Recollections of a Fallen Sky: Velikovsky and Cultural Amnesia

Editor: E. R. Milton Contributors: Alfred de Grazia and others Year: 1974 (conference proceedings) Series: Quantavolution & Catastrophe (adjacent — conference volume)

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Synopsis

Recollections of a Fallen Sky collects the papers presented at the University of Lethbridge on May 9–10, 1974 — one of the first academic conferences dedicated to Velikovsky’s work. The title is a poetic summary of Velikovsky’s central thesis: human civilization carries a collective amnesia about a time when the sky literally fell — when planetary bodies approached Earth and were experienced as catastrophe.

The volume predates most of the Quantavolution series and represents the early academic catastrophist community attempting to legitimize Velikovsky’s ideas through formal scholarly discourse. Contributors debate the evidence, methodology, and implications of catastrophism across archaeology, astronomy, mythology, and psychology.

As a conference volume, it captures the live debate of the early 1970s catastrophist movement — before the suppression documented in Cosmic Heretics and the development of the mature Quantavolution framework.

Key Themes

• Cultural amnesia (Velikovsky’s psychological hypothesis for why catastrophe is suppressed)
• The evidence for planetary catastrophe from mythology and ancient records
• The institutional resistance to catastrophist ideas in academia
• Early cross-disciplinary catastrophist scholarship
• The foundations of the later Quantavolution series

Conference Context

Presented before the Kronos and SISR journals (both founded later in the 1970s), this conference was an early attempt to create a serious scholarly platform for catastrophism. The University of Lethbridge conference represented the first major academic gathering to treat Velikovsky’s claims systematically.

See Also

• Author Index
• Velikovsky Affair — earlier history of the Velikovsky controversy
• Cosmic Heretics — de Grazia’s memoir of the catastrophist movement

Keywords: #Recollections #Fallen #Sky #Velikovsky #Cultural #Amnesia