Monday, 27 October 2014

David Icke Live- 2014

Most people in Britain have heard of David Icke. For all my life before the year 2000 he was a TV presenter I’d watched on sport and children’s programmes who became an environmentalist in the 1980’s and then went crazy in the early 1990’s. “He thinks he’s the son of God!” chuckled one of the porters at my hospital; I had missed his notorious appearance on Wogan myself. That was all I ever heard about David Icke for eight whole years until 2000. During those eight years I had changed so much I was almost unrecognizable compared to the man I’d been, and that was when I saw him featured in Jon Ronson’s Secret Rulers of the World- The Lizards and the Jews, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2ypYcZ7qfw. I now consider this a very substandard documentary, but at the time it immediately inspired me to read his book The Biggest Secret, from there followed …And the Truth shall Set you Free, The Robots Rebellion and others. Within a year I had devoured his entire bibliography and started going to see his live shows. I don’t think I’ve missed a single one he’s done in this country; his 2014 show London was to be the first ever, but it seemed I was destined to attend. The SSE Arena in Wembley was originally an Olympic swimming pool when it was opened in 1934, but today it’s one of the nation’s top event venues. It lies in the shadow of the new Wembley Stadium, whose Masonic rising sun arch support has replaced the Masonic twin towers of the old stadium. As I approached the Arena’s elegant triangular entrance I was accompanied by my lovely Ustane and my good friend Tiberius Kirk. I managed to see a few other people I knew, like Heidi King and Colin Woolford, although there were a good five thousand attendees and there were people around I wanted to get in touch with but didn’t get the chance because I never found them. Some HPANWO-readers and viewers I’d not met before came up and introduced themselves which was nice. The security was not quite as stringent as it had been in 2012, see background link at the bottom, and we were not body-searched. The foyer of the Arena was full of food kiosks and bars which sold overpriced sweets, snacks, bottled water and other refreshments, but I was surprised to see that David himself had no merchandise stall; unlike 2012 when he had all his books, T-shirts and other products there to pick up. The cavernous auditorium was a lot warmer this time, as was the weather outside and we quickly found our seats in the upper gallery on the right hand side. The venue’s previous existence as the Empire Pool was manifest as the terraces were at right angles to the stage lining the oblong stalls, which was there the pool itself must have been. This meant that David was to our immediate right. The stage was as well decorated as ever and the show began with Gareth Icke and his band again playing, along with what looked like the same troupe doing the “noncompli-dance” which I and many of the audience members joined in with. Moving, multi-coloured spotlights and stencils illuminated the stage around David. The man himself looked small from where we were sitting, dressed in his trademark dark trousers and open-collar shirt. All his live shows, like his books, are designed to be self-contained and comprehensible to the newcomer, therefore he always repeats some information which regular fans of his will be familiar with; but he’s very skilled at presenting everything in intelligent new ways. The lecture was billed at ten hours, split into four two-hour periods with three breaks, one for an hour and two for half an hour; but anybody who knows David’s style would realize there was no way he was ever going to finish on time. He began by talking about the nature of reality, how it’s all an illusion. He uses a lot of his own terminology, like the “cosmic internet” and how we’re all “droplets in the ocean”; he had a healthy dig at Richard Dawkins again and paid tribute to Dr Masaru Emoto who passed away a few days earlier, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/masaru-emoto-dies.html. In part two he talked about the “Archons”, a term that I’ve heard several other researchers use recently, like Graham Hancock and John Lash. They appear to be some kind of extra-dimensional malevolence, similar to what Muslims call the “Djinn”. In part three he brought in the physical and practical conspiracy in the form of think tanks like the Fabian Society, the Frankfurt School, cultural Marxism and political correctness. The way the education system messes with the heads of children and the media does the same to us all, young and old. He also spoke about the planet Saturn and how a lot of what was previously thought of as sun worship was really worshipping Saturn. This is very interesting, and worrying; David never brought up the “Lucifer Project”, but I think it may be connected, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/lucifer-project.html. The latest news is that this operation is planned to be carried out on the summer solstice 2017. The third part left this audience-member a little downhearted, to say the least. How can we possibly win against such a massive and powerful super-conspiracy? But David is an optimist and in the last segment he didn’t disappoint; bringing on the dancers again and with a narrative about how we can set ourselves free of this monstrous evil. This segment included more music. David brought over a rock band from Canada called The Ancient Order, a London based calypso group called Rebel Control and, satisfying David’s appreciation for female soloists, a singer called Louisa Love. The gig ended at 9.30 PM, an hour and a half late, and we made a beeline for the nearest pub. I was exhausted; I felt like I’d spent the day climbing up a mountain when all I’d been doing was sitting down the whole time. It’s simply the energy of a live David Icke show that does this. This event was informally billed as “David Icke’s last major UK show”, but that’s been said about his previous last three or four and David keeps coming back. He’s sixty-two years old now and still suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, but he is unstoppable. He was sweating and panting again as he spoke on stage and an audience member in the front row got up and gave him a tissue to wipe his face, but he didn’t falter. I don’t think anything will truly stop him. He cried at one point and said that he would not leave this reality, ie “die”, until the job was done and we were living in the kind of world that we could truly build, beautiful and free.
As I said, this was an event I had previously decided to skip, for the usual reasons- a lack of time and money. Then the same thing happened as did with Probe two weeks back, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/probe-autumn-2014.html, somebody offered by buy me a ticket. This was a different person to the individual who funded my trip to Probe, but again, I felt a bit embarrassed; a part of me wondered if it was ethical to accept. However I did, yet again, and my benefactor was very pleased. Once I knew I was going I fervently looked forward to it; beforehand I’d been indifferent. David Icke has probably been the most influential man on my life, being the lighthouse in the fog of my emerging conspiratorial awareness. However I feel in a way that I’ve moved on from him. Can I make that statement without it sounding like I’m knocking Icke? Truly I’m not. I’m still just as much a supporter of his ideas as I was back in 2000; I still have just as much respect for him now as I did then. I simply feel like I’ve gone far enough out to sea now that I don’t need his lighthouse as much as I used to; I’ve cleared the fog bank and can now set my sails for the open ocean. I don’t feel the need to catch every radio and TV spot he’s on and listen to it over and over; it’s just something I like doing occasionally. Therefore I was watching David’s 2014 Wembley appearance from a very different vantage point as I did his 2002 gig at Stoke-on-Trent, the first time I saw him live on stage. I think almost everybody who gets to know Icke at some point changes their mind about him, but with most people it’s a very different experience to my own. In 2007 to 2009 I went to a series of four or five “meet-ups” in places like Glastonbury, the Peak District and Avebury. These were organized by members of the Official David Icke Forum on which I used to be a regular poster, see: http://www.davidicke.com/forum/index.php. However the forum has badly declined and our community is fragmented; there was a highly controversial incident in which a number of innocent members were banned and that was when I lost interest in it. I still log in occasionally, but spend very little time there. In June 2014 I attended a new meet-up at The Barge Inn, Wiltshire to celebrate the summer solstice; the weather was perfect and we all got on very well and had a great time. Interestingly most of the people I met there were the same faces that used to go to the meet-ups in the grand old days of the DIF; however this time there was not a kind word for David Icke from any of them, and some people expressed open hostility for him. How did this happen? A lot of it definitely comes from the DIF scandal, an issue I sympathize with along with them. “Haitigate”, too; this was when we discovered that David Icke’s T-shirts were made by a company called Gildan Activewear which is a notorious third world sweatshop manufacturer; it employs a workforce of low-paid slave labour in Haiti and other poor countries, see: http://socialistworker.org/2013/05/01/sweatshop-development-in-haiti. We wondered why David didn’t use a Fairtrade business for his merchandise, seeing as this would be in line with what he preaches; a just criticism I think, and David has some explaining to do. From what I’ve seen, David’s personal blame lies more in oversight than deception; he set up an account with Cafepress who are the ones who directly buy Gildan products under their own policy and sell them on to their clients. I hope David listens to what people have said regarding this matter and makes the necessary changes to his business. There are also numerous conspiratorial researchers who accuse David of being a shill. This is hardly original; I myself have been labelled thus many times. Altogether this has resulted in a mutual back-slapping culture in which it’s very trendy to be anti-Icke; it’s almost seen as a badge of honour, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/is-it-cool-to-be-anti-icke.html. However, the biggest blow to David’s reputation was The People’s Voice. This was a multimedia organization set up around an internet TV station that was launched in November 2013, yet within a year it was in terminal decline. The reasons for this are complicated and contentious and lie beyond the scope of this article, yet it’s sad because TPV was such a great idea; I contributed myself through Planet X Live. A highly divisive situation has arisen from the ashes of TPV and some very shrill pundits are proclaiming that David is to blame for all this and he won’t accept responsibility. One constant criticism that has followed David since the earliest days is that everything he’s doing is a “money-making scam”. Amazingly people claimed this even when he left his job as a famous TV journalist to do what he’s doing now. Some people reckon that he’s making a pile of cash off his Wembley gig for charging forty pounds a ticket. Perhaps these people don’t realize how much it costs to hire the SSE Arena; it’s not like booking a room above a pub. Actually forty quid is very good value when you consider that this was a twelve hour show. In a few weeks’ time my daughter is going to the same SSE Arena to see the band Slipknot performing live and she had to pay over a hundred pounds for her ticket, and it’s only a three hour concert. As is always the case when the self-appointed armchair Truth policemen pick up the scent on one of their little hobby horses, you have to agree with them… or else! There are many other examples, eg: http://guerrillademocracy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/so-fatso-ben-emlyn-jones-wants-to-have.html and: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/miragemengate.html. So how should we regard David Icke? I regard him as a man, and like all men, including me and you too, dear HPANWO-reader, he is fallible and flawed. David Icke makes mistakes, suffers from failures of nerve and imagination, and he makes moral compromises. Every single one of those who sit in judgement and pontificate over his character are guilty of the very same offences; I’d be amused to hear them try and deny it. I think maybe the problem some of David’s erstwhile admirers have is that they put him on a pedestal he did not deserve. They saw him as so wonderful that when he turned out to have the same imperfections that all human beings share, they felt betrayed. My advantage was that I don’t think I ever saw him as anything more than human, even in the early days. Therefore the question I have, and the one I recommend asking, is: can you accept David warts and all? Do his various misdemeanours, whether perceived or factual, mean that all the other good things he’s ever said and done are therefore worthless? Or can you listen, think about, and take what you need from his message while withholding condemnation. Can you understand the value of his labours while accepting his errors? I reckon I can manage that.
See here for a HPANWO TV reportage of the event: (Coming soon)
An article by Ustane about David Icke: http://spreadingtheword-now.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/first-they-ridicule-you-first.html.

9 comments:

Susan Murray said...

The fact that David is human - with all the inherent "faults and misdemenours" of the human condition, does not detract one iota, for me, the profound message he conveys, nor the enlightening information he has researched over the years; in fact, the knowledge that he shares all our erroneous characteristics, albeit with passionate good intentions, helps me resonate with him all the more.....as that is exactly where I am at right now :)

Susan Murray said...

235

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Well said, Susan. Me too :-)

nicholas howard said...

like the saying goes dont shoot the messenger and wow what a messenger he has been over the so many years , the more people spreading the truth and love the better , bring it on .

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Absolutely, Nicholas 8-)

Mike Smith said...

I first saw him in 2005, a DVD of his 2003 brixton talk. Since,I have watched hundreds of talks/interviews, books, I admire him more as time goes on.
M.Gandhi and D.icke are my only 2 true hero's.
As for the forums, they are poisoned and I rarely bother with them anymore, it's a shame.

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Yeah, something about forums turns people into dicks

Anonymous said...

Dear Ben. Thank's for your recent Youtube video covering the David Icke event, I enjoyed your views. I particularly felt relevant when you discuss 'moving on' from David Icke (Sorry if that sounded like I was implying that you and David had been in a long term loving relationship!!!!!). Anyway, I think you raise an important point that many people miss. People help mold us in our formative stages be they as children developing into adults or as in your case and mine as adults into more aware beings which can 'appear' to happen instantly or over 'time'. For instance there was an individual who was a profound influence on me during my awakening process and for those formative years I am indebted to him because although I have 'moved on' and became in a way his spiritually older sibling now we must not dismiss their relevance as it is on returning to the source of our growth that we truly understand the totality of our experience and learn things we missed before. There are two concepts in Chinese philosophy called 'xiangshang' and 'xiangxia' which mean 'up/upward/beyond/ascending' and 'down/downward/descending'. They have the meaning of rising above (xiangshang) everything that is conditioned (duality) and then returning back into the conditioned with a mind that is beyond discrimination and attachment but with infinite wisdom and means to not only help and guide others who helped us but also to put another peice to the puzzle which may be incomplete in the other individual. We are all human until we shed this skin bag and can rise to the occasion of seeing through the fabric of our limited perception. Those that only ascend and are not able to return downward are I find very judgemental, the most imperfect and those that are liable not to progress. If we should be grateful even to those who have meant to harm us but we have grown stronger from then how much more so to those who have meant to help with or without their own personal faults?. Thanks again. Take care Ben

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

You're welcome, X. (David and I are going through divorce proceedings as we speak) I suppose it's a bit like my daughter. She's a big 19 year old now and I don't see her very often, about once a week. She's happy with that because I'm close by if she needs me. When she was younger she needed me around much more of course. I remember the ascending and descending pathways from reading Ken Wilber. That's a good way of looking at David and what he does in his entirety. It helps understand how to avoid feeling resentment for him. All the best :-)