PHOENIXFIRE 7

ATLANTIS HERE, ATLANTIS THERE, ATLANTIS DAMN NEAR EVERYWHERE!

Apologies for the audio on this one, we were seriously let down in terms of bandwidth from Skype on the night of the recording. It's cleaned up as much as we could and we feel it is quite listenable.

In orthodox academic circles, Atlantis is the ‘A’ word. If that terrifying word is uttered, academic ears fill instantly with academic wax and the offending utterer is summarily laughed and/or escorted out of the room.

Nevertheless, Atlantis hunters are legion, and Atlantis believers exponentially legioner.

In PhoenixFire 7 I take a long look at the entire complicated phenomenon. I present an overview of Atlantological history; it’s modern beginnings with Ignatius Donnelly’s ATLANTIS: The Antediluvian World, a vast volume of scholarship first printed in 1888, an instant best-seller, and in print ever since. I then look mainly at the astonishing number of claimants to Atlantis. These, among others, range from the Atlantic Ocean of course, to both the poles, Cypress, Spain, the Altiplano of Peru/Bolivia (believe it or not), and the Caribbean Sea. .

I look closely at Plato’s story, detailed in his Dialogues. For this is the tale that sent Donnelly on his initial search and a scholarly cottage industry was born. With immense advances in all sorts of underwater exploring techniques and excavating equipment besides, it shows no signs of abating.

However, despite the widespread locations trumpeted by adherents as THE Atlantis, all geographical candidates share one premise in common: a strictly literal acceptance of the complex and extraordinarily detailed physical description Plato provides for the huge, rich, aggressive and ultimately decadent civilization that sank to the bottom of the ocean in a single catastrophic day.

At the same time all Atlantologists practice one scholarly dodge in common: when the favored site diverges in some major way (size of site, place of site, age of site, etc) from Plato’s account –and without exception, all do- those divergences are fudged away and/or ignored. Nothing found and loudly proclaimed so far really matches Plato’s tale with anything resembling precision. In other words none of the candidates auditioning for the role actually qualify for it.

So is Plato’s account merely a fabrication? And if so, to what end? Why should he go to all that trouble? Just to confound researchers who will not show up for another two thousand years? It doesn’t make sense. And, along the same lines, are all those avid Atlantologists therefore deluding themselves, and their audiences while they’re at it; not so much barking up the wrong tree, as paddling aimlessly around the wrong ocean?

Definitive answer: yes and no, but it’s complicated. What isn’t?

There is an extraordinary, little-known and erudite book written and published some thirty years ago that, if heeded, without exactly nullifying the Atlantological premise could change the direction of inquiry in radical but fruitful ways.

Musicologist Ernest G. McClain's THE PYTHAGOREAN PLATO decodes the 'A' word as an elaborate musical allegory.

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APOLOGIES

Apologies to all who have been waiting for PhoenixFire 7. I have been extremely busy lately, but we aim to record it next week.
Thanks for your patience.
JAW

COMING SOON!

PHOENIXFIRE 7:

"Atlantis here! Atlantis there! Atlantis Everywhere"

PHOENIXFIRE 6

Son of Mystery of the Sphinx, Part 4,

The Book of Boris, Chapter 2.

Get Mystery of the Sphinx from Amazon US or Amazon UK.


…begins to sound almost like Quackademic Scholarship, doesn’t it? All that’s missing are unreadable, microscopic footnotes, meaningless or irrelevant references, a 90 page inflated, Big Think bibliography and an index… anyway…sorry for the delay in getting this show completed.

Here we conclude our Son of Mystery of the Sphinx saga, initially intended as a single episode telling the long, convoluted, often frustrating, sometimes amusing, but always eventful history of the Sphinx Theory.

But what happened was that once the mnemonic buttons were pressed, long submerged material deposited in the Long Term Memory Bank over two and half decades surfaced; one thing led to another, and, voila!, we ended up with four shows. Yet, even these were compressed. At the end of each show, I’d suddenly remember all sorts of relevant things that hadn’t found their way into my pre-prepared rough outline (intended initially to keep me –as is my wont- from wandering so far off the appointed topic that I’d never find my way back). This might not have been such a bad thing, actually! I might have needed another couple of shows just to incorporate those belatedly-recalled stories, and this way I can save them for the book that will ultimately come out of all this. I hope.

So… in this, our concluding SOMS chapter, we return to Boris and his endless criminal-cum-sociopathic shenanigans, his whopping lies, his sabotage, his temper, his ceaseless energy, his charisma at crucial times, his raw humor…the whole mixed psychological bag that was Boris, but never forgetting for a moment that without him there would be no Mystery of the Sphinx story to tell.

There are, however, no saving graces attending an underhanded attempt to steal our decades of painstaking research from us and claim the (un)discovery of the Hall of Records for themselves. There are a few anecdotes about a handful of irresponsible and highly unprofessional journalistic jackals trashing our Sphinx Theory without ever looking at our evidence or consulting us for our side of the controversy. There’s the bizarre, maybe miraculous, détente and ultimate personal reconciliation with the fiery and redoubtable Zahi Hawass; the plan for our Geo-Panel which we hope will settle this question of water weathering once and for all, and much else besides…

Finally, I mention early in this podcast, the CPAK conference, click here for more information.

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PHOENIXFIRE 6

Sorry about the delay with PhoenixFire 6,I have been in Egypt and Brazil, we should be recording the show on the 22nd of April, and it should be posted by the 24th.

MAGICAL EGYPT TOURS

Here's a promo for my tours that we just shot in Egypt during March 2007.

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PHOENIXFIRE 6

PhoenixFire 6 will be delayed until about the third week in April due to my travel commitments.