January 23, 1975   Dear Dr. Velikovsky, Enclosed are the two items which you requested: the galley proofs of the piece which I prepared for Pensee; and the Notes which you jotted down many years ago. Regarding the notes, the xerox copy which I possess is poor, so I am afraid that the quality of the enclosed copy is miserable. Also, in places I had some difficulty in reading your handwriting; and consequently I wrote a translation between the lines. Forgive me if you find them distracting. As always, you and Mrs. Velikovsky were most hospitable on Sunday; and I enjoyed seeing you again very much. Henceforth I shall try to keep in touch more regularly. Affectionately, John

[enclosure]

The traditions of people everywhere throughout the world refer to a series of world ages, each terminated by a natural catastrophe of cosmic dimensions, in which raining fire and stones, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, thunderbolts, etc., contributed to the general destruction of the earth and its inhabitants. These traditions refer to actual events which occurred not in the dim past, but well within recorded history. The first of these events of which any remembrance remains occurred at the end of a period during which the terrestrial sky was dominated by a celestial body which the ancients called Uranus. Although the exact nature of this event is unknown, this body lost its dominant place in the terrestrial sky—it may have become the planet which we now call Uranus; and Saturn took its place. (The following names were applied to Saturn by the ancients: Khima [Hebrews]; Osiris [Egyptians]; Baal [Assyrians and Babylonians]; Chronos [Greeks] and Saturn [Romans].) The period which followed this event was called hte Age of Chronos by the Greeks. Saturn was far more massive then than it is now; and it probably moved much closer to the earth then than it does now. Possibly Saturn and Jupiter formed a binary system of dark stars; and/or the earth orbited Saturn rather than the sun. During this period, it never rained on earth; men were vegetarians; and dinosaurs still moved about the globe. The Age of Chronos ended somewhere between 9000 and 6000 B.C. Perturbed by the close approach of Jupiter, Saturn became a nova. It underwent atomic fission (or fusion?) and exploded. The terrestrial experience of this event commenced with the appearance of a brilliant light, which lasted seven days (“the light of the seven days” to which Isaiah referred) and outshone the sun. Then the globe was deluged with clouds of warm and salty water which reached this planet in the company of two comets. The earth was shrouded in darkness, a product of the clouds of moisture arriving from Saturn and the clouds of volcanic debris erupting from the earth. Many species of terrestrial life perished; and the cosmic rays of the nova produced numerous mutations among those species which survived. The appearance of Saturn in the terrestrial sky was greatly altered by this cosmic cataclysm. It apparently lost its satellites, giving rise to the Greek legend that Chronos had devoured his children; and it acquired its rings or bands, giving rise to the Greek legend that Zues had put Chronos in fetters and to the Egyptian legend that Isis had swathed Osiris. (From the latter notion arose the Egyptian practice of swathing mummies.) Lastly, Saturn’s stature was greatly diminished; and Jupiter became the dominant celestial

body in the terrestrial sky. (The following names were applied to Jupiter by the ancients: Zedek [Hebrews]; Amon, Isis, and Horus [Egyptians]; Ishtar, Marduk, and Ball,the last of which was inherited from Saturn [Assyrians and Babylonians]; Zeus [Greeks]; Jupiter [Romans]; Shiva [Hindus]; Mazda [Persians]; Odin [Icelanders]; and Wotan [Germans].) Soon after the explosion of the nova, Jupiter commenced accumulating the debris which had been ejected by Saturn throughout the solar system; and during the following millennia its mass continued to increase. In the third millennium B.C., another cosmic event occurred, the exact nature of which is also unknown. Mercury, commencing either as a comet or as a satellite of Jupiter, was whisked by the latter swiftly past the earth and into its present orbit about the sun. During its near encounter with the earth, an electrical discharge occurred between the two celestial bodies which caused amnesia among whole portions of the terrestrial population. A memory of this event is contained in the story concerning the destruction of the tower of Babel; and the appearance of Mercury during this event is symbolized by the Caduceus of Hermes. Several centuries later, another cosmic event occurred, markin the end of the Old Kingdom of Egypt and causing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the overturning of the plain which is mentioned int he Book of Genesis, the birth of the Dead Sea and the Great African Rift (or its greater expansion). Although the exact nature of the event is unclear, it seems to have included an electrical discharge between Jupiter and the earth and to have been accompanied byh the deposit upon the latterof gold-bearing gravel and brimstone (sulfur—possibly resulting from the fusion of two oxygen agoms in the presence of the electrical discharge). The era which followed this cosmic event was that of the Middle Bronze Ages I and II (the time of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, during which occurred the seven years of famine shich is mentioned in the Book of Genesis and in the annals of either Senusert III or Amenemhet III). This era was terminated by another cosmic catastrophe of major proportions. As a consequence of its continually increasing mass, Jupiter became unstable and broke into two unequal portions. The larger portion remained in a planetary orbit about the sun and is the Jupiter which we see today; the smaller portions, which we now call Venus, entered a cometary orbit about the sun which intersdected the orbit of the earth. During the 15th century B.C. there commenced that series of catastrophic encounters between Venus and earth which is described in Worlds in Collision.