1969 cont.

Ragnarok-The Time of the Disaster, By E. Sykes

"In 1885, at a time when the very idea of cosmic disaster was as remote as the concept of space travel, Ignatius Donnelly wrote his book: "Ragnarok the Age of Fire and Gravel". This was thirty years before the Hoerbiger concept had been born and one is inclined to wonder whether a lot of ideas would have been modified or widened has the followers of the Welt Eis Lehre come across the earlier work.

Donnelly was faced with enormous difficulty in persuading public to accept his ideas. For one thing the age of the earth as defined by Archbishop Usher, precluded any question of prehistoric man. And even in scientific circles in the United States there was a marked reluctance to believe that pre-glacial man had ever existed. The thesis of Donnelly was that a comet struck the earth about BC 1,000 (or 10,000 BC?), the time of the Atlantic Castrophe, and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, creating at the same time the drift, composed of debris, and covering the whole area between European Asiatic border and a point some 600 miles East of the Hudsons Bay. This implied that Africa, Arabia, South America and Greenland, were all effected. At this time nobody had even begun to work out the amount of force created by such an impact or the possible effects to such a blow. This was something, which had to await the production of the first atomic bombs, when the necessary mathematical calculations were hurriedly prepared. Such a disaster, whether caused by a comet, a meteorite, or the plunging to earth of one of Hoerbiger’s moons, would have killed off life within a radius of thousands of miles, and would have left successions of meteor craters from North to South. Where I think Donnelly was in his assumption that there had never been an ice age, as we visualize it, with sheets of ice a mile and more in thickness covering much of the Northern Hemisphere. But this was not his fault, the state of scientific knowledge in his time, less than a century ago, was inadequate to give a decisive answer in either direction. In consequence it was not apparent that the Ice Age was probably brought to an end by the disaster of BC 10,000. "

"The Eddic tales of huge incandescent masses giving off smoke and flames to the South while to the north the Frost Giants fought their battle with the Aesir, give more support to the moon capture theory than to the other two, simply because they imply a period of several years of worsening climatic conditions- The Fimbulwinters-involving the breakdown of their culture under the strain. The final chapter of the work states that the earth had been struck by comets many times. If one substitutes "cosmic intruder" for "comets" the statement would be completely accurate. Comets, asteroids, moons, slabs of material ripped off bodies making a too close approach, meteorites, plus the steady rain of small fragments of cosmic material, averaging a few tons a day, all these have contributed to change the face of the earth, to bring about geological ages, and to modify the position of mankind. To my mind what may have occurred in BC 10,000 was that a large cosmic object approached the earth, split up into several pieces, one of which fell in the Caribbean, one off the Carolina Coast, and one in the North Atlantic, the resulting disaster sank Atlantis and killed practically everybody on it, caused the upheaval described in the Eddic story of Ragnarok, and many disasters recounted in other works. Donnelly refers to the poisonous and deadly gases which accompanied the disaster, but nowadays we realize that the force of the impact may well have provoked a lethal radioactive fall out in addition. The Edda tells that in the south part of Ginungagap (The Atlantic Ocean) was lighted by the glowing sparks flowing out of Muspelheim, the white-hot fragment of the intruder, which took months to cool down. It also refers to venomous yeast, which poured from the fiery embers, presumably radioactive lava, which cooled and hardened, and was later coated with ice. This would indicate that before the incident certain places, such as Greenland, may have been protected from the Ice Sheets until the disaster broke down the protective barriers and exposed them to the last fragments of the Arctic cold. All this is speculative, it will take many years before a true picture of what actually occurred to begins to emerge. A significant portion of the Eddic story is told by the Vala, the wise woman, who says:

‘The Gods convened on Ida’s plains ‘The Golden Runes

And called to mind The Ancient Runes Were found at dawn

Of mighty Odin’ And taken to The New Leader of Odin’s Race.’

What one really wants to know is what happened to these tablets (runes or records), which should conatin the historical account of the events now only known through the three Eddas: The Elder Edda of the Codex Regius, the Christian Edda of Saxa Grammaticus, and the Prose Edda of Snori. The one other comparable document, the Oera Linda Boek, has what may be a contemporary story of the events, but taken by a different race and from a different place. Our trouble is that we have no idea where the events of Ragnarok took place or where the Nordic races sprang from. The Kalevala and the Hero of Estonia tell of the wars between the Norsemen and the Finnish tribes, but are both post catastrophes.

It is of interest that survival depended mainly on having sought refuge in a cave, presumably on the grounds that any natural hollow in the solid rock would be relatively disturbed by events outside. The Chapter VII of Donnelly’s book there are accounts of some of the various legends of humans emerging after long periods hidden away in caves, rather like people in air raid shelters or deep dugouts in the last two world wars. It is a great pity that Donnelly and Hoerbiger never met, Hoerbiger must have been born about 1865, twenty years before the appearance of Donnelly’s book. The point at issue is that Ragnarok and Hoerbiger Theory complement each other. It is a pity that nobody has brought out an annotated edition of Ragnarok for readers or today. (Sykes meant that though Donnelly’s book exists, no updated version and expansion of his work or theories as of his time or yet has been produced to the degree Sykes did for Donnelly’s Atlantis re-edition in 1948.) Another work which is now becoming of great importance with the gradual adjustment of the focus on these past events, is ‘Paradise Found, The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole" by William F. Warren, President of Boston University, published in 1885. The reasons which the author adduces to support it, all fit invery well with the possibility that at one time, Greenland and a portion of the North Polar Region may have been much warmer than at present. One day when man’s activities in the Arctic region seeking for oil and minerals have got to a point when there will be facilities for digging below the permafrost, we should find traces of the earlier inhabitants. Obviously this should fit into the jigsaw puzzle but we are very uncertain as to its precise location."

Webmaster Note- Here Sykes shows how Donnelly was the Vernes of his day on theories about asteroid impacts as well as Hoerbiger, which science has purposely ignored. They broke open a way of discussion about impacts many years in advance of American scientific notions. You will rarely see their names listed in the history of the theory of asteroid impacts in scientific notes due to the fact of not claiming they were believed to be correct by there own communities of the day. But one day, they will become fathers of not just Atlantology, but fathers of asteroid impact theories. So when you turn on your TV forget about Carl Sagan, or any modern scientist claiming a first in asteroid impact theory because they are not, the first Donnelly and Hoerbiger are the earliest. There is even evidence there had been much earlier theories that existed before Donnelly and Hoerbiger’s theories found back to the 1850’s and some Greek Philosophers in the past speculated about such possibilities. Three recent theories have come to light that go back to Hoerbiger’s and Donnelly’s speculations on larger impacts, that scientist have confirmed to a certain point:

The Yucatan blast that killed the Dinosaurs is now considered plausible.

The Land under the Southern Portion of the Arctic is now contemplated as existing before the one or two previous Ice Ages as Donnelly envisioned.

The modern version of Ragnarok occurred in 1908 in Siberia by an unknown blast that leveled trees.

Iceland has been recently theorized as a comet or Meteorite that hit that region at 16,000 BC.

It is clear they were ahead of their time, and before Edgar Cayce was born.

Your recent line of Scholars is as such- Donnelly

Hoerbiger

Gattefosse

E. Cayce, E. Sykes, Zhirov (later Berlitz Muck, Asher)

And Dean Clarke-Webmaster one of the last of a rare group.

There are many others like Churchward or Blavatsky and others who are more then these two with scholarly inclined or scientific based work.

The reason the list is this way, is because most writers did not make the work of Atlantis a full time endeavor. Even E. Cayce did not discuss Atlantis constantly, and many others made it a one time subject hit. I did not mention in this a modern group of speculators on Atlantis such as Childress, Andrew Collins, Dr. Little, Hancock or Bauval who are arrivals to the subject in last 10 to 20 years as well as others. If I am incorrect in this assumption would appreciate any clarification in this matter. I have personally been on the subject since 1970. Had 7 books on the subject of Atlantis by 1974. We may not forget Peter Tompkins for opening the way in the 1970’s with larger sized books about the subject of pyramids and such but does not dedicate his life to the evidence of Atlantis. What you can see is the greatest interest in Atlantis was found in America, England, France, Germany, and Russia. The main bulk of research comes from these countries.

Corresponding Societies as of 1969

Europe USA

AETEIG Paris Grav. Research Boston

Astometeo Cercle Dufour Paris M. Loomis Foundation Wash. D.C.

CERG Roma NEARA Space Drive Res. S. Francisco

Gravitation Marseille Marine Archaeological Research Miami

Hoerbiger Institute Wein

Soc. Astronomique Toulouse

Bankers: Barclays, 140 Western Road, Brighton , as you can see a pretty diverse group.