CHAPTER VII

EARLY STAGES OF THE FOURTH ROUND
In taking a preliminary bird’s-eye-view of the fourth Round, one important and far-reaching change is apparent in the surroundings amid which human evolution is to proceed. In the three preceding Rounds the elemental essence was practically un¬ touched by man, and was affected only by the Devas, or Angels, by whose influences it evolved. Man was not sufficiently developed to affect it to any serious extent. But in this Round man’s in¬ fluence plays a very important part, and his self- centred thoughts create swirls in the elemental essence surrounding him. The elementals, also, begin to show more hostility to him, as he emerges from the animal state into the dominating human, for he is, from their standpoint, no longer an animal among animals, but an independent and domineering entity, likely to be hostile and aggressive.
Another most important characteristic of the fourth Round, the midmost of the seven, is that, in it, the door was shut against the animal king¬ dom, and the door was opened to the Path. Both statements are general ; here and there an animal, by very special help, may still be evolved to a point where a human incarnation is possible for it, but
EARLY STAGES OF THE FOURTH ROUND 93
in almost all cases no human body can now be found of sufficiently low development for its embodiment ; so also might a man who had attained Arhafship or more on the Moon Chain climb yet higher, but all below that rank who had complete causal bodies did not enter into evolution on the Earth Chain until the later third and early fourth Root Races.
On Mars in the fourth Round we find a number of savages who had not been sufficiently advanced to leave that globe for the Earth when the mass of the egos went on in the preceding Round. On each globe some fail to go on, and remain be¬ hind as the globe begins its period of obscuration ; and they return to this same globe when again it recommences full activity, and form a very back¬ ward class ; these were Basket- works of a very poor kind, and were savages of the brutal and cruel type, some of those who had individualised through fear and anger.
Mars, in the fourth Round, felt the stress of scarc¬ ity of water, and it was the Lords of the Moon — Arhats who had attained on Globe E — who planned out the system of canals, and the Basket-works who executed them under Their direction. The Martian seas are not salt, and the polar snow- caps, as they melt, supply the water necessary for irrigation, and thus enable the ground to be cultivated, and crops to be raised.
The fifth Martian Root Race was white, and made considerable progress, and the Basket-work developed into a complete causal body. They were good, well-meaning, and kindly, though not capable of any large ideas, of widely spread feelings of
94
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affection, or of self-sacrifice. At a quite early stage, they began to divide food instead of fighting over it, developing the social feeling to some extent.
The first and second Root Races on the Earth were going on before Mars was deserted, some entities being available for these primitive condi¬ tions whom Mars in its later stages was too advanced to accommodate, and the full attention of the LOGOS not being turned on to the Earth in these early times. The Lords of the Moon — Arhafs who had achieved on globe D of the lunar Chain — brought into these early Races a number of backward entities, so that these served as special coaches for the laggards, many of whom repaid the care bestowed upon them, and entered the first sub-race of the third Root Race, as its lowest types ; they were egg-headed, with an eye at the top of their heads, a roll like a sausage represent¬ ing a forehead, and prognathous jaws. The egg¬ headed type persisted for a very long time, but became much modified in the later sub-races of this third Root Race, and specimens of them are found in later Lemurian times. The blue people who formed the powerful sixth sub-race, and the white who composed the seventh sub-race, were finer types, but were still Lemurian, and showed a trace of egg-headedness, due to the retreating foreheads.1 The population of the Earth during the
While this is going through the press a report has appeared in the newspapers of the discovery of some skulls of this type, but no particulars are yet available. See The Theosophist for August, 1912, in * On the Watch- Tower,’ p. 631.
EARLY STAGES OF THE FOURTH ROUND 95
first and second Root Races was very limited, and this special help appears to have been given be¬ cause in the fourth globe of the fourth Chain “ the door is shut Furthermore, everything possible was done to bring forward all of whom anything could be made, before the coming of the Lords of the Flame, in the middle of the third Root Race, should make the gulf well-nigh impassable between the human and animal kingdoms.
Mars, at the end of its seventh Root Race, had a very considerable population to pour into the Earth, and these came streaming in for the third Root Race, to head it until the more advanced egos from the Moon Chain should come in to take over the leadership. These Basket-works, whose causal bodies were now completed, had made considerable progress on Mars, and they now prepared the way for the more advanced people who were soon to arrive. It was they who fought with the savage reptilian creatures, slimy and backboneless, who were the “ water-men terrible and bad 55 of the Stanzas of Dzyan, the re-embodied remnants of the previous Rounds, who had been ‘ water-men,5 i. e.f amphibious, scaly, half-human animals, on Mars.
The many schemes of reproduction characteris¬ tic of the third Round re-appear in this third Root Race, and run simultaneously in various parts of the Earth. The bulk of the population passed on through the successive stages and became mostly oviparous, but there were various little side-shows in which earlier methods persisted. It seems as though the various schemes of reproduction were suitable to egos at different stages of evolution, and
96 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
were kept going for laggards after the bulk of the people had passed beyond them. The egg-scheme was dropped very slowly; the shell became thinner and thinner, the human being within developing into a hermaphrodite ; then he became a hermaphro¬ dite with one sex predominant ; and then a uni¬ sexual being. These changes began some sixteen and a half million years ago, and occupied some five and a half to six million years, physical bodies changing very slowly and reversion frequently occurring. Moreover the original number was small, and needed time for multiplication. When this last type became quite stable, then the egg was pre¬ served within the feminine body, and reproduction assumed the form which still persists.
To sum up : we have the first Root Race, re¬ peating the first Round, etheric clouds drifting about in a hot heavy atmosphere, which enclosed a world rent by recurrent cataclysms ; these multiplied by fission. The second Root Race, repeating the second Round, was of the ‘ pudding-bag 5 type, described under the second Round ; these multiplied by bud¬ ding. The early third Root Race, repeating the third Round, was human-gorilla in form, and reproduc¬ tion was at first by extrusion of cells, the ‘ sweat- born ? of The Secret Doctrine . Then comes the oviparous stage, and finally the unisexual.
Some very special treatment was applied to some of the eggs ; they were taken away by the Lords of the Moon, and were carefully magnetised and kept at an equable temperature, until the human form, at this stage a hermaphrodite, broke out ; it was then specially fed and carefully developed, and
EARLY STAGES OF THE FOURTH ROUND 97
when ready, was taken possession of by one of the Lords of the Moon, many of whom became incar¬ nate in order to work on the physical plane, and they used these carefully prepared bodies for a long period of time ; some Devas also took some of these prepared bodies. This seems to have been only a few centuries before the separation of the sexes.
While the later Egg-borns were in possession, the very best of the Basket-works came in, straight from the Inter-Chain Nirvana, and these were quickly followed by the lowest of those who had gained complete causal bodies on the Moon. Be¬ tween the highest of the first and the lowest of the second there was but little difference. The first boat-load of the latter consisted of those who had responded but little to the influence of the Seed-Manu, from globes G, F, and E of the lunar Chain, the majority being from G, the stupidest of those who had gained complete causal bodies. The second boat-load had a large number from globe G, a low section from globe F, and a still lower from globe E. The third contained the best from globe G, with some fairly good from globe F, and good from globe E. The fourth boat-load had the best from globe F, and all but the very best of globe E. The fifth boat-load brought the best of globe E, with a few from globe D. These all seemed to be sorted out by ‘ age 5 rather than by 4 type,’ and were, in fact, of all types. One individual was noticed who was a chief in the savage mainland tribe which took Mars prisoner on the Moon, one who had individualised through fear. All these
14
98 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
incarnated among the Egg-borns, some hundreds of thousands of them.
Then came, from ten to eleven million years ago, when separation of the sexes was fully estab¬ lished, the important stage when some of these incarnated Lords of the Moon descended on the seven-pointed Lemurian Polar Star, and formed etheric images of themselves, which were then materialised into greater density, multiplying these for the use of the incoming egos ; the Lords were of different types, the “ seven men each on his lot,” and gave bodies suited to the seven Rays, or temperamental types of humanity, making the forms on the points of the Star.
At this stage there were four human classes, pressing on each other to obtain better human forms. These were : (1) the set of the best Basket- works above-named, with the five boatloads from globes G, F, and E, possessing complete causal bodies ; then (2) the Basket-works from Mars ; then (3) the Lines, who had been here all the time ; then (4) the last, composed of those who were only now coming up out of the animals. Below these were the animals, plants, and minerals, with which we need not concern ourselves.
The coming of these into the etheric forms provided by the Lords of the Moon was something of a struggle, for there were often many claimants for a single form, and the one who succeeded in gaining it could not always hold it for more than a few moments ; the scene recalls the Greek idea that the Gods made the world amid shouts of laughter, for it decidedly had its comic element, as
EARLY STAGES OF THE FOURTH ROUND 99
the egos struggled for the forms and could not manage them when they had obtained them. It is one of the descents into matter, the final material¬ isation of the body of man, the completion of ‘the fall of man \ Gradually they became accustomed to the new ‘ coats of skin,’ and settled down to reproduce the seven great temperamental types. In various parts of the world other ways of reproduction continued for long periods of time ; the successive stages overlapped very much, owing to the great differences in evolution, and the classes that came in from other Rounds had not been in the two early Root Races on Earth ; the tribes following the early methods gradually became sterile, while the true men and women multiplied greatly, until humanity, as we know it now, was definitely established all over the world.
The forms as thrown off by the Lords of the Moon were fairly good-looking, but being etheric they were very readily modifiable, and the incoming egos much distorted them ; the children born of them were distinctly ugly ; probably those using them were accustomed to think of the egg-shaped head and sausage-roll forehead, and hence these reappeared.
After many generations of well-established human beings, descended from the etheric material¬ ised forms, had been evolved, the Arhats urged on those who had left globes A, B, and C of the lunar Chain — because they could make no further progress on it — that they should descend and take incarnation in the bodies now ready for their in¬ dwelling. There were three boat-loads of these ;
100 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
more than two million orange people from globe A, rather less than three million golden-yellow from globe B, and rather more than three million pink from globe C — about nine millions in all ; they were guided to different areas of the world’s sur¬ face, with the view that they should form tribes. The orange, on seeing the bodies offered to them, refused to enter, not out of any wickedness but from pride, disdaining the unattractive forms, and perhaps also from their ancient hatred of sexual unions ; but the yellow and pink were docile and obeyed, gradually improving the bodies they in¬ habited. These made the fourth Lemurian sub-race, the first which was in any sense, except the embryonic, human ; and it may be dated from the giving of the forms. It is interesting to notice that H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine speaks of this fourth sub-race as 6 yellow,’ apparently noting the incoming of the golden-yellow people from globe B of the Moon Chain ; she can hardly have been referring to the established colour of the fourth sub-race, as that was black, and the black continued even in the lower classes of the sixth sub-race, in which the higher classes were of a quite respectable blue. Yet even in those there was an underlying tinge of black.
The area allotted to the orange tribe was thus left open, and the bodies they should have used were gladly seized upon by the entities just emerg¬ ing from the animal kingdom, the lowest of the classes before mentioned, the very poorest human type ; these, not unnaturally, felt little difference between themselves and the ranks from which
EARLY STAGES OF THE FOURTH ROUND 101
they had just emerged, and hence arose the “ sin of the mindless ”.
It is interesting to note the karma of this refusal of the orange people to take their due place in the work of peopling the world. Later, the law of evolution forced them into incarnation, and they had to take lower and coarser bodies, the Lords of the Moon having gone on into other work ; they thus became a backward race, cunning but not good, and passed through many unpleasant experiences ; they diminished in number by con¬ stantly coming into collision with the common order, and being hammered, largely by suffering, into ordinary folk. A few — strong, remorseless and unscrupulous — became Lords of the Dark Face in Atlantis ; some were seen among the North American Indians with refined but hard faces ; some few still persist, even down to our own day — the un¬ scrupulous among the kings of finance, statesmen like Bismarck, conquerors like Napoleon ; but they are gradually disappearing, for they have learned many bitter lessons. Those who are wanting in heart, who are always fighting, always opposing everything everywhere, on general principles, must ultimately, shape ; a very few may end in black magic, but the steady pressure is too great for the majority. It is a hard road to choose for progress !
The Coming of the Lords of the Flame
The great Lemurian Polar Star was still per-
_ _ i
feet, and the huge Crescent still stretched along
102 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
the equator, including Madagascar. The sea which occupied what is now the Gobi Desert still broke against the rocky barriers of the northern Hima¬ layan slopes, and all was being prepared for the most dramatic moment in the history of the Earth — the Coming of the LORDS OF THE FLAME.
The Lords of the Moon and the Manu of the third Root Race had done all that was possible to bring men up to the point at which the germ of mind could be quickened, and the descent of the ego could be made. All the laggards had been pushed on ; there were no more in the animal ranks capable of rising into man. The door against further immigrants into the human kingdom from the animal was only shut when no more were in sight, nor would be capable of reaching it without a repetition of the tremendous impulse only given once in the evolution of a Scheme, at its midmost point.
A great astrological event, when a very special collocation of planets occurred and the magnetic condition of the Earth was the most favourable possible, was chosen as the time. It was about six and a half million years ago. Nothing more remained to be done, save what only They could do.
Then, with the mighty roar of swift descent from incalculable heights, surrounded by blazing masses of fire which filled the sky with shooting tongues of flame, flashed through the aerial spaces the chariot of the Sons of the Fire, the Lords of the Flame from Venus; it halted, hovering over the e White Island,5 which lay smiling in the bosom of the Gobi Sea ; green was it, and radiant with
EARLY STAGES OF THE FOURTH ROUND 103
masses of fragrant many-coloured blossoms, Earth offering her best and fairest to welcome her coming King. There He stood, “ the Youth of sixteen summers,” Sanat Kumara, the ‘ Eternal Virgin-Youth,5 the new Ruler of Earth, come to His kingdom, His Pupils, the three Kumaras, with Him, His Helpers around Him ; thirty mighty Beings were there, great beyond Earth’s reckoning, though in graded order, clothed in the glorious bodies They had created by Kriyashakti, the first Occult Hierarchy, branches of the one spreading Banyan-Tree, the nursery of future Adepts, the centre of all occult life. Their dwelling-place was and is the Imperishable Sacred Land, on which ever shines down the Blazing Star, the symbol of Earth’s Monarch, the changeless Pole round which the life of our Earth is ever spinning.1
A Catechism says : “ Out of the seven Kumaras,
four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the world, and the instruction of the ignorant, to remain till the end of the present Manvantara . . . These are the Head, the Heart, the Soul and the
Seed of undying knowledge.” H. P. Blavatsky adds:
“ Higher than the 6 Four ’ is only One on Earth as in Heaven — that still more mysterious and solitary Being ” — the Silent Watcher.2
Until the Coming of the Lords the shiploads from the Inter-Chain Nirvana had arrived separately,
^he use of these occult symbols misled the readers of The Secret Doctrine, (perhaps even its writer) into the mistake that the ‘ Pole * and * Star * mentioned in the Occult Commentary were the physical North Pole and North Star. I followed this mistaken idea in my Pedigree of Man. — A. B.
2 The Secret Doctrine, ii, 294, 295.
104 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
but now, with the tremendous stimulus given, fecun¬ dity increased rapidly like everything else, and perfect fleets were wanted to bring in egos to inhabit the bodies ; these came pouring in, while others of lower types took possession of all the animals with the germs of mind who were' in¬ dividualised at the Coming, the Lords of the Flame doing in a moment for millions what we now do by long care for units.
And now the Arhafs from globes A, B, and C came into incarnation, to help the Manu in founding and civilising the fifth, sixth and seventh sub-races of the Lemurians. The fourth sub-race continued, the very egg-headed one, with a stature of from twenty-four to twenty-seven feet in height, loosely and clumsily built, and black in colour ; one whom we measured was twenty-five feet in height.1 Their buildings were proportionate to their size, cyclopean in structure, made of enormous stones.
The Arhats became Kings in the later sub-races, the King-Initiates of the myths which are truer than history.
A King-Initiate would gather a number of persons round Him, forming a clan, and then would
1 Some curiosity may arise as to how we measured him : first by standing by him, when we came, respectively, a little below and level with his knee; then by setting him against a first-floor balcony at Headquarters, where he could rest his raised hands on the parapet and put his chin on them. We later measured the height of the parapet. The poor image was not made welcome when he put his head over the balcony : “ Take him away,” said the owner of the balcony; “he is very ugly and enough to frighten anybody.” Perhaps he was, poor thing.
EARLY STAGES OF THE FOURTH ROUND 105
teach this clan some of the arts of civilisation, and direct and help them in the building of a city. One large city was erected under such instruction on what is now the island of Madagascar, and many others were similarly built over the great Crescent. The style of architecture was, as said above, cyclopean, impressive from its hugeness.
During the long period thus occupied, the physical appearance of the Lemurians was changing. The central eye at the top of the head was re¬ treating, as it ceased to function, from the surface to the interior of the head, to form the pineal gland, while the two eyes — at first one on each side of it — were becoming active. The Greek legend of Cyclops is evidently a tradition from the early Lemurian age.
There was some domestication of animals; one egg-headed Lemurian was seen leading about a scaly monster, almost as unattractive as his master. Animals of all sorts were eaten raw — among some tribes human flesh was not despised — and creatures of the grade of our slugs, snails and worms, much larger than their degenerate descendants, were re¬ garded with peculiar favour as toothsome morsels.
While the sixth sub-race was developing, a large number of Initiates and their disciples were sent off from the Inter-Chain Nirvana to the Earth,1 to help the Manu of the fourth Root Race by incarnating in the best bodies He had so far
1 It may be noted that while the general rule was that the less evolved should be sent first to the Earth, exceptions were made where help was wanted, as in this case with this special boat-load.
15
106 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
evolved. The very best bodies being given to those who had exhausted their karma, their occu¬ pants were able to improve them, and to get out of them everything which they were capable of yielding. These Arhafs and their pupils worked under the Lords of the Moon and the Manus of the third and fourth Root Races; the seventh sub¬ race, the bluish-white, was evolved by their help, and furnished men and women of a better type for further moulding by the Manu of the fourth.