David Vaughan Icke

 (pronounced /aɪk/; born April 29, 1952) is a British writer and public speaker who has devoted himself since 1990 to researching "who and what is really controlling the world."A former professional football player, reporter, television sports presenter, and spokesman for the Green Party, he is the author of 20 books explaining his views.

Icke argues that he has developed a moral and political worldview that combines New Age spiritualism with a passionate denunciation of what he sees as totalitarian trends in the modern world, a position that has been described as "New Age conspiracism.

At the heart of Icke's theories is the view that the world is ruled by a secret group called the "Global Elite" or "Illuminati," which he has linked to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic hoax.In 1999, he published The Biggest Secret, in which he wrote that the Illuminati are a race of reptilian humanoids known as the Babylonian Brotherhood, and that many prominent figures are reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie.

According to Political Research Associates, Icke's speaking engagements can draw a substantial audience in Canada. During an October 1999 speaking tour there, he received a standing ovation from students after a four-hour speech at the University of Toronto, while his books were removed from the shelves of Indigo Books across Ontario after protests from the Canadian Jewish Congress.

Conspiracy writings

Icke has published at least 20 books outlining his views, a mixture of spiritual philosophy and apocalyptic conspiracism. American political scientist Michael Barkun, in a 2003 study of conspiracy theory subculture, writes that Icke is "the most fluent of conspiracy authors, which gives his writings a clarity rarely found in the genre."

Icke's core ideas are outlined in four books written over seven years: The Robots' Rebellion (1994), … And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World (1999), and Children of the Matrix (2001). The basic conspiracy theory is that the world is controlled by a network of secret societies referred to as the "Brotherhood," at the apex of which stand the "Illuminati" or "Global Elite." The goal of the Brotherhood is a world government, a plan that Icke says was laid out in the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which Icke says are really the revealed plans of the Illuminati. Icke, in common with many other conspiracy theorists, says the methods of these conspirators include control of the world's economies and the use of mind-control techniques.

The Global Elite controls the Brotherhood and the world using what Icke calls a "pyramid of manipulation," consisting of sets of hierarchical structures involving banking, business, the military, education, the media, religion, drug companies, intelligence agencies, and organised crime. At the very top of the pyramid are what Icke calls the "Prison Warders," who are not human. He writes that: "A pyramidal structure of human beings has been created under the influence and design of the extraterrestrial Prison Warders and their overall master, the Luciferic Consciousness. They control the human clique at the top of the pyramid, which I have dubbed the Global Elite."

Icke cites the Holocaust,the Oklahoma City bombing, and the 11 September 2001 attacks.as examples of events financed and organised by the Global Elite. British journalist Simon Jones writes that, according to Icke, "Ordinary people are being massively duped into believing that the ordinary course of world events are the consequence of known political forces and random, uncontrollable events. However, the course of humanity is being manipulated at every level. These individuals arrange for incidents to occur around the world, which then elicit a response from the public ('something must be done'), and in turn allows those in power to do whatever they had planned to do in the first place." Icke refers to this as problem-reaction-solution.

Reptilian humanoids

In 1999, Icke wrote and published The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World, in which he identified the extraterrestrial prison warders as reptilians from the constellation Draco.They walk erect and appear to be human, living not only on the planets they come from, but also in caverns and tunnels under the earth. They have cross-bred with humans, which has created "hybrids" who are "possessed" by the full-blooded reptilians.The reptiles' hybrid reptilian-human DNA allows them to change from reptilian to human form if they consume human blood. Icke has drawn parallels with the 1980s science-fiction series V, in which the earth is taken over by reptiloid aliens disguised as humans.

According to Icke, the reptilian group includes many prominent people and practically every world leader from Britain's late Queen Mother to George H.W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair. These people are either themselves reptilian, or work for the reptiles as what Icke calls slave-like victims of multiple personality disorder: "The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, the British royal family, and the ruling political and economic families of the U.S. and the rest of the world come from these SAME bloodlines. It is not because of snobbery, it is to hold as best they can a genetic structure — the reptilian-mammalian DNA combination which allows them to 'shape-shift'."

In Tales From The Time Loop and other works, Icke states that most organised religions, especially Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are Illuminati creations designed to divide and conquer the human race through endless conflicts. In a similar vein, Icke believes racial and ethnic divisions are an illusion promoted by the reptilians, and that racism fuels the Illuminati agenda.