Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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99 of 104 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Icke's most impressive awareness expander so far, May 27, 2005
David Icke's new book picks up where the final section of his Tales From The Time Loop left off - in examining the nature of consciousness and reality. There is less focus on the details of Illuminati history and more examination of how all is a virtual reality game - the "Matrix," generated by Consciousness itself to challenge itself and explore the possibilities of existence when separation and limitation are the basis of perception. Icke throws in a number of interesting photos, including his nude self from I am Me I am Free, Neil Hague's metaphysical art, holographic 3D images, and Dr. Emoto's water crystals as popularized by the What The Bleep Do We Know movie. This book seems to me a positive step for Icke, but the title is problematic due to the nature of associations of the world "love." All things considered, this a great book to expand your mind with and help in deprogramming onself from the confines of this experiential reality matrix. The illusions exist only as consciousness perceives itself in limited (filtered, programmed) ways. Icke is a truly groundbreaking author in connecting holistic science, spiritual development, and research into dark polarity power structures. By helping us understand these topics he has employed some nice wit and come to the realization that it's all an Illusion of sorts. Nice work David!
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220 of 243 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Trailer park Advaita for the unwashed!, May 22, 2005
It has taken David Icke 15 years (since his epiphany in 1990) and umpteen books to reach the same conclusions that he could have jumped to in 15 minutes spent reading about Ramana Maharishi.
Stripped of all the breathless scattershot verbiage, the message boils down to (as the title says) "Everything is an illusion". Individual human consciousness units are game pieces trapped in an artificial Matrix - a web of deception designed to milk fear and other negative emotions for use as energy for its own sustenance and expansion. Pretty much everything you could roll out as a topic for conversation is just another brick in that wall - space, time, nature, DNA, science, religion, technology, art, education, medicine, and of course the financial system and the endless wars - you name it.
The shape-shifting reptilians for which David Icke was once radically famous are now pretty much demoted to minor bit-player operatives in the overall scheme (and even come in for a bit of sympathy).
The book's message really is pure "Advaita" - the ancient Hindu doctrine that, well, "Everything is an illusion". The part about Infinite Love is so removed from regular human garden variety love (which all its pressures, pains, and fears) that you might as well tag Icke's concept as Advaitic "Self" (big S!) and be done with it.
A book like this (in fact most of Icke's books) also really show the influence of the Web on authorship. Anybody can be an instant expert on anything, but that fact-finding power doesn't necessarily confer logic or organization skills.
So given all this kvetching, why my 5 Star rating?
Simple! I mean the answer to that is simple, and the reason is that Icke presents the same message more SIMPLY and more humorously than the regular Neo-Advaitic authors. The presentation of core concept "Everything is an illusion" by the current crop of Neo-Advaitic authors (no, "Neo" isn't a reference to The Matrix here, it just means the Western 21st century appropriation of classical Advaita by such as John Wheeler, Nathan Gill, Jan Kersschot, and so on) are so bloodless, dull, and humorless that Icke's version cuts through them like a top-end Harley Davidson hog through a kid's tricycle race. Admittedly though Icke gilds the lily a LOT more than those purist Neo-Advait's mentioned, with his digressions about natural health maintenance, sexuality, 9-11 conspiracy, Jewish religious law (he should've gone easier on that particular one, why continue to feed the spurious charges of anti-Semitism?), and on and on.
Icke delivers the goods with a lot more sauce and fun than anybody else. However, as usual it is more diagnosis than practical working prescription (maybe it has to be this way, as in Icke's world, one sign you are dealing with The Matrix is the prevalance of RULES governing everything). That does leave us with a bit of a quandry - how to actually eject ourselves from The Matrix? Hmmm, maybe those Neo-Advaita authors are looking a bit better ...
One area where Icke is a bit naiive is that he seems to accept some kind of unit of "consciousness" as the subject for all the deception. "Your consciousness is trapped" type of thing. What is that - "consciousness"? Is there some base unit of inviduation there that we need to deal with? I remember somebody once asked Ramana - "How should we treat others?" His answer - "There are no others."
But I think Icke differs in one small way from the Neo-Advaits in that they seem to say that there is no escape apart from acceptance. 'Lie back and enjoy it' type of thing. Whereas Icke seems to feel you could really jump ship entirely, into a pool of pure infinite Love.
Anyway, I want to know HOW to escape! For now, this book will at least get you out of your cell and into the prison yard.
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hits and Misses, February 8, 2007
The Hits with this book for me involve references to the Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot, and Castaneda, and the whole idea of the world as illusion, or matrix, which I believe carries much weight. I think that ultimately Icke has changed the focus in this book from previous ones to the more positive idea that Love is the greatest reality. I agree! Without knowing it, I think, Icke in his words echoes many concepts contained in Yoga, Buddhism, and (especially, I think) Gnosticism (his reptiles sounds a lot like the archons, his matrix the creation of the gnostic Demiurge).
The Misses are big, though. How is it that Icke says that the way out of the matrix is by simply understanding that we are Infinite Consciousness... and presto: we're free! Yet at the same time, he dedicates two entire chapters to demonstrating that all religions and new age movements are simply mechanisms of division and control on the part of the Matrix itself? I think he is spot-on when he points out that religious literalism and fundamentalism cause little more than strife and division, and that religious legalism can easily become fanaticism. But if Icke actually did his homework and investigated the mystical and esoteric teachings contained in some of the religions he dismisses as hogwash, he would see that many people have worked much, much harder at understanding the nature of reality than he has, have even transcended the ego, illusion, the matrix, if you will, achieved gnosis, theosis, Union with the Infinite, enlightenment, etc, and have left us practical methods for doing the same. These methods are to be found in the many paths of Yoga, Christian Mysticism, Buddhism, Sufism, and others.
I loved how the book stretched my mind. I loved how it analysed the global deception reality in a metaphysical, holistic, time-and-space-transcending manner. But by dismissing all religions and new age movements with a single stroke of his pen, he is, in my opinion, dismissing some of very means of achieving what he claims is the solution to all of this : Infinite Love.
With respect to David Icke and his courage for coming forth with his thoughts and research, he leaves us with no practical instructions for waking up to the greater consciousness of which he speaks. For that, I believe we should turn to the mystics, within and without religious traditions, to find the way.
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