Why do so many people buy into the New Age thinking of obvious fraudsters such as David Icke?

Liam, conspiracy theorists are actually quite common, though few are as outspoken as David Icke. If Christopher Hitchens is correct, conspiracy theorists are unavoidable in a media-saturated, diverse population. My observations parallel those of the sociologists on this matter. Reasoning based on conspiracy theory, as irrational as it appears to most people, comes from very human tendencies. Most people are looking for self-contained, dramatic explanations because they relieve the tension of continuing to parse difficult questions that have no easy, or definite, answers; they want "closure"! Large social phenomena are irreducibly complex, and this type of reasoning overrides the discomfort of trying, and inevitably failing, to come to grip with large, and multifaceted, issues. Conspiracy theory is more common amongst people who, for one reason or another, feel powerless in a complex world. They tend to ascribe the social phenomena that distress them to agents lying properly outside of society, hence Icke's "reptilians." All UFO believers buy into a small class of distinct projections, with the common element being the reptilian appearance of their aliens... they share a point of origin with the Serpent of Genesis, and the archetype is a default one in individuals growing up in predominantly Judaeo-Christian cultures, even if they have subsequently renounced that culture. The fringes of society, left and right, coalesce in a sort of fusion paranoia. It should be noted that there is a statistical correlation with schizotypal personality disorder. May I point out that as ridiculous as Icke is, he has garnered a great deal of attention for his misconstructions; he has written several books (flights of fancy, really) and has benefited from lucrative lunacy! What I find most troubling is that the mainstream media give him as much attention as they do, and that he widens the window of credulity so substantially that even marginally distorted, and unproven, assertions look reasonable and gain credence. If he hasn't himself authored the "slippery slope," he has applied grease after the fact!