ATLANTIS

   in his dialogue Timaeus, PLATO mentions an EVIL people whose city was destroyed by a earthquake which submerged it under the sea. For at least four hundred years after he wrote Timaeus, Plato's story was recognized as a PARABLE. Some Roman writers, however, began to take it literally but it was not until the nineteenth century with the work of Ignatius T. T. Donnelly that the idea of such a "lost civilization" became widespread. From Donnelly it was adapted and given OCCULT significance by Helena BLAVATSKY and has since become the stock and trade of occult writers who use it as an APOLOGETIC device to promote their claims. In fact, careful examination of these claims is one of the weaknesses of NEW AGE writings.