AUTHOR ATTRIBUTES BOOK ON “ATLANTIS” TO MYSTERIOUS VOICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27221, 26 October 1949, Page 7

AUTHOR ATTRIBUTES BOOK ON “ATLANTIS” TO MYSTERIOUS VOICE

NZPA Special Correspondent

Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 25. A priest named Armartus who lived in the lost island of Atlantis 9,000,000 years ago has just dictated a book at the rate of 93 words a minute. At least, that is the conviction of Miss Frances Dale, a 40-year-old London author, who told her publisher that she refuses to take any profits from the book because “ it is not my work.” She told the Daily Mail: “I am not a Spiritualist. I ao not believe in spiritualism or mediumship. But I know I am not the author of this book on ‘Atlantis ’ nor of a second book ready to be published. I wish I could claim these books as my own. They are 10 times better than anything I could write.

“ I was sitting working when a voice said: ‘ Write this down. It was clear and distinct. The voice told me he was ‘Armartus,’ high priest of ‘Atlantis’ and that he had a vital warning about the terrible dangers which threaten our civilisation." Miss Dale continued: “‘Armartus* dictated the first novel at great speed. I found myself hearing his voice but not understanding his text. I just typed. Normally my speed is 40 words a minute, but I found myself averaging

93. The last 7500 words of the first novel were typed in 80 minutes at one sitting. I was exhausted, and fainted. The' material he dictates is beyond me. I know nothing of his subjects. I have never read a cook about ‘Atlantis,’ though I admit I have listened to a radio play. Sometimes I sincerely wish he would choose someone else to do his typing, as I am so busy with my own work."

Atlantis is a vast mythical island in the Atlantic mentioned by Plato, of which an Egyptian priest had told Solon. An earthquake is said to have engulfed it 9000 years before his time, at the close of a long contest with the Athenians. Plato says that shoals of sand marked the site. The Gardens of the Hesperides and the Islands of the Blessed were referred to in the same region. The Celts had wonderful tales of a land of the dead in the west, Glasinnis or Avalon. Paleontological evidence shows that land actually existed In the west in Tertiary times, but of this there could be no tradition. It has been suggested that the Atlantic of the Egyptians was Onete (which was west for them), and that the Greeks transferred it farther west.