Lemuria (continent)
Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical "
lost land" variously located in the
Indian and
Pacific Oceans. Its 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in
biogeography. Lemuria has been rendered superfluous by modern understanding of
plate tectonics.
Though Lemuria has passed out of the realm of science, it has been adopted by
occult writers, as well as some
Tamil people of
India. Accounts of Lemuria differ according to the requirements of their contexts. However, all share a common belief that the continent existed in ancient times but sank beneath the ocean as a result of geological change, often
cataclysmic.
Geologists today regard sunken continents as physical impossibilities, given the
isostatic equilibrium of continental plates floating on the thermoplastic
mantle.
Though living modern
lemurs are only found in Madagascar and several surrounding islands, the
biogeography of extinct lemurs extending from Pakistan to Malaya inspired the name
Lemuria, which was coined in
1864 by the
geologist Philip Sclater in an article "The Mammals of Madagascar" in
The Quarterly Journal of Science. Puzzled by the presence of fossil lemurs in both
Madagascar and India, but not in
Africa nor the
Middle East, Sclater proposed that Madagascar and India had once been part of a larger continent, which he named Lemuria for its lemurs.
Sclater's theory was hardly unusual for his time. The acceptance of
Darwinism led scientists to seek to trace the diffusion of species from their points of evolutionary origin; prior to the acceptance of
continental drift, scientists frequently postulated submerged land masses in order to account for populations of land-based species now separated by barriers of water. Many hypothetical submerged
land bridges and
continents were proposed during the 19th century, in order to account for the present distribution of
species.
As Lemuria gained some acceptance within the scientific community, it began to appear in the works of other scholars.
Ernst Haeckel, a German Darwinian taxonomist, proposed Lemuria as an explanation for the absence of "
missing link"
fossil records. Locating the origins of the human species on this lost continent, he claimed the fossil record could not be found because it had sunk beneath the sea.
Other scientists hypothesized that Lemuria had extended across parts of the Pacific oceans, explaining distributions of species across
Asia and the
Americas.
The Lemuria theory disappeared completely from practical consideration, after the theory of
plate tectonics and
continental drift were accepted by the larger scientific community.
Lemuria entered the lexicon of the Occult through the works of
Madame Blavatsky, who claimed in the
1880s to have been shown an ancient, pre-Atlantean
Book of Dzyan by the
Mahatmas. Within Blavatsky's complex cosmology, Lemuria was occupied by a "Third
Root Race," which was sexually
hermaphroditical, mentally undeveloped and spiritually more pure than the current "Fifth Root Race."
After the subsequent creation of mammals, Mme Blavatsky revealed to her readers, some Lemurians turned to
bestiality. The gods, aghast at the behavior of these "mindless" men, sank Lemuria into the ocean and created a "Fourth Root Race"—endowed with intellect—on
Atlantis.
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. The Lemurians lived in a complex of tunnels beneath the mountain and occasionally were seen walking the surface dressed in white robes.
This belief has been repeated by such individuals as the cultist Guy Warren Ballard in the 1930s who formed the
I AM Foundation. It is also repeated by followers of the Ascended Masters and the
Great White Brotherhood. This list includes such organizations as
Bridge to Freedom, Summit Lighthouse,
Church Universal and Triumphant, Temple of the Presence, and Hearts Center.
In a section of the late
Mayan period
Madrid Codex that is sometimes called the
Troano Codex, fanciful archaeologists in the days before Mayan
glyphs had been translated thought they were able to interpret illustrations as "records" of a continent in the Pacific, destroyed by volcanic activity. Supposedly, a similar legend has been translated from unspecified "Sanskrit tablets" that describe a continent called
Rutas.
Kumari Kandam is a mythical sunken kingdom sometimes compared with Lemuria. According to a modern interpretation of Tamil tradition—the epics
Cilappatikaram and
Manimekalai that describe the submerged city of
Puhar—the
Dravidians originally came from this submerged island off the coast of southern India.
In
reptilian conspiracy literature, a sunken Pacific continent (usually styled as
Lemuria or
Mu) is sometimes posited as the homeland of a reptilian race of creatures, often identified with
dragons or
nagas. Various bits of mythology and folklore are assembled in support, such as the Cambodian
naga traditions. Folkloric claims of Australian aborigines sighting "dinosaur-like" creatures are also often viewed as evidence.
The earliest attestation of such notions in modern literature seems to have occurred in the works of
H.P. Blavatsky, notably in
The Secret Doctrine (1888), where she writes of "Dragon-men" who once had a mighty civilization on a Lemurian continent, until their rampant use of
black magic brought about the end of their civilization, and their continent sank. Blavatsky in turn claims to have gotten this information from
The Book of Dzyan. However, many consider that Blavatsky invented the Book herself. Blavatsky believed that the terms "Dragon-men" or "Serpent-men" used to describe the Lemurian beings in the Book of Dzyan were
symbolic, intended to symbolize their advanced
knowledge and
magical powers.
Another early occurrence of the idea seems to be in the
Alley Oop (1932) comic-strip, where lands named
Moo and
Lem (adapted from
Mu and
Lemuria respectively) are presented as dinosaur-infested lands.
*Frederick Spencer Oliver,
A Dweller on Two Planets,
1905*
Augustus Le Plongeon *
James Churchward*
Lost city*
Phantom islands*
Atlantis*
A Black Moon Broods over Lemuria* Oahspe
*
The Stanzas of Dzyan, by H.P. Blavatsky*
Manufactured folklore: Shasta Lemuria.*
An Atlantis in the Indian Ocean
