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Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions
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James A. Santucci
ny discussion of the role of race in Theosophical literature, especially the writings of its main expositor, Helena P. Blavatsky
(18311891), must be accompanied by an understanding of the
context in which she expressed her views on humanity and the cosmos.
Her writings make it clear that she did not share many of her contemporaries perspectives on race. In their view, races referred not only to
groups sharing physical peculiarities,1 but also suggested inequalities
among humans vis--vis culture, character, and national identity. In
other words, these are views we would identify today as racism. This was
especially true when discussions turned to the so-called Aryan race and
its supposed superiority to other races. Because Blavatsky wrote on this
topic, the charge has been made that she was partially responsible for
many of the ideas behind Nazism. Yet, a close examination of Blavatskys
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Volume 11, Issue 3, pages
3763, ISSN 1092-6690 (print), 1541-8480 (electronic). 2008 by The Regents of the
University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission
to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Presss
Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp.
DOI: 10.1525/nr.2008.11.3.37
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Nova Religio
writings and Esoteric Buddhism (1883) by A. P. Sinnett2 indicates that
their Theosophical views on race cannot be interpreted in the same
manner as those who held clearly racist views. This article will demonstrate that in the Theosophical works of Sinnett and Blavatsky race is
merely a term of convenience used to refer not only to physical traits but
to various stages experienced by the reincarnating soul or monad
along an incredibly lengthy series of cyclic progressionsdemarcated by
root races and sub-races as the major divisionsbefore reaching the
state of a perfect septenary being,3 in which consciousness is fully integrated in its operation of the vehicles or bodies corresponding to the
seven planes of existence.
The first public Theosophical discussion of the human races
appeared in Sinnetts Esoteric Buddhism. The focus was on physical and
spiritual evolution of demarcated human groupings within larger cosmic cycles. This discussion was greatly expanded in Blavatskys The Secret
Doctrine (1888), which remains the main source of information on the
Theosophical conception of race. Although it is asserted in The Secret
Doctrine that there are spiritual, psychic, intellectual, and physical differences among the seven root races, or major temporal divisions of
humanity in a global round,4 it is clear that the physical aspect of race
is but a minor characteristic in relation to the larger issue of the place
of the monad within a vast system of spiritual and physical cycles, in
which monads are progressing toward ever higher forms of existence.
According to Blavatsky, the manifestation of the universe was produced by
the involution of consciousness or spirit into increasingly dense material
forms, while evolution
viewed from its several standpointsi.e., as the universal and the
individualized Monad; and the chief aspects of the Evolving Energy,
after differentiationthe purely Spiritual, the Intellectual, the Psychic
and the Physicalmay be thus formulated as an invariable law; a descent
of Spirit into Matter, equivalent to an ascent in physical evolution; a reascent from the depths of materiality towards its status quo ante, with a
corresponding dissipation of concrete form and substance up to the
LAYA [dissolution; undifferentiated] state, or what Science calls the
zero-point, and beyond.5
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cruelty is from kindness and as monkeys are from men.15 Among the
prejudices arising was the idea that one skin color was considered the
norm. Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon, the Comte de Buffon (1706 or
17071788), considered the white race as the norm or the real and
natural color of man.16
Despite race differences, however, it was Charles Darwin (18091882)
who asserted in The Origin of Species (1859) that all races descend from
a single species, thus establishing monogenesis as the viable theory as
opposed to polygenesis.17 Although he rejected certain notions of
racism, Darwins work led to other views that were decidedly racist; for
one, the relation of brain size to intelligence. Of greater importance was
the application of evolution to racial differences. However, Darwin did
not rank each race on an evolutionary scale, nor did he state that the
white race was the highest of all the races.18 This was more the opinion
of Robert Chambers (18021871), a publisher who wrote Vestiges of the
Natural History of Creation (1844), a precursor to The Origin of Species by
fifteen years,19 who unlike Darwin described a sequential progression
for the human races on an evolutionary scale from black, Malay, Indian,
Mongolian, and finally Caucasian.20 The placing of the Caucasian (a
term introduced by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach [17521840]) race
at the apogee of development of an original black humanity was introduced by James Cowles Prichard, an English physician in his Researches
into the Physical History of Man (1836).21
As a side bar to the general race discussion was the introduction of
the notion of the so-called Aryan race. The association of race with
the term Aryan arose out of a failure to distinguish race from nationality and language. Subsequent to the discovery of the linguistic relation of Sanskrit to Latin, Greek, Celtic, Gothic, and Persian popularized
by Sir William Jones (17461794) in his Third Anniversary Discourse
on the Hindus (1786),22 by the mid-1850s the ancient people who
spoke these languages, the Aryans, were considered not only a race,
but a superior race.23
Recently, the point has been made by Josep R. Llobera that historians have suppressed or minimized the fact that most scholars in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries accepted the inequality of races.24
The most notorious of these scholars and thinkers was the so-called
father of Aryan racism, Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau (18161882),25
the author of Essai sur linegalit des races humaines. Gobineau maintained that civilization declined when the superior race mixed with
other races. Miscegenation was, therefore, the culprit in the decline of
the superior race. It was assumed that race referred not only to blood
and biology but also to national character and national culture.26 It
is this assumption that tends to raise suspicions that any discussion of
races, including the Theosophical discussion, may be nothing more
than racist.
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in some aspects of the teaching, with later Theosophical writers
Charles W. Leadbeater (18541934) and Annie Besant (18471933)
tending to follow, in part, Sinnett in this area of the doctrine. Besides
making the ideas more accessible and more cohesive, Sinnett helped to
define the principal ingredients of Theosophical teaching on race.
In order to understand the Theosophical view of the human race
and the races that make up humanity, it is necessary to explain the relation between the Supreme, Transcendent Principle, and the human
being. The most quoted statement regarding the Supreme is found in
the Proem of The Secret Doctrine:
An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on
which all speculation is impossible . . . beyond the range and reach of
thoughtin the words of Mandukya, man unthinkable and
unspeakable.32
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humanity and the collective of that humanity. Blavatsky wrote that the
progenitors of humanity evolving on Earth came from the evolution that
occurred previously on the chain of subtle globes plus the physical moon,
i.e. the lunar chain.46 In accordance with the Manavadharmasastra 1.
6163 and 80, Blavatsky maintains that there are fourteen Manus:
seven Root Manus and seven Seed Manus. A Root Manu initiates a
round or cycle of evolution beginning with Planet A (the first globe in
a planetary chain) and a Seed Manu appears on Planet G (the seventh
and last globe in a planetary chain) (see below) to close the round.
The Root-Manu is the progenitor of the race and the Seed-Manu is the
seed for the forthcoming race.47 The period between one Root Manu
and one Seed Manu is the equivalent to a minor Manvantara.48 Seven
rounds or circuits of evolutionary life around the planetary chain
equal the duration of fourteen Manus. The period of time encompassing seven Root Manus and seven Seed Manus is equal to a day of
Brahma or a planetary manvantara. According to the calculations
appearing in the Puranas,49 we are presently in the period of Manu
Vaivasvata, the seventh Manu.50 Having already completed three of
seven circuits or rounds around Planets A to G, humanity is currently
in the fourth round. An additional seven Manus, beginning with the
Seed Manu of round four (known as Savarna) to the Seed Manu of
round seven (Bhoutya), will complete the remaining three and onehalf circuits around Planets A to G, completing a planetary cycle or
planetary manvantara. Each of these seven rounds that comprise the
planetary cycle is responsible for the evolutionary development and
manifestation of a principle or constituent part of the human being. In
the present fourth round, humanity is developing the fourth principle
or kama (desire).
It is within the context of the planetary chains and rounds that
humanity evolves. On the individual level, cycles include the life and
death cycle, including reincarnation, down to the days and nights, waking and sleeping of the individual. The question next arises: How are the
races involved with the cycles?
The Root Races and Sub-Races
Race is a term applied to evolving human entities within this cyclic
context. There are seven root races and seven sub-races for each root
race. The relation between the races and the cycles, all based upon the
septenary51 make up of the universe are as follows:
7 subraces make a root race;
7 root races make a globe round;
7 globe rounds make a planetary round;
7 planetary rounds make a planetary manvantara.52
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1 Sub-Race;
1 Root-Race;
1 World-period;
1 Round;
1 Chain-Period;
Our Solar System.53
The races in Sinnetts Esoteric Buddhism are not named but they are
seven in number, with root races sometimes identified as great
races,54 comprised of seven sudivisional races, with the latter made
up of seven branch races. Leadbeater, who was influenced by Sinnett,
retains the threefold division. Gottfried de Purucker adds further subdivisions, such as primary and secondary sub-races, family race, national
race, tribal race, tribal generation, ending with the individual human.55
The Theosophical discussion of race centers not on physical, cultural, or
national characteristics, but on the development or progress of the spiritualdivine soul or Pilgrim56 (consisting of the immortal Self or Atman in
combination with the Spiritual Soul or Buddhi), the reincarnating
monad progressing through the kingdoms, beginning with the mineral57
and moving to the higher realms, through all the rounds and races.58
The Grand Cycle includes the progress of mankind from the appearance
of primordial man of ethereal form. It runs through the inner cycles of
his [mans] progressive evolution from the ethereal down to the semiethereal and purely physical: down to the redemption of man from his
coat of skin and matter, after which it continues running its course
downward and then upward again, to meet at the culmination of a
Round, when the manvantaric Serpent swallows its tail and seven
minor cycles are passed. These are the great Racial Cycles which affect
equally all the nations and tribes included in that special Race; but there
are minor and national as well as tribal cycles within those, which run
independently of each other.59
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The reference to a round is based upon the septenary nature of the
planet or globe. Thus, the planet Earth has six companion globes, as do
the other planets and the moon. This chain of globes is a planetary
chain. The globes, designated A to G, inhabit four of the seven cosmic
planes (the cosmic equivalent to human states of consciousness61): the
four lower planes. Globes A and G inhabit the Archetypal (ethereal)
World (Plane 4, or Plane 1 of the Manifested Worlds); B and F inhabit the
Intellectual or Creative World (Plane 5); Globes C and E inhabit the
Substantial or Formative World (Plane 6); and the Earth Globe inhabits
the Physical Material World (Plane 7 or Plane 4 of the Material Worlds).62
There is, therefore, a descent of consciousness into matter followed by
an ascent to the Archetypal Plane.63 The seven planes are divided into
the Unmanifested and Manifested worlds: the three uppermost (above
the Globes) designated arupa (without form) and described as inaccessible to human intellect in its present state of development. This teaching is based upon the Kabbala and what Blavatsky identifies as Eastern
Gupta Vidya (Eastern Hidden Wisdom).64
The planetary chain provides the arena for evolution to occur. The
classes of entities that evolve are divided into ten kingdoms or
classes: the Elemental Kingdoms (13); the Mineral Kingdom (4);
the Plant Kingdom (5); the Animal Kingdom (6); the Human
Kingdom (7); and the Dhyani Chohanic [= Angelic] Kingdoms (810).
Evolution progresses through all ten Classes.65 Evolution within the
Human Kingdom, a very small portion of the grand evolutionary
scheme, takes place on Globe D (the Earth) on separate areas of the
planet. On this Globe all seven root races will evolve and for each
their seven sub-races and seven branch or family races of each subrace. Five root races have nearly completed their time on Earth, two
are yet to come.66
At present the root race that is dominant is the Fifth Root Race.
Called the Aryan raceitself comprised of seven sub-races, with each
sub-race consisting of seven branch or family races67it has been in
existence for about one million years,68 with each sub-race69 lasting for
approximately 210,000 years and each family race surviving for 30,000
years.70 The European or fifth sub-race is expected to be replaced by the
sixth sub-race in a few hundred years, the germs of which are found
in America.71 It was this expectation that made the ascension of Jiddu
Krishnamurti (18951986) so important in Theosophical circles as the
vehicle of the World Teacher, the Master who appears in the world to initiate a new religion at the emergence of a new type of humanity, the next
sub-race. According to Annie Besant, two signs indicate his imminent
arrival: the emergence of a new type of humanity and a time of dislocation and cataclysm such as earthquakes and wars. The emergence of the
sixth sub-race was to take place in America in southern California as well
as in countries such as Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific Rim. The
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arrival of the World Teacher was more imminent in the minds of Annie
Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater than anticipated by Blavatsky.72
The Aryan race arose and developed in the far north, descending
from the previous race, the Atlantean, and from the more spiritual
races of the Lemurians, the Third Root Race.73 Two additional races,
together with these three, make up the five that have already appeared.
The First Root Race consisted of the astral doubles of their genitors,
the Fathers or Pitris.74 It was a race that was spiritual within and ethereal
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without,75 sexless,76 and was created by having been oozed out, so to say,
from the bodies of the Pitris.77 Its home was the Imperishable Sacred
Land, so-called because it was the only continent that was not
destroyed.78
The Second Root Race or Hyperborean or Sweat-Born Race, was
an asexual race originating out of the sexless shadow (chaya79) First
Root Race, the latter merging in the second race.80 As a reproductive
being, a member of the Second Root Race might produce an offspring
by budding or fissure. The Second Root Race was devoid of the vehicle of desire (kama-rupa),81 but it developed the second sense, touch,
while retaining the first, hearing. It also had an ethero-physical body and
psycho-spiritual mentality.82 Its home was the Hyperborean continent,
the land beyond the Boreas,83 the land southwest from the North Pole
and is now identified as North Asia, which was the favorite abode of
Apollo, the sun god.
The Third Root Race of Lemurians was sweat-born, evolving out of
the Second Root Race when the sweat-drops of the latter developed
into eggs, which were warmed and matured by the Sun. Three divisions
developed in this race: the first two produced by an oviparous method.84
The continent on which they lived was Lemuria,85 extending from
Madagascar to Sri Lanka and Sumatra, remnants of which are New
Zealand, Madagascar, and other lands.86 Of importance is the development of the intellect by the race and its having astral-physical bodies.
Beginning as hermaphroditic beings, the Lemurians later divided into
two sexes during the time of the fifth sub-race, which occurred about
18 million years ago.87 The first man to be born is associated with Enos
or Henoch, the son of Seth.88 Because of the separation of the sexes, the
Lemurians came to be called almost human from the fifth sub-race on.
The Atlantean or Fourth Root Race, the first truly human race89
evolved over the course of between four to five million years. Speech or
language developed over this time, from the logographic languages of
the yellow races to the agglutinative languages.90 Also, physical and
intellectual evolution progressed to the point where their development
was more advanced than nineteenth-century science. Thus, The Secret
Doctrine says the Atlanteans developed aeronautics, meteorology, mineralogy, geology, physics, and astronomy. In the early period of this
race, its members were gigantic in stature,91 which explains the colossal
buildings such as the Druidic temples and pyramids.92
A feature of both the Third and Fourth Root Races is the appearance
of the third eye,93 which existed from the time of the hermaphrodites.
This eye was capable of embracing Eternity, but by the time of the
Fourth Root Race it became petrified and gradually disappeared. Its disappearance caused the increase of materiality and the corresponding
decrease of spirituality.94
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a sixth sense will become most potent when manas (mind) merges with
the buddhi (the faculty that perceives unity).109
Humanity will once again gain spiritual status in the Seventh Root
Race, a condition that it gradually lost in the Second and Third Root
Races, but reversed with the Fourth through the Sixth Root Races. The
Sixth Root Race will develop clairvoyance, and instant perception will
develop in the Seventh Root Race. The descriptions provided throughout The Secret Doctrine are primarily of the seven root races in the fourth
round. There is one exception, however, and that is the anticipated
state of humanity in later rounds, especially as it appears as the Seventh
Root Race in the seventh round:
It is not in the course of natural law that man should become a perfect
septenary being, before the seventh race in the seventh Round. Yet he has
all these principles latent in him from his birth. Nor is it part of the
evolutionary law that the Fifth principle (Manas), should receive its
complete development before the Fifth Round. All such prematurely
developed intellects (on the spiritual plane) in our Race are abnormal; they
are those whom we call the Fifth-Rounders. Even in the coming seventh
Race, at the close of this Fourth Round, while our four lower principles
will be fully developed, that of Manas will be only proportionately so.110
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and Parent Doctrine,112 which implied a Divine Source, an opinion not
very different from the teaching of the prisca theologia (primordial theology) or philosophia perennis (perennial philosophy) during the
Renaissance period in the works of Marsilio Ficino (14331499) and
Agostino Steuco (14971548), and preceded by Giorgios Gemistos
Plethon (1355/601454)the Greek philosopher who introduced
Greek and Platonic studies to Renaissance Italy and founded the
Florentine Neo-Platonic Academyand the thirteenth-century alchemical work Turba Philosophorum.113 It is very likely, too, that the template
for Blavatskys Theosophical system comprised the major ingredients of
the prisca theologia, including the Corpus Hermeticum associated with
Hermes Trismegistus, whose ideas influenced the Sepher Yetzirah (The
Book of Creation) of the Kabbala, the Sabaeans of Harran who introduced Neo-Pythagorean, Neo-Platonist, and practical alchemy into
Islam, and the teachings of Freemasonry during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.114
Yet the content of the earlier philosophia perennis is not the only source
of the Theosophical system worked out by Blavatsky and her Mahatmas.
Their Theosophy is not solely Western but global in scope. Indeed, we
might characterize this teaching as Global Esotericism115 as opposed to
Western Esotericism. Therefore, the assertion in The Secret Doctrine makes
sense when Blavatsky claims that archaic Occultism would remain
incomprehensible to all, if it were rendered otherwise than through the
more familiar channels of Buddhism and Hinduism.116 This wedding
of Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, and Hermeticism with the Hindu
(Vedanta) teachings of kalpa and karma, forming a broad synthesis with
scientific inquiry and discovery, created a macrohistory117 encompassing the entire macro- and microcosm. The individual sources are
simply too many in number to be itemized in this article. Rather than
selectively referring to Blavatskys citations, it would be more useful to
devote a separate work to this topic, due especially to the questions arising from her sources and method of citation. Regarding the latter, plagiarism has been one of the main reasons why her sources have been the
topic of discussion in the past, a charge that may be unjustified if we
understand that no universally agreed-upon guidelines for using
sources properly existed until the late nineteenth or early twentieth
centuries.118
The question, remains, however: Who first devised the grand
Theosophical scheme? Blavatsky certainly expanded upon the first published account in Esoteric Buddhism. But Sinnett was not the originator,
only the compiler and redactor. His source was the letters sent by the
Mahatmas Koot Hoomi and Morya. But who wrote the Mahatma letters?
The charge that Blavatsky wrote them has been challenged by handwriting expert Dr. Vernon Harrison.119 Harrison came to a cautious
conclusion that Blavatskys authorship could not be proved based on the
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presented since the 1880s is not as much Blavatskys vision as it is the
Masters vision as presented through Sinnett. Why this is important in
the present context is that it makes the task of tracing these ideas that
much more problematic. Indeed, if the Mahatmas are given credit for
the teachings, then would it not make more sense to credit the East,
especially South Asia, for their content? If so, then we have a primarily
South Asian-based teaching with a veneer of Western Esoteric content.
Indeed, this gives added significance to the book that first introduced
the topic to the world: A. P. Sinnetts Esoteric Buddhism.
I thank Jerry Hejka-Ekins of Alexandria West in Turlock, California for
his suggestions and criticisms, and Ina Belderis of the Theosophical
Society Library in Pasadena for her help and insights.
ENDNOTES
1
The phrase is from Oliver Goldsmith, A History of the Earth and Animated Nature
(1774, 1776, 1862), cited in the entry on race in the Oxford English Dictionary,
2d ed., vol. 13 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 69 (I.1.d).
2 Alfred Percy Sinnett (18401921) was editor of the Allahabad Pioneer when
Helena P. Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, two of the founders and
guiding lights of the Theosophical Society, arrived in India. It was Sinnett who
publicized their arrival in India and activities. He and his wife Patience became
members of the Theosophical Society in 1879, mainly due to their attraction to
Blavatskys demonstrations of occult phenomena. It was this curiosity that led
Sinnett to ask Blavatsky whether she could deliver a letter to her teachers and
occult masters, the Brothers or Mahatmas. Consequently, the correspondence
between Sinnett and the Mahatmas began with the first letter written by Koot
Hoomi Lal Singh and addressed to Sinnett on 15 October 1880. The
correspondence to Sinnett and others lasted until 1884 with over 120 letters
written by Mahatmas M. (Morya) and K. H. (Koot Hoomi). See A. P. Sinnett, The
Occult World, 8th ed. (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1908), 79105;
Geoffrey A. Barborka, The Mahatmas and Their Letters (Adyar, Madras:
Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 3361.
3 Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, 2 vols. (Los Angeles: Theosophy
Company, 1974; originally published in 1888), 2: 167. Humans, like all else in
nature, are described as being made of seven constituents: the physical body
(sthula sarira), life force (prana), the model or astral body (lin.ga-sarira), the
principle of animal desire (kama-rupa), the manas (mind or thinking principle),
the buddhi (spiritual soul or latent consciousness) (2: 275n), and the atman, the
Divine Self or the one real and eternal substratum of all (1: 570). On the
septenary principle in humans, see Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, 2: 593; Barborka, The
Divine Plan (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 178201.
The incarnating principle that appears throughout the kingdoms of the
cosmos consists of atman-buddhi and is identified as monad. The inclusion of
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consciousness lower than those of the formless realm and experienced by devas
and exceptional humans); and kamadhatu (desire realm, consisting of the even
lower states of consciousness associated with the lowest devas, the jealous
gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and beings in the hells. See Richard
H. Robinson, Willard L. Johnson, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Buddhist Religions: A
Historical Introduction, 5th ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2005),
1213. This cosmology is preserved in Tibetan Buddhism. See John Powers,
Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion, 1995), 7274.
65 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 1: 200.
66 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 443.
67 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 43435. Compare Sinnett, Esoteric Buddhism, 59:
Each race of the seven which go to make up a roundi.e. which are
evolved on the earth in succession during its occupation by the great
wave of humanity passing round the planetary chainis itself subject to
subdivision. Were this not the case, the active existences of each human
unit would be indeed few and far between. Within the limits of each race
there are seven subdivisional races, and again within the limits of each
subdivision there are seven branch races. Through all these races, roughly
speaking, each individual human unit must pass during his stay on earth,
each time he arrives there, on a round of progress through the planetary
system. On reflection, this necessity should not appal the mind so much
as a hypothesis which would provide for fewer incarnations.
68 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 435. Although the root race has existed
independently of other races for this period of time, it originated at about the
mid-point of each preceding root race. So, the Fifth Root Race would have
been in its developmental stages much longer, around five to six million years.
This information is given by Jerry Hejka-Ekins in an email dated 5 October 2007.
69 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 435.
70 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 435.
71 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 444.
72 Catherine Lowman Wessinger, Annie Besant and Progressive Messianism
(Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988), 26384.
73 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 318, 768.
74 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 110, 116, 233 note, 248.
75 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 29899 note.
76 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 116, 125.
77 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 174. On this form of birth Blavatsky cites the VisnuPurana III.2.
78 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 6. Blavatsky associates this land with Greenland and
Siberia (2: 327) and, from the Puranas, Mount Meru.
79 A shadow of its creators (the Pitris or pitr-s). Pitris (Fathers) is the term used
in the Vedas to refer to deceased ancestors.
80 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine 2: 121.
81 The desire body, the eidolon or ghost or apparition, which is associated with
the emotions and desires, is the fourth of seven principles making up the
human.
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96
97
98
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, 2: 11; and Sinnett, Esoteric Buddhism, 70. The latter is
based on Mahatma Letter XXIIIB, Barker, Mahatma Letters, 14978.
99 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, 2: 314 and note, 395, 433; Sinnett, Esoteric Buddhism, 70.
100
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Nova Religio
104
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