According to Blavatsky's writings, there are seven root races assembling for our Earth; each root race is divided into seven subraces. Only five root races have appeared so far; the sixth is expected to emerge in the 28th century.
Francis Bacon (whom theosophy considers to be the legendary
Count of St. Germain) in his work
The New Atlantis (1627) describes a potential future civilization which lives on a land called Bensalem.
The first root race (Polarian) The first root race was "
ethereal", i.e. they were composed of etheric matter. They reproduced by dividing like an
amoeba. Earth was still cooling at that time. The first mountain to arise out of the stormy primeval ocean was
Mount Meru.
The second root race (Hyperborean) The second root race lived in
Hyperborea. The second root race was colored golden yellow. Hyperborea included what is now Northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Northern Russia and
Kamchatka. The climate was
tropical because Earth had not yet developed an
axial tilt. The esoteric name of their continent is
Plaksha;
The third root race (Lemurian) The third root race, the Lemurian lived in
Lemuria. The esoteric name of Lemuria is
Shalmali. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was thought by geologists that the
age of the Earth was only about 200 million years (because
radioactive dating had not yet come into use), so the
geological epochs were believed to have occurred at a much later time than is thought to be the case today. According to traditional Theosophy, the Lemurian root race began 34½ million years ago, in the middle of what was then believed to be the
Jurassic; thus, the people of Lemuria coexisted with the
dinosaurs. The Lemurian race was much taller and bigger than our current race. The first three subraces of the Lemurians reproduced by laying eggs, but the fourth subrace, beginning 16½ million years ago, began to reproduce like modern humans. According to Theosophists the first Atlantean subrace was the result of the last, or seventh Lemurian subrace, Chankshusha Manu, which migrated first to the south of the Atlantean continent and, from there, migrated further north. The esoteric name of
Atlantis is
Kusha. The Atlantean root race had
Mongolian features; they began with bronze skin and gradually evolved into the
red American Indian,
brown Malayan, and
yellow Mongolian races, because some Atlanteans eventually migrated to the Americas and Asia. The seven subraces of the Atlantean root race were • the Rmoahal (A mix of
Homo Ergaster/
Homo rhodesiensis in Africa) • the Tlavati (
Homo rhodesiensis variant outside of Africa) • the
Toltec (
Homo Heidelbergensis as Rhodesiensis lost their African qualities) • the
Turanian (An ancestor of both
Neanderthals and
Denisovans, likely later stage
Heidelbergensis) • the original
Semites (European
Neanderthals) • the
Akkadians (West Asian
Neanderthals), and • the
Mongolian (
Denisovans), which migrated to and colonized
Central Asia,
East Asia, and
Southeast Asia. The descendants of the Atlanteans according to traditional Theosophy include those of the
Mongolian race, the
Malayan race, and the
American Indian race as well as some people of what in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was called the "
olive-skinned"
Mediterranean race.
The civilization of Atlantis According to Powell, the long period of time when Atlantis was ruled by the Toltecs (the ancestors of the
Native Americans), the civilization of Atlantis was at its height. This was the period between about 1,000,000 and 900,000 years ago, called the
Golden Age of Atlantis. The Atlanteans had many luxuries and conveniences. Their capital city was called
The City of the Golden Gates. At its height, it had two million inhabitants. There were extensive
aqueducts leading to the city from a mountain lake. The Atlanteans had
airships that could seat two to eight people. The
economic system was
socialist like that of the
Incas. Atlanteans were the first to develop organized warfare. The military deployed air battleships that contained 50 to 100 fighting men. These air battleships deployed
poison gas bombs. The
infantry fired fire-tipped arrows. The Toltecs on Atlantis worshipped the
Sun in temples as grand as those of
ancient Egypt that were decorated in bright colors. The sacred word used in
meditation was
Tau (this was the equivalent of the Aryan sacred word
AUM). As noted above, the Toltecs colonized all of North America and South America and thus became the people we know as the Amerindians. The downfall of Atlantis started when some of the Toltecs began to practice
black magic about 850,000 BC, corrupted by the dragon "Thevetat", remembered as
Devadatta, the opponent of
Buddha. The people began to become selfish and
materialistic. Soon thereafter, the Turanians (the ancestors of the people we now know as the
Turkic peoples) became dominant in much of Atlantis. The Turanians continued the practice of black magic which reached its height about 250,000 BC and continued until the final sinking of Atlantis, although they were opposed by
white magicians. The Master
Morya incarnated as the Emperor of Atlantis in 220,000 BC to oppose the black magicians. The black magicians used
magical spells to breed human-animal
chimeras. They possessed an army composed of chimeras that were composites composed of a human body with the heads of fierce predators such as lions, tigers and bears, that ate enemy corpses on the battlefield. A small group of these Aryan migrants from Atlantis split from the main body of migrants and went south to the shore of an inland sea in what was then a verdant and lush
Sahara where they founded the "City of the Sun". The main body of migrants continued onwards to an island called the "white island" in the middle of what was then an inland sea in what is now the
Gobi desert, where they established the "City of the Bridge". (The "City of the Bridge" was constructed directly below the
etheric city called
Shamballa where Theosophists believe the governing
deity of Earth,
Sanat Kumara (compare and contrast with
Sanatkumaras of Hinduism), dwells; thus, the ongoing evolution of the Aryan root race has been divinely guided by the being Theosophists call "The Lord of the World".) The esoteric name of the whole of the present land surface of Earth, i.e. the
World Island, the Americas, the Australian continent and Antarctica taken as a whole is
Krauncha. All these aforementioned groups mentioned by Blavatsky, except the Borneians, are part of what in the late 19th and most of the 20th century was called the
Australoid race (except for the
Bushmen, part of the
Capoid race), both of which races, as noted above, were believed by traditional Theosophists to have been descended from the Lemurians.
Subraces of the Aryan root race Blavatsky described the fifth root race with the following words: She also prophesies of the destruction of the racial "failures of nature" as the future "higher race" ascends: The subraces (which Steiner renamed "Cultural Epochs" as a more adequate expression for our times) of the Aryan Fifth Root Race include the first subrace, the
Hindu, which migrated from the "City of the Bridge" on the white island in the middle of the Gobi inland sea to
India in 60,000 BC; the second subrace, the
Arabian, which migrated from the "City of the Bridge" to
Arabia in 40,000 BC; the third subrace, the
Persian, which migrated from the "City of the Bridge" to
Persia in 30,000 BC; the fourth subrace, the
Celts, which migrated from the "City of the Bridge" to
Western Europe beginning in 20,000 BC (the
Mycenaean Greeks are regarded as an offshoot of the Celtic subrace that colonized Southeast Europe); and the fifth subrace, the
Teutonic, which also migrated from the "City of the Bridge" to what is now Germany beginning in 20,000 BC (the
Slavs are regarded as an offshoot of the Teutonic subrace that colonized Russia and surrounding areas).
The emergence of the sixth subrace of the Aryan root race According to Blavatsky the sixth subrace of the Aryan root race will begin to evolve in the area of the United States in the early 21st century. This sixth subrace of the Aryan root race will be called the
Australo-American subrace and is believed by Theosophists to be now arising from the Teutonic subrace of the Aryan root race in Australia and in the Western United States (many individuals of the new subrace will be born in
California) and its surrounding nearby areas (i.e., the Australo-American subrace is in arising from the
Anglo-American,
Anglo-Canadian,
Anglo-Australian and presumably also the
Anglo-New Zealander ethnic groups). The sixth or Australo-American sub-race will "possess certain
psychic powers, and for this the
pituitary body will be developed, thus giving an additional sense, that of cognising
astral emotions in the ordinary waking consciousness. We may say that in general the sixth sub-race will bring in wisdom and intuition, blending all that is best in the intelligence of the fifth subrace and the emotion of the fourth." By that time, the world will be powered by
nuclear power and there will be a single
world government led by a person who will be the reincarnation of
Julius Caesar.
California west of the
San Andreas Fault will break off from the mainland of North America and become the
Island of California off the eastern coast of the new continent.
The seventh root race The seventh root race will arise from the seventh subrace of the sixth root race on the future continent that the sixth root race will be living on that will arise from the Pacific Ocean. ==Migration to Mercury==