Quoted below is an excerpt from Scarlet and the Beast by John Daniel, vol. 1, 1994.
Note: When the author writes that America (the new Atlantis) is a revival of the Roman empire, he is referring to the “little horn” that “came up from among” the ten horns of the beast in Daniel 7:7-8. He clarifies this later in the same chapter of the book. He suggests that the “little horn” is the United States in Bible Prophecy. The author of this blog does not intend to confirm this as an accurate interpretation. The book is quoted to show the remarkable parallels between the Masonic legend of Atlantis and the beast of Revelation “having seven heads and ten horns.”
The Atlantis Legend
Every ancient culture tells the story of a prehistoric civilization destroyed by flood. Apart from the Biblical account of Noah’s flood, the most renowned is the legend of the sinking of Atlantis. Ignatius Donnally, in Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, compares the Biblical account with this Greek legend:
“The [Biblical] Deluge plainly refers to the destruction of Atlantis, and agrees in many important particulars with the account given by Plato. The people destroyed were in both instances, the ancient race that had created civilization; they had formerly been in a happy and sinless condition; they had become great and wicked; they were destroyed for their sins — they were destroyed by water.”
The earliest of secret societies were obsessed with the legend of Atlantis. Freemasonry is no exception. William Still, in New World Order, informs us that “[a]ccording to Masonic sources, the most important mystery of secret societies is an ancient plan, passed down for thousands of years by oral tradition, for the establishment of a world government – a ‘universal democracy’ – a ‘New Atlantis.'”
Old Atlantis was believed by Freemasonry to have been a democracy. Legend states that it was also an advanced scientific society. In fact, it is reputed to have been the center of learning. Still explains:
“Secret societies believe that in Atlantis stood a great university where most of the arts and sciences originated. The structure that housed this university was an immense pyramid with many galleries and corridors, with an observatory for the study of the stars sitting on its immense apex.”
Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry says that from this legend “developed a long-lasting tale of a continent in the Atlantic, somewhere west of the Straits of Gibraltar, once covered with civilization, which sank suddenly under the waves.”
Explorers have searched for “lost Atlantis” in the Mediterranean, west and south of Africa, South America, and off the east coast of the United States. In 1932 Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), a psychic from Kentucky, reportedly pinpointed Atlantis. To no one’s surprise Cayce said it was where Plato had located it, in the Atlantic Ocean, though Cayce did not specify exactly where in that great watery expanse somewhere between the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico. Then, he made another prediction that Atlantis would one day rise up out of the sea near the Caribbean island of Bimini.
Can we find any connection between the Atlantis of ancient legend and the location of the Beast empire? Surprisingly, the apostle John gives a description similar to Cayce’s of the Beast empire in Revelation 13:1: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns…”
The numbers seven and ten from this verse in Revelation correlate with the Atlantean legend. Still states that “some 10,000 years before the Greek civilization, Atlantis was ruled in complete harmony by a cooperative commonwealth of ten kings, known as the Atlantean League. Seven of these kings ruled over the seven islands that actually made up what was called the ‘continent of Atlantis.’ The other three kings of the Atlantean kingdom ruled over the other three known continents; Europe, Asia, and Africa.”
The legend states that these ten kings were brothers, which may mean they belonged to a brotherhood similar to Freemasonry. Freemasonry believes the number “10” is significant when applied to government. Manly P. Hall, a 33rd degree Mason, explains:
“The league of ten kings is the cooperative commonwealth of mankind, the natural and proper form of human government. Atlantis, therefore, is the archetype or the pattern of government, which existed in ancient days but was destroyed…”
Like the Biblical story, the legend of Atlantis states that its destruction was due in large part to its passion for limitless luxury. No longer did the Atlanteans value goodness above material wealth. Plato says, “The portion of divinity within them was now becoming faint and weak through being ofttimes blended with a large measure of mortality.”
Loving their possessions above all else, the Atlanteans had lost their virtue. And now the seven kings of the seven isles of Atlantis amassed a great army to conquer the three continents. Because of their greed for power, the father of the gods (Zeus) caused the seven islands (seven heads) of Atlantis, with its population, to sink beneath the waves.
Freemason Hall states that when Atlantis died, so did the “ideal pattern of government.” According to Hall, the “league of ten kings” is part of the “Secret Doctrine” preserved by secret societies through their oral traditions. Hall believes that when the unifying force of the ten kings was broken, destruction automatically followed. “so complete was this destruction, ” he writes, “that men forgot there is a better way of life, ad accepted the evils of war and crime and poverty as inevitable… The old Atlantis is gone, dissolved in a sea of human doubts. But the Philosophical empire would come again, as a democracy of wise men.”
Free masonry planned long ago to philosophically raise Atlantis out of the sea, and in this new land, reestablish democracy as a New World Order. Masonic author George H. Steinmetz confirms in Freemasonry: Its Hidden Meaning that the democratic philosophy of Freemasonry “has been traced back to the ‘Lost Continent of Atlantis.'” He attempts to prove that Atlantis was a Masonic society by suggesting that the destroyed temples of upper Egypt are all part of that Atlantean destruction: “There [in Egypt] we find similar floor plans, the same ‘dark north,’ and many of the same emblems.” Finally Steinmetz says that one cannot understand the universality of Freemasonry without accepting the Atlantean account.
Hall concurs: “Masonry is a university, teaching the liberal arts and sciences of he soul to all who will attend to its words. It is a shadow of the great Atlantean Mystery School, which stood with all its splendor in the ancient City of the Golden Gates, where now the turbulent Atlantic rolls in unbroken sweep.”
Hall suggests that the antediluvian civilization was democratic, that Freemasonry planned over three centuries ago to recreate a universal democratic society that will philosophically “rise up out of the sea,” and like Atlantis, join with ten kings to lead mankind in the pursuit of universal happiness. He says that the Christian Church has delayed the search for he “New Atlantis.” And he alludes to the ancient Roman empire as the last attempt at resurrection of the Atlantean project and states that another attempt would be made.
We can see how Freemasonry’s planned resurrection of Atlantis correlates with Daniel’s prophecy of a revived Roman empire. Likewise, John’s vision of the Beast with ten horns (representing ten kings) is more significant in this regard given the fact that Freemasonry calls for its one-world government to be patterned after the “Atlantean League” of ten kings. Therefore, to locate the headquarters of Freemasonry’s “New Philosophical Atlantis,” Daniel’s revived Roman empire, and John’s Beast, we must search for a land that meets the following requirements:
- If old Atlantis was democratic, then New Atlantis will be democratic and most likely be born of Templar French Freemasonry, the father of modern democracy.
- John’s Beast and Freemasonry’s “Philosophical Atlantis” will figuratively rise up out of the sea in the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere west of the Straits of Gibraltar where old Atlantis was alleged to have sunk.
- If resurrected west of the Straits of Gibraltar, Daniel’s revived Rome will be a new land in a new world populated from the territory of the old Roman empire.
- Daniel’s uncivilized Beast will be born in an uncivilized western land bordered by water — from Daniel’s vantage point at Babylon — a land in the extreme west.
- John’s Beast will eventually unite with ten kings as did old Atlantis.
Unlike Edgar Cayce, Hall is not looking for ancient Atlantis to literally rise out of the sea, but rather, looks to America as the nation that will represent “Philosophical Atlantis.” In America’s Assignment With Destiny, he writes, “The explorers who opened the New World operated from a master plan and were agents of re-discovery rather than discoverers.” In a second book, The Secret Destiny of America, Hall claims that the unifying goal of ancient secret societies was to create a “New Atlantis” beyond the Atlantic Ocean, in what is now called America. “The bold resolution,” he said, “was that this western continent should become the site of the philosophic empire.”
Still explains that “America, according to this Great Plan, was to become the first nation to begin to establish a ‘universal democracy,’ or ‘world commonwealth of nations.’ This quest was said to be the most noble pursuit to which a man could devote himself.”
