The origin of humanity on our planet is the beginning of the third stage of the Great Cosmic Life.

       There are three evolutionary flows. The first flow is the evolution of Cosmic Spirit-Matter: this is the formation of materials. The second one is the evolution of Life and Form. It can be called the construction out of the earlier created materials. And the third flow is the evolution of humanity, the evolution of self-consciousness. It is the growth of the dwellers of the house built.

       The development of the mineral into the plant and plant into the animal is the stage of the second evolutionary flow. The passage from the animal to the human being is the beginning of a new, the third evolutionary flow.

       Humanity is the new flow of energy and consciousness of the Divine Life completely different from that flow of life which revives the kingdoms being lower than the human one. That is why the animal does not become the human being in the same way as the plant develops into the animal.

       How did that passage occur? It lasted for many millions of years. Let's listen to a legend which says how the humanity of our planet had started and has been developing.

       THE FIRST LEGEND

       The Moon Peoples the Earth

       ...Seven planetary spirits - the rulers of seven main planets - were revolving, driving their chariots around their Lord i.e. the Sun.

       The Spirit of the Earth, who rotates and guards our globe, said to the spirit of the Sun: "Lord of the Shining Face: my house is empty...send thy sons to people this wheel. Thou hast sent thy sons to the Lord of Wisdom i.e. the Mercury. Send now to thy servant the same."

       Said the Lord of the Shining Face, the Lord of the Sun: "I shall send thee a fire when thy work is commenced. Raise thy voice to other planets. Apply to thy Father, the Lord of the Lotus, for his sons... Thy people shall under the rule of the Fathers - the Lords Pitris".

       The Great Lords called the Lords of the Moon, of the airy bodies. "Bring forth men, men of your nature. Give them their forms within -  the Monads. And Mother Earth or Nature will build coverings without...."

       Moon Forefathers

       The Moon has played the largest and most important part as well in the formation of the Earth itself as in making it livable for human beings. The Monads that went through the animal stage of evolution on the Moon upon the completion of their cycle must start a new step of life on the Earth. They must start human evolution here. They were those fruits that the Moon had to pass to Earth for further development.

       The Great Lords of the Moon were of two distinct kinds: the Supreme Gods -  Lords of the Flame, called Agnishwatta and the Moon Gods - Barhishad. Agnishwatta Pitris were one step higher than Barhishads; they were on the level of the Fiery World while Barhishads were only on the level of the Subtle World.

       It happened that Barhishads or the Moon Gods obeyed to the order of Logos to create. They descended on Earth. Agnishwatta Pitris did not want to go They would not create.

       The Agnishwatta Pitris were devoid of the grosser creative fire, hence unable to create physical man. They were too divine. Yet it is they alone who could complete the man, i.e. make him self-conscious, give him an embryo of mind, the embryo of the ability to think.

       The Barhishad, being on a level with the Subtle World, could only give birth to the subtle body - the prototype of the physical body.

       Origin of the First Race of Humanity

       The evolution of humanity on our globe has a septenery subdivision. The life cycle of humanity is divided into seven human races called the Root Races. They appear successively one after another. Also seven sub-races successively appear in each Root Race.

       The First Root Race, that is, the first "People" on Earth, were the descendants of the Moon forefathers or Pitris. Barhishads issued their subtle bodies out themselves and became the creators of the "Subtle'' forms of human beings. Nature built the ethereal forms around those subtle ones. Thus the Forefathers of the human being - Pitris or Fathers - are our primeval personalities. We are them.

       The higher Pitris or Agnishwatta had no hand in that physical creation. The First Race did not receive that sacred spark which bums and expands into the flame of human reason and self-consciousness. Barhishad Pitris could only create, or rather clothe, the human Monads with their own astral Selves with its bestial instincts. They could give only what they had in their own nature, and no more. The Moon Gods could only project out of themselves shadowy men.

       The primeval man, issued from the bodies of his Progenitors, has been described as airiform, devoid of compactness. The Monads which incarnated in those empty shells remained unconscious. The primeval man could stand, walk, run, fly. Yet he was still but a shadow with no sense.

       The First creators were the Pygmalions of primeval man: they failed to animate the statue - intellectually. For in order to complete the septenery man, in order to add to his lower bodies and join them with the Spiritual Monad the connecting Principle is needed. Living Fire was needed, that fire which gives the human mind its self-perception and self-consciousness, or Manas, the body of thought.

       The Evolution of the Second Race

       The Second Race developed from the First one. It was formed from the First by budding and expansion.

       The primeval way of reproduction by means of which the Second Race originated from the First One was going in the following way: The ethereal form clothing the Monad was surrounded, as it still is, by its egg-shaped sphere of aura. This germ grows and feeds on the aura till it becomes fully developed, when it gradually separates from its parent, carrying with it own sphere of aura.

       The First Race became the Second Root Race without begetting or creating it. As the First Race was simply composed of the ethereal shadows of the creative progenitors, having of course neither astral nor physical bodies of their own, this Race never died. Instead of dying it disappeared in the Second Race just as some lower forms of life transform into their own progeny. Its "men" melted away gradually, becoming absorbed in the bodies of their own "sweat-born" progeny, more solid than their own. The material of the first forms - shadowy, ethereal - was drawn or absorbed into, and thus became the complement of the forms of the Second Race. The first, or parent material was used for the formation of the new being, to form the body of the progeny.

       The first sub-races of the Second Race were born by the process described above; while the last began gradually with the evolution of the human body, to be formed otherwise. The later Second Root Race were the "Sweat-Born". The two and a half Races may have lived 300,000,000 years ago. The first Races has nothing to do with climate, nor were they subservient to any temperature or change therein. Such terrestrial conditions as were then operative had no touch with the plane on which the evolution of the ethereal astral races proceeded. The geological and physical difficulties could not exist for the primeval, ethereal man.

       The being which became primitive Man could well remain impervious to any state of atmospheric conditions around him. The primitive ancestor could act and live with equal ease under ground and water as upon the Earth.

       THE SECOND LEGEND. THE MYTH OF LEMUWA

       The Beginning of the Third Race

       The First Race has created the Second by "budding"; the Second "Sweat-Born" Race gives birth to the Third Root Race by an analogous, but more complicated process. The Second evolved the Sweat-Born, the Third Race. The sweat grew, its drops grew, and the drops became hard and round like big eggs which served as an extraneous vehicle for the generation therein of a foetus and child. The small spheroidal nuclei developing into a large soft, egg-like vehicle, gradually hardened, when, after a period of gestation, it bore and the young human animal issued from it unaided, as the fowls do in our race. In this, human foetus gestated for several years. After a period of gestation, it broke and the young human animal issued from it unaided, as the fowls do in our race.

       At the beginning of the Third Race the Sons of Wisdom, ready for re-birth as Egos of the human monads, came down on Earth. They saw the (intellectually) vile forms of the first people of the Third Race. They rejected the Sweat-Born. They spurned the First Sweat-Born. They are not ready. The Sons of Wisdom would not enter the First egg-born.

       "We can choose," said the Lords of Wisdom. The incarnating powers chose the ripest fruits and spurned the rest. Some entered the Chhayas, some projected a spark, some deferred till the Fourth Race. Those who entered Chhayas became the Arhats with time. Those who received but a spark remained destitute of higher Knowledge. The spark burnt low. The third remained mindless. Their Monads were not ready They became the narrow-headed.

       The Separation of Sexes

       Before the middle of the Third Race the animals were also ethereal proto-organisms, just as man was.

       As time passed the bodies of animals became denser. As well as the forms of the antediluvian animals evolved and propagated.

       Dragons of the deep and flying serpents were added to the creeping things. They that crept on the ground got wings. They of the long necks in the water, became the progenitors of the fowls of the air. Thus the Pterodactyl and the Plesiosaurus were the contemporary of man till the end of the Third Race. The mammals were the hermaphrodites at first - all the living and creeping things, giant-fish, birds, and serpents with shell-heads. Then the separation of sexes occurred: animals separated into males and females. They began to breed.

       After the animals got the bodies and separated, humanity began to separate too. Almost sexless, in its early beginnings, the Third Race became bisexual or androgynous; very gradually of course. Only after a long period of time did the Third Race separate into two distinct.

       The passage from the former to the latter transformation required numberless generations, during which the simple cell that issued from the earliest parent (the two in one), first developed into a bisexual being; and then the cell, becoming a regular egg. (The man bearing) eggs began to give birth gradually and almost imperceptibly in their evolutionary development, first, to beings in which one sex predominated over the other, and, finally, to distinct men and women.

       The units of the Third Race began to separate in their pre-natal shells, or eggs, and to issue out of them as distinct male and female babes. And as time rolled on its geological periods, the newly born sub-races began to lose their natal capacities. Toward the end of the fourth sub-race of the Third Race, the babe lost its faculty of walking as soon as liberated from its shell, and by the end of the fifth, mankind was born under the same conditions, and by the same identical process as our historical generations. This required, of course, millions of years.

       After separation of sexes and establishment of reproduction through the sexual intercourse the Third Race cognized death. People of the first two Races did not die but dissolved and disappeared, being absorbed by their own progeny. Like phoenix the primeval man resurrected from his old body into the new one. With each new generation he became denser and physically more perfect. Death appeared only when the man became a physical creature. Death came with completion of the physical organism.

       All those transformations - the separation of people into two different sexes and creation of the physical man ''with bones" -  occurred in the middle of the Third Race 18 million years ago.

       The First Fall

       After separation of sexes the Third Race created no longer: it begot its progeny. Being still mindless at the period of separation it begot, moreover, anomalous off spring. Those which had no spark, the "narrow-brained", took huge she-animals unto them. Monsters they bred. A race of crooked, redhair-covered monsters, going on all fours.

       At that period men were different, even physiologically, from what they are now. The "huge she-animals" were as different from any we know, as were the men. The "primeval man" was man only in external form. He was mindless and soulless as the time he begot, with a female animal monster, the forefather of a series of apes. The ancestors of the present anthropoid animal, the ape, is the direct production of the yet mindless Man who desecrated his human dignity by putting himself physically on the level of an animal. The "Sons of Wisdom" had warned them to leave alone the fruit forbidden by Nature. The kings and Lords of the Third and the Fourth Races placed the seal of prohibition upon the sinful intercourse. But the warning proved of no value. Men realise the unfitness of what they had done, only when it was too late: after the angelic monads from higher spheres had incarnated in, and endowed them with understanding.

       Endowing of the Man with Mind

       Every world has its Mother Star and a Sister Planet. Thus Earth is an adopted child and a little sister of Venus though its inhabitants belong to their own kind.

       Since Venus has no satellites then it has adopted the Earth - an offspring of the Moon. The Ruler of Venus has loved his adopted child so much that He incarnated on Earth and gave it the perfect laws. In the latest centuries those laws were found in neglect and they even were rejected.

       Planet Venus, the herald of the dawn and twilight, the most radiant, the most sacred, powerful and mysterious planet among all the planets Venus receives twice as more warm than light from the Sun than the Earth. It is a "little sun" where sunny warmth stores its Light. It gives one third of that store to Earth and leaves two thirds of it to itself.

       The evolution of Venus is ahead of the earthly one for the whole step. "Humanity" of Venus is the next higher step comparatively to the Earthly humanity. "People" of Venus are the spiritual prototypes of ours and the Lord of Venus is a Spiritual Keeper of our planet.

       The Third Race of our earthly humanity was under the direct influence of Venus. In the middle of the evolution of the Third Race the representatives of highly developed humanity of Venus came to our Earth. Those were "the Sons of Wisdom" (Manas-Putra), Light Beings who were mentioned as "the Sons of Fire" because of their sparkling appearance. They settled on Earth as the Divine Teachers of a young humanity. Some of the "Sons of Wisdom" acted as the carriers of the third wave of Life of Logos, bringing a spark of the monadic life into the bestial man. The Mind or Manas was formed out of that spark. The Ray of the Divine Mind illuminated the sphere of so far sleeping human mind. And the rudimental Manas was found impregnated. The result of that junction was the rudimental "fiery body" of a man. Thus the individualization of the spirit occurred, the involution of the spirit into a form. And that spirit, enclosed in the fiery body, is a soul, the individual, the true man. This is the hour of birth of the man. For though his essence is eternal, it is neither born nor it dies; his birth as an individual is quite fixed in time. Human soul, created "after the Divine Image", has started its evolution.

       The Continent and People of the Third Race

       At the time when the Third Race lived, that is 18 million years ago, the distribution of the land and sea on Earth was quite different from now. The most part of the present land was under water at that time. There was, nevertheless, neither Africa nor Americas, still less Europe in those days, all these slumbering yet on the Ocean floors. Nor was there much of present Asia; for the cis-Himalayan regions were covered with seas, and beyond this stretched the countries now called Greenland, Eastern and Western Siberia, etc., etc.

       The giant mainland stretched along the equator covering the major part of the present Pacific and Indian oceans. This continent covered the whole area of space from the foot of the Himalayas, which separated it from the inland sea rolling its waves over what is now Tibet, Mongolia, and the great desert of Schamo (Gobi), from Chittagong, westward to Hardwar, and eastward to Assam. From thence, it stretched South, across what is known to us as Southern India, Ceylon and Sumatra; then embracing on its way, as we go south, Madagascar on its right hand and Australia and Tasmania on its left, it ran down to within a few degrees of the Antarctic Circle; when from Australia, an inland region on the Mother Continent in those ages, it extended far into the Pacific Ocean, not only beyond Rapa-nui (or Easter Island). Besides a part of the continent extended round "South Africa", through the Atlantic up to Norway.

       This continent of the Third Race is called Lemuria now. The earliest humanity was the race of giants. The first Lemurians were 18 metres high. Men went on steadily decreasing in stature with each next subrace and finally, some millions of years after, they reached six metres.

       Statues raised by the Lemurians in scales of their own stature are witness to their height. Most of the gigantic statues discovered on Easter Island, a portion of the submerged continent of Lemuria, are all between 6 and 9 metres high. The Easter Island relics are the most astounding and eloquent memorials of the primeval giants. They are as grand as they are mysterious; and one has but to examine the heads of the colossal statues, that have remained unbroken on that island, to recognize through them, at a glance, the features of the type and character attributed to the Fourth Race giants. They seem of one cast though different in features - that of a distinctly sensual type.

       The Lemurians were of super-human tremendous physical power, which enabled them to defend themselves, and hold at bay the gigantic monsters of the Mesozoic and Cainozoic times. Weird and terrible animals were co-existent with man, most probably attacked man, as man attacked them

       Being surrounded in Nature with such monstrous creatures man could survive only because he was a colossal giant himself.

       The Civilization of the Lemurian

       When the Third Race separated and fell into sin by breeding men-animals, these animals became ferocious, and men and they mutually destructive. Till then, there was no sin, no life taken.

       After the separation the bliss of the first races came to its end. The eternal spring became constant change and seasons succeeded. Man could live no longer in the first land (the Eden of the First Races), which had turned into a white frozen corpus. Cold forced men to build shelters and devise clothing. Then men appealed to the superior Fathers (the higher gods). The wise serpents and Dragons of Light came, and so did the precursors of the Enlightened (Buddhas). They descended and taught men sciences and arts.

       At the dawn of his consciousness, the man of the Third Root Race had thus no beliefs that could be called religion. That is to say, he was ignorant of any system of faith or outward worship.

       But if the term is to be defined as the binding together of the masses in one form of reverence paid to those we feel higher than ourselves, of piety - as a feeling expressed by a child toward a loved parent - even the earliest Lemurians had a religion - and the most beautiful one - from the very beginning of their intellectual life. Were not their bright gods around them, and even within themselves? Was not their childhood passed with, nursed and tendered by those who had given them life and called them forth to intelligent, conscious life? It was the "Golden Age" in those days of old, the age when the "gods walked the earth, and mixed freely with the mortals" Since then, the gods departed (". e., became invisible). The Gods, in the beginning of times, were the rulers of mankind. When incarnated as kings of the "Divine Dynasties", they gave the first impulse to civilizations, and directed the mind with which they had endowed men to the invention and perfection of all the arts and sciences. They have appeared as the benefactors of men.

       Fire by friction was the first mystery of nature, the first and chief property of matter that was revealed to man Fruits and grain, unknown to Earth to that day were brought by the "Lords of Wisdom" for the benefit of those they ruled - from other Planets. Thus, wheat is not a product of the earth. It has never been found in the wild state.

       It is with the advent of the Divine Dynasties that the first civilizations were started. And while, in some regions of the Earth, a portion of mankind preferred leading a nomadic and patriarchal life, and in others savage man was hardly learning to build a fire and to protect himself against the Elements, his brothers - helped by the divine intelligence which informed them - built cities, and cultivated arts and sciences. Nevertheless, and civilization notwithstanding, while their pastoral brethren enjoyed wondrous powers as their bright light, they, the builders, could now obtain theirs only gradually. Civilization has ever developed the physical and the intellectual at the cost of the psychic and spiritual. The command and the guidance over his own psychic nature were in case of early Humanity innate and congenital, and came to man as naturally as walking and thinking.

       The civilized people of the Third Race, under the guidance of their divine Rulers, built large cities, cultivated arts and sciences, and knew astronomy, architecture and mathematics to perfection. The Lemurians were building their first rock-cities out of rare earths, metals, lava. white marble of the mountains and the black subterranean stone. The first large cities appeared on that region of the continent which is now known as the island of Madagascar.

       The oldest remains of Cyclopean buildings were all the handiwork of the Lemurians of the last sub-races The relics found on the small piece of land called Easter Island were also in the Cyclopean style. That Isle belonged to the earliest civilization of the Third Race. Submerged with the rest, a volcanic and sudden uplifting of the Ocean floor, raised the small relic of the Archaic ages untouched, with its volcano and statues as a standing witness to the existence of Lemuria.

       Wondrous gigantic statues were a speaking witness to a submerged continent with a civilized mankind on it.

       The End of Lemuria

       Global geological changes always accompany the birth and death of the Great Races. They are occasioned by the change in the inclination of the earth's axis. The old continents are sucked in by the oceans, other lands appear, and huge mountain chains arise where there had been none before. The face of the Globe is completely changed each time It is a law which acts at its appointed time. and in strict accordance and harmony with Karmic law. The survival of the fittest nations and races was secured through timely help; and the other ones - the failures -  were disposed of by being swept off the earth.

       After the time when the Third Race reached the culmination of its development, it started moving towards its decline. That process reflected on the main continent of the Race - Lemuria; it began to sink slowly. The immense continent, which had once reigned supreme over the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans, now consisted of huge islands which were gradually disappearing one after the other. The largest relic of the huge continent now is Australia. The small remnant now known as Ceylon is the Northern highland of the huge ancient Lanka island where the Third Race ended its career.

       Lemuria was destroyed by the action of volcanoes. It was sunk under the waves, owing to earthquakes and subterranean fires. The cataclysm which destroyed the huge continent was due to a series of subterranean convulsions and the breaking asunder of the ocean floors. Lemuria has perished about 700,000 years ago before the commencement of what is now called the Tertian age (the Eocene).

       The remains of the ancient Lemurians at the present time are represented by the black skinned peoples of the so called Ethiopian type: Negros, bushmen, Australians, etc.

       THE THIRD LEGEND

       The Narration of Atlantis

       The Beginning of the Fourth Race

       The Fourth Root Race - the Atlanteans - began its existence about 4-5 million years ago. At that epoch the Third Race was nearing its decline. The major part of Lemurian continent was still existing. The new Great Race was generated on a point of land in what is now the mid-Atlantic Ocean. That continent was formed by the coalescence of many islands and peninsulas which were upheaved in the ordinary course of time and became ultimately the true home of the great Race - the Atlantis.

       The people of the Fourth Race originated from selection of the chosen ones from the seventh subrace of the Third Race. The first Atlanteans were smaller in height than the Lemurians but still were giants.

       They were three and a half metres tall. Through millennia men went on steadily decreasing in stature. The colour of the skin of the first subrace was dark-red, and of the second subrace - red-brown.

       The state of the first Atlanteans can be called the infantile. Their consciousness has not reached the level of consciousness of the last subrace of the Lemurians. Therefore their development was going under the direct guidance of the Great Instructors of humanity who have endowed the Third Race with mind. The Hierarchy of the Great Brotherhood incarnated amongst the first Atlanteans as their Rulers.

       From those Divine Instructors the Atlanteans received the faith in existence of the Highest Cosmic Being penetrating all the existing. Thus the cult of the Sun has been established as a symbol of that highest concept. In order to glorify the Sun the Atlanteans ascended mountain summits. There they built some sort of stony circles representing annual Rotation of the Sun. Those stones were placed in such a way so that for the man, standing before altar in the middle of a circle during summer solstice, the Sun would appear behind a certain stone And during the spring equinox the Sun would appear behind another stone. The same circles of stones served for other astronomical observations regarding the far-off constellations.

       The Golden Age of Atlantis

       The third subrace of the Atlanteans - the Toltecs - has reached the top of development of the Fourth Race. They were very tall too - about two metres and a half. Through time their stature decreased having reached the height of the present man. The colour of the skin of that subrace was copper-red. Face features were right. The descendants of the Toltecs are the pure-blooded representatives of the Peruvians and Aztecs and also red-skinned Indians of North and South America.

       About one million years ago, when the Atlanteans Race was at its most flourishing point the continent of Atlantis occupied the greater part of the Atlantic ocean. The Northern outskirts of Atlantis stretched some degrees east of Iceland, including Scotland, Ireland and North part of England. The Southern parts of Atlantis stretched to that place where now is Rio de Janeiro, including Texas, Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico and part of the USA and Labrador. Equatorial regions included Brazil and all the space of the ocean to the Golden coast of Africa.

       Present Azores were the unattainable snowy summits of the highest mountain chain of the continent of Atlantis. There were also separate islands of different forms as they were the parts torn away from Atlantis. Those islands transformed later in continents of Europe, America and Africa.

       The Toltecs created the most powerful empire amid the nations of Atlantis approximately one million years ago. After long internecine wars some tribes united into one big federation at the head of which was the emperor. The times of peace and flourishing of the whole Race had come. For millennia Toltecs ruled over the whole continent of Atlantis having achieved enormous might and wealth. "Golden Gate City" located in the Eastern part of Atlantis was the residence of the Emperors whose power spread not only over the whole continent but also over the islands.

       During all the epoch the initiated leaders always supported the connection with the sacred Hierarchy submitting to its instructions. They acted according to its plans. As the consequence of that was the epoch of the Golden Age of Atlantis. Governing was just and salutary. Arts and sciences flourished. Leaders of the country, using the sacred knowledge, has achieved really extraordinary results. Culture and civilization of Atlantis have reached their culminating point at that epoch.

       Under the influence of the emperors - the adepts - people have achieved true understanding of the Divine Idea at that epoch of flourishing. Symbol was the only form with whose help one could approach the idea of that essence of Cosmos which penetrates everything being inexpressible. Thus the symbol of the Sun was glorified in the marvelous temples mounting all over the continent of Atlanta s and especially in the Golden Gate City. At that time any images of a Deity were forbidden. A disk of the Sun was the only emblem worth to represent the head of a Deity. And that image was kept in even temple. That golden disk was usually placed in such a way that the first ray of the Sun lights it up at spring equinox and summer solstice.

       Culture and Civilization of the Atlanteans

       Arts and sciences reached their maximum point of development in the Toltecan subrace.

       No other subrace of Atlantis could compare to the Toltecs.

       Written language was the invention of the Atlanteans and it was used by them. They wrote on thin metallic plates, the surface of which reminded of white porcelain. They could reproduce and manifold the texts. Schools of the Golden Age were of two categories. The schools of the first category were the primary ones. In those schools children learned reading and writing. The schools of the second category were the special ones. Those children who showed special gifts were transferred there approximately at the age of twelve. At those schools they received extensive education. They studied botany. chemistry. mathematics, astronomy. Great attention was paid to the necessity of general knowledge of medicine for every educated man and the methods of healing with magnetism.

       All sciences were studied differently m those schools than in ours The main task of teachers was the development of latent psychic forces of a pupil. They attained that through experimental acquaintance with sacred particularities of plants, minerals, jewels and also the chemical process of transmutations of metals. The majority of people possessed the abilities of governing the psychic forces at that time Especially outstanding people studied at the high schools or universities. There they specially developed latent individual forces.

       The questions regarding one of the main fields of life of Toltecs -  agriculture and farming - were studied minutely in the high schools. Pupils were taught to rear special breeds of animals, to cultivate special sorts of plants and cereals. Oats and some other sorts of cereals are the result of crossing of wheat with different plants naturally growing on our planet. The wheat is not a product of our world. It was brought from the other planet by the Masters of Wisdom. All experimental studies in that field were carried out in agronomic schools of Atlantis. One of the results of those studies was the amazing modification of banana. In its wild state the banana was almost void of pulp and full of seeds like a melon. And only after many centuries and may be millennia the enormous amount of inoculations and special conditions of cultivation resulted in that fruit with no seeds within - the way we know it now. In many experiments of crossing and rearing of the new breeds of animals and plants the Toltecs used artificial warmth and coloured light.

       Amongst the domestic animals Toltecs reared a special breed of pigs that were like little tapirs, a breed of big animals, resembling cats, the ancestors of dogs with lupine appearance. In the quality of milk animals they had a special breed of cattle resembling camels but smaller in height. Lamas of Peru descended from such animals.

       Wise guidance of the Hierarchy affected the design of the basic types of vegetable and animal kingdoms that go through their evolution of form and consciousness with help of a direct influence of a man. For instance, the development of form of such a noble animal as a horse was the result of many experiments. Those experiments have been carried out by people of that time according to the designs of the Hierarchy and thanks to its assistants, the initiated ones.

       Great importance in farming was attached to astronomy which was not an abstract knowledge at that time. Sacred influences affecting the life of animals and plants were also the subject to study. And the Atlanteans could use that knowledge. The way to draw rain on one's wish was also known.

       Not to talk of the development of arts, that of music even in the Golden Age epoch was very imperfect. The form of musical instruments was quite primitive. Life also never reached the high level of perfection. Each one, who had means or possibilities, considered it as his duty to put his wood or stony statue in a temple Wealthier citizens cast their images of gold, silver or bronze.

       The main branch of art at that time was the architecture. Dwelling houses, even in the cities, were surrounded by gardens. The typical feature of the Toltecan constructions was a tower mounting at the centre of a building. The tower was topped by the pointed dome and usually served as an observatory The facades of buildings were decorated with frescos, sculpture or coloured ornaments. The Atlanteans liked bright colours and painted their houses both inside and outside. Special substances like glass, but less transparent, let the light inside the houses.

       Public buildings and temples amazed with their massiveness and giant scales. The temples consisted of huge halls like the giant halls in Egypt. The temples were decorated with towers: ornaments and frescos of the rich corresponded to their wealth.

       The towers served as observatories and for the cult of the Sun Temples and public buildings were decorated with artistic encrustations and golden plates Public constructions usually consisted of four buildings, surrounding the central yard in the middle of which there was a fountain.

       The capital of Atlantis, the Golden Gate City, was situated by the sea shore on the hill slopes. The are a surrounding the city was covered by splendid woods. A mountain chain located not far from the city provided it water. On the top of the hill there was a palace of the emperor. It was surrounded by a garden. And the torrent ran through that garden. That torrent first of all provided the emperor's palace and garden fountains with water Then it rushed down by a cascade to a kind of moat, surrounding the area of the palace. So that moat separated the palace from the city, that was located lower than the plain. Four channels flowing out from the moat supplied the city with water. Three ring channels were located lower. Their external channel was located lower than the others, was still higher than the plain. The fourth channel was located on the plain itself and collected all the rushing down waters. And it precipitated them to the sea.

       Thus, with help of the channels the city was divided on three concentric belts. At the top belt, bordering upon the palace area, there was a racing field and public gardens The major part of governmental establishments was at that belt too. Also the buildings for foreigners were there. In those buildings all the foreigners enjoyed the hospitality during their stay in the city.

       Private households and temples occupied the next two belts. Everywhere on the vast plain there were villas - the residences of rich people. Comparatively poor part of population lived in the lower belt and also on the other side of the external channel, by the very sea. Their houses stood closer to one another than the rich ones did.

       At the days when flourishing reached its highest point the Golden Gate City numbered more than two million inhabitants. And the general number of population of the w hole Atlantis at the epoch of flourishing of the Toltecan subrace has reached two milliard people.

       The Atlanteans used highly developed techniques. They realized the idea of aircraft or the flying machine. Usually those machines accommodated not more than two people. But some of them could take up to six or eight people on board. The Atlanteans used special mixture of three metals for construction of such aircraft.

       That white metallic mixture was very light. The surface of the aircraft was covered by the sheets of that metal. Aircrafts of the Atlanteans sparkled in the darkness. They had the appearance of a ship with covered deck. The impellent power was some sort of ether. In the centre of a craft there was a box serving as a generator of that power. From the generator the power was transmitted to the ends of a craft through two pipes. Eight additional pipes branched down from those two ones. Upon take-off the valves of those eight pipes opened. The current went through those pipes, stroke the ground with such strength that the aircraft took-off. And the further point of rest was the air density itself. The major part of the current was directed along the main pipe, the end of which was pointed downwards at the end of a craft making an angle of 45 degrees. The pipe served for a take-off of a craft and simultaneously it produced the motion of a craft.

       The Atlanteans also had sea vessels set into motion by the power similar to one described above. In this case the motive power was of denser composition. Later when wars and civil dissentions put an end to the Golden Age, military aircraft replaced the sea vessels. And they were built as military transports so that they could accommodate up to 100 soldiers.

       The Destruction of Atlantis

       About one hundred thousand y ears after the Golden Age the decline of the Great Race of the Atlanteans had started.

       At the times of the Third Race the bestiality of the "mindless" ones manifested through generation of big human-like monsters. Those were the descendants of human and bestial parents. As time passed the descendants of those creatures changed in consequence of external conditions. And finally those creatures decreased in scales and cultivated in monkeys of the Miocene period. The latest Atlanteans resumed the sin of the "mindless" ones with those monkeys. But at this time the monkeys, known now as the anthropoids, appeared.

       After the moral fall the spiritual fall followed. People fell into madness instead of working for the general good under the guidance of the Great Instructors and in cooperation with the great cosmic forces of nature.

       Taking the example from their masters the animals rushed to torment each other. This amoral influence of the man on the animals is lasting till our days. The breeds of big cats, trained by the Atlanteans and fitted for hunting, could be the example of those circumstances. With time those cats turned into the blood-thirsty leopards and jaguars.

       Each man started to fight only for himself, using his knowledge in pure selfish purposes. He started to believe that there is nothing higher in the Universe than the man. Each one was one's own law for oneself and one's own god for oneself. At that time the cult glorified in temples did not refer to the invisible ideal any more, but it became the cult of a man the way he was and the way he was understood.

       The Atlanteans began to cut their own images, in their size and likeness, and worshipped them. Those images were cut of vomited lava, white marble of the mountains, black subterranean stone and also were cast of silver and gold. Those statues were put in the bays which were cut of wood or stone and fixed into the walls of temples. These bays were pretty spacious, so that a procession of priests, during celebrations in honour of some person, could go around his statue. Thus people worshipped themselves. The richest ones maintained the whole staff of priests in order to serve this cult and take care of the altar where their statues were. People made sacrifices to those statues as to the gods. The apotheosis of worshipping oneself could not be greater. Kings, the majority of clergy and a considerable part of the nation started to use the sacred powers ignoring the Laws ordained by the Initiated Ones, lightmindednessly neglecting their advises and instructions. The connection with the Hierarchy of Light was broken, Personal interests, the thirst for wealth and power, destruction of gods with purpose of enrichment were capturing the consciousness of masses more and more.

       Sacred knowledge, being directed against the purposes of evolution, turned into black magic and witchcraft. Luxury, brutality and barbarism had been increasing more and more until the bestial instincts started to act fully. Sorcerers and adepts of the dark forces disseminated black magic and increased the number of people who have cognized it and have been using it incessantly.

       When perversion of evolutionary laws reached its apogee and the Golden Gate City became a real hell because of its brutality, the first terrible catastrophe shook the whole continent. The capital was wiped off by the ocean waves. Millions of people were destroyed. The emperor was repeatedly warned about that catastrophe as well as the priests who fell off from the Hierarchy of Light.

       Under the influence of the Light Forces, who had foreseen the catastrophe, the best part of people emigrated from that area before the catastrophe. These were the most developed members of the Race, who had not given way to the general madness. They knew the law of the world and preserved the right understanding of the responsibility and control over the psychic powers.

       This first catastrophe happened at the Miocene epoch approximately 800 thousand y ears ago. It significantly changed the distribution of land. Great Atlantic continent had lost its polar areas and the middle part of it decreased and got split. At that time American continent separated with a start from Atlantis which had generated it.

       Atlantis had been still stretched upon the Atlantic Ocean, occupying the space from 50 degrees North to some degrees South wards from the equator. Also the considerable lowerings and risings of the mainland occurred in other parts of the world. Thus the separated North-Eastern part of Atlantis generated huge area: the British islands were the part of a big island, embracing Scandinavia. Northern France and the closest seas surrounding them. The remains of Lemuria decreased more, while future territories of America and Africa considerably widened. The second, less considerable catastrophe occurred about 200 thousand y ears ago. The continent of Atlantis split into two islands. The Northern big island is called Ruta and the Southern one is called Daitya, island of Scandinavia joint to the European continent at that time. Some changes occurred on the American continent too. Egypt submerged.

       After the catastrophe the efforts of the Light Forces, acting under the guidance of the Hierarchy, had good results for some time after. They kept the saved population from black magic. But former brilliance could never be achieved again by the subrace of Toltecs.

       Later the descendants of the Toltecs on Ruta island repeated the history of their ancestors in miniature. Rulers and their dynasties had achieved certain might again and ruled over the greater part of the island. Later that dynasty fell under the influence of black magic. The black magic had been spreading wider and wider. It led again to the comically inevitable catastrophe. That catastrophe purified the world for further evolutionary development.

       About 80 thousand years ago the third catastrophe occurred. It exceeded the first two ones in its strength and brightness.

       Daitya disappeared almost completely, while only a small part of Ruta island - Poseidonis island - remained.

       In that epoch before the disappearance of Poseidonis there always ruled the emperor of the light dynasty in some part of the continent. He acted under the guidance of the Hierarchy. The emperor opposed the spread of the dark forces and led the majority of people to pursue a pure and lofty life.

       Always the emigration of the best minority of people was organized before the catastrophe. Those emigrants were guided by the spiritual leaders who had foreseen the calamities threatening the country. The initiated kings and Teachers following the "good law" were warned about the approaching catastrophes beforehand. Those leaders were the centres of the oracular warnings and saved the faithful chosen tribes. Such emigrations occurred secretly, under the cover of night.

       In 9564 BC powerful earthquakes destroyed Poseidonis. And the island submerged into the sea, having evoked the giant wave. That wave flooded the low-lying lands. That wave has left the memory of the great destructive "deluge" in human minds.

       This is one of the narrations about the last days of Poseidonis.

       And the "great King of the dazzling Face", the chief of all the Yellow-faced, was sad, seeing the sins of the Black-faced. He sent his air-vehicles (viman) 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 fire-weapons. But the Lords of the Dark Eye ('Evil Eye') are stronger than the Elementals and they are the slaves of the mighty ones. They are versed in the highest magical knowledge. Come and use your magic powers in order to counteract those of the Dazzling Face (an adept of the White Magic) cause the Viman 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 Four Karmic deities and save his wicked followers. May every yellow face send sleep from himself to every black face. May even the Sorcerers avoid pain and suffering. May every man true to the Solar Gods paralyse every man under the lunar gods, lest he should suffer or escape his destiny. And may every yellow face offer of his life-water (blood) to the speaking animal of a black face, lest he awaken his master."

       The hour has struck, the black night is ready.... "Let their destiny be accomplished. We are the servants of the great Four Karmic Gods. May the Kings of light return." The great King fell upon his dazzling Face and wept.... When the kings assembled the waters had already moved. But the nations had crossed the dry lands. They were beyond the water mark. Their Kings reached them in their Vimans, and led them on to the lands of Fire and Metal (East and North).

       Meteors showered on the lands of the black faces: but they slept. The speaking beasts (the magic watchers) kept quiet The nether lords waited for orders, but they came not, for their masters slept. The waters arose, and covered the valleys from one end of the Earth to the other. High lands remained, the bottom of the Earth (the lands of the antipodes) remained dry. There dwelt those who escaped; the men of the yellow-faces and of the straight eye (the frank and sincere people). When the Lords of the Dark Faces aw oke and bethought themselves of their Vimans in order to escape from the rising waters, they found them gone.

       The nations that were led away, were as thick as the stars of the milky way. Like as a dragon-snake uncoils slowly its body, so the sons of men, led on by the Sons of Wisdom, opened their folds, and spreading out, expanded like a running stream of sweet waters. Many of the faint-hearted among them perished on their way. But most were saved.

       Some of the more powerful magicians of the "Dark Face" who awoke earlier than the others, pursuing those who had "spoilt them'' and who were in the rear-guard. Yet the pursuers, "whose heads and chests soared high above the water" chased them "for three lunar terms" until finally reached by the rising waves, they perished to the last man, the soil sinking under their feet and the earth engulfing those who had desecrated her.

       Thus the last remnant of Atlantis - Poseidonis - perished between the water below and the fire above: the great mountain vomiting flames all the while. "The fire-vomiting Monster survived alone out of the ruins of the unfortunate island".

       The Heirs of the Atlanteans (Egypt)

       About 400 thousand years ago the Great Lodge of the Initiated Ones was transferred from Atlantis to Egypt. The Golden Age of Toltecs ended much time ago. Moral decline and exercises in black magic were spreading wider and wider. The White Lodge demanded purer environment and therefore was transferred to Egypt. At that time Egypt was a deserted and thinly populated place. There the Great Lodge of the Initiated Ones could unimpededly continue its work for the next 200 thousand years.

       About 200 thousand years ago the White Lodge has founded the empire where the first "Divine Dynasty" of Egypt was ruling. And that dynasty began to educate people. At that time the first detachments of migrants from Atlantis arrived.

       During ten thousand years which were left before the second catastrophe two big pyramids were built. There were big halls where the rituals of initiation took place and where the powerful talisman were kept for the period of cosmic catastrophes, foreseen by them.

       In the epoch of the second catastrophe (200 thousand years ago) and first submergence of Egypt its population emigrated to the mountains of Abyssinia which were an island at that time. When the submerged areas appeared again above the sea they started to be populated partly by the descendants of former inhabitants, partly by migrants from Atlantis - mostly Akkadians. Their confusion with others created the type of Egyptians. The governing of the second "Divine Dynasty" dates back to that time when the Initiated Adepts were still ruling the country.

       The third catastrophe with Atlantis occurred 80 thousand years ago and evoked the second sinking of Egypt. When the water rushed . back then the third "Divine Dynasty" ascended the throne. During the ruling of the first governors of that dynasty there was built the great temple of Karnak and many other grand buildings.

       The submergence of Poseidonis (9564 B.C.) occasioned another deluge of Egypt. It was short but it put an end to the "Divine Dynasty" because the Lodge of the Initiated Ones transferred its settlement to another country. The human Dynasty of the older Egyptians had all the knowledge of the Atlanteans, though there was no more Atlantean blood in their veins.

       At the time of submergence of Poseidonis, desert Sahara was still at the bottom of the ocean just as Gobi was still at the bottom of a sea in Central Asia. Islands of Great Britain were joined with the European continent. And there was no Baltic Sea. Since that time contours of the continents took the form which they have in our days.

       Other Subraces of the Atlanteans and Their Descendants

       The Turanians - the fourth subrace - were yellow. This subrace was violent and undisciplined, rough and cruel. They never wielded power on the continent of Atlantis. They were the colonisers. The major part of them emigrated to the areas on the East from Atlantis. Then they went further East to the shores of a central sea of Asia. Some of them roamed further along the Yellow river and finally settled in the centre of China. That subrace is represented in some parts of contemporary China by the tall Chinese, who are easily distinguished from the Chinese of the seventh subrace.

       The primeval Semites - the fifth subrace - were white. That subrace was very militant, provocative and inclined to robbery. They were mainly nomads. The typical features of that subrace were suspicious-ness , quarrelsome disposition and never-ending wars with neighbours. Their descendants are pure-blooded Israelites and Kabyles of North Africa.

       The sixth subrace - the Akkadians - were white. They appeared after the catastrophe which happened 800 thousand years ago. They held many wars with the Semites And finally they won them. The Akkadians are notable for commercial colonising abilities. The great interest which the Akkadians showed in sea-faring made them intensify their observations of the starry sky. Therefore great results were achieved by them in astronomy and astrology. They built several big scientific centres and established connections with the most distant parts of Earth. Their descendants were the Phoenicians trading on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

       The last, seventh, Mongolian subrace originated in Tatar Steppes of East Siberia. The Mongolians came directly from the Turanian subrace. which they replaced in major part of Asia. They do not bear any relation to the ancient continent of Atlantis. Generated on the vast spaces of Tataria they had enough room for migration with in their own country. That subrace has incredibly grown. Due to the area's conditions the Mongolians became nomads at first, then farmers, rough Turanians. They were also yellow. Having dispersed on the plains of China they represent now the modem Chinese.

       The Japanese do not entirely belong to any race, being a mixture of several subraces. The Japanese were the last scum of the whole Root Race. That is why they have many qualities which distinguish them from the seventh subrace - the Chinese.

       The Fifth Root Race which is now at the head of human evolution came from the fifth subrace of the Atlanteans - the primeval Semites. The most outstanding families of that subrace were marked out and settled on the Southern shores of the central sea of Asia long before the destruction of Atlantis.

       The Fifth Race is also divided into seven subraces. And only five of them have appeared so far. The first subrace moved from Central Asia to India and settled on the South of Himalayas. It started to dominate over the vast Hindustan peninsula. They have bent to their power the people of the Fourth and Third Race, populating India in that epoch. The first subrace is represented not only by the Aryan Hindus but also by one of the types of the Ancient Egypt. That type was the one to which the highest ruling class belonged.

       The second subrace consists of the Aryan Semites different from the primeval Semites - Babylon - and also modem Arabs and Moors. The third subrace is the Iranian. The ancient Persians and their descendants, the modem Persians, belonged to that subrace. The fourth subrace is Celtic. The Ancient Romans and also modem Italian, Greek, French, Spanish and Irish people belong to that subrace. The fifth subrace is Teutonic. Slavic, Scandinavian, Dutch, German, English people and their descendants, scattered all over the world, belong to that subrace.

       EPILOGUE

       Barman is a small, miserable, half-ruined town in Central Asia, half-way between Cabul and Balkh.

       Not far from this town there are five enormous statues The largest is 52 metres (173 feet) high The second statue, cut out in the rock like the first one, is 36 metres (120 feet) in height. The third statue is only 18 metres (60 feet) high: the two others are still smaller, the last one being only a little larger than the average tall man of our present race. The first and largest of the Colossi represents a man draped in a kind of toga.

       These five statues belong to the handiwork of the Initiates of the Fourth Race, who sought refuge, after the submersion of their continent, in the fastnesses and on the summits of the Central Asian mountain chains. Moreover, the five statues are an imperishable record of the esoteric teaching about the gradual evolution of the races. The largest is made to represent the First Race of mankind, its ethereal body being commemorated in hard, everlasting stone, for the instruction of future generations.

       The second - 36 metres (120 feet) high - represents the sweat-born; and the third - measuring 18 metres (60 feet) - immortalizes the race that fell, and thereby inaugurated the first physical race, born of father and mother, the last descendants of which are represented in the Statues found on Easter Island; but they were only from 6 to 7.5 metres (20-25 feet) in stature in the epoch when Lemuria was submerged. The Fourth Race was still smaller, though gigantic in comparison with our present Fifth Race and the series culminated finally in the latter.