Atlantis Fever: The Journey of the Myth Through Time

“There is a magic in names. And the mightiest among these words of magic is Atlantis. It is as if this vision of a lost culture touched the most hidden part of our soul.” H.G. Wells.

With the release of Aquaman, the myth of Atlantis has begun to emerge into popular culture once again. Despite the glorified undersea kingdom that has been imagined by science fiction, Atlantis has a long legacy in human history, and in fact, serves as a distant warning about the pitfalls of advancing civilization. Ironically, it also ties into all the things we are dealing with now. To name a few: Totalitarianism, the dangers of advancing technology, climate change, and racism. 

Atlantis first appeared in popular culture when Plato wrote about it in Ancient Greece. Being the star student of Socrates, he had a lot of literary clout. His detailed description of a civilization punished by the gods for their arrogance has carved Atlantis a revolving role in antiquity. It’s been postulated that the Library of Alexandria had records of Atlantis, but alas, all the records were burned. Perhaps it was mostly forgotten after the fall of the Roman Empire when Europe plummeted into the Dark Ages. Though I’m sure in the 1400s when European explorers set out onto the ocean, they had the notion of discovering Atlantis. Back in those days, it was accepted as historical truth.

It was in 1516 when Sir Thomas More published Utopia that Atlantis would return to the collective consciousness. His depiction of a fictional land set in the New World of the Americas would influence Atlantis theory from then on, echoing Plato’s description of a perfect society.

In the 1570s John Dee was busy laying the foundation for modern science in the royal court of Queen Elizabeth I. He was also an astrologer wizard, spy, alchemist, and was said to have amassed a library meant to emulate Alexandria’s. His influence sparked an intellectual explosion, England’s triumphant return to the enlightenment of ancient Greece and Rome. Such notions would bring expansionism and exploration into the forefront of the British ideal. Expeditions to the Americas had the feeling of discovering the key to an ancient Atlantean past.   

From the influence of Dee and More came Sir Francis Bacon, who released another Utopian novel in 1627 called The New Atlantis. Again, the Americas were the focus of the ancient legend. As with the other times Atlantis was on the tip of every tongue, it came hand in hand with occultism and philosophy. Emerging from the Dark Ages into the Renaissance, knowledge had become popular once more, but intellectuals still had the church to contend with, so secret societies such as the Hermetics and the Rosicrucians studied the occult and the secret past of humanity behind closed doors.

The next few hundred years led to the rise of Mayanism. Most of the work on Atlantis was speculative, and even though it led to fascinating similarities between the ruins of ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica, the conclusions of explorers were often discredited. While humans around the globe were breaking free of monarchy and feudalism through war and revolution, it seems like there was little time for salons discussing the puzzle of the ancient past. But once the 1800s and the Industrial Revolution kicked up a surge of technological advancement, the next wave of Atlantis craze dazzled western culture.

In the 1850s a spiritualist fad swept across England. A group called the Theosophists resurrected tales of humanity’s mysterious lost past. This led to a number of scholars sharing their theories with the world. Their work was considered pseudo-science. In 1882, a retired American politician named Ignatius Donnelley published a book called Atlantis: The Antediluvian world. The book became so popular that Atlantis became a household word. Back in jolly old England, Jules Verne was inventing science fiction at the time with works like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea where Captain Nemo was checking out the ancient ruins of Atlantis in his submarine. Journey to the Center of the Earth explored the concept of the hollow earth, which would also figure into Atlantis theory in times to come. The most noted depiction of the hollow earth Atlantis in modern times is Disney’s 2001 animated movie entitled Atlantis: The Lost Empire. This movie remains to date one of the best researched Atlantis films. But I’m getting ahead of myself.    

By the 1930s the channel Edgar Cayce was recording hundreds of past life readings in Atlantis. He was known as the Sleeping Prophet because he would go into a trance and access information from the Akashic Records, a 4^th dimensional record of all human knowledge. He recorded great details about a highly advanced culture that had vast crystal technology and flying ships. This was quite different than what was previously postulated. But the idea began to sink in.  

In the 1940s, talk of Atlantis became dangerous. It was Adolph Hitler and his buddy Heinrich Himmler who started to really believe in the legend. But their theory brought about white supremacy, as they thought that Aryans were a superior race meant to inherit the legacy of the ancient civilization. To them that meant global domination. They coupled their theories with Utopia and the occult, thus the use of the mystical swastika as their symbol. Their notions would taint the legend, but Atlantis wouldn’t be held down for long. The irony of the “superior white descendants of Atlantis” rests in the three hundred-year old theory that Atlanteans were Mayans and Egyptians, who were definitely not white. But that’s another discussion.

After the fall of the Nazis, Atlantis went into hiding again only to re-emerge in the 1960s with a vengeance. The legend now left the arena of parlor discussions, and started to embed itself into popular culture, making its appearance in books, films magazines, comics and songs. In America especially, it has become a household word, even though most people don’t really know its origins. One of Edgar Cayce’s claims was that America as a civilization is the reincarnation of Atlantis. This idea holds a beautiful irony in the “new world” being perceived as Atlantis. It also looms a shadow over the similarities between our current path and Atlantis’s downfall for breaking the laws of nature.  

In the 1980s, the New Age movement popularized occultism yet again, and with it came its natural dance partner, Atlantis. The Esoterics have multiplied, as spiritual channelers such as Diana Cooper, Phylos the Tibetan, and Barbara Marciniak have expanded on Cayce's vision of an advanced culture run by ancient alien technology and crystals. Of course, the popularity of the show “Ancient Aliens” has catapulted these theories into every day conversations. The secular lineage has also increased since many oceanographic surveys have uncovered the ruins of underwater cities, perpetuating a debate over which one is Atlantis. Atlantis gets “discovered” all the time. There is also no shortage of maverick archaeology tracing the roots of our mysterious ancient past. Graham Hancock and David Hatcher Childress are two of my favorites in this realm. Though none of it is widely accepted as truth, it sure does strike a chord of intrigue. The truth of the matter is there are megalithic ruins all over the planet. Though science has attempted to explain them, they are still far older and far more advanced than what is being admitted.

My work in merging the actual myth into fiction is a time-honored tradition that dates back to Ancient Greece. I have inherited the legacy of the legend as a philosopher and spiritualist. It has been my honor to trace the roots of this mystery that extend so deep into our collective psyche, it has easily spanned a lifetime of research, and I have still barely scratched the surface. Despite whether the legend is true or not, it serves as a warning to us all. It is a grand argument about the achievement of perfection in society. As we advance, we must take care to rise above hubris and entitlement, or else we will blindly bumble our way to utter destruction. Atlantis is an echo of an ancestral memory. The truth may be lost for all eternity, but perhaps we can still learn from it. Only time will tell.