II
OUR
ATLANTEAN FOREFATHERS
OUR Atlantean
ancestors differed more from the men of to-day than may be imagined
by anyone who is wholly limited to the world of sense for his
knowledge. This difference extends not only to the outward
appearance, but also to mental capacities. Their science and also
their technical arts, their whole civilisation, differed much from
that of our day. If we go back to the early times of Atlantean
humanity we shall find there a mental capacity altogether different
from our own. Logical reasoning, the calculatory combinations upon
which all that is produced at the present day is based, were entirely
wanting in the early Atlanteans, but in place of these they possessed
a highly-developed memory. This memory was one of their most
prominent mental faculties. For example, they did not count as we do
by the application of certain acquired rules. A multiplication table
was something absolutely unknown in early Atlantean times. No one had
impressed upon his understanding the fact that three times four were
twelve. A person's ability to make such a calculation, when
necessary, rested on the fact that he could remember cases of the
same or a similar kind. He remembered how this was done on former
occasions. Now it must be clearly understood that whenever a
new faculty is developed in a being, an old one loses its force and
precision. The man of the present day has the advantage over the
Atlantean of possessing a logical understanding and an
aptitude for combination; but on the other hand his memory
power has waned. We now think in ideas, the Atlantean thought in
pictures; and when a picture rose in his mind he remembered many
other similar pictures which he had formerly seen, and then formed
his judgment accordingly. Consequently all education then was quite
different from that of later times. It was not intended to provide
the child with rules or to sharpen his wits. Rather was life
presented to him in comprehensive pictures, so that
subsequently he could call to remembrance as much as possible,
when dealing with this or that circumstance. When the child had grown
up and had reached maturity, he could remember, no matter what he
might have to do, that something similar had been shown to him in the
days of his instruction. He saw clearly how to act when the new event
resembled something already seen. When absolutely new conditions
arose, the Atlantean found himself compelled to experiment; while the
man of to-day is spared much in this direction, being furnished with
a set of rules which he can easily apply in circumstances new
to him. Such a system of education gave a strong uniformity to the
entire life. Things were done again and again in exactly the same way
during very long periods of time. The faithfulness of memory
offered no scope for anything at all approaching the rapidity
of our own progress. A man did what he had always seen done before;
he did not think, he remembered. Not he who had learnt much was held
as an authority, but he who had experienced a great deal and could
therefore remember much. It would have been impossible in Atlantean
times for anyone who had not reached a certain age to be called upon
to decide on any affair of importance. Confidence was placed only in
one who could look back on a long experience.
What is here said does not refer to Initiates and their schools,
for they indeed are beyond the average development of their
time. And for admission into such schools, age is not the
deciding factor, but rather the consideration, whether the candidate
in his former incarnations has acquired the ability to assimilate the
higher wisdom. The confidence placed in Initiates and their agents in
Atlantean times was not based on the extent of their personal
experience, but on the age of their wisdom. For an Initiate, his own
personality has ceased to have any importance; he is entirely
at the service of the Eternal Wisdom, and therefore the
characteristics of any period of time have no weight with him.
Thus, while the power of logical
thinking was still wanting, especially in the earlier
Atlanteans, they possessed in their highly developed power of memory
something which gave a special character to their whole
activity. But other powers are always bound up with the nature of one
special human force. Memory is nearer to the deeper foundations laid
by Nature in man than is the power of reason; and in connection with
the former, other impulses were developed which bore greater
resemblance to those lower nature forces than the motive forces of
human action at the present day. Thus the Atlantean was master of
what is called the Life-Force. Just as we now draw from coal the
force of warmth, which is changed into the force of propulsion in our
methods of traffic, so did the Atlanteans understand how to use
the germinal force of living things in the service of their technical
works. An illustration of this may be given as follows: Let us think
of a grain of corn; in it slumbers a force; this force acts in such a
way that out of the grain of corn the stalk sprouts forth. Nature can
awaken this sleeping force in the grain, but the man of to-day cannot
do so at will. He must bury the grain in the earth, and leave its
awakening to the forces of Nature. The Atlantean could do something
more. He knew what to do in order to transform the force in a heap of
corn into mechanical power, just as the man of our day can
transform into a like power the force of warmth in a heap of
coal. In Atlantean times plants were not cultivated merely for use as
food, but also in order that the slumbering force in them might be
rendered serviceable to their commerce and industry. Just
as we have
contrivances for transforming the latent force of coal into the power
to propel our engines, so had the Atlanteans devices for heating by
the use of plant-seeds in which the life-force was changed into a
power applicable to technical purposes. In this way were propelled
the air-ships of the Atlanteans, which soared a little above the
earth. These air-ships sailed at a height rather below that of the
mountains of Atlantean times, and they had steering appliances, by
means of which they could be raised above these
mountains.
We must picture to ourselves that with the
advance of time all the conditions of our earth have greatly changed.
These air-ships of the Atlanteans would be quite useless in our days.
Their utility lay in the fact that at that time the atmosphere
enveloping our earth was much denser than now. Whether, according to
the scientific conceptions of the present day, such an increased
density of the air can be easily conceived, need not concern us here.
Science and logical thought can never, from their very nature,
determine what is possible and what impossible. Their task is only to
explain what has been proved by experience and observation. And
the density of the air here spoken of is, in occult experience, as
much a certainty as any given fact of the world of sense can be
to-day. And just as firmly established is the fact — perhaps
even more inexplicable to the physics and chemistry of our time
— that in those days the water
over the whole earth was much more fluid
than it is now. And owing to its fluidity, water (being
driven by means of the life-force in seeds) could be used by the
Atlanteans for technical purposes impossible to-day. On account
of the densification of water, it has become impossible to set it in
motion and to guide it in the same premeditated manner as was once
possible. From this it is sufficiently evident that the civilisation
of Atlantean times differed fundamentally from our own, and it will
also be readily conceivable that the physical nature of an
Atlantean was quite different from that of the contemporary man.
Water when drunk by the Atlantean could be worked upon by the
life-force within his own body in quite another way than is possible
in the physical body of to-day. And thus it arose that the Atlantean
could use his physical strength at will, quite otherwise than
ourselves. He had, as it were, the means within himself of increasing
physical forces when he required them for his own use. It is only
possible to picture the Atlanteans correctly when one knows that they
had conceptions of fatigue and the loss of strength absolutely
different from our own.
An Atlantean settlement, as may be gathered
from what has already been said, bore a character in no way
resembling that of a modern town. But there was a much closer
resemblance between it and Nature. We can only give a faint
suggestion of the real picture when we say that in early Atlantean
times — till about the middle of the third sub-race — a
settlement resembled a garden in which the houses formed themselves
out of trees whose branches were intertwined in an artistic manner.
Whatever the hand of man fashioned at that time grew naturally in
like manner. Man, too, felt himself entirely akin to Nature, and so
it arose that his social instinct was quite different from our own.
Nature is indeed the common property of all men; and whatever
the Atlantean built up with Nature for its foundation, he regarded as
common property, precisely as the man of to-day thinks it only
natural to regard as his own private property that which his
acuteness and his reason have
produced.
Anyone who familiarises himself with the idea
that the Atlanteans were endowed with such mental and physical powers
as have been depicted, will likewise learn to understand that at
still earlier periods mankind presents an aspect which but very
faintly reminds us of what we are accustomed to see to-day. And not
only man, but Nature which surrounds him, has also changed enormously
in the course of time. [With
regard to the time-periods at which the conditions shown held sway,
something more will be said in the course of these communications.
For the present the reader is warned not be surprised if the few
figures given him in the previous chapter seem to contradict what he
finds elsewhere.] The
forms of plant and animal have altered; the whole of terrestrial
Nature has undergone a transformation. Regions of the earth which
were formerly inhabited have been destroyed, and others have
arisen.
The forefathers of the Atlanteans lived on a
part of the earth which has disappeared, the principal portion
of which lay to the south of what is Asia to-day. In Theosophical
literature they are called Lemurians. After passing through
various stages of evolution the greater number fell into
decadence. They became a stunted race, whose descendants, the
so-called savages, inhabit certain portions of the earth even now.
Only a small number of the Lemurians were capable of advancing in
their evolution, and it was from these that the Atlantean Race
developed. Still later something similar occurred. The great mass of
the inhabitants of Atlantis fell into decadence; and the
so-called Âryans, to which race belongs the humanity of
our present civilisation, sprang from a small division of these
Atlanteans. According to the nomenclature of the “Secret
Doctrine,” Lemurians, Atlanteans, and
Âryans are Root-Races of humanity. If we think
of two such Root-Races preceding the Lemurian, and two following
the Âryan in the future, we have altogether seven.
The one always arises out of the other in the manner pointed
out in the case of the Lemurian, Atlantean, and Âryan Races. And
each Root-Race has physical and mental qualities entirely different
from those of that which precedes it. While, for example, the
Atlantean brought his memory and everything in connection with it to
a high degree of development, the duty of the Âryan of the
present is to develop thought-power and all that appertains thereto.
But each Root-Race itself must pass through
different stages, and these again are always sevenfold. At the
beginning of a time-period belonging to a Root-Race, its leading
characteristics appear in an immature state; they gradually reach
maturity, and then at last decadence. Thus, the members of a
Root-Race are divided into seven sub-races. However, it must not be
imagined that one sub-race immediately disappeared on the
development of a new one. On the contrary, every one of them
continued to exist for a long time, while others flourished beside
it. Thus there are always dwellers on the earth, living side by side,
but showing the most varied stages of
evolution.
The first sub-race
of the Atlanteans arose from a portion of the Lemurian Race which was
greatly advanced and capable of further evolution. For
instance, in this latter race the gift of memory showed itself
only in its very earliest beginnings, and even so much did not appear
until the latest stages of its evolution. It must be realised that a
Lemurian could indeed make images of his experiences, but could not
preserve them as recollections; he immediately forgot what he had
pictured to himself. That, in spite of this, he lived to a certain
extent a civilised life; for instance, that he possessed tools,
erected buildings, and so on, was not due to his own
imagination, but to an inner mental force which was
instinctive. Yet we must not imagine an instinct similar to
that which animals possess at the present time, but an instinct of
another order.
The first sub-race of the Atlanteans is called
in Theosophical literature the Rmoahal. The memory of this race was
especially derived from vivid sense-impressions. Colours which
the eye had seen, tones which the ear had heard, continued to operate
long within the soul. This was manifested in the fact that the
Rmoahals developed feelings quite unknown to their Lemurian
ancestors. For instance, adherence to that which had been experienced
in the past constituted part of such feelings.
Now the development of speech depended
on that of memory. As long as man did not remember the past, there
could be no narration of experiences by means of speech. And because
the first rudiments of a memory appeared in the latest Lemurian
period, it was only then possible that the ability to give names to
things heard and seen could begin to appear. It is only those who
have the faculty of recollection who can make any use of a name
which has been given to an object; and consequently it was in the Atlantean
period that speech found its development. And with speech a tie was
formed between the human soul and things exterior to man, since he
then produced the spoken word from within himself, and this spoken
word appertained to the objects of the outer world. Through
communication by means of speech a new bond also arose between man
and man. All this, indeed, was still in an elementary form at
the time of the Rmoahals; but nevertheless it distinguished them
profoundly from their Lemurian
ancestors.
Now the forces in the souls of these first
Atlanteans still retained something of the force of Nature. Man was
then in a certain manner more nearly related to the Nature-spirits
surrounding him than were his descendants. Their soul forces were
more Nature forces than are those of the men of the present, and so,
too, the spoken word which they uttered had something of the might of
Nature. Not only did they name objects, but their words contained a
power over things and over their fellow-creatures. The word of the
Rmoahal possessed more than mere meaning; it had also power. When we
speak of the magic force of words we indicate something which was a
far greater reality at that time, and for those men, than it is for
men of the present. When a Rmoahal pronounced a word, this word
developed a force akin to that of the object designated by it. Hence
it is that words had the power of healing at that time, and that they
could hasten the growth of plants, tame the rage of animals, and
produce other such effects. All this force gradually faded away among
the later Atlantean sub-races. It might be said that that fullness of
strength which was a product of Nature wasted away little by little.
The men of the Rmoahal race regarded such fullness of strength
altogether as a gift from mighty Nature herself; and this relation of
theirs with Nature bore for them a religious character. Speech was,
to them, something especially sacred, and the misuse of certain tones
in which dwelt a significant power was to them an impossibility.
Every individual felt that such misuse must bring him terrible
injury. The magic of such words, they thought, would change into its
opposite; that which rightly used would cause a blessing would bring
the author to ruin if wrongly employed. In a certain innocence of
feeling the Rmoahals ascribed their power less to themselves than to
Divine Nature working in them.
It was otherwise in the second sub-race (the
so-called Tlavatli peoples). The men of this race began to feel their
own personal value. Ambition, an unknown quality among the Rmoahals,
showed itself in them. We might say that the faculty of memory grew
into the comprehension of life in communities. He who could
look back on certain deeds demanded from his fellow-men some
recognition of his ability. He claimed that his work should be
held in remembrance, and it was this memory of deeds that was the
basis on which rested the election, by a group of men allied to each
other, of a certain one as leader. A kind of kingship arose. Indeed,
this recognition extended beyond death. The remembrance, the
commemoration of forefathers, or of those who, during life, had one
merit, arose in this way, and thus in single family groups there grew
up a kind of religious reverence for the dead — in other words,
ancestor-worship. This has continued to spread into much later times
and has taken the most varied forms. Among the Rmoahals a man was
still esteemed only according to the degree in which for the moment
he was able to make himself valuable by the greatness of his power.
Did anyone want recognition for what he had done in former days, then
he must show by new deeds that he still possessed the old power. He
must call to remembrance his old achievements by the performance of
new ones. That which had once been done was valueless in itself. Not
until the second sub-race was the personal character of a man of so
much account that his past life was taken into consideration in
the estimation of it.
A further result
of the power of thought in drawing men to live together appeared in
the fact that groups of men were formed who were united by the
remembrance of deeds done in company. The forming of such
groups originally depended wholly upon the forces of Nature, on their
common parentage. By his own intelligence man had as yet added
nothing to that which Nature had made of him. One mighty personality
now enlisted a great company to share in a common undertaking;
and the remembrance of this work, being retained by all, built up a
social group.
This manner of
living together in social groups only impressed itself forcibly when
the third sub-race (the Toltec) was reached. It was therefore the men
of this race who first founded what may be called a
commonwealth, the earliest kind of statecraft. The
leadership, the government, of this commonwealth passed from
ancestors to descendants. That which had formerly continued
only in the memory of their fellow-men, the father now
transferred to the son. The deeds of their forefathers would be
kept in remembrance by the whole race. The achievements of an
ancestor continued to be cherished by his descendants. However, we
must clearly understand that in those times men really had the power
to transfer their gifts to their offspring. Education was based upon
the representation of life in comprehensive pictures, and the
efficacy of this education depended on the personal force which
proceeded from the teacher. It was not an intellectual power which he
sought to excite, but rather those gifts which were more instinctive
in character. By such a system of education the father's ability was
really, in most cases, transferred to the
son.
Under conditions like these, personal experience won for
itself more and more importance in the third sub-race. When one group
of human beings severed itself from another group, it brought with it
for the foundation of its new community the vivid recollection of
what it had experienced in its former surroundings. But all the
same, these memories contained something with which they were not in
sympathy, something in which they did not feel at ease. In this
connection, therefore, they sought something new, and thus conditions
improved with every new settlement of the kind. And it was only
natural that the improved conditions should find imitators. These
were the facts on which rested the foundation of those flourishing
commonwealths that arose in the time of the third sub-race, and are
described in Theosophical literature. The personal experiences
undergone found support from those who were initiated into the
eternal laws of mental development. Mighty rulers received initiation
in order that personal ability might have its full provision. A man
gradually prepares himself for initiation by his personal ability. He
must first develop his forces from below upwards, so that
enlightenment may then be imparted to him from above. Thus arose the
King-Initiates and Leaders of the people among the Atlanteans. In
their hands lay a tremendous amount of power, and great, too, was the
reverence paid to them.
But in this fact
lay also the cause of their fall. The development of memory led to
enormous personal power. The individual began to wish for influence
by means of this power of his; and the greater the power grew, the
more did he desire to use it for himself. The ambition which he had
developed became selfishness, and this gave rise to a misuse of
forces. When we consider what the Atlanteans were able to do by their
command of the life-force, we can understand that such misuse
must have had tremendous consequences. An enormous power over Nature
could be placed at the service of personal
self-love.
And this was what
happened in full measure during the period of the fourth sub-race
(the original Turanians). The members belonging to this race, who
were instructed in the mastery of the forces mentioned, made manifold
use of these to satisfy their wayward wishes and desires. But these
forces put to such a use naturally destroy one another in their
action. It is as if the feet of a man wilfully moved forwards while
at the same time the upper part of his body desired to go
backwards.
Such destructive action could only be arrested
by the cultivation of a higher force in man. This was thought-power.
The effect of logical thinking is to restrain selfish personal
wishes. We must seek the origin of this logical thought in the fifth
sub-race (the original Semites). Men began to go beyond the simple
remembrance of the past, they began to compare their
various experiences. The faculty of judgment developed, and wishes
and desires were regulated according to this discernment. Man began
to calculate, to combine. He learnt to work in thoughts.
Whereas formerly he had abandoned himself to every wish, he now
asked himself whether, on reflection, he approved of the wish. While
the men of the fourth sub-race wildly rushed after the satisfaction
of their desires, those of the fifth began to hearken to the inner
voice. And this inner voice had the effect of checking the desires,
even if it could not crush the demands of the selfish personality.
Thus did the fifth sub-race implant within the
human soul the interior impulses of action. In his own soul man must
decide what to do and what to leave undone. But, while man thus
gained thought-power inwardly, his command over the external forces
of Nature was being lost. The forces of the mineral kingdom can be
controlled only by means of this combining thought, not by the
life-power. It was therefore at the cost of the mastery of the
life-force that the fifth sub-race developed thought-power. But it
was just by so doing that they created the germs of a further
evolution of humanity. Now it is no longer possible for thought
alone, working entirely within the man, and no longer able to
command Nature directly, to bring about such devastating
results as did the misused forces of earlier times, even if the
personality, self-love, and selfishness were ever so great. Out of
this fifth sub-race was chosen its most gifted portion, which
outlived the destruction of the Fourth Race and formed the nucleus of
the Fifth, — the Âryan race, whose task it is to bring to
perfection the power of thought and all that belongs thereto.
The men of the sixth sub-race — the
Akkadian — trained their thought-power still more highly than
did the fifth. They distinguished themselves from the so-called
original Semites by bringing into use in a wider sense the faculty
mentioned. It has been said that the development of thought-power did
not indeed allow the demands of the selfish personality to attain
such destructive results as were possible in earlier races; but that,
nevertheless, these demands were not killed out by it. The original
Semites at first regulated their personal affairs as their reason
suggested. In place of crude desires and lust, prudence appeared.
Other conditions of life presented themselves. Whereas the
races of former times inclined to recognize as their leader him whose
deeds were deeply engraved in the memory, or who could look back on a
life rich in recollections, such a
rôle
was now rather adjudged to the wise man; and if formerly that was
considered decisive which was still fresh in the memory, so now that
was regarded as best which appealed most strongly to the reason.
Under the influence of thought men once clung to a thing till it was
considered insufficient, and then in the latter case it came about
naturally that he who had a novelty capable of supplying a want
should find a hearing. A love of novelty and a longing for change
were, however, developed by this thought-power. Everyone wanted to
carry out what his own sagacity suggested; and thus it is that
restlessness begins to appear in the fifth sub-race, leading in the
sixth to the necessity of placing under general laws the capricious
ideas of the single individual. The glory of the states of the
third sub-race lay in the order and harmony caused by a common
memory. In the sixth this order had to be obtained by deliberately
constructed laws. Thus in the sixth sub-race must be sought the
origin of law and legislation. And during the third sub-race the
segregation of a group of human beings took place only when in a
manner they were compelled to leave, because they no longer felt
comfortable within the prevailing conditions, brought about by
recollection. It was essentially different in the sixth. The
calculating power of thought sought novelty as such; it urged men to
enterprise and new undertakings. Thus the Akkadians were an
enterprising people inclined towards colonization. It was commerce
especially that fed the young and germinating power of thought and
judgment.
In the seventh sub-race — the Mongolian
— thought-power also developed; but in them existed qualities
of the earlier sub-races, especially of the fourth, in a much greater
degree than in the fifth and sixth. They remained true to their sense
of memory. And so they came to the conclusion that the most
ancient must also be the wisest, must be that which could best defend
itself against the attack of thought. They had indeed lost the
command of the life-force, but that which developed in them as
thought-power had in itself something of the power of this
life-force. It is true they had lost the power over life, but never
the direct, instinctive belief in the existence of such a power. This
force, indeed, became to them their God in Whose service they
performed everything which they considered right. Thus they
appeared to their neighbours to be possessed of a mystic power, and
the latter yielded to it in blind faith. Their descendants in Asia
and in some European regions showed, and still show, much of
this peculiarity.
The power of
thought implanted in man could only attain its full value in
evolution when, in the Fifth Race, it acquired a new impulse. After
all, the Fourth could only place this power at the service of that
which had been fostered by the gift of memory. It was not until the
Fifth was reached that such forms of life were attained as could find
their instrument in the faculty of thought.
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