# Pro-Evo: Guideline for an Age of Joy
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-evo-guideline-for-an-age-of-joy/553335
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 10, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-evo-guideline-for-an-age-of-joy/553335 "2010-09-10T21:16:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-evo-guideline-for-an-age-of-joy/553335/1 "2010-09-10T21:16:39Z")
A few weeks ago I received this odd little book in the mail. There was no return address. It’s apparently written by a rich German maniac, and the endorsements on the back of the book are the best:
> [@](#):
>
> “… an incomparable guide.”
>
> (Prof. DDr. L. K., world-renowned scientist)
>
> “What the author has perceived has the character of a natural law.”
>
> (Dr. W. S., university professor)
>
> “The principle to guide human thought and action is convincing.”
>
> (P.H., Chinese scientist)
>
> “The author should make the book available everywhere, – so many people would be helped.”
>
> (A large country’s institution for press, books, films, television and radio)
>
> “The book is great.”
>
> (Dr. J. H., university professor)
>
> “May the book serve as a catalyst for the process of human renewal. ”
>
> (Dr. Ing. H. D. W., accredited physicist)
>
> “I will give the book to my friends, enemies and politicians”
>
> (Dr. B. M. S., university professor)
There is a [web site](http://www.proevo.ch/) devoted to this book.
I can’t figure out why they chose to send it to ME!
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### Author:  [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-evo-guideline-for-an-age-of-joy/553335/2 "2010-09-10T21:20:39Z")
I just found [an old thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=542969) about this book! But nobody seemed to know about the nutcase who wrote it.
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### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-evo-guideline-for-an-age-of-joy/553335/3 "2010-09-10T21:31:25Z")
One came to our house recently. We have been leafing through it and mocking it.
The premise of the book is that “pro-evo” is good and we should encourage it. By “pro-evo” the author means things that “evolve” in the right direction, the evolution itself being not the Darwin kind but rather gradual inadvertant change.
So, the author is saying that when things seem to gradually tend to change in a good direction, that’s a good thing.
Even in the hard-to-picture scenario where this point is worth making, I still haven’t figured out why he had to invent a new word to make it. He has further cemented me into my dim view that people who think their idea is so bold that prior art words are insufficient to express it are worthy only of jeering and making sport.
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### Author:  [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-evo-guideline-for-an-age-of-joy/553335/4 "2010-09-10T21:52:00Z")
I looked up their website proevo.ch and found this on whois:
> [@](#):
>
> Domain name:
> proevo.ch
>
> Holder of domain name:
> Casanova Druck und Verlag AG
> Bühler Stefan
> Rossbodenstrasse 33
> CH-7004 Chur
> Switzerland
> Contractual Language: German
>
> Technical contact:
> deep AG
> Frei Ivo
> Comercialstrasse 19
> CH-7000 Chur
> Switzerland
>
> DNSSEC:N
>
> Name servers:
> dns1.deep.ch [217.71.249.10]
> dns2.deep.ch [217.71.250.1]
I looked up the nameholder and it’s just a publishing company [http://www.casanova.ch/](http://www.casanova.ch/)
But the name of the technical contact “Frei Ivo” sounds kind of like Pro Evo…
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### Author:  [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-evo-guideline-for-an-age-of-joy/553335/5 "2010-09-10T21:58:28Z")
I wrote to Casanova Druck und Verlag AG asking for the history of the book and its author. If I get a reply I’ll post it here!
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### Author:  [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-evo-guideline-for-an-age-of-joy/553335/6 "2010-09-10T22:29:33Z")
This German link has some info [Joseph Haid und Tomot Om](http://www.religio.de/okk/haid.html) A partial translation says:
> [@](#):
>
> Joseph Haid was born in Austria in 1911 and had created an esoteric private ideology, which he called Om Om or T. Tomot. According to self-expression in the journal Lebensrichtig he was of peasant origin, studied in Vienna first agriculture, then economics.