ROOTRACE 1
Polarians

1st Root Race. The first root race did not have physical bodies, and their mind-principle was not functioning, hence were called AMĀNASA, without mind. Manas, or mind, was only awakened in the third root race by the MĀNASAPUTRAS. This primeval race was created out of the astral bodies of the Lunar Pitris or Barhishads, and hence were shadows, or chhāyas. For this reason it is also called Bhūta, or phantom. The first race was sexless and reproduced through fission. It developed the faculty of hearing. Its continent is called Ādi-Varsa, the Imperishable Sacred Land which is the only continent “whose destiny it is to last from the beginning to the end of the Manvantara through each Round” (SD II:6).

The First Root-Race is a Theosophical concept described by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine and other writings. It was the first evolutionary cycle of humanity on Earth, in the fourth Round. It was constituted of sexless ethereal beings devoid of understanding, language, or any cognitive activity. They were produced by the Barhishad Pitris, who emanated ethereal forms from themselves. They are called the "Self-born" and the "Chaya Race," chāyā being a Sanskrit word that means "image or shadow." These forms were overshadowed by human Monads. According to H. P. Blavatsky, this Race developed on seven separate regions of an island positioned where the north pole is now, which is frequently referred to as the "Imperishable Sacred Island."

This Race was produced by the Barhishad Pitris. They projected an ethereal doubles, which became the vehicles for the human Monads:

The Pitris shoot out from their ethereal bodies, still more ethereal and shadowy similitudes of themselves, or what we should now call “doubles,” or “astral forms,” in their own likeness. This furnishes the Monad with its first dwelling, and blind matter with a model around and upon which to build henceforth. But Man is still incomplete.[1]

The Dhyanis (Pitris) are those who have evolved their Bhuta (doubles) from themselves, which Rupa (form) has become the vehicle of monads (seventh and sixth principles) that had completed their cycle of transmigration in the three preceding Kalpas (Rounds). Then, they (the astral doubles) became the men of the first Human Race of the Round. But they were not complete, and were senseless.[2]

Thus, the first Race of humans was ethereal, not physical.

The Secret Doctrine postulates a polygenistic theory for human origins. The Pitris projected their doubles on seven different parts of the first continent which, according to H. P. Blavatsky, was an island where now lies the north pole:

The evolution of the First Race (from the bodies of the pitars) took place on seven distinctly separated regions of the (then) only Earth at the arctic pole.[3]

On these different regions incarnated seven groups of humans with different classes of Monads. The Stanzas of Dzyan state:

13. They (the Moon-gods) went, each on his allotted land: seven of them, each on his lot.

14. The Seven Hosts, the “Will (or Mind)-Born” Lords, Propelled by the Spirit of Life-Giving (Fohat), separate men from themselves, each on his own Zone.

15. Seven times Seven Shadows (chhayas) of Future Men (or Amanasas) were (thus) Born, each of his own colour (complexion) and kind. Each (also) inferior to his Father (creator). The Fathers, the Boneless, could give no Life to Beings with Bones. Their Progeny were Bhuta (phantoms) with neither Form nor Mind, Therefore they were called the Chhaya (image or shadow) Race.[4]

Blavatsky elaborates:

The Secret teachings show the divine Progenitors creating men on seven portions of the globe “each on his lot”—i.e., each a different race of men externally and internally, and on different zones.[5]

Because the Barhishad Pitris are unable to awaken the manasic Principle in the forms, this race was like an empty shell, devoid of intelligence:

We find primeval man, issued from the bodies of his spiritually fireless progenitors, described as aëriform, devoid of compactness, and Mindless. He had no middle principle to serve him as a medium between the highest and the lowest, the spiritual man and the physical brain, for he lacked Manas. The Monads which incarnated in those empty Shells, remained as unconscious as when separated from their previous incomplete forms and vehicles.[6]

A commentary to the Stanzas states:

The First Race, the “Self-born,” which are the (astral) shadows of their Progenitors. The body was devoid of all understanding (mind, intelligence, and will). The inner being (the higher self or Monad), though within the earthly frame, was unconnected with it. The link, the Manas, was not there as yet.[7]

The Imperishable Sacred Land
The name chosen for this continent, Blavatsky explains, is due to the following:

The reasons for this name are explained as follows: This “Sacred Land”—of which more later on—is stated never to have shared the fate of the other continents; because it is the only one whose destiny it is to last from the beginning to the end of the Manvantara throughout each Round. It is the cradle of the first man and the dwelling of the last divine mortal, chosen as a Sishta for the future seed of humanity. Of this mysterious and sacred land very little can be said, except, perhaps, according to a poetical expression in one of the Commentaries, that the “pole-star has its watchful eye upon it, from the dawn to the close of the twilight of ‘a day’ of the GREAT BREATH.[8]

Birth and death
The origin of this ethereal Race (frequently called the "self-born") was asexual, and the Race itself was sexless, with no distinction between males and females:

Chhaya-birth, or that primeval mode of sexless procreation, the first Race having oozed out, so to say, from the bodies of the Pitris.[9]

Stanza V.21 says: "The outer of the first became the inner of the second." This means that the first Race did not die, but just became the Second Root-Race when the time came. Blavatsky explains it as follows:

The old (primitive) Race merged in the second race, and became one with it.
This is the mysterious process of transformation and evolution of mankind. The material of the first forms—shadowy, ethereal, and negative—was drawn or absorbed into, and thus became the complement of the forms of the Second Race. The Commentary explains this by saying that, as the First Race was simply composed of the astral shadows of the creative progenitors, having of course neither astral nor physical bodies of their own—this Race never died. Its “men” melted gradually away, becoming absorbed in the bodies of their own “sweat-born” progeny, more solid than their own. The old form vanished and was absorbed by, disappeared in, the new form, more human and physical. There was no death in those days of a period more blissful than the Golden Age; but the first, or parent material was used for the formation of the new being, to form the body and even the inner or lower principles or bodies of the progeny.[10]

The second, Hyperborean, race also did not have physical bodies. They reproduced by budding, and developed the sense of touch. The later second race is also called the “Sweat-Born,” because they reproduced by exuding vital fluid which coalesced into an egg-shaped ball, which served as an outside vehicle for a fetus and child. The Hyperboreans were located in a continent near the North Pole comprising the present Northern Asia.

The Second Root-Race, also known as the "Sweat-born," was composed of heterogeneous, gigantic semi-human monsters, representing the early attempts of material nature at forming human bodies. This race was endowed with the first primitive spark of intelligence by the preservers (Râkshasas) and the incarnating gods (Asuras and the Kumaras). The Second Root-Race was more ethereal and less human than the later races, and they were eventually destroyed by cataclysmic events such as the displacement of great waters and changing ocean beds. They were devoid of the intellectual brain element, as they were on the descending arc of the evolutionary cycle.

The “HYPERBOREAN” will be the name chosen for the Second Continent, the land which stretched out its promontories southward and westward from the North Pole to receive the Second Race, and comprised the whole of what is now known as Northern Asia. Such was the name given by the oldest Greeks to the far-off and mysterious region, whither their tradition made Apollo the “Hyperborean” travel every year. Astronomically, Apollo is of course the Sun, who, abandoning his Hellenic sanctuaries, loved to visit annually his far-away country, where the Sun was said never to set for one half of the year.
But historically, or better, perhaps, ethnologically and geologically, the meaning is different. The land of the Hyperboreans, the country that extended beyond Boreas, the frozen-hearted god of snows and hurricanes, who loved to slumber heavily on the chain of Mount Riphaeus, was neither an ideal country, as surmised by the mythologists, nor yet a land in the neighbourhood of Scythia and the Danube. It was a real Continent, a bonâ-fide land which knew no winter in those early days, nor have its sorry remains more than one night and day during the year, even now. The nocturnal shadows never fall upon it, said the Greeks; for it is the land of the Gods, the favourite abode of Apollo, the god of light, and its inhabitants are his beloved priests and servants. This may be regarded as poetised fiction now; but it was poetised truth then.[1]

ROOTRACE 2
Hyperboreans

Often referred to as the Lemurian race, this race had three stages: (1) the Sweat-Born, which it inherited from the second race; (2) androgynous humans, or “Egg-born;” and (3) the development of the two sexes and their separation. The Secret Doctrine states that the separation of the sexes occurred eighteen million years ago, during its fifth subrace. This is often referred to as “the FALL of Man,” or the first fall.

The Lemurians built huge cities out of stone and lava. The first large cities appeared in the area of what is now Madagascar.

The most significant event during the midpoint of the third root race was the awakening of the Mind Principle, also called “the Coming of the Mānasaputras.” The Mānasaputras were advanced beings who had passed through the human stage in previous Manvantaras, acquiring the full capacity of the mind. They had full knowledge of Kriyaśakti, or the power of the will. They were the ones who activated the Mind-Principle of the third race humans. It is in this connection that we come to the second fall, or the “Fall of the Angels,” due to the disobedience of the Mānasaputras in giving intelligence to man. It is equivalent to the eating of the fruit of “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2.8, 2.17).

The third root race developed the sense of sight, and this went through three stages: (1) the early third race humans had only one eye and were hermaphrodites; (2) then they passed through a stage where they had three eyes, the third being at the back of the head; (3) the third eye lost its power and petrified (or ossified), and our present pineal gland is its remnant.

The Lemurian continents had two portions: the northern part covered a vast area in the Pacific and Indian Ocean through the Atlantic up to Norway. Its southern part covered the foot of the Himalayas down to the Antarctic Circle.

The Third Root-Race, often referred to as the "Lemurian Race," marks a significant phase in the esoteric history of humanity, characterized by profound evolutionary changes in both physical form and modes of reproduction. This race is also considered one of the most mysterious and pivotal in the development of human consciousness and mind. This Root-Race underwent several stages of development, each marked by distinct changes in physiology and reproduction.

In the early phases, the Third Root-Race was almost sexless, gradually becoming bisexual or androgynous. This transformation was not abrupt but occurred over countless generations. The beings of this race were initially "sweat-born," a form of asexual reproduction where offspring emerged from the pores of the parent body. As the race evolved, it became androgynous, meaning individuals possessed both male and female characteristics. The mode of reproduction shifted to an egg-bearing process, which eventually gave rise to unisexual creatures, thus developing the differentiation of sexes. Once this Root-Race separated into distinct male and female sexes, it began to reproduce sexually, which allowed for greater genetic diversity and adaptability.

The physical evolution of the Third Root-Race's was not limited to reproductive changes; it also involved other significant transformations. Initially, the race was more ethereal and less dense, but as it progressed, the beings became more material and solidified in form. This densification was necessary to support the new mode of sexual reproduction.

Alongside physical changes, the Third Root-Race also experienced significant intellectual development. The race was endowed with the first primitive spark of intelligence by the incarnating gods, such as the Asuras and the Kumaras. This infusion of intelligence marked the beginning of self-awareness and the development of individual consciousness. The initial stages of the race were marked by a high degree of spiritual awareness and psychic abilities, which gradually declined as the race became more material.

Mme. Blavatsky wrote:

Now compare the evolution of the Races, the First and the Second of which are of the nature of Atma-Buddhi, their passive Spiritual progeny, and the Third Root-Race shows three distinct divisions or aspects physiologically and psychically: the earliest, sinless the middle portions awakening to intelligence; and the third and last decidedly animal: i.e., Manas succumbs to the temptations of Kama.[1]

Mahatma K.H. said that some of the more primitive populations today are "side-shoots" of the third Root-Race:

The Australian, the Esquimaux, the Bushmen, the Veddahs, etc., are all side-shooting branchlets of that Branch which you call "cave-men" — the third race.[2]

However, in the height of its cycle, the Third Root-Race developed great civilizations. In the words to the same Master:

Greek and Roman and even Egyptian civilization are nothing compared to the civilizations that began with the 3rd race.[3]

Lemuria
The continent in which this Root-Race lived is called Lemuria:

The third Continent, we propose to call “Lemuria.” The name is an invention, or an idea, of Mr. P. L. Sclater, who asserted, between 1850 and 1860, on zoological grounds the actual existence, in prehistoric times, of a Continent which he showed to have extended from Madagascar to Ceylon and Sumatra. It included some portions of what is now Africa; but otherwise this gigantic Continent, which stretched from the Indian ocean to Australia, has now wholly disappeared beneath the waters of the Pacific, leaving here and there only some of its highland tops which are now islands. Mr. A. R. Wallace, the naturalist, extends the Australia of tertiary periods to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and perhaps to Fiji;” and from its Marsupial types infers “a connection with the Northern Continent during the Secondary period,” writes Mr. C. Gould in “Mythical Monsters,” p. 47.[4]

Lemuria can no more be confounded with the Atlantic Continent [Atlantis] than Europe with America. Both sunk and were drowned with their high civilizations and "gods," yet between the two catastrophes, a short period of about 700,000 years elapsed; "Lemuria" flourishing and ending her career just at about that trifling lapse of time before the early part of the Eocene Age, since its race was the third. Behold, the relics of that once great nation in some of the flat headed aborigines of your Australia![5]

Cities
The Stanzas of Dzyan state:

They (the Lemurians) built huge cities. Of rare earths and metals they built. Out of the fires (lava) vomited. Out of the white stone of the mountains (marble) and the black stone (of the subterranean fires) they cut their own images, in their size and likeness, and worshipped them.[6]

Blavatsky elaborates explaining:

We find the Lemurians in their sixth sub-race building their first rock-cities out of stone and lava. One of such great cities of primitive structure was built entirely of lava, some thirty miles west from where Easter Island now stretches its narrow piece of sterile ground, and was entirely destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions. The oldest remains of Cyclopean buildings were all the handiwork of the Lemurians of the last sub-races; and an occultist shows, therefore, no wonder on learning that the stone relics found on the small piece of land called Easter Island by Captain Cook, are “very much like the walls of the Temple of Pachacamac or the Ruins of Tia-Huanuco in Peru,” (“The Countries of the World,” by Robert Brown, Vol. 4, p. 43); and that they are in the CYCLOPEAN STYLE. The first large cities, however, appeared on that region of the continent which is now known as the island of Madagascar.[7]

ROOTRACE 3
Lemuria

The fourth, or Atlantean race, was developed from a nucleus of Northern Lemurian third race human beings. They developed the fourth sense, that of taste, as well as the full development of the two eyes. The Secret Doctrine states that the greatest development of the physical body reached its peak two million years ago, at the midpoint of the fourth root race.

This race also developed speech, which was not necessary during the earlier stages because communication was made through thought-transference. Language was first developed in monosyllables, followed by agglutinative languages, and then by inflectional language, which is the root of present Sanskrit.

Then the fourth race became tall with pride. They mated with “the mindless, the narrow-headed” which bred monsters. They practiced sorcery and became wicked. Then followed the deluge which eventually destroyed the Atlantean civilization. The Secret Doctrine estimates that this was 850,000 years ago, or 200,000 years after the commencement of the Fifth Root Race. According to Solon and Plato, the last remnant of Atlantis, located in what is now the Atlantic Ocean, perished 9,000 years before their time.

The Secret Doctrine states, “The present yellow races are the descendants . . . of the early branches of the Fourth Race. Of the third, the only pure and direct descendants are . . . a portion of the fallen and degenerated Australians, whose far-distant ancestors belonged to a division of the seventh Sub-race of the Third. The rest are of mixed Lemuro-Atlantean descent. They have since then entirely changed in stature and intellectual capacities” (SD II:199 fn.).

Fourth Root-Race is a Theosophical concept described by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine and other writings.

The Fourth Root-Race was the human evolutionary cycle (or Root-Race) that directly preceded our own. According to H. P. Blavatsky, the ancestral memory of this civilization is the origin of the "myth" of Atlantis. The Atlantean civilization, she claimed, developed for a few millions of years on a large continent which is now submerged in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

In Theosophical literature, the fourth Root-Race is presented as the first completely human species, since it was during this period that the physical body consolidated and attained its perfection. However, the Atlanteans were much larger in size than we are now, this race constituting the giants and titans mentioned in ancient scriptures. During this Root-Race the intellect developed and, along with it, speech. The Atlanteans were psychic, and their civilization was eventually destroyed due to the misuse of these powers.

Origins
Due to the fact that there is always an overlap between two successive Root-Races, the fourth began to gradually develop during the middle portion of the third, or Lemurian:

In the case of Race-evolution . . . no hard and fast line can be drawn where a new order ends and another begins. Continuity in natural processes is never broken. Thus the Fourth Race Atlanteans were developed from a nucleus of Northern Lemurian Third Race Men, centred, roughly speaking, toward a point of land in what is now the mid-Atlantic Ocean.[1]

It is important to keep in mind that the Atlantean was not a race, but a Root-Race. This means that during this evolutionary cycle many different races developed from the original nucleus or "root" separated from the Lemurian civilization:

The term “Atlantean” must not mislead the reader to regard these as one race only, or even a nation. It is as though one said “Asiatics.” Many, multityped, and various were the Atlanteans, who represented several humanities, and almost a countless number of races and nations, more varied indeed than would be the “Europeans” were this name to be given indiscriminately to the five existing parts of the world; which, at the rate colonization is proceeding, will be the case, perhaps, in less than two or three hundred years. There were brown, red, yellow, white and black Atlanteans; giants and dwarfs (as some African tribes comparatively are, even now).[2]

See also: Atlantis

Physical characteristics
During this Root-Race, the physical bodies that began to develop in the later part of the third Race proceeded now to consolidate and harden. While Lemurians had only one central eye, Atlanteans developed two additional frontal eyes as physical organs in the beginning of their Race.[3] Their bodies decreased in height when compared to that of the previous Root-Race, but were still of a gigantic stature, giving rise to the legends about cyclops and titans mentioned in many ancient traditions:

The Titans and Cyclopes of old really belonged to the Fourth (Atlantean) Race, and . . . all the subsequent legends and allegories found in the Hindu Purânas and the Greek Hesiod and Homer, were based on the hazy reminiscences of real Titans—men of a superhuman tremendous physical power, which enabled them to defend themselves, and hold at bay the gigantic monsters of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times—and of actual Cyclopes—three-eyed mortals.[4]

Even though the physical body with two separate sexes first developed with the late Lemurians, it is the fourth Root-Race that can be regarded as the first totally human species:

Strictly speaking, it is only from the time of the Atlantean, brown and yellow giant Races, that one ought to speak of MAN, since it was the Fourth race only which was the first completely human species, however much larger in size than we are now.[5]

In this Root-Race humanity attained the apex of physical development:

Then came the Atlanteans; the giants whose physical beauty and strength reached their climax, in accordance with evolutionary law, toward the middle period of their fourth sub-race.[6]

Atlanteans still possessed a third eye, developed during the third Root-Race, which had spiritual functions. This eye, however, was eventually lost as the races became more physically dense:

The possession of a physical third eye, we are told, was enjoyed by the men of the Third Root-Race down to nearly the middle period of Third SUB-race of the Fourth Root-Race, when the consolidation and perfection of the human frame made it disappear from the outward anatomy of man. Psychically and spiritually, however, its mental and visual perceptions lasted till nearly the end of the Fourth Race, when its functions, owing to the materiality and depraved condition of mankind, died out altogether before the submersion of the bulk of the Atlantean continent.[7]

Because of the presence of this third eye, the races of the Atlantean Root-Race possessed psychic powers. Toward the end of this Root-Race the psychic powers were gravely misused, which led to the final demise of the Atlantean civilization.

Development
Languages
Lemurians did not have a language because their communication took place by psychic means. The fourth Root-Race saw a gradual growth of intellectuality and of materiality of their bodies, all of which produced a decrease in the activity of the third eye. These conditions furthered the development of speech:[8]

The agglutinative languages . . . were spoken by some [early] Atlantean races. . . . While the 'cream' of the Fourth Race gravitated more and more toward the apex of physical and intellectual evolution [and developed] the inflectional, highly developed languages, the agglutinative decayed and remained as a fragmentary fossil idiom, scattered now, and nearly limited to the aboriginal tribes of America.[9]

Atlantis, like modern Europe, comprised many nations and many dialects. . . The predominating element in Atlantis was a language which has now survived but in the dialects of some American Red-Indian tribes, and in the Chinese speech of the inland Chinamen, the mountainous tribes of Kiangsi—a language which was an admixture of the agglutinate and the monosyllabic as it would be called by modern philologists.[10]

Technology
In one of his letters, Master K.H. wrote:

The 4th race had its periods of the highest civilization. Greek and Roman and even Egyptian civilization are nothing compared to the civilizations that began with the [late] 3rd race.[11]

The Atlantean civilization accomplished remarkable achievements, among which is the development of flying vehicles called vimāna-s in the Mahabharata:

It is from the Fourth Race that the early Aryans got their knowledge of “the bundle of wonderful things,” the Sabha and Mayasabha, mentioned in the Mahabhârata, the gift of Mayâsur to the Pandavas. It is from them that they learnt aëronautics, Viwân Vidya (the “knowledge of flying in air-vehicles”), and, therefore, their great arts of meteorography and meteorology. It is from them, again, that the Aryans inherited their most valuable science of the hidden virtues of precious and other stones, of chemistry, or rather alchemy, of mineralogy, geology, physics and astronomy.[12]

Psychism
The Atlanteans, possessing a third eye, had innate psychic powers, which were eventually misused for selfish reasons. In Blavatsky's words:

[Atlanteans] were born with a sight which embraced all hidden things, and was independent of both distance and material obstacle. In short, they were the fourth race of men mentioned in the Popol-Vuh, whose sight was unlimited and who knew all things at once. They were, perhaps, what we would now term “natural-born mediums,” who neither struggled nor suffered to obtain their knowledge, nor did they acquire it at the price of any sacrifice. . . . The born adepts of the Atlantis blindly followed the insinuations of the great and invisible “Dragon,” the King Thevetat [and] became a nation of wicked magicians.[13]

It is explained in our Commentaries. “They (the sixth sub-race of the Atlanteans) used magic incantations even against the Sun”—failing in which, they cursed it. The sorcerers of Thessaly were credited with the power of calling down the moon, as Greek history assures us. The Atlanteans of the later period were renowned for their magic powers and wickedness, their ambition and defiance of the gods.[14]

According to Blavatsky, this form of "derided Magic"--

. . . was practised in such ungodly ways by the Atlantean Sorcerers that it has since become necessary for the subsequent [fifth Root] Race to draw a thick veil over the practices which were used to obtain so-called magical effects on the psychic and on the physical planes.[15]

The abuse of these powers and the actions that lead to the end of this civilization generated heavy karmic causes which humanity is still working out today. For this reason, Master K.H. wrote that Atlantis "is greatly connected with evil if not with its origin".[16]

A highly respected associate of H. P. Blavatsky, T. Subba Row, wrote,

There are all the powerful elemental gods and goddesses worshipped by the Atlanteans, and these still exist. They are most ferocious things, but they cannot be evoked easily. It is fortunate for us that they do not interfere more than they do."[17]

Demise
The Atlantean continent was destroyed by sinking into the ocean. This was a very gradual process, following the natural law that produces a change of continents for each new Root-Race. However, the last Atlantean island, Poseidonis, mentioned by Plato, was destroyed as a result of a war between Atlantean black magicians and the Adepts of the time, who were forced to intervene to stop the abuse of psychic powers. Blavatsky explains:

In consequence of this [black magic], war was declared, the story of which would be too long to narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured allegories of the race of Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his righteous family. The conflict came to an end by the submersion of the Atlantis; which finds its imitation in the stories of the Babylonian and Mosaic flood.[18]

Before this war began, those who had not fallen into abusing their powers were saved by the Adepts of the time. The Secret Doctrine narrates it as follows:

He sent his air-vehicles (Viwan) to all his brother-chiefs (chiefs of other nations and tribes) with pious men within, saying: 'Prepare. Arise ye men of the good law, and cross the land while (yet) dry.'
'The Lords of the storm are approaching. Their chariots are nearing the land. One night and two days only shall the Lords of the Dark Face (the Sorcerers) live on this patient land. She is doomed, and they have to descend with her. The nether Lords of the Fires (the Gnomes and fire Elementals) are preparing their magic Agneyastra (fire-weapons worked by magic). But the Lords of the Dark Eye ('Evil Eye') are stronger than they (the Elementals) and they are the slaves of the mighty ones. They are versed in Ashtar (Vidya, the highest magical knowledge). Come and use yours (i.e., your magic powers, in order to counteract those of the Sorcerers). Let every lord of the Dazzling Face (an adept of the White Magic) cause the Viwan of every lord of the Dark Face to come into his hands (or possession), lest any (of the Sorcerers) should by its means escape from the waters, avoid the rod of the Four, (Karmic deities) and save his wicked' (followers, or people).[19]

Thus, after the just were saved, the last Atlantean island was sunk with all the sorcerers on it, in the year 9564 BCE.[20]

ROOTRACE 4
Atlantis

The fifth race developed the sense of smell. The Secret Doctrine states that the fifth root race has been in existence for about one million years. Often referred to as the Aryan race, it has its subraces. The Europeans are its fifth subrace, while the present Americans are the germs of the sixth subrace of the fifth root race. The seventh subrace will start its preparations in 25,000 years, after which there will be cataclysms that will destroy Europe and the whole fifth root race. The race will however overlap with the 6th root race for many hundreds of thousands of years more.

Fifth Root-Race is a Theosophical concept described by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine and other writings.

Blavatsky on Fifth Root-Race
In one of the Mahatma Letters, Master K.H. writers that "the fifth race — ours — began in Asia a million years ago."[1]

Blavatsky elaborated as follows:

Now our Fifth Root-Race has already been in existence — as a race sui generis and quite free from its parent stem — about 1,000,000 years; therefore it must be inferred that each of the four preceding Sub-Races has lived approximately 210,000 years; thus each Family-Race has an average existence of about 30,000 years. Thus the European “Family Race” has still a good many thousand years to run, although the nations or the innumerable spines upon it, vary with each succeeding “season” of three or four thousand years. It is somewhat curious to mark the comparative approximation of duration between the lives of a “Family-Race” and a “Sidereal year.”[2]

The last three family races of the fourth Sub-race of the Fifth Root-race, each of which must have lived approximately from 25 to 30,000 years. The first of these (the “Aryan-Asiatics”) witnessed the doom of the last of the populations of the “giant Atlanteans” who perished some 850,000 years ago (the Ruta and Daitya Island-Continents) toward the close of the Miocene Age. The fourth sub-race witnessed the destruction of the last remnant of the Atlanteans—the Aryo-Atlanteans in the last island of Atlantis, namely, some 11,000 years ago.[3]

The Master regarded that the Indian civilization was the most evolved spiritually while the European was the one most developed on the intellectual level:

I told you before now, that the highest people now on earth (spiritually) belong to the first sub-race of the fifth root Race; and those are the Aryan Asiatics; the highest race (physical intellectuality) is the last sub-race of the fifth — yourselves the white conquerors.[4]

As stated in “Esoteric Buddhism,” the Egyptians, as well as the Greeks and “Romans” some thousand years ago, were “remnants of the Atlanto-Aryans,” i.e., the former, of the older, or the Ruta Atlanteans; the last-named, the descendants of the last race of that island, whose sudden disappearance was narrated to Solon by the Egyptian Initiates. The human Dynasty of the older Egyptians, beginning with Menes, had all the knowledge of the Atlanteans, though there was no more Atlantean blood in their veins. Nevertheless, they had preserved all their Archaic records.[5]

As to the point in the the current cycle of the fifth Root-Race, Mme. Blavatsky wrote:

Humanity is on the descending pathway of its cycle. The rear-guard of the 5th race is crossing slowly the apex of its evolution and will soon find itself having passed the turning point. And, as the descent is always more rapid than the ascent, men of the new coming (the 6th) race are beginning to drop in occasionally.[6]

As every sub-race and nation have their cycles and stages of developmental evolution repeated on a smaller scale, it must be the more so in the case of a Root-Race. Our race then has, as a Root-race, crossed the equatorial line and is cycling onward on the Spiritual side; but some of our sub-races still find themselves on the shadowy descending arc of their respective national cycles; while others again—the oldest—having crossed their crucial point, which alone decides whether a race, a nation, or a tribe will live or perish, are at the apex of spiritual development as sub-races.[7]

Eventually, the continents of the fifth Root-Race will also sink. As Master K.H. wrote:

[Such] is the future fate of your British Islands the first on the list of victims that have to be destroyed by fire (submarine volcanos) and water, France and other lands will follow suit.[8]

When your race — the fifth — will have reached at its zenith of physical intellectuality, and developed the highest civilization (remember the difference we make between material and spiritual civilizations); unable to go any higher in its own cycle — its progress towards absolute evil will be arrested (as its predecessors the Lemurians and Atlanteans, the men of the third and fourth races were arrested in their progress toward the same) by one of such cataclysmic changes; its great civilization destroyed, and all the sub-races of that race will be found going down their respective cycles, after a short period of glory and learning. See the remnants of the Atlanteans, — the old Greeks and Romans (the modern belong all to the fifth Race); see how great and how short, how evanescent were their days of fame and glory! For, they were but sub-races of the seven off-shoots of the "root race."[9]

Sixth sub-race
Occult philosophy teaches that even now, under our very eyes, the new Race and Races are preparing to be formed, and that it is in America that the transformation will take place, and has already silently commenced.

Pure Anglo-Saxons hardly three hundred years ago, the Americans of the United States have already become a nation apart, and, owing to a strong admixture of various nationalities and inter-marriage, almost a race sui generis, not only mentally, but also physically. “Every mixed race, when uniform and settled, has been able to play the part of a primary race in fresh crossings,” says de Quatrefages. “Mankind, in its present state, has thus been formed, certainly, for the greatest part, by the successive crossing of a number of races at present undetermined.” (“The Human Species,” p. 274.)

Thus the Americans have become in only three centuries a “primary race,” pro tem., before becoming a race apart, and strongly separated from all other now existing races. They are, in short, the germs of the Sixth sub-race, and in some few hundred years more, will become most decidedly the pioneers of that race which must succeed to the present European or fifth sub-race, in all its new characteristics.[10]

Continents
The Fifth Continent was America; but, as it is situated at the Antipodes, it is Europe and Asia Minor, almost coeval with it, which are generally referred to by the Indo-Aryan Occultists as the fifth. If their teaching followed the appearance of the Continents in their geological and geographical order, then this classification would have to be altered. But as the sequence of the Continents is made to follow the order of evolution of the Races, from the first to the fifth, our Aryan Root-race, Europe must be called the fifth great Continent. The Secret Doctrine takes no account of islands and peninsulas, nor does it follow the modern geographical distribution of land and sea. Since the day of its earliest teachings and the destruction of the great Atlantis, the face of the earth has changed more than once. There was a time when the delta of Egypt and Northern Africa belonged to Europe, before the formation of the Straits of Gibraltar, and a further upheaval of the continent, changed entirely the face of the map of Europe. The last serious change occurred some 12,000 years ago, and was followed by the submersion of Plato’s little Atlantic island, which he calls Atlantis after its parent continent. Geography was part of the mysteries, in days of old. Says the Zohar (iii., fol. 10a): “These secrets (of land and sea) were divulged to the men of the secret science, but not to the geographers.”[11]

The fifth continent will eventually sink, as it happened with the others in the past:

The latter [sinking] is the future fate of your British Islands, the first on the list of victims that have to be destroyed by fire (submarine volcanos) and water; France and other lands will follow suit. When they reappear again, the last seventh Sub-race of the sixth Root race of present mankind will be flourishing on “Lemuria” and “Atlantis” both of which will have reappeared also (their reappearance following immediately the disappearance of the present isles and continents), and very few seas and great waters will be found then on our globe, waters as well as land appearing and disappearing and shifting periodically and each in turn.[12]

ROOTRACE 5
Aryan

There is a prophecy in certain Asiatic old books couched in the following terms, the sense of which we may make clearer by adding to it a few words in brackets.
"And as the fourth (race) was composed of Red-yellow which faded into Brown-white (bodies), so the fifth will fade out into white-brown (the white races becoming gradually darker). The sixth and seventh Manushya (men?) will be born adults; and will know of no old age, though their years will be many. As the Krita, Treta, Dvapara and Kali (ages) have been each decreasing in excellence (physical as well as moral) so the ascending—Dvapara, Treta and Krita will be increasing in every excellence. As the life of man lasted 400 (years in the first, or Krita Yuga), 300 (years in Treta), 200 (years in Dvapara) and 100 (in the present Kali age); so in the next (the 6th Race) (the natural age of man) will be (gradually increased) 200, then 300 and 400 (in the two last yugas)".[22]

After Master K.H. stated that the British Islands, France and other lands of the fifth Root-Race were going to sink, until they reappear at the end of the sixth Root-Race:

When they reappear again, the last seventh Sub-race of the sixth Root race of present mankind will be flourishing on "Lemuria" and "Atlantis" both of which will have reappeared also (their reappearance following immediately the disappearance of the present isles and continents), and very few seas and great waters will be found then on our globe, waters as well as land appearing and disappearing and shifting periodically and each in turn.[23]

ROOTRACE 6
Aryan

By the middle of the Seventh Race, says an occult prophecy, the struggle of the two conflicting Powers (Buddhi and Kama-Manas) will have almost died out. Everything that is irredeemably sinful and wicked, cruel and destructive, will have been eliminated, and that which is found to survive will be swept away from being, owing, so to speak, to a Karmic tidal-wave in the shape of scavenger-plagues, geological convulsions and other means of destruction. The Fifth Round will bring forth a higher kind of Humanity; and, as intelligent Nature always proceeds gradually, the last Race of this Round must necessarily develop the needed materials thereof. [24]

The last seventh Race will have its Buddha as every one of its predecessors had; but, its adepts will be far higher than any of the present race, for among them will abide the future Planetary, the Dhyan Chohan whose duty it will be to instruct or "refresh the memory" of the first race of the fifth Round men after this planet's future obscuration.[25]

ROOTRACE 7
Aryan