Inscribed Copy of "Worlds in Collision" by Immanuel Velikovsky. NY: Doubleday & Co., (1950).
Immanuel Velikovsky (1895 - 1979) was a Russian-Jewish independent scholar, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller “Worlds in Collision, published in 1950. He contends that more than once within historic times the planets of our solar system ran amok and caused enormous cataclysms. Earlier, he played a role in the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
Velikovsky’s “Worlds in Collision” proposed that around the 15th century BCE, Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object, passed near Earth (an actual collision is not mentioned). The object changed Earth's orbit and axial inclination, causing innumerable catastrophes which were mentioned in early mythologies and religions around the world. Fifty-two years later, it passed close by again, stopping the Earth's rotation for a while and causing more catastrophes. Then, in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, Mars (itself displaced by Venus) made close approaches to the Earth; this incident caused a new round of disturbances and disasters. After that, the current "celestial order" was established. The courses of the planets stabilized over the centuries and Venus gradually became a "normal" planet.
Velikovsky arrived at these proposals using a methodology which would today be called comparative mythology – he looked for concordances in myths and written history of unconnected cultures across the world, following a literal reading of their accounts of the exploits of planetary deities. In this book, he argues on the basis of ancient cosmological myths from places as disparate as India and China, Greece and Rome, Assyria and Sumer. For example, ancient Greek mythology asserts that the goddess Athena sprang from the head of Zeus. Velikovsky identifies Zeus (whose Roman counterpart was the god Jupiter) with the planet Jupiter. Velikovsky identifies Athena (the Roman Minerva) with the planet Venus. This myth, along with others from ancient Egypt, Israel, Mexico, etc., is used to support the claim that "Venus was expelled as a comet and then changed to a planet after contact with a number of members of our solar system."
The plausibility of the theory was summarily rejected by the physics community, as the cosmic chain of events proposed by Velikovsky contradicts the basic laws of physics. By 1974, the controversy surrounding Velikovsky's work had reached the point where the American Association for the Advancement of Science felt obliged to address the situation, as they had previously done in relation to UFOs, and devoted a scientific meeting to Velikovsky. The meeting featured, among others, Velikovsky himself and Carl Sagan. Sagan gave a critique of Velikovsky's ideas and attacked most of the assumptions made in “Worlds in Collision.” [Source: Wikipedia]
Inscribed Copy of "Worlds in Collision" by Immanuel Velikovsky. NY: Doubleday & Co., (1950).
Immanuel Velikovsky (1895 - 1979) was a Russian-Jewish independent scholar, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller “Worlds in Collision, published in 1950. He contends that more than once within historic times the planets of our solar system ran amok and caused enormous cataclysms. Earlier, he played a role in the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
Velikovsky’s “Worlds in Collision” proposed that around the 15th century BCE, Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object, passed near Earth (an actual collision is not mentioned). The object changed Earth's orbit and axial inclination, causing innumerable catastrophes which were mentioned in early mythologies and religions around the world. Fifty-two years later, it passed close by again, stopping the Earth's rotation for a while and causing more catastrophes. Then, in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, Mars (itself displaced by Venus) made close approaches to the Earth; this incident caused a new round of disturbances and disasters. After that, the current "celestial order" was established. The courses of the planets stabilized over the centuries and Venus gradually became a "normal" planet.
Velikovsky arrived at these proposals using a methodology which would today be called comparative mythology – he looked for concordances in myths and written history of unconnected cultures across the world, following a literal reading of their accounts of the exploits of planetary deities. In this book, he argues on the basis of ancient cosmological myths from places as disparate as India and China, Greece and Rome, Assyria and Sumer. For example, ancient Greek mythology asserts that the goddess Athena sprang from the head of Zeus. Velikovsky identifies Zeus (whose Roman counterpart was the god Jupiter) with the planet Jupiter. Velikovsky identifies Athena (the Roman Minerva) with the planet Venus. This myth, along with others from ancient Egypt, Israel, Mexico, etc., is used to support the claim that "Venus was expelled as a comet and then changed to a planet after contact with a number of members of our solar system."
The plausibility of the theory was summarily rejected by the physics community, as the cosmic chain of events proposed by Velikovsky contradicts the basic laws of physics. By 1974, the controversy surrounding Velikovsky's work had reached the point where the American Association for the Advancement of Science felt obliged to address the situation, as they had previously done in relation to UFOs, and devoted a scientific meeting to Velikovsky. The meeting featured, among others, Velikovsky himself and Carl Sagan. Sagan gave a critique of Velikovsky's ideas and attacked most of the assumptions made in “Worlds in Collision.” [Source: Wikipedia]