Immanuel Velikovsky | |
|---|---|
 Immanuel Velikovsky at the 1974American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference in San Francisco | |
| Born | (1895-06-10)10 June 1895 |
| Died | 17 November 1979(1979-11-17) (aged 84) Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
Immanuel Velikovsky (/ˌvɛliˈkɒfski/; Russian:Иммануи́л Велико́вский,IPA:[ɪmənʊˈilvʲɪlʲɪˈkofskʲɪj]; 10 June [O.S. 29 May] 1895 – 17 November 1979) was a Russian-Americanpsychoanalyst, writer, andcatastrophist.[1][2][3] He is the author of several books offeringpseudohistorical interpretations ofancient history, including the U.S. bestsellerWorlds in Collision published in 1950.[4] Velikovsky's work is frequently cited as a canonical example ofpseudoscience and has been used as an example of thedemarcation problem.[5]
His books usecomparative mythology andancient literary sources (including theOld Testament) to argue that Earth sufferedcatastrophic close contacts with other planets (principallyVenus andMars) in ancient history. In positioning Velikovsky amongcatastrophists includingHans Bellamy,Ignatius Donnelly, andJohann Gottlieb Radlof [de],[6] the British astronomersVictor Clube andBill Napier noted "... Velikovsky is not so much the first of the new catastrophists ...; he is the last in a line of traditional catastrophists going back to mediaeval times and probably earlier."[7] Velikovsky argued that electromagnetic effects play an important role incelestial mechanics. He also proposed a revised chronology forancient Egypt,Greece,Israel, and other cultures of the ancientNear East. The revised chronology aimed at explaining the so-called "dark age" of the easternMediterranean (c. 1100–750 BC) and reconciling biblical accounts with widely accepted archaeology andEgyptian chronology.
In general, Velikovsky's theories have been ignored or vigorously rejected by the academic community.[8] Nonetheless, his books often sold well and gained enthusiastic support in lay circles, often fuelled by claims of unfair treatment of Velikovsky by orthodox academia.[9][10][11][12] The controversy surrounding his work and its reception is often referred to as "the Velikovsky affair".[13][14][15]
Immanuel Velikovsky was born in 1895 to a prosperous Jewish family inVitebsk,Russian Empire (now inBelarus). The son of Shimon (Simon Yehiel) Velikovsky (1859–1937) and Beila Grodensky, he learned several languages as a child and was sent away to study at the MedvednikovGymnasium inMoscow, where he performed well in Russian language and mathematics. He graduated with a gold medal in 1913. Velikovsky then traveled inEurope and visited Palestine before briefly studying medicine atMontpellier in France and taking premedical courses at theUniversity of Edinburgh. He returned to Russia before the outbreak of World War I, enrolled in theUniversity of Moscow, and received a medical degree in 1921.
Upon taking his medical degree, Velikovsky left Russia for Berlin. With the financial support of his father, Velikovsky edited and published two volumes of scientific papers translated into Hebrew. The volumes were titledScripta Universitatis Atque Bibliothecae Hierosolymitanarum ("Writings of the Jerusalem University & Library"). He enlistedAlbert Einstein to prepare the volume dealing with mathematics and physics.[16]
In 1923, Velikovsky married Elisheva Kramer, a violinist and later sculptor.[17]
Velikovsky lived in what was then theBritish Mandate of Palestine from 1924 to 1939, practising medicine in the fields ofgeneral practice,psychiatry, andpsychoanalysis which he had studied underSigmund Freud's pupilWilhelm Stekel in Vienna. During this time, he had about a dozen papers published in medical and psychoanalytic journals. He was also published in Freud'sImago, including a precocious analysis of Freud's own dreams.[18]
In 1939, with the prospect of war looming, Velikovsky travelled with his family to New York City, intending to spend asabbatical year researching for his bookOedipus and Akhenaton. The book was inspired by Freud'sMoses and Monotheism and explored the possibility thatPharaohAkhenaton was the legendaryOedipus. Freud had argued that Akhenaton, the supposedly monotheistic Egyptian pharaoh, was the source of the religious principles that Moses taught to the people of Israel in the desert. Freud's claim (and that of others before him) was based in part on the resemblance of Psalm 104 in the Bible to theGreat Hymn to the Aten, an Egyptian hymn discovered on the wall of the tomb of Akhenaten's courtier,Ay, in Akhenaten's city ofAkhetaten. To disprove Freud's claim and to prove the Exodus as such, Velikovsky sought evidence for the Exodus in Egyptian documents. One such document was theIpuwer Papyrus, which he felt reported events similar to several of the Biblical plagues. Since conventional Egyptology dated the Ipuwer Papyrus much earlier than either the Biblical date for the Exodus (c. 1500—1450 BCE) or the Exodus date accepted by many of those who accepted the conventional chronology of Egypt (c. 1250 BCE), Velikovsky had to revise the conventional chronology.
Within weeks of his arrival in the United States, World War II began. Launching on a tangent from his original book project, Velikovsky began to develop the radicalcatastrophistcosmology and revised chronology theories for which he would become notorious. For the remainder of the Second World War, now as a permanent resident of New York City, he continued to research and write about his ideas, searching for a means to disseminate them to academia and the public. He privately published two smallScripta Academica pamphlets summarising his theories in 1945 (Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History andCosmos Without Gravitation). He mailed copies of the latter to academic libraries and scientists, including Harvard astronomerHarlow Shapley in 1947.
In 1950, after eight publishing houses rejected theWorlds in Collision manuscript,[19] it was finally published byMacmillan, which had a large presence in the academic textbook market. Even before its appearance, the book was enveloped by furious controversy, whenHarper's Magazine published a highly positive feature on it, as didReader's Digest, with what would today be called acreationist slant. This came to the attention of Shapley, who opposed the publication of the work, having been made familiar with Velikovsky's claims through the pamphlet Velikovsky had given him. Shapley threatened to organise a textbook boycott of Macmillan for its publication ofWorlds in Collision, and within two months the book was transferred toDoubleday. It was by then a bestseller in the United States. In 1952, Doubleday published the first installment in Velikovsky's revised chronology,Ages in Chaos, followed by theEarth in Upheaval (a geological volume) in 1955. In November 1952, Velikovsky moved from Manhattan to Princeton, New Jersey.
For most of the 1950s and early 1960s, Velikovsky waspersona non grata on college and university campuses. After this period, he began to receive more requests to speak. He lectured, frequently to record crowds, at universities acrossNorth America. In 1972, theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation aired a one-hour television special featuring Velikovsky and his work,[20] and this was followed by a thirty-minute documentary by theBBC in 1973.
During the remainder of the 1970s, Velikovsky devoted a great deal of his time and energy to rebutting his critics in academia, and he continued to tour North America and Europe to deliver lectures on his ideas. By that time, the elderly Velikovsky haddiabetes and intermittentdepression, which his daughter said may have been exacerbated by the scientific community's continuing rejection of his work.[21][independent source needed] He died in 1979.
For many years, Velikovsky's estate was controlled by his two daughters, Shulamit Velikovsky Kogan (b. 1925), and Ruth Ruhama Velikovsky Sharon (b. 1926),[22] who generally resisted the publication of any further material.[citation needed] (Exceptions include the biographyABA – the Glory and the Torment: The Life of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, issued in 1995 and greeted with rather dubious reviews;[23][24][unreliable source?][25] and a Hebrew translation of anotherAges in Chaos volume,The Dark Age of Greece, which was published in Israel.) A volume of Velikovsky's discussions and correspondence withAlbert Einstein appeared in Hebrew in Israel, translated and edited by his daughter Shulamit Velikovsky Kogan. In the late 1990s, a large portion of Velikovsky's unpublished book manuscripts, essays and correspondence became available at the Velikovsky Archive website.[26] In 2005, Velikovsky's daughter Ruth Sharon presented his entire archive toPrinceton University Library.[27]
In the 1920s and 1930s, Velikovsky published his concepts in medical and psychoanalytic journals.[28] He is best known, however, for research performed in the 1940s when living in New York City. His main ideas in this area were summarized in an affidavit of November 1942,[29] and two privately publishedScripta Academica pamphlets,Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History (1945) andCosmos without Gravitation (1946).[30]
Rather than have his ideas dismissed wholesale because of potential flaws in any one area, Velikovsky then chose to publish them as a series of book volumes, aimed at a lay audience, dealing separately with his proposals on ancient history, and with areas more relevant to the physical sciences. Velikovsky was a passionateZionist,[31][32] and this did steer the focus of his work, although its scope was considerably more far-reaching than this. The entire body of work could be said to stem from an attempt to solve the following problem: that to Velikovsky there appeared to be insufficient correlation in the written or archaeological records between Biblical history and what was known of the history of the area, in particular, Egypt.[33]
Velikovsky searched for common mention of events within literary records, and in theIpuwer Papyrus he believed he had found a contemporary Egyptian account of thePlagues of Egypt. Moreover, he interpreted both accounts as descriptions of a great natural catastrophe. Velikovsky attempted to investigate the physical cause of these events, and extrapolated backwards and forwards in history from this point, cross-comparing written and mythical records from cultures on every inhabited continent, using them to attempt synchronisms of the historical records, yielding what he believed to be further periodic natural catastrophes that can be global in scale.[citation needed]
He arrived at a body of radical inter-disciplinary ideas, which might be summarised as:[citation needed]
Some of Velikovsky's specific postulated catastrophes included:[citation needed]
As noted above, Velikovsky had conceived the broad sweep of this material by the early 1940s. However, within his lifetime, whilst he continued to research, expand and lecture upon the details of his ideas, he released only selected portions of his work to the public in book form:[citation needed]
Velikovsky's ideas on his earlier Saturn/Mercury/Jupiter events were never published, and the available archived manuscripts are much less developed.[citation needed]
Of all the strands of his work, Velikovsky published least on his belief that electromagnetism plays a role in orbital mechanics. Although he appears to have retreated from the propositions in his 1946 monographCosmos without Gravitation, no such retreat is apparent inStargazers and Gravediggers.[34]Cosmos without Gravitation, which Velikovsky placed in university libraries and sent to scientists, is a probable catalyst for the hostile response of astronomers and physicists to his later claims about astronomy.[35] However, other Velikovskian enthusiasts such as Ralph Juergens (dec.), Earl Milton (dec.), Wal Thornhill (dec.), and Donald E. Scott have claimed that stars are powered not by internal nuclear fusion, but by galactic-scale electrical discharge currents. Such ideas do not find support in the conventional literature and are rejected aspseudoscience by the scientific community.[36][37][38]
Velikovsky argued that the conventional chronology of the Near East and classical world, based upon EgyptianSothic dating and the king lists ofManetho, was wholly flawed. This was the reason for the apparent absence of correlation between the Biblical account and those of neighbouring cultures, and also the cause of the enigmatic "Dark Ages" in Greece and elsewhere. Velikovsky shifted several chronologies and dynasties from the Egyptian Old Kingdom to Ptolemaic times by centuries (a scheme he called theRevised Chronology), placingThe Exodus contemporary with the fall of theMiddle Kingdom of Egypt. He proposed numerous other synchronisms stretching up to the time ofAlexander the Great. He argued that these eliminate phantom "Dark Ages", and vindicate thebiblical accounts of history and those recorded byHerodotus.
These ideas were first put forward briefly in hisTheses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History, butAges in Chaos was his first full-length work on the subject. This was followed byOedipus and Akhenaton,Peoples of the Sea andRameses II and His Time, and two further works that were unpublished at the time of his death but that are now available online at the Velikovsky Archive:The Assyrian Conquest andThe Dark Ages of Greece.
Though rejected by historians, these ideas have been developed by other authors such asDavid Rohl andPeter James, who have also attempted their own revised chronologies.
Velikovsky inspired numerous followers during the 1960s and 1970s.Alfred de Grazia dedicated a 1963 issue of his journal,American Behavioral Scientist, to Velikovsky, which was published in an expanded version as a book,The Velikovsky Affair – Scientism Versus Science, in 1966.The Skeptical Inquirer, in a review of a later book by de Grazia,Cosmic Heretics (1984), suggests that de Grazia's efforts may be responsible for Velikovsky's continuing notability during the 1970s.[39]
The Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS) was "formed in 1974 in response to the growing interest in the works of modern catastrophists, notably the highly controversial Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky". The Institute for the Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences (ISIS) is a 1985 spinoff from the SIS founded under the directorship ofDavid Rohl, who had come to reject Velikovsky'sRevised Chronology in favour of his own "New Chronology".
Kronos: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Synthesis was founded in 1975 explicitly "to deal with Velikovsky's work". Ten issues ofPensée: Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered appeared from 1972 to 1975.The controversy surrounding Velikovsky peaked in the mid-1970s and public interest declined in the 1980s and, by 1984, erstwhile VelikovskyistC. Leroy Ellenberger had become a vocal critic of Velikovskian catastrophism. Some Velikovskyist publications and authors such as David Talbott remain active into the 2000s.
Velikovsky's ideas have been rejected by the scientific community and his work is generally regarded as erroneous in all its detailed conclusions. Moreover, scholars view his unorthodox methodology (for example, using comparative mythology to derive scenarios in celestial mechanics) as an unacceptable way to arrive at conclusions.Stephen Jay Gould[40] offered a synopsis of the scientific community's response to Velikovsky, writing, "Velikovsky is neithercrank norcharlatan—although, to state my opinion and to quote one of my colleagues, he is at least gloriously wrong ... Velikovsky would rebuild the science ofcelestial mechanics to save the literal accuracy of ancient legends."
Velikovsky's bestselling, and as a consequence most criticized, book isWorlds in Collision. Astronomer Harlow Shapley, along with others such asCecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, were highly critical of Macmillan's decision to publish the work. The fundamental criticism against this book from the astronomy community was that its celestial mechanics were physically impossible, requiring planetary orbits that do not conform with the laws ofconservation of energy andconservation of angular momentum.[citation needed]
Velikovsky relates in his bookStargazers & Gravediggers how he tried to protect himself from criticism of his celestial mechanics by removing the original appendix on the subject fromWorlds in Collision, hoping that the merit of his ideas would be evaluated on the basis of his comparative mythology and use of literary sources alone. However, this strategy did not protect him: the appendix was an expanded version of theCosmos Without Gravitation monograph, which he had already distributed to Shapley and others in the late 1940s—and they had regarded the physics within it as absurd.[citation needed]
By 1974, the controversy surrounding Velikovsky's work had permeated US society to the point where theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science felt obliged to address the situation, as they had previously done in relation toUFOs, and devoted a scientific session to Velikovsky featuring (among others) Velikovsky himself and ProfessorCarl Sagan. Sagan gave a critique of Velikovsky's ideas (the book version of Sagan's critique is much longer than that presented in the talk; seebelow). His criticisms are available inScientists Confront Velikovsky[41] and as a corrected and revised version in the bookBroca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science.[42]
It was not until the 1980s that a very detailed critique ofWorlds in Collision was made in terms of its use of mythical and literary sources when Bob Forrest published a highly critical examination of them (seebelow). Earlier in 1974, James Fitton published a brief critique of Velikovsky's interpretation of myth (ignored by Velikovsky and his defenders) whose indictment began: "In at least three important ways Velikovsky's use of mythology is unsound. The first of these is his proclivity to treat all myths as having independent value; the second is the tendency to treat only such material as is consistent with his thesis; and the third is his very unsystematic method."[43] A short analysis of the position of arguments in the late 20th century is given by Dr Velikovsky's ex-associate, andKronos editor,C. Leroy Ellenberger, in hisA Lesson from Velikovsky.[44]
More recently, the absence of supporting material inice-core studies (such as the Greenland Dye-3 andVostok cores) has removed any basis for the proposition of a global catastrophe of the proposed dimension within the laterHolocene period. However, tree-ring expertMike Baillie would give credit to Velikovsky after disallowing the impossible aspects ofWorlds in Collision: "However, I would not disagree withall aspects of Velikovsky's work. Velikovsky was almost certainly correct in his assertion that ancient texts hold clues to catastrophic events in the relatively recent past, within the span of human civilization, which involve the effects of comets, meteorites and cometary dust ... But fundamentally, Velikovsky did not understand anything about comets ... He did not know about the hazard posed by relatively small objects ... This failure to recognize the power of comets and asteroids means that it is reasonable to go back to Velikovsky and delete all the physically impossible text about Venus and Mars passing close to the earth ... In other words, we can get down to his main thesis, which is that the Earth experienced dramatic events from heavenly bodies particularly in the second millennium BC."[45]
Velikovsky's revised chronology has been rejected by nearly all historians andEgyptologists. It was claimed, starting with early reviewers, that Velikovsky's usage of material for proof is often very selective.[46][47][48] In 1965 the leading cuneiformist Abraham Sachs, in a forum atBrown University, discredited Velikovsky's use ofMesopotamiancuneiform sources.[49] Velikovsky was never able to refute Sachs' attack.[50] In 1978, following the much-postponed publication of further volumes in Velikovsky'sAges in Chaos series, theUnited Kingdom-based Society for Interdisciplinary Studies organised a conference inGlasgow specifically to debate the revised chronology.[51] The ultimate conclusion of this work, by scholars includingPeter James, John Bimson, Geoffrey Gammonn, andDavid Rohl, was that the Revised Chronology was untenable.[52] The SIS has continued to publish updates of this ongoing discussion, in particular the work of historian Emmet Sweeney.
While James credits Velikovsky with "point[ing] the way to a solution by challenging Egyptian chronology", he severely criticised the contents of Velikovsky's chronology as "disastrously extreme", producing "a rash of new problems far more severe than those it hoped to solve" and claiming that "Velikovsky understood little of archaeology and nothing of stratigraphy."[53]
Bauer accuses Velikovsky of dogmatically asserting interpretations which are at best possible, and gives several examples fromAges in Chaos.[54]
Commentators have made an analysis of the conflict itself. Among these was a study byAmerican Behavioral Scientist magazine, eventually published in book form asThe Velikovsky Affair — Scientism Versus Science.[55] This framed the discussion in terms of how academic disciplines reacted to ideas from workers from outside their field, claiming that there was an academic aversion to permitting people to crossinter-disciplinary boundaries. More recently, James Gilbert, professor of history at the University of Maryland, challenged this traditional version with an account that focused on the intellectual rivalry between Velikovsky's allyHorace Kallen and Harlow Shapley.[56] Earlier,Henry Bauer had challenged the view that the Velikovsky Affair illustrated the resistance of scientists to new ideas by pointing out "the nature and validity of Velikovsky's claims must be considered before one decides that the Affair can illuminate the reception of new ideas in science ..."[57] and, on the same basis,Keith Dixon contended that the treatment of the case by sociologists was an example of a broader unhealthy tendency in sociology to explain all opinions as ideologically motivated without considering their possible rational basis.[58]
The scientific press, in general, denied Velikovsky a forum to rebut his critics. Velikovsky claimed that this made him a "suppressed genius", and he likened himself to the 16th century heretical friarGiordano Bruno, who was burnt at the stake for his beliefs.[59][60][61]
The controversy created by Velikovsky's publications may have helped revive thecatastrophist movement in the second half of the 20th century; however, some working in the field also hold that progress has actually been retarded by the negative aspects of the so-called Velikovsky Affair.[62][63]
| Title | Year | Publisher | ISBN | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Worlds in Collision | 1950 | Macmillan | 978-1-906833-11-4 | original edition |
| 1950 | Doubleday | 978-1-906833-11-4 | transferred to new publisher | |
| 2009 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-11-4 | reissued | |
| Ages in Chaos: From the Exodus to King Akhnaton | 1952 | Doubleday | 978-1-906833-13-8 | first edition |
| 2009 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-51-0 | reissued | |
| Earth In Upheaval | 1955 | Doubleday | 978-1-906833-12-1 | first edition |
| 2009 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-52-7 | reissued | |
| Oedipus and Akhnaton | 1960 | Doubleday | 978-1-906833-18-3 | first edition |
| 2018 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-58-9 | reissued | |
| Peoples of the Sea (Ages in Chaos) | 1977 | Doubleday | 978-1-906833-15-2 | first edition |
| 2011 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-55-8 | reissued | |
| Ramses II and His Time (Ages in Chaos) | 1978 | Doubleday | 978-1-906833-14-5 | first edition |
| 2010 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-54-1 | reissued | |
| Mankind in Amnesia | 1982 | Doubleday | 978-1-906833-16-9 | first edition |
| 2010 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-56-5 | reissued | |
| Stargazers and Gravediggers | 1983 | William Morrow | 978-1-906833-17-6 | first edition |
| 2012 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-57-2 | reissued | |
| In the Beginning | 2020 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-50-3 | also availablefrom the Velikovsky archive |
| The Dark Age of Greece (Ages in Chaos) | 2023 | Paradigma | 978-1-906833-59-6 | also availablefrom the Velikovsky archive |
| The Assyrian Conquest (Ages in Chaos) | posthumous | unpublished | manuscript | availablefrom the Velikovsky archive |
Velikovsky works available online
