Atlantis

Was the super-civilisation Atlantis occupied by aliens? How was the city lost? Steven Andrews (the Bard of Ely) and CJ Stone look into the evidence behind the intriguing legend of Atlantis....

“...for these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable… Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others…”

With these words, from the dialogue of Timaeus, written in about 360 BC, the philosopher Plato would unwittingly launch a deluge of speculation, investigation, argument and counter-argument, that has lasted the better part of 2,500 years.

Plato said that Atlantis came to a catastrophic end about 9,500 BC when a great flood destroyed its cities and culture and all but wiped out its people. It’s capital was called Poseidon, after the sea-god, and it went under the waves "in a single day and night of misfortune.”

Later, in another dialogue, Plato went into more detail about what Atlantis might have looked like.

“At the centre of the island, near the sea, was a plain, said to be the most beautiful and fertile of all plains, and near the middle of this plain about fifty stades (9250 m) inland a hill of no great size... There were two rings of land and three of sea, like cartwheels... in the centre was a shrine sacred to Poseidon and Cleito, surrounded by a golden wall through which entry was forbidden.”

What Plato describes at great length is a state not unlike the city states which dominated the Mediterranean in the philosopher’s own day. It is wealthy. It is cultured. It has works of art and imposing public buildings; it is also a war-like state which threatens its neighbours; but there is no hint of any higher technology - none of the gas-balloons and crystal powered TV - which figure in later versions of the story.

It is exactly the kind of state that we can imagine a person living in ancient Greece might picture if he were to speculate about times gone by.

There are no other references to Atlantis in the ancient world that are not informed by Plato’s original story.

After that Atlantis was all-but forgotten. Until the 19^th century, that is, when the Russian mystic and founder of the Theosophy movement, Madame Helena Petrova Blavatsky (1831 - 1891) revived interest in the mythical Island by mentioning it in her first book, Isis Unveiled, published in 1877. She continued her explorations of the idea in her major work, The Secret Doctrine in 1888, in which she gives many more details.

Around the same time, in 1882, US congressman Ignatius L. Donnelly (1831–1901) published his famous Atlantis: the Antediluvian World . Donnelly is usually given credit as the “father of modern Atlantis research” but from the close time connection, it seems possible that Blavatsky inspired him, and it is she who should be credited as the inspiration for the modern Atlantis movement.

In his book Donnelly includes Plato’s work as the starting point for his ideas about Atlantis and seeks to provide evidence that all ancient civilisations owed their knowledge, culture and technologies to an Atlantean past.

Donnelly even theorised that some crops like bananas were first cultivated in Atlantis and selective breeding by Atlantean scientists or farmers developed the seedless form we know today.

Edgar Cayce (1877 – 1945), a popular psychic known as the “Sleeping Prophet,” famous for making predictions and diagnosing illnesses whilst in trance, had a lot to say about Atlantis including predicting that it would rise again.

According to Cayce, the people of Atlantis had gas balloons, planes, submarines, elevators, X-ray devices, “photographing at a distance machines” and televisions powered by crystals.

Cayce said that Atlantean society was divided into two long-lived political factions - a “good” faction called the “Sons of the Law of One,” and an “evil” group known as the “Sons of Belial.”

He maintained that many people alive today are the reincarnations of Atlantean souls, who must now face similar temptations as in their past lives. Cayce said that Atlantis suffered three major destructions, one of which was the deluge.

He predicted that evidence of Atlantis would be found in 1968-9 off Bimini, a chain of islands in the Bahamas, and in that year underwater explorer David Zink, aware of what Cayce had predicted, set sail and located a “sunken wall” off the coast of Bimini, along with some other artefacts. Debunkers claim that the divisions in the underwater rock formation he found were natural and not man-made, but Cayce’s supporters believe otherwise.

Atlantis was not the only island continent that went under the seas, according to some. Another place that suffered the same fate was Mu or Lemuria. In 1926 Colonel James Churchward (1851 - 1936) published The Lost Continent of Mu , the first of a series. Maps included with his books show clearly that all that is left of Mu are the Polynesian islands whilst on the other side of the globe the Canary Islands are what survived the destruction of Atlantis.

A recent theory put forward by J.M. Allen centres on the Altiplano, an upland plain in Bolivia. Allen compared Plato’s description of the location of Atlantis with physical features found in the Altiplano, and he suggests that they matched Plato’s description on almost all points.

Another item of proof that Allen gives is Plato’s mention of a gold/copper alloy known as “orichalcum” that he maintains is only found in the Andes. Allen also says that the very name Atlantis is derived from two Native American words, “atl” meaning “water”, and “antis” meaning “copper”.

Recent underwater discoveries off the west coast of Cuba are said to be physical evidence of Atlantis as well as the undersea ruins found in the Bahamas in the Bimini area, already mentioned. In the ocean around Japan underwater pyramids were discovered and photographed in 1985.

Some authorities theorise that the catastrophic destruction of Atlantis was the result of volcanic action, while others say that it was caused by a nuclear conflagration. This ties in with descriptions given in ancient Vedic scriptures of battles fought amongst gods and men.

Some authors such as Prof Arysio Nunes dos Santos suggest that India was an Atlantean colony as was ancient Egypt.

Prof Santos - who says he bases his theories on research in “Geology, Astronomy, Paleontology, Archaeology, Linguistics, Ethnology, Comparative Mythology, Comparative Religion, and Philosophy,” and who is a Professor of Nuclear Physics at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil - has struck out very much on his own and come up with a new location for Atlantis, placing it firmly under what is now the South China Sea, maintaining that the Indonesian islands are all that is left. He has a book out entitled Atlantis The Lost Continent Finally Found .

On his website – www.atlan.org - in answer to the question what was Atlantis? - it says: “Atlantis was a continent of the Atlantic Ocean where, according to Plato, an advanced civilization developed some 11,600 years ago. Plato affirms that, as the result of a huge volcanic cataclysm of worldwide extent, this continent sunk away under seas, disappearing forever.”

Asked: Is there a connection between Atlantis and the Great Pyramid? he says:

“Yes. The Great Pyramid — and indeed the pyramids the world over — represents the Holy Mountain, which is no other than Mt. Atlas, the Pillar of Heaven that was the central feature of Atlantis. Mount Atlas was in reality the giant volcano whose explosion destroyed Atlantis, causing the Flood and the end of the Pleistocene. In India, this Holy Mountain — which exists in most traditions — is called Mt. Meru, the Holy Mountain of Paradise.”

Professor Santos is keen to debunk all the other suggested sites for Atlantis such as the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Antarctica and the North Sea but he points out that the Atlanteans had colonies worldwide.

He argues that people have misunderstood the location that Plato gave because the ancients had different meanings for the names of the oceans than the ones we use today.

Prof Santos explains: “The fact is that what we call by the name of ‘Atlantic Ocean’ is not the same as that of the ancients. Herodotus, Aristotle, Plato, Strabo, and several other ancient authors are very specific on the fact that the ‘Atlantic Ocean’ — otherwise called ‘Ocean of the Atlanteans’, ‘Outer Ocean’, ‘Kronian Ocean’, Mare Oceanum (‘Ocean Sea’) or Mare Magnum (‘Great Sea’) was indeed the whole of the ‘earth-encircling ocean’.”

Not everybody agrees that Atlantis was an island, however, and Irish author, researcher and alternative historian, Michael Tsarion locates it as part of the ancient continent of Appalachia, where he believes it was the base of an extraterrestrial race referred to in the Bible as the Nephilim.

Tsarion says that these beings had been pursued here from elsewhere in the universe. He says that they tried to convince their pursuers that they were on the then existing water planet of Tiamat, whilst really they were hiding on Earth. This ruse worked and Tiamat was incinerated and broke up causing the asteroid belt as well as having a completely devastating effect on the Earth when a large part of its oceans fell here causing massive deluges.

His ideas are explained in detail in his book Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation where he explains:

“Atlantis was not a centre of advanced human civilisation, but was rather, the creation of and home to alien beings that colonized the earth.”

Also he says:

“The Nephilim established their main headquarters, Atlantis, on the continent of Appalachia. From this centre they would corral and experiment on the indigenous Earth inhabitants taken from cultures and tribes that were shaken asunder by the recent celestial catastrophe.”

Tsarion says that the extraterrestrials broke the code of what is allowed to other worldly races by interfering with the beings living on another planet. This they did by interbreeding with humans in an effort to create a slave race to work for them by mixing the alien and human DNA. This is referred to in the Bible, he says, where it tells of how the sons of God took wives from the daughters of men. Michael puts forward the idea that the evil in the world and in us has come from this mixing of alien DNA with human.

Tsarion cites British author, Comyns Beaumont (1873–1956) when he says: “The history of the Old Testament is the history of Atlantis.”

Rand and Rose Flem-Ath are the authors of When the Sky Fell: In Search of Atlantis , and The Atlantis Blueprint: Unlocking the Mystery of a Long-Lost Civilization and they say that Atlantis was where Antarctica is now.

They make reference to the climate changes we are currently experiencing as evidence of just how big a change can take place on this planet and they say:

“In the summer of 1976, when we first began to explore the idea of Antarctica as the site of Atlantis, the notion that civilization and climate were intimately connected wasn’t part of the cultural template. More than three decades later, the daily impact of global warming reminds us just how fragile the web of civilization is and how easily it can be torn.”

Conspiracy theorist David Icke makes many references to Atlantis in his work. In his book Children of the Matrix he tells us that “a text detailing Atlantis, called The True History of Mankind Over The Last 100,000 Years was destroyed with thousands of others when the great library of Alexandria in Egypt was destroyed in AD 391.”

And David asks “Why isn’t the story of Atlantis and Mu a key part of official history? Because the knowledge has been systematically suppressed and destroyed.”

As to what Plato might have made of it all, we’ll leave it up to you to guess.

This story was published in Prediction magazine in September 2008 and was a collaboration between Steven Andrews (The Bard of Ely) and CJ Stone.