Vanishings & Vortices II: Mayans, The Hollow Earth, & Croatoan
(This is an expert from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
The real reasons for the decline and fall of Mayan civilization will probably never be known. Since Spanish conquerors burned all but a few of the Mayan codices in which the history of this ancient people was recorded, all we have left are the ruins and the imaginary conjectures of speculative historians. The Mayans were brilliant mathematicians, astronomers, and architects. They built cities of splendor and beauty equal to Karnak and Ninevah. Yet, without any discernible motive, they abandoned their early cities completely by 900 A.D. and moved away to construct others. A clue to the reason for this abandonment might be found in the rise of the quasi-mystical leader Quetzalcoatl, or “Plumed Serpent,” whom the Mayans called Kukulcan. Around 1200 A.D. this leader conquered the Mayan city of Chichen Itza and made war upon the League of Mayapan, named for the principal city-state in the alliance that formed to oppose Quetzalcoatl’s advance. The wars between the Yucatan city-states lasted for some three centuries, until the sack of Mayapan in 1441 plunged the region into chaos. Outbreaks of disease and continuing violence so weakened the Mayans that they were easily overrun by the invading Spaniards between 1527 and 1535. Details of these historical events can be found in Eric Thompson’s book, The Rise And Fall Of The Mayas (1956). Students of early Mexico’s history may remember that the mythical Queztalcoatl, an albino warlord believed to possess godlike powers, had vowed to return and conquer Mexico. The superstitious Aztecs saw the arrival of the Spanish as the fulfillment of this prophecy, a delusion which contributed greatly to their downfall. The key to the Mayan’s abandonment of their early cities might also, therefore, be found in their religious beliefs. It could be that the Mayans foresaw, with astronomical calculations, the eventual demise of their civilization, but were unable to prevent it even after relocating their cities. The magical powers attributed to their nemesis Queztalcoatl may have sealed the Mayans’ fate, while the Plumed Serpent himself escaped into the Otherworld known to the Aztecs as Aztlan. (Atlantis?)
Tales concerning the Incas relate how some of them were able to elude the Spanish conquerors by retreating, along with their treasure, into secret tunnels beneath the earth. The existence of such tunnels would help to explain how the Incan leader Manco was able to wage a 36 year guerrilla war against Pizarro’s Spaniards. The still undiscovered city of Vilcabamba was reputed to be the base for Manco’s army of 100,000. Though many have searched for the legendary city, only the relatively small ruins of Machu Picchu and Espiritu Pampa have been discovered. Perhaps Vilcabamba can only be reached through some sort of gateway into the Otherworld. Then again, it could be that Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett’s legendary city of “Z,” which he discovered in some unknown part of the Brazilian jungle in the 1920s, was actually Vilcabamba. In the book Vanishings (1990), “Z” is described as a city which could be entered through a “massive stone portal,” beyond which lay “a lost city of wide avenues, statuary, temples, and other buildings, all constructed in a style like that of ancient Greece.” Unfortunately, the secret of “Z”s location disappeared with Fawcett when he departed on his final expedition to the city in 1925, never to return. Could Fawcett have stumbled upon an Otherworldly city that could only be reached by means of the mysterious stone portal?
Many mysterious phenomena observed by travelers near the North Pole have contributed to the idea that a gateway exists there leading into a subterranean region known as the Hollow Earth. Among these strange phenomena are the aurora borealis or “northern lights,” said by Hollow Earth enthusiasts to be light from that region’s ever-shining sun. The northerly migration of animals in the region, warm winds allegedly blowing from the north, and the return of conspicuously well fed animals from supposedly barren arctic regions have all contributed to this belief. Recorded accounts of the polar flights conducted by U.S. Navy aviator Richard E. Bardo in 1926, 1947, and 1955 have been abridged, some claim, in order to hide his descriptions of the vast continents and interior spaces he discovered beyond the poles. According to Mystic Places (1987), the writers Ray Palmer and Raymond Bernard “shared a belief that someone was conspiring to keep Bardo’s real findings secret. They found confirming evidence in Bardo’s phrases about ‘the country beyond’ and ‘the enchanted continent in the sky.’ And they claimed to have discovered other radio messages that told of iceless land and lakes, mountains covered with trees, and even a monstrous animal resembling the mammoth of antiquity moving through allegedly polar underbrush.” Strangely enough, a wooly mammoth was indeed found in Siberia in 1864, long after the animals had supposedly become extinct. Some claim that such mammoths, which have been found since 1864 as well, come from the Hollow Earth. However, in light of monsters like the coelacanth, Loch Nessie, and Bigfoot, a few wooly mammoths need not be explained by such an elaborate theory.
More mystical minded authors such as Julius Evil, author of Revolt Against The Modern World (1995), have suggested that the Hollow Earth may be an invisible, otherworldly place. Evil tells of the legendary homeland of the Hyperborean, situated in the “Far North,” which can be found “neither by ship nor by marching feet.” This land is located at the center or “axis” of the world, in a place elevated “above the interplay of earthly forces.” Evil links this conception of the Hollow Earth with tales of Atlantis in Revolt Against The Modern World (1995): “Thus, the legend of the subterranean people or of the subterranean kingdom is often the counterpart of the legend of the sunken land, island, or city; this legend is found among several populations. When impiety began to run rampant in the earth, survivors of previous eras moved to an ‘underground’ location (in other words, they acquired an ‘invisible’ existence) that is often situated in the mountains... These beings continue to exist on those mountain peaks until a new manifestation is made possible for them as the end of the cycle of decadence approaches.” The increasing frequency of Otherworldly manifestations might signal the impending end of our own decadent age, which would make it possible for transcendental beings to return to Earth. Conversely, such manifestations may be meant as a warning that the age of impiety has only just begun, and those who wish to survive beyond the end of the cycle must seek an “invisible existence.”
The flight from decadence has occurred many times in the past, most notably during the English colonization of North America. The colony of Roanoke in Virginia, established in the 1580’s during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was originally conceived as a base for seagoing raids on the Spanish treasure fleet. The war beginning in 1585 between Spain and England provoked by these piratical depredations forced the Queen to abandon the Roanoke colony along with more than 100 colonists who occupied it. The colonists received no assistance for over three years, and when ships finally returned to the colony, all of its inhabitants had disappeared. The only indication of where they had gone was a carving in one of the wooden beams of their abandoned fortification which read CROATOAN. Though this would seem to indicate that the colonists had relocated to the nearby island of Croatoan, no trace of them was ever found, there or elsewhere. Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony (1984) tells us, “Local legends in North Carolina maintain that the lost colonists survived and intermarried with the Indians and that their descendants live in the region today.” If this were the case, why did these former colonists fail to reestablish contact with their countrymen who settled at Jamestown in 1607? Perhaps their abandonment by the decadent and piratical English had disillusioned them, prompting them to voluntarily retreat from the world they once knew and instead seek a simpler, freer life among the natives of North America. In this case, CROATOAN might represent, for us today, a transcendental state of mind through which the decadent, materialistic world we know can be left behind in favor of an invisible existence centered in the Otherworld. As science tells us, this Otherworld coexists with the one we know and occupy already; the secret to entering it lies within us.
We may never fully comprehend the unexplained mystery of the ancient Maya. They left some record in the Mayan ruin that we find much of along the Riviera Maya. Many people know of this ancient mystery because of the fascinating Mayan calendar. This calendar, known as calendar 2012, has been found on a ruin and interpreted as counting down to the unexplained end of civilization in the year 2012. Quetzalcoatl has done little to explain this ancient Mayan mystery. This 2012 Quetzalcoatl disappeared with the Maya of the Riviera.