The Atlantis Blueprint (2 page)

Rand Flem-Ath

My wife, Rose, has often taken time from writing her own book to give me much invaluable help throughout the writing of
The Atlantis Blueprint.
Many thanks to Bill Hamilton of A.M. Heath for a marvellous job and for his infinite patience. A special thank you to Alan Samson for having faith in this book from the beginning. Also, grateful acknowledgement to Caroline North and Andrew Wille for their meticulous and insightful editing of our manuscript.

Thank you to my friend Martin Schnell for his help with the exciting but exhausting job of tackling Charles Hapgood’s uncatalogued archives. The staff at the Yale/Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library were very helpful in permitting us to explore those materials. Likewise, the staff at the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem allowed me the privilege of viewing the Einstein–Hapgood correspondence. Also, G. Thomas Tanselle of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation generously sent me copies of Albert Einstein’s writings about Professor Hapgood.

As always, Ray Grasse’s humour and good advice continues to help keep me on an optimistic road. The friendship of Laura Lee, and her husband Paul, is a lighthouse in the sometimes stormy seas I’ve found myself in over the past few years. And thanks also to our mutual friends, Jo Curran and Rick Levine. Thanks also to Tony Wharrie.

Shawn Montgomery contributed his great enthusiasm and knowledge of Brown’s Gas. Raymond Beaumont sent several timely articles about the peopling of America. Thanks also to Simon Cox, for getting us copies of
The Shining Ones;
Robin Pack, for his always thoughtful ideas; and Paul Stevens, for setting up and hosting our website in the early days. My introduction to Bruce and Wendy Cathie was a refreshing change when I most needed it. Bruce was the first to publish the coordinates of the pyramids in China. I’m especially thankful to many friends and colleagues at the Vancouver Island Regional Library who have been so supportive, including: Julie Berreth; Dave Devana; Penny Grant; Janice McLean; Kay Morley; Elizabeth Pack; and Leif Rosvold. Thanks to Lady Juliet Boobbyer for her assistance with the research of her father, Lord Rennell; and to Doug Kenyon of
Atlantis Rising
magazine, who was the first to publish the ideas that evolved into this book.

The Atlantis Blueprint
wouldn’t have been possible without the work of many scholars, amongst them Christian and Barbara Joy O’Brien, whose groundbreaking work in
The Genius of the Few
and
The Shining Ones
was ahead of its time. Also the marvellous books of Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas can’t go unmentioned. I am also in debt to three true pioneers: John Anthony West, John Michell and Nigel Pennick.

Thanks also to Fred Hapgood and Beth Hapgood for their gracious co-operation.

None of my work would have been possible without the foundation built by Charles Hapgood and Captain Arlington Mallery

Finally, last but never least, gratitude to Plato and his marvellous legend of Atlantis, which will continue to inspire many generations to come!

Colin Wilson

More than most of my books, this one has been a collective effort, with co-operation and feedback from many friends.

Charles Hapgood’s cousin Beth Hapgood has been tireless as a facilitator and establisher of connections – it was she, for example, who put the authors in touch with Elwood and Daria Babbitt, who in turn did their best to help us track down the missing notes for what was meant to be Hapgood’s revised and finalised edition of
The Path of the Pole.
Beth’s friend Jim Bowles also provided some important hints and clues.

Shawn Montgomery of Toronto, whose role is described in the second and third chapters, also provided a vast amount of information on a subject that is his speciality – scientific mavericks and forgotten geniuses – in such embarrassing quantities that this volume could easily have been twice as long.

Many authors in this field of ‘anomalous’ historical research have also provided important information or indicated valuable lines of research. These include John Michell, Andrew Collins, Robert Bauval, John West, Robert Schoch, Christopher Dunn, Robert Lomas, Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, John Lash, Ivar Zapp, Lynn Picknett, Stan Gooch, Christian and Joy O’Brien, Edmund Marriage, Emilio Spedicato, Alexander Tollmann and Bill Denevan.

Eddie Campbell has earned my gratitude by introducing me to Henri Bortoft’s work on Goethe.

It was the fortunate chance of meeting Gerd and Maria Walton on a Nile steamer that led to the discovery of
Our Cosmic Ancestors
by Maurice Chatelain, and of Chatelain’s research into the Nineveh and Quiriga numbers which has played such an important part in this book. It was on that same Nile trip that our guide, Emil Shaker, made some highly enlightening comments on Egyptian temple ritual.

I am grateful to my friend Michael Baldwin, who has read most of this book in typescript, for sending me a copy of Jeremy Narby’s
The Cosmic Serpent.

My son Damon arrived one weekend with a copy of Stephen Oppenheimer’s
Eden in the East,
thus drawing my attention to a book that was of enormous importance in our research.

Two old friends, Maurice Bassett and Ted Brown, have been indefatigable in helping me to find hard-to-trace volumes.

My thanks also to Stephen Phillips for allowing me to quote from both his published and unpublished work in Chapter 11.

Finally, my thanks to the London Library for the loan of such rare volumes as A.E. Berriman’s
Historical Metrology
and Peter Fleming’s
Brazilian Adventure.

Rand Flem-Ath

At a local shopping mall, a boy reaches for the coins that glisten beneath the water of a bubbling fountain. The adventurer pulls off his shoes but before he can climb over the lip of the pool to seize the sunken treasure his mother pulls him back and tucks a shiny penny into his fist. ‘Make a wish,’ she urges him. With dramatic flair the coin is tossed into the water and closely watched as it sinks to the blue-tiled floor of the fountain.

As I watched the child’s initiation into the wishing ritual I wondered just how many coin tossers know the true origin of this romantic superstition.

In ancient times flowing water was cherished as a gift from the gods. Wherever the earth goddess allowed it to appear was considered a sacred place. To express their gratitude, people would leave a small gift at the site. This tradition was retained even after humans learned to find water by digging wells.

Then came a subtle but lasting change in our worldview. We began to control nature, to bend it to our own design. The original religious impulse to honour the gods and goddesses faded, and was transformed into acts of magic designed to appropriate their powers for our personal use.

Today, when we pause in the midst of the bustle of a shopping centre or linger at a cool fountain while on holiday to toss a coin into a fountain, most of us are unaware that we are miming an ancient ritual. A shopping mall receives its water from an elaborate system of pipes and filters, its true origin possibly miles away. And in spirit it is even further removed from the idea of the gift from a goddess. It marks no sacred place.

But in the ancient world location held tremendous significance. Certain places were so holy that only a handful of visitors were permitted entrance. A web of intricate meaning surrounded rivers, lakes and forests. In time, this significance was transferred to temples, pyramids and other monuments built upon sacred ground. There was profound meaning to where we lived and to where we worshipped, because so much depended on our relationship with the earth.

With the coming of agriculture, humanity broke that covenant with nature. No longer did we feel subject to a careful order overseen by a powerful earth goddess. As hoes broke open the soil, we realised that nature could be forced to our will. But part of the price we paid for that power was fear: fear that the gods would seek vengeance for our disruption of nature.

At Delphi, the ancient Greeks honoured a sacred rock called the ‘
omphalos’
, which marked the ‘navel’ or ‘centre’ of the earth. A myth tells the story of its origin. From the opposite ends of the earth Zeus released two eagles. One flew west and the other east. Eventually the two birds crossed flight paths at Delphi, thus designating that city as the centre of the world. But before Delphi could be occupied, the sun god, Apollo, had to sanctify its ground through battle with a gigantic serpent, ‘Python’, who lived beneath the earth.

Like the dragons of ancient China, Python was thought to be dangerously unpredictable, but after a valiant struggle Apollo triumphed in taming the creature by driving a lance through its head. In celebration, a sacred rock, the
omphalos,
was placed over the spot of Apollo’s victory.

In ancient Japan, a similar story was told in Hitachi Province, where a sea monster by the name of Hishin-Uwo was thought to be responsible for earthquakes. A god pinned down this creature with a river-rock called the Kaus-mi-ishi so that he could temper the fearful shaking of the earth.

And at Deli, in India, there is an iron pillar driven so deep into the ground that it was believed that it had impaled the head of the serpent king, Vasuki, thus keeping the world safe as long as this pillar remained in place.

Widespread myths testify to the ancient belief that certain places on earth are sacred and demand respect. Often, as in the case of Delphi, these sites were perceived to hold the extraordinary power of also being the centre or the navel of the earth. Cuzco in the central Andes, Nippur in ancient Sumeria, Jerusalem, Mecca, Easter Island and Deli have all at one time been held in such esteem.

Many ancient people regarded the world as a giant disc floating upon the world’s ocean. The holy city lay at what its citizens believed to be the exact centre of the earth-disc. When constructing temples and monuments, the ancients aligned their buildings with great precision so as not to dishonour any gods. This was considered a practical duty, since if a sacred site was marred by improper placement then the uncontrollable forces of nature could be released, followed by disaster.

Feng shui is the Chinese art of divining the most fortuitous arrangement of space. The foundation stone of each new building was always selected with great care since it was considered the anchor of the whole edifice and its position would prevent the violent actions of underground spirits from destroying the structure. The entire surrounding environment was also carefully considered. Mountains were thought to harbour dragons that, if not appeased, might arise from their slumber and destroy the works of humans. If a peak was not perfectly balanced, it must be modified. The Chinese were terraformers, reshaping the elevations of the earth around them to ensure perfect harmony.

Numerous tactics were adopted to allow the free flow of ‘chi’, the positive energy believed to stream throughout the universe. Mirrors and fountains, if properly arranged, could enhance the positive flow of chi and, by avoiding a design that included straight lines, evil forces might be diverted from homes and places of work.

Around
AD
1700 the Jesuits arrived in China. During their tenure they systematically destroyed any books about feng shui while hypocritically copying the writings. So it was only a matter of time before the ancient Chinese practice was finding its way into the design of such sites as Versailles. The original plans of the famous French palace built for Louis XIV were rectangular in shape, but the secret application of feng shui forced a change. Winding paths and kiosks were introduced to please the eye, and if they also warded off evil spirits, so much the better. This notion that a place holds intrinsic meaning is called geomancy

Just as astrology evolved into astronomy, and alchemy became chemistry, so has the ancient science of geomancy found its modern equivalent in geology, the forgotten science of antiquity. Unlike astrology/astronomy, which conjures up images of a priest gazing at the stars, or alchemy/chemistry, which brings to mind Frankenstein-like laboratories filled with test tubes and foaming gases, geomancy/geology is devoid of a popular image, but it was once an esteemed science.

At the heart of geology lies another ancient science, geometry. Geometry, which means ‘the measuring of the earth’, is a science that was practised, as we shall see, throughout the globe, but most purposefully in ancient Egypt, where the annual flooding of the Nile drowned the boundaries between farming plots. In
Sacred Geometry: Symbolism and Purpose in Religious Structures,
Nigel Pennick explains the process undertaken by the priests to restore order each year:

The ‘cording of the temple’, using a simple rope with thirteen knots, turns out to be an important clue about the origins of the people who brought sacred geometry to Egypt.

Underlying the idea of geomancy is the assumption that there is something unique about sacred sites that prompted people to construct marvellous monuments at specific locations. Some authors have speculated that the ancients knew of forces within the earth that emitted energy at particular points on its surface. This energy might be psychic, as in the case of Delphi, where the spirit of the earth goddess’s serpent, Typhon, released powers that the priests and priestesses drew upon to devise oracles. Other authors, such as Bruce Cathie, believe that there are sacred sites at critical points on the earth’s surface where the ancients could tap a universal energy flowing through the planet.
²

But perhaps there is another explanation for the placement of the sanctified monuments? John Michell, in
City of Revelation,
comments that ‘the traditions relating to these monuments are unanimous in claiming that they are relics of a former elemental science, founded upon principles of which we are now ignorant’.
³
Among Masons the search for these lost principles has become an essential feature of their secret society. In November 1752, when George Washington became a Mason in Fredericksonburg, he heard the following words:

Whatever we may think of the Masons in modern times, we can perhaps agree that the priest-craft of geomancy needs to be reborn.

Just as astrology may well be a form of degenerated astronomy and alchemy may have had its origins in the science of chemistry, so might not geomancy be a debased form of ancient geology? That was the question that ultimately sent me on the quest that would become
The Atlantis Blueprint.

Today we assume that sacred sites such as the Egyptian, Chinese and South American pyramids were built by local people for local reasons, but
The Atlantis Blueprint
will reveal that there is a single global pattern that ties these monuments together. This in turn implies the existence of an advanced civilisation that existed before the flood and managed to communicate important geodesic, geological and geometric information to people who became ancient mariners and recharted the globe.

This knowledge was periodically lost and rediscovered: first by an unknown people who may have been centred in Lebanon, and then by the Phoenicians, and most recently by the Knights Templar. This lost civilisation preserved some of its great knowledge as a gift to future generations.

Joining me in the quest is Colin Wilson, author of scores of books, including
From Atlantis to the Sphinx.

Our collaboration had an unexpected beginning. Colin had written an introduction to
When the Sky Fell: In Search of Atlantis,
the book that my wife, Rose, and I published in 1995. In the winter of 1997–8 he sent me a fax asking if I could verify Charles Hapgood’s signature on a copy of his first important book,
Earth’s Shifting Crust.
Colin knew that I was familiar with Hapgood’s signature because of my correspondence with him from 1977 to 1982. I was happy to be able to tell him that the book had indeed been signed by Charles.

Colin and I stayed in touch and he sent me a copy of a documentary called
The Flood
that he’d introduced and in which I had appeared. It was around that time that I had decided to gather together the previous four years of research into a new book. Rose was occupied with working on her first novel5 and so I was temporarily without a co-author. I wondered if Colin would be interested in joining me in this adventure? To give him an idea about where the latest work had taken me, I sent him an article called ‘Blueprints from Atlantis’ that was about to be published in the American magazine
Atlantis Rising
(see Appendix 1). After reading the article Colin phoned to say he was keen to join me in the quest.

We began with the death of a professor in New England.

Author’s note: The text of
The Atlantis Blueprint
has been jointly written by Rand Flem-Ath and Colin Wilson. However, to enable the reader to distinguish between their individual voices, Colin Wilson takes the role of first-person narrator and Rand Flem-Ath contributes in the third person.