Theos-Talk Archives (December 2004 Message tt00221)

	ASTRAL BODY SOURCE & TRANSFORMATIONS


To isolate this process of determining the source and need for an "Astral
Body" within the physical form requires a study of the SECRET DOCTRINE.

In SECRET DOCTRINE Vol. I we are given (p. 181) as a hint the fact that
evolution is three-fold : (1) spiritual, (2) psychic, and (3) physical.

We have to follow these lines of development, and in so doing the history of
our past is to be found.

Here are some notes on the cycles of evolution that involve each immortal
Monad [ATMA-BUDDHI or Spirit / Matter unit] in its innumerable incarnations,
called in the SECRET DOCTRINE the ROUNDS (each such "Round" being a circling
through the 7 GLOBES) -- see diagram on SECRET DOCTRINE, I, p. 200.

In each Round a particular faculty is perfected, analogous to the sequence
of the PARAMITAS given in The VOICE OF THE SILENCE (Fragment III, p. 52-3)
There is also a correspondence to the 7 PRINCIPLES of Man on which a
posting, with details can be sent. (S D I 157-8)

A "Round" consists of 7 "Globes" and again, in each of these the sub-faculty
relating to the "Round" is brought to its perfection by numerous
incarnations.

Each of these Paramitas (virtues) are said to correspond to the 7 "Globes"
pictured in the Diagram of the S D. [S D I 200, 157-8; II 596 ]

The future, we are told, leads us all to a "Moment of Choice" [S D I 247,
265; II 149, 249, 261, 300-1; M L p. 47] where humanity has to choose
whether it will continue its evolution spiritually, in harmony with
brotherly cooperation, justice, and mercy for all -- compassion, is the
right word. Each individual is now engaged in making this momentous
determination. 

We have to understand that in this the Fourth Round, and particularly on
Globe [D] there is a recapitulation of the evolutionary stages already
passed through in the three earlier ROUNDS.  

Our present is GLOBE D, Fourth Round. It stands alone and is a balance
position., It corresponds to Paramita [ 4 ] VIRAGA: and is three-fold:

1	indifference to pleasure as to pain,

2	illusion conquered,

3	truth alone perceived.
[VOICE OF THE SILENCE, p. 52 3rd Fragment]


If we look at S D I 200 and the diagram there, we will see that the
progress of future evolution for all beings, leads from GLOBE D
spiritually, up to Globes E, F, and G. [Higher Manas, Buddhi, Atma]

These Globes [ E, F, G ] correspond to the last 3 Paramitas:

5	VIRYA (dauntless energy that fights its way to the supernal truth
out of the mire of lies terrestrial); 

6	DHYANA (whose golden gate leads the Narjol towards the realm of Sat
eternal and its ceaseless contemplation} and, [Narjol -- see Gloss: pp 188,
225, 381]

7	PRAJNA (the key which makes of a man a God, creating him a
Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyanis.)

Those who are intuitive may draw from this a concept of what lies in store
for each of us.

FIRST 3 RACES OF MANKIND - AN OVER-VIEW

===================================

There is probably no part of the Secret Doctrine which offers a more
startling contrast to the opinions of modern men, than the information laid
before us in reference to the origin of mankind on earth.  

As a fundamental idea we are to consider each human is an immortal being.  

It reincarnates (under the Law of Karma) so as to acquire knowledge and
wisdom through experience. Each incarnation may be considered to be like a
"day" spent in learning in the vast "School" of continuous Earth-life. 

It considers a three-fold process:  

1) SPIRITUAL, (considered as ATMA-BUDDHI of the conjoined eternal
"PRINCIPLES," and forming the stable, eternal, base of Ideals -- of
altruism , universality, impersonality, universal LAW, and undeviating moral
rectitude);   

2) of the PSYCHICAL (considered as the duality of Buddhi-Manas and
Kama-Manas) a condition wherein there is the progressive development of
moral responsibility by the Monad considered as a psycho-mental entity --
where virtue is perceived and invariably acted on; and 

3) of a 'PHYSICAL FORM' which is permanent, stable, and responsive to every
need of the fully conscious, living, spiritual and purified psycho-mental
Man {Buddhi-Manas}. - this, latter, may be called the "permanent astral, or
"causal body." [S D I 181-2]

Neither common knowledge, nor science, furnishes us with particulars of
primeval man that may be at all comparable with the scheme of development
exposed in the SECRET DOCTRINE, of mankind in this, the Fifth RACE, of the
Fourth GLOBE, in the Fourth ROUND.


In the SECRET DOCTRINE, we are provided with a survey of the steps of the
process of an intermeshed three-fold human development, but anterior to the
Fourth Round H.P.B. offers only some glimpses. There, the history of the
world in the first Three "Rounds," and the pre-human forms and existences
associated therewith are treated. 

In this short survey, the progress of the Monad that (in ROUND 4, GLOBE D)
has now entered the "human (MANASIC) stage" (of you, I, and all of us).
After passing through these early stages, it is now surveyed in the position
just passed the mid-point of its "Fourth Round." (S D I 150 fn) 

We note that H.P.B. states that we are all the same Egos who went by the
process of reincarnation through the periods of experience called the first
three Races (of the 4th ROUND) - those preceding were named the
"Hyperborean," the Lemurians, the Atlanteans, and now, our Fifth "Race" is
named the "Aryan" [or 'noble'] stage of humanity.

Among all those who read this, it is taken for granted, that the Three
Fundamentals of the SECRET DOCTRINE 

[ 1. UNIVERSAL SPIRIT or DEITY,  

2. UNIVERSAL and JUST LAW, and  

3. UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION by all the immortal MONADS]  

have been studied, understood, (S D I pp. 13-20] and will be remembered at
every stage.

The following, is applicable to the intelligent consciousness
[ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS] residing in the physico-astral form of every man and
woman on our earth.  

This survey begins in the dawn of time represented by the opening of the
present Manvantara. It is a reincarnation of a long succession of earlier
ones. We see that the SECRET DOCTRINE traces anthropogenesis down to a
period, which, to a student of Theosophy, is almost a recent one, the
establishment of Man as a being plunged in learning the value exhibited by
its existence in a cooperative environment. That is, in many ways, the
daily contrasts of attitude and perception that bodies of male and female
sexes provide.  

The chief difficulty is considering the history of the human race at those
ancient points where the present world of 'western' science and history is
ignorant.

Because of this, and because of inaccurate speculations based on a selected
few physical relics and fossils being used as an index for the presumed
intelligence of forms in the past, there is difficulty in giving any
intelligible description of the appearance of the earliest beings from whom
our present physical mankind has, during the lapse of untold ages, gradually
been developed. 

Occultism states that in this Round mankind as a "form," first appeared;
and all forms were subsequently derived from this primitive model. One of
the statements is that the ape-form was derived as a specialization of the
primitive human form. [The first law of evolutionary Science declares that a
"specialized" form (such as that of an ape) can not generate one more
primitive (such as a human). It can only descend from such a form. Thus, the
ape-form "descended" (was derived) from the more primitive man-form.]

For those commencing the study of Theosophy, the subject might have been
made easier to illustrate, if the origin of Man had been started at this,
our own time, and retrogressed from there. We are in the Fifth "Race" of the
Fourth "Round." Apart from the SECRET DOCTRINE and a few hints of myth, lore
and tradition, no trace of a connected history of the origination of a
"Fifth Race" exists.  

Modern (western) civilization has no coherent historical narrative extending
prior to a time earlier that about 4,000 B, C, -- or about 6.000 years;
while the Fifth Race alone has had (teaches the SECRET DOCTRINE) an
independent existence for more than a million years; [S D II p. 10; M L
150] and modern science, in its latest speculations postulates the antiquity
of mankind as a physical form being at most a couple of million of years.
[Leaky - Olduvai]

Nor can any history previous to 6,000 years be recognized as, for instance,
in the scanty reference to Atlantis (mentioned by Plato, who died 347 B.C.).
And even he gives no date of its disappearance. In the SECRET DOCTRINE and
the MAHATMA LETTERS [pp. 151, 155] this was fixed at 9,564 B. C. (in
1882). Every reference to Atlantis has for centuries been derided, but only
recently a few authorities have considered the possibility of the event of
the submergence of the home of a past nation beneath the Atlantic ocean.
[see Submerged extensive ruins in the Caribbean Sea.] 

The three earliest "Root Races" of this present "Fourth Round" on the Fourth
"Globe" are associated with a "home" of its own; and so, too, are the later
Races. These lands were given names for easier reference. [S D II pp. 2
- 12] One of the titles accorded to the "First Race" of "Spiritual
Entities" was: "the Sons of Will and Yoga," Their home is the
"Imperishable Sacred Land." It is located geologically in the "Hyperborean
regions." 

The Second Race, the "Sweat Born," dwelt on the "Great Hyperborean Land."
The Third Race, the "Egg Born," in its early days, and which, developing
later on into beings with sex, developed on the vast crescent shaped
continent of "Lemuria." 

The Fourth Race dwelt primarily on a mid-Atlantic continent; the Fifth Race,
[Aryan] developed on the continents that have toady, an appearance
resembling the geography of the earth as we now know it. It is said that
tremendous changes of levels, of hills and valleys, of the seas and rivers,
have taken place even in its geologic course of existence.

The "Imperishable Sacred Land," the continent of the First Race is said to
be the only portion of the earth's surface continuing permanently through
millions of years of subsequent development, and it will remain so until the
end of the Manvantara -- through each Round -- until it bears the final
spiritualized form of the divine men. It is said that: "from the dawn to the
close of twilight of a day of Brahma, the Pole Star has its watchful eye
upon it."

The continent used by the Second Race, known as the Hyperborean, that is,
beyond the Northern, or Polar region, comprised what we know now as Northern
Asia, it stretched southward from the Northern Polar district in undefined
promontories. In those distant times it knew no winter, and was an abode of
ethereal mildness, fabled by the Greeks to be the dwelling-place of Apollo -
a glyph of the life-giving sun.

The Third Race, marked by entire changes of substance, structure and being,
grew on Lemuria (a name adopted from P. L. Sclater (1860), but not the real
name). The Pacific ocean now covers much of this continent, whose dry
land, including part of modern Africa, extended in a great crescent shape
from Spitzbergen in the Arctic to Australia and New Zealand in the south. In
the language of modern geology it was named a "pre-tertiary formation."  

Atlantis, (used by the "Fourth Race") followed, developed and disappeared as
a unit before the end of the Miocene period. The Fourth Race Atlanteans,
and the rise and progress of the seven branches of the Fifth (our) Race
during the more recent thousands of years (actually a few millions) is yet
to be described in great detail.

We can see in the SECRET DOCTRINE that important assistance is rendered by
the Occultist to science, by an ordered use of reasoned analogy. 

The origin of spiritual, psychical and physiological mankind is a subject on
which the clearest light is shed in the second volume of the SECRET
DOCTRINE. If we study the physical life history of modern man from ovum to
maturity we may note most of the stages through which the physical
development of the human race has passed. 

It shows how a simple living being can grow and multiply by division. Our
microscopes show us this. The child becomes physically, equal to the parents
and the parents do not die. From this most simple type of reproduction,
nature still produces every form of differentiation, in a process well
regulated by evident internal Law, called budding.

The mass of new cells become a layer, the layer divides into three. In them
is laid the backbone and the centers of life energy for the future being;
blood vessels, nerves and all the specialized organs becoming when finally
organized, the perfect man of matter, inspired by its model: the astral form
(which always acts from within, as the personal mold of the human being in
formation), and this, in turn, is vivified by the individual life essence,
Prana, guided by the all powerful hand of individual and personal Karma.
In this way, the SECRET DOCTRINE shows how the human race in this, the
fourth Round, originates (and continues to originate, materially) from the
magnetic and karmic power of its former Chhayas (shadows).

Humanity, arising in the First Race of the fourth Globe of this, the Fourth
Round, some three hundred million years ago, according to the SECRET
DOCTRINE, constituted the "Race" named the "Sons of Will and Yoga." This is
group also known of as the Agnishwatta Pitris -- divine, spiritual beings --
the "Fathers" and the "Instructors" of primordial mankind. [S D II 167]

Physically, men of the First Race were the shadows of Shadows; they were
shadows of the astral bodies of the Lunar Pitris, that is, those Monads who
were, as a host, considered to be our "ancestors," and representing the
perfection of development on the "Moon-Chain of Globes."  

The "Moon-Chain of Globes" furnished the earth (its 'child') with its first
human envelopes - formless shadows -- derived from the astral forms of the
most advanced Monads of that preceding sphere (whose dead shell is now the
Moon). The primeval form of man was a "Linga Sharira" (an astral form),
warmed into life by Prana, the life essence from the interior Spiritual Sun
(the ATMA) of each "Man."  

It took three and a half "Races" [in time on this, the Fourth Globe] to
perfect the "descent into matter" to its present, grossest point.  

Mindless, speechless, bodiless, these senseless bhutas (phantoms), were too
ethereal to be percipient of, or affected by any convulsions of Nature. Ages
passed, and the material body grew denser as the astral consolidated, and
so, today, the material body is consolidated out of its astral model. It is
taught at that time they were still spiritually fireless, practically
deathless, were luminous - incorporeal - aeriform - mindless shadows, which
the Lunar Pitris had "breathed out" (developed and emanated).


These Lunar Pitris [fathers], divine in their spiritual nature, were able to
oversee, without interference, the natural development of forms to the end
of the Third Round. 

But the essential link in every Monad between Spirit and Matter remained to
be forged. MANAS (personal mind) and KAMA (desires and passions) had to be
given time to assimilate one another, and learn to make conjoined progress.
The Man-Monad of Mind, self-controlled, and controlling the forces of Kama,
needed to be evolved. This is our present stage. [S D II pp. 79-81,
93-96, 109-110]

The Monad, ATMA-BUDDHI, the EGO, or the Higher Man, is said to be a Ray of
the Universal Monad, born of MAHAT [Universal Mind Essence]. It brooded over
this spectral form, which, because of the absence of Manas was unconscious
on our plane, and, was only a senseless shell; a-manasa. The Higher Man
(Buddhi-Manas), we now recognize, was "afar off." The Mind, Manas, the
Human Soul (Kama-Manas), was still absent. The Kama -- passions -- were
still at rest, undeveloped.

This almost inconceivable First Race passed on into the Second Race without
either begetting it, or procreating it, and without what we call death. A
thorough transformation occurred; as the ancient records say, "they passed
by together, they ceased and others took their places."  

Occultism (using its mystic symbology) mentions twelve classes of creative
powers, of which four reached "perfection" by the end of the Manvantara, the
"Great Age;" a fifth is ready to reach it; and seven others always acting
under the Law of Karma, act on the globes of our planetary chain.  

Old Hindu books mention Seven Groups of Pitris, or "Ancestors;" and two
distinct classes - those who possess the "Sacred Fire" and those without it.
The higher class are called the Agnishwatta Pitris, they were devoid of
creative energy, because too pure and divine.  

A lower class called the Barhishad Pitris, were possessed of creative
energy, these are "Lunar spirits," who were devoid of the higher Mahat-mic
element and could not form a conscious, divine, man-god on earth. This
faculty, conscious divinity, the higher group, the Agnishwatta Pitris could
give. In the meantime, acting under Karma, the Barhishad Pitris, did provide
an astral form on which a human physical body could be consolidated later. 

The Agnishwatta Pitris, or Fire Dhyanis (The WISE), are the heart of the
Dhyan Chohanic "Lodge," and it is they who, later on, incarnate in the Third
Race, bringing to them Manas, and by this link between the higher and the
lower principles, render Man a perfect septenary, as we now know him. [S D
II 167]

Regarding the "Second Race," whose denser forms gradually replaced the
shadowy forms used by the First Race, we should recall we are viewing a
period of the descent of the human "spiritual Principles" into matter. It
is taught: the First Men were spiritual within and ethereal without; while
the Second Race was "Psycho-spiritual within, and Ethero-physical without."

Many shapes were used and their forms were (to us) gigantic. These
semi-human monsters reproduced themselves by budding, gemmation, and by
expansion and the separation of their own material, and, they were named
the: "sweat born."  

Still, we are told there was no "death," only transformation, the older
being giving up its body to form newer beings, and it continued to exist
with them.  

This form of reproduction was asexual: still, at that time, there was no
principle of Kama, no individual will, nor a personal "body of desire."
These forms were produced without thought or desire, unconsciously under
Karmic Law, even as some lowest forms of animal life are today.

In the very latest stages of the of the Second Race. We are told there
dawned the primitive, weak spark of understanding, and also, sounds began to
be heard, sounds of a developing language were heard in tones like the
vowels, soft and fluent.

Passing from these glimpses of the first two races, we reach in the Third
Race a more concrete stage passed through in the "forms" of humanity, and we
obtain a deeper insight into the modes and progress of physical and
psycho-mental evolution.

The ages progressed, and we, who were then in the Third Race, whose domain
was Lemuria, and whose presiding powers were associated with Lohitanga and
Sukra - Mars and Venus.  

Lemuria, we are told, was destroyed at last by fire, subterranean
convulsions broke up the ocean floors, giving vent to the concealed fires of
the earth's interior. Its successor, Atlantis, by contrast was overwhelmed
by water, and the consequent floods followed successive disturbances in the
axial rotation of the Earth. We have still, it is asserted, one link
remaining with the ancient domain of Lemuria, the islands of New Zealand and
parts of Australia, and southern California. 
  
In associating Lemuria with the dates accepted by the science of modern
geology the SECRET DOCTRINE teaches that it was in the main destroyed
700,000 years before the Tertiary Period had begun.

The Lemurian, Third Race [in time] is the most notable because its median
period produced the more perfect physical man. To this man-form was granted
MANAS, Mind, Consciousness; for the Lower Quaternary, as now we know it in
the human being, was thus linked to the Supernal Triad of Atma, Buddhi and
the Higher Manas. 

The Monad, instead of merely brooding over the lower man, exhibited a more
intimate connection with the earthly shell, and inspired it (with "desires"
or, Kamic elements) to a state of consciousness of its own nature and
powers, and rendered possible for spiritual aspirations to reach to the
seats of the personal life.  

Until then, there was no real "death." Until man possessed Kama, the source
of desire; and until Manas was seated in the Septenary, the full effect of
Karma could not appear, for moral responsibility did not yet exist.
Karmaless there was no Nirvana to attain, no Kama Loka for the shell after
death, no Devachanic interlude of peaceful rest.

But with Kama [instinct, passion, emotion, desire] and its vagrant and
fanciful tendencies to be controlled; and Manas, evolving full consciousness
on the plane of physical life, morality and the higher aspirations became
apparent, while, as a contrast, selfishness, the desire to have and to hold,
made for the emergence of vice, selfishness, sinfulness and shame. These
disharmonies began to attract and then meet with Karmic adjustment and
punishment from the past.  

By this impulse, nations drifted deeper into the illusions and limitations
of matter, and heavier became the faults of those who chose the descending
arc, and began to use degenerative moral processes. These we are told,
continued through the Fourth Race when the most evil Karma was generated. 

Physically, we are taught, the Third Race exhibited a gradual change of
reproduction, passing from the Sweat Born to Ovulation. Then, from a
condition of androgyne being, development at last formed mankind into
entities with reproductive contrast.  

Human males and females (in physical bodies) became distinct beings, and
modern mankind arose; and; it has so continued through millions of years. 

Coincident with these changes, the body hardened, and all the internal
organs became more perfect. The forms were still massive, gigantic, and the
Secret Doctrine suggests somewhat ape-like. [S D I 187-9; II 185,
261-2]. Some of these changes are to be seen recapitulated foetal life. 

Coincident with sex development, the Kamic (desires and passions) principle
became dominant, for when the reproduction had been by gemmation, budding,
or oviparous, it had been unconscious under the process of natural law; and
not the conscious promptings of the animal passions which, now, were felt.

The fully-developed Third Race man was of yellow complexion, a golden tint
marked the nations; some scattered tribes of almost direct descent from them
[that] still remain are in the interior of China.  

At the close of the Third Race we may perceive a vast change in the
constitution of physical man, in regard to his pristine state at the opening
of the Fourth Round. To form an exterior "shell," an astral form (alone in
the earliest first race) the material body was condensed. Life energy
[Prana] supported and vivified by the addition of Kama, the principle of
desire, love and all the passions, made the perishable "Lower Quaternary"
complete:. The "Eternal Pilgrim" of the Upper Triad broods yet over it [from
within its 'prison'], but without union. [S D II 103, 243, 246-48, 585,]

The SECRET DOCTRINE shows how this Divine Triad [ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS] became,
by the descent of Manas into the perfected animal man-form, to occupy a
closer connection with men of the Third Race [S D I 244-5; II 79, 176]. The
"Eternal Pilgrims," the Monads are these Manas-putras -- "Sons of Mind." 

In evolution, under Karmic law, they have to pass through all experiences to
attain by self-induced choice, to wisdom [S D I 534; II 113, 134fn,
275fn]; and, thus, to pass up the steep path of the spiritual cycle [GLOBES
E, F, G.]. These, {the Divine Triad [ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS] } incarnate in the
latter part of the Third Race, and transformed the mindless men into beings
with minds and "consciousness." 

With this advent the sure knowledge of good and evil was instilled. Legend
and myth tell us that some of the fully developed latest Third Race men were
towering giants of godlike strength and beauty. They became the first Divine
Instructors of Mankind [S D I 272-3], and the nations of the still later
races looked back on these superior beings as the demigods, the hero deities
of a bygone golden age.

Towards the end of this Third Race material progress grew. It was ruled and
taught by these divine beings. Civilizations originated, cities and temples
were founded; arts and sciences were cultivated. The simple vowel sounds
used by the last Second Race men developed, and, in the Third Race,
articulate speech began with mono-syllabic utterances. [S D II 198-200]

Manas (the capacity to reason, think, imagine, remember, proceed logically)
is link between the Quaternary of lower principles (Personality) and the
divine Triad (INDIVIDUALITY). It was furnished by the Solar Pitris
(Agnishwatta Pitris), the Divine Progenitors [S D II 94, 103, 164, 167,
243, 246-8, 585,] even as the original "form" was the gift of the Lunar
Pitris or Astral-form progenitors. The three higher classes of Arupa
(formless) Pitris supervised this change. 

Many names have been given to these supernal beings: Agnishwatta, celestial
ancestors, Sishta, Fire Dhyanis, Solar Pitris, Lords of Flame and the Heart
of the Dhyan Chohanic Body.

One-third of the Dhyanis, we are told by the Book of Dzyan, were doomed by
Karmic law to re-incarnate upon this earth before attaining further
perfection. 
[S D II 94, 167, 246, 489, 585] 

They are also called in a mysterious manner the Fifth Hierarchy presided
over by Makara (the principality associated with the zodiacal sign of
Capricornus).
These "projected the spark," that served to impart Manas to the A-manasa,
(mindless shells) of humanity. [S D I 233, 238, 246, 265, 275, 571; II
85] 

We are told some of those who had refrained from incarnation hastened to do
so and carry on their progress, and for this delay, they were made by Karma
to repent of their procrastination; they incarnated in human-kind - lest
worse evil should befall the already defiled earthly frames; and mankind
recognized what had been the "sins" of the "mindless." [S D II 180, 185,
191-2, 688-9]

These Third Race men may be viewed as forming three groups.  

1.	In the first the Lords of Flame who incarnated before the separation
of the sexes, i.e., in Androgyne or Hermaphrodite man. These included those
of whom ancient tradition speaks of as demigods, rishis, and heroes.

2.	Secondly, the group of common humanity in each of whom a spark
entered, in the far distant past of over eighteen million years, when a
spark was given to each from the Solar divinity, of mind, of intellect,
conscious on our plane. [S D I 150fn; II 69, 249]

3.	Thirdly, there were the mindless, who brought into the world much
sin and suffering, and strange forms of life; but who were later on joined
to the second group.

The SECRET DOCTRINE is a vast storehouse of history and doctrine, and its
pages contain an explanation of many a myth.  

In conclusion we must remember that when a "race," a "group," or "tribes"
are mentioned we are dealing with the physical forms used by the immortal
EGOS of the Monads -- the Immortal Pilgrims that we all are, and which are
all developing together in a seemingly chaotic combination of both
cooperation and selfish isolation.  

Interlaced with these by Karma we will find, and we will also have to
distinguish, between the Egoic (divine progress), which is to be
disentangled from the psycho-manasic level of self-conscious indiscriminate
Kamic development. 

The Atlantean Fourth Race arose while the Third (Lemurian) faded into the
past, and a vast concourse of forgotten nations came upon the scene of time,
flourished and passed away. 

This caused an increasing separation between the higher groups and the lower
sub-races of the delayed group; between the "sons of light," and the
"progeny of darkness."  

>From the sons of light was developed the nascent civilization of Atlantis;
from the low forms of Lemuria, reinforced by interbreeding with the more
degenerate of the Atlanteans, sprang series of races, fitly comparable to
and indeed the forerunners of the savage races we now know as Australians,
certain wild tribes in China and Borneo, Bushmen and Negritos, etc.. A
number of tribes and remnants have already disappeared as physical forms.
Some groups have been badly decimated.

Convulsions of nature made an end to Lemuria; and it is stated that its
sinking began at the most northerly part, proceeded to the equatorial
regions, and the last portion to disappear was adjacent to Ceylon, the Lanka
of the succeeding Atlantean continent.  

In these profound changes of the earth's surface the Lemuro-Atlantean stock
was saved, as by a divine interposition, by a Manu, a Noah: this
substitution of a Fourth Race for a Third destroyed by a deluged world, is
the foundation of such myths of the Chaldeans, of Genesis, and the Hindu
Vaivasvata; a salvation, similarly repeated, millions of years later, when
the Fourth Race was replaced by the Fifth after similar convulsions and a
deluged world.

DTB