A Mysterious or Secret World. To some, this is a title used to refer to a place (fictitious or otherwise) known as ‘Agartha’. A name believed to have been coined by the French Occultist, Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, circa 1885. Saint-Yves’ depiction aside, this subterranean realm can be considered a sort of culmination of global myth and legend (in its simplest form). The seemingly constant belief throughout antiquity that the deep places of our world hide as many secrets as the celestial heavens above. Tartarus, Hades, Hell, Sheol, Naraka, Jahannam, the Underworld. “As above, so below.”

One possible reason behind this commonality of beliefs is that the deepest places, especially throughout antiquity, were as unreachable as the heavens. To some, even more mysterious because unlike the heavens that could be charted and observed, no one really knew what lay far below.

Cultures that did not directly subscribe to the Secret World(s) often substituted them with Orbis Alius, the Other World(s). Strange realms that somehow overlapped with the mortal world, often depicted as independent dimensions. Realms the likes of Valhalla, Vyraj, Jianmu and (Yggdrasil) The World Tree. Physics and even the passing of time, entirely different from the workings of earth. These “Other Worlds” are shut off from our world, detectable only in death (or specific states of consciousness). In Zoroastrianism (one of the worlds oldest religions), the Bridge of Judgement, Cinvatô Peretûm separates this world from the next.

As humans, we seem to hold a predilection to the belief that there has to be far more going on than we could ever possibly perceive. As it stands, we are still proven correct to assume so. But are there Secret Worlds around us, or are they merely a reflection of how much we still fail to understand about this one? Manifestations of the unknown, filled with the workings of our imaginations throughout the ages. Painting dragons on uncharted lands.

Sometime between 10 and 7 thousand years ago, during the Neolithic period, our species decided(?) to exist in a way completely foreign to this planet at the time (by generally accepted historical belief). Seemingly out of the blue, in Mesopotamia, civilization sprang up almost overnight by historical standards. To an advancement of living where a surviving tablet known as The Code of Ur-Nammu was made (circa 2050 BC). The clay tablet bears a cuneiform script that has been translated from ancient Sumerian to reveal (what is believed to be) the oldest recorded code of law in human history. It states 32 laws of the land. A justice system.

To many of us, we live in a mysterious and for the most part, secret world. Because despite our technological advancements and the sheer passing of time, as a species, we are just as far from answering the greatest questions as we were so long ago. Is our lifetime and our world alike, a rare and finite thing, singular and fleeting in its existence? Was the origin of our world and species purely anomalous and random? Would you really want to know the answers to these questions?

Maybe that’s why the mystery of the unknown is so tantalizing to contemplate for some, because the possibilities are limitless. But is it within the realm of possibility, by any stretch of the imagination, that someday, somehow you will learn the truth and there will be no secrets left to unearth? Will you still be you if/when that day should ever come?

Until then, it remains our secret world.