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EARTHQUEST
NEWS
A Newsletter from Andrew Collins. Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 2000
Welcome to the new millennium. The parties, celebrations and fireworks
are over and we must now move forward in the knowledge that we have
much to look forward to in the year 2000. For me I am glad to put behind
me the trials and tribulations of the past year. It has been one of
great highs, including the most successful Questing Conference ever
and the completion of GATEWAY TO ATLANTIS, yet also one of extreme lows
with massive legal and personal problems. These are hopefully now in
the past, leaving me free to continue the great work of uncovering the
truth of the past.
QUESTING CONFERENCE 1999
We shall begin with a brief review of last year's Questing Conference.
Over 820 people packed into its new venue at the Institute of Education
in the University of London to hear exclusive lectures from some of
the top names in the subject of ancient mysteries, forbidden archaeology
and historical enigmas. Among the speakers were David Rohl, who lectured
on the Followers of Horus and the rise of Egyptian civilisation; Robert
Bauval, on the Egyptian star cult and its revival among Egyptian Freemasonry;
Michael Baigent, on the cover up of crucial archaeological evidence
in Egypt and Israel; Colin Wilson, on why Charles Hapgood believed civilisation
to be 100,000 years old; Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, on the
human origins of the Watchers and Uriel's Machine, and myself on the
evidence of cocaine mummies and transatlantic contact in ancient times.
A full review of each lecture go to 1999
Questing Conference review.
It was an incredible day and one that I hope to repeat again this autumn.
There is no question that the Questing Conference has established itself
as the premier event of its kind in Britain today. This was reflected
in a major article on the subject in the January 2000 issue of FORTEAN
TIMES. There is nothing to compare with it and we are now able to capitalise
on this good will to ensure that in the future we book only the very
best possible lecturers on subjects you want to hear about. I am currently
negotiating with some top names in this field to bring you the most
extraordinary Questing Conference ever. I cannot release names at this
stage. However, I can reveal that it is to take place at the same venue,
the Logan Hall at the Institute of Education, on Saturday, 14 October,
so ring this date on your 2000 calendars now! Full details of the lineup
will be announced in due course in FORTEAN TIMES, NEXUS and WHAT'S NEXT
magazine. You will also receive another mail spelling out details of
the QC2000 in April/May. Or ring the conference hotline in March.
MYSTERIES OF THE PAST
To get you back in the swing of things I have organised a major interim
conference entitled MYSTERIES OF THE PAST. This will take place on Saturday,
4 March at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1 (close to Holborn
tube station). Times are 9.30 for 10 am start with a 5 pm finish. There
are five lecturers: Robert Temple, who will preview his new book CRYSTAL
SUN (which features brand new evidence that ancient civilisations worldwide
used crystal optics for macro and microscopic purposes); David Rohl,
who will introduce the Atlantis theme in history, literature and archaeology;
David Eccott, Britain's leading transoceanic expert will reveal brand
new evidence regarding the origins of the ancient Maya. Emilio Spedicato,
a professor at Bergamo University and one of the world's top catastrophe
experts, will demonstrate the reality of Atlantis and explain its destruction
by a proposed comet impact in the time-frame allotted by Plato. Lastly,
I will discuss the true location of Atlantis. David Rohl, Emilio Spedicato
and David Eccott have all worked with me on this project to ensure that
the new Atlantis theory is strong enough to convince the scholarly community.
The whole day will cost you just £15. Use the separate flyer to
order tickets or ring the conference credit hotline on 0171.405.2120
(a £1 booking fee will be charged for each ticket). Also ring
the conference hotline on 01702.476614 for last minute details regarding
ticket availability and lectures. Remember too that the event is at
the beginning of March, meaning that you haven't got that long. If all
else fails, just come on the day. Tickets will be available.
I will
obviously take the opportunity to use the evening as a launch for GATEWAY
TO ATLANTIS (even though it will be available all day) and everybody
is invited! It will take place in the function suite of a nearby pub
or hotel, so frock up! It could be a good night. Hopefully, most of
the speakers of the day will be there and you'll get short, and possibly
some quite amusing, speeches from myself and others.
GATEWAY TO ATLANTIS
What can I say without giving the game away. I hate suspense, but the
publishers would sue me if I say too much at this point! In my lecture
at the 1999 Questing Conference
I posed certain questions that would have to be answered if we were
going to pinpoint the true location of Plato's Atlantis. They were:
Why did Plato state that Atlantis lay in the ocean close to an `opposite'
continent once accessible to `voyagers' via a series of `other islands'?
What is the identity of the shallow sea of mud shoals that Plato said
existed in the area where the former Atlantean landmass was once located?
What global catastrophe led to the memory of Atlantis' destruction by
earthquakes and floods in `one terrible day and night'?
Was all or just part of Atlantis' island empire drowned beneath the
waves and, more important, what remains of it today? What is its shining
jewel? Lastly,
Was there ever an Atlantean race and is there firm evidence of its former
existence?
Ponder over these questions and see if you come up with the same answers
as we head towards that all important date of 17 February 2000 when
GATEWAY TO ATLANTIS is published in
the UK by Headline in hardback format at £18.99. Can I also suggest
that before this time you purchase a copy of Plato's works the Timaeus
and Critias, which are found together in a combined volume published
by Penguin Classics. The sections relevant to Atlantis can be read fairly
quickly and easily. Despite this, much of what Plato wrote on the subject
of Atlantis is loaded with important clues as to the island's topography
and position. Take for instance this description of Atlantis found in
the Critias: `... the district as a whole, so I have heard, was of great
elevation and its coast precipitous, but all round the city was a plain,
enclosing it and itself enclosed in turn by mountain ranges which came
right down to the sea. The plain itself was smooth, level, and of a
generally oblong shape; it stretched for three thousand stadia [552
kilometres] in one direction, and, at its center [i.e. a line drawn
north-south through the plain's center], for two thousand [368 kilometers]
inland from the coast. All through the island this level district faced
the south and was thus screened from the cold northerly winds.'
It does not take a genius to work out that Plato is describing an east-west
orientated island which could have been as little as 600 by 400 kilometers
in size, even though he has earlier stated that the Atlantean landmass
was the size of Libya (North Africa) and Asia combined. Plato seems
to be recalling somewhere real, somewhere accessible to `voyagers',
presumably those from his own world. See if you can decipher what is
going on here and we can compare notes later.
One quick clue ... In Book V of Diodorus Siculus' Library of History,
written around the time of Christ, it speaks of various islands that
lie `in the ocean'. One, he says, is a 'fruitful' island of 'considerable'
size that lies 'a number of days' sail west of Libya. It was said to
be mountainous, with a 'plain of surpassing beauty' as well as 'navigable
rivers' used for irrigation. Here were to be found 'parks planted with
trees of every variety and gardens in great multitudes', traversed by
'streams of sweet water'. Here, too, were 'private villas', along with
'banqueting houses' in settings of flowers as well as excellent hunting
for 'beast and wild animal'. The climate on the island was mild all
the year round, enabling it to produce an abundance of fruit - a virtue
that made it seem like a 'dwelling-place of a race of gods and not of
men'.
In this graphic description of an Atlantic island we are getting very
close to Plato's description of Atlantis. Yet is there a connection,
and where might Diodorus have gained his own quite specific information?
The answer is not necessarily Plato at all.
In advance of the publication of GATEWAY TO ATLANTIS, why not visit
the Atlantis Interactive Section.
Choose from a series of possible candidates for the title of Atlantis
and find out exactly what the evidence is for and against each location.
You can then choose again and again, until you get bored and decide
to press the `true location' button to see what happens.
One controversy that seems to be raging already with respect to the
new book does not concern Atlantis but Plato himself. I have described
him as a poet as well as a philosopher. This has been disputed by orthodox
philosophers, who say he was strictly against poets, whom he said corrupted
the mind. However, I must point out that in recent years academic views
on Plato have changed somewhat. In a book entitled PLATONIC ERRORS:
PLATO, A KIND OF POET by Gene Fendt, Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Nebraska-Kearney, and David Rozema, Associate Professor
of Philosophy at the same university, (Philosophy, Contributions in,
No. 69 (ISSN: 0084-926X) Greenwood Press. Westport, Conn. 1998) the
authors demonstrate how Plato can indeed be described as a poet as well
as a philosopher. Other similar ideas are being debated and discussed
among more open-minded philosophical schools around the world.
EDEN - THE ANDREW COLLINS WEBSITE
As you are well aware, Eden - the Andrew Collins website has been completely
revamped with new graphics and a new webmaster. Calimori takes over
from the previous webmasters, Sue and Mark Foster, who started Eden
in 1998 and gave it up late last year. To them my eternal thanks go
out. Obviously, there is much more on the site than simply material
on Atlantis. As already mentioned, there is a major review of the 1999
Questing Conference. There is also various articles on Watchers,
the origins of Egyptian civilisation, Baalbek
and the full story on the infamous `Stones
of Atlantis'. In addition to this, there is a serious critique of
the two recent BBC Horizon documentaries,
the first of which slammed the idea of Atlantis being the mother of
civilisations - a theory proposed originally by Ignatius Donnelly in
his 1882 book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. The second one, entitled
`Atlantis Reborn', trashed the theories of Graham Hancock and Robert
Bauval. Although a number of weaknesses in their ideas and views were
highlighted in a most embarrassing manner, I have defended many of the
subjects discussed in these documentaries.
TIAHUANACO DATING
For instance, the second Horizon documentary, zeroed in on the enigmatic
city of Tiahuanaco in Bolivia discussed at length in Graham Hancock's
1995 bestseller FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS. The narrator dismissed the
view, originally proposed by German archaeologist Arthur Posnansky,
that its Kalasasaya temple court is aligned to the solsticial sunrise
and sunset of 10,000 BC. This conclusion was determined by examining
the slow movement of the sun across the 41,000-year cycle known as the
Obliquity of the Ecliptic.
It was pointed out that conventional archaeology places the construction
of Tiahuanaco not 12,000 years ago, but just 2,000 years ago, with evidence
of the earliest occupation, perhaps a simple village, going back only
3,500 years. These dates were determined by Carbon-14 testing.
All this might be so. However, the documentary ignored the fact that
the findings made originally by Posnansky were confirmed only recently
by American archaeologist Neil Steede, who used state of the art technology
to determine the exact position of the solsticial sunrises as seen from
the Kalasasaya court. He found that the angles of variation caused by
the slow movement of the sun across the Obliquity of the Ecliptic do
indeed suggest a time-frame in the region of 9000-7000 BC.
Neil Steede has also studied the metal clips, or brackets, used to fasten
together corresponding blocks at Tiahuanaco. These he has determined
are made of a nickel-copper alloy known as monel, indicating that the
builders would have had to achieve a melting point 1000 degrees hotter
than that associated with conventional copper smelting. He tells me
that the nickel is of a type that shows the use of meteorites!
I saw a documentary on Tiahuanaco a few years back on the Discovery
Channel which showed that organic deposits, taken from the large occupational
mound near the city, were producing Carbon-14 dates in the region of
2500 BC. I am sorry I can't be more specific as this would be very useful
information now (if anyone saw this documentary let me know). Moreover,
Posnansky's book TIHUANACU: The Cradle of American Man, (Vols. I-II,
J. J. Augustin, New York, 1945; Vols. III-IV, Ministerio de Educacion,
La Paz, Bolivia, 1957) shows elongated skulls found in the hills overlooking
the ancient city which are fossilised. Although no dates are given for
these items I feel sure that fossilisation takes longer than 3,500 years.
No one can prove that the city of Tiahuanaco goes back 12,000 years.
However, there seems to be ample evidence that it is more than 2,000
years old and that for some inexplicable reason the Kalasasaya temple
court does indeed hint at a solar alignment predating this time-frame
by many thousands of years. Moreover, Neil Steede tells me that archaeologists
have yet to examine the lowest occupational levels at Tiahuanaco.
ANGEL SCROLL
News come of the recent discovery of a hitherto unknown Dead Sea Scroll
that scholars believe, if genuine, could be `the archaeological discovery
of the century', that is according to the 11 October 1999 edition of
the JERUSALEM REPORT. Known as the `Angel Scroll' it is apparently loaded
with Jewish mystical imagery, including the earliest known references
to the kabbalah, as well as descriptions of angels. It could also provide
the missing link between the Dead Sea community and the teachings of
the Jerusalem Church, the earliest form of Christianity. Potentially
it is more important than any of the other scrolls so far examined and
is thought to be around 2,000 years old. It consists of some 1,000 lines
in Hebrew, with a splattering of words in Aramaic and Greek. It was
apparently found by Bedouin tribesmen during the 1970s in the mountains
of Jordan southeast of the Dead Sea. They sold it on to a scrolls dealer,
who in turn sold it on to a team of Benedictine monk-scholars who spirited
it out of the country and began its translation in complete secrecy
within a monastery on the German-Austrian border. Here it has remained
under lock and key to this day, the only knowledge of it being released
to a German-born Israeli following the death in 1996 of one of its monastic
translators, an enigmatic figure named Father Gustave Mateus.
Since no outside scholar has seen the original scroll, controversy still
rages over its apparent authenticity, one major problem being its apparent
dedication. At the beginning of the text it reads: `To Yeshua, son of
Pediya the priest, the holy one'. Yeshua is the Hebrew form of Jesus,
a fact that will instantly raise eyebrows among Jewish scholars. However,
as we shall see after the publication of Graham Phillips' remarkable
new book THE MARIAN CONSPIRACY (published by Sidgwick and Jackson, March
2000), this dedication makes perfect sense of what we know about the
true parentage of Jesus.
Among the contents of the scroll is a `tour of the heavens' undertaken
by the author in the company of an angel named Pnimea, unquestionably
the Watcher Pênêmûe of the Book of Enoch (Enoch I,
written in Aramaic between 165 BC and AD 100). The author of the text
is shown the `secrets of the universe' and taught `to contemplate signs
in the sun and the stars and through them forecast events'. He is also
shown `the signs which are in the raging of the waves and the sea, and
in the clouds in the heavens'. Confirmation that Pnimea is Pênêmûe
comes in the knowledge that the Angel Scroll's author learns from the
angel `how to use medical plants and stones to cure disease and predict
the future. In 1Enoch, Pênêmûe introduced mankind
to 'the bitter and the sweet', the use of herbs and spices, as well
the use of 'ink and paper'.
Not having seen the Angel Scroll myself, I can only pass cursory comment
on its contents. Pnimea's role as the angel who revealed the secrets
of heaven is matched in the Secrets of the Book of Enoch (2Enoch, a
Greek text of the first century AD). In this Enoch is translated to
the Seven Heavens in the company of a similar angel to the one who accompanies
the author in the Angel Scroll. Yet the identity of the angel who walks
with Enoch is not Pênêmûe, one of the 200 rebel Watchers
in the original Book of Enoch, but Raphael, one of the Watchers who
remained loyal to heaven at the time of the Fall. This subtle alteration
is significant. It indicates that when the Greek form of 2Enoch was
being compiled the role played in the original Hebrew text by a fallen
angel might have been considered blasphemous enough to be expiated from
the revised text - this role being allotted to the more politically-correct
Raphael. This could therefore be an example of how the original importance
played by the rebel Watchers, as the givers of heavenly knowledge to
mortal kind, was gradually removed from later Enochian texts. See elsewhere
on Eden for the full story on the discovery and controversy surrounding
the ANGEL SCROLL. That's it for now. See you at MYSTERIES
OF THE PAST. I'll also be out and about doing talks in bookstores
across Britain in February (see website for updates). See you as well
at the FORTEAN TIMES UnConvention conference, where I'm lecturing on
Atlantis on 29/30 April, and don't forget that 17 February is GATEWAY
TO ATLANTIS day!
In addition to the above events, I shall be giving a talk at Southend
Central Library entitled THE ATLANTIS LECTURE - FACTS AND THE FICTION
on Thursday, 24 February. It will run from 7.30 pm till 9.30 pm and
admission is £3 on the door. It will mark the beginning of a new
series of talks and meditations on ancient history, forbidden archaeology
and questing under the old EARTHQUEST banner.
As I said at the beginning of this newsletter, let's look forward to
a great year ahead and remember what it says above the stage at Conway
Hall: `To thine own self be true'. Good advice that I shall be taking
myself.
Ciao for now.
Andrew
Collins
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