Root races are believed to be stages in human evolution in the esoteric cosmology, existed mainly on now-lost continents. Some theosophical writers, attempting to reconcile current geological science with some earlier theosophical teachings, have equated Lemuria and other hypothetical continents to have been parts of the former supercontinent of Gondwana. Early theosophical teachings agree Gondwanaland to have consisted of parts of the present continents in their present positions, but joined to one another by other lands that have since been submerged. The first root race was "ethereal"(cloud-like or hazes), i.e. they were composed of etheric matter. They reproduced by dividing like an amoeba. Earth was still cooling at that time. Their height is likely to have been 150-200 meters tall. If we follow this point of view, we will have to admit the first mountain to arise out of the stormy primeval ocean on the Earth to have been Mount Meru.
HYPERBOREA
The theosophists state the second root race to have lived in Hyperborea. The second root race is supposed to have been colored golden yellow. Hyperborea included what is now Northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Northern Asia (that is, Northern Russia) and Kamchatka. Had we been living at that mysterious time, we would possibly have felt the climate be tropical there, because the Earth had not yet developed an axial tilt, and would have found out the hyperboreans to reproduce by budding, to be bi-gendered and to have 2 heads, 4 arms and 4 legs, if we were the adherents of this theory. In Greek mythology the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who are supposed to have lived far to the north of Thrace. The Greeks thought Boreas, the North Wind, to have lived in Thrace, and that therefore Hyperborea was an unspecified continent in the northern lands that lay beyond the north wind. Their land, called Hyperborea or Hyperboria "beyond the Boreas" was a perfect land, with the sun shining twenty-four hours a day, which to modern ears suggests a possible location within the Arctic Circle.
LEMURIA
Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The third root race, the Lemurian, was black and lived in Lemuria. Its last remnants are the Australian continent, the island of New Guinea, and the island of Madagascar.
According to traditional Theosophy, the Lemurian root race began 341/2 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 concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography; however, the concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern theories of plate tectonics. Although sunken continents do exist like Zealandia in the Pacific and the Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean. Though Lemuria is no longer considered a valid scientific hypothesis, it has been adopted by writers involved in the occult, as well as some Tamil writers of India. Accounts of Lemuria differ, but all share a common belief that a continent existed in ancient times and sank beneath the ocean as a result of a geological, often cataclysmic, change, such as pole shift. Within Blavatsky's complex cosmology, which is supposed to include seven "Root Races", Lemuria was occupied by the "Third Root Race". Had we hypothetically lived in that prehistoric period, we would have been able to describe the Lemurians to be about 7 feet (2.1 m) tall, sexually hermaphroditic, egg-laying, mentally undeveloped and spiritually more pure than the following "Root Races". Before the coming of the Lemurians, the second "Root Race" is said to have dwelled in Hyperborea. After the subsequent creation of mammals, Mme Blavatsky revealed to her readers some Lemurians to have turned to bestiality. The gods, aghast at the behavior of these "mindless" men, sank Lemuria into the ocean and created a "Fourth Root Race" endowed with intellect on Atlantis.
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ATLANTIS
Atlantis (in Greek, "island of Atlas") is a legendary island or even a continent, first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC. The fourth root race, the Atlantean, according to Theosophy arose approximately 4,500,000 years ago in Africa from the fourth subrace of the Lemurians in a part of Africa that had been colonized by that subrace. The Atlantean root race had Mongolian features; they began with golden brown 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. Plato believed the continent of Atlantis to represent a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune". Some of modern esoteric writers consider the Atlantes to have been the descendents of the lemurians and to have fought with their ancestors.
THE ARYAN RACE
The Aryan root race was 1,000,000 years old, beginning to create the Aryan race before the final cataclysms of the Atlantes. 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 adherents of this theory believe those people to have settled on the present lands of modern Europe and Asia.
