Jong, de, Niels
(2018)
Creating Conspirituality: Knowledge and Empowerment.
Master thesis, Master Research Master Theologie en Religiewetenschappen.
Abstract
On 27 July 2012 London opened the 30th Olympic Games with a spectacular ceremony titled
"Isles of Wonder," which marked the welcoming of over 1500 athletes from over 200 countries.
While the news media was overwhelmingly enthusiastic about this event, some media reports
covered a disturbing message delivered by the controversial speaker David Icke. Icke claimed
that the opening ceremony was not just some warm and innocent welcome to the athletes, but
actually a "secret Satanic ritual disguised as a celebration of Britain and sports."1 In an article on
his own website, davidicke.com, he explains that the opening ceremony is full of symbols that
function to direct the attention of the viewer. 2 Attention, according to Icke, is relation to
symbolism through an electromagnetic field, and this electromagnetic field is used by a hidden
Elite to control the masses. In short, the symbols used in the opening ceremony (the "ritual")
suck up energy from its viewers and participants and gives it to the malevolent satanic Elite,
who, according to tabloid newspaper Daily Mirror, happen to be satanic shape-shifting reptilians
from another dimension. 3
While Icke's interpretation of the 30th Olympic Games opening ceremony seems very farfetched,
or even ridiculous in some ways, these kinds of claims do not ordinarily come out of the
blue. When we look at the articles above, especially the report from the Daily Mirror, including
the comment section provided by the website, two observations can be made. First, they point to
the existence of a hidden underground of knowledge and worldviews that is rarely covered by
the mainstream media. Indeed, the comments section of the Daily Mirror report on David Icke's
accusations shows a surprisingly large amount of commentators that seem to agree with Icke' s
theories or sympathize with his work, and discredit the writer of the article for his stigmatizing
tone of voice. This raises questions not only about the content of Icke's accusations, but also
about the extent to which this underground worldview that mixes real-world events with notions
of secret cabals, ritualistic practices, extraterrestrial beings, and mind control, is shared by a
substantial audience. Second, we can see that David Icke combines several fringe ideas, namely
the existence of a secret cabal with some unknown malevolent intentions, and the idea that these
malevolent intentions are not just on an economic or social level, but on a spiritual level as well.
The articles about this event, including the one written by David Icke himself, therefore hint at
the existence of a mixture of ideas that sprang from the world of conspiracy theories and from
the milieu of spirituality.
This mixture of conspiracy theories and spirituality is not only prevalent in the ideas of
David Icke himself, but also in the many people involved in this "subculture" of fringe
knowledge. Anyone who would do a quick online search on David Icke would end up on his own
website, davidicke.com, which harbors Icke's many articles on an incredibly broad range of
topics, but also fosters an online discussion forum where ordinary people can debate his and
other ideas: davidicke.com/forum. The David Icke forum hosts over an astonishing 100,000
different discussions divided by over 30 categories, ranging from "Satanism" to the "Nature of
Reality" and from "Secret Societies" to "Astrology."4 Judging from the kind of categories that
sort the various discussions we can see how the accusations made by David Icke about the
London Olympics show similarities with the topics discussed on the forum. It becomes apparent
that there is a connection between conspiracy theories and spiritual notions. When spiritual
topics like "channeling," "psychic abilities," and "paranormal" can be discussed alongside topics
that dominate conspiracy theories like "Illuminati," "9/11," "New World Order" and "Big
Brother" an assumption is made that these topics in some way or another can be related to one
another. In addition, the forum shows that the accusations made by David Icke do not simply
come out of the blue. As far-fetched as they may sound, they indicate the existence of a
worldview, or a collection of worldviews, that forms a breeding ground for ideas like Icke's and
in which accusations like Icke's resonate. This collection of worldviews that forms the
foundation of Icke' s accusations and similar claims springs from the aforementioned mixture of
conspiracy theories and spirituality. This is conceptualized by Ward and Voas (2011) in the
portmanteau 'conspirituality'.
| Type: |
Thesis
(Master)
|
| Supervisors (RUG): |
| Supervisor | E-mail | Tutor organization | Tutor email |
|---|
| Stuckrad, C.K.M. von | C.K.M.von.Stuckrad@rug.nl | | |
|
| Supervisors from outside the RUG: |
| Tutor outside | E-mail | Tutor outside organization | Tutor outside email |
|---|
| dr. S. Aupers | | | |
|
| Degree programme: |
Master Research Master Theologie en Religiewetenschappen |
| Academic year: |
2012- 2013 |
| Date of delivery: |
02 Mar 2018 |
| Last modified: |
02 Mar 2018 14:48 |
| URI: |
https://rcs.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/360 |
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