The True Atlantis and the Mystery of The Underworld home Metaphysics |
| "THE TRUE ATLANTIS AND THE MYSTERY OF THE UNDERWORLD"
BY ALAN F. ALFORD, AUTHOR OF "THE ATLANTIS SECRET" According to Plato, Atlantis lay in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, to the west of the Pillars of Heracles (otherwise known as the straits of Gibraltar). It was here, in what Plato called the true Ocean, that the vast island-continent of Atlantis sank beneath the waves in a single day and night of extremely violent earthquakes and floods. If Plato's story is to be literally true, Atlantis must be sought in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean - not in the alternative locations which have frequently been proposed. It must be acknowledged, however, that modern scientists have mapped the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, in outline, using echo sounders, Geosat radar and multibeam sonar, and yet discovered no trace whatsoever of any sunken continent. Plato's Atlantis seems truly to have disappeared, leaving not a trace behind it. In reaction to this negative evidence from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantis-hunters have suggested that the Atlantis story was garbled at some point or expressed in poetic terms, causing Plato to cite an incorrect geography. Atlantis has thus been sought in all four corners of the world, often in places that were quite unknown to Plato. However, in my new book The Atlantis Secret: A Complete Decoding of Plato's Lost Continent I take a different approach and maintain that Plato knew exactly what he was doing when he placed Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, I explain how Plato's story might indeed have been perfectly true - just as he claimed it was - despite the negative findings from the Atlantic Ocean floor. Indulge me if you will, and I will take you on a journey back in time, into the lost world of the ancient myth-makers. The Mystery of the Atlantic A good place to start is with the ancient Greeks' view of the world. As many readers will know, the known world at that time was held to comprise the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, which surrounded the Mediterranean Sea. But surrounding all these known regions there supposedly lay a mysterious encircling river of Ocean, of which the Atlantic Ocean was a part, which was entirely unknown and unnavigable by sailors. To enter into this great Ocean, via the Pillars of Heracles, was to cross over from the known world into the unknown world - into a region that was dominated by magic and monsters. On account of its reputation as the unknown sea, the Atlantic Ocean became the subject of a fantastic and incredible folklore among the Greeks. Consider, for example, Homer's Odyssey, in which Odysseus was swept away into the Ocean while returning from the Trojan War. Here, in the unknown sea, Odysseus came across the floating island Aeolia, receiving from its king the winds, imprisoned inside a leather bag; here, too, Odysseus came across the wooded island Aeaea, where the witch Circe preyed on men and transformed them into fawning animals; here, too, Odysseus encountered the fateful island of the sweet-voiced Sirens who robbed so many sailors of their promised homecomings; here, too, the splendid island Thrinacie where the Sun-god kept his sacred herds of cattle the bane of hungry men; here, too, the lonely island Ogygia, where the goddess Calypso wooed Odysseus for seven long years; here, too, the isolated island Scherie whence those famous sailors, the Phaeacians, conveyed Odysseus home in their magical ships; here, too, the country of the Lotus-eaters, the land of the Cyclopes giants, the land of the Laestrygonian giants, the sky-high cliff of Scylla the sea-monster, and the frightening whirlpool of Charybdis. Who would deny that all of these incredible places belonged to a fairy tale world, conceived by popular folklore and the imagination of the poets? The Continent in the West Intriguingly, Homer's Odyssey makes mention of a huge continent in the remote west - an idea that was echoed four centuries later in Plato's description of a true continent lying beyond the Isle of Atlantis. The idea appears in books 10 and 11, where Odysseus travelled to the land of the dead to consult with the soul of the blind prophet Teiresias. This he did by sailing deeper and deeper into the Ocean (i.e. the Atlantic Ocean) until he eventually beached his ship on its furthermost banks, i.e. the shore of the opposite continent. This, however, was no ordinary continent, for Homer goes on to describe how Odysseus proceeded on foot into Persephone's grove and Hades' kingdom of decay, where the infernal waters of Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus (a branch of the Styx) flowed together into the Acheron. Odysseus, evidently, had descended into the subterranean Underworld - into the world of the chthonian gods! Homer's remarkable story establishes an important principle, which may have dramatic implications for our understanding of Plato's opposite continent and, by the same token, his story of Atlantis. The principle is this: that the ancient poets could portray the Underworld either as the interior of the Earth or as a region of the remote west; and thus it was that Homer had Odysseus sail into the west, and ultimately set foot upon a continent - the land of the dead - which truly lay beneath the surface of the Earth! Such was the prerogative of the ancient poets. The crucial question, however, is this: did Plato knowingly draw upon Homer's vision of the Underworld in the west when he described the opposite continent beyond Atlantis, enclosing the sea in which Atlantis lay? The Elysian Plain and Islands Further light on Atlantis is shed by the Greek myths of the Elysian Plain and the Islands of the Blessed. The Elysian Plain, we are told, lay in the furthermost west at the ends of the Earth as a home for the blessed dead. There a man would spend his afterlife in a place where living is made easy for man, where no snow falls, no strong winds blow, and there is never any rain (Odyssey 4.561 ff). Significantly, this Elysian land was equated with a series of islands - the Islands of the Blessed, of which Hesiod sang: To some of the heroes Zeus granted a life and home apart from men, and settled them at the ends of the Earth. There they dwell with carefree heart in the Islands of the Blessed, beside deep-swirling Ocean fortunate heroes indeed, for whom the grain-giving soil bears its honey-sweet fruits three times a year. (Works and Days 167-73). The parallels here to Atlantis are stunning and hard to ignore. Atlantis, too, was one of several islands. Atlantis, too, lay in the distant west beside the winds of Ocean. Atlantis, too, possessed an idyllic plain - the loveliest of all plains. And Atlantis, too, was blessed by a temperate climate, and produced an abundance of produce from its remarkably fertile land. All of these characteristics are shared by Atlantis with the Elysian Plain and the Islands of the Blessed. But no-one would seriously suggest that the Elysian Plain and the Islands of the Blessed were real places. Rather, it is accepted that they were imaginary places - mythical places - which belonged to the utopian realm. The Elysian land of the setting sun was, in fact, a spin-off from the true land of the dead - the kingdom of Hades - which lay beneath the surface of the Earth. Did Plato have this Elysian Underworld in mind when he penned his story of the idyllic islands and plain of Atlantis? The Subterranean Sea Another piece in this utopian puzzle is the Atlantic Ocean in which Atlantis was said to lie. Here, again, the concept of the Underworld comes into play. Firstly, it should be noted that the Greeks called the Atlantic Ocean the Sea of Kronos, commemorating the former god of Heaven whom Zeus had cast down beneath the earth and the harvestless sea, i.e. into the subterranean Underworld. Strictly speaking, the Sea of Kronos would have been a subterranean sea in the first instance. Secondly, it should be noted that the Greeks named the Atlantic Ocean after the god Atlas, who knew the depths of all the seas. And yet Atlas, like Kronos, was a Titan-god who had been cast down from Olympus into the Underworld by Zeus. Strictly speaking, the Sea of Atlas would have been a subterranean sea in the first instance. Thirdly, it should be noted the Greeks called the world ocean (of which the Atlantic was a part) Ocean, and personified it by the god Oceanus. But this god also signified a subterranean sea. As Homer put it, Oceanus was the body from which all rivers and all the sea and all springs and deep wells take their flow (Iliad, 21.195-97). Was this the true identity of Oceanus? The Greek myths indeed allude to Oceanus having fallen from Heaven, in which case his Ocean would have been a subterranean sea in the first instance. Lest there be any doubt about this interpretation, the same idea can be found in the older mythologies of Egypt and Mesopotamia. In Egypt, for example, it was held that all things had sprung into existence from a primeval ocean called Nun, which was regarded as the true source of the River Nile. The texts imply that Nun was the ocean of the Underworld. Similarly in Mesopotamia, it was said that the god Enki ruled the Earth from a subterranean sea called the Apsu (the fall of Apsu from Heaven is described in Enuma Elish, Tablet I). In both cases, of Nun and Apsu, it was understood that the ocean of the Underworld filled the interior of the Earth. In the light of these facts, it can be no coincidence that all the Greek deities associated with the Ocean were primarily subterranean deities. The gods Kronos, Atlas and Oceanus have already been mentioned. A fourth example is Poseidon, the ruler of the deep sea, who was feared and revered as the god of earthquakes. According to Plato, two of these four chthonian gods were associated with the Isle of Atlantis: Atlas had lent his name to the island, whilst Poseidon had founded its capital city, allegedly by breaking apart the primeval hill of Clito (this hill notably contained its own subterranean reservoir of sea water!). Atlantis was thus literarily the offspring of two gods who heralded from the subterranean Underworld. In summary, I conclude in my book The Atlantis Secret that the Ocean in which Atlantis lay symbolised the subterranean sea - a sea which circulated in the interior of the Earth. True Continent and True Sea There are fundamental implications here for our understanding of Atlantis. Plato, it would seem, recognised the Atlantic Ocean as a cipher for the subterranean sea, and recognised Homer's opposite continent as a cipher for the subterranean Underworld. Accordingly, he made the opposite continent surround the Atlantic Ocean completely, thus signifying a nested pair of spheres (true to the Pythagorean leanings of his work). Furthermore, so as to make his intentions clear - for the enlightened reader - he used the word true to emphasise that he was describing no ordinary ocean and no ordinary continent. His crucial statement reads: "Out there is a true sea, and the land that embraces it all the way around deserves most truly to be called a continent." (Timaeus 25a). It follows that Atlantis was no ordinary island, but rather a true island - the Isle of the Underworld. It is for this reason that Plato lent it a supernatural size: larger than Libya and Asia (Minor) combined. It virtually goes without saying that no historical theory of Atlantis has ever been able to explain this outrageous statement. The Rings of the Underworld We should recall, at this juncture, that Poseidon created Atlantis by breaking apart the hill of Clito and forming it into six concentric circles - the circular hill itself, three rings of sea-water and two rings of land. This was the city, which was enclosed, in turn, by the island itself - also an exact circle. So, overall, Atlantis took the form of seven concentric circles. Or was it rather the case that Atlantis took the form of seven concentric spheres, each nested inside the other, forming the interior of the Earth? Ancient myths indeed described the Underworld as a system of concentric spheres. In Mesopotamia, the Underworld was conceived as vast city ringed around by seven protective walls, with seven successive gates (see, for example, the myth of The Descent of Ishtar). Alternatively, the Underworld was said to comprise seven concentric mountains which had to be crossed by the hero who sought ascension to Heaven (see, for example, The Gilgamesh Epic). Meanwhile, in Egypt, the Book of Caverns described the Sun-god's journey to the heart of the Earth via a tunnel which allowed access to six successive subterranean caverns. In the light of such information, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Plato - an ardent follower of Pythagorean mysticism - lent Atlantis seven rings deliberately to evoke the spheres of the Underworld. In Figure 3, I reconstruct his scheme, showing the seven-sphere Isle of Atlantis enclosed by the eighth and ninth spheres of the true sea and the true continent respectively. Initiation in the Underworld In my book The Atlantis Secret I conclude that Plato's Atlantis was a cipher for the subterranean Underworld and, furthermore, that Plato's story of the war between Athens and Atlantis was an allegory pertaining to the creation of the Universe. It follows from this that to seek the truth of the Atlantis story - and Plato did insist upon its truth - the truthseeker must rise above the profane and materialistic interpretations of the story which are so popular today, and turn his attention instead to a deeper level of cosmological and metaphysical truth. For it was the ancients fundamental belief that the Underworld connected together the realms of Heaven and Earth, and that knowledge of the Underworld was a prerequisite to learning the secrets of Heaven. It was in the Underworld - the Womb of Mother Earth - that the magic of creation had been worked, producing the visible and invisible forms of God. To be initiated into these secrets was to exchange the Body for the Soul, and the Darkness for the Light, and to dwell for ever in the eternal paradise. The true Atlantis beckons for those who have ears to hear. |
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