Contents
|
Newsletter No. 1, April 1975 [Originally published by the newly-formed ‘Interdisciplinary Study Groups’; shortly after to become ‘The Society for Interdisciplinary Studies’]
First Report – Harold Tresman
Let me begin this first Newsletter by welcoming those of you who have joined our society. In the few weeks that have passed since we began our membership campaign you now number over fifty, with a number of ‘promises’ still to come in. I hope that those of you who may still be wavering will soon decide in our favour; perhaps this Newsletter will help you decide.
The four organisers of the society met recently, near Middlesborough, to discuss progress and to review immediate plans. One of our primary considerations was a name for the society. The chief difficulty has been avoiding the use of the name ‘Velikovsky’. The Doctor apparently does not approve of its use in this way; he feels, probably rightly, that such a formal use of it would produce an unnecessary adverse reaction amongst scientists and academics – a result of the earlier ‘smear’ campaign against his work. Another point is that such a title might seem to be too restrictive for the methods, aims and work that we are planning. We have decided upon ‘The Interdisciplinary Study Groups’ as an interim title, though we will advise libraries that we exist as ‘The Velikovsky Study Groups’ to assist those seeking information.
We have resolved to call an official inaugural meeting as soon as we have completed the present membership campaign and we are at our initial full strength. At this meeting the society will be formally constitued and all members will be able to confirm our title, or submit an alternative. A draft Constitution is being prepared, based upon those for similar learned societies which will be offered for adoption. Officers and a working committee will be elected within the framework of the Constitution. In the meantime, however, your organisers have formed a temporary ad hoc committee to see this formation period through. Perhaps I should introduce them, their addresses are below.
Dr. Euan MacKie – an archaeologist specialising in the Scottish Iron Age and Megalithic Astronomy, is an Assistant Keeper at the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow University. He has written a number of articles reviewing the catastrophic approach, and has even succeeded in breaking into the New Scientist with an article that will appear in a later Newsletter. He has attended a number of the American symposia and is friendly with Dr. Velikovsky and other leading catastrophists. He appeared in the BBC documentary ‘Worlds in Collision’.
Brian Moore – is our librarian who is controlling our information services and organising our book lists. If you need information on any aspect of the society’s interests contact him and if there is information available he will give you the details that will help you. Those of you who know of any books or articles which argue the case for or against catastrophism are urged to send this information to him.
Martin Sieff – is a young post-graduate student of history who is showing every sign of becoming an expert on the Revised Chronology proposed by Dr. Velikovsky. He has done a considerable amount of research and produced original results. He attended the symposium held in Canada last year. He is responsible for organising our student membership and he is editing this Newsletter. Those of you who are interested in forming a study group dealing with the Revised Chronology should contact him.
Harold Tresman – is acting as ‘Secretary’ and co-ordinating the membership drive. If you know of anybody interested in Velikovsky or catastrophism, for or against, please advise them of us, and us of them.
The idea behind this Newsletter is [to] weld us into a cohesive group and its success depends upon its readers. We invite comment, articles and letters, either for or against catastrophism, and we would encourage members to correspond between themselves. (Your committee must reserve the right not to publish any submission that can be construed as irrelevant, misleading or false.) In these early days of our society it is intended to distribute this Newsletter to all interested in Velikovsky and catastrophism, in the hope that it will persuade others to join us.
We are aiming to call an informal meeting of members, possibly in May or June, at a venue in London. This will give us an opportunity of meeting each other and exchanging ideas. We are investigating the possibility of showing the CBS television film on Velikovsky’s work at this meeting. I might mention that the inaugural meeting will be held soon after this informal meeting.
The society aims to become a forum for serious debate and discussion. We will encourage a rational approach from both sides. There is a place for academics, lay people and students. Specialists are not experts in fields other than their own, while students are the specialists of tomorrow. We can all learn from each other.
Many of you are already subscribing to the American journal Pensée. This journal has been presenting the first detailed and rational appraisal of Dr. Velikovsky’s works and it announces the latest developments and discoveries connected with his ideas. It has also been responsible for organising the symposia held in the USA and Canada, bringing his theories to the forefront of public attention in North America. The journal sells for two dollars in the States. It is our intention to distribute the first number in the series, called ‘Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered’, free to all who have joined the society, and we hope to send this out with the second Newsletter. If you already receive Pensée please let me know.
Finally, if you have any ideas to expand our membership, or that can improve our methods, we would be pleased to hear from you. I am confident that I can count on all of you to join me in wishing us all good luck with this new venture.
Dr. Euan MacKie
Hunterian Museum
Glasgow University
Glasgow G12 8QQ
Brian Moore
Acklam Branch Library
Acklam Road
Acklam
Teeside
Martin Sieff
Carr Saunders Hall
18-24 Fitzroy Street
London W1
Harold Tresman
18 Fir Tree Court
Allum Lane
Elstree, Herts.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Recent Developments – Dr. Euan MacKie
A quarter of a century has now elapsed since the publication of Worlds in Collision and since the beginning of that extraordinary furore which the appearance of this controversial work stimulated among many eminent members of the scientific and adademic professions. What place do the ideas of Immanuel Velikovsky occupy now – in the mid-1970s – in the world of science and scholarship? It is probably fair to say that, while the majority of the experts in the relevant fields are still either actively hostile or apathetic towards the concept of a catastrophic history for the Earth and the solar system, the number of those who believe that Velikovsky may have said something very important indeed appears to be steadily growing, at least in the USA. Interest among the general public also apparently continues undiminished, judging by the sales of the work and of the other books by Dr. Velikovsky, which are now available in paperback.
The evidence for this increase of interest – not only among the lay public, but also among members of universities and scientific institutions – is to be seen primarily in the history of the journal Pensée and also in the several conferences devoted to aspects of Velikovsky’s work which have been held in American and Canadian universities since 1972. Both these phenomena show clearly that a steady rise in both the quantity and the quality of that debate, about the new catastrophism, is taking place.
In the twenty or so years after Worlds in Collision appeared, and after the immediate reactions to it had died down, published discussions about the issues raised in it were rare. The Velikovsky Affair was a composite work which appeared in 1966 and was an expanded version of a series of articles which had been published in the American Behavioural Scientist in 1963 and which for the first tme documented in detail the many examples of unscientific and near-hysterical reactions which Velikovsky’s first book provoked. Much of The Velikovsky Affair was taken up with this, and also with reflections on the nature of science and of the scientific mentality; actual discussions of the hard evidence were few although an impressive list of the correct anticipation by Dr. Velikovsky of new discoveries in various fields formed a valuable appendix.
In 1967, one issue of the Yale Scientific Magazine was devoted to a discussion of Velikovsky’s ideas by various qualified people, both those for and against the new views. Articles were included about the recent discoveries about the Sun and the inner planets and their significance, yet neither of these attempts to focus attention on the value of using historical and mythological evidence to throw light on astronomical, geological and archaeological problems was systematically followed up.
In 1971, however, the editors of the newly revived magazine Pensée – a publication originally written by and for students at Oregon Universities – decided to commission an article, and later to devote a whole issue, to assessing Velikovsky’s work in the light of the many apparent vindications of his views which had appeared among the new astronomical discoveries. Thus, in May 1972, was born the first of a series of ten issues – now apparently to be continued at intervals indefinitely – broadly titled ‘Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered’, a series which may eventually be seen to have begun a revolution in 20th century science. At first, inevitably, the contributions to the new journal were drawn from a fairly restricted group of people, mostly from those who were known personally to Dr. Velikovsky to be supporters of his ideas, or at least to be constructively sympathetic to them. The quallity of the articles printed varied, as did the degree of the scientific detachment of the writers, and the magazine could not help occasionally appearing to sceptics like the house journal of a small, revolutionary sect. An eminent British professor of physics described issue no. IV, which had been sent to him, as follows. ‘I hope you will forgive me for saying that most of it reads much more like one of the tracts of Jehovah’s Witnesses than it does as a serious contribution to thought of any kind. However, I realise that this is not quite fair. It is not so much that the contributors do not think – but the trouble is that many of them seem to be entirely unaware of a great many of the relevant facts.’
By the time issue X had appeared, however, early in 1975, this situation had quite evidently changed. The range and ability of the contributors had widened and increased respectively and one can detect a subtle change in the orientation of the journal’s avowed aims. Although a major interest in the series has been the various contributions of Dr. Velikovsky himself – the founder of the new discipline – these are clearly the ideas of a unique mind with a breadth of learning which few can match. Of more immediate concern perhaps are the attitudes and considered opinions of the established experts in the many fields affected by Velikovsky’s theses, the people whose attitude towards the catastrophic theories will ultimately determine their fate. To what extent are erudite and skilled specialists now admitting that the insights of one learned polymath, which cover many fields, can force drastic reappraisals in their own? The number of established university staff who are contributing, and who have promised to contribute in the future, is rising rapidly and shows that the value of Velikovsky’s syntheses is being rated highly.
Important, too, is the fact that many of the contributions to the last few numbers of Pensée have presented reasoned arguments against Velikovsky’s ideas and without resorting to the sarcastic or dogmatic condemnation. These have given opportunities for constructive debates of a most stimulating kind. The journal seems to be evolving steadily away from a position of discussing whether Dr. Velikovsky is right or wrong on some particular point, towards a position in which its contributors can discuss the fundamentals of scientific theory themselves, many of which have not been properly debated for decades, even centuries. Issues, too, are promised which will be devoted to other questions of great importance for the health of science as a whole, such as the Dingle controversy over Eistein’s Special Theory of Relativity. Broadly it seems that, even if Dr. Velikovsky’s theories ultimately prove to require some modifications, one of his greatest services to science has been to force the great log jam of established scientific theory to start moving again, with incalculably beneficial effects for both rational thought and true scientific investigation in general. That the jam has begun to move at last is clearly shown by Pensée.
One of the most remarkable recent contributions is the pair of papers in Pensée VIII by Robert W. Bass, a professor of physics at Brigham Young University. Perhaps the greatest single obstacle which natural scientists encounter on the road to considering Velikovsky’s ideas seriously is the assertion frequently made by astronomers that our understanding of celestial mechanics simply will not allow planets to behave in the way claimed in Worlds in Collision. Yet Bass, whose speciality is celestial mechanics, asserts that this is not so and Newtonian mechanics do not forbid the kind of planetary encounters which Velikovsky believes took place. A colleague of the writer’s – a professional astronomer – told him that these two papers were the first he had read which made him think seriously that Velikovsky might be right after all. This astronomer has been interested in, and read widely about, the Velikovsky affair for many years.
The other evidence of changing attitudes in the scientific and scholarly worlds is to be seen in the various conferences and symposia devoted to Velikovsky’s work which have been held in the last three yers. The first of these – which made history in the sense that it showed that the new catastrophism was worthy of debate on a university precinct – took place over three days in June 1972 at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon. Being the first of its kind, it was inevitably imperfect; professional scholars were very much in the minority and most were committed supporters of Velikovsky’s ideas. Nevertheless, the intellectual excitement generated by the feeling that the conference might be marking a turning point in the history of science was very evident.
The same feeling of taking part in an historic occasion was felt at the three-day symposium held at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario in June 1974, which is described in the following article. Here, the number of scientists and scholars present was very much greater than at the Lewis and Clark meeting and these included several professors (in the European sense) and other members of the scientific establishment. While not necessarily being committed supporters in detail of Velikovsky’s views, the presence of these men – often apparently in spite of the ill-concealed derision of colleagues in their own institutions – does seem to show that the new catastrophism is beginning to occupy a place of fundamental importance in the scientific sphere.
In Europe and Britain, unfortunately, a comparable debate has scarcely begun. Only a handful of Europeans were present at McMaster Univesity and so far there appears to be no organised forum in Britain for a discussion of Velikovsky’s views. Just as in 1950 British scientists were said to have acted much less hysterically than their American colleagues towards the appearance of Worlds in Collision (though just as unfavourably), so now they seem to be standing apart from the increasing debate in the New World about the new catastrophism. No doubt this is mainly due to a lack of awareness that there is anything to debate, although in 1973 both a BBC ‘Horizon’ programme and an article in the New Scientist …. drew attention to the problem. The need for a British forum on the subject seems clear, for only if specialists can be convinced that they should be re-examining the fundamental assumptions on which their disciplines are based is any real progress in assessing the value of Velikovsky’s work likely. Only then is the most important process likely to come about, namely, the devising of research programmes to test important parts of Velikovsky’s hypotheses. By bringing the Velikovsky challenge to science constantly and sensibly before the attention both of the educated public and the academic world, these aims are likely to be realised in the end.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
The McMaster University Symposium, June 1974: ‘Velikovsky and the Recent History of the Solar System’ – Dr. Euan MacKie
Most of the professional scientists present at the recent McMaster University Symposium on ‘Velikovsky and the Recent History of the Solar System’ would probably agree that they were there because they were considerably impressed by the success of the controversial scholar’s reconstructions of recent (post-glacial) planetary encounters [and] in anticipating numerous and varied discoveries in the Earth and space sciences. (See, for example, ‘A Challenge to the Integrity of Science?’ by Euan MacKie, New Scientist, vol. 57, p. 76). Velikovsky’s predictions, despite the assertions of Professor Carl Sagan (see ‘Velikovsky in Chaos’, by Graham Chedd, New Scientist, vol. 61, p. 624) cannot reasonably be attributed to chance or fraud, but emerged from an elaborate and internally consistent historical theory. The academics might further agree that, because one of the fundamental principles of scientific investigation is that the value of a theory depends mainly on the success of its predictions, it is unscientific to ignore Velikovsky’s work (which is not, of course, the same as saying that it must all be accepted). A desire to test the new ideas each in his own field, and simultaneously to ascend to that exciting intellectual level in which the world of nature and man, past and present, is seen as it really is – an interacting unity, instead of artificially separated into specialities – was very evident. Yet at McMaster, as at the San Francisco meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, there were signs of inner conflicts too; loyalty to the teachings of one’s profession and to the strongly held beliefs of one’s colleagues can conflict sharply with an equally strong commitment to obtain fair treatment for the radical new views.
The Canadian conference attracted some 290 people, including about 50 professional scientists, historians and archaeologists. Judging from conversations overheard and from questions put in the formal sessions, it also attracted a few biblical fundamentalists, astrologers and devotees of pseudo-scientific beliefs, like ley-lines and worldwide megalithic cultures; the interventions of these caused some squirming among the relatively orthodox professionals present.
The aim of the symposium was to focus debate on problems of fundamental importance for the catastrophic and uniformitarian viewpoints and much of the first two days was taken up with the problem of reconciling modern celestial mechanics with a cataclysmic solar system, perhaps the main obstacle among astronomers to treating Velikovsky’s ideas seriously. The arguments here have to consist in essence of assuming that the mathematical explanation of modern observations can be extrapolated into the past and can reliably reconstruct what a celestial body was doing a few thousand years ago. Students of the historical sciences, however, naturally place more reliance on hard evidence surviving from the past epochs concerned and several of the crucial problems discussed depend on such historical data.
One of these problems – which was reviewed at a colloquium on the third day – concerns the prehistoric standing stone ‘observatories’ of Britain and Britanny, the astronomical significance of which has been analysed over many years by Professor A. Thom and others. Thom and his colleagues have identified numerous alignments which cluster clearly around various astronomical declinations. Because the stones are reasonably well dated to the late 3rd and 2nd millennia BC – several centuries before Velikovsky’s great double catastrophe of the 15th century BC – and since the peaks of declination have been well identified with the Sun, Moon and stars on uniformitarian assumptions (retrojecting mathematically the modern celestial order into the past), it is clear that the megaliths pose a problem for the concept of a catastrophic cosmology.
The whole phenomenon of the standing-stone observatories – their apparently relative sudden appearance in large numbers in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze periods at about the same time that Stonehenge was converted to a stone temple and the great Wiltshire ceremonial centres like Durrington Walls were built – has never been satisfactorily explained.
A disturbance in the celestial order late in the 3rd millennium BC would certainly provide a plausible motive – that of understanding the new order – for this immense investment of manpower and intellectual skill. The stones themselves are mute, of course, and interpretations have to be put [on] them. The solstice sites are equivocal because it cannot be proved that the prehistoric solstice they mark did evolve uninterruptedly to the present one, though it clearly could have since the present solstitial point is slowing moving in the same direction. The claimed lunar sites, however, are altogether more complex and, if they are genuine, their good fit with the present orbit extrapolated backward cannot easily be reconciled with the idea of a later disruption of that orbit.
Another colloquium at McMaster dealt with the dating methods and catastrophism – a crucial problem since the underlying assumption of the radiocarbon and other radioactivity dating methods is that the decay rates of the elements concerned have always been constant. J. L. Anderson and G. W. Spangler, of the Physics and Astronomy Department, University of Tennessee and H. C. Dudley, professor of radiation physics at the University of Illinois, reviewed the possibility that the decay rates are not constant. Some of the physicists present refused to accept this possibility but, if it were true, the occurrence of cataclysms on a global scale could clearly have great significance for such dating methods. G. W. van Oosterhout, of the Chemistry Department of Delft University, outlined the problem that arises from the several large and sharp ‘kinks’ in the graph correlating the tree-ring ages of wood samples with the radiocarbon ages of the same samples. He concluded that, in the present state of knowledge, a catastrophic cause for such phenomena cannot be ruled out.
One problem crucial to Velikovsky’s theory is the date of the last severe heating of the Moon’s surface. He concludes that it must have happened in the 8th century BC. Various speakers commented on the results of the radioactive dating of the lunar rocks, which show that the Moon went through its primordial cooling some 4,000 million years ago. This evidence was taken by several scientists present to show that no more recent cataclysms can have occurred there. However, it was claimed that some datings using the technique of thermoluminescence indicate that the lunar surface became severely heated less than 10,000 years ago, providing startling support for Velikovsky’s views. Although these findings are clearly of great importance for the theory of recent planetary catastrophism, they were not discussed by the physicists present. Here, as with several other problems, the conference failed to probe deeply enough into the available evidence.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Velikovsky: The Score of Success – Martin Sieff
‘Seldom in the history of science have so many diverse anticipations – the natural fall-out from a single central idea – been so quickly substantiated by independent investigation’, wrote Ralph Juergens in 1963 [1]. The vast increase in scientific knowledge over the last 20 years, particularly through the Space Programme, has provided an abundance of discoveries that not only were previously predicted by Velikovsky on the basis of his theories, but were also totally inexplicable within the accepted ones. The 1972 Pensée article ‘A Record of Success’ by Thomas Ferte (Pensée special issue, Vol. 2, No. 2, May 1972) listed 81 such documented and confirmed advance claims. Since then, the record has continued to grow. Velikovsky himself has said he did not expect to be so vindicated in his own lifetime.
Thus, Velikovsky had predicted that Venus must be very hot, indeed, incandescent. Mariner II found, in 1962, the surface temperature to be 8000F, which is above that of molten lead. Later probes showed it to be close to 10000F. The much-touted ‘Greenhouse Effect’ (which astronomer Carl Sagan has argued to explain this), had previously been calculated to give a temperature not above 2500F [2]. As an intensive microwave study at Berkeley in 1972 could find no water content in the planet’s atmosphere, that ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is now a dead duck [3].
He claimed, in Worlds in Collision, that Venus must have a very massive atmosphere consisting largely of hydrocarbons, but that if oxygen was present petroleum fires must be burning. Further, Venus would be found to be disturbed in its rotation.
The atmosphere was found to be very massive, over 95 terrestrial atmospheres. Not reckoning with this possibility, the first Soviet Venera probe was crushed. The massive carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere is explained by the petroleum fires hypothesis. While the content of the clouds has yet to be resolved, Velikovsky has shown in a paper (Pensée, Winter 1973-4) that the spectral features in the ultrared, near infrared, infrared, and deep infrared can be accounted for by organic matter, as can the colatility and index of refraction. The retrograde, backwards rotation of Venus was confirmed by the Goldstone Radar Tracking Station in 1962. This was absolutely inconceivable under the accepted uniformitarian model of the solar system. The best the American Geophysical Union could come up with was: ‘Maybe Venus was created apart from the other planets’, perhaps as a secondary solar explosion, or perhaps in a collision of planets.’ [4] Velikovsky’s model, of course, was not recognised. Further, UCLA astronomers P. Goldreich and S. J. Peale discovered in 1966 that whenever Venus passes between Earth and Sun it always turns the same face to the Earth. This ‘resonance’ suggests a ‘gravity lock’ from some past close contact between the two planets [5].
Thus Venus. Velikovsky’s 1946 copyrighted view of the possible abundant presence of argon and neon in the atmosphere of Mars, then considered far-fetched, is now incorporated in the programme of the 1976 Viking probes. The ice-caps of Mars DO have a carbon base, as predicted in World in Collision [6]. [*] Similarly, the planet has indeed been shown to be dead, having gone through enormous cataclysmic events. The 1965 Mariner IV revealed a Martian surgace heavily pock-marked by moon-like craters. This was confirmed in greater detail by the 1972 Mariner IX. Like on the Moon, huge craters resulted from bubbling, but some formations, especially craters surrounded by ‘rays’, Velikovsky suggests resulted from interplanetary charges. There is now very strong evidence to support this [7]. The ‘canals’ proved to be the work, not of intelligent life, but of the twisting of strata.
What of the Moon? Wrote Velikovsky:
‘ … on the historic night of July 21 1969, when Man first stepped on the Moon, I made a series of claims in an article written at the invitation of the New York Times. These claims had also been spelled out earlier in memos to the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Science. Strong magnetic resonance, I claimed, would be discovered in lunar rocks and lavas, though the Moon itself hardly possesses any magnetic field. A steep thermal gradient would be found already a few feet under the surface. Thermoluminescence would disclose that the Moon was heated considerably only thousands of years ago. Hydrocarbons, probably of aromatic structure, would be found in small quantities, but carbides, into which hydrocarbons would transform when heated in substantial quantities; express radioactivity would be detected in lunar soils and rocks … Already following Apollo XI and XII the score was complete. But each of the discoveries – steep thermal gradient, strong remanent magnetism, recent heating of the lunar surface, carbides and traces of aromatic hydrocarbons and rich radioactivity of the rocks and dust – evoked exclamations of surprise and at best some far-fetched, ad hoc hypotheses. Magnetic anomalies, especially where interplanetary bolts fell, and huge inclusions of neon and argon 40 in lunar rocks, were also claimed by me in advance of the findings.’ [8].
Jupiter, remote as it is, gave Velikovsky one of his first confirmations when, in 1955, Carnegie Institute astronomers announced the ‘unexpected’ discovery of strong radio signals from it. Velikovsky had predicted this in a forum lecture to Princeton Graduate College, October 14 1953. Jupiter is now considered a dark star, as predicted in Worlds in Collision [9]. The Sun-Jupiter system is now considered a binary. In his 1950 work, Velikovsky suggested that electrical discharges in the atmosphere of methane and ammonia, in which Jupiter is rich, would produce hydrocarbons of heavy molecular weight [10]. This was successfully followed by A. T. Wilson ten years later. Following the detection of acetylene in the Jovian atmosphere, Akiva Bar-Nun of the Hebrew University has shown it almost certainly to be produced by the shock-waves of frequent thunderstorms in the upper atmosphere. The Pioneer probes discovered, to the confoundment of all models save Velikovsky’s, that Jupiter has a magnetic field of unsuspected power. Pioneer 10’s radiometer showed that Jupiter radiates two or three times as much energy as it receives from the Sun. This is in keeping with Velikovsky’s electromagnetic model for the solar system.
This was developed following his realisation that the accounts of historic catastrophes (that were to be organised in Worlds in Collision) described with great detail and consistency interplanetary electric discharges. Far-fetched as the concept appeared in 1950, it has been abundantly confirmed. Velikovsky claimed the existence of a magnetosphere above the terrestrial ionosphere. It was discovered by Van Allen in 1958. He claimed it reached as far as the lunar orbit. This was confirmed by Ness in 1964. He claimed that interplanetary space was magnetic and that the field centred on the Sun and rotated with it. This was discovered by Pioneer 5 and Explorer 10 in 1960. Velikovsky’s claim that Jupiter would be found to send out radio noises was accepted by Einstein as a decisive test on which their prolonged debate as to the electromagnetic nature of the solar system would hinge. Einstein received the news of their discovery on 8 April 1955 – eight days before his death. In 1960 Prof. V. A. Bailey of the University of Sydney calculated that the Sun carries a net negative charge of around 1019 volts.
Ralph E. Juergens has since developed a detailed electromagnetic model for the solar system which accounts for the recently discovered abundance of electromagnetic model [11]. Pioneers of such an approach were the British Electrical Association and Dr. C. E. R. Bruce, whose model of an electromagnetic universe, first developed in 1941, enjoys over 100 successful predictions. Bruce, whose work is now being developed by Eric Crew, saw galaxies and star systems as being formed through the breakdown of titanic electric discharges in gaseous media. Such ‘surprises’ as quasars, pulsars and nebulae formations can be explained as products of such discharges and as electrically charged bodies accordingly at different stages of development. It is hoped to include an article by Crew in a subsequent issue.
Again Velikovsky: ‘With the discovery of quasars, magnetic binaries, black holes, and colliding galaxies sending out agonized radio signals, the electromagnetic nature of the universe is no more in question.’ [12]
In the face of this avalanche of confirmation for Velikovsky’s model, his critics have repeatedly taken refuge behind the ‘mathematical impossibility’ of it. This now turns out to be a straw wall. As early as 1960 mathematician R. A. Lyttleton calculated that the required energies for the expulsion from Jupiter of not only Venus, but of each of the terrestrial planets in turn, by means of a spin-off process, posed no insurmountable problem, even within an unrevised celestial mechanics. Now, Robert W. Bass, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Brigham Young University, Utah, has conclusively established that – again even within an unrevised celestial mechanics – ‘there is no fundamental reason … that “forbids” a Velikovskian shuffling of the orbits of Venus, Mars and Earth within biblical times.’ Indeed, he further contends that not only are the orbital wanderings of Worlds in Collision entirely plausible mechanically, but that they have long been recognised as such by leading authorities in the field. Bass’s papers were published in the Summer 1974 issue of Pensée.
This article isn’t meant to be a comprehensive laundry list. It couldn’t be. The number, quality and extent of Velikovsky’s confirmations are unprecedented. [In the] next issue I intend to list the score of success to date of the Revised Chronology. We hope to keep abreast of further developments as they come in and would welcome relevant cuttings from the press and specialist journals. But there can be no doubt that, judged by the criteria of scientific proof, Velikovsky has been vindicated. The onus is on his critics to explain him away. Already the study of Natural Revolution (a term Velikovsky prefers to catastrophism), has entered its second phase, with much follow-up research being done on numerous aspects of the question. But as to the man who started it all, the last word should lie with the late Prof. Harry H. Hess, chairman of the geology department, University of Princeton and chairman, Space Science Board, National Academy of Science:
‘Some of these predictions were said to be impossible when you made them. All of them were predicted long before proof that they were correct came to hand. Conversely, I do not know of any specific prediction you made that has since been proven to be false.’ (1963 [13].
1. ‘Minds in Chaos’ – Ralph E. Jurgens in The Velikovsky Affair, 1966, University Books.
2. R. A. Wildt in 1960 (Ap. J. 91, 266), Pensée, Fall, 1973, p. 27.
3. Janssen et al. Science, March 9, 1972, Pensée, Fall, 1973, p. 27.
4. The National Observer, Dec. 1962, Pensée, May 1972, p. 27.
5. ‘Ideas in Conflict’, p. 37, New York 1966. Pensée, May 1972, p. 12.
[ * References 6-13 were inadvertently omitted and the error was never rectified. We are attempting to trace the references and will add them to this paper as soon as possible]
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Velikovsky: The Open-Minded Approach – Martin Sieff
Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky was published in Britain and the United States in 1950. The thesis of the book was that the Earth had been ravaged by global catastrophes caused by planetary interactions within historical times; that these disasters provided the miracles and apocalyptic imagery of the Bible and the inspiration for the cosmologies of the ancient world. Velikovsky culled his reconstruction from ‘the Japanese, Chinese, and Hindu civilisations, the Iranian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Hitto-Chaldean, Israelite, and Egyptian records; the Etruscan, Attic, and Roman theogonies and philosophies; Scandanavian and Icelandic epics. Mayan, Toltec, and Olmec art and legends.’ [1]
This picture he drew from them was that around 1500 BC, the Earth came into disastrous conflict with the planet Venus – then on an elliptical orbit and with a tremendous cometary tail after originating by fission from Jupiter at a considerably earlier date. The phenomena caused by this catastrophe caused the biblical miracles of the ten plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea and the years in the wilderness and were recorded in different contexts around the world. 52 years later Venus’s elliptical orbit caused another set of disasters, including the long day of Joshua.Thereafter, for over 600 years, Venus dominated the night sky and was worshipped and feared as the Queen of Heaven, who every 50-odd years threatened to devastate the Earth.
However, around 780 BC the elliptical orbit of Venus brought it into conflict with Mars, then on inner orbit. In a series of conflicts observed from Earth and incorporated into the cosmologies of the people (most notably in the Illiad), Venus was deflected into a ‘safe’ inner orbit, but the smaller Mars – thrown ‘out of the ring’ into a new erratic orbit, threatened the Earth at 15-year intervals and became universally feared as the god of war. In ancient Israel the catastrophes were observed, described by, and provided apocalyptic imagery to, the Prophets. The last and greatest of these disasters came on the night of March 23, 687 BC, when the Assyrian army of Sennacherib beseiging Jersusalem was destroyed by an interplanetary electrical discharge. The date was commemorated by the Roman festival of Tubilustrum in honour of the planet Mars. Since then the solar system has known relative peace.
Well, you won’t be surprised to hear that when all that was published in 1950 Velikovsky was laughed out of court. Curiously, no-one could pin down any falsehoods, misquotes, or twists out of context by him, nor explain the numerous ‘mysteries’ and ‘problems’ of ancient history and archaeology [that] he explained. But, having gone against every established scientific theory and dogma down to Sir Charles Lyell’s Theory of Uniformity (that the forces which have shaped the Earth over the ages are those and only those we see in action today), Velikovsky was universally branded a crank.
Until the Space Age.
Because, you see, in a very uncranklike manner (he had, after all, been the founding editor of the Scripta Universitatis [*] – the published ‘proceedings’ of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a pupil and colleague of Freud’s and close friend of Albert Einstein), Velikovsky, in 1950, ended his Worlds in Collision with an extensive series of specific predictions, developed from his reconstruction, as to the conditions that should be found in space and on the other planets of the solar system – predictions which differed radically from all the accepted guesses.
In every case where it has been possible to check Velikovsky’s predictions they have been right.
Thus: the ice-caps of Mars have a carbon base; Mars’ atmosphere is rich in neon and argon; Venus is rich in petroleum gases; if oxygen is present, petroleum gases will be burning; the surface temperature of Venus is hot enough to melt metals; it rotates backwards; the atmospheric pressure is massive.
Prof. Harry H. Hess, late chairman of the Geology Department at Princeton and Chairman of the Space Science Board of NASA wrote Velikovsky in 1963: ‘Some of these predictions were said to be impossible when you made them. All of them were predicted long before proof that they were correct came to hand.’
Velikovsky’s further list of advance predictions includes: the emission of radio noise from Jupiter and its definition as a dark star; the electric charge of the Sun; the magnetic field of the Earth (the Van Allen belts); the great role of electromagnetism in the solar system (the ‘solar wind’ etc.), the existence of argon and neon in some meteorites; the strong thermal gradient beneath the surface of the Moon; the remanent magnetism found in lunar rocks; evidence of petroleum hydrocarbides [on] the Moon; the frequency of moonquakes; the unexpected extent of argon and neon found in lunar rocks; localised areas of strong radioactivity on Mars ….. [2]
Check these out. You’ll find I’m not kidding.
Even before the past year’s Jupiter and Mercury probes with their ‘unexpected’ discoveries, Velikovsky’s score of advance predictions ran at over 80. That can’t be luck and it wasn’t withchcraft.
‘But’, you’ll say, ‘the Earth can’t have been involved in global disasters in historical times, its orbit changing, its axis tilting, its very rotation stopped. Even if there were’ – and we know there are – ‘magnetic field mechanisms to “cushion the blow”, the Earth would have been scarred all over and you can’t hide a thing like that.’
Quite right. You can’t hide a thing like that.
In 1955 Velikovsky published Earth in Upheaval, his study of the geological record. He:
‘examined the century-old principle of Lyellian uniformity by comparing its tenets with anomalous findings from all quarters of the globe:- frozen muck in Alaska that consists almost entirely of myriads of torn animals and trees; whole islands in the Arctic Sea whose soil is packed full of unfossilised bones of mammoths, rhinoceroses and horses; unglaciated polar lands and glaciated tropical countries; coral and coal deposits near the poles; bones of animals from tundra, prairie, and rain forest intimately associated in jumbled heaps and interred in common graves; the startling youth of the world’s great mountain chains; shifted poles; reversed magnetic polarities; sudden changes in sea level all around the world; rifts on land and under the seas.’ [3]
‘Yes, but it’s still impossible. All you have to do is back-calculate the orbits of the planets and confirm these with ancient observations.’
Well, firstly, strange as it many seem, every ancient civilisation kept a year of 360 days down to around 750 BC when they all got it into their heads, independently, to change it, and modifications cotinued everywhere till after 700 BC. Stonehenge was repeatedly wrecked and rearranged.
And, strangely, ancient star and planet observations do not correspond to back-calculated positions. In China, Babylon and elsewhere the very movements that were recorded of the planets were erratic. We have no eye-witness confirmation of any eclipse before 687 BC. Many of the ancient philosophers, most notably Plato, discuss[ed] planetary destructions as historical facts. They were common to all the pre-Classical cosmologies, also India, China, Polynesia, America and Lapland.
And so to the back-calculations. In fact, they’re a paper tiger. Robert W, Bass, professor of physics and astronomy at Brigham Young University has concluded that even within an unrevised celestial mechanics (that is, even before you take electromagnetics into account, but on Newton’s good old gravity model alone) ‘there is no fundamental reason … that “forbids” a Velikovskian shuffling of the orbits of Venus, Mars and Earth within biblical times.’ [4] Mathematician R. A. Lyttleton went even further. He calculated that given the speed and angular rotation of Jupiter, the energies required for the expulsion of not just Venus, but each of the terrestrial planets in turn, by means of a spin-off process, posed no insurmountable process. Velikovsky has gone on record that his further researches, yet to be published, point to a near-collision between Jupiter and Saturn as the event that triggered the birth of Venus.
Well now, if you’ve stayed this far, hopefuly you’re coming round to the view that Velikovsky deserves and open-minded hearing. Not so the American scientific establishment of 1950. To them, as to Michigan astronomer Dean McLaughlan, it was ‘ … lies. Yes, lies!’ Harvard astronomer Harlow Shapley organised a threat to boycott the scientific textbook line of MacMillans, Velikovsky’s publisher. Under this pressure they dropped the book. James Putnam, the editor who had handled it, was summarily sacked after 25 years with the company. Harvard astronomer Fred Whipple then threatened the new publishers, Doubleday. This failed, as Doubleday weren’t in the scientific textbook market. But New York planetarium director Gordon Atwater was sacked after putting on a reconstruction of Worlds in Collision.
In their under-the-carpet boycotts, pressures and chicanery, not to mention the downright lies of denial that followed when the truth came out, the events of 1950 were no less than a ‘scientific Watergate’. But they still succeeded in discrediting Velikovsky’s work with the academic world for a generation. Any serious widespread discussions at all had to wait for the dramatic confirmations of the Space Programme. And his historical reconstruction, Ages in Chaos, despite its wealth of unanswered evidence, remains totally ignored by ancient historians. For by the time it came out (1952) Velikovsky had already been branded as a crank.
Ages in Chaos, it should be said, is a blockbuster in itself. Taking the Ten Plagues catastrophes as his launch-point, Velikovsky cogently argues that the conventional scheme of ancient Middle East history – based on ancient Egypt and, in particular, on the king-lists of Manetho – doesn’t hold water. His reconstruction moves Egyptian history (and those we’ve dated by it) several hundred years forward. Several ‘ghost dynasties’ are doubled on each other. ‘Events are often duplicates; battles are shadows; many speeches are phantoms.’ [5] The Hyksos Shepherd-Kings of Egypt were the biblical Amelekites; in beating them King Saul freed the whole ancient Middle East. Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, who visited the land of Punt, was the Queen of Sheba who came to Solomon. Her successor, Thutmose III, the ‘Napoleon of Ancient Egypt’ who conquered Canaan, was the Bible’s ‘Shishak’ who sacked the Temple. And so it goes on. …..
Here, too, the proof of the far-fetched pudding is in the eating. Velikovsky’s reconstruction solves the extraordinary abundance of ‘time-lag’ problems in the period. Throughout the area [at] this time customs, fashions, designs, architecture, even alphabets and literary styles, seem to ‘revive’ after lying ‘dormant’ for 500 years. There were no ‘Dark Ages of Greece’. They were ‘dark’ because they were never there in the first place. Far-fetched as this was (and is) Velikovsky correctly predicted that Cretan Linear B script, when deciphered, would prove to be close to the Greek; that the origins of the Greek culture (particularly the Theban), would be found in Phoenicia; and that Tutankhamen’s tomb, when radiocarbon dated, would be found to be far younger than predicted. Not only was this so (to general perplexity, as Tutankhamen’s date is assumed cast-iron), but the British Museum Carbon Dating Laborartory has consistently refused to publish results on Egyptian New Kingdom material that it has dated. The results are invariably thrown out as ‘contaminated material’. The Watergate mentality in scientists, perhaps, is up to swimming the Atlantic.
This article is not, of course, an attempt to ‘prove’ Velikovsky. One way or another, for or against, his works must do that. But it is an argument for an open-minded approach. If Velikovsky is right – and prove him wrong – we can enjoy a breakthrough in understanding at least as profound as any in the history of science. In an age of increasing and dry specialisations, we can begin to learn how the different fields of knowledge can and must throw light on each other; and all together help throw light on where we are and why we’re there.
For if we live now in the shadow of mega-death, it may now appear that, once before, the story was told of hurricanes of global magnitude, of forests burning and swept away, of dust, stones, fire, and ashes falling from the sky, of mountains melting like wax, of lava flowing from riven ground, of boiling seas, of bituminous rain, of shaking ground and destroyed cities, of humans seeking refuge in caverns and fissures of the rock in the mountains … islands born and others drowned … of great destructions in the animal kingdom, of decimated mankind, of migrations, of heavy clouds of dust covering the face of the earth for decades, of magnetic disturbances, of changed climates, … of sundials and water clocks that point to changed length of date, month, and year, of a new polar star. [6]
You never know. It might happen again.
1. I. Velikovsky, ‘My Challenge to Conventional Views in Science’. Paper delivered at Feb. 23, 1974 San Francisco Seminar. Reprinted in Pensée, Spring 1974.
2. ‘A Record of Success’ – Thomas Ferte. Pensée, May 1972.
3. ‘Minds in Chaos’ – Ralph E. Juergens in The Velikovsky Affair – Ed. Alfred de Grazia, University Press, 1966.
4. See ‘ “Proofs” of the Stability of the Solar System’, by Robert W. Bass. Pensée, Summer 1974.
5. Velikovsky, ‘Introduction’, Ages in Chaos Vol. I.
6. Velikovsky, Earth in Upheaval, Chapter 16.
[* Full title of this scripta is Scripta Universitatis atque Bibliothecae Hierosolymitanarum]
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
A Short Biography of Immanuel Velikovsky (Reproduced from Yale Scientific Magazine]
Immanuel Velikovsky was born June 10, 1895 in Vitebsk, Russia, the youngest of three sons. His father, Simon, was a businessman and a Hebrew scholar. His mother Beila, born Grodensky, spoke several languages and introduced her son to them at an early age. After the family had moved to Moscow, Immanuel enrolled at the Medvednikov Gymnasium where he distinguished himself in Russian and mathematics and graduated with a gold medal. Because he was a Jew, Velikovsky was unable to attend a Russian university; and he went to Montpelier in southern France to study medicine. There he organized and became the leader of a group of Russian Jewish students, many of whom became Zionists. Seized by an irresistible urge to go to Palestine, he discontinued his studies to go there. Returning to Europe in the spring of the next year, he entered the University of Edinburgh and took premedical courses in biology, botany and zoology.
The outbreak of World War I caught Velikovsky home in Russia for a summer vacation. Prevented from traveling abroad and still unacceptable for Russian universities, he finally enrolled in the ‘Free University’ in Moscow, the creation of the rector and many professors of the Moscow Imperial University who had resigned in protest against interference with their academic autonomy. There he studied law, history and economics. In 1915, he was able to resume, simultaneously, his medical education at the University of Moscow; and he received his medical degree in 1921. About the same time, his parents went to Palestine.
Velikovsky, however, traveled to Berlin in hopes of helping to establish a Jewish University. Together with Dr. Heinrich Loewe, a noted German Jewish scholar, he published the Scripta Universitatis, a series of volumes containing articles by outstanding Jewish scholars throughout the world. The mathematical-physical section of the publication was edited by Albert Einstein. One of the early encouragers of the Scripta, Chaim Weizmann, a well-known scientist, President of the World Zionist Organization, and later first President of Israel, asked Velikovsky to organize the Hebrew University in Palestine, but he declined.
In Berlin, Velikovsky met and married Elisheva Kramer and together they journeyed to Palestine in 1924. From then until 1939 they lived first in Jerusalem, where Velikovsky worked as a general practioner, and then, after a course of study in Vienna under Dr. Wilhelm Stekel, in Haifa and Tel-Aviv, where he specialised in psychoanalysis. Despite the demands of his practice during these years, he was able to publish a number of papers on psychology, some in Freud’s Imago. One of his papers was the first to suggest that pathological encephalograms would be found characteristic of epilepsy. He also planned the establishment of an academy of science in Jerusalem and started a new series, Scripta Academica Hierosolymitana, to which Weizmann contributed the first paper, in biochemistry.
Freud’s heroes
Velikovsky knew Freud personally and had been corresponding with him for several years by the late 1930s. Inspired by Moses and Monotheism, recently published by Freud, Velikovsky began work on a study of Freud’s three heroes, Oedipus, Akhnaton, and Moses. Entitled ‘Freud and His Heroes’, the [intended] book was also to have contained an analysis of Freud’s own dreams as related in various places in his [Freud’s] work. (This study, later called ‘The Dreams Freud Dreamed’, was published in the October 1941 issue of the Psychoanalytic Review).
In order for him to do research on his book, Velikovsky and his family came to New York in the summer of 1939, planning to stay for only eight months. He found confirmation of the idea that Akhnaton was the historical prototype of Oedipus, a thesis later expanded and published as Oedipus and Akhnaton (Doubleday, 1960). Unable to finish his manuscript within the eight months, Velikovsky showed what he had written to Horace M. Kallen, Professor of Social Philosophy at the New School of Social Research, who tried to help him find a publisher. Negotiations delayed his expected return to Palestine and during this waiting period Velikovsky was first struck by the idea of a ‘great catastrophe’ as the explanation of some of the historical anomalies he had encountered in his research. As a result his plans to return were abandoned forever and the whole course of his life changed.
Led into his study by a casual conversation with a scholar concerning the origin of the Dead Sea, Velikovsky formulated a crucial question: ‘Was it formed in the days of the Exodus, when Mount Sinai erupted,and some debacle took place at the Sea of Passage? Was the catastrophe felt also in Egypt? Does an Egyptian document speak of a catastrophe?’ After weeks of research, he discovered the key document, a papyrus bearing the lamentations of an Egyptian sage named Ipuwer. After examining a translation by Alan Gardiner, a noted Egyptologist, Velikovsky concluded that the papyrus not only contained a description of a natural catastrophe, but precisely the plagues of Egypt as related in the Bible. Velikovsky began to look for other parallels between biblical and Egyptian history and his research eventually led to his doubting the traditional chronology of ancient times. Consequently, he set about reconstructing the history of the Near East from the end of the Middle Kingdom, which he dates in the 15th century BC, to the death of Alexander in 322 BC. Putting aside his work on ‘Freud and His Heroes’ Velikovsky started to write Ages in Chaos, his complete historical reconstruction. (Volume I was published by Doubleday in 1952). This work grew to four volumes: the three unpublished volumes will deal with the period from -840 to -320, or from the end of the 18th Dynasty to the time of the Ptolemies. One of the volumes, Peoples of the Sea, is being prepared for print.
While working on Ages in Chaos, Velikovsky continually returned to the question of the nature of the catastrophe which ended the Middle Kingdom. One afternoon while reading the scriptures, he began to speculate on the relationship between the shower of meteorites and the appearance of the Sun standing still in the sky, as recorded in the Book of Joshua. He wondered if these phenomena had been the result of an unusual cosmic event, perhaps universal in impact. Velikovsky looked for further evidence in Chinese and Mexican sources and found common testimony to an uncommon event. Because of the constant references to Venus in these documents, he developed the idea that this planet was connected to the upheavals. This speculation became the nucleus for Worlds in Collision. The latter was published, after much difficulty, in 1950, and touched off the storm of protest which has not yet died down.
This history of the reaction to Worlds in Collision has been dealt with in the American Behavioural Scientist and will not be repeated here. Despite the violent attacks made on his work after 1950, Velikovsky published Earth in Upheaval in 1955, in which he presented geological evidence to support the thesis of Worlds in Collision.
At present, Dr Velikovsky lives with his wife in Princeton, New Jersey, where he carries on his research. In recent months much interest in him has arisen on college campuses across the country. He was invited to Dartmouth College in February for a three-day symposium on his work in which both students and faculty participated. His recent speech to the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society of Philadelphia and the controversy surrounding it are related in this issue. During May he will lecture at St. Olaf College, University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin, the University of Kansas and [at] Washington University, St. Louis.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
BOOK SECTION – J. B. Moore, A.L.A.
[Information previously given, but which is now known to be invalid has been omitted. Some information on Velikovsky’s books remains pertinent and is given below].
‘When is the next volume of Ages in Chaos coming out?’ This question has plagued librarians dealing with readers’ requests since 1953. The following list has been compiled from both published and private sources and gives the latest information available regarding Dr. Velikovsky’s major published and unpublished works. Some further major sources on Dr. Velikovsky are included which the newcomer to his work may find useful.
PUBLISHED
Ages in Chaos
Vol. 1 ‘From the Exodus to King Akhnaton’ – Sidjwick & Jackson 1953. Paperback Abacus/Sphere 1974.
Earth in Upheaval
Gollancz/Sidjwick & Jackson 1956. Paperback Abacus/Sphere 1973
Oedipus and Akhnaton
Sidjwick & Jackson 1960. Also available from the Ancient History Book Club.
Worlds in Collision
Gollancz 1950. Paperback Abacus/Sphere 1972. Also available from the Ancient History Book Club
NOT YET PUBLISHED[*]
Ages in Chaos
Vol. 2 ‘Assyrian Conquest’ – Covers the period circa 830-612 BC, the period of Assyrian supremacy in the ancient Middle East during which occurred the catastrophes described in section 2 of Worlds in Collision and which also saw the end of the Mycenaean, Minoan and Phrygian (Trojan) eras [remains unpublished in book form].
Vol. 3 ‘The Dark Age of Greece’ – Discusses the distortion in our understandingf of the ancient Greek world induced by the errors in Egyptian chronology. [remains unpublished in book form]
Vol. 4 Ramses II and His Time – Period of the Chaldaen domination from 612 BC to Cambyses invasion of Egypt in 525 BC. Shows that the Hittite Empire is a mythical construct based on an erroneous interpretation of the Chaldaen archives and the Chaldean remains of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. [*Has since been published]
Vol. 5 Peoples of the Sea – The period of Persian supremacy beginning in 525 BC and ending in 332 BC with the conquest of Egypt by Alexander, then the remaining period of Alexander’s life.[*Has since been published]
‘Saturn and the Flood’. (Sequel to Worlds in Collision).
Deals with the initial catastrophe in the sequence which Velikovsky as reconstructed. A near-collision between Jupiter and Saturn led to the disruption of Saturn. The absorption of material from Saturn rendered Jupiter unstable and led to the fission from Jupiter of the proto-planet Venus. [remains unpublished in book form]
In Preparation
‘Before the Day Breaketh’
Describes the attitude of Einstein towards Velikovsky’s work. The contested point was as to whether electrical and magnetic fields and forces play any role in the celestial sphere, and generally, in celestial mechanics. [remains unpublished in book form]
Mankind in Amnesia
Shortly to be presented to publisher [*Has since been publlshed]
‘The Test of Time’
Shortly to be presented to publisher [remains unpublished in book form]
Published papers
‘Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History’
an outline of the plan of the Ages in Chaos series. In the series Scripta Academica Hierosolymitana, 1945.
‘Cosmos without Gravitation’
– [In the series] Scripta Academica Hierosolymitana. New York-Jersusalem 1946.
Many of Dr. Velikovsky’s major articles in journals and the press have been reprinted in Pensée (see under). A further article which may be of interest is:
‘The Dreams Freud Dreamed’ – Psychoanalytic Review, Oct. 1941.
Journals
American Behavioural Scientist, September 1963 – Special issue on Velikovsky which later formed the basis for the book The Velikovsky Affair (see under)
Yale Scientific Magazine, April 1967 – Special issue on Velikovsky, major articles being: ‘Venus – Youthful Planet’, by Velikovsky; ‘Velikovsky – a Rebuttal’, by Lloyd Motz; ‘A Rejoinder to Motz’, by Velikovsky; ‘Venus – Young or Old’, by A. Burgstahler and E. Angino; ‘A Rejoinder to Burgstahler and Angino’, by Velikovsky and a short biography of Velikovsky.
Pensée – Published by the Student Academic Freedom Forum, Portland, Oregon. In May 1972 this journal devoted a special issue to Velikovsky. The response was so great that all subsequent issues have been devoted to aspects of his theories. Ten issues have now been published and publication is intended to be bi-monthly from 1975. At the moment Pensée is the major source of current research articles and information.
Additional Sources
De Grazia, A. Editor – The Velikovsky Affair. Sidgewick & Jackson 1966. – A detailed analysis of the academic reaction to Velikovsky’s work amplifying the articles originally presented in the American Behavioural Scientist and including a final chapter by Velikovsky.
Television Films
BBC 2 ‘Horizon’ film ‘Worlds in Collison’. 45 minutes – recording of the soundtrack (cassette) is available for loan to members. [source of loan no longer known].
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation film ‘Velikovsky – the Bonds of the Past’. 60 minutes.
Available for hire from the European distributors [may still be available from this source]
Philip Strick
Visual Programmes Systems Ltd.,
Circus House
21 Great Titchfield Street
London W1P 7AD
Telephone: 01-573-2940.
Also in preparation is an index of Velikovsky’s derivations from accepted theory and a complete bibliography of his references. This is being produced by Mary Buckalew of North Texas State University.