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Yukon, tribal elders told him about their folk memories of a great flood that long
ago engulfed a large island, their ancestral birthplace. The Cree account sparked
Strath-Gordon’s life-long interest in Atlantis, and, throughout the course of his
world-travels, he collected similar traditions among various other peoples.
With the onset of the Boer War, he was transferred as a medical officer with
the rank of major to South Africa. There, he was surprised to learn native
versions of the same flood described by Canadian Indians. He concluded that
these different, though similar accounts were nothing more than cultural inflections
on the same Atlantean theme. A few years later, Strath-Gordon made colonel in
the British Army’s medical corps, in France, where he was stationed from 1914 to- During lulls in the carnage, he kept his ears open for local French deluge
legends, and learned of several sunken realms, such as Ys.
After the war, he headed up the British passport control service in New York,
where, following his retirement, he became a U.S. citizen. By then, he possessed a
worldwide collection of folk materials, and was proficient in 32 languages, including
Sanskrit. Such multiple fluency served him well in penetrating the core meaning
of numerous flood traditions. During the early 1920s, he met at least several times
with Edgar Cayce, the famous “Sleeping Prophet.” During 1928, Strath-Gordon
formed the Atlantean Research Society, in Orange, New Jersey, which served as
a base for his lectures across the United States and Canada. His eloquent talks
acquainted audiences with a credible rendition of Atlantis. At the onset of another
international conflict, he was a medical instructor at Portland, Oregon’s Hill
Military academy. Following World War II, he resumed his lecture tours until
his death in 1952.
Although little more is known about Dr. Strath-Gordon, researchers speculate
his scholarly prestige may have at least helped to form Cayce’s conception of Atlantis,
and even influenced James Churchward’s views on its Pacific counterpart, Mu.
(See Cayce, Ys)
Sueka
Flood hero of the Native American Pima peoples, who escaped a mountainous
tsunami that arose to destroy the world when a colossal “lightning bolt” struck the sea.
(See Asteroid Theory)The Sunken World
A 1928 novel about Atlantis by Stanton A. Coblentz, who has its inhabitants
surviving the ancient destruction of their homeland under a glass dome on the sea
bottom.