Here at the Edge of the World

by Eric Francis Coppolino, March 31, 2011

In the midst of all of this nuclear madness, the National Geographic channel premiered “Finding Atlantis,” a special about some scientists who have discovered the remnants of what they believe is the lost city. Its location, according to the theory? Some mud flats in southern Spain, near Portugal, called Donaña.

The original archeological project, started by a Spanish team and then joined by Richard Freund of the University of Hartford, searched the Donaña bogs using a kind of MRI device, looking for underground evidence of a civilization of which they seem to have found some additional clues (this is a previously researched site). Freund proposes that the location of the presumed Atlantis focused on by the special was destroyed by a tidal wave. “This is the power of tsunamis,” he told Reuters. “It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that’s pretty much what we’re talking about.”“Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years,” Reuters reported as background to the program. “Plato’s Dialogues from around 360 BCE are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis ‘in a single day and night disappeared into the depths of the sea.’” Though many have gone searching for Atlantis, others believe that Plato was speaking in a kind of intellectual metaphor.

Of the things about the archeological find that Freund claims exist, the most endearing are models of the fabled city that were supposedly created as memorials by its refugees who landed in Spain—something denied by the Spanish scientists who say that no such models were found. For our purposes, though, it doesn’t matter whether the TV special is true or not—what matters is that the symbol of Atlantis makes a spontaneous appearance in our culture just as the world is on the brink of nuclear disaster.

Though we know very little about the actual Atlantis—including what it was called, when it existed, or whether it existed—the archetype of the Lost Continent is a persistent aspect of human consciousness. Sometimes it’s called Lemuria, or Mu. From one past-life regression about 10 years ago, I have a direct memory of being captain of a merchant marine vessel when Antarctica was inhabited, at the time of the mass evacuation from that continent. According to what I learned in my regression, one of the destinations for refugees was Spain. My wife went there. I stayed behind. It turned out that the leaders of the society who ordered the evacuation were about a century or two early in their predictions.