Jump to content

Lemuria in popular culture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by WikiCleanerBot (talk | contribs) at 11:48, 21 November 2022 (v2.05b - Bot T20 CW#61 - Fix errors for CW project (Reference before punctuation)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"Lemuria" in Tamil nationalist mysticist literature, connecting Madagascar, South India and Australia (covering most of the Indian Ocean).

Lemuria is the name of a mythological "lost land" which was purported to have been located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is said in Tamil legend to have been civilised for over 20,000 years, with its population speaking Tamil. The concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern understanding of plate tectonics and continental drift, which have disproven the past existence of a "lost continent".[1] However, it persists in the literature of pseudoarchaeology and has been used as a location and inspiration in a wide range of novels, television shows, films and music.

Speculative Authors

1896 map of Lemuria superimposed over the modern continents from Scott-Elliott's The Story of Atlantis and Lost Lemuria.

"Lemuria" entered the lexicon of the occult through the works of Helena Blavatsky, a co-founder of the Theosophical Society, who claimed that the Mahatmas had shown her an ancient, pre-Atlantean Book of Dzyan. Lemuria is mentioned in one of the 1882 Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett.[2] According to L. Sprague de Camp, Blavatsky's concept of Lemuria was influenced by other contemporaneous writers on the theme of lost continents, notably Ignatius L. Donnelly, American cult leader Thomas Lake Harris and the French writer Louis Jacolliot.[3] Subsequent literature on Lemuria by other Theosophical Society writers and by Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy, drew upon books by James Churchward that identified Lemuria as Mu.

Within Blavatsky's complex cosmology, which includes seven "Root Races", the "Third Root Race" occupied Lemuria. She describes them as about 7 feet (2.1 m) tall, sexually hermaphroditic, egg-laying, mentally undeveloped and spiritually more pure than the following "Root Races". Before the coming of the Lemurians, the second "Root Race" is said to have dwelled in Hyperborea. After the subsequent creation of mammals, Mme Blavatsky revealed to her readers, some Lemurians turned to bestiality.

The later Theosophical author William Scott-Elliot gave one of the most elaborate accounts of lost continents. The English Theosophist received his knowledge from Charles Webster Leadbeater, who reportedly communicated with the Theosophical Masters by "astral clairvoyance".[4] In 1896 he published The Story of Atlantis, followed in 1904 by The Lost Lemuria, in which he included a map of the continent of Lemuria as stretching from the east coast of Africa across the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.[5]

Theosophical Society co-founder Henry Steel Olcott brought ideas about Lemuria to Sri Lanka in the context of his Buddhist prosetlyization, thereby introducing the idea into Tamil culture.[6]

James Bramwell portrayed Lemuria in his book, Lost Atlantis, as "a continent that occupied a large part of what is now the South Pacific Ocean".[7] He described the people of Lemuria in detail and characterized them as one of the "root-races of humanity". According to Bramwell, Lemurians are the ancestors of the Atlanteans, who survived the period "of the general racial decadence which affected the Lemurians in the last stages of their evolution". From "a select division of" the Atlanteans – after their promotion to decadence – Bramwell claims the Aryan race arose. "Lemurians, Atlanteans, and Aryans are root-races of humanity", according to Bramwell.[8]

Some of the most recent pseudoarchaeology literature on Lemuria appears in books by Frank Collin writing under the pen name Frank Joseph in books printed by the New Age publisher Inner Traditions - Bear & Company. Lemuria has also been referenced in books by David Hatcher Childress.

Australia

Blavatsky theorised that Australia was a remnant inland region of Lemuria and that Aboriginal Australians and Aboriginal Tasmanians (which she identified as separate groups) were of Lemurian and Lemuro-Atlantean origin, after cross-breeding with animals. Her idea was subsequently developed in pseudo-histories and fiction of the white Australian popular culture of the 1890s and early 1900s, including the writings of nationalist Australian poet Bernard O'Dowd, author Rosa Campbell Praed in My Australian Girlhood, author John David Hennessey in An Australian Bush Track and George Firth Scott's novel The Last Lemurian: A Westralian Romance.[9][10]

Robert Dixon suggests that the popularity of the idea of "lost races" like Lemurians and Atlanteans reflected the anxieties of colonial Australians, that "when Englishness is lost there is nothing to replace it".[9] A. L. McCann attributes Praed's use of the Lemuria trope to an "attempt to create a lineage for white settlers without having to confront the annihilation of Indigenous people" (which Praed's father was involved in).[11]

Mount Shasta

In 1894, Frederick Spencer Oliver published A Dweller on Two Planets, which claimed that survivors from a sunken continent called Lemuria were living in or on Mount Shasta in northern California. Oliver claimed the Lemurians lived in a complex of tunnels beneath the mountain and occasionally were seen walking the surface dressed in white robes.

In 1931 Harvey Spencer Lewis using the pseudonym Wishar Spenle Cerve[12][13] wrote a book published by AMORC about the hidden Lemurians of Mount Shasta that a bibliography on Mount Shasta described as "responsible for the legend's widespread popularity."[14] This belief has since been repeated by Guy Warren Ballard and the followers of the Ascended Masters and the Great White Brotherhood, The Bridge to Freedom, The Summit Lighthouse, Church Universal and Triumphant and Kryon.[citation needed]

Kumari Kandam

Some Tamil writers such as Devaneya Pavanar have associated Lemuria with Kumari Kandam, a legendary sunken landmass mentioned in the Tamil literature, claiming that it was the cradle of civilization.

List of notable examples in popular culture

Literature

Shaver's "I Remember Lemuria" was the cover story in the March 1945 Amazing Stories

Film

Television

Games

Music

Comics

Footnotes

  1. ^ Roos, Dave. "Did the Lost Continent of Lemuria Ever Exist?". HowStuffWorks. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
  2. ^ The Mahatma Letters, XXIIIb
  3. ^ Sprague de Camp, L. (1970). Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature. Dover Publications. p. 58. Madame Blavatsky's lost-continent doctrine seems to be based largely on the works of Donnelly, Harris and Jacolliot
  4. ^ See also Man: whence, how and whither, a record of clairvoyant investigation#In Lemuria
  5. ^ The Lost Lemuria, at Sacred Texts.com
  6. ^ Prothero, Stephen (1996). The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253222763.
  7. ^ Bramwell, James. Lost Atlantis. (Hollywood: Newcastle, 1974), 193.
  8. ^ Bramwell, 195.
  9. ^ a b Bongiorno, Frank (2000). "Aboriginality and historical consciousness: Bernard O'Dowd and the creation of an Australian national imaginary" (PDF). Aboriginal History. 24: 39–58 – via ANU Press.
  10. ^ "The Lost Lands of Mu and Lemuria: Was Australia Once Part of a Sunken Continent? – New Dawn : The World's Most Unusual Magazine". Retrieved 2019-01-07.
  11. ^ "Stargazing with Rosa Praed". Sydney Review of Books. 2016-10-31. Retrieved 2019-01-07.
  12. ^ Cerve, Wishar S. (1931). Lemuria, The Lost Continent Of the Pacific (PDF). AMORC. dust jacket.
  13. ^ Melton, J. Gordon (Mar 1999). Religious leaders of America: a biographical guide to founders and leaders of religious bodies, churches, and spiritual groups in North America (2nd ed.). Cengage Gale. p. 332. ISBN 978-0810388789.
  14. ^ Meisse, William C. (1993). Mount Shasta: an annotated bibliography. College of the Siskiyous. p. 146.
  15. ^ The cover of I Remember Lemuria is featured in an article "Warum Aliens nicht grün sein müssen" (in German) (Why Aliens don't have to be green) at Telepolis.
  16. ^ Lovecraft, H.P. The Haunter of the Dark. It was treasured and placed in its curious box by the crinoid things of Antarctica, salvaged from their ruins by the serpent-men of Valusia, and peered at aeons later in Lemuria by the first human beings.
  17. ^ Howard, Robert E. (2006). Kull: Exile of Atlantis. Del Rey Books. ISBN 0-345-49017-7.
  18. ^ Howard, Robert E. (2003). "The Hyborian Age" essay in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. Del Rey Books. ISBN 978-0345461513.
  19. ^ https://i.stack.imgur.com/tIkcH.jpg [bare URL image file]
  20. ^ https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/anthroposophy-and-the-middle-earth-legendarium/globe%20with%20lemuria%20and%20atlantis.png [bare URL image file]
  21. ^ Lupoff, Richard A. "The Descendants of Tarzan" in "Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master Of Adventure". Ace Books. 1968
  22. ^ "Creatures On The Loose #22-29"
  23. ^ "Sword & Sorcery Productions Limited Present 'Lost in Lemuria' - Milton Subotsky & Harley Cokeliss's unmade production of THONGOR IN THE VALLEY OF DEMONS" in "Little Shoppe Of Horrors #37", October 2016.
  24. ^ Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice, 1st Paperback Edition (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 101, et seq.
  25. ^ "Lemur" (in German). Pr-materiequelle.de. Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  26. ^ Čapek, Karel (1985). War with the Newts. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p. 189. ISBN 0810106639.
  27. ^ Pinkwater, Daniel M. (1980). Alan Mendelsohn, the boy from Mars (2. [pr.]. ed.). New York: Dutton. p. 27. ISBN 0-525-25360-2.
  28. ^ Alan Mendelsohn, the boy from Mars, p. 17 et. seq
  29. ^ "Transformers Cybertron S02:E19 - Optimus".
  30. ^ "Power Rangers Central / Super Sentai Database / Gougou Sentai Boukenger". supersentai.com. Archived from the original on 2011-07-16.
  31. ^ "The Secret Saturdays, Season 2". iTunes.
  32. ^ "Welcome to Lemuria! TO ADVENTURE!". www.wizard101.com. November 2021. Retrieved 30 November 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  33. ^ "Visions of Atlantis -- Lemuria -- Listening & Stats at Last.fm".
  34. ^ "Metal Archives -- Visions of Atlantis -- The Deep & The Dark".
  35. ^ "Discography - You're Never Alone with a Cigarette (1990)". Sun City Girls. Retrieved 2014-08-05.
  36. ^ "Black Francis - Velouria (Live at 89.3 The Current) on YouTube". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-15.
  37. ^ "Varien's 'The Ancient & Arcane' is a cinematic masterpiece". Dancing Astronaut. 10 August 2015. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  38. ^ "The Sounds of Nature' explores the Lemurian connection". leftcoastensemble.org. 19 November 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
  39. ^ Elliot R. Brown (a). "Lemuria" (Deluxe edition) The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, no. 7, p. 26 (1985). Marvel.
  40. ^ "Archive » Dark Science #22 - Caspar". Dresden Codak. 2012-11-03. Retrieved 2014-08-05.