Between this guy and the Nashville bomber, I guess it's time to

*sigh*

talk about "lizard people," David Ickes, QAnon, and the extreme antisemitism lurking like a rabid Loch Ness monster in this soup of conspiracy. https://twitter.com/HelenKennedy/status/1346003900793577472

At this point, I think most folks have a general understanding that QAnon has hit the mainstream big time, but maybe not the best sense of what it's about or its pedigree.

That's understandable, but to understand why the lizard stuff is surfacing, you need that background.

QAnon is like meta-conspiracy theory.

It has a lot of its most recent roots in Pizzagate "Dems are keeping child rape dungeons," but Pizzagate itself was an amalgam of longstanding conspiracy theory, like lizard people and the Illuminati.

The most prominent, common vein in all these theories is some version of (white) child sacrifice, usually described elaborately, often in ways that would make both Eli Roth and the Marquis de Sade blush.

These, in turn, have their roots in and are expressions of perhaps the most long-lasting and ancient conspiracy theory alive today: the antisemitic myth of blood libel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel

If you're interested in more background on the history of blood libel and scapegoating of the Jewish people, and how that tradition of blaming the Jews is still alive and well today, @TheRaDR frequently writes eloquently and with expertise on this topic.

For the purposes of this thread, what's important is that blood libel is perhaps the single most notorious and enduring antisemitic conspiracy theory, and that it hinges on elaborate, perverse imagined rituals of sacrifice of Christian/white children.

It's also important to note that because Christians were banned from engaging in loans, and Jewish people were banned from engaging in almost anything else, banking in Europe became a Jewish-dominated profession.

That's where a lot of the stereotypes of wealthy, conspiratorial Jews comes from.

Jews were locked out by law and violence from participating in large portions of society and professional life, and that marginalization itself was portrayed as a cause for suspicion.

One of the most popular contemporary ways of laundering antisemitic tropes about evil Jewish bankers sacrificing children were the (often combined) myths of the Illuminati and the New World Order.

Illuminati and NWO myths are both about supposedly rich child sacrificers who secretly pulled the strings of governments and culture and economies-- classic antisemitic conspiracy theory, though sometimes non-Jews were imagined participants in the imagined plot.

These myths gained currency with John Birch types and also millenarian Christians, who had a lot of ideas about how NWO/Illuminati was the work of the Antichrist, who would use it as a vehicle to take over and try to mark everyone with the sign of the beast.

One of the most popular theories about how that beast-marking would be achieved was microchipping, and one of the most popular theories about how we would be tricked into that microchipping was... chips hidden in vaccines.

That's a big reason why the anti-vaxx scene is so heterogeneous. You have pseudoscience hippies in it, but also Christian apocalypse types convinced Satan is going to use vaccines to put 666 in our bodies somehow.

So, back to Pizzagate.

Like most disinfo, there's really no identifying where it came from, exactly.

One thing a lot of experts have observed, though, is it suddenly exploded *just* before the Epstein allegations became unignorable.

Pizzagate was basically a rehash of blood libel, just subbing in (often but not exclusively Jewish) Democrats for Jewish folks in the narrative and emphasizing the child rape myths over and beyond the myth of child murder.

I'm of the opinion (and I'm not alone) that the way Pizzagate emerged did not fit organic conspiracy theory and seems like disinfo specifically concocted to pull attention away from Epstein's GOP pals and color the scandal as Democratic/Jewish using antisemitic tropes.

Whoever concocted it, Pizzagate effectively popularized pedophilia-flavored blood libel among Trump's fascistic personality-worship base, especially online.

Bannon was already soft-injecting NWO/Illuminati into that atmosphere with "globalism" talk, so. They were ready.

Enter QAnon, a conspiracy theory cult that forms around a guy calling himself Q on a white supremacist message board, claiming Trump is secretly planning to rain down fire and imprison his supposedly ritually pedophilic opposition en masse.

Like I said, QAnon is basically meta-conspiracy theory.

Its community is like conspiracy theory gray goo, incorporating all the conspiracy theories that come across its path.

It's a conspiracy theory kaleidoscope.

Illuminati, NWO, Pizzagate, anti-vaxx, antichrist theory, all of it.

The basic sketch is Democrats/Jews conducting elaborate rape-centered blood libel rituals on children, but "Q" is cryptic enough that pretty much anyone can make their pet theory fit if they try.

So let's look at where we are at this moment.

We have a highly popularized blood libel conspiracy (QAnon) in the mainstream, and its expansiveness means it's incorporating even alternative medicine types concerned about 5G and vaccines and mask-wearing conspiracies.

Now, up until this point, lizard people conspiracy theory has been pretty much passé even at the fringes of the conspiracy world.

It's the brainchild of David Icke, former Green Party leader and alternative medicine guru.

Let's pause for a second and remember that despite their hippie associations, environmentalism and alternative medicine both have some dark fascistic history, especially when it comes to eugenics and "population control."

I'm not trying to paint every environmentalist or herbalist with that brush-- it's hard to find *any* movement that doesn't have some dark history.

David Icke just happens to be a pretty strong reminder of these specific movements' dark histories.

Icke got really into shamanism in some pretty gross appropriative ways, and his bio is basically him having increasingly weird visions that just happen to map onto antisemitic conspiracy theory in increasingly bonkers ways.

The most iconic of these visionary "revelations" was that the Illuminati did indeed exist, engage in perverse blood libel rituals, and oh btw are actually lizard-like "reptilians" in human costumes.

What really made Icke stand out (besides that whole lizard thing) was his ability to take antisemitic Illuminati theory-- long the province of the far right John Bircher crowd-- and launder it with just enough woo and plausible deniability to appeal to the crystal healing crowd.

Icke's visions came from, ahem, training with 'primitive' shamans-- always a big hit with the New Agers, and a useful dodge on the subject of racism (especially back before 'cultural appropriation' was a talked-about thing outside of academia).

There were plenty of Jewish folks in his list of illuminati, but also enough blue blood WASPs to make it harder to accuse him of perpetuating antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Harder, but not that hard-- he also denied the Holocaust.

Perhaps most appealingly for the New Agers, his chief innovation (beyond, uh, lizard people) was suggesting that the blood libel rituals were performed to allow the reptilians to paranormally feed off the "negative energy" they created.

The thing about blood libel is, you need a "why."

If you showed up to the concert because you already hate Jewish people, "because they're Jews" is a "why" that might satisfy you.

If you're showing up because Icke is a shamanistic healer that dresses exclusively in turquoise and communes with the ancient spirits of whatever, though (and maybe also aren't yet comfortable being overtly antisemitic) he gave blood libel a New Age-friendly alternative "why."

So again, we're in a moment where QAnon, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink blood libel conspiracy theory, is mainstreamed and increasingly gaining traction in New Age-y spaces because of overlap on anti-vaxx, 5g, and mask-wearing conspiracy theory belief.

To be really clear, there's a lot of antisemitism already lurking in New Age community and its history.

It just now tends to be encoded in ways that don't overtly do what white supremacists call "naming the Jew"-- moving beyond the dogwhistle into full-on overt antisemitism.

So you have all these New Agers who don't necessarily think of themselves as antisemitic or directly believe Jews are inherently evil, coming to QAnon blood libel conspiracy theory through anti-vaxx, 5G, and anti-mask conspiracy theory paths.

And the thing about blood libel is, it's a weird theory.

At the end of the day, why would people do that?

New Agers may have their own implicit biases against Jewish people, but for the most part, "because they're Jews" alone is not going to be a satisfying answer.

But New Agers sure do love them some energy healing, and what is it that energy healing addresses?

Negative energy.

Icke gives them a "why blood libel" and "why does evil exist" two-for-one: the reptilians need to feed.

In other words, what we're seeing is how QAnon snowballs as it brings new and heterodox adherents into its orbit.

Lizard people is a story that gives New Age types a reason/excuse/cover story for orbiting QAnon.

That influence works both ways, and what we're seeing is many versions of the many, many QAnon stories evolve to incorporate the beliefs/excuses of that facet of its following.

The way QAnon works (and btw, if you want granular breakdowns and much more precise expertise, you could do worse than to follow @dappergander) is to continuously incorporate diverse conspiracy theory elements into its meta-myth.

Trump is unlikely to succeed in his potential coup, which means the core Trump-as-president-savior myth of QAnon is already endangered.

That means it's especially susceptible to narrative change and fluctuation right now.

Take that narrative vulnerability and add a huge influx of New Agers who need something a little more subtly antisemitic and a little more woo to hook them on blood libel accusations, and you get the resurrection of David Icke lizard people theory by the QAnon universe.

Folks like @dappergander would know better than I whether the Icke stuff has staying power in QAnon, but the fact that there are two major current news stories that seem to touch on lizard people beliefs indicates it's gotten at least some traction there.

PS: folks have also pointed out that there's a literal Lizard Squad hacking collective, which makes this story a little more of a "?" on the Icke front.

I still get a strong Icke/QAnon synchronism vibe off the Wood tweets, but there's more plausible deniability than I thought.