Ignatius Donnelly

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Ignatius Donnelly

Ignatius Loyola Donnelly (born November 3, 1831 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † January 1, 1901 in Minneapolis , Minnesota ) was an American lawyer and congressman for the Populist Party . He was mainly known for his theories about Atlantis .

Life

He was from March 4, 1863 to March 3, 1869 as a Republican Member of the Second Congressional Constituency of Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives . He had previously served as Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota from 1859 to 1863 . From 1874 to 1878 Donnelly was again politically active as a senator in the Minnesota Senate . He was an independent candidate for the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1887 and 1888 . Donnelly rose to become the leading intellectual of the Populist Party , for which he wrote the preamble of their campaign platform in 1892. According to this, "a gigantic conspiracy against humanity", which is active both in America and in Europe, threatens civilization either with complete annihilation or with the establishment of an absolutist despotism . In the years from 1891 to 1894 and from 1897 to 1898 he sat again for the populists in the state Senate, in the presidential election in the United States in 1900 he ran unsuccessfully as vice president.

plant

In his 1882 book Atlantis, the Antediluvian World (German: "Atlantis, the antediluvian world", 1911) he suspected a continent that had sunk in the North Atlantic as the location of the Atlantis described by the Greek philosopher Plato . Donnelly believed that in prehistoric times he sank into the sea due to a devastating volcanic eruption and now only the mountain peaks protruded from the water - the Azores . Some residents of Atlantis survived the disaster and fled to Europe and Central America in various groups . There they would have brought the “primitive natives” the art of writing, metallurgy and pyramid building , which he cites - in addition to various flood myths - as evidence of the land bridge between Africa and America that he assumed .

Donnelly tried a kind of scientific investigation, which was mainly based on circumstantial evidence. His book contains seismological observations and studies of fossils in different continents. It contained absurdities as well as the claim that tobacco pipes were invented in different parts of the world well before the discovery of America and the tobacco plant . Donnelly cited scientific authorities such as William Jones and Friedrich Max Müller . He argued that the " Aryan race" originated in Atlantis and that Indian Aryans had reached India from Europe and Atlantis.

In his work Ragnarok, the Age of Fire and Gravel , published in 1883, he claimed that the Ice Age was caused by a cometary impact on Earth. Traces of this catastrophe can be found in the North Germanic myth of Ragnarök and in the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah . The many places encountered boulder clay is in no way due to the action of the Ice Age glaciers, but imagine matter from the tail of the comet is.

In 1888 he submitted The Great Cryptogram , a work in which he argued that Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare's works.

In 1890 he published the science fiction novel Caesar's Column. A Story of the Twentieth Century , set in New York in 1988. In it he expresses his worldview that unrestrained capitalism , plutocracy and corruption would ruin the United States.

reception

Donnelly's Atlantis book, the content of which has now been scientifically refuted in essential aspects, was a bestseller . It revitalized interest in Atlantis and lost continents in Europe, and especially in the United States. Tens of thousands of other Atlantis works have been published since his book was first published, and several authors still refer to Donnelly today. His speculations about Atlantis were received particularly in the theosophy of Helena Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner and later in the New Age movement . The folk singer Donovan had a hit in 1969 with the single Atlantis , which is closely based on Donnelly's portrayal.

Today Donnelly is considered the "Prince of the American Cranks " and a prime example of a pseudoscientist . The science journalist Martin Gardner considered it an open question whether Donnelly himself believed the catastrophe theory , which he advocated in Ragnarok , or just wanted to build on the sales success of Atlantis .

literature

  • Michael Cohen: Donnelly, Ignatius . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 1, pp. 233 f.
  • Martin Ridge: Ignatius Loyola Donnelly . In: ANB 6, 730-732. (engl.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Cohen: Donnelly, Ignatius . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 1, pp. 233 f.
  2. ^ Martin Gardner : Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science . Dover Publications, New York 1952, p. 165.
  3. ^ A b Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 340. ( online )
  4. ^ Martin Gardner: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science . Dover Publications, New York 1952, pp. 35 ff.
  5. ↑ https://archive.org/details/greatcryptogram00donngoog Ignatius Donnelly: The Great Cryptogram: Francis Bacon's Cipher in the So-called Shakespeare Plays (1887) on archive.org
  6. ↑ Garry W. Trompf: Macro History. In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Ed.): Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism . Brill, Leiden 2006. p. 714; Helmut Zander : Rudolf Steiner. Piper, Munich 2011, available at Google.Books ; Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 340.
  7. ^ Charles Pierce: Idiot America. How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free . Knopf Doubleday, New York 2009, p. 63.
  8. ↑ "Prince of US Cranks". Martin Gardner: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science . Dover Publications, New York 1952, p. 35; Michael Cohen: Donnelly, Ignatius . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 1, pp. 233 f.
personal data
SURNAME Donnelly, Ignatius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Donnelly, Ignatius Loyola (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1901
Place of death Minneapolis , Minnesota