Odyssey of the Gods: The History of Extraterrestrial Contact in Ancient Greece (Erich von Daniken Library)

Whether or not one believes in the Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis, von Daniken's books do provide some interesting accounts of our ancient civilisations and their culture. Learning and developing an interest in ideas is best facilitated by firing up people's imaginations, and while one has to admit that the theory that the Ancient Greek accounts of mythological Gods were really accounts of aliens from outer space visiting our planet, seems far fetched, the notion is great way to get one thinking about what ancient society was truly like. Having said that, there is really not much in this book that can be seen as a presentation of new ideas from von Daniken. The book begins with a re-telling of the ancient Greek story of the voyage of Jason and the Argonaut. The speculation is that the some of the more far out aspects of the story, such as accounts of a never sleeping dragon; Talos, a giant bronze metal man and Gods who fly about on special chariots with "horses" that fly, are all really descriptions of sophisticated robots and flying machines. Of course, there is no direct evidence to back up any of von Daniken's speculations. We have yet to find an ancient alien space ship, for example, but von Daniken points to somewhat anachronistic discoveries, such as the discovery of the Antikythera mechanism and the Peri Reis Map, to support his claims. Can we infer the possibility of ancient giant mechanical robots just from discoveries such as the Antikythera mechanism? I would say probably not, but it's fun to speculate that such discoveries point to an ancient history of humankind that was far more sophisticated than we thought.The book then moves on to speculations about the existence of Atlantis and discusses Plato's famous account of the mythical island in the Platonic writings called "Timaeus." Von Daniken argues that Plato's account was not pure story telling and that Atlantis really existed, speculating that it was located somewhere in the Caribbean. Von Daniken discusses and then dismisses speculation that the Ancient Greek city of Troy may have actually been the Atlantis of Plato's account.Many of the pages of this book are filled by Von Daniken simply retelling the Argonaut mythology and Plato's account of Atlantis, so the book is basically these accounts with some speculation that Ancient Greek Gods were really aliens from out space. To be critical for a moment, one area of specious reasoning I found in this book is the suggestion, apparently initially made by a Greek Air Force colonel, a Dr Theofanus Manias, that Ancient Greek sacred sites, such as Delphi and the Acropolis, are all connected by the geometric relationship of the Golden Ratio. Von Daniken suggests that these sacred sites were connected because they were flight paths for our ancient alien Gods! Again, it's a fun idea, but it overlooks the obvious fact that the Dr Manias' fitting the Golden Ratio over these archeological sites on a map simply ignores that the scale or size relativity of the maps he must have used to fit the Golden Ratio to the distances between the sites. That is, if one chooses to ignore discrepancies in distances, by suggesting that we can overlook a kilometre or two here and there, then one might be able to fit the archeological sites on the circles that are roughly the geometric equivalent to Golden Ratios. In science, what makes the mathematics of the Golden Ratio interesting is where one finds fractal-like growth in a structure. That is, the Golden Ratio manifesting via growth over many different sizes or scales. No such fractal measure is relevant with regards to the distances between ancient Greek sacred sites. If we measure the distance between Delphi and the Acropolis over metres, for example, rather than kilometres, will we get the same Golden Ratio? The answer is no, because at the scale of metres, irregularities in the Earth's surface need to be accounted for, irregularities that are ignored by most cartographers, and most probably Dr Manias' maps. In fact, the distances on the cartographer's map of the sites will be straight or curves lines and therefore cannot be fractal-like. Furthermore, the Golden Ratio is an abstract mathematical entity, defined by an irrational number and the distances between locations on the planet, such as the sacred sites of Ancient Greece are not mathematical abstractions, but real scale relative metric properties. Incidentally, this ignorance of metrics and lack of accuracy around the relative scale at which we measures physical distances, has been rather erroneously exploited before in von Daniken's books. In "Chariots of the Gods," Von Daniken suggests that "the height of the pyramid of Cheops multiplied by a thousand million corresponds roughly to the distance between the earth and sun." Of course, the words "roughly" reveal the lack of precision that one would require if significance could be granted to this dubious "fact." One may also ask what significance should be allocated to multiplying the height of Cheops by the number of a thousand million as opposed to any other number?These criticisms aside, Von Daniken books are in my opinion, not really meant to be read as attempts at giving a serious or accurate account of human history, but as a kind of imaginal reading of our history. They are a kind of "what if" about human history. If in some unlikely event that it may turn out to be that the ancient alien hypothesis is actually true, we may be more likely to discover this hypothesis is true simply because our minds are more open to the possibility of this unlikely truth. This is a good thing since keeping our minds open to the improbable is one of the most exciting things we can do.

Erik writes his books by asking questions and allows you to think for yourself. Love his books.

Have read all his books. Very well written. He always gives all possible answers and is not afraid to say he doesn't know.

Again Daniken has authored an interesting book. The myths he writes about come from a time when people shared this earth with what Daniken and others believe to be gods that once lived here. His focus is the myths from Greece. The stories point to the fact that mankind has interacted with created beings similar to mankind. Daniken calls what the ancients thought were gods, extraterrestrials. The Christian scriptures would no doubt label these beings as the sons of god which in fact are the Fallen Angels that once lived and ruled on this planet . . . perhaps they still do. The book is not an easy read with all of included references.

I was excited to receive this book and dove right in as soon as it arrived. I was surprised to find so much info on Atlantis and started reading midbook. It saved me from having to buy Plato's books to read up. I still will eventually, but if you want an overall review of Plato's discussion on Atlantis, this is the book to purchase.

Can't stop reading this guys books,will probably read all of them,just hope that he keeps investigateing and writing more books.

Not an easy read. Very factual information. Historically interesting. I will never look at Greek mythological stories the same again.

Highly recommend this book if you have an open mind about what really goes on in this world of ours!!

This is the best of his books, less gushing and more factual. Give it a read - it is very good.

Have read a couple of his books and find them easy to understand. This one is no different. For a beginner on this subject I would recommend him a good and sound starting point even if you do not agree with the concept.

a great read,read it ,it may challenge your thoughts on what we are supposed to know

Very interesting and easy read.

I bought this for my husband, so he was pleased.This was exactlyas described. Look forward doing business with you in the future.