Root race

Root races are concepts in the esoteric cosmology of Theosophy. As described in Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's book The Secret Doctrine (1888), these races correspond to stages of human evolution and existed mainly on now-lost continents. Blavatsky's model was developed by later theosophists, most notably William Scott-Elliot in The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904). Annie Besant further developed the model in Man: Whence, How and Whither (1913). Both Besant and Scott-Elliot relied on information from Charles Webster Leadbeater obtained by "astral clairvoyance". Further elaboration was provided by Rudolf Steiner in Atlantis and Lemuria (1904). Rudolf Steiner, and subsequent theosophist authors, have called the time periods associated with these races Epochs (Steiner felt that the term "race" was not adequate anymore for modern humanity).

Sources

According to historian James Webb, the occult concept of succeeding prehistoric races, as later adopted by Blavatsky, was first introduced by the French author Antoine Fabre d'Olivet in his Histoire philosophique du genre humain (1824). Also prior to Blavatsky, the root races were described by the English theosophist Alfred Percy Sinnett in Esoteric Buddhism (1883).

Locations of the proposed former continents

Some theosophical writers, attempting to reconcile current geological science with some earlier theosophical teachings, have equated Lemuria with the former supercontinent of Gondwana. An opposing view subscribes to the theories of Eduard Suess, who argued that Gondwanaland consisted of parts of the present continents in their present positions, but joined to one another by other lands that have since been submerged. This is also the position of Master Samael Aun Weor.

Atlantis, in the Theosophical cosmology, was a continent that covered a significant part of what is now the Atlantic Ocean. The large continent of Atlantis is said to have "first divided, and then broken later on into seven peninsulas and islands". When the main part of Atlantis began to sink, Atlantean settlers migrated to the new lands which were rising to the east, west, and south. These new lands became the Americas, Africa, parts of Asia, and the present European countries, stretching from the Ural Mountains of Russia, westward to include the islands of Ireland and Great Britain, and even farther westward than that in former times. Some emigrants from the remaining islands in the Atlantic settled on new islands to the east which later consolidated into what is now the district of the Abyssinian highlands and lands somewhat to the north. Atlantis perished through flooding and submergence in 9,564 BC,

The second root race (Hyperborean)

The second root race lived in Hyperborea. The second root race was colored golden yellow. Hyperborea included what is now Northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Northern Russia and Kamchatka. The climate was tropical because Earth had not yet developed an axial tilt. The esoteric name of their continent is Plaksha;

The third root race (Lemurian)

thumb|Map of Lemuria superimposed over the modern continents from William Scott-Elliot, The Story of Atlantis and Lost Lemuria.

The third root race, the Lemurian lived in Lemuria. The esoteric name of Lemuria is Shalmali. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was thought by geologists that the age of the Earth was only about 200 million years (because radioactive dating had not yet come into use), so the geological epochs were believed to have occurred at a much later time than is thought to be the case today. According to traditional Theosophy, the Lemurian root race began 34½ million years ago, in the middle of what was then believed to be the Jurassic; thus, the people of Lemuria coexisted with the dinosaurs. The Lemurian race was much taller and bigger than our current race. The first three subraces of the Lemurians reproduced by laying eggs, but the fourth subrace, beginning 16½ million years ago, began to reproduce like modern humans. According to Theosophists the first Atlantean subrace was the result of the last, or seventh Lemurian subrace, Chankshusha Manu, which migrated first to the south of the Atlantean continent and, from there, migrated further north. The esoteric name of Atlantis is Kusha. The Atlantean root race had Mongolian features; they began with bronze skin and gradually evolved into the red American Indian, brown Malayan, and yellow Mongolian races, because some Atlanteans eventually migrated to the Americas and Asia. The seven subraces of the Atlantean root race were

the Rmoahal (A mix of Homo Ergaster/Homo rhodesiensis in Africa)
the Tlavati (Homo rhodesiensis variant outside of Africa)
the Toltec (Homo Heidelbergensis as Rhodesiensis lost their African qualities)
the Turanian (An ancestor of both Neanderthals and Denisovans, likely later stage Heidelbergensis)
the original Semites (European Neanderthals)
the Akkadians (West Asian Neanderthals), and
the Mongolian (Denisovans), which migrated to and colonized Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The descendants of the Atlanteans according to traditional Theosophy include those of the Mongolian race, the Malayan race, and the American Indian race as well as some people of what in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was called the "olive-skinned" Mediterranean race.

The civilization of Atlantis

According to Powell, the long period of time when Atlantis was ruled by the Toltecs (the ancestors of the Native Americans), the civilization of Atlantis was at its height. This was the period between about 1,000,000 and 900,000 years ago, called the Golden Age of Atlantis. The Atlanteans had many luxuries and conveniences. Their capital city was called The City of the Golden Gates. At its height, it had two million inhabitants. There were extensive aqueducts leading to the city from a mountain lake. The Atlanteans had airships that could seat two to eight people. The economic system was socialist like that of the Incas. Atlanteans were the first to develop organized warfare. The military deployed air battleships that contained 50 to 100 fighting men. These air battleships deployed poison gas bombs. The infantry fired fire-tipped arrows. The Toltecs on Atlantis worshipped the Sun in temples as grand as those of ancient Egypt that were decorated in bright colors. The sacred word used in meditation was Tau (this was the equivalent of the Aryan sacred word AUM). As noted above, the Toltecs colonized all of North America and South America and thus became the people we know as the Amerindians. The downfall of Atlantis started when some of the Toltecs began to practice black magic about 850,000 BC, corrupted by the dragon "Thevetat", remembered as Devadatta, the opponent of Buddha. The people began to become selfish and materialistic. Soon thereafter, the Turanians (the ancestors of the people we now know as the Turkic peoples) became dominant in much of Atlantis. The Turanians continued the practice of black magic which reached its height about 250,000 BC and continued until the final sinking of Atlantis, although they were opposed by white magicians. The Master Morya incarnated as the Emperor of Atlantis in 220,000 BC to oppose the black magicians. The black magicians used magical spells to breed human-animal chimeras. They possessed an army composed of chimeras that were composites composed of a human body with the heads of fierce predators such as lions, tigers and bears, that ate enemy corpses on the battlefield. A small group of these Aryan migrants from Atlantis split from the main body of migrants and went south to the shore of an inland sea in what was then a verdant and lush Sahara where they founded the "City of the Sun". The main body of migrants continued onwards to an island called the "white island" in the middle of what was then an inland sea in what is now the Gobi desert, where they established the "City of the Bridge". (The "City of the Bridge" was constructed directly below the etheric city called Shamballa where Theosophists believe the governing deity of Earth, Sanat Kumara (compare and contrast with Sanatkumaras of Hinduism), dwells; thus, the ongoing evolution of the Aryan root race has been divinely guided by the being Theosophists call "The Lord of the World".)

The esoteric name of the whole of the present land surface of Earth, i.e. the World Island, the Americas, the Australian continent and Antarctica taken as a whole is Krauncha. ... Esoteric history teaches that idols and their worship died out with the Fourth Race, until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African Negroes, &c.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols; all the modern Hindu writings do.

Generally speaking, a large percentage of the people who live in the time of the period of the fifth root race are part of the fifth root race. However Blavatsky also opines that some Semitic peoples have become "degenerate in spirituality". She asserted that some peoples descended from the Lemurians are "semi-animal creatures". These latter include "the Tasmanians, a portion of the Australians." There are also "considerable numbers of the mixed Lemuro-Atlantean peoples produced by various crossings with such semi-human stocks -- e.g., the wild men of Borneo, the Veddhas of Ceylon, most of the remaining Australians, Bushmen, Negritos, Andaman Islanders, etc." All these aforementioned groups mentioned by Blavatsky, except the Borneians, are part of what in the late 19th and most of the 20th century was called the Australoid race (except for the Bushmen, part of the Capoid race), both of which races, as noted above, were believed by traditional Theosophists to have been descended from the Lemurians.

Subraces of the Aryan root race

Blavatsky described the fifth root race with the following words:

She also prophesies of the destruction of the racial "failures of nature" as the future "higher race" ascends:

The subraces (which Steiner renamed "Cultural Epochs" as a more adequate expression for our times) of the Aryan Fifth Root Race include the first subrace, the Hindu, which migrated from the "City of the Bridge" on the white island in the middle of the Gobi inland sea to India in 60,000 BC; the second subrace, the Arabian, which migrated from the "City of the Bridge" to Arabia in 40,000 BC; the third subrace, the Persian, which migrated from the "City of the Bridge" to Persia in 30,000 BC; the fourth subrace, the Celts, which migrated from the "City of the Bridge" to Western Europe beginning in 20,000 BC (the Mycenaean Greeks are regarded as an offshoot of the Celtic subrace that colonized Southeast Europe); and the fifth subrace, the Teutonic, which also migrated from the "City of the Bridge" to what is now Germany beginning in 20,000 BC (the Slavs are regarded as an offshoot of the Teutonic subrace that colonized Russia and surrounding areas).

The emergence of the sixth subrace of the Aryan root race

According to Blavatsky the sixth subrace of the Aryan root race will begin to evolve in the area of the United States in the early 21st century. This sixth subrace of the Aryan root race will be called the Australo-American subrace and is believed by Theosophists to be now arising from the Teutonic subrace of the Aryan root race in Australia and in the Western United States (many individuals of the new subrace will be born in California) and its surrounding nearby areas (i.e., the Australo-American subrace is in arising from the Anglo-American, Anglo-Canadian, Anglo-Australian and presumably also the Anglo-New Zealander ethnic groups). The sixth or Australo-American sub-race will "possess certain psychic powers, and for this the pituitary body will be developed, thus giving an additional sense, that of cognising astral emotions in the ordinary waking consciousness. We may say that in general the sixth sub-race will bring in wisdom and intuition, blending all that is best in the intelligence of the fifth subrace and the emotion of the fourth." By that time, the world will be powered by nuclear power and there will be a single world government led by a person who will be the reincarnation of Julius Caesar. California west of the San Andreas Fault will break off from the mainland of North America and become the Island of California off the eastern coast of the new continent.

The seventh root race

The seventh root race will arise from the seventh subrace of the sixth root race on the future continent that the sixth root race will be living on that will arise from the Pacific Ocean.

Migration to Mercury

It is believed by some Neo-Theosophists that after the present round of human spiritual evolution by reincarnation of souls in root races is completed several dozen million years from now, the human race will migrate to the planet Mercury to continue its spiritual and physical evolution.

Some also believe that the human race lived on Mars before the current round of spiritual evolution, and migrated to Earth after the previous round ended. According to astrologer Walter D. Pullen, every round of spiritual evolution takes place within a chain of similar rounds, and these chains are located in a group called a scheme. He also states that seven rounds make a chain, and seven chains make a scheme. Some Neo-Theosophists believe that the human race is currently in the fourth chain in a scheme. In addition, it is believed by some that life on Mercury will be “less material” than on Earth, and the average level of consciousness will extend for longer, as humanity will possess etheric vision.