Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky.pdf

WORLDS IN COLLISION IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY

First published in 1950

PREFACE

Worlds in Collision is a book of wars in the celestial sphere that took

place in historical times. In these wars the planet earth participated too.

This book describes two acts of a great drama: one that occurred thirty-

four to thirty-five centuries ago, in the middle of the second millennium

before the present era; the other in the eighth and the beginning of the

seventh century before the present era, twenty-six centuries ago.

Accordingly, this volume consists of two parts, preceded by a prologue.

Harmony or stability in the celestial and terrestrial spheres is the point of

departure of the present-day concept of the world as expressed in the

celestial mechanics of Newton and the theory of evolution of Darwin. If

these two men of science are sacrosanct, this book is a heresy. However,

modern physics, of atoms and of the quantum theory, describes dramatic

changes in the microcosm , the atom , the prototype of the solar system;

a theory, then, that envisages not dissimilar events in the macrocosm , the

solar system-brings the modern concepts of physics to the celestial

sphere. This book is written for the instructed and uninstructed alike. No

formula and no hieroglyphic will stand in the way of those who set out to

read it. If , occasionally, historical evidence does not square with

formulated laws, it should be remembered that a law is but a deduction

from experience and experiment, and therefore laws must conform with

historical facts, not facts with laws. The reader is not asked to accept a

theory without question. Rather, he is invited to consider for himself

whether he is reading a book of fiction or non-fiction, whether what he is

reading is invention or historical fact. On one point alone, not necessarily

decisive for the theory of cosmic catastrophism, I borrow credence: I use

a synchronical scale of Egyptian and Hebrew histories which is not

orthodox. It was in the spring of 1940 that I came upon the idea that in

the days of the Exodus, as evident from many passages of the Scriptures,

there occurred a great physical catastrophe, and that such an event could

serve in determining the time of the Exodus in Egyptian history or in

establishing a synchronical scale for the histories of the peoples

concerned. Thus I started Ages in Chaos, a reconstruction of the history

of the ancient world from the middle of the second millennium before the

present era to the advent of Alexander the Great. Already in the fall of

that same year, 1940, I felt that I had acquired an understanding of the

real nature and extent of that catastrophe, and for nine years I worked on

both projects, the political and the natural histories. Although Ages in

Chaos was finished first, in the order of publication it will follow this

work. Worlds in Collision comprises only the last two acts of the cosmic

drama. A few earlier acts , one of them known as the Deluge , will be the

subject of another volume of natural history. The historical-cosmological

story of this book is based on the evidence of historical texts of many

peoples around the globe, on classical literature, on epics of northern

races, on sacred books of the peoples of the Orient and Occident, on

traditions and folklore of primitive peoples, on old astronomical

inscriptions and charts, on archaeological finds, and also on geological

and paleontological material. If cosmic upheavals occurred in the

historical past, why does not the human race remember them, and why

was it necessary to carry on research to find out about them? I discuss

this problem in the Section "The Collective Amnesia." The task I had to

accomplish was not unlike that faced by a psychoanalyst who, out of

disassociated memories and dreams, reconstructs a forgotten traumatic

experience in the early life of an individual. In an analytical experiment

on mankind, historical inscriptions and legendary motifs often play the

same role as recollections (infantile memories) and dreams in the analysis

of a personality. Can we, out of this polymorphous material, establish

actual facts? We shall check one people against another, one inscription

against another, epics against charts, geology against legends, until we

are able to extract the historical facts. In a few cases it is impossible to

say with certainty whether a record or a tradition refers to one or another

catastrophe that took place through the ages; it is also probable that in

some traditions various elements from different ages are fused together.

In the final analysis, however, it is not so essential to segregate

definitively the records of single world catastrophes. More important, it

seems, is to establish that there were physical upheavals of a global

character in historical times; that these catastrophes were caused by

extraterrestrial agents; and that these agents can be identified. There are

many implications that follow from these conclusions. I refer to them in

the Epilogue, so that I can omit reference to them here. A few readers

went over this book in manuscript and made valuable suggestions and

remarks. In chronological order of their reading they are: Dr. Horace M.

Kallen, formerly Dean of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for

Social Research, New York; John J. O'Neill, Science Editor of the New

York Herald Tribune; James Putnam, Associate Editor of the Macmillan

Company; Clifton Fadiman, literary critic and commentator; Gordon A.

Atwater, Chairman and Curator of the Hayden Planetarium of the

American Museum of Natural History, New York. The last two read the

work at their own request after Mr. O'Neill had discussed it in an article

in the Herald Tribune of August 11,1946. I am indebted to all of them but

I alone am responsible for content and form. Miss Marion Kuhn cleared

the manuscript of grammatical weeds and helped in reading the proofs.

Many an author has dedicated his book to his wife or mentioned her in

the preface. I have always felt this was somewhat ostentatious, but now

that this work is being published, I feel I shall be most ungrateful if I fail

to mention that my wife Elisheva spent almost as much time on it at our

desk as I did. I dedicate this book to her. The years when Ages in Chaos

and Worlds in Collision were written were years of a world catastrophe

created by man—of war that was fought on land, on sea, and in the air.

During that time man learned how to take apart a few of the bricks of

which the universe is built—the atoms of uranium. If one day he should

solve the problem of the fission and fusion of the atoms of which the

crust of the earth or its water and air are composed, he may perchance, by

initiating a chain reaction, take this planet out of the struggle for survival

among the members of the celestial sphere. New York, September 1949.

Immanuel Velikovsky.

CHAPTER 1

In an Immense Universe Quota pars opens tanti nobis committitur?

Seneca

In an immense universe a little globe revolves around a star; it is the third

in the row— Mercury, Venus, Earth—of the planetary family. It is of a

solid core covered over most of its surface with liquid, and it has a

gaseous envelope. Living creatures fill the liquid; other living creatures

fly in the gas; and still others creep and walk upon the ground on the

bottom of the gaseous ocean. Man, a being of erect stature, thinks himself

the prince of creation. He felt like this long before he, by his own efforts,

came to know how to fly on wings of metal around the globe. He felt

godlike long before he could talk to his fellow-man on the other side of

the globe. Today he can see the microcosm in a drop and the elements in

the stars. He knows the laws governing the living cell with its

chromosomes, and the laws governing the macrocosm of the sun, moon,

planets, and stars. He assumes that gravitation keeps the planetary system

together, man and beast on their planet, the sea within its borders. For

millions and millions of years, he maintains, the planets have rolled along

on the same paths, and their moons around them, and man in these eons

has arisen from a one-cell infusorium all the long way up the ladder to his

status of Homo sapiens. Is man's knowledge now nearly complete? Are

only a few more steps necessary to conquer the universe: to extract the

energy of the atom—since these pages were written this has already been

done —to cure cancer, to control genetics, to communicate with other

planets and learn if they have living creatures, too? Here begins Homo

ignoramus. He does not know what life is or how it came to be and

whether it originated from inorganic matter. He does not know whether

other planets of this sun or of other suns have life on them, and if they

have, whether the forms of life there are like those around us, ourselves

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