Sophia Space Agency in Cosmic-Lemurian
Form and as Earthly-Stage Persona
I.
For those who don't know, Lemuria is a mythical continent said to lie beneath the Indian Ocean.
Its existence was first proposed by the English zoologist Philip Sclater in 1864, who was attempting to explain the presence of lemur fossils on Madagascar and the Indian subcontinent but not in continental Africa or the Middle East.
After controversial German biologist Ernst Haeckel suggested that Lemuria might also be the birthplace of mankind, the idea was taken up by thinkers outside the scientific community, including Mme. Blavatsky, occultist and founder of theosophy, who absorbed Lemuria into her mystical-religious doctrine.
Blavatsky's writings were influential on many others within the esoteric tradition and before long everyone was excited by the myth of Lemuria and its early (but spiritually advanced) species of human [1].
Theories about Lemuria became untenable when, in the 1960s, the scientific community finally accepted Alfred Wegener's theory of plate tectonics and continental drift, presented in 1912. However, the idea lived on in the popular imagination, especially among those prone to New Age beliefs, crackpot history, and pseudoarchaeology and there is a vast body of fringe literature available for those with the time and patience [2].
II.
Those who like this sort of thing seem to include the singer-songwriter and music producer Melpomeni Kermanidou, now working under the project name of Sophia Space Agency, whose seven-track, dark ambient album The Turning Blue was released last month on Lemurian Records [3].
As I have written about this album and the SSA in two earlier posts on Torpedo the Ark - click here and here - there's not a great deal more I can say here. But it does interest me to know: do the Lemurians represent an aspirational ideal for Miss Kermanidou?
She seems to be advocating a more harmonious way of life that balances alien spirituality, deep environmental responsibility, and a love of vintage fashion - so it could be argued that she feels a degree of kinship with these immensely wise (though imaginary) beings from the lost continent of Lemuria.
Perhaps even she bears some kind of spiritual imprint ...?
The SSA also invite us to explore the possibility of a multiverse and of worlds existing in a different dimension - perhaps the last of the Lemurians take shelter there, quietly guiding humanity toward enlightenment and polishing their sacred crystals ... Who knows?
One wonders if Miss Kermanidou will eventually migrate from the world of dark ambience into that of Lemurian music per se - a genre which combines slow techno beats, ancient tribal sounds, and ambient frequencies designed to enhance meditation and bring out the Lemurian in all of us.
As an artist who likes to develop in new directions, it's certainly possible.
But perhaps at this point - and before she throws herself fully into all things Lemurian - let us recall something written by Jung in a letter of warning to Echidna Stillwell:
[…] your attachment to a Lemurian cultural-strain disturbs me intensely. From my own point of view - based on the three most difficult cases I have encountered and their attendant abysmally archaic symbolism - it is no exaggeration to state that Lemuria condenses all that is most intrinsically horrific to the racial unconscious, and that the true Lemurians - who you seem intent upon rediscovering - are best left buried beneath the sea. I agree with the Theosophical writings at least this far: it was in order that the darkest sorceries should be erased by deluge that this continent of cultural possibility has been placed under the unconscious sign of definitive submergence. I know little enough about the nature of those that populated that cursed zone, but there are things I suspect, and the line of your own researches confirms my most ominous intimations. [4]
Notes
[1] I really don't want to follow Blavatsky too far down the theosophical rabbit hole, but, in brief, she believed Lemurians to be the third of seven distinct root races from which modern humanity evolved. Exceedingly tall beings - 12 to 15 feet in height - Lemurians possessed a third eye via which they could perceive higher dimensions.
Unfortunately, after discovering sex they began to mate with lower species. This led to their spiritual degeneration and eventual downfall (although, on the bright side for any primatologists reading, it did result in the creation of apes).
[2] See the work of James Churchward, for example, who developed the concept of Lemuria in several books published in the 1920s and '30s. He referred to it as the lost continent of Mu, however, and identified its location in the Pacific Ocean (also incorporating ideas to do with Atlantis into his work).
See also L. Sprague de Camp's classic study Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature (Gnome Press, 1954). An updated version was published by Dover Press in 1970 and it remains one of the most reliable books on this subject.
[3] The link is to Spotify from where The Turning Blue can be downloaded. Readers who prefer their music the old-fashioned way, can pre-order a limited-edition vinyl album, released on 9 October 2026, from propermusic.com
[4] This excerpt from a letter (allegedly) written by Jung to Echidna Stillwell and dated 27 Feb 1929 (for which there is no evidence of a reply) is quoted by Nick Land in 'Occultures', a text written in 1999 which can be found in Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007, ed. Robin Mackay and Ray Brassier (Urbanomic / Sequence Press, 2011), p. 549.
It can also be found in CCRU: Writings 1997-2003 (Urbanomic, 2022) under the title 'The Unlife of the Earth'.
