"In these pages enthusiasm has doubtless frequently outstripped caution and even probability, but if errors and false hypotheses are to be encountered therein, I must plead that these are due to a spirit of experiment and archaeological enterprise." (p.231)

I think it's fair to say that in 'Atlantis Discovered' author Lewis Spence let his headcanon get away from him a bit. In a chapter titled: 'The Evidence from Old Peru' he goes into a lengthy physical description of the 'Temple of the Sun' as described by (according to Spence) a Spanish explorer. Just at the point at which the reader might find themselves wondering why we're talking about this in such detail, he cuts back in to say: "I have described these remains of Peruvian grandeur at some length, because in my estimation they preserve the atmosphere of what I believe Atlantis to have resembled." (p.190)

And I would argue that this quote and that referenced above just about sum up the seriousness of the archaeological rigor employed by Spence when putting this together.

It's my understanding that pretty much any book purporting to be a serious exploration of the reality of the city/continent/island of Atlantis reads like this. Which, of course, makes sense, given that no serious researcher seems to be on board with the whole 'Atlantis was definitely a real place with super advanced technology/philosophy inhabited by super hot people and from which European culture sprang forth' thing.

So why did this lad go to all the effort of LARPing so hard as an anthropologist that he doubtless spent years researching only to produce a work of fantasy such as 'Atlantis Discovered'? Well, why does anyone get sucked into any conspiracy theory?

Obviously, every person's story of what conditions led to them getting lost in the sauce is going to be different, but I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of them seem to boil down to white supremacy. White people just seem to have a lot of anxiety around letting go of the notion of being the harbingers of all historical progress (in addition to being the determiners of what even constitutes progress).

This is a super complicated anxiety to unpack, but in any event, 'Atlantis Discovered' is steeped in it. So much of the page count is made up of asides about how Atlantis must have existed and must have been populated by white people because it's impossible (apparently?) that any other group of people could have developed advanced forms of construction, religious/philosophical complexity, etc. Like, it's legitimately wild how often he brings this up, dismissing indigenous South and Central American populations as barbaric, underdeveloped, savage, and in a sentence dismissing the notion that any form of 'culture' could have spread East to West rather than West to East. So when he gives examples of architecture or burial practices in the Americas, Egypt, and parts of Europe that he considers similar, he has to underpin this with 'and since, obviously, those uncivilized lads over there couldn't possibly have come up with these things on their own, they must have gotten it from somewhere else, somewhere more proto-European, ergo, Atlantis was real. The end.'

He sometimes gives Egypt a pass, but then he'll go back into his little phrenology asides.

What 'Atlantis Discovered' most reminds me of, actually, is Oscar Wilde's less famous short novel 'The Portrait of Mr. W.H.' in which the protagonist gets swept up in the mystery of who Shakespeare dedicated his love sonnets to. As in that novella, Lewis Spence tried to tailor the facts to fit his theory rather than the theory to fit the facts. And just like in that novella, you can feel (even if you don't empathize with) Spence's desperation to be right.

Whether this desperation stems from a place of sunk cost fallacy or unexamined white supremacy brainrot or both, it's clear that this is a book by and for sad and probably lonely people (and me! Although I, of course, approach this from a sensible rather than unhinged anthropological perspective, being that I'm a superior being completely above letting feelings get in the way of facts. Ever. Amen.).

It's made perhaps even sadder by the fact that, based on his earnestness in the conclusion, Spence really does believe everything he wrote.

To quote Tulio of 'Road to El Dorado' fame: "You're buying your own con!"

That all being said, if not taken too seriously, this is an interesting peek into the mind of a conspiracy-theorist-adjacent type of person and the types of rhetoric they employ to make the completely made-up fantasy world in which they inhabit feel plausible enough to draw in someone untrained in how to spot such linguistic trickery that appeals to 'common sense' (lots of 'obviously...' and 'it has been well established that...' and 'this would logically lead one to conclude...') without ever actually proving anything.

Personally, though, my favorite thing is a quote from the Times Literary Supplement on the front cover of my edition that lauds 'Atlantis Discovered' as "The most level-headed work which has yet appeared in support of the Atlantis theory."

The most level-headed indeed.

I shudder to imagine.