 All hail one of Disney's only nice forgotten queens, Kida of Atlantis. For real, she's one of the only Disney princesses who also becomes a queen eventually and actually retains her goodness and breaks through that trope of evil queens or stepmoms that's become so infamous. So you know, good on the Atlanteans for embodying love. I mean, hey, even Elsa kinda went into her shadow self for a bit there, right? Anyways, Atlantis is not your typical Disney movie. There's no musicals, no happy-go-lucky princesses who get helped by forest critters and swoon after 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 of course we gotta talk about it. Under the surface, especially in the design elements, there's a huge 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 also very into yoga, is able to 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 and far, one of the most immediate things that sticks with you after watching though is that the animation and art style, along with the design of Atlantis itself, is very on par with Plato. In this movie, the crew find a civilization bathed in New Age imagery, colors and idealism, reminiscent of Madame Blavatsky's depictions of the ancient empire. Mystic 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 the use of crystals. To Cayce, Atlantis was a living, breathing spiritual force that really existed. Supposedly, they could focus their mental energy into crystals to produce usable power, which could in some cases be used as a weapon. Naturally, when Disney was coming up with concept art, they probably thought the exact same thing as all of us. Well, that would look awesome in a cartoon, and they made it! The big floaty consciousness crystal was born, and Atlantis was designed around it. In the movie, Atlantis is presented as the archetypal mother civilization from which all mother cultures come from. As a result, all of their temples and buildings reflect common styles from everything you'd come to expect in the modern world. Even their language is actually based off Proto-Indo-European, with a dash of Sumerian grammar thrown in. The point is, the creators took the occult ideas of Atlantis and ran with it. Even the journey there goes through a kind of hollow earth. Whoopsies, maybe we can't say that without getting demonetized. Did you hear what happened to our last video? But anyways, all the while they're being guided by a sacred journal that is fairly reminiscent of Lovecraft's Necronomicon. The great crystal itself holds a huge 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 now. But as the King explains, the crystal is so much more than a power source or a mechanistic machine. It's created by and takes fuel from the consciousness and collective emotions of its people. It's even said that the crystal, and by extent all the smaller crystals, have a consciousness of their own, which also makes it kinda like a deity. Weirdly though, near the beginning when Kira is speaking to Milo, she makes reference to the gods wiping out Atlantis, indicating some kind of polytheistic belief system. And while this could be just a throwaway line, there's a sense that the Atlantean worldview 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 the past collective knowledge of humanity. While we do have this polytheistic belief system, it is still also unified with their whole-source-consciousness crystal-majigger. So maybe it's even kind of a mix, or like a polytheistic monotheism. Interestingly, according to background fandom sites. In the lore around 100,000 BC, a huge 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 great 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 actually even a theory that it came from the Mystic Isles, which is like another dimension in the Disneyverse, where crazy powerful entities live and is the source of all magic. But that's another video on its own. Now, one of the more underlying messages of this movie, though, is its commentary on how nature needs to be protected and not put to waste. In the movie, the events of the flood were caused by the hubris of the king, who, in his arrogance, wanted to use the crystal and consciousness as a weapon, but which caused great instability was what eventually caused the fall. The manipulation of consciousness into a weapon is fairly similar to our story of Atlantis that we've both explored in the human history movie, along with the Anunnaki movie too. The king pushed aside the need of the crystal as a life force and used it for selfish purposes, 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 these same 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 thrived on. Perhaps there's a message here about the misuse of our consciousness for egotistical gain. In our current disharmony estate, many of us act like the king and seek to use our gifts to expand our own personal kingdom, rather than truly 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 it's respected by the people, the crystal protects them, gives them power and provides them with a long life. But as soon as they are disconnected from it, they begin to die. I get it. The crystal is a metaphor for nature, or our souls, or God, or all three. Whoa. God bless for effect. Gentlemen, I'll take your questions now. Beautifully though, when the king finally faced his shadow, Kita was able to restore 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 Atlanteans and reflects our own consciousness too. We should use this power within us with respect and not 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, it could lead to ruin. This dual nature is shown pretty well at the beginning and end, coming full circle. When Milo first meets Kita, 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 glass with crystal juice on it and turns him into crystal stein. Maybe the crystal was tapping into the intention behind its user. In the works of the theosophist, Alice Bailey, who the team also drew upon 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 matter, which is what she argued was the cause of the fall. It's kind of awesome then that Milo's final battle is against the heartless materialism of two bad teammates who had stolen the crystal to sell it on the black market. It's a nice little work in 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 soren to the sky and be free in all its glory. Now, of course, we can't do a video on Atlantis without really talking about Kita. You know, one of the best Disney princesses ever who has been criminally underrated. By the end, she basically 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 through and protect the kingdom, which sounds an awful lot like Thoth Ship underneath the Sphinx, but hey, I digress. Really though, Kita embodies the divine feminine in her idealistic nature, going to her father to broach new ideas about how to save their culture and also 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, Kita just 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 it's interesting that the real treasure Kita and Milo value is knowledge. So much so that Milo even stays behind to help the Atlanteans relearn their culture, which is amazing because in one of the opening scenes of Atlantis II, totally not as good by the way, 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 gets 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 then, if you ever wanted to see a faithful reproduction of the New Age ideas of Atlantis, then this is actually a really good movie to go and watch. And while it didn't do great at the box office, it kind of has become a cult classic. And supposedly Tom Holland might star as Milo in a live-action remake. And wait, wait, wait. 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. And while some Bible moms have tried to point out hidden Illuminati or Freemason symbols in it, like the all-seeing eye or the quartered circle, the ultimate lessons of this movie are really ones of love, compassion, and a caution of hubris and putting our ego above a community. The whole nature of this movie is even funnier when you read Normal Milanovic and Shirley Mcunae's work that argue that Walt Disney himself was supposedly a new ascended master whose mission on earth was to create an awareness of the elementals, the animals, and how to integrate the existence of such kingdoms into human consciousness. And while we don't know about that, it is kind of fun to think about. Maybe Disney's Atlantis was more in line with Walt's vision than everyone realized. So, until next time, pagae shea nalek ga moak, which is thanks bye in Atlantean.