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THE STORY OF ATLANTIS & THE LOST LEMURIA
by
W. SCOTT-ELLIOT
With Six Maps
The Theosophical Publishing House Ltd
68 Great Russell Street
London, W.C.2
THE STORY OF ATLANTIS _first printed_ 1896
THE LOST LEMURIA _first printed_ 1904
CONTENTS
THE STORY OF ATLANTIS
THE LOST LEMURIA
MAPS
THE STORY OF ATLANTIS
PREFACE.
For readers unacquainted with the progress that has been made in
recent years by earnest students of occultism attached to the
Theosophical Society, the significance of the statement embodied in
the following pages would be misapprehended without some preliminary
explanation. Historical research has depended for western civilisation
hitherto, on written records of one kind or another. When literary
memoranda have fallen short, stone monuments have sometimes been
available, and fossil remains have given us a few unequivocal, though
inarticulate assurances concerning the antiquity of the human race;
but modern culture has lost sight of or has overlooked possibilities
connected with the investigation of past events, which are independent
of fallible evidence transmitted to us by ancient writers. The world
at large is thus at present so imperfectly alive to the resources of
human faculty, that by most people as yet, the very existence, even as
a potentiality, of psychic powers, which some of us all the while are
consciously exercising every day, is scornfully denied and derided.
The situation is sadly ludicrous from the point of view of those who
appreciate the prospects of evolution, because mankind is thus
wilfully holding at arm's length, the knowledge that is essential to
its own ulterior progress. The maximum cultivation of which the human
intellect is susceptible while it denies itself all the resources of
its higher spiritual consciousness, can never be more than a
preparatory process as compared with that which may set in when the
faculties are sufficiently enlarged to enter into conscious
relationship with the super-physical planes or aspects of Nature.
For anyone who will have the patience to study the published results
of psychic investigation during the last fifty years, the reality of
clairvoyance as an occasional phenomenon of human intelligence must
establish itself on an immovable foundation. For those who, without
being occultists--students that is to say of Nature's loftier aspects,
in a position to obtain better teaching than that which any written
books can give--for those who merely avail themselves of recorded
evidence, a declaration on the part of others of a disbelief in the
possibility of clairvoyance, is on a level with the proverbial
African's disbelief in ice. But the experiences of clairvoyance that
have accumulated on the hands of those who have studied it in
connection with mesmerism, do no more than prove the existence in
human nature of a capacity for cognizing physical phenomena distant
either in space or time, in some way which has nothing to do with the
physical senses. Those who have studied the mysteries of clairvoyance
in connection with theosophic teaching have been enabled to realize
that the ultimate resources of that faculty range as far beyond its
humbler manifestations, dealt with by unassisted enquirers, as the
resources of the higher mathematics exceed those of the abacus.
Clairvoyance, indeed, is of many kinds, all of which fall easily into
their places when we appreciate the manner in which human
consciousness functions on different planes of Nature. The faculty of
reading the pages of a closed book, or of discerning objects
blindfold, or at a distance from the observer, is quite a different
faculty from that employed on the cognition of past events. That last
is the kind of which it is necessary to say something here, in order
that the true character of the present treatise on Atlantis may be
understood, but I allude to the others merely that the explanation I
have to give may not be mistaken for a complete theory of clairvoyance
in all its varieties.
We may best be helped to a comprehension of clairvoyance as related to
past events, by considering in the first instance the phenomena of
memory. The theory of memory which relates it to an imaginary
rearrangement of physical molecules of brain matter, going on at every
instant of our lives, is one that presents itself as plausible to no
one who can ascend one degree above the thinking level of the
uncompromising atheistical materialist. To every one who accepts, as
even a reasonable hypothesis, the idea that a man is something more
than a carcase in a state of animation, it must be a reasonable
hypothesis that memory has to do with that principle in man which is
super-physical. His memory in short, is a function of some other than
the physical plane. The pictures of memory are imprinted, it is clear,
on some non-physical medium, and are accessible to the embodied
thinker in ordinary cases by virtue of some effort he makes in as
much unconsciousness as to its precise character, as he is unconscious
of the brain impulse which actuates the muscles of his heart. The
events with which he has had to do in the past are photographed by
Nature on some imperishable page of super-physical matter, and by
making an appropriate interior effort, he is capable of bringing them
again, when he requires them, within the area of some interior sense
which reflects its perception on the physical brain. We are not all of
us able to make this effort equally well, so that memory is sometimes
dim, but even in the experience of mesmeric research, the occasional
super-excitation of memory under mesmerism is a familiar fact. The
circumstances plainly show that the record of Nature is accessible if
we know how to recover it, or even if our own capacity to make an
effort for its recovery is somehow improved without our having an
improved knowledge of the method employed. And from this thought we
may arrive by an easy transition at the idea, that in truth the
records of Nature are not separate collections of individual property,
but constitute the all-embracing memory of Nature herself, on which
different people are in a position to make drafts according to their
several capacities.
I do not say that the one thought necessarily ensues as a logical
consequence of the other. Occultists know that what I have stated is
the fact, but my present purpose is to show the reader who is not an
Occultist, how the accomplished Occultist arrives at his results,
without hoping to epitomize all the stages of his mental progress in
this brief explanation. Theosophical literature at large must be
consulted by those who would seek a fuller elucidation of the
magnificent prospects and practical demonstrations of its teaching in
many directions, which, in the course of the Theosophical development,
have been laid before the world for the benefit of all who are
competent to profit by them.
The memory of Nature is in reality a stupendous unity, just as in
another way all mankind is found to constitute a spiritual unity if we
ascend to a sufficiently elevated plane of Nature in search of the
wonderful convergence where unity is reached without the loss of
individuality. For ordinary humanity, however, at the early stage of its
evolution represented at present by the majority, the interior spiritual
capacities ranging beyond those which the brain is an instrument for
expressing, are as yet too imperfectly developed to enable them to get
touch with any other records in the vast archives of Nature's memory,
except those with which they have individually been in contact at their
creation. The blindfold interior effort they are competent to make, will
not, as a rule, call up any others. But in a flickering fashion we have
experience in ordinary life of efforts that are a little more effectual.
"Thought Transference" is a humble example. In that case "impressions on
the mind" of one person--Nature's memory pictures, with which he is in
normal relationship, are caught up by someone else who is just able,
however unconscious of the method he uses--to range Nature's memory
under favourable conditions, a little beyond the area with which he him
self is in normal relationship. Such a person has begun, however
slightly, to exercise the faculty of astral clairvoyance. That term may
be conveniently used to denote the kind of clairvoyance I am now
endeavouring to elucidate, the kind which, in some of its more
magnificent developments, has been employed to carry out the
investigations on the basis of which the present account of Atlantis has
been compiled.
There is no limit really to the resources of astral clairvoyance in
investigations concerning the past history of the earth, whether we
are concerned with the events that have befallen the human race in
prehistoric epochs, or with the growth of the planet itself through
geological periods which antedated the advent of man, or with more
recent events, current narrations of which have been distorted by
careless or perverse historians. The memory of Nature is infallibly
accurate and inexhaustibly minute. A time will come as certainly as
the precession of the equinoxes, when the literary method of
historical research will be laid aside as out of date, in the case of
all original work. People among us who are capable of exercising
astral clairvoyance in full perfection--but have not yet been called
away to higher functions in connexion with the promotion of human
progress, of which ordinary humanity at present knows even less than
an Indian ryot knows of cabinet councils--are still very few. Those
who know what the few can do, and through what processes of training
and self-discipline they have passed in pursuit of interior ideals, of
which when attained astral clairvoyance is but an individual
circumstance, are many, but still a small minority as compared with
the modern cultivated world. But as time goes on, and within a
measurable future, some of us have reason to feel sure that the
numbers of those who are competent to exercise astral clairvoyance
will increase sufficiently to extend the circle of those who are aware
of their capacities, till it comes to embrace all the intelligence and
culture of civilised mankind only a few generations hence. Meanwhile
the present volume is the first that has been put forward as the
pioneer essay of the new method of historical research. It is amusing
to all who are concerned with it, to think how inevitably it will be
mistaken--for some little while as yet, by materialistic readers,
unable to accept the frank explanation here given of the principle on
which it has been prepared--for a work of imagination.
For the benefit of others who may be more intuitive it may be well to
say a word or two that may guard them from supposing that because
historical research by means of astral clairvoyance is not impeded by
having to deal with periods removed from our own by hundreds of
thousands of years, it is on that account a process which involves no
trouble. Every fact stated in the present volume has been picked up
bit by bit with watchful and attentive care, in the course of an
investigation on which more than one qualified person has been
engaged, in the intervals of other activity, for some years past. And
to promote the success of their work they have been allowed access to
some maps and other records physically preserved from the remote
periods concerned--though in safer keeping than in that of the
turbulent races occupied in Europe with the development of
civilisation in brief intervals of leisure from warfare, and hard
pressed by the fanaticism that so long treated science as sacrilegious
during the middle ages of Europe.
Laborious as the task has been however, it will be recognized as amply
repaying the trouble taken, by everyone who is able to perceive how
absolutely necessary to a proper comprehension of the world as we find
it, is a proper comprehension of its preceding Atlantean phase.
Without this knowledge all speculations concerning ethnology are
futile and misleading. The course of race development is chaos and
confusion without the key furnished by the character of Atlantean
civilization and the configuration of the earth at Atlantean periods.
Geologists know that land and ocean surfaces must have repeatedly
changed places during the period at which they also know--from the
situation of human remains in the various strata--that the lands were
inhabited. And yet for want of accurate knowledge as to the dates at
which the changes took place, they discard the whole theory from their
practical thinking, and except for certain hypotheses started by
naturalists dealing with the southern hemisphere, have generally
endeavoured to harmonize race migrations with the configuration of the
earth in existence at the present time.
In this way nonsense is made of the whole retrospect; and the
ethnological scheme remains so vague and shadowy that it fails to
displace crude conceptions of mankind's beginning which still dominate
religious thinking, and keep back the spiritual progress of the age.
The decadence and ultimate disappearance of Atlantean civilisation is
in turn as instructive as its rise and glory; but I have now
accomplished the main purpose with which I sought leave to introduce
the work now before the world, with a brief prefatory explanation, and
if its contents fail to convey a sense of its importance to any
listeners I am now addressing, that result could hardly be
accomplished by further recommendations of mine.
A. P. SINNETT.
The Story of Atlantis
A Geographical, Historical and Ethnological Sketch.
The general scope of the subject before us will best be realized by
considering the amount of information that is obtainable about the
various nations who compose our great Fifth or Aryan Race.
From the time of the Greeks and the Romans onwards volumes have been
written about every people who in their turn have filled the stage of
history. The political institutions, the religious beliefs, the social
and domestic manners and customs have all been analyzed and
catalogued, and countless works in many tongues record for our benefit
the march of progress.
Further, it must be remembered that of the history of this Fifth Race
we possess but a fragment--the record merely of the last family races
of the Keltic sub-race, and the first family races of our own Teutonic
stock.
But the hundreds of thousands of years which elapsed from the time
when the earliest Aryans left their home on the shores of the central
Asian Sea to the time of the Greeks and Romans, bore witness to the
rise and fall of innumerable civilizations. Of the 1st sub-race of our
Aryan Race who inhabited India and colonial Egypt in prehistoric times
we know practically nothing, and the same may be said of the Chaldean,
Babylonian, and Assyrian nations who composed the 2nd sub-race--for
the fragments of knowledge obtained from the recently deciphered
hieroglyphs or cuneiform inscriptions on Egyptian tombs or Babylonian
tablets can scarcely be said to constitute history. The Persians who
belonged to the 3rd or Iranian sub-race have it is true, left a few
more traces, but of the earlier civilizations of the Keltic or 4th
sub-race we have no records at all. It is only with the rise of the
last family shoots of this Keltic stock, _viz._, the Greek and Roman
peoples, that we come upon historic times.
In addition also to the blank period in the past, there is the blank
period in the future. For of the seven sub-races required to complete
the history of a great Root Race, five only have so far come into
existence. Our own Teutonic or 5th sub-race has already developed many
nations, but has not yet run its course, while the 6th and 7th
sub-races, who will be developed on the continents of North and South
America, will have thousands of years of history to give to the world.
In attempting, therefore, to summarize in a few pages information
about the world's progress during a period which must have occupied at
least as great a stretch of years as that above referred to, it must
be realized how slight a sketch this must inevitably be.
A record of the world's progress during the period of the Fourth or
Atlantean Race must embrace the history of many nations, and register
the rise and fall of many civilizations.
Catastrophes, too, on a scale such as have not yet been experienced
during the life of our present Fifth Race, took place on more than one
occasion during the progress of the Fourth. The destruction of
Atlantis was accomplished by a series of catastrophes varying in
character from great cataclysms in which whole territories and
populations perished, to comparatively unimportant landslips such as
occur on our own coasts to-day. When the destruction was once
inaugurated by the first great catastrophe there was no intermission
of the minor landslips which continued slowly but steadily to eat
away the continent. Four of the great catastrophes stand out above the
rest in magnitude. The first took place in the Miocene age, about
800,000 years ago. The second, which was of minor importance, occurred
about 200,000 years ago. The third--about 80,000 years ago--was a very
great one. It destroyed all that remained of the Atlantean continent,
with the exception of the island to which Plato gave the name of
Poseidonis, which in its turn was submerged in the fourth and final
great catastrophe of 9,564 B.C.
Now the testimony of the oldest writers and of modern scientific
research alike bear witness to the existence of an ancient continent
occupying the site of the lost Atlantis.
Before proceeding to the consideration of the subject itself, it is
proposed cursorily to glance at the generally known sources which
supply corroborative evidence. These may be grouped into the five
following classes:
First, the testimony of the deep-sea soundings.
Second, the distribution of fauna and flora.
Third, the similarity of language and of ethnological type.
Fourth, the similarity of religious belief, ritual, and architecture.
Fifth, the testimony of ancient writers, of early race traditions, and
of archaic flood-legends.
In the first place, then, the testimony of the deep-sea soundings may
be summarized in a few words. Thanks chiefly to the expeditions of the
British and American gunboats, "Challenger" and "Dolphin" (though
Germany also was associated in this scientific exploration) the bed of
the whole Atlantic Ocean is now mapped out, with the result that an
immense bank or ridge of great elevation is shewn to exist in
mid-Atlantic. This ridge stretches in a south-westerly direction from
about fifty degrees north towards the coast of South America, then in
a south-easterly direction towards the coast of Africa, changing its
direction again about Ascension Island, and running due south to
Tristan d'Acunha. The ridge rises almost sheer about 9,000 feet from
the ocean depths around it, while the Azores, St. Paul, Ascension, and
Tristan d'Acunha are the peaks of this land which still remain above
water. A line of 3,500 fathoms, or say, 21,000 feet, is required to
sound the deepest parts of the Atlantic, but the higher parts of the
ridge are only a hundred to a few hundred fathoms beneath the sea.
The soundings too showed that the ridge is covered with volcanic
_débris_ of which traces are to be found right across the ocean to the
American coasts. Indeed the fact that the ocean bed, particularly
about the Azores, has been the scene of volcanic disturbance on a
gigantic scale, and that within a quite measurable period of geologic
time, is conclusively proved by the investigations made during the
above named expeditions.
Mr. Starkie Gardner is of opinion that in the Eocene times the British
Islands formed part of a larger island or continent stretching into
the Atlantic, and "that a great tract of land formerly existed where
the sea now is, and that Cornwall, the Scilly and Channel Islands,
Ireland and Brittany are the remains of its highest summits" (_Pop.
Sc. Review_, July, 1878).
_Second._--The proved existence on continents separated by great
oceans of similar or identical species of fauna and flora is the
standing puzzle to biologists and botanists alike. But if a link
between these continents once existed allowing for the natural
migration of such animals and plants, the puzzle is solved. Now the
fossil remains of the camel are found in India, Africa, South America
and Kansas: but it is one of the generally accepted hypotheses of
naturalists that every species of animal and plant originated in but
one part of the globe, from which centre it gradually overran the
other portions. How then can the facts of such fossil remains be
accounted for without the existence of land communication in some
remote age? Recent discoveries in the fossil beds of Nebraska seem
also to prove that the horse originated in the Western Hemisphere, for
that is the only part of the world where fossil remains have been
discovered, showing the various intermediate forms which have been
identified as the precursors of the true horse. It would therefore be
difficult to account for the presence of the horse in Europe except on
the hypothesis of continuous land communication between the two
continents, seeing that it is certain that the horse existed in a wild
state in Europe and Asia before his domestication by man, which may be
traced back almost to the stone age. Cattle and sheep as we now know
them have an equally remote ancestry. Darwin finds domesticated cattle
in Europe in the earliest part of the stone age, having long before
developed out of wild forms akin to the buffalo of America. Remains of
the cave-lion of Europe are also found in North America.
Turning now from the animal to the vegetable kingdom it appears that
the greater part of the flora of the Miocene age in Europe--found
chiefly in the fossil beds of Switzerland--exist at the present day in
America, some of them in Africa. But the noteworthy fact about America
is that while the greater proportion are to be found in the Eastern
States, very many are wanting on the Pacific coast. This seems to show
that it was from the Atlantic side that they entered the continent.
Professor Asa Gray says that out of 66 genera and 155 species found in
the forest east of the Rocky Mountains, only 31 genera and 78 species
are found west of these heights.
But the greatest problem of all is the plantain or banana. Professor
Kuntze, an eminent German botanist, asks, "In what way was this plant"
(a native of tropical Asia and Africa) "which cannot stand a voyage
through the temperate zone, carried to America?" As he points out, the
plant is seedless, it cannot be propagated by cuttings, neither has it
a tuber which could be easily transported. Its root is tree-like. To
transport it special care would be required, nor could it stand a long
transit. The only way in which he can account for its appearance in
America is to suppose that it must have been transported by civilized
man at a time when the polar regions had a tropical climate! He adds,
"a cultivated plant which does not possess seeds must have been under
culture for a _very long period_ ... it is perhaps fair to infer that
these plants were cultivated as early as the beginning of the Diluvial
period." Why, it may be asked, should not this inference take us back
to still earlier times, and where did the civilization necessary for
the plant's cultivation exist, or the climate and circumstances
requisite for its transportation, unless there were at some time a
link between the old world and the new?
Professor Wallace in his delightful _Island Life_ as well as other
writers in many important works, have put forward ingenious hypotheses
to account for the identity of flora and fauna on widely separated
lands, and for their transit across the ocean, but all are
unconvincing, and all break down at different points.
It is well known that wheat as we know it has never existed in a truly
wild state, nor is there any evidence tracing its descent from fossil
species. Five varieties of wheat were _already cultivated_ in Europe
in the stone age--one variety found in the "Lake dwellings" being
known as Egyptian wheat, from which Darwin argues that the Lake
dwellers "either still kept up commercial intercourse with some
southern people, or had originally proceeded as colonists from the
south." He concludes that wheat, barley, oats, etc., are descended
from various _species now extinct_, or so widely different as to
escape identification in which case he says: "Man must have
cultivated cereals from an enormously remote period." The regions
where these extinct species flourished, and the civilization under
which they were cultivated by intelligent selection, are both supplied
by the lost continent whose colonists carried them east and west.
_Third._--From the fauna and flora we now turn to man.
_Language._--The Basque language stands alone amongst European
tongues, having affinity with none of them. According to Farrar,
"there never has been any doubt that this isolated language,
preserving its identity in a western corner of Europe, between two
mighty kingdoms, resembles in its structure the aboriginal languages
of the vast opposite continent (America) and those alone" (_Families
of Speech_, p. 132).
The Phoenicians apparently were the first nation in the Eastern
Hemisphere to use a phonetic alphabet, the characters being regarded
as mere signs for sounds. It is a curious fact that at an equally
early date we find a phonetic alphabet in Central America amongst the
Mayas of Yucatan, whose traditions ascribe the origin of their
civilization to a land across the sea to the east. Le Plongeon, the
great authority on this subject, writes: "One-third of this tongue
(the Maya) is pure Greek. Who brought the dialect of Homer to America?
or who took to Greece that of the Mayas? Greek is the off-spring of
the Sanscrit. Is Maya? or are they coeval?" Still more surprising is
it to find thirteen letters out of the Maya alphabet bearing most
distinct relation to the Egyptian hieroglyphic signs for the same
letters. It is probable that the earliest form of alphabet was
hieroglyphic, "the writing of the Gods," as the Egyptians called it,
and that it developed later in Atlantis into the phonetic. It would be
natural to assume that the Egyptians were an early colony from
Atlantis (as they actually were) and that they carried away with them
the primitive type of writing which has thus left its traces on both
hemispheres, while the Phoenicians, who were a sea-going people,
obtained and assimilated the later form of alphabet during their
trading voyages with the people of the west.
One more point may be noticed, _viz._, the extraordinary resemblance
between many words in the Hebrew language and words bearing precisely
the same meaning in the tongue of the Chiapenecs--a branch of the Maya
race, and amongst the most ancient in Central America. A list of these
words is given in _North Americans of Antiquity_, p. 475.
The similarity of language among the various savages races of the
Pacific islands has been used as an argument by writers on this
subject. The existence of similar languages among races separated by
leagues of ocean, across which in historic time they are known to have
had no means of transport, is certainly an argument in favour of their
descent from a single race occupying a single continent, but the
argument cannot be used here, for the continent in question was not
Atlantis, but the still earlier Lemuria.
_Ethnological Types._--Atlantis as we shall see is said to have been
inhabited by red, yellow, white and black races. It is now proved by
the researches of Le Plongeon, De Quatrefages, Bancroft and others
that black populations of negroid type existed even up to recent times
in America. Many of the monuments of Central America are decorated
with negro faces, and some of the idols found there are clearly
intended to represent negros, with small skulls, short woolly hair and
thick lips. The Popul Vuh, speaking of the first home of the
Guatemalan race, says that "black and white men together" lived in
this happy land "in great peace," speaking "one language." (See
Bancroft's _Native Races_, p. 547.) The Popul Vuh goes on to relate
how the people migrated from their ancestral home, how their language
_became altered_, and how some went to the east, while other travelled
west (to Central America).
Professor Retzius, in his _Smithsonian Report_, considers that the
primitive dolichocephalæ of America are nearly related to the Guanches
of the Canary Islands, and to the population on the Atlantic seaboard of
Africa, which Latham comprises under the name of Egyptian-Atlantidæ. The
same form of skull is found in the Canary Islands off the African coast
and the Carib Islands off the American coast, while the colour of the
skin in both is that of a reddish-brown.
The ancient Egyptians depicted themselves as red men of much the same
complexion as exists to-day among some tribes of American Indians.
"The ancient Peruvians," says Short, "appear from numerous examples of
hair found in their tombs to have been an auburn-haired race."
A remarkable fact about the American Indians, and one which is a
standing puzzle to ethnologists, is the wide range of colour and
complexion to be found among them. From the white tint of the Menominee,
Dakota, Mandan and Zuni tribes, many of whom have auburn hair and blue
eyes, to the almost negro blackness of the Karos of Kansas and the now
extinct tribes of California, the Indian races run through every shade
of red-brown, copper, olive, cinnamon, and bronze. (See Short's _North
Americans of Antiquity_, Winchell's _Pre-Adamites_, and Catlin's
_Indians of North America_; see also _Atlantis_, by Ignatius Donnelly
who has collected a great mass of evidence under this and other heads.)
We shall see by and by how the diversity of complexion on the American
continent is accounted for by the original race-tints on the parent
continent of Atlantis.
_Fourth._--Nothing seems to have surprised the first Spanish
adventurers in Mexico and Peru more than the extraordinary similarity
to those of the old world, of the religious beliefs, rites, and
emblems which they found established in the new. The Spanish priests
regarded this similarity as the work of the devil. The worship of the
cross by the natives, and its constant presence in all religious
buildings and ceremonies, was the principal subject of their
amazement; and indeed nowhere--not even in India and Egypt--was this
symbol held in more profound veneration than amongst the primitive
tribes of the American continents, while the meaning underlying its
worship was identical. In the west, as in the east, the cross was the
symbol of life--sometimes of life physical, more often of life
eternal.
In like manner in both hemispheres the worship of the sun-disk or
circle, and of the serpent, was universal, and more surprising still
is the similarity of the word signifying "God" in the principal
languages of east and west. Compare the Sanscrit "Dyaus" or
"Dyaus-pitar," the Greek "Theos" and Zeus, the Latin "Deus" and
"Jupiter," the Keltic "Dia" and "Ta," pronounced "Thyah" (seeming to
bear affinity to the Egyptian Tau), the Jewish "Jah" or "Yah" and
lastly the Mexican "Teo" or "Zeo."
Baptismal rites were practised by all nations. In Babylon and Egypt
the candidates for initiation into the Mysteries were first baptized.
Tertullian in his _De Baptismo_ says that they were promised in
consequence "regeneration and the pardon of all their perjuries." The
Scandinavian nations practised baptism of new-born children; and when
we turn to Mexico and Peru we find infant baptism there as a solemn
ceremonial, consisting of water sprinkling, the sign of the cross, and
prayers for the washing away of sin (see Humboldt's _Mexican
Researches_ and Prescott's _Mexico_).
In addition to baptism, the tribes of Mexico, Central America and Peru
resembled the nations of the old world in their rites of confession,
absolution, fasting, and marriage before priests by joining hands. They
had even a ceremony resembling the Eucharist, in which cakes marked with
the Tau (an Egyptian form of cross) were eaten, the people calling them
the flesh of their God. These exactly resemble the sacred cakes of Egypt
and other eastern nations. Like these nations too, the people of the new
world had monastic orders, male and female, in which broken vows were
punished with death. Like the Egyptians they embalmed their dead, they
worshipped sun, moon, and planets, but over and above these adored a
Deity "omnipresent, who knoweth all things ... invisible, incorporeal,
one God of perfect perfection" (see Sahagun's _Historia de Nueva
Espâna_, lib. vi.).
They too had their virgin-mother goddess, "Our Lady" whose son, the
"Lord of Light," was called the "Saviour," bearing an accurate
correspondence to Isis, Beltis and the many other virgin-goddesses of
the east with their divine sons.
Their rites of sun and fire worship closely resembled those of the
early Kelts of Britain and Ireland, and like the latter they claimed
to be the "children of the sun." An ark or argha was one of the
universal sacred symbols which we find alike in India, Chaldea,
Assyria, Egypt, Greece and amongst the Keltic peoples. Lord
Kingsborough in his _Mexican Antiquities_ (vol. viii. p. 250) says:
"As among the Jews the ark was a sort of portable temple in which the
deity was supposed to be continually present, so among the Mexicans,
the Cherokees and the Indians of Michoacan and Honduras, an ark was
held in the highest veneration and was considered an object too sacred
to be touched by any but the priests."
As to religious architecture, we find on both sides of the Atlantic
that one of the earliest sacred buildings is the pyramid. Doubtful as
are the uses for which these structures were originally intended, one
thing is clear, that they were closely connected with some religious
idea or group of ideas. The identity of design in the pyramids of
Egypt and those of Mexico and Central America is too striking to be a
mere coincidence. True some--the greater number--of the American
pyramids are of the truncated or flattened form, yet according to
Bancroft and others, many of those found in Yucatan, and notably those
near Palenque, are pointed at the top in true Egyptian fashion, while
on the other hand we have some of the Egyptian pyramids of the stepped
and flattened type. Cholula has been compared to the groups of
Dachour, Sakkara and the step pyramid of Médourn. Alike in
orientation, in structure, and even in their internal galleries and
chambers, these mysterious monuments of the east and of the west stand
as witnesses to some common source whence their builders drew their
plan.
The vast remains of cities and temples in Mexico and Yucatan also
strangely resemble those of Egypt, the ruins of Teotihuacan having
frequently been compared to those of Karnak. The "false
arch"--horizontal courses of stone, each slightly overlapping the
other--is found to be identical in Central America, in the oldest
buildings of Greece, and in Etruscan remains. The mound builders of
both eastern and western continents formed similar tumuli over their
dead, and laid the bodies in similar stone coffins. Both continents
have their great serpent-mounds; compare that of Adams Co., Ohio, with
the fine serpent-mound discovered in Argyleshire, or the less perfect
specimen at Avebury in Wilts. The very carving and decoration of the
temples of America, Egypt and India have much in common, while some of
the mural decorations are absolutely identical.
_Fifth._--It only remains now to summarize some of the evidence
obtainable from ancient writers, from early race traditions, and from
archaic flood-legends.
Aelian in his _Varia Historia_ (lib. iii. ch. xviii.), states that
Theopompus (400 B.C.) recorded an interview between the King of
Phrygia and Silenus, in which the latter referred to the existence of
a great continent beyond the Atlantic, larger than Asia, Europe and
Libya together.
Proclus quotes an extract from an ancient writer who refers to the
islands in the sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of
Gibraltar), and says that the inhabitants of one of these islands had
a tradition from their ancestors of an extremely large island called
Atlantis, which for a long time ruled over all the islands of the
Atlantic Ocean.
Marcellus speaks of seven islands in the Atlantic, and states that
their inhabitants preserve the memory of a much greater island,
Atlantis, "which had for a long time exercised dominion over the
smaller ones."
Diodorus Siculus relates that the Phoenicians discovered "a large
island in the Atlantic Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules several
days' sail from the coast of Africa."
But the greatest authority on this subject is Plato. In the _Timæus_
he refers to the island continent, while the _Critias_ or _Atlanticus_
is nothing less than a detailed account of the history, arts, manners
and customs of the people. In the _Timæus_ he refers to "a mighty
warlike power, rushing from the Atlantic sea and spreading itself with
hostile fury over all Europe and Asia. For at that time the Atlantic
sea was navigable and had an island before that mouth which is called
by you the Pillars of Hercules. But this island was greater than both
Libya and all Asia together, and afforded an easy passage to other
neighbouring islands, as it was likewise easy to pass from those
islands to all the continents which border on this Atlantic sea."
There is so much of value in the _Critias_ that it is not easy to
choose, but the following extract is given, as it bears on the
material resources of the country: "They had likewise everything
provided for them which both in a city and every other place is sought
after as useful for the purposes of life. And they were supplied
indeed with many things from foreign countries, on account of their
extensive empire; but the island afforded them the greater part of
everything of which they stood in need. In the first place the island
supplied them with such things as are dug out of mines in a solid
state, and with such as are melted: and orichalcum, which is now but
seldom mentioned, but then was much celebrated, was dug out of the
earth in many parts of the island, and was considered as the most
honourable of all metals except gold. Whatever, too, the woods
afforded for builders the island produced in abundance. There were
likewise sufficient pastures there for tame and savage animals;
together with a prodigious number of elephants. For there were
pastures for all such animals as are fed in lakes and rivers, on
mountains and in plains. And in like manner there was sufficient
aliment for the largest and most voracious kind of animals. Besides
this, whatever of odoriferous the earth nourishes at present, whether
roots, or grass, or wood, or juices, or gums, flowers or fruits--these
the island produced and produced them well."
The Gauls possessed traditions of Atlantis which were collected by the
Roman historian, Timagenes, who lived in the first century, B.C. Three
distinct peoples apparently dwelt in Gaul. First, the indigenous
population (probably the remains of a Lemurian race), second, the
invaders from the distant island of Atlantis, and third, the Aryan
Gauls (see _Pre-Adamites_, p. 380).
The Toltecs of Mexico traced themselves back to a starting-point
called Atlan or Aztlan; the Aztecs also claimed to come from Aztlan
(see Bancroft's _Native Races_, vol. v. pp. 221 and 321).
The Popul Vuh (p. 294) speaks of a visit paid by three sons of the
King of the Quiches to a land "in the east on the shores of the sea
whence their fathers had come," from which they brought back amongst
other things "a system of writing" (see also Bancroft, vol. v. p.
553).
Amongst the Indians of North America there is a very general legend
that their forefathers came from a land "toward the sun-rising." The
Iowa and Dakota Indians, according to Major J. Lind, believed that
"all the tribes of Indians were formerly one and dwelt together _on an
island_ ... towards the sunrise." They crossed the sea from thence "in
huge skiffs in which the Dakotas of old floated for weeks, finally
gaining dry land."
The Central American books state that a part of the American continent
extended far into the Atlantic Ocean, and that this region was
destroyed by a series of frightful cataclysms at long intervals apart.
_Three_ of these are frequently referred to (see Baldwin's _Ancient
America_, p. 176). It is a curious confirmation that the Kelts of
Britain had a legend that part of _their_ country once extended far
into the Atlantic and was destroyed. Three catastrophes are mentioned
in the Welsh traditions.
Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican Deity, is said to have come from "the
distant east." He is described as a white man with a flowing beard.
(N.B.--The Indians of North and South America are beardless.) He
originated letters and regulated the Mexican calendar. After having
taught them many peaceful arts and lessons he sailed away _to the
east_ in a canoe of serpent skins (see Short's _North Americans of
Antiquity_, pp. 268-271). The same story is told of Zamna, the author
of civilization in Yucatan.
The marvellous uniformity of the flood legends on all parts of the
globe, alone remains to be dealt with. Whether these are some archaic
versions of the story of the lost Atlantis and its submergence, or
whether they are echoes of a great cosmic parable once taught and held
in reverence in some common centre whence they have reverberated
throughout the world, does not immediately concern us. Sufficient for
our purpose is it to show the universal acceptation of these legends.
It would be needless waste of time and space to go over these flood
stories one by one. Suffice it to say, that in India, Chaldea,
Babylon, Media, Greece, Scandinavia, China, amongst the Jews and
amongst the Keltic tribes of Britain, the legend is absolutely
identical in all essentials. Now turn to the west and what do we find?
The same story in its every detail preserved amongst the Mexicans
(each tribe having its own version), the people of Guatemala,
Honduras, Peru, and almost every tribe of North American Indians. It
is puerile to suggest that mere coincidence can account for this
fundamental identity.
The following quotation from Le Plongeon's translation of the famous
Troano MS., which may be seen in the British Museum, will
appropriately bring this part of the subject to a close. The Troano
MS. appears to have been written about 3,500 years ago, among the
Mayas of Yucatan, and the following is its description of the
catastrophe that submerged the island of Poseidonis:--"In the year 6
Kan, on the 11th Muluc in the month Zac, there occurred terrible
earthquakes, which continued without interruption until the 13th
Chuen. The country of the hills of mud, the land of Mu was sacrificed:
being twice upheaved it suddenly disappeared during the night, the
basin being continually shaken by volcanic forces. Being confined,
these caused the land to sink and to rise several times and in various
places. At last the surface gave way and ten countries were torn
asunder and scattered. Unable to stand the force of the convulsions,
they sank with their 64,000,000 of inhabitants 8060 years before the
writing of this book."
But enough space has now been devoted to the fragments of
evidence--all more or less convincing--which the world so far has been
in possession of. Those interested in pursuing any special line of
investigation are referred to the various works above named or quoted.
The subject in hand must now be dealt with. Drawn as they have been
from contemporary records which were compiled in and handed down
through the ages we have to deal with, the facts here collected are
based upon no assumption or conjecture. The writer may have failed
fully to comprehend the facts, and so may have partially misstated
them. But the original records are open for investigation to the duly
qualified, and those who are disposed to undertake the necessary
training may obtain the powers to check and verify.
But even were _all_ the occult records open to our inspection, it
should be realized how fragmentary must be the sketch that attempts to
summarize in a few pages the history of races and of nations extending
over at least many hundreds of thousands of years. However, any
details on such a subject--disconnected though they are--must be new,
and should therefore be interesting to the world at large.
Among the records above referred to there are maps of the world at
various periods of its history, and it has been the great privilege of
the writer to be allowed to obtain copies--more or less complete--of
four of these. All four represent Atlantis and the surrounding lands
at different epochs of their history. These epochs correspond
approximately with the periods that lay between the catastrophes
referred to above, and into the periods thus represented by the four
maps the records of the Atlantean Race will naturally group
themselves.
Before beginning the history of the race, however, a few remarks may
be made about the geography of the four different epochs.
The first map represents the land surface of the earth as it existed
about a million years ago, when the Atlantean Race was at its height,
and before the first great submergence took place about 800,000 years
ago. The continent of Atlantis itself, it will be observed, extended
from a point a few degrees east of Iceland to about the site now
occupied by Rio de Janeiro, in South America. Embracing Texas and the
Gulf of Mexico, the Southern and Eastern States of America, up to and
including Labrador, it stretched across the ocean to our own
islands--Scotland and Ireland, and a small portion of the north of
England forming one of its promontories--while its equatorial lands
embraced Brazil and the whole stretch of ocean to the African Gold
Coast. Scattered fragments of what eventually became the continents of
Europe, Africa and America, as well as remains of the still older, and
once wide-spread continent of Lemuria, are also shown on this map. The
remains of the still older Hyperborean continent which was inhabited
by the Second Root Race, are also given, and like Lemuria, coloured
blue.
As will be seen from the second map the catastrophe of 800,000 years
ago caused very great changes in the land distribution of the globe.
The great continent is now shorn of its northern regions, and its
remaining portion has been still further rent. The now growing
American continent is separated by a chasm from its parent continent
of Atlantis, and this no longer comprises any of the lands now
existing, but occupies the bulk of the Atlantic basin from about 50°
north to a few degrees south of the equator. The subsidences and
upheavals in other parts of the world have also been considerable--the
British Islands for example, now being part of a huge island which
also embraces the Scandinavian peninsula, the north of France, and all
the intervening and some of the surrounding seas. The dimensions of
the remains of Lemuria it will be observed, have been further
curtailed, while Europe, Africa and America have received accretions
of territory.