Micro-evolution

 

Bizarre. Not sure why Breitbart published this. Maybe they defend sharks against narco-Communists?

Researchers discover "cocaine sharks" in the Bahamas

The message of Atlantis (reposted)

Originally posted on September 16, 2018. Reposted here due to technical problems with the old post.

John Michael Greer's book “Atlantis: Ancient Legacy, Hidden Prophecy” is a refreshing middle-of-the-road look at the cursed and unhanged continent, supposedly sunken but still ever-present in our midst. The book comes with a positive blurb from none other than Colin Wilson.

After summarizing the original legend of Atlantis, as narrated (or invented) by Plato, Greer takes us on a topsy-turvy journey through the occult and “rejected knowledge” undergrounds, where Atlantis acquired an ever-increasing significance from the late 19th century onwards. The main culprit (as usual) is Madame Blavatsky, whose magnum opus “The Secret Doctrine” gives Atlantis and other lost continents centre stage in a daringly alternative world history. Blavatsky was drawing heavily on Ignatius Donnelly's speculations about Atlantis, and Greer believes that “The Secret Doctrine” is best understood as conscious myth and allegory. Somehow, people didn't get it, and we know the rest of the story.

However, Greer believes that some people in the “alternative” milieu may have been on to something regardless. He is positive towards the speculations of Lewis Spence and Mary Settegast. The idea of a “lost civilization” which disappeared due to cataclysmic climate changes and rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age, is, in the author's opinion, very likely. Atlantis may have been a large island in the eastern part of the Atlantic, inhabited by the ancestors of the American Indians, and their empire may have waged wars against continental empires in Europe or Africa, wars dimly remembered still in Plato's time thousands of years later.

“Atlantis” isn't just about Atlantis, however. Greer skillfully weaves his own worldview into the narrative, a worldview many modern Westerners will reject as too pessimistic, as it is based on the rock-solid conviction that finite resources matter, that peak oil is a reality, and that our civilization is therefore unsustainable in a very fundamental sense. Not only that, Greer doesn't believe in “progress” overall, pointing out that our species lives on borrowed time between two Ice Ages on a very, very shaky planet – literally. Some of the geological disaster scenarios mentioned by the author are downright scary! Atlantis thus once again becomes a symbol, a symbol for our present predicament in which a culture dominated by hubris is threatened by – you guessed it – cataclysmic climate changes and rising sea levels.

Yet, “Atlantis” also offers hope. Greer doesn't claim that the Lost Civilization had access to space age technology powered by magic. Rather, he believes that the real Atlantis was based on Stone Age technology. His point is that a high culture with towns, ships, a writing system and even empires can be created on such a basis alone. In that sense, there is hope for humanity even after a collapse of The Modern. That is the hidden prophecy of Atlantis.

Caribbean cruise

LOL.  

"Woke", pro-gay Walt Disney owns entire island in anti-gay Caribbean nation

The message of Atlantis

John Michael Greer's book “Atlantis: Ancient Legacy, Hidden Prophecy” is a refreshing middle-of-the-road look at the cursed and unhanged continent, supposedly sunken but still ever-present in our midst. The book comes with a positive blurb from none other than Colin Wilson.

After summarizing the original legend of Atlantis, as narrated (or invented) by Plato, Greer takes us on a topsy-turvy journey through the occult and “rejected knowledge” undergrounds, where Atlantis acquired an ever-increasing significance from the late 19th century onwards. The main culprit (as usual) is Madame Blavatsky, whose magnum opus “The Secret Doctrine” gives Atlantis and other lost continents centre stage in a daringly alternative world history. Blavatsky was drawing heavily on Ignatius Donnelly's speculations about Atlantis, and Greer believes that “The Secret Doctrine” is best understood as conscious myth and allegory. Somehow, people didn't get it, and we know the rest of the story.

However, Greer believes that some people in the “alternative” milieu may have been on to something regardless. He is positive towards the speculations of Lewis Spence and Mary Settegast. The idea of a “lost civilization” which disappeared due to cataclysmic climate changes and rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age, is, in the author's opinion, very likely. Atlantis may have been a large island in the eastern part of the Atlantic, inhabited by the ancestors of the American Indians, and their empire may have waged wars against continental empires in Europe or Africa, wars dimly remembered still in Plato's time thousands of years later.

“Atlantis” isn't just about Atlantis, however. Greer skillfully weaves his own worldview into the narrative, a worldview many modern Westerners will reject as too pessimistic, as it is based on the rock-solid conviction that finite resources matter, that peak oil is a reality, and that our civilization is therefore unsustainable in a very fundamental sense. Not only that, Greer doesn't believe in “progress” overall, pointing out that our species lives on borrowed time between two Ice Ages on a very, very shaky planet – literally. Some of the geological disaster scenarios mentioned by the author are downright scary! Atlantis thus once again becomes a symbol, a symbol for our present predicament in which a culture dominated by hubris is threatened by – you guessed it – cataclysmic climate changes and rising sea levels.

Yet, “Atlantis” also offers hope. Greer doesn't claim that the Lost Civilization had access to space age technology powered by magic. Rather, he believes that the real Atlantis was based on Stone Age technology. His point is that a high culture with towns, ships, a writing system and even empires can be created on such a basis alone. In that sense, there is hope for humanity even after a collapse of The Modern. That is the hidden prophecy of Atlantis.

If you can only read one book on Atlantis, let this be the one

If you can only bring one book on Atlantis to a rapidly sinking desolate island, let this be the one. “Atlantis: Ancient Legacy, Hidden Prophecy” by John Michael Greer is pro-Atlantis, yet surprisingly sober. The author has previously published books on such diverse topics as occultism, fraternal orders, millennialism and peak oil. Indeed, Greer is both the leader of a small “Druid” group, a Freemason and a magician working in the Golden Dawn tradition, apart from being a commentator on contemporary events from a peaknik perspective. In this work, he combines many of these interests to a unified narrative centered on the myth and reality of Atlantis, the world's most famous non-existent place (at least this side of Utopia).

The book contains perspectives on the issue which may be new to most readers, both the true believers used to a faux Mayan Atlantis with black magicians and starships, and hard core debunkers who assume that of course Plato (or Ignatius Donnelly) made it all up. To Greer, the occult Atlantis was originally intended as a “legominism”, a method of teaching whereby ancient wisdom is transmitted through stories which seemingly have a completely different purpose. Madame Blavatsky's fanciful speculations about Atlantis and other lost worlds in “The Secret Doctrine” were legominisms freely based on Donnelly's speculations (at least according to the author – orthodox Theosophists would probably disagree). At some point during their transmission, the esoteric truths they were supposed to convey was almost eclipsed by a fixation on the literal reality of Atlantis and its super-magicians, and we got the sprawling Atlantis myth most of us grew up with (with Lemuria as a more exotic appendix for those “really” in the know).

The author obviously doesn't believe in Atlantis in *this* sense, but he feels that Plato's original story cannot be entirely rejected either.

Basing himself on Lewis Spence and Mary Settegast, Greer argues that Stone Age civilization may have been more advanced than many imagine (while still based on Stone Age technology!), and that the most advanced civilization of this type existed before the end of the last Ice Age. This “lost civilization” – including the island of Atlantis, which Greer places in the Bahamas – was destroyed by large scale flooding about 10,000 years ago.

In conclusion, the author uses the archaeological Atlantis for his very own legominism-like purposes. If human civilization has been periodically destroyed by flood or fire, if Earth itself is a geologically speaking perilous place (even without anthropogenic climate change), if peak oil is a clear and present danger, where does that leave us and our “advanced” Western civilization? The message of “Atlantis” is simultaneously both pessimistic and optimistic. While modern civilization is inevitably destined to decline and fall, with no millennial utopia waiting in the wings, humanity itself (or part of it) could regroup and create a new high culture in the distant future, a high culture not based on fossil fuels but on some other form of energy and technology. Since Atlantis could create a sea empire during the Stone Age, there is still hope for humanity…

While I don't necessarily agree with all the authors' speculations and conclusion, this is definitely the best book on that cursed sunken continent I've read. If you're a naïve believer in constant progress, parts of it may scare you, if you find occult societies mildly entertaining, other parts may entertain you. I noticed both reactions in myself while reading it a couple of years ago. But above all, “Atlantis” has a positive (and serious) message hidden somewhere in between the apocalyptic scare-mongering and the jibes at Lemurian-obsessed Rosicrucians.

Perhaps that's the real legacy of Plato's Atlantis.

Smart phone horror

"Boneless Horror" is a documentary about giant octopi supposedly lurking in "our" oceans. There are many reports from the Bahamas, Cuba, etc. But rather than taking us on a Caribbean holiday, MonsterQuest goes on another wild goose chase, trying to fish for a monster octopus in Puget Sound, Washington State! The giant octopus is said to be large enough to attack a Washington State Ferry. Scary, scary. I tried to watch this stuff on my smart phone but the clip went off-line after about 20 minutes... But know what? I don't think they found the monster, this time either. What a pity. They could have called it Octopussy.

John Michael Greer's legominism

John Michael Greer is a somewhat Janus-faced author, who has both books about peak oil and occultism to his credit. He has even published a book on monsters.

"Atlantis" straddles the two former subjects: the present crisis of civilization and various esoteric-spiritual subjects. Greer has a more moderate and realistic view of Atlantis than most alternative writers on the mysterious lost continent. Despite that, his books come across as far scarier in the end! However, it also carries a hidden message of hope and renewal. "More on that as we proceed".

As almost everyone knows, the story of Atlantis originally appears in the Greek philosopher Plato's famous dialogue "Timaeus". It's also mentioned in "Critias". Plato claims that Atlantis was an ancient great power, fighting a war against Athens. Atlantis eventually sunk in the sea, due to an enormous earthquake. The island of Atlantis was situated "outside the Pillars of Hercules" (i.e. Gibraltar), which would place it somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Plato claims that the Greek statesman and reformer Solon heard the story from an Egyptian priest. Speculations about Atlantis, its inhabitants and their eventual fate have been rife ever since, with sceptics either regarding Plato's story as a myth or a garbled account of how the Minoan civilization of Crete was destroyed by a volcanic eruption at Thera. True believers, by contrast, have filled in the original account of "Timaeus" with their own, pretty wild, speculations. Many don't even place Atlantis in the Atlantic! Greer has little problems dispensing with the fringe "theories", although he does it in a relatively charitable manner.

Apart from Atlantis, occultists and people in the rejected-knowledge movement have "discovered" or invented other sunken continents. Of these, Lemuria is the most well-known. Originally a scientific speculation about a land bridge between Madagascar and India, Lemuria has "migrated" eastwards, eventually ending up in California! Some people apparently believe that Mount Shasta is the last remnant of this sunken landmass. There is also the Hyperborean continent and the weirdly named Mu. (Greer doesn't mention the British pop band "Justified Ancients of Mu Mu"!) The most interesting idea from Greer's part is that Madame Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine" isn't meant to be taken literally. Rather, it's a exoteric doctrine in the form of a "legominism", an adaptation of the esoteric message in a form appropriate for its time, with the actual contents being hidden beneath a surface seemingly about something else. If Greer is right, Theosophists and others who diligently study Blavatsky's two-volume opus and take it as literal truth, have misunderstood the deeper purpose of the work.

While more "moderate" than most people in the rejected-knowledge movement, the author nevertheless presents some speculations of his own. The Earth was rocked by catastrophic floods, climate change and other disasters at about the same time as Plato's Atlantis is supposed to have been destroyed. Greer further believes that Plato's geography makes sense, and that Atlantis could have been an island off the American Atlantic coast. Both Cuba and the Bahama islands were much larger 10,000 years ago. Greer tentatively suggests that Grand Bahama Bank might have been the location of Atlantis. This is not a new theory, and strange structures have actually been found off the coast of Bimini Island (the famous Bimini Road). In Greer's opinion, they could be man-made.

Of course, if Greer and others are correct, we would have to *radically* revise our view of the Stone Age. Greer believes it's possible to create a real civilization with Stone Age technology, a civilization with towns, ships, empires, advanced art, writing and a relatively advanced agriculture and animal husbandry. Some of his arguments are compelling, others less so. Surely a Stone Age empire is a stretch? Greer is positive towards Charles Hapgood's classic "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings", generally regarded as a pseudo-scientific work. Yet, I admit that his case against knuckle-walking cavemen (or traditional hunters and gatherers) is somewhat stronger than I expected.

Of course, John Michael Greer has an agenda with "Atlantis", as those familiar with his other books might have guessed already. Greer is a strong opponent of the Myth of Progress, and a supporter of the cyclical view of history. Modern civilization is inevitably heading for disaster because of cataclysmic climate change. Even apart from man-made disasters, Earth is an unstable planet. Naturally occurring changes in climate have occurred before, and even worse disasters are possible. Thus, a volcanic eruption at La Palma in the Canary Islands could create a megatsunami that would literally wipe out the U.S. East Coast, including New York City and Washington DC, flooding everything in its way until stopped by the Appalachians. It will happen, sooner or later - if tomorrow or in ten thousand years, nobody knows. Frankly, I was scared reading ppg. 126-129 of this book! Greer's hard line comment: "Get used to it". Ooops.

Thus, the story of Atlantis carries an unexpected warning to our own time: the Myth of Progress is phoney, the Stone Age was really quite advanced, but its sophisticated civilization eventually went under, so what makes us think we are any different? However, "Atlantis" also contains a germ of hope. The other coin of Greer's reasoning is that humans can create a viable civilization even without modern, Western technology. Thus, the human race doesn't have to go extinct just because *we* do (this apocalyptic idea is really the flip side of the Myth of Progress). Even after massive future disasters, enough of humanity will survive to start the cycle anew, on a very different planet - just as we did the last time around, after the destruction of Atlantis.

"Atlantis" thus turns out to be Greer's very own legominism. It's not really a book about Atlantis at all, but carries a hidden message adapted to the conspiracist-sensationalist sensibilities of the Internet age. People seemed to have missed the real point of Blavatsky's oeuvre. I can only hope that they won't miss the point of John Michael Greer...

The hidden prophecy

John Michael Greer is a polymorphous author, equally at home in the murky world of environmentalist politics and the ecstatic lights of esoteric knowledge. He has even penned a work on vampires, ghosts and other monsters!

"Atlantis" is JMG's take on the ultimate sunken continent, a staple of occult lore since at least Madame Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine". Being at the moderate end of the alternative-knowledge spectrum, Greer actually rejects most speculations about Atlantis as too wild, not to mention too oblivious to what Plato actually said in "Timaeus" and "Critias", the two Socratic dialogues where the story of Atlantis makes it first known appearance. Other sunken continents, including Lemuria and Mu, are given even shorter shrift.

After a survey of everyone from Ignatius Donnelly and Blavatsky to Hans Hörbiger (how I hate *that* guy!) and Colin Wilson, Greer is nevertheless left with a kernel of hard facts he believes cannot be discounted. JMG eventually reaches the conclusion that Atlantis may have been a real island, situated off the coast of Florida in the Caribbean, with an empire spanning North Africa and parts of the Mediterranean. The whole thing collapsed around 9,600 BCE, when the Earth at large was rocked by catastrophic floods following an abrupt change in climate.

It's not entirely clear how seriously JMG takes these speculations, or whether he really wants us to scry our way into the akashic records, something he suggests (in an appendix) we might experiment with in our precious spare time. "Atlantis" isn't really about Atlantis. It's about...ourselves, and our once and future fate. World history is cyclical, Earth is unstable, man-made climate change is real, and our megalomaniacal Modern Civilization have it coming. It *will* go under, one way or another. This is the first and starkest message of JMG's book, and one many of its readers simply won't be able to assimilate. "Get used to it", as the author (an archdruid, BTW) says in a tense moment.

However, the book also contains a ray of hope. All over the world, evidence suggests that a civilization is possible to create even with Stone Age technology, a civilization including ocean-going ships, advanced permaculture, domesticated horses, and small towns. If this is true, then we don't have to fear the impending doom of Western civilization. The human race will go through some really hard times ahead, but somewhere our species will survive the cataclysm and start a new (and hopefully better) cycle.

That is the hidden prophecy of Atlantis.

(For a longer review of the book, see its main product page.)

The *what* of Western Bahamas?

"Shallow-water sponges of the Western Bahamas" is a reference book signed Felix Wiedenmayer, with the mysterious subtitle "Experientia Supplementarum 28". It was published by Birkhäuser in 1977 in the bustling European metropolises of Basel and Stuttgart, rather than in sleepy little Nassau.

I'm being flippant, of course. Frankly, this must be one of the most obscure books I've ever seen! Sponges?!

According to the abstract, this voluminous work is a taxonomic study of the shallow-water sponges of the western Bahamas, particularly the Bimini area. It's supplemented with extensive ecological data. The sponge fauna described is the most diverse among the local West Indian faunas known so far. (At least it was, back in 1977.) Of a total of 82 described species, 81 are demosponges, and only one is a calcerous sponge. The abstract even states that very small and boring forms have been omitted from the work. At first I suspected that Wiedenmayer might be a soul mate of mine, I mean a sponge-infatuated scientist who actually thinks that some sponges are BORING?! However, I quickly realized that he probably means sponges which bore into something, hence "boring" sponges. Damn. We are also informed that the author himself collected most of the specimens analyzed in his book, by diving around Bimini, sometimes using SCUBA. I say this guy combined business with pleasure, major time!

And the rest of his encyclopedia? Previous literature on Bahamian sponges is critiqued. Apparently, Hyatt 1875/1877 used a peculiar taxonomic approach and made speculative and confused use of names derived from Duchaissang and Michelotti 1864. I always suspected there was something "spongy" about old Michelotti. At least in 1977, much still remained to be done in sponge-research, at least around the beaches of Bimini. The vernacular names of species in the genus Spongia used by sponge-fishers were often more reliable than the scientific names! Imagine that. There are also chapters on classification, intraspecific variability and methods of collection. The most unintentionally humorous section of the book is the Glossary, which contains a veritable barrier reef of bizarre scientific terms probably only used by the small group of scientists studying sponges: schachfigur, sigma, sanidaster, schizolectotype, rhabd, microdichocalthrops, and microcavernous choanosome. (I'm probably a schizolectotype myself.)

The species presentations are divided into the following sections: Type material, Description, Remarks on taxonomy and nomenclature, Material, Occurance. At the back of the book, there are plates with black-and-white photos of the relevant species. I admit they are quite "boring".

Further chapters in this work, compiled with the usual German thoroughness, deal with ecology, zoogeography, a general description of the habitat and communities of Bimini, and a discussion of some important collections of West Indian type specimens (including a collection made by our old friends Duchassaing and Michelotti). There are also short biographies of the collectors - the community of sponge-collectors obviously isn't all that large. It's also revealed that four foundations in Switzerland financed the publication of this book.

I'm not sure how to rate "Shallow-water sponges of the Western Bahamas", I mean, I never been to the Bahamas, and if I had, I'm sure shallow-water sponges would be the least of my concerns. Still, I'm convinced that Felix Wiedenmayer really has compiled the sponge-book to end all sponge-books, indeed the great grandmother of all sponge-books, so naturally I must award him and the publisher at Basel FIVE stars.

Next week: Ashtar Command really gets "under the water" and tells you all about the cephalopods of the German Plankton expedition!

Yeah, really.