Vol. 7 No. 1 1997 February ISSN 1041-5440 DIO 2 1997 February DIO 7.1 30 Unpublished Letters 1997 Feb DIO-J.Hysterical Astron 7.1 5 C Hysterical Velikovskians Flee Own Frankenstein-Mongoose ! To: DIO 1996 . . . From: Ellenberger, 3929A Utah Street, St. Louis, MO 63116 c.leroy@rocketmail.com C1 It may merit a very sweet ironic smile that turncoat and apostate Leroy Ellenberger, until 1983 one of Velikovsky's most active defenders,18 and since considered by some his "most unrelenting critic",19 was barred from a Velikovsky-retrospective meeting in Portland, OR, 1994 November 25-27, co-sponsored by Kronia Communications and the equally Velikovskian organ Aeon. The meeting, "Velikovsky, Ancient Myth, & Modern Science", was actively promoted on UseNet's talk.origins newsgroup as open to the public. C2 The ban of Ellenberger was stipulated by at least two speakers, Charles Ginenthal20 and Prof. Lynn Rose (Philosophy, SUNY Buffalo). Rose is -- rather ironically in the present context -- author of "The Censorship of Velikovsky's Interdisciplinary Synthesis".21 C3 The organizers established a veneer of intellectual respectability by including on the program, as "call girls",22 Dr. Victor Clube (Physics, Oxford), co-author of The Cosmic Winter (see fn 33); Dr. Henry Bauer (Science Studies, Virginia Polytechnic Inst & State Univ), author of the highly-acclaimed (though not by Velikovsky partisans) Beyond Ve likovsky (Urbana 1984); and astronomer Dr. Tom Van Flandern (author of numerous able professional papers in mathematical & observational astronomy, and now publisher of the Meta Research Bulletin)23 -- all of whom are friends of Ellenberger -- as well as sev eral academic Velikovskian camp-followers, including sociologist Gunnar Heinsohn (Univ. of Bremen), classicist William Mullen (Bard College), and anthropologist Roger Wescott (prof. emeritus, Drew University). C4 Van Flandern was so upset upon learning of the ban on November 21 that he initiated a conference call with the organizers and the censoring speakers; but they would not relent. The organizers decided that letting Ellenberger audit the sessions by an audio feed to his hotel room violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the ban. C5 The ostensible reason for barring Ellenberger was his threat as a disruptive influence (after an incident at Haliburton, Ontario, during the previous August's annual meeting of the Canadian Velikovsky study group), which might interfere with the videotaping of the Portland proceedings for a documentary. However, the organizers' concern over the possibility of Ellenberger's attending was apparent before August (in June), when Reichian watch-dog Joel Carlinsky imparted what he had learned during a May visit in Portland with one of the organizers of the upcoming November meeting. 18 See Zetetic Scholar Nos. 3-4 (1979) and No. 5 (1979), 1980 May-June Bib. Arch. Rev., 1980 Oct. Astronomy, 1981 April Physics Today, and 1983 May Science Digest. 19 So described in the program for the 1990 August conference on Velikovsky in Toronto, Canada. Aeon's 1992/4/15 subscription renewal-form noted, "The abrupt about-face of Leroy Ellenberger, combative secretary of KRONOS [sic, see §C12], and hitherto a devoted supporter of Velikovsky, has likewise provided fuel for those who would relegate the author of Worlds in Collision to the dustbins of history." See, e.g., Ellenberger: "Falsifying Velikovsky", Nature 316:386 (1985/8/1); "A lesson from Velikovsky", Skeptical Inquirer 10:380-381 (1986 Summer); "Immanuel Velikovsky 40 Years later: Not to Be Taken Seriously", New York Times 1987/5/16 p.14; "Velikovsky Revealed", Venture Inward (1990 Jan-Feb) p.49; book review, J. Sci. Explor 10.4:561-569 (1996); and H. Bauer, "Velikovsky" in G. Stein (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Paranormal (Prometheus Buffalo 1996) pp.781-788. 20 Founding Editor-in-Chief of The Velikovskian, and compiler of Carl Sagan and Immanuel Ve likovsky (1990, 1995), and contributor to S. J. Gould & I. Velikovsky (1996). 21 PensŽee 1:29-31 (1972); reprinted in Velikovsky Reconsidered (N.Y.City 1976), whose fallacies-per page count is estimated in "Applied Philosophy of Science 101 -- The Annotated Rose: A Propaganda Piece Analysed", distributed at Toronto "Reconsidering Velikovsky" Conference, 1990/8/17-19. 22 After Arthur Koestler's coinage of the term in The Call Girls (N.Y.City 1973). 23 Meta Research Bulletin, PO Box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20825-5186, phone 202-362-9176. TVF sincerely contends: some V-ists are as openminded as centrists, and the 1994 ban was atypical. Unpublished Letters 1997 Feb DIO-J.Hysterical Astron 7.1 5 31 C6 Actually, Rose and Ellenberger broke off relations in 1983 when Rose refused to concede that the omissions and self-serving misinformation in Velikovsky's Stargazers and Gravediggers were material and important.24 In 1990, Rose refused an invitation to debate Ellenberger on the Greenland ice cores as a crucial test of Worlds in Collision (see fn 35) at Milton Zysman's "Reconsidering Velikovsky" Conference in Toronto. Ellenberger's antagonism with Ginenthal began in 1984 when the latter's letters to Kronos were sent to the former for reply and Ginenthal tenaciously resisted any scientific explanation that contradicted pro-Velikovsky dogma. C7 At Haliburton, Rose was upset by Ellenberger's stream of pregnant questions from the audience, following Rose's rebuff of a simple request for a clarification while remarking sotto voce: "I do not take questions from that source."25 Irving Wolfe, Prof. of English (Univ. of Montreal) and arch-relativist, as attendee, tried to quell Ellenberger's interrogatories, contrary to the meeting's established format which encouraged audience participation. This was in distinct contrast to Wolfe's posture as moderator in 1992 when he allowed Ginenthal to lead two audience rebellions -- i.e., bullying by outnumbering -- against keynote speaker Ellenberger's explanation of the bearing of the Pioneer and Magellan missions' results upon Velikovsky's claim that Venus is young. C8 Thus, Ellenberger, who had never truly disrupted a meeting,26 was banned from Portland, while Ginenthal, who actually had previously (§C7) been a disruptive influence, was on the program -- demanding Ellenberger be barred.27 Ginenthal had boycotted the 1994 Haliburton meeting as a protest against Ellenberger's attending.28 C9 Since the organizers for Portland did not believe Ellenberger would actually attend, they did not take seriously his several expressions of intent that ended posts on talk.origins in August, September, and October and, therefore, did not communicate the seriousness of their concern for barring him. Not even when he volunteered to replace astrodynamicist Victor Slabinski, who had declined his invitation in late September. This concern, which had been apparent since June when Carlinsky talked with Ellenberger, was subject to jokes at Haliburton. Under those circumstances, by late October, Ellenberger had arranged to attend as a reporter for Skeptic magazine, SkInq not having been interested. 24 The Ellenberger-vs-Rose schism-spatfight is summed up in M.Gardner's The New Age: Notes of a Fringe-Watcher (Prometheus Buffalo 1988) pp.70-71. Detailed delineation in the section "DŽe nouement" of Ellenberger's invited memoir, "Of Lessons, Legacies, and Litmus Tests: a Velikovsky Potpourri", whose Part 1 appeared in Aeon 3.1:86-105 (1992). Part 2, containing "DŽenouement", plus a sweeping appreciation of the lofty scholarly merits & intellectual stature of the Velikovsky movement's leadership, was cancelled by the humorlessly enraged editor, against the staff vote. (These merits are manifested most prominently in the scholarship & openmindedness of L. Rose, whom Ellenberger has occasionally needled with such choice flattery as: " -class epigone".) After its suppression at Aeon, Ellenberger's "DŽenouement" was instead posted on talk.origins in a longer 1994/6/20 message titled "Ellenberger Contra Cochrane: The Second Reply & Talbott, Too". It is archived and can be retrieved at http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cle/cle-contra-cochrane.txt; see, too, the file cle-talbott. 25 So perturbed was Rose that he blurted out a reference to such world-class scholars as P. Huber and R. Parker collectively as "the jerks". (But, in fairness, one notes that Rose is not in the least perturbed at ending up simultaneously maintaining two contrary historical chronologies!) 26 Ellenberger participated previously without incident in meetings at Princeton (1980 & 1981), San Jose (1980), Toronto (1990), and Haliburton (1992). 27 Previously, in 1993 June, Ellenberger had been barred as a contributor to Aeon, as a condition of L. Greenberg joining the staff, at the same time he was told the publication of his memoir had been cancelled. The cancellation was a surprise since the last word from Aeon concerned the need to polish up the section "Legacies". Ironically, D. Patten, author of several fundamentalist books invoking interplanetary collisions `a la Velikovsky, was also on the program at Portland, despite having been barred from Aeon in 1991. 28 As, too, C. Whelton, who joined Rose and Ginenthal in the Portland ban, but at the last minute could not attend. Velikovsky's daughter Ruth V. Sharon had also conditioned her promised attendance upon barring Ellenberger, but she was a no-show, too. 32 Unpublished Letters 1997 Feb DIO-J.Hysterical Astron 7.1 5 C10 By the time Ellenberger was informed he would be poisona non grata, after leaving (1994/11/20) a message on superVelikovskian29 Dave Talbott's answering machine, he already had a non-refundable airline ticket; so he went to the conference, socialized in the hotel's public areas discreetly selling various "Velikovsky's right!" paraphernalia,30 delivered pre-prints of an invited paper by Slabinski31 that was not published before the meeting (as promised), and sold anonymously both his Macmillan first printing of Worlds in Collision (with dust jacket) and other collectible Velikovsky publications at the conference book table. Rose chastized former Kronos staffers seen fraternizing with Ellenberger. Talbott made clear Skeptic could have any reporter in the world, except Ellenberger, when editor-publisher Michael Shermer tried to get Ellenberger reinstated. Talbott was so intent on barring Ellenberger that he made the ludicrous threat in a telephone conversation to have Ellenberger ejected from the hotel if he tried to claim his reservation! C11 While the ostensible reason for barring Ellenberger was his alleged potential dis ruptiveness, a more likely contributing cause was the animosity between true believers and a turncoat. The aftermath of the 1994 Nov meeting was hashed out on talk.origins in early December. Copies of the major postings plus "The Annotated Rose" (see fn 21), "DŽenoue ment" (see fn 24), and "Magnetism, Dynamos, & Neptune" (see fn 35), are available from either of the addresses at the head of this letter. (Or by telephone: 314-773-0329.) C12 Esprit d'Escalier. Some background to Ellenberger's r^ole in the Velikovsky cult: [1] In late 1978, when Marcello Truzzi (E. Michigan University sociologist) was or ganizing the "Dialogue on Velikovsky" for his admirably open journal, Zetetic Scholar, Ellenberger accepted the invitation to participate, despite being aware that Kronos staff were boycotting it. When the "Dialogue" appeared in mid-1979, Ellenberger was on the Kronos staff and felt strongly that a rebuttal to the critics was in order despite Senior Editor Rose's desire that Kronos continue to ignore Truzzi's project. Disobeying Rose's injunc tion, Ellenberger submitted a rebuttal. When it appeared, it merited Rose's compliments. Ellenberger's services to Kronos led to his being rapidly promoted and named "Sr. Ed. & Exec. Sec'y.", the only dual-titled staffer, in mid-1981. Later that year he was awarded the Macmillan first printing mentioned above (§C10). This perk, and more, in spite of his many initiatives and memoranda to staffers that conflicted with the Editor-in-Chief's need for control. Ellenberger resigned from Kronos in 1986 December and terminated his duties as back-issue order-filler in 1987 November, a hold-over task he had continued at the request of the Editor-in-Chief. [2] Now, as a Velikovsky disbeliever, Ellenberger has been transformed from hero to exile. In private, his former colleagues consider him "a barbarian unfit to be in polite academic society",32 as ex-Ed.-in-Chief L. Greenberg wrote a mutual correspondent in 1991 29 Talbott organized Kronia Communications in 1987 and was publisher of PensŽee, 1972-1974, author of The Saturn Myth (N.Y.City 1980), and founding editor of Aeon, 1987-1991. His idŽee fixe, following a hint by Velikovsky, is that, during the "Golden Age" ruled by Kronos-Saturn, a seasonless Earth orbited the Sun in close proximity to Saturn, which loomed immobile over the N. Pole: rich entertainment for those who give priority to lethal falsification vs. ambiguous confirmation, and to the laws of physics vs. interpretations of mythic imagery, whose meaning is arguable to say the least. 30 Velikovsky gave Ellenberger permission to market "Velikovsky's right!" t-shirts in 1979 June. 31 V. J. Slabinski, "A Dynamical Objection to Grubaugh's Polar Configuration", Aeon 3.6:1-10 (1994) (answering 1993 Aeon 3.3:39-48). Ellenberger performed all numerical analysis and computer simulations and prepared "Appendix B" (pp.8-9). 32 The feeling is mutual. When Greenberg published an ad hominem reaction (Aeon 3.2:82-88) to Ellenberger's memoir in Aeon 3.1 (see fn 24), part of Ellenberger's response was a 1993/6/15 postcard, whose closing read: "With a mongoose's respect for a cobra." In Kronos 12.3 (1988), polite unbarbarian Greenberg kissed off Ellenberger as "a disaffected zealot who long ago drifted beyond the pale of rational objectivity." Further with respect to "polite academic society": when R. Davis, Emer. Prof. of English, Columbia Univ, in The New Leader (1977), panned V's Peoples of the Sea, mirrorless Unpublished Letters 1997 Feb DIO-J.Hysterical Astron 7.1 5 33 July. But Ellenberger's behavior & tactics are no different now than they were between 1977 & 1983 when he learned the rules of engagement under L. Greenberg's tutelage and was golden. Only the objects of his fulmination have changed: instead of V's critics and alternate catastrophists,33 his targets are his former colleagues. Now he is a pariah, protesting the hypocrisy manifested by those who fail to follow the same standards of scholarship to which they hold their critics accountable34 and who obdurately give Velikovsky's hypotheses & intuition priority over physical evidence & the laws of nature. Witness, e.g., Velikovskians' hard-core reactions to ice-core evidence against Worlds in Collision.35 [3] In an effort to "de-program" Velikovsky cultists, Ellenberger distributes informative memorandums & postcards, intended to alter mind-sets -- efforts that are not appreciated by old guard opinion-formers who dominate Velikovskian publications & conferences. C13 Epilogue by DR. After the Portland conference (1994), Shermer invited a 2-stage exchange,36 to begin a winding-down37 of Skeptic's involvement in the Velikovsky debate, on which DIO will also publish nothing further.38 We are, significantly, giving Ellenberger our last word on the matter. Primary reason: counterbalancing the Portland ban. (NB: the entire public success of the Velikovsky movement has been based upon its being seen as a victim of censorship. So: where does its own 1994 Portland behavior leave its credibility?) But we share with Skeptic an implicit awareness: the Velikovsky debate -- such as it was39 -- is long since over,40 in even half-serious scholarly circles. And the skeptics have won. Greenberg protested to NL that Davis had "departed the world of reality never to return". 33 See, e.g., S. V. M. Clube and W. M. Napier, "The microstructure of terrestrial catastrophism", Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc. 211:953-968 (1984); S. V. M. Clube, "The dynamics of Armageddon", Spec. Sci. Tech. 11:255-264 (1988); D. J. Asher, et al, "Coherent Catastrophism", Vistas in Astronomy 39:1-27 (1994); S. V. M. Clube, "Hazards from Space: Comets in History and Science", in W. Glen (ed.), The Mass-Extinction Debates: How Science Works in a Crisis (Stanford 1994), pp.152-169; and V. Clube and B. Napier, The Cosmic Winter (Oxford and Cambridge, MA, 1990). 34 E.g., Greenberg&Rose, "L. Sprague de Camp: Anatomy of a Zetetic", Kronos 3.1:45-67 (1977). 35 Contra Rose in Kronos 12.1 & 12.2, see S. Mewhinney, "Ice Cores and Common Sense", Catas trophism and Ancient History 12.1:5-33 & 12.2:117-146 (1990), and Ellenberger, "Litmus Tests in the Ice", section in ". . . a Velikovsky Potpourri, Part 2" (see fn 24), distributed at C. S. I. S. Meeting, Haliburton, Ontario, 1992/8/25-26. Further on Ginenthal's unique gifts as physicist, see Ellenberger, "Magnetism, Dynamos, & Neptune", section deleted from ". . . a Velikovsky Potpourri, Part 1" (see fn 24); later posted on talk.origins, 1994/4/25. 36 E. Cochrane, "Velikovsky Still in Collision", Skeptic 3.4:47-48 (1995). Ellenberger, "An Anti dote to Velikovskian Delusions" [web http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velidelu.html], Skeptic 3.4:49-51 (1995). Followup by each: Skeptic 4.2 & Skeptic 4.3; the latter is the 1st public treatment to take the discussion of Velikovsky beyond Worlds in Collision and Sagan's flawed analysis, which organized skepticism has unthinkingly over-worshipped. [See Kronos 3.2 (1977), S. F. Kogan (letter), Physics Today 1980 Sept pp.97-98 (sponsored by Freeman Dyson for Velikovsky's older daughter in the in terest of fair play); and Ellenberger (letter), Physics Today 1991 April p.72.] Preferable to Sagan is D. R. Moorcroft's unpublished "Taking a Leaf from Velikovsky & Examining It", available from Ellenberger (see §C11). 37 Now concluding with imminent Skeptic 4.4 [p.107] (1997) reviews of Sagan & V and Gould & V. 38 Those who wish to hear the Velikovskian side of these issues (and-or to learn of errors and omissions that may have occurred here from human fallibility) are encouraged to consult the several pro-Velikovsky publications cited above -- or to contact the cultists themselves at 800-230-9347. Addresses: Kronia Communications, POBox 5215, Aloha, OR 97006. Aeon, 601 Hayward, Ames, IA 50014. Chas. Ginenthal (718-897-2403), c/o 65-35 108th Str, Suite D15, Forest Hills, NY 11375. 39 Post-carnage-mop-up historians who wish to enjoy Ellenberger-as-Letterman may contact him for his handy one-page "Top Ten [or is it Eleven?] Reasons Why Velikovsky Is Wrong About Worlds in Collision" -- plus a fuller version of the present article, including physical evaluations of V's theories (discussions which are mostly outside the realm of DIO). 40 See 4 fn 21. DIO 4.3 14 asks an oft-overlooked question: "if even the most logically & evidentially one-sided controversies are . . . indefinitely irresolvable, then -- why investigate anything?"