Dimosthenis Liakopoulos

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Liakopoulos Dimosthenis

Demosthenis Liakopoulos (Greek:Δημοσθένης Λιακόπουλος) is a controversial TV personality in Greece who can best be described as a national mysticist. Dimosthenis Liakopoulos has studied Physics in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and claims to have made extended studies — albeit, apparently, on a personal and not academic level — in Astrophysics, World and Greek history, the paternal texts of the Orthodox faith and the evolution of military technology throughout the centuries. He has worked for 20 years as a High School physics teacher. He claims to have worked for NATO for several years^{[citation needed]} ; subsequently he quit and dedicated himself to TV-shows and book publishing. His first television show was "Δημοσθένους Διάλογοι" ("Demosthenes' Dialogues") which included interviews of scientists, historians and politicians. His latest TV-show is called "Δυνατά και Ελληνικά" ("Loud and Greek") in which he promotes his personal beliefs about history, technology, and politics while advertising the books he publishes. These books are written either by himself or by some of his associates.

1 His claims
2 Liakopoulos and Anti-Semitism
3 Controversy
4 Latest Developments
5 Writers
6 See also
7 Notes
8 External links

[edit] His claims

Iosif Vatopedinos

"O Kairos Gar Eggys" (The Time is Near) book cover

His fame is due to an eccentric mixture of what he claims to be apocryphal knowledge, history, and religious texts, which he regularly evangelizes in the books he authors as well as his TV infomercial, broadcast on various hours of the day by a multitude of small Greek TV stations.

In his infomercials Liakopoulos promotes, at times aggressively, at times using rather naive arguments and at times with a substantial dose of humour, the sales of a series of books containing supposedly astounding revelations, which he claims to have been presented to him through father Iosif Vatopedinos and father Paisios of Mount Athos, as well as Saint John Trahonitis from Lemesos of Cyprus; he frequently invokes their authority to substantiate his claims, insisting that "the wise sage has said so!", Greek: "το είπε και ο σοφός ο γέροντας!", which has evolved into something of a catch phrase.

The books cover a multitude of conspiracy theories most of which have to do with the Apocalypse, "New World Order", "Global Zionism", "Extraterrestrials", "The Theory of the Hollow Earth" and other obscure topics. He combines elements from a multitude of conspiracy theories, blending them with pseudoreligious and pseudohistorical facts in order to present an explanation of world developments that is characteristic to conspiracy-themed publications. One example is his claim that according to religious texts of the Christian Church, Alexander the Great was instructed by the Christian God to seal the exits of the interior of the earth by building Pyramids. In this way the so called "putrid nations"—apparently something like the Morlocks in H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine"—have been trapped inside the hollow interior of the earth waiting for a chance to come out.

Liakopoulos has stated that he doesn't always agree with all the theories mentioned in his infomercials, although it's not always clear which of them he promotes and which he only mentions; this makes it much easier to distance himself from theories that appear in his shows and books, when they are proven to be obvious frauds.

The most popular book he promotes is probably the two-volume series "O Kairos gar Eggys" ("Ο Καιρός Γαρ Εγγύς"—The Time is Nigh) which contains what Liakopoulos calls prophecies pertaining to the future of Greece and the world until the year 2024. In this book it is stated that Russian technology will be superior to the arms of NATO and will bring back Russia (referred in the prophetica texts as 'the blond race') as a superpower during the upcoming World War III. Thence, Thence, the prophecized pre-ordained Greek Cypriot King John will come to power through divine intervention, becoming the head of a renewed Byzantine Empire that will bring about a Golden Age with peace and justice to the entire planet.

Liakopoulos claims this King John to be the same as that prophesied in the medieval texts. He also claims that in King John's house in Trahonis Lemesos prophecies, dates and symbols began appearing in 1997. His prophecies are often the subject of much interest by the media and the Church in Cyprus, and while its authenticity cannot be proven as yet, nor has it been shown to be a fraud. See also

Liakopoulos and the Russians

[edit] Liakopoulos and Anti-Semitism

Liakopoulos' commentary can be interpreted as anti-semitic, although he denies it. He believes that Jews like all other people desire to live in peace and harmony. However they are often being manipulated by what he calls the Dark side of Zionism. While he supports the "Bright Side of Zionism" which is the right of Jews to have a land of their own he believes that since ancient times the Dark side wishes to rule the entire world. To support this he offers some examples from the Holy Bible mixed with some of his own theories, the most known of which is the theory of "El and Nephilim".

[edit] Controversy

The Centaur from Volos, a fictional exhibit [1] at the University of Tennessee Hodges Library, which Liakopoulos often displayed on his broadcasts as archaeological proof of Centaurs. The display is clearly entitled "Do you believe in Centaurs?" and was meant to mislead students in order to make them more critically aware, according to the exhibitors.

Historical scholars universally reject Liakopoulos's claims as pseudohistorical, fraudulent, and devoid of merit.

Liakopoulos has also been the target of severe criticism and mockery in popular culture, by numerous comedians (like George Mitsikostas) and also weblog authors, but continues to pursue the promotion of his publications. Despite the revisionist and controversial content of his books, it is assumed that they sell well, since Liakopoulos affords to pay for many hours of broadcasting on a number of TV-stations, most notably "Τηλεάστυ" (TeleAsty) (an ultra-nationalist TV station owned by journalist and politician Georgios Karatzaferis), "Extra-3" and "Makedonia TV", as well as "Seven" channel, before being bought and changed to "Skai TV". In his books, Liakopoulos blends racism and messianism—more specifically, a unique Greek mixture of the two called epsilonism, with orthodox christian piety, nationalism and anti-zionism (sometimes related to anti-semitism).

Although Liakopoulos does have a small number of followers, some people watch his infomercials simply because they are entertained by his style and often outrageous remarks. Many wonder how can he claim to be a devout Christian orthodox and at the same time, conciliate his faith with 'heretical' themes, like aliens and hollow earth and consider him a hoaxer who knowingly promotes mythology as fact to become rich.

Many of Liakopoulos's claims have been proven to be frauds which he knowingly disseminated. He had been displaying a photograph which he alleged to be the remains of an actual living Centaur for many months in his show. As skepdic.gr revealed (http://www.skepdic.gr/Entries/Kapa/centaur.htm), the so-called "fossil" was in fact a completely fictional work of art, put to display in Tennessee University under the humorous title "Do you believe in Centaurs?".

The fact that Liakopoulos sells his books during prime tv time without a telemarketing sign, has resulted in the networks that carry his show "ΔΥΝΑΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ" ("Dynata Kai Ellinika") ("Loud and Greek") being penalized with heavy fines (up to €20,000) by the Greek National Council for Radio and Television (ESR) ^[2].

After all these actions many people in Greece consider Liakopoulos just another cult figure.

[edit] Latest Developments

In June - July, 2006, Liakopoulos published a new, 5-tome work with the title "Γη, ο Πλανήτης των Ελλήνων" (Earth, Planet of the Greeks), in which he claims that the Ancient Greeks had colonized almost every place in the world, from Far Asia to North America. This is considered (by himself) to be the greatest science work on his entire career as a writer at that time. But a year later in February, 2007 he published another series of books called "Τα μυστικά του κόκκινου πλανήτη" (The secrets of the red planet) -οnce again considering it the greatest science work of his career- in witch he claims that he found some mars photos from NASA that were examined from his computers (whatever that means) and he found some structures close to pyramids and ancient greek theaters.

In October 2006 Liakopoulos was allegedly connected to the controversial arrest of Antonis Tsipropoulos, owner of the blog aggregation service blogme.gr. One of the RSS feeds of this service included links to, FunEL, a blog satirical of Liakopoulos ^[3]. Although blogme.gr and Mr Tsipropoulos had nothing to do with the content of the aggregated blogs, Greek police arrested him, shut down his server and confiscated the hard disks. The event ironically coincided with the 2006 Internet Governance Forum, which was hosted in Greece at the same time.

Liakopoulos' name is not officially mentioned in the case (Mr. Tsipropoulos had chosen to not reveal the name of the plaintiff before the public trial), however FunEL seems to imply that Liakopoulos is responsible. This claim was also supported (although, without citing their sources) by some Greek journalist bloggers and by parts of the press[4].