Lemuria – a tale of a land of immense beauty from an age before Atlantis. A look into the origins of this myth reveal the likelihood of this ancient world.
Unlike Atlantis, which stems from Plato, Lemuria has no concrete beginning. It is a fabled land that has formed out of scientific hypothesis in the 19th century. There are, however, various indicators that suggest such a land may indeed have existed.
Stories of this vast continent have arisen throughout world history. Ancient texts in the far east, stone markings in Central America and various other esoteric sources all point to a large ancient land that once sat above the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
Sacred Tibetan texts refer to this land as ‘Ra-Mu’, whilst inscriptions found in the Americas refer to it as ‘the lost motherland of Mu’. Edgar Casey predictions, which stem from the akashic records, refer to this land as ‘Muri’ or ‘Lemuria’.
‘Lemuria’
The name Lemuria was first used (knowingly) in 1864, by Zoologist Phillip L. Sclater. Sclater grasped the word from the Lemur, a monkey like animal from Madagascar. No one knew how the animal got there, as they were thought to have come from Africa, 250 kilometres away. Thus the missing land was named Lemuria in honour of the Lemurs. The name may also have originated from the Roman word ‘Lemurs’, used to describe dead ancestors that walked the night.
Several scholars paint a vivid picture of this land, from knowledge gained through purported ancient documents. The most noted of these was the great 19th century esoterisist, H.P. Blavatsky, who described ‘Lemuria’ in her vast history of humanity.
Madame Blavatsky
Blavatsky claims the content of her text ‘The Secret Doctrine’ was largely based on the book of Dzyan, which was passed on to her by the ‘Brotherhood of Mahatmas’ (masters), who allegedly run the world from their headquarters in Tibet. Blavatsky said the book had been composed in Atlantis on palm leaf pages in the forgotten language of Senzar.
Its contents mention the ‘third race’, named the Lemurians, while the fourth was Atlantis and the fifth is supposedly our own. The sixth race, Blavatsky reveals, will evolve from us and return to the lost land of Lemuria.
Blavatsky describes Lemurians as having four arms, with some having an eye on the back of their head that gave them psychic vision. She adds the Lemurians lived in caves and holes and had no spoken language, communicating only through telepathy. They also had no proper brain, but could literally move mountains by their will power. Blavatsky believed Lemuria existed in the Southern Hemisphere 60 to 40 million years ago.
W. Scott-Elliot
After Blavatsky’s death in 1891, a leading theosophist name W. Scott-Elliot wrote a lengthy paper titled ‘The Story of Atlantis and Lost Lemuria’. Elliot claims the content derived from the “Theosophical Masters”, who describe Lemurians as between 12 and 15 feet tall, with flat faces, no foreheads, brown skin, and eyes so far apart they could see sideways as well as forwards. They also had an eye in the back of their heads, which proved useful for walking backwards, as their heels protruded immensely.
Elliot says Lemurians continually evolved over time, and today’s Australian Aborigines, Andaman Islanders of India and Lapps are all descendants of this final race. He then quotes the Theosophical Masters, saying that approximately 800,000 years ago, Lemuria sank and made way for Atlantis, before it too perished in 9,654 BC.
However, there is some evidence to suggest Blavatsky, Elliot and others in the Theosophical Society were given misleading information by the ancient Bon cult of Tibet. Little known outside of India, Nepal and Tibet, the ancient Bon Religion embraced principles such as personal power, deception, control over others, telepathy and black magic.
James Churchward
Another adventurer, Lemurian scholar and renown occult writer was Colonel James Churchward, who first learned of the land of ‘Mu’ from sacred Naacal tablets in India. After searching many years in Asia and Central America for information on Lemuria, he concluded that several cataclysms – at 800,000, 200,000, 20,000 and 10,000 years BC – finally lead to Lemuria’s demise.
Although evidence such as Churchward’s remains ambiguous at best, many writers and historians have written of this ancient lost world. Lemuria is described as a land with immense lush forests and rivers of unsurpassed beauty, to which, if indeed such a land exists, we will one day return.
Sources:
- Andrews, Shirley. 2004. Lemuria and Atlantis: Studying the Past to Survive the Future. Llewellyn Worldwide: Minnesota.
- Childress, David Hatcher. 1988. Lost Cities of Ancient Lemuria & the Pacific. Adventures Unlimited Press: Illinois.
- Ramaswamy, Sumathi. 2004. The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories. University of California Press: Berkley and Los Angeles.
- Scott-Elliot. W. 1925. Legends of Atlantis and Lost Lemuria. Quest Books: London.
