Chapter V: Part 5

A great distinction, however, must be noted between the coming of the exalted Beings from the Venus scheme and that of those described as the highly evolved humanity of some previous system of evolution. The former, as we have seen, were under no karmic impulse. They came as men to live and work among them, but they were not required to assume their physical limitations, being in a position to provide appropriate vehicles for themselves.

The Lhas on the other hand had actually to be born in the bodies of the race as it then existed. Better would it have been both for them and for the race if there had been no hesitation or delay on their part in taking up their Karmic task, for the sin of the mindless and all its consequences would have been avoided. Their task, too, would have been an easier one, for it consisted not only in acting as guides and teachers, but in improving the racial type--in short, in evolving out of the half-human, half-animal form then existing, the physical body of the man to be.

It must be remembered that up to this time the Lemurian race consisted of the second and third groups of the Lunar Pitris. But now that they were approaching the level reached on the Lunar chain by the first group of Pitris, it became necessary for these again to return to incarnation, and this they did all through the fifth, sixth and seventh sub-races (indeed, some did not take birth till the Atlantean period), so that the impetus given to the progress of the race was a cumulative force.

The positions occupied by the divine beings from the Venus chain were naturally those of rulers, instructors in religion, and teachers of the arts, and it is in this latter capacity that a reference to the arts taught by them comes to our aid in the consideration of the history of this early race.

[Sidenote: The Arts continued.]

Under the guidance of their divine teachers the people began to learn the use of fire, and the means by which it could be obtained, at first by friction, and later on by the use of flints and iron. They were taught to explore for metals, to smelt and to mould them, and instead of spears of sharpened wood they now began to use spears tipped with sharpened metal.

They were also taught to dig and till the ground and to cultivate the seeds of wild grain till it improved in type. This cultivation carried on through the vast ages which have since elapsed has resulted in the evolution of the various cereals which we now possess--barley, oats, maize, millet, etc. But an exception must here be noted. Wheat was not evolved upon this planet like the other cereals. It was a gift of the divine beings who brought it from Venus ready for the food of man. Nor was wheat their only gift. The one animal form whose type has not been evolved on our chain of worlds is that of the bee. It, too, was brought from Venus.

The Lemurians now also began to learn the art of spinning and weaving fabrics with which to clothe themselves. These were made of the coarse hair of a species of animal now extinct, but which bore some resemblance to the llamas of to-day, the ancestors of which they may possibly have been. We have seen above that the earliest articles of clothing of Lemurian man were robes of skin stripped from the beasts he had slain. These skins he still continued to wear on the colder parts of the continent, but he now learnt to cure and dress the skin in some rude fashion.

One of the first things the people were taught was the use of fire in the preparation of their food, and whether it was the flesh of animals they slew or the pounded grains of wheat, their modes of cooking were closely analogous to those we hear of as existing to-day among savage communities. With reference to the gift of wheat so marvellously brought from Venus, the divine rulers doubtless realised the advisability of at once procuring such food for the people, for they must have known that it would take many generations before the cultivation of the wild seeds could provide an adequate supply.

Rude and barbarous as were the people during the period of the fifth and sixth sub-races, such of them as had the privilege of coming in contact with their divine teachers were naturally inspired with such feelings of reverence and worship as helped to lift them out of their savage condition. The constant influx, too, of more intelligent beings from the first group of the Lunar Pitris, who were then beginning to return to incarnation, helped the attainment of a more civilised state.

[Sidenote: Great Cities and Statues.]

During the later part of the sixth, and the seventh sub-race they learnt to build great cities. These appear to have been of cyclopean architecture, corresponding with the gigantic bodies of the race. The first cities were built on that extended mountainous region of the continent which included, as will be seen in the first map, the present Island of Madagascar. Another great city is described in the "Secret Doctrine"[22] as having been entirely built of blocks of lava. It lay some 30 miles west of the present Easter Island, and it was subsequently destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions. The gigantic statues of Easter Island--measuring as most of them do about 27 feet in height by 8 feet across the shoulders--were probably intended to be representative not only of the features, but of the height of those who carved them, or it may be of their ancestors, for it was probably in the later ages of the Lemuro-Atlanteans that the statues were erected. It will be observed that by the second map period, the continent of which Easter Island formed a part had been broken up and Easter Island itself had become a comparatively small island, though of considerably greater dimensions than it retains to-day.

Civilisations of comparative importance arose on different parts of the continent and the great islands where the inhabitants built cities and dwelt in settled communities, but large tribes who were also partially civilised continued to lead a nomadic and patriarchial life; while other parts of the land--in many cases the least accessible, as in our own times--were peopled by tribes of extremely low type.

[Sidenote: Religion.]

With so primitive a race of men, at the best, there was but little in the shape of religion that they could be taught. Simple rules of conduct and the most elementary precepts of morality were all that they were fitted to understand or to practise. During the evolution of the seventh sub-race, it is true that their divine instructors taught them some primitive form of worship and imparted the knowledge of a Supreme Being whose symbol was represented as the Sun.

[Sidenote: Destruction of the Continent.]

Unlike the subsequent fate of Atlantis, which was submerged by great tidal waves, the continent of Lemuria perished by volcanic action. It was raked by the burning ashes and the red-hot dust from numberless volcanoes. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, it is true, heralded each of the great catastrophes which overtook Atlantis, but when the land had been shaken and rent, the sea rushed in and completed the work, and most of the inhabitants perished by drowning. The Lemurians, on the other hand, met their doom chiefly by fire or suffocation. Another marked contrast between the fate of Lemuria and Atlantis was that while four great catastrophes completed the destruction of the latter, the former was slowly eaten away by internal fires, for, from the time when the disintegrating process began towards the end of the first map period, there was no cessation from the fiery activity, and whether in one part of the continent or another, the volcanic action was incessant, while the invariable sequence was the subsidence and total disappearance of the land, just as in the case of Krakatoa in 1883.

So closely analogous was the eruption of Mount Pelée, which caused the destruction of St. Pièrre, the capital of Martinique, about two years ago, to the whole series of volcanic catastrophes on the continent of Lemuria, that the description of the former given by some of the survivors may be of interest. "An immense black cloud had suddenly burst forth from the crater of Mont Pelée and rushed with terrific velocity upon the city, destroying everything--inhabitants, houses and vegetation alike--that it found in its path. In two or three minutes it passed over, and the city was a blazing pyre of ruins. In both islands [Martinique and St. Vincent] the eruptions were characterised by the sudden discharge of immense quantities of red-hot dust, mixed with steam, which flowed down the steep hillsides with an ever-increasing velocity. In St. Vincent this had filled many valleys to a depth of between 100 feet and 200 feet, and months after the eruptions was still very hot, and the heavy rains which then fell thereon caused enormous explosions, producing clouds of steam and dust that shot upwards to a height of from 1500 feet to 2000 feet, and filled the rivers with black boiling mud." Captain Freeman, of the "Roddam," then described "a thrilling experience which he and his party had at Martinique. One night, when they were lying at anchor in a little sloop about a mile from St. Pièrre, the mountain exploded in a way that was apparently an exact repetition of the original eruption. It was not entirely without warning; hence they were enabled to sail at once a mile or two further away, and thus probably saved their lives. In the darkness they saw the summit glow with a bright red light; then soon, with loud detonations, great red-hot stones were projected into the air and rolled down the slopes. A few minutes later a prolonged rumbling noise was heard, and in an instant was followed by a red-hot avalanche of dust, which rushed out of the crater and rolled down the side with a terrific speed, which they estimated at about 100 miles an hour, with a temperature of 1000° centigrade. As to the probable explanation of these phenomena, no lava, he said, had been seen to flow from either of the volcanoes, but only steam and fine hot dust. The volcanoes were, therefore, of the explosive type; and from all his observations he had concluded that the absence of lava-flows was due to the material within the crater being partly solid, or at least highly viscous, so that it could not flow like an ordinary lava-stream. Since his return this theory had received striking confirmation, for it was now known that within the crater of Mont Pelée there was no lake of molten lava, but that a solid pillar of red-hot rock was slowly rising upwards in a great conical, sharp-pointed hill, until it might finally overtop the old summit of the mountain. It was nearly 1000 feet high, and slowly grew as it was forced upwards by pressure from beneath, while every now and then explosions of steam took place, dislodging large pieces from its summit or its sides. Steam was set free within this mass as it cooled, and the rock then passed into a dangerous and highly explosive condition, such that an explosion must sooner or later take place, which shivered a great part of the mass into fine red-hot dust."[23]

A reference to the first Lemurian map will show that in the lake lying to the south-east of the extensive mountainous region there was an island which consisted of little more than one great mountain. This mountain was a very active volcano. The four mountains which lay to the south-west of the lake were also active volcanoes, and in this region it was that the disruption of the continent began. The seismic cataclysms which followed the volcanic eruptions caused such wide-spread damage that by the second map period a large portion of the southern part of the continent had been submerged.

A marked characteristic of the land surface in early Lemurian times was the great number of lakes and marshes, as well as the innumerable volcanoes. Of course, all these are not shown on the map. Only some of the great mountains which were volcanoes, and only some of the largest lakes are there indicated.

Another volcano on the north-east coast of the continent began its destructive work at an early date. Earthquakes completed the disruption, and it seems probable that the sea shown in the second map as dotted with small islands to the south-east of the present Japan, indicates the area of seismic disturbance.

In the first map it will be seen that there were lakes in the centre of what is now the island-continent of Australia--lakes where the land is at present exceedingly dry and parched. By the second map period those lakes had disappeared, and it seems natural to conjecture that the districts where those lakes lay, must, during the eruptions of the great volcanoes which lay to the south-east (between the present Australia and New Zealand), have been so raked with red-hot volcanic dust that the very water-springs were dried up.

[Sidenote: Founding of the Atlantean Race.]

In concluding this sketch, a reference to the process by which the Fourth Root Race was brought into existence, will appropriately bring to an end what we know of the story of Lemuria and link it on to that of Atlantis.

It may be remembered from previous writings on the subject that it was from the _fifth_ or Semitic sub-race of the Fourth Root Race that was chosen the nucleus destined to become our great Fifth or Aryan Root Race. It was not, however, until the time of the _seventh_ sub-race on Lemuria that humanity was sufficiently developed physiologically to warrant the choice of individuals fit to become the parents of a new Root Race. So it was from the seventh sub-race that the segregation was effected. The colony was first settled on land which occupied the site of the present Ashantee and Western Nigeria. A reference to the second map will show this as a promontory lying to the north-west of the island-continent which embraced the Cape of Good Hope and parts of western Africa. Having been guarded for generations from any admixture with a lower type, the colony gradually increased in numbers, and the time came when it was ready to receive and to hand on the new impulse to physical heredity which the Manu was destined to impart.

Students of Theosophy are aware that, up to the present day, no one belonging to our humanity has been in a position to undertake the exalted office of Manu, though it is stated that the founding of the coming Sixth Root Race will be entrusted to the guidance of one of our Masters of Wisdom--one who, while belonging to our humanity, has nevertheless reached a most exalted level in the Divine Hierarchy.

In the case we are considering--the founding of the Fourth Root Race--it was one of the Adepts from Venus who undertook the duties of the Manu. Naturally he belonged to a very high order, for it must be understood that the Beings who came from the Venus system as rulers and teachers of our infant humanity did _not_ all stand at the same level. It is this circumstance which furnishes a reason for the remarkable fact that may, in conclusion, be stated--namely, that there existed in Lemuria a Lodge of Initiation.

[Sidenote: A Lodge of Initiation.]

Naturally it was not for the benefit of the Lemurian race that the Lodge was founded. Such of them as were sufficiently advanced were, it is true, taught by the Adept Gurus, but the instruction they required was limited to the explanation of a few physical phenomena, such as the fact that the earth moves round the sun, or to the explanation of the different appearance which physical objects assumed for them when subjected alternately to their physical sight and their astral vision.

It was, of course, for the sake of those who, while endowed with the stupendous powers of transferring their consciousness from the planet Venus to this our earth, and of providing for their use and their work while here appropriate vehicles in which to function, were yet pursuing the course of their own evolution.[24] For their sake it was--for the sake of those who, having entered the Path, had only reached the lower grades, that this Lodge of Initiation was founded.

Though, as we know, the goal of normal evolution is greater and more glorious than can, from our present standpoint, be well imagined, it is by no means synonymous with that expansion of consciousness which, combined with and alone made possible by, the purification and ennoblement of character, constitute the heights to which the Pathway of Initiation leads.

The investigation into what constitutes this purification and ennoblement of character, and the endeavour to realise what that expansion of consciousness really means are subjects which have been written of elsewhere.

Suffice it now to point out that the founding of a Lodge of Initiation for the sake of Beings who came from another scheme of evolution is an indication of the unity of object and of aim in the government and the guidance of _all_ the schemes of evolution brought into existence by our Solar Logos. Apart from the normal course in our own scheme, there is, we know, a Path by which He may be directly reached, which every son of man in his progress through the ages is privileged to hear of, and to tread, if he so chooses. We find that this was so in the Venus scheme also, and we may presume it is or will be so in all the schemes which form part of our Solar system. This Path is the Path of Initiation, and the end to which leads is the same for all, and that end is Union with God.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: Haeckel is correct enough in his surmise that Lemuria was the cradle of the human race as it now exists, but it was not out of Anthropoid apes that mankind developed. A reference will be made later on to the position in nature which the Anthropoid apes really occupy.]

[Footnote 3: Ernst Haeckel's "Hist. of Creation," 2nd ed., 1876, Vol. 1., pp. 360-62.]

[Footnote 4: Alfred Russell Wallace's "The Geographical Distribution of Animals--with a study of the relations of living and extinct Faunas as elucidating the past changes of the Earth's Surface." London: Macmillan & Co., 1876. Vol. 1., pp. 76-7.]

[Footnote 5: Ceylon and South India, it is true, have been bounded on the north by a considerable extent of sea, but that was at a much earlier date than the Tertiary period.]

[Footnote 6: Wallace's "Geographical Distribution, etc." Vol. 1., pp. 328-9.]

[Footnote 7: Wallace's "Geographical Distribution, etc.," Vol. ii., p. 155.]

[Footnote 8: H. F. Blandford "On the age and correlations of the Plant-bearing series of India and the former existence of an Indo-Oceanic Continent," see Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, Vol. xxxi., 1875, pp. 534-540.]

[Footnote 9: A reference to the maps will show that Mr. Blandford's estimate of date is the more correct of the two.]

[Footnote 10: Parts of the continent of course endured, but the dismemberment of Lemuria is said to have taken place before the beginning of the Eocene Age.]

[Footnote 11: Vol ii., pp. 325-6.]

[Footnote 12: Dr. G. Hartlaub "On the Avifauna of Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands," see "The Ibis," a Quarterly Journal of Ornithology. Fourth Series, Vol. i., 1877, p. 334.]

[Footnote 13: Ernst Haeckel's "History of Creation," Vol. ii., pp. 22-56.]

[Footnote 14: Ernst Haeckel's "History of Creation," Vol. ii., pp. 226-7.]

[Footnote 15: For a further account of the permanent atoms on all the planes, and the potentialities contained in them with reference to the processes of death and re-birth, see "Man's Place in Universe." pp. 76-80.]

[Footnote 16: The "Standard," 8th Jan., 1904.]

[Footnote 17: Ernst Haeckel's "The History of Creation," 2nd ed., Vol. i., pp. 193-8.]

[Footnote 18: "The Secret Doctrine," Vol. ii., p. 197.]

[Footnote 19: Vol. ii., pp. 683 and 689.]

[Footnote 20: It must, however, be noted that the Chinese _people_ are mainly descended from the fourth or Turanian sub-race of the Fourth Root Race.]

[Footnote 21: "Secret Doctrine," Vol. ii., p. 198.]

[Footnote 22: Vol. ii., p. 317.]

[Footnote 23: The "Times," 14th Sept., 1903.]

[Footnote 24: The heights reached by them will find their parallel when our humanity will, countless aeons hence, have reached the Sixth Round of our chain of worlds, and the same transcendent powers will be the possession of ordinary mankind in those far-off ages.]

MAPS

ATLANTIS AT ITS PRIME]

ATLANTIS IN ITS DECADENCE]

RUTA & DAITYA]

POSEIDONIS]