"Underground" civilizations in myth, occultism and "alternative reality"

Simultaneously with the publication of our article on "Underworld Civilizations in Fantastic Literature" appeared in Cosmic Dimension, we have drawn up here a brief excursus on the same topos in the sacred traditions, in the esoteric sphere and in the "alternative reality" of the twentieth century


di Marco Maculotti
image: John Martin, "Fallen Angels in Hell ", 1841


In the remote and gloomy Tartarus
I will precipitate it, deep chasm
Which has a bronze threshold and iron doors,
And so far down into Hades it sinks,
How far from the earth is the sky.

(Homer, "Iliad", book VIII, 16-20)

All the traditional beliefs they carry can be credited (or even taken into consideration) the existence of a world at the below ours, within the globe or rather in one dimension other difficult to define according to the criteria of experimental physics? On the other hand, this idea which may appear crazy to contemporary man, since the dawn of time, exercised an unusual and continuous fascination on all of humanity, through the various eras: and even today, although received in different forms, it continues to exercise it.

Over the millennia, legends about civilizations that have now disappeared - or at least disappeared from the surface, or with regard to the our dimensional plane of existence - who would have taken refuge, to avoid definitive annihilation, underground or in a another dimensional plane, superimposed on ours although reachable only in particular and extraordinary conditions, as well as often completely random and unpredictable.

Everyone is aware that, according to Hellenic mythology, antediluvian races such as the Titans and the Cyclops were thrown by Zeus into a sort of hypogeal abyss which, however, does not seem at all of this world, Tartarus. Similarly, the esoteric beliefs of the Germanic-Norse peoples let us assume the existence, in other worlds separate from ours (Mittgart) [1], of creatures such as Giants of Fire, Mountains and Frost. The Native American folklore speaks of numerous underground peoples who, throughout the history of the planet, would have inhabited the chthonic depths of the planet: in their myths they refer to them with the words "Popolo-Ant", "Popolo-Locusta" et similia [2].

The belief in a Little People resident in one dimension other, accessible through dimensional openings inside caves, mountains and burial mounds is practically universal and affects both European populations and those of the New World. Fairies, Elves, kobolds, dwarves and Tommy Knockers have always found a place in the collective imagination, to the point that even in the nineteenth century the German or English miners who entered underground tunnels described them as a real reality [3].

1
Richard Dadd, "Titania Sleeping", 1841

Beliefs handed down orally - over a number of centuries that cannot be established, but which in all probability would lead us to a proto-historical era well before the development of advanced civilizations - on ancient races of giants and gnomes they are found almost everywhere, even in New Zealand and in most remote Pacific islands; and curiously, the main characteristics of these folkloric beliefs are found everywhere in the same way, except for some slight variations on the theme which do not deprive the general picture of coherence. 

But where does the myth and begins what we define today science fiction? From the underground journeys of Jules Verne [4] need EA Poe [5] to the dark mythology of the gods "Great Ancients" di HP Lovecraft [6], terrifying ancestral deities waiting for the moment the stars will return to their place to abandon their submarine home and return to dominate the planet; from the alleged access in the "Terra Cava" by the 'Admiral Richard Byrd [7] to the oriental legends of Agharti e Shamballa who collated, among others, JA Saint-Yves, F. Ossendowski and R. Guénon [8] and that Nicholas Roerich he had the merit of evoking in his dreamy paintings; up to the "underground myths" of the "Alternative Reality", among which we recall the supposed survival of the ancient Lemurian race within Mount Shasta and the typically post-modern paranoia of the so-called "Mystery Shaver" [9] - Well: from this improvised "conceptual map" of the last centuries an extremely clear picture emerges, which leads us to consider how much such beliefs have always been rooted in the depth of the human psyche, whether we like it or not.

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In fact, it appears clear from this quick introduction, as the topos of "underground" or dimension-dwelling civilizations other recurs abundantly if not even obsessively in the history of human consciousness, be it mythological or folkloric traditions, mystery doctrines, the so-called "Alternative Reality" o, simply, of science fiction fiction - to the point that sometimes it is difficult to label the various versions of the topos in one category rather than the other.

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«We must also pay attention to the idea of "Unknown Superiors". It is found in all the black mystics of East and West. Inhabitants of the subsoil or from other planets, giants similar to those who would sleep under a golden armor in Tibetan crypts, or shapeless and terrifying presences as described by Lovecraft, these "Unknown Superiors" spoken of in pagan and Luciferian rites, exist? When Do he speaks of the world of Evil, "full of caves and crepuscular inhabitants", as a disciple of the Golden Dawn he refers to the other world, the one in which man makes contact with the "Unknown Superiors". " [10]

In the context of the so-called "occult doctrines", the belief in an underground center is to be related to the existence (or, better, the survival) of a «Ancient WisdomThat is to say a secret set of knowledge about the cosmos and its functioning offered to humanity in illo tempore by a "Higher Power" (now occult) before recorded history began. All this would necessarily be connected, if we are to give credit to certain esoteric doctrines which later resulted in Theosophy, to thepast existence of an initiatory center which has now disappeared, inhabited in illo tempore (ie before an unspecified primordial catastrophe) by an almost divine proto-humanity, we want to call them Hyperboreans, Titans, Atlanteans, Lemurians or in other ways.

As a note Julius Evola [11]«The disappearance of the legendary sacred land can also mean the passing into the invisible, into the occult or unmanifest, of the center that preserves the primordial non-human spirituality unaltered.And in this regard he quotes Hesiod, according to which "as invisible they would continue to exist, as guardians of men", The beings of the ancient ages"who never died". In this sense, "the legends of the earth, island or sunken city often contrasts with that of the underground peoples or the underground kingdom [...] at the prevailing of wickedness on earth, the survivors of the previous ages passed into an "underground" - that is, invisible location», Accessible to today's humanity only in very peculiar situations.

16379261531_7fbbd52c41_o.jpg
Nicholas Roerich, “Dorje the Daring One”, 1925

The same concept also seems to emerge from the folklore tales concerning access to fairy land, a legendary country or dimension other which, despite having gods access portals in our world, it does not belong to it. The so-called would live in this mysterious hybrid dimension between the hypogeum and the ethereal Fairies, fairy creatures halfway between the physical and the ethereal state, which are often confused with the most varied sub-categorizations of the variegated and heterogeneous Little People (or "Hidden", as it is still defined today by the Icelanders).

These themes were also taken up, in the second half of the nineteenth century, by the controversial (but worthy of mention here) occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky which, alluding to the existence of such "Occult Masters", identified their location in some more or less inaccessible underground locations, under the sands of the Gobi desert as well as, for example, in the subsoil of South America, inside of the Peruvian mountains - a belief that is also found, with some minimal variation, in Andean folklore [12].

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With the advent of the twentieth century and the "modern mentality" these beliefs in an underground world inhabited by civilization other they "withdrew" only apparently, as far as the esoteric-religious sphere is concerned, only to be reborn in other forms: those of science fiction genre fiction and the so-called "Alternative Reality". We have already mentioned what it is sometimes difficult to label the various versions of the topos of "underground civilization" now as a myth, now as an alternative reality, now as mere science fiction. For this reason, before dealing in detail with the theme of underground peoples in fiction, it will be good to give some hints of some modern theories that make up the area that we have called "Alternative Reality", as they often act as a "glue" "Between the esoteric legends and ancient folklore and science fiction tales of the last centuries.

On this, the case of the Mount Shasta, a Californian volcano active until the nineteenth century that since ancient times was pointed out by Native Americans as the seat of mysterious beings located inside it: the Shupcher, giants who killed Indians and carried them to caves for unspecified purposes, and also a race of "small and invisible" beings whose laughter was often heard, similar to that of a child. It was Frederick S. Oliver, signing himself as "Phylos the Tibetan", who - presumably influenced by Blavatskian theosophical conceptions - framed the legend of the Shasta in an occult novel entitled A Dweller on Two Planets (1886), presenting it as an authentic revelation of an "Occult Master". The belief in this supposed occult colony of Lemurians remained alive throughout the 900s and still has some supporters, sometimes mixing with the testimonies on flying saucers and on their supposed underground bases as well as framed in the most recent spiritualistic currents of the type New Age.

Amazing0647-e1431137809448.jpg
Cover of the book of "Amazing Stories" on which the first episode of the "saga" of the "Mystery Shaver" was published, in 1943

Another pivotal episode in the context of the "Alternative Reality" is the so-called «Mystery Shaver», which appeared on the pages of the magazine in 1943 Amazing Stories di Ray Palmer who, almost alone, in the first half of the twentieth century shaped with his publications the modern myth of flying saucers, extraterrestrial visitors and cover up governmental. In the letter sent by Richard S. Shaver and reworked by the editorial director in the form of a short story entitled I remember Lemuria!, Shaver alarmingly warned Americans of the existence of a now extinct race of Titans that once lived on the planet's surface. They had created some races with genetic engineering robotic (not because they were mechanical, but because under their mental control) one of which, evolving, gave life to our humanity.

However, another such race took refuge in the underworld where it still resides, and over the millennia it has degenerated horribly into a race of psychotic dwarves that Shaver calls deros (short for detrimental robots). These deros, possessing the technology of the ancient Titans, would be able to torment both surface humanity and the will have (integrative robots), a minority of the ancient underground race that somehow managed to avoid the physical and mental deterioration of the deros, of which they became enemies. According to Shaver, i deros they would be responsible for all the "impulses to kill", episodes of sudden madness, as well as for almost all the great and small evils of human history.

What appeared from the beginning as a real delusion was nevertheless taken very seriously by the readers, who stormed the editorial staff of the magazine with testimonies on what Shaver revealed: personal experiences, unspeakable dreams and visions that would not disfigure in a Lovecraft story, auditory hallucinations, even memories of previous incarnations as citizens of the «Empire of the Titans»! Were they all psychologically unstable? Or perhaps it would be better to reflect on the functioning of what we usually call "reality" and on the importance, for the purposes of creation & of said reality, of the sharing of collective ideas and images in which CG Jung had identified the archetypal and eternal forces behind or perhaps under the "veil of the real ". And perhaps, returning toAffair Shaver, it would also be useful to consider the likelihood of some paradigms of that current pseudo-fortiana that he saw in Jacques Vallee and John Keel his most daring standard bearers and whose salient points are well summarized in what they named «Paraphysical Hypothesis».

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As if the picture didn't seem delusional enough, soon readers of Amazing Stories they came to link the "Mystery Shaver" to the "Lemurian colony" of Mount Shasta: the interest was so great that until 1948 nothing else was discussed in the “readers' column” of the magazine. And even later when, after a few years, the story was branded as a "hoax" and Richard Shaver - real Fool modern - fell into oblivion, the Lovecraftian enigma of the deros and their phantom technology continued to exert a certain influence within the "Alternative Reality". Suffice it to underline the fact, to conclude this brief overview, that Mark Frost cited the "Mystery Shaver" as one of the inspirations [13] for the very successful television series Twin Peaks (written with David Lynch), in which some dark entities abiding in one other and underground dimension (the "Black Lodge" of Blavatskian memory) take over the minds of their human victims to bring chaos and destruction into the surface world


cosmicdimension2.jpgThe theme of
Underground Civilizations
in the context of

Science fiction literature
is covered in the article 
the company
of the writer 
published

Cosmic Dimension # 2
(Spring 2018 -

Tabula Fati Editions)
purchasable on the site


Note:

[1] Lhe conception of "worlds" in the Nordic tradition, which considers them in the same way as dimensions clearly separated from ours, halfway between the "heavens" and the "underground worlds" (in the sense that they are below of the "veil" of reality that we commonly experience with our senses) is very similar to the Vedic-Hindu one, where these dimensions other are named Loka. This conception has quite a few points of contact with the "supernal heavens" and the "subterranean realms" of the shamanic doctrines.

[2] See M. Maculotti, The "myths of emergence" in the traditions of Native Americans, AXISmundi.

[3] Sui fairies, cf. M. Maculotti, The kidnappings of the Fairies: the "changeling" and the "renewal of the lineage", on AXISmundi; on the Little People in the North American tradition cf. M. Maculotti, The "Little People" in Southeast Native American folklore, on AXISmundi.

[4] J. Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth.

[5] EA Poe, Gordon Pym. Other stories by Poe that refer to the myth of the "Hollow Earth" (and in particular of the "Poli Cavi") are Manuscript found in a bottle e A descent into the Maelström.

[6] See especially HP Lovecraft, To the mountains of madness, Cthulhu's call, The nameless city, K'n-yan, Under the pyramids.

[7] See. W. Kafton-Minkel, Underground worlds. The myth of the Hollow Earth. Mediterranee, Rome, 2012, pp. 245-249, 294, 298-299.

[8] The texts to which we refer here are: JA Saint-Yves, India mission; F. Ossendowski, Beasts, men, gods; R. Guénon, The King of the World. For a particularly significant excerpt from Ossendowski's work, see The Underground Kingdom (F. Ossendowski, "Beasts, Men, Gods"), on AXISmundi.

[9] W. Kafton-Minkel, op. cit., p. 147.

[10] L. Pauwels and J. Bergier, The morning of the wizards. Mondadori, Milan, 1963, p. 291.

[11] J. Evola, Revolt against the modern world. Mediterranee, Rome, 1969, pp. 248-249.

[12] See M. Maculotti, Antediluvian, giant, "gentle" humanity, on AXISmundi.

[13] M. Frost, The Secret Lives of Twin Peaks. Mondadori, Milan, 2017, pp. 95 and following For an examination of the theosophical and esoteric influences on the successful television series, cf. also M. Maculotti, The secrets of Twin Peaks: the "Evil that comes from the woods", on AXISmundi.


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