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86-429: Icke is a name and it may refer to: Surname [ edit ] David Icke (born 1952), English conspiracy theorist Robert Icke , English writer and director Laurie Icke (1929–2010), Australian rules footballer Steven Icke (born 1956), Australian rules footballer Vincent Icke  [ nl ] , Dutch cosmologist and theoretical astrophysicist after whom

172-558: A Holocaust denier , due to his endorsement of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as well as his identification of the Jewish Rothschild family as reptilians, with his theories of reptilians being alleged to serve as a deliberate "code", something which Icke has denied. The allegations of antisemitism and promotion of misinformation has resulted in him being banned from entering a number of countries. The middle son of three boys, Icke

258-564: A donkey in The Golden Ass . Proteus was known among the gods for his shapeshifting; both Menelaus and Aristaeus captured him to obtain information, and they succeeded only by holding on through his many transformations. Nereus told Heracles where to find the Apples of the Hesperides for the same reason. The Oceanid Metis , the first wife of Zeus and the mother of the goddess Athena,

344-402: A utopia full of wealth which is also without pain or death, they crave the pleasures and hardships of human societies. Transformation into human form is said to be rare, and usually occurs at night. The encantado will often be seen running from a festa , despite protests from the others for it to stay, and can be seen by pursuers as it hurries to the river and reverts to dolphin form. When it

430-501: A "media crucifixion". The interview led to a difficult period for Icke. In May 1991, police were called to the couple's home after a crowd of over 100 youths gathered outside, chanting " We want the Messiah " and "Give us a sign, David". Icke told Jon Ronson in 2001: One of my very greatest fears as a child was being ridiculed in public. And there it was coming true. As a television presenter, I'd been respected. People come up to you in

516-556: A butterfly. The most dramatic example of shapeshifting in Irish myth is that of Tuan mac Cairill , the only survivor of Partholón 's settlement of Ireland. In his centuries-long life, he became successively a stag, a wild boar, a hawk, and finally a salmon before being eaten and (as in the Wooing of Étaín) reborn as a human. The Púca is a Celtic faery, and also a deft shapeshifter. He can transform into many different, terrifying forms. Sadhbh ,

602-628: A conspiracy by the Jewish people to achieve global domination. It was exposed as a forgery in 1920 by Lucien Wolf and the following year by Philip Graves in The Times . Once exposed, it disappeared from mainstream discourse until interest in it was renewed by the American far right in the 1950s. Interest in it was further spread by conspiracy groups on the Internet. According to Michael Barkun , Icke's reliance on

688-625: A dance at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Leamington Spa , Warwickshire. They married on 30 September 1971, four months after they met. Their daughter Kerry was born in March 1975; Kerry died in December 2023. Their first son, Gareth, was born in December 1981, followed by their second son, Jaymie, in November 1992. In March 1991 English-Canadian psychic Deborah Shaw began living with the couple in

774-468: A dwarf, a giant, or even a human, depending on the exact myth, but in all variants, he transformed into a dragon—a symbol of greed —while guarding his ill-gotten hoard. His brother, Ótr , enjoyed spending time as an otter, which led to his accidental slaying by Loki. In Scandinavia , there existed, for example, the famous race of she-werewolves known by the name of Maras, women who took on the appearance of huge half-human and half-wolf monsters that stalked

860-479: A force pull his feet to the ground and heard a voice guide him toward some books. One of them was Mind to Mind (1989) by Betty Shine , a psychic healer in Brighton . He read the book, then wrote to her requesting a consultation about his arthritis. Icke visited Shine four times. During the third meeting, on 29 March 1990, Icke claims to have felt something like a spider's web on his face, and Shine told him she had

946-438: A full human, she uses her beauty to seduce men and eat their hearts (or in some cases livers where the belief is that 100 livers would turn her into a real human). In Somali mythology Qori ismaris ("One who rubs himself with a stick") was a man who could transform himself into a " Hyena-man " by rubbing himself with a magic stick at nightfall and by repeating this process could return to his human state before dawn. ǀKaggen

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1032-607: A headache, so Hephaestus clove his head with an axe. Athena sprang from her father's head, fully grown, and in battle armor. In Greek mythology , the transformation is often a punishment from the gods to humans who crossed them. While the Greek gods could use transformation punitively – such as Medusa , who turned to a monster for having sexual intercourse ( raped in Ovid's version) with Poseidon in Athena 's temple – even more frequently,

1118-490: A hen and ate him. She became pregnant, and he was reborn as a baby. He grew up to be the bard Taliesin. In the Book of Taliesin , he mentions many forms which he is able to take, including that of lantern-light. Tales abound about the selkie , a seal that can remove its skin to make contact in human guise with people for only a short amount of time before it must return to the sea. Clan MacColdrum of Uist 's foundation myths include

1204-764: A job as a reporter with the weekly Leicester Advertiser , through a contact who was a sports editor at the Daily Mail . He moved on to the Leicester News Agency, did some work for BBC Radio Leicester as its football reporter, then worked his way up through the Loughborough Monitor , the Leicester Mercury and BRMB Radio in Birmingham. In 1976, Icke worked for two months in Saudi Arabia , helping with

1290-406: A mare to escape Poseidon , but Poseidon counter-transformed himself into a stallion to pursue her, and succeeded in the rape. Caenis , having been raped by Poseidon , demanded of him that she be changed to a man. He agreed, and she became Caeneus , a form he never lost, except, in some versions, upon death. Clytie was a nymph who loved Helios, but he did not love her back. Desperate, she sat on

1376-441: A message from Wang Ye Lee of the spirit world. Icke had been sent to heal the earth, she said, and would become famous but would face opposition. The spirit world was going to pass ideas to him, which he would speak about to others. He would write five books in three years; in 20 years a new flying machine would allow us to go wherever we wanted and time would have no meaning; and there would be earthquakes in unusual places because

1462-749: A press conference to announce that Icke was a son of the Godhead. He told reporters the world was going to end in 1997. It would be preceded by a hurricane around the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans , eruptions in Cuba , disruption in China, a hurricane in Derry , and an earthquake on the Isle of Arran . The information was being given to them by voices and automatic writing , he said. Los Angeles would become an island, New Zealand would disappear, and

1548-556: A quasi-historical figure who appears in the Icelandic Sagas , according to which she was the wife of Eric Bloodaxe , was credited with magic powers – including the power of shapeshifting and turning at will into a bird. She is the central character of the novel Mother of Kings by Poul Anderson , which considerably elaborates on her shapeshifting abilities. In the Finnish epic poem Kalevala of ancient folklore, Louhi , Mistress of

1634-423: A ransom. Math fab Mathonwy and Gwydion transform flowers into a woman named Blodeuwedd , and when she betrays her husband Lleu Llaw Gyffes , who is transformed into an eagle, they transform her again, into an owl. Gilfaethwy raped Goewin , Math fab Mathonwy 's virgin footholder, with help from his brother Gwydion . As punishment, Math turned them into different types of animals for one year each. Gwydion

1720-650: A relationship, with the apparent blessing of Icke's wife. In March 1991 Shaw began living with the couple, a short-lived arrangement that the press called the "turquoise triangle". Shaw changed her name to Mari Shawsun, while Icke's wife became Michaela, which she said was an aspect of the Archangel Michael . The relationship with Shaw led to the birth of a daughter in December 1991, although she and Icke had by then ceased their relationship. Icke wrote in 1993 that at Shaw's request he decided not to visit their daughter and had seen her only once. Icke's wife gave birth to

1806-546: A rock with no food or water for nine days looking at him as he crossed the skies, until she was transformed into a purple, sun-gazing flower, the heliotropium . As a final reward from the gods for their hospitality, Baucis and Philemon were transformed, at their deaths, into a pair of trees. Eos , the goddess of the dawn, secured immortality for her lover the Trojan prince Tithonus , but not eternal youth, so he aged without dying as he shriveled and grew more and more helpless. In

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1892-669: A short-lived arrangement. The relationship with Shaw led to the birth of a daughter in December 1991, although Shaw and Icke had by then ceased their relationship. Icke wrote in 1993 that at Shaw's request he decided not to visit their daughter and had seen her only once. Icke and Atherton divorced in 2001 but remained friends, and Atherton continued to work as Icke's business manager. In 1997 he met his second wife, Pamela Leigh Richards, in Jamaica . He and Richards were married in 2001 following his divorce from Atherton. They separated in 2008 and divorced in 2011. Icke has lived since 1982 on

1978-510: A union between the founder of the clan and a shape-shifting selkie. Another such creature is the Scottish selkie, which needs its sealskin to regain its form. In The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry the (male) selkie seduces a human woman. Such stories surrounding these creatures are usually romantic tragedies. Scottish mythology features shapeshifters, which allows the various creatures to trick, deceive, hunt, and kill humans. Water spirits such as

2064-667: A value of over £2 million. Thirty thousand copies of The Biggest Secret (1999) were in print months after publication, according to Icke, and it was reprinted six times between 1999 and 2006. His 2002 book Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster became a long-standing top-five bestseller in South Africa. By 2006, his website was gaining 600,000 hits a week, and by 2011 his books had been translated into 11 languages. Icke has held public lectures around

2150-441: Is a demi-urge and folk hero of the ǀXam people of southern Africa. He is a trickster god who can shape shift, usually taking the form of a praying mantis but also a bull eland , a louse , a snake, and a caterpillar . Amazon river dolphins are curious and lack of fear of foreign objects, are apex predators , and the male Amazon river dolphins are very physically aggressive during their mating period, particularly around

2236-435: Is among the most commonly known, but other such creatures include the bakeneko , the mujina , and the tanuki . Korean mythology also contains a fox with the ability to shapeshift. Unlike its Chinese and Japanese counterparts, the kumiho is always malevolent. Usually its form is of a beautiful young woman; one tale recounts a man, a would-be seducer, revealed as a kumiho. The kumiho has nine tails and as she desires to be

2322-485: Is an English conspiracy theorist and a former footballer and sports broadcaster . He has written over 20 books, self-published since the mid-1990s, and spoken in more than 25 countries. In 1990, Icke visited a psychic who told him he was on Earth for a purpose and would receive messages from the spirit world. This led him to claim in 1991 to be a "Son of the Godhead" and that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He repeated this on

2408-400: Is the huli jing , a fox spirit that usually appears as a beautiful young woman; most are dangerous, but some feature as the heroines of love stories. Madame White Snake is one such legend; a snake falls in love with a man, and the story recounts the trials she and her husband faced. In Japanese folklore obake are a type of yōkai with the ability to shapeshifting. The fox, or kitsune

2494-577: The 1988 Summer Olympics . Icke was by then a household name, but has said that a career in television began to lose its appeal to him; he found television workers insecure, shallow and sometimes vicious. In August 1990, his contract with the BBC was terminated when he initially refused to pay the Community Charge (also known as the "poll tax"), a local tax Margaret Thatcher 's government introduced that year. He ultimately paid it, but his announcement that he

2580-493: The 2008 by-election for Haltemprice and Howden (a constituency in the East Riding of Yorkshire ), on the issue of "Big Brother – The Big Picture". He came 12th out of 26 candidates, with 110 votes (0.46%), resulting in a lost deposit . He explained that he was standing because "if we don't face this now we are going to have some serious explaining to do when we are asked by our children and grandchildren what we were doing when

2666-611: The Aswang , a vampiric monster capable of transforming into a bat, a large black dog, a black cat, a black boar, or some other form to stalk humans at night. The folklore also mentions other beings such as the Kapre , the Tikbalang , and the Engkanto , which change their appearances to woo beautiful maidens. Also, talismans (called " anting-anting " or " birtud " in the local dialect), can give their owners

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2752-476: The Isle of Wight . Shapeshifting Popular shapeshifting creatures in folklore are werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadian, and Native American/early American origin), ichchhadhari naag (shape-shifting cobra) of India, shapeshifting fox spirits of East Asia such as the huli jing of China, the obake of Japan, the Navajo skin-walkers , and gods, goddesses and demons and demonesses such as

2838-977: The Norse Loki or the Greek Proteus . Shapeshifting to the form of a wolf is specifically known as lycanthropy , and creatures who undergo such change are called lycanthropes. It was also common for deities to transform mortals into animals and plants. The prefix "were-" comes from the Old English word for "man". While the popular idea of a shapeshifter is of a human being who turns into something else, there are numerous stories about animals that can transform themselves as well. Examples of shapeshifting in classical literature include many examples in Ovid 's Metamorphoses , Circe 's transforming of Odysseus ' men to pigs in Homer 's The Odyssey , and Apuleius 's Lucius becoming

2924-557: The Protocols in The Robots' Rebellion is "the first of a number of instances in which Icke moves into the dangerous terrain of antisemitism". Icke took both the extraterrestrial angle and the focus on the Protocols from Behold a Pale Horse (1991) by Milton William Cooper , who was associated with the American militia movement; chapter 15 of Cooper's book reproduces the Protocols in full. The Robots' Rebellion refers repeatedly to

3010-605: The Protocols , calling them the Illuminati protocols , and defining Illuminati as the "Brotherhood elite at the top of the pyramid of secret societies world-wide". Icke adds that the Protocols were not the work of the Jewish people, but of Zionists . The Robots' Rebellion was greeted with dismay by the Green Party's executive. Despite the controversy over the press conference and the Wogan interview, they had allowed Icke to address

3096-552: The each-uisge , which inhabit lochs and waterways in Scotland, were said to appear as a horse or a young man. Other tales include kelpies who emerge from lochs and rivers in the disguise of a horse or woman to ensnare and kill weary travelers. Tam Lin , a man captured by the Queen of the Fairies is changed into all manner of beasts before being rescued. He finally turned into a burning coal and

3182-579: The historicity of Jesus but accepts the existence of the Christ spirit. Icke's autobiography, In the Light of Experience , was published the same year, followed by Heal the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Personal and Planetary Transformation (1993). Icke's The Robots' Rebellion (1994), a book published by Gateway, attracted allegations that his work was antisemitic . According to historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke ,

3268-464: The "Infinite Mind". He began to wear only the colour turquoise, often a turquoise shell suit , a colour he saw as a conduit for positive energy. He also started working on his third book, and the first of his New-Age period, The Truth Vibrations . In August 1990, before his visit to Peru, Icke met Deborah Shaw, an English psychic based in Calgary , Alberta, Canada. When he returned from Peru they began

3354-498: The 1991 interview. However, in his autobiography, Mustn't Grumble , Wogan described Icke as being a "ranting demagogue convinced we were all manipulated sheep". The Wogan interview separated Icke from his previous life, he wrote in 2003, although he considered it the making of him in the end, giving him the courage to develop his ideas without caring what anyone thought. His book The Truth Vibrations , inspired by his experience in Peru,

3440-557: The Archons can feed off the resulting " negative energy ". He claims that many public figures belong to the Babylonian Brotherhood and propel humanity towards a global fascist state or New World Order , a post-truth era ending freedom of speech. He sees the only way to defeat such "Archontic" influence is for people to wake up to the truth and fill their hearts with love. Critics have accused Icke of being antisemitic and

3526-560: The BBC show Wogan . His appearance led to public ridicule. Books Icke wrote over the next 11 years developed his world view of a New Age conspiracy. Reactions to his endorsement of an antisemitic fabrication, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , in The Robots' Rebellion (1994) and in And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995) led his publisher to decline further books, and he has self-published since then. Icke contends that

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3612-476: The Giant Killer and The Black Bull of Norroway , feature shapeshifting. Pwyll was transformed by Arawn into Arawn's shape, and Arawn transformed himself into Pwyll's so that they could trade places for a year and a day. Llwyd ap Cil Coed transformed his wife and attendants into mice to attack a crop in revenge; when his wife is captured, he turns himself into three clergymen in succession to try to pay

3698-550: The Leicester Boys Under-14 team. Icke left school at 15 after being talent-spotted by Coventry City , who signed him up in 1967 as their youth team's goalkeeper. In 1968 he played in the Coventry City youth team that were runners up to Burnley in the F.A. Youth Cup. He also played for Oxford United 's reserve team and Northampton Town , on loan from Coventry. Rheumatoid arthritis in his left knee, which spread to

3784-529: The North, attacks Väinämöinen in the form of a giant eagle with her troops on her back as she tries to steal Sampo . In Armenian mythology , shapeshifters include the Nhang , a serpentine river monster that can transform itself into a woman or seal, and will drown humans and then drink their blood; or the beneficial Shahapet , a guardian spirit that can appear either as a man or a snake. Philippine mythology includes

3870-507: The ability to shapeshift. In one tale, Chonguita the Monkey Wife , a woman is turned into a monkey, only becoming human again if she can marry a handsome man. Tatar folklore includes Yuxa , a hundred-year-old snake that can transform itself into a beautiful young woman, and seeks to marry men to have children. Chinese mythology contains many tales of animal shapeshifters, capable of taking on human form. The most common such shapeshifter

3956-532: The appearance of shapeshifting, through their power, called "glamour", to create illusions, and some were limited to changing their size, as with the spriggans , and others to a few forms. But others, such as the Hedley Kow , could change to many forms, and both human and supernatural wizards were capable of both such changes, and inflicting them on others. Witches could turn into hares and in that form steal milk and butter. Many British fairy tales, such as Jack

4042-435: The asteroid 7508 Icke was named Nickname [ edit ] Thomas "Icke" Häßler (b. 1966), German football player See also [ edit ] Ickes Ike (disambiguation) Eich (surname) [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with the surname Icke . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding

4128-634: The book contains "all the familiar beliefs and paranoid clichés" of the US conspiracists and militia. It claims that a plan for world domination by a shadowy cabal, perhaps extraterrestrial, was laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (c. 1897). The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic literary forgery , probably written under the direction of the Russian secret police in Paris, purporting to reveal

4214-516: The city's slum clearance . When David Icke was three, around 1955, they moved to the Goodwood estate, one of the council estates the post-war Labour government built. "To say we were skint", he wrote in 1993, "is like saying it is a little chilly at the North Pole." He recalls having to hide under a window or chair when the councilman came for the rent; after knocking, the rent man would walk around

4300-421: The cliffs of Kent would be underwater by Christmas. News headlines following Icke's press conference attracted requests for interviews from Nicky Campbell 's BBC Radio One programme, for Terry Wogan 's prime-time Wogan show, and Fern Britton 's ITV chat show. Wogan introduced the 1991 segment with "The world as we know it is about to end". Amid laughter from the audience, Icke demurred when asked if he

4386-414: The couple's second son in November 1992. In March 1991, Icke resigned from the Green Party during a party conference, telling them he was about to be at the centre of "tremendous and increasing controversy", and winning a standing ovation from delegates after the announcement. A week later, shortly after his father died, Icke and his wife, Linda Atherton, along with their daughter and Deborah Shaw, held

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4472-478: The courtship practice of object carrying. Amazon river dolphins , known by the natives as the boto , encantados or toninhas, are very prevalent in the mythology of the native South Americans. They are frequently characterized in mythology with superior musical ability, seductiveness and love of sex, resulting in illegitimate children, and attraction to parties. Despite the fact that the Encante are said to come from

4558-476: The end, Eos transformed him into a cicada . In some variants of the tale of Narcissus , he is turned into a narcissus flower. Sometimes metamorphoses transform objects into humans. In the myths of both Jason and Cadmus , one task set to the hero was to sow dragon's teeth ; on being sown, they would metamorphose into belligerent warriors, and both heroes had to throw a rock to trick them into fighting each other to survive. Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulated

4644-480: The environment, was published in 1989. Icke wrote that 1989 was a time of considerable personal despair, and it was during this period that he said he began to feel a presence around him. He often describes how he felt it while alone in a hotel room in March 1990, and finally asked, "If there is anybody here, will you please contact me because you are driving me up the wall!" Days later, in a newsagent's shop in Ryde, he felt

4730-402: The experience ended. He described it as the kundalini (a term from Hindu yoga ) activating his chakras , or energy centres, triggering a higher level of consciousness . There followed what Icke called his "turquoise period". He had been channelling for some time, he wrote, and had received a message through automatic writing that he was a "Son of the Godhead", interpreting "Godhead" as

4816-413: The form of a mare to bear Odin's steed Sleipnir which was the fastest horse ever to exist, and also the form of a she-wolf to bear Fenrir . Svipdagr angered Odin , who turned him into a dragon. Despite his monstrous appearance, his lover, the goddess Freyja , refused to leave his side. When the warrior Hadding found and slew Svipdagr, Freyja cursed him to be tormented by a tempest and shunned like

4902-621: The game plan" for the twentieth century. Why do we play a part in suppressing alternative information to the official line of the Second World War ? How is it right that while this fierce suppression goes on, free copies of the Spielberg film, Schindler's List , are given to schools to indoctrinate children with the unchallenged version of events. And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on

4988-480: The global fascist state was installed. 'I was watching EastEnders , dear' will not be good enough." In November 2013, Icke launched an Internet television station, The People's Voice , broadcast from London. He founded the station after crowdsourcing over £300,000 and worked for it as a volunteer until March 2014. Later that year the station stopped broadcasting. Icke met his first wife, Linda Atherton, in May 1971 at

5074-419: The house peering through windows. His mother never explained that it was about the rent; she just told Icke to hide. He wrote in 2003 that he still gets a fright when someone knocks on the door. He attended Whitehall Infant School, and then Whitehall Junior School. Icke has said he made no effort at school, but when he was nine he was chosen for the junior school's third-year football team. He writes that this

5160-515: The inner earth was being destabilised by having oil taken from under the seabed. In February 1991, Icke visited a pre- Inca Sillustani burial ground near Puno , Peru , where he felt drawn to a particular circle of waist-high stones. As he stood in the circle he had two thoughts: that people would be talking about this in 100 years, and that it would be over when it rained. His body shook as though plugged into an electrical socket, he wrote, and new ideas poured into him. Then it started raining and

5246-466: The national football team. His position on the team was planned to be a long-term position, but Icke decided to stay in the UK after his first holiday back. After his return to the UK, BRMB decided to give him his job back, after which he successfully applied to Midlands Today at the BBC's Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham, a job that included on-air appearances. One of the earliest stories he covered there

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5332-490: The night in search of human or animal prey. If a woman gives birth at midnight and stretches the membrane that envelopes the child when it is brought forth, between four sticks and creeps through it, naked, she will bear children without pain; but all the boys will be shamans , and all the girls Maras. The Nisse is sometimes said to be a shapeshifter. This trait also is attributed to Hulder . Gunnhild, Mother of Kings ( Gunnhild konungamóðir ) (c. 910  –  c. 980),

5418-471: The party's annual conference in 1992 – a decision that led one of its principal speakers, Sara Parkin , to resign – but after the publication of The Robot's Rebellion they moved to ban him. Icke wrote to The Guardian in September 1994 denying that The Robots' Rebellion was anti-Semitic, and rejecting racism, sexism and prejudice of any kind, while insisting that whoever had written the Protocols "knew

5504-415: The person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Icke&oldid=975796480 " Category : Surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata All set index articles David Icke David Vaughan Icke ( / v ɔː n aɪ k / vawn iyk ; born 29 April 1952)

5590-588: The plague wherever he went. In the Hyndluljóð , Freyja transformed her protégé Óttar into a boar to conceal him. She also possessed a cloak of falcon feathers that allowed her to transform into a falcon, which Loki borrowed on occasion. The Volsunga saga contains many shapeshifting characters. Siggeir 's mother changed into a wolf to help torture his defeated brothers-in-law with slow and ignominious deaths. When one, Sigmund , survived, he and his nephew and son Sinfjötli killed men wearing wolfskins; when they donned

5676-532: The right knee, ankles, elbows, wrists and hands, stopped him from making a career out of football. Despite stating that he was often in agony during training, Icke managed to play part-time for Hereford United , including in the first team when they were in the fourth , and later in the third , division of the English Football League . in 1971, Icke left home following one of a number of frequent arguments he had started having with his father. His father

5762-505: The skins themselves, they were cursed to become werewolves . The dwarf Andvari is described as being able to magically turn into a pike . Alberich , his counterpart in Richard Wagner 's Der Ring des Nibelungen , using the Tarnhelm , takes on many forms, including a giant serpent and a toad, in a failed attempt to impress or intimidate Loki and Odin/ Wotan . Fafnir was originally

5848-622: The spot, for suggesting another version of history. Icke's next manuscript, And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), contained a chapter questioning aspects of the Holocaust , which caused a rift with his publisher, Gateway. In the book Icke suggested that Jews funded the Holocaust by quoting and seconding Gary Allen 's claim that "The Warburgs, part of the Rothschild empire, helped finance Adolf Hitler". In his view, schools "indoctrinate children with

5934-474: The street and shake your hand and talk to you in a respectful way. And suddenly, overnight, this was transformed into "Icke's a nutter." I couldn't walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule. In 2006, Wogan interviewed Icke again for a special Wogan Now & Then series. Wogan was apologetic for his conduct in

6020-538: The tales using it are of amorous adventure. Zeus repeatedly transformed himself to approach mortals as a means of gaining access: Vertumnus transformed himself into an old woman to gain entry to Pomona 's orchard; there, he persuaded her to marry him. In other tales, the woman appealed to other gods to protect her from rape, and was transformed ( Daphne into laurel, Corone into a crow). Unlike Zeus and other gods' shapeshifting, these women were permanently metamorphosed. In one tale, Demeter transformed herself into

6106-460: The time the BBC's flagship national sports programme. He also published his first book that year, It's a Tough Game, Son! , about how to break into football. Icke and his family moved in 1982 to Ryde on the Isle of Wight . His relationship with Grandstand was short-lived. He wrote that a new editor arrived in 1983 who appeared not to like him, but he continued working for BBC Sport until 1990, often on bowls and snooker programmes, and at

6192-545: The unchallenged version of events" with the mainstream account of the Holocaust thanks to their use of free copies of the film Schindler's List (1993). After borrowing £15,000 from a friend, Icke established Bridge of Love Publications, later called David Icke Books. He self-published And the Truth Shall Set You Free and all his subsequent books. According to Lewis and Kahn, Icke aimed to consolidate all conspiracy theories into one project with unlimited explanatory power. His books sold 140,000 copies between 1998 and 2011, at

6278-587: The universe consists of "vibrational" energy and infinite dimensions sharing the same space. He claims that there is an inter-dimensional race of reptilian beings, the Archons or Anunnaki , which have hijacked the Earth. Further, a genetically modified human–Archon hybrid race of reptilian shape-shifters – the Babylonian Brotherhood , Illuminati or " elite " – manipulate events to keep humans in fear, so that

6364-489: The wife of the famous hero Fionn mac Cumhaill , was changed into a deer by the druid Fer Doirich when she spurned his amorous interests. There is a significant amount of literature about shapeshifters that appear in a variety of Norse tales. In the Lokasenna , Odin and Loki taunt each other with having taken the form of females and nursing offspring to which they had given birth. A 13th-century Edda relates Loki taking

6450-468: The world after a flood by throwing stones behind them; they were transformed into people. Cadmus is also often known to have transformed into a dragon or serpent towards the end of his life. Pygmalion fell in love with Galatea , a statue he had made. Aphrodite had pity on him and transformed the stone into a living woman. Fairies , witches , and wizards were all noted for their shapeshifting ability. Not all fairies could shapeshift, some having only

6536-816: The world, and by 2006 had spoken in at least 25 countries. He spoke for seven hours to 2,500 people at the Brixton Academy , London, in 2008, and the same year addressed the University of Oxford 's debating society, the Oxford Union . His book tour for Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More (2010) included a sold-out talk to 2,100 in New York City and £83,000 worth of ticket sales in Melbourne . In October 2012, he spoke for eleven hours to 6,000 people at London's Wembley Arena . Icke stood for parliament in

6622-426: Was believed to be able to change her appearance into anything she wanted. In one story, her pride led Zeus to trick her into transforming into a fly. He then swallowed her because he feared that he and Metis would have a son who would be more powerful than Zeus himself. Metis, however, was already pregnant. She stayed alive inside his head and built an armor for her daughter. The banging of her metalworking made Zeus have

6708-637: Was born in Leicester General Hospital to Beric Vaughan Icke and Barbara J. Cooke, who were married in Leicester in 1951. Beric Icke served in the Royal Air Force as a medical orderly during World War II, and after the war became a clerk in the Gents clock factory. The family lived in a terraced house on Lead Street in the centre of Leicester , an area that was demolished in the mid-1950s as part of

6794-429: Was published in 1991. Between 1992 and 1994, he wrote five books, all published by mainstream publishers, four in 1993. Love Changes Everything (1992), influenced by the "channelling" work of Deborah Shaw, is a theosophical work about the origin of the planet, in which Icke writes with admiration about Jesus. Days of Decision (1993) is an 86-page summary of his interviews after the 1991 press conference; it questions

6880-403: Was the first time he had succeeded at anything, and he came to see football as his way out of poverty. He played in goal, which he wrote suited the loner in him and gave him a sense of living on the edge between hero and villain. After failing his 11-plus exam in 1963, he was sent to the city's Crown Hills Secondary Modern (rather than the local grammar school), where he was given a trial for

6966-450: Was the murder of Carl Bridgewater , the paperboy shot during a robbery in 1978. In 1981, Icke became a sports presenter for the BBC's national programme Newsnight , which had begun the previous year. Two years later, on 17 January 1983, he appeared on the first edition of the BBC's Breakfast Time , British television's first national breakfast show, and presented the sports news there until 1985. In 1983 he co-hosted Grandstand , at

7052-456: Was the son of God, replying that Jesus would have been laughed at too, and repeated that Britain would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. Without these, "the Earth will cease to exist". When Icke said laughter was the best way to remove negativity, Wogan replied of the audience: "But they're laughing at you. They're not laughing with you." The BBC was criticised for allowing it to go ahead; Des Christy of The Guardian called it

7138-501: Was thrown into a well, whereupon he reappeared in his human form. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through all forms of transformation is a common thread in folktales . Perhaps the best-known Irish myth is that of Aoife who turned her stepchildren, the Children of Lir , into swans to be rid of them. Likewise, in the Tochmarc Étaíne , Fuamnach jealously turns Étaín into

7224-432: Was transformed into a stag, sow, and wolf, and Gilfaethwy into a hind, boar, and she-wolf. Each year, they had a child. Math turned the three young animals into boys. Gwion , having accidentally taken the wisdom from a potion that Ceridwen was brewing for her son , fled from her through a succession of changes, which she answered with changes of her own. This ended when he turned into a grain of corn and she turned into

7310-505: Was upset that Icke's arthritis was interfering with his football career. Icke moved into a bedsit and worked in a travel agency, travelling to Hereford twice a week in the evenings to play football. In 1973, at the age of 21, the pain in his joints became so severe that he was forced to retire from football. The loss of Icke's position with Hereford meant that he and his wife had to sell their home, and for several weeks they lived apart, each moving in with their parents. In 1973 Icke found

7396-590: Was willing to go to prison rather than pay prompted the BBC, by charter an impartial public-service broadcaster, to distance itself from him. Icke began to engage with alternative medicine and New Age philosophies in the 1980s in an effort to relieve his arthritis, and this encouraged his interest in Green politics . He joined the Green Party and became a national spokesperson within six months. His second book, It Doesn't Have To Be Like This , an outline of his views on

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