Name	Society of Jesus
Size	235px
Abbreviation	SJ, Jesuits
Motto	Ad maiorem Dei gloriam
Formation
Headquarters	Church of the Gesu (Mother Church), General Curia (administration)
Location	Rome, Italy
Coords
Type	Roman Catholic religious order
Leader title	Superior General
Leader name	Adolfo Nicolás
Main organ	General Curia
Key people	Ignatius of Loyola—founder
Website	www.sjweb.info
Num staff	19,216 }}

The Society of Jesus (, ''S.J.'', ''SJ'', or ''SI'') is a Christian male religious order that follows the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits and are also known colloquially as "God's Marines" and as "The Company", these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and members' willingness to accept orders anywhere in the world and live in extreme conditions. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents. The society's founding principles are contained in the document ''Formula of the Institute'', written by Ignatius of Loyola. Jesuits are known for their work in education (founding schools, colleges, universities and seminaries), intellectual research, and cultural pursuits, and for their missionary efforts. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes and promote social justice and ecumenical dialogue.

Ignatius founded the society after being wounded in battle and experiencing a religious conversion. He composed the ''Spiritual Exercises'' to help others follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. In 1534, Ignatius and six other young men, including St. Francis Xavier and Bl. Pierre Favre, gathered and professed vows of poverty, chastity, and later obedience, including a special vow of obedience to the Pope. Rule 13 of Ignatius' ''Rules for Thinking with the Church'' said: "That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity[...], if [the Church] shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black." Ignatius' plan of the order's organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by the bull containing the ''Formula of the Institute''. The opening lines of this founding document would declare that the Society of Jesus was founded to "strive especially for the propagation and defense of the faith and progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine." The Society participated in the Counter-Reformation and later in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council in the Catholic Church.''

The Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patronage of Madonna Della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is led by a Superior General, currently Adolfo Nicolás.

The headquarters of the society, its General Curia, is in Rome. The historic curia of St Ignatius is now part of the ''Collegio del Gesù'' attached to the Church of the Gesù, the Jesuit Mother Church.

Statistics

The Jesuits today form the largest single religious order of priests and brothers in the Catholic Church, although they are surpassed by the Franciscan family of first orders Order of Friars Minor (OFM), OFM Capuchins, and Conventuals. As of 1 January 2007, Jesuits numbered 19,216: 13,491 clerks regular (priests), 3,049 scholastics (students to become priests), 1,810 brothers (not priests) and 866 novices. Members serve in 112 nations on six continents with the largest number in India and USA. Their average age was 57.3 years: 63.4 years for priests, 29.9 years for scholastics. and 65.5 years for brothers. The Society is divided into 91 Provinces with 12 dependent Regions: three in Africa, four in the Americas and five in Asia and Oceania. Altogether, they constitute 10 administrative units. (Assistancies). style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;"

+ Jesuits in the World (1 January 2007) !	Region!!Jesuits!	Percentage
South Asia Assistancy	4,018	20.9%
United States of America	2,952|| style="text-align: center;" |15.4%
South Europe	2,448|| style="text-align: center;" |12.7%
West Europe	1,958|| style="text-align: center;" |10.2%
East Asia-Oceania	1,672 || style="text-align: center;" |8.7%
South Latin America	1,513|| style="text-align: center;" |7.9%
Africa	1,430|| style="text-align: center;" |7.4%
North Latin America	1,374|| style="text-align: center;" |7.2%
East Europe	1,119|| style="text-align: center;" |5.8%
Central Europe	732|| style="text-align: center;" |3.8%

The current Superior General of the Jesuits is Spanish: Adolfo Nicolás. The Society is characterized by its ministries in the fields of missionary work, human rights, social justice and, most notably, higher education. It operates colleges and universities in various countries around the world and is particularly active in the Philippines and India. In the United States alone, it maintains over 50 colleges, universities and high schools. A typical conception of the mission of a Jesuit school will often contain such concepts as proposing Christ as the model of human life, the pursuit of excellence in teaching and learning and life-long spiritual and intellectual growth.

Formula of the Institute of the Society of Jesus

Ignatius laid out his original vision for the new order in the ''Formula of the Institute of the Society of Jesus,'' which is "the fundamental charter of the order, of which all subsequent documents were elaborations and to which they had to conform." He ensured that his formula was contained in two papal bulls signed by Pope Paul III in 1540 and by Pope Julius III in 1550. The formula expressed the nature, spirituality, community life and apostolate of the new religious order. Its famous opening statement echoed Ignatius' military background:

"Whoever desires to serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the Cross in our Society, which we desire to be designated by the Name of Jesus, and to serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth, should, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity, poverty and obedience, keep what follows in mind. He is a member of a Society founded chiefly for this purpose: to strive especially for the defence and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine, by means of public preaching, lectures and any other ministration whatsoever of the Word of God, and further by means of retreats, the education of children and unlettered persons in Christianity, and the spiritual consolation of Christ's faithful through hearing confessions and administering the other sacraments. Moreover, he should show himself ready to reconcile the estranged, compassionately assist and serve those who are in prisons or hospitals, and indeed, to perform any other works of charity, according to what will seem expedient for the glory of God and the common good".

History

Foundation

On August 15, 1534, Ignatius of Loyola (born Íñigo López de Loyola), a Spaniard of Basque origin, and six other students at the University of Paris—Francisco Xavier from Navarre (modern Spain), Alfonso Salmeron, Diego Laínez, Nicolás Bobadilla from Spain, Peter Faber from Savoy, and Simão Rodrigues from Portugal—met in Montmartre outside Paris, in a crypt beneath the church of Saint Denis, now Saint Pierre de Montmartre.

They called themselves the Company of Jesus, and also ''Amigos En El Señor'' or "Friends in the Lord", because they felt "they were placed together by Christ." The name had echoes of the military (as in an infantry "company"), as well as of discipleship (the "companions" of Jesus). The word "company" comes ultimately from Latin, ''cum'' + ''pane'' = "with bread", or a group that shares meals.

In 1537, they traveled to Italy to seek papal approval for their order. Pope Paul III gave them a commendation, and permitted them to be ordained priests. These initial steps led to the founding of what would be called the Society of Jesus later in 1540. The term ''societas'' in Latin is derived from ''socius'', a partner or comrade.

They were ordained at Venice by the bishop of Arbe (24 June). They devoted themselves to preaching and charitable work in Italy, as the Italian War of 1535-1538 renewed between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Venice, the pope and the Ottoman Empire rendered any journey to Jerusalem impossible.

They presented the project to the Pope. After months of dispute, a congregation of cardinals reported favorably upon the Constitution presented, and Paul III confirmed the order through the bull ''Regimini militantis ecclesiae'' ("To the Government of the Church Militant"), on 27 September 1540, but limited the number of its members to sixty. This is the founding document of the Jesuits as an official Catholic religious order.

This limitation was removed through the bull ''Injunctum nobis'' (14 March 1543). Ignatius was chosen as the first superior-general. He sent his companions as missionaries around Europe to create schools, colleges, and seminaries.

In fulfilling the mission of the ''Formula of the Institute of the Society'', the first Jesuits concentrated on a few key activities. First, they founded schools throughout Europe. Jesuit teachers were rigorously trained in both classical studies and theology, and their schools reflected this. Second, they sent out missionaries across the globe to evangelize those peoples who had not yet heard the Gospel, founding missions in widely diverse regions, such as modern-day Paraguay, Japan, Ontario, and Ethiopia. Finally, though not initially formed for the purpose, they aimed to stop Protestantism from spreading and to preserve communion with Rome and the successor of Peter. The zeal of the Jesuits overcame the drift toward Protestantism in Poland-Lithuania and southern Germany.

Ignatius wrote the Jesuit ''Constitutions'', adopted in 1554, which created a tightly centralized organization and stressed total abnegation and obedience to the Pope and their religious superiors (''perinde ac cadaver'', "[well-disciplined] like a corpse" as Ignatius put it).

His main principle became the unofficial Jesuit motto: ''Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam'' ("For the greater glory of God"). This phrase is designed to reflect the idea that any work that is not evil can be meritorious for the spiritual life if it is performed with this intention, even things considered normally indifferent.

The Society of Jesus is classified among institutes as a mendicant order of clerks regular, that is, a body of priests organized for apostolic work, following a religious rule, and relying on alms, or donations, for support.

The term "Jesuit" (of 15th-century origin, meaning ''one who used too frequently or appropriated the name of Jesus''), was first applied to the Society in reproach (1544–52). It was never used by its founder, though members and friends of the Society in time appropriated the name in its positive meaning.

Early works

The Jesuits were founded just before the Counter-Reformation (or at least before the date those historians with a classical view of the counter reformation hold to be the beginning of the Counter-Reformation), a movement whose purpose was to reform the Catholic Church from within and to counter the Protestant Reformers, whose teachings were spreading throughout Catholic Europe.

As part of their service to the Roman Church, the Jesuits encouraged people to continue their obedience to scripture as interpreted by Catholic doctrine. Ignatius is known to have written: "...: I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it."

Ignatius and the early Jesuits did recognize, though, that the hierarchical Church was in dire need of reform. Some of their greatest struggles were against corruption, venality, and spiritual lassitude within the Roman Catholic Church. Ignatius's insistence on an extremely high level of academic preparation for ministry, for instance, was a deliberate response to the relatively poor education of much of the clergy of his time. The Jesuit vow against "ambitioning prelacies" was a deliberate effort to prevent greed for money or power invading Jesuit circles.

As a result, in spite of their loyalty, Ignatius and his successors often tangled with the pope and the Roman Curia. Over the 450 years since its founding, the Society has both been called the papal "elite troops" and been forced into suppression.

St. Ignatius and the Jesuits who followed him believed that the reform of the Church had to begin with the conversion of an individual's heart. One of the main tools the Jesuits have used to bring about this conversion has been the Ignatian retreat, called the Spiritual Exercises. During a four-week period of silence, individuals undergo a series of directed meditations on the life of Christ. During this period, they meet regularly with a spiritual director, who helps them understand whatever call or message God has offered in their meditations.

The retreat follows a "Purgative-Illuminative-Unitive" pattern in the tradition of the spirituality of John Cassian and the Desert Fathers. Ignatius' innovation was to make this style of contemplative mysticism available to all people in active life. Further, he used it as a means of rebuilding the spiritual life of the Church. The Exercises became both the basis for the training of Jesuits and one of the essential ministries of the order: giving the exercises to others in what became known as "retreats".

The Jesuits’ contributions to the late Renaissance were significant in their roles both as a missionary order and as the first religious order to operate colleges and universities as a principal and distinct ministry. By the time of Ignatius' death in 1556, the Jesuits were already operating a network of 74 colleges on three continents. A precursor to liberal education, the Jesuit plan of studies incorporated the Classical teachings of Renaissance humanism into the Scholastic structure of Catholic thought.

In addition to teaching faith, the ''Ratio Studiorum'' emphasized the study of Latin, Greek, classical literature, poetry, and philosophy as well as non-European languages, sciences and the arts. Furthermore, Jesuit schools encouraged the study of vernacular literature and rhetoric, and thereby became important centers for the training of lawyers and public officials.

The Jesuit schools played an important part in winning back to Catholicism a number of European countries which had for a time been predominantly Protestant, notably Poland and Lithuania. Today, Jesuit colleges and universities are located in over one hundred nations around the world. Under the notion that God can be encountered through created things and especially art, they encouraged the use of ceremony and decoration in Catholic ritual and devotion. Perhaps as a result of this appreciation for art, coupled with their spiritual practice of "finding God in all things", many early Jesuits distinguished themselves in the visual and performing arts as well as in music.

Jesuit priests often acted as confessors to kings during the Early Modern Period. They were an important force in the Counter-Reformation and in the Catholic missions, in part because their relatively loose structure (without the requirements of living in community, saying the divine office together, etc.) allowed them to be flexible to meet the needs of the people at the time.

Expansion

Early missions in Japan resulted in the government granting the Jesuits the feudal fiefdom of Nagasaki in 1580. However, this was removed in 1587 due to fears over their growing influence.

Francis Xavier, one of the original companions of Loyola, arrived in Goa, in Western India, in 1541 to consider evangelical service in the Indies. In a 1545 letter to John III of Portugal, he requested an Inquisition to be installed in Goa (see Goa Inquisition). He died in China after a decade of evangelism in Southern India. Two Jesuit missionaries, Johann Grueber and Albert Dorville, reached Lhasa in Tibet in 1661.

Jesuit missions in America were very controversial in Europe, especially in Spain and Portugal where they were seen as interfering with the proper colonial enterprises of the royal governments. The Jesuits were often the only force standing between the Native Americans and slavery. Together throughout South America but especially in present-day Brazil and Paraguay, they formed Christian Native American city-states, called "reductions" (Spanish ''Reducciones'', Portuguese ''Reduções''). These were societies set up according to an idealized theocratic model. It is partly because the Jesuits, such as Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, protected the natives (whom certain Spanish and Portuguese colonizers wanted to enslave) that the Society of Jesus was suppressed.

Jesuit priests such as Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta founded several towns in Brazil in the 16th century, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and were very influential in the pacification, religious conversion and education of Indian nations.

Jesuit scholars working in foreign missions were very important in studying their languages and strove to produce Latinized grammars and dictionaries. This was done, for instance, for Japanese (see ''Nippo jisho'' also known as ''Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam'', (Vocabulary of the Japanese Language) a Japanese–Portuguese dictionary written 1603), Vietnamese (French Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes formalized the Vietnamese alphabet in use today with his 1651 Vietnamese–Portuguese–Latin dictionary ''Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum'') and Tupi (the main language of Brazil). Jean François Pons in the 1740s pioneered the study of Sanskrit in the West.

Under Portuguese royal patronage, the order thrived in Goa and until 1759 successfully expanded its activities to education and healthcare. In 1594 they founded the first Roman-style academic institution in the East, St. Paul Jesuit College in Macau. Founded by Alessandro Valignano, it had a great influence on the learning of Eastern languages (Chinese and Japanese) and culture by missionary Jesuits, becoming home to the first western sinologists such as Matteo Ricci. On 17 December 1759, the Marquis of Pombal, Secretary of State in Portugal, expelled the Jesuits from Portugal and Portuguese possessions overseas.

Jesuit missionaries were active among indigenous peoples in New France in North America. Many of them compiled dictionaries or glossaries of the First Nations and Native American languages which they learned. For instance, Jacques Gravier, vicar general of the Illinois Mission in the Mississippi River valley, compiled the most extensive Kaskaskia Illinois–French dictionary among works of the missionaries before his death in 1708.

Jesuit activity in China

The Jesuits first entered China through Macau where they founded the University of Macau, the oldest Western style University in Asia.

The Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries introduced Western science and astronomy, then undergoing its own revolution, to China. The scientific revolution brought by the Jesuits coincided with a time when scientific innovation had declined in China:

}}

Conversely, the Jesuits were very active in transmitting Chinese knowledge and philosophy to Europe. Confucius's works were translated into European languages through the agency of Jesuit scholars stationed in China. (Which is why ''Kǒng Fūzǐ'' is known in the West under his Latinized name to this day.)

{| style="margin:auto;" |- | | |}

Matteo Ricci started to report on the thoughts of Confucius, and father Prospero Intorcetta published the life and works of Confucius into Latin in 1687. It is thought that such works had considerable importance on European thinkers of the period, particularly among the Deists and other philosophical groups of the Enlightenment who were interested by the integration of the system of morality of Confucius into Christianity.

Jesuit activity in Canada

With the discovery and colonization of New France during the 17th century, the Society of Jesus and the Jesuits played an active role in Canada. When Samuel de Champlain was placing the foundations of the French colony at Quebec, he realized that this land was inhabited by native tribes that possessed their own languages, customs and traditions. These natives that inhabited modern day Ontario, Quebec, and country around Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay were the Montagnais, the Algonquins and the Huron. Champlain was a Christian man who felt that the soul was the only thing that mattered on earth and that the souls of these Montagnais, Algonquin, and Huron must be saved. As a result, in 1614 Champlain invited the Recollects from France to spread the word of the true God, to convert the native inhabitants, and to save their souls from eternal damnation in New France. However, in 1624 the French Recollects realized that the magnitude of their task was too much to bear alone and that they would need more missionary bodies. The Recollects sent a delegate to France to invite the Society of Jesus to help them with their mission. The invitation was accepted and Jesuits, Jean de Brebeuf, Ennemond Masse and Charles Lalemant arrived in Quebec in 1625.

The Jesuits became involved in the Huron mission in 1626 and lived among the Huron peoples. Father Brebeuf learned the native language and created the first Huron language dictionary. Due to outside conflicts, though, the Jesuits were forced to leave all of New France and their efforts as Quebec was captured by the Kirke brothers under the English flag. Yet, in 1632 Quebec was returned to the French under the Treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye and the Jesuits were back in Huronia by 1634.

In 1639 Jesuit Jerome Lalemant decided that the missionaries in Huronia needed a local residence so they could relax, reflect, and conduct activities. As a result, Sainte-Marie among the Hurons was established. The Sainte-Marie expanded into a small community and acted as a living replica of European society. The Sainte-Marie became the headquarters of the Jesuits and is now an important part of Canadian history. Throughout most of the 1640s the Jesuits were having a tremendous amount of success. They established 5 chapels in Huronia and baptized over one thousand Huron natives. However, as the Jesuits began to expand westward they encountered more and more Iroquois natives (Huron rivals). With the Iroquois growing jealous of the Hurons’ wealth and fur trade system they began to attack Huron villages in 1648. The Iroquois killed missionaries, burned villages and scattered many of the Huron natives. Both Father Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant were killed in the Iroquois series of raids. It was said that the two men had died as martyrs of the Roman Catholic Church and that their bones would be holy relics. With the knowledge of the invading Iroquois, Father Paul Ragueneau burned down Sainte-Marie instead of allowing the Iroquois get the satisfaction of destroying it. By late June 1649, the French and some Christian Hurons built Sainte-Marie II on Christian Island (Isle de Saint-Joseph). However, the small Sainte-Marie II was facing starvation, lack of supplies and constant threats of Iroquois attack. Sainte-Marie II was abandoned in June 1650 as the remaining Hurons and Jesuits departed for Quebec and Ottawa. With all this destruction the Huron began to claim that the Jesuits were sorcerers sent to their homeland to kill. They would blame the outbreak of disease on the Jesuits, claiming that they were casting spells from their books. With the outbreak of disease, many people began to mistrust the Jesuits and suspect them of witchcraft. As a result of the Iroquois raids and disease, many missionaries, traders, and soldiers were killed or captured. The Huron tribe ceased to exist.

After the collapse of the Huron tribe, the Jesuits were to undertake the task of converting the Iroquois natives themselves. In 1642, previous Jesuits attempted to convert the Iroquois but had little success. The Jesuits risked their own lives and well being for the sake of this Iroquois mission. In 1653 the Iroquois nation had a fall out with the Dutch. They then signed a peace treaty with the French and a mission was established. The Iroquois took the treaty very lightly and soon turned on the French again. In 1658, the Jesuits were having very little success and were under constant threat of being tortured or killed. The Jesuits continued to struggle with the Iroquois until 1687 when they abandoned their permanent posts in the Iroquois homeland.

By 1700 Jesuits began to only maintain their old posts instead of trying to establish new ones beyond Quebec, Montreal and Ottawa. During the Seven Years War, Quebec fell to the English in 1759 and New France was under British control. The English barred the immigration of more Jesuits to New France. By 1763 there were only twenty-one Jesuits that were still stationed in New France. By 1773 only eleven Jesuits remained. During the same year the English crown laid claim to its property in Canada and declared that the Society of Jesus in New France was dissolved.

Suppression and restoration

The Suppression of the Jesuits in Portugal, France, the Two Sicilies, Parma and the Spanish Empire by 1767 was troubling to the Society's defender, Pope Clement XIII. A decree signed under secular pressure by Pope Clement XIV in July 1773 suppressed the Order. The suppression was carried out in all countries except Prussia and Russia, where Catherine the Great had forbidden the papal decree to be executed. Because millions of Catholics (including many Jesuits) lived in the Polish provinces recently annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire, the Society was able to maintain its existence and carry on its work all through the period of suppression. Subsequently, Pope Pius VI would grant formal permission for the continuation of the Society in Russia and Poland. Based on that permission, Pole Stanislaus Czerniewicz was elected superior of the Society in 1782. Pope Pius VII during his captivity in France, had resolved to restore the Jesuits universally; and after his return to Rome he did so with little delay: on 7 August 1814, by the bull ''Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum'', he reversed the suppression of the Order and therewith, the then Superior in Russia, another Pole, Thaddeus Brzozowski, who had been elected in 1805, acquired universal jurisdiction.

The period following the Restoration of the Jesuits in 1814 was marked by tremendous growth, as evidenced by the large number of Jesuit colleges and universities established in the 19th century. In the United States, 22 of the Society's 28 universities were founded or taken over by the Jesuits during this time. Some claim that the experience of suppression served to heighten orthodoxy among the Jesuits upon restoration. While this claim is debatable, Jesuits were generally supportive of Papal authority within the Church, and some members were associated with the Ultramontanist movement and the declaration of Papal Infallibility in 1870.

In Switzerland, following the defeat of the Sonderbund of some Catholic cantons by the other cantons, the constitution was modified and Jesuits were banished in 1848. The ban was lifted on 20 May 1973, when 54.9% of voters accepted a referendum modifying the Constitution.

The 20th century witnessed both aspects of growth and decline. Following a trend within the Catholic priesthood at large, Jesuit numbers peaked in the 1950s and have declined steadily since. Meanwhile the number of Jesuit institutions has grown considerably, due in large part to a late 20th century focus on the establishment of Jesuit secondary schools in inner-city areas and an increase in lay association with the order. Among the notable Jesuits of the 20th century, John Courtney Murray, was called one of the "architects of the Second Vatican Council" and drafted what eventually became the council's endorsement of religious freedom, ''Dignitatis Humanae Personae''.

In the Constitution of Norway form 1814, a relic from the earlier anti-catholic laws of Denmark-Norway, Paragraph 2 originally read, "The Evangelical-Lutheran religion remains the public religion of the State. Those inhabitants, who confess thereto, are bound to raise their children to the same. Jesuits and monastic orders are not permitted. Jews are still prohibited from entry to the Realm." Jews were first allowed in to the Realm in 1851 after the famous Norwegian poet Henrik Wergeland had campaigned for it. Monastic orders were permitted 1897, but the ban on Jesuits was only lifted 1956.

Theological developments

In recent years

In Latin America,the Jesuits have had significant influence in the development of liberation theology, a movement which has been highly controversial in the Catholic theological community and condemned by Pope John Paul II on several fundamental aspects.

Under Superior General Pedro Arrupe, social justice and the preferential option for the poor emerged as dominant themes of the work of the Jesuits.

In 1981, Pope John Paul II appointed Paolo Dezza S.J., a scholar, to head the Jesuit order as special Papal Delegate, instead of a liberal American, Father Vincent O'Keefe, who was nominated by the Society. The Pope referred to that moment as "an important phase of its history." Dezza "knew of the faults that existed in the Church and in her men, but with caring dedication, full of love and faith, he helped to alleviate their effects, working for the authentic renewal of the Church."

On 16 November 1989, six Jesuit priests (Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Joaquin López y López, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Amado López); their housekeeper, Elba Ramos; and her daughter, Celia Marisela Ramos, were murdered by the Salvadoran military on the campus of the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, because they had been labeled as subversives by the government. The assassinations galvanized the Society's peace and justice movements, including annual protests at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Georgia, United States, where the assassins were trained under US government sponsorship.

On 21 February 2001, Father Avery Dulles, SJ, an internationally known author, lecturer and theologian, was created a Cardinal of the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II. The son of former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Cardinal Dulles was long known for his carefully reasoned argumentation and fidelity to the teaching office of the Church. An author of 22 books and over 700 theological articles, Cardinal Dulles died on 12 December 2008 at Fordham University, where he taught for twenty years as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society. He was, at his passing, one of ten Jesuit cardinals in the Catholic Church.

In 2002, Boston College president Father William P. Leahy, SJ, initiated the Church in the 21st century program as a means of moving the Church "from crisis to renewal." The initiative has provided the Society with a platform for examining issues brought about by the worldwide Catholic sex abuse cases, including the priesthood, celibacy, sexuality, women's roles, and the role of the laity.

On 6 January 2005, Fr. Peter Hans Kolvenbach, on the occasion of the Jubilee Year, wrote that the Jesuits "should truly profit from the jubilee year to examine our way of life and taking the means to live more profoundly the charisms received from our Founders."

In April 2005, Thomas J. Reese, SJ, editor of the American Jesuit weekly magazine ''America'', resigned at the request of the Society. The move was widely published in the media as the result of pressure from the Vatican, following years of criticism by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on articles touching subjects such as HIV/AIDS, religious pluralism, homosexuality and the right of life for the unborn. Following his resignation, Reese spent a year-long sabbatical at Santa Clara University before being named a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C.. On 2 February 2006, Fr. Peter Hans Kolvenbach informed members of the Society of Jesus, that, with the consent of Pope Benedict XVI, he intended to step down as Superior General in 2008, the year he would turn 80.

On 22 April 2006, Feast of Our Lady, Mother of the Society of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI greeted thousands of Jesuits on pilgrimage to Rome, and took the opportunity to thank God "for having granted to your Company the gift of men of extraordinary sanctity and of exceptional apostolic zeal such as St Ignatius of Loyola, St Francis Xavier and Bl Peter Faber." He said "St Ignatius of Loyola was above all a man of God, who gave the first place of his life to God, to his greater glory and his greater service. He was a man of profound prayer, which found its center and its culmination in the daily Eucharistic Celebration."

In May 2006, Benedict XVI also wrote a letter to Superior General Peter Hans Kolvenbach on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Pope Pius XII's encyclical ''Haurietis aquas'', on devotion to the Sacred Heart, because the Jesuits have always been "extremely active in the promotion of this essential devotion". In his 3 November 2006 visit to the Pontifical Gregorian University, Benedict XVI cited the university as "one of the greatest services that the Society of Jesus carries out for the universal Church". The 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus convened on 5 January 2008 and elected Fr. Adolfo Nicolás as the new Superior General on 19 January 2008. A month after, the Pope received members of the General Congregation and urged them to "to continue on the path of this mission in full fidelity to your original charism" and asked them to reflect so as "to rediscover the fullest meaning of your characteristic 'fourth vow' of obedience to the Successor of Peter." For this, he told them to "adhere totally to the Word of God and to the Magisterium's task of preserving the integral truth and unity of Catholic doctrine." This clear identity, according to the Pope, is important so that "many others may share in your ideals and join you effectively and enthusiastically." The Congregation responded with a formal declaration titled "With New Fervor and Dynamism, the Society of Jesus Responds to the Call of Benedict XVI", whereby they confirmed the Society's fidelity to the Pope.

Ignatian spirituality

The spirituality practiced by the Jesuits, called Ignatian spirituality, ultimately based on the Catholic faith and the gospels, is drawn from the "Constitutions", "The Letters", and "Autobiography", and most specially from St. Ignatius' "Spiritual Exercises", whose purpose is "to conquer oneself and to regulate one's life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment."

Jesuit formation (training)

The formation (training) of Jesuits seeks to prepare men spiritually, academically and practically for the ministries they will be called to offer the Church and world. St. Ignatius was strongly influenced by the Renaissance and wanted Jesuits to be able to offer whatever ministries were most needed at any given moment, and especially, to be ready to respond to missions (assignments) from the Pope. Formation for Priesthood normally takes between 8 and 14 years, depending on the man's background and previous education, and final vows are taken several years after that, making Jesuit formation among the longest of any of the religious orders.

Government of the society

The society is headed by a Superior General. In the Jesuit order, the formal title of the Superior General is ''Praepositus Generalis'', Latin for "provost-general", more commonly called Father General or General, who is elected by the General Congregation for life or until he resigns, is confirmed by the Pope, and has absolute authority in running the society. The current Superior General of the Jesuits is the Spanish Jesuit, Fr. Adolfo Nicolás Pachón who was elected on 19 January 2008.

He is assisted by "assistants", four of whom are "assistants for provident care" and serve as general advisors and a sort of inner council to the superior general, and several other regional assistants each of whom heads an "assistancy", which is either a geographic area (for instance, the North American Assistancy) or an area of ministry (for instance, higher education). The assistants normally reside with the Superior General in Rome. The assistants, together with a number of other advisors, form an advisory council to the General. A vicar general and secretary of the society run day-to-day administration. The General is also required to have an "admonitor", a confidential advisor whose specific job is to warn the General honestly and confidentially when he is acting imprudently or is straying toward disobedience to the Pope or heresy. The central staff of the General is known as the Curia.

The order is divided into geographic provinces, each of which is headed by a Provincial Superior, generally called Father Provincial, chosen by the General. He has authority over all Jesuits and ministries in his area, and is assisted by a ''socius'', who acts as a sort of secretary and chief of staff. With the approval of the General, the father provincial appoints a novice master and a master of tertians to oversee formation, and rectors of local houses of Jesuits.

Each Jesuit community within a province is normally headed by a rector who is assisted by a "minister", from the Latin for "servant", a priest who helps oversee the community's day-to-day needs.

The General Congregation is a meeting of all of the assistants, provincials and additional representatives who are elected by the professed Jesuits of each province. It meets irregularly and rarely, normally to elect a new superior general and/or to take up some major policy issues for the order. The General meets more regularly with smaller councils composed of just the provincials.

Habit and dress

Jesuits do not have an official habit. In the Constitutions of the Society, it gives these instructions concerning clothing; "The clothing too should have three characteristics: first, it should be proper; second, conformed to the usage of the country of residence; and third, not contradictory to the poverty we profess..." (Const. 577)

Historically, a "Jesuit-style cassock" became standard issue: it wrapped around the body and was tied with a cincture, rather than the customary buttoned front, a tuftless biretta (only diocesan clergy wore tufts), and a ferraiolo (cape). As such, though Jesuit garb appeared distinctive, and became identifiable over time, it was the common priestly dress of Ignatius' day. During the missionary periods of North America, the various native peoples referred to Jesuits as "Blackrobes" because of their black cassocks.

Today, most Jesuits in the USA wear the Roman collar and black clothing of ordinary priests, although some still wear the black cassock.

Controversies

The ''Monita Secreta'', also known as the "Secret Instructions of the Jesuits" was published (1612 and 1614) in Kraków, and is alternately alleged to have been written by either Claudio Acquaviva, the fifth general of the society, or by Jerome Zahorowski. The document appears to lay down the methods to be adopted for the acquisition of greater power and influence for the order and for the Roman Catholic Church. Scholars generally agree that the ''Secreta'' were merely fabricated to give the Jesuits a sinister reputation and it has become widely considered a forgery.

Henry Garnet, one of the leading English Jesuits, was hanged for misprision of treason because of his knowledge of the Gunpowder Plot. The plan had been an attempt to kill King James I of England and VI of Scotland, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in a single attack by blowing up the Houses of Parliament in 1605; another Jesuit, Oswald Tesimond, managed to escape arrest for involvement in the same plot.

Jesuits have also been accused of using casuistry to obtain justifications for the unjustifiable (See: formulary controversy; Blaise Pascals' Lettres Provinciales). In English, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, "Jesuitical" has acquired a secondary meaning of "equivocating". Modern Jesuits have also been criticized by many including Jack Chick, Avro Manhattan, Alberto Rivera, and the late former Jesuit priest, Malachi Martin.

Although in the first 30 years of the existence of the Society there were a large number of Jewish conversos in the order, a campaign by anti-conversos led to the ''Decree de genere'' in 1593 which proclaimed Jewish (and Muslim) ancestry, no matter how distant, an insurmountable impediment for admission to the Society. This stayed in force until 1946.

Within the Catholic Church, there has existed a sometimes tense relationship between Jesuits and the Vatican due to questioning of official Church teaching and papal directives, such as those on abortion, birth control, women deacons, homosexuality, and liberation theology.

However, the last two Popes have appointed Jesuits to notable positions within the Church. For instance, John Paul II appointed Roberto Tucci, S.J., to the College of Cardinals, after serving for many years as the chief organizer of papal trips and public events. In all, John Paul II and Benedict XVI have appointed 10 Jesuit Cardinals. Benedict XVI has appointed several Jesuits to positions of prominence in his curia, such as Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, S.J. as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J., Vatican Press Secretary.

Jesuits rescue efforts during the Holocaust

Twelve Jesuit priests have been formally recognized by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, for risking their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust of World War II: Roger Braun (1910–1981) of France; Pierre Chaillet (1900–1972) of France; Jean-Baptist De Coster (1896–1968) of Belgium; Jean Fleury (1905–1982) of France; Emile Gessler (1891–1958) of Belgium; Jean-Baptiste Janssens (1889–1964) of Belgium; Alphonse Lambrette (1884–1970) of Belgium; Emile Planckaert (b. 1906–2006) of France; Jacob Raile (1894–1949) of Hungary; Henri Revol (1904–1992) of France; Adam Sztark (1907–1942) of Poland; and Henri Van Oostayen (1906–1945) of Belgium.

Several other Jesuits are known to have rescued or given refuge to Jews during that period. A plaque commemorating the 152 Jesuit priests who gave of their lives during the Holocaust was installed at Rockhurst University, a Jesuit university, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, in April 2007, the first such plaque in the world.

Famous Jesuits

Notable Jesuits include missionaries, educators, scientists, artists and philosophers. Among many distinguished early Jesuits was St. Francis Xavier, a missionary to Asia who converted more people to Catholicism than anyone before. José de Anchieta and Manuel da Nóbrega, founders of the city of São Paulo, Brazil, were also Jesuit priests. Another famous Jesuit was St. Jean de Brebeuf, a French missionary who was martyred in what was once New France (now Ontario) in Canada during the 17th century. Eusebio Kino is renowned in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico (an area then called the Pimeria Alta). He founded numerous missions and served as the peace bringer between the tribes and the government of New Spain. One other very famous Jesuit was Gerard Manley Hopkins, the famous poet. On April 10, 1912, the Rev. Francis Browne, a Jesuit priest, sailed the first leg of the Titanic’s maiden voyage, between Southampton, England, Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland—taking a series of black-and-white photos of life onboard the luxury liner. He had planned to stay on the ship to New York but was ordered by his superior to return home instead.

Jesuit educational institutions

Although the work of the Jesuits today embraces a wide variety of apostolates, ministries, and civil occupations, they are probably most well known for their educational work. Since the inception of the order, Jesuits have been teachers. Today, there are Jesuit-run universities, colleges, high schools and middle or elementary schools in dozens of countries. Jesuits also serve on the faculties of both Catholic and secular schools as well.

Jesuit colleges and universities

In the United States, the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities are located in 19 states across the country.

Jesuit universities include:

Publications

Jesuits are also known for their involvement in publications. ''La Civiltà Cattolica'', a periodical produced in Rome by the Jesuits, has often been used as a semi-official platform for popes and Vatican officials to float ideas for discussion or hint at future statements or positions. In the United States, ''America'' magazine has long had a prominent place in intellectual Catholic circles, and the Jesuits produce ''Company'', a periodical specifically about Jesuit activities. Most Jesuit colleges and universities have their own presses which produce a variety of books, book series, textbooks and academic publications as well. Ignatius Press, staffed by Jesuits, is an independent publisher of Catholic books, most of which are of the popular academic or lay-intellectual variety.

In Australia, the Jesuits produce a number of magazines, including ''Eureka Street'', ''Madonna'', ''Australian Catholics'', and ''Province Express''.

Literature and Jesuit studies

In Canada, Fr. William Lonc has produced a total of 36 English and French translations of Jesuit Canadiana (memoirs, mission diaries, Huron & Quebec Relations). The collection features the works of the following authors: Campeau, Latourelle, Côté, Cadieux, Lonc-Pearen, Cholenec, Martin, Chaumonot, Brébeuf, Lalemant, Rageneau, Biard, Le Jeune, Shanahan, Nabarra and Du Ranquet.

Jesuit buildings

Pictured here is the Sanctuary of Loyola in Azpeitia, Spain, the main Jesuit shrine in the birth place of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

Popular culture

''The Mission'' 1986 award winning film in which 18th century Spanish Jesuits try to protect a remote South American Indian tribe in danger of falling under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal.

''Black Robe'' 1991 film about a Jesuit in the 17th century Quebec and his struggles with the Algonquin tribe.

Father Kino, Padre on Horseback (or Mission to Glory: A True Story) starring Richard Egan as Eusebio Kino, was made in 1977. The movie is available in DVD format.

''The Exorcist'' Novel and film set at Georgetown University and Fordham University, two Jesuit schools, with two Jesuit priests as exorcists. The novel and screenplay were written by William Peter Blatty, a 1950 graduate of Georgetown.

''Possessed (2000 film)'' a film based on a book by Thomas B. Allen (author) concerning the same events that inspired ''The Exorcist''.

''The Sparrow'' 1996 science fiction novel about a Jesuit mission to an alien world. (See also its 1998 sequel, ''Children of God''.)

''A Case of Conscience'' 1958 science fiction novel about a Jesuit mission to an alien world.

''The Vicomte de Bragelonne'' Novel, by Alexandre Dumas, in which Aramis, once musketeer now turned Jesuit, plays a key role.

''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' 1916 novel by James Joyce in which the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus is educated at Jesuit schools Clongowes Wood College and Belvedere College while growing up in Ireland.

* Stephen Dedalus returns in Ulysses and is famously called "you fearful Jesuit" by Buck Mulligan.

''Brideshead Revisited'' in which title character Brideshead at one point expresses the desire to have become a Jesuit.

''The Magic Mountain'' 1924 novel by Thomas Mann has an intellectual Jesuit named Naphta who represents one side in the book's philosophical conflict.

''The Jesuit'' 1973 novel by John Gallahue about a Jesuit's mission to 1930s Russia.

''Angélique'' Novel series, by Sergeanne Golon, One of Angélique's brothers became an influential Jesuit. While in the later part of the series when Angélique finally reunited with her family in the New World, both she and her husband, Joffrey de Peyrac, were constantly persecuted by the manipulative and fanatical Jesuit Sébastien d'Orgeval.

''The Man In The Iron Mask'' Movie in which Jeremy Irons plays Aramis, who is the general of the Order of Jesuits in France.

''Mason & Dixon'' 1997 novel by Thomas Pynchon about the team of men who surveyed the Mason-Dixon Line, in which the Jesuits are at the center of a vast conspiracy to regain Church control of science.

"The Star" 1955 science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke about a Jesuit who discovers amongst the rubble of a dead star the archival vault of a civilization which paid the ultimate price so that a star could shine above Bethlehem. In 1956, it won a Hugo award for best short story. The New Twilight Zone 1985 episode of "The Star ," based on Clarke's short story, ended in a more upbeat fashion.

Further reading

Desideri (1932). ''An Account of Tibet: The Travels of Ippolito Desideri 1712–1727''. Ippolito Desideri. Edited by Filippo De Filippi. Introduction by C. Wessels. Reproduced by Rupa & Co, New Delhi. 2005

See also

Notes and references

External links

Catholic Church documents

Benedict XVI's Address to the Members of the Society of Jesus, 22 April 2006

Benedict XVI's Visit to the Pontifical Gregorian University, 3 November 2006

Jesuit documents

The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum of 1599

The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan, 1591–1610

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Other links

The BBC Radio 4 ''In Our Time'' programme on 18 January 2007 was devoted to the early history and educational role of the Jesuits; the programme's website offers a free podcast and 'listen again' service In Our Time website

The official recruiting website for Order of the Jesuits - orderofthejesuits.com

Category:1540 establishments Category:Religious organizations established in the 1540s Category:Counter-Reformation

als:Jesuiten ar:يسوعيون an:Companyía de Chesús az:Yezuitlər ordeni zh-min-nan:Iâ-so͘-hoē be:Езуіты be-x-old:Езуіты bcl:Heswita bg:Йезуитски орден bar:Jesuitnordn bs:Isusovci ca:Companyia de Jesús cv:Иезуитсем ceb:Kapunongan ni Jesús cs:Tovaryšstvo Ježíšovo cy:Cymdeithas yr Iesu da:Jesuiterordenen de:Jesuiten et:Jesuiidid el:Αδελφότητα του Ιησού es:Compañía de Jesús eo:Jezuitoj eu:Jesusen Konpainia fa:یسوعی‌ها fr:Compagnie de Jésus fy:Jezuïten ga:Cumann Íosa gd:Comann Iosaid gl:Compañía de Xesús ko:예수회 hy:Ճիզվիտ hr:Isusovci bpy:জেসুইটাস id:Yesuit ia:Societate de Jesus it:Compagnia di Gesù he:ישועים jv:Yesuit ka:იეზუიტთა ორდენი sw:Shirika la Yesu ht:Jezwit ku:Civata Îsewiyan ltg:Jezuiti la:Societas Iesu lv:Jezuīti lb:Jesuiten lt:Jėzuitai li:Jezuïet hu:Jézus Társasága mk:Исусовци arz:اليسوعية ms:Persatuan Jesus nl:Jezuïeten ja:イエズス会 no:Jesuittordenen oc:Companhiá de Jèsus pl:Jezuici pt:Companhia de Jesus ro:Ordinul iezuit ru:Иезуиты sc:Gesuitas sq:Jezuitët scn:Gesuiti simple:Society of Jesus sk:Spoločnosť Ježišova sl:Družba Jezusova sr:Језуити sh:Isusovci fi:Jesuiitat sv:Jesuitorden tl:Kapisanan ni Hesus ta:இயேசு சபை th:คณะแห่งพระเยซูเจ้า tr:Cizvitler uk:Товариство Ісуса vi:Dòng Tên wa:Ôre des Djezwites war:Katiringban ni Hesus zh-yue:耶穌會 zh:耶稣会

Name	Alberto Rivera
Birth date	September 19, 1935
Birth place	Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain
Death date	June 20, 1997 (aged 61)
Death place	Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Resting place	Rose Hill Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Known for	Anti-Catholic religious activist
Religion	Fundamentalist Protestant }}

Alberto Magno Romero Rivera (September 19, 1935 – June 20, 1997) was an anti-Catholic religious activist who was the source of many of fundamentalist Christian author Jack Chick's conspiracy theories about the Vatican.

Chick promised to promote Alberto's claims even after he died. Rivera claimed to have been a Jesuit before becoming a Fundamentalist Protestant, and many of the stories Chick published about Rivera involve Jesuit conspiracies.

Biography

Rivera was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain. He is most notable for his claims about his time as a Catholic priest and the inner workings of the Catholic Church. Most of these claims are fiercely disputed by the Catholic Church and others. An exposé by Gary Metz in ''Cornerstone'' magazine as well as another one in ''Christianity Today'' questioned many of Rivera's claims about his life and claimed that he was a fraud. The two conflicting versions are summarized below.

Rivera's account

According to Rivera, he was brought into a seminary in 1942 when he was 7. Two years later, as his mother was dying, she saw "ugly creatures" coming at her deathbed, and faced a "Christless eternity" because of her Catholic faith. When visiting his mother's grave, Rivera vowed to find answers to "the truth". After education at a Catholic seminary, he was sent to destroy various Protestant organizations and discredit Protestant leaders, but became disillusioned upon finding that the Vatican was behind Freemasonry and that its reverence of the Virgin Mary was contradicted by the Bible. In 1965, at an Ecumenical Conference in a Guatemalan stadium, he denounced the Catholic Church to an audience of 50,000 people. The Jesuits then sent him to a top-secret sanitorium in Spain to make him recant his faith. Here he was tortured and given drugs until he nearly died, eventually being put into an iron lung because his lungs had broken down from the abuse. Nearly at death, he asked Jesus to forgive him and was miraculously healed. A senior Jesuit attempted to persuade Rivera to return to Catholicism, but instead was himself persuaded to give Rivera the passport and papers he needed to escape Spain. Afterwards he flew to London and rescued his sister María, a nun, after she nearly died in a convent.

''Cornerstone'''s account

According to the ''Cornerstone'' exposé: Rivera had a 'history of legal entanglements' including fraud, credit card theft, and writing bad checks. Warrants had been issued for his arrest in New Jersey and Florida, and he was wanted by the Spanish police for 'swindles and cheats'; while in the USA in 1967, he claimed to be collecting money for a Spanish college, which never received this money. The details of his claims changed: In 1964 he said he had left the Catholic Church in July 1952, but he later put the date at March 20, 1967; despite this, he was still promoting Catholicism in a newspaper interview of August that same year. Although supposedly placed in the sanitorium in 1965 and held there for three months, he gave the date of his release as September 1967, leaving a period of over a year unaccounted.

The document exhibited by Rivera to prove his status as a Catholic priest was fraudulently obtained and the Catholic Church denies his claims of having been a Jesuit priest or a bishop. He had only one sister in London; she was not called Maria, was not a nun, and did not live in a convent. In an employment form dated 1963 he claimed marriage to Carmen Lydia Torres, and the couple had two children in the USA when his own account had him a celibate priest in Spain.

''Cornerstone'' also questioned Rivera's claim to various degrees, including three doctorates (Th.D., D.D., and Ph.D.), reporting that his known chronology did not allow enough time for him to have completed these degrees and that he had admitted to receiving them from a Colorado diploma mill.

Allegations against Catholicism

According to Rivera, Jesuits are responsible for the creation of communism, Islam, and Nazism, and causing the World Wars, recession, the Jonestown Massacre, and the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy (a Catholic); he further claims that the Catholic Church wants to spread homosexuality and abortion, that the Charismatic Movement is a front for the Catholic Church, that the Popes are antichrists, and that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon. He has also claimed that the Jesuits were the masterminds behind the Medieval Inquisition in the 13th century, despite the fact that the Jesuits were not established until the 1540s.

Allegations that the Church created Islam

Rivera also alleged that Muhammad was manipulated by the Catholic Church to create Islam and destroy the Jews and other groups of Christians, and that his first wife, Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, was actually a Catholic nun in an Arabian monastery who was told by a bishop to marry him and sow the seeds of what was to become Islam. Rivera also alleged that the Vatican staged an apparition at Fatima (named after Muhammed's daughter) to cozy up to Muslims. He further claims that it also staged the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II using a Muslim as the marksman "to guilt-induce the Muslim world, bringing them still closer to the Catholic faith!"

Presence in "Chick Tracts"

Six of Jack Chick's comics feature Rivera specifically: ''Alberto'', ''Double Cross'', ''The Godfathers'', ''The Force'', ''Four Horsemen'', and ''The Prophet''.

Death

According to cemetery records, Rivera is buried in Section Moore (28) L-14 #3 at Rose Hill Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

See also

New World Order (conspiracy theory)

Jesuit conspiracy theories

References

External links

"Who Was Alberto Rivera?" ("Chick Tracts: Their Origin and Refutation", part 3) from Catholic Answers

Category:1935 births Category:1997 deaths Category:People from Gran Canaria Category:Anti-Catholicism in Spain Category:Spanish emigrants to the United States Category:Spanish Protestants Category:Christianity conspiracy theorists

cs:Alberto Rivera de:Alberto Romero Rivera

David Vaughan Icke (, or IKE, born 29 April 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 in the world, he is the author of 19 books and has attracted a global following that cuts across the political spectrum. His 533-page ''The Biggest Secret'' (1999) has been called "the Rosetta Stone for conspiracy junkies."

Icke was a well-known BBC television sports presenter and spokesman for the Green Party, when in 1990 a psychic told him he was a healer who had been placed on Earth for a purpose, and that the spirit world was going to pass messages to him so he could educate others. In March 1991 he held a press conference to announce that he was a "Son of the Godhead" – a phrase he said later the media had misunderstood – and the following month told the BBC's Terry Wogan show that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He said the show changed his life, turning him from a respected household name into someone who was laughed at whenever he appeared in public.

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 combined New-Age spiritualism with a passionate denunciation of 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.

Michael Barkun has described Icke's position as "New Age conspiracism," writing that he is the most fluent of the conspiracist genre. Richard Kahn and Tyson Lewis argue that the reptilian hypothesis may simply be Swiftian satire, a way of giving ordinary people a narrative with which to question what they see around them.

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. Icke was the middle child; there was a brother seven years older, and another 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, and 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 1950s council estates the post-war Labour government built. "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 whenever he hears a knock on the door.

He was always a loner, spending hours playing with toy steam trains, 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 almost fainting 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.

Football and first marriage

position	Goalkeeper
youthyears1	1967–1971
youthclubs1	Coventry City
years1	1971–1973
clubs1	Hereford United
caps1	37
goals1	0 }}

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 he had succeeded at anything, and he came to see football as his way out of 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.

After failing his 11-plus exam in 1963, he was sent to the city's Crown Hills Secondary Modern, rather than the local grammar school, where he was given a trial for the Leicester Boys Under-Fourteen team. He decided to leave school at 15 after being talent-spotted by Coventry City, who signed him up in 1967 as their youth team's goalkeeper. He also played for Oxford United's reserve team and Northampton Town, on loan from Coventry. Rheumatoid 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. Despite often being in agony during training, he managed to play part-time for Hereford United – including in the first team when they were in the Fourth Division of the English Football League, and when they were promoted to Division Three – before the pain in his joints forced him to retire 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 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 twice a week in the evenings to play football. He and Linda were married on September 30 that year, four months after they'd met. A daughter was born in March 1975, followed by a son in December 1981, and another son in November 1992. Though the couple divorced in 2001, they remain good friends; she runs his publishing arm, David Icke Books, as well as producing some of his DVDs.

Sports presenter

The loss of his position with Hereford meant that he and his wife had to sell their home, and for several weeks they lived apart, each moving in with their parents, but 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''. He moved on to the Leicester News Agency, and through them did some programmes for BBC Radio Leicester, then worked his way up through the ''Loughborough Monitor'', the ''Leicester Mercury'', and BRMB Radio in Birmingham.

He worked for two months in Saudi Arabia in 1975, helping them run their national football team; it was intended to be a longer-term position, but he missed his wife and new daughter so much that he decided not to return after his first holiday back to the UK. He got his job back at BRMB, then applied successfully to work for ''Midlands Today'' at the BBC's Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham, and in 1981 moved on to become a sports presenter for the BBC's national programme, ''Newsnight''. The following year he achieved his ambition when offered a job co-hosting ''Grandstand'', at the time the BBC's flagship national sports programme.

He moved in 1982 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, the BBC's ''Breakfast Time'', on 17 January 1983, presenting the sports news for them until 1985. He also published his first book that year, ''It's a tough game, son!'', about how to break into football.

He continued to work for BBC Sport until 1990, often on ''Grandstand'' and snooker programmes, and also at the 1988 Summer Olympics, but despite his professional success – he was by then a household name – a career in television began to lose its appeal for him. He wrote in ''Tales from the Time Loop'' (2003) that he was beginning to find television workers insincere, shallow, and vicious, with rare exceptions. His contract with the BBC was terminated in August 1990 thanks to a political row, when he refused to pay his Community Charge, a controversial local tax introduced that year in England by Margaret Thatcher. He did end up paying it, but his 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, meeting with psychic healer

Icke had begun to flirt with fringe medicine and New Age philosophies during the 1980s, in an effort to find relief from his arthritis, and this encouraged his interest in Green politics. He wrote his second book in 1989, ''It Doesn't Have To Be Like This'', an outline of his views on the environment, and became involved with the Green Party from 1988 to 1991, rising to become one of their four Principal Speakers, a position the party had created in lieu of a leader. ''The Observer'' called him "the Greens' Tony Blair." He was regularly seen at high-profile events. He was invited in 1989 to debate animal rights during a televised debate at the Royal Institute of Great Britain, alongside Tom Regan, Mary Warnock, and Germaine Greer, and in September 1990 his name appeared on advertisements for a children's charity along with Audrey Hepburn, Woody Allen, and other celebrities.

He wrote that 1989 was a time of considerable personal despair for him, and it was during this period that he began to feel a presence around him. In March 1990 he had a sudden feeling while standing in newsagent's that a magnetic force was pulling his feet to the ground, and said he heard a voice tell him to look at a particular section of books. One of the books there was by Betty Shine, a psychic healer in Brighton. He decided to visit her to ask for help with his arthritis.

Shine told him during their third meeting that she had a message for him from Wang Yee Lee, a being who she said looked like a Chinese mandarin and had Socrates standing next to him. The message was that Icke had been sent to heal the Earth. He would become famous, but would face opposition. The spirit world was going to pass ideas to him, which he would speak about to others, sometimes not understanding the words himself. She said he would write five books in three years; that in 20 years there would be a different kind of flying machine, where we could go wherever we wanted and time would have no meaning; and there would be earthquakes in unusual places, because the inner earth was being destabilized by having oil taken from the seabed.

As part of the process of making sense of this, he decided in February 1991 to visit the pre-Inca Sillustani burial ground near Puno, Peru, and while there 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 again felt his feet pulled to the earth as if by a magnet, and an urge to outstretch his arms. His feet started vibrating, and his head felt as though a drill was passing through it. Two thoughts entered his mind: 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. 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'', which was published in May that year. At a Green Party conference in Wolverhampton on 20 March 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 was what Icke calls his "turquoise period." He writes that he had been channelling for some time, and had received a message through automatic writing that he was a "Son of the Godhead," interpreting "Godhead" as the "Infinite Mind." He now began to wear only turquoise, which he saw as a conduit for positive energy. He had met Deborah Shaw, an English psychic living in Calgary, Alberta, in August 1990, and after he returned from Peru, they began a relationship, which led to the birth of a daughter in December 1991. At one point, Shaw moved in with him and his wife. Shaw changed her name to Mari Shawsun, while Icke's wife became known as Michaela, which she said was an aspect of the Archangel Michael. They became known in the press as the "turquoise triangle."

In March 1991, a week after he resigned from the Green Party – and shortly after his father died – the three of them held a press conference to announce that Icke was a son of the Godhead. He said the world would end in 1997, preceded by a number of disasters, including 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. He told reporters the information was being given to them by voices and automatic writing.

He wrote in 1993 that he had felt out of control during the press conference. He heard his voice predict the end of the world, and was appalled. "I was speaking the words, but all the time I could hear the voice of the brakes in the background saying, 'David, what the hell are you saying?'" His predictions were splashed all over the next day's front pages, to his great dismay.

Terry Wogan interview

The headlines attracted an invitation to appear on the BBC's prime-time Terry Wogan show, Wogan, on 29 April 1991. When asked if he was claiming to be the son of God, he did not disagree, and amid laughter from the studio audience, he repeated that Britain would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He also talked about politics and the environment:

When you survey the world today ... when a child dies in this world of preventable disease every two seconds, when the economic system of this world must destroy the Earth simply for that system to survive; when you see all the wars, and when you see all the pain, and when you see all the suffering, is it a force of love and wisdom and tolerance that is in control of this planet?

The interview proved devastating for him. The BBC was criticized for allowing it to go ahead, Des Christy in ''The Guardian'' calling it a "media crucifixion." Wogan interviewed Icke again in 2006, acknowledging that his comments during the first interview had been "a bit sharp." Icke disappeared from public life for a time, unable to walk down the street without people 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. He told Jon Ronson in 2001:

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.

Writing and lecturing

Icke said the interview had been the making of him in the end, that the laughter had set him free. He wrote that every bridge back to his past was ablaze, giving him the courage to develop his ideas without caring what anyone thought of him. He continued to write, turning himself into a prolific and popular author and speaker, and in 1995 set up his own publisher, Bridge of Love Publications, later called David Icke Books. He met his second wife, Pamela Leigh Richards, in Jamaica in 1997. He and Linda divorced in 2001, though they remain the best of friends, and she is involved in the management of his publishing business. He and Pamela married in 2001 and separated in 2008.

Lewis and Kahn write that Icke has produced a consolidation of all conspiracy theories into one project with unlimited explanatory power, his work cutting across class lines and political divisions. By 2006 he had lectured in 25 countries, his lectures were attracting audiences of several thousand, his books had been translated into eight languages, and his website was getting 600,000 hits a week. ''The Biggest Secret'' went through six reprintings between 1999 and 2006, and ''Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster'' (2002) became a top-five seller in South Africa.

He has become known in particular for his lengthy lectures, sometimes speaking for up to eight hours, then selling DVDs of the talks produced by his ex-wife, Linda Atherton. In February 2008 he was invited to address the Oxford Union, the University of Oxford's debating society. His book tour for ''Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More'' (2010) encompassed lectures in Australia, Croatia, the Netherlands, and the United States, and ends in October 2012 with a talk at London's Wembley Arena, tickets ranging from ₤35 to ₤55. During the tour, he received a standing ovation in November 2011 in New York after an eight-hour lecture to a 2,000-strong crowd at the Nokia Theater in Times Square.

He stood for parliament in the UK in July 2008 as "Big Brother—The Big Picture" in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, coming 12th with 110 votes and losing his deposit. He explained that he stood because, "if we don't face this now we are going to have some serious explaining to do when we are asked by our children and grandchildren what we were doing when the global fascist state was installed. 'I was watching ''EastEnders'', dear' will not be good enough."

Key ideas

Icke combines metaphysical discussion about the nature of the universe and consciousness with conspiracy theories about public figures being satanic paedophiles, and how apparently random events are attempts to control humanity. He argued in ''The Biggest Secret'' that human beings originated in a breeding program run by a race of reptilians called Anunnaki from the Draco constellation, and that what we call reality is just a 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 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 Brotherhood is mostly male. Their children are raised from an early age to understand the mission; those who fail to understand it are pushed aside. The spread of the reptilian bloodline encompasses what Norman Simms calls the odd and ill-matched, extending to 43 American presidents, three British and two Canadian prime ministers, various Sumerian kings and Egyptian pharaohs, and a smattering of celebrities such as Bob Hope. Key Brotherhood bloodlines are the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, various European royal and aristocratic families, the establishment families of the Eastern United States, and the British House of Windsor—Icke identified the Queen Mother in 2001 as "seriously reptilian."

The Illuminati, Round Table, Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations, are all Brotherhood created and controlled, as are the media, military, CIA, Mossad, science, religion, and the Internet, with witting or unwitting support from the London School of Economics. 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"—is world domination and a micro-chipped population.

Reptoid hypothesis

Icke introduced the reptoid hypothesis in ''The Biggest Secret'' (1999), which identified the Brotherhood as descendents of reptilians from the constellation Draco, who walk on two legs and appear human, and who live in tunnels and caverns inside the earth. He argues that the reptilians are the race of gods known as the Anunnaki in the Babylonian creation myth, ''Enûma Eliš''. According to Barkun, Icke's idea of "inner-earth reptilians" is not new, though he has done more than most to expand it.

Lewis and Kahn write that Icke has taken his "ancient astronaut" narrative from the Israeli-American writer, Zecharia Sitchin, who argued—for example in ''Divine Encounters'' (1995)—that the Anunnaki had come to Earth for its precious metals. Icke argues that they came specifically for "monoatomic gold," a mineral he says can increase the carrying capacity of the nervous system ten thousandfold. After ingesting it, the reptilians can 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. "Thus we have the encouragement of wars," he wrote in 1999, "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." Lewis and Kahn argue that Icke is using allegory to depict the alien, and alienating, nature of global capitalism.

Icke writes that the Anunnaki have crossbred with human beings, the breeding lines chosen for political reasons, arguing that 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 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, he writes. They have a 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'' (2001), he added that the Anunnaki bred with another extraterrestrial race called the "Nordics," who had 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 fascism, 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.

Dimensions

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 that share the same space, just like television and radio frequencies. 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 argued 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.

Problem-reaction-solution

In ''Tales From The Time Loop'' (2003), Icke argues that most organized religions, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are Illuminati creations designed to divide and conquer the human race through endless conflicts, as are racial, ethnic, and sexual divisions. He cites the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 as examples of events organized by the Global Elite. 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". He writes that there are few, if any, public events that are not engineered, or at least used, by the Brotherhood:

You want to introduce something you know the people won't like. ... So you first create a PROBLEM, a rising crime rate, more violence, a terrorist bomb ... You make sure someone else is blamed for this problem ... So you create a "patsy," as they call them in America, a Timothy McVeigh or a Lee Harvey Oswald. ... This brings us to stage two, the REACTION from the people—"This can't go on; what are THEY going to do about it?" ... This allows THEM to then openly offer the SOLUTION to the problems they have created ..."

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." They lack consciousness and free will, and 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.

Moon Matrix

The Moon Matrix is introduced in ''Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More'' (2010), in which he writes that the Earth and the collective human mind are manipulated from the Moon, a spacecraft and inter-dimensional, inter-density portal controlled by the reptilians. The Moon Matrix is a broadcast from that spacecraft to the "human body-computer," specifically to the left hemisphere of the brain, which gives us our sense of reality. He writes: "We are living in a dreamworld within a dreamworld—a Matrix within the virtual-reality universe—and it is being broadcast from the Moon." Unless people force themselves to become fully conscious, their minds are the Moon's mind, an idea further explored in his ''Remember Who You Are: Remember 'Where' You Are and Where You 'Come' From'' (2012).

Reception

Protests

In ''The Robots' Rebellion'' (1994), Icke introduced the idea that the Global Elite's plan for world domination was 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. According to Mark Honigsbaum, Icke refers to it 25 times in the ''Robot's Rebellion'', calling it the "Illuminati protocols."

The ''Protocols'' portrays the Jewish people as "cackling villains from a Saturday matinee," as Jon Ronson put it in his documentary about Icke, ''David Icke, the Lizards and the Jews'' (2001). It was published in English in 1920 by ''The Dearborn Independent'', Henry Ford's newspaper, becoming mixed up with conspiracy theories about anti-Christian Illuminati, international financiers, and the Rothschilds, a Jewish banking dynasty. After it was exposed that year as a hoax by ''The Times'' of London, Michael Barkun writes that it disappeared from mainstream discourse until interest in it was renewed by the American far right in the 1950s. Barkun argues that Icke's reference to it is the first of a number of instances of him moving dangerously close to antisemitism.

Icke's use of the ''Protocols'' was greeted with dismay by the Green Party's executive. They had allowed him to address the party's annual conference in 1992, despite the controversy over his Wogan interview, but in September 1994 decided to deny him a platform. Icke wrote to ''The Guardian'' protesting against the decision, denying that ''The Robots' Rebellion'' was antisemitic, and rejecting racism, sexism and prejudice of any kind, but in the same letter insisted that whoever wrote the ''Protocols'' "knew the game plan" for the 20th century. Barkun argues that Icke was trying to have it both ways, offended by the allegation of antisemitism while "hinting at the dark activities of Jewish elites."

Alick Bartholomew of Gateway, Icke's former publisher, said that an early draft of ''And the Truth Shall Set You Free'' (1995) contained material questioning the Holocaust, and that Icke was dropped because of it. Sam Taylor wrote in ''The Observer'' in 1997 that, having read the material, he did not believe it was antisemitic, but argued that Icke was "tapping into a seriously paranoid, aggressive strain in U.S. society." Louis Theroux cautioned in 2001 that it might not only be unfair to Icke to allege that he is associating Jews with the Global Elite, but it also lends a seriousness to ideas that would otherwise not deserve it. Icke said it was "friggin' nonsense" that his reptiles represented Jews. "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 was briefly detained by immigration officials when he entered Canada in 2000, after his name was added to a watch list because of complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress. His books were removed from Indigo Books, a Canadian chain, and several stops on his speaking tour were cancelled, as was a lecture in October 2000 at Blackheath Concert Halls in London, for the same reason. Human rights lawyer Richard Warman, working at the time for the Canadian Green Party, took credit for much of this in Jon Ronson's documentary about Icke, which catalogued some of the cancelled appearances.

Academic views

Michael Barkun sees Icke as a professional conspiracy theorist of the Alex Jones variety, and the most fluent of the genre. He 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, Barkun writes, every source can be mined for links. The greater the stigma attached to an idea, the more attractive it becomes, and the vehemence with which the mainstream rejects an idea is almost a measure of its validity. For Icke, 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 he has nevertheless 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 differently, more as a spiritual philosopher, arguing that it's not clear he believes in the reptilians himself. They write that there is an almost obsessive-compulsive element to his writing, which includes anything he can find to support a narrative that connects ancient Sumer to modern America, in a way that "defies the laws of academic gravity," and which they say offers unlimited explanatory power. They argue that the lizards may be allegorical, a Swiftian satire intended to alert people to the emergence of a global fascist state. In ''Children of the Matrix'', Icke writes 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."

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 progressive, critical paranoia that confronts power. They argue that Icke displays elements of both, writing that what they call his "postmodern metanarrative" may be a way of giving ordinary people a narrative structure within which to question what they see around them.

Works

;Books

''It's a Tough Game, Son!''. Piccolo Books, 1983. ISBN 0-330-28047-3

''It Doesn't Have To Be Like This: Green Politics Explained''. Green Print, 1989. ISBN 1-85425-033-7

''Truth Vibrations''. Gateway, 1991, 1994. ISBN 1-85860-006-5

''Love Changes Everything''. Harper Collins Publishers, 1992. ISBN 1-85538-247-4

''In the Light of Experience: The Autobiography of David Icke''. Time Warner Books, 1993. ISBN 0-7515-0603-6

''Days of Decision''. Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1993. ISBN 1-897766-01-7

''The Robot's Rebellion''. Gateway, 1994. ISBN 1-85860-022-7

''Heal the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Personal and Planetary Transformation''. Gateway, 1994. ISBN 1-85860-005-7

''...And the Truth Shall Set You Free''. Bridge of Love Publications, 1995. ISBN 0-9538810-5-9

''I Am Me, I Am Free: The Robot's Guide to Freedom''. Truth Seeker, 1996, 1998. ISBN 0-9526147-5-8

''Lifting the Veil: David Icke interviewed by Jon Rappoport''. Truth Seeker, 1998. ISBN 0-939040-05-0

''The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World''. Bridge of Love Publications, 1999. ISBN 0-9526147-6-6

''Children of the Matrix''. Bridge of Love Publications, 2001. ISBN 0-9538810-1-6

''Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster''. Bridge of Love Publications, 2002. ISBN 0-9538810-2-4

''Tales from the Time Loop''. Bridge of Love Publications, 2003. ISBN 0-9538810-4-0

''Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion''. Bridge of Love Publications, 2005. ISBN 0-9538810-6-7

''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

''Remember Who You Are: Remember 'Where' You Are and Where You 'Come' From''. David Icke Books Ltd, 2012. ISBN 095599733X

;Video

''David Icke: Turning of the Tide'' (1996)

''The Reptilian Agenda'' (1999)

''David Icke: Revelations of a Mother Goddess'' (1999)

''David Icke: The Freedom Road'' (2003)

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

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

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

''David Icke: Big Brother, the Big Picture'', (2008), free videorecorded for the Haltemprice and Howden by-election.

''Beyond The Cutting Edge'' (2008)

''David Icke Live at the Oxford Union Debating Society (2008)

''The Lion Sleeps No more'' (2010)

''Secret Space''

''Secret Space 2''

See also

Erich von Däniken

Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa

Zecharia Sitchin

Notes

References

:;Books :Barkun, Michael. ''A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America''. University of California, 2003. :Barkun, Michael. ''Chasing Phantoms: Reality, Imagination, and Homeland Security Since 9/11''. The University of North Carolina Press, 2011. :Kay, Jonathan. ''Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground''. HarperCollins, 2011. :Lewis, Tyson E., and Kahn, Richard. "The Tail Behind the Tale: Toward a Reptoid History," ''Education Out of Bounds: Reimagining Cultural Studies for a Posthuman Age''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

:;Video :Channel 5 Television. David Icke: Was He Right?, December 12, 2006. :Ronson, Jon. "David Icke, the Lizards, and the Jews", Channel 4 Television, UK, 6 May 2001. :Wogan, Terry. David Icke interviewed by Terry Wogan, BBC, April 1991 and again in 2006.

:;Papers :Lewis, Tyson and Kahn, Richard. "The Reptoid Hypothesis: Utopian and Dystopian Representational Motifs in David Icke's Alien Conspiracy Theory", ''Utopian Studies'', Vol. 16, 2005, accessed 13 April 2012 (courtesy link). :Simms, Norman. "Anti-Semitism: A Psychopathological Disease" in Piven, Jerry S.; Boyd, Chris; and Lawton, Henry W. (eds). ''Judaism and Genocide: Psychological Undercurrents of History, Volume 4''. Writers Club Press, 2002.

:;News and other articles :Chaudhary, Vivek. "Greens see red at 'Son of God's anti-Semitism'," ''The Guardian'', 12 September 1994. :Christy, Des. "Crucifixion, courtesy of the BBC," ''The Guardian'', 6 May 1991. :Clarke, Natalie. "Divorced from reality", ''The Daily Mail'', 7 January 2012. :Cowley, Jason. "The Icke Files", ''The Independent on Sunday'', 1 October 2000. :Evans, Paul. Interview: David Icke, ''New Statesman'', 3 March 2008. :Ezard, John. "'Son and daughter of God' predict apocalypse is nigh," ''The Guardian'', 28 March 1991. :Gillis, Charlie. "Righteous Crusader or Civil Rights Menace?", ''Macleans'', 9 April 2008. :Goodwin, Stephen. "Icke factor could thwart Greens' serious message", ''The Independent'', 29 September 1994. :Greenslade, Nick. "The ten worst sportsmen in politics", ''The Observer'', 5 September 2004. :Grossman, Wendy. "Green Party Cofounder Icke Goes New Age", ''Skeptical Inquirer'', 1 January 1991. :Honigsbaum, Mark. "The Dark Side of David Icke", ''London Evening Standard'', May 26, 1995. :Jabbari, Dorsa. "U of T provides accused anti-Semite with mike", ''Varsity News'', 12 October 1999. :Leonard, Tom. "The second coming of David Icke", ''The Daily Mail'', 28 November 2011. :Kennedy, Maev. "Icke resigns Green Speaker and parliamentary roles," ''The Guardian'', 20 March 1991. :Kraft, Frances. "New Age speaker set to talk in Toronto", ''The Canadian Jewish News'', 7 October 1999. :Marre, Oliver. "Pendennis", ''The Observer'', 20 January 2008. :Mitchell, Ben. "This much I know", interview with David Icke, ''The Observer'', 22 January 2006. :Naughton, Philippe. "Reptilians beware - David Icke is back!", ''The Times'', 27 June 2008. :Offley, Will (2000a). "Selected Quotes Of David Icke", Political Research Associates, February 23, 2000. :Offley, Will (2000b). "David Icke And The Politics Of Madness: Where The New Age Meets The Third Reich", Political Research Associates, 29 February 2000. :Ronson, Jon. "Beset by lizards, part 1", part 2, extracts from Ronson's book, ''Them: Adventures with Extremists'', ''The Guardian'', 17 March 2011. :Taylor, Sam. "So I was in this bar with the son of God ...," ''The Observer'', 20 April 1997. :Theroux, Louis. "Stranger than fiction: Are 12ft lizards running the world?", ''The Guardian'', 7 April 2001. :Whitney, Nicole (undated). "Interview with David Icke", ''News for the Soul'', 2004, accessed 12 December 2010. :''The Guardian''. "Protester David Icke finally pays community charge," 14 November 1990. :''The Independent''. "Greens bar Icke", 12 September 1994. :''The Observer''. "The 10 worst decisions in the history of sport, 12 January 2003. :United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Protocols of the Elders of Zion, accessed 12 December 2010.

:;Icke's books and other material :Icke, David. ''It's a tough game, son!''. Piccolo Books, 1983. :Icke, David. "Does the Animal Kingdom need a Bill of Rights?", Royal Institute of Great Britain, 1989, ''YouTube'', accessed 12 December 2010. :Icke, David. ''In the Light of Experience'', Warner Books, 1993. :Icke, David. ''Days of Decision''. Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1993. :Icke, David. "Down but speaking out among the Greens," letters to the editor, ''The Guardian'', 14 September 1994. :Icke, David. ''And the Truth Shall Set You Free''. David Icke Books, 1995. :Icke, David. ''The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World''. David Icke Books, 1999. :Icke, David. ''Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster'', Bridge of Love Publications, 2002. :Icke, David. ''Tales from the Time Loop''. David Icke Books, 2003. :Icke, David. ''Infinite Love is the Only Truth''. Bridge of Love Publications, 2005. :Icke, David. ''The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy''. David Icke Books, 2007. :Icke, David. ''Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More''. David Icke Books, 2010. :Icke, David (undated). "Problem-reaction-solution", ''News for the Soul'', accessed 12 December 2010. :Icke, David (undated). David Icke part 1, part 2, Davidicke.com, accessed 12 December 2010. :Icke, David (undated). "Was Hitler a Rothschild?", DavidIcke.com, accessed 12 December 2010.

Further reading

DavidIcke.com.

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

Kay, Jonathan. "When paranoia goes intergalactic", ''The National Post'', 12 May 2011.

Shermer, Michael. "Illuminati, The New World Order & Paranoid Conspiracy Theorists (PCTs)", ''The Skeptic's Dictionary'', 2006.

Shermer, Michael. ''Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time''. Mjf Books, 1997.

;Audio/video

Britton, Fern. Interview with David Icke, 1/3, 2/3, 3/3, BBC's Coast to Coast People, 1991.

Icke, David. Presenting snooker, BBC, 1980s.

Icke, David. "Does the Animal Kingdom need a Bill of Rights?", Royal Institute of Great Britain, ''Arena'', BBC 2, 1989.

Icke, David. "Live at the Oxford Union", February 2008.

Icke, David. "Still crazy after all these years", from ''The Lion Sleeps No More'' DVD, 2010.

Kent, Arthur. "Secret Societies", interview with David Icke, History Channel, 2001.

Maher, Bill. Interview with David Icke, ''Religulous'', 2008.

Category:1952 births Category:Anti-globalist activists Category:Association football goalkeepers Category:British sports broadcasters Category:British television presenters Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:Coventry City F.C. players Category:English footballers Category:English occult writers Category:English political writers Category:Environmental skepticism Category:Fringe theory Category:Green Party politicians (UK) Category:Hereford United F.C. players Category:Living people Category:People from Leicester Category:People from Ryde Category:Pseudohistorians Category:Psychedelic drug advocates Category:Religious skeptics Category:The Football League players Category:UFO conspiracy theorists

bg:Дейвид Айк ca:David Icke de:David Icke et:David Icke es:David Icke eo:David Icke fr:David Icke hr:David Icke it:David Icke nl:David Icke ja:デイビッド・アイク no:David Icke pl:David Icke pt:David Icke ro:David Icke ru:Айк, Дэвид sr:Дејвид Ајк fi:David Icke sv:David Icke uk:Девід Айк vo:David Icke