Re: "Sagan and Velikovsky" to appear in local book stores
Walter Alter (walter@netcom.com)
Sat, 28 Jan 1995 09:27:25 GMT
>>If the side of the Einstein correspondence held by Velikovsky's
>>heirs were the slightest bit supportive, why wouldn't they publish
>>it? The conclusion is that it helps V.'s case not a whit.
>>
>There is a third "side" to this. His heirs are not letting any of his
>papers or unpublished manuscripts be seen or published. This includes
>several volumes of his that were ready to go to press. I think also that
>the Einstein estate may have had some objections too. Early on Velikovsky
>announced that one of the books he was preparing was his correspondence
>with Einstein. It may well have been the Einstein estate that objected to
>his printing them. As far as I know only the one encouraging letter
>(noncommital about the theories) was ever published.
>Does anyone have details on this? I know that some people even have
>copies of some of this material and have wanted to publish it but have
>been threatened with lawsuits if they do.
the publishers of AEON journal will be producing a broadcast quality TV
documentary on Velikovsky and subsequent work in catastrophism. they are
in communication with the Velikovsky estate and have been granted full
access to the Princeton archives and the Jerusalem archives for this
documentary. at least one book has been published posthumously on the
theme of cultural amnesia and AEON will be working beyond the completion
of the TV series to publish more. the very fact that extensive
correspondence exists at all between Velikovsky and Einstein over a number
of years would lead one to conclude that Einstein saw Velikovsky as
something other than "loose". the archives were open to researchers
until the early '80's and were then closed until the present.
walter
|