Description
Book SynopsisAtlantis has held a perennial place in the collective imagination of humanity from ancient Greece onward. Many of the great minds of the occult and esoteric world wrote at length on their theories of Atlantis--about its high culture, its possible location, its ultimate demise, and their predictions of a return to Atlantean enlightenment or the downfall of modern society. Beginning with a review of the rationalist writings on Atlantis--those that use geographic and geologic data to validate their theories--renowned scholar Joscelyn Godwin then analyzes and compares writings on Atlantis from many of the great occultists and esotericists of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Fabre d’Olivet, G. I. Gurdjieff, Guido von List, Julius Evola, Edgar Cayce, Dion Fortune, and René Guénon, whose writings often stem from deeper, metaphysical sources, such as sacred texts, prophecy, or paranormal communication. Seeking to unravel and explain the histories and interpretations of Atlantis and its kindred myths of Lemuria and Mu, the author shows how these different views go hand-in-hand with the concept of cyclical history, such as the Vedic system of the four Yugas, the Mayan calendar with its 2012 end-date, the theosophical system of root races, and the precession of the equinoxes. Venturing broader and deeper than any other book on Atlantis, this study also covers reincarnation, human evolution or devolution, the origins of race, and catastrophe theory.
Trade Review“Scholarly, meticulously researched, and superbly presented. Joscelyn Godwin has produced a wonderful book that will delight and impress all those who seek ‘Atlantis,’ be it a myth or reality. I urge you to read it!” * Robert Bauval, author of The Orion Mystery and Egypt Code *
“In this important book Joscelyn Godwin has accomplished the nearly impossible, masterfully summarizing and synthesizing widely disparate approaches to the perennial question of Atlantis. Much more than a catalog of possible Atlantis locations, occult Atlantology is finally accorded the importance it deserves, including a cogent analysis of esoteric cycles of time, the Four World Ages, the Yuga Cycle, and the Precession of the Equinoxes, placing Atlantis in a larger temporal context. This is a must-read for anyone who wishes to truly understand the Atlantis debate.” * Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D., author of Voyages of the Pyramid Builders and The Parapsychology Revolution *
“As absorbing as it is erudite, both comprehensive and profound, essential as a reference work, and quintessential to grasp the depth and breadth of a grievously misunderstood, perennially fascinating, and perhaps critical subject,
Atlantis and the Cycles of Time is a unique work: the ‘compleat’ Atlantis.” * John Anthony West, author of Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt *
“From the sublime to the ludicrous, from the poetic to the simply mad, Joscelyn Godwin gives us a chart of the many versions of Atlantis (with all their ‘glaring lack of consensus’) that will last us till the lost continent rises again. Truly Godwin is the Master of Atlantis.” * Peter Lamborn Wilson, coauthor of Atlantis Manifesto and Green Hermeticism: Alchemy & Ecology *
“Godwin pulls together the many disparate topics associated with the myth of Atlantis from a number of sources and presents them in a well-organized, scholarly work. For serious students of history or anthropology only.” * Susan Flaherty, Library Journal, January 2011 *
“
Atlantis and the Cycles of Time is one of the most extensive examinations of the Atlantis story and the themes it embodies ever published. Godwin's knowledge of esotericism, occultism and mysticism is encyclopedic and his ability to elucidate the strangest and most obscure cosmology is breathtaking. From the inners and outs of Blavatsky's Root Races to the quirky views of Germanic Atlantology it is all here in mind blowing detail.” * Living Traditions Magazine, January 2011 *
“. . . an excellent work that gives us one of the first academic examinations of the theory of Atlantis throughout history. It is objective and critical, but sympathetic, and a truly challenging and stimulating read.” * Robert Black, New Dawn Magazine, February 2011 *
“. . . reveals a fascinating story of the way in which the Atlantis myth has permeated almost every strand of mystical thinking in the West from the occultists of revolutionary France to the New Agers of Modern California.” * John Rimmer, Magonia Blog, February 2011 *
“. . . Joscelyn Godwin. . .the eminent scholar of esotericism examines the continuing fascination of this myth and the surprising effect it has had on the Western world’s intellectual history.” * Modern Mythology & The Eyeless Owl, April 2011 *
“Much has been written about the lost continents of Atlantis and Lemuria from an occult perspective as well from a rationalist view based on geographic and geological data, but these perspectives have not really been synthesized into a coherent whole. Scholar, translator and music professor Dr. Joscelyn Godwin applies his talents to reconciling the two.” * New Dawn Magazine, May 2011 *
“The depth and breadth of the presentation amazed, and pleased, me. . . It should earn a place in your library.” * Michael Gleason, Independent Reviewer, August 2011 *
“Godwin has produced a very useful resource for anyone interested in the myriad ideas about Atlantis.” * Choice Reviews Online, November 2011 *
“Intelligent and written in a readable style that moves at a good pace, Atlantis and the Cycles of Time is a compelling exploration of the topic.” * The Beacon Magazine *
“...this is a richly rewarding and illuminating work of scholarship, a chronicle of modern Western essays in what Henry Corbin called ‘hierohistory’.” * Temenos Academy, January 2013 *
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
One - Atlantis of the Rationalists The Atlantic Ocean d Arctica - Sweden - Germany -Britain - The Sahara Desert - Crete and Thera -Malta - Sicily - Cyprus - Turkey - The Caribbean -Central America - Venezuela - Bolivia - Antarctica - Everywhere - Allegorical - Nowhere
Two - The French Esoteric Tradition Delisle de Sales and the Age of the Earth - Fabre d’Olivet’s Philosophical History - Saint-Yves d’Alveydre’s Synarchic History - Edouard Schuré’s
Great Initiates - Papus and the Cancerous Moon - Paul Le Cour and the Sacred Heart - Pandora’s Box - Jean Phaure: Return to Tradition
Three - H. P. Blavatsky and the Early Theosophists Neoplatonic Forerunners and
Isis Unveiled - The Mahatma Letters -
Fragments of Forgotten History -
The Secret Doctrine: The First Two Root Races - The Third (Lemurian) Root Race - The Fourth (Atlantean) Root Race
Four - Later Theosophists A. P. Sinnett and “Mary” - William Scott-Elliot and His Sources - A Child’s Story - Leadbeater Again - Rudolf Steiner and Theosophy - Alice Bailey and “The Tibetan”
Five - Germanic Atlantology Lanz-Liebenfels and the Sodomite Apelings - Guido von List, Father of Ariosophy - Postwar Reconstruction I - Herman Wirth and
The Ascent of Mankind - The Fall of Herman Wirth - Alfred Rosenberg’s
Myth of the Twentieth Century - Karl Maria Wiligut’s Ancestral Traditions - Peryt Shou, the Outsider - Postwar Reconstruction II
Six - Two Traditionalists René Guénon’s Early Investigations - The Polar Mountain and the Underground Kingdom - Julius Evola and Pagan Imperialism - Guénon, Evola, and Wirth - The Primordial Tradition and Its Decline - Priests versus Warriors
Seven - The Britons Atlantis in the Inner Light - The Revelations of a Normal Lad - Psychometry on the Brink of War - Lewis Spence’s Occult Trilogy - The Messages of Helio-Arkan/Arcanophus - The Return of Stainton Moses - The Sky People and the Avalonians
Eight - Some Indepenents Mayan Connections - Raleigh and the Yucatán Brotherhood - The Churchwards and Mu - The Rosicrucians - Beelzebub’s Descents to Planet Earth
Nine - Channeling in the New World Oahspe: A Kosmon Bible - Phylos the Tibetan - An Inspirational Lecture -
Rĭn-gä’-sĕ nŭd Sï-ï-kĕl’zē - Edgar Cayce - Mount Shasta Again - We Are All Star Guests -
Tibetan Pretensions
Ten - Channeling in the New Age Remembering Lemuria - Meeting Orthon - Other Flesh, Secret Places - Seth Speaks - Tom and the Nine Ramtha the Lemurian -
The Changing Light at Sandover Eleven - The Four Ages 432,000, the Ubiquitous Number - Guénon Reveals the Code - Alain Daniélou’s Puranic Chronology - Gaston Georgel and the Rhythms of History - Interim Reflections - Fabre d’Olivet Reverses the Yugas - Buddhist Systems - The System of the Jains - Sri Yukteswar
Twelve - The Precession of the Equinoxes Precession of the Rationalists - Before and After
Hamlet’s Mill - Precession of the Mythologists - The Age of Aquarius - The Reigns of the Archangels
Conclusion Recurrent Themes of Occult Atlantology
Notes
Bibliography
Index
