Root race

Root Race is a term first used by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in her book The Secret Doctrine. The word designates the large time periods in her esoteric cosmology and symbolizes stages in human evolution. The large time periods of the root races can be compared to the geological time periods or to the Yugas in Hindu Mythology. Max Heindel in his book The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception furthers a similar line of thought related to Anthropogenesis, but with a new western terminology and viewpoints, and steps into mankind's development toward the future Sixth Epoch (root race).

Root Races and related sub-races

According to Blavatsky's writings, there are five root races, each root race is divided into seven subraces. The first root race was according to her "ethereal", the second root race lived in Hyperborea. The third root race lived according to her in Lemuria and the fourth root race in Atlantis .

Blavatsky asserts that our present fifth root race, the so-called Aryans, is approximately one million years old. It overlapped the fourth root race and the very first beginnings of the fifth root race were approximately in the middle of the fourth root race. Generally speaking, all humans who live in the time of the period of the fifth root race are part of the fifth root race. However Blavatsky also claims that Semitic peoples have become "degenerate in spirituality" and asserts that some peoples are "semi-animal creatures". These latter include "the Tasmanians, a portion of the Australians and a mountain tribe in China." 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, classed by Prof. Flower among Aryans (!), most of the remaining Australians, Bushmen, Negritos, Andaman Islanders, etc." (The Secret Doctrine vol.II, pp.195-6)

David Pratt proposes, based upon Blavatsky and Gottfried de Purucker's Theosophic writings and in modern geological data, the divisions presented below of the earlier fourth Root-Races (or Epochs) along the geologic timeline and related continental structures. However, it should be noticed that in the Theosophic teachings the current planetary manvantara, or fourth globe, of the earth-chain began approximately 2 billion years ago, and not the 4,5 billion years as preconized by modern science; the discordant dates are attributed, mainly, to the fact that science is ignoring the radioactive decay rates during large periods of time, the reheating of minerals after earlier crystallization, the existence of 'cold fusion' phenomenon in nature, among other factors, which affect the readings in current radiometric dating techniches.

First Root Race: 'Imperishable Sacred Land' ("Polarian Epoch")

The first root-race probably originated 130 to 150 million years ago in the Silurian or Devonian period, or possibly in the Carboniferous period, of the Paleozoic era, and ended in the Permian period.

Sedimentation on this globe in the fourth round began approximately 320 million years ago and The first root-race did not begin until after the awakening from their obscuration of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms (except the higher mammals which in the fourth round followed man).

Second Root Race: Hyperborean ("Hyperborean Epoch")

The second root-race (Hyperborean) originated in the late Carboniferous or in the Permian, and ended in the late Triassic or early Jurassic of the Mesozoic (Secondary) era (some 25 to 30 million years ago).

The second, Hyperborean continent comprised the regions around the north pole in the arctic circle, including Greenland, Spitzbergen, Scandinavia, and northern Asia. During a cataclysm at the time of the appearance of the second race, northern Asia was cut off from its root-continent at the north pole and divided by glacial waters.

Third Root Race: Lemurian ("Lemurian Epoch")

The third (Lemurian) root-race lived during the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous of the Mesozoic (the Age of Reptiles). The middle of the third root-race occurred about 18.5 million years ago (near the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary), when the separation of the sexes and the awakening of mind took place.

Lemuria, the third continent, embraced large areas in the Indian and Pacific oceans, and also portions of what is now Africa. It projected round South Africa into the North Atlantic, and stretched up to the northern polar regions; it included Sweden and Norway, and also Asia, which was 'a kind of broken prolongation' of it. Australia is the largest relic of Lemuria, and other fragments are the many islands in the Pacific; it also included a large portion of California.

Lemuria-Atlantis therefore had both northern and southern divisions: the hyperborean and equatorial lands respectively. The Lemurian continent, that once lay mostly to the south of Asia in what is now the Indian Ocean, extending eastward to Upper India and Sunda Island and westward as far as Madagascar and Africa, was the earliest cradle of the human race.

Lemuria was destroyed by subterranean fires, i.e. by submarine volcanoes and earthquakes, a series of subterranean convulsions, and the breaking asunder of the ocean floors. Its destruction is also linked to a decrease in the earth's velocity of rotation. The sinking and transformation of Lemuria beginning nearly at the Arctic Circle (Norway), the Third Race ended its career in Lanka, or rather on that which became Lanka with the Atlanteans. The small remnant now known as Ceylon is the Northern highland of ancient Lanka, while the enormous island of that name, was, in the Lemurian period, the gigantic continent described [above].

The third race had almost completely disappeared by the Tertiary, carried away by the fearful geological cataclysms of the Secondary era, leaving behind only a few hybrid races. The final major destruction of Lemuro-Atlantis took place about 4.25 million years ago, at the midpoint of the fourth root-race and very end of the third. However, the 'Lemurian' island of Ruta in the Pacific did not sink until between 850,000 and 700,000 years ago.

Some theosophical writers, mistaking current geological dogma for fact, have tried to equate Lemuria with the modern notion of Gondwanaland -- a supercontinent comprising South America, Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica, before the supposed onset of continental drift. Early theosophical teachings, however, support the views of Eduard Suess, the originator of the concept of Gondwanaland, 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.

Fourth Root Race: Atlantean ("Atlantean Epoch")

The fourth (Atlantean) root-race originated in the later Cretaceous (10 to 12 million years ago). It attained its peak in the Eocene of the Tertiary, and was largely destroyed in the Miocene. The midpoint of the fourth round was reached in the middle of the fourth subrace of the fourth root-race, some 4.5 million years ago.

Atlantis was an immense continental system that once more or less covered the face of the globe, its main centre being located in what is now the Atlantic Ocean. As well as covering the North and South Atlantic regions, it included portions of the North and South Pacific, and islands in the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka (Ceylon) was the northern headland of one of the Pacific-Atlantean land-masses. Sweden and Norway formed part of Atlantis on the European side, and eastern and western Siberia and Kamchatka belonged to it on the Asiatic side. Other surviving remnants of Atlantis are the Azores, the Canaries, and the island of Madeira -- all of which were once mountain-peaks of the Atlantean continent.

The similar geological structure of parts of the opposing Atlantic coastlines and the fossil similarities in certain periods show that 'there has been, in distant pre-historic ages, a continent which extended from the coast of Venezuela, across the Atlantic Ocean, to the Canarese Islands and North Africa, and from Newfoundland nearly to the coast of France. Necks of land formerly existed knitting Atlantis to South America somewhere above the mouth of the Amazon, to Africa near Cape Verde, and probably to Spain. Northwest Africa was an extension of Spain before the elevation of the Sahara and the rupture of the Gibraltar connection, and was once connected with Atlantis by a network of islands, few of which remain.

There was more land than water during the era of the fourth root-race and gigantic mountain chains. Africa, as a continent, appeared before Europe, but was never part of either Lemuria or Atlantis. During the early days of Lemuria, the sveta-dvipa, or white continent, of the Puranas, 'stood out like a giant-peak from the bottom of the sea; the area between Atlas and Madagascar being occupied by the waters till about the early period of Atlantis (after the disappearance of Lemuria), when Africa emerged from the bottom of the ocean, and Atlas was half-sunk'. Abyssinia was once an island, and the whole region of present-day Egypt and the deserts was once covered by the sea. The Sahara was the basin of a Miocene sea, later a fertile continent, and then, after another temporary submersion, it became a desert.

America is older than Europe, and was forming while Atlantis was sinking. When the Atlanteans were in their prime, the European continent was not yet in existence as we now know it, but there was free communication between Atlantis and such portions of Europe as did exist, and Egypt. Geology shows that the British Isles have been submerged and reelevated four times, and that the straits between them and Europe were dry land at a remote former epoch.

The large continent of Atlantis 'first divided, and [was] 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 British Isles, 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, and its destruction was brought on by successive disturbances in the axial rotation.

The sinking of Atlantis began in the Eocene, and most of it had sunk by the end of the Miocene. The largest remaining island, Ruta, situated in the Pacific Ocean, was destroyed about 850,000 years ago, at the time of a shifting of the earth's axis. Daitya, a fairly large island in the Indian Ocean, though smaller than Ruta, sank about 270,000 years ago. The last remaining island of noteworthy magnitude, Poseidonis, about the size of Ireland, which was situated in the Atlantic Ocean beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, was submerged in 9565 BC in a great cataclysm involving massive earthquakes and tidal waves.

Graphical timelines, The second and third timelines are each subsections of their preceding timeline as indicated by asterisks: The following five timelines show the geologic time scale to scale. The first shows the entire time from the formation of the Earth to the present, but this gives little space for the most recent eon. The second timeline shows an expanded view of the most recent eon. In a similar way, the most recent era is expanded in the third timeline, the most recent period is expanded in the fourth timeline, and the most recent epoch is expanded in the fifth timeline.

Horizontal scale is Millions of years (above timelines) / Thousands of years (below timeline)

Aryan: the Fifth Root Race (Epoch)

Among the subraces of the Aryan Fifth Root Race are the Hindu, the Persian, the Egyptian (though Blavatsky sometimes seems to say that Egyptians are distinct from Aryans), the Greek and the European. Blavatsky described the fifth root race with the following words: "The Aryan races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are yet all of one and the same stock -- the Fifth Root-Race -- and spring from one single progenitor, (...) who is said to have lived over 18,000,000 years ago, and also 850,000 years ago -- at the time of the sinking of the last remnants of the great continent of Atlantis." (The Secret Doctrine vol.II, p.249)

According to Blavatsky the sixth sub-race will begin to evolve in the United States.

In his writings Rudolf Steiner often uses the term Cultural Epoch instead of Root Race to describe similar spans of time. He did this to avoid any potential misunderstandings caused by the misapplication of the word "race" in time periods.

Blavatsky use of the terms like "Aryan Race" and "Root Race" was not connected to demagogic ideas. Today, even the current "globalization" society considers the term and related division of humanity into races to be valid and useful in several circumstances (as explained in the article "race"). She, like the subsequent esoteric philosophers who expressed similar lines of thought, believed and purposed a Universal Brotherhood of humanity and wrote that "all men have spiritually and physically the same origin" and that "mankind is essentially of one and the same essence." (The Key to Theosophy, Section 3). On the other hand, in The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky states: "Verily mankind is 'of one blood,' but not of the same essence." Blavatsky connects physical race with spiritual attributes constantly throughout her works: "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" (The Secret Doctrine). Blavatsky also calls the physical Aryan race "the 'cream' of the Fourth Race", which "gravitated more and more toward the apex of physical and intellectual evolution", asserting that the Aryan Fifth Root Race corresponds to "the final adjustment of the human organism -- which became perfect and symmetrical only in the Fifth Race" (The Secret Doctrine).

According to Max Heindel's Rosicrucian writings the sixth sub-race of the current Aryan Epoch (the fifth epoch) will evolve among the Slavic peoples and the seventh sub-race will evolve from the sixth sub-race. Heindel refers that the United States is the melting pot to form the last race in human evolution that will exist at the beginning of the Sixth Epoch, the New Galilee.

The Aryan race is a race of people defined by their golden blonde hair and grey/blue eyes. They are the most physically and mentally able race. They are the pure race of western europe, and now reside mainly in thr Scandinavian sub-continant.

Esoteric Christian tradition

In the Esoteric Christian tradition, Essenian and later Rosicrucian, the existence of previous "Root Races" — earlier Epochs of evolution in different continental structures, already sunken — may be found in the Bible's passage: "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:" (2 Peter 3:5; KJV). Such theorists claim that the next major step in human evolution will consist in entering and living in the etheric region of the planet, through a major change which is expected to occur in the earth's environment ("reserved unto fire") in a future, not identified, time; this event is expected to bring the next Sixth Epoch in mankind's evolution: the New Galilee . This major change, according to Esoteric Christianity, may be found in the Bible's passage: "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." (2 Peter 3:13).

Root Races' continents and the Plate Tectonics theory

Current-day mainstream scientific knowledge based upon the Plate tectonics ("Continental Drift") theory refutes the existence of the Root Races' continents (e.g. Hyperborea, Lemuria and Atlantis). However, dozens of scientists have already pointed out flaws in the currently accepted plate tectonics and related continental drift theory Pavlenkova concludes: "This means that the movement of lithospheric plates over long distances, as single rigid bodies, is hardly possible. Moreover, if we take into account the absence of the asthenosphere as a single continuous zone, then this movement seems utterly impossible." (Pavlenkova, N. I. (1990). Crustal and upper mantle structure and plate tectonics. In Barto-Kyriakidis, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 73-86.). Van Alen states "Where plate boundaries adjoin continents, matters often become very complex and have demanded an ever denser thicket of ad hoc modifications and amendments to the theory and practice of plate tectonics in the form of microplates, obscure plate boundaries, and exotic terranes. A good example is the Mediterranean, where the collisions between Africa and a swarm of microcontinents have produced a tectonic nightmare that is far from resolved. More disturbingly, some of the present plate boundaries, especially in the eastern Mediterranean, appear to be so diffuse and so anomalous that they cannot be compared to the three types of plate boundaries of the basic theory." (Van Andel, T. H. (1998). Plate Tectonics. Encyclopaedia Britannica, CD-ROM, 1994-1998).

Current-day esoteric groups accept that newer hypotheses like Vertical tectonics and Sunken Continents , together with independent verification of the radiometric dating/timetable process and necessary adjustments in the interpretation of its readings , may be able to demonstrate that evolution occurred through epochs in earlier different continental structures, today submerged. According to these theories, basically, the earth possesses an interconnected worldwide network of "surge channels" through which magma flows. This has been dubbed "the earth's cardiovascular system" by proponents of these theories, which they claim would be consistent with Blavatsky's model of sunken continents. Mainstream science argues that it has no serious supporting evidence and that such criticisms of Plate Tectonics theory are little more than myths designed to cover the overwhelming evidence for continental drift.

External links

• Root Races and geological periods
• Root Race chronology
• Definition from the Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary
• References from the Collation of Theosophical Glossaries
• Root Races in Theosophy and Antroposophy