From left to right: F. Gutekunst, Ignatius Loyola Donnelly (c. 1898). Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Anonymous, William Comyns Beaumont (date unknown). Bob Kobres, Immanuel Velikovsky (1978) Original Post July 23, 2012 In bestsellers published in 1882 and 1883, the American politician and amateur scientist Ignatius Loyola…
From left to right: Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Thomas Burnet (1675). Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London. William Whiston (18th century), anonymous. Giovanni Rinaldo of Carli-Rubbi (date unknown). Original Post July 20, 2012 Ever since 1950, ‘Velikovsky’ has been a household name, associated with a set of adventurous but highly…
Original Post July 18, 2012 In June 2012, a team of 4 Japanese researchers revealed in Nature that “an extremely energetic event occurred around our space environment in AD 775.” An analysis of Japanese cedar trees showed a “rapid increase” in the concentration of radiocarbon for that year, matched…
Apr 29, 2019 Whatever the explanation, it would seem that Venus’ ‘smoking’ is the same as its ‘burning’ and that such incidents – regarded as portents – occurred throughout the historical period on a decadal or centennial time scale, ruling out any dramatic scenarios such as Velikovsky’s Venus comet. The…
Apr 26, 2019 From a study of ancient sources, the catastrophist polymath Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) famously concluded that the planet Venus had presented a comet-like appearance just a few millennia ago. Instead of a puerile response of outright condemnation and censorship, the academic world ought to have invested its energy…
Sep 14, 2017 That the Christmas tree did not originally root in Christian symbolism has never been a secret. The custom to erect a Christmas tree during the winter solstice, sustaining a reminder of the summer’s verdancy and abundance of sunlight through the heart of winter, is of ‘pagan’…
Dec 23, 2016 That the Christmas tree did not originally root in Christian symbolism has never been a secret. The custom to erect a Christmas tree during the winter solstice, sustaining a reminder of the summer’s verdancy and abundance of sunlight through the heart of winter, is of ‘pagan’…
Dec 21, 2016 Whatever the explanation, it would seem that Venus’ ‘smoking’ is the same as its ‘burning’ and that such incidents – regarded as portents – occurred throughout the historical period on a decadal or centennial time scale, ruling out any dramatic scenarios such as Velikovsky’s Venus comet. The…
Dec 19, 2016 From a study of ancient sources, the catastrophist polymath Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) famously concluded that the planet Venus had presented a comet-like appearance just a few millennia ago. Instead of a puerile response of outright condemnation and censorship, the academic world ought to have invested its…
Aug 25, 2016 Speculations on electrical aspects of the sun were common long before Birkeland. In a paper published in 1904, the Swedish physicist and chemist Svante August Arrhenius (1859-1927) maintained that radiation pressure accounts for comets’ tails and the build-up of negative charges on “the atmospheres of celestial bodies,…
