Scientia Press

Sekhmet (“The Mighty One”), lioness goddess of ancient Egypt, spread terror with her bloody rampages.  Yet she became the protector of kings and a favorite personal goddess of millions of Egyptians.

Why did Egyptians have a goddess who required such assiduous and even obsessive propitiation?  Why did other Egyptian goddesses play roles similar to Sekhmet’s?  What explains Sekhmet’s dual nature as destroyer and protector?  Why did Egyptians call her the Eye of Ra?  Why did she originally appear with an oval disk on her head?

We now have good answers to these questions.  But in order to understand them, we need to see why we should think that Sekhmet was Planet Venus.  And that requires us to investigate a major case of scientific rejectionism.

In his book Worlds in Collision (1950), MD and psychoanalyst Immanuel Velikovsky argued that Venus had emerged as a comet from Jupiter, then approached Earth during the Bronze Age, causing catastrophes that appeared in the Bible and other ancient narratives and myths as well as leaving evidence in iconography, geology, archaeology, linguistics, and calendrics.  Many scientists vehemently rejected his claims.  Although Velikovsky attracted a sizeable following, he was shut out of scientific journals and became the single most vilified scientist of all time.  After his death in 1979, the controversy–the greatest in planetary science since Copernicus and Galileo–faded into the background.  But gradually researchers accumulated an array of new evidence supporting his case.

Now chatbot Claude Haiku has revisited the controversy and asked whether it shows signs of scientific rejectionism.  After general discussion in points #1-10, in #11-20 human intelligence and AI collaborate on an evidence-grounded interdisciplinary solution–a Revised Venus Theory.

If we can interpret certain ancient myths correctly, they could lead us to more accurate and penetrating views of the history of the Earth and the solar system.  They might teach us about the forces at work and explain anomalies bequeathed to us by a long-hidden past.  But how can we interpret these myths, the products of minds so far removed from ours?  How do we know which interpretation is correct, if any?  Are we doomed to speculate without ever achieving certainty?

Here we will interpret two Bronze Age myths to illustrate the high scientific value such myths might contain.  We will also see how easy it can be to understand a myth once the right interpretation becomes available.

The famous Snake Goddess of ancient Crete has long attracted students of history and art. Elegant, risquée, enigmatic, she embodies the mystery and allure of Minoan civilization.

When Venus first appeared in the skies around 2525 BC, ancient peoples worldwide strove to come to terms with this brilliant and awesome new comet-planet (the best account is in Immanuel Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision, though it has been corrected in a Revised Venus Theory).  That meant assigning the deity a gender and a name.

In the Near East, they tried both genders.  In its masculine incarnation, Venus became the Bull of Heaven (as Velikovsky pointed out, the comet-planet’s body blocked the sun’s rays from the central portion of its tail and thus it was seen as having two horns).  In its feminine version, Venus was called Ishtar or Astarte; and in the Levant Astarte was depicted with serpents in her hands—the twin tails of the comet.

In Greece, according to Velikovsky, planet Venus was originally named Athena.

One of the world’s most famous monuments, Stonehenge abounds in mysteries and anomalies.

Why was Stonehenge built in the first place?  Why was it radically transformed shortly before 2500 BC into a masterpiece of megalithic architecture?  What explains the intricate, changing patterns of the stones over time?   Why the extraordinary effort?

We now have answers to these and other questions, but to get to them we need to set aside preconceptions and come to terms with something that isn’t simple.

Rosemarie, A Novel of Discovery Science

As she struggles with a rare disease at the American Embassy in Turkey, philosopher Rosemarie devises a theory of the red blood cells.  Acting as a metacolony in real time, they constitute the Original Intelligence of humankind’s pre-neuronal ancestors and possess remarkable properties.  Peculiar dreams lead Rosemarie to other theories.  They also warn of terrorist attacks.  Her diplomat husband is wounded fighting off jihadists.  The ambassador is smitten by her charms.  A CIA psychiatrist stigmatizes her with a fraudulent diagnosis.  Entranced by a Turkish folktale, Rosemarie befriends a handsome young Turk….

Readers say:

“Excitement and intellectual depth.”

“The ending was very satisfying.”

“[I]t’s a good read and I recommend it.”  (Goodreads)

Goodreads rating:  4.5 stars

See the author’s biosketch at About Us.

American history contains two outstanding wrongs committed against groups of us:  the killing, displacement, and mistreatment of Native Americans and the subjection of African Americans to slavery and ongoing discrimination.  Various thinkers have suggested kinds of reparations for these acts; but views differ sharply on whether reparations are justified, who should pay them, who should receive them, and what amount is fair and feasible.  Instead of serving to heal our country, reparations have become one more divisive issue.

Yet reparations offer an alluring vision:  via a concrete yet also symbolic national gesture, we could take a major step toward healing wounds, overcoming the past, and moving together into the future.  They could counteract the negativity of partisan politics and lead to a happier multiethnic and multiracial society.  So we need to think through how to bring Americans to comprehend and support a plan for reparations that will help us flourish as a united people.

Fortunately, a related issue affords us an excellent opportunity

The assassinations of the 1960s and the tragic events of 2001 have resisted resolution for many years.  Now young Americans have an opportunity to contribute to solving them.  Steven J. Dillon and Kenneth J. Dillon of Scientia Press suggest why the investigations have not borne fruit, how we can reach more clarity, and what special strengths young Americans can bring to the effort to get to the bottom of them.  See also https://www.scientiapress.com/kgb-theory, https://www.scientiapress.com/jdey-anthrax-mailings, and www.scientiapress.com/al-qaeda-shoebomber-flight-587.

Young Americans Can Help Resolve Our Historical Tragedies

Steven J. Dillon and Kenneth J. Dillon, June 12, 2025

Both the assassinations of the 1960s–John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy–and the tragic events of 2001 changed the course of the country yet left more questions than answers. Older generations of Americans have extensively researched and debated theories of these events but have failed to converge on solutions even as their views have hardened. For 2001, they don’t even agree on which events should be included. Now, however, young Americans, many of whom were not even alive in 2001, have an opportunity and a duty to investigate these events and uncover truths that have been hidden but not necessarily lost.
Investigations into the assassinations of the 1960s reveal several clues,

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 set off a nationwide surge of protests over police brutality against African-Americans.  On April 20, 2021, the jury found Derek Chauvin, the police officer who pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds, guilty of murder in the second and third degrees and manslaughter in the second degree.  Worldwide attention to Floyd’s death has focused on racial disparities in the United States as well as on the specific issue of police brutality against African-Americans.

Still, even though the jury has come to its verdict, to understand our history correctly, we must consider a different possible motive for the killing.

On October 12, 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer was murdered on the canal towpath in Georgetown1. A divorced artist from a prominent family, Meyer was known by insiders to have been President John F. Kennedy’s senior female consort during his White House years, though the story never leaked to the public.

Her murder and the ensuing trial of Raymond Crump, Jr., an African-American laborer found by the police in the vicinity of the murder, drew a good deal of attention at the time. Crump had been identified by a gas station attendant helping start a car on a road overlooking the canal. Hearing cries of “Somebody help me. Somebody help me” and two shots, the attendant ran to look.