""If worlds collide, minds collide""

Henry Bauer wrote BEYOND VELIKOVSKY to clarify a fifty-year- old controversy concerning Immanuel Velikovsky. Velikovsky challenged the entire scientific community when, in 1951, he published WORLDS IN COLLISION, followed by several other equally challenging books. This psychoanalyst, an outsider to established scientists, integrated their theories with his new opinion that ancient myths, worldwide, describing planets as gods fighting in the sky had some validity. Because of his background in psychoanalysis, he felt the ancients really did see disturbances in the solar system, but their evaluation that the planets were gods was, of course, not true. Based on this new way of evaluating ancient myths, Velikovsky proposed that Venus almost collided with Earth, then almost collided with Mars, sending Mars on a near collision with Earth. Velikovsky spent the rest of his life defending his opinions against scientists who often were unfair and punitive. They tried to ban publication of his books. His defenders formed several societies and published their own journals in a fair-minded attempt to analyze what he proposed.

Bauer starts his book saying that his aim is not to settle the controversy, but to provide food for thought. In his book, Bauer first relates what happened, then he tries to move beyond the Velikovsky affair and set the record straight, so to speak. Bauer hoped to be unbiased and open- minded, but, after reading his book, it's obvious that Bauer, himself, would have been offended by Velikovsky's unorthodox procedures. Bauer describes how he felt new theories should be presented to the scientific community. Someone like Velikovsky should have published one proposition at a time, preferably publishing it as an article in a scientific journal. Velikovsky then should have gathered a consensus from experts before publishing the next proposition. Velikovsky bypassed this traditional procedure and presented his entire thesis, fully developed, for the general reader. Though Velikovsky proved correct on many of his conclusions, Bauer dismisses them as lucky guesses by someone not well enough trained to have understood what he was proposing.

Bauer makes a statement that sums up his opinion and, perhaps, illustrates why the scientific community was so hostile to Velikovsky: "In this house (of knowledge) that astronomers knew so well, there was a door of possible catastrophes that they never noticed. Velikovsky did the most infuriating thing in the world. He, a stranger, walked through this door."

If you are curious how one man, with a gifted mind, can single-handedly turn many fields of science onto new paths, this is the book to read. Better than that, read Velikovsky's original books or read CATACLYSM! or PHARAOHS AND KINGS and see, despite the hard feelings against Velikovsky, how he has influenced today's scientific research.

Reviewed by Maurice A. Williams
Posted October 30, 2003