Author: Vladimir Karpets

Translator: Yulian Orlov

Source: Zavtra 39 (932), 28 September 2011 

The ‘era of great geographical discoveries’ was above all else the beginning of the ‘restoration of Atlantis’ for the British crown. “The New Atlantis”: it is precisely this name that was chosen by Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626) for his work on the ideal island of Bensalem, which is ruled by the House of Solomon [1]. With the Abrahamic religions having formed in the East and the Mediterranean, the Atlantic tradition emerges in the West as the legacy of the Thuata de Dannan, a legacy located in the first instance within the framework of ‘grand geopolitics’ and even ‘transcendental geopolitics’ (an expression of Jean Parvulesco [2]). During the sixteenth century, when the New World had not yet been given the name America, these lands were often called Atlantis, especially in England. For example, the famous seafarer Adrian Gilbert was granted an official allowance in 1583 for the development and establishment of English ways in “the northern part of Atlantis, which is called the New World” [3].

The very name ‘New World’ is highly characteristic. The year 1492 was the end year of a computus [4] that had been created many centuries earlier. This event coincided with the seventh century “from the creation of the world” (if we are to take the Bible literally, as the Western tradition demanded at the time). This date was connected with the coming of apocalyptic events and the end of the world, as well as the manifestation of a “New Earth and New Heaven”. Earlier in 1453, the Byzantine Empire, considered to be the New Rome by Eastern Christianity and the last redoubt of the one true faith, had fallen after the Ferraro-Florentine Union with the Catholic West [5]. The grand prince of Moscow, Vasiliy the Second (the Dark) of the Ryurikovichi-Danilovichi line rejects the Union and enters the spiritual legacy of Byzantium. In the north-east, the Third and last ‘Rome’ begins, located strictly in the region of the heritage of Hyperborea.

The end of the world did not come. Rather, it arrived ‘prefiguratively’. The ‘New Earth and New Heaven’ did not ‘descend from the heavens’, but were rather discovered within the realm of earthly dimensions, strictly speaking, as a ‘grand parody’ (R. Guénon), the realm of which starts to quickly develop precisely at that very moment. We are here speaking purely of the reestablishment of a ‘New Atlantis’, the ‘empire of the Thuata de Dannan’ or the ‘empire of the Danites’, which opposes the ‘New Hyperborea’.

MIGIMO Professor N.A. Barabanov  [6] points out:

“A special symbolic rationale accompanied the process of the discovery of the new lands in the northernmost part of the New World, i.e. Greenland, Canada, and the islands between them. Here, many of the newly discovered islands evoked reminiscences of the legendary Ultima Thule of medieval myth, and therefore their acquisition acquired a special ideological meaning. The use of the symbolism of Thule in this region has been preserved to this day. Even today, the American military base in the extreme northwest of Greenland has the name Thule”.

Ultima Thule (‘extreme Thule’, ‘last Thule’) is the name of a fabled, ancient northern land in Virgil’s “Georgics” (I. 30) [7]. In the Greek language, the toponym of the ‘ultimate North’ is written with the letter theta and pronounced differently in different languages, both as Tule (Tula) and as Thule (Thula). Strabo provides information on Tule (Thule); he is followed by Arab authors in the Middle Ages. Al-Kindi (died 961/962) wrote about the enormous island of Tulia and a great city “at the northern end of the inhabited earth, near the North Pole.” There is a story in the Gothic Wars by Procopius of Caesarea (sixth century) that reads: “Now Thule is exceedingly large; for it is more than ten times greater than Britain. And it lies far distant from it toward the north. On this island the land is for the most part barren, but in the inhabited country thirteen very numerous nations are settled; and there are kings over each nation. In that place a very wonderful thing takes place each year. For the sun at the time of the summer solstice never sets for forty days, but appears constantly during this whole time above the earth. But not less than six months later, at about the time of the winter solstice, the sun is never seen on this island for forty days, but never-ending night envelops it…” [8] The most interesting here, however, is that the cosmographer Dimeshki in his explication of this information, stresses that the land of Tulia was inhabited by Slavs [9]. This echoes the information about the Isle of the Ruses provided by Arab travelers. In Russian medieval ‘Cosmographies’ and supplements to them, the territory of Russia was up until the eighteenth century depicted as an archipelago, the islands of which form a semicircle. In Karelian-Finnish runes, the Northern Land of Pohjola (the setting for the events of the Kalevala) has a second, more archaic name: Sariola [10]. The root of this name is clear. A reminiscence of the Hyperborean homeland also resounds in the name of one of the oldest cities of the Russian part of the East-European Plain [11].  

The matter at hand is the polar homeland itself. Rene Guénon gave a very stern warning on this subject: “On the other hand, the Atlantean Tula must be distinguished from the Hyperborean Tula, which latter represents the first and supreme centre for the entire current Manvantara and is the archetypal ‘sacred Isle’, situated, as we have seen, in a literally polar location. All the other ‘sacred isles’, although everywhere bearing names of equivalent meaning, are still only images of the original. This even applies to the spiritual centre of Atlantean tradition, which only governed a secondary historical cycle, subordinate to the Manvantara.” (Guénon R. “The King of the World”, translated by Yu. N. Stefanova, included in the book Guénon R. “Symbolism of the Cross”, M., 2004, p. 289) [12].

Here, the problem of the primary or secondary nature of the tradition makes itself very apparent. If the ‘Atlantic tradition’ was acknowledged as secondary by its bearers and its very separation as the ‘original sin’ of history, everything could have been different; however, that which is desired is not that which is real. The capture and substitution of the Russian island, and, consequently, of Rus (Kings) as well is the metapolitical foundation of Atlantism as such and, above all else, of the ‘British project’.

The formation of ‘neo-Atlantic’ ideology as such belongs to the famous ‘Elizabethan magus’ John Dee (1527 – 1608), an esotericist (he is said to have engaged in alchemical exercises; however, they were most likely theoretical, and he received his ‘powder’ from a certain Edward Kelley [13]), geographer and mathematician. Dee’s name is linked to the development of the idea that forms the foundation of later British colonial empires, the idea of the special mission of the New World, and also an attempt to unite magic with world politics. He is considered to be the creator of the British intelligence agency MI-5. It is interesting to note that Dee signed his secret messages to the queen with the pseudonym ‘007’. In turn, English intelligence agencies used the ‘Enochian language’ [14] that was ‘revealed to John Dee by angels’ in coded messages during World War II.

N. A. Barabanov [sic] points out: 

“John Dee was a long-time confidant of Wueen Elizabeth I. It is precisely to him that the appearance of the very term ‘British Empire’ and the development of the concept of an English right to colonial conquests and world domination belongs. He developed this idea between 1577 and 1578 in his treatises. Dee envisioned the term ‘empire’ as encompassing Britain and its colonies. He emphasised that the British Empire surpasses any monarchy on earth from the time of the creation of the world and could become a universal monarchy. This new, “non-Roman” empire (this point received special emphasis: the British Empire was supposed to be a counterweight to the ‘Roman inheritance’ of the continent, from the Orthodox Third and Second Rome to the Roman Catholic Holy Roman Empire) was called the “Green Land” by John Dee. The colour green is a key concept in alchemy. An alchemist who has begun the Great Work must necessarily leave for the Green Land, in order to find vitriol, the Stone of Philosophers (the beginning) through which the Philosopher’s Stone is acquired (the end). The “Green Land” of John Dee is a way of transforming the world towards the “New Atlantis”. It is a ‘hermetic brew of global history’. Dee openly juxtaposed the British Empire with both the Christian ideal of the ‘mystical universal city’ that unifies the entire world as well as the ‘cosmopolitan government’ that is meant to rule it. Thus, he simultaneously gave the British Empire a universal, global character. He also spoke in this regard of the concept of ‘world citizen’ and of cosmopolitism under the auspices of empire.”

John Dee’s template was later adopted by the Puritans as well as modern American Protestant fundamentalists.

The entrepreneur and politician Cecil Rhodes (1853 – 1902) directly continued John Dee’s ideas at the end of the 19^th century. According to Rhodes, long-term global peace can only be maintained under the auspices of a global empire. Therefore, the goal of empire becomes the “foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible and promote the best interests of humanity” [15]. The planned universal British Empire was declared by Rhodes to be the inheritor of the universal empires of the past: “it is in the interests of this country, and, as Mr. Lawley very neatly put it at Bulawayo, what was attempted by Alexander, Cambyses, and Napoleon, we practical people are going to finish.” In other words, the whole world must be united under one rule. The Macedonians, Persians, and French failed. We, British, will succeed [16].”

The symbolism of ‘Ultima Thule’ was projected by Rhodes onto the south, the other edge of the world. What’s more, the ‘Primordial’, ‘Aryan’ tradition was also used in its ‘Atlantic’ redaction by Rhodes at the end of the 19^th century; he would go on to add to its ‘Middle Eastern’ paradigm in strict accordance with the earlier ‘Atlantic paradigm’. When Rhodes’ colonists set off to conquer future Rhodesia, their first fortified settlement beyond the boundaries of the white settlements was named Thula, reminding us of the legendary ‘Ultima Thule’ of North-European medieval myth: an island on the very edge of the world, lying on the edge of the otherworld. After the discovery of gold deposits in South Africa, a legend began to spread that claimed that those lands were the mysterious land of Ophir from which (according to the Bible) the Israelite king Solomon had brought gold for the decoration of the Temple in Jerusalem [17]. Here, Rhodes emphasised that it was he who was developing a “copy of King Solomon” [18]. 

The heirs of the Thuata de Dannan are singularly oriented towards the ‘secondary Thule’ of the Atlantic tradition, contrary to the primary, Hyperborean Thule.

Before us is the direct esotericism of the ‘North-Atlantic alliance’ versus the esotericism of the Northern Pole, of Rus.

 

Translator’s notes: 

[1]: The New Atlantis is available here.

[2]: Jean Parvulesco (1929 – 2010) was a French philosopher and author of Romanian extraction who wrote several geopolitical treatises, as well as a large number of novels with esoteric themes.

[3]: Adrian Gilbert (1539 – 1628) is a little-known seafarer and government official who was instrumental in the exploration of the northern areas of North America.

[4]: A computus is a (meaning ‘computation’ in Latin) is a calculation used to determine the date of Easter.

[5]: This Union attempted to bridge the Great Schism of 1054, with the result being that the Byzantine Orthodox Church as well as most other Orthodox Churches briefly entered into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Although the Union was later rejected, it did result in the formation of several Eastern Catholic Churches, creating sources of tension in the Orthodox world.

[6]: The professor in question is actually named Oleg Nikolaevich Barabanov. The article mentioned is available in Russian here.

[7]: “…or whether thou come as god of the infinite sea, and thy deity only be adored of sailors, to thee utmost Thule be tributary, thy hand Tethys purchase for her daughter with dower of all her waves…”. Translation drawn from The Georgics of Virgil translated from the Latin into English by J. W. Mackail Fellow of Balliol College Oxford (Boston 1904; The Riverside Press), p.8. The translation is available here.   

[8]: Translation drawn from the Loeb edition of Procopius’s History of the Wars: Books V and VI, translated by H. B. Dewing (New York 1919: G. P. Putnam’s Sons), p.417. The text is available here. 

[9]: Khems-ed-Din Abu Abdallah Mohammed ed-Dimeshki (date of birth and death unclear) was a medieval Arab cosmographer. His main cosmographical work is available in Arabic here.

[10]: The Kalevala is a compilation of Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. The work has for all intents and purposes become the national epic of the Finnish and Karelian peoples. The work can be found online here.

[11]: This is probably a reference to the Russian city of Tula. 

[12]: Translation drawn from René Guénon. The Lord of the World (Moorcote 1983; Coombe Springs Press) p.56.

[13]: Edward Kelley (1555 – 1597) was John Dee’s “skryer”, i.e., medium for conversing with angels. In addition to angelic rituals, Kelley worked extensively on alchemical operations. 

[14]: The ‘Enochian language’ was the language revealed to Edward Kelley and John Dee by angels in 1583.

[15]: From a will drafted by Rhodes in 1877. The full text is available here.

[16]: This quote is drawn from a speech given by Rhodes on September 17 1898 at Port Elizabeth in South Africa. The speech can be found in its entirety in Vindex (F. Verschoyle). Cecil Rhodes, His Political Life and Speeches 1881-1900 (London 1900: Chapman and Hall), pp.603-613 (for the quote see p.609), available online here. The ‘mr. Lawley’ mentioned is Arthur Lawley, sixth Baron Wenlock (1860 – 1932), a colonial administrator. The quote originates from a speech made by Lawley at the opening of the railway from Mafeking to Bulawayo in 1897. The original article also groups the three sentences that follow it with it, though these are absent from the speech itself. 

[17]: The following passages relate to Ophir: “And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon” (Kings 9:28) ; “Even three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the houses withal…” (1 Chronicles 29:4); “And Huram sent him by the hands of his servants ships, and servants that had knowledge of the sea; and they went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought them to king Solomon.” (2 Chronicles 8:18); “And the servants also of Huram, and the servants of Solomon, which brought gold from Ophir, brought algum trees and precious stones.” (2 Chronicles 9:10). All quotations are drawn from the KJV.

[18]: The precise source of this quotation has not been discovered.