Theory of Venus Ejecting As A Comet via Jupiter

This interview revolves around Laird Scranton’s book called “The Velikovsky Heresies: Worlds in Collision and Ancient Catastrophes Revisited.” Which is a fascinating book about theories from Velikovsky regarding the planet Venus. It is a strange trip through the perspectives of ancient cultures and most especially the Dogon tribe about Venus and more. Laird can explain it much better than I ever could. I enjoyed this interview very much and found it be a very uniquely informative. I hope you enjoy as much as I did. Presenting.

1. What was your inspiration behind writing the book “The Velikovsky Heresies: Worlds in Collision and Ancient Catastrophes Revisited”?

LS: During my high school years in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Portland, Oregon was a seat of support among college students for Velikovsky’s Venus theory, and so I was introduced to his name and to his theories. Since that time, I had developed an interest in the idea of trying to find resolution to some of the controversies that surround his theories. As time has gone on, much new evidence has surfaced and it seemed unusual to have the key questions of the controversy go unresolved. My impulse was to try to identify a single fact upon which the controversy would turn – either in favor of Velikovsky or against him.

2. What can you tell us about the book Worlds in Collision that was a book found on Albert Einstein’s desk at the time of his death and its contents? Also how did Einstein die exactly just out of curiosity?

LS: On April 17, 1955, Albert Einstein was admitted to Princeton Hospital complaining of chest pains. He died early the next morning, on April 18th, of a burst aortic aneurysm. It is certain that the then-recent discovery of radio emissions from Jupiter by two astronomers – which unintentionally confirmed a prediction by Velikovsky – caused Einstein to reconsider his resistance to Velikovsky’s controversial views. It was rumored that Velikovsky’s book Worlds in Collision was found open on Einstein’s desk at the time of his death. Velikovsky stated that Einstein had instructed his personal secretary to authorize, in Einstein’s name, any test Velikovsky wanted to make relating to his theories.

3. Now apparently Venus is a comet which is certainly interesting. Would you share your perspective on this?

LS: Velikovsky proposes that Venus began its life as a comet that was ejected from Jupiter after Jupiter was impacted by a large astronomic body. Close examination of recent astronomic evidence relating Jupiter, Venus, the study of comets and the study of the formation of planets in exo-solar systems does not preclude the idea that a planet could be born of a gas giant, and might be seen to actually support the idea. Most astronomers now consider the atmosphere of Jupiter to be a pristine sample of the primordial solar cloud, and so the composition of its atmosphere could theoretically create a planet. The unexpectedly small size and high temperature of the core of Jupiter could reflect the possibility of an impact large enough to have ejected Venus.

The Galilean moons of Jupiter – three of which remain in resonance and one which has been disrupted in ways that are difficult to explain, might make sense if the disruption happened at the time Venus was theoretically ejected from Jupiter. There are aspects of the composition of Jupiter’s moon Io and the short-period comets whose orbits tend to gravitate to Jupiter that might be explained if we presume that they originated from Jupiter as a consequence of that event. Venus has a remnant ionotail that represents a kind of planetary counterpart to a comet’s tail. It behaves like a comet’s tail in that it is generated by the same process that is thought to create a comet’s tail, points away from the sun, and grows in strength as Venus approaches the sun. In my estimation, Velikovsky’s theory is attractive because – at each stage of the controversy – it potentially resolves a number of persistent astronomic mysteries, and does so with a single cause.

4. Could you tell us more about Velikovsky and his life and back then how were his conclusions treated by the religious and scientific community?

LS: Velikovsky was born in Russia, trained as a psychiatrist by Freud’s renowned student Wilhelm Stekel, founded an academic journal in Berlin that was partially co-edited by Einstein, helped to establish the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (again alongside Einstein), and eventually became a colleague of Einstein’s at Princeton University. It would be an understatement to say that Velikovsky’s Venus theory was poorly received in scientific circles in 1950 My feeling is that Velikovsky’s theory presented a threat to the principle of Uniformitarianism that underlies Darwinism, and threatened to resurrect aspects of the old Fire and Brimstone religion that scientists had worked to supplant, and so came under immediate attack by traditional academics.

Velikovsky also dared to cross the unwritten boundaries of various scientific fields in his research – for example, he offered ancient textual evidence to support what was fundamentally an astronomic theory, which made it difficult for traditional academics to support or even respond to him. Top astronomers organized a boycott of his publisher, wrote scathing reviews of his book – often without actually having read it – and generally made life difficult for him. Numerous academic authorities flatly declared various aspects of his theory to be nonsense. He eventually became persona non-grata in the scientific world for more than a decade.

5. How could Venus possibly been ejected from Jupiter? I’m trying to even phantom and understand that one.

LS: Carl Sagan calculated that any event capable of ejecting Venus from Jupiter would have vaporized large portions of Jupiter and left them intensely hot, even today. Recently a Chinese astronomer developed computer models to try to explain why the core of Jupiter is half the size and twice as hot as predicted by theory. His models suggest that a planet ten times the size of the Earth slammed into Jupiter, sank to its core, and vaporized the core. My view is that this kind of event – either in conjunction with or having actually created the Great Red Spot storm on Jupiter – a storm that is several times the diameter of the Earth and is thought to reach down to the core of Jupiter and shuttle material upward to the top of its atmosphere – could have intermixed, formed and ejected a planet-sized body.

6. What evidence is there that Venus was out of its orbit so to speak?

LS: Starting around 1500 BC, many different ancient cultures from around the world suddenly became obsessed with tracking the movements of Venus. The Oracle Bone writing (the earliest in China) is thought to have originated during the Shang Dynasty specifically to track Venus. Several cultures kept meticulous tables of the timing of movements that relate to the orbit of Venus. Some kept more than one set of records using differing methods. None of these records can be easily reconciled with the current orbit of Venus. Likewise, both Ptolemy (in the early centuries A.D.) and Copernicus (around 1500 AD) made observations and kept records of the motions of Venus and made drawings of the moonlike crescent phases of Venus. Neither set of records – set forth by observers with impeccable credentials – agrees with modern observation, nor do they agree with each other. The suggestion is that the orbit of Venus was changing over a period of thousands of years.

7. In ancient cultures like the Dogon and so many others, how is Venus perceived belief system wise and what did it represent to them and could you tell us about Venus in their Calendar systems?

LS: Prior to 1500 BC, ancient cultures commonly observed a four-planet system that excluded Venus. Instead, Venus was classed alongside the Sun and the Moon, ostensibly because it was so bright that it could be seen moving across the sky during daylight hours. Likewise, the earliest references to Venus in ancient cultures are commonly given using words that are typically reserved for comets, or in images that are drawn to look like a comet. In China and Korea, we have synchronized astronomic records that describe the same supernova event on the same date.

Both describe it as appearing like Venus with its “outstanding rays.” Velikovsky says that it’s easy to identify Venus in the mythology of any ancient culture – Venus is the goddess who is said to have been “born into” the mythology. The Dogon observe the same set of calendars as the ancient Egyptians, and they use the rising the setting of astronomic bodies to regulate their agricultural cycle in much the same way that ancient cultures in the Americas did. One of the Dogon calendars is based on the movements of Venus. My sense is that the purpose of the calendar was – as were the Venus tables of other cultures – to track and make obvious any changes in the movements of Venus, rather than to regulate aspects of their year based on the movements of Venus.

8. I am just curious to your personal perspectives on our Universe and extraterrestrial life in the Universe. Do you feel these ancient cultures were in contact with other life or influenced by them? I guess I’m trying to see if your an Ancient Astronaut buff or not. I lean that way for the most part…

LS: Every ancient culture I’ve studied expresses the explicit belief that they benefited from the knowledge of outsiders. However, there are differences in the ways that these outsiders were perceived. Some cultures see them as deities, some seem to describe them as if they were aliens, and some treat them as honored historical personages. These diverse descriptions are further complicated because the notion of an ancestor is treated as a cosmological term that has meaning for the creation traditions of some cultures, and so has symbolic overtones.

In the Dogon and Buddhist stupa traditions, which correlate in great detail with one another, these outsiders are said to be spiritual in nature (as opposed to physical or material).The Dogon priests say that, when asked, these outsiders specifically denied that they were God, but preferred to be treated as “agents of God.” In Buddhism, the most sacred symbols are explicitly said to have been “given by a non-human source”. In view of all of this, when I reduce fractions, the best I can say with certainty is that, in ancient times, humanity seems to have had a boost upward toward a more civilized state by someone who was more knowledgeable than we were. Likewise, it appears that this “someone” always had our very best interests at heart.

9. What is new evidence about Venus and its scenario revolving around your book that has come up the most recent?

LS: In my view, the most recent significant development relating to Venus is the discovery that, over the last twelve years, the rotation of Venus appears to have slowed by six minutes – a finding that is supported both by space probe and ground-based readings. This implies that there may well be forces acting on Venus that we do not yet fully understand.

10. What is Laird Scranton up to in the future books wise and convention wise. I see you are doing Paradigm Symposium soon as well? Thanks.

LS: Yes – I’m scheduled to speak on Friday morning October 19th at the Paradigm Symposium in Minneapolis. I’ve also been booked to speak at the A.R.E’s Mysteries Conference in Virginia Beach in October 2013. Right now I’m midway through writing a new book – the next in my Dogon series – that folds the cosmology and language of ancient China into the same Dogon/Egyptian/Buddhist/Tibetan model that is discussed in my previous books. I’ve also been working with Ed Nightingale in connection with his very interesting work to decipher the geometric plan of the Giza plateau. And most recently I’ve been involved in a possible film project relating to The Science of the Dogon In-between projects I try to find time for the occasional dinner with my good friend John Anthony West.

Laird Scranton’s official website can be found here.

Laird Scranton’s book and many other great books can be bought at Inner Traditions.

Jeffery Pritchett is the host of The Church Of Mabus Show bringing you high strange stories from professionals in the carousel of fields surrounding the paranormal.