DreamWorks takes tour of supernatural history museum

By Ace Fernandez and Borys Kit / No, it’s not a hot new sushi restaurant or Japanese beer.

Musunahi — familiar to Web denizens enamored with the spooky, suspicious and bizarre — is the blog otherwise known as the Museum of SuperNatural History. And DreamWorks Studios sees some feature potential there.

The museum’s curator, Ernest Lupinacci, considers his creation a “trans-media brand” designed to “be to the paranormal world what National Geographic is to the real world.” Read more …

Atlantis: An Atlantis Theory - Plato’s Atlantis From the Timaeus

Was Atlantis real? We’ll probably never be able to prove such a rich and powerful land that suddenly went belly up in the Atlantic Ocean never existed. The story of Atlantis is usually referred to as a parable and as such is not intended to be taken literally, but there is nothing in the story that proves it’s made up. Even serious geologists can’t entirely debunk it. In 2005, according to About.com’s Geology Guide, there was a conference to discuss possible locations for Atlantis.

The story of Atlantis comes to us from Timaeus, a Socratic dialogue, written in about 360 B.C. by Plato. There are four people at this meeting who had met the previous day to hear Socrates describes the ideal state. Socrates wants Timaeus of Locri, Hermocrates, and Critias to tell him stories about Athens interacting with other states. The first is Critias, who talks about his grandfather’s meeting with Solon, one of the 7 sages, an Athenian poet and famous lawgiver. Solon had been to Egypt where priests had compared Egypt and Athens and talked about the gods and legends of both lands. One such Egyptian story is about Atlantis.

Before quoting it, I want to stress that this is part of a Socratic dialogue, not an historical treatise. The story is preceded by an account of the sun god’s son Phaethon yoking horses to his father’s chariot and then driving them through the sky and scorching the earth. Thus, what we recognize as fiction is mingled with fact.

And now for Plato’s account of Atlantis as translated by Benjamin Jowett: Read more …

Filmmaker Circles “Atlantis” Adaptation

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.

Writer-director Joby Harold is negotiating to write the adaptation of the comic book “Atlantis Rising” for DreamWorks.

Len Wiseman (”Live Free or Die Hard”) is attached to direct the apocalyptic science fiction project.

In “Atlantis,” an underworld civilization is discovered after seismic rumbles announce its presence. Hostilities with Earth’s land-dwellers ensue.

“In all the classic versions of this kind of movie, the threat is always from the stars,” said Roberto Orci, who will produce with his “Transformers” partner Alex Kurtzman.

“The idea that it’s somehow our cousins who went off in a different path of evolution who have been here, literally, underneath our oceans. … That’s fascinating, the idea of secrets right under your nose.” Read more …

The Sunken Kingdom - The Atlantis Mystery Solved

A book by Peter James

“A roller-coaster ride through Plato’s thought (brilliantly done), ancient Greek and Hittite history, with a stern message at the end of it. Superb.” Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian, 26 September 1996).

“… certainly the best treatment of the subject I have seen in years. The Sunken Kingdom is a considerable achievement… James has provided us with a benchmark in Atlantean studies. Alternative interpretations will have to answer the points he raises or provide a more convincing alternative - and that may be very hard to do.” (Steve Moore, Fortean Times 85, Feb/March 1996).
“… a tour de force, comparable in clarity of writing, wealth of material, and boldness of purpose to The White Goddess.” (Andro Linklater, The Spectator, 11 November 1995)

Overview

The Sunken Kingdom provides a solution to a mystery which has baffled scholars for nearly 2,400 years - since Plato first wrote about Atlantis in Timaeus and Critias. Written by an outstanding historian and archaeologist, this book takes an entirely new approach. It reviews previous theories, some fantastic, some more rational, and shows why they will not work. Atlantis could not have been in the Atlantic, nor was it the volcanic island of Santorini near Crete, as currently held. Through a careful analysis of the sources, it becomes clear that the story of Atlantis came from western Turkey, where a major Bronze Age city was devastated by an earthquake and submerged beneath a lake. Read more …

Atlantis: Similarities between Plato’s beliefs, and today’s facts

Thera and Atlantis both experienced severe earthquakes and a volcanic eruption(s) so huge that only 5 islets, some no more than rocks, remain of Thera, and of Atlantis remained “small islets, only the bones of a wasted body”. See above map. Both were wealthy, highly developed cultures, concerned with art, beauty, entertainment and personal comforts and adornments.

Plato spoke of bulls hunted with ropes within a temple in Atlantis. Archaeological evidence has shown the Minoans built bull rings, hunting the animals with nooses, (the only example of this kind of “bullfight” in world history) and practiced “bull jumping”, either a sport or religious ritual. These practices gave rise to the legend (?) of the Minotaur, half man, half bull, secured within the labyrinth. Read more …

Atlantis: No way, No how, No where! A Diferent Review

The myth of the lost civilization of Atlantis has attracted the attention and speculation of several eminent personalities over the centuries, including the brilliant English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, Minnesota congressman Ignatius Donnelly, and, of course, the father of the myth, Plato-one of the most influential minds in Western thought.

The myth is first told in two of Plato’s dialogues: the Timaeus and the Critias. The Timaeus, mostly a supernatural account of Creation, is often included in the canon of sacred works by Hermetists, neo-Gnostics and other occultists, who identify strongly with the speculative philosophies of Plato and later Platonists like the Egyptian Plotinus. Famous psychics and occultists have fastened onto the Atlantis legend itself as a subject of prophecy. Edgar Cayce, the “Sleeping Prophet,” predicted that Atlantis would be uncovered in 1968 or 1969; nineteenth century mystic Madame Blavatsky claimed that she had spent seven years in Tibet studying with Hindu mahatmas who taught her about the lost civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria.

The legend of Atlantis, after several years’ dormancy in imagination of the broader public, has begun to make something of a comeback in recent years. Read more …

The Story of Atlantis

Over 11,000 years ago there existed an island nation located in the middle of the Atlantic ocean populated by a noble and powerful race. The people of this land possessed great wealth thanks to the natural resources found throughout their island. The island was a center for trade and commerce. The rulers of this land held sway over the people and land of their own island and well into Europe and Africa.

This was the island of Atlantis.

Atlantis was the domain of Poseidon, god of the sea. When Poseidon fell in love with a mortal woman, Cleito, he created a dwelling at the top of a hill near the middle of the island and surrounded the dwelling with rings of water and land to protect her. Read more …