Atlantis - Response to recent comments
Leblanc Benjamin (leblancb@ERE.UMontreal.CA)
Sun, 16 Apr 1995 09:22:37 GMT
Concerning Atlantis:
-------------------
This is a popular myth, which is now quite dead. We can still see it in
some belief systems of some cults and new age religions, but not really
anywhere else.
Edgar Cayce, on April 12th 1939, started to talk about the last days of
a world which existed a long time ago. What he said was quite absurd and
not logical at all, but it was nevertheless a fascinating story. Cayce
called this world Atlantis - a familiar concept, since the first one who
actually mentionned such a world was Platon (428 BC - 348 BC).
Now, if you are familiar with history, you might understand that the idea
that Atlantis could be located in Antartica or near San Diego is absurd,
since the Greeks didn't know that part of the world. An hypothesis of many
historians is that Platon was talking about Santorin (Thira) island. But
again, Platon might only have created the whole story, or might have heard
it somewhere and written it.
Why could Atlantis be Santorin? Simple. Platon says that a cataclysm
destroyed Atlantis 9000 years before his own time... But it seems there
would have been a translation error from egyptian manuscripts to greek
ones. Indeed, the so-called Atlantis would have been destroyed 900 years
before Platon's time, a date which matches quite exactly the massive
destruction of Santorin by a volcano.
There are other hypotheses, and enough material on this subject to write
an entire encyclopedia. Unfortuately, nobody really has the time and the
money to do such a massive work. :)
I hope these infos helped the concerned individuals.
--
BENJAMIN H. LEBLANC | 6111 Dubois #1 (LM)
Montreal University Student | Montreal (Quebec)
Myths & Modern Folklore Studies | H3S 2V8 CANADA
|