Finding Atlantis...again and again and again...

Ahh...Atlantis.  Plato wrote about the advanced lost civilization of Atlantis.  Edgar Cayce filled us in on some more details about it.  Some people say it never existed and is totally a myth.  Other people think it did exist.  There are some that are not only convinced that it existed, they've seemingly created myths..err..'theories' of their own about it.

There's been numerous occasions that someone has claimed to have found Atlantis.  Ironically, despite the two most commonly cited sources claiming that Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean, people have claimed to have found it all over the world.  Here are some of the places people have claimed was Atlantis:

• The Azores - The Azores are isolated islands found in the Atlantic Ocean.  So the location seems to be right based on our two primary sources of information, but that's about all that seems right about it.  Some people think the Azores are the tops of mountains from Atlantis, but this is just speculation.  When the Portuguese discovered the islands, there were no indications that they had been inhabited.
• The Canary Islands - These islands are also in the Atlantic, and the Spaniards did find people there when they arrived.  The early inhabitants of the Canary Islands had brown complexions with blue eyes and blondish hair.  Some people think they may have been related to the Berber people of Northern Africa.  There is nothing particularly 'Atlantean' about the Canary islands though.
• The Caribbean - Edgar Cayce readings have contributed to this interpretation.  Being in the Atlantic, it does appear to have the appropriate location.  However, the Caribbean is generally thought to either be the outer edges of Atlantis, or the remnant of a post-Atlantean civilization after the deluge.  It's been said that Atlantis was originally a very large land mass known as Poseid, and later crumbled into a smaller set of islands known as Poseidia, Aryaz, and Og.  Presumably, the final destruction that Plato alluded to was the destruction of those three principle islands of Atlantis.  So it may be possible that the Caribbean is the outer edge of one of those islands.  Nevertheless, these stories are primarily based on Edgar Cayce readings, and there isn't much physical evidence to support these stories besides a possible connection with the so called 'Bimini Road'.  There could be more evidence, but not many people seem to be to interested in putting much effort into finding more evidence.
• The South China Sea - Atlan.org claims that Atlantis is in the South China Sea.  Not only that, they claim to have found the Garden of Eden, the Island of Avalon,  and several other places there.  Of course, the most obvious problem with these claims is they are all out of place.  The South China Sea is not part of the Atlantic.  Nor is it near the Euphrates, Tigris, Pison, and Gihon rivers.  And I just don't think Avalon is in the South China Sea either.  Just because you can find similarities between a description of one place and another place, doesn't mean they are the same place.  If I describe a big city with tall buildings by the sea, I could be describing New York, or I could be describing Hong Kong.  The description sounds similar, but obviously they aren't the same place.
• Santorini - Some people think the ruins of the Minoan civilization at an excavation site known as Akrotiri on Santorini is Atlantis.  Typically, this is often considered to be the 'inspiration' for the Atlantis 'myth'.  Indeed, many similarities have been found between Akrotiri and what Plato described as Atlantis.  The volcanic eruption at Thera is thought to have been the destruction of Atlantis that Plato alluded to.  However, we still have the problem of location.  Santorini is not beyond the 'Pillars of Hercules' as Plato described.
• Sardinia - Italian journalist Sergio Frau wrote a book theorizing that Sardinia was Atlantis.  He attempted to explain the location problem away by claiming that the Pillars of Hercules were at Sicily, instead of the Straits of Gibraltar.  
• Antarctica - Some have said that Antarctica is Atlantis, speculating that at some point in history, Antarctica was closer to the equator.  At some point, due the earth's shifting crust, Antarctica wound up at the south pole and froze over.  Professor Charles Hapgood of Keene College in New Hampshire pointed out that there are ancient charts that allegedly show the Antarctic landmass as it was before it was covered by ice.  Ancient charts that allegedly show what the landmass of Antarctica looked like before it was discovered (rediscovered?) in the early 19th century is a bit of a mystery in itself, but it's not proof that Antarctica is Atlantis.  

People have also claimed to have found Atlantis in places such as South America, Turkey, Cyprus, and in just about every other corner of the world.  The latest example I have come across is a sunken civilization off the coast of Greece.  The sunken civilization is said to be 5000 years old.  Here is an excerpt from an article about it:

The secrets of a lost city that may have inspired one of the world's most enduring myths – the fable of Atlantis – have been brought to light from beneath the waters off southern Greece.

Explored by an Anglo-Greek team of archaeologists and marine geologists and known as Pavlopetri, the sunken settlement dates back some 5,000 years to the time of Homer's heroes and in terms of size and wealth of detail is unprecedented, experts say.

"There is now no doubt that this is the oldest submerged town in the world," said Dr Jon Henderson, associate professor of underwater archaeology at the University of Nottingham. "It has remains dating from 2800 to 1200 BC, long before the glory days of classical Greece. There are older sunken sites in the world but none can be considered to be planned towns such as this, which is why it is unique."

Read the rest here.

It seems to me when discoveries such as this are made, there are two main schools of thought.  One school says it's Atlantis.  The other school says its the inspiration for the Atlantis 'myth'.  My question is, why do people have to keep labeling underwater ruins as Atlantis?  In a previous post titled Forgotten Civilization, I pointed out that there are probably a lot of prehistoric cities submerged because they were flooded when ice started melting at the end of the last ice age.  But that doesn't mean that every submerged city is Atlantis or the inspiration of the Atlantis 'myth'.  To put it into perspective, imagine if the Americas, Europe, and Asia sunk tomorrow.  Thousands of years from now, people may talk about an advanced lost civilization of 'America'.  But if somebody found London underwater, would they claim it was America?  Would they claim Moscow is America?  Beijing is America?  Would they assume every submerged city they find is America?

Although it may be somewhat ironic, I think the scientific establishment is the biggest roadblock to discoveries of submerged civilizations.  Finding advanced cities that are many thousands of years old conflicts with the Darwinist mythology that they have been trying to dictate to us for decades now.  It just doesn't fit into their timeline of prehistory.  Oftentimes, they ignore the possibility of finding the ruins of advanced cities underwater, or they make excuses that downplay the significances of the ones that are found.  In general, the scientific establishment doesn't seem to have much interest in even looking for submerged cities.  I suppose by not bothering to look, they don't have to worry about finding evidence that proves them wrong.

Sometimes when civilizations are found in the Pacific area, it's said to be a remnant of Mu (a.k.a. Lemuria).  The point I want to make here is that not every submerged civilization that is found is necessarily a part of Atlantis or Mu.  There's potentially a lot of submerged civilizations that are many thousands of years old.  While I think Atlantis (and possibly Mu) may have existed, we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that every submerged city we find is Atlantis or the inspiration for the Atlantis 'myth'.

Cycles of Time

The idea that time is cyclical is very old. To say that time is cyclical is to say that time just sort of goes round and round. It doesn't really have a beginning or end, it just progresses through various stages in the cycle and eventually gets back around to where you started at. Then you just keep going back around again and again. Today, most people typically think of time as linear. Basically it just appears we're going from point a to point b.

But time is cyclical, at least in the most basic form of the concept. The sun goes up and down every day. It's a cycle that continually repeats itself. If you count 365 of those cycles, you have a cycle of four seasons. Everytime you go through the 365 daily cycles, you go through the cycle of the four seasons….over and over again. Now most of us don't look to far beyond the cycle of four seasons, but if you're an astronomer or an astrologer, you can point out all sorts of other cycles, whether they're sunspot cycles on the sun, or cycles based on where a particular planet or star is in space at a particular point in time. All of these cycles just keep happening over and over again.

You could go into detail about the reasons why these things happen…position in space, the magnetism involved, and the speed heavenly bodies rotate and revolve at. But the reason why these cycles happen isn't the point I want to make, the point I want to make is that these things do happen, nevermind what is causing them to happen.

As for linear time, it's not really contradictory to the concept of cyclical time depending on how you look at it. Because even if time doesn't literally have a beginning and an end, you can still plot points on the timeline and draw a line from point a to point b. In other words, linear time can be used as a way to chart events, but linear time itself may not even exist. It may just exist as a way to keep records.

So with that said, what if there is more to cyclical time than just cycles based on positions in space? What if civilizations are based on cycles? As a history buff, I know that history definitely repeats itself – that's not just some old saying. Civilizations rise and fall, and you can find many parallels between them. But what if the cycle of historical civilizations rising and falling is just part of a much larger cycle – a cycle that isn't just limited to a tribe or geographic location, but a cycle of humanity? What if the rise and fall of civilizations is like the rising and setting of the sun, and the rise and fall of humanity as a whole is like the coming and going of the seasons of the year? Some people seem to think so.

Solon, an ancient Greek statesman, spoke of a time he visited some Egyptian priests and learned about the history of the lost continent of Atlantis. Plato later wrote about the history of Atlantis and described it as an advanced civilization that came to a cataclysmic end when the continent sank. The famous 20^th century psychic Edgar Cayce later claimed to be the reincarnation of an Atlantean. Cayce described Atlantis and its history, noting that before its demise, the Atlantean people were an advanced civilization. Some have suggested that the Atlanteans had technologies that rival or surpass our own technologies today. It's has also been said that they had a Great Crystal they used to transmit energies throughout the land, and later they inadvertently caused their own destruction by tuning the Crystal's energy to high. The destructive frequency it was tuned to caused volcanoes to erupt, mountains to melt, and ultimately submerged the continent. It's said that a remnant of Atlanteans survived, and they influenced the early civilizations of our recorded history.

The book of Genesis in the Bible doesn't specifically speak of a civilization of people existing before Adam, however, some have pointed out what may be subtle indications of a civilization existing prior to Adam. It's suggested that there is an undisclosed gap of time that occurs between verses 1 and  2 of Genesis.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2 KJV)

It's suggested that the earth had existed for a long time, and verse 2 picks up after a catacylsmic event has occurred. While there is no way to prove that, the theory is based on how the events of the creation are described. In verse 1, it is said that God created the heavens and the earth. But in other parts of the story where God is in the process of forming the earth, the word 'made' is used numerous times. To us, these two words mean practically the same thing. But the words 'create' and 'made' are translated from two different Hebrew words with different meanings. In Hebrew, to 'create' something means to bring it into existence from nothing. However, something that is 'made' is something formed from something already existing. To clarify, think of sitting down at a table to eat a sandwich. If you just snap your fingers and a sandwich magically appears, then you created the sandwich. But if you have a loaf of bread, a package of ham, and a package of cheese and you put pieces of each of them together, then you've made a sandwich. So in other words, parts of the Genesis creation story seem to indicate that as God was creating the world, he was actually using some things that he had created at an earlier time and already existed.

That alone isn't proof of a fallen civilization that existed before Adam. But in the King James Version of the Bible, God tells Adam to be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth (Genesis 1:28). God later told Noah to do the same thing after the Great Flood. But if was Adam was first, then what was there to replenish? Later translations of the Bible don't use the word 'replenish' in this passage anymore.

J.R.R. Tolkien also used a concept of cyclical time in his writings. He describes a legendary time of prehistory, with three cycles being completed and, at the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the fourth cycle starting. At the beginning of the fourth age, the Elves and other races sail to Valinor, while the race of men remains in Middle Earth.

A more recent example of the concept of cyclic time being used in story telling is the new 'reimagined' series of Battlestar Galactica. The prehistory of the series describes the history of humanity beginning on a planet called Kobol. The people of Kobol reached a high level of civilization before having to leave Kobol due to some unexplained event or environmental catastrophe. Twelve tribes of humans then went and settled twelve other planets and started over. The twelve human tribes eventually reached a level of advancement rivaling or surpassing the level of advancement their ancestors on Kobol had achieved. Their advancements and greed turned out to be their undoing though, because the Cylons, the sentient robots they created to serve them, eventually turned on them and nearly destroyed humanity completely. Humanity's ancestors on Kobol had apparently already built Cylons of their own during ancient times. The Cylons built on Kobol left Kobol and started their own colony 2000 years before the humans of Kobol left to start over. Ironically, the original Cylons apparently suffered the same fate as their human counterparts though…they built their own robotic servants who eventually turned on them! Towards the end of the series, some of the Cylons join with the humans and destroy the other Cylons. The rebel Cylons and the human remnant settle on a planet they decide to call Earth.  They destroy their technologies by setting their spaceships on a course towards the sun. At the end of the final episode, the story skips 150,000 years into the future to Times Square in New York. On a TV screen can be seen a documentary about advances in robotics. New York City is reminiscent of Caprica City, the capital of the former human colonies. Despite the efforts of the 'ancestors' to stop the cycle of destruction (by destroying their technology and starting over), it seems the message of the story is that humanity is still following that same cyclic path of destruction.

So if we are to assume that there was a human civilization prior to us, why have we forgotten it? Perhaps that is just part of the cycle. In the book of Isaiah in the Bible, we are told that God will create new heavens and a new earth and that the "former things" will not be remembered. What if this is just part of the cycle though? Are there "former things" that we have forgotten too?

I think one reason that people are so intrigued by apocalyptic predictions of destruction is because we seek to escape the way things are now. I think most of us know that the way society is now, is not the way it is supposed to be. There is not supposed to be hate, war, famine, and greed. Yet, it seems it is difficult for us to break away from this mold. Perhaps we think that an apocalyptic 'ending' will give us the opportunity to start over fresh and set things right. Even if we dimiss the claims some have made of a civilization prior to Adam, we can still see this theme in the story of Noah. In Noah's time, humanity had grown wicked and depraved, but Noah was found to be righteous. Noah and his family were then given the opportunity to start over fresh when the Great Flood wiped out the rest of humanity. We see this same theme in Battlestar Galactica. The remnant of humanity that survived the destruction the colonies sought to start over on a planet called Earth. Is this the opportunity we are seeking? Are we seeking the opportunity to start over? Are we seeking the opportunity to end inequality? The opportunity to end hate, wars, famine, and greed? Is this why we want the cycle to start over?

If time is indeed cyclical and humanity is stuck in a cycle of destruction, maybe one day the cycle of destruction will end…but hopefully it will be a happy ending. Hopefully when the cycle ends, humanity can finally enter into an eternal peace.

The Prophetic Blackout?

As I was writing a comment on someone else's blog this morning in regards to 2012 prophecies (see the blog here), I got to thinking about predictions beyond 2012. Are there any? There doesn't seem to be many.

Now some prophecies regarding 2012 are just prophecies concerning the time around the year 2012, and don't necessarily pinpoint an exact date. What I was interested in is specific dates pinpointed after the year 2012 (or at least time periods well beyond the year 2012). Here is what I found:

• 2016 - Professor Lloyd Cunningdale and students find a time capsule in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that was left by the Donner party that includes predictions for the future. One prediction says that in the future, there would be biological warfare, and a disease from the biological warfare will eliminate humanity in the year 2016. This report comes from the Weekly World News...so it shouldn't be taken seriously.
• 2034 - This prediction is based on a time calculation that says the covenant God made with Abraham and the new covenant with Christ must be of equal length (2000 years). The year of Christ's death and resurrection is where the new 2000 years start, so the date calculated to be the end is 2034. There's of course, nothing in the Bible that says both covenants are supposed to be of the same length. And the precise dates for some of those events are hard to know for certain, so its hard to actually calculate the end if you don't know the exact moment in time you are supposed to start from. Besides, Christ said not to bother calculating the date of the end; only the Father knew that.
• 2047 - This prediction says the world will end at 3:28 AM, September 14th, 2047. Basically, this prediction isn't even intended to be taken seriously. It says that if people don't discard their plastic conformity and 'normalcy,' the 'gods' will withdraw their protection. At that point, rainbow colored alien lemurs will attack the entire human race and beat them to death with gigantic burritos.

I found those dates here.

I also found a question on Yahoo Answers regarding predictions after the year 2012. One person claimed Nostradamus said the world would end on 3797. It seems Nostradamus predictions have a tendency to get interpreted different ways though based on the vagueness of his predictions. Another person said that the year 2038 is when the Unix time keeping system wrapped around. Basically it would be like the Y2k problem, except it would only affect Unix and Linux operating systems.

So not much there either.

I looked up Edgar Cayce predictions to see if I could find anything specifically targeting a date after the year 2012, but the only thing I came across was a prediction that he would be reborn in the year 2100 AD (although he made like 14,000 predictions, so it's possible I may have missed something...but a lot of his predictions were for individuals anyways).

I also tried various google searches for end times dates after the year 2012, but it seemed that no matter how I worded the search, the results always focused on the year 2012 itself. When I tried searching without the year 2012 in the search terms, I found this website. But none of the predictions it lists are all that interesting. Mostly just more people trying to set a date for when the Biblical prophecies will happen, or when an asteroid 'might' hit the earth.

There are of course, predictions regarding the end of times where no specific date is set...the best example are the Biblical prophecies. If something does happen in 2012, I doubt it will be the return of Christ. Christ said not to bother trying to predict when he will return, so with so many people looking towards the year 2012, I doubt that will be the year of his return. However, that doesn't mean that something else big couldn't happen.

So it seems there are not that many predictions for the distant future. Nor are there all that many for the relatively near future after the year 2012. So again, I must ask, why is there so much pointing to the year 2012? I'm not really one to jump on the prophetic dating bandwagon...I realize there are many end time prophecies in the past that never played out, and I wasn't concerned about the Y2k problem around the year 2000. But I guess this 2012 phenomena intrigues me because there are so many cultures from the past that looked forward to this time or a time encompassing it. These predictions span different religions and cultures; it's not limited to any specific religious sect or regional superstition. There's also a lot of people today saying that we are on the verge of a spiritual awakening that is already in motion. So why 2012? And why doesn't there seem to be many predictions for the endtimes after 2012? Is it a prophetic blackout?

I imagine if the year 2012 comes and goes without incident, someone will come along and pull a new prediction out of the woodwork for the end of times though. But for those who are skeptical of anything significant happening in the year 2012, bear in mind there are plenty of psychos out there with access to nukes and deadly viruses. Someone could unleash these on the world in the year 2012 whether it was 'intended' to happen or not. They may just use the date as an excuse to unleash their wrath. Communication infrastructures could be sabotaged too. After all that...comes martial law. So yeah...that could be pretty bad.

More on the tunnels beneath Giza

I found an article related to what I recently reported in my article called Beneath the Pyramids. They found tunnels beneath the Giza plateau which may lead to new discoveries (despite Zahi Hawass saying there was nothing new to find there). This article I found connects it to a prediction of the psychic Edgar Cayce who said there was a "Hall of Records" beneath the Sphinx that would be found one day.

Here is an excerpt:

Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment reported the following information from their headquarters in Virginia Beach, Virginia on August 25th 2009: Explorer and author Andrew Collins, funded by Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. Archeological Research Fund, has found and begun exploration of a subterranean network of previously unrecorded chambers and passageways beneath the Giza plateau, home to the Great Pyramid and Sphinx. Collins hopes that his discovery will eventually lead to finding a secret chamber alluded to by the ancient Egyptians as the “Tomb of God,” a structure known more popularly today as the “Hall of Records.”

The trail began in 2002 when the British Museum needed to relocate its library and archives of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan. During the move, the memoirs of Henry Salt, British Consul General in Egypt from 1815 until his death in 1827, were found again. Although previously catalogued, the contents had not been studied in depth. Some extracts were published in the nineteenth century, but it was only when the British Museum reproduced the complete work in The Sphinx Revealed, A Forgotten Record of Pioneering Excavations that full details of Salt’s amazing exploration of “catacombs” under the Giza plateau came to light. Salt, in the company of Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia, conducted these explorations in 1817, exploring underground tunnels for a distance of “several hundred yards” before entering a spacious chamber that communicated with three others, from which went several “labyrinthick” passages, one of which was investigated by Caviglia for a distance of 300 feet. Although these passages are of natural origin (meaning caves), there are hints that some parts of this subterranean network of chambers and tunnels are man-made, and stretch beneath the plateau on which the Pyramids are located.

Read the rest here.