The idea that we might be living in a simulation has been discussed by philosophers, scientists and tech founders. David Icke takes it in a more spiritual direction. In this clip from Rose/Icke 7: The Trap, recorded with Brian Rose in 2022, he sets out his view of what the simulation is, why he believes people keep returning to it, and who, in his account, created it.
It is a ten-minute monologue that draws on Eastern religion, ancient symbols and esoteric ideas, and it gives a clear picture of the central theme of his book The Trap.
▶ Watch the full episode: David Icke – Rose/Icke 7: The Trap
A cycle that keeps going
Icke argues that the simulation is not confined to the human world: it includes what people call the spirit world too. In his view, people who leave the body without reaching a high enough state of awareness, which Eastern traditions would call enlightenment, simply go round again, reincarnating from one level of the simulation into another.
He links this to older ideas. He mentions the esoteric concept of the “ring-pass-not”, a limit pictured as the outer rim of a bubble, and the ouroboros, the ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail.
The trap of learning lessons
One of his more striking claims is about the popular belief that we come back to learn lessons. Icke calls that idea itself part of the trap. “We don’t have to learn lessons,” he says. In his view, people can reach enlightenment simply by realising who they really are.
He describes fear as “the four-letter word that controls the world”, and argues that trauma, anxiety and depression keep people in what he calls a low vibrational state, so they stay in the cycle.
Labels and limitation
Icke then turns to identity. From cradle to grave, he says, we are told to identify with the body and with labels: gender, sexuality, race, religion, income. In his view, these are not who we are, but experiences that consciousness is briefly having in a human life. Identifying with them, he argues, means identifying with limitation.
Who made the simulation?
The final part addresses the title question. Icke quotes NASA scientist Rich Terrile, who has suggested we may live in a simulation, and asks who created it. His answer is that a non-human force, operating outside the narrow band of frequency we can see as visible light, created the simulation to enslave human perception. He places it in what spiritual traditions call the astral plane, and describes its lower levels as the realm many cultures associate with demons.
These are Icke’s own beliefs. They are not supported by mainstream science, and many viewers will see them as spiritual or philosophical speculation rather than fact.
What to take from it
Whatever you make of the bigger claims, some of his points echo long-standing spiritual teachings: that fear shapes how we live, and that we are more than the labels we are given.
Who is David Icke?
David Icke is a British author and public speaker. A former professional footballer and BBC sports presenter, he has written more than 20 books since the early 1990s about power, control, consciousness and the nature of reality.
This clip comes from Rose/Icke 7: The Trap, first published on 15 August 2022, part of a long-running series of conversations with Brian Rose. The next instalment is Rose/Icke 8: Banned.
See everything David Icke has done with London Real on his guest page: David Icke on London Real.
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Transcript
Transcript: David Icke – Who Created The Simulation We Are In?
0:00 David Icke: This simulation is not confined to this level that we call the human world. There are other levels of it, which we call the spirit world. And what if, when people leave the body, if they are not at a state of awareness (what the Eastern religions would call enlightenment), vibrating to a frequency that gets them out of the frequency bubble that this simulation is on, on all its different levels… Well, how about you just go back into the cycle, and you keep recycling? Not actually onto a billionth of a pinhead, although it just appears like that, but you’re actually reincarnating from other levels of the simulation into this level of the simulation, and it just goes on and on and on.
1:06 David Icke: And what if, just as people are bewildered by what the hell this world is and what’s happening, when you leave the body, if you’ve not reached a certain level of awareness of what the hell’s going on, which is what the book’s all about, then you’re bewildered in another way? Just as you believe you’re here for this reason or that reason, or you’re here to learn lessons, outside of this, still in the simulation, you believe that you have to keep coming back here to learn lessons to get out of the cycle.
1:41 David Icke: It was interesting to me that when you look at ancient cultures and cultural beliefs, they do believe in this cyclical movement in and out of this reality. There’s a very old esoteric concept of what they call the ring-pass-not. The ring-pass-not is perceived to be a limit, symbolised as the outer rim of a bubble. If you’re not in a certain vibrational state, i.e. state of awareness, which is why they relate enlightenment to getting out of here, then you can’t get through the ring-pass-not. Other religious beliefs talk about the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, which is symbolic of this limit, this ring-pass-not.
2:42 David Icke: And so it becomes clear to me that the trap is much bigger than just the manipulation of this reality that we call the human world. It goes well beyond that. So you come into this world to learn lessons, but what happens? You suffer from emotional and mental traumas and challenges. It pulls you into depression, into anxiety, into fear, the four-letter word that controls the world, and it actually controls the simulation in all its forms. And you leave the body overwhelmingly in a low vibrational state, so you don’t get out of here. The idea is that you keep control of perception, i.e. frequency, to the point where no one gets out of here.
3:49 David Icke: And there are traps everywhere. There’s the trap of: it’s about reincarnation and learning lessons. It’s a frickin’ trap. It’s not about learning lessons. We don’t have to learn lessons. We are all that is, has been and ever can be. We don’t have to learn lessons to stop incarnating, on a billionth of a pinhead or into this level of the simulation, whichever you choose to symbolise it as. We can reach our own state of enlightenment just by the realisation of who we are.
4:22 David Icke: And if you look at when you come into this reality, the human world, what are they telling you from cradle to grave to identify yourself with? The body and the labels of a human life. They’re saying: you are a man, you are a woman, you are something in between. You are this sexuality, you are that race, you are this religion, you are that income bracket. All these labels: that’s who you are. But they’re not who we are. They are experiences that who we are, consciousness, is briefly having in a human life.
5:14 David Icke: If you self-identify with those labels, you’re self-identifying with limitation. When you self-identify with limitation, your sense of limitation becomes expressed vibrationally in a low vibrational state, which means when you leave this human reality, you’re in a vibrational state that stays in the cycle, round and round and round it goes.
5:46 David Icke: And the other part of the trap is: where did the simulation come from? I’ve been writing about this for quite a while. As Rich Terrile at NASA said: if this is a simulation, which he believes it is, who the hell created it? And this brings us to the question I posed earlier. Why can’t we see that which is manipulating us in a non-human form, as I say it is? Well, because we can only see this tiny, narrow band of frequency called visible light. And the force that is manipulating human society and controlling the simulation actually created the simulation to enslave us by enslaving our perception. That’s what the simulation is: enslavement of perception. And it is operating outside the band of frequency that we can see.
6:58 David Icke: If we call this reality the third dimension, to keep it simple, there is another level of frequency, high enough for us not to be able to see it. The fourth dimension is what spiritual people call the astral dimension or the astral plane. When people talk about astral travelling, it’s actually travelling with the mind, because the fourth dimension, the astral dimension, is the dimension of mind. And it’s from there that this reality is manipulated, controlled and orchestrated.
7:37 David Icke: You talk to people about other dimensions, and even if they accept that they’re real, they perceive other dimensions to be way out there. Well, some of them are. Some of them, in frequency terms, are so far from the frequency band we’re operating in, it’s just ridiculous how far away they are. But other dimensions, like this astral dimension, the lower frequency level of it, are actually fusing into this. It bleeds into this reality. And if you look at how they describe the lower levels of the astral plane, the fourth dimension, what they call the lower astral, and you talk to people in different ancient cultures and in the spiritual movements of today, they’ll say that’s the place where the demons are. That’s where the demonic consciousness is. That’s where the darkness is, as they would call it.
