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Blavatsky Net - Theosophy

Atlantis - the Geological Problem

I think people ought not to blithely say they think Atlantis was in the middle of the Atlantic without understanding what this implies.

To get a handle on this we need to look at the size of Atlantis. As I mentioned much earlier, Plato in his dialogue uses two different words in Greek - one meaning "continent" and the other meaning "island". Indeed in his text he describes two distinctly different sizes.

In one case he says "larger than Libya and Asia combined". Now what did these terms mean to Plato? Libya meant the northern coast of Africa from Morocco to current day Libya. About the size of Europe. Asia did not mean what we refer to as Asia today. It was an area starting at Egypt and moving westwards. I forget the exact limit of it. I seem to recall something like the Ural Mountains. But is thought to be the size of North America.

Now if you combine these two together it is a question whether they are a little bit too big to fit into the North Atlantic. Accordingly most Atlantologists add the word "minor" in front of "Asia" so the reference is only to "asia minor". Then that section of land would extend from Egypt to mid-Turkey. This is a continental size landmass.

Plato also refers to a main plain of the island that is 2,000 by 3,000 stadia. That plain extends down to the water and is surrounded by mountains. Now the exact size of a "stadia" is disputed. However an approximate size is 200 meters or 600 feet. This about 230 miles by 345 miles. That is a large plain. It is almost the size of Spain. If you put mountains around it and maybe just a little other land then it comes to the size of the Iberian peninsula of Spain and Portugal.

So we distinctly have very different sizes indicated within Plato's dialogues.

Here are some of HPB's statements on the size of Atlantis:

"But as no Initiate had the right to divulge and declare all he knew, posterity got only hints. Aiming more to instruct as a moralist than as a geographer and ethnologist or historian, the Greek philosopher merged the history of Atlantis, which covered several million years, into one event which he located on one comparatively small island 3000 stadia long by 2000 wide; (or about 350 miles by 200, which is about the size of Ireland), whereas the priests spoke of Atlantis as a continent vast as "all Asia and Lybia" put together. But, however altered in its general aspect, Plato's narrative bears the impress of truth upon it." (SDii405

"That not only the last island of Atlantis, spoken of by Plato, but a large continent, first divided, and then broken later on into seven peninsulas and islands (called dwipas), preceded Europe, is sure. It covered the whole of the North and South Atlantic regions, as well as portions of the North and South Pacific, and had islands even in the Indian Ocean (relics of Lemuria)."

"And they may then perceive that Plato's guarded hints and his attributing the narrative to Solon and the Egyptian priests, were but a prudent way of imparting the fact to the world, and, by cleverly combining truth and fiction, so disconnecting himself from a story which the obligations imposed at initiation forbade him to divulge." SDii405

I may add that Atlantologists sometimes adopt another clever way around these disparate land sizes. They say that the larger size is the area that Atlantis CONTROLLED - as apposed to being the actual land mass. People will have to choose between this explanation and HPB's or who knows whatever other view.

For the purpose of these emails I am mostly focusing on the small island of Poseidonis and taking it to be about the size of the Iberian peninsula.
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Now to the geological issue. Can you imagine the Iberian Peninsula sinking below the waves in a day and a night?

Naturally that just does not happen according the standard geological view !! That would violate all the known experience of Geology. Of course Geology looks with scorn upon this proposal when we see how big Plato's "island" was - even in its small size.

Then we need to note that the land in question is very deep. That makes it even less likely according to the Geologist. The Geologist says that if the Atlantean ridge was above water, then it was so long ago that mankind had not yet come into existence!

Yet it certainly would make much sense otherwise if Atlantis was in the Atlantic and about where we have started talking - near the Azores.

In sum - I think people ought to understand that Geologists are being quite consistent with their world view when they dismiss this view of Atlantis. Just that they are wrong. Perhaps we should look at some coincidences that have arisen with regard to their worldview.

Reed Carson