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Re: Theos-World "THE RETURN OF THE GIANTS"

Jun 17, 2003 10:23 AM
by Bart Lidofsky


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




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