Worlds in Collision and The Velikovsky Heresies

Many years ago I picked up a couple of beat up copies of books by Immanuel Velikovsky at a used book store. I knew the name, but not much else. I figured maybe one day I would read them. Over the last year or so, I have become very interested in The Electric Universe theory and thunderbolts.info has become a favorite site of mine. They often mention Velikovsky, enough so that I finally sat down and read "Worlds in Collision". 

The main gist of Velikovsky's theory is that Venus started life as a comet, and within historical times. It was ejected from Jupiter around 1600 B.C. when a larger mass collided with the gas giant, and it had close encounters with both Earth and Mars before settling into it's current location. Velikovsky was a Russian born psychoanalyst, and a friend and contemporary of Einstein. When this book was published in 1950 it ignited a huge controversy. First of all, he was writing outside of his field. Second, he was contradicting accepted science at the time. Third, he was using ancient texts to support his theory, especially the Bible. None of this sat well with the scientific establishment of the time. It got worse, when various predictions he made, Venus would be hot, not cold as mainstream science believed, for example, turned out to be correct. In fact, the majority of what Velikovsky predicted seems to have been accurate. The attacks on him are astonishing, and have been covered in many other books. Carl Sagan made a special point of trying to take down Velikovsky, and many feel that he was successful. However a clear, unbiased look at what Sagan did, reveals that he actually failed to disprove Immanuel's theory, and that it was more of a hit job than anything else. Back to the book. It is a fascinating read. It was a best seller when it came out, and has held it's own for a long time after. It is well written, and detailed. And, yes, he does take passages from the bible to support his theory. However, he finds equating passages from other parts of the world to substantiate this. If one text says the sun stood still in the sky, he looks for, and finds, other texts from the same time period, from other parts of the world, that say the same thing. He shows that Venus is not mentioned by any cultures prior to a certain point, approximately 1600 B.C. He shows that it flew erratically around the heavens, and was a fearsome thing in the sky. He shows that it had a comet's tail, and was often referred to as comet's were. It is a stunning piece of work. I was pretty blown away when I got done. This book, however, was published in 1950. What I wanted to know was, has anything in our current understanding of science and history been found that soundly defeats Velikovsky's work? It seemed like a massive undertaking. Enter Laird Scranton...


Just about the time I was asking these questions, Laird Scranton published The Velikovsky Heresies, and hey, guess what, it is a book that answers that very question about how the theory has held up. From interviews I have heard with Laird, he went into this book with no bias one way or another. He did the research, took the main parts of Velikovsky's theory and searched to find out whether they stand or fall. For the most part, the theory has been more vindicated than debunked. Of course, when dealing with events of the distant past, it is hard to ever know for certain, but Laird, step by step, takes apart Velikovsky's theory and shows the current science that seems to support it (for example, we now know that Venus seems to still have the remnants of what seems to be a comet's tail!). It is a brilliant piece of work by it's own right, and my only complaint would be that I managed to read through it in about a day. There is a lot packed into the 130+ pages that make up this book, however. No theory is ever completely right, and of course that very much applies to Velikovsky, but Laird shows how much of the theory has held up over the 62 years since it was first published. It is impressive. You can easily read Laird's book without ever reading World's in Collision. I would, however, recommend reading both to get a more complete understanding of a theory that one day may completely change the way we look at our own solar system and planetary origins. 

Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura: Skinwalker

I like Jesse Ventura. Until today, I have never watched an episode of his Conspiracy Theory show. Having read "Hunt for the Skinwalker", and having been very impressed by the work, I was eager to watch this show on the ranch featured in the book. Wow, was this a disappointment on a number of levels. This is the type of thing that gives conspiracy theories their bad name. For one, the book, which is quite detailed, is never mentioned. Nor is the scientist that wrote it, who spent 100's of days on the ranch mentioned or interviewed. Instead we get a setup implying a mystery that doesn't really exist. Really, I would say this is the biggest pile of nonsense that I have heard in quite some time. 

Robert Bigelow is rich. He owns the Skinwalker Ranch, and was the power behind the scientific investigation that went on there. He is also, which he openly admits, fascinated by UFO's. If you read the Skinwalker book, you will find that it has little to do with Flesh and Blood, Nuts and Bolts ET's, and more to do with something we simply do not have a concept for at this point. One of Bigelow's top people is interviewed about the ranch and pretty much says that very thing. They don't believe him. Why? Welll, for one, they clearly haven't done their research. They keep asking what is going on with the ranch. Hey, read the damned book and you will see what is going on with the ranch. Or does that not make good TV? They question why Bigelow would want to launch a space station, which he is in the process of doing. Why wouldn't someone who is fascinated with space want to build a space station if they had the power to do so? Why are they making this sound nefarious? There really is no good reason for it. Jesse outright asks a woman representing MUFON if she thinks Bigelow's backers are ET's, and they stop to cut to commercial before she answers. In fact, they never play her answer, but it may leave one with the impression that she said yes because of the way they cut it. They talk to Bigelow himself and he seems like a genuine and pleasant individual, who is interested in UFO's. They even go so far as to suggest that ET's helped him get the couple modules he already has in orbit up there... What? He used earthly technology to launch them, and we know that, why would they even make that claim? 

This show was a massive insult to my intelligence. I suppose, though, if you don't know much about the subject, they may seem like they are onto something, and that is dangerous unto itself. When you read between the lines, you see that they have nothing, they are building upon rumors that can't be substantiated. In fact, they built a whole show on nonsense, with little to no actual research. Hell, Bigelow, with an admitted interest in UFO's, has for his company logo the face of a grey ET. They view this as proof he may be working with them. Now let's think about this. If you were hiding something like working with ET's, would you use their face as your logo? Not likely. If you were interested in the subject, would you? Yes. Bigelow seemed to be exactly what he seems to be. A guy that is interested in the UFO Phenomenon, who wants to continue moving us up to and exploring space, and this show vilified him. Despite there being a comprehensive book written by one of the scientists who worked on the ranch, they never mention it, nor show that they have any knowledge the book exists. What does that say for their research quality? Instead, they interview people saying that an alien invasion is imminent. Bigelow once made a comment about people being killed in relation to the UFO phenomenon. When asked about this, he states that he was referring to a fairly well known case in Brazil. However, people they talk to here say it referred to the Skinwalker Ranch. Why? Because they want it to, I guess, they really have nothing to support such an assertion. 

I will probably watch some of the other episodes of this that I have DVR's this season, but as a first exposure, this was a ridiculous joke. I am severely disappointed in the show, and Jesse Ventura himself for being a part of this mess. Poorly researched and espousing nonsense theories with no supporting evidence. This is why the term Conspiracy Theory gets looked down upon. 

And for anyone that is interested in the actual story of the ranch, read the book. It is a fantastic piece of work.

What I am Reading Right Now...

I have some book reviews to do, but until I get around to that, I felt like sharing what I am digesting right now. 

LightQuest: Your Guide to Seeing and Interacting with UFOs, Mystery Lights and Plasma Intelligences by Andrew Collins. Collins is by far one of my favorite authors. This actually is similar, but different, to my blog entry from back in May about rethinking reality. Where I focus more on the role of DMT, he focuses on plasma. Where we meet is around Paul Devereux and his Earth Light work. Anyways, Andrew starts with Roswell, and moves on to Marfa and then the English Countryside. Slowly and clearly making the case against physical nuts and bolts ET's and for something very different. He does an amazing job, bringing things to light that have not be published elsewhere. I find that every time I read one of his books, I learn a good number of things I had never heard about before. This is not always the case, and for him to do such consistent work in the fields he writes about is impressive. Being about halfway through this book, I would highly recommend it.

The Omega Project: Near-Death Experiences, Ufo Encounters, and Mind at Large by Kenneth Ring, PH.D. This is a re-read. Granted the first time I read it was about 20 years ago, and it has always stuck with me as a phenomenal and groundbreaking piece of work. I decided to see if a re-read would hold up, and what I am finding is that I am even more impressed by this work than I was originally. Ken started out just working on Near Death Experiences, but has expanded here to include UFO Encounters. When I first read this, I was sold on the 'nuts and bolts' ET hypothesis of UFO's, partly because of the rather good work of Budd Hopkins. As Dr. Ring shows that there are a lot of similar factors to people who have NDE's and UFO encounters, it pushes against the purely physical idea, and the first time I read this, it really hurt my brain trying to figure these connections out. Now, they make a lot of sense, and I see from this perspective that he was way ahead of the curve. A definite must read for anyone serious about this phenomenon.

Lost Star of Myth and Time by Walter Cruttenden. Also a re-read, although from a much more recent time. I started to re-read this to prepare for the interview I did with Walter at the end of September. That interview can be found here. I didn't get through the whole thing in time for the interview, but  I am greatly enjoying the re-read. In short, it deals with the cyclic nature of time, a rise from a dark age, to a golden age, and back again, the evidence for this, as well as the common belief in so many cultures of this cycle, it's connection to the precession of the equinox, and the theory that we may be in a binary star system that drives said cycle. Awesome book, and I was very happy with the interview we did.

Lost Cities of Africa and Arabia (The Lost City Series) by David Hatcher Childress. Haven't gotten too far into this one yet, but like all of David's work, this one is entertaining from the beginning. It records his travels around Africa in search of lost cities and legends. This series has a nice balance of fact with legend with travel stories. David has no problem going off on wild speculation, and in this case, it's usually entertaining. He does a good job differentiating the facts from theory and speculation. 

Earth in Upheaval by Immanuel Velikovsky. After finishing Worlds in Collision a short while ago (full review will be up eventually) I immediately starting reading this. Velikovsky will clearly be proven wrong on some points, but overall he seems to be more right than wrong. The scientific establishment doesn't like that at all. To this day, over 50 years later, they still seek to distance any new discoveries that support his theories with a buffer that makes him sound wrong, even if he wasn't. This one is more geological than Worlds, since he was criticized for referring to myths in that volume. Haven't made it very far yet, but I have high expectations. 

Gateway to Atlantis: The Search for the Source of a Lost Civilization by Andrew Collins. Yup, I am reading 2 Andrew Collins books currently. Three actually, but I haven't picked up The Cygnus Mystery: Unlocking the Ancient Secret of Life's Origins in the Cosmos in a while, so that doesn't count right now. I will get back to it eventually. This is Collins attempt to find atlantis based on information in ancient maps, legends, and, of course, Plato's writings. His end result is that it was in Cuba to some extent. A good piece of work I am about halfway through. All his evidence is well supported and fleshed out in great detail. Anyone with an interest in Atlantis, as well as lost civilizations, should find this a damned interesting read.

Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld by Patrick Harpur. This is also a re-read, because as blown away by it as I was the first time through, I failed to remember it in any detail.  Harpur approaches the paranormal by shifting how we view reality. It is an impressive piece of work. Comprehensive as well, and he is likely, to some degree, right about how we interact with this phenomenon. Highly recommended. 

The Way Toward Health: A Seth Book by Jane Roberts. As much as I tend to be VERY skeptical of channeling, Seth has always been an exception. Detailed and specific, and when we look at what we have learned scientifically in the last few decades, and how Seth claimed things worked, he seems to have been accurate. Jane was always skeptical of her channeling, and as to whether or not Seth was really what he claimed to be or if it was just a part of her own mind somehow. I think the wealth of information, though, speaks for itself. This is not all light and love like a lot of New Age channels. This is very real and down to earth. However, this is by no means their best work. This was actually dictated while Jane was dying in the hospital. A good portion of the book is her husband Robert's notes about her condition and such, with short little spurts of dictation. The quality of material is still there despite Jane's state. If you have read most of the other work, this is interesting, if a little sad. You can really feel for what Robert is going through watching Jane deteriorate. If you are not familiar with Jane's work, go read something else, like Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, which is a good place to start...

The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography. Yet another re-read. I first read this over 20 years ago, and found so much that I loved about Crowley. Re-reading it I find myself feeling the same level of respect all over again. This book had a HUGE effect on me, and Crowley's work and view on things has always been a inspiration to me. He was such a unique individual, and had such a huge effect on our culture, not that most people realize it. In fact, most people have no idea what Crowley was really all about, and if you are one of those people that thinks he was just some evil, black magician or Satanist, you really need to read this book and understand just how fully wrong that idea is.  What is also remarkable is how relevant some of what he has to say is to today's world...

Last one for now, and yes, I know, I read a LOT of stuff at the same time. I tend to bounce back and forth depending on my mood and what I feel like learning about.

Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America by Russ Baker. The man behind the WhoWhatWhy.com website, this book is awesome. Russ started working on it after hearing Bush Sr. say that he had no idea where he was during the assassination of JFK. Russ finds out just where he was, why he doesn't want anyone to know, and builds from there to show just how much influence the Bush's have had over our history, going back to WWII and beyond. Everything is notated and you can find every bit of information he refers to. There is little speculation, just following the facts. Russ Baker is what a news reporter should be. His website and this book both attest to that. You will find here information about the JFK assassination that you have never heard about before. You will see how interconnected the Bush family has been to our government for longer than most of us have been alive. It's actually a bit disturbing...

Ok, that is the mass of stuff I am working my way through right now. I have Velikovsky's book to review eventually as well as Laird Scranton's The Velikovsky Heresies: Worlds in Collision and Ancient Catastrophes Revisited, which I can say right now, I recommend if you have read any of Velikovsky's work. 

Paranormal Radio Shows

*EDIT* We have just started our own radio show, called Where Did the Road Go? Go to www.wheredidtheroadgo.com for more info and upcoming schedule! *EDIT*

Over the last year or so, I have found myself thoroughly enjoying the various talk radio shows on the paranormal that exist out there. It started when Graham Hancock posted a torrent with a bunch of his Coast to Coast AM interviews. I had heard of this show and never really paid it much attention. The interviews were excellent, and I looked more into who else they have on. Now I find myself listening to a good number of their shows every month. Some of the shows, well, aren't very good. Some of the guests make you wonder why they have them on at all, but I realized that when you are doing 4 hours of radio every night, it's probably not that easy to find good guests every night. The hosts are all decent, with different strong and weak points. The main host, George Noory, for example, sometimes has a habit of talking over his guests or asking questions that suggest he isn't really listening to what they have to say. This is forgivable, as I can say from personal experience, when running a radio show, you do sometimes get distracted by other important aspects of things while doing an interview. He may be reading an e-mail with the next question, or something of that ilk, I don't know. Really, though, that is the biggest issue I can raise with the show.  Overall, it's entertaining and informative. I do a music show that is on once a week for six hours and that takes a lot out of me, they get much respect for keeping up with things 4 hours a night, and they take calls on air. Always a risky enterprise. Some of the calls are intelligent, and some are hard to even follow, but they always seem to stay respectful of the callers, and I'm sure that must take a lot of patience at times. Anyways, they are on AM radio all over the country, and you can easily find stations that stream their broadcast. Coast to Coast is easily the most well known of this type of radio show.

Now, on the other hand, out of Sweden comes Red Ice Radio. This may, at least in some ways, be the best show of this type. The host is clearly smart and well informed, and he also tends to just let his guest talk, to the point where you almost forget he is there sometimes. They usually have a 2 hour show, posted online, and the first hour is always free. The second hour you need a subscription for, but they sometimes post that for free as well. I'm not sure if they have a set schedule for how often they upload shows, but it seems to be every few days they upload a new show. They have a very good selection of guests, and a well done website.

Then there is Just Energy Radio. Dr. Rita Louise is the host, and she has some really interesting guests on from time to time. Airing once a week, with an excellent archive, that not only allows you to listen to recent shows, but each show connects to a page with info on the guest and links to previous shows they may have been on. Rita, however, is not the best interviewer. She often sounds distracted, and will too often ask questions that are at odds with what her guest was just talking about. Some shows are better than others. Also, she leans a little more towards the New Age type guests than more hard science types. There is also an issue with the production values, with the music bed at the beginning, end, and middle, being WAY too loud as compared to the discussion. It can kill you if you are not near the volume. There are also some shows where you really can't hear the guest at all. Hit and miss on this one, but the good interviews do tend to be very good.

Last, and certainly not least, is Walter Cruttenden's radio show, The Cosmic Influence. The downside here is it no longer on regularly. It was till late 2009, and since then there have only been a handful of shows. Walter and his cohosts interview people in various fields dealing with lost civilizations, the cyclic nature of time, and much more. Very well, done the hosts are smart and well informed, and know when to just let their guests talk. The entire archive is available free, and you can subscribe on iTunes. 

If you know of any other shows like this that I should check out, please leave a comment! Thus far, these seem to be the best, at least that are still on the air.

Full Interview with Walter Cruttenden on September 30, 2012

Full interview conducted by Seriah Azkath on The Last Exit for the Lost. Walter is a part of the Binary Research Institute. This is the whole interview, including music. We talked to him about Binary Star theory, his book (Lost Star of Myth and Time), cycle of the ages, ancient technology, Sirius, Lost Civilizations, and a bunch of other intriguing subjects.. I highly recommend checking out his site at www.binaryresearchinstitute.org. As well you can check out loststarbook.com and cpakonline.com.

You can listen to just the audio HERE. Or watch on YouTube below.

Chasing UFO's

As I am watching Chasing UFO’s on National Geographic, I find myself feeling much the same way I do about any shows of this nature. Lots of filler, no real substance. The current episode is entitled Alien Baby Farm. They are investigating some pretty interesting footage of an unknown object spewing out a line of other unknown objects, that was captured by two different people in two different locations. The footage looks genuine. They go down to Mexico City, where it was shot, and talk to the two witnesses. I would say, both witnesses have more sense about them than any of the people doing this show. They both referred to the object as possibly organic, like it was alive. And the second person pointed out that more UFO’s are seen when the volcano is active just outside the city. Now, this brings to mind the work of Paul Devereux, books like, for example, Earth Lights Revelation: Ufo's and Mystery Lightform Phenomena : The Earth's Secret Energy Force where he presents his evidence that UFO’s appear more often along fault lines than anywhere else. Andrew Collins also seems to be onto this idea with his latest work, LightQuest: Your Guide to Seeing and Interacting with UFOs, Mystery Lights and Plasma Intelligences. It seems like what the second witness was indicating is that volcanic activity may be a factor, instead our crack team goes with the idea that extra-terrestrials are visiting the volcano for some reason and set off to explore the volcano. So we get some nice shots of them hiking over a beautiful area and such, but really, this has nothing to do with the video at hand. Then we jump to another quite interesting video. But... what happened to working with the footage that they started with? Were those the only two witnesses?

On another episode, Alien Castaways, we see them investigating what they are calling a South American Roswell. Well, sure, considering Roswell was not a crashed UFO, this seems like a good comparison. Andrew Collins does a good job of debunking Roswell in his above book, as has John Keel for a few decades now. This 'investigation' really goes nowhere. They talk to a bunch of people and run around in the woods a bit. The 100,000 witnesses that supposingly seeing aliens run around down there, don't seem to be available for interview. The one group of women they do interview, seem very genuine, and likely had a real experience. It was, however, completely detached from any UFO sighting or crash. At the very end they decide to look at the photo that got them interested in the case, and oh, they realize it's a fake. Shouldn't they have done that first? There was no investigation, really, and at the end they had NOTHING to show for going down there.

These shows are not about the paranormal. This is what these big media outlets THINK that people want to see. You get the same formula on Ghost Hunters, Chasing UFO's, Destination Truth, etc. It's all about the people running around and usually making fools of themselves. Oh, and lets cut to commercial just when it seems like something major is happening, only to come back to reveal that it's absolutely nothing. Personally, the only show I think this formula works on is Ghost Adventures, or at least I find it amusing rather than aggravating. Here they make the people very two dimensional, you have three people here, one is a skeptic, one a true believer, and the other somewhere in between. Same formula as on UFO Hunters, and rarely are people like that in real life. James Fox, one of the main people on this show, does not seem to be so simple. I heard of this show from an interview he did on Coast to Coast AM, and at first wasn't sure what to make of him. By the end of the interview, I was mostly impressed with his open mindedness and intelligence. Watching this pile of crap, though, I find it hard to believe it's the same guy. In his defense, he did post to his facebook wall that he, himself, was very upset about the way the show turned out. This is what he wrote;

James Fox  I know how disappointed all of you are. I am too. It’s not the show that was sold to both myself and scientist Ben.

Two months into it, we were off to a great start; good locations, solid witnesses and some opportunities for Ben to apply his field research as a geologist at some crash sites. Very exciting stuff. Unfortunately, when we actually got out in the field we began to realize that they were more interested in poking around a night then allocating the time necessary during the day as apparently (so we were told) Americans love watching others sneak around at night from the comfort of their couches. Ben and I reluctantly played along…and it wasn’t always bad. We really set up field maps and surveillance at the Roswell crash site (with a slew of high tech gear) and ran out of daylight.

As it was in the middle of no-where we all decided to work through the night and did find something…there were other cases in the show where when witnesses claimed to see strange lights appear in certain areas and that too made some sense for us to go out at night…but for the most part it was gratuitous night time boloney. As far as the title, it was UFO Investigations until they switched it to Chasing UFOs after it was all shot and edited. So with a lack of control in the field and zero in post the show is what it is.

Having said that, all my previous works are circulating Nat Geo headquarters and I’ve been influencing and establishing contacts in the mainstream (middle america mainstream) and will continue to do so and I will only return if I’m on as a producer all the way through to the end. Will it ever be I Know What I Saw or Leslie’s great work…? No, but I’ll do my best to make is a credible while entertaining as possible (as that’s most important to Nat Geo). I promise I’ll either quit or change my position within the show because at least I can make it all make some sense. The show does get a bit better further down the road but not a lot.

Please bare with me a bit longer as I’ve jumped into the lions den to see what I could do from the inside. My credibility and reputation has, deservedly, taken a serious hit but know that I’m hoping to come out with an opportunity that otherwise would;'t have presented itself. Fingers crossed. James

So, at least he sees the problem. Overall, I wouldn't recommend to anyone serious about the subject that they waste their time on this series. It's not that entertaining, and really, aside from the Travis Walton interview (in the episode Abducted in Arizona I believe) and a few good videos, hasn't really been worth a damn. I think this is meant to entertain people who really don't know much about the subject, and who like reality shows. Lets hope that James and company do something more worthwhile in the future. 

Book Review: "Jadoo" by John Keel

I had wanted to read John Keel's Jadoo: The Astounding Story of One Man's Search into the Mysteries of Black Magic in the Orient for a very long time. Out of print, and sometimes hard to find, I finally picked up a reasonably priced copy of it. Running roughly 250 pages, it is one hell of an interesting read. Keel is known, of course, most famously for The Mothman Prophecies, and overall as a UFOlogist. But this book is before all that. Published in 1957, this was his debut, and chronicles his life traveling around the Middle East in search of unusual stories. He delves into the secrets of snake charmers and mystics. He learned the rather interesting Indian Rope Trick. He searches for a Yeti in the mountains near Tibet. He does all this by the seat of his pants, with almost no money, and encounters plenty of problems. It's a very entertaining read, and through it all, despite his overall skepticism, he finds some truly unexplainable things out there. At the same time, you can really feel what he is describing, from the squalor of certain areas, to the majesty of others. It's a look at another culture that you don't often see from our world. 

This is a home movie that he took of the snake charmers he talks about in the book...

Kind of interesting that it exists, especially since he had to sell all his equipment to have money to live on shortly after this. Would love to see more footage from the events in the book.

In short, if you like Keel's style, his frank, and humorous approach, you will like Jadoo, and I would highly recommend tracking down a copy.