You Don’t Look Mu-ish

Sometimes I lose things. Being old, that doesn’t surprise me. It happens. There are books of which I was sure I knew their whereabouts, then I go to get them out off the shelf, and they aren’t there. And at work I am always losing paperwork. I put some important form down on my desk and then three days later when I need it, it is nowhere to be found. I have even had to request new forms from time to time to replace the ones I’ve lost. And then I once lost a twenty-dollar bill. I had it in my pocket, then later in the day, in the cafeteria, I went to pull it out and it was gone. I guess it happens. And then there are the things we all lose, like socks. They just seem to disappear into the void somewhere. Perhaps someday, when all mysteries become clear, we will know what became of them. But hell, socks and money, we’re not doing so badly. The earth seems to have lost some continents.

Of course I’m talking about Atlantis. There’s one I really want to believe. Can you get much more intriguing than a continent upon which lived an advanced race of people who lived thousands of years ago, well before the time we usually think of as the beginnings of civilization. According to the famed psychic Edgar Cayce, the Atlantians had an advanced technology employing flying cars for transportation. I’m glad they had them. I’m still waiting for mine. They promised we’d have them by now. But I’m sure you are all familiar with Atlantis. Perhaps we see ourselves in this story of a people who reached a high level of civilization, only to come to destruction by the forces of nature. Marvel Comics has been writing about the adventures of its royal son, Namor, for years. And I’m sure you’ve seen many, many programs on the television about the famous lost continent. But I bet you haven’t heard of Mu.

Mu, also known as Lemuria, Pacifica, Zu, Oz, or Hinkydoodleloopynumnums (Okay, I made that one up, but I think it would make a good name for a continent, don’t you?), allegedly existed out there in the Pacific Ocean. Some place its existence at millions of years ago, others at 75,000 to 20,000 years ago. The Hawaiian Islands are supposed to be the very tips of the mountains of this ancient land. And like Atlantis, the story is much the same. The people of Mu were supposed to have achieved a high level of technology. Some of the legends about them even suggest that they were more advanced spiritually as well, having developed bodies which existed on a higher frequency than our own. Some believe that the gigantic statures on Easter Island are remnants of this advanced civilization.

Just as Plato wrote of Atlantis, the people of Easter Island talk about a land called Hiva which sank below the waves thousands of years ago. The Samoans speak of Bolutu, a place with amazing fruits and flowers, which regrew as soon as they were picked, and of the Bolutians, who could walk through trees and walls. The Maori of New Zealand speak of how they came from a land called Hawaiki which disappeared many thousands of years ago. Do all these legends mean that the stories about Mu could be true? Augustus Le Plongeon thought so. No, I’m not making this all up.

Augustus Le Plongeon lived during the nineteenth century (1826-1908). He conducted investigations of the Mayan ruins in Yucatan, México. He claimed to have deciphered some ancient writings that indicated that the Mayan civilization was much older than the Egyptian or even Atlantis. He claimed these writings also told the tale of how the Mayans were the descendents of the survivors of an even older civilization, Mu. Later scholars would claim that his translations were based solely upon his vivid imagination.

As with Atlantis, it is claimed that the survivors of Mu spread out around the world and left their mark in the early civilizations of humankind. First, and I swear I’m not making this up (I’m not that good), believers in this ancient civilization claim that the many fertility goddesses around the world that are associated with cows, Hathor in Egypt, Damona in Gaul, Boyne in Celtic peoples, and Boann, whose totem is a white cow, all owe their origins to the ancient religion of Mu. The name does make you think of cows, doesn’t it? What do we call these people, Mu-ians? Mu-ites? True Mu believers claim that like many early cultures, the people of Mu built pyramids as temples to the gods, who existed at higher frequencies than humans. These would be places for worship and sacrifice, or perhaps landing pads for spaceships. Pyramidal structures symbolize spiraling consciousness and ascension to the place of the gods and goddesses who reside ‘above’ our reality in a higher plane of existence. Is there a link for the pyramids of Mu and the Mayan pyramids? Could they make a decent pina colada? Some even suggest the people of Mu were telepathically linked with the dolphins-the cetacean, not the football team.

Anglo-American explorer, James Churchward was a close friend of Auguste and Alice Le Plongeon. James Churchward, in books such as The Lost Continent of Mu (1931), wrote that the Motherland stretched from the Hawaiian Islands to Fiji and from Easter Island to the Marianas. Churchward wanted an ancient civilization of his own, and using Le Plongeon’s doubtful methodology set about ‘discovering’ one. His findings were set down in the five main volumes of the Mu series published in from 1926 – 1931. The basic premise was by studying various ancient texts Churchward had discovered the existence of a long lost continent with an advanced civilization that approximately 60,000 years earlier had sunk below the Pacific Ocean after a cataclysmic earthquake. Sixty-four million people died, obviously causing a great disturbance in the force.

According to Churchward, Mu had an incredibly sophisticated government, flowering culture and scientific technology. Much of the Lemurian civilization lived in homes with transparent roofs. They built shelters, made clothing, food, and their own tools. They were free from stress and disease, living in peace for hundreds of years. Their psychic abilities were highly developed – telepathy, astral travel and teleportation making traditional communication devices unnecessary. They were primarily a vegetarian, agricultural, outdoor, organic culture that worked in harmony with nature and the land. So naturally, they had to die.

And before you think this is all a bunch of hooey, the ancient Indian religious texts speak of “the three continents that were”. They believe the descendants of the people who survived the destruction of Mu became their Brahman class. And even the Hopi Indians (of the indigenous American variety) spoke of an ancient people who escaped a cataclysm by boat. Many believe that the Lemurian civilization is the root of all the religions on earth.

Although Atlantis gets the lion’s share of our attention, Mu is not unknown in popular culture. Mu has been used in fiction many times. “Moo” was also the prehistoric kingdom where ‘Alley Oop’ lived, and its rival nation “Lem” parallels ‘Lemuria.’ Mu is identified with Lemuria in the Illuminatus trilogy of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. This mythos was later adopted by the British Discordian techno band ‘The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu,’ later known as ‘The KLF’, by the punk rock band Mu Empire’ and the electronic music label ‘Planet Mu’.

What is it about the idea of lost continents that so appeal to us? I guess, like the myth of Eden, we want to believe there was a time when everything was just perfect, and somehow we lost it all. It seems to me to be a metaphor for our own birth. Once upon a time we were nice and comfy and warm and happy, and that those nasty people pulled us out and slapped us on the butt and made us join the rat race. As one comedian once said, men were once yanked out of their mothers’ wombs at birth and then spend the rest of their lives trying to get back in. We want to go back to that perfect time. Others might like seeing the story of the destruction of Mu and Atlantis as a warning to us in our day. I don’t know.

Personally, I think the survivors of Mu eventually evolved into highly advanced spiritual beings which we, in our ignorance, have used as domesticated cattle. That is why you hear them, out there in the pastures, calling out for their beloved lost homeland. Muuuuuuuuu!