From: abeggs@peg.pegasus.oz.au
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Date: 11 Jan 93 15:07 EST
Subject: VELIKOVSKY UPDATE--Fnotes
Nf-ID: #N:peg:567900005:000:11965
Nf-From: peg.UUCP!abeggs    Jan 11 15:07:00 1993



VELIKOVSKY UPDATE--Fnotes
[this and 3 other postings comprise an article from
***AEON--A Symposium on Myth and Science***,
Vol. III, No. 1, November, 1992]
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FOOTNOTES TO:
TOWARDS A SCIENCE OF MYTHOLOGY: VELIKOVSKY'S CONTRIBUTION

By: Ev Cochrane
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1.  How Velikovsky first came to entertain such a novel idea as
planetary catastrophism is something of a mystery. Jan Sammer,
Velikovsky's personal secretary during the later years of his
life, has expressed the opinion that the decisive event was most
likely Velikovsky's discovery in an obscure work of Brasseur de
Bourbourg of a quote from Varro, in which it was said that the
planet Venus once changed its appearance and course in the sky.
This finding, coming as it did during the inspired period
associated with his attempt to deduce the nature of the
cataclysmic circumstances surrounding the Exodus, led Velikovsky
to consider the possibility that a cataclysm involving the
planet Venus was behind that event. For Velikovsky's account of
these discoveries, see Stargazers and Gravediggers (New York,
1983), pp. 38-42.
2.  Talbott has acknowledged that his researches were directly
inspired by Velikovsky's intriguing ideas regarding Saturn's
cataclysmic past.
3.  E. Cochrane, "The Spring of Ares," KRONOS XI:3 (1986), pp.
15-22; E. Cochrane, "Indra: A Case Study in Comparative
Mythology," AEON II:4 (1991), pp. 61-66; D. Talbott, "Mother
Goddess and Warrior Hero," AEON I:5 (1988), pp. 53-65.
4.  W Heimpel, "A Catalog of Near Eastern Venus Deities," Syro-
Mesopotamian Studies 4:3 (December 1982), pp. 9-22.
5.  E. Cochrane, "The Birth of Athena," AEON II:3 (1990), pp.
10-18.
6.  For a survey of early scholarship in the field, see B.
Feldman & R. Richardson, The Rise of Modern Mythology 1680-1860
(Bloomington, 1972).
7.  See the discussion in J. Puhvel, Comparative Mythology
(London, 1989), pp. 13-20.
8.  J. Frazer, The Golden Bough Vol. 4: Adonis, Attis, Osiris
(New York, 1961), pp. 97-114.
9.  Lyttleton hold the fundamental Durkheimian principle to be
as follows: "That the persons, places, events, and situations
that received expression in myths are inevitably representations
of important social and cultural realities." See C. Lyttleton,
The New Comparative Mythology (Berkeley, 1973), p. 4.
10. G. Dumezil, The Destiny of the Warrior (Chicago, 1970). For
a survey of Dumezil's extensive writings see C. Lyttleton, The
New Comparative Mythology (Berkeley, 1973).
11. "[Myths] teach us a great deal about the societies from
which they originate, they help us lay bare their inner workings
and clarify the raison d'etre of beliefs, customs ... and most
importantly, they make it possible to discover operational modes
of the human mind, which have remained so constant over the
centuries, and are so widespread ... that we can assume them to
be fundamental and can seek to find them in other societies and
in other areas of mental life, where their presence is not
suspected," Quoted in I. Strenski, Four Theories of Myth in
Twentieth Century History (London, 1987), p. 132.
12. C. Levi-Strauss, "The Structural Study of Myth," in Myth: A
Symposium, ed. by T. Sebeok (London, 1965), pp. 81-106.
13. G. de Santillana and H. von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill (Boston,
1977), p. 177.
14. I. Velikovsky, Mankind in Amnesia (New York, 1982), pp. 99-
102.
15. G. de Santillana and H. von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill (Boston,
1977), p. 252-253.
16. Ibid., p. 49.
17. Ibid., p. 293. The authors' discussion of the World Tree
provides a perfect example of their tendency to "correct" the
ancient testimony in order to conform with the tenets of
astronomy. Upon discovering countless examples of Trees said to
have spanned heaven, supporting or obscuring the Sun, the
authors remark of the Indian Pillar (Skambha): "Skambha ... was
the World Tree consisting mostly of celestial coordinates, a
kind of wildly imaginative armillary sphere." Ibid., p. 269.
18. Ibid., p. 66-67.
19. Ibid., p. 3.
20. An exception to this statement is the recent study offered
by J. Worthen, The Replacement Myth (Tucson, 1991), which
betrays more than a trace of the influence of Hamlet's Mill.
21. See, for example, the following books: A. Aveni, ed., Native
American Astronomy (Ft. Worth, 1977); idem., Archaeoastronomy in
the New World (Cambridge, 1982); World Archaeoastronomy
(Cambridge, 1989); J. Carlson, Astronomy and Ceremonny in the
Prehistoric Southwest (1987); idem., "America's Ancient
Skywatchers," National Geographic 177:3 (March 1990), pp. 76-
107; R. Williamson, Archaeoastronomy in the Americas (Los Altos,
1981); idem., Living the Sky (Boston, 1984); E.C. Krupp, ed.,
Archaeoastronomy and the Roots of Science (Boulder, 1984).
Notice also the appearance of such journals as Archaeoastronomy,
published by The Center for Archaeoastronomy (1978 to present),
and Archaeoastronomy, Supplement to the Journal for the History
of Astronomy (1979 to present).
22. A. Aveni, Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico (Austin, 1981), pp.
187, 327.
23. C. Levi-Strauss, The Naked Man (New York, 1981), pp. 45-46,
71, 235.
24. An exception is offered by D. Cardona, "Child of Saturn,"
KRONOS VII:1 (1981), pp. 56-58.
25. Iliad 4:73-79. While this passage has been the subject of
various translations--the above is W. Rouse'e translation, The
Iliad (New York, 1938), p. 49--several distinguished scholars
have pointed to a comet as the source of Homer's imagery. See
the discussion in W. Gundel, "Kometen," RE, op. cit., p. 1145.
See also the discussion of this passage in B. Dietrich, "Divine
Epiphanies in Homer," Numen 30:1 (July, 1983), p. 56 who
translates as follows: "Like a comet which the son of Kronos,
crooked in counsel, sends in a shower of sparks as a shining
portent to sailors and the widespread army of peoples."
Velikovsky, op. cit., p. 178, and I. Fuhr, "On Comets, Comet-
like Luminous Apparitions and Meteors," KRONOS VII:4 (1982), p.
54, likewise compared Athena's descent to a cometary apparition.
It was apparently Dio Cassius 78:30:1 who first compared
Athena's epiphany to a comet.
26. E. Cochrane, "The Birth of Athena," AEON II:3 (1990), pp. 5-
28.
27. See the discussion of Worner, "Palladion," in W. Roscher's
Ausfuhrliches Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie
(Hildesheim, 1965), pp. 3448-3449.
28. I. Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision (New York, 1973), pp.
185-186.
29. E. Cochrane, "The Birth of Athena," AEON II:3 (1990), pp.
10-18.
30. D. Talbott & E. Cochrane, "The Origin of Velikovsky's
Comet," KRONOS X:1 (1984); idem., "On the Nature of Cometary
Symbolism," KRONOS XI:1 (1985); idem., "When Venus was a Comet,"
KRONOS XII:1 (1987).
31. E. Cochrane, "On Comets and Kings," AEON II:1 (1989), pp.
53-75.
32. G. Jobe, Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore and Symbols (New
York, 1961), p. 360. See also E. Cochrane, "On Comets and
Kings," AEON II:1 (1989), pp. 53-75.
33. E. Cochrane, op. cit., pp. 56-58.
34. Ibid., pp. 60-64.
35. N. Davies, The Toltecs (Norman, 1977), p. 395.
36. I. Velikovsky, Oedipus and Akhnaton (Garden City, 1960). For
a detailed critique of Velikovsky's interpretation of the
Oedipus myth see E. Cochrane, "Velikovsky and Oedipus," AEON I:6
(1988), pp. 14-38.
37. I. Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision (New York, 1973), p. 178.
38. Given the prevalence of "Lake Tritons" one would be inclined
to suspect a celestial prototype behind the localized
imitations. Indeed, in a future paper I hope to be able to
establish the origin of this epithet.
39. Indeed, of Velikovsky's reconstruction of the events behind
the Exodus little has been written since the publication of
Worlds in Collision in 1950. A few exceptions to this general
statement include J. Bimson, Redating the Exodus and Conquest
(Sheffield, 1978); A. de Grazia, God's Fire (Princeton, 1983);
B. Feldman, Passover Marvels (Philadelphia, 1978); and E.
Cochrane, "In Search of Moses," an article distributed at the
annual Canadian Symposium for Interdisciplinary Studies in
September of 1983. Velikovsky's critics, of course, such as
Forrest and Stiebing, have not overlooked Velikovsky's handling
of the Exodus material. See W. Stiebing, Out of the Desert
(Buffalo, 1989), pp. 113-123. B. Forrest, "Papyrus Ipuwer and
Worlds in Collision," SIS Review 6:4 (1984), pp. 108-111.
40. I. Velikovsky, Stargazers and Gravediggers (New York, 1983),
pp. 27-31.
41. See footnote 36.
42. M. Eliade, Myth and Reality (New York, 1975), p. 6.
43. Idem., Cosmos and History (New York, 1959), p. 9.
44. G. Dumezil, Archaic Roman Religion Vol. 1 (Chicago, 1970),
pp. 66-77.
45. On the migration(s) led by Mars, see W. Roscher, "Mars,"
Ausfuhrliches Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie
(Hildesheim, 1965), col. 2425-2427; on the migration led by
Huitzilopochtli, see H. Alexander, The Mythology of All Races:
Latin American (New York, 1964), p. 114.
46. A. Coomaraswamy, "Symplegades," in Studies and Essays in the
History of Science and Learning Offered in Homage to George
Sarton (New York, 1947), p. 477.
47. On the Symplegades motive see A. Cook, Zeus Vol. 3:2
(Cambridge, 1940), pp. 975-1015.
48. Velikovsky himself dismisses this view in Worlds in
Collision, op. cit., pp. 94-95. For a valuable discussion of the
dragon-combat in the Old Testament see J. Day, God's Conflict
with the Dragon and Sea (London, 1985), pp. 88-101.
49. W. Pythian-Adams, quoted in Velikovsky, op. cit., p. 95.
50. See here M. Eliade, Myths, Rites, and Symbols (New York,
1975) pp. 380ff. See also my discussion in "The Spring of Ares,"
KRONOS XI:3 (1986), pp. 15-21.
51. In addition to the pillar of fire in Plato's vision of Er,
witness the following passage from Euripides' Bacchae: "So spake
he [Dionysius], and there came `twixt earth and sky a pillar of
high flame."
52. Other examples of this tendency in Velikovsky's writings
include his interpretation of the Deluge as water emanating from
Saturn and inundating the Earth, whereupon it came to form the
Atlantic Ocean; his expectation that gold would be found on
Jupiter, presumably deduced from the report that Zeus-Jupiter
once rained "gold" on Danae; and his hypothesis that vegetation
proliferated on Earth in the wake of a nova-like explosion upon
Saturn, apparently deduced from the numerous myths in which new
flowers appear in the wake of a death of a great god or goddess.
See I. Velikovsky, Mankind in Amnesia (New York, 1982), p. 99.
53. I. Velikovsky, Mankind in Amnesia (New York, 1982), pp. 97-
100. D. Talbott, The Saturn Myth (New York, 1980); idem.,
"Reconstructing the Saturn Myth," AEON I:1 (1988), pp. 5-36; D.
Cardona, "The Road to Saturn," AEON I:1 (1988), pp. 108-129;
idem., "Intimations of an Alien Sky," AEON II:5 (1991), pp. 5-
34.
54. M. Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation (New York, 1975),
pp. x-xi.

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