In writing this preface to the Russian edition, I find myself experiencing a strange mixture of emotions – emotions which are undoubtedly related to the present moment, but which nevertheless also have about them a sense of being peculiarly ancient. It is as if the icy fingers of a long past event have suddenly reached forward through time to grip an obscure part of my memory. Vague scenes from the last few days in Atlantis, immediately prior to the destruction of that world, have arisen from the very depths of memory, to hover like so many phantoms in a graveyard. Days filled with an oppressive heat and an unnatural stillness which had set the entire priesthood of Atlantis on edge. Days that seemed pregnant with the unknown. Days in which men and women everywhere desperately tried to fathom the meaning of an unbearable sense of impending doom – a sense of doom that brought shivers to the spine in spite of the unrelenting heat.
Even though the scenes waver uncertainly in the far distant past, and even though at the time of writing this it is a cold winter’s day, the heat of those last few days still seems to radiate across the centuries with an uncanny intensity. Throughout that summer the heat continued unabated: a scorching sun beating down fiercely upon the whole of Atlantis; the dry earth becoming ever more parched and cracked, whilst even normally hardy vegetation began to shrivel and die in a heat that shimmered and twisted in grotesque shapes. Water had become scarce at an alarming rate, and as a result farmers everywhere started to cull the livestock. Meat prices reached an all-time low, whilst the price of fresh fruit and grain soared out of all proportion, as every orchard and field of grain withered in the arid conditions of that fatalistic summer. Never before in the history of Atlantis had such a summer been recorded.
Adding to the sense of impending doom was the haunting memory of so many rural homes and city mansions standing empty and ransacked, a silent testimony to the division of the people, and the fact that the White Emperor no longer ruled in the City of the Golden Gates. Having been forced out of the city more than two years previously, the White Emperor and his advisors, together with several hundred kings, priests and guild masters who still supported his claim to the throne, had gone in search of a new world, hopefully untouched by the atrocities of the Black Emperor. As a result men, women and children from all over Atlantis, led by their respective guild masters, or assistant guild masters, gradually made their way out of the mother continent in small bands that often fled in the middle of the night, so as to avoid being persecuted by the followers of the Black Emperor. Meeting up with other bands along the way, or at prearranged points of rendezvous, hundreds of thousands sneaked away to rejoin their kings and priests, following the example of the White Emperor. Consequently, whole villages and huge sections of the great cities became depopulated, and farms and once-prospering industries were simply abandoned to the fate of the mother continent.
But the most gripping memory of all is the fact that in the autumn following that terrible summer, one whole tribe of people suddenly disappeared almost overnight. Being the direct descendants of the fierce Turanian people, this tribe had become known for the fact that they had, for some deeply philosophical reason, abandoned much of the utterly ruthless ways of their warrior ancestors. Although undoubtedly still very much a warrior people, they nevertheless had forbidden their men the use of swords, and had perfected instead the skill of using only knives and short spears for both hunting and combat.
What exactly happened to this people is not known. They never did turn up at any of the rendezvous points, and none of the other emigrants ever reported any knowledge of them or their fate. Their disappearance from Atlantis was the last that was ever recorded of this particular tribe of people. However, long after the destruction of Daitya and Ruta, scouts from one particular lineage of emigrants reported meeting up with a nomadic tribe roaming the Plains of Tartary, and who did not use swords, but who nevertheless had uncanny skill with both knives and short spears. Yet when they were questioned by the scouts as to their ancestry, the nomads had merely shrugged their shoulders, saying that they neither knew nor cared to remember. Whether these people were the descendants of the Turanians is not known for sure, but it has been suspected for a long time that they were indeed the lost tribe of Atlantis.
Why does the memory of this lost tribe haunt me so? I have often enough asked myself that question, and just as often come up with no reasonable answer. That last summer in Atlantis is somehow clear in my memory, and yet, strangely, it is not my memory, but the memory of someone with whom I seemed to have had an exceedingly powerful bond. Although I have often searched my own memory thoroughly, I have no firsthand recall of having been in Atlantis during that summer, nor of having been a member of this tribe. Yet it is as if I see that time through the eyes of someone within that tribe.
I also cannot recall the plains of Tartary, but I do recall a lifetime in the mountains of Norway. A lifetime of farming and a lifetime with strong memories of a father who could ride a horse and cast a spear like no-one else in our community. I can also remember long winters during which we were totally snow-bound in our rural home for many months on end, winters that were spent in doing woodcarving and practicing fighting skills, using an assortment of various knives. Was this my connection to the lost tribe of Atlantis? Was my father of that time a member of that tribe? If so, then how did he land up in Norway, and how or why did he become separated from the rest of his people?
In cases such as these the restoration of memory means nothing at all, for as a rule it is only the knowledge gathered in previous lifetimes that is remembered, not the lives themselves. Toltecs’ knowledge of the past is almost entirely dependent upon the oral history passed down from generation to generation, and upon the mental ideographs transmitted from the memory of a nagal to the mind of his successor. Only rare snippets of incidents here and there will sometimes surface with the knowledge gained at that time. But why should this particular snippet be so important? And why should it again stalk my mind at the time of writing this preface to the Russian edition of this book?
Perhaps it is because in some way this snippet from out of the dim past could well have some significance if seen in the context of one of the more obscure prophecies of the Nameless One. In amongst the many prophecies recorded, there are several which do indeed appear to be obscure, in that they seem to have been random viewings of an uncertain future. And yet, from past experience it has been found that many of these seemingly odd prophecies are not nearly as obscure as they appear to be – it being only the strange references within their content that is often at odds with current world events, and not the content itself. Following here is one such prophecy, which could well account for my weird feelings when thinking about the Russian people, and why in writing this preface I should again recall my unaccountable association with the lost tribe of Atlantis.
“From out of the cold North they will come, courageous men and women from many different sub-tribes, forming a strong race, and in their heart of hearts still following the way of the Sacred Trust, but no longer remembering the cause or the purpose of their voluntary exile. In their ancient quest for atonement for a sin which is not theirs, they abandoned the Sword of Power and held onto only the Spear of Destiny. Before their coming, the forces channeled by that Spear shall shatter many of their beliefs, and shall lay waste the walls which have separated them from the rest of their fellow men for so long. Because of that exile, because of that separation, a great poverty of body and an all-consuming loneliness of the spirit marks the soul of these people. But it is also that poverty of body and that loneliness of spirit which has instilled in them their great strength of purpose and their deep thirst for life. Thus in the hearts of these people there burns a consuming fire of longing and of passion, and because of this fire they will be the first to recognize the call having been sounded forth. The coming of these people will be feared by the rest of the world, but not for the reasons of spirit. That fear will be based upon reasons born of ignorance, and thus will their true coming at first not be noticed. Thus it is that they shall come unseen, and take the world by storm. Their taking will not be by the Sword, but by the Spear, by the power of destiny and by the power of their passion for life and for the One Truth. Their strength of purpose and their fiery passion shall sweep all before them like a great tide which has no ebb. They shall search the minds and hearts of all for the One Truth, and shall not stop their searching until they have found that sound which has echoed always within their hearts and for which they have waited all this time. That sound shall feed their inner fire, and around it they shall proceed to build a new empire, not an empire of political power, but an empire based entirely upon the One Truth, and stretching across all political and natural frontiers.”
So reads a transcript of this ancient prophecy. The reason why prophecies such as these are looked upon as being obscure is clearly evident, for the reference to the people of which it speaks is so vague that it could be almost any of the races from the North. And yet, for the reasons I have mentioned here, my own personal feeling is that this prophecy refers to the Russian people.
A fact which seems to confirm this, is that the West has for a long time feared the political and nuclear power of the Soviet Union, but now that the Soviet Union is no more, the West not only no longer sees it as a threat, but has also relaxed its long-standing vigilance. Furthermore, the character and the plight of the people described in this prophecy is remarkably like that of the Russian people today, and in thinking about how staid and sterile most of the West has become, it is then not so strange that the fiery spirit of the Russian people could well re-ignite in the minds and the hearts of the West a vision of a new world now that Soviet socialism no longer poses a political threat.
To me it seems to make a great deal of sense, and I find it truly awesome that so soon after the release of this book, it should be a Russian publishing house that approaches us first for foreign translation rights. However, we cannot build a future upon uncertainties, and therefore much remains to be confirmed before it would be safe even tentatively to accept my feelings on the above prophecy. Nonetheless, keeping this prophecy in mind, I do believe that in the meantime it is well worth observing and monitoring the Russian people’s response to the Toltec teachings. Perhaps the Russian people will still take the world by storm. In this respect the West can certainly do with a new spark of vision and inner fire. Perhaps the lost tribe of Atlantis will now once again be recognized and integrated back into the rest of the world. And perhaps finally I will be able to solve the riddle of this obscure part of my memory.
Theun Mares, Toltec Teachings – Volume I