Transition: Juan G. Atienza (1930-2011)

The Spanish-speaking paranormal community has lost one of its leading lights: a scholar and filmmaker whose works inspired and enlightened several generations of seekers of the esoteric. Juan G. Atienza, whose works have been mentioned so often in my articles and in the pages of Inexplicata, died on June 16, 2011.

This was a giant tree that fell in the forest without making a sound. I would not have learned of his passing had it not been for Jesús Callejo’s heartfelt farewell message on his Facebook page. “One of the great thinkers that we’ve had in this country is gone,” writes Callejo, “and almost nobody has noticed. It is sad that it is so.”

Atienza’s work occupied a different swath of terrain from ufology. He was interested in the prehistoric mysteries he found everywhere in the Iberian peninsula: suggestions of sacred geometry, mysterious caves hinting at magical activity in the ancient world, strange cultures, the forbidden lore of the middle ages, the mystery of the Knights Templar and other religious military orders...none of these fields of knowledge was too arcane or “unpopular” for Atienza’s explorations. His La Gran Conciencia Cósmica --mentioned briefly in my article “Deeper Understanding” – raised the curtain, if only slightly, on the great game that non-human intelligences have been playing with humans since the beginning of time.

Callejo, who went from being a fan of his books to a close personal friend, remarks: “I always find it difficult to accept that persons of his stature should be unjustly forgotten, as if relegating these great researchers of history to their fates was a national custom,” observing in an earlier paragraph that Atienza “was aware of the loneliness and isolation that inevitably envelops you when your books are no longer listed on the publisher’s new arrivals.”

Farewell, Juan Atienza. And thank you.