Introduction: A Lost Civilization 305
T 305 T
The very word, “Atlantis” conjures powerful images, albeit usually indistinct, of
the deep past. So does another haunting name, “Lemuria.” Both seem to linger in
our genetic memory, what Carl Jung called the “collective unconscious.” The Okinawa
version of a sunken kingdom known as Nirai-Kanai has the same effect in Japan.
These and hundreds of other evocative names are brought back to life by Frank Joseph
in this comprehensive book.
Since 1996, he has been my guest on half-a-dozen visits to Japan, where I accompa-
nied him on investigative expeditions to some of the most remote areas of my country
seldom visited by Japanese, let alone Westerners. He shared his research into our
Atlantean and Lemurian folk traditions as a featured guest speaker at several confer-
ences of The Japan Petrograph Society in Tokyo, Kagoshima, Kyushu, Fukuoaka, and
Ena. He is well known in Japan for his lectures and the Japanese language publication
of his books, beginning with The Destruction of Atlantis, in 1997. His sincere and consis-
tently logical approach to this controversial topic has lent it a new level of credibility
and attraction, the same qualities apparent in The Atlantis Encyclopedia.
But skeptics dismiss the lost civilization as a fantasy, even though it was described
some 24 centuries ago by the most influential mind of the Classical World. These same
doubters claim Plato simply invented the story of Atlantis as an allegory for his notion
of the ideal state. However, a familiar image associated with the drowned empire, from
which the city derived its name, belongs to Atlas. He was portrayed in Greek myth as a
bearded Titan bearing the sphere of the heavens on his shoulders. Few skeptics realize
that this same representation was already known to the ancient Chinese. A rare, 2-foot
high statuette from the Arisugawa Collection in Kyoto depicts a man supporting a vase
signifying the sky, while he rides on the back of a sea-serpent. The bronze figure dates
Afterword by Professor Nobuhiro Yoshida
President, the Japan
Petrograph Society, Kita-Kyushu