Michael Sternbach

New NASA research suggests that extraterrestrial life might be based on something other than DNA as we know it. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/nasa-dna-discovery-alien-life-proof-hachimoji-detection-a8792636.html Of course, we should have known that already...

Holland is also pretty sophisticated when it comes to rehabilitating criminals. Some of the jails are rather like therapeutic centres, with things like roleplay in groups for learning constructive behaviour being offered. Societies that support capital punishment are at the other end of the spectrum. Among various ramifications of killing people for committed crimes, there is the issue that no legal system is perfect and, inevitably, every once in a while an innocent person will be punished. The number of proven cases of innocent people having been put to death was about 50, according to an article I read some 20 years ago. Not to mention the dark figure, of course. Sure, there are also people also serving time in jail undeservedly. However, once their innocence has been shown, at least they can be released, compensated etc. What is scary about capital punishment is the finality of it. And I find it hard to understand that some people value capital punishment so much that they find the 'collateral damage' it entails acceptable. "Sorry about that, we need it for protecting innocent people..."

A fast subsidence of the sea floor (unbeknownst to official geology) has been suggested not only for the Carribean but also (at least by one Atlantis theorist) for the area of the Azores. There seems to be scant evidence for the latter, however. Yet Plato wrote about one extreme portion of Atlantis being in front of the Strait of Gibraltar, which would be fair enough a statement in regards to the Azores only. But he also mentioned that the Atlanteans were ruling over numerous islands, spread all over their ocean. So I figure he may have referred to the Azores as an Atlantean outpost, whereas the mainland could indeed have been located further West and in front of the American continent. That said, I am not done yet with the part of Zhirov's book that defends the Azores-as-Atlantis theory. Thus, I may have more to say about this topic later.

Let's talk some more about possible locations for Plato's Atlantis... So far, we have looked at the area of the Antilles (including the Bahama archipelago) as possibly the best candidate. In regards to this, I just came across a really weird story reported by Reuters New Agency on May 14 2001. A company called Advanced Digital Communications (ADC), run by Polish-Canadian ocean engineer Pauline Zelitsky and her husband businessman Paul Weinzweg, was given a job by the Cuban government to search for ship wrecks possibly containing treasures.This was a joint venture with the National Geographic Society and the Centre for Marine Archaeology and Anthropology at the Cuban Academy of Sciences. ADC has been characterised as "a heavyweight" when it comes to maritime survey and salvage operations; just testing their equipment in Havana Bay, they made it into the news locating the long-missing wreck of the USS Maine that had sunk in 1898 after a mysterious explosion on board. But what they found off Cuba's western shore buffled even these veterans. For their high-resolution sonar images showed them nothing less than a veritable city, complete with roads and buildings - most notably pyramids! - submerged at an incredible depth of 700 metres. Incredible because sea levels rose no more than 120 metres since the last glacial maximum some 20.000 years ago. Which obviously implies that - for those apparently man-built structures to end up so deeply submerged - the sea floor must have substantially lowered itself. Which brings us back to abovementioned theory advocated by P. P. Flambas in his book, stating that a huge isotonic effect (yet unrecognised by academic science) led to the submergence of a considerable landmass in the Carribean at the end of the last ice age. According to what the couple running ADC said in an interview, later it was possible to videotape some of the very large stones, smoothely cut and fit on one another, and carrying mysterious symbols resembling e.g. Mesoamerican hieroglyphs. What this reconstructed sonar image presents is in fact reminiscent of the pyramid city Teotihuacan in Yucatan. Read more: http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/tag/paul-weinzweig/ https://www.timeenoughforlove.org/saved/EARTHFILESUpdateUnderwaterMegalithicStructuresWesternCuba.htm

That means that, in order to understand the classical alchemical texts, you have got to study the multi-layered and multi-dimensional language of the Hermetic philosophers first. It's as though you wished to read scholarly books on advanced quantum physics. Without having a firm base in math, you just won't get very far.

There are, and they left yet another book of seven seals... Having the key is key!

This essentially reflects the philosophy that underlies Bach Flower therapy, a method I have been using as a certified practitioner for a number of years with the patients of a psychotherapeutic practice. It seems to be rather popular also in the US these days (to my delight, I happened to find the complete set of remedies in a Californian health food store right after my arrival), but few know that Dr. Edward Bach was not just a great herbalist, but also a profound metaphysician. According to Dr. Bach, negative attitudes and emotions - beyond causing psychological and physical distress - separate us from our true divine nature. While he was quite clear about that, he was nonetheless NOT teaching a dualistic approach of dismissing any parts of one's inner experience. So while there are indeed Bach Flower remedies for dealing better with arrogance, judgement, envy, jealousy etc., there are others for things like lack of self-acceptance, guilt, and exaggerated ambition for spiritual attainment. All of those act as obstacles to true unity from Dr. Bach's perspective, be it with others or with oneself. Unity is the real aim of this method, and the remedies are actually no more than catalysts in the process of reestablishing it, where it has been lost. There to initiate and facilitate internal alchemical transformation, as it were.

There are loads of practical instructions in the classical alchemical literature, however, much of it is presented in a symbolical language and with some omissions and/or - in some cases - purposeful deceptions. Sometimes the author may have been describing what was still a work in progress and substituted some speculations for the part he didn't know yet from practical experience. While this may not sound too encouraging, oddly enough, while you are trying to find (or to chop) your way through the alchemical jungle, every once in a while, you will find some nuggets of real gold rewarding you for all your efforts. In a fashion, the way is the goal, and few will be in a position to follow it to its ultimate destination, but what would you expect, if that destination is supposed to be immortality. Having studied alchemy for some twenty years, I still enjoy the process of unravelling this noble art, and myself along with it... Then again, I for one am at my best when I can mess with ambiguous mysterious stuff that allows for a good deal of creativity. Which is definitely not going to appeal to everybody, though.

Ewok

In time immemorial, it was common for people to live a thousand years or so. Later, all throughout history, some Alchemists in various cultures have found the secret of relative physical immortality. This is tantamount to the manufacture of the Philosopher's Stone or of an elixir of life. There is no lack of suggestions how to go about this freely available online, however, the problem will be to discern the viable ones. In any case, a thorough understanding of Hermetic philosophy (if you follow the Western tradition) as well as of basic laboratory techniques will be a prerequisite. As to the underlying philosophy, bear in mind that the spirit is immortal anyway (at least on its inner level), so the art is to transfer the characteristics of the spirit to the physical body. This could be advantageous especially if you have a mission to accomplish that requires more than just a normal life span. Alternatively, it may be possible to pursue a task over several life-times, but this necessitates starting all over from scratch every time as well ad various imponderables. It's likely that immortality can be achieved by way of internal methods of (e.g. Chinese) Alchemy alone (as hinted at by voidisyinyang), however, I am not very familiar with that. About Hermetic Alchemy we can talk more if you have any specific questions, though. This website will provide you with stuff to contemplate for numerous years. And all for free, to be sure...

Tibetan Ice

Dear ladies and gentlemen, May I introduce to you Orion's Dragon.

Fire and Ice

Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal

All the President's Men

This is awesome! Good job, mate. One critical comment, though... Amy Smith advocates a hypothesis that a sudden shift of the tilt of the Earth axis relocated the glacial ice sheet of North America into a more temperate zone and thus led to its sudden melting. Well, there is no mention of when Smith's article was published, but in 2007 Firestone et al published their groundbreaking paper (no pun intended!) on the supposed impact of a comet on the arctic sheet around 10.900 BC: https://www.pnas.org/content/104/41/16016.full A hypothesis that found strong support by last year's discovery of a 19 miles wide impact crater beneath Greenland's ice layer: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/14/impact-crater-19-miles-wide-found-beneath-greenland-glacier According to Firestone (as quoted in my February 17 post), the impact (actually, more likely a series of impacts over several days by the comet's fragments) led to a dramatic glacier meltdown with consequences right of the kind Smith describes so vividly in her article. While this to be more plausible explanation than a shifting of the Earth axis as suggested by Smith, testimonies of the latter may indeed have come down to us via certain myths talking about "the stars suddenly changing their position" etc. Also, says Smith, that event drew Russian Sibera right up into the frigid zone - and yes, the shock-frozen Mammoths found there (with Summer flowers in their stomachs) require an explanation! There are even people going as far as stating that the comet's impact may have been directly linked to a supposed axis tilt. Some good links on all that can be found in Smith's article. However, we may want to come back to this particular topic when we are going to look at Hyperborea in another thread I am intending to start in the near future. Whatever may have triggered it, glacier melting and consequent dramatic flooding of the kind discussed in Smith's article is well evidenced anyway. With her own words: Didn't Plato say that the sea became hard to navigate where Atlantis had vanished because of all the mud there? Smith adds: If Smith is correct, it may be difficult to get an exact idea of the extent of the land mass that once comprised Atlantis, because so much land was swept away by the onrushing water. At any rate, Smith's hypothesis seems right in line with Proclus' Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, which we may read as stating that the Greater Antilles being remnants of Atlantis (see my second February 24 post). That being said, the now largely submerged Bahama Archipelago is another good candidate. The following is a picture of the Bahamas from NASA on Wikimedia Commons. The light blue shallow water zone is congruent with the carbonate shelf that was exposed during the Last Glacial Maximum! That paper talks about megafloods in the Gulf of Mexico at the end of the Pliocene though, while Smith is looking at the later Pleistocene-Holocene transition. That said, the paper may be relevant insofar similar occurrences must have come to pass at both of those times.

Well, following the first link in my previous post will take you to another version of the same article (posted on an Aussie website). But the 'paper' seems to be no longer retrievable even with the help of Google Scholar etc.

More or less!

Currently I am looking at the Bahama Archipelago as a possible location for Atlantis. We know that the so-called Bahama Mega-Bank was an exposed land mass larger than Florida prior to the end of the last glacial epoch. This article describes the dramatic events that came to pass about 12.000 years ago: https://www.newsmaker.com.au/news/5646/ice-age-megaflood-shaped-bahamas#.XJva49-1K2d Besides what looks like a submerged street off the shore of Bimini (well-known to anybody with a basic knowledge of our subject), also a number of other possibly man-made structures have been sighted underwater in the area. See Andrew Collins' Atlantis in the Carribean for more on this and check out the following link: https://atlantisrisingmagazine.com/article/ice-age-civilization-in-the-bahamas/ An advantage of supposing this region to be the location of Atlantis: We don't need to invoke any fringe geology. We already know for sure that a large land mass has been covered by the sea there right around the time suggested by Plato. Moreover, this rise of local sea-level did not happen gradually over a long period of time, but in a singular cataclysmic event (see first article linked above). So again reminiscent of Plato's narrative. Numerous species of animals became extinct in the Bahamas at that time. This scholarly study provides detailed information: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/112/44/E5963.full.pdf&hl=en&sa=T&oi=ucasa&ct=ufr&ei=a-ybXPjAGca1mAGzubMg&scisig=AAGBfm05jQ3zYjXRY24WcglIGUrhcQOAcg Drawback of our hypothesis: Despite its impressive size, the Bahama Mega-Bank is yet considerably smaller than the Atlantic Island as described by Plato. If it is in fact identical with the latter, either the information regarding its enormous size was exaggerated somewhere on the way of transmission, or (as Donnelly suggested) we need to read it as including the whole territory that once belonged to the Atlantean empire. Then again, Plato seems to describe coconut trees as part of the vegetation of Atlantis, which supports a location fairly close to the equator. In fact, he mentions that the island possessed all kinds of natural riches, again suggesting at least a subtropical place. in previous posts, we have already encountered examples of such locations that were neither significantly colder than today during the ice age, nor were they subject to the erratic climatic fluctuations that affected most other areas. Last but not least, the West Indies are remnant isles of what used to be Atlantis also in the vision of Edgar Cayce.

Hi DB, Do you know/have these books? https://www.amazon.com/Edward-Leedskalnin-Magnetic-Current-Paperback/dp/B004S1Z7NC/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=leedskalnin&qid=1553701713&s=gateway&sr=8-5 https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-His-Writings-Unauthorized/dp/0970120206/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=leedskalnin+how+to+read&qid=1553701812&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull The first one contains detailed instructions how to construct a magnetism-based device. The second one provides some background info; it's rather esoteric in nature and would be no easy read for most. Anyway, I consider both essential reading when it comes to Leedskalnin. Regarding anti-gravity and closely related topics in general, do you know Tim Ventura's awesome website already? http://www.americanantigravity.com/

Those pieces of obsidian coming from a remote source over a long period of time suggest the use of rather advanced maritime technology for purposes of systematic exploitation. This ties in with the picture Plato painted, referring to an Egyptian priest whose knowledge about prehistoric Greece was impressively accurate IMO. Why we haven't found more archaeological evidence backing it up so far can be explained. Also, relatively recent excavations at sites like Jericho and Göbekli Tepe already demonstrated our generalized views of prehistoric societies as hunter-gatherers to be woefully inadequate. Plato's prehistoric Greece became a distinct possibility. That being said, I agree that there is no hard evidence for that - or for most other things shared in this thread. Presenting tidbits is all I can do for now. None of those will be sufficient by themselves to revolutionize anybody's view of ancient history. Taken all together, they may be forming a beautiful jigsaw for us to behold eventually. That is, for those who are willing to allow that picture a chance to emerge. Poo-pooing whatever is shared right away as not being valid or sufficient evidence will effectively block the process for the adamant sceptic. But that's their choice to make, to be sure.

Hi Sea Turtle, Since you have a connection to Chinese culture, you surely know that the world is supported by a giant turtle? And we find the same concept in Hindu and native American mythology,so I guess it must be true... Welcome to the forums! Michael

The objection has been raised that lack of archaeological evidence refutes the existence of an advanced prehistoric Greek society as described by Plato. This, however, is incorrect. Several unexpected discoveries (reported by T. W. Jacobsen in the magazines Hesperia and Scientific American) were made at Franchthi Cave in the Argolid, most importantly evidence of advanced Aegean seafaring as early as the eleventh millenium B.C. Small amounts of obsidian found in that cave stem from approximately that time and have been identified as originating on the island of Melos, about 90 miles southeast of Franchthi over open seas. And this is not some singular odd discovery, as there were further specimens found in all the following layers, hinting at a long standing maritime tradition. Franchthi Cave today overlooks the Bay of Koilada, however, in Late Paleolithic times, it was four to five miles inland due to lower sea level. Any ports (and perhaps also settlements) associated with it would have been submerged later. Greece in general looked very different in Late Paleolithic times, as Van Andel and Shackleton elaborated in their article "Paleolithic and Mesolithic Coastlines of Greece and the Aegean" (Journal of Field Archaeology 9, 1982). In brief, the Greek peninsula was much larger than it is today, before the extensive coastal plains it had at the time were covered by the immense amounts of glacial meltwater at the beginning of the present inter-glacial period. Van Andel and Shackleton believe that this led to the demise of whole populations specializing in coastal plain resources. Their most important settlements would have been precisely in those lowlands submerged today, and it should not surprise us that we have found but little traces of them so far. Additionally, there is evidence of a period of heavy rains in the northeast Mediterranean midway through the eight millenium, which may have led to the dissolution of the inner landscape as well. Interestingly enough, the Egyptian priest telling Solon about Atlantis and prehistoric Athens in Plato's Critias (111) describes Greece as a mere remnant of her former size, this being the result of deluge, earthquakes, and erosion: The Critias goes on to inform us that the postwar deluge and earthquakes (besides destroying Ur-Athens, as we read in the Timaios) denuded the Acropolis and greatly diminished its size. And we can safely assume that the other Greek nations of the time that Plato mentions in passing were overcome in a similar fashion, because the only survivors of those apocalyptic times were "rude mountain folks". Once again, the interested reader is referred most of all to M. Settegast's outstanding treatise Plato Prehistorian for further details.

Did the Germans that were occupying France in WWII become French? Plato's description really sounds like a world war. The Atlanteans were attempting to control especially the Mediterrenean area. First, they were opposed by various countries, but eventually, the Athenians were on their own. Plato isn't specific about how long the Atlanteans had been occupying any particular area, but his description sounds more like a dramatic series of events going down. How much time there was for cultural intermixing is subject to conjecture. No, that was when Solon was visiting Egypt (around 600 B.C.) and heard the story. According to the Egyptian priests that were keeping those records, the war happened 9000 years prior to Solon's visit, so around 9600 B.C. This is sometimes treated as the date of the cataclysm, however, strictly speaking the latter took place at an unspecified time after the Atlanteans had been struck back. Plato describes the Atlantean horse training courses and battle chariots in detail. He says nothing about drinking milk, though he talks about the bull playing a central role in the Atlantean religion.

Atlanteans, not Europeans though... And yes, proto-Athenians. Both civilizations getting destroyed in the course of the same cataclysm. Nope. But Athena may have been a Libyan goddess originally. And one way to read Plato implies that Athena, coming from a foreign land, founded prehistoric Athens with an indigenous people. That must have happened some time before Athen's war against the Atlanteans, of course. But there is no archaeological evidence for that, at least until now. The events were inscribed on pillars in the Neith temple at Sais, where the Greek states-man Solon learned them from Egyptian priests. According to Diogenes Laërtius, Solon had a brother named Dropides who was an ancestor (six generations removed) of Plato. Solon's information about Atlantis was supposedly passed on to Plato in the way of a family tradition. Celtic culture as we know it came much later in history. But despite the time gap, there certainly seems to be some connection. I intend to come back to this topic later.