The Human Will-To-Believe, Even In The Face Of All Factual Evidence.

I heard that meme has been officially added to the dictionary.

A meme is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. An Internet meme is a concept that spreads via the Internet. Balloon boy hoaxor Ancient Aliens

Know Your Meme

Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature is a study by L. Sprague de Camp_[1]. It is considered one of his most popular works. It was written in 1948, and first published serially in the magazine Other Worlds Science Fiction in 1952-1953; portions also appeared as articles in Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy Science Fiction, Natural History Magazine, and the Toronto Star. It was first published in book form by Gnome Press i n 1954. I never noticed this about Sprague de Camp_[1] when I first blogged him in 2011.

L. Sprague de Camp_[1] enjoyed debunking doubtful history and pseudoscientific claims. The work provides a detailed examination of theories and speculations on Atlantis and other lost lands, including the scientific arguments against their existence.

Fairyland.

On August 11, 1900 Doctor Edgar Lucien Larkin(1847 - 1925) found himself accepting the position of director of the Lowe Observatory. Larkin came to the Lowe Observatory on Echo Mountain from the Knox College Observatory in Galesburg Illinois. The California "fairyland" as he called it was to be his home for the next 25 years.. He was replacing the nearly blind Dr. Swift who was eighty years old. Dr. Swift was well known for his discoveries of comets and nebulae and he brought great attention to the observatory.
Dr. Larkin's approach was a bit different but in holding with Professor Lowe's ultimate dream of a scientific institute on the mountain. Dr. Larkin pushed the idea of the observatory being an informative, educational, and entertaining attraction to the many visitors from the world below.
After the fires on Echo Mountain the observatory was one of the last attractions at the top of the incline. Saturday, Sunday, and holiday evenings were set aside by the Dr. for free astronomical lectures and a chance for patrons to look through the great telescope. On other evenings the observatory was available to schools and private parties through special arrangements of the Traffic department of Pacific Electric.
When Larkin was director of the observatory the Pacific Electric Railroad (Owned by Henry Huntington, the Pacific Electric Railway Company, was incorporated on November 10, 1901) was in full control of the activities on the mountain. In fact Dr. Larkin was employed by Pacific Electric making him the worlds only astronomer employed by a traction railroad.
Dr. Larkin was a man of many interests. He was interested in the occult and two sunken continents, Atlantis and Mu, in the Pacific. Dr. Larkin was very down on astrology as many visitors soon found out upon inquiring about the subject.
The Dr. wrote a book around 1914 titled "Within the Mind Maze" described by him as a book of creative thought. It sold for $1.25 back then.
He grew up in near Ottawa, Illinois. Larkin was born in a log cabin along Indian Creek on April 5, 1847 to a father of ordinary means and a mother of high morality and nobility of mind. His parents were poor and Larkin himself said they could well be the topic for a writer of modern socialism with a title such as Submerged 9/10’s or Unequaled Distribution of Wealth. Try as they may Edgar’s parents sent him to the fields to plow corn and learn the ways of farming, but the weeds seemed to have escaped him altogether. Then he was put in sole charge of the cows, which Edgar took to and became great friends to them.
His grandfather built a frame house with pine boards brought to Ottawa on the new canal. When Edgar was eleven his father died and he and his mother went to live in the newly painted white frame house. Teachers were scarce commodities and books were the same. A retired German physician came into the area and had a library. Edgar read all the books the German had in English but the greatest of volumes were in German and like hieroglyphics to the young man.
In 1858 a school opened in the region and the task of teaching this future writer began. It was also in this same year that the greatest of events took place, which forever changed the course of life for Edgar Larkin. On October 5, 1958 Edgar lay asleep in bed when his grandmother awoke him and urged him to come outside and see the wonderful site. It was around 10:00 PM and the wonder site that awaited him was the Comet Donati. It appeared to be springing from their black forest and extended to the zenith. His eyes and those of many others had not before seen such a display.
The next day young Larkin at the age of 11 decided to study astronomy. With a dollar that would eliminate his Christmas present from grandmother that year, he bought his first book, Burrits Geography of the Heavens and Atlas. A nearby surveyor had a 4 inch lens which when placed in a piece of wood and an eyepiece added, became his first telescope to study with. By the time he was fourteen however his eyesight became so bad that he had to leave school and never returned.
Edgar Lucien Larkin penned his last book in 1916, it was called the Matchless Alter of the Soul and in 1925 he died. He was a member of the INTA.

The Great Nebula in Andromeda (Radiant Energy[1903])

The matchless altar of the soul, symbolized as a shining cube of diamond, one cubit in dimensions, and set within the Holy of holies in all grand esoteric temples of antiquity(1916)
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7238505M/The_matchless_altar_of_the_soul

Radiant energy and its analysis; its relation to modern astrophysics(1903)
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7248642M/Radiant_energy_and_its_analysis
Within the mind maze; or, Mentonomy, the law of the mind. (1911)
In the mid-19th Century paleontologists coined the term "Lemuria" to describe a hypothetical continent, bridging the Indian Ocean, which would have explained the migration of lemurs from Madagascar to India. Lemuria was a continent which submerged and was no longer to be seen. By the late 19th Century occult theories had developed, mostly through the theosophists, that the people of this lost continent of Lemuria were highly advanced beings. The location of the folklore 'Lemuria' changed over time to include much of the Pacific Ocean. In the 1880s a Siskiyou County, California, resident named Frederick Spencer Oliver[http://pvrguymale.blogspot.ca/2011/07/i-am.html] wrote A Dweller on Two Plants, or, the Dividing of the Way which described a secret city inside of Mount Shasta, and in passing mentioned Lemuria. In 1925 a writer by the name of Selvius wrote "Descendants of Lemuria: A Description of an Ancient Cult in America" which was published in the Mystic Triangle, Aug., 1925 (the singlemost inportant document in the establishment of the modern Mt. Shasta-Lemurian myth) and which was entirely about the mystic Lemurian village at Mount Shasta. Selvius claimed that Lakrin had seen the Lemurian village through a telescope, "Even no less a careful investigator and scientist than Prof. Edgar Lucin Larkin, for many years director of Mount Lowe Observatory, said in newspaper and magazine articles that he had seen, on many occasions, the great temple of this mystic village, while gazing through a long-distance telescope.".
Frederick Spencer Oliver[http://pvrguymale.blogspot.ca/2011/07/i-am.html] was a Yrekan (the county seat of Siskiyou County, California, United States) teen who claimed that his hand began to uncontrollably write a manuscript dictated to him by Phylos the Tibetan, a Lemurian spirit.
Oliver's novel of spiritual fiction is

"The single most important source of Mount Shasta's esoteric legends. The book contains the first published references linking Mt. Shasta to: 1) a mystical brotherhood; 2) a tunnel entrance to a secret city inside Mount Shasta; 3) Lemuria; 4) the concept of "I AM"[http://pvrguymale.blogspot.ca/2011/07/i-am.html]; 5) "channeling" of ethreal spirits; 6)a panther surprise"

The author claimed to have written most of the novel within sight of Mount Shasta, and autobiographical telling of the story from Phylos the Thibetan's point of view.
In 1908, Adelia H. Taffinder[1] wrote an article, "A Fragment of the Ancient Continent of Lemuria," for the Atlantic Monthly with its Theosophical teachings and extension of the Lemurian Myth to California.
The Lemuria-Mount Shasta legend has developed into one of Mount Shasta's most prominent legends.
Wishar Spenle Cerve's 1931 Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific was "responsible for the legend's widespread popularity”. Is "Wishar Spenle Cerve" really a letter-for-letter pseudonym for "Harve Spencer Lewis(1883–1939)", first Imperator of the Rosicrucian Order of North and South America.
The idea of a lost continent (and the subsequent existence of Lemurians on Mount Shasta), quickly became widely known, though perhaps not so widely believed.
Today the belief that Lemurians inhabit the mountain is still very popular, and anyone visiting the local bookstores will likely be surprised by the glut of texts on the subject.

[1] Tavinder wrote in American Theosophist Magazine, 1914, about “World Teachers of the Aryan Race”.

Actually one new ager channels about Lemurians at Mount Shasta.

I’ve already given up any plans of ever taking one of those boat cruises with an author. What happens if, shortly after departing, you find out they’re not all they seem to be?

2012, Ascension, ascended Lemurian masters under Mount Shasta and Planetary Alignments.

2012
By now, most people should know that on Dec. 21, 2012, the Mayan calendar will display the equivalent of a string of zeros, like the odometer turning over on your car, with the close of something like a millennium. In Maya calendrics, however, it's not the end of a thousand years. It's the end of Baktun 13. The Maya calendar was based on multiple cycles of time, and the baktun was one of them. A baktun is 144,000 days: a little more than 394 years. [1] [2][3][4]
[1] http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-guest.html
[2] http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2011/05/2012.html
[3] http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2011/03/2012-doomsday-theories-spring-from.html
[4] http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2011/03/2012-and-mayan-long-count-calendar.html


Ascension
Francis Bacon is believed to have undergone a physical Ascension without experiencing death (he then became the deity St. Germain) by members of various Ascended Master Teachings, a group of New Age religions based on Theosophy. They also believe numerous others have undergone Ascension; they are called the Ascended Masters and are worshipped in this group of religions. The leaders of these religions claim to be able to receive channeled messages from the Ascended Masters, which they then relay to their followers.
Guy Ballard[5] , who founded I AM [6], the first Ascended Master Teachings[7] religion, claimed he could teach people how to ascend to heaven without having to die. He accumulated over 1,000,000 followers in the 1930s. However, he died a normal death in 1939. The I AM movement and people adherent to later Ascended Master Teachings religions such as Elizabeth Clare Prophet [8] then redefined ascension as dying normally, but claimed that certain special people, such as her own husband Mark Prophet [9], were able to ascend to a higher heaven than the average person after they died, becoming an “ascended master” and receiving worship. [10]
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Ballard
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_AM_%28religion%29
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascended_Master_Teachings
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Clare_Prophet
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Prophet
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_%28mystical%29


Ascended Lemurian Masters at Mount Shasta
This book is the source of the idea that there is a hidden sanctuary of ascended Lemurian masters under Mount Shasta . “A Dweller on Two Planets or The Dividing of the Way” written by Frederick S. Oliver.
Openly acknowledged as source material for many new age belief systems, including the "I AM" movement of Guy Ballard, the Lemurian Fellowship, Elizabeth Claire Prophet and Shirley MacLaine." [10][11][12][13]
[10] http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/dtp/index.htm
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dweller_on_Two_Planets
[12] http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-am.html
[13] http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2011/08/atlantis-and-lemuria-craze-novelist.html


Planetary Alignments
In The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, José Argüelles linked the 13-baktun period with an impalpable "beam" from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. According to Argüelles, the Maya knew when we entered this beam and when we would leave it, and set their 13-baktun cycle to mark our passage through it accordingly. The beam, he asserted, operates as "invisible galactic life threads" that link people, the planet, the Sun, and the center of the Galaxy. Neither Maya tradition nor modern astronomy supports a belief in any such beam. He used the phrase "the principle of harmonic resonance." And concluded that the planets are "orbiting harmonic gyroscopes" that “play a role in the coordination of the beam," which advances the development of anything with DNA. The year 2012, therefore, will bring a rosy version of the apocalypse.

So, in 1987 Argüelles and his followers predicted Aug. 16–17 of that year would bring a Maya-Galactic "Harmonic Convergence." That event turned into a global phenomenon, with thousands gathering at Earth’s “acupuncture points” to create a "synchronized and unified bio-electromagnetic collective battery. " Unfortunately, the date passed with nothing more than colourful newspaper stories and a satires. The power of suggestion. [13][14]
[13] http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-guest.html
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Arg%C3%BCelles

Atlantis and Lemuria craze: Scott-Elliot, Steiner and biodynamics

The Story of Atlantis A Geographical, Historical and Ethnological Sketch by W. Scott-Elliot [1896]
Imaginative Theosophic history of the Earth, the Theosophic concept of human evolution and everyday life in old Atlantis.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/soa/index.htm

The Lost Lemuria by W. Scott-Elliot [1904]
A short essay by Scott-Elliot on the lost continent which preceeded Atlantis in Theosophic beliefs: Lemuria.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/tll/index.htm


William Scott-Elliot (sometimes spelled Scott-Elliott) (d.1930) was a theosophist who elaborated Helena Blavatsky's concept of root races in several publications, most notably The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904), later combined in 1925 into a single volume called The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria.

2012: The doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan, ideas

José Argüelles (1939- ) is a Mexican-American author, artist, and educator.
José Argüelles was involved in the Harmonic Convergence event of 1987 and wrote “ The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology”, published the same year. In The Mayan Factor Argüelles devises a complicated numerological system by combining elements taken from the pre-Columbian Maya calendar with the I Ching and other esoteric influences, interspersed with concepts drawn from modern sciences such as "genetic codes" and "galactic convergences".
The issue?As mathematician Michael Finley notes:
"Since the 365 day Maya haab makes no provision for leap years, its starting date in the Gregorian Calendar advances by one day every four years. The beginning of Argüelles' year is fixed to July 26. Thus his count of days departs from the haab as it was known to Maya scribes before the Spanish conquest. Argüelles claims that the Thirteen Moon Calendar is synchronized with the calendar round. Clearly, it is not."Predictions and prophecies are an interesting phenomenon over the last 30 years.
Nostradamus seems to have predicted an awful lot. But that’s always pointed out after something has already occurs. Cayce made similar unsubstantiated predictions.

Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan, ideas.
Most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya Indians say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials — such as one on the History Channel that mixes predictions from Nostradamus and the Maya and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"
There are other inscriptions at Maya sites for dates far beyond 2012 — including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.

144000 is a natural number. It has significance in several religious movements. In the Mayan calendar, a baktun is a period of 144,000 days. The only reason for the 2012 paranoia is that it's the end of one Buktun (395 years). This would be the first Baktun that's ticked over since we figured out the Mayan calendar that's all. There have been 12 previous Baktuns without incident.

Jose Huchim, Yucatan Maya archaeologist said “If I was Mayan and people asked what will happen in 2012, nobody would have any idea,” That the world is going to end? They would not believe me. They have more real concerns, like rains. ”

Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that "We have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end" in 2012.
In other words 1618 was a turning point in their calendar. 2012 is. 2407 is.
And the Mayan calendar is good until 4772.
Now you just know there's going to be a lot of back peddling over this.



"The Open Book of Revelation," by Miriam Comer Johnson, of Divine Science. The results of a 3 part/22 class session on Revelation. { Interesting that 22/7 is PI, PI and the Bible. A curious enterprise indeed}
The book is esoteric in nature. The number 144,000 comes from 12 x 12,000 and 12,000 is the number of times we must "think a thought" before it becomes a habit! All of our "human beliefs" are going to eventually be "uprooted" (when we make the next step in our evolution from "human material" to spiritual substance - and this will happen when we live according to the law (= we are ONE with God). The 12 are the 12 tribes of Israel, each of which represents a faculty or power, e.g., Judah = faculty of praise; Reuben = faith; Gad = personal power; Asher = our happiness and blessedness; Nephtalim = our ability to mentally surrender the material for the spiritual; Manassas = our forgetfulness of the material; etc.
These faculties/powers/beliefs are not "sealed in the forehead" until they are joined with the power of LOVE and FELT. (Just as the Golden Key to manifestation/demonstration is FEELING the desire as it would be manifested - and then IT IS MANIFESTED. Ask, believing you have already received.) So, when the 12 powers are FELT and THOUGHT 12,000 times each, they become SEALED in the consciousness - and become the foundation of spiritual consciousness - and then we live from that spiritual consciousness, because our humanness falls away. The undoing of the ego in other words.

I remember reading the "Flower of Life" books talking about 2012, the "Bible Code" and Hebrews from the future going back to ancient Lemuria to change the course of history and make the world a better place. And wondering who decided that. And realizing that it was written at a time, long before the internet when it was hard to substantiate the information. People have their beliefs. Some people believe in Pleadians, others in Hathors.

Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg: The Pseudoscience of Mayanism.

Abbé[1] Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814 – 1874) was a noted French writer, ethnographer, historian and archaeologist. He became a specialist in Mesoamerican studies, travelling extensively in the region. His writings, publications, and recovery of historical documents contributed much to knowledge of the region's languages, writing, history and culture, particularly those of the Maya and Aztec. However, his speculations concerning relationships between the ancient Maya and the lost continent of Atlantis inspired Ignatius L. Donnelly and encouraged the pseudo-science[2][3] of Mayanism.



As a youth he went to Ghent in the newly independent Belgian state to study theology and philosophy. He became interested in writing during his studies there, and in 1837 aged 23 he began contributing essays to a Parisian journal. His reputation as a notable young writer and intellectual continued to develop. He transferred his studies and residence to Rome, where in 1845 he was ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood, at the age of 30.

In the autumn of 1845 he left Europe bound for the British colony of the Province of Canada, stopping over briefly in Boston on the way. Upon his arrival in Quebec City he began work as a professor of ecclesiastical history at the seminary (the Séminaire de Québec, founded in 1663).

From 1848 to 1863 he travelled extensively as a missionary in many parts of Mexico and Central America. In 1862 while searching through archives at the Royal Academy of History in Madrid for New World materials, he came across an abridged copy of a manuscript which had originally been written by the Spanish cleric Diego de Landa sometime around 1566. His main interest in the document, however, was a section in which de Landa reproduced what he called "an alphabet" of the as-yet undeciphered Maya hieroglyphics, the writing system of the ancient Maya civilization.

Brasseur began to write about Atlantis[4] in Grammaire de la langue quichée (1862). He suggested that the origins of European and Persian words could be traced to indigenous languages of the Americas and that the ancient cultures of the New and Old Worlds had been in constant contact with one another.

The combination of Brasseur de Bourbourg's interests in spiritualism and these speculations about connections between the ancient Maya and Atlantis laid the foundations for Mayanism[2].

In 1869–1870 Brasseur de Bourbourg published his analyses and interpretations of the content of the Troano codex in his work Manuscrit Troano, études sur le système graphique et la langue des Mayas. His his translation would later inspire Augustus Le Plongeon[5] and thus lay the basis for the speculation on the lost continent of Mu. The Name Mu actually goes back to Brasseur de Bourbourg.

In 1871 Brasseur de Bourbourg published his Bibliothèque Mexico-Guatémalienne, a compendium of literature and sources associated with Mesoamerican studies.

His last article, "Chronologie historique des Mexicains" (1872) refers to the Codex Chimalpopoca and identifies four periods of world cataclysms that began about 10,500 BC and were the result of shifts in the Earth's axis (a concept related to pole shift theory).
His linguistic and archaeological fieldwork, as well as his diligent collection, discovery and republication of source materials, proved to be highly useful for subsequent Mesoamerican researchers and scholars.

The interpretations and theories he advanced mostly proved to be inaccurate.

[1] Abbé (from Latin abbas, in turn from Greek αββας = abbas father, from Aramaic abba) is the French word for abbot.

[2] Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status. Pseudoscience is often characterized by the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories.

[3] Mayanism is a term used to refer to a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples. Adherents of this belief system are not to be confused with Mayanists, scholars who research the historical Maya civilization.

[4] Atlantis (in Greek, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, "island of Atlas") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias. In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".
Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by older traditions. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC.

"It is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in antiquity". Alan Cameron, “Greek Mythography in the Roman World”, Oxford University Press (2004) p. 124


[5] Augustus Le Plongeon (1825–1908) was a photographer, antiquarian and amateur archaeologist. He studied the pre-Columbian ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization on the northern Yucatán Peninsula. While his writings contain many eccentric notions that were discredited by later researchers, Le Plongeon left a lasting legacy in his photographs documenting the ancient ruins. He should also be regarded as one of the earliest proponents of Mayanism.

Le Plongeon's theories, an early form of alternative history, survive today in certain New Age beliefs that are derived from occult knowledge and Theosophy.



[6] Mu is the name of a hypothetical continent that allegedly existed in one of Earth's oceans, but disappeared at the dawn of human history.
The concept and the name were proposed by 19th century traveler and writer Augustus Le Plongeon, who claimed that several ancient civilizations, such as those of Egypt and Mesoamerica, were created by refugees from Mu — which he located in the Atlantic Ocean. This concept was popularized and expanded by James Churchward[8], who asserted that Mu was once located in the Pacific.
The existence of Mu was disputed already in Le Plongeon's time.
Today, scientists universally dismiss the concept of Mu (and of other lost continents like Lemuria[7]) as physically impossible, since a continent can neither sink nor be destroyed in the short period of time required by this premise. Moreover, the weight of all archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence is contrary to the claim that the ancient civilizations of the New and Old Worlds stemmed from a common ancestral civilization. Mu is today considered to be a fictional place.

[7] Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography; however, the concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern theories of plate tectonics. Although sunken continents do exist — like Zealandia in the Pacific and the Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean — there is no known geological formation under the Indian or Pacific Oceans that corresponds to the hypothetical Lemuria.
Though Lemuria is no longer considered a valid scientific hypothesis, it has been adopted by writers involved in the occult, as well as some Tamil writers of India. Accounts of Lemuria differ, but all share a common belief that a continent existed in ancient times and sank beneath the ocean as a result of a geological, often cataclysmic, change. There is no scientific evidence to support these claims.

[8] James Churchward (1851-1936) is best known as a British born occult writer.

Pole shift?

The cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis is the conjecture that there have been rapid shifts in the relative positions of the modern-day geographic locations of the poles and the axis of rotation of a planet.

The field has attracted pseudoscientific[1] authors offering a variety of evidence, including psychic readings.

It is now established that true polar wander has occurred at various times in the past, but at rates of 1° per million years or less. (True polar wander is a solid-body rotation of a planet or moon with respect to its spin axis, causing the geographic locations of the North and South Poles to change, or "wander". This can happen when the two larger moments of inertia are near equal.)



[1] Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status. Pseudoscience is often characterized by the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories.

Mayanism is a term used to refer to a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples. Adherents of this belief system are not to be confused with Mayanists, scholars who research the historical Maya civilization.

Atlantis (in Greek, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, "island of Atlas") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias. In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".
Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by older traditions. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC.

"It is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in antiquity". Alan Cameron, “Greek Mythography in the Roman World”, Oxford University Press (2004) p. 124

Mu is the name of a hypothetical continent that allegedly existed in one of Earth's oceans, but disappeared at the dawn of human history.
The concept and the name were proposed by 19th century traveler and writer Augustus Le Plongeon, who claimed that several ancient civilizations, such as those of Egypt and Mesoamerica, were created by refugees from Mu — which he located in the Atlantic Ocean. This concept was popularized and expanded by James Churchward[3], who asserted that Mu was once located in the Pacific.
The existence of Mu was disputed already in Le Plongeon's time.
Today, scientists universally dismiss the concept of Mu (and of other lost continents like Lemuria[3]) as physically impossible, since a continent can neither sink nor be destroyed in the short period of time required by this premise. Moreover, the weight of all archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence is contrary to the claim that the ancient civilizations of the New and Old Worlds stemmed from a common ancestral civilization. Mu is today considered to be a fictional place.

[2]Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography; however, the concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern theories of plate tectonics. Although sunken continents do exist — like Zealandia in the Pacific and the Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean — there is no known geological formation under the Indian or Pacific Oceans that corresponds to the hypothetical Lemuria.
Though Lemuria is no longer considered a valid scientific hypothesis, it has been adopted by writers involved in the occult, as well as some Tamil writers of India. Accounts of Lemuria differ, but all share a common belief that a continent existed in ancient times and sank beneath the ocean as a result of a geological, often cataclysmic, change. There is no scientific evidence to support these claims.

[3] James Churchward (1851-1936) is best known as a British born occult writer.