By Hyranio Garbho
Plato long before Homer was the first Greek who wrote about Atlantis. In a tight passage of the famous poet Odyssey relates the existence of an island in the ocean, inhabited by a goddess [1], daughter of Atlas witty, knowing the depth of the seas and guardian of the columns supporting the Heaven [2]. In this Island lay captive mythical Odysseus, hero of the epic that tells Homer. The name was Ogigia Island [3] and hallábase twenty days [4] travel by sea, west of another mysterious Atlantic island, named the Odyssey as Scheria [5]. And the myth of the Atlantic island and dominated in time of Homer, the collective imagination of the Greek people. Plato, in this regard, only he had the merit of showing it in its exoteric form. But the heritage of the legend, or its memory (memories), hallábase anchored in the soul of the Greeks even long before the existence of Homer himself.
Four centuries after Plato Plutarch, the famous Greek historian, identified Ogigia an island in the Atlantic Ocean, 180 kilometers [6] away from a continent whose coasts bordering the entire ocean known [7]. "The great continent by Plutarch writes the great sea which is surrounded on all sides ... is closer than the other islands, but about five hundred miles of Ogygia, if we sail in a galley rowing" [ 8]. Plutarch's description of the island (Ogigia) coincides almost perfectly with reports by Plato, about Atlantis, on the Timaeus [9]. Which in itself is already a mystery. In this famous dialogue Plato writes:
"Then that sea could be traversed, for he had an island in front of the mouth that you call, as you say, columns of Heracles. The island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and since it was possible for the passengers in that time access to the other islands. From them you could spend the whole continent which is just opposite and surrounded the true ocean "[10].
Plato and Plutarch writes about an island in the ocean. First match. It is irrelevant, for now, that Plato and Plutarch Ogigia call Atlantis. In either case it is a gigantic island [11]. This is a second coincidence. Among the island Atlantis (or Ogigia) and the continent whose coasts embrace all the great ocean there are a number of smaller islands that operate as bridges or passages from one place to another (Plato says, since she-Atlántida- is possible to access the . other islands, and from there to the mainland bordering the ocean true Plutarch adds the great continent is less distance than the other islands Ogigia). This is the third coincidence, one of the most relevant. And last and least-not intrigante- Plato and Plutarch relate coordinates to locate the location of the island existence of a great continent, one so big that its coasts surround the real ocean.
On this point, no hurt wonder that both Plato and Plutarch wrote about a continent whose coasts bordering the vast Atlantic Ocean. For the continent exists and is called America. What we should wonder is that Plato and Plutarch knew or who have written about him. A continent across the Atlantic whose coasts surround the ocean Could Plato (or Plutarch) be writing about something else other than the American continent? In our opinion, very hard. Especially in the case of Plato, the references in this regard, in the Timaeus, are much more accurate. If Plato knew him with accuracy and veracity of his story is proven at that point why could not be equally true the other side of the story told by him, which relate a series of islands, opposite the Pillars Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar), some of which are huge (as Atlantis itself, for example), so large that continent deserve the name, and become happy waterway that is the Atlantic Ocean? This is an extremely interesting point that has not been repaired properly. The stories of Plato and Plutarch not only concern the Atlantis (or Ogigia), but also a mysterious continent whose west coast border the Atlantic. If the accounts of Plato and Plutarch are true with respect to the latter it does not look how they might be false in relation to the former. Especially if you consider that in the centuries when they wrote no way to impose on the existence of the American continent. Unless availability of a type of information that is not available to everyone. And this, in itself, is another mystery.
One of the most intriguing issues Plato's story of Atlantis plane connects with a fact so far not properly warned. It treats this nature and scale of the author of the story: Plato. Most researchers (if not all) overlook the fact that Plato was an initiate [12]; in circumstances that this is a radical and definitive importance. Not only because it is a subject with special information, a secret or mystery of initiation, but also because no customs such mysteries are revealed to the vulgar. So that, when they are transmitted in a way that implies, or can eventually implicar- the uninitiated, they are deliberately distort, or communicate in the form of the archetype. Eduard Schuré, the celebrated documentary of the Great Initiates, wrote in this regard:
"... Plato could not publicly teach the things that ... (is) covered them with a triple veil ... It is the same esoteric doctrine which appears in his Dialogues, but concealed, mitigated, carrying a dialectical reasoning as an strange weight, disguised herself as a legend, myth or parable "[13].
Plato himself had written on this topic in the Charter VII. There suggests that the truly esoteric teaching was not written down in his Dialogues, and what really matters could only be entrusted to the right people, in the thought of Plato they wore perfectly with the initiated [14].
However, initiation of Plato in the Orphic mysteries is crucial in the debate on Atlantis for two very important reasons. First, because all relevant communicates ideas in his writings lie in the register of the mysteries that has been started. And Atlantis is no exception to this rule. Especially if you consider that his legend comes communicated in the Timaeus, which is one of the most religious dialogues of Plato [15]. And second, because the initiation of Plato forces you to write about Atlantis in the form of a legend, whose "facts" [16] determining, for the modern researcher, have no relevance in the initiatory perspective is privileged only what is registration essential mystery that seeks to convey. In other words, that Plato's Atlantis is not a "fact" material target ordinary. It is not a "fact", in the meaning that this word comes today. Plato is an initiate. Writes and thinks like started. Therefore, we would often ridiculous if we tried to understand him as ordinary men, and we started to pesquisar your Atlantis, based on the details that populate her story-and do nothing, which cloud the understanding, and look back at what you do not is Atlantis (historical Atlantis and the mythical Atlantis).
What is Atlantis, therefore, for Plato? Or even better What is Atlantis for an authentic started? Atlantis is in this perspective sumariamente- let us say, an archetype. This does not mean that it is a reality, that is a historical fact. But that is not what matters here, nor relevant to nor Plato to Plutarch or for the Greek popular imagination that comes through in the work of Homer. Nor, for no one who will return to write about Atlantis centuries later, before the advent of the age of the "lights". What is really important here is the archetype of Atlantis. In this, and no other matter, we dedicate the following lines.
Ignatius Donnelly summarized the facts about Atlantis in little more than ten points. Although not determine what is Atlantis from an archetypal perspective, they serve as a reference, or as a starting point to explain what we mean when we define Atlantis as an archetype. We gather here for this, nine of these points, as they are all particularly interesting in relation to what we want to show. These points are synthetically the following:
1. Was there once an island off the mouth of the Mediterranean, in the Atlantic Ocean, the ancients called Atlantis.
2. The story of Plato, about the same, is not a fable, but a true story.
3. The first great human civilization was Atlantis.
4. The Atlantean civilization brought to the shores of America, Europe, Africa and Asia, which made possible that there also exist civilized human populations.
5. Atlantis, therefore, was remembered as an earthly paradise, named it in different ways by different people.
6. The gods and goddesses of different peoples are none other than the kings and queens, heroes and priests of ancient Atlantis.
7. The original religion of Atlantis must have been a religion of sun worship. For this reason we find in the various peoples of the past, solar deities everywhere.
8. Atlantis succumbed to a terrible catastrophe of nature, sinking into the ocean with all or most of its inhabitants.
9. Those who escaped carried the news of the sinking of the various nations of the earth, thus giving rise to the legend or stories about floods and flooding.
From these nine points synthesized by Donnelly we can establish with relative certainty, the content of the archetype we call Atlantis. This is summarized in three main points. First, there was an island in the Atlantic, the cradle of Western civilization, he succumbed to a catastrophe of nature, leaving only echoes of their existence in the various news (later transformed into legends) about his disappearance or collapse by survivors transmitted of the disaster. Second, such was the level of development and civilization of the inhabitants of this island that most likely took their culture to the shores of Middle America, North Africa and the European Mediterranean, even to the valley of the Ganges in India, and probably even further. Third, the island succumbed by the disaster, disappeared civilization, humanity entered a frank process of decay and darkness, getting men to flee (to live) in caves, and make their survival utensils from wood and stone, until eventually, they returned to work metals, and undertake again the path towards civilization, inspired, as they could be, by the remnants of that glorious past, preserved most likely in schools of tradition, and transmitted through procedures well Similar to the initiation into the mysteries. This is, in short, the archetype of Atlantis. Desentrañemos, now, line by line, each of these three points deployed above, and revise the criteria of reality, but also for their archetypal substance, the conditions of historical possibility of each of them.
Before going into this analysis include the following. Up to the immediate present he had not paid attention to the legends and myths as a source of historical information. They are mere fabrications was to primitive minds. In recent times, the criterion that the myths and legends can be perfectly stories originated on historical facts, but narrated in a particular way, he has been gaining ground in the field of science skepticism. And therefore, more and more researchers who use them to anchor part of their work or hypotheses. This will be our starting point. The conviction that, in its origin, myths and legends spring from real events, and therefore can no longer be arraigned considering sources of information used. And even more: a widespread legend in almost the entire planet, for us, can have even more scientific value than any fossil piece, isolated and silent about the context of its finding. Therefore mythology and legend will be our starting point; and probably our anchorage.
Regardless of Plato's story of Atlantis, there are many news coming to us about the existence of an island nestled in the Atlantic. Some are so old that easily surpass the thousand years Plato's account. These islands were called in many different ways. Plutarch, according to Homer, called Ogigia-above this we wrote at the beginning. The Celts called Avalon, name whose meaning still remains coated under the veil of mystery. The Greeks called leuke and Hindus Cveta Dvipa. Pytheas of Massilia wrote about an island called Thule located six days sailing trip from the coast of Brittany, and a day away from the Cronio sea (mare Cronide). And although it has not been properly so identified as an island also Hyperborea Pindar described as the archetype of the Atlantic island, especially found her in the septentrión most extreme, in a place or by sea or by land, it is possible access. In the Middle Ages the Aryan collective imagination Atlantic island identified with the island of Brazil, or Island of St. Brendan. As such the island was described in very similar terms to the fortunate islands, or islands of the blessed, which, as is known, also all were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, off the mouth of the Pillars of Hercules in the Strait Gibraltar. It also evokes the island of Brazil or St. Brendan Island Garden of the Hesperides, which according Stesichorus and Strabo was in Tartessos, it alleged former Atlantis colony on the Iberian peninsula.
There are over a common denominator in all these islands. They were all in their own way, conceived as "white islands". In fact the name comes from Albionia Avalon, with the former name was called the Island of Britain. Greek myths speak of "leuke" White Island, (from "leukos" which in Greek means "white"). Diodorus speaks of Hyperborea and called the "White Island" (leuke). He argues that the island would be in the ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules, opposite Celtic Homeland. Hindus speak of Cveta Dvipa, White Island, or Resplendent Isle, home of the god Vishnu, also located somewhere in the Atlantic, in the confines of the world. Avalon, leuke, Hyperborea and Cveta Dvipa are "white islands", islands of spiritual transfiguration, the same as the fortunate islands or islands of the blessed, who keep the myth Island Brazil a surprisingly synchronistic analogy. In all these white islands correspondence with Atlantis it is explicit. Enough to move to think that all these stories relate the story of one and the same island reason.
Another common denominator of Atlantean archetype is the sacredness of the island. In all cases it is a place of redemption or spiritual transfiguration, which charged the pilgrimage as a journey of daring adventures sailing the seas of the ocean. In this sense, civilizational supremacy of Atlantis Plato could well be interpreted as possession or display of a spiritual treasure, which can only be reached by way of initiation and overcoming the trials of the spirit. Hyperborea was the residence of Apollo, as well as Cveta Dvipa was the original land of Vishnu. There are maps and extraordinary analogies between Apollo and Vishnu [17]. From an archetypal perspective between Cveta Dvipa identification and Hyperborea is fully justified, as the archetypal role played by the Greeks Apollo keeps synchronicity with the role, among the Hindus, Vishnu. Also the Garden of the Hesperides, another variety of Atlantic archetype, relates to this common denominator. In the Garden a leafy tree (A Ygdrassil? A Irminsul?) Whose fruits, some golden apples, promise fulfillment and immortality is. It should be noted in this regard that, according to another etymology, the esoteric name of Avalon would become place or island of apples, since, in the old Breton, the word for apple is "endorsement". The color of apples and gives us a clue to understand that this is a spiritual archetype, as the color "gold" has been traditionally used to refer such archetypes.
Following Pytheas of Massalia, the Greek historian Strabo wrote about Thule in the same terms of this spiritual archetype. According to him Thule was six days a sea of Brittany near the frozen sea (in this follows the story of Pytheas). Frozen Sea is the Mare Cronide, place where, according to Plutarch and Pliny, Cronos lies dormant. In Greek mythology this is the land that is brought Kronos chained after being defeated by Zeus, his son. This is another interesting symbolic parallel, in this line of research that we conducted, as Cronos represents the time (in fact Xronos, in Greek, means Time). In this Atlantic island Cronos lies dormant or chained. The symbolism of this is obvious. This is an island where time stands still (Eternity), or running in the opposite direction (devolution), the return address to the Golden Age, the Age of Heroes and Gods.
Among this second version of the legend and the first there is yet another interesting analogy. In the first story the island is beyond the Pillars of Hercules, off the mouth of the Strait of Gibraltar. In the second version atlantis island, now called Thule, is beyond the Mare Cronide the frozen sea water. Both seas beyond the Pillars of Hercules, as Cronide Mare are the epitome of the unfathomable, a symbol of the dangers that lie journey itself. Also the forest is an archetype of the dangers of the unfathomable, the region or land is needed to reach the self through self. In symbolic terms, the forest, the sea, the eternal ice represent the evidence of the soul, the challenges the hero must overcome to win immortality. Spooky Atlantic island, in all its various names, symbolizes immortality which can only be accessed after crossing a forest of lush vegetation and a sea of unfathomable waters, or the eternal ice of the frozen seas. In all these versions of the legend the island is in the ends of the earth, this is also last symbol of the unattainable, which either by land or by sea, can be reached.
One last analogical correspondence linking the Atlantic island "Airyanem vâejô", the original home of the Aryan race. The peremnis symbol of the Aryans has always been the Swastika, stylized form of the Hindu swastika or runic fyrfos of Armanen. Indeed Vishnu, the god who resides, according to Hindu mythology in Cveta Dvipa, is the Swastika symbol representative. It has been established that this symbol provides the basic structure to the whole Aryan symbolism, influencing the cultural universe from all forms of culture which, to some extent or another, have some degree of contact or relationship with the Aryans. The primitive form of the symbol prescribed a straight horizontal line crossed by a vertical straight line in the form of a cross with all equidistant and circled arms. The circle symbolizes timelessness, eternity, or a conception of time from the perspective of return or involution. The vertical lines represent the masculine principle of the statement, the horizontal, the feminine side. It is, in short, the Heshe Serrano, or Notheh of Sippe arkhanen. The symbol, in its completeness, represents the idea of the perfect Aryan, Aryan initiation to-mor or magical marriage that unites heaven to earth, in the course of time or eternity (even in their counterclockwise, to so far against time, and therefore needed against corruption of all things in time), in its transcendent ideal that development will go charging other similar forms of representation.
Beyond all these considerations the myth itself is in a basic structure from which we can detach his role as archetype. In all these atlantis island it appears now as a magic land of temperate climate, plentiful and generous vegetation, now freed time, located somewhere in the Atlantic border that can only be reached untold avoiding hazards; either as a civilization that had participated in a form of transcendent knowledge, and in which their inhabitants would have been beings from other stars. All these aspects of the legend speak unequivocally of a symbol-archetype, a structure of the transcendent reality, whose understanding is perhaps clearer if put in relation this myth with the various forms of correspondence which we have already spoken, and is studied critically from these undeniable analogies.
I do not want to close this chapter on Atlantis before archetype without referring a matter of utmost importance. It treats itself as the name of Atlantis, which seems to be telling us something we have not noticed properly, and that is bound up with our hypothesis of Atlantis as an Aryan archetype. "Atlantis" is not a name, but an expression, a way to express themselves. The first that perhaps had the first descendants of the survivors of the collapse of the Atlantic island. The island may well have been called by name, even after missing. But they could also call former nostalgically the "old country", the "old land" no longer exists. In the Germanic family of languages that "Alt Land", "Old Earth" or the "Old Earth" would say. Where I would say that this is the true etymology of the word Atlantis. Plato in the Critias says that the island Atlantis is named after the first king named Atlas (probably the same mythical Atlas holding the sky). But about it I tend to think, with all due respect I feel for Plato, on the etymology attributed to Atlantis. Or rather, more than a mistake, say that Plato did not have all the necessary information to speculate better etymology of the name given to the island. As regards my opinion I think Plato had found amid total confusion regarding everything related to Atlantis. Do not forget that the story was transmitted to him by Solon, who in turn heard it from an Egyptian priest. In essence, he had to imagine that the name Atlantis derived from Atlas, unaware that the main phrase that form the word is a root that is not Greek, but protogermánico face to all the ways that language claimed between the peoples of the north and central Europe. The essential nucleus of the word Atlantis constitutes the word "land", which means "land". "At-land-leg" is a word with Germanic and not Greek root; which proves, incidentally, that Plato did not invent the story of Atlantis, but had been transmitted to him probably in the same terms set out in the Timaeus and Critias.
Protogermánico derived from the word Atlantis makes sense. As it would become a "land" a "Country", a "place" somewhere on the planet. The Oera Linda gives us a clue in this regard. Old Frisian manuscript speaks of a submerged island in the Atlantic about 3,000 years before Christ. The island bears the name of "Âldland" which means "Old Land" or "Old Country", also "old continent" (of "AML" old, old, etc. and "land" land). Although we can not establish that it is the same story of Plato Island, it gives us an interesting clue to a possible etymology of the word "Atlantis". "At" may well be a contraction of "ALD" and more precisely of "Alt" ("old" in German), where "Alt Land" would be the most likely etymology for Atlantis, meaning this the "old country ", the" old earth ".
One last thing: in ancient Greece known is that Zeus was born on Mount Ida (not to be confused with the Cretan Ida, or the Turkish Ida Mount Ida ... this is mythology ... probably not even be found in the Mediterranean). Is it the most appropriate for Atlantis etymology of "Old Earth Mount Ida"? After all, the Oera Linda, not Plato, calls the old "Âldland" the "land of high mountains. And maybe this" Ida "of mythology, residence of the gods, has been before a land Greek, a place beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the oldest man to have memory of the primordial Earth Europe.
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[1] This is the nymph Calypso.
[2] Homer, Odyssey, Canto I Canto VII 48-52 and 243-246. In the accompanying text reads as follows:. "Unfortunate Ulysses (...) away from all his captive on the island and where the waves break there in the middle of the ocean In its forests lives the goddess born of skilled Atlante ... (Canto I 48-52). " "An island is in the middle of the secluded sea is his name Ogygia Calypso There lives the cunning born of Atlante, the beautiful hair, awful deity ... (Canto VII 243-246).". The texts in ancient Greek are "ἀλλά μοι ἀμφ ̓ Ὀδυσῆι δαί̈φρονι δαίεται ἦτορ, δυσμόρῳ, ὃς δὴ δηθὰ φίλων ἄπο πήματα πάσχει νήσῳ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, ὅθι τ ̓ ὀμφαλός ἐστι θαλάσσης νῆσος δενδρήεσσα, θεὰ δ ̓ ἐν δώματα ναίει, Ἄτλαντος θυγάτηρ. ὀλοόφρονος ... "and" Ὠγυγίη τις νῆσος ἀπόπροθεν εἰν ἁλὶ κεῖται: ἔνθα μὲν Ἄτλαντος θυγάτηρ, δολόεσσα Καλυψὼ ναίει ἐυπλόκαμος, δεινὴ θεός ".
[3] Homer, Odyssey, Canto I 85, Canto VI 172, 244 and 254 VII Canto, Canto XII 448; Canto XXIII 333.
[4] Homer, Odyssey, Canto VI 170-171
[5] Homer, Odyssey, Canto V 34, Canto VI 8 Canto VII 79; Canto XIII 160.
[6] Plutarch writes that Ogygia Island was five hundred miles away from the continent. If we consider that the measure of a Greek stadium was about 174 meters, the distance separating the Americas Ogigia would have been about 870 kilometers.
[7] Roderic O'Flaherty, the famous Irish historian, Ogigia identified with Ireland. Roderic O'Flaherty Ogygia: Seu Rerum Hibernicarum Chronologia.
[8] Plutarch, Moralia, chap. 26.
[9] This was also perceived by W. Hamilton, who pointed out in his work on Plutarch. See W. Hamilton, "The Myth in Plutarch's De Facie (940F - 945D)"
[10] Plato, Timaeus, 24e - 25th
[11] In addition, Plutarch writes that Ogygia island is so great that she deserves to be called continent.
[12] On the initiation of Eduard Schuré Plato wrote in The Great Initiates "... due Plato science and substance of his ideas to his initiation into the Mysteries His genius is the new way to poetic and time. dialectic, who knew them. That not only took initiation at Eleusis. He searched all accessible sources of the ancient world ... followed the lessons of several philosophers of Asia Minor. From there he went to Egypt to be related to their priests, and went through the Initiation of Isis ... Then he went to southern India to enter into relations with the Pythagoreans ... he bought gold weight of a manuscript of the teacher. Having thus studied the esoteric tradition of Pythagorean at its source ... "Eduard Schuré, The Great Initiates, Editorial Olympus, Mexico, p. 264-265
[13] Eduard Schuré, op.cit., P. 265. parentheses within quotation is ours.
[14] Cf. Plato, Seventh Letter, 341 c
[15] The references to Atlantis are also in the Critias, but this dialogue, although it is more full of references to the mysterious island is to be considered an appendix or following the first dialogue, the Timaeus, which was, in fact, written before.
[16] I use here the word "fact" in the same sense as it has in the modern educated minds
[17] Similarities also between Dionysus and Shiva. Shiva Vishnu is what Apollo is Dionysus and vice versa.
