Immanuel Velikovsky

Born in Czarist Russia in 1895, the multilingual polymath lived for most of his life in the United States. An MD and psychiatrist, it was during his research on Freud's heroes, Oedipus and Akhenaten, that he began to unearth the modern errors in the ancient chronology of the Mediterranean and to rediscover catastrophism. He realized that Oedipus was but a dramatic reflection of Akhenaten and that the latter's era was centuries later than conventionally claimed, but his Oedipus and Akhenaten didn't appear until 1960.

The historical reconstruction he'd undertaken, as well as the controversial Worlds In Collision published by MacMillan in 1950, consumed most of his time. Velikovsky's 284 Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History in 1945 laid out his proposed model, which was expanded into a series of books beginning with Ages In Chaos, published in 1952. [see V's How I Arrived at My Concepts]




By this time I'm sure those who reject the historicity of the historical details found in the Old Testament have cooked up several incompatible and unworkable ad hoc "explanations" for the following problem:
Two Palaces in One
(related article)
However, when Ben-Tor began his excavations in 1990 he came upon a palace near Yadin's which he dated, by means of its ceramics, to a few hundred years later - that is, to the last half of the second millennium or Late Bronze (LB) period... "We had taken it for granted that there were two palaces," he says. "I now think Yadin erred and that the palace whose corner he excavated may perhaps be part of the same Late Bronze palace we've been excavating, not an earlier palace from the Middle Bronze period. It will take another two weeks of digging next season to prove it, one way or the other."
Here's a page with a nice synopsis of part of V's reconstruction:
The Stratigraphy of the 19th Dynasty in Asia Minor
by Alan Montgomery
Petrie found a temple of Rameses II at Tahpanhes, a 26th Dynasty site. Psammetichus (663 - 610 GAD) of the 26th Dynasty had granted Tahpanhes to his Greek and Carian mercenaries. It existed during the 26th Dynasty until the time of Amasis (569 -525). He found no artefacts of dynasties 20 to 25... Excavators at Lachish found a temple with 19th Dynasty artefacts also contained Israelite material of the 7th century. The stratum of the time Nebuchadnezzar, circa 590, contained the scarabs of Ramses II circa 1290... At Byblos... Ahiram... was buried in a coffin made by his son. His son's inscription was in Phoenician script of the 8th or 7th century as was the imported Cypriote pottery but the broken Egyptian vases and the coffin in the tomb were from the time of Ramses II... Rowe, the excavator of Beth Shan, designated the upper Strata IX to V to the 18th, 19th and the early 20th Dynasty. Levels IX, VIII, and VII are ascribed to the 18th Dynasty. Levels VI and V are ascribed to the 19th and early 20th Dynasties. The succeeding Stratum IV was ascribed to the period of the Late 20th Dynasty, Judges and Philistines, Israelite kings, Assyrians, Psammetichus and the Scythians as well as the Neo-Babylonians and the early years of the Persians. Whereas 5 strata are assigned to just over 300 years, the one and only Israelite stratum was assigned over 700 years. Furthermore, the thickness of Stratum IV is eight times thinner than the combined Strata V and VI, circa 150 years... Indeed, Mazar reports that Level VII belongs to the 19th Dynasty and Level VI to the 20th Dynasty. This leaves two levels V and IV for the Israelite levels. Though he cites Rowe as a reference, he gives no explanation of the discrepancy. Although it is suggested that the Philistines followed the 20th Dynasty, Rowe reports no Philistine pottery at this level. Furthermore, no artefacts identified as Israelite, Assyrian or Neo-Babylonian is reported either. Only a statue of Ramses III is found here together with Scythian artefacts. If Seti I and Ramses II (1300 - 1200) directly overlie the Scythians in Neo-Babylonian and Persian times (600 - 300), there remains a 600-year gap, just like the Syrian sites... It is hopeless to carry on special pleading any longer to avoid the obvious. There is no 600-year gap. The 19th Dynasty existed in the 7th not the 13th century. The 19th and 26th Dynasties are the same as Velikovsky has claimed.


The Velikovsky Archive

Velikovsky Archive mirror #1

Velikovsky Archive mirror #2

Velikovsky Archive mirror #3

Velikovsky Archive mirror #4 Dark Age of Greece

The Assyrian Conquest

Collected Essays -- includes Cosmos Without Gravitation and Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History

In The Beginning -- vol 1 of Worlds in Collision

Before The Day Breaks

Days and Years

Correspondence

Lectures

Observer

The Psychoanalytic Papers


Publications

Aeon -- A Journal of Myth & Science

Extraordinary News Network

ExNews Shop

Kronia Group

Mythscape: Ancient Planetary Catastrophe in Myth and History

Society for Indisciplinary Studies

SIS Catastrophism & Chronology Links

The Velikovskian homepage

Ev Cochrane -- Speech from Portland Symposium

The Velikovskian, A Journal of Myth, History and Science


Historical Revisions

Jan Sammer

Centuries of Darkness -- an update by Peter James

David Rohl -- criticizes Velikovsky, but comes to similar conclusions

New Chronology -- a Yahoo group hosted by Cami McGraw, dedicated to the discussion of David Rohl's work. There is also a file area with lots about Velikovsky, Courville, and others.

David Rohl's chronology -- by R.Shand (dead link)

Charles Pope -- analysis of David Rohl

Lisa Liel -- places the Exodus at the end of the Old Kingdom among other things

Egypt in the Time of the Twenty-First Dynasty -- Martin Sieff, who writes, "Velikovsky paints a vivid picture of Egypt during the time of the twenty-first... dynasty that cannot be bettered."

Resolving the Third Intermediate Period -- Martin Sieff, who writes, "the Glasgow school leaders themselves... have retreated to their James-Rohl model, which gives up Velikovsky's Hatshepsut-Solomon, Thutmose III-Shishak, and El Amarna-House of Ahab correlations entirely.[51] On my model all these correlations still hold."

The Strange Ending of the 18th Dynasty, in part based on 'Oedipus and Akhnaton', I. Velikovski -- partially an extension, mostly a parallel (ahem) of Velikovsky's Ages In Chaos.

Chronocentricity and Other Vested Interests -- Ancient/Classical History -- 10/13/98

Michael Cremo and Forbidden Archaeology

Michael Sanders -- critiques Velikovksy but not well, also critiques Sothic dating, discusses the Sea Peoples

Bob Davidson -- another alternate chronology, lots about the hard-to-find book, The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications by Donovan Courville

The Days of Noah and Other Essays

CJ Ransom, including his bio of Velikovsky


Astronomy and Catastrophism



Catastrophical Scenario For Discontinuities In Human History -- Emilio Spedicato

The Fall and Rise of Catastrophism by Trevor Palmer -- "In the case of catastrophism, as applied to geology (the study of the Earth) or palaeontology (the study of fossils), there can be little doubt that, in the eyes of the scientific establishment for a century or more, it has seemed as defunct as any theory could be. Now, however, catastrophism is making a very real contribution to geology and evolutionary theory."

Evidence of Astronomical Aspects of Mankind's Past and Recent Climate

Pole Shift Theory -- may be of some interest

A paper regarding the extinction of 85 percent of large Australian creatures (see abstract) is being attributed to the arrival and immediate dispersal of humans 50,000 years ago rather than to climate change. The same arguments have been made regarding the supposed first arrival of humans in the Americas about 11,000 years ago, a supposedly one-time event that led to the extinction of various larger lifeforms such as the mammoth.

An online paper attributes the Carolina Bays to a cometary impact rather than meteoritic or asteroid impacts. While I would argue that this is a distinction without a difference, this is worth reading. "Only a comet appears to satisfy the constraints imposed both by extraterrestrial requirements and observed terrestrial characteristics."

Edith Kristan-Tollmann and Alexander Tollmann, of the University of Vienna's Geological Institute in Austria, suggest that a cometary crash was the cause of the Biblical Deluge and perhaps the other flood stories around the Earth. Reviews of the thesis by Carla Helfferich, the Times of London, and Christof Kuhn were available online.

Gods as planets

Asteroid and Comet Threat -- Victor Noto

Science News Online has a 75th Anniversary Essay some of which concerns the Alvarez theory, as well as a later letter which discounts all evidence for the Chicxulub impact or indeed any catastrophic interpretation apart from the channeled scablands, which was localized and part of the long slow uniformitarian and alleged ice ages.

Map of the distribution of known terrestrial craters is maintained on the web by Geological Survey of Canada

Dr. Louis A. Frank discovered that Earth's upper atmosphere receives a steady stream of small iceballs about the size of a small house, which are destroyed at 600 to 15,000 miles altitude

Asteroids -- Deadly Impact is a National Geographic video from 1997. It is weird to think about the fact that, as recently as 1963, what we now recognize as Meteor Crater in Arizona was believed to have been caused by unknown volcanic processes. It is also weird to think that until 1969 with the trips to the Moon, even lunar craters were regarded as volcanic in origin by most scientists. "I had to teach myself that if one really pursues the observations, the world is telling us that things do fall out of the sky." -- Eugene Shoemaker

Transcript of PBS' NOVA episode The Doomsday Asteroid

new kind of asteroid whose orbit lies entirely within the orbit of the Earth

How much danger is there from known NEOs? What is being done? -- "while the discovery rate is picking up, we still need a factor of ten improvement to complete the Survey within a decade."

Clark R. Chapman has published a number of scientific papers regarding the small bodies that seem to be the greatest threat to human civilization and survival.

Near Earth Asteroid Tracking home page -- nice pictures and data for amateur astronomers, especially amateur radioastronomers, since these objects tend to be small in the sky and radioastronomy can be used during any time of day or condition of weather.

Extraterrestrial chromium found in Earth's crust supports K-T boundary extinction by impact

Japan's Pyramids -- examine the pages of online pictures of the submerged ruins off Okinawa. There are stairways and what may have been thoroughfares, but the formations appear to be quarries. Their location makes them anomalous in that there is no explanation in the conventional chronologies.

Noachian and Sumerian floods were different events? -- the author believes that the Sumerian flood which was recounted in ancient inscriptions and for which the sand strata was found during the digs of the 19th century was just a local event and came much later than the Biblical flood during the time of Noah. It should be noted that there has never been such a local flood in what was Sumeria since the Sumerians recorded that one.

Thomas C. Van Flandern begins Dark Matter, Missing Planets, and New Comets with an articulation of his Meta Model of reality. In the rest of the book he theorizes that the explosion of a planet about three million years ago resulted in the debris we see today in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. He also points out a recent discovery of a large impact in Argentina that dates to 3.3 million years ago.

Paul A. LaViolette claims priority in the prediction that high intensity volleys of cosmic ray particles travel directly to our planet from distant sources in our Galaxy, a phenomenon now confirmed by scientific data. Among his published works are Earth Under Fire and Beyond the Big Bang. The first of these claims that our ancient ancestors endured a catastrophe that originated in a galactic core explosion, and that they encoded a warning to future generations using the zodiac and the tarot. There's a website about these alleged warnings that was composed by a follower of the theory. Some reviews -- Cataclysm! and Earth Under Fire

Alan Alford wrote The Phoenix Solution regarding an exploded planet hypothesis of his own. Other features of the book include a critique of Zecharia Sitchin.

Catastrophist bibliography

Catastrophism and Forteanism

Book for sale Catastrophism in the Old Testament by Donald Wesley Patten

Syzygy -- Earthquake Prediction by Jim Berkland -- this is just an earthquake prediction site, no Karnak the Magnificent, just crunched numbers.

Comparative Mythology -- search hits on Velikovsky

Young Earth and Flood Geology -- a list of mostly creationist catastrophist books


Psychology and Art



Graham Strachan -- uses Mankind In Amnesia as a condiment.

William Theaux' site, identifies that pharaoh with Moses

What Does Akhnaton Mean to Christianity? -- Charles Pope

The Emmanuel Velikovsky Award -- in 1998 went to X.V. Cordial for The Comet Venus, Cold in My Medicine Cabinet (probably a spoof)


Commentary



These Gonzo Science brothers (?) appear to be blowhards, but I'm only saying that because of their ignorant columns on Velikovsky, one pro and one con. The second one is the pro one, and it's barely so:

Velikovsky Strikes Out by Jim Richardson and Allen Richardson -- "Here's an example of Velikovsky's wack style. His reading indicated to him that in the ancient world there was confusion about the identities of the morning star and of the evening star, both of which are of course the planet Venus."

Since these gonzos cite Worlds in Collision one would think that they'd know better than to write that.

Velikovsky Strikes Again by Jim Richardson and Allen Richardson -- "Velikovsky's reading indicated to him that Venus had made a close pass by earth before it settled into its present orbit. Hence he predicted that Venus' rotation would be disturbed. Venus was soon discovered to have an incredibly screwed-up rotation. That's right -- Venus rotates backwards, which means it is upside-down. And, get this, its orbital period is exactly 5/8 that of Earth, which means every four years, at its closest approach, Venus turns the same face to us. This is called a resonance lock, and is enormously supportive of V.'s theory."

This is quite screwed up. The orbital period is modeled by Kepler's laws. The resonance is that Venus turns the same face to the Earth at its closest approach, and it has nothing to do with Venus' orbital period per se.

It's far more interesting that Velikovsky's approach led to predictions which were targets of scorn and derision. The current crop of Velikovsky haters have no familiarity either with what he wrote nor with the reactionary responses and then current consensus views which have been shown to be wrong.

The Talk.Origins Archive

The Talk.Origins Archive

The Quest

Velikovsky and catastrophism -- Ted Holden

Velikovsky (1)

Velikovsky (2)


Books

Velikovsky Books


Other...



Society for Historical Research -- Clark Whelton claims Velikovsky aggrandizes Jews and discounts non-Jews

Alfred de Grazia archive -- another longtime Velikovsky, uh, scholar, more of a pretender, has put some of his works online, including The Lately Tortured Earth

C Leroy Ellenberger -- Fascinating in its detail, this is from CLE's own website and new obsession where he trashes one of his former obsessions, Immanuel Velikovsky. Come to think of it, it's the same obsession. Lots of delightful Ellenbergerisms, like "the absolute-veto power of negative evidence". Almost makes one think that he's part of some diabolical conspiracy to make debunkers look like dopes. This page contains what Ellenberger purports to be a top ten list of reasons Velikovsky is wrong. Other pages include possibly useful looks at the Phaethon model, an alternative catastrophist model which has nevertheless been rejected by orthodoxy. You know that old saw about how a woman who gives up a life of prostitution becomes a prude?

Phaethon -- one of many examples of what happens when someone unfamiliar with or hostile to Velikovsky's work criticizes it.

EDEN -- The Andrew Collins Website

When Pseudoscience Meets Honest Science

Dissent is a threat to all right thinking people of the ruling class. For one thing, all alternative views are wrong; for another, people who hold alternative views will in time resort to violence because most people won't fall for their lies; and most seriously, it's too easy to find willing followers among the masses, who are stupid and gullible. Or at least, that's what Disch professes to think (emphasis shown is mine):
The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of:
How Science Fiction Conquered the World

by Thomas M. Disch
...there is nothing in Chariots [of the Gods] that cannot be found already fully developed in Atlantis and in Donnelly's successor hoax, Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (1883), which explains how a long-ago comet had almost collided with the Earth, sinking Atlantis and wreaking assorted other havocs. This rather modest astronomical fantasy, which does for Newton what Donnelly had already done for Darwin, prefigures the work of Immanuel Velikovsky (e.g., Worlds in Collision), another redneck archaeologist who also offers the litter of ancient civilizations as proof of his ditzy theory that the solar system is like a game of croquet played by vengeful gods...The potential for such fanaticism is always present when people insist that their self-delusions, dreams, and lies must be taken at face value by the world at large. The world, alas, often refuses.
Nothing in Chariots that can't be found in Donnelly? Where does Donnelly refer to ETs? The Newton and Darwin references are gibberish and neither of Donnelly's books were hoaxes. Calling Velikovsky a redneck (huh?) and damning by association is typical ad hominem tactics by such as Disch. Apparently Velikovsky's having lived in three different countries and spoken and written in a number of languages while acquiring a postgrad degree makes him a redneck.


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