Chapter XIII: Part I: Anthropogenesis (11)

(_b_) Shloka 39 relates exclusively to the racial divisions. Strictly speaking, Esoteric Philosophy teaches a modified polygenesis. For, while it assigns to humanity a oneness of origin, in so far that its Forefathers or “Creators” were all Divine Beings—though of different classes or degrees of perfection in their Hierarchy—it teaches that men were nevertheless born at seven different centres of the Continent of that period. Though all were of one common origin, yet, for reasons given, their potentialities and mental capabilities, outward or physical forms, and future characteristics, were very different.(572) As to their complexions, there is a suggestive allegory told in _Linga Purâna_. The Kumâras—the Rudra Gods, so called—are described as incarnations of Shiva, the Destroyer (of _outward forms_), called also Vâmadeva. The latter, as a Kumâra, the “Eternal Celibate,” the chaste Virgin Youth, springs from Brahmâ in each great Manvantara, and “again becomes four”; a reference to the four great divisions of the human Races, as regards complexion and type—and the three chief variations of these. Thus in the twenty‐ninth Kalpa—in this case a reference to the transformation and evolution of the human form, which Shiva ever destroys and remodels periodically down to the great Manvantaric turning point, about the middle of the Fourth (Atlantean) Race—in the twenty‐ninth Kalpa, Shiva, as Shvetalohita, the Root‐Kumâra, from moon‐coloured becomes _white_; in his next transformation, he is _red_ (and in this the exoteric version differs from the Esoteric Teaching); in the third, _yellow_; in the fourth, _black_.

Esotericism now classes these seven variations, with their four great divisions, into only three distinct primeval Races—as it does not take into consideration the First Race, which had neither type nor colour, and a hardly objective, though colossal, form. The evolution of these Races, their formation and development, proceeded on parallel lines with the evolution, formation, and development of three geological strata, from which the human complexion was as much derived as it was determined by the climates of these zones. The Esoteric Teaching names three great divisions, namely, the _red‐yellow_, the _black_, and the _brown‐ white_.(573) The Âryan races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red‐brown‐yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are nevertheless all of one and the same stock, the Fifth Root‐Race, and spring from one single Progenitor, called in Hindû _exotericism_ by the generic name of Vaivasvata Manu; the latter, remember, being that Generic Personage, the Sage, 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,(574) and who is said to live even now in his mankind.(575) The light yellow is the colour of the first _solid_ human race, which appeared after the middle of the Third Root‐Race—after its fall into generation, as just explained—bringing on the final changes. For, it is only at that period that the last transformation took place, which brought forth man as he is now, only on a magnified scale. This Race gave birth to the Fourth Race; “Shiva” gradually transforming that portion of Humanity which became “black with sin” into red‐yellow, of which the red Indians and the Mongolians are the descendants, and finally into brown‐white races—which now, together with the yellow races, form the great bulk of Humanity. The allegory in _Linga Purâna_ is curious, as showing the great ethnological knowledge of the ancients.

When reading of the “last transformation,” which is said to have taken place 18,000,000 years ago, let the reader at this juncture, consider how many millions more it must have required to reach that final stage. And if Man, in his gradual consolidation, developed _pari passu_ with the Earth, how many millions of years must have elapsed during the First, Second, and the first half of the Third Race. For the Earth was in a comparatively ethereal condition before it reached its last consolidated state. The Archaic Teachings, moreover, tell us that, during the middle period of the Lemuro‐Atlantean Race, three and a half Races after the Genesis of Man, the Earth, Man, and everything on the Globe, were of a still grosser and more material nature, while such things as corals and some shells were still in a semi‐gelatinous, astral state. The cycles that have intervened since then, have already carried us onward, on the opposite ascending arc, some steps toward our “dematerialization,” as the Spiritualists would say. The Earth, ourselves, and all things have softened since then—aye, even our brains. But it has been objected by some Theosophists that an ethereal Earth even some 15 or 20,000,000 years ago, “does not square with Geology,” which teaches us that winds blew, rains fell, waves broke on the shore, sands shifted and accumulated, etc.; that, in short, all natural causes now in operation were then in force, “in the very earliest ages of geological time, aye, that of the oldest palæozoic rocks.” To this the following answers are given. Firstly, what is the date assigned by Geology to these “oldest palæozoic rocks”? And secondly, why could not the winds blow, rain fall, and waves—of “carbonic acid” apparently, as Science seems to imply—break on the shore, on an Earth semi‐astral, _i.e._, viscid? The word “astral” does not necessarily, in Occult phraseology, mean as thin as smoke, but rather “starry,” shining or pellucid, in various and numerous degrees, from a quite filmy to a viscid state, as just observed. But it is further objected: “How could an astral Earth have affected the other Planets in this System? Would not the whole process get out of gear now if the attraction of one Planet were suddenly removed?” The objection is evidently invalid, since our System is composed of older and younger Planets, some dead—like the Moon—others in process of formation, for all that Astronomy knows to the contrary. Nor has the latter ever affirmed, so far as we know, that all the bodies of our System have sprung into existence and developed simultaneously. The Cis‐Himâlayan Secret Teachings differ from those of India in this respect. Hindû Occultism teaches that the Vaivasvata Manu Humanity is 18,000,000 and odd years old. We say, yes; but only so far as _physical_ or approximately physical, Man is concerned, who dates from the close of the Third Root‐Race. Beyond that period _Man_, or his filmy image, may have existed for 300,000,000 years, for all we know; _since we are not taught figures_ which are and will remain secret with the Masters of Occult Science, as justly stated in _Esoteric Buddhism_. Moreover, whereas the Hindû _Purânas_ speak of one Vaivasvata Manu, we affirm that there were several, the name being a generic one.

We must now say a few more words on the physical evolution of man.

Archaic Teachings In The “Purânas” And “Genesis.” Physical Evolution.

The writer cannot give too much proof that the system of Cosmogony and Anthropogony above described actually existed, that its records _are_ preserved, and that it is found mirrored even in the modern versions of ancient Scriptures.

The _Purânas_ on the one hand, and the Jewish Scriptures on the other, are based on the same scheme of evolution, which, if read Esoterically and expressed in modern language, would be found to be quite as scientific as much of what now passes current as the final word of recent discovery. The only difference between the two schemes is, that the _Purânas_, giving as much, and perhaps more, attention to causes than to effects, allude to the pre‐cosmic and pre‐genetic periods rather than to those of so‐called “creation,” whereas the _Bible_, after saying only a few words on the former period, plunges forthwith into material genesis, and, while almost skipping the Pre‐Adamic races, proceeds with its allegories concerning the Fifth Race.

Now, whatever the onslaught made on the “order of creation” in _Genesis_—and its dead‐letter account certainly lends itself admirably to criticism(576)—the Hindû _Purânas_, notwithstanding their allegorical exaggerations will be found quite in accordance with Physical Science.

Even what, on the face of it, appears to be the perfectly nonsensical allegory of Brahmâ assuming the form of a Boar to rescue the Earth from under the waters, finds a perfectly scientific explanation in the Secret Commentaries, relating as it does to the many risings and sinkings, the constant alternation of water and land from the earliest to the latest geological periods of our Globe; for Science teaches us now that nine‐ tenths of the stratified formations of the Earth’s crust have been gradually constructed beneath the water at the bottom of the seas. The ancient Âryans are credited with having known nothing whatever of Natural History, Geology, and so on. The Jewish race is, on the other hand, proclaimed even by its severest critic, an uncompromising opponent of the _Bible_, to have the merit of having conceived the idea of monotheism “earlier, and retained it more firmly, than any of the _less philosophical and more immoral religions_ (!!) of the ancient world.”(577) Only, while in biblical Esotericism, we find physiological sexual mysteries symbolized, and very little more, something for which _very little real Philosophy_ is requisite—in the _Purânas_ one can find the most scientific and philosophical “dawn of creation,” which, if impartially analyzed and rendered into plain language from its fairy‐tale‐like allegories, would show that modern Zoology, Geology, Astronomy, and nearly all the branches of modern knowledge, have been anticipated in ancient Science, and were known to ancient Philosophers in their general features, if not in such detail as at present.

Paurânic Astronomy, with all its deliberate concealment and confusion for the purpose of leading the profane off the real track, has been shown even by Bentley to be a real science; and those who are versed in the mysteries of Hindû astronomical treatises, will prove that the modern theories of the progressive condensation of nebulæ, nebulous stars and suns, with the most minute details about the cyclic progress of asterisms for chronological and other purposes—far more correct than Europeans have even now—were known in India to perfection.

If we turn to Geology and Zoology we find the same. What are all the myths and endless genealogies of the seven Prajâpatis, of their sons, the seven Rishis or Manus, and of their wives, sons and progeny, but a vast detailed account of the progressive development and evolution of animal creation, one species after the other? Were the highly philosophical and metaphysical Âryans—the authors of the most perfect philosophical system of transcendental Psychology, of codes of Ethics, of such a grammar as Pânini’s, of the Sânkhya and Vedânta systems, of a moral code (Buddhism), proclaimed by Max Müller the most perfect on earth—were the Âryans such fools, or children, as to lose their time in writing “fairy tales,” such as the _Purânas_ now seem to be in the eyes of those who have not the remotest idea of their secret meaning? What is the “fable,” the genealogy and origin of Kashyapa, with his twelve wives by whom he had a numerous and diversified progeny of serpents (Nâgas), reptiles, birds, and all kinds of living things, who was thus the “father” of all kinds of animals, but a _veiled_ record of the order of evolution in _this_ Round? So far, we do not see that any Orientalist has ever had the remotest conception of the truths concealed under the allegories and personifications. The _Shatapatha Brâhmana_, says one, gives “_a not very intelligible_ account” of Kashyapa’s origin.

According to the _Mahâbhârata_, the _Râmâyana_, and the _Purânas_,
he was the son of Marîchi, the son of Brahmâ, the father of
Vivasvat, the father of Manu, the progenitor of mankind.

According to the _Shatapatha Brahmâna_: Having assumed the form of
a tortoise, Prajâpati created offspring. That which he created he
made (_akarot_); hence the word _kûrma_ (tortoise). Kashyapa means
tortoise; hence men say, “All creatures are descendants of
Kashyapa.”(578)

He was all this; he was also the father of the bird Garuda, the “king of the feathered tribe,” who _descends from_, and is of one stock with _the reptiles_, the Nâgas, and who becomes their mortal enemy _subsequently_—as he is also a _cycle_, a period of time, when, in the course of evolution, the birds which developed from reptiles in their “struggle for life” and “survival of the fittest,” etc., turned in preference on those from whom they issued to devour them, perhaps prompted by natural law, in order to make room for other and more perfect species.

In that admirable epitome, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, a lesson in Natural History is offered to Mr. Gladstone, showing the utter variance of the _Bible_ with it. The author remarks that Geology traces the “dawn of creation” through a line of scientific research:

Commencing with the earliest known fossil, the Eozoon Canadense of
the Laurentian, and continued in a chain, every link of which is
firmly welded, through the Silurian, with its abundance of
molluscous, crustacean, and vermiform life, and first indication
of fishes; the Devonian, with its predominance of fish and first
appearance of reptiles; the Mesozoic with its batrachians; the
Secondary formations, in which reptiles of the sea, land and air
preponderated, and the first humble forms of vertebrate land
animals began to appear; and finally the Tertiary, in which
mammalian life has become abundant, and type succeeding to type
and species to species, are gradually differentiated and
specialized, through the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene periods,
until we arrive at the Glacial and Prehistoric periods, and at
positive proof of the existence of man.(579)

The same order, _plus_ the description of animals unknown to Modern Science, is found in the Commentaries on the _Purânas_ in general, and in the _Book of Dzyan_ especially. The only difference—a grave one, no doubt, as implying a spiritual and divine nature of man independent of his physical body in this illusionary world, in which the _false personality_ and its cerebral basis alone is known to orthodox Psychology—is as follows. Having been in all the so‐called seven “creations,” which stand allegorically for the seven evolutionary changes, or sub‐races, as we may call them, of the First Root‐Race of Mankind—Man has been on Earth in this Round from the beginning. Having passed through all the Kingdoms of Nature in the previous _three_ Rounds,(580) his _physical_ frame—one adapted to the thermal conditions of those early periods—was ready to receive the Divine Pilgrim at the first dawn of human life, _i.e._, 18,000,000 years ago. It is only at the mid‐point of the Third Root‐Race that man was endowed with Manas. Once united, the Two and then the Three made One; for though the lower animals, from the amœba to man, received _their_ Monads, in which all the higher qualities are potential, these qualities have to remain dormant till the animal reaches its human form, before which stage Manas (mind) has no development in them. In the animals every principle is paralyzed, and in a fœtus‐like state, save the second, the Vital, and the third, the Astral, and the rudiments of the fourth, Kâma, which is desire, instinct—whose intensity and development varies and changes with the species. To the materialist wedded to the Darwinian theory, this will read like a fairy‐tale, a mystification; to the believer in the inner, spiritual man, the statement will have nothing unnatural in it.

As Commentary ix says:

_Men are made complete only during their Third, toward the Fourth Cycle [Race]. They are made __“__Gods__”__ for good and evil, and responsible, only when the two arcs meet [after three and a half Rounds towards the Fifth Race]. They are made so by the Nirmânakâya [Spiritual or Astral remains] of the Rudra‐Kumâras, __“__cursed to be reborn on Earth again__”__ [meaning—doomed in their natural turn to reïncarnation in the higher ascending arc of the terrestrial Cycle]._

Now the writer is certain to be met with what will be termed insuperable objections. We shall be told that the line of embryology, the gradual development of every individual life, and the progress of what is known to take place in the order of progressive stages of specialization—that all this is opposed to the idea of man preceding mammals. Man begins as the humblest and most primitive vermiform creature:

From the primitive speck of protoplasm, and the nucleated cell in
which all life originates ... and “is developed through stages
undistinguishable from those of fish, reptile and mammal, until
the cell finally attains the highly specialized development of the
quadrumanous, and, last of all, of the human type.”(581)

This is perfectly scientific, and we have nothing against _that_; for it all relates to the _shell_ of man—his body, which, in its growth, is subject, of course, like every other once so‐called morphological unit, to such metamorphoses. It is not those who teach the transformation of the mineral atom through crystallization—which is the same function, and bears the same relation to its so‐called _inorganic_ Upâdhi, or basis, as the formation of _cells_ to their organic nuclei, through plant, insect and animal into man—it is not they who will reject this theory, as it will finally lead to the recognition of a Universal Deity in Nature, ever‐ present, and as ever invisible and unknowable, and of intra‐cosmic Gods, who were all once men.(582)

But we would ask, what does Science and its exact discoveries and now axiomatic theories prove against _our_ Occult theory? Those who believe in the law of evolution and gradual progressive development from a cell—which from a vital became a morphological cell, until it finally awoke as protoplasm pure and simple—can surely never limit their belief to one line of evolution! The types of life are innumerable; and the progress of evolution, moreover, does not go at the same rate in every kind of species. The constitution of primordial matter in the Silurian age—we mean the “primordial” _matter_ of Science—was the same in every essential particular, save its degree of present grossness, as the primordial _living_ matter of to‐day. Nor do we find that which ought to be found, if the now orthodox theory of evolution were _quite_ correct, namely, a constant, ever‐flowing progress in every species of being. Instead of this, what does one see? While the intermediate groups of animal beings all tend toward a higher type, and while specializations, now of one type and now of another, develop through the geological ages, change forms, assume new shapes, appear and disappear with a kaleidoscopic rapidity, in the description of Palæontologists from one period to another, the two solitary exceptions to the general rule are those at the two opposite poles of life and type, namely—_man_ and the _lower genera_ of being!

Certain well‐marked forms of living beings have existed through
enormous epochs, surviving not only the changes of physical
conditions, _but persisting comparatively unaltered_, while other
forms of life have appeared and disappeared. Such forms may be
termed “persistent types” of life; and examples of them are
abundant enough in both the animal and the vegetable worlds.(583)

Nevertheless, we are not given any good reason why Darwin links together reptiles, birds, amphibians, fishes, mollusca, etc., as off‐shoots of a moneric ancestry. Nor are we told whether reptiles, for instance, are direct descendants of the amphibia, the latter of fishes, and fishes of lower forms—which they certainly are. For the Monads have passed through all these forms of being up to Man, on every Globe, in the _three preceding_ Rounds; every Round, as well as every subsequent Globe, from A to G, having been, and still having to be, the arena of the same evolution, only repeated each time on a more solid material basis. Therefore the question, “What relation is there between the Third Round astral prototypes and ordinary physical development in the course of the origination of pre‐mammalian organic species?”—is easily answered. One is the shadowy prototype of the other, the preliminary, hardly defined, and evanescent sketch on the canvas, of objects which are destined to receive their final and vivid form under the brush of the painter. The fish evolved into an amphibian—a frog—in the _shadows_ of ponds, and man passed through all his metamorphoses on this Globe in the Third Round as he did in this, his Fourth Cycle. The Third Round types contributed to the formation of the types in the present Round. On strict analogy, the cycle of seven Rounds in their work of the gradual formation of man through every Kingdom of Nature, is repeated on a microscopical scale in the first seven months of gestation of a future human being. Let the student think over and work out this analogy. As the seven months’ old unborn baby, though quite ready, yet needs two months more in which to acquire strength and consolidate; so man, having perfected his evolution during seven Rounds, remains two periods more in the womb of Mother‐Nature before he is born, or rather reborn a Dhyâni, still more perfect than he was before he launched forth as a Monad on the newly built Chain of Worlds. Let the student ponder over this mystery, and then he will easily convince himself that, as there are also physical links between many classes, so there are precise domains wherein the Astral merges into Physical Evolution. Of this Science breathes not one word. Man has evolved with and from the monkey, it says. But now see the contradiction.

Huxley proceeds to point out plants, ferns, club‐mosses, some of them generically identical with those now living, which are met with in the Carboniferous epoch, for:

The cone of the oolitic Araucaria is hardly distinguishable from
that of existing species.... Sub‐kingdoms of animals yield the
same instances. The Globigerina of the Atlantic soundings is
identical with the cretaceous species of the same genus ... the
tabulate corals of the Silurian epoch are wonderfully like the
millepores of our own seas.... The Arachnida, the highest group of
which, the scorpions, is represented in the coal by a genus
differing from its living congeners only in ... the eyes. [etc.]

All of which may be closed with Dr. Carpenter’s authoritative statement about the Foraminifera:

There is no evidence of any fundamental modification or advance in
the foraminiferous type from the palæozoic period to the present
time.... The foraminiferous fauna of our own series probably
present a greater range of variety than existed at any previous
period; but _there is no indication of any tendency to elevation
towards a higher type_.(584)

Now, as in the Foraminifera, Protozoa of the lowest type of life, mouthless and eyeless, there is no indication of change except their now greater variety—so man, who is on the uppermost rung of the ladder of being, indicates still less change, as we have seen; the skeleton of his palæolithic ancestor being even found superior in some respects to his present frame. Where is, then, the uniformity of law which is claimed—the _absolute rule_ for one species shading off into another and thus, by insensible gradations, into higher types? We see Sir William Thomson admitting as much as 400,000,000 years for the time since the surface of the Globe became sufficiently cool to permit of the presence of living things;(585) and during that enormous lapse of time in the Oolitic period alone, the so‐called “Age of Reptiles,” we find a most extraordinary variety and abundance of Saurian forms, the Amphibian type reaching _its highest development_. We learn of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri in the lakes and rivers, and of winged crocodiles or lizards flying in the air. After which, in the Tertiary period:

We find the Mammalian type exhibiting remarkable divergences from
previously existing forms ... Mastodons, Megatheriums, and other
unwieldy denizens of the ancient forests and plains.

And, subsequently, we are notified of:

The gradual modification of one of the ramifications of the
Quadrumanous order, into those beings from whom primeval Man
himself may claim to have been evolved.(586)

He _may_; but no one, except a Materialist, can see why he should; as there is not the slightest necessity for it, nor is such an evolution warranted by facts, for those most interested in the proofs thereof confess their utter failure to find one single fact to support their theory. There is no need for the numberless types of life to represent the members of one progressive series. They are “the products of various and different evolutional divergences, taking place now in one direction and now in another.” Therefore it is far more justifiable to say that the monkey evolved into the quadrumanous order, than that primeval man—who has _remained stationary_ in his human specialization since the first fossil skeleton found in the oldest strata, and of whom no variety is found save in colour and facial type—has developed from a common ancestor together with the ape.

That man originates like other animals in a cell and develops “through stages indistinguishable from those of fish, reptile, and mammal until the cell attains the highly specialized development of the quadrumanous and _at last the human type_,” is an Occult axiom thousands of years old. The Kabalistic axiom: “A stone becomes a plant; a plant a beast; a beast a man; a man a God,” holds good throughout the ages. Hæckel, in his _Schöpfungsgeschichte_, shows a double drawing representing two embryos—that of a dog six weeks old, and that of a man, eight weeks. The two, with the exception of a slight difference in the head, which is larger and wider about the brain in the man, are indistinguishable.

In fact, we may say that every human being passes through the
stage of fish and reptile before arriving at that of mammal, and
finally of man.

If we take him up at the more advanced stage, where the embryo has
already passed the reptilian form, we find that for a considerable
time, the line of development remains the same as that of other
mammalia. The rudimentary limbs are exactly similar, the five
fingers and toes develop in the same way, and the resemblance
after the first four weeks’ growth _between the embryo of a man
and a dog is such that it is scarcely possible to distinguish
them_. Even at the age of eight weeks the embryo man is an animal
with a tail, hardly to be distinguished from an embryo puppy.(587)

Why, then, not make man and dog evolve from a common ancestor, or from a reptile—a Nâga, instead of coupling man with the Quadrumana? This would be just as logical as the latter, if not more so. The shape and the stages of the human embryo have not changed since historical times, and these metamorphoses were known to Æsculapius and Hippocrates as well as to Mr. Huxley. Therefore, since the Kabalists had remarked it from prehistoric times, it is no new discovery.(588)

As the embryo of man has no more of the ape in it than of any other mammal, but contains in itself _the totality of the kingdoms of nature_, and since it seems to be a “persistent type” of life, far more so than even the Foraminifera, it seems as illogical to make him evolve from the ape as it would be to trace his origin to the frog or the dog. Both Occult and Eastern Philosophies believe in Evolution, which Manu and Kapila(589) give with far more clearness than any Scientist does at present. No need to repeat what has been fully debated in _Isis Unveiled_, as the reader may find all these arguments and the description of the basis on which all the Eastern doctrines of Evolution rest, in our earlier volumes.(590) But no Occultist can accept the unreasonable proposition that all the now existing forms, “from the structureless Amœba to man,” are the direct lineal descendants of organisms which lived millions and millions of years before the birth of man, in the pre‐Silurian epochs, in the sea or land‐ mud. The Occultists believe in an _Inherent Law of Progressive Development_.(591) Mr. Darwin never did, and says so himself; for we find him stating that, since _there can be no advantage_ “to the infusorian animalcule or an intestinal worm ... to become highly organized,” therefore, “natural selection,” _not necessarily including progressive development_—leaves the animalcule and the worm, the “persistent types,” quiet.(592)

There does not appear much _uniform_ law in such behaviour of Nature; and it looks more like the discriminative action of some _super_‐physical selection; perhaps, that aspect of Karma, which Eastern Occultists would call the “Law of Retardation,” may have something to do with it.

But there is every reason to doubt whether Mr. Darwin himself ever gave such an importance to his law as is now given to it by his atheistic followers. The knowledge of the various living forms in the geological periods that have gone by is very meagre. The reasons given for this by Dr. Bastian are very suggestive:

First, on account of the imperfect manner in which the several
forms may be represented in the strata pertaining to the period;
secondly, on account of the extremely limited nature of the
explorations which have been made in these imperfectly
representative strata; and, thirdly, because so many parts of the
record are absolutely inaccessible to use—nearly all beneath the
Silurian system having been blotted out by time, whilst those two‐
thirds of the earth’s surface in which the remaining strata are to
be found are now covered over by seas. Hence Mr. Darwin says: “For
my part, following out Lyell’s metaphor, I look at the geological
record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in
a changing dialect; _of this history we possess the last volume
alone_, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume,
_only here and there a short chapter has been preserved_; and of
each page _only here and there a few lines_.”(593)

It is not on such meagre data, certainly, that the last word of Science can be said. Nor is it on any ground of human pride, or unreasonable belief in man’s representing even here on Earth—in _our_ period, perhaps—the highest type of life, that Occultism denies that all the preceding forms of human life belonged to types lower than our own; for it is not so. But simply because the “missing link,” which will prove the existing theory undeniably, will never be found by Palæontologists. Believing as we do that man has, during the preceding Rounds, evolved from, and passed through, the lowest forms of every life, vegetable and animal, on Earth, there is nothing very degrading in the idea of having the Orang Outang as an ancestor of our physical form. Quite the reverse; as it would most irresistibly forward the Occult Doctrine with regard to the final evolution of everything in terrestrial nature into man. One may even enquire how it is that Biologists and Anthropologists, having once firmly accepted the theory of the descent of man from the ape—how it is that they have hitherto left untouched the future evolution of the existing apes into man? This is only a logical sequence of the first theory—unless Science would make of man a privileged being, and his evolution a _non_‐precedent in Nature, quite a _special_ and unique case. And that is what all this leads Physical Science to. The reason, however, why the Occultists reject the Darwinian, and especially the Hæckelian, hypothesis is because it is the ape, not man, which is, in sober truth, a special and unique instance. The Pithecoid is _an accidental creation_, a forced growth, the result of an unnatural process.

The Occult Doctrine is, we think, more logical. It teaches a cyclic, never varying Law in Nature, the latter having no personal “special design,” but acting on a uniform plan that prevails through the whole Manvantaric period and deals with the land‐worm as it deals with man. Neither the one nor the other have sought to come into being, hence both are under the same Evolutionary Law, and both have to progress according to Karmic Law. Both have started from the same Neutral Centre of Life and both have to re‐merge into it at the consummation of the Cycle.

It is not denied that in the preceding Round man _was_ a gigantic ape‐like creature; and when we say “man” we ought perhaps to say, the rough mould that was developing for the use of man in this Round only—the middle, or the transition, point of which we have hardly reached. Nor was man during the first two and a half Root‐Races what he is now. That point he reached, as said before, only 18,000,000 years ago, during the Secondary period, as we claim.

Till then he was, according to tradition and Occult Teaching, “a God on Earth who had fallen into Matter,” or generation. This may or may not be accepted, since the Secret Doctrine does not impose itself as an infallible dogma, and since, whether its prehistoric records are accepted or rejected, it has nothing to do with the question of the _actual_ Man and his Inner Nature; the Fall mentioned above having left no “original sin” on Humanity. But all this has been sufficiently dealt with.

Furthermore, we are taught that the transformations through which man passed on the descending arc—which is centrifugal for Spirit and centripetal for Matter—and those he is preparing to go through, henceforward, on his ascending path, which will reverse the direction of the two forces—viz., Matter will become centrifugal and Spirit centripetal—that all such transformations _are next in store for the anthropoid apes also_; all those, at any rate, who have reached the remove next to man in this Round—for these will all be men in the Fifth Round, just as the present men inhabited ape‐like forms in the Third, the preceding Round.

Behold, then, in the modern denizens of the great forests of Sumatra the degraded and dwarfed examples—“blurred copies,” as Mr. Huxley has it—of ourselves, as we (the majority of mankind) were in the earliest sub‐races of the Fourth Root‐Race during the period of what is called the “fall into generation.” The ape we know is not the product of natural evolution but an _accident_, a cross‐breed between an animal being, or form, and man. As has been shown in the present volume, it is the speechless animal that first began sexual connection, for it was the first to separate into male and female. Nor was it intended by Nature that man should follow this bestial example—as is now shown by the comparatively painless procreation of their species by animals, and the terrible suffering and danger of the same in woman. The ape is, indeed, as remarked in _Isis Unveiled_:

A transformation of species most directly connected with that of
the human family‐_a bastard branch engrafted on their own stock
before the final perfection of the latter_.(594)

The apes are millions of years later than the speaking human being, and are the latest contemporaries of our Fifth Race. Thus, it is most important to remember that the “Egos” of the apes are entities compelled by their Karma to incarnate in the animal forms, which resulted from the bestiality of the _latest_ Third and the earliest Fourth Race men. They are entities who had already reached the “human stage” before this Round. Consequently, they form an exception to the general rule. The numberless traditions about Satyrs are no fables, but represent an extinct race of animal men. The animal “Eves” were their foremothers, and the human “Adams” their forefathers; hence the Kabalistic allegory of Lilith or Lilatu, Adam’s _first_ wife, whom the Talmud describes as a “charming” woman, “with long wavy hair,” _i.e._—a female hairy animal of a character now unknown, still a female animal, who in the Kabalistic and Talmudic allegories is called the female reflection of Samael, Samael‐Lilith, or man‐animal united, a being called, in the _Zohar_, Hayo Bischat, the Beast or Evil Beast. It is from this unnatural union that the present apes descended. The latter are truly “speechless men,” and will become speaking animals, or men of a lower order, in the Fifth Round, while the Adepts of a certain School hope that some of the “Egos” of the apes of a higher intelligence will reäppear at the close of the Sixth Root‐Race. What their form will be is of secondary consideration. The form means nothing. Genera and species of the flora, fauna, and the highest animal, its crown—man, change and vary according to the environments and climatic variations, not only with every Round, but every Root‐Race likewise, as well as after every geological cataclysm that puts an end to, or produces a turning point in, the latter. In the Sixth Root‐Race, the fossils of the Orang, the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee will be those of extinct quadrumanous mammals; and new forms—though fewer and ever wider apart as ages pass on and the close of the Manvantara approaches—will develop from the “cast off” types of the human races as they revert once again to astral, out of the mire of physical, life. There were no apes before man, and they will be extinct before the Seventh Race develops. Karma will lead on the Monads of the unprogressed men of our Race and lodge them in the newly evolved human frames of the thus physiologically regenerated Baboon.

This will take place, of course, millions of years hence. But the picture of this cyclic precession of all that lives and breathes now on Earth, of each species in its turn, is a true one, and needs no “special creation” or miraculous formation of man, beast, and plant _ex nihilo_.

This is how Occult Science explains the absence of any link between ape and man, and shows the former evolving from the latter.

A Panoramic View Of The Early Races.

There is a period of a few millions of years to cover between the first “mindless” race and the highly intelligent and intellectual later Lemurians; there is another between the earliest civilization of the Atlanteans and the historic period.

As witnesses to the Lemurians but a few silent records in the shape of half a dozen broken colossi and old cyclopean ruins are left. These are not allowed a hearing, as they are “productions of blind natural forces,” we are assured by some; “quite modern” we are told by others. Tradition is left contemptuously unnoticed by Sceptic and Materialist, and made subservient to the _Bible_ in every case by the too zealous Churchman. Whenever a legend, however, refuses to fit in with the Noachian Deluge theory, it is declared by the Christian clergy to be “the insanely delirious voice of old superstition.” Atlantis is denied, when not confused with Lemuria and other departed Continents, because, perhaps, Lemuria is half the creation of Modern Science, and has, therefore, to be believed in; while Plato’s Atlantis is regarded by most of the Scientists as a dream.

Atlantis is often described by believers in Plato as a prolongation of Africa. An old continent is also suspected to have existed on the Eastern coast. But Africa, as a continent, was never part and parcel of either Lemuria or Atlantis, as we have agreed to call the Third and Fourth Continents. Their archaic appellations are never mentioned in the _Purânas_, nor anywhere else. But with only one of the Esoteric keys in hand, it becomes an easy task to identify these departed lands in the numberless “Lands of the Gods,” Devas and Munis described in the _Purânas_, in their Varshas, Dvîpas, and Zones. Their Shveta‐dvîpa, during the early days of Lemuria, 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.

It is of course impossible to attempt, within the compass of even several volumes, a consecutive and detailed account of the evolution and progress of the first three Races‐except so far as to give a general view of it, as will be done presently. Race the First had no history of its own. Of Race the Second the same may be said. We shall have, therefore, to pay careful attention to the Lemurians and the Atlanteans only, before the history of our own Race, the Fifth, can be attempted.

What is known of other Continents, besides our own, and what does history know or accept of the early Races? Everything outside the repulsive speculations of Materialistic Science is daubed with the contemptuous term “superstition.” The wise men of to‐day will believe nothing. Plato’s “winged” and “hermaphrodite” races, and his Golden Age, under the reign of Saturn and the Gods, are quietly brought back by Hæckel to their _new_ place in Nature; our Divine Races are shown to be the descendants of Catarrhine apes, and our ancestor, a piece of “sea slime”!

Nevertheless, as expressed by Faber:

The _fictions_ of ancient poetry ... will be found to comprehend
some portion of historical truth.

However one‐sided the efforts of the learned author of _A Dissertation on the Mysteries of the Cabiri_—efforts directed throughout his two volumes to constrain the classical myths and symbols of old Paganism, “to bear testimony to the truth of Scripture”—time and further research have avenged, partially at least, that “truth” by showing it unveiled. Thus it is the clever adaptations of Scripture, on the contrary, which are made to bear evidence to the great wisdom of Archaic Paganism. This, notwithstanding the inextricable confusion into which the truth about the Kabiri—the most mysterious Gods of antiquity—has been thrown by the wild and contradictory speculations of Bishop Cumberland, Dr. Shuckford, Cudworth, Vallancey, etc., and finally by Faber. Nevertheless, all of these scholars, from first to last, had to come to a certain conclusion framed by the latter, as follows:

We have no reason to think that the idolatry of the Gentile world
was of a merely arbitrary contrivance; on the contrary, it seems
to have been built, almost universally, upon _a traditional
remembrance of certain real events. These events I apprehend to be
the destruction of the first_ [the Fourth in Esoteric Teaching]
_race of mankind by the waters of the Deluge_.(595)

To this, Faber adds:

I am persuaded that the tradition of the sinking of the Phlegyan
isle is the very same as that of the sinking of the island
Atlantis. They both appear to me to allude to one great event, the
sinking of the whole world beneath the waters of the deluge, or,
if we suppose the arch of the earth to have remained in its
original position, the rising of the central water above it. M.
Bailly indeed in his work upon the Atlantis of Plato, the object
of which is evidently to depreciate the authority of the
scriptural chronology, labours to prove that the Atlantians were a
very ancient northern nation, long prior to the Hindoos, the
Phenicians, and the Egyptians.(596)

In this Faber is in agreement with Bailly, who shows himself more learned and intuitional than those who accept biblical chronology. Nor is the latter wrong when saying that the Atlanteans were the same as the Titans and the Giants.(597) Faber adopts the more willingly the opinion of his French _confrère_, as Bailly mentions Cosmas Indicopleustes, who preserved an ancient tradition about Noah—that he “formerly inhabited the _island_ Atlantis.” This island, whether it was the “Poseidonis” mentioned in _Esoteric Buddhism_, or the Continent of Atlantis, does not much matter. The tradition is there, recorded by a Christian.

No Occultist would ever think of dispossessing Noah of his prerogatives if he is claimed to be an Atlantean; for this would simply show that the Israelites repeated the story of Vaivasvata Manu, Xisuthrus, and so many others, and that they only changed the name, which they had the same right to do as any other nation or tribe. What we object to is the literal acceptation of biblical chronology, as it is absurd, and in accord with neither geological data nor reason. Moreover, if Noah was an Atlantean, then he was a Titan, a Giant, as Faber shows; and if a Giant, then why is he not shown as such in _Genesis_?(598)

Bailly’s mistake was to reject the submersion of Atlantis, and to call the Atlanteans simply a Northern and _post‐diluvian_ nation, which, however, as he says, certainly flourished before the foundation of the Hindû, Egyptian, and Phœnician empires. In this, had he only known of the existence of what we have agreed to call Lemuria, he would have again been right. For the Atlanteans were post‐diluvian to the Lemurians, and Lemuria was not submerged as Atlantis was, but was _sunk_ under the waves, owing to earthquakes and subterranean fires, as Great Britain and Europe will be one day. It is the ignorance of our men of Science, who will accept neither the tradition that several Continents have already sunk, nor the periodical law which acts throughout the Manvantaric Cycle—it is this ignorance that is the chief cause of all the confusion. Nor is Bailly wrong again in assuring us that the Hindûs, Egyptians, and Phœnicians came after the Atlanteans, for the latter belonged to the Fourth, while the Âryans and their Semitic Branch are of the Fifth Race. Plato, while repeating the story as narrated to Solon by the priests of Egypt, intentionally confuses—as every Initiate would—the two Continents, and assigns to the small island which last sunk, all the events pertaining to the two enormous Continents, the prehistoric and traditional. Therefore, he describes the _first couple_, from whom the whole island was peopled, as being formed of the Earth. In so saying, he means neither Adam and Eve, nor yet his own Hellenic forefathers. His language is simply allegorical, and by alluding to “Earth,” he means Matter, as the Atlanteans were really the first purely _human_ and _terrestrial_ Race—those that preceded it being more divine and ethereal than human and solid.

Yet Plato must have known, as would any other initiated Adept, about the history of the Third Race after its “Fall,” though as one pledged to silence and secrecy he never showed his knowledge in so many words. Nevertheless, it may become easier now, after acquainting oneself with even the approximate chronology of the Eastern nations—all of which was based upon, and followed the early Âryan calculations—to realize the immense periods of time that must have elapsed since the separation of the sexes, without mentioning the First or even the Second Root‐Races. As these must remain beyond the comprehension of minds trained in Western thought, it is found useless to speak in detail of the First and Second, and even of the Third Race in its earliest stage.(599) It is only when the latter has reached its full human period that a beginning can be made, without the uninitiated reader finding himself hopelessly bewildered.

The Third Race _fell_—and created no longer; it _begat_ its progeny. Being still mindless at the period of separation, it begat, moreover, anomalous offspring, until its physiological nature had adjusted its instincts in the right direction. Like the “Lords Gods” of the _Bible_, the “Sons of Wisdom,” the Dhyân Chohans, had warned it to leave alone the fruit forbidden by Nature; but the warning proved of no value. Men realized the unfitness—we must not say sin—of what they had done, only when too late; after the Angelic Monads from higher Spheres had incarnated in, and endowed them with understanding. To that day they had remained simply physical, like the animals generated from them. For what is the distinction? The Doctrine teaches that the only difference between animate and inanimate objects on Earth, between an animal and a human frame, is that in some the various “Fires” are latent, and in others they are active. The _Vital_ Fires are in all things and not an atom is devoid of them. But no animal has the three higher “principles” awakened in him; they are simply potential, latent, and thus _non‐existing_. And so would the animal frames of men be to this day, had they been left as they came out from the bodies of their Progenitors, whose Shadows they were, to grow, unfolded only by the powers and forces immanent in Matter. But as said in _Pymander_:

This is a Mystery that to this day was sealed and hidden.
Nature(600) being mingled with Man(601) brought forth a wondrous
miracle; the harmonious commingling of the _essence of the Seven_
[Pitris, or Governors] and her own; the _Fire_ and the _Spirit_
and _Nature_ [the Noumenon of Matter]; which [commingling]
forthwith brought forth seven men of opposite sexes [negative and
positive] according to the essences of the Seven Governors.(602)

Thus saith Hermes, the thrice great Initiate,(603) the “Power of the Thought Divine.” St. Paul, another Initiate, called our World, “the enigmatical mirror of pure truth,” and St. Gregory of Nazianzen corroborated Hermes by stating that:

Things visible are but the shadow and delineation of things that
we cannot see.

It is an eternal combination, and images are repeated from the higher rung of the Ladder of Being down to the lower. The “Fall of the Angels,” and the “War in Heaven” are repeated on every plane, the lower “mirror” disfiguring the image of the superior “mirror,” and each repeating it in its own way. Thus the Christian dogmas are but the reminiscences of the paradigms of Plato, who spoke of these things cautiously, as every Initiate would. But it is all as expressed in these few sentences of the _Desatir_:

All that is on earth, saith the Lord [Ormazd], is the _shadow of
something that is in the superior spheres_. This luminious object
[light, fire, etc.] is the shadow of that which is still more
luminous than itself, and so on till it reaches me, who am the
light of lights.

In the Kabalistic books, in the _Zohar_ prëeminently, the idea that every objective thing on Earth or in this Universe is the “Shadow” (Dyooknah) of the eternal Light or Deity, is very strong.

The Third Race was prëeminently the bright “Shadow,” at first, of the Gods, whom tradition exiles on to the Earth after the allegorical War in Heaven. This became still more allegorical on Earth, for it was the War between Spirit and Matter. This War will last till the Inner and Divine Man adjusts his outer terrestrial self to his own spiritual nature. Till then the dark and fierce passions of that self will be at eternal feud with his Master, the Divine Man. But the animal will be tamed one day, because its nature will be changed, and harmony will reign once more between the two as before the “Fall,” when even mortal man was “created” by the Elements and was not born.

The above is made clear in all the great Theogonies, principally in the Grecian, as in that of Hesiod. The _mutilation_ of Uranus by his son Cronus, who thus condemns him to impotency, has never been understood by the modern Mythographers. Yet, it is very plain; and as it was universal(604) it must have contained a great abstract and philosophical idea, now lost to our modern sages. This punishment in the allegory marks, indeed, “a new period, a second phase in the development of creation,” as justly remarked by Decharme,(605) who, however, does not attempt to explain it. Uranus tried to oppose an impediment to that development, or natural evolution, by _destroying all his children as soon as born_. Uranus, who personifies all the creative powers of, and in, Chaos—Space, or the Unmanifested Deity—is thus made to pay the penalty; for it is these powers which cause the Pitris to evolve primordial “men” from themselves—as, later on, these men, in their turn, evolve _their_ progeny—without any sense or desire for procreation. The work of generation, suspended for a moment, passes into the hands of Cronus (_Chronos_) Time,(606) who unites himself with Rhea (the Earth—‐in Esotericism, Matter in general), and thus produces celestial and terrestrial Titans. The whole of this symbolism relates to the mysteries of evolution.

This allegory is the exoteric version of the Esoteric Doctrine given in this part of our work. For in Cronus we see the same story repeated again. As Uranus destroyed his children by Gæa (one in the world of manifestation with Aditi, or the Great Cosmic Deep), by confining them in the bosom of the Earth, Titæa, so Cronus, at this second stage of creation, destroyed his children by Rhea—by devouring them. This is an allusion to the fruitless efforts of Earth, or Nature, alone to create real _human_ “men.”(607) Time swallows its own fruitless work. Then comes Zeus, Jupiter, who dethrones his father in his turn.(608) Jupiter the Titan, is Prometheus, in one sense,(609) and varies from Zeus, the great “Father of the Gods.” He is the “disrespectful son” in Hesiod. Hermes calls him the “Heavenly Man” in _Pymander_; and even in the _Bible_ he is found again under the name of Adam, and, later on—by transmutation—under that of Ham. Yet these are all personifications of the “Sons of Wisdom.” The necessary corroboration that Jupiter belongs to the purely _human_ Atlantean Cycle—if Uranus and Cronus who precede him are found insufficient—may be read in Hesiod, who tells us that:

The Immortals made the race of the Golden and Silver Age [First
and Second Races]; Jupiter made the generation of Bronze [an
admixture of _two_ elements], that of the Heroes, and of the Iron
Age.(610)

After this he sends his fatal present, Pandora, to Epimetheus.(611) Hesiod calls this present of the _first woman_ “a fatal gift.” It was a punishment, he explains, sent to man “for the theft of [divine creative] fire.” Her apparition on Earth is the signal for every kind of evil. Before her appearance, the human races lived happy, exempt from sickness and suffering—as the same races are made to live under Yima’s rule, in the Mazdean _Vendidâd_.