The word prodigy comes to mind when you learn about the young Polish independent researcher and writer Aleksander Czeszkiewicz. Already as a child, he read heaps of books about our distant past and scrolled through ancient texts, and increasingly he also delved into spiritual traditions. “I was interested holistically in the universe, the earth, and history. At school everything was uninteresting to me. There was no place for imagination. At home I could speculate about the existence of Atlantis. I was free. At school, I was not free”, says Aleksander. At 17 he wrote the first book of his own, which he entitled Deja Vu – Has Everything Already Been? He had to wait until the age of 18 to publish it because of legal requirements. The year after, he translated it to English himself. The idea of constant progress, that we are at the peak of civilization, is fairly new. Centuries ago, the point of view was rather that we had fallen from an earlier golden age. “There was also the more neutral idea that human development is cyclical. This was prominent in ancient Greece and ancient India”, Aleksander explains. The Vedic cycles are called yugas. “With all the scientism, materialism and atheism, I think our time resembles the description of the Kali yuga, the dark age of materialism, in the ancient hindu tradition.” The Mahabharata pinpoints a date for the start of the latest Kali yuga: the 18 February 3102 BCE, which happens to coincide with the beginning of the civilizations whose legacy we are still in. But there are yogis who believe we may be in the intermediate Dvapara yuga. Before the archaeological discoveries in the 1800s, we knew nothing about ancient Egypt, Sumer or other early civilizations. The texts about them were considered fairy tales. “What if we are in a similar situation now, when we make so many more discoveries? Maybe we will find evidence for Atlantis?” Homo sapiens has been around for at least 200,000 years. It is not likely that we remained cavemen for 95 percent of that time and then suddenly decided to build civilizations, Aleksander thinks. “There are so many known historic texts from Greece, Egypt and the Arab world that tell us straight out that there were mighty kings and civilizations tens of thousands of years ago.” Most flood myths – and there are many all over the world – can be correlated to the geologically dramatic end of the last ice age. Will you be able to dig up even more conclusive evidence of lost civilizations than the many independent pioneers you are leaning on today? “I think what has been uncovered is the tip of the iceberg. To think we know it all is arrogant. I personally love diving into old texts. They show such a holistic picture of everything. But of course I also want to explore the physical remains.” Aleksander’s book is only the beginning of his research, he says. “My next project will be of a more metaphysical and philosophical nature. A spiritual exploration.” Aleksander thinks many of our current problems relate to the fact that we never yield, stop and let ourselves relax, feel in and listen inwards. “We should not only chase results. We need to be here now. The grinding mindset is toxic.” He foresees a huge paradigm shift as a result of an expanded human consciousness. In his view, society is tarnished by a kind of modern ”satanism”: Some want to exert control and keep others down. Aleksander is planning on publishing his second book later this year. Aleksander's book His website (int) His Youtube channel