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Immanuel Velikovsky: A Short Biography

On June 10, 1895, Immanuel Velikovsky was born in Vitebsk, Russia. He
learned several languages as a chi1d, performed exceptionally well in
Russian and mathematics at the Medvednikov Gymnasium after moving to
Moscow, and graduated with a go1d meda1 in 1913. He then travelled to
Europe, visiting Palestine, briefly studying medicine at Montpelier,
France, and taking premedical courses at the University of Edinburgh.

Having returned to Russia before the outbreak of World War I,
Velikovsky enrolled in the University of Moscow, and received a
medical degree in 1921. Then he left Russia for Berlin, where he
married Elisheva Kramer, a young violinist. He edited the journal,
Scripta Universitatis, for which Albert Einstein prepared the
mathematical-physical section.

From 1924 to 1939 Velikovsky lived in Palestine, practicing
psychoanalysis- he had studied under Freud's pupil, Wi1helm Stekel in
Vienna- and editing Scripta Academica Hierosolymitana. In 1930 he
published the first paper to suggest epileptics are characterized by
pathological encephalograms, now part of the routine diognostic
procedure. Some of his writings appeared in Freud's Imago.

After reading Freud's Moses and Monotheism, Velikovsky conceived the
possibility that Pharaoh Akhnaton, the real hero of Freud's book, was
the legendary Oedipus, (a thesis later argued in his book, Oedipus and
Akhnaton.) In 1939 Velikovsky took a sabbatical year, traveling with
his family to New York only a few weeks before World War II tore
Europe apart. For eight months he worked on Oedipus and Akhnaton in
the libraries.

In Apri1, 1940, Velikovsky was first struck by the idea that a great
natural catastrophe had taken place at the time of the Israelites'
Exodus from Egypt- a time when plagues occurred, the Sea of Passage
parted, Mt. Sinai erupted, and the pillar of cloud and fire moved in
the sky. Velikovsky wondered: Does any Egyptian record of a similar
catastrophe exist? He found the answer in an obscure papyrus stored in
Leiden, Holland- the lamentations of an Egyptian sage, Ipuwer. The
Ipuwer Papyrus, Velikovsky became convinced, parallels the Book of
Exodus, describing the same natural catastrophe, the same plagues. As
a result he began to reconstruct ancient Middle Eastern history,
taking this catastrophe- which brought the downfall of the Egyptian
Middle Kingdom- as a starting point from which to synchronize the
histories of Egypt and Israel. He titled his work Ages in Chaos.

The cause of the catastrophe terminating the Middle Kingdom remained
unexplained. One afternoon in October, 1940, Velikovsky noticed an
important fact: the Book of Joshua describes a destructive shower of
meteorites occurring before the sun "stood still," in the sky. Could
this be a coincidence, or were the ancients recording a cosmic
disturbance that must have shaken the entire Earth and might have been
related to the upheavals approximately 50 years earlier during the
Exodus? A survey of other sources around the world convinced
Velikovsky that a global cataclysm had indeed overtaken the Earth, and
that Venus played a decisive role in that cataclysm. For 10 years he
researched and wrote Ages in Chaos and Worlds in Collision. He had by
now taken up permanent residence in the United States.

In 1950 after more than a dozen pub1ishing houses rejected the two
manuscripts, Macmillan published "Worlds in Collision". Even before
its appearance, the book was enveloped by furious controversy.
Macmillan, intimidated by threats from academicians and scientists-
the peop1e who write and buy its textbooks- transferred the book to
Doubleday. "Worlds in Collision" was then the number one best se1ler
in the nation. In 1952 Doubleday pub1ished the first volume of "Ages
in Chaos", which details VelikovskÕ,s historical reconstruction from
ca. 1450 B.C. to 840 B.C. (A sequel, extending the reconstruction to
33 B.C. was originally due to appear shortly after the initial volume
but was re-worked and enlarged to two volumes, "Rameses II and His
Time" and "Peoples of the Sea")

"Earth in Upheaval", presenting geological and paleontological
evidence to buttress "Worlds in Collision" (and also offering a new
understanding of evolution that conflicts with Darwinian theory), came
off the press in 1955; in 1960, "Oedipus and Akhnaton" was published.
Velikovsky also prepared an unpublished vo1ume dealing with collective
amnesia. from a Freudian perspective that hypothesized the mechanism
of repression applied on a collective, cultural scale.

For nearly a decade prior to the early Sixties, Velikovsky was persona
non grata on college and university campuses. After dramatic
scientific confirmations of his historical reconstructions by many of
the early space probes sent to Venus, Mars and Jupiter, he began to
receive more requests to speak than he could honor. He lectured,
frequently to record crowds, at Brown University, Yale, University of
Pennsylvania, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Oberlin, Carnegie Institute,
Rice, and many other universities. In February, 1972, he addressed a
large audience at Harvard, hosted by the Society of Harvard Engineers
and Scientists; in March he lectured at the State University of New
York (Buffalo), and spoke to an enthusiastic, overflowing crowd at
McMaster University (Hami1ton, Ontario). He has been the Honors
Convocation Speaker at Washington University (St. Louis) and St. Olaf
Co11ege. In February, 1972, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
aired a one-hour television special featurin g Velikovsky and his work
and this was followed by a 30 minute documentary on the BBC in 1973.

Velikovsky continued his research from his home in Princeton, guiding
several dozens of researchers who followed in his footsteps in
assembling data and evidence supporting his theories.

Immanuel Velikovsky died in 1979
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