1/ Thread on the Reptilian conspiracy theory in light of the Nashville bombing and it's presence in QAnon. To write this thread (on top of going through some primary) I will be relying on the work of Michael Barkun, Douglas & Wood, David G. Robertson and Stef Aupers.

2/ Like QAnon the Reptilian conspiracy theory tap into various media sources, texts, images, fragments of news, scientific facts, literary fiction and audio-visual material spanning decades.

3/ They are not passive consumers, but a highly productive audience since they use this material to build a narrative and ground the plausibility of their conspiracy theory.

4/ David Icke is probably the most notorious conspiracy theorist when it comes to the belief that "reptilian human-alien hybrids are in covert control of the planet".

5/ The Reptilian conspiracy theory brings together cherry picking from scientific reports, science fiction like The Matrix, conspirational readings of the Bible, esotericism, spiritual New Age literature, Ufology and hollow earthers.

6/ Icke's Reptilian conspiracy theory was born during the endemic spread of conspiracy theories in the New age milieu during the 1990's. But the Conspiracy itself goes back to the 20's.

7/ The TL;DR of the Reptilian conspiracy theory (there are multiple variations of course) is that the world is run by shape-shifting reptilian beings from another dimension (4th dimension), and they are responsible for all the harm that is taking place in the world.

8/ Combined to this is Icke's interpretation of the Abrahamic creation myth, in which humanity and Earth existed in a state of balance and harmony before the interference of evil reptiles caused a catastrophic fall from grace.

9/ Whereas in the Bible humanity was cast out of heaven for the original sin. The reptilian conspiracy posits that humanity and the earth were cast out of "heaven" when the reptilians arrived in the solar system in their spaceship (which is the moon and it is hollow).

10/ This resulted in Earth being thrown out of its "heavenly orbit, bounced around the heavens until it came to rest in its current orbit.

11/ Now, the reptilians wait in the shadows, but very soon it they will reveal themselves and seize power using a genocidal, communistic one world government. (sounds familiar right).

12/ The narrative is easily identifiable, though it diverges from Christian texts, there are parallels Douglas & Wood explains "an Edenic existence was destroyed by the influence of a reptilian outsider who then lurks in the shadows, biding its time and causing chaos."

13/ Icke’s eschatology borrows heavily from New World Order theories espoused by American evangelical Christians prior to the 90's. "To individuals who are rooted in Wester Christian culture, the material is familiar, yet different enough to stand out as memorable."

14/ Michael Barkun suggests that some Baby Boomers developed feelings of “contempt for a society that has failed to transform itself spiritually in line with their aspirations in the 1970s”.

15/ David G. Robertson's 2013 article "David Icke’s Reptilian Thesis and the Development of New Age Theodicy" is an easily accessible text to get a dive into the Reptilian conspiracy. Here is some of what he says. (tweets 15 to 28)

16/ In his 1994 book "The Robot’s Rebellion" Icke used conspiracy theories as source material connecting them into a meta-narrative concerning the enslavement of humanity by the Illuminati, who covertly rule the world by manipulating world events.

17/ In his 1995 book "And the Truth Shall Set You Free" Icke developed what was only hinted at in "Robot’s Rebellion", i.e. the power at the very top of the Illuminati pyramid is extra-terrestrial.

18/ This idea was not uncommon in the UFO and rightwing conspiracist milieux in this period according to Michael Barkun.

19/ It was not until his 1999 book "The Biggest Secret" that Icke put forward the Reptilian conspiracy theory which posits that the Illuminati are a race of extraterrestrial reptilians who assume human appearance.

20/ Icke claims these ET Reptiles are originally from the stars Draco and Zeta Reticuli, as well as, being extra-dimensional, existing in a co-existent but less dense energy frequency.

21/ The Reptilian Illuminati keep humanity in a state of fear and anxiety in order to feed on these emotions, which Icke claims are sustenance to beings made of less dense matter.

22/ Now to those who have heard of and understand the QAnon conspiracy theory this should ring a bell where the world is controlled by a Cabal of Satan worshiping pedophiles who feed on the Adrenochrome harvested from children.

23/ The Reptilian conspiracy theory and the main narrative from QAnon resonate with each other, which explain why there are a fair amount of QAnon adherents who believe in the reptilian conspiracy theory.

24/ Icke's Reptilian conspiracy theory placed him outside the mainstream of both conspiracism and New Age thinking whereby Alex Jones in 2001 described Icke as a “conman,” and the conspiracy a “turd in the punchbowl”. Over time Jones softened his tone towards Icke.

25/ So where is the Icke reptilian conspiracy theory sourced from? According to Robertson One major source for "The Biggest Secret" was Zecharia Sitchin, whose "The 12th Planet" posited a planet unknown to human science that orbits the Sun on a 3,600-year elliptical orbit.

26/ Sitchin claimed that the planet’s occupants, an alien race called the Anunnaki, came to Earth and assumed control of human society, heralded as gods and founding bloodlines which exist to this day.

27/ Sitchin’s evidence is drawn primarily from controversial translations of Assyrian and Babylonian tablets and the Old Testament, interpreted literally, as is typical of conspiracist revisionist histories.

28/ Robertson also found that Icke merged Sitchin’s narrative with South African Zulu sanusi Credo Mutwa’s accounts of reptilian and other extra-terrestrial races interacting with humans in prehistoric Africa.

29/ In a Culture of Conspiracy Michael Barkun traces the reptilian conspiracy theory all the way back to the 1920's.

30/ "In all likelihood, the notion of a shape-changing serpent race first came from the imagination of pulp-fiction author, Robert E. Howard best known for his character Conan the Barbarian."

31/ "In August 1929, Howard published a story called “The Shadow Kingdom,” in which the evil power was the snake-men whose adversary, Kull, came from Atlantis.

32/ These creatures had the bodies of men but the heads of serpents, they had the capacity to change shape, appearing human when they wished."

33/ Between the 1920's and 1990's there is an evolution of the cosmogony of the Reptilian conspiracy that involves the serpent race, lore of the inner earth, shaver mystery, the search for Agharti, and Ufology of the 40's, 50's & 60's.

34/ I won't be able to cover all of this in this thread because I do not have time. (do your own research?) So I will fast forward to the Dulce Legend which posits that a vast underground base exists outside the town of Dulce in northern New Mexico.

35/ Barkun explains "Pursuant to a treaty supposedly brokered between the aliens and the US government, the base was to be operated jointly by the aliens and the CIA; treaty violations by the aliens eventually led to open conflict between them and their human collaborators."

36/ Why am I talking about an ET conspiracy theory? Well it is about the description of their appearances. Thomas Edwin Costello claimed he had been a security guard at Dulce, called them “reptilian humanoids.” They were short, walked upright, and resembled reptiles.

37/ The last important piece of writing that discusses the origins of Icke's reptilian conspiracy theory is "The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean" translated by Maurice Doreal and cited extensively by Icke.

38/ The emerald tablets are a Hermitic text that was highly regarded by Islamic and European alchemists as the foundation of their art and dates back tot he 8th century. It has also been widely popular with twentieth century occultists and esotericists.

39/ Doreal's translation of the tablets, according to Barkun, was used extensively by David Icke in his book on the reptilians, Children of the Matrix. In Icke’s account, the tablets had been found in a Mayan temple, where they had been deposited by Egyptian priests.

40/ Their supposed author, Thoth, had written them thirty-six thousand years ago in an Atlantean colony in Egypt."

41/ What Icke achieved (which was novel) by making the bloodlines of the Illuminati families originate with reptilian extra-terrestrials, is connect the “ancient astronaut” cosmogony with political conspiracism.

42/ As UFOs and the “ancient astronaut” thesis had long been popular in the New Age milieu, they provided a bridging mechanism between New Age and conspiracism.

43/ Ultimately Icke has brought together are elements from ufology, hollow-earthers, illuminati's and biblical conspiracism. The interrelationship of hollow-earth and reptilian themes is complex.

44/ As Barkun writes "In the popular imagination, it is the location of hell, where the devil supervises the punishments endured by the wicked. And Satan, the Evil One, is also the serpent who deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden, bringing humanity sin and mortality."

45/ In linking the Reptilians witht he serpant in the Biblical Fall, conspiracy theorists have been able to "claim" biblical evidence for the reptilian/human confrontation. So how has this manifested itself?

46/ In some cases the allusion to the the serpent of Eden has lead to some believers in this conspiracy theory to link the seed of the serpent and the seed of Eve, echoing the two-seedline theme common in the Christian Identity.

47/ The Reptilian conspiracists claim to retain elements of two-seed theology without giving it Christian Identity’s anti-Semitic twist. But that is not always the case and raises the debate on if Reptilian conspiracy theories are anti-Semitic.

48/ According to Barkun "the belief in a primordial conflict between the seed of the Serpent and the seed of Eve moves perilously close to Christian Identity’s anti-Semitic theology.

49/ Thus the pseudonymous Commander X, supposedly a “Retired Military Intelligence Operative,” resists the idea that any single people constitutes the serpent seedline.

50/ Nevertheless, he links the seedline with high finance, a common coded designation for Jews."

51/ Though it's anti-Semitic nature may be reinforced by the prominence of the Rothschilds and other Jewish families among the reptilian bloodlines, this perspective requires disregarding the many non-Jewish reptilians named by Icke.

52/ This includes his most well-known examples, such as the British Royal Family, Obama, Beyonce, Clintons, Bushs, Rihanna, etc. Ultimately, it may be more about the context where the reptilian conspiracy is being shared.

53/ Following 9/11 Icke published on his blog that the attacks were orchestrated by the reptilian-controlled US government as a reason to 1) further restrict the freedoms of the population, and 2) to promote a one world centralized government.

54/ This fit within the 9/11 truthers conspiracy theory community conclusions that the attacks were orchestrated from within the US government.

55/ Following a 2003 experience with ayahuasca Icke believes that the possibility remains for individual human beings to see through the illusion that the world of four dimensions is all that exists, and reconnect with Infinite Oneness.

56/ Should enough individuals realize this and "awaken" this false reality called by Icke “the Matrix” collapses, and the New Age is manifested.

57/ This should also sound familiar to those Familiar with QAnon, whereby the objective of the conspiracy is the Great Awakening, and a promised apocalyptic storm that will bring in a new golden age.

58/ Thus reptilians are "the embodiment of cosmic evil, Satan’s representatives on earth. With their minions and allies—hybrid reptoid-humans and humans manipulated into their service—they seek nothing less than the destruction of the human race."

59/ Robertson summarizes Ickes Reptilian conspiracy into three foundational beliefs: "A) political, social & religious structures are the result of the machinations of an ET reptilian elite, who retain power by keeping the masses ignorant of their existence.

60/ B) Through questioning and accumulating knowledge, and making connections between anomalous events, individuals can begin to see through the reality imposed by the reptilian elite, and comprehend that all life is one being.

61/ C) When a sufficient number of individuals realize their enslavement and the means of their liberation, there will be a gestalt shift and the planet will move into a higher state of existence."

62/ It's not hard to see the similarities between the Reptilian conspiracy theory and QAnon today. Both are about Theodicy (explaining the problem of evil), both see the world is controlled by Evil blood drinking elites that are responsible for all the evil in the world.

63/ QAnon and Reptilian conspiracy theories blend popular culture, alternative history, multiple conspiracy theories, can at time be racist and anti-Semitic and ultimately are not created out of thin air.

64/ The difference between QAnon and Reptilianism is the politicization of QAnon and the timing of the the Pandemic.

65/ QAnon is also well adapted to react to geopolitical events and adapt into it other conspiracy theories whereas, the Reptilian can really only link up with a few other conspiracies'.

66/ So if you want to read more about this I referenced A) Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories (Stef Aupers Chapter); B) Handbook on Conspiracy Theories and Religion (Wood & Douglas chapter);

67/ C) David G. Robertson "David Icke’s Reptilian Thesis and the Development of New Age Theodicy"; D) A Culture of Conspriacy (Barkun) END/