Atlantis

Island-continent that is reputed to have sunk beneath the Atlantic Ocean and that some expect to reappear.
Atlantis is widely assumed to have been real, but almost everything said about it derives ultimately from one author, the Greek philosopher Plato (c. 428–348 b.c.), who was not a historian. He cites an alleged Egyptian tradition handed down for 9,000 years. Atlantis was a landmass occupying a large part of the ocean west of Gibraltar. Its rulers were descended from gods, and it was a realm of great splendor, where justice and wisdom flourished. The Atlanteans had colonies in Europe and Africa and in a continent on the far side of the ocean (it is tempting to see a reference to America here, but that idea must be treated with extreme caution). Eventually, the divine element in the rulers decayed, and they embarked on wars of conquest. Their conduct brought retribution from Zeus, the chief god. The free men of Athens drove back their army, and Atlantis vanished in a single day and night of earthquake and flood.As it stands, Plato’s story is impossibly dated and geologically incredible. His main purpose was probably to create a myth showing the superiority of small, well-ordered states over aggressive empires. However, his fertile imagination carried the conception too far: he said too much about Atlantis, and made it too interesting. Though few in classical times took it literally, attempts were made in the Age of Discovery to relate it to America. Authors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tried to prove that it was real and more or less as described.
The first such study was by Ignatius Donnelly in his book Atlantis: the Antediluvian World, published in 1882. Others have followed. The favorite line of argument is that cultural similarities on both sides of the Atlantic imply a common source between them. Thus, Mexico has pyramids and Egypt has pyramids, so there must have been Atlantean pyramid builders who traveled in both directions founding ancient civilizations. But independent invention is perfectly possible, and Mexico and Egypt are too far apart in time to have had a common origin. “Proofs” based on parallels in myth and religion are no more effective.
It has been argued that although Plato was writing fiction, he used traditions of real ancient civilizations and natural disasters, somewhere else altogether—in the Aegean area, maybe. It has also been argued that he did know of land across the Atlantic, discovered by unrecorded voyagers: nothing on the scale of his mythic conception but real as far as it went. A serious case has been made out for the West Indies.
Whatever may be thought of Plato’s sources, the idea that his Atlantis not only existed but may rise again is due chiefly to its inclusion in the schema of world history taught by the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky, the founder, produced a book called Isis Unveiled in 1877. In this, she mentioned Atlantis and was perhaps the first to hit on the argument from cultural and mythological parallels between the Old World and the New, though it was left to Donnelly to develop it. In 1888, she brought out The Secret Doctrine. Donnelly’s book had appeared in the interval, and she cited him with approval but laid more stress on her own claims to knowledge drawn from occult revelations and mysterious manuscripts. She expounded a panorama of history covering millions of years and tracing humanity’s evolution through a series of “root-races.” Atlantis was the home of the fourth root-race, very tall and highly civilized. As Donnelly had conjectured, they were the founders of several civilizations known to ordinary history. Atlantis, however, sank. After Madame Blavatsky’s death an “astral clairvoyant,” William Scott-Elliot, pursued the story of Atlantis and also that of Lemuria, another Theosophical sunken land.
For enthusiasts, Atlantis is apt to be a kind of Utopia with golden-age qualities, the home of an advanced society with knowledge and powers of magic that have been lost. One legacy of Theosophy, whether recognized or not, is a belief in huge changes of the earth’s surface over geologically short periods of time, allowing an expectation that the process will continue and lost lands will resurface. Fantasies of this sort have encouraged notions of the future reappearance of Atlantis itself, a hope akin to the return of King Arthur and similar prophetic motifs.
This may take the modified form of a rebirth of Atlantean Ancient Wisdom, rather than a physical reemergence. On occult or paranormal grounds, caches of Atlantean secrets are said to have been preserved for posterity. Edgar Cayce, the American “Sleeping Prophet,” asserted on the basis of a trance-revelation that the history of Atlantis was in a hidden underground chamber or hall of records near the Sphinx in Egypt, which would come to light sooner or later. He even gave directions, though not very convincingly. Colin Amery and others enlarged on his ideas, suggesting that the hall of records had more in it than he envisaged and likewise predicting its rediscovery.
However, some visionaries have foretold a literal rebirth of Atlantis, partly or wholly. One who did so in a fairly restrained way was Cayce himself. Others have ventured further. H. C. Randall-Stevens foretold, on the authority of an “Osirian” group, that the lost land will rise above the ocean in 2014. At that time, a cache of its Ancient Wisdom will be disclosed, as Amery and the rest have indicated, but in the Great Pyramid.

See also
Cayce, Edgar; Lemuria; Sphinx; Theosophy


Further Reading
Amery, Colin. New Atlantis: the Secret of the Sphinx. London and New York: Regency Press, 1976.
Ashe, Geoffrey. Atlantis: Lost Lands, Ancient Wisdom. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.
Bramwell, James. Lost Atlantis. London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1937.
Bro, Harmon Hartzell. Edgar Cayce. Wellingborough, England: The Aquarian Press, 1990.
Collins, Andrew. Gateway to Atlantis. London: Headline, 2000.