The Ancient Sources Behind Worlds in Collision: What Velikovsky Actually Read

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In 1950, a Russian-born psychoanalyst named Immanuel Velikovsky published a book that sent shockwaves through the scientific and academic world. Titled Worlds in Collision, the book proposed that ancient myths, legends, and historical records from cultures around the globe were not mere symbolic stories—but eyewitness accounts of planetary catastrophes involving Venus, Mars, and Earth.

The book was swiftly denounced by astronomers, dismissed by physicists, and rejected wholesale by the scientific establishment. Yet it became a publishing phenomenon—Worlds in Collision climbed the New York Times bestseller list and remained there for months. It struck a chord with the general public, many of whom found in Velikovsky’s work a compelling alternative to both biblical literalism and scientific reductionism.

But what exactly did Velikovsky base his theories on? What did he read? What myths and ancient sources did he gather? And why did he believe the historical record—when taken at face value—pointed to real cosmic events?

This essay offers a survey of the raw data Velikovsky assembled: the myths, chronicles, and ancient writings that form the scaffolding of Worlds in Collision. We will also explore how he found them, what scholarly methods he used, and where these sources came from—leaving aside, for now, the controversy of his conclusions.

Velikovsky’s Method: A Psychoanalyst in the Archives

Velikovsky was not an astronomer, geologist, or archaeologist by training. He earned his medical degree in Moscow and later trained in Freudian psychoanalysis under Wilhelm Stekel in Vienna. But what set him apart was his passion for cross-disciplinary inquiry and his fluency in multiple languages—including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Russian, German, French, and some Sanskrit.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, while compiling material for a projected book on Freud and Moses (Oedipus and Akhenaten), Velikovsky delved into Egyptian chronology. There, he noticed puzzling parallels between biblical plagues, Egyptian disaster texts, and cosmic motifs in global mythologies. Convinced these were not coincidences, he began assembling what he called a “global memory” of celestial cataclysm. This became the foundation of Worlds in Collision.

Mythological and Historical Sources Cited in Worlds in Collision

Velikovsky’s sources spanned continents and epochs. He cast a wide net, citing mythic texts and ancient chronicles from over a dozen civilizations. Here are some of the most prominent:

1. Ancient Egyptian Sources

  • The Ipuwer Papyrus (also known as Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage) – Housed in the Dutch National Museum, this Middle Kingdom text describes the collapse of order in Egypt: rivers turning to blood, widespread fire, famine, and darkness. Velikovsky linked it to the biblical Exodus.

  • The Book of the Dead – Particularly the Coffin Texts and Pyramid Texts, which mention “the destroyer” and battles among the gods associated with celestial chaos.

  • Papyrus Harris, Papyrus Anastasi, and other hieratic disaster records – Often treated as poetic allegory, Velikovsky interpreted them as literal references to environmental upheaval.

2. Hebrew and Biblical Texts

3. Mesopotamian and Near Eastern Sources

  • The Enuma Elish (Babylonian creation epic) – Describes celestial combat among gods; Velikovsky read this as a dramatized version of planetary collision.

  • The Epic of Gilgamesh – Includes references to darkness, great floods, and astronomical disruptions.

  • Assyrian and Hittite annals – Particularly chronicles of fire from heaven and great battles tied to signs in the sky.

4. Greek and Roman Literature

  • Hesiod’s Theogony – Featuring battles among gods, the chaining of Kronos (Saturn), and the rise of Zeus (Jupiter), whom Velikovsky associated with later planetary realignments.

  • Plato’s Timaeus and Critias – Discussing the destruction of Atlantis and a recurring “tilting of the heavens.”

  • Ovid’s Metamorphoses – Especially Book II, with the tale of Phaethon losing control of the chariot of the sun, scorching Earth—a myth Velikovsky believed preserved a memory of solar or orbital instability.

  • Pliny the Elder and Seneca – Who recorded ancient accounts of comets, meteor showers, and unexplained atmospheric phenomena.

5. Vedic and Indian Sources

  • The Mahabharata and Ramayana – Massive war epics that describe fire from the sky, atmospheric disarray, and divine weapons causing global disruption.

  • The Rigveda – With hymns describing battles among celestial beings, darkness at noon, and the “binding” of heavenly bodies.

6. Chinese Records

  • The Shu Jing (Book of Documents) – Describes natural disasters linked to dynastic change, including days of darkness, rivers reversing course, and strange phenomena in the sky.

  • The Bamboo Annals – Offering timelines of omens and signs that Velikovsky tied to global events.

  • The Records of the Grand Historian (Sima Qian) – Noted for cataloging celestial portents before political upheaval.

7. Mesoamerican and South American Accounts

  • Popol Vuh (Maya) – Describes cycles of world destruction and re-creation, often involving celestial disturbance and warfare among the gods.

  • Codex Chimalpopoca (Aztec) – Contains flood myths, tales of suns being destroyed, and upheaval attributed to divine wrath.

  • Inca and Andean oral traditions – Including stories of the sun disappearing, great floods, and fire falling from the heavens.

  • Caral-Supe (Peru) – Though less textual, archaeological layers showing abrupt destruction and abandonment were referenced by later Velikovsky proponents.

8. Indigenous and Polynesian Lore

Velikovsky briefly mentions traditions from the Maoris, Tongans, and Hawaiians that speak of a time when the sky “fell,” or the sun changed its path—another echo of celestial disruption.

Scholarly Sources and Research Materials

Velikovsky did not rely solely on mythic texts. He dug deep into classical and modern scholarship of his time. Some of his key sources included:

  • James Frazer’s The Golden Bough – A foundational work in comparative mythology.

  • Sir Grafton Elliot Smith – An anthropologist who championed diffusionist theories about cultural origins.

  • H. Gunkel and Hermann Usener – German scholars of mythology and religion.

  • Astronomical ephemerides and planetary tables – For retrocalculating positions of Venus and Mars.

  • Works by 19th-century catastrophists – Including Georges Cuvier and Ignatius Donnelly.

  • Contemporary geology and paleontology journals – Which he would use later in Earth in Upheaval (1955) to argue that Earth’s surface shows signs of sudden cataclysm, not gradualism.

Velikovsky’s method was to cross-reference seemingly unrelated stories from across the globe—then look for patterns. When fire, darkness, floods, or reversed skies appeared repeatedly in myth after myth, he concluded they might stem from a shared, historical reality.

Reception: The Scientific Backlash

Upon publication, Worlds in Collision was met with fierce resistance. Astronomer Harlow Shapley of Harvard led the charge against it, pressuring Macmillan Publishers (a major academic house) to drop the book despite its commercial success. Macmillan caved, and the book was transferred to Doubleday.

Velikovsky was never offered a serious scholarly debate. Most reviews were hostile or dismissive. Carl Sagan would later critique him in Broca’s Brain, and a 1974 AAAS symposium debated his claims, but often without engaging his sources directly.

Yet the book sold over 100,000 copies in its first edition alone. It was embraced by readers who felt mainstream science had overlooked the voice of ancient peoples. To them, Velikovsky restored a sense of drama, memory, and cosmic connection to the human past.

Conclusion: A Catalog of Global Memory

Whatever one thinks of Velikovsky’s conclusions—that Venus was once a comet, that Mars nearly collided with Earth, or that planetary bodies reshuffled in the memory of mankind—the raw material of Worlds in Collision remains impressive.

He brought together hundreds of myths, legends, annals, and religious texts from across the ancient world. He read them seriously—not as poetry, not as metaphor, but as a kind of suppressed history.

For students of ancient myth, comparative religion, or historical catastrophism, Velikovsky’s real contribution may not be in his planetary mechanics—but in his vast compilation of what might be called the collective trauma literature of early civilization.

His catalog deserves to be remembered, even if his cosmic theory remains controversial. At the very least, he gave us a starting point to ask better questions.

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