Subterranean Worlds. 100,000 Years of Dragons, Dwarfs, … (2024)

An excellent survey, though a bit dated.

Krafton-Minkel approaches an odd-ball subject with curiosity and empathy. He reviews the idea that the earth is hollow, or at least riddled with deep tunnels that lead to undiscovered lands. The book is well-written--surprisingly so, given the small press from which it came--and engaging. The book could have been more of a reference, a list, but Krafton-Minkel makes it readable--although the last couple of chapters fragment the structure a bit. And yet the narrative is also exhaustive, covering the big points in a short span, and doing so with nuance and a good grasp of the ideas origins and developments.

The book starts with mythological ideas, and then jumps ahead to early Modern times before skipping again to the heart of the story, which is the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, just before and after the polar regions were fully mapped. (This is important because the holes to the earth's core were often put at one or both of the holes.) His touches on Theosophy, occultism, and science fiction, among other topics. (I did not notice any mention of the annular theory of the earth, but that would have applied, too.)

The book was written in the late 1980s--and he started investigating the ideas in the 1970s--when serious investigations of fringe ideas were not well known. As a result, he did not have much of a secondary literature upon which to rely. He makes reference to Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade, and thus his book evinces a somewhat Jungian understanding of mythology (as both untrue and more-than-true, steeped in a symbolic logic).

The book also raises questions about the continuity of beliefs. Michele Meurger has argued that contemporary versions of folklore--lake monster stories, extra-terrestrial stories--radically break from their predecessors. There is no continuity. And he has some good points. Krafton-Minkel makes the opposite argument: that the stories of hollow earths and subterranean worlds grow out of a mythological past. And he makes some good points.

I am hesitant to resolve this conflict: I am enough of a pluralist to say that in some cases there is continuity, and others, not so much. In this case, Krafton-Minkel makes a good case for continuity, as the people who were inventing the legends explicitly went back to mythological tales and brought them into their stories.

Thus, this si a story of the rediscovery of old tales and their reinterpretation in a modern inflection. And it is a story told well.

This is a fascinating book on a daft topic. It contained interesting information on, amog other things, the fringe that believes that Hitler did not die but retreated to a secret base in Argentina or Antarctica via massive underground tunnels (part of Hollow Earth theory hohlweltlehre), submarines, or flugelrads (flying saucers) and Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Now forgotten but once most famous author (and occultist (The Coming Race with Vril of occult and Nazi infamy), as well as creator of the most famous opening line of a novel: “It was a dark and stormy night.”).

A FASCINATING HISTORY OF THOSE WHO PROPOSE “HOLLOW EARTH” THEORIES

Walter Kafton-Minkel explained in the introductory section of this 1989 book, “For a certain group of individuals, whose story I shall tell here, the hollow-earth theory has been literally and emotionally true for over two centuries, and that makes it one of the longest-lasting myths of the scientific era… A world within the world is one of the most archaic concepts in world mythology, part of the archetypal image of Gaia, the Earth Mother… The subterranean worlds we are about to explore are sometimes revealing, sometimes entertaining, and sometimes completely ludicrous, but if you are like me---a person who likes to be lifted from his chair by his imagination---they can show us how our desires to shape the universe and our own natures into a compact, comprehensible form can lead us to believe strange things, and hint at everything humanity still does not know about nature and about itself. The hollow-earth theory in all its glory describes great powers and conspiracies moving behind a false picture of a round, solid, neutral planet. In an era still searching for the ‘true story’ of a President’s assassination … and intrigued by stories of the Illuminati, the CIA, and the Trilateral Commission operating behind the scenes of modern history, why not a suppression of the truth about the North Pole…

“This is not a scholarly work, although I have tried to verify all my statements whenever possible. The history of alternative-reality beliefs is perhaps the worst-documented area in the entire field of---what?... Some of the most fascinating figures in this story appear to have gone to some trouble to conceal their pasts… Many of the hollow-earth books I read gave no sources for much of their most interesting information… it makes a researcher’s work difficult. Most of the sources I have used are long out of print or are found only in large academic or special libraries…”

He explains, “In 1685, Edmond Halley, the scientists who first predicted the return of the comet that now bears his name, because the editor of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. In 1692, Halley published a paper there that planted the seed of the hollow-earth theory, and set the stage for the rest of the story… He also anticipated Immanuel Velikovsky… by nearly 200 years when he suggested that the Biblical Flood may have been caused by a comet passing too near the earth.” (Pg. 52-53)

He points out, “The racist notion that the inner-world inhabitants are a superlatively WHITE race, and we are their darker and … more or less degenerate offspring … has popped up with disturbing regularity in inner-world lore of the twentieth century, culminating in a number of hollow-earth proponents today who believe the true home of the Aryan race is ‘inside.’” (Pg. 70)

He recounts how Ray Palmer, editor and publisher of many science-fiction and alternative-reality magazines, published in 1945 ‘I Remember Lemuria,’ written by Richard Sharpe Shaver, whose writings were later gathered and published under the title, ‘The Hidden World.’ He notes, “Scenes of sexual torture were common in Shaver’s writings, as well as in many of the Shaver/Palmer stories, but more to the point of our story… was the description of the Titan women to be found in many of the early stories… These women of the Titan race are an adolescent boy’s fertility goddesses---huge, powerful, scantily clothed, and sexually vibrant.” (Pg. 141)

He notes, “In 1975, a new book---‘UFOs: Nazi Secret Weapon?’ appeared in the UFO community… the authors of this book—Christof Friedrich and another man known simply as Mattern---made no bones about their sympathies. The back cover contained a plea for donations to ‘Free Rudolf Hess!’ Friedrich [was] the pen name of one Ernst Zündel, a German who had emigrated to Canada after the end of the Second World War. Zündel was the head of Samisdat, a[n]… organization that published and sold through the mail such items as collections of Hitler’s and Goebbels’ recorded speeches on tape… Samisdat also sold books like ‘The Hitler We Loved and Why… and ‘The Six Million Swindle.’” (Zündel [1939-2017] became a notorious Holocaust denier, was deported to Germany, and served several years in prison for ‘inciting hatred.’)

He explains that in 1968 infamous cult leader Charles Manson “convinced himself that the entrance to the Inner World … was hidden somewhere in Death Valley… Manson sent Family members on regular searches for the entrance to these caves in their dune buggies. Finally he came upon a formation … known as Devil’s Hold… Gazing into the hole, Manson suddenly realized that this was the entrance to the inner world… Soon Manson began having drug-induced visions of the wonders awaiting the Family in the world below…” (Pg. 241)

He concludes, “As much as I love the notion of an inner world, I am not one of these believers; I have never seen any evidence I consider even marginally persuasive for an inner world, and despite their occasional human failings, I see no reason to doubt the biologists and geophysicists. Yet in a corner of my mind, I still want Agharti, Symzonia, and Masars II to lay concealed a few hundred miles down, and I’ll be very happy to be proved wrong.” (Pg. 282)

This book will be absolute “must reading” for anyone wanting a fascinating survey of such ‘hollow earth’ ideas and books.

What a tour de force that was. Such a vast span of various theories and historical citations. Yet, all tied together and feeding off one another. Covering multiple disciplines and countless stories there's always something new to learn. Very intriguing and engaging. Recommended to fans of science fiction, mythology, history, and geology. 9/10

Great book on an absurd subject that is simultaneously skeptical and romantic. The author doesn't believe in a hollow Earth or underground cave cities, but he neatly lays out why the ideas appeal to people and keep cropping up, with a thorough history of their development over the last three centuries in literature, occultism, and conspiracy circles.