Slapping Down David Icke

Yes it will, David. Yes it will.

David Icke is something of a laughing-stock among serious occultists, but a lot of other people do buy his books. Icke has basically made a name for himself by claiming that the wealthy individuals and families who by and large control the global economy are in fact shape-shifting reptilian aliens. As I've commented before, what's so bizarre about this is not that a global elite exists, but rather the idea that they can't possibly be human.

Icke also fills his books with allegations of "Satanic" activity by said elites, which as I have also pointed out here is basically ridiculous. The global elite is not made up of occultists, Satanic or otherwise. Occultism is a fringe discipline practiced by those who don't have the financial resources to shape the world at the geopolitical level. Why go through the process of developing magical powers when money can get most jobs done more efficiently?

Icke recently was forced to settle a lawsuit brought by a Canadian human rights lawyer, who was accused of seeking to suppress the author's exposure of (non-existent) "Satanic child abuse and murder" in one of his books. Needless to say, the allegations were found to be entirely false.

“He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy” were the words Richard Warman, a Canadian human rights lawyer, quoted after being paid £117,000 in compensation for lies published by conspiracy author David Icke in his 2001 book Children of the Matrix.

In an embarrassing defeat David Icke quietly settled out of court for indefensible statements he had written about Warman, which included false allegations that Warman was seeking to suppress Icke’s purported exposure of Satanic child abuse and murder.

David Icke is not shy of making allegations, often vicious and vitriolic in nature, about people on his website DavidIcke.com. However, it is noted that Icke hasn’t mentioned this recent defeat anywhere, despite having previously widely publicise it to his readers and appeal to them for monetary donations for a legal defence fund.

It is perhaps too much to hope that Icke's fans have functional critical thinking skills and will realize that this probably means a lot of his other allegations are made up as well. Icke has previously claimed that he's never lost a lawsuit because all of his claims, even the crazy stuff about aliens, is true. But if he says that now, he will be lying. I imagine that he hasn't been sued previously because the alien reptile nonsense is just too silly for any reasonable person to believe.

I understand the impulse to associate the members of the global elite with alien bloodlines and unspeakable occult evils, but in fact they are pretty much like anybody else except that they have great big piles of money. Their decisions may look "evil," but mostly that's because their wealth insulates them from the consequences of those decisions. Therefore, they feel free to pursue their own self-interest in a manner that from the outside may seem psychopathic.

As is the case with a number of popular New Age authors including Icke, I remain dismayed at the degree to which they outsell genuine occultists and magical practitioners. Apparently, though, people would rather read about nonsensical space aliens and conspiracies instead of studying something that might actually make a difference in their lives.

Update: Just to clarify one of my points above, a commenter on Facebook characterized this post as claiming only the "poor and powerless" would use magick. But that's not what I mean at all. In most cases I wouldn't bother explaining further, but it highlights what I consider to be an important point that many people - especially the sorts of people who are into Icke and/or Illuminati conspiracy theories - don't seem to get.

When you study individuals who are rich to the point that they can control global financial markets by money alone, the most common factor that you find among all of them is that they basically think about money all the time and little else. To get good at working magick requires time, dedication, and practice, all of which detract from time that could be spent making more money, and I also know that if I had basically unlimited resources it's usually easier to buy things than conjure them up.

Lots of the magicians I know, myself included, are successful professionals who are well-off by any objective measure. We use magick all the time, and are by no means "poor" or "powerless." But I have yet to hear of one who was, say, a billionaire. I don't think it's because they and every single other person they ever come into contact with are good at keeping secrets, I think that in order to become a billionaire and maintain one's wealth at that level it's a simple fact that your priorities have to lie somewhere else.