The world of David Icke - a review of his book Phantom Self (2016) and a comparison with Rudolf Steiner

Since being impressed by David Icke's grasp of the significance of the Brexit vote four weeks ago  -

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-david-icke-phenomenon-and-brexit.html

I have been investigating the thought world of this man, who the media dub the world's major conspiracy theorist.

I have watched or listened to many speeches and interviews, and read his most recent book The Phantom Self - which covers a similar theme and contains many rather similar arguments to those I have come-across in Colin Wilson and William Arkle and blogged about here; concerning the true and free versus automatic and false Self; and the important problem of each person finding then living-from the true Self.

Icke adds to this the valuable perspective that in this modern era (and in addition to our natural tendency to develop a false Self) the false Self (what Icke terms the Phantom self) is substantially a product of a programmed manipulation by the Establishment (i.e. the Conspiracy). In other words, our Phantom Self is actively working-against the interests of our Real/ True Self.

My impression is that Icke is primarily a spiritual thinker and teacher, who personally is most concerned by the spiritual corruption of the world and what to do about it. There are two long chapters at the end of The Phantom Self concerned with how to wake-up to the fact that we are in reality 'Infinite Consciousness' and our mortal life ought to be seen in terms of educational experiences. We are not the product of those experiences, our true selves lie behind and beyond any possible experiences. With some changes in nomenclature, I think this is correct and vital.

Icke is strongly against any form of organised religion, and his spiritual advice is mainly to live life by the intuition of the heart, which will lead to the synchronicities that we personally most need as experiences. This, again, seems correct so far as it goes, and very much like 'the discernment of the heart' which some Christians regard as our best guidance in this world - especially since Icke does a good analysis which clarifies what he means by the heart - contrasted with the mind and gut-feelings which are the focus of manipulation by The Conspiracy.

Reading Icke, I was quite often reminded of Rudolf Steiner in a broad-brush fashion - for instance, both disseminate their views primarily via speaking: in Steiner's case by a multitude of smallish lectures, in Icke's case by videos, podcasts and interviews; and very large public lectures (currently on-going in Australia). Of course, Steiner was a world class accredited intellectual and a genius; whereas Icke is, although above average intelligent and articulate and much better than Steiner at structuring evidence and arguments, operating on a much more common sense and middlebrow level.

But the same basic problem affects anyone who tries to come to terms with Steiner as one who tries to give Icke a hearing - which is that they have a strong, clear view on every subject under the sun, and most of these views are bizarre, many are wrong, and all are over-precise. This, presumably, is because both are working from an intuitive method which always yields conclusions on every topic - even those on which the intuiter is scantily or erroneously informed - and which provides for the reader real and important (and, otherwise, hard to come-by) truths, closely mixed with falsehoods and illusions - but Steiner and Icke themselves are unable to discern which is which.

This does not much bother me - so long as I take them in large enough doses that I can allow the bizarre elements to 'blow through me' (maybe enjoying their ingenious arguments, meanwhile) while focusing on the basic perspectives and primary teachings. This is a matter of having made the basic decision that Icke is a decent and well-motivated person who is doing his best in the available situation, as was Steiner.

Both Steiner and Icke are much more spiritually-focused than the mass of their followers (to whom they need to cater) and this has a distorting effect on the balance of their output. In Icke's case this leads to one of the main problem with his conspiracy theory - which concerns the ultimate aim of The Conspiracy.

For Icke, this world is conceptualised as a kind of idealism; our reality is 'a hologram' (akin to the situation in the movie The Matrix, 1999) - because perceived reality is essentially a facade, and its reality comes from our interpretation. For Icke, there is no God or gods - and ultimate creative goodness is conceptualised abstractly and deistically in terms of higher consciousness, higher frequencies and vibrations.

The source of The Conspiracy for Icke is a group of immortal evil 'demons' (as I would interpret them), aliens, Archons, shape-shifting reptiloids - whose aim is drag humans down to a low-frequency level, and then to control humans in every respect, in order vampirically to live-upon human psychic energies (especially the emotion of fear, but also other negative emotions such as hatred). Ultimately, therefore, Icke correctly diagnoses the Big Problem as Spiritual Warfare.

However, perhaps due to the interests of his followers, in quantitative terms the bulk of Icke's output is focused on political, social and worldly concerns - and the idea that the Conspiracy callously delights in making miserable, tormenting, making sick and killing humans. This is a basic flaw in the sense that modern Western people are - overall and compared with any previous or alternative society - prosperous, comfortable, convenient, healthy and long-lived. Since The Conspiracy's plans are (currently) well advanced, this basic fact is broadly incompatible with The Conspiracy wanting to torture our mortal bodies.

Icke is not a Christian nor anything else, and seems strongly 'anti' all actual Christian churches, especially any focused worship, ritual and symbolic elements - since he regards focused worship situations as set up to provide a kind of energy-vampirism, and ritual and symbolism as almost-always characteristic of The Conspiracy beings. The 'Archons' are fundamentally-uncreative beings, therefore they rely on such crude, repetitive procedures to force or compel a kind of pseudo-creativity. Also, Icke apparently experienced a - possibly - hypomanic-type episode around 1990 during which he appeared on prime-time TV and asserted he was the Son of God, in a way that suggested he was a reincarnate Jesus, or something similar. I think he has since rather over-reacted-against the content of this transient and delusional state.

Having said all this, and taking it as the mixed whole it is; what is my overview of David Icke's work? The answer is that I am overall impressed - and I think he provides many valuable perspectives and examples that I have found helpful and clarifying. I think he is a genuine intuitive, who has access to a deeper level of understanding than is normal - and that this has been show by a number of insights which seemed very far-fetched until they were shown to be correct.

(Interestingly, and again on the same lines as Arkle, in seeking intuition Icke does not practise meditation by any formal or specific technique - rather he says that he sits in quietness and solitude and lets his mind follow its own logic by 'daydreaming'. This, combined with the way that synchronicity shapes his life and brings particular people, books and things to his attention, is how he gets his insights.)  

For example, Icke seems to have been among the first to describe (naming names, several of which have since been confirmed) the covert and covered-up network of paedophilia which permeates the British ultra-Establishment.

Icke saw the extent to which modern Establishment elites deliberately (e.g. by false flag operations and agents provocateurs) cause the atrocities and problems which they then 'react-to' by implementing pre-decided programs tending towards population pacification and control - and the way that the mass media, technology, the law and its enforcement, officialdom, education, and also modern medicine are all combining to make a docile, distracted, drugged, dysfunctional and despairing humanity.

And also that this depends upon divide-and-rule procedures which create conflicts, and provide the incentives by which the dupes do the work of the demons; in building their own prisons, herding people inside, and then policing each other to prevent anyone escaping. 

Icke also correctly predicted (when nobody else did) that 2016 would be the crux year, and potentially the beginning of the crunch-time potentially a turning-point - a window of about three years - when we either turn away from our current suicide course, or it becomes irreversible.

Icke's lack of the coherent metaphysical structure and the overall story of (Mormon) Christianity is a significant problem, although his criticisms of actually-existing Christian churches are mostly accurate and reasonable. But, depending upon your tolerance for excessively detailed wrongness and your capacity not to let it interfere, there is much in Icke's work that is valuable and which you will probably not find anywhere else.