Theos-Talk Archives (June 2003 Message tt00141)

wry wrote:
> > Because this subject is being discussed here, I hope that many
> > readers, especially newcomers to theosophy, will find this very
> > interesting and important scientific article about "Giants" in
> > THEOSOPHY magazine to be very informative and useful;
> Wry: Important? Useful? Oh yeah.
The importance is that Blavatsky described humans of the 4th Root Race 
as being from 4 to 40 feet tall (or long, depending on how you look at 
it). Therefore, these finds would seem to verify Blavatsky's words, or, 
more precisely, a bunch of people's INTERPRETATIONS of Blavatsky's words 
(nowhere, for example, did she ever state that the 4th Root Race had a 
humanoid physical body, nor is there any good reason to assume that it 
did).

This flies in the face of known physics, where if a human body gets to 
8 feet or so, the structure cannot hold itself. And this is not 
conjecture; this has been very well proven by all sorts of 
experimentation, not to mention actual cases of humans who grow beyond a 
certain height. For example, Andre Roussimoff, aka Andre the Giant, was 
"only" 7' 4", and quite physically able, but died at an early age 
because his circulatory system couldn't handle his size.

Let's compare a 6' tall man, about 180 pounds, with a 42' tall man (7x 
the size). Given the same physical structure, he would weigh about 300 
tons. However, a humanoid bone structure that size would only support 
about 40 tons, and then only if it were made out of sturdier materials. 
It would be as if that 6 foot tall man suddenly found himself carrying 
1400 pounds.

There ARE ways a creature that large can exist. Shorter and thicker 
legs, a smaller head, a shorter and thicker neck (note that a giraffe 
has a "normal" sized body, just longer bones in the neck and forelegs), 
a different posture, or living in water for support (note that a 
hippopotamus has all of the above).

However, while Blavatsky contends that the reincarnating part of the 
body cannot move to a lower species, there is no reason why it can't 
move to a higher, but different one. And there is nothing in the primary 
literature of Theosophy that states that you must be the reincarnation 
of one of your ancestors. Certainly, the first root race could not 
possibly have been humanoid in form, as they were supposedly barely 
physical at all. Therefore, it is logical to consider that our 
reincarnating principles (let's call them "souls" for short) were not 
necessarily contained in the bodies of the physical ancestors of our 
current bodies. Blavatsky's use of the term "human" to refer 
interchangeably to the ephemeral body, soul, and both, so it is entirely 
a matter of interpretation.

I just go by the rule that if one interpretation is supported by the 
evidence, while another goes contradicts the evidence, use the one that 
is supported until evidence comes along that contradicts it (an 
application of Occam's razor, "Do not unnecessarily multiply entities").

Bart