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But there is another obscure tradition of a fifth catastrophe which seems to have antedated the sinking of Atlantis. This concerns another lost continent in the Pacific Ocean, a great catastrophe in the western waters. Old records are riddled with allusions to vanished "Lands--and peoples--of the West." Old Aztec and Mayan
records, that is; the Asiatic records speak of the vanished lands and peoples "of the East." This old tradition appeared first in modern times through the assumption of Sclater, an Englishman seeking for some "lost links," that long, long ago a great southern continent lay stretched about the South Pole very much as the continental land to-day surrounds the arctic zone. He named this continent Lemuria, to fix more firmly thereby his supposition that on such a continent animals of the Lemuroid type must have been developed. It is a curious instance in scientific history that when Ernst Haeckel, most material of materialistic scientists, came upon this Lemurian hypothesis, he promptly incorporated it into his own working scheme, and in his The History of Creation and The Evolution of Man he speaks of Lemurian creatures and Lemurian traces as if the existence of such a land had been already scientifically proved. His explanation, which failed to satisfy all scientists, was that the Lemurian time-cycle was the only supposable thing that explained certain otherwise inexplicable gaps in the evolutionary theory.
This prehistoric, pre-Atlantean continent, existing--if it existed--hundreds of thousands of years ago, has also been called the Continent of Pan. In Oahspe, A New Bible in the Words of Jehovih, published by John Ballou Newbrough in 1882, there is a world-map showing the location of this lost Pan in the Pacific Ocean. Oahspe makes its sinking coincident with the Deluge. The sacred people of Pan, the I’hins--otherwise the Algonkins--had been warned of the coming flood, and were building ships in which to escape--138 Arks of the Deluge
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THE SUBTERRANEAN BRIDGE
(From Mundus Subterraneus; Athanasius Kircher, 1678).
set out from this Continent of Pan. ". . . in the same day the gates of heaven and Earth were opened. And the Earth rocked to and fro, as a ship at sea, and the rains fell in torrents, and loud thunderings came up from beneath the floor of the world. . . . And the vortex of the
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FIGURE 42. Outline map showing the locality of Pan, the submerged continent.
(From Oahspe, A New Bible in the Words of Jehovih; John Ballou Newbrough, 1891, Plate 62.)
[paragraph continues] Earth closed in from the extreme, and lo, the Earth was broken! A mighty continent was cut loose from its fastenings, and the fires of the Earth came forth in flames and clouds with loud roarings. And the land rocked to and fro like a ship at sea. And again the vortex of the Earth closed in about on all sides, and by the pressure the land sank down beneath the water, to rise no more." The Algonkins, oddly enough, have a fascinating word with
a fascinating meaning for just such shadowy fables as these. "It is only Nitatahakau," they say; which is to say, "I relate a fable. I am telling an old story invented for amusement."
This dim continent has also been called the Continent of Mu. And by "this dim continent" I do not mean to say that Lemuria and Pan and Mu, or even that conjectural "western crust" of the Earth from which the Moon
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FIGURE 43. The geographical position of Mu.
(From The Lost Continent of Mu; James Churchward, 1926.)
hypothetically sprang, are identical except in this way; that they all hang together on the same thread of tradition, that something at some far distant time happened in the centre of the space that is now called the Pacific basin. We have already seen that a serious modern scientific theory assigns the origin of the Moon to this planet,
and that a supplementary theory suggests the Pacific basin as the place of the split. We have seen too that a southern continent, antipodal to Atlantis, has been assumed by evolutionists because something like it had to be assumed. Col. James Churchward's recent book on The Lost Continent of Mu is a unique and serious study of this traditional catastrophe in the western waters, carried on over a period of fifty years, during which time he collected all the collectable evidence on this theme, that once upon a time in the western ocean a great continent went down to rise no more.
His material is very interesting. Long-forgotten sacred tablets of India describe, he says, among other things, the creation of man in the land of Mu, the mother country of humanity--which land was not the land of Asia. Records of later date describe the destruction of the land, "when the earth's crust was broken up by earthquakes, and then sank into a fiery abyss. Then the waters of the Pacific rolled in over her, leaving only water where a mighty civilisation had existed." He finds the land of Mu mentioned by Plato; he finds "the Land of Mu," or "Lands of the West" in the Troano Manuscript, an ancient Mayan book, and in the Codex Cortesianus, another Mayan book; he finds it in the Lhasa record, and in hundreds of other writings in all parts of the world, including India, Egypt, Greece, Central America, and Mexico.
He says that this continent was a vast one, extending from the north of Hawaii down towards the south. A line between Easter Island--with its massive sculptured stones for which no man has ever accounted--and the
[paragraph continues] Fijis formed its southern boundary. It measured over 5,000 miles from east to west, and over 3,000 miles from north to south. The continent consisted of three areas of land, separated from each other by narrow seas or channels, and on it dwelt 64,000,000 people divided into "ten tribes" or "peoples." It was called the "Empire of the Sun," and it was the centre of the whole Earth's civilisation, of its learning, its art, and its commerce. Its great cities were seven, and its people, being skilled navigators, had sent out colonists to all parts of the Earth.
But the final one of a series of earthquakes came to Mu, and Col. Churchward quotes from old records: "'The whole continent heaved and rolled like the ocean's waves. The land trembled and shook like the leaves of a tree in a storm. Temples and palaces came crashing to the ground and monuments and statues were overturned. The cities became heaps of ruins.' As the land rose and fell, quivered and shook, the fires of the underneath burst forth, piercing the clouds in roaring flames three miles in diameter. There they were met by lightning shafts which filled the heavens. A thick black pall of smoke overshadowed the land. 'Huge cataclysmic waves rolled in over the shores and extended themselves over the plains.' Cities and all things living went down to destruction before them. 'Agonizing cries of the multitude filled the air. The people sought refuge in their temples and citadels only to be driven out by fire and smoke, and the women and the men in their shining garments and precious stones cried: "Mu, save us!"' . . . 'During the night' the land was torn asunder and rent to pieces. With thunderous roarings
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PLATE XVII. A Conjectural Geography of the Translation of the Earth after the Deluge.
(From Arca Noë, Athanasius Kircher, 1665).
the doomed land sank. Down, down, down she went, into the mouth of hell, 'a tank of fire.' As the broken land fell into that great abyss of fire, 'flames shot up around and enveloped her.' The fires claimed their victim. 'Mu and her 64,000,000 people were sacrificed.'" 1
These are the five great traditional catastrophes of the Earth. After each one of them, according to tradition, the generation of man began again. Again he began to rebuild his world; again began the quest for the knowledge--even for the crafts--that he had lost. Almost like the first men of Earth, he questioned the silent heavens, with no knowledge or wisdom of his own to aid him in his questions or their answers--nothing but vague old tales of something that had happened in a recordless past which had robbed his fathers of a heritage, and had put him where he was, ignorant and alone. What? and how? and why?
83:1 The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria: W. Scott-Elliot. 1925.
89:1 The Lost Continent of Mu: James Churchward, 1926, pp. 29-30.