New Age anti-rationalism (1991)

Book Review from the July 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Truth Vibrations by David Icke. Aquarian Press, 1991. £4.99.

You’ve heard the prophesies, seen the turquoise tracksuits, and now you can read the book. David Icke, former professional footballer, TV presenter, Green Party spokesperson and now self- proclaimed “aspect of the Godhead” says this new book is all part of what he calls The Plan. The Plan, ostensibly, is to reveal the Truth, show humankind the Light, and thereby save the planet from famine, earthquakes and ultimate destruction.

But in case you've been put off already, The Truth Vibrations is actually quite a clever book. Not only does it try to address real concerns about ecology and the future of the Earth, it does so by attempting to draw together all the multifarious preoccupations of the New Age movement, the market at which it is principally aimed. Thus Icke's story about how the nature of The Plan was revealed to him by “higher beings". and the part he would play in its successful prosecution incorporates something from virtually every aspect of modern anti-rationalism. Spiritualists and “sensitives", psychic surgery, reincarnation, astrology, tarot, ley lines, earth chakras, pyramidology. UFO's and extraterrestrials (both ancient and modern), ghosts. Merlin, the Holy Grail, Atlantis and many others besides, all receive an airing of approval.

Anyone taking the view that it is capitalism with its ruthless drive towards profit and capital accumulation that is the major threat facing the planet has it wrong if this book is to be believed. The root cause of our problems, according to Icke, are the Earth’s imbalanced "energy systems” (and he isn't merely talking about gas pipes and electricity pylons). His explanation of how the “imbalance” has occurred is too convoluted and fantastic to be dealt with here, but this is the apparent reason for Icke's bizarre behaviour—chronicled in detail—of visiting various “energy sites” and “power points” around the globe so as to dance and chant messages that might “unblock” them before all is lost. However, one might mention that well-meaning but deluded individuals have been doing this for years at places like Glastonbury while capitalism has continued to cause despair and destruction all around them, and that this does not bode well for his efforts.

Icke is one of those Greens who sees industrialisation as a bad thing in itself, but to the extent that Icke specifically recognises capitalism's priorities of production as a problem for the planet, his vision of how they might be replaced is remarkably backward-looking. A move toward local “barter economies" is the best thing he (and his spiritual masters) have come up with, and considering all the denigration heaped upon him in recent months, one is left wondering whether it has all been worth the effort.

Dave Perrin