Immanuel velikovsky biography of william

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C.J. Ransom also recounted the saga in The Age of Velikovsky (1976), Shane Mage in Velikovsky and his Critics (1978), and Henry Bauer in Beyond Velikovsky (1984). H. Hess and My Memoranda”, Pensée Vol. 2 No 3: (Fall 1972))

Biographies

Biographies include “The Jewish Science of Immanuel Velikovsky” by Duane Vorhees, excerpted and serialized in Aeon (1991), and the book, “Aba – The Glory and the Torment – The Life of Dr.

Immanuel Velikovsky” (1995) was written by his daughter, Ruth Velikovsky Sharon, followed by more recently, Immanuel Velikovsky – The Truth Behind the Torment (2003).

Personal

Velikovsky was the youngest of three brother, the sons of Simon Velikovsky and Biela (née Grodensky).

An over-friendly overview of Velikovskianism is given in Doomsday: The Science of Catastrophe (1979) by Fred Warshofsky.

In the early 1980s there was a flurry of renewed interest in Velikovsky's ideas when it was proposed that flipping the Earth over on its axis might not be so difficult as had been thought.

Born: June 10, 1895, Vitebsk, Russian Empire
Died: November 17, 1979, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Profession: Psychiatrist, Author, Polymath
Famous For:Worlds in Collision (1950), proposing planetary catastrophism and cosmic upheaval recorded in ancient myths

Who Was Immanuel Velikovsky?

Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born, Jewish intellectual—a trained psychiatrist with a lifelong passion for understanding humanity’s deep past.

After some privately released pamphlets – Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History (1945 chap) and Cosmos Without Gravitation (1946 chap) [for full titles see Checklist] – he began to address what would become a large lay readership in the first of his sustained arguments for his theses, Worlds in Collision (1950), following this with the Ages in Chaos sequence beginning with Ages in Chaos (1952) [for details see Checklist], where he attempted for present his arguments with greater rigour.

In particular, Velikovsky claimed that the planet Venus was a recent addition to the Sun's retinue, having been spat out by Jupiter in biblical times and then having swooped close to the Earth on several occasions before coming to rest in its current orbit: one effect of these near-misses was to make the Earth flip over on its axis.

Two television programmes have included Henry Zemel‘s documentary Velikovsky: The Bonds of the Past (1972), and the BBC program, Horizon: Worlds in Collision (1972).

Criticism

Criticism towards Velikovsky’s work has been extensive, including Harvard astronomers Harlow Shapley and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who succeeded in forcing publisher Macmillan to transfer Worlds in Collision to Doubleday.

Velikovsky’s own point of view of the controversy is described in his book Stargazers and Gravediggers (1983). The flaw in the argument is (to simplify) that the tippe-top effect works only if the tippe-top is placed on a surface (e.g., a table-top) in an appropriate gravitational field, whereas a planet orbits in free fall.

Orthodox scientists have themselves proposed some quasi-Velikovskian ideas since the 1960s – even though the underlying mechanisms Velikovsky suggested continue to be treated as risible – reflecting a recognition that catastrophic changes caused by cosmic events may have played a greater part in our planet's history than hitherto recognized; in particular, it is now generally accepted that the extinction of the Dinosaurs about 65 million years ago was the result of one such event.

A type example of a disproved theory of this sort is supplied by The Jupiter Effect (1974) by John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann, which predicted dire consequences from an unusual planetary alignment and a peak of solar activity in 1982; Beyond the Jupiter Effect (1983) is rather more muted.

Though the explanatory mechanisms he advocates remain thankfully unaddressable through anything like scientific method, Velikovsky's dramatic scenario of planetary near-misses parallels though it does not explain many of the catastrophic events described in sf; a notable fictional precursor is When Worlds Collide (September 1932-February 1933 Blue Book; 1933) by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer.

Kallen alone of all of them is alive, having these days reached the venerable age of ninety, still active as writer and lecturer, with time having dimmed none of his mental abilities.” (“H. In his best-selling book, Worlds in Collision (1950), he argues that the Earth and other planets, had been subject to cosmic catastrophes in historical times, that had been recorded in the oral traditions, myths and legends of the peoples of the world.

He theorized that Venus had once been a comet, ejected from Jupiter, that came perilously close to Earth within human memory, causing chaos before settling into its current orbit.

Major Works

Book Title	Year	Focus
Worlds in Collision	1950	Catastrophic planetary interactions as explanations for global myths
Ages in Chaos	1952	Radical revision of Egyptian and biblical chronology
Earth in Upheaval	1956	Geological evidence for recent global catastrophes
Oedipus and Akhnaton	1960	Psychological and historical re-analysis of myth and monarchy
Peoples of the Sea	1977	Reconstructing the timeline of late Egyptian history
Ramses II and His Time	1978	Historical synchronisms with the biblical narrative
Mankind in Amnesia	1982	Psychological theory of collective repression of cosmic trauma
Stargazers and Gravediggers	1983	Autobiographical account of academic rejection and resistance

What Was His Message?

Velikovsky’s unifying insight was that ancient mythology, sacred texts, and oral traditions preserve memories of real celestial catastrophes.

He urged the scientific world to take these ancient records seriously and to consider that the solar system might have undergone violent transformations within historical times.

His message included:

Myth = History: Ancient stories are fragmented records of real, traumatic events.
Planetary Catastrophism: Celestial bodies like Venus and Mars once disrupted Earth’s orbit and life.
Chronological Revisionism: Ancient histories—especially Egyptian and biblical timelines—need radical reinterpretation.

⚡ The Velikovsky Affair: Rejection and Resistance

Velikovsky’s theories were greeted not with reasoned debate, but with scientific outrage.

Macmillan, the original publisher of Worlds in Collision, was pressured by academics (including Harvard astronomers) to stop distributing the book, despite its commercial success.
Carl Sagan and others publicly mocked Velikovsky’s ideas, focusing on his departure from Newtonian mechanics.
Critics insisted his planetary theories violated conservation laws of physics, especially energy and angular momentum.

In his defense, Velikovsky proposed that electromagnetic forces, not just gravity, might play a dominant role in planetary interactions—an idea largely dismissed at the time, though later echoed in the Electric Universe school of thought championed by thinkers like Anthony Larson, David Talbott, and Wal Thornhill.

The controversy culminated in the 1974 AAAS symposium, “Velikovsky’s Challenge to Science,” where Velikovsky, though well-prepared, faced open ridicule, especially from Carl Sagan.

immanuel velikovsky biography of william

A Center for Velikovskian and Interdisciplinary Studies was founded in 1975. They have two daughters, Shulamit Velikovsky Kogan (b.1925) and Ruth Velikovsky Sharon (1926-2012). Other critics include Isaac Asimov, Martin Gardner, Bob Forrest in his six-volume book, Velikovsky’s Sources (1981), Stephen Jay Gould, and more recently, C.

Leroy Ellenberger and Phil Plait.

Appraisal

Over the years, a number of publications, organisations and people have taken a sympathetic look at Velikovsky’s work, including the publications Pensée(1972-1975), Kronos(1975-1988), Catastrophism and Ancient History Journal (1978-1993)), Aeon (since 1988), The Velikovskian (since 1993), and the British organisation, the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (1974 to present), and authors such as Alfred de Grazia, Lynn E.

Rose, Lewis M. Greenberg, Warner B. Sizemore, Ralph Juergens, Irving Wolfe, Earl R. Milton, C.J. Ransom , Fred Jueneman, Dwardu Cardona, Ev Cochrane, Charles Ginenthal, David Talbott and Wal Thornhill. It does not set out to judge whether Velikovsky and his critics were right or wrong, but to document with sources, who said what, and why, and where, and when.

Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, his courage to question consensus, to search sacred texts and obscure histories for hidden patterns, and to demand that science honor the ancient voices of humanity remains a legacy worthy of study and admiration.

He stands as a reminder that truth is not always found within the bounds of orthodoxy, and that the sky, in all its violence and beauty, may still hold stories we’ve forgotten how to read.

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Entry updated 12 September 2022.

[PN/JGr/JC]

see also:Adam and Eve.