Editing Atlantis (section)

===Modern===
Aside from Plato's original account, modern interpretations regarding Atlantis are an amalgamation of diverse, speculative movements that began in the sixteenth century,<ref>[[Kenneth Feder|Feder, KL.]] ''Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology,'' Mountain View, Mayfield 1999. {{ISBN|978-0-07-811697-1}}</ref> when scholars began to identify Atlantis with the [[New World]]. [[Francisco Lopez de Gomara]] was the first to state that Plato was referring to America, as did [[Francis Bacon]] and [[Alexander von Humboldt]]; Janus Joannes Bircherod said in 1663 ''orbe novo non-novo'' ("the New World is not new"). [[Athanasius Kircher]] accepted Plato's account as literally true, describing Atlantis as a small continent in the Atlantic Ocean.{{r|ley196706}}

Contemporary perceptions of Atlantis share roots with [[Mayanism]], which can be traced to the beginning of the [[Modern Age]], when European imaginations were fueled by their initial encounters with the indigenous peoples of the Americas.<ref name="Hoopes 2011">{{cite book |author=Hoopes, John W. |chapter=Mayanism Comes of (New) Age |editor=Joseph Gelfer |title=2012: Decoding the Counterculture Apocalypse |year=2011 |location=London |publisher=Equinox Publishing |isbn=978-1-84553-639-8 |pages=38–59}}</ref> From this era sprang [[Apocalypticism|apocalyptic]] and [[utopian]] visions that would inspire many subsequent generations of theorists.<ref name="Hoopes 2011"/>

Most of these interpretations are considered [[pseudohistory]], [[pseudoscience]], or [[pseudoarchaeology]], as they have presented their works as [[academic]] or [[scientific]], but lack the standards or criteria.

The Flemish cartographer and geographer [[Abraham Ortelius]] is believed to have been the first person to imagine that the continents were joined before [[continental drift|drifting]] to their present positions. In the 1596 edition of his ''Thesaurus Geographicus'' he wrote: "Unless it be a fable, the island of Gadir or Gades {{bracket|[[Cadiz]]}} will be the remaining part of the island of Atlantis or America, which was not sunk (as Plato reports in the ''Timaeus'') so much as torn away from Europe and Africa by earthquakes and flood... The traces of the ruptures are shown by the projections of Europe and Africa and the indentations of America in the parts of the coasts of these three said lands that face each other to anyone who, using a map of the world, carefully considered them. So that anyone may say with [[Strabo]] in Book 2, that what Plato says of the island of Atlantis on the authority of Solon is not a figment."<ref>{{cite book|last=Ortelius|first=Abraham|title=Thesaurus Geographicus|chapter-url={{Google books|id=AWhXAAAAcAAJ|page=RA1-PR24|plainurl=yes}}|chapter=Gadiricus|date=1596|publisher=Plantin|place=Antwerp|access-date=12 May 2015}}</ref>

====Early influential literature====
The term "[[utopia]]" (from "no place") was coined by [[Sir Thomas More]] in his sixteenth-century work of [[fiction]] ''[[Utopia (book)|Utopia]]''.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite journal |author=Callahan, Tim |author2=Friedhoffer, Bob |author3=Pat Linse |year=2001 |title=The Search for Atlantis! |journal=Skeptic |volume=8 |issue=4 |page=96 |issn=1063-9330}}</ref> Inspired by [[Plato]]'s Atlantis and travelers' accounts of the [[Americas]], More described an imaginary land set in the [[New World]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Hoopes, John W. |chapter=Mayanism Comes of (New) Age |editor=Joseph Gelfer |title=2012: Decoding the Counterculture Apocalypse |year=2011 |location=London |publisher=Equinox Publishing |isbn=978-1-84553-639-8 |pages=38–59 [p. 46] }}</ref> His idealistic vision established a connection between the Americas and utopian societies, a theme that Bacon discussed in ''[[New Atlantis|The New Atlantis]]'' ({{circa|1623}}).<ref name="Hoopes 2011"/> A character in the narrative gives a history of Atlantis that is similar to Plato's and places Atlantis in America. People had begun believing that the [[Maya civilization|Mayan]] and [[Aztec]] ruins could possibly be the remnants of Atlantis.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

====Impact of Mayanism====
Much speculation began as to the origins of the [[Maya civilization|Maya]], which led to a variety of narratives and publications that tried to rationalize the discoveries within the context of the [[Bible]] and that had undertones of [[racism]] in their connections between the Old and New World. The [[Europeans]] believed the [[indigenous people]] to be inferior and incapable of building that which was now in ruins and by sharing a common history, they insinuated that another race must have been responsible.

In the middle and late nineteenth century, several renowned [[Mesoamerica]]n scholars, starting with [[Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg]], and including [[Edward Herbert Thompson]] and [[Augustus Le Plongeon]], formally proposed that Atlantis was somehow related to Mayan and [[Aztec]] culture.

The French scholar Brasseur de Bourbourg traveled extensively through Mesoamerica in the mid-1800s, and was renowned for his translations of [[Mayan languages|Mayan]] texts, most notably the sacred book [[Popol Vuh]], as well as a comprehensive history of the region. Soon after these publications, however, Brasseur de Bourbourg lost his academic credibility, due to his claim that the [[Maya peoples]] had descended from the [[Toltecs]], people he believed were the surviving population of the racially superior civilization of Atlantis.<ref>{{cite book |author=Evans, R. Tripp |year=2004 |title=Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination, 1820–1915 |location=Austin |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-70247-9 |page=113 }}</ref> His work combined with the skillful, romantic illustrations of [[Jean Frederic Waldeck]], which visually alluded to [[Egypt]] and other aspects of the [[Old World]], created an authoritative [[fantasy]] that excited much interest in the connections between worlds.

Inspired by Brasseur de Bourbourg's diffusion theories, the pseudoarchaeologist Augustus Le Plongeon traveled to Mesoamerica and performed some of the first [[excavations]] of many famous Mayan ruins. Le Plongeon invented narratives, such as the kingdom of [[Mu (lost continent)|Mu]] saga, which romantically drew connections to him, his wife Alice, and [[Egyptian mythology|Egyptian]] deities [[Osiris]] and [[Isis]], as well as to [[Heinrich Schliemann]], who had just discovered the ancient city of [[Troy]] from [[Homer]]'s [[epic poetry]] (that had been described as merely mythical).<ref>{{cite book |author=Evans, R. Tripp |year=2004 |title=Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination, 1820–1915 |location=Austin |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-70247-9 |pages=141–146 }}</ref>{{Page range too broad|date=August 2021}} He also believed that he had found connections between the [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Mayan languages]], which produced a [[narrative]] of the destruction of Atlantis.<ref>{{cite book |author=Brunhouse, Robert L. |url=https://archive.org/details/insearchofmayafi00brun/page/153 |title=In Search of the Maya: The First Archaeologists |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |year=1973 |isbn=978-0-8263-0276-2 |location=Albuquerque |page=[https://archive.org/details/insearchofmayafi00brun/page/153 153] |language=en-US}}</ref>

====Ignatius Donnelly====
The 1882 publication of ''[[Atlantis: the Antediluvian World]]'' by [[Ignatius L. Donnelly]] stimulated much popular interest in Atlantis. He was greatly inspired by early works in [[Mayanism]], and like them, attempted to establish that all known [[ancient civilizations]] were descended from Atlantis, which he saw as a technologically sophisticated, more advanced [[culture]]. Donnelly drew parallels between creation stories in the Old and New Worlds, attributing the connections to Atlantis, where he believed the Biblical [[Garden of Eden]] existed.<ref>Donnelly 1941: 192–203</ref> As implied by the title of his book, he also believed that Atlantis was destroyed by the [[Great Flood]] mentioned in the Bible.

Donnelly is credited as the "father of the nineteenth century Atlantis revival" and is the reason the [[myth]] endures today.<ref>{{cite book |author=Williams, Stephen |year=1991 |title=Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory |url=https://archive.org/details/fantasticarchaeo00will |url-access=registration |location=Philadelphia |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-8238-2 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/fantasticarchaeo00will/page/137 137–138] }}</ref> He unintentionally promoted an alternative method of inquiry to history and science, and the idea that myths contain hidden information that opens them to "ingenious" interpretation by people who believe they have new or special insight.<ref>Jordan, Paul (2006). "Esoteric Egypt". In Garrett G. Fagan. Archaeological Fantasies. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 23–46. {{ISBN|978-0-415-30593-8}}</ref>

====Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists====
[[File:Map of Atlantis.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.6|{{center|Map of Atlantis according to [[William Scott-Elliot]] (''The Story of Atlantis'', Russian edition, 1910)}}]]
[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky]], the founder of the [[Theosophists]], took up [[Donnelly]]'s interpretations when she wrote ''[[The Secret Doctrine]]'' (1888), which she claimed was originally dictated in Atlantis. She maintained that the Atlanteans were cultural heroes (contrary to [[Plato]], who describes them mainly as a military threat). She believed in a form of racial [[evolution]] (as opposed to primate evolution). In her process of evolution the Atlanteans were the fourth "[[root race]]", which were succeeded by the fifth, the "[[Aryan race]]", which she identified with the modern human race.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

In her book, Blavatsky reported that the civilization of Atlantis reached its peak between 1,000,000 and 900,000 years ago, but destroyed itself through internal [[warfare]] brought about by the dangerous use of [[psychic]] and [[supernatural]] powers of the inhabitants. [[Rudolf Steiner]], the founder of [[anthroposophy]] and [[Waldorf Schools]], along with other well known Theosophists, such as [[Annie Besant]], also wrote of [[cultural]] evolution in much the same vein. Other occultists followed the same lead, at least to the point of tracing the lineage of occult practices back to Atlantis. Among the most famous is [[Dion Fortune]] in her ''Esoteric Orders and Their Work''.<ref>{{cite web |last=Fortune |first=Dion |title=Esoteric Orders and Their Work |url=http://www.ourladyisgod.com/images/eBooks/Dion_Fortune_-_Esoteric_Orders_And_Their_Work_cd6_id1971727491_size183.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.ourladyisgod.com/images/eBooks/Dion_Fortune_-_Esoteric_Orders_And_Their_Work_cd6_id1971727491_size183.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live |access-date=19 January 2021 |website=ourladyisgod.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

Drawing on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and [[Hanns Hörbiger]], [[Egon Friedell]] started his book ''{{interlanguage link|Kulturgeschichte des Altertums|de}}'', and thus his historical analysis of antiquity, with the ancient culture of Atlantis. The book was published in 1940.

====Nazism and occultism====
{{See also|Nazism and occultism}}

[[Blavatsky]] was also inspired by the work of the 18th-century [[astronomer]] [[Jean-Sylvain Bailly]], who had "Orientalized" the Atlantis [[myth]] in his mythical continent of [[Hyperborea]], a reference to [[Greek myths]] featuring a Northern European region of the same name, home to a giant, godlike race.<ref name="Edelstein 2006: 268">{{cite journal |author=Edelstein, Dan |year=2006 |title=Hyperborean Atlantis: Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Madame Blavatsky, and the Nazi Myth |journal=Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture |volume=35 |pages=267–291 [p. 268] |issn=0360-2370 |doi=10.1353/sec.2010.0055|s2cid=144152893 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Ratner. |first1=Paul |date=26 November 2018 |title=Why the Nazis were obsessed with finding the lost city of Atlantis |url=https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/why-the-nazis-were-obsessed-with-finding-the-lost-city-of-atlantis |access-date=19 June 2020}}</ref> Dan Edelstein claims that her reshaping of this theory in ''[[The Secret Doctrine]]'' provided the [[Nazism|Nazis]] with a mythological precedent and a pretext for their ideological platform and [[The Holocaust|their subsequent genocide]].<ref name="Edelstein 2006: 268" /> However, Blavatsky's writings mention that the Atlantean were in fact olive-skinned peoples with Mongoloid traits who were the ancestors of modern [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]], [[Mongolia]]ns, and [[Malayans]].<ref name="Powell-36">Powell, ''The Solar System'', pp. 25–26. (Ch. 36. "The second Atlantean sub-race: the Tlavatli".)</ref><ref name="Powell-39">Powell, ''The Solar System'', pp. 252–263. (Ch. 39. "Ancient Peru: A Toltec remnant".)</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Root races |url=http://www.unariunwisdom.com/the-seven-root-races/ |access-date=29 September 2018 |website=Uranian Wisdom|date=11 August 2015 }}</ref>

The idea that the Atlanteans were [[Hyperborean]], [[Nordic countries|Nordic]] supermen who originated in the Northern Atlantic or even in the far North, was popular in the German [[Ariosophy#The occult roots of Nazism|ariosophic movement]] around 1900, propagated by [[Guido von List]] and others.<ref>Joscelyn Godwin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=26v0qQcI0vwC&pg=PA37 Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival]'', Kempton ILL 1996, pp. 37–78.</ref> It gave its name to the ''Thule Gesellschaft'', an antisemite Münich lodge, which preceded the German [[Nazi Party]] (see [[Thule]]). The scholars {{ill|Karl Georg Zschaetzsch|de}} (1920) and [[Herman Wirth]] (1928) were the first to speak of a "Nordic-Atlantean" or "Aryan-Nordic" master race that spread from Atlantis over the Northern Hemisphere and beyond. The Hyperboreans were contrasted with the Jewish people. Party ideologist [[Alfred Rosenberg]] (in ''[[The Myth of the Twentieth Century]]'', 1930) and SS-leader [[Heinrich Himmler]] made it part of the official doctrine.<ref>{{cite web |author=Alfred Rosenberg |title=Excerpts from "The Myth of the Twentieth Century" |url=http://www.cwporter.com/mythos.htm |access-date=28 June 2019 |website=cwporter.com}}</ref> The idea was followed up by the adherents of [[Esoteric Nazism]] such as [[Julius Evola]] (1934) and, more recently, [[Miguel Serrano]] (1978).

The idea of Atlantis as the homeland of the Caucasian race would contradict the beliefs of older Esoteric and Theosophic groups, which taught that the Atlanteans were non-Caucasian brown-skinned peoples. Modern Esoteric groups, including the Theosophic Society, do not consider Atlantean society to have been superior or Utopian—they rather consider it a lower stage of evolution.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Theosophical Root Races |url=http://www.kheper.net/topics/Theosophy/root_races.html |access-date=29 September 2018 |website=Kepher |archive-date=1 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180901224225/http://www.kheper.net/topics/Theosophy/root_races.html }}</ref>

====Edgar Cayce====
The clairvoyant [[Edgar Cayce]] spoke frequently of Atlantis. During his "life readings", he claimed that many of his subjects were [[reincarnations]] of people who had lived there. By tapping into their [[collective consciousness]], the "[[Akashic Records]]" (a term borrowed from [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|Theosophy]]),<ref>See Tillett, Gregory John ''[[Charles Webster Leadbeater]] (1854–1934), a biographical study''. Ph.D. Thesis. [[University of Sydney]], Department of Religious Studies, Sydney, 1986 – [http://leadbeater.org/tillettcwlnotes.htm p. 985] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141130034314/http://leadbeater.org/tillettcwlnotes.htm |date=30 November 2014 }}.</ref> Cayce declared that he was able to give detailed descriptions of the lost continent.<ref>{{cite book |author=Cayce, Edgar Evans |year=1968 |title=Edgar Cayce on Atlantis |url=https://archive.org/details/edgarcayceonatla00cayc_018 |url-access=limited |location=New York and Boston |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |isbn=978-0-446-35102-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/edgarcayceonatla00cayc_018/page/n13 27]–28 }}</ref> He also asserted that Atlantis would "rise" again in the 1960s (sparking much popularity of the myth in that decade) and that there is a "[[Hall of Records]]" beneath the [[Egyptian Sphinx]] which holds the historical texts of Atlantis.

====Recent times====
As [[continental drift]] became widely accepted during the 1960s, and the increased understanding of [[plate tectonics]] demonstrated the impossibility of a lost continent in the geologically recent past,<ref>{{cite book |title=Greece Before History: An Archaeological Companion and Guide |last=Runnels |first=Curtis |author2=Murray, Priscilla |year=2004 |publisher=Stanford UP |location=Stanford |isbn=978-0-8047-4036-4 |page=130 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rg4rTjo0OCQC&pg=PA130 |access-date=17 January 2010}}</ref> most "Lost Continent" theories of Atlantis began to wane in popularity.

Plato scholar [[Julia Annas]], [[Regents Professor]] of Philosophy at the [[University of Arizona]], had this to say on the matter:

{{blockquote|The continuing industry of discovering Atlantis illustrates the dangers of reading Plato. For he is clearly using what has become a standard device of fiction—stressing the historicity of an event (and the discovery of hitherto unknown authorities) as an indication that what follows is fiction. ''The idea is that we should use the story to examine our ideas of government and power''. We have missed the point if instead of thinking about these issues we go off exploring the sea bed. The continuing misunderstanding of Plato as historian here enables us to see why his distrust of imaginative writing is sometimes justified.<ref>J. Annas, ''Plato: A Very Short Introduction'' (OUP 2003), p. 42 ''(emphasis not in the original)''</ref>}}

One of the proposed explanations for the historical context of the Atlantis story is that it serves as Plato's warning to his fellow citizens against their striving for naval power.<ref name=Morgan />

[[Kenneth Feder]] points out that Critias's story in the ''Timaeus'' provides a major clue. In the dialogue, Critias says, referring to Socrates' hypothetical society:

{{blockquote|And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of Solon.&nbsp;...<ref>''Timaeus'' 25e, Jowett translation.</ref>}}

Feder quotes A. E. Taylor, who wrote, "We could not be told much more plainly that the whole narrative of Solon's conversation with the priests and his intention of writing the poem about Atlantis are an invention of Plato's fancy."<ref>[[Kenneth Feder|Feder, KL.]] ''Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology,'' Mountain View, Mayfield 1999, p. 164 {{ISBN|978-0-07-811697-1}}</ref>