THE LOST CONTINENT

By Aleister Crowley

Ordo Templi Orientis

P.O Box 2303

Berkeley, CA 94702

(C) COPYRIGHT O.T.O.

June 21, 1985 e.v.

Sun in Cancer

Moon in Leo

AN 81 e.n.

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.pa

The Lost Continent

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PREFACE

Last year I was chosen to succeed the venerable K-Z--who had it

in his mind to die, that is, to join Them in Venus, as one of the

Seven Heirs of Atlantis, and I have been appointed to declare, so

far  as  may be found possible,  the truth about that  mysterious

lost land.  Of course,  no more than one seventh of the wisdom is

ever confided to one of the Seven,  and the Seven meet in council

but  once in every thirty-three years.  But its  preservation  is

guaranteed  by the interlocked systems of "dreaming true" and  of

"preparation of the antinomy". The former almost explains itself;

the latter is almost inconceivable to normal man.  Its essence is

to train a man to be anything by training him to be its opposite.

At  the  end  of anything,  think they,  it turns out to  be  its

opposite,  and that opposite is thus mastered without having been

soiled  by  the labours of the student,  and  without  the  false

impressions of early learning being left upon the mind.

I myself,  for example, had unknowingly been trained to record

these observations by the life of a butterfly. All my impressions

came  clear  on  the soft wax of my brain;  I had  never  worried

because  the scratch on the wax in no way resembled the sound  it

represented. In other words, I observed perfectly because I never

knew that I was observing. So, if you pay sufficient attention to

your heart, you will make it palpitate.

I accordingly proceed to a description of the country.

Aleister Crowley

.PA

I.

OF THE PLAINS BENEATH ATLAS,

AND ITS SERVILE RACE*.

Atlas  is the true name of this archipelago--continent  is  an

altogether false term, for every 'house' or mountain peak was cut

from its fellows by natural,  though often very narrow waterways.

The  African  Atlas is a mere offshoot of the range.  It was  the

true  Atlas  that supported the ancient world by  its  moral  and

magical strength,  and hence the name of the fabled globe-bearer.

The  root  is the Lemurian 'Tla' or 'Tlas',  black,  for  reasons

which  will  appear in due course.  'A' is the  feminine  prefix,

derived  from  the shape of the mouth when  uttering  the  sound.

'Black  woman' is therefore as near a translation as one can give

in English; the Latin has a closer equivalent.

The  mountains are cut off,  not only from each other  by  the

channels of the sea,  but from the plains at their feet by cliffs

naturally  or  artificially smoothed and undercut  for  at  least

thirty feet on every side in order to make access impossible.

These  plains  had been made flat by  generations  of  labour.

Vines and fruit-trees growing only on the upper slopes, they were

devoted  principally  to  corn,  and to grass  pastures  for  the

amphibian  herds of Atlas.  This corn was of a kind now  unknown,

flourishing  in sea-water,  and the periodical flood-tides served

the same purpose as the Nile in Egypt.  Enormous floating  stages

of  spongy rock--no trees of any kind grew anywhere on the plains

so wood was unknown--supported the villages. These were inhabited

by a type of man similar to the modern Caucasian race.  They were

not  permitted to use any of the food of their  masters,  neither

the corn, nor the amphibians, nor the vast supplies of shellfish,

but  were  fed by what they called  "bread  from  heaven",  which

indeed  came  down from the mountains,  being the whole of  their

refuse of every kind.  The whole population was put to  perpetual

hard labour. The young and active tended the amphibians, grew the

corn,  collected the shell-fish, gathered the "bread from heaven"

for their elders,  and were compelled to reproduce their kind. At

twenty they were considered strong enough for the factory,  where

they  worked in gangs on a machine combining the features of  our

pump  and  treadmill for sixteen hours of  the  twentyfour.  This

machine  supplied  Atlas with its 'ZRO'* or 'power',  of which  I

shall speak presently. Any worker showing even temporary weakness

was transferred to the phosphorus works, where he was sure to die

within a few months.  Phosphorus was a prime necessity of  Atlas;

however,  it  was not used in its red or yellow forms,  but in  a

third  allotrope,  a blue-black or rather violet-black substance,

only  known in powder finer than precipitated gold,  harder  than

diamond,  eleven  times  heavier than  yellow  phosphorus,  quite

incombustible,  and  so shockingly poisonous that,  in  spite  of

every  precaution,  an ounce of it cost the lives (on an average)

of  some  two hundred and fifty men.  Of its properties  I  shall

speak  later.

The  people  were left in utmost slavery and ignorance by  the

wise counsel of the first of the philosophers of Atlas,  who  had

written:  "An  empty  brain  is  a threat  to  Society."  He  had

consequently  instituted a system of mental  culture,  comprising

two parts:

1.  As a basis, a mass of useless disconnected facts.

2.  A superstructure of lies.

Part  1 was compulsory;  the people then took Part  2  without

protest.*

The  language of the plains was simple but profuse.  They  had

few nouns and fewer verbs. 'To work again' (there was no word for

'to  work' simply),  'to eat again',  'to break the law' (no word

for 'to break the law again'),  'to come from without',  'to find

light'  (i.e.  to go to the phosphorus factory) were  almost  the

only  verbs used by adults.  The young men and women had a  verb-

language  yet  simpler,  and  of degraded  coarseness.  All  had,

however,  an  extraordinary wealth of adjectives,  most  of  them

meaningless,  as attached to no noun ideas,  and a great quantity

of abstract nouns such as 'Liberty', 'Progress', without which no

refined  inhabitant could consider a sentence complete.  He would

introduce  them into a discussion on the most material  subjects.

"The immoral snub-nose",  "the unprogressive teeth",  "lascivious

music",  "reactionary  eyebrows"--such were phrases  familiar  to

all.  "To eat again,  to sleep again,  to work again, to find the

light--that is Liberty, that is Progress" was a proverb common in

every mouth.

The  religion of the people was Protestant Christianity in all

essentials,  but  with an even closer dependence upon  God.  They

asserted  its  formulae,  without attaching any  meaning  to  the

words,  in a manner both reverent and passionate. Sexual life was

entirely  forbidden  to  the workers,  a single  breach  implying

relegation to the phosphorus works.

In  every  field was,  however,  an enormous tablet  of  rock,

carved  on one side with a representation of the three stages  of

life:  the fields, the labour mill, the factory; and on the other

side  with these words:  "To enter Atlas,  fly." Beneath this  an

elaborate  series of graphic pictures showed how to  acquire  the

art of flying.  During all the generations of Atlas,  not one man

had been known to take advantage of these instructions.

The principal fear of the populace was a variation of any kind

from routine.  For any such the people had one word only,  though

this   word  changed  its  annotation  in  different   centuries.

'Witchcraft',  'Heresy', 'Madness', 'Bad Form', 'Sex-Perversion',

'Black Magic' were its principal shapes in the last four thousand

years of the dominion of Atlas.

Sneezing, idleness, smiling, were regarded as premonitory. Any

cessation  from speech,  even for a moment to  take  breath,  was

considered highly dangerous.  The wish to be alone was worse than

all;  the  delinquent would be seized by his fellows,  and either

killed  outright  or thrust into the compound of  the  phosphorus

factory, from which there was no egress.

The  habits of the people were  incredibly  disgusting.  Their

principal  relaxations were art,  music and the drama,  in  which

they  could  show  achievement hardly inferior to that  of  Henry

Arthur Jones,  Pinero,  Lehar,  George Dance,  Luke  Fildes,  and

Thomas Sidney Cooper.

Of  medicine they were happily ignorant.  The outdoor  life  in

that  equable  climate bred strong youths and  maidens,  and  the

first  symptoms  of  illness in a worker was held to  impair  his

efficiency  and qualify him for the  phosphorous  factory.  Wages

were  permanently  high,  and as there were no merchants even  of

alcohol,  whose  use  was  forbidden,  every man  saved  all  his

earnings,  and died rich.  At his death his savings went back  to

the  community.  Taxation was consequently  unnecessary.  Clothes

were unnecessary and unknown, and the 'bread from heaven' was the

"free gift of God".  The dead were thrown to the amphibians. Each

man  built  his  own  shelter of the  rough  stone  sponge  which

abounded.  The  word 'house' was used only in Atlas;  the servile

race  called its huts 'Hloklost' (equivalent to the English  word

'home').  Discontent  was  absolutely unknown.  It had  not  been

considered necessary to prohibit traffic with foreign  countries,

as  the inhabitants of such were esteemed barbarians.  Had a ship

landed  men,  they would have been murdered to a  man,  supposing

that  Atlas  had permitted any approach to its  shores.  That  it

hindered  such,  and  by  infallible  means,  was  due  to  other

considerations,   whose  nature  will  form  the  subject  of   a

subsequent chapter.

This  then is the nature of the plains beneath Atlas,  and the

character of the servile race.

.pa

II.

OF THE RACE OF ATLAS

In  the  city or 'house' which was formed from  the  crest  of

every  mountain,  dwelt a race not greatly superior in height  to

our own,  but of vaster frame.  The bulk and strength of the bear

is  not  inappropriate  as a simile for the  lower  classes;  the

higher had the enormous chest and shoulders and the lean haunches

of  the  lion.  This  strength gave an  infallible  beauty,  made

monstrous  by  their most inexorable law,  that every  child  who

developed  no special feature in the first seven years should  be

sacrificed to the Gods.  This special feature might be a nose  of

prodigious size, hands and wrists of gigantic strength, a gorilla

jaw,  an elephant ear--or any of these might entitle its owner to

life:*  for in all such variations from the normal they perceived

the possibility of a development of the race.  Men and women were

hairy as the ourang-outang and all were closely shaven from  head

to  foot.  It had been found that this practice developed tactile

sensibility.  It was also done in reverence to the 'Living Atla',

of which more in its place.

The  lower  class  were few in number.  Its  function  was  to

superintend the servile race,  to bring the food of the  children

to  the  banqueting-hall,  to remove the same,  to attend to  the

disposition of the 'light-screens',  to ensure the continuance of

the race by the begetting, bearing and nourishing of the children.

The  priestly class was concerned with the further preparation

of  the Zro supplied by the labour-mills,  and  its  impregnation

with  phosphorus.  This  class had much  leisure  for  'work',  a

subject to be explained later.

The  High  Priests  and High Priestesses  were  restricted  in

number to eleven times thirty-three in any one 'house'.  To  them

were  entrusted  the  final secrets of Atlas,  and  to  them  was

confided  the conduct of the experiments in which every will  was

bound up.*

The colour of the Atlanteans was very various, though the hair

was invariably of a fiery chestnut with bluish  reflections.  One

might see women whiter than Aphrodite, others tawny as Cleopatra,

others  yellow as Tu-Chi,  others of a strange,  subtle blue like

the  tattooed faces of Chin women,  others again red  as  copper.

Green  was  however a prohibited hue for women,  and red was  not

liked in men.  Violet was rare,  but highly prized,  and children

born   of  that  colour  were  specially  reared  by   the   High

Priestesses.

However,  in one part of the body all the women were perfectly

black with a blackness no negro can equal; from this circumstance

comes  the name Atlas.  It is absurdly attributed by some authors

to  the deposit of excess of phosphorus in the Zro.  I need  only

point  out  that the mark existed long before  the  discovery  of

black  phosphorus.  It is evidently a racial stigma.  It was  the

birth  of a girl child without this mark which raised her  mother

to  the rank of goddess,  and ended the terrestrial adventure  of

the Atlanteans, as will presently appear.

Of  the ethics of this people little need be said.  Their word

for  'right' is 'phph' made by blowing with the jaw drawn sharply

across from left to right,  thus meaning 'a spiral life  contrary

to  the  course  of the sun'.  We may assume  it  as  'contrary'.

"Whatever is, is wrong" seems to have been their first principle.

Legs  were 'wrong' because they only carry you five miles in  the

hour:  let us refuse to walk; let us ride horseback. So the horse

is 'wrong' compared to the train and the motor-car; and these are

'wrong'  to  the  aeroplane.  If speed had been  the  Atlantean's

object,  he  would have thought aeroplanes 'wrong' and  all  else

too, so long as the speed of light was not surpassed by him.

Curious  survivals  of  these  laws are found  in  the  Jewish

transcript of the Egyptian code,  which they, being a slave race,

interpreted in the reverse manner.

"Thou  shalt not make any graven image." Every male  child  on

attaining  manhood,  had a graven image given him to  worship,  a

miracle-working  image,  whose principle exploits he would tattoo

upon it.

"Remember  the  Sabbath Day and keep it holy."  The  Atlantean

kept  one  day  in seven for all purposes  unconnected  with  his

principle task.

"Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery."  Though  the  Atlanteans

married, intercourse with the wife was the only act forbidden.

"Honour  thy  father and thy mother." On  the  contrary,  they

worshipped their children,  as if to say: "This is the God whom I

have made in my own likeness."

Similarly,  there is one exception and one only to the rule of

silence.  It is the utterance of the 'Name' which it is death  to

pronounce.  This  word  was  constantly in their  mouths;  it  is

'Zcrra', a sort of venomous throat-gargling.  Hence, possibly the

Gaelic  'Scurr' 'speak',  English 'Scaur' or 'Scar' in  Yorkshire

and the Pennines.  'Zcrra' is also the name of the 'High  House',

and of the graven image referred to above.

Others   traces   may  be  found  in   folklore;   some   mere

superstitions.   Thus  the  correct  number  for  a  banquet  was

thirteen, because if there were only one more sign in the Zodiac,

the  year would be a month longer,  and one would have more  time

'for   work'.   This  is  probably  a  debased  Egyptian  notion.

Atlanteans  knew  better than anyone that the Zodiac is  only  an

arbitrary division. Still it may be laid down that the impossible

never  daunted Atlas.  If one said,  "Two and two make Four"  his

thought would be "Yes, damn it!"*

I now explain the language of Atlas. The third and greatest of

their  philosophers  saw that speech had wrought more  harm  than

good,  and  he consequently instituted a peculiar rite.  Two  men

were chosen by lot to preserve the language,  which,  by the way,

consisted  of  monosyllables only,  two hundred and  fourteen  in

number,  to  each  of which was attached a  diacritical  gesture,

usually ideographic.

Thus  'wrong' is given as 'phph' moving the jaw from right  to

left.  Wiping  the brown with 'phph' means 'hot',  hollowing  the

hands  over the mouth 'fire',  striking the throat 'to  die;'  so

that  each  'radicle' may have hundreds  of  gesture-derivatives.

Grammar,  by the way,  hardly existed,  the quick apprehension of

the Atlanteans rendering it unnecessary.

These  two  men then departed to a cavern on the side  of  the

mountain  just  above  the  cliff,  and there  for  a  year  they

remained,  speaking the language and carving it symbolically upon

the  rock.  At  the end of the year they returned;  the elder  is

sacrificed and the younger returns with a volunteer,  usually one

who  wishes  to expiate a fault,  and teaches him  the  language.

During his visit he observes whether any new thing needs a  name,

and  if  so  he invents it,  and adds it to  the  language.  This

process  continued to the end.  The rest of the people  abandoned

altogether the use of speech, only a few years' practice enabling

them to dispense with the radicle. They then sought to do without

gesture,  and in eight generations the difficulty was  conquered,

and  telepathy* established.  Research then devoted itself to the

task of doing without thought;  this will be discussed in  detail

in the proper place.  There was also a 'listener',  three men who

took  turns  to  sit upon the highest  peak,  above  the  'light-

screens',  and  whose duty it was to give the alarm if any  noise

disturbed  Atlas.  On their report that High Priest charged  with

active governorship would take steps to ascertain and destroy the

cause.

The 'light-screens' spoken of were a contrivance of laminae of

a  certain  spar  such that the light and heat of  the  sun  were

completely  cut  off,  not  by  opacity,  but  by  what  we  call

'interference'.  In this way other subtle rays of the sun entered

the  'house',  these rays being supposed to be necessary to life.

These matters were the subjects of the deepest controversy.  Some

held  that  these rays themselves were injurious  and  should  be

excluded.  Others considered that the light-screens should be put

in position during moonlight,  instead of being opened at sunset,

as was the custom.  This, however, was never attempted, the great

mass of the people being devoted to the moon.  Others wished full

sunlight, the aim of Atlas being (they thought) to reach the sun.

But  this theory contradicted the prime axiom of attaining things

through their opposites,  and was only held by the lower classes,

who were not initiated into this doctrine.

The 'houses' of Atlas were carved from the living rock by  the

action of Zro in its seventh precipitation. Enormously solid, the

walls  were lofty and smoother than glass,  though the  pavements

were  rough and broken almost everywhere for a reason which I  am

not  permitted to disclose.  The passages were invariably narrow,

so that two persons could never pass each other. When two met, it

was  the  law to greet by joining in 'work' and then  going  away

together  on  their separate errands,  or passing one  above  the

other.  This was done purposely, so as to remind every man of his

duty to Atlas on every occasion on which he might meet a  fellow-

citizen.

The  Banqueting-Hall  of the children was usually very  large.

The furniture, which had been brought by the first colonists, and

gradually  disused by adults,  never needed repair.  A vast  open

doorway  facing  North  opened  on the  mountainside  on  to  the

vineyards  and orchards,  the meadows and gardens,  in which  the

children  passed  their  time.  Suckled by the mother  for  three

months only, the child was then already able to nourish itself on

the bread and wine,  and on the flesh of the amphibious herds, of

which there were several kinds;  one a piglike animal with  flesh

resembling  wild  duck,  another  a sort of amatee  tasting  like

salmon,  its  fat  being somewhat like caviar in  everything  but

texture,  and a sure specific for any of childhood's troubles.  A

third, an ancestor of our hippopotamus, was really tamed, and was

employed  by the serviles for preparing the ground for the  corn,

trampling  through the fields while they were covered  with  sea-

water,  and thus leaving deep holes in which the seeds were cast.

Its flesh was not unlike bear,  but more delicate.  Notable, too,

was  the great quantity of turtle;  also the giant  oysters,  the

huge  deep  sea  crabs,  a  kind of octopus whose  flesh  made  a

nutritious and elegant soup, and innumerable shell-fish, added to

the  table.  The waterways were haunted by shoals of a small  and

poisonous  fish,* whose bite was immediate death to man,  a  fact

which  altogether  cut off communication between one  island  and

another  except  by air,  as  the  hippopotamus-animal,  although

immune to its bite, was unable to swim.

Of the sleeping chambers I shall tell more particularly in the

course of my remarks on Zro.

.pa

III.

OF THE AIM OF THE MAGICIANS OF

ATLAS: OF ZRO; AND ITS PROPERTIES

AND USES: OF THAT WHICH

COMBINED WITH IT: AND OF

BLACK PHOSPHORUS.

It  was the most ancient tradition of the Atlantean  magicians

that  they  were  the survivors of a race  inhabiting  a  country

called Lemuria, of which the South Pacific archipelago may be the

remains.  These Lemurians had, they held, built up a civilization

equal,   if   not   superior  to  their  own;   but   through   a

misunderstanding of magical law--some said the 2nd, some the 8th,

some  the 23rd--had involved themselves and their land  in  ruin.

Others  thought that the Lemurians had succeeded in their magical

task,  and broken their temple.  In any case,  it was the  secret

Lemurian tradition that they themselves represented the survivals

of  a yet earlier race who lived on ice,  and they of yet another

who lived in fire, and they again of earlier colonists from Mars.

The  theory,  in fine,  was that the aim of man is to attain  the

Sun,  whence, according to one school of cosmology, he was exiled

in  the  cosmic catastrophe which resulted in  the  formation  of

Neptune.  His  task on any given planet was therefore to overturn

the laws of Nature on that planet, thus mastering it sufficiently

to enable him to make the leap to the next planet inward. Exactly

how and in what sense the leap was made remains obscure,  even to

the heirs of Atlantis.*

The men of Atlas could fly,  it is true,  and that by a method

so  simple that men will laugh outright when it is  rediscovered;

but they needed air to support them;  they could not confront the

cold  and emptiness of space.  Was it in some subtler  body  that

they  conveyed  the Palladium?  Or,  content to die,  could  they

project  some vehicle across so great a distance?  The answer  to

such  questions probably lies in the recovery by mankind  of  the

knowledge of Zro and its properties.

Beneath  the labour mills* run troughs* in which the sweat  of

the  workers  collects and drains off into an open basin  without

the  mill.  In this basin churns with  immense  rapidity--through

multiple  bevel gearing--a sort of paddle with knife  edges.  The

sweat is thus churned into froth,  and gradually disappears,  and

is  as  continually replaced.  The workers toil in  shifts--eight

hours work,  four hours repose, eight hours work, four hours rest

and recreation. The mills never cease day or night.

The  basin is of polished silver and agate,  and is set at  an

angle,  facing two enormous spheres of crystal, encased in a sort

of trellis made of a certain greenish metal, its optical focus at

a point midway between the two.

The  only sign of activity is that out of this focus  a  spark

crackles  unless the air be dry,  a condition difficult to secure

in  this part of the world,  although fans blow air,  dried  over

chloride of calcium and sulphuric acid, over the globes and their

focus.  These fans are worked by tidal power,  human labour being

appropriated solely to the one use.

In  the temple of the 'house' are two globes similar to  those

upon  the  plains,  and the mysterious force generated  below  is

transferred to those above,  collecting within them. Now the name

of  this  substance is always Zro,  but in its  first  state  the

gesture  is  a twiddling of the thumbs.  In its second,  it is  a

rapid  twittering  of  the fingers,  and in its  third  state  of

distillation it is a screwing of the hands together.  Within  the

spheres  it sublimes suddenly in the air as a snaky powder (4) of

silver,  which immediately turns to an iridescent fluid (5)  that

is  forced up,  by its own need of expansion,  through a fountain

into  the  temple,  on whose floor it lies (6)  in  a  semi-solid

condition. Expert priests gather this in their hands, and rapidly

shape  it into its seventh state,  when it is a knife of diamond,

but alive.  An instrument like a Mexican machete is used to carve

rocks.  The  edge shears them,  the back smooths them.  The  rock

behaves exactly like wax,  responsive to the lightest touch. What

is  not used for weapons is then gathered up swiftly and  kneaded

by women of the rank of high priestess.  It is not known even  to

the high priests with what they knead it, but in its eighth stage

it  is  a  substance solid enough to support  great  weight,  but

eternally heaving of its own force.  Of this they make  beds,  so

that the sleeping Atlantean is (as it were) continually massaged.

To  this they attribute the fact that Atlanteans sleep never more

than half an hour, though they do so four times daily. These beds

remain active only for a few days,  and they are then thrown into

the ninth stage by being taken into a room where is a cauldron of

great  size.  They are thrown into this and sprinkled with  black

phosphorus.* The Zro then divides into two parts, one liquid, one

solid.  Neither of these has any ascertainable properties, for it

is  absolutely  passive to the will of the user,  who  may  taste

therein  his  utmost desire,  whether for food  or  drink.  Among

adults  there is no other food or drink than this.  The  children

are not allowed to taste it.

The black phosphorus is always added by a high priestess,  and

it  is not known in what manner she does this.  The Zro that  may

remain is the subject of eternal experiments by the Magicians. It

is  generally thought by the greatest of them that an  error  was

committed  in bringing it to a ninth stage of division into  two,

and  many openly deplored the discovery of black phosphorus.  All

however  strive  in harmony to produce a tenth stage  that  shall

surpass the virtues of the ninth. Theoretically it is possible to

reach  an  eleventh stage wherein the Zro takes human  form,  and

lives!  Opinion  is divided as to whether this was  not  actually

done  by a certain magician at the time of the passing of  Atlas.

In  any  case,  I  beg the reader to remember that  I  have  only

described  one  seventh of the virtues of Zro,  and I  have  even

omitted  this,  that  in its ninth stage it is not only food  and

drink, but universal medicine, if properly understood. For Zro is

also a vision and a voice!

Now  the  muscles of the people of Atlas are  the  muscles  of

giants,  and  yet  they  do one thing only.  And  this  thing  is

combined  by  the wisdom of the magicians,  so that it is at  the

same time work,  exercise,  sport,  game,  pleasure, and all else

that may fulfill life.

This work never ceases. It has these parts:

1.  Working at Zro, i.e. bringing it from the first stage to

the ninth.

2.  Working with Zro, i.e. for one's own particular purpose.

3.  Working for Zro.  This is the common and most honourable

task,  the Zro eaten and drunken being worked into a quintessence

of  higher  power,  though identical in property with the  common

Zro. This new Zro (Atlas Zro) goes through the same stages as the

common  Zro  of the serviles.  But it is the result of  free  and

joyful labour,  and so serves the magicians in their experiments,

and  the Governor of all for his sustenance.  None by the way  is

ever wasted. For example, a tunnel was drilled completely through

the earth and filled with Zro, and it is said that by this tunnel

the Atlanteans escaped.

This working, whether with or for Zro, requires two persons at

least at any one time and place.  Great heat is generated in  the

working,  and  the bodies of the workers are therefore  sprinkled

heavily with the black phosphorus,  which is incombustible.  This

black  phosphorus,   poisonous  to  the  servile  race,   becomes

innocuous to anyone who has been in any way impregnated with Zro.

This itself,  in its first stage,  is as dangerous as electricity

of high voltage.

The reverence attached to Zro is unbounded. At one time it was

hymned as the father of the gods,  and till the end all  children

were thought to be "begotten of Zro",  though everyone might know

who  was  the  father.*  All such  conception  was  however  held

indignity.  Its  official name was 'the old experiment'.  It  was

carried  on simply because the new methods of continuing the race

were not perfected. Childbirth was therefore in one way accident;

although a duty,  everyone shrank from it.  For though no pain or

discomfort attached to the process,  it was a sort of second-best

achievement  from which proud women turned  contemptuously.  This

was in part the reason why the father's name was never mentioned.

On several occasions in the history of Atlas the Zro 'failed'.

Although not changed in appearance,  its properties were lost  or

diminished. In such a case young men and maidens in great numbers

were captured on the plains,  brought into Atlas,  and offered in

sacrifice  to the Gods.  Their blood was mingled with Zro in  its

third  stage,  and the latter recovered its potency.  Their flesh

was eaten by the high priests and priestesses in penance for  the

unknown  wrong.  It  was subject to other and terrible  scourges,

being the most sensitive as well as the strongest thing on Earth.

On  one  occasion it had to be treated with  a  fox-like  perfume

prepared  by the chief magician;  on another it was subjected  to

streams of moonlight from parabolic mirrors.

The most serious crisis was some two thousand years before the

destruction   of  Atlas.   One  of  the  serviles,   riding   his

'hippopotamus'  to  the ploughing,  fell off  and  was  instantly

bitten  by  the poisonous fish previously described.  Through  an

accident of boyhood he had,  however, for a reason too obscure to

describe here,  no such vulnerable spot as suited the  Zhee-Zhou.

He survived and went to work,  as it chanced,  the next day.  The

Zro  was poisoned;  a third of Atlas died within  the  hour;  the

plants  on the affected island had to be destroyed,  and all  its

people.  It  was  only repopulated some three hundred and  eighty

years later,  and then for particular reasons of magical  economy

impossible to dwell upon in this account.

Marriage was compulsory on all those whose passion had been so

exclusive  and  enduring  as to  produce  two  children.  Further

intercourse between the pair was barred. The Magicians thought it

was inimical to variation for a woman to have more than one child

(a  fortiori  two) by the same father;  and  the  custom  further

prevented those stupid sporadic outbursts of burnt-out lust which

make so many modern marriages intolerable.

Closely connected with marriage, the close of the reproductive

life,  is  that of death,  the close of the little that  remains.

Death hardly threatened the Atlantean; he would decide to "go and

see", as the old phrase ran, and take an overdose of a particular

preparation  of black phosphorus mixed with a very little Zro  in

the ninth stage,  which ensured a painless death.  That none ever

returned  was  taken  as proof of the supreme  attractiveness  of

death.

The  ghoulish and necromantic practices with which  Atlanteans

have been unjustly reproached never occurred. A little vampirism,

perhaps,  in the early days before the perfecting of Zro;  but no

Atlantean  was ever so stupid or so ignorant as to confuse  death

with life.

Beside  this voluntary death only one danger existed.  As  the

use  of Zro guaranteed life and health and  youth--a  centenarian

high  priest was no better than a kitten!--so did its abuse spell

instant corruption of those qualities.  As mentioned  above,  now

and then the Zro itself was at fault,  and caused epidemics;  but

from  time to time there were deaths in a particularly  loathsome

form caused by what they called 'misunderstanding' the Zro.* Such

mistakes  were  particularly  common in the  early  days  of  its

discovery, and before its use had become well nigh a worship. The

first symptom was a crack in the skin of the temple, or sometimes

of  the  bridge of the nose,  more rarely of an eyelid or  cheek.

Within a few minutes this crack became one open sore,  of  horrid

foetor,  and within twenty-four hours, the patient was completely

rotted away, bone and marrow. A circumstance of singular atrocity

was  that death never occurred until the spinal column collapsed.

No treatment could be found even to prolong the agony by an hour.

This being recognised,  sufferers were thrown from the cliffs  at

the  first  sign of the malady.  In this way too were  all  other

corpses disposed.  It was the most honourable death possible, for

becoming  'bread from heaven' for the serviles,  they were  again

worked  up into Zro itself,  a transmutation which in their  view

would  be  well  worth all the "resurrections of  the  body"  and

"immortalities of the soul" of the theoretical, dogmatic, hearsay

religions.   So  much  then  concerning  Zro,   and  the  matters

immediately connected with it.

.pa

IV.

OF THE SO CALLED

MAGIC OF THE ATLANTEANS.

Magic in Atlas was a 'Science of Sciences'.  It was the  final

integration   of  all  knowledge.   In  method  its  theory   was

differentiation,  and  in theory its method was integration.  For

example,   the   fifth  of  the  great   philosophers   indicated

"Everything  is  Zro" to the Keeper of the Speech at  the  annual

sacrifice.  This  in spite of the fact that in that very year two

new forms of Zro had been discovered by that same philosopher. It

was the third of the galaxy who announced "The ultimate  analysis

of sensation is pain;  that of thought,  madness;  that of super-

consciousness  (a state of trance induced by Zro and valued above

all things) annihilation."

His  successor  had  retorted  that in  this  was  implicit  a

postulate that pain,  madness and annihilation were  undesirable.

The  third  admitted  that  he  had  so  meant  his  phrase,  but

destroying  the postulate,  still stuck to it.  All this was  the

foundation   of  much  magical  theory,   and  on  these   purely

psychological  researches was based the whole  magical  practice.

'There  is  no  God'  was a commonplace.  It  only  implied  that

the  mind  was  wrong to try to conceive within it  what  was  by

definition without it.  To set limits to anything whatever seemed

to  them the greatest of crimes,  the exact opposite of the  true

path to the Sun.

The  practical  side  of magic was for the most  part  a  mere

utilization  of  known  forces,  such as are employed  by  modern

science.  But  the  resources  of Atlas were as  great,  and  the

advantages  incomparably  greater.  The whole archipelago  was  a

laboratory.  There  was  no question of the 'cost  of  research';

every man was devoted to it.  Every man thought only of the  main

problem  'How to reach Venus' and its  sub-issues.  Further,  the

main  laws  of magic had always been found to govern and  include

chemical and physical laws.

In  the early days of colonization Zro was only known  in  its

crude state;  it was the genius of a single man that obtained the

third  state  in its purity.  From this state to the  seventh  it

moved  almost of itself,  very much as radium does.  The  genius,

having  sufficient  in this seventh  state,  made  a  sword,  and

completed in three days the subjugation of the servile races.  It

was  a stroke of fortune,  this quickness,  for on the fourth day

the Zro began to disintegrate. The magicians then began to seek a

means of making this state permanent.  But in this they  failed,*

so that knives had always to be replaced twice weekly; but in the

course  of  their  failures they discovered the  infinitely  more

valuable eighth and ninth stages of Zro.  Tradition has preserved

a  hint  of  their efforts in Alchemy with its  problems  of  the

fixation  of  the  Universal Mercury,  the  secret  of  perpetual

motion,  and 'potable gold--the Universal Medicine'.  It has been

theoretically determined towards the end of the tenth state, that

Zro should be a solid,  but whether this was confirmed is  beyond

my knowledge.

To return to the main magical theory,  the Quintessence,  said

they,  or Universal Substance (which some strove to identify with

Hyle,  others  with the Luminiferous Aether) is  the  two-in-one,

liquid and solid,  the former part being also twofold,  fluid and

gaseous,  and  the  latter earthy and fiery.  The combination  of

these  four  phases  of  Zro accounted  for  the  universe.  This

quintessence is Zro in some state unknown and incalculable.  Some

expected to find it in its twelth state,  some in a  seventeenth,

others  in a thirty-seventh:  all this was pure  guesswork.  Some

tradition  to this effect appears to have reached Plato;  and the

neo-Platonists  combined  with  those  Jews  who  had   preserved

fragments  of  the  Egyptian tradition to form  a  new  initiated

hierarchy,  the echo of whose teaching is found in Paracelsus. At

one  period,  too,  missionaries  (not  colonists,  as  has  been

ignorantly  asserted;  there was no trouble of over-population in

Atlantis)  were sent to the four quarters and parties  landed  in

Mexico,  Ireland  and  Egypt.  The  adventures of the  party  who

travelled  South  form an astounding chapter in  the  history  of

Atlas.  It was they who discovered the Magnetic South,  and whose

observations  rendered possible the theory which resulted in  the

piercing of the Earth by Zro.*

There  were also preparations of Zro which increased the  size

of the user, and others which diminished it. In general use among

the lower classes, until the very end, was that composition which

made the body light. Careful adjustment would equalize its weight

with that of the displaced air,  and movements of the limbs would

then permit flying.  In this way the overseers visited the plains

and  returned.  The  other  and earlier art of flying  needed  no

apparatus,  but I am forbidden to disclose the method,  except to

hint  that  it  is connected closely with the  art  of  'dreaming

true'.

These  are  but  a few of the magic powers  so-called  of  the

compounds  of Zro;  but they will indicate the power of Atlas  by

shewing  what it could afford to neglect.  Yet all  these  powers

were implicit in the process of 'working'.

The  art of prediction was in the same unsatisfactory state as

it  is  in England today.  Nor was  its  practice  encouraged.  A

magician  makes the future,  and does not seek to divine it.  All

true  prediction  was  therefore  necessarily  catastrophe.   The

greatest good fortune seemed worthless to an Atlantean,  since it

was accident,  and if accidents are to happen, one of them may be

fatal. They believed themselves to be equal to the whole tendency

of  things,  and  proudly gazed on Nature as a man might  upon  a

virgin captive to his spear.  Everything that was being was  Zro;

everything  that was Energy was 'working for Zro'.  Outside  this

was but by-product and waste-heap.

The  arrangement  of  the houses was in  accordance  with  the

magical theory.  There was first the High House, then four (later

six,  last  ten)  'Houses of Houses';  and to each of  these  was

attached a varying number of ordinary houses.  The High House was

the  central  shrine  of  the  whole  archipelago,  and  must  be

separately described.

.pa

V.

OF THE HIGH HOUSE OF ATLAS,

OF ITS INHABITANTS, AND OF THEIR

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS,

AND OF THE LIVING ATLA.

The High House was separated from its nearest neighbor by over

twenty miles of sea.  Its diameter was about an half-mile and its

height four miles.  It had no plains at the base,  and its cliffs

went absolutely sheer and smooth into the water.  It was in shape

a  flattish cylinder,  but the top broadened into a pointed knob,

somewhat in the style of St.  Basil's at Moscow.  There was not a

trace  of  vegetation,  which  by  the way was  despised  by  the

Atlanteans.  A child would pick a flower contemptuously  thinking

"You cannot even move about",  or pet it as an English degenerate

woman does a dog. The only entrance was by an orifice at the top.

But  the base was tunneled so that from every house was a channel

for  the Zro which having been brought to the highest  perfection

was thus transferred to headquarters.  The receptacle at the base

being  far  below  the  earth,  and the  Zro  further  heated  by

friction, it seethed continually into a bluish or purplish smoke.

This  was  the  sole sustenance of the inhabitants  of  the  High

House.  In  early  days the old High House,  in an  island  since

destroyed  by  order of the Atla,  had been called the  House  of

Blood,  the inhabitants subsisting only on blood sucked from  the

living.  The  improvements in Zro had changed all that;  but  the

idea  was the same,  to live on the Quintessence of  Life.  Hence

while  the 'houses' ate and drank Zro,  the High House drank  its

vapour.  No children were born in it,  and none below the rank of

High Priest dwelt there.

Except  for  one matter which was  never  thought  of,  though

constantly  spoken,  the inmost mystery of the High House was the

'Living  Atla'.  This had  many  names,  'Wordeater',  'Unshaven'

(because the razors of Zro were turned on its hair), 'Fireheart',

'Beginning  and End' and so on:  but especially a word I can only

translate as 'To Her',  a defective pronoun existing only in  the

dative. What the Living Atla really was, is a secret of secrets.*

We know it only from its epithets,  its veils.  Thus it was 'That

Black which makes black white'.  It was 'twenty-six feet high and

fifteen  feet  across--Oh  my Lords,  it is the  essence  of  the

Incommensurable!'  It was 'the wife of Zro',  'the heart of Zro',

'desire of Zro', 'the Atla that eats Atlas', 'the swallower up of

her own house',  'the pelican',  'the fire-nest of the  Phoenix',

according  to  the greatest of the poets.  And the burden of  his

hymns of worship was that it must be destroyed.

It was impossible to approach the Atla without being instantly

sucked up and devoured by it.  This was the greatest  death,  and

ardently  desired by all.  The favour was accorded only to  those

who  discovered improvements in Zro,  or otherwise merited signal

and  supreme recognition from the state.  Hidden men listened  to

the  cries  of the victim,  and thus learned the  nature  of  the

death.  It  appears  that the black suddenly broke into  a  fiery

rose, 'the only* luminous thing in Atlas', and a shooting forward

enclosed  him.  For some reason which was never even guessed  the

Atla refused women.  Those who had seen Atla were however useless

to instruct.  They came forth from the Presence smiling, and even

under  the most fearful tortures that the magicians could devise,

continued to smile.  This smile never left them during life,  and

the  conscious  superiority  of it  was  so  irritating,  and  so

contrary  to  the  harmony of life in Atlas that the  women  were

killed, and their companions for the future forbidden to approach

the Atla.

Whatever theories as to its nature may have been formed by the

magicians  were upset by a famous experiment.  A most  holy  high

priest,  a  man who at puberty had insisted on immediate marriage

with all the women of his house,  a magician who had formed  four

new  compounds of Zro,  and discovered how to pass matter through

matter,  was  honoured by the great death.  On reaching the  last

corridor, where the concentrated spirals of Zro vapour whirled up

into  the  Presence of Atla,  he bade farewell to  the  appointed

listeners in the manner suitable to his dignity, and then, taking

a  last  deep  draught of Zro into his  lungs,  rushed  into  the

antrum.  They  heard him cry aloud "O!" with surprise,  and  then

with inexpressible rapture the words "Behind Atla,  Otla!"  which

were,  and still are,  completely unintelligible.  Their surprise

was  greater,  when,  seven days later he came striding past them

without greeting. He went to his 'house' and shut himself up, was

never seen or heard again,  but was assuredly living at the  time

of the 'catastrophe'. This man founded a school of philosophy, or

rather,  it  founded  itself  on  what it supposed  him  to  have

discovered; and this school disputes with the orthodox the credit

of the final success.

The  lesser mysteries of the High House were concerned  almost

entirely with the creation of life,  and the bridging of the gulf

between  Earth and Venus.  These were connected  intimately;  the

theory  was  that  if  Atlantean brains  could  exist  in  bodies

sufficiently subtle to traverse aether,  the task was done.  Some

of  the  experiments  were  crude  enough,  and,  to  our  minds,

horrible.  They  attempted to breed a new race by  crossing  with

snakes,  swans,  horses  and other animals.* The Greek legends of

such monsters as Chimaera, Medusa, Lamia, Minotaur, the Centaurs,

the  Satyrs  and the like are mere filtrations of  the  Atlantean

tradition.  The only theory behind such experiments was that they

were contrary to the natural order,  and so worth trying.  Men of

more  scientific  mind more plausibly passed Zro  vapour  through

sea-water;  but  they only created serpents of vast  size,  which

they  cast into the sea about the High House  as  guardians.  The

sea-serpent,  whether  legend  or fact,  is derived from this  ex

periment.  It is quite possible that some such  survive.  Another

school,  objecting  strongly to the sex-process,  "which must  be

transcended  as the Lemurians overcame gemmation" vivisected  men

and  women,  taking  various parts of the brain,  especially  the

cerebellum,  the pineal gland,  and the pituitary body,  and  cul

tivated  them  in  solutions of Zro under the invisible  rays  of

black  phosphorus.  The best results of this work was a  race  of

translucent jelly-folk of great intellectual development;  but so

far  from being able to travel through space,  they could  hardly

move  in their own element.  Another school argued that as Zro in

vapour combined the virtues of the liquid and the solid Zro, so a

fiery  state  might be produced which would so  impregnate  their

bodies  as to make them 'mates of the aether'.  This school  held

that  fiery Zro already existed in Nature,  "in the heart of  the

Living Atla", and asserted that those who died by absorption into

Atla passed straight to Venus.  Many of them therefore tried hard

to obtain messages from that planet. Familiar with Newton's first

law  of motion,  they further held it possible to prepare Zro  in

such  a  state that a current of it could never be  deflected  or

dissipated, and so, if it could be made in sufficient quantity, a

bridge  to Venus might be built by which they might travel.  They

therefore tunneled through the planet,  as previously  explained,

to  have  a sort of cannon for the Zro.  But as their supply  was

pitifully  insufficient,  they endeavoured also to prepare a  Zro

which  would  have the power of  multiplying  itself.  Alchemical

tradition has some record of this problem.

Yet another group of magicians argued that as Nature had  cast

off  the  planets from the Sun--a disputed point,  some  thinking

this due to magic, which if so completely destroys the argument--

it would be contrary to Nature to cause the planets to fall  back

into  it.  They  busied themselves with attempts to increase  the

Earth's  gravitational  pull,  and (alternatively) to  check  her

course.  Their  schemes were generally regarded  as  Utopian--yet

they  could  boast  of the discovery of the  Zro  that  lightened

bodies, and of a kind of aether-screen which generated mechanical

power  in  inexhaustible  quantities by  making  matter  slightly

opaque to aether.  This engine only worked on a very small scale.

A  screen two inches long would tear itself from fastenings  that

would   have  held  an  earthquake,   while  the  rocks  in   its

neighbourhood  would  melt in a few minutes,  and  the  sea  boil

instantly  where  its  rays struck.  The most brilliant  of  this

school asserted "Matter is a strain in the aether." He  explained

gravitation  in  this way.  Place two ivory spheres in  a  rubber

tube;  the strain on the tube is least when the balls touch.  The

tendency  is therefore for them to come together.  Friction alone

checks  them.  Now  aether  is  infinitely  elastic  and  without

friction.  From  these  data  he calculated the  Law  of  Inverse

Squares.

A more mystic school saw life everywhere.  It knew all that we

know, and more, about ions and electrons; it saw every phenomenon

as a manifestation of will. The crowning glory of this school was

the discovery that Zro in its ninth stage, eaten and drunken with

concentrated  intention,  produced the desired  result,  whatever

(within  wide  limits)  that result might be.  This went  far  to

supersede  the  use of all specialized forms of Zro,  and  so  to

unify the magical practice.

It seems curious with all this magic,  Magic itself should  be

the  thing most deplored.  But it was the means,  and,  as  such,

"that  which is in particular not the end".  The word for  Magic,

'Ijynx',  was the only dissyllable in the language, for Magic was

the essentially two-fold thing, more two-fold (in a way) than the

number  two itself.  It is interesting here to sketch briefly the

mathematics of Atlas. The task is not easy, as their minds worked

very differently from ours.

The  number 1 was a fairly simple idea;  but two was not  only

two,  but also 'the result of adding 1 to 1' and 'the root of 4'.

The  numbers grew in complexity out of all reason.  Seven  was  6

plus 1,  and 5 plus 2,  and 4 plus 3,  and so on; as well as 'the

root  of 49',  'half 14' and the like.  They even distinguished 4

plus  3 from 3 plus 4.  Each number also represented an  idea  or

group  of ideas on all sorts of planes.  It would have been quite

possible to discuss dressmaking in terms of pure number.  To give

an example of the way in which their minds thought,  consider the

number  three.  Three,  in  so far as it gives  the  first  plane

figure,  suggests  superficies;  with regard to the dimensions of

space,  solidity.  Three itself is therefore 'that ineffably holy

thing in which the superficies is the solid'.  Of course hundreds

of other ideas must be added to this;  and to grasp and harmonize

them  all  in one colossal supra-rational idea was  the  constant

task  of  every mathematician.  The upshot of this was  that  all

numbers above 33 were regarded as spurious, illusionary; they had

no real existence of their own*;  they were temporary  compounds,

unreal in very much the same sense as our square root of 1.  They

were  always expressed by graphic formulae,  like our own organic

compounds.  To take an example,  the number 156 was regarded as a

sort of efflorescence of the number 7;  it was never written  but

as 77 plus [(7+7)/7] plus 77. Again 11 was usually written 3 plus

5  plus  3.  It  was  always the aim to find  symmetry  in  these

expressions,  and also 'to find an easy way to 1'.  This last  is

difficult to explain.

Eleven was their great 'Key of Magic'.  It is a twofold number

in  'the act of becoming 1'.  Thirty-seven was the essence  of  1

inasmuch  as  multiplying it by 3 gives 111,  three  ones,  which

divided again by 3 in another manner,  yield 1. "One would rather

think of 48 as 37 plus 11 than as 4 times 12" is the statement of

an  elementary text-book dating from the earliest days of  Atlas.

It  was a sort of moral duty to teach the mind to think  in  this

manner.

The  number 7 was the 'perfect number' with them as  with  us,

but for very different reasons. It was the link between Earth and

Venus, for one thing; I cannot explain why. It was 'the number of

Atla',  and  the  'house  of success' (two being  the  'house  of

battle').  It was also grace, softness, ease, healing and 'joy of

Zro'  as  well  as 'play  of  phosphorus'.  Many  mathematicians,

however, attacked it with rigour; there was at one time an almost

general consent to replace it by 8, and its 'rapture-combination'

31,  by  33.  Despite the intense preoccupation with such  ideas,

mathematics  as we know them had reached a perfection which if it

does not surpass that of our own civilization,  fails principally

because  of its theorems,  handed down to Euclid and  Pythagoras,

although imperfectly, formed a springboard whence we might leap.

The  initiation of children was also a matter reserved for the

High House.  Weaned at three months,  the children were tended by

the lower classes until the age of puberty,  an occurrence  which

fitted them at once for initiation.  A legate from the High House

was  sent  for,  and  in  his presence  the  child  was  brought,

acquainted  with  Zro  by  its  father  and  mother,   and   full

instruction  in 'working' was further conferred by any member  of

the  'house'  who  chose to do so,  this in practice  meaning  by

everybody.  The  ceremonies were frequently long and  exhausting;

children  often enough died in the course of them.  This was  not

regarded  as a serious calamity;  some schools of magicians  even

pretended to rejoice. The representatives of the High House had a

prior  right to the parents of the child;  at times he  conducted

the initiation in person, a high honour, but invariably fatal. On

rare  occasions  male children were sent over to the Atla  to  be

devoured.  The  parents of so fortunate a child were advanced  in

rank on the spot,  and had special privileges conferred on  them,

sometimes  even  being transferred to a 'House  of  Houses'.  All

those  who  dwelt  in the High House were  veiled  whenever  they

appeared,  in  order to prevent it being known that they were  of

the  same  appearance in all respects as  their  inferiors.  This

ordinance had been made after the Great Conspiracy,  with which I

shall deal in the chapter on History.

.pa

VI.

OF THE UNDERGROUND GARDENS

OF ATLAS, AND OF THE ALLEGED

COMMERCE OF THE ATLANTEANS

WITH INCUBI, SUCCUBI, AND THE

DEMONS OF DARKNESS.

I have referred to the contempt with which the Atlanteans were

prone  to regard the vegetable kingdom.  Animals,  including man,

shared  their  scorn.  The  idea may have been  that  with  their

advantages  they  ought to have done much better for  themselves.

Minerals,  however,  were  regarded as helpless;  and  hence  the

extraordinary attention paid to them. Beneath the houses the rock

had been tunneled out into grottos,  some in odd fantastic forms,

but  most  in immense polyhedra or combinations of  curves.  Each

'house' had some twenty of such gardens. Three reagents were used

in the cultivation;  the 'seed of metals',  'the seed of  Light',

and  the seed of '',  an untranslatable idea approximating to our

mystic's  interpretation  of 'Alpha and Omega'.  The  two  former

produced simple effects, the first formed jewels, self-luminious,

which  yet  grew like flowers,  the second similar  effects  with

metals; while the third brought any mineral to flower in the most

extravagant combinations of colour and form.  All such conditions

as  texture,  hardness,  elasticity,  and physical attributes  in

general, were considered worthy of the profoundest attention.

As  an instance of these,  I may describe particular  gardens.

One  would  have a roof of  softly-glowing  sapphires,  foxglove,

bluebell or gentian, and between these champak stars of ruby. The

walls would be covered with tendrils of vine within whose  depths

lurked  tiny  blossoms  of  amethyst.   The  floor  would  be  of

malachite,  but alive,  growing as a coral does,  softer than any

earthly moss and more elastic to the tread.  On every darker leaf

might  glow  dew-drops  of self-strung diamond  formed  from  the

carbon  dioxide of the air by the action of the 'seed of  Light'.

Another  grotto  would be a monochrome of  blue,  various  copper

salts  being 'planted' everywhere,  and growing in  incrustations

and  festoons of every shade of blue from the faintest  tinge  of

coerulean azure and green and grey,  in whose abyss would be seen

shapes of anemonies,  perhaps of such hues as iron oxide,  silver

chromate,  and cupramonium cyanurate. All this floor would in all

respects  resemble  water  but  for  its  greater  solidity,  and

floating  on  it  would be giant lilies,  great green  leaves  of

emerald with cups of pearl not less than twelve feet in diameter,

with  corollae of pure gold,  so fine that they glimmered  green,

with  pistils  of platinum on whose tops trembled  great  pigeon-

blooded rubies. Another might be wholly of metal, a mere bower of

jasmine,  with its floor of violets.  The law of growth of  these

creatures of wisdom was not that of plants or animals, or even of

crystals;  it  was that of the earth.  Constantly growing as  the

planet  approached  the  sun,  they  as steadily  shrank  as  she

departed to aphelion. This was not growth and decay, but the rise

and fall of an eternal bosom.  It is probable,  too, that this is

one of the reasons why Atlas neglected the higher kingdoms;  they

had learned to grow,  but on wrong lines,  and it was too late to

endeavour to correct the error.

These  gardens were the principal places of  working.  It  was

hardly  possible to pass from one place to another without coming

upon  one of them,  so cunningly were they  distributed;  and  in

every garden would be found, joyful and noble, parties of workers

intent on their beloved task. The passer-by would gladly join one

of such parties, engage in the work for so long as he wished, and

then  proceed  upon his private business.  In these same  gardens

too,  were salvers and goblets always filled with Zro,  and after

toil, refreshment fitted the workers to return to labour.

Now  of these workings in the gardens strange tales are  told.

It is said that the inhabitants falling to repose were visited in

sleep by incubi and succubi (whatever the nature of these may be,

and I by no means concur in the opinion of Sinistrari),  and that

they  welcomed such with eagerness.  Nay,  darker legends tell of

infamous commerce and intercourse with demons foul and malicious,

and  pretend that the power of Atlas was devilish,  and that  the

catastrophe was the judgement of God.  These mediaeval fables  of

the  debased and perverted phallicism miscalled Christianity  are

unworthy  even to be refuted,  founded as they are on  hypotheses

contrary  to  common sense.  Nor would they who  knew  themselves

masters  of  the earth have deigned to  degrade  themselves,  and

moreover  to vitiate their whole work by commerce with inferiors.

If there be any truth whatever in these stories,  it will then be

more  easily supposable that the Atlanteans aspiring  to  journey

sunwards to Venus, might invoke the beings of that planet, should

it  be possible for them to travel to us.  And that this is impos

sible,  who  can assert?  On the theory of the  Magicians,  power

increases  as  the sun is approached,  the inhabitants  of  Earth

being more highly infused with the magical force of Our Star than

those  of Mars,  and they again more than those of great Jupiter,

gloomy and disastrous Saturn and Uranus, or Neptune lost in star-

dreams.  Again,  the powers of each particular planet  may,  nay,

must  be wholly diverse.  So fundamental a condition of existence

as the value of g being vastly various,  must not the inhabitants

differ equally in body and in mind?  What lives on the minute and

airless  Moon can be no inhabitant of what may hide  beneath  the

flaming  envelope  of  the sun,  with its fountains  of  hydrogen

flaming an hundred thousand miles into the aether.  And surely so

wild  an  ambition as that of Atlas would not have been  held  by

beings  so wise and powerful for so many centuries had  they  not

either  a  sure memory of coming from Mars,  or some  earnest  of

their  eventual departure to Venus.  Man does not persist in  the

chimerical  for  more than a few  generations.  Alchemy  achieved

results  so startling and so beneficial to humanity at large--one

need  only mention the discovery  of  zinc,  antimony,  hydrogen,

opium,  gas  itself--that  the original ideals were  changed  for

others   more  limited  and  more  practical--or  at  least  more

immediately realizable.

Nor  is this view unsupported by testimony of a  sort.  "Great

and glorious,  rays of our father the Sun", says one of the poets

of  Atlas,  "are  they  within us.  Let us  call  them  forth  by

utterance  that is not uttered,  by the gesture that is not made,

by the working that is above all working,  for they are great and

glorious,  rays of our father the Sun.  Then from our bride  that

waits  for  us in the nuptial chamber,  green in the green  West,

blue in the blue East,  exalted above our father in the even  and

in the morn, spring forth our heirs and our hosts, to greet us in

the darkness.  Dim-glimmering are our gardens in the light of the

seed  of light;  they are peopled with shadows;  they take  form;

they  are as serpents,  they are as trees,  they are as the  holy

Zcrra,  they  are  as  all things straight or  curved,  they  are

winged,  they are wonderful. With us do they work, and that which

was  but one in seven,  and that which was two is become  eleven!

With us do they work,  and give us of the draught miraculous;  us

do they instruct in magic,  and feed us the delicate food. Let us

call  forth them that are within us,  that they that are  without

may enter in, as it was made manifest by Him that maketh secret."

This passage,  not devoid of a rude eloquence,  makes clear  what

was held in exoteric circles. For in Atlas the poet was not as in

England  a  holy and exalted being,  one set apart for  his  high

calling,  throned in the hearts of the people, cherished by kings

and  nobles,  one  on whom no wealth and honour are too great  to

shower,  but  one  of the people themselves,  of no  greater  con

sequence than any other.  Every man was an artist in so far as he

was a man;  and every man being equally so in nature,  whether so

in achievement or not mattered nothing, as appreciation was of no

moment.  Accomplishing Art for the sake of Art,  the interest  of

the creator in his work died with its creation.  It may therefore

be possible that these words are those of poetic exaggeration, or

that  there  is  a concealed meaning in them,  or that  they  are

intended  to mask and mislead,  or that the poet was not  himself

fully instructed.  Indeed it is certain that only the High  House

had  the  secrets of Atlas,  and that the magicians of the  House

held  the  undeniable if sometimes dangerous  doctrine  that  the

truth  and  falsehood of any statement alternated as do  day  and

night  according  to the status of the hearer of  the  statement.

However,  so  strong  is the tradition concerning the  'Angel  of

Venus' that it must at least be considered carefully.  The theory

appears  to have been that if the magicians of Venus invited  the

Atlanteans,  means  would  assuredly follow,  just as if  a  King

summons  a  paralysed  man to his presence,  he  will  also  send

officers  to  convey  him.  Now whether the 'Angel of  Venus'  is

really an angel in anything like the modern sense of the word, or

merely  a title of one of the principal magicians of the  planet,

it is evident that the High House ardentl  desired his  presence.

That  this  might be manifested by the birth of a child  'without

the  stain  of  Atla' was clearly  an  ultimate  desideratum,  an

outward and visible sign of redemption,  an obvious guarantee  of

the  reality  of  the  occurrence.  It was  then  a  Virgin  high

priestess  who achieved so notable a renown;  whether or not this

is a mere poetic parable of the abiogenesis--if it is indeed fair

so to describe it--of the eleventh stage of Zro is another and an

open question.  In any case,  such is the tradition, and numerous

parodies  of it are still extant in the stories of the births  of

Romulus  and  Remus,  Bacchus,  Buddha and many  other  legendary

heroes  of  modern times;  we even catch an echo in the myths  of

such barbarian lands as Syria.

So  much  and  no more concerning the Underground  Gardens  of

Atlas, and of their commerce with the inhabitants of Venus.

VII.

OF MARRIAGE AND OTHER CURIOUS CUSTOMS

OF  THE  ATLANTEANS:

AND OF SACRIFICES TO THE GODS.

I  have  already adverted to that most singular conception  of

the  duty  of the married which opposes the customs of  Atlas  to

those  of any other race on Earth.  But the considerations  which

established  it have yet to be discussed.  I will not  insist  on

that  gross  and  cynical point of view which might  perceive  in

English  marriage today a practical vindication of the  Atlantean

position.  On the contrary, in Atlas marriage formed the loftiest

of  ideals.  It  resembles  the 'Hermetic  marriage'  of  certain

alchemists.  The  bond between the parties was only stronger  for

the  absence of the lower link.  The idea underlying this was  in

the  main  a  particular  case of the  general  proposition  that

whatever  was natural should be transcended.  As will be seen  in

the final chapter, the very stigma of success in their Great Work

was the transcending of the sexual process.  The bond of marriage

was not, however, entirely of this negative character. It had its

positive side, and here closely resembled the so-called Christian

doctrine  of Christ and the church.  Husband and wife were to  be

father and daughter,  mother and son, brother and sister, teacher

and  pupil,  and above all,  friends.  And this relation  was  to

subsist on all planes.  The hieroglyph of love was a cross;  that

of marriage,  parallel straight lines, and as the cross was to be

transcended in the circle, so were these lines to converge not on

earth,  but  in Venus.  In the meanwhile each partner led his own

free life;  and it often occurred that a woman,  having borne two

children  to a man and married him,  would bear two  children  to

another man,  and so on perhaps for two centuries, thus acquiring

a cohort of husbands.  Such an arrangement must clearly have lead

to  grave confusion had any question of property and  inheritance

been involved, but notions so unfortunate were unknown. Where all

had  every heart's desire,  of what value were they?  It is  true

that  some division of labour (though little) was involved in the

social  scheme,   but  it  occurred  to  no  one  to  regard  the

supervision  of serviles as less honourable than the offering  of

great sacrifices.  In a perfect organism one part is as necessary

and  decent as any other part,  and no sane observer  can  reason

otherwise.  For a perfect organism has a single definite aim, and

the  only dishonourable feather on an arrow would be one that was

out of place. Human nature being what it is, one may nevertheless

agree  that  this measureless content with  the  existing  order,

except  in  so  far as the purpose of the establishment  of  that

order  was  unfulfilled,  was rendered possible  by  the  extreme

lightness  of  the  toil demanded of any individual.  But  it  is

impossible  for  slaves to understand free men.  It is  always  a

wonder  to  Englishmen  that  a  man  should  devote  himself  to

unremitting  toil  for an ideal. He is  called  a  crank,  basely

slandered,  the  lowest motives being without any reason assigned

to his actions,  mocked,  persecuted,  perhaps crucified. This is

partly   forgivable,   as  in  England  philanthropy  is   almost

invariably the mask of vice and fraud.

The ceremony of marriage* was simple, dignified, yet poignant.

The  lovers  in  the presence  of  their  whole  house,  publicly

embraced  for  the  last time.  Their two children  pressed  them

apart.  Elevating  their hands in a crossed clasp they gave  way,

and  the  children passed through,  preceding a most  holy  image

which was borne by a priest and priestess between them. Then they

parted,  and each was severally congratulated and embraced by any

of  the  others who chose,  and the priest  and  priestess  then,

exalting  the image and setting it in a suitable  shrine,  closed

the  ceremony  by the command "To work" and adding force  to  the

same by their example.

The  education of the children was another important matter in

which  their  ideas were wholly opposed to  our  own.  It  ceased

altogether at the age of puberty, which was sometimes as early as

six,   never  later  than  fourteen.  Were  it  so  delayed,  the

delinquent  was  crowned  in  mockery with a  square  black  cap,

sometimes  tasselated,  and sent among the serviles  to  instruct

them  in  religion and similar branches of  learning,  and  never

permitted  to return to Atlas.  The ignorance and superstition of

the plains was thus kept at a proper height.

The   method  of  education  was  indeed   singular.   Certain

Atlanteans  who  made  it  their study would  place  the  various

articles in the hands of the infants,  and observe what use  they

made  of  them.  In  the course of a few months the  experts  had

accurately mapped the psychology of the child,  and it was led in

accordance  therewith.  The marriage customs of Atlas allowed  no

too  rapid growth in numbers,  and it was therefore easy to  give

each child attention. The method of opposition was again employed

in   education,   the  child's  natural  wish  being   constantly

stimulated  by  a  parallel training  in  the  contrary  subject.

Children  were  also  shewn a series of  ordered  facts,  and  an

explanation given. But not the least pains was taken to ascertain

whether the child had retained those instructions; they were left

as  impressions  on the mind.  The brain was not injured  by  the

strain of being constantly forced to bring up its stores from the

subconscious.  It  was found in practice that every child  learnt

everything  that it was shown,  and that this learning was always

ready  for  use,  while the consciousness was  never  wearied  or

overcrowded.  It  was  also found that those whose memories  were

what  we call good were precisely those who failed to develop  in

other ways more useful to society.

The most peculiar of their methods was the search for  genius.

It  was  the business of the experts to pay the most serious  and

reverent  attention to all that a child did,  and  whenever  they

failed to understand the workings of its mind,  to place it under

the  charge  of  a  special  guardian,  who  did  his  utmost  to

comprehend sufficiently to be able to encourage it to become  yet

more unintelligible.

Apud eos membrum virile membrano lucido erat;  ob quod  qualis

circumscisio die nativitatis facta erat.  Vix credere dignum est,

tanquam  verum,  feminarum montes venereales similutidine  facies

fuere,  facies demonicae, sardonicae, Satyricae, cujus os erat os

vulvae,  res  horribiles  atque  ridiculosa.  Ferunt  similia  de

virorum membris,  quae fingunt sicut imagines homunculorum fuere.

Lege--Judice--Tace.

Many of the men had ossified extensions of the frontal process

which amounted to horns, and the formation was occasionally found

in  the higher types of women.  Curiously carven head-dresses  of

gold were worn by both sexes,  and those of priestly rank adorned

these with living serpents, and the high priests yet further with

feathers or with wings,  such being not the spoils of dead birds,

but  the blossoms of the live gold of the crowns.  Some tradition

of  this custom is found in the pictures of the 'Gods' of  Egypt,

these  gods being merely the Atlanteans whose  mission  civilized

the country.  The names of some of the earlier gods confirm this.

Nu  (Hebrew  Noah) is Atlantean for arch,  Zu (Egyptian Shu)  for

many ideas connecting with wind,  Asi means 'cum quasi  serpens',

obviously  the  name  of an actual High  Priestess.  Ra  is  pure

Atlantean for Sun, and 'Mse' (Egyptian Chomse) for moon. The idea

in  'Mse  is that of a strong woman ('M) closing the mouth  of  a

serpent (S) or dragon, and from this we have the XIth card of the

Bohemian Tarot,  and the legend in the Apocalypse.  In the mystic

Greek used by the Gnostics we find similar traces,  SOPHIA  being

from S Ph,  giving the idea of 'serpent breath' i.e.  wisdom. IAO

is  PHALLOS,  KTEIS,  PROKTOS.  The word LOGOS means the Boy  (G)

naturally engendered of the Virgin (L) and the Serpent (S). THEOS

(root O,  first written 0) means the sun in his strength and also

the  Lingam-Yoni conjoined.  CHRISTOS is 'The love of passion  of

the  Rising Sun (R) and the serpent' (S).  The I and  T  indicate

certain  details  which  are foreign to the  present  discussion.

NEUMA  (Atlantean  N M) is the 'Arch of the  Woman',  MARIA,  the

Woman  of  the  Sun.* The words MEITHRAS and  ABRAXAS  are  again

derived from Atlas.  "The woman entered,  Lingam being  conjoined

with  Yoni,  bears  the sun from her serpent womb" and "From  the

womb's mouth the sun (cometh seeking) a womb for his desire, even

the womb of a serpent", the course of the year being signified in

this  manner,  as usual with the ancients.  This plan of an  idea

corresponding to each letter was carried out very strictly:  thus

TLA,  black,  means the stigma or mark of the virgin's  womb,  IA

(Hail!  Greeting!)  'Face  to Face',  from the other  peculiarity

described above.  These few examples will suffice to indicate the

singular  character  of the language,* and the way in  which  its

essential dogmatic symbols have been incorporated by the heirs of

Atlas in the inmost sanctuaries of races which they deemed worthy

of such assistance.

I  must not pass over in silence the question of sacrifice  to

the  gods,  to  which a passing reference has already been  made.

Such  sacrifices  were not very frequent;  the victims  were  the

'failures',  those  who were useless to the social  economy.*  As

they  represented capital expenditure,  the object was to recover

this,  at least,  since no interest could be expected. The victim

was  therefore  handed over to a High Priest  or  Priestess,  who

extracted  the life by an instrument devised for and  excellently

adapted to the purpose,  so that it died of exhaustion.  The life

thus regained was given to 'the gods' in a manner too complex  to

be described in this brief account.

The early age at which puberty occurred was due to design. The

normal  period  of  gestation  had also been  shortened  to  four

months.  This was all part of the scheme to economize  time.  Old

age  had been almost done away with by the great readiness of the

Atlanteans to 'go and see' at the first sign of failing power. No

doubt, further improvements would have been made but for the loss

of interest in the matter,  all generation being regarded as 'the

old  experiment',  not  likely  to repay the trouble  of  further

research.  In the 200 or 300 years of a man's full vigour, only 8

years on an  average was the wastage of childhood,  and even this

was not all waste, since some time at least must be necessary for

the  experts to discover and direct the tendencies of  the  mind.

The  body  ought  therefore  to be regarded  as  an  engine,  the

theoretical limit of whose efficiency had been reached.

So much I mention of the customs of the Atlanteans with regard

to marriage, education and religious sacrifices.

.pa

VIII.

OF THE HISTORY OF ATLAS, FROM

ITS EARLIEST ORIGINS

TO THE PERIOD IMMEDIATELY

PRECEDING THE CATASTROPHE.

The origin of Atlas is lost in the obscurity of antiquity. The

official  religious  explanation is this:  "We  came  across  the

waters  on  the living Atla",  which is pious but  improbable.  A

mystic  meaning is to be suspected.  The lay historian  says  "We

came, escaping from destruction, eight persons in a ship, bearing

the  living Zro." This reminds one of later legends of presumably

equal value.  Poets frankly claim "We descended from heaven", and

it  has been seriously urged that seafarers would have  preferred

the  plains  to  the rocks.  The law  of  contrariety  to  Nature

explains  this away.  Others maintain that the earliest  settlers

came  'by  air,' or  'through air'.  This must mean  balloons  or

airplanes, as flying was not known until centuries after. What is

definitely  known is that the earliest settlers were of a  purely

fighting race.

An  Atlantean Homer,  Ylo,  has described the first battle  in

such  detail as to leave no doubt that he is  retelling  facts--a

marked  contradiction to his earlier books.  There appear to have

been  but  few Atlanteans,  unless the names given are  those  of

chiefs,  which internal evidence contraverts.  Their valour seems

to  have  been prodigious.  The natives were  armed  with  every

possible instrument of precision, having cavalry and artillery in

abundance,  as well as weapons that must have been as superior to

the  modern  rifle  (unless Ylo exaggerates) as that  is  to  the

arquebus.  In  spite  of this the men of Atlas 'smote  them  with

rods'  or  'fell  upon them with their cones',  and  routed  them

utterly.  This  mention of rods and cones has absurdly  suggested

to  commentators  that  the  Atlanteans  used  their  eyes,   and

hypnotised the enemy.  To state such an opinion is sufficient  to

expose  its author to the contempt of the thoughtful.  Altogether

86  battles were fought,  extending over five years,  before  the

natives  were  reduced  to sue for peace.  This  was  granted  on

generous terms,  which the colonists broke, as soon as they dared

to  do so,  in accordance with the invariable rule of  colonists,

then as much as today.  However,  it was nigh on a hundred  years

before the first college of magic was established. Previously the

Atla  had  been carried about as occasion demanded.  It  was  now

enshrined with some decency of ceremonial upon a mountain.  About

three hundred years later we find ourselves face to face with the

first great Mystery of Atlas. This is a translation of the record

of that most strange event.

"Now  it came to pass that all men turned black and died,  and

that the living Atla abode alone,  bearing Mercury,  whereof  the

Sun  knoweth.  Thus came again the true men of Atlas,  and  their

women, bearing gods and goddesses. And the void suffered nothing,

and  the earth was at peace.  Now then indeed arose Art,  and men

builded,  being blind. And there was light, and some of the light

wrought  mischief.  Wherefore  the wise men destroyed  them  with

their magic, and there is no record because it is written in that

which  is." A sort of 'Si monumentum quaeris,  circumspice'  seems

here  implied.  In any case there were clearly two gaps  unbridge

able  between the early struggles of the settlers,  the period of

great buildings,  and the modern period,  which proved stable  of

'houses'.  The 'houses' were only made possible by the perfecting

of  Zro,  and this helps considerably to fix the date.  The  next

2500  years  were years of peaceable progress;  the  labour-mills

were run without a hitch, and the next event was the discovery of

black phophorus.  It had been the custom to worship the Atla with

lights, and these lights had been candles of yellow phosphorus in

golden  sheathes.  At  that  time the Atla  was  veiled.  At  one

festival  of  Spring  the  veils  were  burnt  up,   the   lights

extinguished,  and  the yellow phosphorus was found to have  been

turned  into the black powder.  The magicians examined this,  and

brought Zro to its ninth stage. This revolutionized the condition

of things: old age and disease were no more, and death voluntary.

Strangely enough this led directly to the Great Conspiracy.

At the end of this period of 2500 years the system of 'houses'

was well established.  There were over 400 such 'houses', each of

perhaps  1000  souls  on an average.  These were  governed  by  4

'houses of houses' whose rulers took orders from the High  House,

at the head of which was the living Atla.  The plain principle of

Atlas was  revolution;  and like all  revolutionary  bodies,  was

obliged to adopt the strictest form of autocracy.  A democracy is

always soddenly conservative. The only hope is to catch it in one

of  its moments of crazy enthusiasm,  and crush it before it  has

time to recover. Caesar and Napoleon both did this as far as they

could;  Cromwell  and Porfirio Diaz did the same within  narrower

limits.

Now  a certain sophist--for philosopher one cannot call  him--

tried  to enunciate a magical law to the effect that the  present

standard  of  life was all that could be  desired;  that  further

progress  would be harmful,  that Venus was not worth  attaining,

and  that  the  sole  endeavour of the  magicians  should  be  to

preserve  things as they were.  That such a proposition could  be

supposed  a  'law'  reflects  no  credit on  its  author  or  its

supporters.  Yet of these it found many.  The ninth stage of  Zro

was  a leap calculated to unsettle the calmest mind.  Its reality

had beggared the optimist's daydream. Poets had thrown down their

stilettos.*  High  Priests  who  had  spent  decades  in  hopeful

experiment  saw  their results attained by an entirely  different

method.   In short,  two thirds of the people were infected  with

the heresy, and hoped to hear it promulgated as a Law of Magic.

It  should  here be explained that every Law of Magic had  its

turn  as the principal law of practical working,  and the  school

supporting any law, or insisting on it, became prominent with it.

Every   dominant  law  in  all  history  had  always  been   made

insignificant  by a new discovery about Zro,  or other matter  of

practical importance,  just as the "Peace with Honour" battle-cry

of  Disraeli  was  drowned  by the calculation  of  the  cost  of

warships,   soldiers  and  patriotism.   Each  step  in  Zro  had

consequently  implied the rise to power of a new school;  and the

sophist was ambitious, and yet the law he wished to establish was

the ruling law of the servile races.

The 'law' was accordingly sent to the High House for approval.

Some  opposition may have been forseen,  but no one was  prepared

for  the  blackness  of  disapproval  which  actually   radiated,

striking hearts cold.  A course without precedent,  no answer was

vouchsafed.  On  the  contrary,  even  normal  communication  was

suspended.  The  houses  which  favoured the  innovation--333  in

numbers--took counsel,  came to the decision that it was  useless

to  oppose the High House,  and were about to acquiesce,  when  a

woman  who  had  once been in the presence of 'To Her'  rose  and

thought   vehemently  'The  Living  Atla  is  the  head  of   our

conspiracy'.  In  other  words,  they  were  the  loyalists,  the

Magicians of the High House the rebels. This was why they had cut

themselves off,  because their own head was against them.  It was

instantly  resolved  to  go to the High  House,  and  demand  the

custody of 'To Her'.  Nearing the goal, however, a remnant of the

ancient reverence half cowed even the ringleaders--I may  mention

that  five of every six of the heretics were women--when they saw

a stern phalanx of magicians, its point threatening their centre.

As  they  wavered,  a woman cried "They are only men such  as  we

are." The ranks stiffened;  on all sides the army closed upon the

tiny phalanx,  which only numbered 66 all told.  It was then that

the truth was known.  Ere a blow could be struck,  the  attacking

party  vanished;  it was instantaneous and complete annihilation.

From  that moment it was certain that the ruling power  in  Atlas

was  Something* infinitely more awful than the  Living  Atla.  In

order  to  avoid any possible repetition of such a  disaster--for

the  Magicians of the High House knew that any  manifestation  of

the  Supreme must undo the work of centuries--they gave out  that

they  had  become too terrible to look upon,  and for the  future

they always appeared with heavy veils, or rather masks, since for

the  most part they were carven fantastically by the  wearers  in

their leisure hours.  A further alteration was made in the system

of government. The head of one of the 'houses of houses' was made

supreme:  the  High House took no part in affairs of state.  Thus

the  Atla was to all intents and purposes deposed,  although  the

same  reverence  and sacrifice were paid to it  as  formerly.  It

became a 'constitutional monarch', in our modern jargon.

The  next thousand years were years of serious trial in  other

ways.  The  toil of repopulation was excessive,  and there was  a

revolt or rather strike of the servile races,  which was ended by

the substitution of 'bread from heaven' for those products of the

earth on which they had formerly been fed, a diet which proved so

adapted to their natures that no labour troubles ever recurred.

The Greek legends of the wars between Gods, giants, Titans are

traditional of a real war or series of wars which continued  with

intervals over 200 years.  The enemy had developed naval armament

to an extreme. Their tactics were these:

1.  To wipe out the servile races and so to interfere with the

production of Zro.

2.  To rush and destroy the High House.

The  first  of these met with a great  deal  of  success,  the

floating  rock  being  struck with  projectiles  and  sunk.  This

occurred  chiefly on the outlaying islands,  where they were  not

too  much afraid to make raids in force.  They also sent epidemic

disease  of many kinds.  Atlas was reduced to such  extremity  in

these  ways  that at one time the waterways were forced  and  the

assault  on the High House was actually carried out,  bombardment

continuing  day  and  night  for  months  together.   Through   a

misunderstanding of a well known magical law,  Atlanteans at that

time  considered themselves prohibited from employing  any  other

defence  than  the rods and the cones of their  forefathers;  and

these, it appears, were useless against machinery, or against men

protected  by fortification in such a way that they could not  be

got  at from any quarter.  Thus the sharklike submarines  of  the

enemy were unassailable.  The war was therefore at first entirely

one-sided. A certain youthful magician, however, resolving to die

for his country if need were,  decided to retaliate. He had found

that  Zro in its nascent state (i.e.  between the globes) had the

power  of  bringing  about  endothermic  reaction,  seawater  for

example, becoming caustic soda and hydrochloric acid; and further

that this acid thus produced was many thousand times more  active

than in its normal state.  For example,  the rock basins in which

he  conducted his first experiment dissolved as rapidly as butter

under  boiling  oil.  He  then  prepared a  number  of  pairs  of

receiver-globes,  and dropped them in the vicinity of the enemy's

submarines  by night.  In this manner he destroyed the  hulls  of

almost the whole fleet in a single night;  and the remainder fled

in panic at dawn.  They returned the following year, carrying out

daylight raids only and devoting themselves chiefly to destroying

the  labour-mills.  The young magician had been rewarded for  his

services  by  being  presented  to the  Atla,  and  this  example

encouraged  others  to  find means  of  attacking  the  invaders.

Artificial darkness was therefore invented, and combined with the

former  method;  but  this  was only  partially  successful,  the

tremendous  pace  of  the 'sharks' enabling  them  to  evade  any

threatening clouds. They did enormous damage, and the supplies of

Zro were seriously curtailed.  Things now went from bad to worse,

and  culminated in the attack on the High  House,  the  besiegers

keeping  their battleships surrounded by rafts of fire,  so  that

attack  was impossible even by night.  It was then that the  High

House  called on the heorism of its sons.  Armed with long swords

of Zro,  they plunged into the sea,  to perish under the tooth of

the Zhee-Zhou,  but not before they had time to hack the invading

battleships to shreds.  Their floating torch-rafts only  assisted

the attack by directing the swimmers to their quarry.  The attack

on  the High House had aroused Atlas at last.  A counter invasion

was plotted and carried out with immediate and complete  success,

the  enemy  being  exterminated,  and their  country  not  merely

ravaged  but destroyed by arousing the forces of earthquake.  All

activity  of this kind however was deprecable,  a recurrence  was

guarded against by removing the High House to the lofty  mountain

previously  described,  and a 'house' was chosen to cultivate the

art of war,  and entrusted with the duty of destroying any living

thing that might approach within a hundred miles of Atlas.

Only one other adventure of historical importance remains  to

be  recorded.  It  is the attempt of some foolish  Atlanteans  to

found  an 'Empire',  and so to be entirely distinguished from the

missionary effort referred to previously. The original settlement

of Atlas, as has been the case with all flourishing colonies, was

made  by  a  few  hardy  pioneers,  who  strengthened  themselves

gradually  by growth.  But Atlas in her momentary madness  poured

out  blood  and treasure in the fatuous attempt to  impose  alien

domination on lands utterly unsuited to the genius of the people.

The  idea,  of course,  was to increase the supply of labour  and

consequently of crude Zro.  In the first place the adventure  was

expensive.  It was uneconomical (in the scientific sense) to send

ships with less than 1000 fighting men. The Zro required for these

meant  the employment of at least 7000 serviles,  and  the  naval

construction  was  therefore of a colossal  order.  But  although

little  difficulty  was  found in conquering the country  in  the

military sense,  the natives had to be almost  exterminated,  and

the  labour of the survivors proved difficult to enforce.  It was

even  then  not a tenth as efficient as that of the  serviles  at

home.  The imported serviles moreover caught native diseases, and

died  in hundreds;  and though by prodigious sacrifices the  West

African Empire was kept going for nearly 200 years, it had to end

at last no less ingloriously than the French adventure in Mexico,

or the English in India, and South Africa.*

The main causes were the impossibility of breeding children in

a climate so unsuitable, even of maintaining their own women, and

above  all the fact that the crude Zro was not of a quality equal

to  that  obtained in Atlas,  and that the Zro generated  by  the

Atlanteans themselves was not to be made at all outside their own

country.  The lesson was learnt. Until the end no further attempt

was  made  to advance in any but the true  direction.  The  great

majority   of  the  colonists  returned  to  Atlas;   but   many,

degenerating as is the fashion with colonists of this  conquering

kind,  abandoned  Zro  for  gross  food,  intermarried  with  the

natives,  and  have  generally degenerated yet further  to  races

inferior  even  to the present descendants of those who  were  in

those days the equivalents of the serviles of Atlas.

.pa

IX.

OF THE CATASTROPHE,

ITS ANTECEDENTS AND

PRESUMED CAUSES.

In  my  remarks on Zro I have a necessarily  somewhat  diffuse

account of the properties of this remarkable substance.  It  must

now  be  made  clearer  that the crude Zro  in  its  nine  stages

produced  by the serviles,  and consumed in the 'houses'  was  in

each  stage  of  inferior  quality to that  of  the  same  degree

produced by the Atlanteans,  and consumed by the High House.  For

example,  the  crude Zro was made in a labour-mill with all sorts

of insulations.  The first stage of the priest's Zro could be made

anywhere  and at any time,  and naturally directed itself to  the

receptable for it without any precautions.  It must,  I think, be

presumed  that the Zro generated in the High House was  again  of

far  greater  purity  and potency.  Very little of  it  can  have

been  used  in  the  experiments of  the  magicians,  and  it  is

therefore necessary to account for enormous quantities,  produced

during many centuries of uninterrupted labour.  I have,  however,

no data of any kind for this investigation;  the mysteries of the

High  House  have  ever been inscrutable,  and  were  not  wholly

delivered to the Heirs of Atlas. They must be rediscovered by the

magicians  of the new race.  It may be that in some form or other

the Zro had been made stable,  and used to impregnate the  column

which  is  alleged  to  have been  driven  'through  the  Earth';

perhaps,  and less improbably, only to the depth of a few hundred

miles.  This column, however long it may have been, had certainly

its  top immediately beneath the reservoir of the High House.  It

had  been completed about 70 years before the  'catastrophe'  but

apparently no effort was made to utilize it in any way.  To me it

appears  probable  that in some one mind the whole  'catastrophe'

was brooding,  that the column was part of the device,  and  that

the event which I shall now describe was the other part.

This event was the birth of a child in the High House, a child

without the distinguishing mark of the daughters of  Atlas.  That

any  child  at all should have been born there is  so  incredible

that I am inclined to suspect an improper use of the word 'born'.

I think rather that a magician brought Zro to its eleventh stage,

when  it takes human form,  and lives!  The alternative theory is

that  of  the 'Angel of Venus' described in the  chapter  on  the

Underground Gardens of Atlas.  The supporters of this theory hold

that  the  child was not born of a priestess,  but of the  Living

Atla.

In  any case,  the whole country gave itself up  to  unbridled

rejoicing.  Work  was  carried  on at a greater speed  than  ever

before: one might say a delirium of labour. For eleven years this

continued  without cessation,  and then without warning came  the

order to repair to the High House--every man,  woman and child of

Atlas.  What was then done,  I know not, and dare not guess; that

same  day seven volunteers,  heroic exiles from the reward of  so

many  centuries  of  toil,  voluntary maroons  on  the  discarded

planet,  the  Heirs of Atlas,  turned their faces from  the  High

House,  and  severally  sought distant mountains,  there each  to

guard his share of the Secrets of the Holy Race,  and in due time

to discover and train up fit children of other races of the earth

so  that  one day another people might be  founded  to  undertake

another such task as that now ended.

Hardly  had  the pinnacle of Atlas melted into the sea  behind

them,  than  the 'catastrophe' occurred.  The High House and  the

column beneath it,  with all the inhabitants of Atlas,  shot from

the earth with the vehemence of a million lightnings,  bound  for

that green blaze of glory that scintillated in the West above the

sunset.

Instantly  the  Earth,  its god departed,  gave itself  up  to

anguish.  The  sea  rushed unto the void of the column and  in  a

thousand  earthquakes  Atlas,  'houses' and plains together  were

overwhelmed  forever in the ocean.  Tidal waves rolled round  the

world;  everywhere great floods carried away villages and  towns;

earthquakes  rocked and tempests roared;  tumult was  triumphant.

For  years  after the catastrophe the dying tremors of the  Event

still shook mankind with fear.* And the eternal waves of the great

mother rolled over Atlas, save where Earth in her agony thrust up

gaunt  pinnacles,  bare  masts of wreckage to mark  the  vanished

continent.  Save  for  its heirs,  of whose successors it  is  my

highest honour to be the youngest and the least worthy,  oblivion

fell,  like  one  last night in which the sun should  be  forever

extinct, upon the land of Atlas and its people.

Shall  such high purpose fail of emulation,  such  achievement

and  example not excite us to like striving?  Then let earth fall

indeed  from  her high place in heaven,  and mankind  be  outcast

forever from the sun!  Men of Earth! Seek out the heirs of Atlas;

let  them  order you into a phalanx,  let them build you  into  a

pyramid,  that  may pierce that appointed which  awaits  you,  to

establish  a  new  dynasty of Atlanteans to be the  mainstay  and

mainspring  of  the  Earth,  the pioneers of their  own  path  to

heaven,  and to our lord and Father, the Sun! And he put his hand

upon his thigh, and swore it.

By the ineffable    , Tla,  and by the holy Zro,  did he swear

it,  and entered into the body of the new Atla that is alive upon

the earth.

.pa

NOTES:

Chapter I:

p3.  There  were four (some say five)  distinct  races,  each

having  several sub-races.  But the main characteristics were the

same. Some alleged the Portuguese and the English to be survivals

of this or kindred stock.

p3.  Or ZRA'D.  The ZR is drawled slowly;  then the lips  are

suddenly  curled back in a sneering snarl,  and the vowel sharply

and  forcibly  uttered.  It  is disputed  whether  this  word  is

connected with the Sanscrit SRI, holy.

p4.  The  same  danger  to society in our own time  has  been

forseen,  and  an  identical  remedy discovered  and  applied  in

compulsory education and cheap newspapers.

Chapter II:

p6.  Gautama  Buddha  was the reincarnation or  legend  of  a

previous  Buddha  who  was a missionary  from  Atlas,  hence  the

account  of his immovable neck,  the ears that he could fold over

his face, and other monstrous details.

p6.  There was a Governor of these, of whose name, nature and

function I am not permitted to speak.

p7.  One  of the most brilliant children committed suicide on

learning that he could not move his upper jaw. This boy is of the

eleven  heroes  who  had  statues in  the  High  House.  And  the

Atlantean  for  'sorrow'  in  its  ultimate  sense  ('dukka'   or

'weltschmerz') is to wrench at the upper jaw.

p8.  This  system of communication has great advantages  over

any  other.  It is independent of distance,  and dependent on the

will  of  the  transmitter.  Telepathic  messages  could  not  be

'tapped' or miscarry in any way.

p9.  Called by them Zhee-Zhou,  in imitation of the swish  of

the tail and the cry of its victim.

Chapter III:

p10. The point was discussed fully, and finally relegated, in

the Council of Stockholm, 1913.

p10. The  scene is so real to me that I find it impossible to

avoid   using   the   historic  present   here   and   elsewhere,

inadvertently.

p10. There  are six other pieces of apparatus to insulate and

carry to the basin the six subtler principles of sweat.

p11. Only  the  smallest  quantity is  required,  and  it  is

unchanged,  its  function being purely catalytic.  This  form  of

phosphorus  is one of the most stable elements.  It combines  (so

far  as  is  known) only with Zro.  But if thrown out of  such  a

combination, it becomes ordinary yellow phosphorous.

p12. In spite of the absolute promiscuity of the  Atlanteans,

this  was never in doubt,  owing to the special mark of each man,

whose stigma or variation was infallibly transmitted.

p13. This item is loosely used,  as equivalent of 'life.' The

sacrifice is described later, and the point made clear.

p13. No other disease was known after the bringing of the Zro

to its ninth stage,  all indisposition being instantly cured by a

single dose.

Chapter IV:

p14. No known state of pure Zro is stable.  From this it will

be seen how entirely Atlas was in the hands of the servile races.

Fortunately  no  trouble ever arose;  the supply  of  labour  was

always ample.

p15. There was also a settlement in Finland. Its only remains

in historic periods is 'Lapland Witches.'

Chapter V:

p16. There are various theories; one a sort of avatar affair,

another  that  the Atla is a quintessence of some  kind;  another

calls 'To Her' the 'Angel of Venus, the force of our aspiration.'

p16. A mere compliment.

p17. Especially monkeys.  The results of this experiment were

sent to colonize an island, but escaped, and after many journeys,

reached Japan, where their descendents flourish still.

p19. A partial exception existed for prime numbers,  as being

self-generated, and each of these which had been investigated had

its special (and comparatively simple) signification.

Chapter VII:

p25.There was also the marriage of those of the Magicians who

refused all intercourse with the opposite sex, and were therefore

married to the whole sex as such.  Here was no ceremony used; but

each  had  a  special mark signifying that he  or  she  was  thus

consecrated.

p26. MAR  is  Atlantean (also Sanscrit) for  die.  This  word

throws light on their conception of death.

p26.Note that no tautologies defile its linguistic wells. "As

I have written" is never changed to 'as I have  observed,  noted,

described, said, indicated, remarked, pointed out' and so on.

p26. I must revert for a moment to the language.  OIK,  Greek

OIKOS meant the 'House of the penetrating men.' NOM, Greek NOMOS,

the 'arch of the House of the Women,' i.e. that which roofed them

in or protected them. Hence "the law.'

Chapter VIII:

p29. Needle-sharp  daggers  of Zro in its seventh stage  were

used to write on the rock walls of Atlas.

p30. This  matter  is not for open discussion.  Even at  this

distant date it would be dangerous to do so much even as  indulge

in speculation.

p32.I write a little, but not much, in advance of the events.

To  illustrate the theory here advanced I will ask the reader  to

compare  the  results of the attempts to colonize America by  (a)

the whole military power of Spain at her zenith,  (b) the handful

of exiles in the 'Mayflower.'

Chapter IX:

p34.The Legend of the Deluge is derived from this event.