Modern
Theosophy and the
Search
for Ancient Secret Cities
Theosophy
Magazine
Colonel
Percy Harrison Fawcett (left) and one of the films with “Indiana Jones”
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Editorial Note:
Colonel P. H.
Fawcett (1867-1925?) was a brother of British
theosophist Edward
Douglas Fawcett (1866-1960), a journalist
and personal
friend of Helena P. Blavatsky who had several
articles published
in a theosophical magazine while she lived.
The adventurous
life of Colonel Fawcett - an explorer who
disappeared in the
Amazon in 1925 - inspired Steve Spielberg
and George Lucas
in creating by 1981 the character Indiana
Jones, a
university professor and explorer interpreted by Harrison
Ford in various
Hollywood films of great success. Most of the
movies of Indiana
include ethical, theosophical and occult
elements, combined
with humor and other factors of popular appeal.
The following
article was first published at “Theosophy”
magazine in its
February 1954 edition, pp. 158-164, under the
title of “Ancient
Landmarks - The Mystery of Mato Grosso”.
The spelling of
words in Portuguese language has been corrected.
(Carlos Cardoso
Aveline)
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Students of H. P.
Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine are familiar with
the theosophical teaching about the racial and national evolution of the human
family on this globe, and her prediction that in the twentieth century
discoveries will be made that will upset the notions of many a man of science.
Of particular interest, therefore, is an article that appeared in the January
1933 issue of Blackwood’s Magazine, “The Lost City of My Quest”, by Colonel
P. H. Fawcett, with the following editorial note by the publisher:
“When Colonel Fawcett set out in 1925 on the
expedition into the unexplored interior of Brazil from which he has failed to
return, he hoped to find a large ruined city of the remote past. In this
article, written not long before his departure, he describes the original discovery
of that city.”
While twenty years later, in 1953, Colonel Fawcett is
still missing, his letters, manuscripts, and other records have been collected
and published by his son, Brian Fawcett, in a volume replete with stories of
adventure, of ghosts, magic and voodooism, and of the customs and practices
generally of the aboriginal tribes of South America. (“Lost Trails, Lost Cities”,
by Col. P. H. Fawcett. Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1953. 332 pages.)
The story related in both article and book concerns
the history and fate of primeval races that peopled the high plateau regions of
Mato Grosso, in Brazil. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, goes the
legend, one Moribeca, half-Portuguese, half-Indian, who lived most of his life
with the natives, displayed before the world such a wealth of gold, silver and
precious stones, as to fill with envy the greedy Europeans. As the Portuguese
authorities failed to obtain by trickery the secret of this wealth from either
Moribeca or his son, numerous expeditions, some numbering as many as 1400 men,
set out, only to disappear forever, as though they had been swallowed up by the
wilderness.
In the year 1743, however, a native of Minas Gerais
was hired to make a search for the lost mines of Moribeca. His party consisted
of a few Portuguese, Indians, and Negro slaves. After ten years of hardship and
wandering, while seeking a way out of the wilderness, the party discovered,
quite by accident, what seemed to be the long-sought object of their labors.
While scouting for food, they were led by a deer through a deep crevice in a
precipice. Gaining the summit, they stood dumb at the view that spread before
them. (We now extract from the Blackwood’s
Magazine article, drawn up by Colonel Fawcett from material contained in a
document left by the Portuguese explorer of over two centuries ago. [Manuscript No. 512, Biblioteca Nacional, Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil.] [1]
* * *
In the immediate foreground lay extensive plains
brilliantly green, with patches here and there of silver water, changing to
yellowish brown and dull greens as they drew near the foothills. On this was a
sight that made the adventurers gasp and hastily draw back behind the
crest-line. For, at a distance of some three or four miles, and so clear that
buildings could be distinctly made out, was a huge city... Nothing could have
been more unexpected than this extraordinary sight... The sun was well up, for
it was scarcely past mid-day, and it was decided that two Portuguese and two
Negroes, all well-armed, should reconnoiter as near the city as possible and
discover what sort of people dwelt in this mysterious place... The scouts
returned. They had not ventured too near the city, but from a distant point of
vantage had observed neither inhabitant nor smoke.
To the Indians it was just as mysterious as to their
more civilized companions. They had vague traditions and very definite
superstitions regarding this part of the country which had kept it ‘tabu’, and
they were fearful of they knew not what. One man was found, however, who
volunteered to go alone and discover what there was. He started early next
morning and returned about noon, obviously frightened, but asserting that there
existed not a trace of living man.
On the following morning the whole party set off cautiously
along the trail, an advance guard of four scouts preceding them by about half a
mile. Drawing near the city the scouts rejoined the main body, corroborating
the Indian’s account that there was no sign of human life. The whole party
thereupon came into the open, and, disposed in strategic order, approached the
walls.
The trail led directly to an entrance through three
lofty arches built of gigantic stones, the middle arch towering above the
others. The stupendous masonry was black with age, and the grandeur of the
architecture tied every man’s tongue ... The overwhelming dignity of the
design, the awesome silence and mystery of an old abandoned city possessed
them, rough men as they were. High above the crown of the central arch, and
deeply engraved into the weathered stone, were characters of some sort. They
knew enough to realize that this was no familiar script. The arches were in a
good state of preservation, but a few huge blocks had fallen from the summit,
and portions had slipped somewhat out of plumb. Passing through the archway
they found themselves in a wide street, littered with fallen masonry and broken
pillars. They gazed in amazement. There was not a sign of human occupation. It
was all incredibly old, and yet in its age amazingly perfect. Here were
two-storied houses on either side, all built up of carefully squared blocks
carved in elaborate time-worn designs. In many cases roofs had fallen in, in
others great stone slabs still covered the dark interiors, and he who had the
temerity to enter the windowless chambers through the narrow doorways and to
raise his voice, fled at the echoes hurled at him by the vaulted ceilings and
solid walls. Fallen stones and an accumulation of bat droppings covered any
vestiges of human occupation, had there been such.
Dumb with amazement, the party, huddled together like
a flock of scared sheep, passed down the street into a vast square or plaza.
Here they must have “looked at each other with a wild surmise”, for in the
center of the plaza, dominating its surroundings in sublime majesty, was a
gigantic black stone column set upon a plinth of the same rock, and upon it the
statue of a man, one hand on his hip, the other arm extended with the index finger
pointing towards the north - magnificent in design, perfect in preservation. In
each corner of the plaza had been great obelisks of black stone covered with
carvings. Three of them had been broken off short, the upper parts lying on the
ground prominent amidst the litter of stone. The whole of the right hand side
of the plaza was occupied by a building so magnificent in its design as to have
been obviously a palace, its square columns intact, but walls and roof partly
demolished. A vast entrance hall was approached by a broad flight of steps,
much of which was displaced. The interior of this hall was rich in exquisite
carving, and still showed signs of a brilliance of colouring comparable with
some of the finest relics of Egypt. The interior exit from this hall was
blocked by fallen masonry... At the junction of the street with the plaza,
above what appeared to be the principal entrance, was carved in semi-relief the
figure of a youth in excellent preservation. The figure was naked from the
waist up, had shield in hand and a band across the shoulder. The face was
clean-shaven and the head crowned with a wreath of laurel...
In the plaza opposite the palace was the ruin of
another huge edifice, evidently a temple by its magnificent façade and general
appearance. It was entirely unroofed, but on the weather-worn walls were still
to be traced figures and designs of animals and birds ... Beyond the street and
plaza the city seemed to be entirely in ruin, and much of it was buried. Gaping
chasms in the ground, into whose fathomless depths a stone dropped without sound,
left no doubt as to the agency of destruction. Around these dreadful gulfs
great blocks of stone elaborately carved, slabs of rock, portions of stone and
broken columns were piled in awful confusion. The explorers could imagine
something of the ghastly tragedy of this unknown cataclysm, whose resistless
force had displaced and thrown down monolithic stones of fifty tons and upwards
and destroyed in less perhaps than one fearful minute the civilization of a
thousand years.
On the far side of the plaza the city was open to a
river some thirty yards or so in width ... Evidently there had been a highly
decorative terrace to this river, but most of it had been swallowed up or lay
beneath the waters ... About a quarter of a mile outside the city and standing by
itself was a palatial building with a front of 250 paces, approached by a broad
flight of steps of many-coloured stones. It was heavily columned all round, and
the noble portico opened upon a vast hall, whose mural decorations and gorgeous
colouring still remained more or less intact. From this hall opened fifteen
smaller chambers, in each of which was the carved head of a serpent from whose
opened jaws poured a small stream of water...
It was long before they could tear themselves away
from these awesome ruins, for whose existence they could imagine no
explanation. The grandeur and opulence of the place astounded them, but this
feeling soon gave place to an intense lust for treasure, inevitable amongst
ignorant men. If they could have filled their pockets with gold, they would
willingly have destroyed every stone of this priceless relic of a lost
civilisation. Their report reeks of this impulse. It is the buried wealth which
attracts them, not the mystery ... The leader of the expedition was anxious to
return better equipped for this purpose.
Having no notion where he was, but with every
confidence that those Indians who remained with him would remember the country,
the leader decided to follow the river down on a chance of striking some
civilised settlement ... Soon after the departure of this party he found to the
east of the fall unmistakable signs of mining. Shafts whose depths he had no
means of plumbing excited his curiosity. On the surface of the ground were
specimens of silver ore of great richness, presumably brought up from these
shafts, encouraging him to believe that he had really discovered the lost mines
of Moribeca. Further investigation revealed other features of interest. There
were caverns hewn out of the solid rock, one of them sealed with a grey slab of
stone ... No effort, however, could move the slab. Others were similarly closed
... Possibly they were the tombs of the priests and kings of the city. The
party pictured themselves as rich men. They agreed that, excepting to the
Viceroy, to whom their leader owed a debt of gratitude, they would say nothing,
but return reconstituted, unearth the treasures and work the mines...
In the meantime the scouting section, after following
the lower river for nine days without result, caught sight in a backwater of a
canoe paddled by two white people with long black hair and dressed in clothing
of some sort. But on firing a shot to attract attention, the canoe spurted
ahead and disappeared. People of this appearance were reported again and again
by Portuguese explorers up to about half a century ago, but no explanation has
ever been vouchsafed... The leader then decided to march eastward through the
forest and leave it to chance what part of the Atlantic coast settlements he
eventually struck. Where he ultimately came out he does not say...
Whether the Indians deserted him from fear of the tabu
and he lost himself, as so many did in these vast solitudes, or whether the
insatiable greed of these early explorers ended in quarrels and tragedy, is
unknown. Neither he nor a single member of his party were heard of again...
Meanwhile the Viceroy pigeon-holed the report, which
never saw light again for upwards of half a century. The Government made some
half-hearted attempts to find the place about the middle of the nineteenth
century, but they failed to discover anything, and, truth to tell, the search
was not conducted very intelligently...
Is the investigation worthwhile from a scientific
point of view? Assuredly, yes. It must be doubtful if there is any archaeological
and ethnological research more important today than the study of these ruins
and the relics contained therein ... What is the significance of the hundreds
of inscriptions scattered throughout the forests in characters resembling some
of those contained amongst the oldest scripts known to us elsewhere, themselves
as yet a mystery? May there not be somewhere another Rosetta stone? Who can
estimate the value of such a discovery of ruins compared with which those in
Egypt are modern?
* * *
Were the legend of Mato Grosso the only one of its
kind, the whole affair might be brushed aside as a fancy, but similar
traditions prevail in other parts of the world. Readers of THEOSOPHY will
recall, for example, the North American Indian tradition of the “mountain of
mystery” in Arizona, as related in an article titled “The Spirits of
Superstition Mountain”.[2] Also, the
story of a mysterious city in the Cordilleras was told to Stephens by a Spanish
Padre in 1838-1839 [3], which the
priest swore that he had seen with his own eyes, and which the traveller firmly
believed to be true:
“The Padre of the little village near the ruins of
Santa Cruz del Quiche, had heard of the unknown city at the village of Chajul
... He was then young, and climbed with much labor to the naked summit of the
topmost ridge of the sierra of the Cordillera. When arrived at a height of ten
or twelve thousand feet, he looked over an immense plain extending to Yucatan
and the Gulf of Mexico, and saw, at a great distance, a large city spread over
a great space, and with turrets white and glittering in the sun. Tradition says
that no white man has ever reached this city; that the inhabitants speak the
Maya language, know that strangers have conquered their whole land, and murder
any white man who attempts to enter their territory....”
A story almost identical with the above was told to H.
P. Blavatsky by an old native priest of Peru, whom she met there. Ostensibly a converted native missionary, the priest
assured her that he was at heart as much a sun-worshipper as ever, and kept up
his friendly relations with the conquerors and the Catholic religion for the
sake of his people. He solemnly affirmed that he had been at Santa Cruz, and
had visited the mysterious city, which he entered by a ‘subterranean passage’
unknown to the world at large.
Relics of ancient civilizations have been unearthed in
every part of the globe, and more, doubtless, await the day when some
open-minded and intuitive archaeologist will come upon their meaning. Meantime,
words written by H. P. Blavatsky, in 1880, may provide food for thought for
students:
“...all along the coast of Peru, all over the Isthmus of North America,
in the canyons of the Cordilleras, in the impassable gorges of the Andes, and,
especially beyond the valley of Mexico, lie, ruined and desolate, hundreds of
once mighty cities, lost to the memory of men, and having themselves lost even
a name. Buried in dense forests, entombed in inaccessible valleys, sometimes
sixty feet underground, from the day of their discovery until now they have
ever remained a riddle to science, baffling all inquiry, and they have been
muter than the Egyptian Sphinx herself ... Of the long generations of people
who built them, history knows nothing, and even tradition is silent. As a
matter of course, most of these lithic remains are covered with a dense
vegetation. Whole forests have grown out of the broken hearts of the cities,
and, with few exceptions, everything is in ruin. But one may judge of what once
was by that which yet remains.”
“Having well
defined ideas as to the periodicity of cycles, for the world as well as for
nations, empires, and tribes, we are convinced that our present modern
civilization is but the latest dawn of that which already has been seen an
innumerable number of times upon this planet.”
“Who knows, then”, wrote Dr. Heath, of Kansas City, in
his Peruvian Antiquities, “but that
Jules Verne’s fanciful idea regarding the lost continent Atlanta [4] may be near the truth? Who can say that, where now is the Atlantic
Ocean, formerly did not exist a continent, with its dense population, advanced
in the arts and sciences, who, as they found their land sinking beneath the
waters, retired part east and part west, populating thus the two hemispheres?”
NOTES:
[1] Wikipedia examines Manuscript
512 in a Portuguese language text which includes a photo of the original. (Retrieved 27 December 2019.)
(CCA)
[2] “Theosophy” magazine, volume
24, September 1936, pp. 504-508. (Note by Theosophy magazine)
[3] “Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatán”. (Note
by Theosophy magazine)
[4] This “idea” is plainly
expressed and asserted as a fact by Plato in his Banquet; and was taken up by Lord Bacon in his New Atlantis. (Note by Theosophy
magazine)
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The above article
was published in the associated websites on 27 December 2019.
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See the articles “The Ancient Theosophy in the Andes”,
by Carlos Cardoso Aveline, and “The ‘Popol Vuh’ of the Maya Tradition”,
by John Garrigues.
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