Summary
Overview
Velikovsky,
Immanuel, 1895-1979.
Immanuel Velikovsky Papers
1920-1996 (bulk: 1930-1979) (mostly 1930-1979)
67.0 linear feet, 152 archival boxes, 2 document boxes, 2 oversize flat
boxes, 2 record center cartons
This collection is stored at Firestone Library and Firestone Library.
This collection is stored onsite at Firestone Library. Box 68 is
stored in special vault facilities.
Requests will be delivered to Manuscripts Division, RBSC Reading Room
.
Princeton University. Library. Dept. of Rare
Books and Special Collections
Manuscripts Division
One Washington Road
Princeton, New Jersey 08544 USA
Abstract
The collection consists of manuscripts, writings, correspondence (both
personal and professional), photographs, works of others, microfilm, printed
material, and film reels, spanning more than 50 years, concerning Velikovsky's
controversial ideas, the books that he wrote, and the history of opposition and
criticism from the academic community that he received following the publication of
his first book, Worlds in Collision, in 1950. Colleges
and universities threatened to boycott the textbook division of the publisher,
Macmillan & Co., which led to the transfer of the publishing rights to Doubleday
& Co., even though the book had reached the number one spot on the best-sellers
list. The book was eventually banned from a number of academic institutions, and
several people lost their jobs because of it.
Description
Description
The papers are voluminous: published and unpublished manuscripts with related
subject files, an autobiographical manuscript, lectures, personal and
professional correspondence, legal documents, works of others, 63 microfilm,
magnetic film reels, photographs, and miscellaneous papers including clippings
and magazine articles. Included are original signed letters from Albert
Einstein; several Velikovsky letters, manuscripts, and notes annotated by
Einstein; one original signed note card from Sigmund Freud; and a signed letter
from C. G. Jung and one from Eugen Bleuler. In addition, the collection contains
T. O. Thackrey's file of correspondence regarding Professor Harlow Shapley's
criticism of Worlds in Collision and of Velikovsky
himself, several folders of original letters from Horace Kallen, a large file of
correspondence primarily related to professional and scientific reactions to
Velikovsky's theories, and a number of offprints of early (1931-1937) Velikovsky
articles.
Collection Creator
Biography
Russian-born American scientist Immanuel Velikovsky is best known as the author of a
number of controversial books, primarily arguing that ancient myths, legends, and
accounts of catastrophic events related in the Bible and other texts have a basis in
fact. Based on his findings, he proposed a revised chronology of Ancient Egypt,
synchronizing it with the history of Israel. His ideas were widely criticized and
rejected by scientists, physicists, Egyptologists, and others in the academic
field.
Velikovsky was born on June 10, 1895, in Sosoniki near Vitebsk (present day Belarus),
in Russia. He was the third son of Simon Yehiel Velikovsky and Beila-Rachel, born
Grodenski. Velikovsky studied medicine at the University of Montpelier in the South
of France (1913), at the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland (1914), and
at Kharkov University (1914-1918). He received his M.D. degree from the University
of Moscow in 1921.
Between 1921 and 1923 he took different post graduate courses in Berlin at the
Charité and at the Kaiser Wilhelm Academie. While in Berlin he was involved in the
founding and editing of the Scripta Universitatis,
which is a collection of works in the sciences and in the fields of Judaica and
Orientalia, and for which Albert Einstein prepared the mathematical-physical
section. Velikovsky's work on the Scripta ultimately
led to the birth of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
It was also in Berlin that he met the violinist Elisheva Kramer, and they got married
in 1923. They had two daughters, Shulamit and Ruth Ruhama. From 1924 to 1939
Velikovsky and his family lived in Palestine where in 1928 he began his
specialization in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. He also worked at the Brain
Institute of Monakow in Zurich, Switzerland, and studied psychoanalysis under
Wilhelm Stekel in Vienna, Austria, in 1933. Dr. Velikovsky and his family moved to
the United States and settled in New York City in 1939, where he conducted his
research at Columbia University. The family later moved to Princeton, New Jersey,
where Velikovsky got reacquainted with Albert Einstein.
As he was working on a book on Freud and his work on Moses and Akhenaton, he began
his research on the history of Egypt, Greece, and the Jewish past. In 1940 he
conceived the ideas that would lead to his writing of Ages in
Chaos and Worlds in Collision. He concluded
that a natural catastrophe had taken place at the time of the Israelites' Exodus
from Egypt, and found a similar record in an obscure papyrus, in Leiden, Holland
which parallels the Book of Exodus. He discovered the reason for the catastrophe was
mentioned in the Book of Joshua that says that a destructive shower of meteorites
occurred before the sun stood still in the sky, and that Venus played a role in all
this. He used this catastrophe, which brought the downfall of the Egyptian Middle
Kingdom, as a starting point from which to synchronize the history of Ancient Egypt
and that of Israel. This work was titled Ages in
Chaos.
His most criticized work, Worlds in Collision, completed
in 1946, states that around the 15th century B.C. a comet (now called the planet
Venus) separated from Jupiter, and passed near the Earth, changing its orbit and
axis and causing innumerable catastrophes. Fifty two years later, it passed close by
again, stopping the Earth's rotation, and causing more catastrophes. In the 8th and
7th centuries B.C. Venus and Mars almost collided near Earth, causing another round
of disasters, after which the current celestial order was established. All these
events had a profound effect on the lives and beliefs of mankind.
After more than a dozen publishers rejected both manuscripts, Macmillan published
Worlds in Collision, in 1950. A few weeks before
the book was released, it was widely publicized in Harper's Magazine (January 1950)
with an article by Eric Larrabee titled "The Day the Sun Stood Still". There was
also an article by Fulton Oursler in Reader's Digest (March 1950), and one by Gordon
Atwater who was the curator of Hayden Planetarium and chairman of the Department of
Astronomy at the Museum of Natural History.
After the publication of the book, many scientists were very critical of it, mainly
Dr. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Phillips Astronomer at Harvard College, Dr. Harlow
Shapley of the Harvard University Observatory, who called Velikovsky's theory
"rubbish and nonsense" (Science Newsletter, February 25, 1950), and later Carl
Sagan, also of Harvard University.
Due to the threats of many scientists and academic institutions to boycott
Macmillan's scientific textbook department, Macmillan ceased publication of the
book, even though it had reached the number one spot on the best-sellers' list, and
the publishing rights were transferred to Doubleday and Company.
In 1952 Doubleday published the first volume of Ages in
Chaos. A sequel, extending Velikovsky's reconstruction of historical
events, was supposed to follow, but it was re-worked and enlarged to two volumes,
Ramses II and His Time and Peoples of the Sea. In 1955 Earth in
Upheaval was published. Here Velikovsky presented geological and
paleontological evidence to prove the theories he presented in Worlds in Collision. In 1960, Oedipus and
Akhnaton was published.
Despite the criticism he received, Velikovsky continued writing. He wrote several
other books and articles that were published in the United States. His works were
translated and published in a score of languages, and he appeared on various radio
and television shows all over the world. For nearly a decade prior to the early
sixties, he was persona non grata on many college and university campuses. However,
when early probes sent to Venus, Mars, and Jupiter confirmed some of his
conclusions, he began to receive more requests to speak. He lectured frequently to
record crowds at universities across North America.
Velikovsky continued his research from his home in Princeton, helping a number of
researchers who followed in his footsteps in assembling data and evidence that
supported his ideas. He died at the age of 84, on November 17, 1979, at his home in
Princeton.
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