Immanuel Velikovsky and Cosmic Catastrophism. The Good and the not so Good. A peasant, layman’s view.
Velikovsky was a 20th century Russian polymath who studied under Freud, knew Jung and his acolytes, was friends with many scientists, was a man of many doctorates, a professor in anthropology and psychology, a founder of the first university in Israel, an unorthodox Jew and someone interested in ancient history. A researcher, reader, aggregator with a broad intellect, he assembled multi-disciplinary information to propose not a revolution in ‘science’ but a return to truth which had been lost. In essence Velkovsky had the courage to defiantly challenge the reigning scientific paradigms which have done so much to distort and poison real scientific progress. However in my opinion (see below) he is in essence a materialist himself and some of his ideas are unscientific and badly thought out.
His 1950’s work, Worlds in Collison outlined the global catastrophes of the Bronze Age initiated by the comet Venus interfering with the Earth’s orbit in 1500 B.C. and Mars and Venus becoming entangled and impacting the Earth in 747 B.C. Velikovsky’s attempt to link these cataclysmic events to the Old Testament miracles of the Exodus, Sinai, the Sun standing still at Beth-horon, and the rise of Judaism and monotheism was a best seller, with an immediate impact on students, teachers, the religious, and the laity for whom it was written, calling into question the iron ‘laws’ of Newton, Darwin, endless ages and chronometric ageless time. His second book, which is really the first in his series, In the Beginning, is the preface to Worlds in Collison going back beyond the Bronze Age to the Deluge and Global Flood of Noah, a story found in every culture, an event caused in Velikovsky’s opinion by Saturn and Jupiter becoming embroiled with the Earth.
[Below: Westmorland Gazette, England, Dec 19th 1824, describing yet another vast assemblage of exotic animals, destroyed and piled up in a catastrophe]
His best book, though containing some obvious errors (below), was Earth in Upheaval, which provides overwhelming proof for catastrophic climate and Earthly upheaval and destruction in the Bronze Age, with the complete eradication of not only civilisations, but entire species in a very short period. In this scenario the end of the ‘last ice age’ was no more than 3000 years ago, not the 10-12.000-year period embedded in uniformitarian-Darwinist theology. One could add countless more proofs to this book and extend it given the rather long list of archaeological and paleo-logical finds which support the catastrophic theory. Some students and scientists need to attempt this and update this important book with more volumes of facts. This would indeed be a worthy PhD project.
His last work in the series ‘Mankind in Amnesia’ is less convincing based on long-discredited Freudian theology, but nonetheless does possess an echo of truth about it – who wants to remember a catastrophe or times of deep struggle and pain? Velikovsky believes we have buried our past and refuse to confront it. He cites modern proofs as well as historical. The population of a city once tormented by a tornado soon lose all memory of the event and when the sirens ring for a possible attack by another tornado, ignore the warning and carry on with their business. Is this what has happened to the human collective memory?
Climate
Is it possible that the human race for some psychological reason still unfathomed, refuses to acknowledge past cosmic and terrestrial catastrophes? Is it just too much for us to comprehend that perhaps the universe is not as stable as our priests-of-science tell us? Does this help explain the latent self-loathing and self-fear impelling the modern Climate-Crazy millenarians to propose the eradication of civilisation? Is the Climate-cult no more than the expression of the flagellants in the Black Death, the cults of doom in the time of Christ, the warnings of Isaiah in the 8th century, and the writings of Egyptians given to Solon the Athenian in the 6th century, of past Earthly destructions? Is not the climate-religion an expression of the suppressed memories of past and not so ancient eradication? Velikovsky might maintain that we ‘suppress’ our past knowledge of the great global flood. I would simply argue that it is not taught nor even tolerated as a theory in any field.
Good and Bad
Velikovsky’s 4 book series is a large collection of material and source notes to plough through, well over 1000 pages in total. In reading them, and in cross-referencing some of his sources, and in re-reading tracts of the Old Testament, there is no doubt it is well researched, compiled, written and validated. In every book, within every major section, Velikovsky had secular scientists and experts, check his statements, his claims and his sources. He can rightly declare that this work was ‘peer reviewed’. Unlike most of us, Velikovsky knew the ‘Science’ and its elite and gatekeepers. Before 1950, he had access to many resources. After 1950 the gates were closed and the heretic kept outside the walls, pelted by the ruling mob from on high with calumny, opprobrium, threats and taunts.
I tried to summarise some of his ideas and what I believe are the good and bad about them. I am not ‘the science’ but applying common sense and what we do know about such matters, it is not difficult for the layman, the peasant, to form an opinion on Velikovsky and his courageous challenge to the powers of the materialist-uniformitarian scientific elite. In no uncertain terms was he violated, beaten, ostracised, ridiculed, and physically threatened. All doors to academia and ‘the science’ were shut to Velikovsky as they are shut to anyone who dares question ‘the science’.
An example of excellent scholarships is his claim that the calendars of the ancients went from 360 days to 365 days after an event circa 747 B.C. Chaldeans, Babylonians, Egyptians, Mayans, the Chinese and Hindus with their mathematically precise Veda and Surya, confirm this. The only explanation which is rational, is that there occurred an event to lengthen the days in a year, which would mean a change in the Earth’s tilt, orbit and probably a pole reversal. The ancients all discuss the Sun rising in the West before the first millenium B.C. Some catastrophe changed this and now the Sun rises in the East. It is hard to imagine that the ancient Greeks for example were so careless with astronomy, yet so precise with Pythagoras and Euclid. Anicent Hindu calendaring and astronomy is immaculately detailed and mathematical, yet we are to believe they were out by 5 days a year in their calculations, which means 6 months within a generation. I don’t think this is reasonable.
A grossly simplified summary of Velikovsky’s key ideas is in the table below.
Stronger ideas:
Weaker ideas:
Velikovsky the Materialist
There is good and bad in Velikovsky. In essence he himself is a materialist, applying only physical phenomena to explain miracles and the unexplainable. No supernatural or immaterial powers for Velikovsky. All is reduced to matter. As a Jew he does not have much interest or knowledge of Christianity for example and no knowledge of molecular biology, DNA and organism complexity. I can see by reading his works that over time he tried to appease the secular Gods of ‘The Science’, tossing out some scraps to keep the Darwinian-Aristotelian religious happy, a few odes of joy to the long agers, a bundle of mea-culpas to the cosmologists and some purported self-doubting to entice the physicist and astronomer. The tepid appeasement won him no new friends. All it does is water down his main theory.
Importance
The importance to me of Velikovsky is the absolute disdain and lack of interest by the establishment in his works, much of which is painfully detailed and supported; echoing that of the reaction by those invested in Ptolemy to Copernicus. There is not even a shred of real curiosity by most in what he proposes, which even if only 10% of what he proposes is true, would completely invalidate much religious-scientific dogma which governs our world. This is why the establishment simply memory-holes his ideas. Velikovsky revealed that The Religion of Science called $cientism has no clothes and is incredibly corrupt and intolerant. Money, power, control, the use of technology, abstract maths, big words, longer sentences and fake studies and data. No tolerance for dissent or curiosity to investigate. That is where we are.