Worlds in Collision

What has been called “the Velikovsky affair” began with the publication in 1950 of Worlds in Collison, the first of a series of books by Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky compiling investigations and re-evaluations of some of the most fundamental modern beliefs concerning human history and the geological record—books thoroughly researched and carefully compiled which, whatever their faults or errors, should easily have qualified as objective analyses. But they got a far different reception: an academic storm and scientific outrage, scorn, rebuke and irrational hostility completely in contradiction to the character and impartial objectivity that modern scholars and scientists claim to possess. And this outrage and abuse was not directed against some bungling amateur; Dr. Velikovsky is well qualified to participate in scientific and academic circles at the highest levels, not just in one narrow specialty, but in most every legitimate field of professional expertise. At the very least he should have been accorded a hearing and reasoned consideration—instead he got the heretic treatment. He had not made factual errors—he had sinned—he had blasphemed against some of science’s most sacred cows.

There are first the basic issues: is Velikovsky (as well as the ancients and a considerable number of independent modern investigators) correct with regard to some fundamentals of human history and the geological record; and, has the scientific academic community discredited itself by its subjective, vitriolic, and vindictive response to what is at the least a reasonable and well documented thesis, worthy of reasonable and rational consideration? Was modernism wrong in rejecting all previous history, religious and secular, describing repeated catastrophes on a global scale both previous to and within the historical epoch? Velikovsky—the-heretic claims that the ancients were right—that there were repeated disasters of a global scale, of fire and ice and a sundered earth with its orbit disrupted until (to earthly observers) the sun stood still, then set a new course, both solar and lunar calendars had to be revised—that the Exodus and the Trojan War and folkish “fables” of all peoples describe, in mythical terms, actual historical events.

That is the basic issue: modern uniformitarianism versus ancient catastrophism, now revised and given scientific support by Velikovsky and others. But this basic issue has been submerged in a petty controversy and sorry affair that leaves one wondering if today’s leading scientists are really any more enlightened or reasonable or rational than those Establishmentarians who condemned Galileo, or presided over the worst terrors of the Inquisition. It clearly indicates that we have not advanced so far from medievalism as moderns choose to believe, and the actual liberal and scientific advances are far more limited and narrow than the pretensions.

Yes, there has been progress; Dr. Velikovsky has not been forced to recant, or imprisoned, or burned at the stake, but you do get the impression that some of the world’s foremost scientists, who claim impartial scientific objectivity, very much regret this progress where it frustrates their revenge against heretics like Velikovsky. These high priests of scientism pressured a major publishing house into abandoning publication of Worlds and got supporters of it summarily fired from prominent positions without regard for their civil rights or tenure. And now, as the space probes consistently support the “sensational claims” of this “erudite charlatan,” revisions and accomodations are made to long established “fact” and theory without proper credit being given. Typical is the curious anomaly of Velikovsky having predicted the presence and extent of the “Van Allen” Belts several years before their discovery by Van Allen.

There are other curious contradictions emerging from the controversy and from the continuing investigations being conducted by competent scholars independent of the scientific Establishment. They occasionally get published in independent journals, the attempted suppression appears to have failed, and a reckoning now seems imminent.

When church and state shared power and maintained an extensive and exploitive bureaucracy to spy and pry and order the lives of their hapless subjects, it brought suffering and decline, and, ultimately, ruin. Modernism ended all that and made dramatic advances, but now modernism, even at the highest levels of scientific inquiry and technical advance, is dominated by a similar bureaucracy and Establishment-authority and doctrine. Moderns find this difficult to believe. In addition to its past wonders science now provides rockets to the moon and filter cigarettes; it has worked for the past few centuries and it obviously works today. But there is a growing awareness that science has become misdirected, and has lost sight of its original purpose of improving the human condition. Even within the most relevant investigations science is now state subsidized and bureaucratic, and guided by a dogma of limited relevance.

The evidence clearly indicates that a total re-appraisal of modern versus ancient belief is required to set the record straight, and the Establishment response here is but a counterpart of bureaucratic pollution in politics and economics and society generally. “The Velikovsky Affair” is but a part of a broad pattern that needs to be understood in its entirety before it can be understood in any special study, as economics or politics or individualism. Anyone trying to rid their lives of the prevalent bureaucracy and authoritarianism should be familiar with this controversy or affair, aside from its scientific and historical significance. Worlds is probably the best introduction to this study; over two decades after publication it remains ahead of current scientific Establishmentarian opinion and expertise because here as elsewhere, although most moderns are reluctant to believe it, orthodoxy and bureaucracy have had their typical parasitic and repressive effect. Even the most determined naysayers to the spreading bureaucratic authoritarianism want to believe that science at least has remained uncorrupted. The evidence does not warrant it; the evidence tells the opposite, and it is time to consider the evidence, unpleasant as it may be.

Reviewed by Robert E. Sagehorn / (400 Pages, Indexed) / BFL Price $1