Velikovsky: the Bonds of the Past - 1/6

Velikovsky: the Bonds of the Past - 1/6

 

Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky at the 1974 American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference in San Francisco
Born	June 10, 1895(1895-06-10) Vitebsk, Russia
Died	November 17, 1979(1979-11-17) (aged 84)

Immanuel Velikovsky (Russian: Иммануи́л Велико́вский) (10 June [O.S. 29 May] 1895 – 17 November 1979) was a Russian-born American independent scholar of Jewish origins, 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.^[1] Earlier, he played a role in the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and was a respected psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
His books use comparative mythology and ancient literary sources (including the Bible) to argue that Earth has suffered catastrophic close-contacts with other planets (principally Venus and Mars) in ancient times. In positioning Velikovsky among catastrophists including Hans Bellamy, Ignatius Donnelly, and Johann Gottlieb Radlof,^[2] the British astronomers Victor Clube and Bill 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."^[3] Velikovsky argued that electromagnetic effects play an important role in celestial mechanics. He also proposed a revised chronology for ancient Egypt, Greece, Israel and other cultures of the ancient Near East. The revised chronology aimed at explaining the so-called "dark age" of the eastern Mediterranean (ca. 1100 – 750 BCE) and reconciling biblical history with mainstream archaeology and Egyptian chronology.
In general, Velikovsky's theories have been ignored or vigorously rejected by the academic community.^[4] Nonetheless, his books often sold well and gained an enthusiastic support in lay circles, often fuelled by claims of unfair treatment for Velikovsky by orthodox academia.^[5][6][7][8] The controversy surrounding his work and its reception is often referred to as "the Velikovsky affair".^[9][10]