I don't know much (yet) about the origin and history of ideas about Mu and other "lost continents" in the Pacific. I went a little way down the rabbit hole last night, reading a bit online and watching YouTube videos between the time when I got the kids to bed and when I couldn't keep my eyes open. It's fascinating stuff. I owe a thanks to Jack Churchward, grandson of famous Mu proponent James Churchward (1851-1936), for prodding my interest. You can find Jack Churchward's website about Mu here.
To me, the most interesting aspect of the "Mu" stories is how they were/are used to explain human diversity. This is something I'll have to pick apart historically, but it appears that Mu/Lemuria/Pan advocates (including today's Faithist followers of Oahspe) connect population dispersals from a lost continent in the Pacific to the characteristics and geographic distribution of modern human "races." It surprised me to learn that the polygenist ideas of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), famous racist anthropologist and inspiration to Nazis everywhere, were tied to the hypothesized existence of Lemuria. If that's not an interesting historical tie between science and pseudoscience, I don't know what is.
For today, however, I just wanted to point you to a short video by Jack Churchward discussing the "relic of Mu" that appeared in his grandfather's (1931) book The Lost Continent of Mu. The "relic" is a bronze vessel that was said to be 12,500 years old and, therefore, evidence of an advanced civilization pre-dating. The video explains that the vessel dates the 17th-18th century and was manufactured in India.
To me, the most interesting aspect of the "Mu" stories is how they were/are used to explain human diversity. This is something I'll have to pick apart historically, but it appears that Mu/Lemuria/Pan advocates (including today's Faithist followers of Oahspe) connect population dispersals from a lost continent in the Pacific to the characteristics and geographic distribution of modern human "races." It surprised me to learn that the polygenist ideas of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), famous racist anthropologist and inspiration to Nazis everywhere, were tied to the hypothesized existence of Lemuria. If that's not an interesting historical tie between science and pseudoscience, I don't know what is.
For today, however, I just wanted to point you to a short video by Jack Churchward discussing the "relic of Mu" that appeared in his grandfather's (1931) book The Lost Continent of Mu. The "relic" is a bronze vessel that was said to be 12,500 years old and, therefore, evidence of an advanced civilization pre-dating. The video explains that the vessel dates the 17th-18th century and was manufactured in India.
There are some important parallels between the case of the "relic of Mu" and the debacle of the "Roman sword from Nova Scotia" through which we are still slogging (Woo Alert: J. Hutton Pulitzer's 200-page document on the sword is reportedly coming very soon). In both cases, we have: (1) an object that is familiar enough to be recognizable but unfamiliar enough to seem strange and foreign; (2) an object with no credible provenience; (3) a tautological tie between the object and its explanation (the vessel is evidence of Mu and Mu provides the reason why the vessel should exist); (4) a retreat to the cry of "conspiracy" when the object is shown to be something other than what it is claimed.
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