Journals

 With the publication of "Worlds In Collision" in 1950, Immanuel
 Velikovsky spurred a revolution in thinking about archaeology,
 astronomy, history and geology. His work resulted in the formation
 of a group of scholars and writers who supported and amplified the
 scope of his research. Over the years several scholarly journals
 appeared which featured the best of this research. This list of articles
 is taken from the pages of :

     Pensee (1972-74)
     Kronos (1975-86)
     AEON (1987-present)
     Catastrophism and Ancient History (1989-present)
     SIS Review (1976-present).

 Immanuel Velikovsky

Velikovsky- Immanuel Velikovsky, the father of modern catastrophism,
 was a pioneer scholar in Israel and colleague of Albert Einstein. This
 brief biography introduces us to his life.

Testament- Velikovsky's reconstruction of the history of the solar
 system will not be accepted widely unless articulate readers who
 have found it sound persist in demanding objective consideration
 from the scientific community." This is a brief survey of the fields
 that Velikovsky's work effected and a testament to the predictive
 power of his theories.

Overview- Overview of Velikovsky's work, its impact and the current
 status of catastrophist research. Article from "Explore More"
 magazine, Winter '96.

Challenge- All these [ancient] civilizations, in texts bequeathed
 beginning with the time man learned to write, tell in various forms the
 very same narrative that the trained eye of a psychoanalyst could not
 but recognize as so many variants of the same theme. In hymns, in
 prayers, in historical texts, in philosophical discourses, the ancients
 desperately tried to convey to their descendants the record of
 events that took place in circumstances that left a strong imprint on
 the witnesses.

Memoranda- Various memoranda between Prof. Harry Hammond
 Hess, member of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences and Immanuel Velikovsky.

Archaeology

Sauropods- The giant dinosaurs were simply to heavy to bear their
 own weight under Earth's present gravity. There are obvious and
 demonstrable reasons why species larger than elephants no longer
 exist.

Olmecs- Recent archaeological explorations of the oldest stratum
 of Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmec, have constructed a record
 which suggests with very satisfying chronological correspondence
 with the events described in "Worlds In Collision".

Pyramid Texts- For the Egyptians, astronomy, the precise notation
 of heavenly movements, was inseparable from mythology for the
 simple reason that all heavenly bodies were divine. And mythology
 was equally inseparable from historiography, the precise notation of
 human actions.

Rock Art- It was during the Neolithic age, apparently, that man began
 recording his perceptions of celestial phenomena through paintings
 and petroglyphs (incised images in rock). ...rock art represents an
 objective record of mankind's enduring interest in the stars and offers
 a check upon conclusions deduced from comparative mythology.

Sacrifice- It is not known why priest-kings were suddenly accepted
 as hierarchically superior rulers entitled to provisions by their fellows...
 sophisticated blood rituals became the most prominent activities of
 the first permanent lords. The origin of these sacred procedures
 remained equally enigmatic.

Ancient Venus Observations- For whatever reason, the planet Venus
 was worshipped by ancient peoples the world over from a very early
 time. Thus it is that Venus figures prominently in the earliest myths,
 art, and religious literature of most ancient cultures. A survey of this
 material reveals hundreds of anomalies in the ancient descriptions of
 Venus' appearance and behavior.

Venus in Ancient Astronomy- If Velikovsky is correct about the big
 catastrophe if 1500 BC described in Worlds in Collision, one would
 expect to find accounts in far off corners of the world describing
 the great catastrophe of 1500 BC, AND ascribing its cause to the
 planet Venus. Conversely, if Venus has been in its present orbit
 since before man's time on earth, there is NO WAY that we should
 read this same account from Egypt and Mexico, which to our
 knowledge had no contacts in 1500 BC. That would involve these
 two totally separated groups of people totally fabricating the same
 preposterous tale and ascribing to it the same preposterous cause
 by PURE CHANCE.
 

Astronomy

Martian Scarring- Velikovsky's ideas about the role of Mars in ancient
 catastrophe require that the surface of the planet exhibit unique
 evidence of this catastrophic series of encounters with the planet
 Venus as well as Earth. Many inexplicable anomalies in recent
 satellite data from Mars are accounted for.

Electro-gravity- The known characteristic of the interplanetary medium
 suggest not only that the sun and the planets are electrically charged,
 but that the sun itself is the focus of a cosmic electric discharge- the
 probable source of all its radiant energy.

Static Discharge- Religious, historical and literary texts describing
 the battles of the planetary gods are fraught with references to cosmic
 lightnings and thunderbolts.  Electric discharges took place between
 the planetary bodies during their close approaches.

Solar System Stability- In his writings Velikovsky contends that the
 solar system was not always stable, not is it in the same state as that
 in which it originated.  A central feature of this theory is that these
 changes have occurred in many geological epochs, as well as several
 times in the historical past.

Predictions- Seldom in the history of science have so many diverse
 anticipations been so quickly substantiated by independent
 investigation.  Why, then , have scientists been so slow to
 acknowledge Velikovsky's successes in perhaps the most risky of
 scientific activities: accurate prediction on the basis of a working
 hypothesis?

Venus' Atmosphere- Velikovsky's thesis concerning Venus' recent
 birth and cometary past can be tested against considerable evidence
 gathered since the thesis was first published in 1950.  In this paper
 I will show that this atmosphere [Venus'] has been in existence far
 less than four eons.

Youthful Venus- Although Magellan has cast doubt upon most of the
 scientific establishment's predictions regarding the nature of Venus'
 surface, a belief in a 4.5 billion year old age of the planet Venus is
 still enshrined as dogma, Magellan scientists strove to explain the
 paradox of young looking craters on a relatively old surface.

Venus' High Temperature- Velikovsky claims that Venus is simply a
 new planet, which has not had time to cool.  I claim that empirical
 evidence involving Venus is being doctored and falsified at every turn
 because it does not fit with scientists' preconceived ideas involving the
 age of our solar system, and because it does not match any of the
 logical requirements of Carl Sagan's "super-greenhouse" theory.
 

Comparative Mythology

Mythology- Velikovskians take the myths of ancient civilizations very
 seriously, mainly because there is no accounting for their many
 similarities unless humanity simultaneously experienced the same
 events around the globe. The study of "Comparative Mythology" is
 explained and its methods for interpretation are discussed.

Comparative Mythology- When all is said and done it may well turn
 out that Velikovsky's most enduring claim to fame will be his singular
 contribution to comparative mythology; specifically, the thesis that
 many ancient myths commemorate spectacular cataclysms
 associated with the various planets.

Apollo- The archaic Apollo was not so much worshipped as the
 embodiment of beauty, poetry or youth. The further back one looks,
 the more it is seen that Apollo was seen as a god bringing
 pestilence and plague, delighting in the ravages of war. What are
 the origins of this darker Apollo?

Athena- The mythical accounts of the spectacular nature of Athena's
 birth have long intrigued scholars. The cataclysmic imagery attending
 her epiphany is difficult to imagine under any but the most abnormal
 conditions. Did this myth reflect the witnessing of astronomical
 phenomenon?

Erra- The Poem of Erra is one of the most remarkable and popular
 documents which has come down to us from ancient times.
 Akkadian scholars attempt to understand the meaning of the Poem
 of Erra in terms of political turmoil. "it is evident that the events of
 the Flood in the Erra Epic, however vivid in their language, apply
 unmistakably to events in the astral heavens and to nothing else.

Heracles- The strange and enigmatic play by Sophicles about the
 mythic hero, Heracles is dissected and its surreal imagery is
 interpreted as an early account of Heracles/Mars' unusual interaction
 with other members of an unstable solar system.

Indra- The Indian mythological figure, India, is celebrated in countless
 hymns of the Rig Veda for many feats, including conquering the sun,
 delivering it from darkness and preparing a space within which it could
 rise, etc. With India identified as the planet Mars, a strange series of
 astronomical events is implied.

 Pestilence- In this article we propose to expand the horizons of
 archaeoastronomy by exploring ancient beliefs associated with
 planets, gods and heroes.  Throughout the ancient world, for no
 reason apparent to modern astronomers, the red planet [Mars] was
 consistently associated with death, pestilence and the onset of
 disease.

Polar Configuration I- What is the basis of our [Velikovskian]
 confidence in myth? Can it ever be proven that myth is a reflection
 of unusual celestial events? ...a planetary assembly called the
 "polar configuration" once moved close to the Earth, dominating
 the sky of ancient star worshippers.

Polar Configuration II- Our subject is an extraordinary period in
 Earth history and the history of man's prehistoric epoch dominated
 by profound and at times overwhelming cosmic events. The polar
 configuration involves a unique congregation of planets moving very
 close to the Earth some time before the dawn of civilization.

Ship of Heaven- Long before the age of Latin poets and historians,
 however, the Sumerians and Babylonians celebrated the ship of the
 planet god Saturn.  No one has yet offered a theory to account for
 the many unusual traits of this celestial vehicle, which is constantly
 invoked as a visible form moving across the waters of the sky.

 Tablets of Amhizaduga- The so-called Venus tablets of
 Ammizaduga have nothing to do either with Ammizaduga or with his
 times. But the two major purposes of the paper are, first, to examine
 some of the ways in which scholars have treated these tablets over
 the past century or so, and, second, to give you a progress report on
 the efforts to try to determine just which orbits of Venus and Earth
 would have produced the patterns of appearances that the ancient
 Venus-viewers say they saw.
 

The Science Mafia

Science Mafia- But it ['Worlds In Collision'] also quickly became the
 target of nearly universal abuse and derision. The Dallas News thought
 it was a Russian propaganda ploy. The Daily Worker saw in its
 popularity a sure sign of the dying days of bourgeois society. J.B.S.
 Haldane thought that the book was an attempt by the USA warmongers to soften us up for the atomic war they were preparing to launch!

Censorship- In May, 1950, U of Michigan Astronomy Professor Dean
 B. McLaughlin blustered to Velikovsky's publishers: "...the
 promulgation of such lies, -yes, lies, as are contained in wholesale
 lots in 'Worlds in Collision'". and continues in the same letter: "No,
 I have not read the book. I have read the ballyhoo that preceded it..."
 Velikovsky's critics often resorted to much more than bluster in an
 attempt to keep his work from becoming part of the fabric of academic
 research.

Ethics- Many writers have commented on the furor provoked by the
 publication of Velikovsky's 'Worlds in Collision' in 1950. The name of
 Dr. Harlow Shapley, then director of the Harvard Observatory, has
 arisen in connection with the unethical attempts to suppress the book
 and defame its author.

Suppression- What was it about the impact of Velikovsky's work that
 earned him the active collaboration of numerous critics to
 programmatically ban his works from academic consideration and vilify
 his character so intensely? Does academia worry about Van Danniken
 or Sitchen or Willens to the the extent that they actively suppress the
 publication or distribution of their ideas? If Velikovsky was a crackpot,
 why were his theories considered to be such a danger to the scientific
 establishment?

Shapley- Many writers have commented on the furor provoked by the
 publication of Velikovsky's 'Worlds In Collision' in 1950. The name of
 Dr. Harlow Shapley, then director of the Harvard Observatory, has
 arisen in connection with unethical attempts to suppress the book
 and defame its author.

Carl Sagan- What appears to be obvious, at the outset, is that the
 ugly clannish passions of the scientific establishment have come to
 rule reasoned debate.  The debate [the 1974 American Association
 for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) symposium, organized by
 Carl Sagan to examine Velikovsky's theories] was not a debate.  And
 as Sagan said, 'overly polite criticism' was not to be employed.