Fourth Root-Race

The Fourth Root-Race, known as "Atlantean," was the human evolutionary cycle that directly preceded our own. This Root-Race developed on the continent of Atlantis, which is now submerged in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In his writings, Plato spoke about last great island, Poseidonis, which sank around 9500 BCE.

Origins

The fourth Root-Race began to develop while the third root-race, or Lemurian, was dominant.

In the case of Race-evolution . . . no hard and fast line can be drawn where a new order ends and another begins. Continuity in natural processes is never broken. Thus the Fourth Race Atlanteans were developed from a nucleus of Northern Lemurian Third Race Men, centred, roughly speaking, toward a point of land in what is now the mid-Atlantic Ocean.

It is important to keep in mind that the Atlantean was not a race, but a Root-Race. This means that during this evolutionary cycle many different races developed from the original nucleus or "root" separated from the Lemurian civilization:

The term “Atlantean” must not mislead the reader to regard these as one race only, or even a nation. It is as though one said “Asiatics.” Many, multityped, and various were the Atlanteans, who represented several humanities, and almost a countless number of races and nations, more varied indeed than would be the “Europeans” were this name to be given indiscriminately to the five existing parts of the world; which, at the rate colonization is proceeding, will be the case, perhaps, in less than two or three hundred years. There were brown, red, yellow, white and black Atlanteans; giants and dwarfs (as some African tribes comparatively are, even now).

Languages

Atlantis, like modern Europe, comprised many nations and many dialects (issues from the three primeval root-languages of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Races), we may return to Poseidonis—its last surviving link 12,000 [years] ago. As the chief element in the languages of the 5th race is the Aryan-Sanskrit of the “Brown-white” geological stock or race, so the predominating element in Atlantis was a language which has now survived but in the dialects of some American Red-Indian tribes, and in the Chinese speech of the inland Chinamen, the mountainous tribes of Kiangsi—a language which was an admixture of the agglutinate and the monosyllabic as it would be called by modern philologists. It was, in short, the language of the “Red-yellow” second or middle geological stock.

Cultural development

The Atlantean civilization accomplished remarkable achievements, including the flying vehicles called vimāna-s in the Mahabharata:

It is from the Fourth Race that the early Aryans got their knowledge of “the bundle of wonderful things,” the Sabha and Mayasabha, mentioned in the Mahabhârata, the gift of Mayâsur to the Pandavas. It is from them that they learnt aëronautics, Viwân Vidya (the “knowledge of flying in air-vehicles”), and, therefore, their great arts of meteorography and meteorology. It is from them, again, that the Aryans inherited their most valuable science of the hidden virtues of precious and other stones, of chemistry, or rather alchemy, of mineralogy, geology, physics and astronomy.

Destruction

The Atlanteans had innate psychic powers, which were eventually misused for selfish reasons. In Blavatsky's words:

[Atlanteans] were born with a sight which embraced all hidden things, and was independent of both distance and material obstacle. In short, they were the fourth race of men mentioned in the Popol-Vuh, whose sight was unlimited and who knew all things at once. They were, perhaps, what we would now term “natural-born mediums,” who neither struggled nor suffered to obtain their knowledge, nor did they acquire it at the price of any sacrifice. . . . The born adepts of the Atlantis blindly followed the insinuations of the great and invisible “Dragon,” the King Thevetat [and] became a nation of wicked magicians.

The abuse of this powers and the actions that lead to the end of this civilization generated heavy karmic causes which humanity is still working out today. For this reason Master K.H. wrote that Atlantis "is greatly connected with evil if not with its origin".

The sinking of Atlantis was a very gradual process, following the natural law that produces a change of continents for each new Root-Race. The main continent sank several millions years ago, leaving some islands that survived for a long time. Two important remaining islands were destroyed around 850,000 years ago:

The destruction of the famous island of Ruta and the smaller one Daitya, which occurred 850,000 years ago in the later Pliocene times, must not be confounded with the submersion of the main continent of Atlantis during the Miocene period. Geologists cannot place the Miocene only so short a way back as 850,000 years; whatever they do, it is several million years ago that the main Atlantis perished.

The last Atlantean island, Poseidonis, was mentioned by Plato. The final destruction of it took place as a result of a war between Atlantean black magicians and the Adepts of the time, who were forced to stop the abuse of psychic powers. Blavatsky explains:

In consequence of this [black magic], war was declared, the story of which would be too long to narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured allegories of the race of Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his righteous family. The conflict came to an end by the submersion of the Atlantis; which finds its imitation in the stories of the Babylonian and Mosaic flood.

Before this war began, those who had not fallen into abusing their powers were saved by the Adepts of the time. The Secret Doctrine narrates it as follows:

He sent his air-vehicles (Viwan) to all his brother-chiefs (chiefs of other nations and tribes) with pious men within, saying: 'Prepare. Arise ye men of the good law, and cross the land while (yet) dry.'
'The Lords of the storm are approaching. Their chariots are nearing the land. One night and two days only shall the Lords of the Dark Face (the Sorcerers) live on this patient land. She is doomed, and they have to descend with her. The nether Lords of the Fires (the Gnomes and fire Elementals) are preparing their magic Agneyastra (fire-weapons worked by magic). But the Lords of the Dark Eye ('Evil Eye') are stronger than they (the Elementals) and they are the slaves of the mighty ones. They are versed in Ashtar (Vidya, the highest magical knowledge). Come and use yours (i.e., your magic powers, in order to counteract those of the Sorcerers). Let every lord of the Dazzling Face (an adept of the White Magic) cause the Viwan of every lord of the Dark Face to come into his hands (or possession), lest any (of the Sorcerers) should by its means escape from the waters, avoid the rod of the Four, (Karmic deities) and save his wicked' (followers, or people).

Thus, after the just were saved, the last Atlantean island was sunk with all the sorceres on it. In a letter written in 1882, Master K.H. wrote this happened 11,446 years ago, which would put the event in 9564 BCE:

In the Eocene Age—even in its "very first part," the great cycle of the fourth Race men, the Atlanteans—had already reached its highest point, and the great continent, the father of nearly all the present continents—showed the first symptoms of sinking—a process that occupied it down to 11,446 years ago, when its last island, that, translating its vernacular name, we may call with propriety Poseidonis — went down with a crash.

Regarding the references to the "Eocene" and other Ages, it must be must remembered that Scientists in the 1800s were still trying to determine the dates for the various ages. One of the authorities quoted in The Secret Doctrine, James Croll, wrote: "The Eocene period extends from about 2,620,000 to about 2,460,000 years ago."

See also

• Atlantis
• Buddhas of Bamiyan
• Root-Race