Root race

Root race

In theosophy, Root Race (or Epochs to subsequent authors) is a term first used in the late 19th century by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in her book "The Secret Doctrine". The word designates the large time periods in her esoteric cosmology and relates also to supposed stages in human evolution.

In the early 20th century, Max Heindel in his book "The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception" furthered a similar line of thought related to humanity's development toward a future "sixth epoch".

Since the 1930s, the "Ascended Master Teachings" and various new age descendants and offshoots of theosophy refer to the 21st century as the time of the incarnation of the seventh root race. However, students of esoteric traditions see this century as a reference to the seventh sub-race of the current fifth root race.

Root Races, Epochs and sub-races

According to Blavatsky's writings, there are seven root races assembled for our Earth, 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 asserted humanity was presently in the fifth root race, the so-called Aryans, approximately one million years old. It overlapped the fourth root race, and the first beginnings of the fifth root race were approximately in the middle of the fourth root race. Generally speaking, all the people 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." [H. Blavatsky, "The Secret Doctrine" vol.II, pp.195-6]

Locations of the proposed former continents

Some theosophical writers, attempting to reconcile current geological science with theosophical dogma, have tried to equate Lemuria with the former supercontinent of Gondwanaland. Early theosophical teachings, however, agree with the original statements of Eduard Suess, 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.

"Atlantis", in this particular cosmology, was an immense continental system that more or less covered the face of the globe, its main centre being located in what is now the Atlantic Ocean. The large continent of Atlantis is said to have "first divided, and 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 islands of Ireland and Britain, 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 is explained by claiming successive disturbances in the axial rotation.

Fifth and sixth root races

The claimed "subraces" of the Aryan Fifth Root Race include the Hindu, the Persian, the Egyptian (though Blavatsky sometimes seemed 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 used the term "Earth Epochs" instead of "Root Races" to describe spans of time similar to those in Blavatsky's model. He used "Cultural Epochs" to refer to what Blavatsky calls Aryan "sub-races". He did this to avoid any potential misunderstandings caused by the application of the word "race" to beings existing over such large time periods. [Hindes, Daniel, " [http://www.defendingsteiner.com/misconceptions/r-race.php#_ftnref9 Root Races in Theosophy and Antroposophy] ", 2005]

Modern writers within theosophy or influenced by theosophy defend Blavatsky's use of the terms Aryan race and root race as "not connected to demagogic ideas." They say that the classification of humanity into races is still practised today and that Blavatsky and subsequent esoteric philosophers who expressed similar lines of thought intended a Universal Brotherhood of humanity. Blavatsky 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] However, 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 (The Chinese, Africans, &c.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols; all the modern Hindu writings do". ["The Secret Doctrine".] Blavatsky also called 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"]

References


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