The way I was: Not quite as plain as the nose on your face: David Icke looks back with Nicholas Roe to the day he became a vision in a turquoise shell-suit

BEFORE the spring of 1991, when this was taken, if you would have said to me, 'Right, Icke, son, what you're going to do is stand up at a press conference, and you're going to wear turquoise and you're going to say these things . . .' I'd have said, 'You must be off your rocker. No chance. You know what's going to happen if I do that? The press will have a field day]'

Now, if you look at my eyes in the picture, you will see that they are very different to what you see in pictures taken now or before. One of the things a lot of people said to me at the time was: 'Ickey, you looked absolutely knackered, washed out.'

And I was, and the reason was that when those pictures were taken, and when I was on things such as the Wogan show, the energies passing through me from other levels were of such immense power that, frankly, my physical body was struggling to cope.

The part of me that would have refused to have done it was switched off by that part of my soul which was not in incarnation - it's known as the higher self, the two parts of the soul. This happens all over the world. How many times do you see people on the news and say: 'Why didn't they see that coming - it was as plain as the nose on their face?'

It is possible not only for the part of us that would reject a course of action to be temporarily switched off, but also for energies to be channelled through the chakras and actually manifest themselves as words.

Passing through the physical form is an energy channel. I had a communication from a psychic and it said: 'There will be times when he will say things and wonder where they came from; they will be our words.'

Basically, that's what I was doing in that press conference. I was saying things that had the desired effect of blasting through the suppression of these things and really getting it talked about, and part of me was saying: 'Where are these words coming from, who's saying this?' But the words kept coming.

Beyond that moment I was confused at what the hell was going on: here's David Icke, who a few months before was saying, 'Hello, good evening, here's the snooker,' or was standing up at public meetings proclaiming green politics (which I still do).

You now had someone who was standing up, causing great controversy and doing it very confidently, not caring less what people thought of him; and between those times you had someone who was very much closer to the personality before that period, who was saying: 'What the hell is going on?' Someone who had regrets, then, as well as confusion, turmoil, bewilderment.

I am now reaping the rewards of that experience and the knowledge it gave me. Would you see a difference in me chatting here, from me chatting at that time? Yes, definitely.

With knowledge and understanding comes more balance, more wisdom. I mean, I've never been so fit in all my life and I've never been so full of energy, and I've never been more at peace and at one.

If people say to me: 'Do you think you've made mistakes?' my reply is always 'I hope so'. If you're going to move along the road to enlightenment at the speed it has happened to me, it demands severe experience and has severe consequences.

I suffered enormously through 1991 because that physical self had been programmed to think and act in certain ways. Until 1991 I had a fear of ridicule. Now, I don't give a damn.

What I'm saying is that those who wish to ridicule me have a right to their thoughts, but I have a right not to be affected by them.

(Photograph omitted)