.
Between 1924 and 1925, world traveler, inventor, geologist, archeologist, metallurgical chemist, and researcher James Churchward delivered more than two dozen lectures over WNYC. A former colonel in the British Army, Churchward gave talks based on decades of research that focused on what he called, 'the motherland of man,' the lost continent of Mu.
According to Churchward, some 25,000 years before the common era Mu had been a Pacific Ocean mirror to Atlantis, with its northern reach just beyond Hawaii and the southern boundary between Easter Island and Fiji. Before its destruction from a volcanic explosion, Mu was home to as many as 64,000,000 people whose culture and inventions, he argued, far surpassed those of the modern era.[1]
Churchward began his quest to prove the existence of Mu in 1868 as a young English officer on famine relief duty in India. There, he befriended a high priest at a temple school monastery who revealed to him ancient tablets written in Naacal, a language known only to a dwindling few. The priest reportedly taught Churchward how to read this language and the tablets which described the lost continent of Mu. So began Churchward's lifelong project to corroborate the tablets.
In his WNYC talks, Churchward discussed his discoveries and findings of Mu as well as lecturing on his travels through the Himalayas and India. Covered too are various natural phenomena such as electricity, lightning, earthquakes, and volcanoes. Heading to the fringes of scientific and anthropologic inquiry Churchward outlined his firm belief that the sun is actually a cool body and that man was civilized before he became a savage.
Churchward's radio lectures received some national notice through the syndicated newspaper outlet Universal Service. They published a piece on Churchward's November 12, 1924 WNYC lecture that ran in Nebraska's Grand Island Daily Independent. Headlined, "New Location Given to Garden of Eden," the article outlined the colonel's talk "The Motherland of Man," where he declared that years of research had led him to conclude that Eden was indeed in the Pacific but had been submerged by volcanic activity. The same story appeared in Louisiana's Shreveport Times.[2] In April 1925, The Hartford Courant's radio columnist made note of an upcoming Churchward talk on 'the great magnetic cataclysm,' that it said, promises "very surprising facts and finding as substantiation for extremely unorthodox explanation of the glacial period."[3]
On December 23 and 29, 1924 Churchward's broadcasts firmly departed for another genre with Jungle Tales for the Kiddies.
"This evening I have nothing to do with grown-ups: for, I am going to play with the kiddies at a game called: 'telling tales,' not any of Louis Carroll's, or any from the Arabian Nights, but jungle tales, where the tiger, the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the other jungle folk live. There is nothing wonderful about these talks, no blood-curdling stories, or narrow escapes by a hairs bredth, [sic] only funny little incidents that occurs [sic] to everyone who devotes much time to hunting..." [4]
Not long afterward Churchward's research and conclusions were detailed in the book The Lost Continent of Mu: Motherland of Man, published in 1926. This work was followed by The Children of Mu, The Sacred Symbols of Mu, and two volumes on The Cosmic Forces of Mu.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle's radio columnist commented on Churchward's WNYC talks on several occasions. Regarding the May Day, 1925 broadcast, he poked some fun at the colonel:
Professor Churchward dealt in no topics of today after the manner of Will Rogers. Everything Mu-ish happened over 16,000 years ago, and we just had to believe all he said about those dear old days. Nothing was said about the Mu cows or any of the other homely things of life in the Land of Mu, but as a hylogriphical [sic] tale it was a first-rater. We learned about cosmic eggs from which the ancients believed life came. We used to know some barnstorming actors that had good reason to share that notion.[5]
The New York Sun, however, was more approving.
His talks are unique and pleasantly different from the pedantic and bombastic efforts of most scientists and world travelers. He does note endeavor to snow his listeners with superiority and technical terms and unpronouceable names, but just tells of his discoveries and cites his theories.[6]
Other Mu-related broadcasts included Mu and Her Ancient Past and Life on Mu. Churchward's WNYC talks also touched on the origins of pygmy hunting in Central America and, as noted, what he called "the great magnetic cataclysm."
While most of James Churchward's theories are on the fringes of scientific thought, he did make it into the Congressional Record in 1962 courtesy of Representative Benjamin Rosenthal. The New York Congressman extended his remarks to include an article by Commander Wendell Phillips Dodge[7], an explorer and theatrical agent who circumnavigated the globe on the square-rigger Alexander Gibson as a young man. Dodge was the author of Lost Continent of Mu - Current Oceanographic Studies Bear Out Ancient Pacific Legends. The article originally appeared in the March-April, 1962 edition of The Compass, a publication of the marine sales department of the Socony Mobil Oil Company[8], now known as Exxon-Mobil.
Churchward's writings have been a source of material and inspiration for many others, including the work of H.P. Lovecraft and the British-based electronic music record label Planet Mu.[9] Jack Churchward, the great-grandson of James Churchward, maintains a detailed website aimed at promoting a more complete understanding of James Churchward's writings and theories.
____________________________________________
[1] "Col. Churchward, Author, Dies at 86," The New York Times, January 5, 1936, pg. N10.
[2] Tietsort, Francis J., "New Location Given to Garden of Eden," The Grand Island Daily Independent, November 14, 1924, pg. 10.
[3] "Program Notes," The Hartford Daily Courant, April 12, 1925, pg. 58.
[4] Churchward, James, Radio Lectures Given From Radio Station W.N.Y.C. New York, 1924-1925, Lecture No. 6, December 23, 1924, original unpublished manuscript.
[5] "On the Radio Last Night." The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 2, 1925, pg.11.
[6] "Colonel James Churchward in Talk from WNYC," The New York Sun, December 6, 1924, Radio Section, pg. 11
[7] Dodge, the editor of The Explorers Journal and former agent to film star Mae West, is perhaps best known as promoting a 1951 Explorers Club dinner purporting to have served prehistoric meat from a long-extinct woolly mammoth. Later testing revealed the meat was really from a sea turtle. Dodge was also the author of "Sex Among the Eskimos," an article in the September 1964 edition of Sexology magazine, a popular period pulp publication.
[8] "Extension of Remarks of Hon. Benjamin S. Rosenthal, August 2, 1962, Congressional Record, Appendix, pgs. A5957 - A5959.
[9] James Churchward, Wikipedia
Thanks to Richard Buhler and Jack Churchward for their assistance with this piece.