David Icke’s Reptilian Thesis and the Development of New Age Theodicy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v4i1.27Keywords:
conspiracism, David Icke, theodicy, New Age, Reptilian ThesisAbstract
Despite its considerable currency in popular culture, David Icke’s Reptilian Thesis is almost always viewed academically as irrational and anti-Semitic. Here, I suggest that it be considered instead against a) traditional conceptualizations of “evil,” and b) the development of the New Age milieu. The need to reconcile a holistic, relativizing construction of evil with the perceived failure of the New Age to arrive was keenly felt in the New Age milieu through the 1990s and 2000s. An Other had to exist, yet could not be constructed as human. The Reptilian Thesis introduces a theodicy into New Age, of a globalized, extra-terrestrial Other. Icke’s Reptilian Thesis seeks to portray the extra-terrestrial as that which is, literally, “alien,” in order to explain away the perceived failure of the New Age. The New Age, Icke suggests, did not fail to arrive, but was prevented from arriving. The Reptilian Thesis is therefore not so much a departure from New Age Theodicy, but a reconfiguration of it.
References
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Chidester, David. 2005. Authentic Fakes: Religions and American Popular Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
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Cooper, Milton W. 1991. Behold a Pale Horse. Flagstaff, AZ: Light Technology Publishing.
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Flaherty, Robert P. 2010. “These are They: ET-Human Hybridisation and the New Daemonology.” Nova Religio 14 (2010): 84–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2010.14.2.84
Frankfurter, David. 2003. “The Satanic abuse panic as religious studies data.” Numen 50 (2003): 108–117. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156852703321103265
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Mackie, J. L. 1990 [1955]. “Evil and omnipotence.” In The Problem of evil, edited by Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert Merrihew Adams, 4–37. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MacLaine, Shirley. 1987. It’s all in the playing. Toronto: Bantam Books.
McTaggart, Lynne. 1996. What Doctors Don’t Tell You: The truth about the dangers of modern medicine. London: Thorsons.
Melley, Timothy. 2000. Empire of Conspiracy: The culture of paranoia in postwar America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Melton, J. Gordon. 2007. “Beyond Millennialism: The New Age transformed.” In Handbook of New Age, edited by Darren Kemp and James R. Lewis, 77–97. Leiden: Brill.
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Moore, Michael, director. 2004. Fahrenheit 9/11. O’Connor, D. 2008. God, Evil, and Design: An introduction to the philosophical issues. Malden, MA: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444301281
Oxford English Dictionary. 1989. conspiracy, (n). Second edition, 1989; online version March 2011. . Accessed 27 April 2011. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1893.
Partridge, Christopher. 2005. The Re-Enchantment of the West, Vol. 2. London: T and T Clark.
Partridge, Christopher and Eric Christianson. 2009. “Introduction.” In The Lure of the Dark Side: Satan and Western demonology in popular culture, edited by Christopher Partridge and Eric Christianson 1–21. London and Oakville, CT: Equinox.
Pipes, Daniel. 1997. How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where it Comes From. New York: Free Press.
Redfield, James. 1993. The Celestine Prophecy. London: Bantam.
Robertson, David G. 2013. “(Always) Living in the End Times: The ‘Rolling Prophecy’ of the conspiracy milieu.” In Prophecy in the New Millennium—When Prophecies Persist, edited by Sarah Harvey and Suzanne Newcombe, 207–219. Farnham: Ashgate.
Ronson, Jon. 2001a. Them: Adventures with Extremists. London: Picador.
Ronson, Jon.2001b. “David Icke, the lizards, and the Jews,” Channel 4 Television, broadcast 6/5/2001. Accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zVaOt_KYu8andNR=1. May 3, 2011.
Shine, Betty, and Anthea Courtenay. 1989. Mind to Mind. London: Bantam.
Sitchin, Zecharia. 1976. The 12th Planet. New York: Stein and Day.
Smith, Warren. 2001. “Conspiracy, corporate culture and criticism.” In The Age of Anxiety: Conspiracy Theory and the Human Sciences, edited by Jane Parish and Martin Parker, 153–165. Oxford: Blackwell.
Steyn, H. Christina. 2003. “Where New Age and African Religion Meet: The case of Credo Mutwa.” Culture and Religion 4: 67–91.
Sutcliffe, Steven. 2003a. Children of the New Age: A history of spiritual practices. London: Routledge.
Sutcliffe, Steven. 2003b. “Category formation and the history of New Age.” Culture and Religion 4(1): 5–30.
Victor, Jeffrey. S. 1993. Satanic Panic: The creation of a contemporary myth. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
Ward, Charlotte and David Voas. 2011. “The emergence of conspirituality.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 26(1): 103–121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2011.539846
White, Ed. 2002. “The value of conspiracy theory.” American Literary History 14: 1–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/alh/14.1.1
Bailey, Alice. 1954. Education in the New Age. New York: Lucis.
Barkun, Michael. 2003. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520238053.001.0001
Berlitz, Charles and William Moore. 1980. The Roswell Incident. New York: Grosset.
Bartlett, Jamie and Carl Miller. 2010. The Power of Unreason: Conspiracy theories, extremism and counter-terrorism. London: DEMOS.
Beyer, Peter. 1994. Religion and Globalisation. London: SAGE.
Blavatsky, Helena P. 1888 [1978]. The Secret Doctrine: Collected Writings, 1888. Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House.
Boyer, Paul S. 1992. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy belief in modern American culture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Campbell, Colin. 1972. “The cult, the cultic milieu and secularisation.” In A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5 (1972), edited by M. Hill, 119–136. London: SCM-Canterbury Press.
Campbell, Colin. 2001. “A New Age Theodicy for a new age.” In Peter Berger and the Study of Religion, edited by L. Woodhead with P. Heelas and D. Martin, 73–85. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
Chaudhary, Vivek. 1994. “Greens see red at ‘Son of God’s anti-semitism’.” The Guardian, Sept. 12, 1994.
Chidester, David. 2005. Authentic Fakes: Religions and American Popular Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Coady, David. 2007. “Are conspiracy theorists irrational?” Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology 4(2007): 193–204.
Cooper, Milton W. 1991. Behold a Pale Horse. Flagstaff, AZ: Light Technology Publishing.
Christy, Des. 1991. “Crucifixion, courtesy of the BBC.” The Guardian, 6 May 1991.
Davies, B. 2006. The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil. London: Continuum.
Fenster, Mark. 2001 . Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and power in American culture. 2nd edition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Flaherty, Robert P. 2010. “These are They: ET-Human Hybridisation and the New Daemonology.” Nova Religio 14 (2010): 84–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2010.14.2.84
Frankfurter, David. 2003. “The Satanic abuse panic as religious studies data.” Numen 50 (2003): 108–117. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156852703321103265
Frisk, Liselotte. 2001. “Globalization or Westernisation? New Age as a contemporary transnational culture.” In New Age and Globalisation, edited by Mikael Rothstein, 31–41. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Guardian, The. 1990. “Protester David Icke finally pays community charge.” 14 November 1990.
Goldberg, Robert A. 2001. Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. 2002. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York: New York University Press.
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1996. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the mirror of secular thought. Leiden: Brill.
Heelas, Paul. 1996. The New Age Movement: Celebrating the self and the sacralization of modernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hofstader, Richard. 1964. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, 77–86.
Honigsbaum, Mark. 1995. “The Dark Side of David Icke.” London Evening Standard, 26 May, 1995.
Hull, Norman. 2006. “David Icke: Was he right?” Channel 5, 12/26/06. http://video.google.co.uk/videoplaydocid=6860946590182985661andq=David+Icke+Was+He+Right%3F. Accessed July 9, 2011.
Icke, David. 1991. The Truth Vibrations. London: The Aquarian Press.
Icke, David. 1992. Love Changes Everything. Harper Collins.
Icke, David. 1993. In the Light of Experience: The autobiography of David Icke. Time Warner.
Icke, David. 1994. The Robot’s Rebellion: The story of the spiritual renaissance. Bath: Gateway.
Icke, David. 1995. ...And the Truth Shall Set You Free. Ryde: Bridge of Love Publications.
Icke, David. 1999. The Biggest Secret: The Book that will Change the World. Ryde: Bridge of Love Publications.
Icke, David. 2001. Children of the Matrix. Ryde: Bridge of Love Publications.
Icke, David. 2003. Tales from the Time Loop. Ryde: Bridge of Love Publications.
Jameson, Fredric. 1988. “Cognitive Mapping”. In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by C. Nelson and L. Grossberg, 347–360. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Kay, Jonathan. 2011. Among the Truthers: A journey through America’s growing conspiracist underground. New York: HarperCollins.
Levy, Neil. 2007. “Radically socialized knowledge and conspiracy theories.” Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology 4(2): 181–192.
Lewis, Tyson and Richard Kahn. 2005. “The Reptoid Hypothesis: Utopian and dystopian representational motifs in David Icke’s alien conspiracy theory.” Utopian Studies 16: 45–75.
Mackie, J. L. 1990 [1955]. “Evil and omnipotence.” In The Problem of evil, edited by Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert Merrihew Adams, 4–37. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MacLaine, Shirley. 1987. It’s all in the playing. Toronto: Bantam Books.
McTaggart, Lynne. 1996. What Doctors Don’t Tell You: The truth about the dangers of modern medicine. London: Thorsons.
Melley, Timothy. 2000. Empire of Conspiracy: The culture of paranoia in postwar America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Melton, J. Gordon. 2007. “Beyond Millennialism: The New Age transformed.” In Handbook of New Age, edited by Darren Kemp and James R. Lewis, 77–97. Leiden: Brill.
Mishel, Lawrence. 2011. “Education is not the cure for high unemployment or for income inequality”. Economic Policy Institute Briefing Article #286. Available at http://www.epi.org/publication/education_is_not_the_cure_for_high_unemployment_or_for_income_inequality/. Accessed January 28, 2013.
Moore, Michael, director. 2004. Fahrenheit 9/11. O’Connor, D. 2008. God, Evil, and Design: An introduction to the philosophical issues. Malden, MA: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444301281
Oxford English Dictionary. 1989. conspiracy, (n). Second edition, 1989; online version March 2011. . Accessed 27 April 2011. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1893.
Partridge, Christopher. 2005. The Re-Enchantment of the West, Vol. 2. London: T and T Clark.
Partridge, Christopher and Eric Christianson. 2009. “Introduction.” In The Lure of the Dark Side: Satan and Western demonology in popular culture, edited by Christopher Partridge and Eric Christianson 1–21. London and Oakville, CT: Equinox.
Pipes, Daniel. 1997. How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where it Comes From. New York: Free Press.
Redfield, James. 1993. The Celestine Prophecy. London: Bantam.
Robertson, David G. 2013. “(Always) Living in the End Times: The ‘Rolling Prophecy’ of the conspiracy milieu.” In Prophecy in the New Millennium—When Prophecies Persist, edited by Sarah Harvey and Suzanne Newcombe, 207–219. Farnham: Ashgate.
Ronson, Jon. 2001a. Them: Adventures with Extremists. London: Picador.
Ronson, Jon.2001b. “David Icke, the lizards, and the Jews,” Channel 4 Television, broadcast 6/5/2001. Accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zVaOt_KYu8andNR=1. May 3, 2011.
Shine, Betty, and Anthea Courtenay. 1989. Mind to Mind. London: Bantam.
Sitchin, Zecharia. 1976. The 12th Planet. New York: Stein and Day.
Smith, Warren. 2001. “Conspiracy, corporate culture and criticism.” In The Age of Anxiety: Conspiracy Theory and the Human Sciences, edited by Jane Parish and Martin Parker, 153–165. Oxford: Blackwell.
Steyn, H. Christina. 2003. “Where New Age and African Religion Meet: The case of Credo Mutwa.” Culture and Religion 4: 67–91.
Sutcliffe, Steven. 2003a. Children of the New Age: A history of spiritual practices. London: Routledge.
Sutcliffe, Steven. 2003b. “Category formation and the history of New Age.” Culture and Religion 4(1): 5–30.
Victor, Jeffrey. S. 1993. Satanic Panic: The creation of a contemporary myth. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
Ward, Charlotte and David Voas. 2011. “The emergence of conspirituality.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 26(1): 103–121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2011.539846
White, Ed. 2002. “The value of conspiracy theory.” American Literary History 14: 1–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/alh/14.1.1
Published
2013-09-07
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Robertson, D. (2013). David Icke’s Reptilian Thesis and the Development of New Age Theodicy. International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 4(1), 27-47. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v4i1.27
