In Chronology & Catastrophism REVIEW 1997:2, in an
article titled "'Worlds in Collision' after
Heinsohn", William Mullen wrote:

> In Velikovsky's methodology these three assumptions
-
> 'revised chronology', 'identifiable planets',
> 'reconstructible sequence' - are inseparable and this
> is his innovation. Others may have claimed to date
> ancient catastrophes or to name the celestial agents
> but no one before him claimed that a correctly
> revised chronology could yield both identifiable
> agents and a sequence of causes and effects for all
> the catastrophes within human memory.
>
> Though all three assumptions are essential to _Worlds
> in Collision_, that work only attempted to show the
> fruitfulness of assumption (ii): identifiable planets
> in datable events. His explorations of the other two
> remained fragmentary, as the posthumous publication
> of his manuscripts has revealed....

What is the *logical* necessity for the fixation, at
this late date, on the identification of *planets* as
the agents of destruction in catastrohpic scenarios?

Why do catastrophists in the Velikovsky school
subordinate the absolute datings from tree rings, ice
cores, and other phyiscal sources to the results of
their elaborate mental gymnastics in the service of
chronology revision?

Why does as eminent an academic scholar as the
classicist William Mullen persist in perpetuating
such foolish fantasies? Surely he is capable of
repudiating youthful enthusiasms whose validity
cannot be sustained in the light of modern, informed
research and criticism.

Any careful reader of Worlds in Collision will
realize quite readily that Velikovsky's textual
sources do not deal with *planets*, but, rather, with
various *deities* that are often associated with
planets. However, this identification with planets is
NOT mandatory because all such deities possessed
other astronomical, as well as terrestrial,
associations. As Pib Burns has admonished repeatedly
over the years in electonic forums, the mapping of
gods to planets is not one-to-one and on-to.

Since the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna/Ishtar was not
identified exclusively with planet Venus, as many
self-taught savants seem to think, the cometary
aspects of Inanna/Ishtar (if they are valid as
cometary) need not be projected on to planet Venus,
but may well have originated with a real comet, such
as proto-Encke, as discussed by Clube and Napier in
their elucidation of the role of the Taurid Complex
on the development of civilization and religion all
through the Holocene. Proto-Encke would have been a
brilliant morning and evening object every ca. 3.25
years at perihelion and, therefore, readily
associated with whatever deity was associated with
Venus, another prominent morning and evening object.

(N.B.: The cuneiform symbols of Inanna that resemble
a comet tail probably have nothing to do with comets
since they are usually shown in pairs in cult context
and ALSO resemble the reed bundles used as door posts
on the birthing huts sacred to Inanna, an
architectual feature that persists to this day on
reed huts in the marshes of Basra in southern Iraq.)

It is also significant to note that the Venus
Tablets, according to the analysis of Rose & Vaughan,
show Venus on its present orbit, with the deviations
in the observations ascribed to a more eccentric
orbit for Earth. Since Rose & Vaughan actually
published the results of their investigations into
the Venus Tablets, their conclusions are to be
preferred over the bald assertions of other
dilletantes who make more spectacular claims
regarding the former orbit of Venus.

No reconstruction of the recent history of the solar
system, especially as viewed from Earth, that ignores
the origin and evolution of the comet-born Taurid
Complex all during the Holocene, including the global
climate crisis at 2345 B.C. revealed by Irish oak
rings, cores from the Gulf of Oman, and stratigraphy
in Mesopotamia, e.g., at Tell Leilan, etc., can be
taken seriously. Since Velikovsky was unaware of the
Taurid Complex model and never considered any comet
shower model, the validity of his approach and
conclusions is seriously compromised, as should be
obvious to Mullen, and other ceno-catastrophists,
upon reconsideration of their assumptions.

Interestingly, this event is the subject of a recent
BBC production "Clues to Bronze Age Comet Strike":
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_100000/100101.stm>.
While this focusses on the work of Clube and Napier
as well as Baillie, others have been involved over
the years, esp. Moe Mandelkehr who published on this
event independently in the early 1980s in SIS Review
and whose book manuscript on the event is in search
of a publisher. The fact that "Saturnists" ignore the
Taurid Complex is a big strike against the fecundity
of their model.

In light of all the recent insight into the role of
real comets and the Taurid Complex during the
Holocene and the insoluble problems attending
intersecting planetary orbits in recent time, what
possible justification can there be TODAY for
perpetuating the illusion of maurading planets a la
Velikovsky and the blinkered Epigoni, esp. the
"Saturnists" and other hangers-on, who have more
imagination than commonsense and physics can ever
justify? Given the inherent ambiguity between gods
and planets, such a position is intellectually
abhorent and repugnant. Why does an intellect as keen
as Mullen's arguably is dissipate itself revelling in
pseudo-research, shedding new light on a non-subject,
as it does in the latest C&C Review? Since the Forum
on Clube & Napier in C&CR XIV in 1992, it is long
past time for old-guard Velikovskians to undertake a
drastic rethinking of their basic assumptions.

The association between gods and planets, while quite
old (as Saturnists often note), is by no means
primordial. This is indicated by the meaning of the
names of certain planetary gods. For example,
"Ninurta", the name of one of the Mesopotamian gods
associated with Saturn means "Lord Earth" or "Lord
Plow". But before Ninurta's association with Saturn,
he was the local solar deity for Nippur, later
preserved in his role as god of the rising Sun in the
perfected pantheon. The association between gods and
planets as an *original* feature of the cult simply
does not survive scrutiny.

One good reason why the radical chronology revisions
envisioned by such as Velikovsky and Heinsohn cannot
be taken seriously is the simple fact that all such
revisions move the Minoan eruption of Thera to a
lower epoch during which there is no evidence for ANY
eruption of that magnitude. This argument is
supported by the fact that ALL, known similar
eruptions since then have produced a volcanic acid
signature in the world's ice caps at the correct
date, an argument that is either ignored or naively
discounted by the revisionists. It is also
instructive to note that, with the confirmation of
the 2300 B.C. date for the global climate crisis in
Mesopotamia affecting civilization, we can be
confident that such high dates are valid, contrary to
the proposal of Heinsohn. In other words, history
really happened then, in the third millennium.

I look forward to the time when all varieties of
Velikovskians seriously rethink their unexamined
basic assumptions and free themselves from the "bonds
of the past", and thereby prepare themselves to
participate in the REAL work of deciphering the
mysteries of the origins of religion and civilization.

Leroy Ellenberger, "Per Veritatem Vis", Formerly Sr.
Ed., Kronos, & Confidant to Velikovsky, 4/78 - 11/79.
Author of "An Antidote to Velikovskian Delusions":
<http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velidelu.html> and
"An Antidote to Dave Talbott's 'Saturn Thesis'":
<http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cle/cle-talbott-antidote.txt>
and eight other analyses at
<ftp://ftp.primenet.com/pub/lippard/>.