Bookshelf
                                       
   THE VELIKOVSKY AFFAIR

   Inside Job

  COSMIC HERETICS by Alfred de Grazia
  
   (Metron Publications, Princeton, 1984; $23).

BRIAN MOORE

   This is undoubtedly the most continually engrossing of all de Grazia's
   books to date - particularly for the non-specialist as it tells a
   fascinating story, replete with an all-star cast of remarkable
   characters. (As it also features a walk-on part for this reviewer, the
   reader must allow for bias in the rest of this review!)

   Cosmic Heretics is comprehensively subtitled "A Personal History of
   Attempts to Establish and Resist Theories of Quantavolution and
   Catastrophe in the Natural and Human Sciences, 1963 to 1983". The book
   is "personal" on several levels. Though autobiographical, its form is
   biographical; de Grazia appears for the most part in the third person,
   as "Deg", with a commentating "I" occasionally peeking over his
   shoulder: an uncommon literary device but possibly not too surprising
   coming from the author of a work entitled Homo Schizo (in two volumes,
   naturally). For some readers it will be too "personal"; Dr de Grazia
   not only appears to lay all his cards on the table, but also the cards
   of many of the other players, by way of extracts from their personal
   correspondence published without permission. In fact, for "engrossing"
   above, a number of prominent American participants in the
   catastrophist saga might prefer the term "enraging". As a bevy of
   attorneys may well be working at this very moment to have the book
   recalled for major cosmetic surgery, I recommend that you obtain a
   copy immediately, as it may become a rarity (and it has appeared in
   only a limited edition.)

   However irritating for some of the parties involved, de Grazia's
   refreshing frankness performs a valuable historical service. He is
   well aware that the bulk of such writing is emasculated in myriad
   ways; the threat of legal action, possible effects on the writer's
   career, apprehensive publishers, the wrath of friends et. al., but he
   has decided to publish, be damned, and rely on the First Amendment The
   biographical data have not been "smoothed out", like radiometric
   dating curves to provide an acceptable picture, but are recorded raw,
   allowing the reader to reach conclusions of his own.

   Beginning with the author's first meeting with Immanuel Velikovsky
   more than twenty years ego, de Grazia relates his growing interest in,
   and involvement with, Catastrophism and Catastrophes. Uniquely placed
   to record the history of the Movement - and with commendable foresight
   keeping a detailed journal - de Grazia offers a "warts and all" view
   of the personnel involved in the catastrophist scene. It is about as
   objective an account of a highly charged debate as one could hope to
   get - the warts are distributed equably between the proponents and
   opponents in the conflict. The portrait of Velikovsky, who naturally
   dominates the book, while being hugely interesting is hardly
   flattering in some respects: hence, hero-worshippers are strongly
   advised to shun this book. Hagiography is no part of de Grazia's brief
   and he has written for those who prefer their heroes to be human. The
   book is compelling reading as the history of a Movement, but it would
   be worthy of note simply for its portrayal of this remarkable man.

   Each chapter offers some insight--large or small - into Velikovsky's
   mind and personality. Here is de Grazia writing on Velikovsky's
   always-ambiguous relationship with "Authority":

     "V. was fixated on authority, the higher the better; he sought out
     acquaintances and enemies on high levels. But he did not gather
     intelligent up-coming young people until late in life; he has
     written a book on his conversations with Einstein, yet he would
     never have dreamed of writing a book of his immensely richer
     conversations with Juergens on electricity and Stecchini on ancient
     languages and the history of science. Why? Because they were
     unknown."

     "... V. was unhappy with the support he received. It seemed that he
     would get agreement and aid from exactly those sources he did not
     himself respect while being rebuffed by those who should flock to
     his banner. One had to be an anti-authoritarian to support him, but
     such were rarely to be found in physics, biology, astronomy and
     geology.

     So he got support from people who usually were just plain folks,
     intelligent (and therefore I say rare) readers, and a great many
     confused believers, or at least people who V. at bottom thought had
     no right to pass judgement on him. Like Moses, V. spent a lot of
     private time disliking his people. Like the barons of the Magna
     Carta, he wanted judgement by his peers, but in his case the peers
     had to be in the other sense 'the peers of the realm.'"

   At the same time Velikovsky's own personality was powerfully
   authoritarian. While disavowing any desire to be a "leader" to his
   variegated band of supporters, Velikovsky nevertheless showed an
   ability to manipulate them which bordered on genius. Like Julius
   Caesar, he "refus'd the crown" offered by the rabble, yet "he would
   fain have had it". Often remaining aloof from the fray himself, he
   would marshal his (usually most willing) supporters in vociferous
   defence. One such supporter, having received an angry letter from de
   Grazia, admonished him pointing out that Velikovsky had not once, in
   40 years of correspondence with his opponents, resorted to "invective
   or scorn"; reporting this de Grazia sardonically agrees that "This is
   close to the literal truth, just as the fact that General Eisenhower
   never killed an enemy soldier".

   In the chapter on The British Connection, Dr de Grazia confirms the
   view put forward in the last issue of SISR by another prominent
   American supporter of the Movement, Professor Robert Hewsen, that
   Velikovsky, though ostensibly seeking "objective" appraisal of his
   work, found objectivity rather unpalatable when it purported to reveal
   flaws in the theories rather than further support.

   Being safely several thousand miles away, the British catastrophist
   group was insulated from direct manipulation but in any case, having
   found certain aspects of the revised chronology unacceptable, many
   historical researchers within the SIS were viewed with great suspicion
   by the Arch-Heretic and a number of his prominent supporters. Some
   interesting consequences of this situation are recorded by de Grazia
   in what might be termed "the Peter James Affair". The American
   Velikovskian journal Kronos invited James to join its editorial staff
   but the Father-figure of Velikovsky was not happy about his
   intellectual offspring keeping such revisionist company and de Grazia
   reports that he initially brought heavy pressure to bear to have James
   removed from Kronos. However, for some reason he later relented -
   maybe as a good psychoanalyst he was aware of the fundamental
   incompatibility between the two parties and decided to let nature take
   its course. If so, he was right as the relationship terminated fairly
   quickly and with some recrimination. De Grazia reprints - without
   permission - James' letter of resignation which is all the more
   interesting for the forthrightness which attaches to a private
   communication.

   Apart from the entertaining gossip about the personalities involved
   and the more serious accounts of the various battles to establish
   catastrophist theories, Cosmic Heretics contains much material which
   cannot be covered here. There is purely autobiographical detail,
   thoughts on the political process, fulminations on publishing and the
   "knowledge industry" in general and allusions to his own emergent
   theories on the formation of the human mind and the evolution of
   religion (part of the groundwork for his quantavolutionary series of
   no less than 8 books dealing with novel applications of catastrophist
   theory in major disciplines).

   Though highly discursive, sometimes self-indulgent and sprinkled with
   minor errors, the book is compelling reading. Whatever the fate of de
   Grazia's own catastrophist model, this particular book will need to be
   kept in print for its fascinating portrait of the towering
   intellectual figure of Velikovsky and for its uniquely documented
   record of what is either one of the most sensational episodes in
   "pseudoscience" or the first stage in a genuine revolution in
   scientific thought.
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