Immanuel Velikovsky

Common card · No. 220327

Immanuel Velikovsky (; Russian: Иммануи́л Велико́вский, IPA: [ɪmənʊˈil vʲɪlʲɪˈkofskʲɪj]; 10 June [O.S. 29 May] 1895 – 17 November 1979) was a Russian and American psychoanalyst, writer, and catastrophist. He is the author of several books offering pseudohistorical interpretations of ancient history, including the U.S. bestseller Worlds in Collision published in 1950. Velikovsky's work is frequently cited as a canonical example of pseudoscience and has been used as an example of the demarcation problem. His books use comparative mythology and ancient literary sources (including the Old Testament) to argue that Earth suffered catastrophic close contacts with other planets (principally Venus and Mars) in ancient history. In positioning Velikovsky among catastrophists including Hans Bellamy, Ignatius Donnelly, and Johann Gottlieb Radlof, the British astronomers Victor Clube and Bill Napier noted "... Velikovsky is not so much the first of the new catastrophists ...; he is the last in a line...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Photographer: Donna Foster Roizen. Copyright holder: Frederic Jueneman, CC BY-SA 3.0