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The cataclysms of fire and
water of worldwide extent of which we speak in this essay are
strictly scientific. They are widely attested in the geological
record, being generally accepted by modern Geology. So are the
massive extinctions of all sorts of species, and particularly of the
large mammals which took place at the end of the Pleistocene
Ice Age, some 11,600 years ago. Some 70% of the former
species of great mammals which existed in the former era became
extinct then, including, in all probability, two species of humans,
the Neandertals and the Cro-Magnons,
which became extinct more or less at this epoch.
Only the mechanism for the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age— which is a
certain fact, but is so far unexplained by Science — is new and our
own. We propose that this dramatic event was caused by a huge
explosion of the Krakatoa volcano (or perhaps another
one), which opened the Strait of Sunda, separating the
islands of Java and Sumatra, in Indonesia.
This giant explosion is widely attested in all sorts of myths and
traditions such as those concerning Atlantis and
Paradise, indeed located in this region of the world. It is
universally remembered as the explosion of the Mountain of
Paradise (= Mt. Krakatoa, Atlas, Sinai, Zion, Alborj, Qaf,
Golgotha, Meru, etc.) and of the deluge it caused, of which they all
speak obsessively as the Universal Flood and the
Universal Conflagration.
The explosion of Mt. Krakatoa caused a giant tsunami,
which ravaged the lowlands of Atlantis and
Lemuria. It also triggered the end of the Ice Age by
covering the continental glaciers with a layer of soot (fly ash)
which precipitated their melting by increasing the absorption of
sunshine. The meltwaters of the glaciers flowed into the oceans,
raising sea-level by about 100-150 meters and causing tremendous
strains and stresses in the crust of the earth. This cracked open in
the weak spots, engendering further volcanic eruptions and
earthquakes that feedback (positively) the process, furthering it to
completion. The result was the dramatic end of the Pleistocene
Ice Age and the so-called Quaternary Extinctions
which we mentioned above.
Return
All nations, of all times, believed in the existence of a
Primordial Paradise where Man originated and developed the
fist civilization ever. This story, real and true, is told in the
Bible and in Hindu Holy Books such a the Rig Veda,
the Puranas and many others. That this Paradise lay "towards
the Orient" no one doubts, excepting some die-hard scientists who
hold that the different civilizations developed independently from
each other in such unlikely places such as Europe, the Americas or
the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
It was in the Orient, and beyond, that agriculture (of rice and
grains) and animal domestication were invented. These two crucial
inventions allowed Man’s fixation to the soil, and the resulting
prosperity led to civilization and the founding of the first cities.
It is exactly this fact that is related in the Bible, that
attributes the foundation of the first city — called Henok or
Chenok, ("the Abode of the Pure", in Dravida) — to Cain (Gen. 4:17).
This end at the completion of its allotted time is what is meant by
Henok’s lifespan of "365 years".
This name ("Pure Land")of the very first one of all
cities is the same in Hindu traditions (Shveta-dvipa,
Sukhavati,
Atala, etc.). Even in the Amerindian traditions,
Yvymaraney "the Land of the Pure", is the legendary
birthplace of the Tupi-Guarani Indians of Brazil, just as
Aztlan is the land of origin of the ancient Mayas of
Yucatan. Man — or, more exactly, the anthropoid simians that were
our ancestors — in fact arose in Africa some 3 million years ago.
But these anthropoids soon spread all over Eurasia and beyond,
reaching the Far Orient and Australia, inclusive, by about 1 million
years ago or even more.
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It was in Indonesia and the neighboring lands that Man, after
emigrating from the semi-desertic savannas of Africa, first found
the ideal climatic conditions for development, and it was there that
he invented agriculture and civilization. All this took place during
the Pleistocene, the last of the geological eras, which ended a
scant 11,600 years ago. Though long by human standards, this is but
a brief moment in geological terms.
The Pleistocene — a name which is Greek for "most
recent" — is also called Anthropozoic Era or Quaternary Era or, yet,
the Ice Age. During the Pleistocene and, more exactly,
during the glacial episodes that happened at intervals of about 20
thousand years, sea level was about 100-150 meters (330-500 feet)
below the present value. With this, a large coastal strip — the
so-called Continental Platform (with a width of about 200km = 120
miles) — became exposed, forming land bridges that interconnected
many islands and regions.
The most dramatic of such exposures took place in the region of
Indonesia, precisely the spot where humanity first flourished. The
vast expansion of the South China Sea then formed an immense
continent, indeed "larger than Asia Minor and Libya put together".
This is, as we shall see below, precisely what Plato affirms
in his discourse on Atlantis, the Critias.
With the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, the immense glaciers that
covered the whole of the northern half of North America and Eurasia
melted away. Their waters drained to the sea, whose level rose by
the estimated amount of about 100-150 meters quoted above. With this
rise,
Atlantis sunk away and disappeared for good, along with
most of its population, which we estimate, based on Plato’s
data, at about 20 million people, huge for the epoch in question.
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More exactly, this sunken continent was Lemurian Atlantis,
the larger of the two Atlantises mentioned by Plato.
Lemuria was the vast prairie which the Greeks called Elysian
Fields and which the Egyptians named "the Field of Reeds" (Sekhet
Aaru) or, yet, "the Ancestral Land" (To-wer), the overseas Paradise
where they formerly lived, in Zep Tepi ("Primordial Time"). The
sunken continent became the Land of the Dead, the dreadful,
forbidden region where no mariner ever ventured to go, for it was
"the Land of No Return".
Interestingly enough the name "Ancestral Land" (or
Serendip) is precisely the Dravidian name of Taprobane
(Sumatra), the island where the Hindus placed their pristine
Paradise, likewise sunken in a cataclysm. The gloomy, pestilential
place that remained above the water was named Sheol ("Hell") by the
Jews, and, in the spared spots, "Island of the Blest"
(Makarion nesos) or Hades by the Greeks, Amenti or Punt by the
Egyptians, Dilmun by the Mesopotamians, Hawaiki by the Polynesians,
Svarga by the Hindus, and so on.
The Celts — whose legends are perhaps the best
recollection of the sunken golden realm — called the place
Avallon, Emain Abbalach or, yet, Ynis Wydr ("Island of
Glass"). They also associated the eerie place with the Holy
Grail and the resurrection of their dead heroes, as we
detail in other, forthcoming articles of ours. And we already
mentioned above the Yvymaraney of the Tupian Indians of Brazil, or
the Aztlan or Atitlan of the Mayas of Yucatan, the submerged land
which these Indians were obliged to flee, when it sunk underseas.
Return
The greatest of all Lemurian colonies was Atlantis,
founded in India, already during the heydays of Lemuria, and which,
in time, reached the apex of human grandeur. Atlantis and Lemuria
had prospered for a full zodiacal era (2,160 years), when the great
cataclysm destroyed their common world, at the end of the
Pleistocene, some 11,600 years ago.
The scant survivors of the cataclysm that sunk Lemuria
away were forced to flee their destroyed Paradise, moving first to
India, the site of Atlantis, which had been spared in
its northern, loftier portion. But the global catastrophe had also
caused the end of the
Pleistocene Ice Age, and the melting of the Himalayan
glaciers caused huge floods of the rivers of Asia, rendering the
region unfit for human habitation. These floods ravaged this
remainder of Atlantis, already greatly destroyed by
the original cataclysm, the giant conflagration of the Indonesian
volcanoes and the huge tsunamis they caused, as well as by the
plague that ravaged their country in their wake.
Again, this doomed people was obliged to flee, emigrating, along the
ensuing millennia, to remote places such as Egypt, Mesopotamia,
Palestine, North Africa, Europe, North Asia, the Near Orient and
even Oceania and the Americas. Some came on foot, in huge hordes
like those of the Israelite exodus. Others came by ship, like Noah
in his Ark or Aeneas with his fleet, to found the great
civilizations of the ancient world.
The great civilizations that we know of, in the Indus Valley,
in
Egypt, in Mesopotamia, Asia Minor,
Greece, Rome, Mexico and
even the Americas were all Atlantean colonies founded
by the survivors of the cataclysm that destroyed the twin Paradises
of Atlantis and
Lemuria. These colonists, of course, attempted to
recreate their Eden in their new homeland.
The newcomers named each topographical feature after the archetypes of
the pristine abode just as immigrants will do the same nowadays.
Such is the reason why we keep finding vestiges of Atlantis
everywhere, from Brazil and North America to Spain, Crete, and even
Africa and North Europe. All these ancient civilizations spoke of
Civilizing Heroes such as Manu, Noah, Aeneas, the Oannés, Hotu
Matua, Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, Bochica and, of course, Atlas and
Hercules, the omnipresent Twins that founded civilizations
everywhere.
Return
Interestingly enough, the only place so far unclaimed among the
literally hundreds of sittings of Atlantis is
Indonesia. Of course, no solid evidence of the existence of Atlantis
and, even more so, of
Lemuria, has ever been found. The reason for this absence
is easy to explain: the experts have all been searching Atlantis in
the wrong sides of the world.
The legends of all peoples tell of Civilizing Heroes, Angels, Gods, or
even Demons and Monsters who were their civilizers and who taught
them religion, law, agriculture, metallurgy and the alphabet. These
are the Fallen Angels, the same all too human heroes who fell
desperately in love with the beautiful native girls, the Daughters
of Man (Gen. 6). These fallen gods were not Astronauts, nor Sprites,
but saintly men who came as missionaries from Atlantis. How else
could they mate with human females and breed children?
The mysterious "Sons of God" (ben Elohim) of Gen.6 are
precisely the same ones identified by Plato with the
Atlanteans. Their sin with the Daughters of Men — and, more
probably, the rejection and enslavement of their hybrid offspring —
led to the Flood. This is indeed the mysterious Original Sin that
resulted in the destruction of Paradise (Atlantis) and the Fall of
Man. This sin is the one ritually "washed" by the Baptism, itself an
allegory of the Flood, as St. Jerome and other Church Patriarchs
explicitly acknowledge.
Plato quotes precisely this cause for the destruction of
Atlantis by God (Zeus) in his (unfinished) dialogue on
Atlantis, the Critias. And the same story, in allegorized form, is
also told by Homer concerning the Phaeacian "Sons of God". It
also figures in the Celtic myths concerning Mererid, the sinful
daughter of King Gradlon, whose scabrous conduct led to the sinking
of the land of Ys. So, in the Americas (Bochica, etc.) and
elsewhere.
If we read the Bible attentively, we note that it also speaks of two
creations, exactly as Plato also tells of two different
Atlantises (cf. Gen. 1 and 2). Moreover, the Bible also tells of two
destructions of the world by the Deluge. These two
different narratives are quaintly embroidered on each other in Gen.
6, and comprise the Elohist and the Jahvist accounts of the Flood,
which relate two visibly different events.
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We see, then, that the tradition (or traditions) narrated by Plato
exactly coincides with the Biblical lore. Moreover, as we said above,
the two traditions also exactly agree with the prehistoric events
observed in the geological and the archaeological records. And, when
we trace the worldwide legends to their source, we always end up in
India and Indonesia, the two Atlantises of legend, no matter where
we start from.
In truth, continents don’t sink. It is the sea that rises, flooding
entire continents, as it did in Lemurian Atlantis and, to a great
extent, in the Indus Valley, the site of the second Atlantis.
Relativists will say that both events — sea level rise and
continental sinking — are one and the same thing, at least from the
point of view of the observers. But geologists will hotly debate the
issue, and claim, as they have long done, that actual sunken
continents are a geological impossibility. It is all a matter of
perspective, of relativistic illusion. But the best ancient sources
— say, for instance that magnificent Hindu saga, the
Mahabharata — speak of sea level rising rather than of
continents sinking.
Return
However, anyone who inspects a chart of the oceanic bottoms in the
region of Indonesia such as the Ice Age Map of Indonesia shown in
Fig. 1 below, will readily concede that the South China Sea
encircled by Indonesia indeed formed a continent during the last
glaciation, which ended some 11,600 years ago. This chart clearly
shows the sunken continent of Lemurian Atlantis in Indonesia,
as well as the extensive sunken strip of Indian Atlantis at the
Indus Delta.
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The map leaves no room for
doubt about the reality of what we are affirming concerning
Lemurian and Indian Atlantis, one almost
wholly sunken, and the other sunken to a very considerable
extension. We remark that this map — in contrast to most others
presenting proposed sites for Atlantis and/or Lemuria — is purely
scientific, rather than an invention of ours or of others.
It is
based on the detailed geophysical reconstruction of the seabottoms
in the region in question, and portrays the areas of depth under 100
meters, which were obviously exposed during the Ice Age, when sea
level dropped by that amount and even more.
("click" on photo
to enlarge) |
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In fact, several strictly scientific, similar maps exist, and can be
seen elsewhere, inclusive in the Internet. One of these maps, was
published in the National Geographic Magazine (vol.174, no.4, Oct.
1988, pg. 446-7) and is reproduced, for comparison, in Fig. 2 below.
It shows the world as it was some 18,000 years ago, at the peak of
the last glaciation's of the Pleistocene Ice Age. As
can be seen, this map corresponds quite closely with ours, shown in
Fig. 1.
In particular, please note the huge chunk of land, of continental
dimensions, to the south of Southeast Asia, and which became sunken
when sea level rose, at the end of the Pleistocene. Another sizable
piece of land in the Indus Delta, the site of the second
Atlantis, also disappeared likewise, at that occasion. No
other regions of the world display a similar event, including the
Americas (not shown). The conclusion is that Atlantis,
if Plato was in fact speaking truthfully, could only have
been located in that region of the world.
As both maps above show, a huge extension — of continental size —
prolonged Southeast Asia all the way down to Australia. This
continental-sized land was indeed "larger than Asia [Minor] and
Lybia [North Africa] put together", exactly as Plato affirms.
It is seen to have been about two or three times larger than
continental-sized India. It was also far larger than Australia,
shown exaggerated due to the peculiarities of the projection
utilized.
The Indonesian Islands and the Malay Peninsula that we nowadays
observe are the unsunken relicts of Lemurian Atlantis,
the lofty volcanic mountains that became the volcanic islands of
this region, the true site of Paradise in all ancient traditions.
The sunken portion of continental extension now forms the muddy,
shallow bottoms of the South China Sea. It is encircled by Indonesia
and forms the boundary of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.
Then, as now, Indonesia formed the divide of the New and the Ancient
Worlds; what the ancients called Ultima Thule
("Ultimate Divide"). Thule also corresponded to what our elders
named the Pillars of Hercules, which, according to Plato,
were placed "just in front of Atlantis" (hyper ten Heraklei Nyssai).
The Pillars of Hercules were also the impassable frontier between the
Old and the New Worlds, also called Orient and Occident. These two
are sundered by the volcanic island arc of Indonesia, truly the
boundary of the Tectonic Plates that form the Ancient and the New
Worlds. This barrier to navigation, in the region of Atlantis is
also insistently mentioned in Plato and other ancient sources
on Atlantis.
Return
The great rift that came to separate the islands of Java and
Sumatra, caused by the subsidence of the Krakatoa
volcano turned into a giant submarine caldera, which now
forms the Sunda Strait. This great rift was very well known of the
ancients. Hesiod called it Khasma Mega ("Great Rift"), a
designative he learnt from the Hindus. This people called it (in
Sanskrit) by names such as Abhvan ("Great Abyss"), Kalamukha ("Black
Hole"), Aurva ("Fiery Pit") Vadava-mukha ("Fiery Submarine Mare"),
and so on. This Great Abyss is also the same one that the
Egyptians called Nun, and which the Mesopotamians named Apzu
("Abyss").
Hesiod and several other ancient authorities place this Khaos
("Divide") or Khasma Mega ("Giant Abyss") at the world’s divide, at
the very entrance to Hell (Tartarus). Hesiod also places
Atlas and his Pillar (Mt. Atlas) at this gloomy spot where the
ancient navigants such as Ulysses and the Argonauts
met their doom. As we said above, this terrifying Black Hole — the
archetype of all such that haunt Man’s imagination — is indeed the
Krakatoa’s fiery caldera, ready to revive at doom, at least
in Hindu traditions on the Vadava-mukha.
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Let us recapitulate what happened during the Pleistocene Ice Age, for
its true significance seems to have escaped the notice of all
Atlantologists thus far.
This is how Ice Ages start. Converted into clouds by the
sun, sea water is carried into the continents by the wind, where it
pours down as either rain, hail or snow. If conditions are right, as
they were then, this down falling water is retained in glaciers that
end up covering the temperate regions with a shroud of ice that is
one or two miles thick. Sea level consequently drops by 100-150
meters or even more, exposing the shallow bottoms of the sea. Such
was the case of the South China Sea, whose depth seldom exceeds 60
meters or so, as we show in the Map of Fig. 1. When the Ice Age
ends, the process is reverted. The glaciers melt away, and their
melt water quickly drains into the sea. In consequence, the bottoms
previously exposed as dry land become submerged once again.
As we see, the world works as a kind of flip-flop or swing, forever
oscillating between the extremes of cold and heat. Interestingly
enough, it is Life itself that equilibrates the balance, introducing
a negative feedback that counteracts the tendency for the world to
freeze or to sizzle. For instance, if carbon dioxide (CO2) increases
in the atmosphere, the temperature tends to go up with the so-called
Hothouse Effect. This is precisely what we observe in sizzling
Venus, whose atmosphere is almost pure CO2. In gelid Mars, whose
atmosphere (and Life) was almost all lost in a tremendous cataclysm
— probably caused by the fall of a meteorite of planetoidal size —
the opposite swing took place.
Wherever Life exists, as on Earth, increased CO2 contents of the
atmosphere also results in increased photosynthesis. Plants grow
more luxuriously, fixing the excess carbon dioxide in themselves,
and alleviating the situation. The opposite process happens if the
CO2 content of the atmosphere is reduced for some reason.
Photosynthesis is consequently reduced and plant matter — mainly the
plankton in the seas, rather than the tropical forests — decreases,
liberating CO2. This increases the atmospheric content, tending to
increase earth’s temperature back to its normal value.
However, this compensation only works within rigid limits, and any
excessive perturbation can trigger an Ice Age or a Hot Age. Like
with flip-flops and balances, the transition is enhanced by positive
feedback, and quickly leads to the extreme situations that are,
again, stable and permanent until triggered back on again. For
instance if the seas warm up, the solubility of CO2 is decreased,
and its atmospheric content increases, tending to further increase
earth’s temperature, and vice-versa.
Moreover, an ice cover
effectively reflects sunlight back towards outer space, reducing the
amount of solar heat absorbed by the earth. Its temperature
consequently drops, and the glaciers further increase, until they
cover all the temperate regions of earth. In the absence of Life, we
have the two extremes instanced by our two neighboring planets,
Venus and Mars. As we said above, Venus is as
hot as hell, whereas Mars is completely frozen up, as if to vividly
exemplify to us all the two extremes of lifeless conditions.
Return
The causes of the Ice Ages and of the periodic advance
and retreat of the continental glaciers is not well known. But, to
believe the myths, the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age was due to the
cataclysmic explosion of Mt. Atlas, the one which wiped the twin
Atlantises out of the map.
Mount Atlas — "the Pillar of Heaven" that decorated Lemurian Atlantis
— was an immense volcanic peak in the region that now corresponds to
the island arc of Indonesia. To be more precise, this volcano was
the terrible Krakatoa, even today still alive and very
active, despite its monumental explosion in Atlantean times.
After its colossal explosion, the Krakatoa volcano sunk away
underseas, becoming the giant caldera that now forms Sunda’s Strait
between Java and Sumatra.
This giant caldera — fully 150 km across — is the "Fiery Submarine
Mare" (Vadava-mukha) that we commented above. The giant explosion of
the Holy Mountain is attested not only by the worldwide myths that
recount the end of Paradise (Atlantis). Similar
cataclysms in this remote region of the world are also testified by
the
tektite belt and the volcanic ash layer that covers most of the
South Indian Ocean, Australia, Indonesia and Southeast Asia.[1]
The ashes and dust liberated by the gigantic explosion were carried
away by the winds, and covered the glaciers of North Asia and North
America with a dark veil of carbonized matter. The result was an
increased absorption of sunlight and a quick melting away of the
glaciers that covered the continents beyond the Tropical Regions.
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The process of glacier melting was far from uniform, as many
geologists of the Darwinian school tend to think. The meltwater of
the glaciers quickly flowed into the seas, creating huge stresses
between the overloaded sea bottom and the alleviated continents.
Earth’s crust cracked and rifted at many places, originating
volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis of unprecedented proportions.
And the violent process continued, impelled by its own momentum,
until it was finally complete and the earth had quit the Ice
Age. In this terrible event — the same one that the myths
call the Flood — some 70% of the species of great mammals became
extinct.
This self-sustaining, degenerative increasing process is what
physicists call "positive feedback", and is identical to the one
that causes the transitions of electronic flip-flops in electronic
computers and such. It also corresponds to another physical process
called "thermal runaway", which happens, for instance, on a global
scale in the Hothouse Effect. Increased temperature of the earth
tends to liberate the CO2 (carbonic gas) dissolved in seawater to
the atmosphere, since its solubility decreases with temperature.
The extra atmospheric CO2 further tends to increase global warming,
liberating further amounts of CO2, and so on until all of it is
liberated to the atmosphere, and the earth becomes overheated. This
is possibly what happened on sizzling Venus, perhaps
billions of years ago. And it may well be the case that Venus also
had Life, as Mars apparently did too, as we are starting to learn.
Geologists call the widespread mortality that took place at the end of
the Pleistocene by the name of Quaternary Extinctions. But they are
foiled at explaining their cause, and none of the literally dozens
of scientific theories hereto proposed to explain the cause of Ice
Ages have been consensually accepted by the scientific community.
Among the extinct species we had several magnificent animals: the
mammoth, the mastodon, the saber-toothed tiger, the cave bear, the
giant sloths, dozens of species of camelids, cervids, cavalids and,
very probably, the Neandertal and the Cro-Magnon
men, who became extinct at about this date for some unexplained
reason that can only have been linked to this one.
No, the ancient myths in no way overstate the universal extent and
violence of the Flood cataclysm. The worldwide mass
extinctions of the end of the Quaternary (the Pleistocene Ice Age)
attest, most unequivocally, that the brutality of the cataclysm was
truly
Velikovskian in extent, if not in nature.
And the instances of both Mars and Venus
are Celestial witnesses of what may indeed happen to the Earth if we
persist in abusing her the way we presently do. Are these two
planets the Two Witnesses mentioned in the Book of Revelation
(11:8), "their corpses exposed in the streets of the Great City (the
skies?) for all to see and marvel"? I would not know, but I fear
they could well be so. Aren’t these witnesses of permanent death on
a planetary scale indeed perhaps the scariest thing in the entire
sky?
Return
Mount Atlas is the same Holy Mountain of Paradise
represented by the Great Pyramid. Osiris dead,
reposing inside the Holy Mountain, represents the dead Atlantis or,
rather, the dead of Atlantis, buried and entombed by the gigantic
explosion of the Holy Mount Atlas. Mount Atlas is the same as the
Mount Meru of the Hindus, the pyramid-shaped mountain
that there served as the sky’s support.
Indeed, the Egyptian word for pyramid, M’R was most probably
read
MeRu
as in the Hindu name of the mountain simulated by the monument. The
ancient Egyptians did not spell out the vowels in their hieroglyphs,
so the above reading probably corresponds to the actual one of
Mt. Meru, the exploded Mountain of Paradise.
In Hindu traditions, Mt. Meru served as the Stambha, the Pillar of
Heaven. Mt. Meru (or Kailasa = "Skull" = Calvary") also served as
the support of the Cosmic Tree where the Cosmic Man (Purusha) was
crucified, like Christ on the Cross. Mt. Meru is also the Holy
Mountain of Paradise, endlessly portrayed in India during its
explosion, in beautiful mandalas such as the Shri Yantra. By the
way, the Golden Lotus often shown with them portrays the "atomic
mushroom" of the cosmic explosion, as we argue in detail in our work
entitled "The Secret of the Golden Flower".
In consequence of the giant explosion, Mt. Meru (or Atlas),
voided of its magma, collapsed like a sort of punctured balloon. Its
enormous peak sunk underseas, turning into a giant caldera. Our
researches into the ancient world legends have shown that this
volcano is indeed the
Krakatoa, the same one that still castigates the region
whenever it again erupts explosively, as it did in 1883 and other
occasions.
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