CHAPTER VI

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EARLY TIMES ON THE EARTH CHAIN
MEANWHILE the Earth Chain had been slowly forming, and the Lords of the Moon had been looking on at the building as we saw1; the time had come for shipping off to the new Chain the first of those who were to evolve in it during the coming ages. The Seed-Manu determined the contents of each shipload and the order of its going, and the Root-Manu distributed them as they arrived successively on globe A of the terrene Chain.
The Occult Government of the Chain may here be briefly sketched, though only in broad outline, so that the student may realise something of the greatness of the evolutionary Plan which he is to survey.
At the head is the Seed-Manu of the preced¬ ing Chain, Chakshushas, something of whose vast work we have seen in the lunar Chain. He is aided by Officials who report to Him how the members of any special division have responded to the influences He has thrown upon them during their' stay in the Inter-Chain Nirvana. Just as the least advanced in ‘ age 5 are sent out to perform the task of inhabiting the most primitive forms,
^ee Ante, p. 61.
78
MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
and the more advanced follow when the forms have evolved to a higher state, so, out of any special division brought over from the Moon and stored in the Inter-Chain Nirvana, those who have progressed least under His influence during the time of retirement are sent out first of their class into the new world.
The Root-Manu of the terrene Chain, Vaivasvata,1 who directs the whole order of its evolution, is a mighty Being from the fourth Chain of the Venus Scheme ; two of His Assistants come from the same Chain, and a third is a high Adept who attained early in the lunar Chain.2 A Root-Manu of a Chain must achieve the level fixed for the Chain or Chains on which He is human, and become one of its Lords ; then He becomes the Manu of a Race ; then a Pratyeka Buddha ; then a Lord of the World ; then the Root-Manu, then the Seed-Manu of a Round, and only then the Root-Manu of a Chain. He directs the Manus of Rounds, who distribute the work among the Manus of Races. Further, each Chain yields a number of successful human beings, ‘the Lords of the Chain,5 some of whom devote Themselves to the work of the new Chain, under its Root-Manu.
1 The Root-Manu Vaivasvata must not be confused with the Manu Vaivasvata of the Aryan Root Race. The former was a far loftier Being, as will be seen from the statement of His long ascent, made in this same paragraph.
2 It must be remembered that when a man reaches the level appointed for the Chain on which he is evolv¬ ing, he may remain upon it and proceed on his further evolution, as Adepts, attaining now on our globe, may, without leaving it, reach the higher levels of the Hierarchy.
EARLY TIMES ON THE EARTH CHAIN
79
We thus find, for our Chain, seven classes of Lords of the Moon, working under our Root-Manu, drawn from the seven globes of the Moon Chain ; they form one of the two great classes of Helpers from outside, who are concerned in the guiding of the general evolution of the Earth Chain. The second important class of Helpers from outside are Those known as the Lords of the Flame, who arrive from Venus on the fourth globe, in the fourth Round, in the middle of the third Root- Race, to quicken mental evolution, to found the Occult Hierarchy of the Earth, and to take over the government of the globe. It is They whose tremendous influence so quickened the germs of mental life that these burst into growth, and there followed the great downrush through the Monad that we call the third Life- Wave, causing the forma¬ tion of the causal body, the £ birth 5 or 6 descent of the ego 5 for all those who had come up from the animal kingdom ; so instantaneous was the response of the myriad inhabitants of Earth that They are sometimes said to have e given,’ to have c pro¬ jected ’ the spark of mind ; but the spark was fanned into flame, not projected ; the nature of the gift was the quickening of the germ already present in nascent humanity, the effect of a sun-ray on a seed, not a giving of a seed.1 By the Lords of the Flame was concentrated the power of the LOGOS upon the Monads, as the sun-rays might be concentrated by a lens, and under that influence the responsive spark appeared. These are the true Manasaputras, the Sons of Mind — coming, as They did from the
1 The Secret Doctrine , iii, 560.
80
MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
fifth, the mental Round of Venus — the Sons of the Fire, the Lords of the Flame.1
The seven classes of the Lords of the Moon were distributed by the Root-Manu over the Earth Chain to take charge of the Rounds and globes, while the Manus of Races took special care of the evolution of Races, each of one Root Race.
The First Round
The Lords of the Moon from globes A, B, and C of the lunar Chain were the three classes who watched over, without partaking in, the physical construction of the globes of our Chain, as they were formed successively round the Spirit of each globe, as before described. 2 They appear to have superintended the detailed work of the Lords who attained later. The lowest class, from globe G, made the primitive archetypal forms on globe A of the Earth Chain in the first Round, and guided the Lines who came in to fill them, and to evolve therein. The next class, from globe F, superintend¬ ed the evolution of forms in the second Round ; that from globe E the similar evolution in the third ; and that from globe D the similar evolution in the fourth. s Further, we find some of the Lords
1 The word Manasaputra is used in The Secret Doctrine to indicate not only These, but also all egos who are sufficiently advanced to quicken into activity the germ of mind in others, as we may now do with animals. The word thus covers a huge class, containing many varying grades in evolution.
‘ See Ante, p. 61.
* All these are included under the name Barhishad Pitrs
• • • •
in The Secret Doctrine.
EARLY TIMES ON THE EARTH CHAIN
81
from globe E working on Mars in the fourth Round, while those from globe D become active later on the Earth.
When the despatch of the first entities from the Inter-Chain Nirvana began, the first ships brought the Lines, and the great mass of animals from globe D of the Moon Chain ; the first ship¬ loads succeeded each other at intervals of about one hundred thousand years, and then the supply stop¬ ped, and an immense period followed, during which the new arrivals, the pioneers on our Earth Chain, were pursuing their long journey of the first and second Rounds and part of the third.
The worlds are curious, like churning whirl¬ pools ; our Earth, the most solid, is hot, muddy,
sticky, and much of its territory does not seem to
be anchored down very firmly. It is seething, and constantly changing in consistency ; huge cataclysms engulf great multitudes from time to time, and in their embryonic condition they do not seem very much the worse for the engulfing, but increase
and multiply in huge caves and caverns, as though they were living on the surface.
The first Round of the Earth Chain had its globes on the same levels as the seventh Round of the Moon Chain ; globe A was on the higher mental plane, with some of the matter scarcely awakened ; globe B was on the lower mental ;
globe C on the emotional ; globe D on the phys¬ ical ; globe E on the emotional again ; globe F on the lower mental ; globe G on the higher mental. In the second Round the whole Chain
descended, and three globes became physical, C, D, 12
82 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
and E ; but the living things on them were etheric in substance, and pudding-baggy — to borrow H. P. Blavatsky’s graphic epithet — in form. Globes C and E, which we now call Mars and Mercury, had at that time physical matter, but in a glowing gaseous state.
The human bodies on the Earth during the first Round were amoeboid, cloudy, drifting things, mostly etheric, and thus indifferent to the heat ; they multiplied by fission. They seemed to succeed each other in Races but without separate incarnations, each form lasting for a Race. There were no births and no deaths ; they enjoyed an amoeba-immortal¬ ity, and were under the care of Lords of the Moon who had achieved Arhatship on globe G. Some etheric floating things appeared to be trying, but not very successfully, to be dreams of vegetables.
The minerals were somewhat more solid, for they were largely pelted on to the Earth by the Moon in a molten condition ; the temperature might be anything above 3,500 C. (6,332 F.), for copper was
0
in the condition of vapour, and it volatilises in an electrical furnace at this temperature. Silicon was visible, but most of the substances were proto¬ elements, not elements, and the present combina¬ tions seemed to be very rare ; the earth was surrounded by huge masses of vapour shutting in the heat, and hence cooled very slowly. At the Pole there was some boiling mud, which gradually settled down, and after some thousands of years a green scum appeared, which was vegetable ; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it would become vegetable later on.
EARLY TIMES ON THE EARTH CHAIN
83
Second Round
In the second Round the temperature of globe D had dropped considerably, and the copper had cooled down and become liquid, in some places solid. There was some land near the Poles, but flames burst out if a hole was made, as at some points on the sides of the cone of Vesuvius. The pudding-bag creatures did not seem to mind the heat, but floated about indifferently, reminding one in their shape of wounded soldiers who had lost their legs and had had their clothes sewn round the trunk ; a blow made an indentation, which slowly filled up again, like the flesh of a person suffering from dropsy ; the fore part of the thing had a kind of sucking mouth, through which it drew in food, and it would fasten on another and draw it in, as though sucking an egg through a hole, whereupon the sucked one grew flabby and died ; a struggle was noticed in which each had fixed its mouth on the other, and sucked away diligently. They had a kind of flap- hand, like the flap of a seal, and they made a cheerful kind of chirruping trumpeting noise, ex¬ pressing pleasure — pleasure being a sort of general sense of bien-etre , and pain a massive discomfort, nothing acute, only faint likes and dislikes. The skin was sometimes serrated, giving shades of colour. Later on, they became a little less shapeless and more human, and crawled on the ground like caterpillars. Later still, near the North Pole, on the cap of land there, these creatures were deve¬ loping hands and feet, though unable to stand up, and more intelligence was noticeable. A Lord of
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the Moon — an Arhat who had attained on globe F of the Moon Chain — was observed, who had magnet¬ ised an island and shepherded on to it a flock of these creatures, reminding one of sea-cows or porpoises, though with no formed heads ; they were taught to browse, instead of sucking each other, and when they did eat each other they chose some parts in preference to others, as though developing taste. The depression which served for mouth grew deeper into a kind of funnel, and a stomach began to develop, which was promptly turned inside out if any alien matter which was disapproved of found its way in. One turned him¬ self entirely inside out, and seemed none the worse. The surface of the Earth being still very uncertain, they occasionally got burnt or partially cooked ; this they evidently disliked, and if it went too far they collapsed. The heavy atmo¬ sphere made floating their usual method of locomotion, and this was pleasanter to look at than the writhing motion adopted on the ground, recall¬ ing the “ loathly worm ”. Reproduction was by budding ; a protuberance appeared, grew, and after a while broke off, and led an independent existence.
Their intelligence was infantile, and one was seen who had aimed at a neighbour with his mouth, and, missing him, had caught hold of his own lower end, and then went on sucking contentedly till, presumably becoming uncomfortable, he spat himself out again. One fellow found out that by rolling his lower end in mud, he could float up¬ right instead of lengthwise, and appeared to be very proud of himself. Gradually the end which
EARLY TIMES ON THE EARTH CHAIN
85
contained the funnel tapered off somewhat, and a small centre appeared in it, which, in far future ages, might become a brain. A small protuberance appeared, and the habit was formed of drifting forward, with this in front, as carrying the mouth, and impacts being constantly made on this, develop¬ ment was promoted.
Vegetable life developed during this period, aided by the heavy choking atmosphere ; there were forest-like growths, much resembling grass, but forty feet high and proportionately thick. They grew in the warm mud, and flourished exceedingly.
Towards the end of this period, some of the Earth was quite solid and only reasonably warm. There was much tumultuous cracking, apparently due to shrinkage, and every hill was an active volcano.
Mars became more solid, cooling more rapidly in consequence of its smaller size, but life on it was much like that on the Earth.
Third Round
In the third Round Mars was quite solid and firm, and some animals began to develop, though at first they looked rather like clumsy chunks of wood, sawed off a log. They recalled sketches made by children who had not learned how to draw ; but as time went on, there were beings who were distinctly human, though more like gorillas than men.
The configuration then was very different from that of the Mars now known to us. The water question
86
MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
had not arisen, for about three-fourths of the sur¬ face was water and only one-fourth dry land. Hence there were no canals, as now, and the general physical condition much resembled that of the Earth of to-day.
The people who began with the linear indica¬ tion of the causal body had by this time developed
basket-work of a kind coarser, we noticed, than
that which had been developed on the Moon.
When this stage was reached the Basket-works from the Moon came streaming in, ship-loads again being sent off by the Seed-Manu to the Earth.
Looking at the Inter-Chain Nirvana, in order to trace out the coming of the Basket-works to Mars, we came upon an interesting point. The
‘ shelves 5 on which the 4 bulbs 5 were stored were clearly of the higher mental matter ; but the bulbs brought over in the Seed-Manu’s aura were brought over through the spiritual sphere, and the basket-work of Moon mental matter would thus be disintegrated, and would need to be reformed before these entities began their terrene career. They would have slept for ages in the spiritual sphere, and then would have been reclothed in ‘ basket-work of the equivalent terrene mental matter. There is no continuity of mental matter between Chains. The distance, of course, may be disregard¬ ed, as the terrene Chain occupies much the same position as the lunar, but the discontinuity of the mental matter renders necessary the disintegration and reintegration of the basket-work causal bodies.
We saw a Manu coming over to Mars with a ship-load of Basket-works, reminding us of the
EARLY TIMES ON THE EARTH CHAIN
87
stories in the Hindu Puranas of the Manu crossing the ocean in a ship, bearing with Him the seeds of a new world, and those in the Hebrew records of Noah, preserving in an ark all that was needed to repopulate the Earth after a flood. The legends preserved in the Scriptures of religions are often stories containing the records of the past, and the Manu truly came to the Martian world to give a new impulse to evolution. Arriving on Mars, He founded a colony of His Basket-works thereon.
Tracing back this particular set, the first arrival of Basket-works in the terrene Chain, we found that they had come from globe G of the lunar Chain, having thereon become Basket-works. They were the least developed of the Basket-work crowd, having been the last to reach that stage ; the Manu guided them to take birth in the most promising third-Race families on Mars, and, as they grew, He led them off to His colony, where they would more quickly develop into fourth-Race people. In the colony the people moved by a central will like bees in a hive, the central will being that of the Manu ; He sent out streams of force and directed all. Two other sets of these Basket-work bees came to Mars, those who reached this stage on globes E and F of the Moon Chain ; they arrived in reverse order from that of their leaving the Moon, those from globe F forming the fourth Race on Mars, and those from globe E the fifth. They developed some affection and some intelligence under the fostering care of the Manu ; at first living in caves, they soon began to build, and to teach the aborigines to build under them, even
88 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
Basket-works becoming leaders at this stage of evolution.
These people were hermaphrodite, but one sex was usually developed more than the other, and two individuals were necessary for reproduction. Other forms of reproduction also existed among the lower types, and there were some embryonic human beings of the hydra kind who reproduced by budding and others by exudation, while some were oviparous. But these were not found among the Basket-works.
In the fifth-Race the social arrangements changed, as more intelligence was developed ; the bee system disappeared, but they still had little individuality, and moved rather in flocks and herds, shepherded by their Manu. The baskets became more closely woven, and represented what could be done by the unfold¬ ing life in those who were emphatically self-made men, unaided by the great stimulus given in the fourth Round by the Lords of the Flame. This type which moves in flocks is still largely represented among us by the people who hold conventional ideas because others hold them, and are wholly dominated by Mrs. Grundy. These are often quite good people, but are very sheepy and flocky, and are appallingly monotonous. There are differences among them, but they are like the differences between people who buy tea by the quarter-pound or by the ounce, noticeable chiefly by themselves.
One fierce type of Basket-work was observed, not living in communities, but wandering about in forests in pairs ; their heads ran up to a point behind matching the chin in front, and the head
EARLY TIMES ON THE EARTH CHAIN
89
ending in two points looked odd and unattractive. They fought by butting against each other like goats, the top of the head being of very hard bone. There were some yet lower types, curious reptilian creatures, living in trees. They were larger than the Lines and far less intelligent, and ate the latter when they had the chance.
There were also on Mars some carnivorous brutes ; a huge crocodile-like animal was seen fierce¬ ly attacking a man, who rushed at it with a club, which did not seem a very effective weapon. How¬ ever, he stumbled over a rock and fell headlong into the creature’s jaws, and so came to an un¬ timely end.
The third Round on the Earth much resembled that on Mars, the people being smaller and denser, but, from our present standpoint, still huge and gorilla-like. The bulk of the Basket-works from globe D of the lunar Chain arrived on our Earth in this Round, and led the human evolution ; the Basket-works from Mars fell in behind them, and the whole resembled fairly intelligent gorillas. The animals were very scaly, and even the creatures we must call birds were covered with scales rather than feathers ; they all seemed to be made of a job-lot of fragments stuck together, half-bird, half¬ reptile, and wholly unattractive. Still, it was a little more like a world than the preceding globes, in fact than anything we had seen since we left the Moon ; and later on cities were built. The work of the Lords of the Moon — who in this Round were Arhats from globe E — resembled the training of animals more than the evolution of a
13
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90 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
humanity. But it is noticeable that they were working on sections, as it were, of the different bodies, physical and subtle. The third sub-planes of the physical, astral and mental spheres were being specially worked through, and the spirillae of the atoms on these sub-planes were being vivified/
The methods of reproduction on our Earth during the third Round were those which are now confined to the lower kingdoms of nature. In the first and second Races, not thoroughly densified, fission still occurred, but in the third and onwards the methods were : budding-off like hydrae in the less organised ; the exuding of cells from different organs of the body, which reproduced similar organs, and grew into a miniature duplication of the parent ; the laying of eggs, within which the young human being developed. These were hermaphrodite, and gradually one sex predominated, but never sufficiently to represent a definite male and female.
The passing of the life-wave from one globe to another is gradual and there is considerable overlapping ; it will be remembered that globe A of the terrene Chain began to form when globe A of the lunar Chain was in process of disintegration, the passing of the Spirit of the globe being the signal of the transference of activity.2 Thus life-activity is continuous, though egos have long periods of rest. A globe 6 passes into obscuration’ when the attention of the LOGOS is turned away from it, and thus His Light is withdrawn. It passes into a kind of coma, and there is a residuum of living creatures, left behind ;
1 See Ante , pp. 29, 30 a See Ante, pp. 60, 61
EARLY TIMES ON THE EARTH CHAIN
91
these creatures do not seem to increase in number during this period. But while the Races die out, the egos inhabiting them having passed on, the globe becomes a field for the Inner Round, a place to which egos in a transition state can be transferred for special treatment in order to quicken their evolution. The globe to which the attention of the LOGOS is turned starts into active life, and receives the streams of egos ready to go forward on their journey.
Another point that may be noted is the recurrence of types at a higher level of evolution, in which they form but transitional stages. As in the develop¬ ment of the human embryo of to-day, the fish-, reptile-, and lower mammalian-types appear, repeat¬ ing in a few months the asonic evolution of the past, so do we see in each Round that a period of repetition precedes that of new advance. The third Round laboriously worked out in detail that which the third Race in the fourth Round would reproduce with comparative swiftness, while the second Race would similarly reflect the second Round, and the first Race the first Round. This broad principle once grasped, study becomes more easy, as the outline is clear into which details are to be fitted.