Atlantis | Calm Reading For Sleep

Relax with this calm bedtime reading about the legend of Atlantis, a story perfect for peaceful sleep and easing insomnia. Drift off as Benjamin’s soothing voice explores the enduring mystery of the lost city beneath the waves. Learn about Plato’s writings, the historical theories behind the myth, and the lasting fascination with this ancient tale. Benjamin’s gentle, steady cadence brings tranquility and focus, helping quiet restless thoughts without whispering or hypnosis—just calm, informative storytelling. Ease your mind, slow your breathing, and let curiosity and calm carry you toward rest. Press play, close your eyes, and drift into peaceful sleep. Happy sleeping!

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast,

Where I help you drift off one fact at a time.

I'm your host Benjamin Boster,

And today's episode is about Atlantis.

Atlantis is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations.

Purposely creating a literary contrast with the Achaemenid Empire,

The great land-based power that ruled the east,

What the Greeks called Asia,

Plato describes Atlantis as a naval empire from the west that had conquered most of Europe and Libya,

But then losing divine favor after an ill-fated campaign against the fictionalized Athens,

And subsequently submerges into the Atlantic Ocean.

By portraying the victorious Athens in the image of his ideal state from the Republic,

Plato intended the Atlantis story to bear witness to the superiority of his concept of a state.

Despite its minor importance in Plato's work,

The Atlantis story has had a considerable impact on literature.

The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works of several Renaissance writers,

Such as Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Thomas More's Utopia.

On the other hand,

19th century amateur scholars misinterpreted Plato's narrative as historical tradition,

Most famously Ignatius L.

Donnelly in his Atlantis,

The Antediluvian World.

Plato's vague indications of the time of the events,

More than 9,

000 years before his time,

And the alleged location of Atlantis,

Beyond the pillars of Hercules,

Gave rise to much pseudoscientific speculation.

As a consequence,

Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations,

And continues to inspire contemporary fiction,

From comic books to films.

While present-day philologists and classicists agree on the story's fictional nature,

There is still debate on what served as its inspiration.

Plato is known to have freely borrowed some of his allegories and metaphors from older traditions,

As he did with the story of Gyges.

This led a number of scholars to suggest possible inspiration of Atlantis from Egyptian records of the Thera eruption,

The Sea People's Invasion,

Or the Trojan War.

Others have rejected this chain of tradition as implausible,

And insist that Plato created an entirely fictional account,

Drawing loose inspiration from contemporary events,

Such as the failed Athens invasion of Sicily in 415-413 BC,

Or the destruction of Helici in 373 BC.

The only primary sources for Atlantis are Plato's dialogues,

Timaeus and Critias.

All other mentions of the island are based on them.

The dialogues claim to quote Solon,

Who visited Egypt between 590 and 580 BC.

They state that he translated Egyptian records of Atlantis.

Plato introduced Atlantis in Timaeus,

Written in 360 BC.

For it is related in our records how once upon a time your state stayed the course of a mighty host,

Which starting from a distant point in the Atlantic Ocean,

Was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe and Asia to boot.

For the ocean there was at that time navigable.

For in front of the mouth,

Which you Greeks call,

As you say,

The Pillars of Hercules,

There lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together.

And it was possible for the travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands,

And from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them,

Which encompasses that veritable ocean.

For all that we have here,

Lying within the mouth of which we speak,

Is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance.

But that yonder is a real ocean,

And the land surrounding it may most rightly be called,

In the fullest and truest sense,

A continent.

Now,

In this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings of great and marvelous power,

Which held sway over all the island,

And over many other islands also and parts of the continent.

The four people appearing in those two dialogues are the politicians Critias and Hermocrates,

As well as the philosophers Socrates and Timaeus of Locri,

Although only Critias speaks of Atlantis.

In his works,

Plato makes extensive use of the Socratic method in order to discuss contrary positions within the context of a supposition.

The Timaeus begins with an introduction,

Followed by an account of the creations and structure of the universe and ancient civilizations.

In the introduction,

Socrates muses about the perfect society,

Described in Plato's Republic,

Circa 380 BC,

And wonders if he and his guests might recollect a story which exemplifies such a society.

Critias mentions a tale he considered to be historical,

That would make the perfect example,

And he then follows by describing Atlantis as is recorded in the Critias.

In his account,

Ancient Athens seems to represent the perfect society,

And Atlantis,

His opponent,

Representing the very antithesis of the perfect traits described in the Republic.

According to Critias,

The Hellenic deities have all divided the land so that each deity might have their own lot.

Poseidon was appropriately,

And to his liking,

Bequeathed the island of Atlantis.

The island was larger than ancient Libya and Asia Minor combined,

But it was later sunk by an earthquake and became an impassable mud shoal,

Inhibiting travel to any part of the ocean.

Plato asserted that the Egyptians described Atlantis as an island consisting mostly of mountains in the northern portions and along the shore,

And encompassing a great plain in an oblong shape in the south,

Extending in one direction 3,

000 stadia,

About 345 miles,

But across the center inland it was 2,

000 stadia,

About 230 miles.

50 stadia,

Or 6 miles from the coast,

Was a mountain that was low on all sides,

Broke it off all around about.

The central island itself was 5 stades in diameter,

About 0.

57 miles.

In Plato's metaphorical tale,

Poseidon fell in love with Clyto,

The daughter of Ivanor,

And Lusipi,

Who bore him five pairs of male twins.

The eldest of these,

Atlas,

Was made rightful king of the entire island of the ocean,

Called the Atlantic Ocean in his honor,

And was given the mountain of his birth and the surrounding area as his fiefdom.

Atlas' twin Gideras,

Or Eumelus in Greek,

Was given the extremity of the island toward the pillars of Hercules.

The other four pairs of twins,

Ampheres and Avimon,

Manetius and Atoxon,

Elastopus and Mestor,

And Azaes and Diaprepes,

Were also given rule over many men and a large territory.

Poseidon carved the mountain where his love dwelt into a place and enclosed it with three circular moats of increasing width,

Varying from one to three stadia,

And separated by rings of land proportional in size.

The Atlanteans then built bridges northward from the mountain,

Making a route to the east of the island.

They dug a great canal to the sea,

And alongside the bridges carved tunnels into the rings of the rock,

So that ships could pass into the city around the mountain.

They carved docks from the rock walls of the moats.

Every passage to the was guarded by gates and towers,

And a wall surrounded each ring to the city.

The walls were constructed of red,

White,

And black rock quarried from the moats,

And were covered with brass,

Tin,

And the precious metal or a calcum respectively.

According to Cretius,

9,

000 years before his lifetime,

A war took place between those outside the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar,

And those who dwelt within them.

The Atlanteans had conquered the parts of Libya within the Pillars of Hercules,

As far as Egypt,

And the European continent as far as Tyrrhenia,

And had subjected its people to slavery.

The Athenians led an alliance of resistors against the Atlantean Empire,

And as the alliance disintegrated,

Prevailed alone against the Empire,

Liberating the occupied lands.

But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods,

And in a single day and night of misfortune,

All your warlike men and a body sank into the earth,

And the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea.

For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable,

Because there is a shoal of mud in the way,

And this was caused by the subsidence of the island.

The logographer Hellenicus of Lesbos wrote an earlier work entitled Atlantis,

Of which only a few fragments survive.

Hellenicus' work appears to have been a genealogical one concerning the daughters of Atlas,

But some authors have suggested a possible connection with Plato's island.

John V.

Lucci notes that when Plato writes about the genealogy of Atlantis' kings,

He writes in the same style as Hellenicus,

Suggesting a similarity between a fragment of Hellenicus' work and an account in the Creteus.

Rodney Casseldon suggests that Plato may have borrowed his title from Hellenicus,

Who may have based his work on an earlier work about Atlantis.

Casseldon has pointed out that Plato wrote of Atlantis in 359 BC when he returned to Athens from Sicily.

He notes a number of parallels between the physical organization and fortifications of Syracuse,

And Plato's description of Atlantis.

Gunnar Rudberg was the first to elaborate upon the idea that Plato's attempt to realize his political ideas in the city of Syracuse could have heavily inspired the Atlantis account.

Some ancient writers viewed Atlantis as fictional or metaphorical myth.

Others believed it to be real.

Aristotle believed that Plato,

His teacher,

Had invented the island to teach philosophy.

The philosopher Kremtor,

A student of Plato's students in Ocrates,

Is cited often as an example of a writer who thought the story to be historical fact.

His work,

A commentary on Timaeus,

Is lost,

But Proclus,

A Neoplatonist of the 5th century AD,

Reports on it.

The passage in question has been represented in the modern literature either as claiming that Kremtor visited Egypt,

Had conversations with priests,

And saw hieroglyphs confirming the story,

Or as claiming that he learned about them from other visitors to Egypt.

Proclus wrote,

As for the whole of this account of the Atlanteans,

Some say that it is unadorned history,

Such as Kremtor,

The first commentator on Plato.

Kremtor also says that Plato's contemporaries used to criticize him jokingly for not being the inventor of his republic,

But copying the institutions of the Egyptians.

Plato took these critics seriously enough to assign to the Egyptians a story about the Athenians and Atlanteans,

So as to make them say that the Athenians really once lived according to that system.

The next sentence is often translated.

Kremtor adds that this is testified by the prophets of the Egyptians who assert that these particulars,

Which are narrated by Plato,

Are written on pillars which are still preserved.

But in the original,

The sentence starts not with the name Kremtor,

But with the ambiguous he.

Whether this referred to Kremtor or to Plato is a subject of considerable debate.

Proponents of both Atlantis as a metaphorical myth,

And Atlantis as history,

Have argued that the pronoun refers to Kremtor.

Alan Cameron argues that the pronoun should be interpreted as referring to Plato,

And that when Proclus writes that we must bear in mind concerning this whole feat of the Athenians that it is neither a mere myth nor unadorned history,

Although some take it as history and others as myth,

He is treating Kremtor's view as mere opinion,

Nothing more.

In fact,

He first quotes and then dismisses it as representing one of the two unacceptable extremes.

Cameron also points out that whether he refers to Plato or to Kremtor,

The statement does not support conclusions such as Otto Mux.

Kremtor came to Sias and saw there in the temple of Neith the column,

Completely covered with hieroglyphs on which the history of Atlantis was recorded.

Scholars translated it for him,

And he testified that their account fully agreed with Plato's account of Atlantis.

Or J.

V.

Lucci's suggestion that Kremtor sent a special inquiry to Egypt,

And that he may simply be referring to Plato's own claims.

Another passage from the commentary by Proclus on the Timaeus,

Gives a description of the geography of Atlantis.

That an island of such nature and size once existed is evident from what is said by certain authors who investigated the things around the outer sea.

For according to them,

There were seven islands in that sea in their time,

Sacred to Persephone,

And also three others of enormous size,

One of which was sacred to Hades,

Another to Ammon,

And another one between them to Poseidon.

The extent of which was a thousand stadia.

And the inhabitants of it,

They add,

Preserved the remembrance from their ancestors of the immeasurably large island of Atlantis,

Which had really existed there,

And which for many ages had reigned over all islands in the Atlantic Sea,

And which itself had likewise been sacred to Poseidon.

Now these things Marcellus has written in his Aethiopica.

Marcellus remains unidentified.

Other ancient historians and philosophers who believed in the existence of Atlantis were Strabo and Posidonius.

Some have theorized that before the 6th century BC,

The pillars of Hercules may have applied to mountains on either side of the Gulf of Laconia,

And also many have been part of the pillar cult of the Aegean.

The mountain stood at either side of the southernmost gulf in Greece,

The largest in the Peloponnese,

And it opens onto the Mediterranean Sea.

This would have placed Atlantis in the Mediterranean,

Lending credence to many details in Plato's discussion.

The 4th century historian Ammianus Marcellinus,

Relying on a lost work by Temagenes,

A historian writing in the 1st century BC,

Writes that the druids of Gaul said that part of the inhabitants of Gaul had migrated there from distant islands.

Some have understood Ammianus's testimony as a claim that at the time of Atlantis's sinking into the sea,

There had been a large number of druids.

Its inhabitants fled to Western Europe.

But Ammianus,

In fact,

Says that the Dracidae druids recall that a part of the population is indigenous,

But others also migrated in from islands and lands beyond the Rhine,

An indication that the immigrants came to Gaul from the north,

Britain,

The Netherlands,

Or Germany,

Not from a theorized location in the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest.

Instead,

The Celts who dwelled along the ocean were reported to venerate twin gods who appeared to them coming from that ocean.

During the early 1st century,

The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo wrote about the destruction of Atlantis in his On the Eternity of the World,

26-141,

And a longer passage allegedly citing Aristotle's successor,

Theophrastus.

And the island of Atlantis,

Which was greater than Africa and Asia,

As Plato says in the Timaeus,

In one day and night was overwhelmed beneath the sea,

In consequence of an extraordinary earthquake and inundation,

And suddenly disappeared,

Becoming sea,

Not indeed navigable,

But full of gulfs and eddies.

The theologian Joseph Barber Lightfoot noted on this passage,

Clement may possibly be referring to some known but hardly accessible land,

Lying without the pillars of Hercules,

But more probably he contemplated some unknown land in the far west beyond the ocean,

Like the fabled Atlantis of Plato.

Other early Christian writers wrote about Atlantis,

Although they had mixed views on whether it once existed,

Or was an untrustworthy myth of pagan origin.

Tertullian believed Atlantis was once real,

And wrote that in the Atlantic Ocean once existed the isle that was equal in size to Libya or Asia,

Referring to Plato's geographical description of Atlantis.

The early Christian apologist writer Anorbius also believed Atlantis once existed,

But blamed his destruction on pagans.

Cosmas and Dicaplustes in the 6th century wrote of Atlantis and his Christian topography,

In an attempt to prove his theory that the world was flat and surrounded by water.

In like manner the philosopher Timaeus also describes this earth as surrounded by the ocean,

And the ocean as surrounded by the more remote earth.

For he supposes that there is to westward an island,

Atlantis,

Lying out in the ocean,

In the direction of Cadira,

Cadiz,

Of an enormous magnitude,

And relates that the ten kings,

Having procured mercenaries from the nations in this island,

Came from the earth far away,

And conquered Europe and Asia,

But were afterwards conquered by the Athenians,

While the island itself was submerged by God under the sea.

Both Plato and Aristotle praise this philosopher,

And Proclus has written a commentary on him.

He himself expresses views similar to our own,

With some modifications,

Transferring the scene of the events from the east to the west.

Moreover,

He mentions those ten generations as well as that earth which lies beyond the ocean,

And in a word it is evident that all of them borrow from Moses and publish his statements as their own.

Aside from Plato's original account,

Modern interpretations regarding Atlantis are an amalgamation of diverse speculative movements that began in the 16th century,

When scholars began to identify Atlantis with the New World.

Francisco López de Gómera was the first to state that Plato was referring to America,

As did Francis Bacon and Alexander von Humboldt.

Janus Ioannis Bergerod said in 1663,

Orbe novo non novo,

The new world is not new.

Athanasius Kircher accepted Plato's account as literally true,

Describing Atlantis as a small continent in the Atlantic Ocean.

Contemporary perceptions of Atlantis share roots with Mayanism.

Which can be traced to the beginning of the modern age,

When European imaginations were fueled by their initial encounters with the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

From this era sprang apocalyptic and utopian visions that would inspire many subsequent generations of theorists.

Most of these interpretations are considered pseudo-history,

Pseudo-science,

And pseudo-archaeology.

As they have presented their works as academic or scientific,

But lack the standards or criteria.

The Flemish cartographer and geographer Abraham Ortelius is believed to have been the first person to imagine that the continents were joined before drifting to their present positions.

In the 1596 edition of his Thesaurus Geographicus,

He wrote,

Unless it be a fable,

The island of Gdir,

Or Gades,

Will be the remaining part of the island of Atlantis,

Or America,

Which was not sung,

As Plato reports,

In the Timaeus.

So much is torn away from Europe and Africa by earthquakes and flood.

The traces of the ruptures are shown by the projections of Europe and Africa.

And the indentations of America in the parts of the coasts of these three said lands that face each other to anyone who,

Using a map of the world,

Carefully considered them.

So that anyone may say with Strabo in Book 2 that what Plato says of the island of Atlantis on the authority of Solon is not a figment.

The term Utopia,

From No Place,

Was coined by Sir Thomas More in his 16th century work of fiction,

Utopia.

Inspired by Plato's Atlantis and Traveller's accounts of the Americas,

More described an imaginary land set in a new world.

His idealistic vision established a connection between the Americas and Utopian societies,

And the world of Atlantis.

A theme that Bacon discussed in The New Atlantis,

Circa 1623.

A character in the narrative gives a history of Atlantis that is similar to Plato's,

And places Atlantis in America.

People began believing that the Mayan and Aztec ruins could possibly be the remnants of Atlantis.

The 1882 publication of Atlantis,

The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Seldonily,

Stimulated much popular interest in Atlantis.

He was greatly inspired by early works in Mayanism,

And like them attempted to establish that all known ancient civilizations were descended from Atlantis,

Which he saw as a technologically sophisticated more advanced culture.

Donnelly drew parallels between creation stories in the Old and New Worlds,

Attributing the connections to Atlantis,

Where he believed the Biblical Garden of Eden existed.

As implied by the title of his book,

He also believed that Atlantis was destroyed by the great flood mentioned in the Bible.

Donnelly is credited as the father of the 19th century Atlantis revival,

And is the reason the myth endures today.

He unintentionally promoted an alternative method of inquiry to history and science,

And the idea that myths contain hidden information that opens them to ingenious interpretations by people who believe they have new or special insight.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky,

The founder of the Theosophists,

Took of Donnelly's interpretations when she wrote The Secret Doctrine,

1888,

Which she claimed was originally dictated in Atlantis.

She maintained that the Atlanteans were cultural heroes,

Contrary to Plato,

Who describes them mainly as a military threat.

In her book,

Blavatsky reported that the civilizations of Atlantis reached its peak between 1,

000,

000 and 900,

000 years ago,

But destroyed itself through internal warfare brought about by the dangerous use of psychic and supernatural powers of the inhabitants.

Rudolf Steiner,

The founder of Anthropocene and Waldorf schools,

Along with other well-known Theosophists,

Such as Annie Besant,

Also wrote of cultural evolution in much the same vein.

Other occultists followed the same lead,

At least to the point of tracing the lineage of occult practices back to Atlantis.

Among the most famous is Dion Fortuny and her Esoteric Orders and their work.

As continental drift became widely accepted during the 1960s,

And the increased understanding of plate tectonics demonstrated the impossibility of a lost continent in the geologically recent past,

Most lost continent theories of Atlantis began to wane in popularity.

Plato scholar Julia Annas,

Region's professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona,

Had this to say on the matter.

The continuing industry of discovering Atlantis illustrates the dangers of reading Plato,

For he is clearly using what has become a standard device of fiction,

Stressing the historicity of an event and the discovery of hitherto unknown authorities as an indication that what follows is fiction.

The idea is that we should use the story to examine our ideas of government and power.

We have missed the point if instead of thinking about these issues,

We go off exploring the seabed.

The continuing misunderstanding of Plato as historian here enables us to see why this distrust of imaginative writing is sometimes justified.

One of the proposed explanations for the historical context of the Atlantis story is that it serves as Plato's warning to his fellow citizens against their striving for naval power.

Reviews

Another great subject to learn more about. Thanks ✨🙏🏼💜✨

Pretty interesting but I fell asleep before the end.

Thank you, Benjamin! 😻

I had no idea Atlantis came from Plato. That's fascinating. However, I fell asleep before I learned much more than that 😴