Lemuria and Atlantis by Tara Mata

[Devotee]

Lemuria and Atlantis
by Tara Mata

A STRIKING proof of the truth of the cyclic nature of man's progress
and decadence, and of the presence on this earth of high civilizations
tens of thousands of years ago, has been offered during recent years by
geological and archaeological evidence of the existence and culture of
the sunken continents of Lemuria and Atlantis. Colonel James
Churchward's three scholarly books on Mu (Lemuria) point out that
Lemuria was the "mother of the world" and that her civilization was
vastly more ancient than that of Atlantis. The latter was colonized by
emigrants from Lemuria.

Churchward advances many interesting reasons to support his belief that
Lemurians brought their civilization to ancient Egypt, Greece and other
parts of the world. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a sacred memorial
to the Lemurian forefathers of the Egyptians who perished when Mu sank
under the blue waters of the Pacific. Churchward translates the
Egyptian hieroglyphic name of this book, Per-m-hru, as "Mu has gone
forth from the day." The relation of the ancient Greeks to Mu is shown
forth by the construction of the Greek alphabet which, as Churchward
proves, "is composed of Cara-Maya vocables forming an epic that relates
the destruction of Mu."

This theory, that colonists from Lemuria, and later from Atlantis,
spread their civilization all over the ancient world, is not accepted
by many scholars, but it must be admitted that it is the only
explanation that satisfactorily accounts for the otherwise puzzling
similarities to be found in the ancient architecture, art, language,
religion, traditions and customs of widely separated lands, such as
Central America and Mexico on one side of the world, and Egypt and
Babylonia on the other.

The story of Atlantis is better known, because more recent, than that
of Lemuria. The famous Republic of Plato (370 B.C.) was largely
inspired by Greek traditions founded on memories of the great
civilization of Atlantis, and in two other books, the Timaeus and
Critias, Plato gives vivid descriptions of the lost continent and its
people. Other ancient Greeks wrote about Atlantis as the "blessed,"
"happy" or "fortunate" land, the Edenic garden of the world in a
long-past Golden Age, remote even to the Greeks of Plato's time. Roman
writers of the same period referred to the vast sea between Europe and
America as Maris Atlantici, the Atlantic Ocean, thus indicating their
belief that these waters covered the Atlantean continent.

The Atlanteans are described by Plato and others as having been in
possession of marvelous scientific knowledge and power. Particularly
notable was their conquest of space by the use of airplaines1 and
through television. Churchward believes that the Lemurians and
Atlanteans spread the knowledge of aerial travel over all the ancient
world. He writes, in his fascinating book, The Children of Mu:

"These are the most detailed accounts I have found about the airships
of the Hindus 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, except one which is a drawing
and instructions for the construction of the airship and her machinery,
power, engine, etc. The power is taken from the atmosphere in a very
simple inexpensive manner. The engine is somewhat like our present-day
turbine in that it works from one chamber into another until finally
exhausted. When the engine is once started it never stops until turned
off. It will continue on if allowed to do so until the bearings are
worn out. These ships could keep circling around the earth without ever
once coming down until the machinery wore out. The power is unlimited,
or rather limited only by what metals will stand. I find various
flights spoken of which according to our maps would run from 1000 to
3000 miles. All records relating to these airships distinctly state
that they were self-moving, they propelled themselves; in other words,
they generated their own power as they flew along. They were
independent of all fuel. It seems to me, in the face of this, and with
all our boasting, we are about 15,000 to 20,000 years behind the times
. . . There are many Chinese records of about the same date regarding
these ancient flying machines." It is noteworthy that recent
excavations in Crete have brought to light records which mention Cretan
airplanes.

Though Plato's account of Atlantis met with slight credence from
scientists up until recent times, the discoveries of Dr. Henry
Schliemann, eminent archeologist, have placed the existence of that
land beyond doubt. "When in 1873," writes Dr. Schliemann, "I made the
excavation of the ruins of Troy at Hissarlik and discovered in the
second city the famous treasures of Priam, I found among that treasure
a peculiar bronze vase of great size . . . engraved in Phoenician
hieroglyphics with a sentence which reads: 'From the King Chronos of
Atlantis' . . . Among a collection of objects from Tiahaunaco, South
America, is another vase identically the same as I found among the
treasures of Priam."

The significance of the Phoenician hieroglyphics is explained by
Professor Nicola Russo, in The Atlantis Quarterly: "The Phoenician
alphabet, which is the first of all the European alphabets, is derived
from the Atlantean alphabet, which was taught to the Maya of Central
America . . . Atlantis was the home of the Aryan or indo-European, and
of the semitic, not excluding the Turanian, peoples . . . The male and
female divinities of the ancient Greeks, of the Phoenicians, of the
Indians, and of the Scandinavians, were kings, queens and heroes of
Atlantis, and the acts of heroism which mythology attributes to them
are none other than a confused record of historical happenings . . .
Atlantis perished in a terrible convulsion of nature, in which the
entire island was submerged, with the loss of all the population. Those
few who had time to escape from the general disaster on boats and on
rafts carried the account of the event to the people who were in the
East and West-a tradition that has come down to our days with the
legend of the universal Deluge . . . That Atlantis before the time of
Plato was known in sacred traditions and legends is proved by the fact
that Homer and Hesiod were already acquainted with the legend of Atlas,
condemned by Jove to bear the heavens on his shoulders. Herodotus also,
in the fourth book of his History, mentions the Atlanteans, and
Diodorus, in his Library of History, tells of the Atlanteans, a people
more civilized than the people of these countries, and inhabiting a
rich land containing many cities."

Lewis Spence, the learned scientist whose researches have thrown
important light on the vanished civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria,
points out that Suidas claimed that both Homer and Hesiod were
Atlanteans. In the Homeric epics, the blind bard "sings of his country,
the country of the gods, Atlantis".

The vases found by Schliemann establishes the fact that there was a
King Chronus of Atlantis, and in this connection it is of interest to
note that the ancient Greeks preserved traditions of their Golden Age,
which they made coincident with the reign of a King Chronos, who may
well have been the ruler over the Atlantean forefathers of the Greeks.

A group of survivors of the Atlantean cataclysm settled in northwest
Africa, and were known as "Atlanteans" to Greek and Roman writers, who
named the Atlas Mountains, in that region, in their honor-Atlas being
the Latin singular form of Atlantes.

Scientists of the Carnegie Institution, recently excavating at Chichen
Itza, in Yucatan, found, among the imposing ruins of the Pyramid of the
Warriors, a Temple dedicated to the Atlanteans.

The Antilles group of islands in the West Indies, and the Azore and
Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa, are believed by
competent scholars to constitute veritable remnants of Atlantis, and to
indicate roughly the extent of her western and eastern boundaries. All
these island groups are situated on an ocean ridge which is subject to
great earthquakes, and this region, according to Scott-Elliott, "has
been the scene of volcanic disturbance on a gigantic scale, and that
within a quite measurable period of geologic time."

An article in The Atlantis Quarterly for September, 1932, refers to a
recent discovery by the archeologist, Nicolas de Ascanio, on Teneriffe,
largest island of the Canaries, of vases and pottery "of exquisite
proportions and workmanship. . . M. de Ascanio does not hesitate to
assert that the pottery and mortar in question are, 'with the exception
of arms, the most ancient products of human industry actually known'.
That we are here in the presence of remains of an advanced civilization
that existed long before the present race of aboriginals inhabited the
islands cannot be doubted. . . The conclusion that the beautiful
examples of ceramic art under discussion are veritable relics of
Atlantean craftsmanship is, we think, established, and constitutes one
of the most remarkable corroborations of Plato's history of Atlantis."

Professor Russo, in an article in the same issue of the magazine above
referred to, stresses the importance of the results of a scientific
expedition in the ship Meteor around the Azores. "The mythical island,
which has been the object of so many studious investigations, according
to the testimony of a recent German scientific expedition, must have
been located where the Azores now lie, and the peaks of the Azores must
be the tops of the mountains of the submerged Atlantis. . . The contour
of the upper submarine plane of the Azores sounded by the ship Meteor
is indicated to us exactly by the situation and the conformation of
Atlantis, in accordance with what is left to us in their writings by
Plato and the geographers of antiquity. This is the reason why the
learned Germans maintain the submersion of Atlantis must be calculated
as 9,500 years B.C., a period during which the earth penetrated into
the moon't ray of action. Under the magnetic influence of this
satellite, the waters of the ocean rose to the point of overwhelming
Atlantis, so that only the tops of the highest mountains remained. The
communications of these scholars come opportunely to throw light upon
the darkness of so many mysteries that enwrap the Edenic Island, they
serve as a link connecting Egypt and South America, and exhibit the
similarities of the characteristics of their civilizations."

Lewis Spence believes that continental Atlantis was destroyed at the
end of the Tertiary period (Miocene times), leaving two large islands.
One of these, the largest, was the only Atlantis with which the ancient
Greek and Roman writers were acquainted. Most of this island was
finally submerged by a cataclysm of nature at a date which geological,
historical and traditional evidence agrees on as about 9,500 B.C.

Plutarch tells us that Solon, the Athenian law-giver and ancestor of
Plato, visited Egypt in 600 B.C., and that "Souchis, a priest of Sais,
and Psenophis, a priest of Heliopolis, told him that 9000 years before,
the relations of the Egyptians with the lands of the west had been
interrupted because of the mud which had made the sea impassable after
the destruction of Atlantis."

"When Atlantis was first submerged," Churchward writes, "she only went
down deep enough to be awash at low tide so that at low tide mud banks
appeared with masses of seaweed which made the northern Atlantic
impassable to shipping." This was the real reason why the ancient
Greeks never ventured to sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of
Gibraltar). Later on, Atlantis sank to her present depth, and ships
could move freely over her burial place.

Some ancient writers refer to Atlantis as Poseidon. "An Egyptian
papyrus states that Poseidon was the first king of Atlantis and that he
was followed by a long line of Poseidons, thus forming a Poseidon
Dynasty" (Churchward).

The Platonic story tells us that "Atlantis was the center of
civilization and conquered the whole world." Dr. Schliemann makes the
following observations on the connection of Egypt with Atlantis: "In
the Museum at St. Petersburg, Russia, there is a papyrus roll, one of
the oldest known. It was written in the reign of Pharoah Sent of the
Second Dynasty. The papyrus relates that 'Pharoah Sent sent out an
expedition to the west in search of traces of the Land of Atlantis from
whence, 3350 years before, the ancestors of the Egyptians arrived,
carrying with themselves all of the wisdom of their native land. The
expedition returned after five years with the report that they had
found neither people nor objects which could give them a clue to the
vanished land.' Another papyrus in the same Museum by Manetho, the
Egyptian priest-historian, gives a reference of a period of 13,900
years as the reign of the Sages of Atlantis. This papyrus places the
height of the civilization of Atlantis at the very beginning of
Egyptian history, approximately 16,000 years ago."

Spence tells us that the modern Basques who dwell in the Pyrenees "have
not hesitated to announce themselves as the last branch of the
Atlantean race-and perhaps not without reason, for it is within the
bounds of probability that they are descended from the Cro-Magnon race
which would seem to have reached Iberian soil from an oceanic area."

Brasseur de Bourbourg, a writer of the last century, traced the
etymology of the word Atlantic in the following way: The words Atlas
and Atlantic have no satisfactory etymology in any language known to
Europe. They are not Greek, and cannot be referred to any known
language of the Old World. But in the Nahu-atlan language (peculiar to
the Toltec tribes of ancient Mexico) we find immediately the radical a,
atl, which signifies water, war, and the top of the head. From this
comes a series of words, such as atlan, or the border of or amid the
water; from which we have the adjective Atlantic. . . A city named
Atlan existed when the continent was discovered by Columbus, at the
entrance of the Gulf of Uraha." Another city, existing today, with a
similar name, is Mazatlan, on the west coast of Mexico. It is an
interesting fact, mentioned by some of the early European voyagers to
this country, that certain Indian tribes called the whole continent of
America by the name of Atlanta. The Nahuatlan language, as its name
implies, is similar to and derived from the Atlantean language, for the
ancient Maya and Toltec civilizations, so similar in many ways to that
of Egypt, were brought to Mexico and Yucatan from Atlantis, who in turn
was a colony of Lemuria, "mother of the world."

The subject of Atlantis, her magnificent civilization and her dramatic
end, has exercised a fascination for modern as well as ancient authors.
Besides the scholarly works, published in the last fifty years, by such
scientists as Ignatius Donally, Schliemann, Spence, Russo and
Churchward, many imaginative novels have been written around Atlantis.
"A Dweller on Two Planets" by Phylos, is stimulating reading. A
romance, "L'Atlantide," by Benoit, has recently been produced in France
as a motion picture. "The Coming Race" by Bulwer-Lytton, very popular
with a previous generation, was based on Atlantean traditions. Recently
two French writers have compiled a Bibliography of Atlantis, giving
over 1700 references. "Societies for Atlantean Studies" now exist in
France, Italy and other European lands.

Francis Bacon, "father of experimental philosophy," wrote a stirring
book in the 17th century, outlining a great plan for the development of
scientific learning which was to remold the institutions of the world
on a fairer basis. The founding of the Royal Society of London in 1662
was a direct result of Lord Bacon's inspiring work, which was named
"The New Atlantis".