Monday, March 30, 2009

BOOK TALK: LEMURIA AND ATLANTIS:
Studying the Past to Survive the Future


Ever since my teen years I’ve been intrigued by the legends of Atlantis and Lemuria (sometimes called Mu). It has been fun to renew my curiosity about these ancient lands in a new book: Lemuria and Atlantis: Studying the Past to Survive the Future by Shirley Andrews (Llewellyn Publications, 2009). This book coordinates conclusions from many previous books on the subject, refers quite often to the Edgar Cayce readings about Atlantis, and updates readers about current and continuing research on the subject. It was sheer fun for me to recall some of the books and studies that I have perused over the past fifty years or so.

The author calls this book a companion volume to her previous work: Atlantis: Insights from a Lost Civilization (Llewellyn Worldwide, LTC, 2002). Andrews is forthright about her belief in past lives and that her “intense interest in Atlantis . . . stems from one or more past life experiences there.” She has devoted many years to her research and travels to many parts of the world linked to the stories of both Atlantis and Lemuria.

Our discussion of her new book will focus on some of its main points and some of the legends that have always interested me the most. One intriguing aspect of Andrews’ work is her inclusion of numerous “memories” from people who recall specific past life experiences from Atlantis or Lemuria. These memories often clarify and explain traditional stories from the distant past.

Most people have heard of Atlantis, but the “Motherland of Mu,” or Lemuria, is less known to readers. Many, many strange data, however, point to the possibility that a great land once existed in the Pacific Ocean, perhaps extending into the Indian Ocean. Obvious examples are the giant stone figures on Easter Island. Today one doesn’t hear much about the vast research done by Col. James Churchward into records on sacred Naacal tablets in India. He “determined that 4 major cataclysms in 800,000 B.C., 200,000 B.C., 80,000 B.C., and 10,000 B.C.” were responsible for destroying Lemuria. That last date is close to the legendary demise of Atlantis as well. Some Pacific islands are believed to be remnants of Mu and some contain partially sunken remains of megalithic constructions. As a reader, I especially appreciated the source notes at the end of each chapter.

One of the legends about Lemuria that I’ve read in other books is that Mu was the place where mankind evolved from spiritual, etheric beings of light into heavier forms of energy. Shirley Andrews’ second chapter treats this subject and the resources that support it. Early Lemuria seems to have been a place of “forgiveness, love, and patience.” “Austrian mystic Dr. Rudolph Steiner wrote that many Lemurians lived in underground dwellings.” Therefore it is intriguing that myths worldwide speak of underground dwellings (Hopi, etc.) and tunnels. Many such places have been found around the world.

One important theme of this book deals with where the people of Lemuria and Atlantis went when their lands began to break apart. The author presents much evidence in her book that indicates that people in the eastern regions of Lemuria fled to Central America, South America, and what is now the Southwest United States. They likely predate the Inca, Mayans, and the Hopi.

Sources for discussion about Atlantis range from Plato, who according to his writings, learned of that land from priests in Egypt. In more current times, the famed American seer, Edgar Cayce, gave many readings about Atlantis in which he claimed many survivors of the final cataclysms went to Egypt. Author Andrews claims, with reasons, that the Azores islands, Madeira, and the Cape Verde Islands are all mountaintops of Atlantis. She says the last standing portion of Atlantis was Poseidia, “a large, pleasant island in 28,000 B.C. located on the Bahama Bank.” This area has been a central focus for Atlantis exploration in the 20th century. Andrews’ chapter about Poseidia is especially interesting and is filled with much evidence of remnants in Central America of both the Mu and Atlantis cultures. She references data from another fascinating book that I read many years ago: Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids by Peter Tompkins (Harper & Row, 1971).

A major them of this work appears in Chapter 5. This theme is suggested in the subtitle of the book: “Studying the Past to Survive the Future.” The question arises: why would a study of Lemuria and Atlantis be useful to us today? In other words, how can learning about these legendary places be of any more importance to us today beyond being curiosities? The author is clear. She refers, like Cayce, to the two groups of people to inhabit Atlantis. According to Cayce, one group were Children of the Law of One,” the “sons of light,” spiritual individuals who loved and respected each other. The other group he called the Sons of Belial, also called the “sons of darkness,.” This group was selfish, materialistic, and focused on “satisfying their physical appetites and desires with no respect for others.”

The author says, “Many individuals on the Earth today are Lemurians and Atlanteans who have returned to participate in another struggle between the forces of good and evil for control of this planet. . . . What is significant is that today we are all here to help make our world a better place. The Children of the Law of One will continue to do their good work, and the Sons of Darkness will have an opportunity to redeem themselves.” Hence, readers can see that learning about the past, the successes and the failures, can help each of us to make better choices today.

Author Andrews’ Chapter 6 on North America provides fascinating data from many parts of the United States. She ties Lemurian teachings to the Law of One and the peaceful teachings and legends of origin for the Hopi and Zuni Pueblo tribes. Cherokee teachings contain a history strongly connected to both the Pleiades and Atlantis. Their belief indicates that “mindfulness and love and care for others and for their natural environment maintain the balance of the planet and therefore harmony in the universe.” This philosophy is nearly identical to that of the Hopi, to the Lemurian attitudes, and the Law of One in Atlantis. The author also notes that “legends of the Iroquois, Sioux, Mandans, and Delaware refer to the home of their ancestors as an island that sank but was once in the Atlantic Ocean in the direction of the sunrise.”

Other fascinating data refers to pyramids and pyramidal-shaped mounds. We all know of the pyramids in Egypt and in Mexico and Central America. But few Americans know of the many pyramidal mounds found throughout middle America, especially in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. The author reports that “a pyramid as large as the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt once stood at the intersection of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in East St. Louis.” Unfortunately, “this huge mound was decimated in the 19th century.” At the time it “contained embroidered materials, beautiful gold, silver, and copper jewelry, and parchment that appeared to have writing on its surface.” Most or all of this was lost over the years.

Shirley Andrews’ chapter on South America includes discussion of the amazing collection of ancient artifacts accumulated by Father Crespi, a Roman Catholic priest who was sent by the Vatican to a remote area of Ecuador in the mid 20th century. Several photographs show Father Crespi and some of his unusual artifacts. Father Crespi apparently believed “that Atlanteans and Lemurians brought the treasures from their countries when it was sinking” because the pieces showed such “sophisticated techniques involved in their production.” He built a museum to house these valuables, one that was “recognized as an archaeological authority.” In 1962 someone set fire to the museum and it was completely destroyed except for a few articles that Father Crespi managed to rescue. Fortunately for us, a photographer, Bob Brush, visited the Father in the 1970s and photographed Father Crespi and those pieces. When Father Crespi died, everything disappeared.

This book is rich with fascinating data that supports the theory that Atlantis and Lemuria were both more than legends. We’ve discussed just seven of the 18 chapters. Rather than continue chapter by chapter, the rest of our discussion will focus on a few of the most intriguing points in the book.

One very interesting discussion focuses on blood types and genes. Research has shown that “a disproportionate amount of [type O and] the Rh-negative blood factor is characteristic of . . . people who live in the vicinity of the Atlantic Ocean.” The speculation then is that these factors suggest that O Rh-negative blood was the dominant blood type on Atlantis. “It predominates among the Basques in the Pyrenees Mountains and the Berbers in the Atlas Mountains on the Atlantic coast of North Africa,” as well as the Canary Islands and the Maya Lacandones of southern Mexico. Other odd factors are observable. The Basque language is unique and “untraceable to any other tongue,” but it “apparently has a common origin with the language of a tribe of Maya in northern Guatemala.”
So what was its source? Perhaps it was Atlantis.

Another intriguing discussion focused on the inventiveness of the priest-scientists of Atlantis and Lemuria. We know that currently most people believe that civilization has developed rather linearly. That is, if we go back into pre-history, we think we will only find “cavemen.” But the stories about the legendary Atlantis and Lemuria, along with numerous and mysterious archaeological finds suggests something quite different. Edgar Cayce said the Atlanteans used great crystal energies, and various finds of crystal skulls with strange polarities raise more questions. The author notes that “stories from all over the world tell of waves of sound lifting and raising heavy objects.” In our own time scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla, who invented alternating current, also explored various uses of electromagnetism, leading to a “top secret U.S. research with time and space.” The author says that “many of his inventions remain secret.”

In one chapter author Andrews discusses one of the first books I ever read about Atlantis: A Dweller on Two Planets, written in 1884 by an 18 year old, Frederick S. Oliver. (This book is still in publication, currently by Cosimo Classics, 2007). The book seemed to be an early science-fiction fantasy in which Oliver said that “Phylos the Tibetan, who had lived in Atlantis in 11,650 B.C., visited him at night” and dictated the story. The amazing thing, however, is that long before our own technological age, Oliver’s book described large cylinder passenger vehicles with port-hole like windows along the sides that flew in the air. He also depicted “air purifiers, electric guns, crystal lights,” a water condenser and other items unknown in the 1880s. In 1933 Edgar Cayce talked about Atlantean lasers and “predicted our scientists would produce them in 25 years. Twenty-five years later, in 1958, Bell Telephone Laboratory produced masers” (our early lasers).

For some twenty years I taught a mythology course in high school. It is impossible to ignore the fact that myths around the world are filled with stories of great catastrophes. Nearly every culture in the world has a Great Flood story. Many have other stories of destruction from earthquakes, fire, tilting of the earth and heavens, great tempests, the sun disappearing, islands collapsing into the sea, and huge tsunamis rising up mountain high. The author devotes a chapter to these stories of destruction, backed up with geologic reports. Given these facts, stories about former civilizations that were destroyed in great cataclysms become quite plausible.

This book, clearly, is a delightful compendium of all current information about Atlantis and Lemuria. But we must return to the underlying reason for the book itself. Somehow our understanding of these ancient cultures is important to us now. This isn’t the first or only book to point out the parallels between the latter days of Atlantis and our civilization today. Apparently the people of Atlantis were highly developed technologically, but their science had become very materialistic, selfish, and power-centered, with many deadly weapons at their disposal.

Earlier Atlanteans, like the Lemurians, were the Children of the Law of One. They lived in peace and harmony with each other and nature. Cayce and others have said that “former Atlantean souls have incarnated again on Earth . . . for a variety of reasons.” One objective is for those former Atlanteans to learn again how to live in peace. The author says, “We are one family . . . . As we emphasize the similarities rather than the differences among people, unity will prevail and we will come together on the higher plane of consciousness that characterized the Golden Age of early Lemuria and Atlantis.”

Clearly, we have a long way to go. Reading this book, however, provides insightful information for readers to ponder. The author also provides brief biographies for a number of the authors and sources she cites in her book, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of books and articles pertinent to the subject.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home