Forgive me if this topic (CAS's interest in esoteric Californian lore/lost continents) has already been broached/discussed elsewhere in this forum. But I’ve been reading a (rather very hilarious) book, Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific by Wisher S. Cerve, first published in September 1931 by the AMORC (the modern American version of the Rosicrucian society). The theory which Cerve and the Rosicrucian society present here is obviously false*, but what interests me, and something which I had not realized until I read this, is that theorists of Mu- or at least the Rosicrucians among them- regarded the West Coast of California, including Carmel, Santa Barbara, Mt. Shasta, and everything over to the Sierra Mountains, as being the only remaining fragment of the lost, sunken pacific continent of Mu (Lemuria) left remaining above water! Which means that our much loved poet and weird author, CAS, was actually dwelling IN LEMURIA!!

CAS himself seems to allude to this interesting occult theory in his “City of Singing Flame”, where his description of “Crater Ridge”, with its “two boulders…having a vague resemblance to broken-down columns” (Rendezvous in Averoigne, p.179), resembles Cerve’s descriptions of how,

“Month after month visitors and explorers in California come face to face with some great rock strangely carved, some magnificent piece of sculptured work lying beneath age-old shrubbery, or some skeleton, or the remains of some living creature which awes them and leaves them spellbound in the realization of our inability to understand.” (Cerve, p. 233)

Elsewhere, Cerve writes of how the Lemurians, faced with the sinking of the western half of their continent, fled to what is now the California coast (and which was then nothing but a sliver of land, separated from North America by an inland sea). There they constructed “protected places”, Cerve tells us, “out of very hard stone and marble”. (Cerve, p. 237) “This accounts,” Cerve explains,

“for the occasional discovery of strangely built structures found in a ruined condition by explorers in the mountains of California. ….[E]specially in the vast forests and unexplored regions, many moss-covered, shrubbery-hidden ruins have been found accidentally by explorers who have made their first reports in great astonishment, but were later prevented by mysterious forces and strange incidents from returning to these sites and making any further investigations….

“(…) …There are mountainous parts of California where men go lion hunting or hunting for other wild animals, and where the foot of a white man has probably not trod for many centuries, if at all. It is not uncommon for these hunters, and for lonely explorers in search of thrills and excitement to come face to face with peculiar conditions, unexpected scenes, and gruesome relics of ancient peoples…” (Cerve, p. 238)

I must note here that Cerve’s book on Lemuria is filled with (apparently unintentional) howlers on every page, logical contradictions, prevarications, errors, etc., etc. etc. Cerve often contradicts himself on every other page, sometimes in the same paragraph, and sometimes even in the same sentence (!) ---as witness his description of the modern-day descendants of the Lemurians living in the 1930’s, who, he says, still inhabit the forest around volcanic Mt. Shasta:

“Many representatives of the community from the foot of Mt. Shasta have been seen on the highways unexpectedly, garbed in pure white and in sandals, with long curly hair, tall and majestic in appearance, but wholly undesirous of public attention.” (Cerve, p. 256)

Perhaps my favorite sentence in the whole book, however, tells us how “Many pictures crudely drawn show the native Lemurians riding on the backs of animals which appear to be tall and slender much like a camel, but of entirely different form.” (Cerve 115) So did they look like camels or not?

“In height,” Cerve tells us, the Lemurians “were a little above the average of today, with a great many attaining a height of almost seven feet. The arms were much larger, longer, and well developed in muscle, while the legs were not so long but fairly well developed…” (Cerve 123-24) Whereas, elsewhere in another chapter of the same book, Cerve tells that “evidence occurs that they [the Lemurians] were a little above the average of today, perhaps six feet in height.” (Cerve 104) Elsewhere, Cerve tells us confidently how “The ears [of the Lemurians] were much smaller than we find them today but the nostrils were larger…” (Cerve 123-24)

In Lemuria, Cerve tells us, “That which we call the ant today was so large that it was at least two inches in length”, while “the bug generally known as the roach, for instance, was from four to five inches in length, with large wings capable of flying a long distance.” (Cerve 99) So the Lemurians had a roach problem.

Far more important than the ants and roaches, however, yet only mentioned after these particular pests by Cerve, are the dinosaurs, which, Cerve assures us, coexisted (not so peacefully) with the Lemurians. As Cerve explains, “Their strange grumblings, made by a form of gurgling in the throat, which always preceded one of their wild rampages in search of flesh, or the crackling of vegetation as their huge, bulky forms moved through the high growth of grass and wild bushes, were sounds for which the [Lemurian] natives constantly listened and of which they lived in dread.” (Cerve 99)

For, as we might expect, Cerve regards the human race, and in fact all the other life forms on earth, as being the result of a special creation. Cerve writes, “..the earliest records indicate that man was created coincident with the creation of other living creatures, and that he was not a descendent from any lower species of the animal kingdom, but always of human form and expression and with dominant control over the other creatures around him. Thus, the old Biblical story, representing the ancient traditions of the history of man, appears to be correct and indicates that God created man immediately after having created the other creatures over whom he was to have dominion.” (Cerve 75) …How Cerve squares this idea of mankind’s “dominant control over the other creatures around him” with his later description of puny Lemurian natives “listening in dread” for the footfalls of hungry dinosaurs is for anybody to guess.

In order to account for the origin of the human race in Lemuria, meanwhile, rather than Africa, where it is set today, Cerve is required to explain why life did not evolve on any of the other continents: and this he does, by explaining that while Lemuria was above water, all of the other continents on earth were below it (!). So now, instead of having merely one sunken continent -the hypothetical Mu/Lemuria- now we have eight.

An even more central and problematic contradiction for Cerve, meanwhile, is brought about by his occult contention that “the art of mental telepathy or the mental exchange of ideas and impressions at unlimited distances became a perfectly natural, commonplace, and regular practice with the Lemurians.” (Cerve 127) This, combined with the supposed connection which the Lemurians had with something Cerve calls the “Cosmic Mind”, enabled the Lemurians “to receive direct information of a dependable, reliable nature on all subjects and covering the entire field of knowledge” (Cerve 130) -including foreknowledge of the past and the future, and even foreknowledge of the moment of one’s own death. “…should we be surprised,” Cerve finally asks us, “that they had solved all of the great problems of life and had found solutions to all of the mysteries?” (Cerve 131) No, it shouldn’t- but what surprises us more, given these facts with which Cerve has presented us, is that their continent should have collapsed from underneath them, or that they should subsequently have vanished from the face of the earth.

Perhaps the most appalling contradiction, however, in Cerve’s treatise, can be encapsulated by these three paragraphs, widely spaced throughout Cerve’s book, and which I quote here in sequence to give an idea of Cerve’s patent imbecility.

Paragraph #1: “The mental development of a race, adding to it the character of the soul within, also has an extremely important effect upon the outer appearance of man. It is generally conceded that the more intelligent races of man developed in those countries where the climate was either mild or cold, while the less intelligent races developed in those countries where there was extreme heat. Analyzing this we find a very logical reason for this law. In the colder countries where there is much snow and ice, man was forced to invent and reason out ways and means of clothing himself and protecting himself against the cold and winds; and he had to invent homes and shelter, and devise ways and means of securing food and preserving it. All this taxed his imagination, challenged his mental ability, and made him more industrious and a deeper thinker. On the other hand, in the warmer climates man found an abundance of food all year round, required little or no clothing, no specially constructed homes or huts of any kind, and because of the heat and enervating effects of the climate he became sluggish in his thinking and in his physical actions.” (Cerve 29)

Paragraph #2: “Regarding the nature of the country [of Mu/Lemuria] itself we have certain evidence from archeological researches and undeniable testimonies in the form of relics… (…) …The vegetation on the continent was undoubtedly of an extremely tropical nature. Viewing the continent from our present-day considerations we would say that most of it was in the tropical zone, but viewing it from the time of its existence we an say that all of it was of a tropical nature since most of it, if not all, was within an extremely warm belt. Those who have made a study of nature in its relation to the zones of temperature know that in tropical countries all living things of the vegetable kingdom grow to an extremely large size, and in the animal kingdom all species lower than man in intellect and spiritual development tend to grow to extreme size…” (Cerve 98)

Paragraph #3: that the Lemurians “solved all of the great problems of life and had found solutions to all of the mysteries…..” (Cerve 131) Not bad for a tropical race, I’d say.

*(FOOTNOTE: "The theory which Cerve and the Rosicrucian society present here is obviously false*": Thor Heyerdahl presents a similar, although far more compelling theory, using much the same evidence, Heyerdahl convincingly linking West Coast American native cultures with Pacific Island cultures and the Indus River culture in India, citing similarities of art, symbolism, folklore, and script. Heyerdahl, however, forgoes the Lemuria route -at least explicitly- and instead argues for the prehistoric traversing of the Pacific by hardy explorers using ancient canoes.)



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 27 Dec 08 | 10:07PM by Gavin Callaghan.