by Gerry Forster

October, 2000

from Seekers Website

Why are “Hollow Earthers” simply not getting anywhere in their sincere quest for the fabled “Inner Earth”, which is believed to exist within Earth’s 800-miles thick outer crustal shell?

Can it be because orthodox science is correct in believing that our planet (like all the other terrestrial planets) is a solid-crusted and semi-molten ball of rock, through to its central core? Or is it because they have no possible way of knowing if it is actually solid, or not?

Or could it, as many have suggested, be due to some world-wide secretive “Cover-Up” by powerful global political power groups and all the scientific organizations which they control?

Here, acting as an alternative-science investigator, I will endeavor to present a even-handed but critical examination of the prevailing concepts in an effort to discover if there is any basis of real truth behind the present-day revival of all the time-honored “Hollow Earth” reports, myths, legends and theories.

Read on and decide for yourself what is the real truth behind the whole concept of a hollow inner earth, and what a political and mercenary power-group on the surface might stand to gain or lose by the honest revelation or admission of the existence of such a vast new territory, which would immediately become available for all manner of exploitation and territorial annexation by the nation who discovered it - if it were proved to actually exist!

• Part 1

• Part 2

• Part 3

• Return

Hyperborea And Ultima Thule
Before we actually look into the actual Hollow Earth theory itself, I think we should perhaps first consider the ancient and subsequent North Polar mythos that led to the Hollow Earth theory being propounded. We will need to begin by studying some of the legendary lands which have been perpetuated in the folk-history of the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples, even though these legends owe some of their origins to the ancient Greeks and the Aryans of Central Asia. Two major mystic and magical lands spring to mind here; Hyperborea and Ultima Thule - which both feature greatly in Nordic mythology, besides having, from all accounts, actually existed somewhere within the Arctic regions of the world in ancient times. However, before we go in search of concrete evidence, let’s examine some of the legendary background for both of these places - which might well, in fact, have been one and the same!

Hyperborea
The first mention we find of the Hyperboreans, is in the mythos of ancient Greece, before the time of Homer. However, Herodotus mentions them as being part of the legendary Theban epic, as being in some way connected with the cult of Apollo, the sun-god, and that their homeland was in a paradise-like country “beyond the North Wind”, which indicates a region that may now lie within the Arctic Circle, or certainly in the North Atlantic! The Hyperborians according to this same source, were alleged to live for a thousand years, but they had a tradition that any who tired of such a long life could end it in a ritual suicide ceremony, whereby the person involved was decked with floral garlands and allowed to jump off a high pinnacle into the sea!

Other legends seem to indicate that it was “that happy land lying to the west, towards the setting sun”. The anciently-famed Garden of the Hesperides, where trees bore golden fruit. The Elysian Fields, or even the Happy Isles! Generally, it is believed to have been a veritable paradise on earth, and may perhaps have been an island lying somewhere between the Azores and Iceland, which, like Atlantis, sank beneath the waves after some great catastrophe. There are some scholars who directly connect the two, and claim that Hyperborea was, in fact, the lost continent of Atlantis!

My own view, after scanning some of the mythology surrounding Hyperborea and Thule, is that it’s possible that they could have been the same place! It really all depends upon how far back the original legends go. If they are traceable to the time of the establishment of the Egyptian nation (since they figure in the Theban epic), then it is possible that they go far back in time to the period prior to the last polar shift. In which case, much of the land which now lies within the Arctic Circle was then a warm to temperate country, richly carpeted with grasslands and forests and all of Nature’s bounty, both vegetable and animal.

It’s even possible that we need look no farther than the British Isles, since these would have been well to the “far north-west” of both Egypt and Greece! (We have to avoid the pitfall of allowing a north European concept of the “north-west” to cloud our geographic thinking!) However, at that distant point in time, both Britain and Ireland would have been the most north-westerly part of the European land-mass, since the English Channel and the North Sea were both dry land then. There seems to be a distinct hint in the legends that both Hyperborea and Ultima Thule were always islands, so perhaps this would tend to rule out Britain and Ireland, since they were once part of the continent of Europe.

My first conclusion, then, is that both were actually the same place, with Greenland as Ultima Thule and Iceland as Thule. Ultima Thule and Thule seem to be separated in mythology into two distinct islands, and, since “Ultima” Thule implies the furthest away, then Thule must have been closer to Europe than it. The obvious candidate for Thule then, must be Iceland. According to Pytheas, a famous Greek navigator of the 4th century BC, Thule was a six-day voyage north of Britain, though whether by sail or by oar-power isn’t stated, but it seems to set the location of Thule as modern Iceland. Common sense suggests that Ultima Thule had to be Greenland. However, what if both were once united as one largely-submerged land-mass - the continent of Hyperborea?

The Arctic Homeland: Hyperborea
To discover more about the mythos surrounding Hyperborea, we must look briefly at the works of various older authorities on such somewhat esoteric mysteries. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, (1736-1793), who was an astronomer and a mystic, comments that:

"It is a very remarkable thing that enlightenment appears to have come from the North, against the common prejudice that the earth was enlightened, as it was populated, from the South...”

He then goes on to point out that, according to all the legends and ancient wisdom,

“as humanity began to reconstitute itself after the Noahic Deluge, the purest stream of civilization descended from Northern Asia into India, which to this day carries evidence of having the most ancient astronomical system on earth”.

He continues on to point out that, in most of the ancient mythologies of the world, there appears to be a race-memory of a racial origin in the far North and a gradual migration southward.

Another great scientific mind of the same era, the Comte de Buffon, located the first civilizations in northern and central Asia, east of the Caspian Sea, but he seemed to generally agree with Bailly about a northern origin for mankind, rather than a Middle Eastern or Southern one. Rev. Dr. W.F. Warren, who was president of Boston University and belonged to several learned societies, revived the polar origin theory for mankind in a book published in 1885: “Paradise Found”, of which the thesis was “That the cradle of the human race... was situated at the North Pole, in a country submerged at the time of the Deluge.”

His theory compared very well with all the relevant sciences and comparative mythology - especially that of Germany. Warren was a Christian and an avowed anti-Darwinist, and he utterly rejected the concept of man having evolved from the ape, through a period of primitive savagery. He believed that the earliest men were the noblest and the longest-lived, ”and it was only after the Deluge, that humanity began to take on the feeble lineaments of ourselves.” At least, in his work he reveals some amazing insight into what could have caused the Deluge, through God’s Hand, by pointing out that, after the survivors of the polar flood settled in their north Asian exile, “they found the skies tilted in respect to the way they had known them: the North Star was no longer overhead”, and he mentions that,

“they perfectly understood why this was so”....”but their rude descendants, unfavoured with the treasures of antediluvian science, and born only to a savage, nomadic life.... might easily have forgotten the explanation” - which was that, “instead of the human horizon, it was the earth that had shifted”! *

Here, at last, we get the first oblique mention of a polar shift! (*Accents are mine. GF)

Support from India
Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920), a renowned pioneer protagonist of Indian Independence at the turn of the century, was also a scholar in astronomy and Vedic antiquities, who among other feats, was able to place the oldest Indian Vedic civilization at around 4500 BC. Tilak was jailed by the British for his anti-British writings for several years, and this time he put to good use in studying the Veda scripts, in relation to known astronomical and geological events. He published his findings in a work: “The Arctic Home of The Vedas”, in 1903.

In this he stated that, according to his readings of the Vedas, the original Arctic home of humanity was destroyed around 10,000 - 8,000 BC by the last Ice Age, and that from 8,000 - 3000 BC, was the “Age of Wandering”, before they Vedic people finally settled in India between 5,000 - 3000 BC. By then, he went on to add, they had already begun to forget their Arctic origins, and their traditions had begun to go downhill.

As we have seen in earlier accounts, his timing of this cataclysm fits in very closely with what we know of the destruction of Atlantis and Mu, so we can attribute it to the same cause - a sudden polar shift, resulting in both tidal waves and tectonic upheavals followed by a very rapid relocation of the polar ice-caps: the so-called “Ice Age”. So, we have the destruction of Mu, dated very approximately at 12,000 years ago, that of Atlantis around 10,000 years ago, and, according to best estimates, the destruction of Hyperborea also at around the same time-frame of 10,000 years ago. Could this then, be also the time of the Biblical ”Flood” too? As far as I’m able to determine by reading sundry authorities, this would seem to be the case. So it’s up to my readers to resolve for themselves whether this is a pure coincidental matter, or whether God chose to bring about the cleansing of an evil and disobedient world by means of a purely natural catastrophic event - which would seem to be a logical thing to do if One were the Supreme Intellect, who created the entire Universe along purely logical lines!

Land of The Midnight Sun
Ancient Indian texts seem to point most clearly to the fact that the Arctic region was the “realm of the ancient gods” since they specifically mention that it is where the sun rises and sets only once a year - which demonstrates that the writers had a clear knowledge of the astronomical and seasonal situation at the North Pole. Of course, they were quite right, since the sun only appears above the horizon for six months of the year, and is below it for the remaining six months! The question here is how did those ancient Indians know this?

The obvious answer is because it was recorded in the Vedic Hymns, which speak of “The Dawn of Many Days” and “The Thirty Dawn Sisters Circling Like A Wheel”. When applied to the Pole, these terms make good sense, since the sun takes exactly a month to actually appear above the horizon after the four-month night. I say four-month rather than six here, because the sun also takes a further month each year, to set. So there’s a polar twilight of one month, followed by a night of four months, then a dawn of one month, followed by a day of four months! The Vedas are correct in every detail, even though written thousands of years ago! Obviously, these ancient forebears of the Indian people, the Aryans, knew this from first-hand experience!

The oldest Vedic year had only two divisions, which were called devas and pitras; names which correlated with the “Day of The Gods” and the “Night of The Gods”. This, curiously enough, is very reminiscent of another dramatic piece of Germanic Aryan mythology - “Gottdammerung” - “The Twilight of The Gods” - which is a strangely apt connection with the Vedic-Aryan Polar Year!

The Advent of The Big Freeze
We learn from the Zoroastrian scholar, H. S. Spencer’s “Aryan Ecliptic Cycle” (1965) that the “Aryan ecliptic cycle” ran from approximately 25,500 BC to 300 BC - from their residence in the polar homeland during the “Interglacial Age” (or “Inter Pole-Shifts Age”, depending on one’s persuasion), to their being compelled to leave it because of the presence firstly, of giant reptiles (dinosaurs!), and then the advent of intense cold and snow! (It is important to bear in mind that the same effect would be taking place at the South Pole, also.) The Big Freeze occurred about 10,000 BC - and was just one of several natural cataclysms of that period which destroyed Atlantis, Lemuria (Mu), and the Gobi Sea (now the Gobi Desert). From the Pole, the Aryans had to fight their way against the forces of nature, as well as those of the indigenous Asian tribes, including a term of enslavement by the Turanians (Turks).

Religious Influences of the Aryans
However, by 8,500 BC they ruled their own empire in Bactria, where they continued to worship their god, Mazda, whom they had apparently held as their chief deity among several, for at least 19,000 years BC. It was Zoroaster (better known as Zarathustra) who introduced Mazdan monotheism around 7100 BC. The Persian Aryans stayed true to their faith, but the Indian branch joined in the local polytheism, only changing to Hinduism when they believed Zarathustra had been reincarnated as Krishna around 4000 BC.

It is also interesting to note that (according to Spencer), the European Aryans accepted this very same reincarnated spirit as Jesus Christ! The religious influence of these Aryans was to have a great impact upon all the surrounding religions in promoting the supremacy of a male concept of God over the female, which had hitherto dominated Egypt, Babylon, Sumeria, and the Semites, who had all previously worshipped predominantly female gods.

Atlantis and Thule
As has been gleaned from Plato’s “Discourses”, Atlantis was thought to have arisen in the middle of the Atlantic, opposite the Pillars of Hercules - The Straights of Gibraltar. And so it was always believed for centuries, until this was challenged in the 18^th century by Olaf Rudbeck, who claimed the lost kingdom as having been his native land of Sweden. This started a new trend of thought among the scholars, and Bailly, whom we met earlier, became convinced that Atlantis had been much further north than had hitherto been supposed, and suggested either Spitzbergen, Greenland or Nova Zemlya as possible sites. He rationalized that because the rotary movement of the planet close to the poles was so much less, the atmosphere might well have been less agitated, thus making it in reality a place of eternal spring. Through this idea, he identified his Altlanteans as actually being the legendary Hyperboreans, living in their golden “Garden of the Hesperides” close to the North Pole!

A Place of Perpetual Spring near The Pole?
Despite the original report by the Greek, Pytheas, around 300 BC, that he had reached a sea of ice just one day north of Thule - which he evidently thought was, in fact, Iceland - he was disbelieved, and the myth still persisted that a warm polar sea existed around the Pole, with a very clement and temperate land environment surrounding it. Even Columbus believed it, and he sailed 300 miles north beyond Iceland before reaching ice-bound waters. Most of his critics discredited this feat, as they firmly believed the northern Atlantic to be quite impassable. (However, it was Columbus’ feat which caused later explorers to search those northerly Arctic oceans for the legendary North West Passage into the Pacific!) However, I am digressing!.

Atlantean Nazis?
It was the Roman historian, Tacitus, who started the Germanic people believing that they were the descendants of these Atlantean-Hyperborean Aryans from the North Pole. He had already remarked that he could hardly believe that people would choose to live in such a rigorous climate as that of Germany, let alone anywhere further north, but it was he who later agreed with those who believed the Germans to be a pure race, who had never intermarried with any other, and that this was shown by their distinct familial likeness, both physically and in character, even though they were a numerous race.

They all had stern blue eyes, fair ruddy hair and large physiques. It was this Nordic Aryan, tall, blond image - projected by Tacitus - that was later to become the racial ideal of the Hitlerian Nazis - despite Hitler himself and many of his Nazi colleagues, being short and dark-haired and typically Southern European in general appearance!

This led to the concept of a Nazi Thule, the three godfathers of which were Von List, Von Liebenfels, and Von Sebottendorff. All three were pretenders to grandeur and had added the nobly-suggestive “Von” to their plain family names. This in itself was a classical symptom of master-race delusion, as they all firmly believed themselves to be of this chosen aristocratic Aryan race. I could pursue this Nazi-Aryan association and their Thule Society at great length, but, whilst it is of great significance in terms of racial distinction and discrimination - as witnessed by their subsequent anti-Semitism - it has relatively little to do with the actual racial origins of mankind as a whole or of the Polar entrance to the Hollow Earth! The Nazi attempt at world domination is now relegated to the political history of the world, which is not the province of this work. Readers wishing to learn more of the Nazi-Thule mythos should read Joscelyn Godwin’s absorbing book: “Arktos - The Polar Myth”.

However, it’s in that same book, that Godwin does unearth many interesting points regarding the Boreal Race, whether Altlanteans or whatever. He says that two major and distinct streams issued forth from these people during their migrations, one from north to south, and the other at a later time from west to east. The Hyperboreans took with them the same spirit, bloodline and system of communication, symbolic, written or spoken, first to North America, and then to the Northern Eurasia. Tens of thousands of years later, a second wave of Hyperborean migrants appear “to have thrust as far south as Central America, and to have settled principally in a vanished land situated in the Atlantic region, founding there a centre in the image of the polar one*”. (*The emphasis is mine). “In this regard,” he continues, quoting Evola, ”one should properly speak of a “Nordic-Atlantic” race and civilization”.

Decline and Fall

“In Evola’s view”, says Godwin, “the latter, Atlantean stream, became polluted with telluric (earthy) and demonic elements from the even more ancient Lemurians, (the Muvians) whose distant descendants survive in the dark races. From this blending came the cults of the Mother and of the Earth, which would forever remain in opposition to the original cult of the Sun, preserving the purer Nordic stream.”

We have already seen how the Atlanteans were far more concerned with aggression and sorcery than those nations they tried to dominate, so they do not really deserve to be compared with the still-pure Nordic Aryans. However, as history shows, even the most pure and racially-clean nations eventually succumb to their own glory and go into moral decline. As, much later on, would the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans do also.

What Became of Hyperborea?
One would imagine that after the Hyperborean region became a frozen waste of ice and snow that it would cease to feature in world mythology, except perhaps as a fondly-remembered homeland in the race-memory of the Aryans and perhaps the Atlanteans. However, this appeared to be far from the case! As mentioned earlier, that first group of Hyperboreans who migrated to Atlantis were very much given to sorcery and conquest, whilst those who went to Asia, retained much of their pure character. Could this signify a division of the Hyperboreans into two moral factions? Those who chose the Left-Hand Path and those who preferred to follow the Right? Perhaps this might account for the first contingent (the Atlanteans) leaving Thule so much earlier than those who became the Aryans.

Obviously, if there was a gap of thousands of years between the two groups leaving the Pole, it seems to infer that perhaps the first group (the Atlanteans), were expelled from their homeland by the rest of the inhabitants. Clearly, the second, Aryan group, only left because of the ice cataclysm which overtook their homeland and didn’t initially seek anything other than a place to live in peace. This would seem to indicate that they were of quite a different and more peaceable nature to their Atlantean cousins. Maybe, in this expulsion of the first group from this “Garden of The Hesperides” we are seeing some sort of parallel to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the “Garden of Eden”?

Shambhala, Agartha, and “The Hole at The Pole”
That there was some further mystery related to the Boreal region, is indicated in the myth of Shambhala, which is supposed to have emanated from the early lamas of Tibet. It is thought to have been an ancient realm once located somewhere in Asia - possibly in the Gobi - when it was still the Gobi Sea. It was thought to have been an island realm, called the “Sacred Island” which, in many respects seems to have been curiously similar to Thule or Hyperborea!
The mystery deepens when we learn that its inhabitants were the last survivors of the “White Island” which had perished long ages earlier! According to Madame Blavatsky, the inhabitants were descended from the Lemurians, but, since her information was alleged to be from a Theosophist, spiritual origin, we might be wiser in concluding that they were more likely to have been from Hyperboria-Thule!

Shambhala
From some of the accounts available, Shambhala appears to have been a centre of spiritual enlightenment, very reminiscent of James Hilton’s “Shangri-La”, but others say that it was a centre of occult power and arcane teaching.
Its leader was thought variously to be either an evil, tyrannical Sorcerer-King or a God-like “Lord of The World”. We seem to be left with a choice of which story we prefer to follow, and evidently which Path one desires to follow, too. The evil Left, or the good Right! Apparently there were two factions (as in Hyperborea), one of which followed the Golden Sun, and the other the Black Sun. (The “Black Sun”, incidentally, was as prominent an emblem of the Nazi mythos as was the Swastika!) According to Jean-Claude Frére, author of “Nazisme et Sociétiés Secretès”, the people of Hyperborea, after migrating to the Gobi Desert over 6000 years ago, founded a new centre, which they named Agartha. It became a great centre of world learning, and people flocked there from all over the world to enjoy its culture and civilization.

However, a huge catastrophe supervened, and the earth’s surface was devastated, but the realm of Agartha somehow survived, under the earth. The legend continues to relate that, as with the original Hyperboreans, the Aryans now split into two factions: one group heading north-west, hoping to return to their lost Hyperborea, and the second going south, where they founded a new secret centre under the Himalayas.

Jean-Claude Frére concludes: The sons of the Outer Intellegences split into two groups, one following the “Right Hand Path” under the “Wheel of The Golden Sun”, the other the “Left Hand Path” under the “Wheel of the Black Sun”. The first preserved the centre of Agartha, that undefined place of contemplation, of the Good, and of the Vril force. The second supposedly created a new place of initiation at Shambhala, the city of violence in command of the elements and human masses, hastening the arrival of the “charnel-house of time.” A portent of the Jewish Holocaust in World War Two?

The Aryan Swastika
As a matter of passing interest, in this connection of Right and Left Hand Paths, it’s intriguing to note that the swastika, which is a true Aryan symbol and represents a “square wheel”, has a duality in its symbolism. The right-handed swastika represents the “Wheel of the Golden Sun” and the Right Hand Path of Good, whereas the opposite applies to the left-handed swastika. Hitler chose the left-handed swastika as the emblem of his Nazi Party.

Asgaard -Agartha
“Asgaard” in Norse mythology, is the Home of the Gods - rather like Olympus is to the Greeks, and strangely, a French student of Indian mythology, named Louis Jacolliot, tells us in one of his books on the subject, “Le Fils de Dieu” (“The Sons of God”), how local Brahmin priests in Villenoor told him the story of a place called “Asgartha”. It was known as the “City of The Sun”, and was the ancient seat of Brahmatma. It appeared to date back to 13,000 BC, and Jacolliot claimed it was there long before the advent of the Aryans. He completely discredited the Aryans, saying that they were merely a break-away caste of Brahmins.

In 10,000 BC, these “Aryan Brahmins” rebelled against their priestly masters and took over Asgartha, forging an alliance with the other priests, who under their leadership became a warrior caste, instead. Later, in 5,000 BC, two Norse brothers, Ioda and Skandah, who invaded Hindustan from the Himalaya region, finally destroyed Asgartha, before being driven away by the Brahmin warrior-priests. These two, continued northward, back to their homeland, the land of the Norsemen. Here they became immortalized as “Odin” and “Scandinavia”. The Norse remembered the story so well, that when they set off to pillage Rome, they cried: “We go to sack Asgaard, the City of The Sun!” Thus the legend of Agartha was born, and it continued to crop up in legends always connected with the Aryans, the Brahmahatma, and various mysterious Mahatmas - including those who communicated with Madame Blavatsky and her Theosophists!

Eventually, another French mystic investigator, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, in 1886 revealed in his book, “Mission of India”, that Agartha is a hidden land beneath the surface of the earth, ruled over by a black sovereign Pontiff, called the Brahmatma. He goes on to say that the realm was shifted underground around 3,200 BC, at the beginning of the Kali Yuga (or Iron Age) and that Agartha has known technology such as artificial lighting, mechanized transport, and even air-travel, far in advance of our own modern technology, for millennia! Periodically, Agartha sends emissaries to the upper world, about which it keeps well informed. Agartha also has huge libraries which enshrine the whole wisdom of the ages, engraved in stone. Many great secrets lie there, regarding many esoteric and spiritual subjects, including amazing skills and abilities long-forgotten by those who dwell on the surface.

Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?
His book, which reads like pure science-fantasy, bears a great resemblance to Bulwer-Lytton’s book “The Coming Race”, which also tells of an underground world of high-tech beings possessed of that mysterious “Vril” force, so keenly sought by the Nazis in World War II, and who will one day emerge from their subterranean realm to take over the surface! Saint-Yves insists that such a day really is coming, and that we will be totally defenseless against these super-beings, who will become the true world-rulers. Nor is he the only one to insist that this is true! Many other authors, mystics and investigators have attempted to solve this whole mystery, with varying degrees of success or failure. However, most seem to agree that Agharta and Shambhala seem to be closely connected, either as being one and the same place, or as two totally opposed realms, one of light and goodness the other of darkness and evil.

The Holes at the Poles
However, it is only comparatively recently that they have again captured public attention through the alleged NASA photographs of the so-called “Hole at the Pole”, which seem to lend some positive evidence of what had been suspected for centuries. Namely, that there has always been a hole at either pole giving access to an inner earth, somewhat akin to Rice-Burroughs famous “Pellucidar”, but with a highly advanced people and technology, instead of the wild, prehistoric surroundings, savages and animals with which Burroughs furnished his subterranean world!

Scholars have written about these polar holes for centuries, and it would take several pages to go through their theories and notions, so I will avoid retelling the many legends of these “entrances to the underworld”. Some suggested giant maelstroms, down which careless sailors could be swept,. Others spoke of them as the portals of Hell itself. Yet others went so far as to describe fantastic voyages, whereby sailors entered at one pole and emerged safely at the other, after sailing an internal ocean and seeing a whole new world within, lit by a central sun! Science-fiction is not a new thing! However, to return to our subject. Let us now consider some of the more much modern views on this fascinating concept.

In 1926, a young New England student, named Amadeo Giannini, had an “epiphanous experience” during which he was taken upon an angelically-conducted tour of a land beyond the polar regions, and shown the great, magical secret of the earth. That instead of us being dwellers upon the outside shell of the globe, we are in fact, living inside it! The stars of the interior sky are actually simply distorted visions of the underside of the heavenly sky, although the sun actually exists in the centre of the earth - though he does not present a coherent account of why (or how) it sets at night, or rises in the morning!

Giannini’s cosmology is, to say the least, unique, in that he is able to shift the inner earth’s shape to suit every difficulty he encounters. Sometimes it seems flat, and at others it’s like a doughnut! Often his picture is of an infinite flattened disc with the earth surrounded by a polar-style ice barrier. Above, below and beyond all this disc-world the heavens extend into infinity. He even supported his wild fantasies with the discovery of land beyond the South Pole by Sir George Wilkin’s 1928 expedition, and also with Rear-Admiral Richard Byrd’s polar fights in 1947. Then, later still, he alleged that the U.S. expedition of 1956 had flown over 2000 miles beyond the South Pole! Naturally, Giannini’s ideas were ridiculed by science, although he did attract a lot of attention from the “flying-saucer” fraternity. There have been several other claimants to “indisputable knowledge” of the existence of these polar holes, and some have even heard first-hand accounts of trips in flying-saucers into their depths!

However, here we are getting into another realm altogether, as there are those “UFOlogists” who believe that “flying-saucers” are not from outer space at all, but are actually “Vimana” craft sent from the inner earth, to keep watch upon our outer surface activities.

The King of The World
Whilst this entire business of Shambala and/or Agharta might appear to be merely a fantasy, there are many who believe that they really exist, either as an underground realm, or as a lost city, hidden away somewhere in the Himalayas. It is also called “Paradesa”, the University of Esoteric Knowledge, and a large number of travelers and mystics claim to have visited the city over the past century, in search of spiritual and occult enlightenment. The leader of the Aghartans, by the way, is claimed to be “The King Of The World”, the Metraton and the “High Lord of Agharta”, and, according to Ray Palmer and Richard Shaver ( who wrote the “Shaver Mysteries”, published in “Amazing Stories” in the 1940s), he is said to be a Venusian, who came here thousands of years ago from the planet Venus (then orbiting between Mars and Jupiter) to instruct and guide our then dawn-age humanity. According to “witnesses”, notwithstanding his enormous age, he still appears youthful and very well-developed!

However, despite this seemingly altruistic desire to help humanity, there are other accounts which say that Agartha is really a centre for evil occult forces bent upon our destruction, and Metraton is identified with Set, the Egyptian god of the Underworld and Evil, who is, in fact, none other than Satan. (The name “Satan” was originally derived from “Set.”) It would seem appropriate then that, if this were so, that this Satan should be from the very planet which now so closely resembles the real hell which Venus has now become, according to Russian “Venera” lander photos!

Also if this person were Satan, his incalculable age yet continuing youth would also be accounted for, as would his title of “Prince, or Ruler of This World”, since Satan is thus styled by no less an authority than Jesus Christ, in the New Testament of the Christian Bible! There is some additional support for this concept in the earlier comment that Venus was also referred to as Lucifer, The Morning Star. “Lucifer” was, of course, the original Archangelic name of Satan! And, let us not forget the the coming World Dictator prophesied in the Biblical Book of Revelation, the so-called seven-headed Beast, whose name will add up to 666. The number of all evil incarnate

The Switched Swastika?
Thus we are faced with the possibility that the alleged Right-Hand Path / Left Hand Path positions as they relate to Agharta and Shambala, respectively, might well have been deliberately switched, and that the opposite may be the truth. This could also apply to the direction of “rotation” of the swastika, to right or left, since, when we compare a swastika with a spiral galaxy - with regard to its “arms” and direction of rotation - the swastika-emblem of the Nazis then really does becomes a left-handed one! The Aryan symbol of Evil and Misfortune!.

Oddly enough, and whilst we are discussing all these curious coincidences, it is worth remembering that Hell was always believed, even when I was a youngster, to be a huge underworld region deep inside our own earth! Modernist Christian thinking has since come up with the concept of a Planet Heaven and a Planet Hell, but perhaps the old beliefs might have had some reasonable foundation in fact - if such an evil inner realm of Agartha does exist.

Nicholas Roerich
Before I close this brief introduction to the Inner Earth mythos, I should perhaps make mention of Nicholas Roerich, who was a famous Russian explorer, artist and mystic, who traversed these mysterious regions during the 1920s and 30s in search of adventure and enlightenment. Roerich was particularly interested in the lost realm of Shambala, about which he later wrote a book, entitled simply enough “Shambhala” published in 1930, along with “Himalayas: Abode of Light” and “Heart of Asia”, among others.

At one time, Roerich had possession of a “magical stone from another world” which was known as the Chintamani Stone. It was supposed to have come from the Sirius star system, and ancient Asian chronicles said it been given to Tazlavoo, the Emperor of Atlantis, by an angelic messenger from the skies. Legend says that it was sent from Tibet to King Solomon in Israel on a vimana airship (one of which he was also believed to have owned)!

The stone, which is said to have had magical properties, is believed to have been Moldavite, a magnetic stone which is sold in many crystal shops, and is thought to have fallen in a shower of meteors some 15 million years ago. (The sacred black stone inside the Kabah at Mecca, which all Muslims venerate, is also a fragment of meteorite, and could well be of the same Moldavite stone). Roerich wrote of Shambala in his book that:

“Shambhala itself is the Holy Place, where the earthly world links with the higher states of consciousness...many speculations have been made about the location of the earthly Shambhala. Certain indications put this place in the extreme North, explaining that the rays of Aurora Borealis are the rays of Shambhala.... but this is incorrect, Shambhala is only north in relation to India, being perhaps on the Pamir, in Turkestan, or in the Central Gobi...”

He associates it with the underground city of “Agharti” and with the “White Island”, and that its “Splendid Valley” is reached via subterranean passages from the Himalayas. He further adds that,

“the underground caverns of Central Asia are inhabited to this day by the people called the Agharti, or Chud, and that when the time of purification comes, say the legends, they will emerge in their glory”.

The Religion of Shambala
If one can properly describe it as a religion, according to Roerich, that of Shambala is of Fire. He relates it to the old cults of Fire and Sun, and the Swastika is its emblem, found carved or painted everywhere. He definitely associates it with the Aryan Race. However, it was not only confined to Buddhist temples. He found it also connected to Bön-Po, a pre-Buddhist Black Faith “which reveres some mysterious gods of the Swastika.” He said that they drew the symbol counter-clockwise or left-handed - which, as we’ve seen, was the version chosen by the Nazis! (There seems to also be some confirmation here that “Bön-Po” was adopted by the Aghartis.)

Flying Saucers and Atom Power
It was on August 5th, 1927, that Roerich and his party had a typical UFO sighting, 20 years before Kenneth Arnold saw his in 1947.

“We saw, in a direction from north to south, something big and shiny reflecting the sun, like a huge oval moving at great speed. Crossing our camp, this thing changed in its direction from south to south west. And we saw how it disappeared in the intense blue sky. We even had time to take our field glasses and saw quite distinctly an oval form with a shiny surface, one side of which was brilliant from the sun.”

According to a lama who was traveling with Roerich’s group, this was a good omen ”A very good sign.” he said. “We are protected. Rigden-Jyepo himself is looking after us!” He was referring to the prophesied “Lord of Shambala’s New Era” . The “Ruler of The World”, “Maitreya”, the “Last Avatar of the Kali Yuga”, who was to herald in a New Age - somewhat as Christ is to bring in the new Millennium of Peace upon the earth. however, there is reference to an esoteric college of astrology, which was to be established in Urga (Ulan Bator, Mongolia),

“as a centre from which comes the impulse for the imminent renewal of humanity, and to a Lord, King or Ruler of the World who is neither Christ nor Lucifer”.

It’s of interest to note that in the mid-1980s, a full-page advertisement appeared in all the world’s leading daily newspapers announcing the imminent revelation of the “Maitreya”, who would appear to everyone in the world simultaneously, whether by direct sight or by television. I personally still have a copy, in my files of this advertisement! (But, as I write this, almost twenty years later, he still hasn’t put in an appearance!)

Roerich’s wife, Helena, herself a mystic, wrote in her own book, ”Agni Yoga” about the Agni or Fire of Shambhala, and how it will be used in the New Age, describing it as “the great eternal energy, this fine imponderable matter which is scattered everywhere and which is within our use at any moment”. Roerich himself said of this same power in the 1940s:

“energies of cosmic fire will approach the earth and create many new conditions of life”.

Joscelyn Godwin comments in his book, “Arktos, The Polar Myth”,

“This could be a definition of Bulwer-Lytton’s Vril force.....if Nicholas Roerich, the indefatigable worker for world peace, had known the form in which Agni would be compelled to manifest in 1945, he might have been more cautious in recommending it...”

It seems patently clear that this Agni fire, or Vril force, (which appear to be the same thing) could only have been what we nowadays describe as atomic energy!

Anyhow, the foregoing should more than suffice for the historic background to the Hollow or Inner Earth concept, so I shall now pass on to the theory itself.

Whence The “Hollow Earth” Theory?
It was Sir Edmund Halley, the 17th century astronomer who discovered Halley’s Comet, who first suggested a hollow earth. His idea was that it comprised three concentric spheres, that each supported life and which had at their centre a white-hot shining core. He ascribed the shifting of the earth’s magnetic poles to their movements one within another. This might sound rather crackpot, until one considers that other reputable scientists have deduced that “polar wander” might be due to slippage of the mesosphere within the lithosphere, or the slippage of the latter over the former, as hypothesized by people like Wegener and Hapgood.

A theological dabbler in Science, Thomas Burnet, in his book “Sacred Theory of the Earth”, proposed that the waters of the oceans came out of a hole at the North Pole, but only in accordance with Divine Will, as and when required for Deluges and suchlike Heaven-sent catastrophes, but not as a continuous, self-sustained process of replenishment.

Alexander Colcott of Bristol subscribed somewhat to Burnet’s idea, in 1768, but he chose to posit a hollow sphere, with an inner surface covered by a vast ocean. In his view, the biblical Flood was caused when this welled up to the outer surface through a polar gap.

However, none of these thought of a hollow earth that had land and a central sun, which could be the habitation of humanoid and animal life. Nor did they conceive of any connection between holes at both ends of the earth. (Perhaps this was because the South Polar land-mass had still to be discovered.) This expansion of possibilities was left, as I have mentioned earlier, to the writers of popular fantasy-fiction, from the 17th century to the present-day. Particularly writers of the so-called Romantic Era, like Edgar Allen Poe, with his great story, “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”, and Bulwer-Lytton’s “The Coming Race”, not to mention Jules Verne’s immortal classics: ”Voyage To The Centre Of The Earth” and “The Sphinx of the Ice”. Plus, of course, the unrivalled Edgar Rice Burroughs series of adventure tales of “Pellucidar” and “At The Earth’s Core”, etc; which I shall be mentioning again later in this article.

Three Possible Kinds of Hollow Earth…
Before I go on to describe and discuss this intriguing subject, I must point out that there are really three types of subterranean “world” which are implied under the general heading “Hollow Earth”.

The first of these is really just what it says - a planetary outer rocky crust, or “shell”, of variable thickness (600 to 800 miles), surrounding a vast, open or hollow spherical centre that is usually said to be illuminated by a small central “sun” of some kind. This inner world, which has a largely similar surface to the outer one - except that the ratio of the amount of dry land to ocean is generally reversed (i.e: four-fifths of land to one-fifth of ocean) - is usually described as being accessible by means of polar-openings or “holes” through the axial regions of the Earth’s crust, as well as by means of extremely deep cavern-systems which connect both the outer and inner surfaces.

It is supposed to be the home of a highly intellectual humanoid race which fled there many millennia ago to avoid an external world-catastrophe, and who now have no wish to contact present surface-dwellers because of their experimenting with nuclear devices and other stupidly dangerous technologies, which are bringing about the general destruction of the surface environment and atmosphere. It is also thought that these same “Inner-Earth” dwellers are responsible for the so-called UFOs, which are said to exit and re-enter the Inner-Earth through the polar-openings, and are used simply to monitor our activities - especially those which threaten the global safety and integrity of the Earth.

The second “Inner-Earth” theory actually refers to extensive systems of either natural or “engineered” caverns and tunnels, deep within the Earth’s crust, which are claimed to be occupied by very ancient “alien” humanoid races, somewhat akin to our own, but not particularly well-disposed toward modern humans on the outer surface. These peoples are said to subsist on hydroponically-grown vegetables, fungi, and subterranean animals of various kinds (as well as, in some cases, captured surface-animals (including humans), and have developed their own mysterious societies along with strange forms of technology to suit their trogloditic environment.

Their caverns are usually lit by some form of electrical or natural fluorescent energy, which possesses the same life-giving as, but more benevolent qualities than naked sunlight. They, too, are often said to have retreated underground in very ancient times to escape catastrophes that were about to envelope the Earth’s surface. However, some accounts claim them to be variously either extraterrestrials, fallen-angels, demons, hominid reptoids or the more esoteric creatures of human fable, such as trolls, dwarfs, elves - or even yetis and sasquatch!

But Don’t Laugh Just Yet!
Before we laughingly dismiss any possible existence of such mythical creatures, let us pause for a moment, and recall that all of the nations, both current and archaic, of the surface-world possess ancient legendary traditions regarding weird and eldritch dwellers in the “Underworld”, and the continuing persistence of such tales implies that there must have once been at least some substance to such fables for them to crop up so universally and often identically in world folklore! Many ancient folk-legends claim that our own human race originated in just such a subterranean world - and that many of the wicked among us will probably end up in one, too. Hell, perhaps?

The third inner-earth hypothesis is perhaps the most utterly incredible-sounding theory of the three - except that it embodies several key elements of the accepted modern laws of physics and relativity, which, strangely enough, render it beyond all repudiation by anyone who considers themselves to be true disciples of modern academic science! I will not expand on this curious mystery at this stage, lest I might inadvertently reveal too much of this quite astounding concept too early in the piece! I think I shall save this one for the last, in the much the same manner as a dinner-host might reserve an irresistible dessert to add the final fillip to an already sumptuous banquet!

A Matter of Considerable Gravity
One final point I should perhaps raise (before my critics do) is the scientific feasibility of such a thing as a hollow earth being able to even exist under what we currently understand to be the natural physical laws that govern our universe! I cannot undertake to answer these likely objections or questions in highly technical detail, since I do not possess a university doctorate, or even a plain degree in physics. All I can rely upon is simple common-sense and what basic science and physics I learned in school - or have picked up since (which fortunately amounts to considerably more!)

One of the first considerations is that of pure gravity. Could such a hollow Earth ever have formed in the first place, under the generally-accepted theory of cosmic-dust accretion ascribed by modern science to the planets of the solar system? The immediate academic, orthodox scientific answer would seem to be an emphatic “No!” That is, until we look more closely into possible ways in which it could have become hollow since its original accretion into a spherical mass!

This could have happened in two or three different ways, but I will focus here on the one which sounds the more feasible to most lay-persons. And that is by an axial spin-induced centrifuging effect upon the heavy material and elements that lie underneath the Earth’s crust, together with a corresponding hollowing of the planet’s centre and the shrinkage of its hypothetical radioactive core to form a central internal luminary. Orthodox science, of course, confidently continues to assert that the Earth’s core is probably made up of highly-compressed nickel-iron; in either a heated solid or a white-hot liquid state - even though there is no possible way of actually knowing or proving that such truly is the case!

Note how the word “probably” tends to crop up with alarming frequency in “Cast-In-Stone”scientific text-books, but, in my view, it really stands for “theoretically”. And, since anyone is perfectly entitled to formulate a theory about anything, I will now exercise that entitled freedom to set forth my own hypothesis regarding the possibility of the Earth being hollow!
 

Some Basically Acceptable Precepts

Let us accept, for the sake of argument, the general notion that the sun and the planets was formed out of a swirling mass of cosmic dust and gas in one of the far-flung “limbs” of matter trailing out from our spiraling Milky Way galaxy. Because everything in the universe is demonstrably in motion, and all nebulae and galaxies rotate about their “hubs” or axes, so also had the mass of cosmic material which was to form our solar system itself been imparted with a swirling motion. As it swirled, the amorphous mass of space-debris, dust and gas began to steadily coalesce into a central lump of matter, and, as the lump increased in size and mass, its gravity also grew, attracting more and more material by accretion into its growing and rotating bulk.

Soon this gestating star, our Sun, had begun to form into a dimly-glowing ball, steadily developing greater heat as its material rapidly became compacted by the ever-increasing pressure of its mass. And, as its rotation increased more and more, eddies began to develop in the wide, circular “skirt” or disc of residual matter which swung around with it. Now these swirling eddies themselves began to attract and accrete matter also, and to rotate ever faster as they grew in mass. These proto-planetary masses were, of course, still orbiting in the same basic plane as the original disc of dust and gas, at a 90º angle to the solar axis and parallel with the equator of the burgeoning Sun, which held them firmly in place, almost perfectly-balanced, through the opposition of strong gravitational and centrifugal forces.

These rotating proto-planets, now having settled into steady orbits, gradually accelerated their rates of axial revolution as they grew in size and mass, building themselves up into individual, roughly-globular bodies. They steadily continued to pack themselves tighter and denser as they swiftly accreted more and more dust, gas and debris from the last remnants of the original cloud of matter. Eventually, instead of sporting a swirling ‘skirt’ of disorganized cosmic material, the already-luminous Sun now turned swiftly upon its axis, pulling along with it a burgeoning family of developing planets.

Each of these was now becoming spherical in shape* and rotating rapidly about their own axes, and they had now begun to glow redly, to varying degrees, according to their size and distance from their parent. This was due to the enormous internal heat produced by their own gravitational compression and consequential friction of particles of matter. Because of this increasing, self-generated heat, the cosmic debris of which the fledgling planets were composed now began to turn from glowing cindery clinker into molten magma - a thick cosmic “hot-pot” of assorted elements. (*However, I have since come to another likely conclusion re the formation of planets and stars, which is included later in this article as a “Speculative Discourse on Hollow Planet Formation” GF)

So Far, So Good!
But it is here that we must part company with the accepted orthodox view of the development of the planets, and consider certain natural physical laws which had by now come into play - and which orthodox science appears to have overlooked in its complacency! Also, let it be clearly understood that, even among those of us who do not blindly accept all the dogmas of orthodox science and physics, there are certain groups who do not accept the concept of “gravity” and other kindred “forces” as such, preferring instead, to substitute the attraction and repulsion effects of electro-magnetism, the pressure of light-photons, “soft-ether” particles and other such natural phenomena and photo-electrical effects, in their stead.

However, for the express benefit of those who are newcomers to this “Hollow Earth” theory, rather than cloud the basic “Hollow Earth and Planets” issue with any internecine wranglings over what are really secondary issues in the fundamental debate, I will couch my argument in terms of the more commonly-understood Newtonian physical “Laws” and science.

Gravity Versus Centrifugal Force
Orthodox science has thus far worked upon the assumption that, because the planets were once molten balls of magma, and because all of the terrestrial planets (with the possible sole exception of Venus) now possess solid surfaces, they must have cooled gradually, from the outside inwards, until a hard crust of rock (the lithosphere) had formed and that this cooling process is still gradually advancing inwards toward their cores. Mercury and Mars are assumed, in scientific circles, to have already solidified right through. Thus, it is plain that the main bulk of scientists assume that these planets are all basically solid or solidifying bodies. (Science makes many assumptions!)

Hidden Effects Inside the Earth
However, what seems to have been overlooked (perhaps because there has been no reason to think of the terrestrial planets otherwise than simply as balls of once-molten magma which are all in the process of cooling to a completely solid state), is exactly how they were formed, and what hidden effects that formative process might well have produced internally. I’ve mentioned above that the two principal forces which caused the planets to form as Science claims they have, are gravity and centrifugal force. We have noted how, as the eddying matter which formed each planet gathered together and accreted, first into an amorphous mass, then into a discrete body, and then - partly because of the Sun’s own rotation, but largely because all such forming bodies of accreting matter in the universe, whether they be planets, stars, or nebulae - seems to acquire a self-imparted rotary motion in obedience to an as yet ill-defined set of physical laws which govern this universal tendency in all celestial objects toward rotation.

This phenomenon can best be understood if one visualizes an ice-skater who slowly starts to rotate his body on a particular spot, with his arms outstretched. Then, as he draws his arms in toward his body, his rotation (or angular momentum) begins to increase, until he is spinning around very rapidly indeed. This angular momentum is actually the product of inertia (which is the tendency of a body to retain its state of “rest” or uniform motion in a straight line) and angular velocity (which is the rate of its motion through an angle, about an axis). The accreting planets are already locked in a struggle between the forces of angular momentum and inertia, since they are already in motion around the Sun, but they are also held in orbit as its gravitational prisoners, so that their tendency to fly off in a straight line is prevented. It’s this paradoxical combination and opposition of physical forces that sets up the angular momentum to begin with, and as the accreting mass of matter forms rapidly into a highly-compressed shape, the angular momentum (axial spin) increases considerably, just like that of our body-hugging skater..

I guess this may all sound fairly technical, but if you can imagine our skater spinning faster and faster as he draws himself together into a tightly-compacted form, you can likewise imagine the Earth picking up rotary speed as it becomes more and more ball-shaped. However, let us return to the orthodox mechanics of the matter.

What happened inside the rapidly-rotating Earth as it spun so rapidly upon its axis? (Remember that, although its cooling crust, under the deep cold of space may have swiftly begun to solidify into rock, the underlying highly-heated magma inside the Earth would still have been in a molten, semi-fluid and mobile state). Again, perhaps we can use another imaginary illustration from our own everyday experience, to illustrate this interesting point.

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