A nearly manin the world of football, David Icke has madea career out of conspiracies, writes Michael Clifford
DAVID Icke’s claim to be some class of a Son of God may be questionable, but there is no doubt he’s a man before his time.
Icke is giving a lecture tonight to a sold out audience in Dublin’s Helix theatre. His thoughts and theories on the human condition and universal forces have attracted interest in some 60 countries over the last 30 years.
For some, he is what might be described as a head-the-ball. Others recognise him as an articulate and attractive conspiracy theorist par excellence. Yet more believe him to be the Son of Godattempting to warn us that the human race is in fact in hock to reptilian creatures who are some way connected to a bunch of powerful families, who in turn have been running the show for the last millennial or so.
Everybody must surely agree that Icke is definitely a good advertisement for a mid-life change of career.
Up until the age of 38, the Leicester-born shaman (or shapeshifter as he might have it) had beaten a path from professional footballer into broadcasting. And while he never really made it in the former field, he was enjoying a stellar career as a sports broadcaster when hereceived the higher calling.
His early dreams of being a footballer saw him make it into teams in the lower divisions in England. Of itself, that was no mean feat, but he was never going to see the bright lights with a talent that was limited in some respects.
Whatever chance Icke did have of the big time received a fatal blow with the onset of arthritis at the tender age of 21.
Thereafter he entered the world of journalism, initially through a local paper in Leicester. Much later, after he received the calling, heremembered how the trade actually never allowed his wings to take flight.
I was what is called a mainstream journalist and there were constraints on what you could write and say. Editors would say,‘You can say this, but you can’t say that.’ I’m still ajournalist, but I have noconstraints.
Icke stuck with it and found himself in the BBC, rising all the way to the presenter’s chair in the station’s flagship Grandstand programme by 1989. For a man who, by his own admission, hadn’t paid much attention at school and wasn’t academically gifted in the conventional sense, this was a serious achievement.
Around this time he gotinvolved in environmental politics, joining the then fledging Green Party in the UK. Therein he also rose through the — admittedly thin — ranks at the time to a position where he was the national spokesman.
So here he was on top of the world at 38, a possible political career in the future, or, if not, then further advancement on the telly, but something wouldn’t leave him alone.
It was out there, bearing down on him, and he couldn’t get a handle on it.
Then, one day, in a hotel near the BBC, Icke confronted whatever it was.
I was sitting on the side of the bed in this empty room and I said [out loud], ‘If there is something there would you please contact me because it’s driving me up the walls’.
They were in touch within days. He began to feel as if his new mission was to channel all this stuff that kept coming at him about life and the universe. The rest, as they say, is history, or at least Icke’s unconventional interpretation of it.
Icke quickly began selling his wares, which included a number of books replete with theories and analyses about how the world is really controlled by reptiles who can be traced back to powerful families in ancient times.
One man’s conspiracy theories is another’s insightful revelations and after a stuttering start, his views of the world began to cotton on in some quarters.
An early claim thatcertainly raised the oddeyebrow was that he was the son of a Godhead. A Godhead should not be confused with God.
There is massive energy from a Godhead,” Icke told Terry Wogan in 1991. “This is not a guy with a beard but a massive spirit.
Wogan asked him whether the discovery of all this was a big shock to him at the age of 38. “Gobsmacked is the word, I’d say,” replied Icke.
He has published a number of books on his worldview including The Robots’ Rebellion and And The Truth Shall Set You Free.
Controversially, in the conventional sense, he also published endorsements of what was regarded as an anti-Semitic tome, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
In this regard, he shares with the whole gamut of conspiracy theorists a special place in his conspiracies for the Jews.
Comparisons — by the man himself and others— have been made with Jesus Christ, who was scorned in his time whenhe told people how it was going to be.
However, it should be pointed out that Christ got cracking at the age of 30, while Icke was a bit slow, having been just two years short of his 40th birthday when he took up his microphone and walked.
Also, the former only had three years to do his bidding while the son of the Godhead has been at it for nearly 30 years now.
Whatever about hisparentage, Icke was certainly before his time. When he got the calling in 1989 the worldwide web was but a pup. So he was tearing through various conspiracy theories when it evolved into a communication tool for the masses.
Therein the conspiracy theorist can thrive if he is a good communicator with a message that can resonate with those who want to believe.
Icke is certainly an excellent communicator but he does owe a debt of gratitude to the spirits or energies that were doing his head in when he was presenting Grandstand.
The calling he received has made him a wealthyman with legions of followers throughout theworld who consider him if not the Son of God, at least the man with all the answers.
And he may well have them, as those who attend his Dublin outing tonight will probably attest to.
After all, a prophetis never accepted in hisown land, or, for thatmatter, his own forcefield of energy or whatever you’re having yourself.