge of Love Publications.

Icke, David (2007). The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy. David Icke Books.

Icke, David (undated). "Problem-reaction-solution", News for the Soul, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (undated). David Icke part 1, part 2, Davidicke.com, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (undated). Was Hitler a Rothschild?, DavidIcke.com, accessed December 12, 2010.

Jabbari, Dorsa (1999). "U of T provides accused anti-Semite with mike", Varsity News, October 12, 1999, accessed December 12, 2010.

Kraft, Frances (1999). "New Age speaker set to talk in Toronto", The Canadian Jewish News, October 7, 1999, accessed December 12, 2010.

Laming, Donald (2003). Understanding Human Motivation: What makes people tick. Blackwell. ISBN 0631219838

Lewis, Tyson and Kahn, Richard (2005). "The Reptoid Hypothesis: Utopian and Dystopian Representational Motifs in David Icke's Alien Conspiracy Theory", Utopian Studies, Vol. 16, accessed December 12, 2010.

Mitchell, Ben (2006). "This much I know", interview with David Icke, The Observer, January 22, 2006.

Offley, Will (2000a). "Selected Quotes Of David Icke", PublicEye.org, Political Research Associates, February 23, 2000, accessed December 12, 2010.

Offley, Will (2000b). "David Icke And The Politics Of Madness: Where The New Age Meets The Third Reich", PublicEye.org, Political Research Associates, February 29, 2000, accessed December 12, 2010.

Ronson, Jon (March 17, 2001). "Beset by lizards, part 1", part 2, extracts from Ronson's book, Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Guardian.

Ronson, Jon (2001). "David Icke, the Lizards, and the Jews" 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5, 5/5, Channel 4 Television, UK, YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Spargo, John (1921). The Jew and American Ideals. Harper & Brothers.

Steyn, Mark (2008). I am Warman, hear me roar!, Steynonline.com, January 27, 2008.

Taylor, Sam (1997). "So I was in this bar with the son of God...," The Observer, April 20, 1997.

Theroux, Louis (2001). "Stranger than fiction: Are 12ft lizards running the world?", The Guardian, April 7, 2001.

Warman, Richard (2002). Statement of claim against David Icke, Court File No. 02-CV-237691 SR, Ontario Superior Court of Justice, October 17, 2002, accessed December 12, 2010.

Whitney, Nicole (undated). "Interview with David Icke", News for the Soul, 2004, accessed December 12, 2010.

Wogan, Terry (1991). David Icke interviewed by Terry Wogan, 1991 and again in 2006, BBC, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Protocols of the Elders of Zion, accessed December 12, 2010.

Further reading

DavidIcke.com, accessed December 12, 2010.

Banyan, Will. Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster">"The Big Picture" A review of Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster (pdf) Paranoia Magazine, October 2003, accessed December 12, 2010.

Lewis, Tyson and Kahn, Richard. Education Out of Bounds: Reimagining Cultural Studies for a Posthuman Age. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Shermer, Michael. Illuminati, The New World Order & Paranoid Conspiracy Theorists (PCTs), The Skeptic's Dictionary, accessed December 12, 2010.

;Audio/video

Britton, Fern (1991). Interview with David Icke, 1/3, 2/3, 3/3, BBC's Coast to Coast People, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David. Presenting snooker, BBC, 1980s, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (1989). Does the Animal Kingdom need a Bill of Rights?, Royal Institute of Great Britain, Arena, BBC2, courtesy of YouTube, accessed November 15, 2009.

Icke, David (2009). Live at the Oxford Union, June 10, 2009, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Maher, Bill (2008). Interview with David Icke, Religulous, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

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