Hidden Spirituality of Atlantis: The Lost Empire

All hail one of Disney’s only “nice” forgotten queens...Kida of Atlantis! For real, she’s one of the only Disney princesses who becomes a queen eventually and retains her goodness and breaks that trope of “evil queens/stepmoms” that’s become so infamous...so you know.. suitable on the Atlanteans for embodying love! I mean, hey, even Elsa kind of went into her shadow self for a bit there…. Anyways, Atlantis is not your typical Disney movie...There’s no musicals or happy-go-lucky princesses who get helped by forest animals or swoon at princes… Instead, we get an hour and a half of a nerd exploring ancient temples, translating dusty books, and a badass warrior princess fighting for her people. And of course… It's freakin Atlantis, so obviously, we’re going to talk about it! What’s more, under the surface, especially in the design elements, there’s a massive wealth of ancient spirituality that taught an entire generation of kids about lost cities and consciousness for the first time…

So, spoiler alert… Atlantis is about a young researcher named Milo who, through the funding of an old family friend - who’s pretty into Yoga, can gather a crew to search for the lost civilization and its mysterious power source. They discover that not only does Atlantis really exist, but that it’s still inhabited by people hundreds or thousands of years old who have super-advanced technology and wisdom but have forgotten how to use it since the Cataclysm. But by far, one of the most immediate things that stick with you after watching, though, is that animation and art style… along with the design of Atlantis itself… It is entirely on par with Plato!

In this movie, the crew finds a civilization bathed in New Age imagery, colors, and idealism, reminiscent of Madame Blavatsky’s depictions of the ancient empire. Ancient symbols, especially the ever-present spiral and triangle, are carved into ceremonial stones and painted on masks that resemble the ritual attire of Native Americans -something that Sweet notices early on. And nor was this an accident, for when researching and designing Atlantis, the creators went through every kind of theory imaginable and eventually found the work and readings of Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet. 

According to Cayce, Atlantis was a highly advanced civilization in touch with the higher aspects of themselves and reality and had found a way to integrate consciousness with technology and powered their machines through crystals. To Cayce, Atlantis was a living, breathing spiritual force that existed. Supposedly, they could focus their mental energy on crystals to produce usable energy, which could, in some cases, be used as a weapon. Naturally, when Disney was coming up with concept art, they thought the same thing as all of us…..” well, that’ll look awesome!” and they made it! The giant floaty consciousness crystal was born, and Atlantis was designed around it.

In the movie, Atlantis is presented as the archetypal Mother Civilisation, from which all modern cultures ultimately came. As a result, all of their temples and buildings reflect common styles from everywhere you’ve come to expect in the modern world… Even their language is based on Proto Indo European, with a dash of Sumerian grammar thrown in! The point is, the creators took the Occult idea of Atlantis and ran with it… Even the journey there goes through a kind of Hollow Earth - whoopsie, maybe we can’t say that without getting demonetized… But anyway, all the while being guided by a sacred journal that is pretty reminiscent of Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. 

The Great Crystal itself holds a massive amount of spiritual wisdom too. It’s a life-giving power-source that energizes all life, lights, and flying vehicles in Atlantis. Each person is connected to this force through a personal crystal amulet worn as a pendant… which has been ripped off so many times… But as the king explains, though, the crystal is way more than just a power source or mechanistic machine… It’s created by and takes fuel from its people's consciousness and collective emotions, connecting them in one big, living, breathing “heart.”

It’s even said that the crystal - and by extent, all the smaller crystals, have a consciousness of their own, making it kind of like a deity. Weirdly though, near the beginning, when Kida speaks to Milo, she refers to “the gods wiping out Atlantis,” indicating some polytheistic belief system. While this could be a throw-away line, there’s a sense that the Atlantean world view encompassed multiple gods, as well as this understanding of a universal consciousness that connects and guides all people and things.. seemingly blending ancient polytheism with Americanized Buddhism and New Age concepts like the Akashic Records, which contains all of humanity's past collective knowledge. While we have this polytheistic belief system, it is still unified in their source-consciousness-crystal-ma jigger, so it’s kind of like a mix or polytheistic-monotheism.

Interestingly, according to background fandom sites, in the lore around 100,000 BC, a giant comet passed over the Earth, and a large fragment broke off and landed in the kingdom. Upon examination, the Atlanteans found that it contained a massive crystal and uncovered the excellent properties it possessed. In time, they built their entire culture, civilization, and empire upon it, connecting with it until it became the Heart Crystal that we see in the movie. There’s even a theory that it came from the Mystic Isles, which is like another dimension in the Disney Verse where crazy powerful entities live and are the source of all magic, but that’s another video on its own!

One of the more underlying messages of this movie is its commentary on how nature needs to be protected and not put to waste. In the film, the Flood events were caused by the hubris of the king. In his arrogance, he wanted to use the crystal and consciousness as a weapon...which caused significant instability and that big flash we see at the beginning that eventually caused the fall. The manipulation of consciousness into a firearm is pretty similar to Atlantis's story that we’ve explored in both the Human History Movie and The Anunnaki Movie… 

The King pushed aside the need for the crystal as a life force and used it for a selfish purpose, which only led to ruin. After the flood happened, the King hid the crystal under Atlantis since he didn’t want anyone to try and use its power for destructive purposes, and he feared that what happened to his wife would happen to his daughter. By hiding the crystal from sight, the King ignored the past, which ironically….is what the crystal thrives on.

Perhaps there is a message here about the misuse of our consciousness for egotistical gain. In our current, disharmonious state, many of us may act like the King and seek to use our gifts to expand our kingdom rather than genuinely connecting with our hearts and living in balance… If the events of the movie are anything to go by, this can only go one way. The crystal, then, can be seen as both a natural source of energy and something sacred. As long as the people respect it, the crystal protects them, gives them power, and provides them with a long life….but as soon as they are disconnected from consciousness, they begin to die. Ahh, I get it! The crystals a metaphor for nature… or our souls! Or God… Or all 3! 

Beautifully though, when the king finally faced his shadow, Kida restored the crystal to its proper place in the community, and Atlantis began to thrive again. The message here is pretty clear….the crystal is the collective consciousness and heart of the Atlantians and reflects our consciousness too. We should use this power within us with respect and not use it to harm others. In this way, we can thrive as a species, but if we hide our spirit under the surface and ignore it, or even worse… Try to mechanize it in our arrogance, and it could lead to our ruin.  

This dual nature is shown pretty well at the beginning and end, coming full circle. When Milo first meets Kida, he has a cut on his chest that she heals by touching him with her crystal, ultimately coming from a place of love...but at the end, when Milo is fighting Rourke, he cuts him with a piece of the main crystal and turns him into Crystal-stein...maybe the crystal was tapping into the intention behind its users?

In the work of the Theosophist Alice Bailey, who the team also drew on for inspiration for the artwork, she tells us that “during the time of Atlantis there was a tremendous battle on the astral between the Forces of Light, who wanted to lift human evolution out of materialism and separateness, and the involuntary Forces of Darkness, who wanted to enslave human will and more deeply immerse humanity in the matter,” which is what she argued was the cause of the fall. It’s quite keen than that Milo's final battle is against the heartless materialism of two bad teammates who had stolen the Crystal to sell on the black market..it’s an excellent little work that the team did...not only are some egotistical humans trying to lock the crystal-force away and sell it..but they’re ultimately defeated, only to have the crystal soar into the sky and be free in all its glory.

Now, of course...we can’t do a video on Atlantis without mentioning Kida.. you know, one of the best Disney princess ever who has been criminally underrated. By the end, she becomes a semi-ascended master, bonding her consciousness to the crystal and going all glowy and holy and becoming a being of pure energy. In a time of great need, the crystal can choose a host to channel its power and protect the kingdom, which sounds an awful lot like Thoth’s ship underneath the Sphinx, but hey, I digress.

Kida embodies the divine feminine in her romantic nature, going to her father to broach new ideas about how to save their culture and has a perfect balance of the sacred masculine and isn't afraid to put her thoughts into action. With Milo, she forms a pretty good creator team that brings consciousness back to the people… In the end, the glowing, energy princess floats down from the skies in a beam of light and melts into Milo's arms where she regains consciousness and her human form… just in time to see a civilization reborn and thriving again… the result of honoring our divine selves. 

Isn’t it funny how, after all of it, Kida gives away that whole mountain of treasure to Milo’s crew and helps them back to the surface… not like the Atlantean economy would need any gold, right?... But, interestingly, the real treasure Kida and Milo value is knowledge, so much so that Milo even stays behind to help the Atlanteans re-learn their culture… which is fantastic cause one of the opening scenes of Atlantis II - not as good btw, but still fun... shows a school teaching the language..so we know he succeeds. Most of the temples seem to be a blend of East Asian and Mayan architecture too, which not only links the story to the Maya themselves, the supposed Atlantean priesthood but also helps get that picture of Greek columns and temples out of your head, which was one of the original intentions behind the design.

Bringing this to a close, if you ever wanted to see a faithful reproduction of the New Age idea of Atlantis, then this is like the perfect movie to go and watch...and while it didn’t do great at the box office, it has kind of become a cult classic…. and Tom Holland might star as Milo in a live-action remake. He’s also playing Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie. What?! This story's message of exploration, adventure, inclusion, and the importance of living in harmony with our consciousness are all lessons that kids learned early on by watching this, and that you can too. While some Bible moms have tried to point out hidden Illuminati or Freemason symbols in it, like the All-Seeing Eye and Quartered Circle, the ultimate lessons of this movie are ones of love, compassion, and caution of hubris and putting our ego above a community. 

The whole nature of this movie is even funnier when you read Norma Milanovich and Shirley McCune’s works that argued that Walt Disney himself was a newly Ascended Master whose mission on Earth was to create an awareness of the elementals, the animals, and to integrate the existence of such kingdoms into human consciousness… While we don’t know about that..it’s pretty fun to think about. Maybe Disney’s Atlantis was more in line with Walt’s vision than everyone realized! So until next time, Pah geh sheh nelekh, Gah Moak!