David Icke, The Robots' Rebellion: The Story of the Spiritual Renaissance (Gateway Books, 1994)
(Swans - July 28, 2014) Embarking upon a sharp "learning" curve, by June 1994, the born-again mystic known to the world as David Icke was no longer just preaching the good word about how humanity might vibrate to a higher consciousness. Now, within the pages of his latest monument to nonsense, The Robots' Rebellion -- this former sports presenter took the time to document (in mind-numbing detail) the full extent of the malevolent forces that have prevented humankind from reaching spiritual nirvana. By now well-versed in the world of conspiracies, Icke identifies these sinister all-seeing "manipulators" planning "to take over the planet and the human race" as the ones who secretly control our every thought. Icke reminds his readers that we need only consider what happened to the long-gone planet Maldek, whose make-believe civilization was destroyed by a nuclear explosion thousands of years ago, to see what fate beholds us if the manipulators get their way. On Maldek's "history," Icke cites Derek Allan and Bernard Delair's divine book When the Earth Nearly Died: Compelling Evidence of a World Catastrophe, 10,500BC (Gateway Books, 1994). (1) Delair's credentials for being able to write such rubbish is unfortunately long-standing, as for the past forty years he has a been a leading light at a group know as Contact International UFO Research, a UFO group that was set up in 1967 by the 8th Lord Clancarty, Brinsley le Poer Trench (1911-1995), a man with more money than sense who believed that space people had been visiting earth for millions of years.
Having already accepted the mythical fable of Atlantis as self-evidently true in his earlier corpus, Icke now feels better positioned to add more flesh on the bones of his favoured tall tales. Humans did not come about as a result of evolution, it seems, but were seeded by extra-terrestrials from distant cosmic civilizations. Evidence for the existence of the spacecraft within which these alien cosmonauts traversed the galaxies, is according to Icke, present in The Book of Ezekiel -- as described in The Space Ships of Ezekiel (Corgi, 1974). Here it is important to note that this book was heavily derivative of the evangelical alien-sermonizing of George Van Tassell, an inspirational fellow who had started a popular UFO cult in 1947 shortly after reading the esoteric writings of Rudolf Steiner and Edgar Cayce. In 1952, George Van Tassell alleged that he had been honoured to be the first human to receive a telepathic transmission from the Ashtar Galactic Command; a communicative tradition with Ashtar spacebrothers that in more recent years has been upheld by Joshua David Stone (1953-2005), the founder of the Integrated Ascended Masters University. (2)
After normalizing alien colonization, Icke, following the incoherent ramblings of William Bramley, states that a secret Brotherhood has been working to fulfil their nefarious goal of "world control and domination" since the fateful day that humanity had been seeded. Commonly referred to The New World Order, this sinister elite was known to Bramley and his followers as the "Brotherhood of the Snake." (3) Enslaving all life on earth is their end goal, and according to Icke, even the advanced techniques that the Brotherhood use to control our minds are primitive compared to the awesome power of both extraterrestrials and the intelligence agencies that work hand-in-hand with the Brotherhood. For example, he asserts: "The CIA today have the ability to abduct someone, implant a micro-chip in their brain, and so hypnotise them that another version of what happened can replace the actual experience in their memory." It is in such a way that Icke believes political assassinations are remotely carried out by mind control. (4)
At this stage, in a fairly nonchalant manner, Icke revives the infamous hate-tract, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: an anti-Semitic forgery, which contrary to all available evidence Icke says was first discovered in the late 1800s -- a point he bolsters by citing the work of a well-known fascist. (5) For those readers operating under the correct assumption that the Protocols were a forgery -- created and propagated in the late nineteenth century to justify and concentrate racial hatred towards Jewish people -- Icke sets out his opposing argument. Dismissing claims that the Protocols were manufactured and promoted by a vicious ruling class, Icke says it is ironic that Hitler, who Icke acknowledges had used the Protocols to justify the holocaust, "was brought to power by the very Brotherhood elite whose game plan for the world is so brilliantly set out in those Protocols." Icke is able to write such dangerous garbage because he works from the demented premise that the Protocols actually codify not the hidden agenda of Jews, but instead detail the twisted game-plan of the eternal Brotherhood or Illuminati. In this manner Icke refers to this fictitious text as the Illuminati Protocols, asserting that it was only in later years that the wording of the Protocols were doctored to smear Jewish people and conceal the Illuminati's true omnipotence. It is this Illuminati (not the Jewish people) who, having organized themselves as freemasons, have apparently masterminded history, being the hidden hand behind most (if not all) significant historic events. Such events, of course, include both the French Revolution and the American Revolution, which Icke says was "without question a Brotherhood revolution." (6)
The same line of conspiratorial thinking therefore applies to Icke's appreciation of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which he refers to as "the Russian Brotherhood Revolution." On the revealed nature of this socialist "scam" he defers to the work of Professor Stuart Crane, a scholar of notably dubious distinction, (7) having risen to some notoriety for being a darling of the John Birch Society -- a loony, although disturbingly popular and populist, far right-wing political grouping. Moreover, while Icke says that the Brotherhood are most definitely not just Jews, he still thinks that Jews played a major role in the promoting the Illuminati's devious agenda, writing:
"There was a considerable Jewish flavour to the [Russian] revolution, and the Brotherhood was now preparing the ground for a return of the Jews to Palestine. Some research I have seen claims that, of 388 members of the Russian Revolutionary Government in 1918, only sixteen were Russians by birth. All but two of the rest were Jews from elsewhere, mostly from New York." (p.162)
Icke is clearly confused: he says he is not blaming the Jews, but then goes on to blame them for contributing towards one of the Brotherhood's most cunning plots. Then again it is no surprise that he demonstrates such confusion, as who wouldn't be a little addled after having their entire life turned upside down, and then being led to believe by assorted mediums and psychics that he had been specially selected -- by Ascended Masters no less -- to dedicate his life to saving humanity. Under such circumstances it is entirely understandable why Icke, the born-again rebel, finds it nigh on impossible to differentiate fact from fiction, all the more so given his disdain for capitalism and Marxism, both of which he confines to the dustbin of Illuminati-controlled history.
This leaves Icke in the unenviable position of feeling that the only sources he can really trust are those derived from divine mystic experiences, and also, one should add, from reactionary anti-government tirades like those authored by members of the John Birch Society. But keen to answer his detractors who try to criticise him for his reliance upon work of dubious political origins, Icke, ever the independent radical, makes it crystal clear that he most certainly does not agree with the politics of the researchers whose work he regularly plagiarizes. More to the point he says that it's precisely the variety of the different belief systems of the authors that he borrows from that makes the evidence he marshals all the more compelling. Regarding the bizarre selection criteria for inclusion in his own work, Icke writes: "if [conspiracy theorists] come up with information which cross checks with what [another conspiracy theorist is] coming up with, then I will use it." (8) But of course it doesn't take much brainpower to realise that synthesizing irrational nonsense from a wide variety of mystical and reactionary perspectives does not equate with the truth or quality, let alone history.
Taken together, such developments certainly help explain Icke's ever quickening descent into the depths of mysticism, which was bringing him into the close literary company of all manner of extreme conservatives -- from more visibly deluded members of the ruling-class to leading members of millenarian militia movements. One particularly good example is provided by his reliance upon the writings of the well-heeled UFOlogist Timothy Good, whose books Icke leans upon to substantiate his extraterrestrial beliefs. (9) Good is famous for having previously worked (in 1979) alongside Brinsley Le Poer Trench and fellow Christian fundamentalist Paul Inglesby (author of the 1978 book UFOs and the Christian) to initiate a landmark discussion in the House of Lords on UFOs. Counter to other (more) liberal Christian evangelists, like Reverend Billy Graham, who chose to interpret UFOs as angels sent to help mankind, Inglesby's conservative and paranoid politics led him to settle upon a demonic theory of UFOs, ideas which then resurfaced in 1996 when Inglesby authored a document called the UFO Concern Report (which was endorsed by the former chairman of the military committee of NATO, Lord Hill-Norton) and was aimed at warning the ruling class about the dangers posed by UFOs and abductions. (10)
Proof in such UFO beliefs is further extrapolated into the nether world of nonsense by Icke's reliance upon leading militia theorist Bill Cooper, who authored the cult classic Behold a Pale Horse (Light Technology Publishing, 1991). Leading occult historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, whose work Icke approvingly cites in his later work, described Cooper's book as a "compendium for the millenarian movement"; a "chaotic farrago of conspiracy myths interspersed with reprints of executive laws, official papers, reports and other extraneous materials designed to show the looming prospect of a world government imposed on the American people against their wishes and in flagrant contempt of the Constitution." The threat being totalitarian socialism, no less. Nevertheless, drawing upon Cooper's conspiratorial text (which not coincidentally also approvingly cites William Bramley's UFO trash) Icke outlines the idea that since the 1950s the Illuminati have worked hand-in-hand with a race of sinister extra-terrestrials to control the human race. (11)
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Michael Barker is an independent researcher who currently resides in the UK. In addition to his work for Swans, which can be found in the 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 archives, his other articles can be accessed at michaeljamesbarker.wordpress.com. Please help fund his work. (back)
Notes
1. Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.viii, p.xv, p.9. (back)
2. Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.10, p.27.
George Van Tassel wrote six books about his out-of-this-world experiences, including I Rode in a Flying Saucer (1952); and from his desert haunt hosted the immensely influential annual Giant Rock Spacecraft Conventions from 1953 until his death in 1978. A soon to be released movie about Tassell's life titled Giant Rock The Movie (2015) has been made by American oil and gas tycoon Chad Meek. As it happens, during his lifetime Joshua David Stone worked hard to reinvigorate Tassell's tradition of organizing popular UFO events, and in 2003 he launched Mount Shasta's Wesak Festival, which is held annually in California. (back)
3. Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.11, see William Bramley, The Gods of Eden (Avon Books, 1989); Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.81. Jason Colavita in his 2014 article "The JASON Society and UFO Conspiracies" explains how Bramley's work was inspired by Robert Howard's early fictional renditions of the Theosophical movement's way-out beliefs about serpents and lizards. Howard was counted among H. P. Lovecraft and his circle at Weird Tales (see "H.P. Lovecraft's Alien Legacy") (back)
4. Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.90, p.100. "Proof" of such manipulation has apparently been demonstrated by individuals who have reported being abducted by UFOs being "found to have brain implants which can be seen on X-Rays." (p.223) (back)
5. Here Icke refers to the book Waters Flowing Eastward, which was published in 1931 by fascist Christian activist Leslie Fry to extend the lies spread in the Protocols. (back)
6. Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.139, p.131.
Icke says the Thule Society was a secret Brotherhood group. (p.167) "What is without doubt is that the Nazi influence, far from disappearing at the end of the war, continues to flourish with the secret societies and is now beginning to surface again among the mind-controlled human fodder who support the far right movement." (p.177) (back)
7. Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.159, p.161. (back)
8. Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.204; Icke, ...and the Truth Shall Set You Free, p.461. (back)
9. Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.206. Timothy Good was a close associate of fellow UFO obsessive Lord Hill-Norton, whose military career ended in 1979 when he retired from his position as the chairman of the military committee of NATO. Such friendships in high places helped boost Good's career to no end, and Lord Hill-Norton happily penned the forewords for many of Good's books including his debut bestseller Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-Up (1987). It is interesting to notes that Good's more recent book, Unearthly Disclosure: Conflicting Interests in the Control of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (2000) was serialized in the Daily Mail, while Good's latest work, EARTH: An Alien Enterprise, is due for publication by Pegasus Books (New York) in December 2014. (back)
10. "This was no fringe belief in UFO circles, and three former chairman of Britain's largest UFO organisation, BUFORA, including the founding President, Graham Knewstub, along with Capt Ivar Mackay and Roger Stanway, became convinced that UFOs were of demonic origin." David Clarke, "Flying saucers from hell," Fortean Times, June 2006.
Prior to his retirement, Lord Hill-Norton had been the former British Chief of Defence Staff. (back)
11. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity (New York University Press), p.284, pp.284-5.
Icke, The Robots' Rebellion, p.208. Two introductory articles on Bill Cooper include: Brian Doherty, "Death Wish: How rebels punch their own ticket," Reason magazine, December 7, 2001; and Paul Kirk, "Govt Aids nut linked to Ku Klux Klan," Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg), September 8, 2000. (back)