From: abeggs@peg.pegasus.oz.au
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Date: 11 Jan 93 15:02 EST
Subject: VELIKOVSKY UPDATE--One
Nf-ID: #N:peg:567900002:000:13041
Nf-From: peg.UUCP!abeggs    Jan 11 15:02:00 1993



VELIKOVSKY UPDATE--One
[this and 3 other postings comprise an article from
***AEON--A Symposium on Myth and Science***,
Vol. III, No. 1, November, 1992]
*******************************

TOWARDS A SCIENCE OF MYTHOLOGY: VELIKOVSKY'S CONTRIBUTION

By: Ev Cochrane

When all is said and done it may well turn out that Velikovsky's
most enduring claim to fame will be his singular contribution to
comparative mythology; specifically, the thesis that many
ancient myths commemorate spectacular cataclysms associated with
the various planets. This is truly an original thesis, with
little if any precedent in the writings of previous
scholars.[Fn.1]

As is the case with any truly seminal work, "Worlds in Collision"
raises as many questions as it answers. Indeed, questions
inspired by Velikovsky's work have since launched hundreds of
studies, more than one of which portends a revolution in our
understanding of ancient mythology. Why is it that the planet
Saturn was reckoned the first king by peoples around the world,
and why is it that the Golden Age associated with that planet-
king is recalled with nostalgic veneration? Why was that same
planet called by the name of the Sun? Such questions formed the
backdrop of David Talbott's "The Saturn Myth," itself a landmark
contribution to comparative mythology.[Fn.2]

One could propose equally provocative questions about the other
planets. Why is it that the planet Mars was represented as a
warrior equipped with sword and/or club by peoples the world
over? Why was the red planet consistently associated with images
of the World Pillar, the latter object being envisaged as the
upholder of the ancient heavens?[Fn.3]

Why were the greatest of ancient goddesses--Inanna, Ishtar,
Astarte, Isis, Anat, Aphrodite, etc.--invoked by the epithet
Queen of Heaven and specifically identified with the planet
Venus?[Fn.4] Why were those same goddesses associated with a
destructive epiphany said to have threatened the very
foundations of heaven and earth?[Fn.5] Only Velikovsky, among
the hundreds of scholars who have explored these traditions,
dared to ask the question: Is it possible to explain the myth of
the goddess from the behaviour of the planet?

Close upon the heels of each of these questions follows a host
of others, equally inexplicable from the conventional
perspective which imagines the planets to have varied little in
their orbits and appearances over the course of the past billion
years.

A YOUTHFUL SCIENCE

Before proceeding to our discussion of Velikovsky's particular
theory it may prove illuminating to view it from the perspective
provided by the history in the field. The scientific roots of
comparative mythology can be traced back to the 17th century,
when the likes of Samuel Bochart, Bernard de Fontanelle, and Sir
William Jones were composing their works.[Fn.6] These scholars
documented the striking similarities which exist amongst the
mythologies of the world's various cultures. It was in the
latter part of the nineteenth century, however, that real
progress was made towards developing a science of mythology,
with numerous attempts being made to reduce the phantasmagoria
of the world's mythology to a common denominator, frequently a
nature-allegory of some sort.[Fn.7] Famous examples include
Muller's sun-god, Kuhn's storm-god, and Mannhardt's fertility-
daemon.

In the twentieth century these ideas fell out of fashion, to be
replaced by the grand interpretations of myth inspired by such
figures as Frazer and Freud. Frazer, like other prominent
members of what came to be known as the Cambridge school
(Harrison, Cook, Murray, Cornford), sought to explain the
content of myth by reference to archaic ritual. According to
this view, myth was to be interpreted as the spoken or written
correlate of things done in ritual. The myth of Osiris' death
and dismemberment, for example, was interpreted as providing the
rationale for an Egyptian harvest-ritual commemorating the
annual death of the vegetation-spirit.[Fn8.]

Although Freud wrote little on myth himself--"Moses and
Monotheism" being perhaps his deepest foray into the area--his
psychoanalytic writings had a profound influence upon the ideas
of other scholars such as Jung, Roheim, and Rank, each of whom
devoted extensive works to uncovering the psychological
determinants of myth. The writings of Jung and Rank, in turn,
exerted a formative influence upon subsequent scholars such as
Campbell and Kerenyi, whose works have done a great deal to
bring the subject of mythology to the forefront of public
consciousness.

Alas, the schemes of Frazer and Freud were fated to be replaced
as well, and in recent years the theories associated with the
names of Dumezil, Levi-Strauss, and Eliade have dominated the
scene of comparative mythology. The first two scholars were
heavily influenced by the pioneering efforts of the sociologist
Durkheim, who sought to establish a correlation between the
central themes of myth and underlying cultural patterns.[Fn.9]
Dumezil, for example, looked to the tripartite structure of
ancient Indo-European society for the origin of particular
patterns of myth. According to this view, the behaviour and
functions of the warrior-class that distinguished ancient Indo-
European societies accounts for the fascinating mythology
associated with heroes of the warrior-type (Heracles, Indra,
Cuchulainn, etc.).[Fn.10]

Levi-Strauss, on the other hand, looked to the structure and
function of the human brain to explain the origin of societal
patterns together with their attendant mythological
motives.[Fn.11] The myth of Oedipus, according to this view,
owes little to forbidden psychological urges. Rather it reflects
the universal tendency of human beings to think in terms of
binary operations, such as black/white, good/evil, heaven/hell,
etc., the function of myth being to provide a logical form of
mediation between apparent or real contradictions.[Fn.12]

Viewed from this brief historical perspective, Velikovsky's
thesis can be seen as forming a logical variation upon the
nature-allegory school of comparative mythology. Like that
school, and in stark contrast to that which grew up around the
ideas of Levi-Strauss, Velikovsky sought to provide an objective
historical basis for the central themes of ancient myth, the
principal difference being that he substitutes the planets for
the sun (or some other meteorological phenomenon) as the primary
referent of myth.

ON PLANETS AND MYTH

Historically, the planets have been virtually ignored by
comparative mythologists. A notable exception to this statement
is the monumental treatise by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha
von Dechend--"Hamlet's Mill." Originally published in 1969, and
promoted by the authors as a "first reconnaissance of a realm
well-nigh unexplored and uncharted," Hamlet's Mill documented
the surprising prominence of the planets in ancient myths the
world over:
>The real actors on the stage of the universe are very few, if
>their adventures are many. The most "ancient treasure"--in
>Aristotle's word--that was left to us by our predecessors of the
>High and Far-Off Times was the idea that the gods are really
>stars, and that there are no other actors. The forces reside in
>the starry heavens, and all the stories, characters and
>adventures narrated by mythology concentrate on the active
>powers among the stars, who are the planets.[Fn.13]

Hamlet's Mill warrants mention here not only because it
represents a significant contribution to scholarship, but
because it provides compelling evidence in support of more than
one of Velikovsky's controversial theses; this despite the fact
that the authors arrived at their conclusions independently of
Velikovsky and would no doubt be horrified at the prospect of
seeing their researches mentioned in the same breath as those of
the author of "Worlds in Collision." Regarding the planet Saturn,
for example, de Santillana and von Dechend found that it figured
prominently in myths of World-ending cataclysm, Phaethon's fall
and the Deluge being among them. This finding recalls
Velikovsky's understanding of Saturn's recent history--deduced
from ancient myth--whereby it experienced a nova-like flare-up
and inundated the surrounding cosmos with fire and flood.[Fn.14]

Unlike Velikovsky, however, de Santillana and von Dechend were
hamstrung by a conservative approach to astrophysics and this,
in my opinion, prevented them from entertaining the possibility
that ancient myths recounting cataclysms involving the
respective planets were indeed based upon cataclysmic events.
Confronted with Plato's clear statement that Phaethon's fateful
ride had reference to a great cataclysm caused by a deviation
amongst the heavenly bodies, de Santillana and von Dechend
nevertheless object: "The Pythagoreans were neither idle
storytellers, not were they even mildly interested in unusual
sensational `catastrophes' caused by meteors, and the
like."[Fn.15] Here the authors of Hamlet's Mill failed to heed
their own advice: "The only thing to do is proceed inductively,
step by step, avoiding preconceptions and letting the argument
lead toward its own conclusions."[Fn16]

Upon discovering the intimate association of Saturn with the
Pole, de Santillana and von Dechend failed to ask the obvious
question whether Saturn has always travelled on its present
orbit? And when confronted with unequivocal testimony from the
Gilgamesh Epic that the ancient sun-god rose and set over the
same mountain (confirmed by traditions throughout the ancient
world), de Santillana and von Dechend once again turned a deaf
ear: "The sun is not in the habit of rising on the same spot
every day, and it needs no profound astronomical knowledge to
become aware of this fact."[Fn.17]

How, then, did the authors of Hamlet's Mill explain their
findings? Here the authors credited the ancients with a
sophisticated understanding of astronomical principles,
particularly so the precession of the equinoxes, supposedly
discovered by Hipparchus in 127 BCE, but according to de
Santillana and von Dechend, already well-known in the Near East
several millenia earlier.[Fn.18] It was the diffusion of this
ancient "science" (by whom or by what means is not explained)
which accounts for the presence of identical mythical motives
around the globe.[Fn.19] Not surprisingly, this hypothesis has
failed to find favour among historians of science, nor, for that
matter, has Hamlet's Mill had any discernible impact upon
subsequent studies of ancient myth.[Fn.20]

ARCHAEOASTRONOMY

In recent years interest in traditions surrounding the planets
has surged due to the emergence of archaeoastronomy and
ethnoastronomy as serious fields of research.[Fn.21] Scholars in
these respective fields comb the architectural structures,
sacred writings, and iconography of ancient cultures in both the
New World and Old for some reference to celestial goings-on.
Here, too, more than one of these researchers has stumbled
across evidence supportive of Velikovsky's general thesis of
planetary catastrophism, although the far-reaching ramifications
of such discordant data are typically (mis)interpreted in a more
conventional manner. For example, one leading scholar--Anthony
Aveni--has called attention to the remarkable "coincidence" that
both Maya and Babylonian astronomers credited Venus with a 90
day period of invisibility at superior conjunction despite the
fact the true period is closer to 50 days.[Fn.22] How this could
be Aveni offers nary a clue.

Thus there are clear signs that planets will soon be receiving
their just due as objective referents of ancient myth. Most
significant, perhaps, is the fact that even in the works of such
scholars as Levi-Strauss--whose interpretation of myth is
diametrically opposed to that of Velikovsky--there can be found
concessions that planetary bodies formed a prominent factor in
the origin of ancient myths: "Max Muller and his school must be
given credit for having discovered, and to some extent
deciphered, the astronomical code so often used by the
myths."[Fn.23]

********************************
See the postings ***VELIKOVSKY UPDATE--Two, Three, Fnotes***
for the rest of this article.
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