memories of the Future

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Memories of the Future (subtitle Unsolved Riddles of the Past ) is the first non-fiction book by the Swiss author Erich von Däniken . It was published in 1968 by Econ Verlag , was a great sales success, especially in German-speaking countries, and brought the theses of Dänikens, which belong to the area of pre-astronautics, into the interest of the general public.

Emergence

According to the author himself, journeys totaling more than 100,000 km were undertaken to research memories of the future in 1966 and 1967. Von Däniken claims to have undertaken these trips outside the seasonal operation of his hotel in Davos .

The manuscript for Memories of the Future was submitted to Econ-Verlag in the summer of 1967, but was found to be unsatisfactory by the editors of the publisher. The publisher Erwin Barth von Wehrenalp was quoted as saying that the manuscript was "the product of an emotional non-writer". For this reason, memories of the future were processed by Wilhelm Roggersdorf , who is listed as "processing" in the imprint. Information from the publisher's environment spoke of the fact that Roggersdorf had “totally rewritten” the text.

content

Memories of the future is divided into a total of twelve chapters with a foreword, introduction, bibliography and index.

The contents of the individual chapters are:

  1. Chapter: The possibilities of extraterrestrial life in the Milky Way are discussed. For this purpose, a calculation by Willy Ley similar to the Drake formula is used with regard to the number of possible planets with civilized life forms. At the end of the chapter, von Däniken theorized that civilizations could have emerged and sunk into barbarism several times within tens of thousands of years .
  2. Chapter: Von Däniken illustrates an interstellar space flight on which the space travelers are under the effect of time dilation . For this purpose, the encounter with the primitive inhabitants of a foreign planet is described, with particular emphasis on the possibilities of integrating the "savages" into the work of the expedition and the impressions of technology on the native inhabitants. Von Däniken then sums up the aftermath of this expedition to the effect that the indigenous people, looking back, glorified the expedition as a visit from gods and gave evidence of this in the form of cave paintings and rock carvings , whose inadequate resources, however, do not do justice to the facts.
  3. Chapter: Various peculiarities from human history are listed. These include the Piri Reis map , the Nazca Lines , the city of Tiahuanaco and the Iron Pillar in Delhi . The lack of understanding of archeology and historical science towards such objects is discussed.
  4. Chapter: Descriptions of objects and events from the Bible are interpreted as technical achievements and events. Cited examples are the ark of the covenant , which is understood as an intercom to Yahweh , the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah , interpreted as a nuclear attack , the book of Ezekiel and the birth of Noah in the family of Lamech , which is represented as a genetic interference by a higher power.
  5. Chapter: This chapter deals with the Gilgamesh epic . In particular, the role of the divine descent of Gilgamesh and the similarities between the Flood in the epic and that in the Bible are emphasized.
  6. Chapter: This chapter covers various topics. On the one hand, these are calendars with their references to the cycles of celestial mechanics , on the other hand, some descriptions from the Mahabharata are included, which mainly concern Vimanas . At the end of the chapter, possibilities are discussed to preserve the knowledge a civilization has gained beyond its demise.
  7. Chapter: Different buildings of antiquity are thematized, namely the terrace of Baalbek and the pyramids of Giza . It is questioned that these structures were built by the Egyptians themselves, and instead the influence of modern technology of an advanced civilization is suggested. The purpose of the pyramids and the ancient Egyptian cult of the dead is also seen as a possible misinterpretation of cryonics , which is also extended to other examples of mummification .
  8. Chapter: Easter Island , its unclear history and the moais are covered. Von Däniken establishes a connection between the islands and Tiahuanaco.
  9. Chapter: The Maya and their relationship to astronomy and their calendar are the subject of this chapter. The astronomical knowledge of antiquity and its origin are called into question, which is represented by the mechanism of Antikythera and other archaeological finds today known as out-of-place artifacts .
  10. Chapter: The rapidly advancing development of space travel , its prospects for the future and its influence on the technical development of mankind are presented. For the latter, examples such as the invention of the pacemaker are used. Then some cases of UFO sightings and the Tunguska event are described. The last part of this chapter is the consideration of whether a civilization could have existed on Mars and whether the moons Phobos and Deimos could be artificial satellites .
  11. Chapter: This chapter deals on the one hand with the attempts to establish contact with extraterrestrial civilizations with radio waves . Then the possibility of communication via telepathy is addressed and explained using the example of the American medium Edgar Cayce . Von Däniken also addresses the Drake formula and plans for a manned flight to Mars by the USA. Finally, there is a short conversation with Wernher von Braun about extraterrestrial life.
  12. Chapter: The last chapter emphasizes once again the technical progress of mankind and the way in which it is organized by " think tanks ".

Reception and criticism

Memories of the Future was published in a first edition of 6,000 copies in February 1968 and quickly became a best seller. Just one year after publication, Der Spiegel noted that memories of the future had sold almost 210,000 copies in the Federal Republic of Germany by the end of February 1969. A total of 350,000 copies had been sold by the end of September that year. By the end of September 1970, 600,000 copies had been sold. The enthusiasm for the book and the ideas it spread were sometimes referred to as “Dänikitis”.

Erich von Däniken had a share of the profits of 7% in the income from the sale of the book, and another 3% went to Wilhelm Roggersdorf.

Concerning the qualities of the book, the contemporary critics noted that von Däniken worked on his theses "thankfully without animal seriousness, forgivingly with imagination", but also draws "no small benefit [...] from the admittedly difficult to refute claim that modern science has numerous Can't conclusively explain the findings to this day. "

The social psychologist Hans Anger made, among other things, “the feeling of witnessing the beginnings of a heated religious dispute” as being particularly beneficial for the effect of the book . Anger also expressed the conviction that von Däniken basically offers “science fiction turned upside down”. The book is "not directly accessible from a general scientific understanding", but leaves "the imagination of the technological layman much more leeway than does the science fiction literature, which is sometimes polished down to the last detail". Anger summed up his point of view by saying that the book spreads a “belief in miracles” which represents the “escape into a pseudo-understanding of reality”.

After the book was published, the French author Robert Charroux raised allegations that memories of the future were a plagiarism of his book Fantastic Past from 1963. Von Däniken countered that Charroux himself had plagiarized the book The Beginning of the Third Millennium by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier , which originally appeared in 1960. Another response was to add Charroux's book to the bibliography in later editions.

Erich von Däniken's main themes from 1968, such as "the gods were astronauts", were already described in detail in 1951 in the science fiction novel Reich im Mond by Manfred Langrenus ( Friedrich Hecht ).

Contents of memories of the future were filmed in 1970 under the same name .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Who by whom? In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1969, p. 184-185 ( Online - Mar. 17, 1969 ).
  2. ↑ Gods in the spaceship . In: Der Spiegel . No. 40 , 1969, pp. 211-213 ( online - 30 September 1969 ).
  3. ↑ Believing community . In: Der Spiegel . No. 40 , 1970, pp. 214 ( online - 28 September 1970 ).
  4. ↑ Gerhard Mauz : As our Explorand shows very nicely . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1970, pp. 98 ( Online - Feb. 9, 1970 ).
  5. ↑ Astronaut Jehovah . In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , 1968, p. 175-176 ( Online - May 13, 1968 ).
  6. ↑ Belief in miracles in this exciting world . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1969, p. 211-213 ( Online - Nov. 24, 1969 ).