Immanual Velikovsky wrote a book titled Worlds In Collision, published 1950. The title could be carried over to describe the events that would take over his life just before and after publicaiton of his thesis. The very world of Velikovsky would be in collision with the world of academia and the scientific community since his ideas and research were not welcome. The events of this public display of suppression of a thesis came to be called the Velikovsky Affair, with events recorded and debated for decades.
-page from a 1979 edition of the book-
This goal of this article is to bring about awareness of Velikovsky and his work. Many resources and links to learn more may be found in the side notes to this article. The main character in the "affair" who worked to suppress the science of Velikovsky is worth looking at, closely, which can be done via the side notes.
The theory introduced by Velikovsky was that Venus is perhaps not billions of years old but a relatively young planet in our solar system.
In the preface to his book he writes
"The historical-cosmological story of this book is based in the evidence of historical texts ... on classical literature, on epics of the northern races, on sacred books of the peoples of the Orient and Occident, on traditions and folklore of primitive peoples, on old astronomical inscriptions and charts, on archaeological finds, and also on geological and paleontological material."
At the epiogue of his book,
"We conjectured that the comet Venus originated in the planet Jupiter; then we found that smaller comets were born in contacts between Venus and Mars, thus offering an explanation of the principle of the origin of the comets of the solar system. That these comets are only a few thousand years old explains why, despite dissipation of the material of their tails in space, they have not yet disintegrated entirely. From the fact that Venus was once a comet we learned that comets are not nearly immaterial bodies or “rien visible,” as was thought because stars are usually seen through their tails and, on the passage of one or two of them in front of the sun, their heads were not perceptible.
We claim that the earth’s orbit changed more than once and with it the length of the year; that the geographical position of the terrestrial axis and its astronomical direction changed repeatedly, and that at a recent date the polar star was in the constellation of the Great Bear. The length of the day altered; the polar regions shifted..."
This is actually a story about history, modern and ancient. Various books, articles and archives are available to learn the details.
Cataclismic events were recorded in ancient cultures. The work of Velikovsky is an extremely interesting piece when placed in the context of ancient texts, archeology, geology and more.
Velikovsky felt the summarizing of his work, and condensing of his ideas played a part in the lack of understanding of his thesis. True of course, as it is with most any subject. We understand with nearly the same extent we engage with the work.
So do read the book if you want to understand his work.
The book Worlds In Collision was accepted and published by MacMillan in April 1950 as a nonfiction work. Numerous astronomers and academia threatened this publisher in various ways and the book was thus sent to be republished by Doubleday as a work of fiction in May 1950. Many of these people admitted at the time that they had not and would not read Velikovsky's work.
Though it was dismissed and attacked at the time, Velikovsky’s theory was accepted by some, and became less and less disputed as astronomical and archaeological findings were allowed to be pursued.
This is a story worth understanding not only because of the slander and tactics carried out by the Establishment to keep information out of public circulation, not only because much of Velikovsky's work has been validated, but because it is a view, a piece, of why ancient history is a mystery to us. This is also not a solitary case. Another example is the similar events that occurred with R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz and his first publication on ancient Egypt. Let's remember Galileo, .. etc.
Six decades after the 1950 publication of Worlds in Collision yet another book was published by Laird Scranton titled The Velikovsky Heresies published 2012.
The debate between Velikovsky and more traditional scientists is not over truth. It is about what could be true or not true. But if the ideas can't be explored how do we know they are not true. Establishment science did not prove Velikovsky to be wrong. What did they actually prove?
The Mystery of this particular History is not what is true, but who is allowed to say what could be true ... and who isn't.
Head over to the side notes for resources, links and more detail
SIDE NOTES PEOPLE the SCENES SCIENCE
