The Insiders Report: 10 Part 3

Is the maritime civilisation you have spoken of the same group we know as the Atlanteans and if so, what can you tell us of their history and of their demise?

Image by Angelo Scarcella from Pixabay

IN OTHER NEWS: You have spoken to us about an advanced maritime civilisation that through their observation of celestial movements were able to forewarn other groups around the world of a vast natural cataclysm that occurred at the end of the last ice age. This event(s) is recalled in the legends of many societies, even today. The story of Atlantis is handed down to us from the early Egyptians, via the Greeks and Plato. Is the maritime civilisation you have spoken of the same group we know as the Atlanteans and if so, what can you tell us of their history and of their demise?

THE INSIDERS: As we stated in an earlier communication, this maritime group of which we speak, were global in nature by the period that you mention. That is, the what is termed as the Holocene-Pleistocene boundary. The answer to your question is essentially, yes. This group had spread to many locations around the globe and had in some ways developed independently in each location, subject to local natural resources and the like, and populations. But of course, had the ability to communicate with one another; or rather to physically travel across oceans in order to do so.

Such trans-oceanic voyages were not however an everyday event, and were a considerable undertaking both in terms of seafaring technology, but also the vast cost in the application of resources and time to such ventures.

In a way, you might relate this to the example of your present-day society and the space programs of major nations. Humans travelling into space is and has been possible for some decades, but it remains largely, or has been until recently, within the domain of major nation states, for the same sorts of reasons that we speak of with this earlier civilisation.

The group you know as the Atlanteans, were one sub-group, you might say. And in-fact, the Atlantean sub-group had several colonies or sub-groups of their own, in locations other than their homeland.

Now the location of that homeland is perhaps a topic for another conversation. Suffice it to say that the story that comes down to you today is one based on true events. Their homeland was destroyed in the cataclysm of which we speak. And the vast majority of their population was extinguished at that time, with that homeland. But the group, the broader group, survived in small pockets in a number of these colonies or settlements that we mentioned; those that were affected to a lesser degree than the homeland.

It is so that the Atlanteans, as you know them, had developed their society to a high degree. And were at a time some thousands of years earlier, similar to what you would recognise as ancient Greek society. In their architecture, in their approach to thought, philosophy, mathematics and science, there is a parallel to be drawn, a similarity you might say.

One aspect of the legend that comes down to you today, speaks of a moral or spiritual decline in this society. It is said that they became arrogant, dismissive of the ways of others and regarded themselves with an air of superiority. And this has been linked over time with the destruction of the Atlantean homeland and with it its population and civilisation. Now it is not for us to say whether the forces of nature conspired against the Atlanteans due to their own sense of superiority. But this connection, this conclusion, has been drawn by subsequent groups as their story has been passed down through the generations.

To your question of what these people were like? It would not be surprising that your impression or the impression in your legends as they are today, liken these Atlanteans to those you know as the ancient Greeks, because as you point out, the story comes to your society via the Greeks and more particularly the individual known as Plato. But the comparison is not without merit in terms of the way their society was structured. This is perhaps the closest similarity known to you. And of course, this is in no small part due to the influence that the Atlanteans had over the development of Greek civilisation, although millennia later.

The destruction wrought by the cataclysms in the period of which we speak, can scarcely be overestimated. Vast swathes of land were inundated by the sea and with this countless groups, civilisations, cities, tribes, settlements and villages. And this was not limited to an isolated part of the world but was experienced in coastal areas all over the globe.

Virtually all the advancements of mankind’s societies were lost; were ground to dust; were swept away. And those remaining survived by means largely of their own wit and fortitude.

It is easy to imagine that only the coastal groups we mentioned moments ago were affected, but this is not so. Those living inland were impacted by fire, by unspeakable storms, by climate change on a scale that dwarfs anything that concerns your society today. So there was no escape, merely conflagrations and calamities of a different nature. And those humans who survived were limited to isolated pockets around the world. But it is true to say that the human population at this time was decimated.

And so, following these events, gaining a foothold and rebuilding was an unimaginable task. Unimaginable in its immensity, in its challenges. The timeline of human progress you might say was reset. Those remaining survived largely by hunting and gathering. And it was only after some number, perhaps tens of generations, that those few survivors who retained a knowledge of agriculture for example, were able to once again begin to move out from the pockets of isolation where they had re-established themselves and begin to share the knowledge that was retained.

Now of course, not all prior knowledge was retained. Many aspects of technology, of their knowledge of nature, science, mathematics, celestial observation, their specialised knowledge of working with stone for example, did not survive with those who made it through. But enough did for human society to begin again and to begin to spread. But the period of human development prior to these cataclysms and after are quite different in their nature. There was very much a resetting of that timeline as we described it before.

To your question of are these people still among you today? The answer is, yes. And in a very real sense, they are you. These people were entirely human. And although their civilisation was destroyed, sufficient individuals did survive to seed other surviving groups of humans with the ideas that remained with the survivors in the aftermath and during the long period of rebuilding. Rebuilding the population of humanity. Rebuilding the structure of societies.

You may note that we mentioned in a previous communication that this group were not particularly warlike, but when pushed, were very competent in the arts of war and of military conflict. It is one of the dividing lines between the time before and the time after, that the perceived necessity and indeed the proclivity for military conflict was different. In the time before, societies around the world had flourished for millennia, this was what you would recognise as a prosperous time for virtually all. This of course was not the case in the period following. And as populations rebounded, competition for resources led the post-cataclysm societies, and civilisations as they developed, to become far more martial than had been the case in the period earlier. It is clear that this propensity to aggregate resources by means of conflict has become perpetuated and is now a hallmark of the way that complex societies interact. We offer this not as judgement but as simply a statement of fact.

So, this group differ from some of the other that you have been looking into, in that this maritime civilisation, the Atlanteans as you know them, were not only real but were entirely human. And in our next communication, we can address with your next question, some of the other groups that have influenced humankind that are different and who have contributed not only to the legends you know today, but in large part to your mythology too.