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James Churchward

About 3 pages (790 words)

James Churchward (February 27, 1851-January 4, 1936) is best known as a British born occult writer. However, he was also a patented inventor, engineer, and expert fisherman. He was the elder brother of the Masonic author, Albert Churchward (1852-1925.) He was a Tea Planter in Sri Lanka before coming to the US in the 1890s. In James' biography entitled "My Friend Churchey and His Sunken Continent," he discussed Mu with Augustus LePlongeon and his wife in the 1890s. He patented NCV Steel, armor plating to protect ships during WWI, and other steel alloys. After a patent-infringement settlement in 1914, James retired to his 7+ acre estate on Lake Wononskopomuc in Lakeville, Connecticut, to answer the questions from his Pacific travels. In 1926, at the age of 75, he published The Lost Continent of Mu Motherland of Man, which claimed to prove the existence of a lost continent, called Mu, in the Pacific Ocean.

1 Claims and hypothesis
2 Scientific Rebuttal
3 Authors of the name
4 Popular culture
5 Works
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Claims and hypothesis

According to Churchward, Mu "extended from somewhere north of Hawaii to the south as far as the Fijis and Easter Island." He claimed Mu was the site of the Garden of Eden and the home of 64,000,000 inhabitants - known as the Naacals. Its civilization, which flourished 50,000 years before Churchward's day, was technologically more advanced than his own, and the ancient civilizations of India, Babylon, Persia, Egypt and the Mayas were merely the decayed remnants of its colonies. Geologically, the existence of Mu, as described by Churchward, is extremely unlikely, since the Andesite Line would run through the western parts of the continent. Churchward claimed to have gained his knowledge of this lost land after befriending an Indian priest, who taught him to read an ancient dead language (spoken by only three people in all of India). The priest disclosed the existence of several ancient tablets, written by the Naacals, and Churchward gained access to these records after overcoming the priest's initial reluctance. His knowledge remained incomplete, as the available tablets were mere fragments of a larger text, but Churchward claimed to have found verification and further information in the records of other ancient peoples. His writings attempt to describe the civilization of Mu, its history, inhabitants, and influence on subsequent history and civilization. Churchward claimed that the ancient Egyptian sun-god Ra originated with the Mu; he claimed that Rah was the word which the Naacals used for "sun" as well as for their god and rulers.

Scientific Rebuttal

Alfred Metraux undertook research on Easter Island in the 1930s, and in 1940 published a monograph on Easter Island which includes a rebuttal of the hypothesis that Easter Island was a remnant of a sunken continent. In the second half of the twentieth century, improvements in Oceanography, and in particular seafloor spreading and Plate Tectonics have left no scientific basis for geologically recent lost continents such as Mu.

Authors of the name

The name Mu, as applied to a lost continent, was made popular earlier by the French physician Augustus Le Plongeon, as an alternative name for Atlantis, a lost land supposedly located in the Atlantic Ocean, though it goes back to Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1870.

Popular culture

Churchward is mentioned in fiction in the short story Through the Gates of the Silver Key by H. P. Lovecraft. Churchward's writings are a key influence for the plot of the anime series RahXephon. He is also a source of information for Acharya S, in her two books, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest story ever Sold and Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha, and Christ Unveiled. Rebuttal to James Churchward's 'contributions' to Acharya S works