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The '''Fourth Root-Race''' was the human evolutionary cycle (or [[Root-Race]]) that directly preceded our own. According to [[H. P. Blavatsky]], the ancestral memory of this civilization is the origin of the "myth" of [[Atlantis]]. The Atlantean civilization, she claimed, developed for a few millions of years on a large continent which is now submerged in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  
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In Theosophical literature, the fourth Root-Race is presented as the first completely human species, since it was during this period that the physical body consolidated and attained its perfection. However, the Atlanteans were much larger in size than we are now, this race constituting the giants and titans mentioned in ancient scriptures. During this Root-Race the intellect developed and, along with it, speech. The Atlanteans were psychic, and their civilization was eventually destroyed due to the misuse of these powers.
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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 ==
== Origins ==


The fourth Root-Race began to develop while the third root-race, or Lemurian, was dominant.
Due to the fact that there is always an overlap between two successive [[Root-Race]]s, the fourth began to gradually develop during the middle portion of the third, or Lemurian:


<blockquote>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.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 333-334.</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>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.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 333-334.</ref></blockquote>
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<blockquote>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).<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 433, fn.</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>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).<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 433, fn.</ref></blockquote>


== Languages ==
See also: [[Atlantis]]


<blockquote>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.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 216-217.</ref></blockquote>
== Physical characteristics ==


== Development ==
During this [[Root-Race]], the physical bodies that began to develop in the later part of the third Race proceeded now to consolidate and harden. While Lemurians had only one central eye, Atlanteans developed two additional frontal eyes as physical organs in the beginning of their Race.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 769.</ref> Their bodies decreased in height when compared to that of the previous Root-Race, but were still of a gigantic stature, giving rise to the legends about cyclops and titans mentioned in many ancient traditions:


The Atlantean civilization accomplished remarkable achievements, including the flying vehicles called ''vimāna''-s in the Mahabharata:  
<blockquote>The Titans and Cyclopes of old really belonged to the Fourth (Atlantean) Race, and . . . all the subsequent legends and allegories found in the Hindu Purânas and the Greek Hesiod and Homer, were based on the hazy reminiscences of real Titans—men of a superhuman tremendous physical power, which enabled them to defend themselves, and hold at bay the gigantic monsters of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times—and of actual Cyclopes—three-eyed mortals.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 293.</ref></blockquote>


<blockquote>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.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 333-334.</ref></blockquote>
Even though the physical body with two separate sexes first developed with the late Lemurians, it is the fourth Root-Race that can be regarded as the first totally ''human'' species:


== Demise ==
<blockquote>Strictly speaking, it is only from the time of the Atlantean, brown and yellow giant Races, that one ought to speak of MAN, since it was the Fourth race only which was the first completely human species, however much larger in size than we are now.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 227.</ref></blockquote>


[[The Secret Doctrine (book)|''The Secret Doctrine'']] gives an indication of the reason for the demise of Atlantis, in a letter from one chief of Atlantis to others warning them of the impending doom.
In this Root-Race humanity attained the apex of ''physical'' development:


<blockquote>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.’<br>
<blockquote>Then came the Atlanteans; the giants whose physical beauty and strength reached their climax, in accordance with evolutionary law, toward the middle period of their fourth sub-race.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 319.</ref></blockquote>
‘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).<ref>H. P. Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy''. Vol II (Pasadena, Cal.: Theosophical University Press, 1970), 427.</ref></blockquote>


[[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] wrote that [[Atlantis]] "is greatly connected with [[evil]] if not with its origin".<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 93b (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 313.</ref></blockquote>
Atlanteans still possessed a [[Third Eye|third eye]], developed during the third Root-Race, which had spiritual functions. This eye, however, was eventually lost as the races became more physically dense:


== Sub-races ==
<blockquote>The possession of a physical third eye, we are told, was enjoyed by the men of the Third Root-Race down to nearly the middle period of Third SUB-race of the Fourth Root-Race, when the consolidation and perfection of the human frame made it disappear from the outward anatomy of man.  Psychically and spiritually, however, its mental and visual perceptions lasted till nearly the end of the Fourth Race, when its functions, owing to the materiality and depraved condition of mankind, died out altogether before the submersion of the bulk of the Atlantean continent.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 306.</ref></blockquote>


Because of the presence of this third eye, the races of the Atlantean Root-Race possessed psychic powers. Toward the end of this Root-Race the psychic powers were gravely misused, which led to the final demise of the Atlantean civilization.


<blockquote>The Chinese — I now speak of the inland, the true Chinaman, not of the hybrid mixture between the fourth and the fifth Races now occupying the throne — the aborigines, who belong in their unallied nationality wholly to the highest and last branch of the fourth Race, reached their highest civilization when the fifth had hardly appeared in Asia.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 93b (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 312.</ref></blockquote>
== Development ==
=== Languages ===


It has been reported that Atlantis had advanced technology that became their undoing; some say a large crystal that existed in the area of the Bermuda Triangle blew up and took the civilization with it in one gigantic cataclysm. As mentioned above, the demise of Atlantis took place more slowly as a series of earthquakes that broke apart the islands and continent that comprised the empire. There was a moral downfall of the people, it is true, but each race runs its course and then it ends naturally or in accordance with cyclic law and the ongoing and inevitable process of evolution.
Lemurians did not have a language because their communication took place by psychic means. The fourth Root-Race saw a gradual growth of intellectuality and of materiality of their bodies, all of which produced a decrease in the activity of the [[Third Eye|third eye]]. These conditions furthered the development of speech:<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 198.</ref>


Each Root Race has seven sub-races.  In Atlantis the sub-races of the Fourth Root Race were:
<blockquote>The agglutinative languages . . . were spoken by some [early] Atlantean races. . . .  While the 'cream' of the Fourth Race gravitated more and more toward the apex of physical and intellectual evolution [and developed] the inflectional, highly developed languages, the agglutinative decayed and remained as a fragmentary fossil idiom, scattered now, and nearly limited to the aboriginal tribes of America.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 199.</ref></blockquote>


:# Rmoahal.  
<blockquote>Atlantis, like modern Europe, comprised many nations and many dialects. . . 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.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 216-217.</ref></blockquote>
:# Tlavatli.  
:# Toltec.  
:# First Turanian.  
:# Original Semite.
:# Akkadian.  
:# Mongolian.


It is important to remember that sometimes races did overlapped and change both in time frames lived or remnants of them survived and area occupied. It should also be remembered that in some cases a catastrophe was anticipated by the priests more in tune with higher energies and many migrations into lands currently in existence took place before all of Atlantis was submerged. There was intermarrying not only among the sub-races of Atlantis but also with the remains of Lemurian sub-races who had escaped before the fiery end of Lemuria. 
=== Technology ===


The first sub-race, the Rmoahal, came into existence while remnants of [[Lemuria]] still existed. They were a dark-skinned race who stood twelve feet tall.  They intermarried with the last of the Lemurian sixth and seventh sub-races. 
In one of his letters, [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] wrote:


The second sub-race, the Tlavatli, originated on an island off the west coast of Atlantis. They were a strong race, not as tall as the Rmoahal with reddish-brown skin. There were a mountain loving people who along with the third sub-race, the Toltecs, inhabited the western islands which formed part of what is now the American continent.  
<blockquote>The 4th race had its periods of the highest civilization. Greek and Roman and even Egyptian civilization are nothing compared to the civilizations that began with the [late] 3rd race.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in Chronological Sequence'' No. 93b (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 310. See [[Mahatma Letter No. 93b#Page 9|Mahatma Letter No. 93b page 9]].</ref></blockquote>


The Toltecs, the third sub-race, stood about eight feet tall and had reddish-brown skin like the Tlavatli but more copper colored. The features of the Toltecs, according to [[William Scott-Elliot]], were “straight and well-marked, not unlike the ancient Greeks.”  The Toltecs ruled the entire continent of Altantis peacefully for thousands of years.
The Atlantean civilization accomplished remarkable achievements, among which is the development of flying vehicles called ''vimāna''-s in the Mahabharata:


The Turanians, the fourth sub-race, originated on the eastern side of the continent.They were yellow skinned humans, who were never a dominant race on the mother-continent, though some of their tribes and family races became fairly powerful.
<blockquote>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.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 426.</ref></blockquote>


The fifth sub-race were the Semites who had their home on the north-eastern part of a peninsula which is now Scotland and Ireland. They were a discontented race, always warring with their neighbors and maintaining their independence from the southern kings. 
=== Psychism ===


The sixth sub-race, the Akkadians, came into existence after the first great disaster which took place 800,000 years ago. Born on a peninsula further south of the Semites, the Akkadians, quickly migrated to the much larger continent of Atlantis.  They fought and overcame the Semites, ruling Atlantis for several hundred years.  
The Atlanteans, possessing a [[Third Eye|third eye]], had innate psychic powers, which were eventually misused for selfish reasons. In Blavatsky's words:


The Mongolians, the seventh sub-race had no touch with the mother continent. They were developed from the descendants of the Turanians. They spread over what is now Asia. [[Mahatma|Master]] [[Koot Hoomi]] in the [[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (book)|Mahatma Letters]] wrote that modern oriental races such as the Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Malaysian, Indonesian, Japanese, Vietnamese and so on are largely descended from the seventh and final sub-race of the Atlantean Root Race, while the indigenous peoples of Africa and Australia originate from earlier Atlantean sub-races as well as the seventh and final sub-race of the Lemurian Root Race.
<blockquote>[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.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Isis Unveiled'' vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 592-593.</ref></blockquote>


A definite line of mental development can be seen in these seven successive sub-races of Atlantis. [[Rudolf Steiner]] discusses this progress in his book ''Cosmic Memory''. The first sub-race, the Rmoahals, were developed from the last Lemurian race, from those who demonstrated the inklings of the qualities to be developed, that of memory, and thus feelings. With memory language first occurred.  Naming things was possible and thus a relationship began between the internal word and something outside of the individual. The Rmoahals still possessed something of the beings of nature.  Their words had power of nature and thus they had power over things and their fellow man. When a Rmoahal spoke the word not only had meaning but it had something of the power of the object the word designated. This was a sort of religious relationship with things. They assigned the power they had over things not so much to themselves as to the divine nature acting within them.
<blockquote> It is explained in our Commentaries.  “They (the sixth sub-race of the Atlanteans) used magic incantations even against the Sun”—failing in which, they cursed it. The sorcerers of Thessaly were credited with the power of calling down the moon, as Greek history assures us. The Atlanteans of the later period were renowned for their magic powers and wickedness, their ambition and defiance of the gods.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 762.</ref></blockquote>


In the second race, the Tlavati, now possessed of memory, began to feel their own power and ambition developed.  Ambition was unknown to the Rmoahals.  An individual Tlavati could look back on his own accomplishments, as could others in his community, and from tht memory a leader would be chosen. Regal stations come into being. Communities bound by common memories of those still living or of the great deeds of their ancestors formed a social group.
According to Blavatsky, this form of "derided Magic"--


The next race, the Toltecs took community to another level in the formation of a state.  he deeds of ones ancestors were venerated and at this time it was possible for men to actually transmit their gifts to their descendants. The abilities of the father were transmitted to the son. The personality of the individual man counted for something and thus personal power arose.  
<blockquote>. . . was practised in such ungodly ways by the Atlantean Sorcerers that it has since become necessary for the subsequent [fifth Root] Race to draw a thick veil over the practices which were used to obtain so-called magical effects on the psychic and on the physical planes.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. VII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1987), 125.</ref></blockquote>


In the fourth sub-race, the Turanians, personal power led to selfish desires and personal egotism. The pursuit of self-centered goals led to powerful conflicts. Men of this race rushed wildly toward their personal satisfaction.  
The abuse of these 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, [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] wrote that [[Atlantis]] "is greatly connected with [[evil]] if not with its origin".<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 93b (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 313.</ref></blockquote>


The fifth race, the Semites, developed a higher capacity, that of thought. Man could go beyond simple memory and begin to compare experiences. Logical thought restrained the pursuit of selfish goals. He began to listen to an inner voice.  The impulses for action were not allowed to run loose but were channeled back inward.  As a result of this, the fifth race lost the control of the life force.
A highly respected associate of H. P. Blavatsky, [[T. Subba Row]], wrote,  


The sixth race, the Akkadians, took thought further than the Semites. Their thought was more comprehensive. In the past a leader was chosen who had a clear memory of past successes, but now the most intelligent was chosen. From the Akkadians we find the beginnings of law and justice.  
<blockquote>There are all the powerful elemental gods and goddesses worshipped by the Atlanteans, and these still exist. They are most ferocious things, but they cannot be evoked easily. It is fortunate for us that they do not interfere more than they do."<ref>Joscelyn Godwin, ''Atlantis and the Cycles of Time: Prophecies, Traditions, and Occult Revelations'' (Rochester, Vt: Inner Traditions, 2011), 83.</ref></blockquote>


The last Atlantian race, the Mongols also developed thought but the characteristics of the fourth sub-race, the Turanians, remained strong in them. They remained faithful to the feeling for memory and reached the conviction that what was oldest was the most sensible. They too lost their control of the life force but they did not lose their faith in it and this became their god.
== Demise ==
 
There were conflicts and wars among the races of Atlantis but the Toltecs became the leading race when it came to developing the highest civilization and most powerful empire and during their reign peace and prosperity prevailed.  This was the Golden Age of Atlantis. 


Humanity at this time possessed psychic attributes and most had undergone training in occult schools and had obtained various degrees of [[Adepts|adeptship]]. Initiate rulers under Toltec reign remained in contact with the Occult Hierarchy which governs the world and complied with its laws and contributed to its plans. “The government was just and beneficent; the arts and sciences were cultivated— indeed the workers in these fields, guided as they were by occult knowledge, achieved tremendous results; religious belief and ritual was still comparatively pure— in fact the civilization of Atlantis had by this time reached its height.”<ref>Scott-Elliot, W. Legends of Atlantis and Lost Lemuria. Newburyport: Quest Books, 2015. Internet resource. P. 39</ref>
The Atlantean continent was destroyed by sinking into the ocean. This was a very gradual process, following the natural law that produces a change of continents for each new Root-Race. However, the last Atlantean island, Poseidonis, mentioned by Plato, was destroyed as a result of a war between Atlantean black magicians and the Adepts of the time, who were forced to intervene to stop the abuse of psychic powers. Blavatsky explains:


After about 100,000 years of this of this harmony and peace and the race began to decline. The Turanians began to misuse their power for selfish ends.  Lesser kings, priests and the common people stopped using their faculties and powers in compliance with the laws of the Occult Hierarchy, in fact, connection with them was broken. Personal gain, acquiring wealth and power, destroying enemies were now how the people’s occult powers were used. Selfishness and maliciousness turned the people to sorcery.  
<blockquote>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.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Isis Unveiled'' vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 592-593.</ref></blockquote>


As Scott-Elliot puts it, “Partly through their psychic faculties, which were not yet quenched in the depths of materiality to which the race afterwards descended, and partly through their scientific attainments during this culmination of Atlantean civilization, the most intellectual and energetic members of the race gradually obtained more and more insight into the working of Nature's laws, and more and more control over some of her hidden forces. Now the desecration of this knowledge and its use for selfish ends is what constitutes sorcery.”<ref>Scott-Elliot, W. Legends of Atlantis and Lost Lemuria. Newburyport: Quest Books, 2015. Internet resource. P. 39</ref>
Before this war began, those who had not fallen into abusing their powers were saved by the [[Adepts]] of the time. [[The Secret Doctrine (book)|''The Secret Doctrine'']] narrates it as follows:


“Lust, brutality and ferocity were all on the increase, and the animal nature in man was approaching its most degraded expression.<ref>William Scott-Elliot, ''Legends of Atlantis and Lost Lemuria''. (Newburyport: Quest Books, 2015), 40.</ref> Sounds a lot like the way historians describe the beginning of the end of the great Roman Empire.
<blockquote>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.'<br>
'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).<ref>H. P. Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy''. Vol II (Pasadena, Cal.: Theosophical University Press, 1970), 427.</ref></blockquote>


Magic “was practiced in such ungodly ways by the Atlantean Sorcerers that it has since become necessary for the subsequent race to draw a thick veil over the practices which were used to obtain so-called magical effects on the psychic and on the physical planes.”<ref>H. P. Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings, The Secret Doctrine,  Vol 7''. (Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, 1975), 125.</ref>
Thus, after the just were saved, the last Atlantean island was sunk with all the sorcerers on it, in the year 9564 BCE.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 93b (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 314. See [[Mahatma Letter No. 93b]] for much more discussion of Atlanteans.</ref></blockquote>


A highly respected associate of Madame Blavatsky, T. Subba Row, wrote, “There are all the powerful elemental gods and goddesses worshipped by the Atlanteans, and these still exist.  They are most ferocious things, but they cannot be evoked easily.  It is fortunate for us that they do not interfere more than they do."<ref>Joscelyn Godwin, ''Atlantis and the Cycles of Time: Prophecies, Traditions, and Occult Revelations''  (Rochester, Vt: Inner Traditions, 2011), 83.</ref>
See also [[Atlantis#Destruction|Destruction of Atlantis]]
 
The initiated kings and priests who remained loyal to the Hierarchy were made aware of impending disasters and priests began leading immigrations out of Atlantis.  They ended up in lands where we find their ancestors today.  A Toltec immigration settled in what we know today as Egypt and founded the first “Divine Dynasty” about 210,000 years ago.  Sometime during the ten thousand years that led up to the second catastrophe (200,000 year ago), the two great Pyramids of Gizeh were built. They were to provide permanent Halls of Initiation, but also to act as “treasure-house and shrine for some great talisman of power during the submergence which the Initiates knew to be impending.”William Scott-Elliot, ''Legends of Atlantis and Lost Lemuria''. (Newburyport: Quest Books, 2015), 49.</ref>
 
The Fifth Race so far have far outstripped the Atlanteans in almost every area but those areas where the Atlanteans have far exceeded us is stunning. The Atlanteans were very psychic, but the Aryans gave up that psychic ability to develop mentally.
 
==Life in Atlantis==
 
They built houses of stone, great elaborate houses with elaborate gardens and fountains in the country where there was space and smaller ones in the crowded cities. They had street markets, like we do.  They valued architecture, art and painting, music and they loved color using it extensively inside and out of their houses.  Schools were state supported and all students were required to attend primary school.  Subsequently students were evaluated for their innate talents and then assigned to the school that could give them the best education for their talents. Those who went on to higher learning were instructed in the occult properties of plants, metals, precious stones and the alchemical processes of transmutation.  The power of [[vril]] (apparently very accurately described in [[Bulwer-Lytton|Edward Bulwer-Lytton]]’s book The Coming Race) was instructed and become a personal power which later was abused by many in the decline of Atlantis. There were no medical schools or doctors for that matter.  Every educated man knew about medicine and knew magnetic healing.  Precious metals such as gold and silver were used primarily to adorn temples and were produced in great qualities by chemists for that purpose.
 
Atlanteans had airships made of wood or metal that were apparently seamless and powered by the personal power of vril energy.  They had sea-faring vessels also powered by vril. (Adolph Hitler, always on the look-out for the most effective killing machine, was very interested in the vril power.  See Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, ;;The Occult Roots of Nazism''.)
 
Atlanteans were capable of producing rain at will and during the encroachments of ice they were partially able to control it.
 
Each race had language both written and spoken with Toltec being the national language spoken during the Golden Age.  They had libraries just like we do but instead of paper they used sheets of metal with a white porcelain-like surface.
 
Atlanteans lived very long lives. Knowing that Atlanteans settled in Egypt it should not surprise archeologists when they find lists of kings in Egypt who reigned for a thousand years. Atlanteans were very tall compared to the Aryan race so drawings of human type people twice the height of others should not be a surprise. 
 
[[File:Giants unearthed.jpg|left|300px|thumb|Excavated Remains of Giants in Egypt]]
[[File:Big Guy.png|right|300px|thumb|Giants Depicted in Egyptian Art]]
 
Before the fall of the Fourth Race, the [[Manu]] (the divine being in charge of human development) chose from the Fourth Race those who were poor in the usual attributes of their race, that is clairvoyance and magical powers, and chose instead those more developed in the novel ability to think.  According to [[Rudolf Steiner]] the Manu led these people to the central Asia (the Gobi Desert) where they would be isolated from other humans so they could focus on their evolution which included putting the Atlantean psychic powers behind them and developing the ability to think. So the Fifth Race began in the area of the Gobi Desert.
 
We are the fifth sub-race of the Fifth Root Race.  We are known as Teutonic.  Previous races in our Root Race are, first the Hindu, then the Arabians, Persians and Celts.  The sixth root race is beginning now in the 21st century, being born first in California.  They will have more developed pineal glands to give them more psychic ability which will be blended with the mental abilities we, the Teutonic’s, have achieved.


== See also ==
== See also ==
Line 122: Line 91:
* [[Buddhas of Bamiyan]]
* [[Buddhas of Bamiyan]]
* [[Root-Race]]
* [[Root-Race]]
== Additional resources ==
=== Articles ===
* [http://www.philaletheians.co.uk/major-works/rise-and-demise-of-atlantis.pdf# The Rise and Demise of Atlantis] Compiled by C. A. Bartzokas
*[https://blavatsky.net/Wisdomworld/additional/ListOfCollatedArticles/TheLostAtlantis.html# The Lost Atlantis]
* [https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/4731-atlantis-then-and-now# Atlantis Then and Now] by Richard Smoley
* [https://www.theosophy.world/encyclopedia/apes-anthropoid Apes, Anthropoid] in Theosophy World.
=== Books ===
* [https://www.anandgholap.net/Story_Of_Atlantis_And_The_Lost_Lemuria-W_Scott-Elliot.pdf# The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria] by William Scott-Elliot


== Notes ==
== Notes ==

Latest revision as of 22:58, 26 November 2023

The Fourth Root-Race was the human evolutionary cycle (or Root-Race) that directly preceded our own. According to H. P. Blavatsky, the ancestral memory of this civilization is the origin of the "myth" of Atlantis. The Atlantean civilization, she claimed, developed for a few millions of years on a large continent which is now submerged in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

In Theosophical literature, the fourth Root-Race is presented as the first completely human species, since it was during this period that the physical body consolidated and attained its perfection. However, the Atlanteans were much larger in size than we are now, this race constituting the giants and titans mentioned in ancient scriptures. During this Root-Race the intellect developed and, along with it, speech. The Atlanteans were psychic, and their civilization was eventually destroyed due to the misuse of these powers.

Origins

Due to the fact that there is always an overlap between two successive Root-Races, the fourth began to gradually develop during the middle portion of the third, or Lemurian:

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.[1]

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).[2]

See also: Atlantis

Physical characteristics

During this Root-Race, the physical bodies that began to develop in the later part of the third Race proceeded now to consolidate and harden. While Lemurians had only one central eye, Atlanteans developed two additional frontal eyes as physical organs in the beginning of their Race.[3] Their bodies decreased in height when compared to that of the previous Root-Race, but were still of a gigantic stature, giving rise to the legends about cyclops and titans mentioned in many ancient traditions:

The Titans and Cyclopes of old really belonged to the Fourth (Atlantean) Race, and . . . all the subsequent legends and allegories found in the Hindu Purânas and the Greek Hesiod and Homer, were based on the hazy reminiscences of real Titans—men of a superhuman tremendous physical power, which enabled them to defend themselves, and hold at bay the gigantic monsters of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times—and of actual Cyclopes—three-eyed mortals.[4]

Even though the physical body with two separate sexes first developed with the late Lemurians, it is the fourth Root-Race that can be regarded as the first totally human species:

Strictly speaking, it is only from the time of the Atlantean, brown and yellow giant Races, that one ought to speak of MAN, since it was the Fourth race only which was the first completely human species, however much larger in size than we are now.[5]

In this Root-Race humanity attained the apex of physical development:

Then came the Atlanteans; the giants whose physical beauty and strength reached their climax, in accordance with evolutionary law, toward the middle period of their fourth sub-race.[6]

Atlanteans still possessed a third eye, developed during the third Root-Race, which had spiritual functions. This eye, however, was eventually lost as the races became more physically dense:

The possession of a physical third eye, we are told, was enjoyed by the men of the Third Root-Race down to nearly the middle period of Third SUB-race of the Fourth Root-Race, when the consolidation and perfection of the human frame made it disappear from the outward anatomy of man. Psychically and spiritually, however, its mental and visual perceptions lasted till nearly the end of the Fourth Race, when its functions, owing to the materiality and depraved condition of mankind, died out altogether before the submersion of the bulk of the Atlantean continent.[7]

Because of the presence of this third eye, the races of the Atlantean Root-Race possessed psychic powers. Toward the end of this Root-Race the psychic powers were gravely misused, which led to the final demise of the Atlantean civilization.

Development

Languages

Lemurians did not have a language because their communication took place by psychic means. The fourth Root-Race saw a gradual growth of intellectuality and of materiality of their bodies, all of which produced a decrease in the activity of the third eye. These conditions furthered the development of speech:[8]

The agglutinative languages . . . were spoken by some [early] Atlantean races. . . . While the 'cream' of the Fourth Race gravitated more and more toward the apex of physical and intellectual evolution [and developed] the inflectional, highly developed languages, the agglutinative decayed and remained as a fragmentary fossil idiom, scattered now, and nearly limited to the aboriginal tribes of America.[9]

Atlantis, like modern Europe, comprised many nations and many dialects. . . 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.[10]

Technology

In one of his letters, Master K.H. wrote:

The 4th race had its periods of the highest civilization. Greek and Roman and even Egyptian civilization are nothing compared to the civilizations that began with the [late] 3rd race.[11]

The Atlantean civilization accomplished remarkable achievements, among which is the development of 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.[12]

Psychism

The Atlanteans, possessing a third eye, 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.[13]

It is explained in our Commentaries. “They (the sixth sub-race of the Atlanteans) used magic incantations even against the Sun”—failing in which, they cursed it. The sorcerers of Thessaly were credited with the power of calling down the moon, as Greek history assures us. The Atlanteans of the later period were renowned for their magic powers and wickedness, their ambition and defiance of the gods.[14]

According to Blavatsky, this form of "derided Magic"--

. . . was practised in such ungodly ways by the Atlantean Sorcerers that it has since become necessary for the subsequent [fifth Root] Race to draw a thick veil over the practices which were used to obtain so-called magical effects on the psychic and on the physical planes.[15]

The abuse of these 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".[16]

A highly respected associate of H. P. Blavatsky, T. Subba Row, wrote,

There are all the powerful elemental gods and goddesses worshipped by the Atlanteans, and these still exist. They are most ferocious things, but they cannot be evoked easily. It is fortunate for us that they do not interfere more than they do."[17]

Demise

The Atlantean continent was destroyed by sinking into the ocean. This was a very gradual process, following the natural law that produces a change of continents for each new Root-Race. However, the last Atlantean island, Poseidonis, mentioned by Plato, was destroyed as a result of a war between Atlantean black magicians and the Adepts of the time, who were forced to intervene 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.[18]

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).[19]

Thus, after the just were saved, the last Atlantean island was sunk with all the sorcerers on it, in the year 9564 BCE.[20]

See also Destruction of Atlantis

See also

Additional resources

Articles

*The Lost Atlantis

Books

Notes

  1. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 333-334.
  2. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 433, fn.
  3. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 769.
  4. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 293.
  5. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 227.
  6. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 319.
  7. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 306.
  8. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 198.
  9. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 199.
  10. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 216-217.
  11. ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in Chronological Sequence No. 93b (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 310. See Mahatma Letter No. 93b page 9.
  12. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 426.
  13. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 592-593.
  14. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 762.
  15. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. VII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1987), 125.
  16. ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 93b (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 313.
  17. ↑ Joscelyn Godwin, Atlantis and the Cycles of Time: Prophecies, Traditions, and Occult Revelations (Rochester, Vt: Inner Traditions, 2011), 83.
  18. ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 592-593.
  19. ↑ H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. Vol II (Pasadena, Cal.: Theosophical University Press, 1970), 427.
  20. ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 93b (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 314. See Mahatma Letter No. 93b for much more discussion of Atlanteans.
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