Friday, February 5, 2010

VON DÄNIKEN

VON DÄNIKEN

Features in the song “Legend of the snake" by the new wave / punk band The Bollock Brothers.

Erich Von Däniken (1935- ) is a Swiss writer whose books on the Chariots of the Gods and other ancient mysteries have launched a new school of popular and often uncritical literature of occult speculation about ancient history and religion. He was born in Zofingen, Switerland, and after school he took various jobs in hotels. Even as a child, he had been fascinated by what he considered the inconsistencies in religion. In his reading he was particularly impressed by the biblical account of Ezekiel’s fiery wheel and by Sumerian* accounts of the coming of the sun god in the ancient epic of Gilgamesh. He began to evolve a theory of sky-borne gods in vehicles resembling accounts of flying saucers, built around the religious legends and myths of ancient civilizations. In 1961 Von Däniken started publishing his theories.
In the introduction of his Chariots of the Gods, he stated: “I claim that our forefathers received visits from the universe in the remote past. Even though I do not know who these extraterrestrial intelligences were or from which planet they came, I nevertheless proclaim that these strangers annihiltaed part of mankind eixtsingat the time and produced a new, perhaps the first homo sapiens”. As evidence, he cited accounts of cosmic battles in ancient legends and inscriptions suggestive of space travel.

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