Atlantean History

The History of Atlantis

In the Beginning

"In the beginning, there were monsters. For years uncounted in the far distant past, mortals suffered at the whim of monsters, hunted by spirits and preyed upon by bloodthirsty revenants. They were savage, ruled by superstition and the whims of terrible creatures who preyed upon them.

Then, came the dragon dreams – dreams of an island, a lonely land jutting from a windswept sea far from any known coast. A spire, a tall tower of rock, rose from the center of this island, pointing toward the Pole Star. It seemed to the dreamers that this was the axle upon which the world turned, the Axis Mundi, which upheld the sky. And upon this pole, at its apex, nested dragons.

The dreams continued for many years. But they were not the same dreams, not always. As the dreams progressed, men watched as the dragons, one by one, took wing, flying up the length of the spire and into the heavens above. Eventually, they came to realize that the dragons never returned. Soon, the dreams were not dragon dreams any longer, for the spire and island was abandoned. Empty.

But human beings understood that the island waited for them, they who dreamed dragon dreams. The island called to them, and they came. Following the lead of dreamers, small bands of mortals set out to sea from many different lands, each following the vision given to them in dreams.

The Founding of Atlantis

They came to the isle, following the pole star, and saw that it was exactly as seen in their dreams. They settled there, mortals of a thousand tongues, and dwelt in peace. The island sent them new visions, and showed them how they might learn to master the strange sights to which their sleeping minds had been privy. They began practicing the techniques of //hesychia//, the “stillness” or “incubation,” in which they retreated into dark caves and their bodies entered deep sleep while their minds traveled to far astral realms beyond the ken of other mortals.

There they met the Others, the daimons of their own souls, the hidden twin of each soul traveler. These judges challenged them to prove by what right they came on astral roads to the Realms Supernal, and set them to a series of tests. Many failed, sent back to their bodies in sorrow, unable to again journey forth in dream. But some succeeded. These few returned with their souls aglow, lit by a celestial fire. They could see into the Realms Invisible and ken the secret workings of Creation, the principles and substances from which everything was wrought. They had discovered magic.

These mages took their new understanding and applied it to the betterment of the lives of men around them. They built a grand city around the spire, and it grew until it filled the island. The loose confederation of immigrants to the island soon organized into a city-state led by the magi. They called it Atlantis, which in their polyglot tongue meant “the ocean spire.” Over time, the enlightened founded separate orders to fulfill the roles of governance, from mystical militia to scholars to a priesthood of the Mysteries to guide them all.

The Mage-Kings of Paradise

These orders served in the four vital roles that magi were most needed in this city-state: defense (both from within and without), teachers of the Mysteries and rulership. The Ungula Draconis, or the Dragon's Talon, defended Atlantis – they were masters of battlefield magics. Conversely, the Visus Draconis, the Eye of the Dragon, watched over the biggest threat to the safety of Atlantis – the magi themselves, policing them and ensuring they worked for the greater good.

The priesthood of the Mysteries were called the Alae Draconis, the Wings of the Dragon, for they protected and transmitted the secrets that allowed mortals to touch the Supernal Realms. Finally, the sorcerer-kings of Atlantis were called the Vox Draconis, the Voice of the Dragon, for their roar was mighty and their dominion was absolute. The magi of Atlantis were not the only Awakened in the world, of course. Rumors came now and then of foreign sorcerers, men and women who had also attained the Realms Supernal on their own, far from Atlantis, but they were rare.

The Atlanteans believed that the practice of magic was the purposeful incarnation by a mage of the Supernal — the heavenly or celestial — into the lower, prosaic realms of matter, including the subtle realms of spiritual matter called ephemera. The wonders they worked are the source of many a culture's stories of heroes and gods.

The Supernal Ladder

However, the power to warp the very skein of Creation soon outstripped the wisdom of those who wielded it. The hubris of the magi rose unchecked. Many generations after the first had established Atlantis, their legacy turned sour. Mage turned on mage, and so was born the first wizards’ war.

The victors claimed Atlantis as theirs, and drove the losers to the far corners of the earth. Then, combining their power, they wrought a great spell and erected a ladder to the Realms Supernal. They spurned the traditional astral paths by which a sorcerer could approach the higher realms by means of a soul journey, for they sought to walk the celestial reaches in their own bodies. They stormed the heights and claimed the thrones of the gods for themselves. Ruling from on high, no longer bound to earth, even their petty dictates and whims became real, for they stood over the lower realm and influenced it with their very thoughts. The subtle veils were rent, and the higher and lower worlds came together — the pure mixed with the impure, and the universe trembled.

Spurred by the imminent destruction and corruption of the world, the exiled mages banded together and assaulted Atlantis, climbing the star ladder and wrestling with the celestial mages in their heavenly palaces. Their struggles were terrible. The two sides clashed in a chaos of realms, and the losers — sorcerers on both sides — were flung from on high back into the lower realm.

The Fall

The ladder shattered, disintegrating into dust, leaving the victors beyond the reach of the earthbound mages. Where the ladder had been, reality cracked and fell into itself, creating a rift between the higher and lower realms, a terrible void that sucked life and energy into itself. The Abyss divided the realms once more, keeping the high, pure realm from the taint of the low. But this was no subtle veil, permeable to returning souls. It was a gulf of unreality, an aberration that was never meant to be. What was before a single world became two worlds — the Supernal World and the Fallen World, with a vast Abyss between them.

The veil between the worlds of spirit and matter hardened, becoming the daunting Gauntlet, a barrier impassible except through magic. Shaken by the reverberations of the ladder’s destruction, the foundations of Atlantis crumbled and the island sank beneath the waves. The mystical place that had birthed the magi was no more. The survivors would later wonder: Was this the primordial event that created myths of the Flood and the Tower of Babel? Many forgot their magical heritage and their souls entered a slumber deeper than they had known before. This great decline was known as the Quiescence, the Sleeping Curse. The Lie.

The mages — those who remained Awake — could no longer work their magic before those who Slept without invoking the powers of the Abyss. Only a rare few in any place at any time remained Awake, tending the flame of Supernal knowledge, keeping the lore of magic alive. With the Abyss between them and the Supernal World, the source of magic, mages’ power began to wane. It became more and more difficult to touch the Supernal Realms, and mankind was in danger of returning to sleep forever again.

A Flame in the Darkness

Then, one by one, the Watchtowers appeared, their flames sending beacons from the Supernal Realms across the vast night to the souls of the Awakened. Legends tell of five Atlantean kings, the mage heirs of the Awakened City who led the fight against the Exarchs. They climbed the ladder and dueled within the celestial palaces. When the Ladder shattered, they remained in the higher world and continued to resist the Exarchs. These were the Oracles, their numbers few but their powers potent.

Realizing the danger the Abyss posed for the lower world, the Oracles broke off their fight with the Exarchs and set off through the Supernal Realms. Using lore beyond the ken of the Exarchs — for they were royal heirs, privy to magical knowledge allowed to only nobles — they each erected by magic a tower in a single Supernal Realm, modeled after the tall spire that had guided the first vessels to Atlantis. Five towers from five kings. Each invested into their tower the virtues of their own souls and the sum of their magical knowledge, imbued into the very stones of the structures.

The Watchtowers sent visions across the Abyss to mages in the Fallen World, calling to them as Atlantis had once called to their ancestors. Those who interpreted the visions properly and remembered the old ways retreated to caves or secluded towers, sheltering themselves in the dark. They lay their bodies down and, following the lure of the Watchtowers, sent their souls onto astral roads long untrod.

Through harrowing journeys, some of them finally arrived in astral form at one of the five Watchtowers. There they carved their names into the foundation stones and awoke in their bodies. But they were no longer forsaken, for their names had been writ by their own souls. They once more claimed sympathy with the Realms Supernal, although each only in that realm in which her Watchtower stood.

By Oracular magic, miracle, happenstance, divine grace or sheer luck, a mortal’s soul could stir and find itself at the gate of a Watchtower. If his will was strong enough, he could carve his name into the tower’s stones, and so secure for himself mystical sympathy with the Watchtower and its realm.

As time passed and the Abyss widened, the journeys of the soul grew fewer, but Awakenings still occurred. Sometimes, the soul would not walk the astral paths during its trials but instead perceive the external world through Supernal vision, causing the mind to think it had gone mad, beset by hallucinations and devilry. Ordinary people and things became like actors taking the role of Supernal entities, enacting a mystery play for the soul’s benefit. Those who could guess the plot of the play and take their proper role within it were graced with Awakening. Those who failed to anticipate the script or refused to take part soon returned to Sleep, their trial reduced to a memorable nightmare, no more significant than any other dream.

The Awakened yet existed and continued to exist, but Atlantis was lost forever. In the chaos of the escape from the ruins of the island, the Atlantean orders spread in all directions, finding new ports in nearly every part of the populated world.

The Legacy of Atlantis

Many ancient high civilizations were influenced by the Atlantean exiles: Vedic India, Ancient Egypt, the Mayans. Their monumental artifacts, such as the pyramids, are said to still hide Atlantean secret codes indecipherable in full even by their heirs, who hold but pieces of the puzzle.

But before I call this tale finished, I should like to address something. To some, Atlantis was an absolutely real place, an island with a spire that touched the sky. To others, it is a metaphor, the dragons representing Supernal ideas interpreted by those who would Awaken, Atlantis metaphoric of that primeval perfection and one-ness with divinity that other stories such as the tale of the Garden of Eden represent.

Which is real? Which is true? Something either existed, or it didn't, correct?

I say to you, no. They are both true, each in their own way. We have not found Atlantis, but we have found artifacts scribed in Atlantean. Perhaps it was a real place, perhaps a metaphor for a perfected state of human enlightenment on a societal level.

But for us, to us, we who act as the bridge between the world of base matter, the world where we can only hunker down in a cave, fearing the monsters that dwell outside, and the world where we stride into the light – indeed, where we ARE the light – there is no difference. You are a bridge, the point of connection between the material world, and the realm where all hope, all enlightenment, all wisdom and all WONDER is born. Know that just as you have two truths – the truth of your physical body, and the truth of your Awakened, Supernal self, so too has Atlantis.

Atlantis is the Awakening of all the world, and we seek it not as archaeologists, delving for the past, but as visionaries, seeking to bring it about.