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Upper Paleolithic, Venus von Willendorf, estimated to have been carved 24,000–22,000 BCE

Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.

Many different goddesses have represented motherhood in one way or another, and some have been associated with the birth of humanity as a whole. Others have represented the fertility of the earth.

Paleolithic figures[link]

The Venus of Dolní Věstonice, one of the earliest known depictions of the human body, dates to approximately 29,000–25,000 BC (Gravettian culture of the Upper Paleolithic era)

Several small, corpulent figures have been found during archaeological excavations of the Upper Paleolithic, the Venus of Willendorf, perhaps, being the most famous.^[1] It is estimated to have been carved 24,000–22,000 BCE. Some archaeologists believe they were intended to represent goddesses, while others believe that they could have served some other purpose. These figurines predate the available records of the goddesses listed below as examples by many thousands of years, so although they seem to conform to the same generic type, it is not clear whether they, indeed, were representations of a goddess or that, if they are, there was any continuity of religion that connects them with Middle Eastern and Classical deities.

The Paleolithic period extends from 2.5 million years ago to the introduction of agriculture around 10,000 BCE. Archaeological evidence indicates that humans migrated to the Western Hemisphere before the end of the Paleolithic. It is the prehistoric era distinguished by the development of stone tools, and covers the greatest portion of humanity's time on Earth.

While most Paleolithic figurines are from the Upper Paleolithic, the Venus of Berekhat Ram found at Berekhat Ram on the Golan Heights is a Middle Paleolithic artefact of the later Acheulian possibly made by Homo erectus.

Neolithic figures[link]

Neolithic ceramic female figurine Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, ca. 5500-2750 BCE, Piatra Neamt Museum.

"Bird Lady" Egyptian Neolithic ceramic. Naganda IIa Predynastic 3500-3400 BCE. Brooklyn Museaum

Diverse images of what are believed to be Mother Goddesses also have been discovered that date from the Neolithic period, the New Stone Age, which ranges from approximately 10,000 BCE when the use of wild cereals led to the beginning of farming, and eventually, to agriculture. The end of this Neolithic period is characterized by the introduction of metal tools as the skill appeared to spread from one culture to another, or arise independently as a new phase in an existing tool culture, and eventually became widespread among humans. Regional differences in the development of this stage of tool development are quite varied. In other parts of the world, such as Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, independent domestication events led to their own patterns of development, while distinctive Neolithic cultures arose independently in Europe and Southwest Asia. During this time, native cultures appear in the Western Hemisphere, arising out of older traditions that were carried during migration. Regular seasonal occupation or permanent settlements begin to be seen in excavations. Herding and keeping of cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs is evidenced along with the presence of dogs. Almost without exception, images of what Marija Gimbutas interpreted as Mother Goddesses have been discovered in all of these cultures.^[2]

Old Europe[link]

James Frazer (author of The Golden Bough) and others (such as Jane Ellen Harrison, Robert Graves and Marija Gimbutas) advance the idea that goddess worship in ancient Europe and the Aegean was descended from Pre-Indo-European neolithic matriarchies. Gimbutas argued that the thousands of female images from Old Europe (archaeology) represented a number of different groups of goddess symbolism, notably a "bird and snake" group associated with water, an "earth mother" group associated with birth, and a "stiff nude" group associated with death, as well as other groups.^[3] Gimbutas maintained that the "earth mother" group continues the paleolithic figural tradition discussed above, and that traces of these figural traditions could be found in goddesses of the historical period.^[4] According to Gimbutas' Kurgan Hypothesis Old European cultures were disrupted by expansion of Indo-European speakers from southern Siberia. In 1968 the archaeologist Peter Ucko proposed that the many images found in graves and archaeological sites of Neolithic cultures were toys.^[5]

Deity examples[link]

Many ancient cultures worshiped female deities who match the modern conception of a "mother goddess".

Egyptian[link]

Dendera Temple, showing Hathor on the capitals of a column

Statuette of Mut, mother, often interpreted as representing one of the earliest mother goddesses of Egypt

Roman View of Isis

Mother goddesses are present in the earliest images discovered among the archaeological finds in Ancient Egypt. An association with animals seen as good mothers—the lioness, cow, hippopotamus, white vulture, cobra, scorpion, and cat—as well as the life-giving primordial waters, the sun, and the night sky and the earth herself—is drawn to the early goddesses of Egypt.

Even through the transition to a paired pantheon of male deities matched or "married" to each goddess, reached a later male deity dominated pantheon that arose much later, the mother goddesses persisted into historical times (such as Hathor and Isis). Advice from the oracles associated with these goddesses guided the rulers of Egypt.

The image of Isis nursing her son was worshiped into the sixth century A.D. and has been resurrected by contemporary "cults" of an Earth Mother.

A figure often interpreted as a depiction of a mother goddess from Samarra, ca 6000 BCE (Louvre Museum)

Indigenous people of the Americas[link]

Pachamama

The indigenous peoples of the Andes worship the fertility goddess Pachamama. In Inca mythology, Pachamama presides over planting and harvesting and causes earthquakes. After conquest by Catholic Spain her image was masked by the Virgin Mary, behind whom she is invoked and worshiped in the Aboriginal ritual in some parts of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru.^[6] The religion centered in the Pachamama is practiced currently in parallel form to Christianity, to the point that many families are simultaneously Christian and pachamamistas.^[7] Pachamama is sometimes syncretized the Virgin of Candelaria.^[8]

The Hopi people of North America (Turtle Island), Arizona, USA, refer to the Earth as Tuuwaqatsi-Earth Mother. According to the knowledge they have carefully preserved down the ages, the Earth is our "Land and our Life," which is remembered in their first law: Tutskwa I'qatsi - Land and Life are one. The Goddess-Earth has a male counterpart representing the inner life or core of the Earth. This inner life/soul/mind/womb is sometimes referred to as Maski, or spirit-home, the place people go following death. This place is sometimes referred to as the "underworld."

In Aztec mythology[link]

In Aztec mythology, Toci is the "Mother of the Gods". She is often associated with Tlazolteotl, a central Mesoamerican goddess of both purification and filth, healing, and midwifery.

Sumerian, Mesopotamian, and Greek[link]

Ninsun is the Mother Goddess in general Mesopotamian mythology, Asherah in Canaan and `Ashtart in Syria. The Sumerians wrote erotic poetry about their mother goddess Ninhursag.^[9] In Greece she is Gaia; a Homeric Hymn (7-6 century BC) is dedicated to "Gaia, Mother of All".

Anatolia – Çatalhöyük[link]

Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük

In Anatolia, the Neolithic settlement from 7500 BC, Çatalhöyük, was at first thought to have provided evidence of worship of a mother goddess. A striking feature of Çatalhöyük are its female figurines. James Mellaart, the original excavator, argued that these well-formed, carefully made figurines, carved and molded from marble, blue and brown limestone, schist, calcite, basalt, alabaster, and clay, represented a female deity of the Great Goddess type. Although a male deity existed as well, “…statues of a female deity far outnumber those of the male deity, who moreover, does not appear to be represented at all after Level VI”.^[10] To date, eighteen levels have been identified. These careful figurines were found primarily in areas Mellaart believed to be shrines. One, however – a stately goddess seated on a throne flanked by two female lions – was found in a grain bin, which Mellaart suggests might have been a means of ensuring the harvest or protecting the food supply.^[11]

Whereas Mellaart excavated nearly two hundred buildings in four seasons, the current excavator, Ian Hodder, spent an entire season excavating one building alone.^[12] Hodder and his team, in 2004 and 2005, began to believe that the patterns suggested by Mellaart were false. They found one similar figurine, but the vast majority did not imitate the Mother Goddess style that Mellaart suggested. Instead of a Mother Goddess culture, Hodder points out that the site gives little indication of a matriarchy or patriarchy. <needs citation>

"There are full breasts on which the hands rest, and the stomach is extended in the central part... As one turns the figurine around one notices that the arms are very thin, and then on the back of the figurine one sees a depiction of either a skeleton or the bones of a very thin and depleted human. The ribs and vertebrae are clear, as are the scapulae and the main pelvic bones... [T]his is a unique piece that may force us to change our views of the nature of Catalhoyuk society and imagery."^[13]

In an article in the Turkish Daily News Hodder is reported as denying that Çatalhöyük was a matriarchal society and quoted as saying "When we look at what they eat and drink and at their social statues, we see that men and women had the same social status. There was a balance of power. Another example is the skulls found. If one's social status was of high importance in Çatalhöyük, the body and head were separated after death. The number of female and male skulls found during the excavations is almost equal."^[14]

In a report in September 2009 on the discovery of around 2000 figurines Hodder is quoted as saying:

“Çatalhöyük was excavated in the 1960s in a methodical way, but not using the full range of natural science techniques that are available to us today. Sir James Mellaart who excavated the site in the 1960s came up with all sorts of ideas about the way the site was organised and how it was lived in and so on,” he said. “We’ve now started working there since the mid 1990s and come up with very different ideas about the site. One of the most obvious examples of that is that Çatalhöyük is perhaps best known for the idea of the mother goddess. But our work more recently has tended to show that in fact there is very little evidence of a mother goddess and very little evidence of some sort of female-based matriarchy. That’s just one of the many myths that the modern scientific work is undermining.”^[15]

Another archaeologist, Lynn Meskell, explained that while the original excavations had found only 200 figures, the new excavations had uncovered 2000 figurines of which most were animals, with less than 5% of the figurines women.^[15]

Cucuteni-Trypillian culture[link]

From 5500 to 2750 BC the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture flourished in the region of modern-day Romania, Moldova, and southwestern Ukraine, leaving behind ruins of settlements of up to 15,000 residents who practiced agriculture, domesticated livestock, and many ceramic remains of pottery and clay figurines. Some of these figurines appear to represent the mother goddess (see images in this article).

Greek[link]

Cybele

Rhea

Juno

In the Aegean, Anatolian, and ancient Near Eastern culture zones, a mother goddess was worshipped in the forms of Cybele (revered in Rome as Magna Mater, the 'Great Mother'), of Gaia, and of Rhea.

Gaia is a primordial deity in the Ancient Greek pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess.

The Olympian goddesses of classical Greece had many characters with mother goddess attributes, including Hera and Demeter.^[16]

The Minoan goddess represented in seals and other remains many of whose attributes were later also absorbed by Artemis, seems to have been a mother goddess type, for in some representations she suckles the animals that she holds.

The archaic local goddess worshiped at Ephesus, whose cult statue was adorned with necklaces and stomachers hung with rounded protuberances^[17] who was later also identified by Hellenes with Artemis, was probably also a mother goddess.

The Anna Perenna Festival of the Greeks and Romans for the New Year, around March 15, near the Vernal Equinox, may have been a mother goddess festival. Since the Sun is considered the source of life and food, this festival was also equated with the Mother Goddess.

Roman[link]

Gaia's equivalent in the Roman mythology was Terra Mater or Tellus Mater, sometimes worshiped in association with Demeter's Roman equivalent, Ceres, goddess of grain, agriculture and fertility, and mothering.^[18]

Venus (Greek Aphrodite's equivalent), was mother of the Trojan Aeneas and ancestor of Romulus, Rome's mythical founder. In effect, she was the mother of Rome itself, and various Romans, including Julius Caesar, claimed her favour. In this capacity she was given cult as Venus Genetrix (Ancestor Venus). She was eventually included among the many manifestations of a syncretised Magna Dea (Great Goddess), who could be manifested as any goddess at the head of a pantheon, such as Juno or Minerva, or a goddess worshipped monotheistically.

Celtic[link]

The Irish goddess Anu, sometimes known as Danu, has an impact as a mother goddess, judging from the Dá Chích Anann near Killarney, County Kerry. Irish literature names the last and most favored generation of deities as "the people of Danu" (Tuatha De Danann). The Welsh have a similar figure called Dôn who is often equated with Danu and identified as a mother goddess. Sources for this character date from the Christian period however so she is referred to simply as a mother of heroes in the Mabinogion. The character's (assumed) origins as a goddess are obscured.

The Celts of Gaul worshipped a goddess known as Dea Matrona ("divine mother goddess") who was associated with the Marne River. Similar figures known as the Matres (Latin for "mothers") are found on altars in Celtic as well as Germanic areas of Europe.

Germanic[link]

In the 1st century BC, Tacitus recorded rites amongst the Germanic tribes focused on the goddess Nerthus, whom he calls Terra Mater, 'Mother Earth'. Prominent in these rites was the procession of the goddess in a wheeled vehicle through the countryside. Among the seven or eight tribes said to worship her, Tacitus lists the Anglii and the Longobardi.^[19]

Among the later Anglo-Saxons, a Christianized charm known as Æcerbot survives from records from the 10th century. The charm involves a procession through the fields while calling upon the Christian God for a good harvest, invokes 'eorþan modor' (Earth Mother) and 'folde, fira modor,' (Earth, mother of men).

In skaldic poetry, the kenning "Odin's wife" is a common designation for the Earth. Bynames of the Earth in Icelandic poetry include Jörð, Fjörgyn, Hlóðyn and Hlín. Hlín is used as a byname of both Jörð and Frigg. Fjörgynn (a masculine form of Fjörgyn) is said to be Frigg's father, while the name Hlóðyn is most commonly linked to Frau Holle, as well as to a goddess, Hludana, whose name is found etched in several votive inscriptions from the Roman era.^[20]

Connections have been proposed between the figure of Nerthus and various figures (particularly figures counted amongst the Vanir) recorded in 13th century Icelandic records of Norse mythology, including Frigg. Due to potential etymological connections, the Norse god Njörðr has been proposed as the consort of Nerthus.^[21] In the Poetic Edda poem Lokasenna, Njörðr is said to have fathered his famous children by his own sister. This sister remains unnamed.

Due to specific terms used to describe the figure of Grendel's mother from the poem Beowulf, some scholars have proposed that the figure of Grendel's mother, like the poem itself, may have derived from earlier traditions originating from Germanic paganism.

Turkic Siberians[link]

Yer Tanrı is the mother of Umai, also known as Ymai or Mai, the mother goddess of the Turkic Siberians. She is depicted as having sixty golden tresses, that resemble the rays of the sun. She is thought to have once been identical with Ot of the Mongols.

Hinduism[link]

Goddess Durga is seen as the supreme mother goddess by some Hindus

In Hinduism, Durga represents the empowering and protective nature of motherhood. From her forehead sprang Kali, who defeated Durga's enemy, Mahishasura. The divine Mother, Devi Adi parashakti, manifests herself in various forms, representing the universal creative force. She also gives rise to Maya (the illusory world) and to prakriti, the force that galvanizes the divine ground of existence into self-projection as the cosmos. The Earth itself is manifested by Parvati, Durga's previous incarnation. Hindu worship of the divine Mother can be traced back to early Vedic culture.

Shaktism[link]

The form of Hinduism known as Shaktism is strongly associated with Vedanta, Samkhya, and Tantra Hindu philosophies and is ultimately monist. The feminine energy, Shakti, is considered to be the motive force behind all action and existence in the phenomenal cosmos. The cosmos itself is Shiva, the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality that is the Divine Ground of all being, the "world soul". Masculine potential is actualized by feminine dynamism, embodied in multitudinous goddesses who are ultimately reconciled in one. Mother Maya, Shakti, herself, can free the individual from demons of ego, ignorance, and desire that bind the soul in maya (illusion). Practitioners of the Tantric tradition focus on Shakti to free themselves from the cycle of karma.

Christianity[link]

Depictions in churches[link]

Sheela na Gig at SS Mary and David's Church, Kilpeck, England

The Normans had a major influence on English Romanesque architecture when they built a large numbers of Christian monasteries, abbeys, churches and cathedrals. These Romanesque styles originated in Normandy and became widespread in north western Europe, particularly in England, which has the largest number of surviving examples.

Sheela na Gig is a common stone carving found in Romanesque Christian churches scattered throughout Europe. The figures are found in Ireland, Great Britain, France, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Belgium and in the Czech Republic. Their meaning is not clearly identifiable as Christian, and may be a concept that survived from ancient forms of yoni worship and sacred prostitution practiced in the goddess temples. Other common motifs on Christian churches of the same time period are spirals and ouroboros or dragons swallowing their tails, which is a reference to rebirth and regeneration, a concept well known in pantheism. Other creatures including the succubus make an appearance in the sculptural reliefs of the church that have a long history in the oral tradition of previous civilizations that preceded Christianity.

Blessed Virgin Mary[link]

Some Christians regard the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Theotokos (or Mother of God) for many believers, as a "spiritual mother," since she not only fulfills a maternal role, but is often viewed as a protective and intercessory force, a divinely established mediator for humanity, but she is not worshiped as a divine "mother goddess". The Roman Catholic, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Orthodox churches identify "the woman" described in Revelation 12 as the Virgin Mary because in verse 5 this woman is said to have given "birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod" whom they identify as Jesus Christ. Then, in verse 17 of Revelation 12, the Bible describes "the rest of her offspring" as "those who keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus." These Christians believe themselves to be the other "offspring" because they try to "keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus," and thus they embrace Mary as their "mother". They also cite John 19:26–27 where Jesus entrusts his mother to the Apostle John as evidence that Mary is the mother of all Christians, taking the command "behold your mother" to apply generally.

In 300 A.D., the Blessed Virgin Mary was worshipped as a Mother Goddess in the Christian sect Collyridianism, which was found throughout Saudi Arabia. Collyridianism was made up mostly of women followers and female priests. Followers of Collyridianism were known to make bread and wheat offerings to the Virgin Mary, along with other sacrificial practices. The cult was heavily condemned as heretical and schismatic by the Roman Catholic Church and was preached against by Epiphanius of Salamis, who exposed the group in his recollective writings titled Panarion.

As motherhood is a common recurring concept in all religions, The Blessed Virgin Mary receives many titles in the Roman Catholic Church, such as Queen of Heaven and Star of the Sea, that are familiar from earlier Near Eastern traditions. Due to this correlation, some Protestants often accuse Catholics of viewing Mary as a goddess, but the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox churches always has condemned "worship as adoration" of the Virgin Mary. Part of this accusation is due to the Catholic practice of prayer as a means of communication rather than as a means of worship. Catholics believe that the dead who followed their God, have eternal life and can hear prayers in heaven from people here on earth. Concepts of Mother Goddess worshipped is heavily condemned by the Holy See as it had been suppressed and condemned among the Collyridianism sect in 300 A.D.

Sophia[link]

The Bible refers to the personified Heavenly Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) in feminine terms. Sophia is venerated as the Virgin Sophia in Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, as well as in Christian Mysticism.

In many languages, such as Syriac, the word translated "spirit" takes the feminine gender. In early Christian literature in these languages, the Holy Spirit is therefore discussed in feminine terms, especially before c. A.D. 400.^[22]

Traditionally, God is referred to by masculine titles and pronouns in Christianity, but the Bible occasionally does use feminine and maternal imagery in describing God. Christian beliefs about God and gender in Christianity vary widely. Most modern denominations officially teach that God transcends gender, but still use almost exclusively masculine language to refer to God; some officially discourage the use of feminine language, either on grounds of tradition or because they regard God as masculine in some important metaphorical way. However, some denominations including the United Church of Christ accept or even encourage language that sometimes describes God in feminine terms.

Mormonism[link]

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe in, but do not worship, a Heavenly Mother, the wife and female counterpart—and equal of the Heavenly Father.^[23] This belief is not emphasized, however, and adherents pray to the "Father in Heaven."

Neopaganism[link]

The Mother Goddess, amalgamated and combined with various feminine figures from world cultures of both the past and present, is worshipped by modern Wicca and others (see Triple Goddess). The mother goddess is usually viewed as Mother Earth by these groups. More broadly, She is worshipped as Mother Nature, the Creatress of all life.

Wicca and some other Neo-Pagans worship the Mother Goddess. Most commonly she is worshiped as a Triple Goddess; usually envisioned as the Maiden, Mother, and Crone archetypes. She is associated with the full moon and stars, as well as the Earth and sea. Many ancient Pagan religions had mother goddesses; it has been argued that the figure of Mary the mother of Jesus is patterned on these.

The term "Great Goddess" refers to a mother goddess in some contemporary Neopagan and Wiccan religions.

Even among those who are not Pagan, expressions such as Mother Earth and Mother Nature are in common usage, personifying the Earth's ecology as a fertile and sustaining mother.

Nature and Her Followers by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, c. 1615

Earth Mother[link]

The Earth Mother is a motif that appears in many mythologies. The Earth Mother is a fertile goddess embodying the fertile earth and typically the mother of other deities, and so, also are seen as patronesses of motherhood. This is generally thought of as being because the earth was seen as being the mother from whom all life sprang.

The Rigveda calls the deity, Mahimata (R.V. 1.164.33), a term which literally means Great Mother.

In South America, contemporary Andean Indian peoples like Quechua and aymara believe in the Mother Earth Pachamama, whose worship cult is found in rural areas and towns at Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Northern Chile and Northwestern Argentina. Andean migrants carried the Pachamama cult to cities and many other extra-Andean places, including metropolitan Buenos Aires.

In various cultures[link]

The idea that the fertile earth itself is female, nurturing mankind, was not limited to the Greco-Roman world. These traditions themselves were greatly influenced by earlier cultures in the ancient Middle East.In Sumerian mythology Ki is the earth goddess.In Akkadian orthography she has the syllabic values gi,ge,qi,qe (for toponyms).Some scholars identify her with Ninhursag (lady of the mountains), the earth and fertility Mother Goddess, who had the surnames Nintu (lady of birth), Mamma and Aruru.^[24] The relevant Egyptian earth and fertility god Geb was male and he was considered father of all snakes. The title "The mother of life" was later given to the Akkadian Goddess Kubau, and hence to Hurrian Hepa, emerging as Hebrew Eve (Heva) and Phygian Kubala (Cybele). In Norse mythology the earth is personified as Jörð, Hlöðyn, and Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn. In Germanic paganism, the Earth Goddess is referred to as Nertha.^[25] The Irish Celts worshipped Danu, whilst the Welsh Celts worshipped Dôn. Hints of their names occur throughout Europe, such as the Don river, the Danube River, the Dnestr and Dnepr, suggest that they stemmed from an ancient Proto-Indo-European goddess.^[26] In Lithuanian mythology Gaia - Žemė (Lithuanian for "Earth") is daughter of Sun and Moon. Also she is wife of Dangus (Lithuanian for "Sky") (Varuna). In Pacific cultures, the Earth Mother was known under as many names and with as many attributes as cultures who revered her, such as the Māori, whose creation myth included Papatuanuku, partner to Ranginui, the Sky Father. In South America in the Andes a cult of the Pachamama still survives (in regions of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and Chile). The name comes from Pacha (Quechua for change, epoch) and Mama (mother). While ancient Mexican cultures referred to Mother Earth as Tonantzin Tlalli that means "Revered Mother Earth".

In Hinduism, the Mother of all creation is called "Gayatri". Gayatri is the name of one of the most important Vedic hymns consisting of twenty-four syllables. One of the sacred texts says, "The Gayatri is Brahma, Gayatri is Vishnu, Gayatri is Shiva, the Gayatri is Vedas" Gayatri later came to be personified as a Goddess. She is shown as having five heads and is usually seated within a lotus. The four heads of Gayatri represent the four Vedas and the fifth one represents almighty God. In her ten hands, she holds all the symbols of Lord Vishnu. She is another consort of Lord Brahma.

In Hinduism and Buddhism the specific local indwelling mother deity of Earth (as opposed to the mother deity of all creation) is called Bhūmi. Gautama Buddha called upon Bhumi as his witness when he achieved Enlightenment.

Phra Mae Thorani is recognized as the Goddess of the earth in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries.

Only in Egyptian Mythology is the reverse true - Geb is the Earth Father while Nut is the Sky Mother.

In Theosophy, the Earth Goddess is called the "Planetary Logos of Earth".

In Wicca, the Earth Goddess is sometimes called Gaia.^[27] The name of the Mother Goddess varies depending on the Wiccan tradition.

Carl Gustav Jung suggested that the archetypal mother was a part of the collective unconscious of all humans, and various Jungian students, e.g. Erich Neumann and Ernst Whitmont have argued that such mother imagery underpins many mythologies, and precedes the image of the paternal "father", in such religious systems. Such speculations help explain the universality of such mother goddess imagery around the world.

The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines have been sometimes explained as depictions of an Earth Goddess similar to Gaia^[28]

In Native American Indian storytelling, "The Earth Goddess" is one of several Creator-based titles and names given to the Spider Grandmother.

In fiction[link]

In Gore Vidal's ironic dystopia "Messiah", a new death-worshipping religion sweeps the world and wipes out Christianity. Yet at the conclusion of the book, a woman named Iris, who was among the new religion's founders, starts to be worshipped as a new manifestation of the Mother Goddess, though there was no such concept when the religion was founded. Vidal's point was clearly to show that worship of the Mother Goddess is an immemorial institute and would find a manifestation within whatever religion emerges.

In Robert Graves' 1949 novel Seven Days in New Crete, a mother goddess is central to the religion of a quasi-matriarchal future society.

The Mother Goddess is referred to throughout the novel The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

In the 2009 movie Avatar, the indigenous species at the center of the drama, the Na'vi, worship a mother goddess called Eywa.

In the 2009 video game Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, a goddess known as Mem Aleph wishes to restore the Earth to its ancient worship of mother goddesses, and is opposed by the patriarchal Law faction.

In the universe of Warhammer 40000, there is the cult of the Great Sky Mother. The problem is that this cult worships an intergalactic Hive mind. And the name that the rest of the inhabitants of the galaxy give to this cult is genestealer cult.

See also[link]

A statue of Isis nursing Horus, housed in the Louvre

Figures[link]

• Ananke
• Aphrodite
• Blessed Virgin Mary
• Brigid
• Cybele
• Demeter
• Devi
• Durga
• Eve
• Freyja
• Frigg
• Gaia
• Hathor
• Hecate
• Ishtar
• Isis
• Jord
• Kali
• Kamakhya
• Laxmi
• Mut
• Nerthus
• Ops
• Pachamama
• Potnia Theron
• Radha
• Rhea
• Shakti
• Tawaret
• Triple Goddess
• Yashoda

Other[link]

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Marija Gimbutas. The Language of the Goddess. Harpercollins (1989). ISBN 0-06-250356-1
• Marija Gimbutas. The Civilization of the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper (1991). ISBN 0-06-250337-5.
• Neumann, Erich. (1991). The Great Mother. Bollingen; Repr/7th edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. ISBN 0-691-01780-8.
• J.F. del Giorgio. The Oldest Europeans. A.J. Place (2006). ISBN 980-6898-00-1
• Goldin, Paul R. (2002) "On the Meaning of the Name Xi wangmu, Spirit-Mother of the West." Paul R. Goldin. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 122, No. 1/January–March 2002, pp. 83–85.
• Prof. P.C. Jain: Conception and Evolution of The Mother Goddess in India 2004
• Knauer, Elfried R.(2006)"The Queen Mother of the West: A Study of the Influence of Western Prototypes on the Iconography of the Taoist Deity." In: Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. Ed. Victor H. Mair. University of Hawai'i Press. Pp. 62–115. ISBN ISBN 978-0-8248-2884-4; ISBN ISBN 0-8248-2884-4
• James Mellaart. The Neolithic of the Near East. Macmillan (1976). ISBN 978-0-684-14484-9
• The Wikipedia article Kurgan hypothesis.

External links[link]

• Reflections on Erta as named on the Franks Casket by Alfred Becker (PhD)

David Icke
Icke in 2008
Born	David Vaughan Icke (1952-04-29) 29 April 1952 (age 60) Leicester, England
Residence	Ryde, Isle of Wight
Occupation	Writer and speaker
Years active	Since 1990
Known for	Football, television sports, books on global politics
Political party	Formerly the Green Party
Website
www.davidicke.com Icke's YouTube channel.

David Vaughan Icke (pronounced /aɪk/, 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."^[1]

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.^[2]

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.^[3]

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.^[4]

Personal life and career[link]

Early life and education[link]

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.^[5]

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.^[6]

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.^[7]

Football and first marriage[link]

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.^[7]

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.^[9]

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.^[10]

Sports presenter[link]

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.^[11]

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.^[12]

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.^[13]

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.^[14] 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.^[15]

Green Party, meeting with psychic healer[link]

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.^[16] 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."^[17] 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.^[18]

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.^[19] 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.^[20]

Icke said he had a mystical experience near this pre-Inca burial site in Peru.

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.^[21] 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.^[22]

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.^[23]

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.^[24]

Turquoise period[link]

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."^[25] 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."^[17]

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.^[26]

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.^[27]

Terry Wogan interview[link]

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.^[28] 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?^[30]

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."^[31] Wogan interviewed Icke again in 2006, acknowledging that his comments during the first interview had been "a bit sharp."^[28] 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.^[32] 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.^[29]

Writing and lecturing[link]

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.^[33] 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.^[34] 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.^[35]

Icke addressed the Oxford Union 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.^[36] 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.^[34]

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.^[37]

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."^[38]

Key ideas[link]

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.^[39]

Global Elite[link]

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."^[40]

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.^[41] 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.^[40]

Reptoid hypothesis[link]

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.^[42] According to Barkun, Icke's idea of "inner-earth reptilians" is not new, though he has done more than most to expand it.^[43]

The Draco constellation from Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, 1690. Icke's "reptoid hypothesis" posits that humanity is ruled by descendents of reptilians from Draco.^[44]

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.^[45] 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."^[46] Lewis and Kahn argue that Icke is using allegory to depict the alien, and alienating, nature of global capitalism.^[47]

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.^[48]

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.^[49]

Dimensions[link]

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.^[50] 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.^[51]

Problem-reaction-solution[link]

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.^[52] 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:^[17]

Image by Neil Hague from Icke's Infinite Love is the Only Truth (2005), showing the Brotherhood, or "Red Dresses." This image depicts George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth II as members of 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 ..."^[53]

Red Dresses[link]

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.^[54]

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.^[54]

Moon Matrix[link]

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).^[55]

Reception[link]

Protests[link]

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.^[56] According to Mark Honigsbaum, Icke refers to it 25 times in the Robot's Rebellion, calling it the "Illuminati protocols."^[57]

In his 2001 documentary about Icke, Jon Ronson cited this cartoon, "Rothschild" (1898), by Charles Léandre, arguing that Jews have long been depicted as lizard-like creatures out to control the world.^[58]

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).^[56] 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.^[56] Barkun argues that Icke's reference to it is the first of a number of instances of him moving dangerously close to antisemitism.^[59]

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.^[60] 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.^[61] 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."^[62]

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.^[57] 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."^[63] 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.^[64] 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".^[65]

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.^[66] 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.^[67] 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.^[68]

Academic views[link]

Michael Barkun of Syracuse University writes that Icke is the most fluent of the conspiracy writers.^[69]

Michael Barkun sees Icke as a professional conspiracy theorist of the Alex Jones variety, and the most fluent of the genre.^[69] 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.^[51]

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.^[51]

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."^[51]

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."^[70]

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.^[71]

Works[link]

Books

Video

See also[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: David Icke

• Erich von Däniken
• Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa
• Zecharia Sitchin

Notes[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• 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.