Chariots of the Gods - influential

Yes Lehner did fail but that didn't stop him from claiming he didn't, where do you draw the line with your tipping points Kandinsky? It's been awhile since I read Berlitz's Bermuda Triangle but I doubt he was claiming he knew what the Aussie pilot thought and felt before vanishing for ever. Perhaps it's okay for an academic to make ridiculous claims and be unable to prove them but not an amateur just giving his opinion?

There is a lot about our history we don't know and a lot that is known and kept from us by academics, too keen to maintain their own arse scratching careers and paradigms. I say again I don't agree with some of Von Daniken's opinions but who am I to say he's wrong?

Another book that might interest you OP is Forbidden Archeology by Michael Cremo. He takes a slightly different approach in that he believes humans have been here from the beginning and many civilisations with advanced technology have been and gone. He theorises time is cyclic, what goes around comes around!

[edit on 8-5-2010 by SOXMIS]

[edit on 8-5-2010 by SOXMIS]

Originally posted by SOXMIS
Perhaps it's okay for an academic to make ridiculous claims and be unable to prove them but not an amateur just giving his opinion?

Academics are called upon to prove their claims, and until they do so their opinions remain 'educated opinions'.

There is a lot about our history we don't know and a lot that is known and kept from us by academics, too keen to maintain their own arse scratching careers and paradigms.

As one with a long association with the academic environment, I say nonsense. Academe is full of Young Turks...post-grads just itching to attach their names to a new discovery or change in paradigm. The insistence on equating a need for PROOF with academic intransigence is the biggest canard going in popular culture.

I say again I don't agree with some of Von Daniken's opinions but who am I to say he's wrong?

You don't have to...there are experts who can provide knowledgeable rebuttals. All you need to do is weigh the evidence.

Another book that might interest you OP is Forbidden Archeology by Michael Cremo. He takes a slightly different approach in that he believes humans have been here from the beginning and many civilisations with advanced technology have been and gone. He theorises time is cyclic, what goes around comes around!

I would look at some of the critiques surrounding Cremo's work. You might be surprised to know his conclusions are created through a filter of Hindu Fundamentalism.

The Berlizes and the Von Daenikens made a pile of dough floating their entertaining yet mostly bogus claims. But to their credit, they launched a bunch of people into academic study of our past. Funny though, how few come out of that experience backing up those initial beliefs.

[edit on 8-5-2010 by JohnnyCanuck]

Academe is like any other institution JC, you rock the boat you get a slap, you try and tip the boat and your career ends. A post grad is like any other "young turk" out of training, they soon realise that your funding dries up when you do things that threaten the status quo. So the ones who continue to question disappear and the remainder do what most people do when faced with the option of work or poverty, they sell out. Which type are you?

Yes I know about Cremos Hindu beliefs, many of the Hindu beliefs show an interesting similarity to some quantum physics theories and the Vedas have some very curious references. I have no problem with that, do you?

Yes this was a good book lost of information and theories. I was doing a 6 month jail sentence when I got a hold of the book, however I can’t recall

where I found it,(must have been floating around the dorm) but I read and twice, And loved its content.

Before I was released though I ripped the book up and flushed it down the
toilet, now thinking about that now, I don’t know why I did that, maybe

because I couldn’t take it with me when I left and a part of me wanted to
have some inside information and didn’t want anyone else to have the

same knowledge. And a 3rd reason could be I didn’t want anybody’s faith be broken from the content of the book.

Now many years later I was in a MOM and POP book store that sold used

books and I see this book and there were two copies on the shelf and I bought both of them, and another by the same author. I bought both for

the safe keeping of one while I read the other and keep notes and things in it.

Just thought I would share this.

reply to post by SOXMIS

Academe is like any other institution JC, you rock the boat you get a slap, you try and tip the boat and your career ends. A post grad is like any other "young turk" out of training, they soon realise that your funding dries up when you do things that threaten the status quo. So the ones who continue to question disappear and the remainder do what most people do when faced with the option of work or poverty, they sell out. Which type are you?

All this looks great at face value and it's been said before. The suggestion is that academia is stagnant and simply supports status quo. In reality, the advances in technology we see are mostly driven by people who've been educated by those same academic institutions.

1960 to 2010 has seen great leaps in our knowledge and technology. How does your concept of academic status quo explain this? Also, have you had an academic education to base your assertions on? Have you had a 'slap?'

Originally posted by SOXMIS
Academe is like any other institution JC, you rock the boat you get a slap, you try and tip the boat and your career ends. A post grad is like any other "young turk" out of training, they soon realise that your funding dries up when you do things that threaten the status quo. So the ones who continue to question disappear and the remainder do what most people do when faced with the option of work or poverty, they sell out. Which type are you?

Google 'Tom Dillehay' and your argument goes to crap.

Well I googled Tom Dillehay and had a look but he hardly seems to be tipping the boat, pushing the arrival date back a couple of thousand years is not really the maverick academic action you suggest so I dont think my argument goes to crap. I haven't had the pleasure of being involved with academic institutions but I have a fair amount of experiance with the military/intelligence/political institutions of the UK and I have had a slap, my life was threatened by my Squadron Commander after challenging the motives of our involvement in the first Gulf War. They are all the same. You threaten a person's whole lifes work and they will turn.
I was pointing out that the example you gave, Lehner, was pretty poor and gave my reason why. He claimed to have proved the method of building the Great Pyramid but failed, hardly an expert opinion.

[edit on 8-5-2010 by SOXMIS]

reply to post by Kandinsky

The Daniken books could be described as 'intellectual potty training.'

An excellent way of putting it.

I, too, was into this kind of stuff - von Daniken and other pseudoscientic marvels and mystery stories. I was into occult stuff, too.

Then I grew up.

But as you say, it was good potty training.



[edit on 9/5/10 by Astyanax]

I read the book a few years ago and just read it recently when the show on History channel called Ancient Aliens started up.

Erich Von Daniken's work in that book is very interesting and I wouldnt doubt for a second that its not true...or at least has some truth in it.

Originally posted by SOXMIS
Well I googled Tom Dillehay and had a look but he hardly seems to be tipping the boat, pushing the arrival date back a couple of thousand years is not really the maverick academic action you suggest so I dont think my argument goes to crap.

Yes...it does. By pushing it back that couple of thousand years he separates the peopling of the Americas from the 11kya intraglacial corridor...which was a major scientific paradigm on this side of the pond, and as such, he opened the potential for many tens of thousands of years earlier than even that. Good clean science convinced the establishment...that impenetrable academic wall you insist on citing...and we look at the New World in an entirely new light.

Are there academics with blinders on to protect their pet theories? Certainly! No parchment precludes one from being an arse.

But science is full of hungry post grads looking to have a Google entry like that, along with tenure. Your argument remains a canard.

Of course JC if you do come from an academic background, as you implied, you are going to defend it. I wont even argue with you that there are a number of post grads with a desire to shake up the world, however the important word you used was tenure. How does one get tenure JC? By challenging the accepted theories, by putting the whole house of cards, the institution you are part of, at risk? I don't think so. You may be given a little slack, you may be allowed to challenge to a degree, but there will be a line and once you've crossed it your career is finished. So no my arguement is not a canard, it is a known fact by anyone with the slightest experience of dissent that you do as you are told within an institution. I've no wish to debate this further on this thread, we derailing the OP's question which we have both answered already.

Originally posted by SOXMIS
Of course JC if you do come from an academic background, as you implied, you are going to defend it.

I don't think we are derailing the thread by defining the quality of the challenges issued towards the OP. But just to clarify, while I have some training in the subject at hand, my long term experience is as support staff...which is to say I watched the academics both in and out of class...at their best and at their worst. I feel very comfortable in presenting my opinion.

My bottom line is that one may challenge anyone's opinion, but they had better have a pretty good counterargument if they want to remain credible. And to dismiss a trained scientific opinion simply because one does not trust Academe...
A) It doesn't fly.
B) It merely hastens on the Idiocracy.

I see you have an itch you can't scratch JC, ok I'll play. To which scientific opinion are you referring to? Lehner's claim of proving the technique of building the great pryamid and failing miserably, yet still claiming he proved his theory? Or that I dont think the one example you gave of an academic questioning the party line a little warranted my trust of the whole institution?

Something for you to ponder, from the Oxford English dictionary, academic n. teacher or scholar in a university, adj. of no practical relevance.

Adding to the Idiocracy indeed.

Originally posted by SOXMIS
I see you have an itch you can't scratch JC, ok I'll play. To which scientific opinion are you referring to? Lehner's claim of proving the technique of building the great pryamid and failing miserably, yet still claiming he proved his theory? Or that I dont think the one example you gave of an academic questioning the party line a little warranted my trust of the whole institution?

You've painted the academic/scientific process with a pretty wide brush. I chose the Dillehay example to challenge the absolutes you appear to be declaring. You can't slag academe and endorse Cremo, and expect to be taken seriously.

And on this side of the pond, shattering that 11kya mark is a tad more significant than "questioning the party line a little". In fact it's one of those great stories that emerges from watching the doughnut...not the hole.

So, you're right...we should end this conversation about now, as we have nothing more to say to each other on the topic,.

I am not so much endorsing everything about von Daniken's material, but rather how many of us were first inluenced to think "outside the box" because of this book?

This book first made me begin to realize that everything I had been told was not necessarily the ultimate truth. More than anything else, it caught my interest so much that I actually looked for opportunities that I might not have pursued otherwise.

That is the type of influence I was most considering when I started this thread.

It's a damned shame that this thread has to be de-railed so that some can
express themselves as "educated" critics.

You are so filled with yourselves . . . aren't you ?

It's really not about you and your "intellectual" innuendos.

It's about possibilities, puzzles, propaganda, . . . and proof.

Originally posted by SIEGE
It's a damned shame that this thread has to be de-railed so that some can
express themselves as "educated" critics.
You are so filled with yourselves . . . aren't you ?
It's really not about you and your "intellectual" innuendos.
It's about possibilities, puzzles, propaganda, . . . and proof.

I have to dispute your accusation of the thread being derailed. Here's the OP's original question:

Originally posted by Truth1000
When I first read "Chariots of the Gods," I probably re-read it 4 or 5 times in the first month. I was really hooked by the information presented.

I was just wondering, how many of you would say that this book had an impact on your perceptions of what was going on in history?

There is no doubt that Chariots of the Gods had an impact on a lot of people...but the conversation goes on to say that it steered a lot of people into actual academic study of the questions brought forward...myself included. Is it derailing the thread to state that the material presented couldn't stand up to academic scrutiny?

And when that scrutiny is accused of being irrelevant, is it derailing the thread defend the scientific method? Maybe it's a buzzkill if all you want in the end is a cartoon version of the world around us, but fact is, the reality is a much more exciting concept.

Originally posted by SIEGE
I believe it had a very positive effect on me.
Questions I had . . . were now turning up publicly . . . asked by an author
who believes that past mysterys . . . have answers.

Your response to the OP...is it derailing the thread to point out that answers are cheap...correct answers are a little harder to come by. In fact, you say that "It's about possibilities, puzzles, propaganda, . . . and proof. "

Yes indeedy...proof...and Von Daeniken's 'proofs' simply aren't. You know the motto of this site is "Deny Ignorance". Don't be calling people down for trying to do just that. In fact, it is well known that science geeks are often inspired by sci-fi and speculative fiction (or bad science)...inspired to go to school and work for the skill set required to tackle those past mysteries of yours and reach conclusions that actually hold water.

So, my response to the OP remains that bad science such as Von Daeniken and our pal Indy Jones inspires a lot of folks to find their own answers through higher education...that is a very good thing. To consider Chariots of the Gods the final word is not.

Even by debunking his ideas, the book has lead to new ideas to replace them, stimulating the minds of people who would find better explanations. However, without that book, would those same new explanations have been research when they were, or with the diligence they were given?

Even that is a legacy of this book.

It should be a part of every person's library. It would be a good starting point for further research into this area. It's inexpensive and a short read. I wouldn't be pulling all nighters reading about ancient aliens if it wasn't for inspiration such as that. This thread gets a flag.

[edit on 15-5-2010 by Nemesis0123]

Most of Darwin's specific theories have been proven wrong, but it was his pioneering thought that makes him a hero to evolutionists. On the other hand, Von Danikin has been ridiculed and is sometimes used as a joke. I think he deserves better than that.