{| align="right" | __TOC__ |} False consciousness is the Marxist thesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society are misleading to the proletariat, and to other classes. These processes betray the true relations of forces between those classes, and the real state of affairs regarding the development of pre-socialist society (relative to the secular development of human society in general).

In Marxist theory, false consciousness is essentially a result of ideological control which the proletariat either do not know they are under or which they disregard with a view to their own POUM (probability/possibility of upward mobility). POUM or something like it is required in economics with its presumption of rational agency; otherwise wage laborers would be the conscious supporters of social relations antithetical to their own interests, violating that presumption.

Theory

The concept flows from the theory of commodity fetishism — that people experience social relationships as value relations between things, e.g., between the cash in their wage packet and the shirts they want. The cash and the shirt appear to conduct social relations independently of the humans involved, determining who gets what by their inherent values. This leaves the person who earned the cash and the people who made the shirt ignorant of and alienated from their social relationship with each other. So the individual "resolves" the experiences of alienation and oppression through a false conception based on a "natural law" argument that there is a fundamental need to compete with others for commodities.

In Marxist terms, not only is there no such objective need separate from the formulation of the general problem of production and distribution for a given society, moreover, Marx said each-against-all competition is antithetical to the very concept of society, and therefore sets up a contradiction or historical dynamic which over time is resolved in favour of the class with the greatest ability to act in its own rational self interest. Ruling elites, traditional or otherwise, suffer from false consciousness to the extent that they see the social orders they command as predetermined or inevitable.

Engels

Although Marx frequently denounced ideology in general, there is no evidence that he ever actually used the phrase "false consciousness." It appears to have been used — at least in print — only by Friedrich Engels

Engels wrote :

Here Engels expresses semantic baggage associated with the term ''Ideology'', i.e. that it implies a lack of objectivity, which the term had at the time of its introduction from German (due in no small part to a reaction to Hegelianism). This has somewhat substantially been lost over the nearly two centuries since then as ''Ideology'' has come to be equated with ''World View'' or ''Philosophy''. False consciousness is theoretically linked with the concepts of the dominant ideology and cultural hegemony. The idea of false consciousness has also been used by Marxist feminists and radical feminists in regard to women's studies.

See also

{| |

Class consciousness

Character mask

Consciousness raising

Critical Ethnography

|

Introspection illusion

Political consciousness

Subconscious (the primary quote and Freud's work were contemporary).

System justification

|}

Notes

External links

''Ideology and False Consciousness'' Joseph McCarney

Category:Marxist theory

ast:Falsa conciencia es:Falsa conciencia he:תודעה כוזבת ru:Ложное сознание fi:Väärä tietoisuus sv:Falskt medvetande tr:Yanlış bilinç

Coordinates	52°21′28″N14°57′15″N
name	Robert Kramer
birth date	June 22, 1939
birth place	New York City, New York
death date	November 10, 1999
death place	Haute-Normandie, France
occupation	Film directorScreenwriterActor
yearsactive	1965 – 1999 }}

Robert Kramer (22 June 1939 – 10 November 1999) was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He directed 19 films between 1965 and 1999. His film ''À toute allure'' was entered into the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.

Filmography

''FALN'' (1965)

''In the Country'' (1967)

''The Edge'' (1968)

''The People's War'' (1970)

''Ice'' (1970)

''Milestones'' (1975)

''Scenes from the Class Struggle in Portugal'' (1977)

''Guns'' (1980)

''À toute allure'' (1982)

''Notre nazi'' (1985)

''Diesel'' (1985)

''Doc's Kingdom'' (1987)

''Route One USA'' (1989)

''Contre l'oubli'' (1991)

''Starting Place/Point de départ'' (1994)

''Le manteau'' (1996)

''Walk the Walk'' (1996)

''The Ghosts of Electricity'' (1997)

''Cités de la plaine'' (2001)

References

External links

''New York Times'' obituary.

''The Guardian'' obituary.

Brief bio and filmography at Harvard Film Archive.

Category:1939 births Category:1999 deaths Category:American film directors Category:American screenwriters Category:American film actors Category:Deaths from meningitis Category:People from New York

de:Robert Kramer fr:Robert Kramer ja:ロバート・クレイマー

David Vaughan Icke (born April 29, 1952) is an English writer and public speaker, best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world." Describing himself as the most controversial speaker in the world, he has written 18 books explaining his position, and has attracted a substantial following across the political spectrum. His 533-page ''The Biggest Secret'' (1999) has been called the conspiracy theorist's Rosetta Stone.

Icke was a well-known BBC television sports presenter and spokesman for the Green Party, when in 1990 he had an encounter with a psychic who told him he was a healer placed on Earth for a purpose. In April 1991 he said on the BBC's Terry Wogan show that he was a son of the godhead—though he said later he had been misinterpreted—and predicted 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 the world is becoming a global fascist state, 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 when he hears a knock on the door.

He was always a loner, spending hours playing alone 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 feeling faint during the morning assembly and having to leave before he passed out. The family doctor suggested a referral to a child psychologist, but his father put his foot down. He made no effort at school and failed at practically everything, but when he was nine, he was chosen for the junior school's football team. It was the first time 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.

Football and first marriage

He failed his 11-plus and in 1963 was sent to the city's Crown Hills Secondary Modern. He left at 15 after being talent-spotted, and was signed up as a goalkeeper for Coventry City. Arthritis in his left knee—which later spread to the right knee, ankles, elbows, wrists, and hands—stopped him from making a career out of football, but he managed to play for Coventry and Hereford United, before retiring 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 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.

Sports presenter

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 writes that he got the job because he was the only applicant. He advanced through local radio to television, and became a regional sports presenter for the BBC's ''South Today'' in 1982. He moved that year to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, somewhere he had always wanted to live. He appeared on the first edition of British television's first national breakfast show, ''Breakfast Time'', on January 17, 1983, presenting the sports news for them until 1985. He published his first book in 1983, ''It's a tough game, son!'', about how to break into football.

He worked for BBC Sport until August 1990, often as a stand-in host on ''Grandstand'' and snooker programmes, and also at the 1988 Summer Olympics, but a career in television began to lose its appeal for him. He wrote in ''Tales from the Time Loop'' that he found television workers insincere, shallow, and vicious, with rare exceptions. His contract with the BBC was terminated in 1990 when he refused to pay his poll tax, a controversial local tax introduced by Margaret Thatcher. He ended up paying it in November 1990, 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

During the 1980s, he began to flirt with fringe medicine and New Age philosophies in an effort to find relief from his arthritis. 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 national Speakers, a position the party had created in lieu of a leader. ''The Observer'' called him "the Greens' Tony Blair." His name regularly appeared at high-profile events. He was invited in 1989 to debate animal rights 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.

In 1989 he began to feel a presence around him; he wrote that it was a time of considerable personal despair for him, though he gave no details. In March 1990, he had an experience in a newsagent's that felt as though a magnetic force was pulling his feet to the ground, and he heard a voice tell him to look at a particular section of books. One of the books was by Betty Shine, a psychic healer in Brighton. He decided to visit her to ask for help with his arthritis. She told him she had a message for him, and said he 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.

In February 1991, he visited the pre-Inca Sillustani burial ground near Puno , Peru. He writes that he felt drawn to a large mound of earth, at the top of which lay a circle of waist-high stones. As he stood in the circle, he 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'', published in May that year. At a Green Party conference in Wolverhampton on March 20, 1991, before the book appeared, he resigned from the party, telling them he was about to be at the centre of "tremendous and increasing controversy," and winning a standing ovation from them after the announcement.

Turquoise period

What followed became what Icke calls his "turquoise period." He began to wear only turquoise because, he explained, it is a conduit of positive energy. He had met Deborah Shaw, an English psychic living in Calgary, Alberta, in August 1990, and after he returned from Peru, he began an adulterous relationship with her, which led to the birth of an illegitimate daughter in December 1991. At one point, Shaw moved in with him and his legal wife. As polygamists, Icke's mistress, Shaw, changed her name to Mari Shawsun, while Icke's legal wife became known as Michaela, supposedly an aspect of the Archangel Michael, and they became known in the press as the "turquoise triangle."

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

Terry Wogan interview

The headlines attracted an invitation from the BBC's prime-time Terry Wogan show on April 29, 1991. He implied during the interview, amid laughter from the studio audience, that he was "the son of God," and said Britain would be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He later said he had used the term "the son of God" to mean an aspect of the infinite consciousness. He also talked about politics, energy and the environment: "[W]hen 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 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. Icke 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. In 1995 he established his own publisher, Bridge of Love Publications, now called David Icke Books. As of 2006, he had lectured in 25 countries—sometimes speaking for six hours at a time—his lectures were attracting thousands, 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. In 2008 he was invited to address the Oxford Union, the University of Oxford's debating society.

Lewis and Kahn write that he has produced a consolidation of all conspiracy theories into a massive project with unlimited explanatory power, his work cutting across political, religious, and socio-economic divisions, uniting the right and left. They write that his lectures might see neo-Nazis and Christian Patriots sitting next to 60-something UFO buffs and New Age earth goddesses.

He stood for parliament in the UK as an independent in the July 2008 Haltemprice and Howden by-election, after initially announcing he would stand as "Big Brother—The Big Picture". He came 12th in the polling with 110 votes and lost 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 Illuminati, Round Table, Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the International Monetary Fund, United Nations, the media, military, science, religion, and the Internet are all Brotherhood created and controlled. The Brotherhood is mostly male. Their children are raised from an early age to understand the mission; those who don't are pushed aside. Key Brotherhood bloodlines are the British House of Windsor, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, European royalty and aristocracy, and the Eastern establishment families of the United States. At the apex of the Brotherhood stands the "Global Elite," identified throughout history as the Illuminati, and at the top of the Global Elite stand the "Prison Wardens." The goal of the Brotherhood—their "Great Work of Ages"—is world domination and a micro-chipped population.

Reptilians and shape-shifting

In ''The Biggest Secret'' (1999), Icke introduced the reptoid hypothesis. He identified the Brotherhood as originating from reptilians from the constellation Draco, who walk on two legs and appear human, and who live in tunnels and caverns inside the earth. They are the race of gods known as the Anunnaki in the Babylonian creation myth, ''Enûma Eliš'' who share almost identical parallels across the ancient world cultures. Lewis and Kahn write that Icke has taken his "ancient astronaut" narrative from the Jewish Azeri-American writer, Zecharia Sitchin. Icke's idea of "inner-earth reptilians" is also not new, though Barkun writes that Icke has done more than most to expand it.

Lewis and Kahn write that Sitchin argued—for example in ''Divine Encounters'' (1995)—that the Anunnaki came to Earth for its precious metals. Icke says they came specifically for "monoatomic gold," a mineral he says can increase the carrying capacity of the nervous system ten thousandfold. After ingesting it, they 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."

He writes that the Anunnaki have crossbred with human beings, the breeding lines chosen for political reasons. Icke argued 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 around 30,000 years ago, and a third 7,000 years ago. It is the half-bloods of the third breeding program who today control the world, more Anunnaki than human, he argued. 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. For Icke, Sumerian Kings and Egyptian pharaohs have all been Aryan reptilian humanoids, as have 43 American presidents and the Queen Mother, who he wrote in 2001 was "seriously reptilian." All have taken part in Satanic rituals, paedophilia, kidnapping of children, drug parties and murder, needed to satisfy their reptilian blood lust, which allows them to retain their temporary human form.

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 of life that share the same space, 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 and not you, the real people behind it all. 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," without consciousness, without free will. Their human bodies are holographic veils. A second group, the so-called "sheeple"—the vast majority of humanity—have what Icke calls "back seat consciousness." They are conscious, but they do whatever they are told and are the main source of energy for the Brotherhood. They include the "repeaters," the people in positions of influence who simply repeat what other people have told them. Doctors repeat what they are told in medical school and by drug companies, teachers repeat what they learned at teacher training college, and journalists are the greatest repeaters of all. The third group, by far the smallest, are those who see through the illusion; they are people like Neo from the film, ''The Matrix''. They are usually dubbed dangerous or mad. The "Red Dress" genetic lines keep obsessively interbreeding to make sure their bloodlines are not weakened by the second or third levels of consciousness, because consciousness can rewrite the software.

The Moon Matrix

Icke wrote in 2010 that the Earth and what he calls the collective human mind are manipulated from the Moon, which is actually a spacecraft controlled by the reptilians. The "Moon Matrix" is a broadcast from that spacecraft that gives us our sense of reality.

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. The ''Protocols'' is the most influential piece of antisemitic material of modern times, portraying the Jewish people as cackling villains from a Saturday matinee, as Jon Ronson 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 as a hoax, Michael Barkun of Syracuse University writes that it disappeared from mainstream discourse until interest in it was renewed by the American far right in the 1950s. According to Mark Honigsbaum, Icke refers to it 25 times in the ''Robot's Rebellion'', calling it the "Illuminati protocols." Barkun writes that this is the first of a number of examples of Icke moving dangerously close to antisemitism.

Louis Theroux cautioned that it might not only be unfair to Icke to allege that he is associating Jews with the Global Elite, but might also lend what Theroux called a patina of seriousness to his ideas. 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'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 the decision, denying ''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."

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, and several stops on his speaking tour were cancelled. Human rights lawyer Richard Warman, working at the time for the Canadian Green Party, took credit for much of this in Jon Ronson's documentary about Icke, which catalogued the cancelled appearances.

Academic reception

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 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." They argue that the lizards may be allegorical, a Swiftian satire describing the emergence of a global fascist state. In ''Children of the Matrix'', Icke writes that, that if the reptilians did not exist, we would have to invent them. "In fact," he says, "we probably have. They are other levels of ourselves putting ourselves in our face." 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 0330280473

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

''Truth Vibrations''. Gateway, 1991, 1994. ISBN 1858600065

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;DVDs and videos

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

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

''The Reptilian Agenda'' (1999) (DVD)

''David Icke: Revelations of a Mother Goddess''

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

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

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

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

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

''Beyond The Cutting Edge'' (2008) (DVD)

''David Icke Live at the Oxford Union Debating Society

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

''Secret Space

''Secret Space 2

See also

Erich von Däniken

Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa

Notes

References

David Icke's website

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.

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

Chaudhary, Vivek. "Greens see red at 'Son of God's anti-Semitism'," ''The Guardian'', September 12, 1994.

Christy, Des. "Crucifixion, courtesy of the BBC," ''The Guardian'', May 6, 1991.

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

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

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

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

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

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 December 12, 2010.

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

Icke, David. ''Days of Decision''. Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1993.

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

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

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

Jabbari, Dorsa. "U of T provides accused anti-Semite with mike", ''Varsity News'', October 12, 1999, accessed December 12, 2010.

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

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

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 December 12, 2010.

Marre, Oliver. "Pendennis", ''The Observer'', January 20, 2008.

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

Naughton, Philippe. "Reptilians beware - David Icke is back!", ''The Times'', June 27, 2008.

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

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

Ronson, Jon. "Beset by lizards, part 1", part 2, extracts from Ronson's book, ''Them: Adventures with Extremists'', ''The Guardian'', March 17, 2011.

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

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

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

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

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

''The Guardian''. "Protester David Icke finally pays community charge," November 14, 1990.

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

Further reading

DavidIcke.com, accessed December 12, 2010.

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

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

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

Kay, Jonathan. ''Among the Truthers''. Harper, 2011.

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

;Audio/video

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

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

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

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

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

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