Atlantean epoch

The Atlantean epoch preceeded our Current Postatlantean epoch. A great culture had its base on the content of Atlantis in the Atlantean ocean, which perished with the flood. Many symbols as well as references can still be found in the Greek culture, ao with Plato. It consisted of seven different 'sub-races', quite different from our current epoch were this notion of 'race' no longer applies (see human races).

Humanity was characterized through still pliable bodies, not solid mineral like our current, hence no physical bodily remains such as bones are to be found. They had a strong memory and developed the power of thought in the fifth sub-race, which was the foundation for our current 'race' and current civilizations. They also had control over the etheric life force, called vril or later Tao.

In the middle of the Atlantean epoch a great crisis took place by a 'seduction' that led to the betrayal of the mysteries and secrets of the vril force, which was then used for selfish and evil purposes. This was the origin of black magic, see also the link with Rakshasas. See also: Turanian stream.

In the fifth period selected groups started migrations to develop further, and this was the basis for our current epoch. In comparison, the two last sub-races were lukewarm or laggards in terms of further development.

The Atlantean epoch:

• was key for the development of the 'I' in Man that started in the Lemurian epoch.
• saw the rise of adverse Ahrimanic influences on Man
• and there were two sacrifices by Christ (on the lower spirit and astral planes) to guide the balanced development of the I forces penetrating the etheric and astral bodies of Man, so Man would have balanced soul facilities of thinking, feeling and willing.

Aspects

Earth and nature's kingdoms

• the Earth, elements and kingdoms in the Atlantean epoch
• continent of Atlantis
  • the location (1910-06-16-GA121)
  • geographical evolution (see Schema's FMC00.206 and FMC00.214 with variants)

Man and culture

• constitution of Man, his body and senses
• main faculty of memory, no logic or thinking yet (GA011 Q&A)
  • the faculties in the fifth epoch were developed from the memory and will faculties of the fourth, and the great inventors brought these over to bring the impulses in the cultural ages of the current epoch (GA011 Q&A, with examples)
• the different sub-races - see Schema FMC00.105 below
  • Rudolf Steiner only covers these in GA011, but see also William Scott-Elliot: 'The story of Atlantis' (1896) and Arthur E. Powell: 'The Solar System' (1930) for additional coverage (see Further reading section below)
• control over the life force (called vril or later Tao), the life force that causes germs to sprout was extracted from the seeds to be put to use
• the start of logical thinking in the fifth subrace of the primal semites, which was the seed for the current Aryan or Postatlantean epoch
  • development of the new faculty of thinking can also be seen in FMC00.092 showing a timeline for the 16-petalled throat chakra.
• cities
  • the so-called 'city of the golden tower(s)', where the highest initiates lived (1906-07-06-GA094)
  • the 'city of the bridge' on the island of Poseidonis, in the later stage of the Atlantean epoch (see Powell in 'The solar system')
• culture, arts and technology:
  • space ships: the force accumulated from large stocks of seeds, the airships were propelled. These vehicles moved near the air in a still dense air, and 'equipped with a kind of steering apparatus, they rose up and moved' (1906-07-06-GA094, 1909-06-10-GA109, 1909-04-06-GA109)

Mysteries and initiation

• the Atlantean Oracles (see Schema FMC00.460, section below and 1909-05-31-GA109, 1909-06-29-GA112)
  • the Atlantean epoch knew a Mars Oracle, where the mysteries of Mars were studied, a Saturn Oracle, a Jupiter Oracle, a Venus Oracle, and so on. The highest was the Sun Oracle; and the loftiest of all the initiates was the ranking initiate of the Sun Oracle (1909-06-29-GA112)
• the method of instruction was very different than today, based intercourse between spiritual teacher and pupil .. "the very sight of an Atlantean initiate was enough to start a sympathetic vibration in the soul of the neophyte, thus disclosing his fitness for the discipleship" .. a great deal passed unconsciously from teacher to pupil, and after being trained and influenced over long periods of time "eventually the harmonious accord between the soul of the teacher and the soul of the pupil reached the point where everything the teacher possessed in the way of deeper spiritual secrets passed over of itself to the disciple." (1909-06-29-GA112)
• the betrayal of the Mysteries in the Atlantean epoch (1910-GA013 below, see also Evil and Raksashas)
  • rise of black magic: in the fourth age, Man got control over divine powers and elemental spirits that govern growth and physiognomy of human beings. As Man was not yet very developed, this was used by individuals for selfish purposes and harming their fellow human beings (eg keeping them dwarf-sized in growth, making them into giants, letting the physical organism develop so the individual would be a cretin). This became ever worse in the last three or four ages so the Atlantean civilization was guided towards its own destruction. (1917-10-06-GA177)
  • the betrayal had to do with the control over the life force of growth in nature, called vril or later Tao, see formative forces
• the great migrations
  • under leadership of Manu to the Gobi desert - see Schema FMC00.205 below. More on the Migrations topic page.
  • led to the creation of the Two streams of development in the Current Postatlantean epoch under leadership of Manu and Skythianos.
• the re-use of the etheric bodies of the initiates of the atlantean mysteries as the basis for the Seven Rishis and the spiritual leadership in the first ancient Indian cultural age of the Postatlantean epoch

End of the epoch

• cataclysm known as the flood in the Bible, related to the changes in the zodiacal influence due to precession, see Zodiac clock
  • impact of Spirits of Form on ice age (1910-12-31-GA126 below)
  • William Scott-Elliot maps show how various catastrophes caused major changes to the geographical layout of the continents, see FMC00.214B.
  • see also: Earthquakes and emergence continent sixth epoch

Research

• information from clairvoyant research
  • ".. the indications about Atlantis given by Scott-Elliot .. tally with the astral pictures but not with the spirit world pictures of the true Akasha Chronicle. The truth of this matter had sometime to be made known. The moment we know where the source of the errors lies, it is easy to assess the indications correctly." (1907-05-28-GA099 on Clairvoyant research of akashic records)
  • in other lectures, Rudolf Steiner states something similar about publications of the theosophical society (oa Leadbeater, ..), based on limited astral clairvoyance and not correct
• contemporary research into the Atlantean culture and its remnants, see ao 'Further reading' section below, especially the work by Sigismund von Gleich

Illustrations

Sub-races

Schema FMC00.105 gives an overview of the sub-races in the Atlantean epoch, corresponding to seven branches of evolution during that epoch.

Schema FMC00.214E illustrates the approximate locations of origin of the seven sub-races in the Atlantean epoch, who migrated and moved across various geographies and populated the Earth worldwide. The main Atlantean continental are is shown in red, against an outline map of current Earth geography. In green are shown land remnants of the Lemurian continent (south) and Hyperborean continent (north).

Compare with Schema FMC00.211 and Schema FMC00.455 on Migrations (as well as Schema FMC00.432 on Two streams of development)

Further notes:

1/ this map can be used to relate to the development of people of which history does have records, and remnants that can be found today in geographical findings. See also the Migrations topic page for coverage of this complex subject.

Examples of such links that are laid eg in theosophical sources are:

• Chaldea, having a relationship with the ancient Akkadians (Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled)
• Peru as example of cultures going back to Toltec roots, Chaldea as example of culture going back to Turanian roots (Powell)
• As further illustration of the many statements and the complexity of the origin of people, Powell also writes e.g. i) about the Mongolians "It was directly descended from the Turanian race, which it gradually supplanted over most of Asia. ... wide as are the plains of Tartary, Mongol tribes have more than once overflowed from northern Asia into America, across Bearing’s Straits. ... The Hungarians are an offshoot of this race, ennobled by a strain of Aryan blood, whilst the Malays are another offshoot, though degraded by mixture with the effete Lemurians." .. and ii) about the Tlavatli that "they spread upto Greenland".

2/ it may also be interesting to position locations of some of the most ancient archeological remains on this map, as some of these may originate from ages dating back before our current historical records. See Schema FMC00.545 on Mystery School tradition.

Oracles

Schema FMC00.460 shows the different Atlantean Oracles that appeared from the middle of the Atlantean epoch, corresponding with spirits descending from different planets based on their spiritual maturity (see Planets hosting beings at various stages of evolution)

These public centers of wisdom, art and religion led the various segments of the population (with different spiritual-scientific constitutions of Man's bodily principles, and was characterized by different initiation guidance. For more on Bull, Lion, Eagle initiations, see also Mystery School tradition#1909-07-01-GA112

Schema FMC00.205D is an illustration by Gunther Wachsmuth's 'The Evolution of Mankind', that zooms in to FMC00.205A, showing the Atlantean Oracles as sources of migration streams.

Note that no references are known in the work of Rudolf Steiner that support this view.

Imagery

Schema FMC00.578: shows two sketches by Rudolf Steiner in 1914 for the theme 'Atlantis' as part of the motifs for the cupola illustrations of the first Goetheanum. Left an oil crayon pastel sketch, right a pencil drawing. Clearly represented are the group souls of humanity hovering above beings below.

Schema FMC00.214B shows maps from William Scott-Elliot (1849-1919) who wrote The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904). Both were later combined in 1925 into a single volume called The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria. Rudolf Steiner mentioned Scott-Elliot ao in 1904-GA011, for more info see: Evolution of Earth. See also the note under Aspects > Research higher on this page.

The map below (maximize to study) shows that the world geography contained scattered continents and it is important to realize that populations of the various subraces were spread across the world. So it is a misconception to think of Atlantis only as the island in the current Atlantic ocean, or to think this is the only location where people lived during the Atlantean epoch.

As Rudolf Steiner writes in 1904-GA011 (SWCC): "the members of the Atlantean epoch were 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 Theosophical sources provide extensive descriptions how the different sub-races (eg the Toltecs) moved around and populated various parts of the Earth, and also how some sub-races such as for examples the Akkadians "were a great trading, sea-going and colonizing people, and they established many centers of communication with distant lands".

Further descriptions also point out that not only did the sub-races coexist, but also still remnants of the Lemurian and Hyperborean races populated the Earth. The Atlantean development was the most advanced evolutionary current of humanity though in that epoch.

Schema FMC00.214F provides a legend to the maps of FMC00.214B from William Scott-Elliot's book The Story of Atlantis (1896).

The notes explain certain inconsistencies with the research by Rudolf Steiner. As explained it does not make sense to use years for dating periods before approx. 20.000 BC and certainly not periods of hundred thousands of years. Furthermore, the sub-races do not seem to map to the evolutionary time axis as all seven sub-races are mapped with their origin to the first two charts.

chema FMC00.205D is an illustration by Gunther Wachsmuth's 'The Evolution of Mankind', that zooms in to FMC00.205A, showing the Atlantean Oracles as sources of migration streams.

Note that no references are known in the work of Rudolf Steiner that support this view.

Continent of Atlantis

Schema FMC00.214 shows some maps with the location of the main continent of Atlantis in the later stages of the Atlantean epoch.

Schema FMC00.214A gives Rudolf Steiner's description of location and form of the continent of Atlantis.

Schema FMC00.214C shows details from the maps by Scott-Elliot. The Poseidonis map correlates with Kircher's see FMC00.214.

Schema FMC00.214D is from Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa's 'The first principles of Theosophy' (1921), see commentary text.

FMC00.206 shows various world maps projecting the continents in the Lemurian and Atlantean epochs. Compare with FMC00.214B/D/E.

For linking the table to epochs, see the mapping in Schema FMC00.209 on Earth's seven epochs. In summary: the maps [3] and [5] map to early Atlantean epoch, [2] and [4] to late Lemurian epoch, [1] to middle or early Lemurian epoch.

FMC00.206A combines a number of figures from Gunther Wachsmuth's 'The Evolution of Mankind', showing the origin of the gulf stream in the Atlantean epoch. For a mapping of geological time periods, see FMC00.209. Compare with FMC00.206 and notice the lack of correspondence.

This schema illustrates how Wachsmuth seems to (erroneously) use the current continents as a basis when depicting earlier epochs, which is relevant when considering his other schemas such as Schema FMC00.205D - compare also with FMC00.214B and FMC00.214D. Unlike other sources, Wachsmuth's diagrams confine the Atlantis to a continent with more or less stable contours in the Atlantean epoch.

Therefore this schema was added for the didactic study method, in order to always take care when using sources, and not take them for granted.

Migrations

Schema FMC00.205 sketches the great migrations from Lemurian and Atlantean epoch (from Gunther Wachsmuth). Hence Lemuria and Atlantis are indicated as centers from which these people streamed out in the directions indicated by the arrows. The arrows themselves don't give final destinations but rather indicate directions. Note this has to be projected into the time dimension over very long time periods.

Note: this simple map may give the wrong impression that all seven Atlantean sub-races started from the same central region in the current Atlantic ocean. This was definitely not the case, see Schema FMC00.214E.

See also: Human races and the commentary on Migrations#Note .5B3.5D - On Schema FMC00.205 and variants

Schema FMC00.205A is another presentation from Gunther Wachsmuth's 'The Evolution of Mankind'. See also the related map Schema FMC00.205D.

See also: commentary on Migrations#Note .5B3.5D - On Schema FMC00.205 and variants

Lecture coverage and references

Plato's 'Timaeus' (or 'Concerning nature')

contains references to Atlantis, by Timaeus, Socrates, Hermocrates, Critias; through a story of Solon, the law giver of Athens about 600 BC and his visit to Sais in Egypt where an old Egyptian priest revealed the history of the beginning of Athens.

That sea (the Atlantic) was then navigable and had an island fronting that mouth which you (Solon) in your tongue call the Columns of Hercules .. and there was a passage hence to the rest of the islands, as well as from these islands to the whole opposite continent that surraounds that sea /.. the island of Atlantis itself was plunged beneath the sea and entirely disappeared, whence even now that sea is neither navigable nor to be traced out, being blocked up by the great depth of mud which the subsiding island produced

Plutarch comments on Plato's description of Atlantis

1896 - W. Scott-Elliot: The Story of Atlantis

William Scott-Elliot (1849-1919) wrote The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904), basing himself oa on input from C.W. Leadbeater. Both were later combined in 1925 into a single volume called The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria. Rudolf Steiner mentioned Scott-Elliot in several lectures, see excerpts below of 1904-GA011 and 1915-10-11-GA254

The names of the different sub-races must first be given:

1. Rmoahal, 2. Tlavatli, 3. Toltec, 4. First Turanian, 5. Original Semite, 6. Akkadian, 7. Mongolian.

Some explanation is necessary as to the principle on which these names are chosen. Wherever modern ethnologists have discovered traces of one of these sub-races, or even identified a small part of one, the name they have given to it is used for the sake of simplicity, but in the case of the first two sub-races there are hardly any traces left for science to seize upon, so the names by which they called themselves have been adopted.

1 - The Rmoahal Race

Now the period represented by Map No. 1 shows the land surface of the earth as it existed about one million years ago, but the Rmoahal race came into existence between four and five million years ago, at which period large portions of the great southern continent of Lemuria still existed, while the continent of Atlantis had not assumed the proportions it ultimately attained. It was upon a spur of this Lemurian land that the Rmoahal race was born. Roughly it may be located at latitude 7 degrees north and longitude 5 degrees west, which a reference to any modern atlas will show to lie on the Ashanti coast of to-day. It was a hot, moist country, where huge antediluvian animals lived in reedy swamps and dank forests. The Rmoahals were a dark race—their complexion being a sort of mahogany black. Their height in these early days was about ten or twelve feet—truly a race of giants—but through the centuries their stature gradually dwindled, as did that of all the races in turn, and later on we shall find they had shrunk to the stature of the “Furfooz man.” They ultimately migrated to the southern shores of Atlantis, were they were engaged in constant warfare with the sixth and seventh sub-races of the Lemurians then inhabiting that country. A large part of the tribe eventually moved north, while the remainder settled down and intermarried with these black Lemurian aborigines. The result was that at the period we are dealing with—the first map period—there was no pure blood left in the south, and as we shall see it was from these dark races who inhabited the equatorial provinces, and the extreme south of the continent, that the Toltec conquerors subsequently drew their supplies of slaves. The remainder of the race, however, reached the extreme north-eastern promontories contiguous with Iceland, and dwelling there for untold generations, they gradually became lighter in color, until at the date of the first map period we find them a tolerably fair people. Their descendants eventually became subject, at least nominally, to the Semite kings.

That they dwelt there for untold generations is not meant to imply that their occupation was unbroken, for stress of circumstances at intervals of time drove them south. The cold of the glacial epochs of course operated alike with the other races, but the few words to be said on this subject may as well come in here.

Without going into the question of the different rotations which this earth performs, or the varying degrees of eccentricity of its orbit, a combination of which is sometimes held to be the cause of the glacial epochs, it is a fact—and one already recognized by some astronomers—that a minor glacial epoch occurs about every 30,000 years. But in addition to these, there were two occasions in the history of Atlantis when the ice-belt desolated not merely the northern regions, but, invading the bulk of the continent, forced all life to migrate to equatorial lands. The first of these was in process during the Rmoahal days, about 3,000,000 years ago, while the second took place in the Toltec ascendency about 850,000 years ago.

With reference to all glacial epochs it should be stated that though the inhabitants of northern lands were forced to settle during the winter far south of the ice-belt, there yet were great districts to which in summer they could return, and where for the sake of the hunting they encamped until driven south again by the winter cold.

2 - The Tlavatli Race

The place of origin of the Tlavatli or 2nd sub-race was an island off the west coast of Atlantis. The spot is marked on the 1st map with the figure 2. Thence they spread into Atlantis proper, chiefly across the middle of the continent, gradually however tending northwards towards the stretch of coast facing the promontory of Greenland. Physically they were a powerful and hardy race of a red-brown color, but they were not quite so tall as the Rmoahals whom they drove still further north. They were always a mountain-loving people, and their chief settlements were in the mountainous districts of the interior, which a comparison of Maps 1 and 4 will show to be approximately coterminous with what ultimately became the island of Poseidonis. At this first map period they also—as just stated—peopled the northern coasts, whilst a mixture of Tlavatli and Toltec race inhabited the western islands, which subsequently formed part of the American continent.

3 - The Toltec Race

We now come to the Toltec or 3rd sub-race. This was a magnificent development. It ruled the whole continent of Atlantis for thousands of years in great material power and glory. Indeed so dominant and so endowed with vitality was this race that intermarriages with the following sub-races failed to modify the type, which still remained essentially Toltec; and hundreds of thousands of years later we find one of their remote family races ruling magnificently in Mexico and Peru, long ages before their degenerate descendants were conquered by the fiercer Aztec tribes from the north. The complexion of this race was also a red-brown, but they were redder or more copper-colored than the Tlavatli. They also were a tall race, averaging about eight feet during the period of their ascendency, but of course dwindling, as all races did, to the dimensions that are common to-day. The type was an improvement on the two previous sub-races, the features being straight and well marked, not unlike the ancient Greek. The approximate birthplace of this race may be seen, marked with the figure 3, on the first map. It lay near the west coast of Atlantis about latitude 30o North, and the whole of the surrounding country, embracing the bulk of the west coast of the continent, was peopled with a pure Toltec race. But as we shall see when dealing with the political organization, their territory eventually extended right across the continent, and it was from their great capital on the eastern coast that the Toltec emperors held their almost world-wide sway.

4 - The First Turanian Race

The Turanian or 4th sub-race had their origin on the eastern side of the continent, south of the mountainous district inhabited by the Tlavatli people. This spot is marked 4 on Map No. 1. The Turanians were colonists from the earliest days, and great numbers migrated to the lands lying to the east of Atlantis. They were never a thoroughly dominant race on the mother- continent, though some of their tribes and family races became fairly powerful. The great central regions of the continent lying west and south of the Tlavatli mountainous district was their special though not their exclusive home, for they shared these lands with the Toltecs. The curious political and social experiments made by this sub-race will be dealt with later on.

5 - The Original Semite Race

As regards the original Semite or 5th sub-race ethnologists have been somewhat confused, as indeed it is extremely natural they should be considering the very insufficient data they have to go upon. This sub-race had its origin in the mountainous country which formed the more southerly of the two northeastern peninsulas which, as we have seen, is now represented by Scotland, Ireland, and some of the surrounding seas. The site is marked 5 in Map No. 1. in this least desirable portion of the great continent the race grew and flourished, for centuries maintaining its independence against aggressive southern kings, till the time came for it in turn to spread abroad and colonize. It must be remembered that by the time the Semites rose to power hundreds of thousands of years had passed and the 2nd map period had been reached. They were a turbulent, discontented race, always at war with their neighbours, especially with the then growing power of the Akkadians.

6 - The Akkadian Race

The birthplace of the Akkadian or 6th sub-race will be found on Map No. 2 (marked there with the figure 6), for it was after the great catastrophe of 800,000 years ago that this race first came into existence. It took its rise in the land east of Atlantis, about the middle of the great peninsula whose southeastern extremity stretched out towards the old continent. The spot may be located approximately at latitude 42 degrees North and longitude 10 degrees East. They did not for long, however, confine themselves to the land of their birth, but overran the now diminished continent of Atlantis. They fought with the Semites in many battles both on land and sea, and very considerable fleets were used on both sides. Finally about 100,000 years ago they completely vanquished the Semites, and from that time onwards an Akkadian dynasty was set up in the old Semite capital, and ruled the country wisely for several hundred years. They were a great trading, sea-going and colonizing people, and they established many centers of communication with distant lands.

7 - The Mongolian Race

The Mongolian or 7th sub-race seems to be the only one that had absolutely no touch with the mother-continent. Having its origin on the plains of Tartary (marked No. 7 on the second map) at about latitude 6 degreeso North and longitude 140 degrees East, it was directly developed from descendants of the Turanian race, which it gradually supplanted over the greater part of Asia. This sub-race multiplied exceedingly, and even at the present day a majority of the earth’s inhabitants technically belong to it, though many of its divisions are so deeply colored with the blood of earlier races as to be scarcely distinguishable from them.

1904 - W. Scott-Elliot in 'The Lost Lemuria'

based on info and astral research by Leadbeater, (SWCC)

[Founding of the Atlantean race]

.. it was from the fifth or Semitic sub-race of the Fourth Root Race that was chosen the nucleus destined to become our current fifth or Aryan root race.

It was not, however, until the time of the seventh sub-race on Lemuria that humanity was sufficiently developed physiologically to warrant the choice of individuals fit to become the parents of a new root race. So it was from the seventh sub-race that the segregation was effected.

The colony was first settled on land which occupied the site of the present Ashantee and Western Nigeria. A reference to the second map will show this as a promontory lying to the north-west of the island-continent which embraced the Cape of Good Hope and parts of western Africa. Having been guarded for generations from any admixture with a lower type, the colony gradually increased in numbers, and the time came when it was ready to receive and to hand on the new impulse to physical heredity which the Manu was destined to impart.

..

In the .. founding of the Fourth Atlantean root race, it was one of the adepts from Venus who undertook the duties of the Manu. Naturally he belonged to a very high order, for it must be understood that the Beings who came from the Venus system as rulers and teachers of our infant humanity did not all stand at the same level. It is this circumstance which furnishes a reason for the remarkable fact that may, in conclusion, be stated--namely, that there existed in Lemuria a Lodge of Initiation.

1904-GA011

At the outset those facts will be described which occurred during the existence of the so-called continent of Atlantis, which lay between America and Europe. This part of the surface of our earth was at one time land. Today it is this land which forms the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Plato still told of the last remnant of this land — the Island of Poseidonis — lying to the west of Europe and Africa.

In the little book, The Story of Atlantis, by W. Scott-Elliot, the reader will learn that the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was once a continent; that for about 1,000,000 years it was the scene of a civilisation certainly very different from ours of today; and that the last remnant of this continent was submerged nearly 10,000 years B.C.

Details completing those given in that book, and bearing on this hoary civilisation, will be given here. While the outward events of the life of these our Atlantean forefathers are more conspicuously the subject of description in the above work, something will here be said of the soul-life, and of the inner nature of the conditions under which they lived. The reader must therefore go back in thought to a period lying more than 10,000 years behind us, and to a civilisation which had existed for many thousands of years. What is here related, however, took place not only on the continent submerged by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, but also in the neighbouring regions that now form Asia, Africa, Europe, and America; and what subsequently happened in these regions was evolved out of that earlier civilisation

1904-GA011 Ch2.

is called '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.

[1st sub-race - Rmoahal]

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.

[2nd sub-race - Tlavatli]

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.

[3rd sub-race - Toltec]

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.

[4th sub-race - primal Turanians]

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.

[5th sub-race - primal Semites]

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.

[6th sub-race - Akkadian]

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.

[7th sub-race - Mongolian]

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.

1904-GA011 Q&A

Contemporary Man indeed can form only a very weak conception of what the memory of an Atlantean could accomplish. But all that appears as innate concepts in our fifth root race, in Atlantis was only acquired through the memory. The concepts of space, time, number, etc. would present difficulties of a quite different order if contemporary man were obliged to be the first to acquire them. For the faculty which this contemporary Man is to acquire is the combinatory understanding. Logic did not exist among the Atlanteans.

But each previously acquired power of the soul must withdraw, in its own form, become submerged beneath the threshold of consciousness if a new one is to be acquired. For example, if the beaver were suddenly to become a thinking being, it would have to change its capacity for intuitively erecting its artful constructions into something else.

The Atlanteans also had for example, the capacity to control the life force in a certain way. They constructed their wonderful machines through this force. But on the other hand, they had nothing of the gift for story-telling which the peoples of the fifth root race possess. There are as yet no myths and fairy tales among them. The life-mastering power of the Atlanteans first appeared among the members of our race under the mask of mythology. In this form it could become the basis for the intellectual activity of our race.

The great inventors among us are incarnations of “seers” of the Atlanteans. In their inspirations of genius is manifested what has as its basis something else, something that was like life-producing power in them during their Atlantean incarnation.

Our logic, knowledge of nature, technology and so forth, grow from a foundation which was laid in Atlantis.

• If, for instance, an engineer could transform his combining faculty backward, something would result which was in the power of the Atlantean.
• All of Roman jurisprudence was the transformed will power of a former time. In this the will as such remained in the background, and instead of itself assuming forms, it transformed itself into the forms of thought which are manifested in legal concepts.
• The esthetic sense of the Greeks is built up on the basis of directly acting forces which among the Atlanteans were manifested in a magnificent breeding of plant and animal forms. In the imagination of Phidias lived something which the Atlantean used directly for the transformation of actual living beings.

1904-06-26-GA090A and 1904-06-27-GA090A

.. contain descriptions of the Atlantean culture including

• the vril-force
• the origin of black magic from the Turanian
  

1905-10-16-GA093a

.. (in evo) describes Man in the Atlantean epoch with the following features:

• less frontal brain, farther-receding brow
• much stronger, more vigorous etheric body
• etheric body not yet developed connection with brain
• immense etheric head, embedding a comparatively small physical head
• a kind of fiery coloured formation was visible, which streamed out from the opening of the physical head towards the etheric head
• thinking in the etheric, controlling the etheric a.i. causing a seed to grow and bloom
• used seed power (samenkraft) of the plants to propel his vehicles
• higher spiritual beings had an influence on the unfree will; through the open etheric head they worked through the intellect

• Only from the last third of the Atlantean epoch, from the time of the original Semites until the time when Atlantis was covered with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, did the frontal etheric head develop the frontal brain. Through this man lost the power of influencing the growth of plants and gained only the capacity of the physical brain, of intellect. With many things he now had to make a new beginning. He had to begin to learn mechanical work. In this he was like a child, clumsy and awkward, whereas before in developing the vegetable kingdom he had achieved great skill.

1905-11-09-GA054

(SWCC)

The Atlantean race did not yet have the abilities of combining, of counting, of logical thinking. The Atlantean had an almost omniscient memory. His knowledge was generally based on his memory. He did not know what we call law or rule. He did not calculate in such a way that he knew a multiplication table; indeed, he did not know this. His memory was the basis for his whole thinking. He knew if he had piled up twice five beans that this was a small heap of so and so many. He did not count, but he kept it in his memory.

His language was also different from ours.

.. a certain clairvoyant talent belonged to him inevitably which withdrew when our day consciousness, our reason, our mathematical, logical consciousness, our cultural consciousness developed. The Atlantean was able to quite different sense to work on the growth of plants out of his nature using the special magic willpower. Without sensuous mediation, the Atlantean was able to carry out certain magic effects. All that also was connected with a completely different body structure, above all with a receding forehead and with a defective formation of the forebrain. On the other side, other parts of the brain were unlike those of the modern civilised human being. This enabled him to use his big abilities of memory.

.. the brightness of our present consciousness,that bright clarity of the intellect which our modern consciousness has, was not yet achieved. It was a brooding and dreaming consciousness. What worked with him was also not in such a way that he could regard himself as the master of that which he caused, but it was in such a way that everything that was in him was like a kind of inspiration. He felt to be connected with other forces, like with a spirit flowing through him. The spirit was something concrete to him, it was that which was in the wind, in the clouds and which grew up in the plants. The spirit was something that one could feel if one moved the hands through the air, if the trees rustled. This was the language of nature. The independence of the Atlantean was also not as great as that of the modern human beings.

...

In the old Atlantis was no distribution of rain and sunshine, air and water as today. There was another air saturated with water. There was not yet rain at that time. Myths and legends hold on these things vividly. Hence, the Nordic legends also speak of “Niflheim,” “nebulous home.” A real fact forms the basis of that.

The forms of our ancestors were different from ours, and those human beings whom they left behind got to conditions, which they did not stand. Hence, they had to develop to lower stages, they became decadent, and they degenerated.

1906-07-06-GA094

(physical-etheric constitution of Man in Atlantean epoch, the city with the golden tower)

The animal and vegetable world upon Atlantis differed from the present one as greatly as the human being of that time differs from modern man. The Atlantean's did not have high foreheads; their foreheads were flat and receded. The connection between the etheric and physical body of Atlantean were as follows: His etheric body protruded far, especially from the head. Human evolution consisted in fact that the etheric body gradually entered further into the head. The ancient Atlantean did not yet possess the capacity of abstract thinking, nor the power enabling him to say “I” to himself with a certain conviction. He had instead other highly developed faculties, for example the power of memory. The larger the anterior brain, the greater the intellectual power.

The Atlantean and was able to work in the outside world through his will. By a special volitional impulse he could stimulate the growth of plants, for his will-power exercised a magic influence. The Atlanteans lived in a state of dull clairvoyance. They did not see things materially, as we see them to-day, but in supersensible images. For this reason all their spiritual products have been imaginative-symbolical character.

In general, their civilization was quite different from those which followed. Particularly in the earlier Atlantean ages, they controlled the life-forces. They built machines which enabled them to rise from the ground and soar above it. But these gliding machines were propelled by the life-forces that lie concealed in plants. The vehicles of the Atlanteans were fed with grains of wheat, in the same way in which our railways are fed with coal. In this field many important discoveries will be made in the future.

Since the Atlanteans controlled the life-forces, they could build their houses out of trees which they bend at will. For their dwellings they only used living substances and no lifeless matter. The Atlantean was far more closely connected with Nature than modern Man and his culture was a higher one.

There was a city in which the highest Initiates lived which was spoken of in the ancient Mysteries as the city with the golden portals. At that time, also the way of teaching was different. By strong will-power, a suggestive influence was exercised upon the pupil.

1909-01-01-GA107

From the middle of the Atlantean epoch an opponent quite different in character from Lucifer approached man, namely the Being who casts such mist and darkness around his faculties of perception that he makes no effort nor unfolds any urge to fathom the secrets of the world of sense. If you picture to yourselves that under Lucifer's influence the sense-world became like a veil, through the influence of this second Being the physical world in its totality became like a dense rind, closing off the spiritual world. It was only the Atlantean Initiates who were able, through the preparation they had undergone, to pierce this dense covering of the material, physical world. ... the influence of that Being who since the middle of the Atlantean epoch had approached mankind, with the result that many of the Initiates at that time had lapsed into the practice of a form of black magic; having been led astray by this tempter, they misused for the purposes of the physical-material world what was accessible to them from the spiritual world. The mighty influence of the forces of black magic which finally led to the destruction of Atlantis had its origin in the temptations of that Being whom Zarathustra taught his people to know as Ahriman (“Angra Mainyu”), the Being who opposed the God of Light proclaimed by Zarathustra as “Ahura Mazdao”, the “Great Aura”.

1909-02-15-GA109

.. sketches a time picture of Atlantis

We have often talked about the fact that humanity must consider its ancestors to have come from ancient Atlantis, a former geographical region situated between what is today Africa and Europe on the one hand and America on the other. All the souls that are present today had already been incarnated in Atlantis, but in bodies that were in part considerably different from the ones we are accustomed to seeing. The Atlantean humanity had its own special form of leadership, and the soul-forces — indeed all the faculties — of the Atlanteans differed greatly from those of human beings. Hence, leadership as we know it today was nonexistent. In Atlantis, for example, there were no churches, ceremonial centers, or schools in the modern sense, but there existed an intermediate institution between ceremonial center and school; that is what we call the mystery sanctuaries or centers. Leadership of the Atlanteans with respect to learning and the conditions of external life was vested in these sanctuaries, and one could say that the spiritual leaders were at the same time kings of the Atlantean tribes. Initiates, whose mission can be circumscribed by a word of later coinage, by the word oracle, imported knowledge and exercised leadership in the mysteries. We therefore designate the great centers of Atlantean culture as the “Atlantean Oracles.”

We have to get a clear understanding of the function of these oracles. They had to impart knowledge to human beings about the spiritual world behind the physical world. Knowledge such as this is different from ordinary knowledge in many ways; to stress only one difference, spiritual knowledge is not confined to space as is our present knowledge of the physical world. Anyone who, for example, knows about the mysteries of Mars also knows a great deal about the spiritual mysteries of the entire universe. All the heavenly bodies of our solar system are interconnected, and as such they are the exterior expression of spiritual beings. The individual who knows these spiritual beings also knows the forces that are at work from one planet to another as well as in the spiritual world during the time between death and rebirth. And so it was the primary task of one oracle in Atlantis to transmit and proclaim to human beings the mysteries of Mars, whereas the primary task of another was to communicate the mysteries of Jupiter, and so on; and these compartmentalized insights made it possible to lead certain sections of the population. We shall speak about the reason for this at another occasion since our task today is a different one.

The Atlanteans were divided into groups, and part of the whole developmental process was that one group of human beings had to be governed especially by the forces that could be acquired through the knowledge of Mars. Other groups had to be governed by the forces acquired through the knowledge of Venus, or Mercury, and so on. In ancient Atlantis there were actually human beings alive whom we could call “Jupiter People” or “Mars People,” and there were seven oracle centers because the populace in ancient Atlantis was divided into seven groups according to racial characteristics. The names applicable to these oracle centers corresponded to the names of the planets, but they were assigned to the oracles at a later time. The leadership of, and supreme sovereignty over, all other oracles was vested in what we may designate as the Atlantean Sun Oracle. Whatever oracles existed in the post-Atlantean periods — in Greece, Egypt, Asia, all were successors of the Sun Oracle in Atlantis. This is true also for the Apollo Oracle in Greece. The initiate who headed this Sun Oracle was the guardian of the deepest mysteries of our solar system. Together with his subordinates, he was called upon to investigate the nature of the spiritual life on the sun itself. His role was to proclaim to Atlantean humanity the secrets of the whole planetary system and to exercise supreme authority over the other oracle centers.

Selecting material for cultivation

A very special task devolved on the Initiate of the Sun Oracle. It was to guide humanity in such a way that when the great catastrophe culminating in the submergence of Atlantis was over, the human race would be able to propagate and establish what we have often discussed as the postAtlantean cultures. Specifically, the task of the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle was to prepare human beings during the Atlantean time in such a way that they could enter the ancient Indian, Persian, Egypto-Babylonian-Hebraic, and Graeco-Roman cultures. To put it differently, the Great Initiate had to see to it that enough suitable soul material was available for these cultural epochs.

We must now inform ourselves a little about the task of this Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle.

What were the essential features of Atlantean culture?

Certainly it was quite different from later cultures. In ancient Atlantis, an individual belonging to the highest level of cultural life — the levels at which today's great leaders in, say, scholarship, art, industry, or commerce can be found — was one who possessed extraordinary clairvoyant faculties and who was especially skilled in the use of magical powers.

The qualities usually attributed to a leader or to a scholar were nonexistent in those days, or they were known only in the most primitive form. But although modern arithmetic, counting, logical reasoning, and intellectual deduction were unknown to the Atlanteans, they did possess primitive clairvoyant faculties and powers with which they could pierce into the spiritual worlds. Without the modern ego-consciousness, the Atlanteans saw into the spiritual world, and those whose vision was the most penetrating became the pillars of Atlantean culture. We have already stressed that the Atlanteans were able to manipulate certain inner forces of nature, for example the seed forces of plants; they propelled their vehicles with them, just as we utilize coal to propel our vehicles.

To repeat, the leaders of the Atlantean culture were not the people who tried, as the leaders of our time try, to unlock the secrets of the universe with their intellectual powers; rather, the leading individuals in Atlantis were those who excelled as clairvoyants and magicians.

And those human beings who had the first rudimentary inkling about arithmetic, counting, logical reasoning, and intellectual deduction were in a certain sense despised because of their simplicity and were not considered as belonging to the aristocracy of cultural life. But it was precisely those human beings who possessed the very first rudimentary knowledge of the aforementioned skills and who were the most lacking in clairvoyant and magical powers whom the Great Leader of the Sun Oracle gathered from all regions. Yes, he assembled the most simple and, in a sense, the most despised people of ancient Atlantis — those who had first developed intellectual capacities. But those who were then at the highest level of cultural life and who were the acknowledged masters of a dimmed clairvoyance were not suitable material to be led through and beyond the great Atlantean catastrophe. No, the call of the Initiate went out to the simple people.

Comparison with current epoch: a ‘call’ indeed

Incidentally, it may be said that we are living in an epoch today when a similar call is once again going out to humanity. To be sure, this appeal is what is appropriate for today, a time when humanity sees only what is in the physical world. The call to humanity issues from unknown depths of the spirit, depths that humanity will gradually become acquainted with, asking that humanity prepare itself for a new culture of the future, which will be permeated with clairvoyant powers. As with Atlantis, a catastrophe will occur, and afterwards a new culture imbued with spiritual capacities will arise, and it will be linked to what we call the idea of the universal brotherhood of humanity.

But today, as in Atlantean times, the call cannot go out to those who stand at the highest levels of cultural life because they will not understand. The Atlantean clairvoyants and magicians, who were in a way destined to die out with their culture, occupied a position similar to that of people in contemporary life who occupy the highest positions in the realms of scholarship and external industrial life—the great inventors and discoverers of our time. No matter how much the present leaders feel there is still to be done, they nevertheless occupy the same position as their Atlantean counterparts. Contemptuously they look down on those who are beginning to feel something of the spiritual life to come. The consciousness of this fact must be awakened in the soul of anyone whose cooperative efforts in the theosophical workshops are to be strengthened. When leading representatives of modern culture look contemptuously down at these small circles, those who are participating diligently in the preparation of future conditions must say to themselves that the intellectual giants of today cannot be counted on to lead the way in this task. It is precisely the people who are held in contempt because they are not considered to have reached the heights of contemporary erudition who are being assembled today, just as the leader of the Sun Oracle once gathered around him the simple of Atlantis. These disdained people are being assembled to prepare the dawn of a new culture whereas erudition of the modern form will bring about the twilight of our culture. This is mentioned in passing to fortify those who have to endure and hold their own against the attacks of the people who consider themselves to be on the cutting edge of contemporary culture.

The Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle gathered his simple people in a region approximately to the west of present-day Ireland. Now we have to get a clear picture of the situation. It took Atlantis a long, long time to come to its end. Great masses of people were continually moving from the West toward the East. In the various regions of Asia, Europe, and Africa there were tribes who had arrived at different times and had intermingled. Then the Great Leader of the Sun Oracle took His small group of chosen people and made His way to Central Asia, where he established a colony from which the currents were to emanate that would later found the post-Atlantean cultures. However, in addition to His simple people, the Great Leader has taken something else with Him. And here we arrive at one of the chapters of human evolution, the truth of which we can comprehend only if we draw on the inner assurance gained by a steadfast engagement in Spiritual Science.

1909-04-06-GA109

.. touches on Atlantean culture and technology – vehicles, navigation, ..

Let us call to memory a similar movement in the last third of the Atlantean epoch that started small just like ours. The Atlantean soul life, which in many ways was still clairvoyant, had reached a high point during that time, but it did not yet have the consciousness of self, the strong feeling of the “I.” Instead, Atlanteans had a certain ability of clairvoyance and also certain magical powers, and this enabled them to look into the spiritual world. Those who had progressed to be leaders of this civilization were the ones best able to gaze into the spiritual world in the old ways and to bring forth the most knowledge from the astral realms. This clairvoyance disappeared little by little; in fact, mankind had to lose it completely in order to conquer for itself the consciousness of self in the physical world. But it is certain that clairvoyant knowledge in the last third of the Atlantean era had reached a special climax.

You will remember the technological achievement of the Atlanteans. They flew over the earth in small space vehicles — close to the earth because the atmosphere was saturated with thick fog formations. They propelled their small vehicles through this sea of air and water with energy derived from sprouting plants. The leading creators of this technology can be compared to today's industrial wizards who construct ingenious machines from lifeless forces. And those Atlanteans who could relate the most from the spiritual world can be compared to today's leading scholars and natural scientists.

However, within this Atlantean humanity a segment of people began to evolve who had only minor clairvoyant faculties, but possessed the ability to regard the external world with affection. The first rudimentary beginnings of arithmetic and counting could be observed in these people, but their participation in the great advances of the Atlantean industry — the construction of ever mightier vehicles for this sea of water and air — was very limited. And thus a small, insignificant group of people had developed in this last third of the Atlantean period who, in a certain sense, were despised for their comparative lack of clairvoyant power and their inability to participate in this great industry. However, this group of people prepared the way for seeing and knowing that is prevalent today, the way of seeing and knowing of which the external world today is so proud since it developed it in such a one-sided way.

Those leaders of the Atlantean civilization who had mastered everything that could be known from the vantage point of the Atlantean consciousness, including technology, conceived of a technical idea toward the end of the Atlantean era that has become fully productive in modern times. We can compare it to another measure of progress in our time that will carry over into the next catastrophe.

During their golden age, the Atlanteans had vehicles that moved through air that was heavily mixed with water.

Later, however, when their culture was already in a state of decline, it also became necessary to navigate the water, and this led the last cultural races of the Atlantean era first to embracing and then to realizing the idea of navigation and the conquest of the seas. This momentous idea in the Atlantean era not only of traversing the air but also of navigating the ocean water was quite a sensational idea that was put into reality by the last Atlantean races. After long experiments to navigate the waters, success came during the time when Atlantean culture was already in its decline.

Those responsible for this tremendous progress were not the ones who could be recruited for the task of transmitting the legacy of the actual spiritual life from the Atlantean era to our time. Rather, this task was reserved for the plain and simple people because they had been the first ones to be endowed with the ability to relate to the physical world. They were the ones whose clairvoyant faculties, though deteriorated the most among the several groups of people, were still adequate for those who were messengers from the spiritual world. These people, despised by the great scholars and inventors, were gathered by an eminent initiate whom we call The Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle. This small group was comprised of people who had least preserved their technical abilities and who were disdained by the leaders and by the great scholars and inventors. Yet it was precisely they whom the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle led from the West to the East, through Europe and into Asia. And it is also this small group of people that made the foundation of the post-Atlantean cultures possible.

The best of what was subsequently developed by the various cultures, the mighty tree of post-Atlantean knowledge and wisdom, emanated from the descendants of the despised simple people from the Atlantean era. Above all, something else emanated from the midst of the descendants of this group of modest people. Let us place the external events side by side with the internal events of our evolution. Let us look at the great sensation of the Atlantean era when the secondary racial group, whose descendants were the Phoenicians, invented navigation.

What was accomplished by this invention?

We need only to remember the great events from the beginning of modern times, such as the great voyages of discovery by Columbus and other seafarers, which would have been impossible without navigation and the invention of ships, and we shall see how this sensational invention led to the gradual conquest of the physical plane on earth. PostAtlantean peoples were confined to a small radius of activities, but through the invention of ships the circle defining the earth became rounded out so that we now have a completed configuration of the physical plane. And thus, the sensational invention of the Atlantean world reaches into our time and promotes further progress on the physical plane.

However, the greatest conquest in the Atlantean era emanated from the descendants of that group of plain people gathered around the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle. And when those descendants, through their own development, had prepared the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, GraecoLatin, and our cultures, the earth became capable of yielding the material into which the Christ could be born. Therefore, the greatest spiritual event and deed of the post-Atlantean era had its beginning in the people who belonged to the most despised human beings in the eyes of the leaders of the Atlantean civilization, and this event gave rise to the immense spiritual progress that supports and maintains all spiritual life in our time — weaves through it and makes it productive.

1909-05-03-GA107

looks at the impact of the development of the I in the Atlantean epoch, the migrations and the people we see in the Postatlantean epoch today, see: Human races

.

1909-06-10-GA109

contains a description of the airships

With their will power, the Atlanteans could control the germinal forces in which deep secrets lie hidden: the forces of air and water. Fire was beyond their control. Let us be clear that when we look at a locomotive today, constructed by and controlled by man, this is something quite different. Today man understands how to make the forces contained in coal serve his purposes, to turn them into a propelling power. This process means that he controls the lifeless, mineral force in the coal.

The Atlantean controlled the actual life force contained in seeds. Think of the life force that causes the blades of grass to sprout from the earth. This life force was extracted from the seed by the Atlanteans and put to use. In their sheds where the Atlanteans kept their “air ships” they laid up enormous stocks of seeds, just as we today store coal. With the force accumulated from the seeds they propelled their vehicles. When the clairvoyant looks back to that epoch, he sees these vehicles near the earth in the air that was still dense to a certain extent; equipped with a kind of steerage apparatus, they rose up and moved. The Atlanteans controlled these forces.

Now it is unthinkable to imagine that the soul forces of plants can be applied by magical means without at the same time influencing the forces of air and water. When the will of the Atlantean turned to evil and used these forces for egotistic purposes, he simultaneously evoked the forces of water and of air, released them, and Atlantis perished as the result. The continents came into existence through the cooperation of the elements and man. But now the ahrimanic influence was gradually able to become so strong that man could no longer see the spiritual. Behind physical matter he could see nothing except the mineral element, the inorganic, and therewith the magical powers vanished ever more completely from him

and

A man of ancient Atlantis would have been able to break a railroad track, with ease, not because his physical forces were strong, for his bony system had still not developed, but through his magical, psychic forces. A cannon ball could have been repulsed by this psychic force. The density of flesh developed only later. A similar phenomenon is still to be found today in certain lunatics who on account of the liberation of strong psychic forces — in that condition the physical body is not properly connected with the higher bodies — can lift and throw heavy objects.

...

Because in Atlantis man's physical body was still pliable, he could more easily adjust himself to processes in the life of soul; the physical stature could be made to decrease or increase in size. If, for example, a man in Atlantis was, let: us say, stupid or sensual, he fell into matter, as it were, and became a giant in stature. The more intelligent human beings developed a delicate constitution and were smaller in stature; those who were dull-witted were giants. Man's external form was far, far more strongly influenced by the forces of soul than is the case today when substance has become rigid. The bodies of men developed in accordance with the qualities of soul, and this accounted for the great differences in the races.

When myths and legends have described the dwarfs as being clever and the giants as dull-witted, we recognize once again the reflection of a profound, occult trend.

...

[Ahrimanic influence]

If the evolution of humanity until the middle of the Atlantean epoch had proceeded without the influence of Lucifer, Man would by then have developed a picture consciousness imbued with a high degree of clairvoyance. There would have been in his soul something that through its power would have revealed the external world to him in inner pictures; he would not have perceived objects outside through his eyes. As a result of the luciferic influence man had perceived the physical world at an early stage, but not rightly. He saw the external world through a veil, as it were. Evolution as provided for him by the divine-spiritual beings was that in place of the dull, clairvoyant consciousness with which his inner world was perceived in pictures, he would have seen the external world but in such a way that behind everything material, spirit would have been present. He would have seen the spirit behind the physical world.

All of a sudden - not literally, for the process was lengthy - the external world would have appeared to man; Man would have awakened.

The inner world would have suddenly vanished but the consciousness of the spirit whence that world originated would have remained. Man would have seen not only the plants, animals and so forth but simultaneously the spirit whence they had come forth.

Because the luciferic beings drew man down to the earth too soon, the external world had the effect of hiding the world of spirit from him; physical matter became opaque for him. Otherwise, he would have seen through it to the primordial spiritual ground of the world. Because man had come down too soon into matter, it proved to be too dense for him and he could not penetrate it.

But from the middle of the Atlantean epoch onward, other retarded spiritual beings were able to impregnate this matter, in consequence of which it was as if clouded, made turbid, and man was again no longer able to behold the spiritual. These were the ahrimanic or Mephistophelian beings. .. Through untruth Zarathustra calls Ahriman the liar. He beclouds the purity of the spirit of man, conceals the spiritual from him. Ahriman comes after Lucifer and instils into man the illusion that matter is a reality in itself.

So in his progress, during which the divine-spiritual beings wanted their influence to work upon him, man allowed himself to be subject to two other influences:

• those of Lucifer who assails man in his inner nature, in the astral body, endeavoring to confuse and mislead him. We must speak of Lucifer as the spirit who is active within man.
• Ahriman is working from outside, deludes man to a certain extent, causing the external world to appear to him as maya, as matter. Ahriman is the spirit who spreads matter like a veil over the spiritual and makes recognition of the spiritual world impossible.

These two spirits hold man back in his development to spirituality. It was especially the ahrimanic influence that asserted itself in man and caused the Atlantean part of the earth to perish.

...

In the earliest period of the Atlantean culture, Man possessed strong magical powers. With these powers he controlled the seed forces, mastered the forces of nature and in a certain way was still able to see into the spiritual world.

Clairvoyance then gradually faded. Men were destined to found the culture belonging to the earth; they were to descend to the earth in the real sense.

Thus, at the end of Atlantis there were two kinds of human beings within the peoples and races.

• Firstly, at the height of Atlantean culture there were seers, clairvoyants and powerful magicians who worked by means of magical forces and were able to see into the spiritual world.
• Beside them were people who were preparing to be the founders of present humanity. They already had within them the rudiments of the faculties possessed by men today. They could emphatically no longer equal the achievements of the old Atlanteans but they were able to make preparation for intelligence, for the power of judgment. They possessed the elementary faculties of calculation, computation, analysis and so forth. They were the people who developed the rudiments of the intelligence of today and no longer made use of the magical forces applied by the Atlantean magicians at the time when their application was already fraught with danger on account of the powerful ahrimanic influence. They were those “others,” the despised people, rather like the anthroposophists today who meet together in small groups, or like the first Christians in ancient Rome who gathered together in the catacombs.

Now in Atlantis there were also centers of culture and ritual, the Atlantean Oracles, where the Atlantean wisdom was harbored and practiced. In accordance with the differences in human souls due to their having come down to the earth from different planets, there were necessarily different Oracles for men of different constitutions. There was a Mars Oracle, a Jupiter Oracle, a Venus Oracle, and so on. These Oracles were sanctuaries where the initiates, who were sages of a certain degree, guided and led the Mars race, the Jupiter race, and so on. All these Oracles, however, were in turn led by the still more powerful Sun Oracle. This was the leading center of the Mysteries whence the cultural instructions for the other Oracles proceeded. As well as this highest leadership, all Mars men were under that of the center where the initiate of the Mars Oracle resided, together with his pupils; all Mercury souls were led from the Mercury Oracle, all Jupiter souls from the Jupiter Oracle, and so on. All these Oracle centers, however, were subject to the authority of the great initiate of the Sun Oracle.

This great leader of the Sun Oracle, the greatest initiate of Atlantis, directed his attention above all to that section of human beings who differed from the ordinary population in ancient Atlantis. They were simple people who were looked down upon and who no longer possessed magical powers. But it was they who were gathered together by the great initiate because they had developed the new faculties, even if only in a primitive form. It was from them that understanding of the new age was to be expected. The great initiate gathered together this useful material for the future, and also those old initiates or magicians who had not persisted in clinging egotistically to the former practices.

Our present age presents a similar picture and can be compared with the conditions prevailing in Atlantis at that time. Today, too, there are on the one side the influential figures in the prevailing forms of culture, people who in their own way are magicians, working only with what is inorganic; on the other side, there are the despised people who still today want to work for the future. At that time, in Atlantis, the representatives of culture, the old magicians, also looked down with disparagement upon the small number of those who had developed the new faculty, which was useless in ancient Atlantis. The great initiate of the Sun Oracle did not, however, despise these people; today, too, the proud bearers of our culture look down upon a small number of human beings, upon the anthroposophists who gather in small, insignificant meeting places and are said to engage in all kinds of foolish activities. Generally speaking, they are unprofessional laymen who claim to be inaugurating the future. These are the people who are developing and preparing in themselves a faculty that to the others seems useless, but because it has a foreboding of the future is able to create a connection again with the spiritual world. In Atlantis long ago it was a matter of finding the connection with the physical, material world; the task today is to discover the spiritual again. Just as at that time the old initiate gathered his host together locally, directing his call to the simple, despised people, so today again, under different — not local — conditions, a call goes forth from the great Masters of Wisdom who are allowing certain spiritual treasures of wisdom to flow into humanity. Those possessed of certain qualities respond to this call as did certain human beings long ages ago; they were individuals who had within them primitive talents for calculation, computation and so forth.

This wisdom is not imparted in order that theosophical dogmas shall be grasped by the intellect but that they shall be understood by the heart. A man is then strong enough to know why theosophy is there today. It is there to meet a great challenge of evolution, and he who knows this also finds the strength to conquer all obstacles, come what may. He proceeds along his path because he knows that what is intended to come to pass through theosophy must come to pass for the further progress of humanity on the path to the spirit.

The great initiate of the Sun Oracle led the small group of human beings and founded a kind of cultural center in Asia. He drew these individuals to him in order to make them capable of founding post-Atlantean culture. During the great migration, everything that had come into existence in Atlantis had been mingled, jumbled together. It follows that in the post-Atlantean epoch one should no longer speak of races but of civilizations, cultures.

1909-06-29-GA112

title: 'The Atlantean Oracles'

But the most advanced among men, those who had survived the moon crisis, were able gradually to prepare themselves to envision not only the spiritual beings of Mars, Jupiter, or Venus, but those of the sun itself, the exalted sun beings. Having come down from the various planets the initiates were again able to behold the spirituality of these planets. From this it is clear why in ancient Atlantis there were institutions, schools, where those who had descended, for example, from Mars were accepted, when sufficiently mature, for the purpose of studying the mysteries of Mars; and that there were other sanctuaries where those who had come from other planets could learn their mysteries. Applying the later term “oracle” to these institutions, we have in Atlantis a Mars Oracle, where the mysteries of Mars were studied, a Saturn Oracle, a Jupiter Oracle, a Venus Oracle, and so on. The highest was the Sun Oracle; and the loftiest of all the initiates was the ranking initiate of the Sun Oracle.

Because suggestion and the influences of will played so important a part, the whole method of instruction was very different. Let us try to imagine the nature of the intercourse between teacher and pupil.

Assuming the presence of spiritual teachers who had achieved initiation as by an act of grace, we ask,

How did the later neophytes arrive at initiation in the Atlantean age?

Here we must imagine first of all the mighty impression exercized by those already initiated — through their whole conduct, their mere presence — upon those predestined to become their pupils. The very sight of an Atlantean initiate was enough to start a sympathetic vibration in the soul of the neophyte, thus disclosing his fitness for the discipleship. The influences that passed between men at that time were entirely remote from objective day-consciousness, and the type of instruction we know today was then unnecessary. All intercourse with the teacher, everything the teacher did, worked hand in hand with men's imitative faculty. A great deal passed unconsciously from teacher to pupil; hence the most important factor, for those sufficiently matured through their previous life conditions, was that in the beginning they should merely be admitted to the sanctuaries and remain in contact with their teachers. Then, by observing what the teachers did and by impressions made on their feelings and sensations, they were trained — prepared, indeed, over a very long period of time. Eventually the harmonious accord between the soul of the teacher and the soul of the pupil reached the point where everything the teacher possessed in the way of deeper spiritual secrets passed over of itself to the disciple.

Such were the conditions in those ancient times. Now, what was the situation after the union of the etheric and physical bodies had become established?

Although the two bodies had come to cover completely during the Atlantean epoch, the union was as yet not very firm, so that by an effort of will the teacher could, in a certain sense, withdraw the pupil's etheric body from the physical. It was no longer possible, even when the right moment had come, for the teacher's wisdom to pass over into the pupil as of its own accord; but the teacher could easily withdraw the pupil's etheric body and then the pupil could see whatever the teacher saw. So the slight or loose connection between the etheric and physical bodies made it possible to release the former, and the wisdom, the clairvoyant vision, of the master passed over into the disciple.

1910-GA013

is on the betrayal of the Mysteries

The betrayal of the Vulcan mysteries exercised an especially adverse influence, because the attention of their adherents was chiefly directed toward earthly matters. Mankind, through this betrayal, was made dependent upon spiritual beings who, in consequence of their previous development, held a negative attitude toward everything that came from the spiritual world, which had evolved through the separation of the Earth from the sun. According to the capacity thus developed, they acted in the element that was formed in the human being through his having perceptions of the sense world, behind which the spirit is concealed.

...

These beings acquired henceforth a great influence over many human inhabitants of the earth, and this influence made itself evident through the fact that the human being was more and more deprived of the feeling for the spirit. Since in these times the size, form and flexibility of the human physical body was still affected to a large degree by the qualities of the soul, the consequence of this betrayal of the mysteries came to light in changes in the human race in this respect also.

Where the corruption of the human beings became especially evident through the placing of supersensible forces at the service of lower impulses, desires, and passions, grotesque human shapes were created, monstrous in size and structure. These were not able to continue in existence beyond the Atlantean period. They died out

1910-06-16-GA121

Let us clairvoyantly observe the old continent of Atlantis, which must be sought where the Atlantic Ocean now lies, between Africa and Europe on the one side, and America on the other. This continent was encircled by a sort of warm stream, a stream about which clairvoyant consciousness reveals that, strange as it may sound, it flowed upwards from the South, through Baffins Bay, towards the north of Greenland, encircling it and then, flowing over to the East, gradually cooled down; then, at a time when Siberia and Russia had not yet risen to the surface, it flowed down near the Ural mountains, turned, touched the Eastern Carpathians, flowed into the region occupied by the present Sahara, and finally streamed towards the Atlantic Ocean near the Bay of Biscay; so that it flowed in a perfectly unbroken stream.

You will understand that only the remnants of this stream still remain. This is the Gulf Stream, which at that time encircled the Atlantean Continent.

You will now also understand that, with the Greeks, the life of the soul is remembrance. The picture of Oceanos arose in them, which is a memory of that Atlantean epoch. Their picture of the world is not so very incorrect, because it was drawn from the old Atlantean epoch. The stream that came down by Spitzbergen as a warm current, and gradually cooled and so on, — the region encircled by this stream the Chinese have literally reproduced by enclosing within their Great Wall the culture which they rescued from the Atlantean epoch. There was as yet no history in the Atlantean civilization, hence the Chinese civilization is also in some ways lacking in history. Thus we have there something pre-Indian, something coming from Atlantis.

1910-12-31-GA126

is on the impact of the SoF and the previous ice age

[Cosmological explanation on working of hierarchies]

How is this to be explained?

In what sense are we to understand the fact that these other Hierarchies, who are of a lower rank than the Spirits of Form, asserted their influence so dominantly over against the already existing activity of the Spirits of Form?

This is connected with a definite period in the evolution of the Earth as a whole.

To the clairvoyant vision which with the help of the Akasha Chronicle looks back into the past, these things present an appearance entirely different from the speculative pictures based on the geological data of the present day. When we go back before the activity of the Spirits of Personality in the Chaldean epoch, before that of the archangels in the ancient Persian and of the angels in the ancient Indian epoch, we come to the period when the Atlantean cataclysm was at the height of its fury. We find our way gradually into the conditions then prevailing. This is the time to which the legends of the Deluge existing among the different peoples refer, but their picture of it was very different from that drawn by the hypotheses of modern geology. In still earlier Atlantean times, the picture was again quite different. Man was a being capable of transformation. Before this catastrophe the whole face of the earth was different from anything that can be imagined to-day. You can well conceive that at that time spiritual hierarchies worked into the Earth still more strongly.

[Atlantean catastrophe]

Between the old influences in the Atlantean epoch and those in the Postatlantean, there was a boundary-period filled by the Atlantean catastrophe — by those events whereby the face of the Earth was totally changed in regard to the distribution of water and land. Such periods and changes consequent upon them are connected with mighty processes in the constellation, position and movement of the cosmic bodies connected with the sun. In fact, such periods in the Earth's evolution are determined and directed from macrocosmic space.

It would lead too far if I were to attempt to describe to you how these successive periods are directed and regulated by what is called in modern astronomy the precession of the equinoxes. This is connected with the position of the earth's axis in relation to the axis of the ecliptic, with mighty processes in the constellation of neighbouring celestial bodies; and there are definite times when, on account of the particular position of the earth's axis in relation to these other bodies of the cosmic system, the distribution of warmth and cold on our earth is radically changed. This position of the earth's axis in relation to the neighbouring stars causes the climatic conditions to change. In the course of something over 25.000 years, the axis of the earth describes a kind of conical or spherical movement, so that conditions undergone by the earth at a certain time are undergone again, in a different form and indeed at a higher stage, after 25.000 to 26.000 years.

But between these great periods of time there are always shorter periods. The process does not go forward in absolute, unvarying continuity, but in such a way that certain years are crucial points, deeply incisive times in which momentous happenings take place. And here, because it is of essential significance in the whole historical development of earthly humanity, we may point particularly to the fact that in the seventh millennium before Christ there was a very specially important astronomical epoch — important because, on account of the constellation brought about by the relative position of the earth's axis to the neighbouring stars, the climatic conditions on earth culminated in the Atlantean cataclysm. This happened six to eight thousand years before our era, and the effects of it continued for long ages. Here we can only emphasise what is correct, as opposed to the fantastic periods of time that are mentioned, for these happenings lie much less far behind us than is generally believed. During this period the macrocosmic conditions worked into the physical in such a way as to bring about the mighty physical upheavals of the Atlantean cataclysm, which completely changed the face of the Earth. This was the greatest physical transformation of all, the most drastic action of the macrocosm upon the physical Earth. Hence the influence from the macrocosm upon the spirit of man at that time was at its lowest; this epoch therefore provided an opportunity for the less powerful beings of the hierarchies to begin to exercise on man a potent influence, which then ebbed gradually away.

Thus when the Spirits of Form were working powerfully to revolutionise the physical, they had less time to work also upon the spirit of Man, with the result that the physical vanished as it were from under Man's feet. But an the other hand it was precisely during the time of the Atlantean catastrophe that men were transported most completely into spiritual realms and only gradually found their way again into the physical world in the Postatlantean epoch.

[1250]

Now when you picture that at this time — six to eight thousand years before the Christian era — the least influence was exercised upon the human spirit and the strongest influence on the physical conditions of the earth, it will not be difficult for you to conceive that there may be another point of time when the opposite situation comes about: when those who are cognisant of such a matter experience the reverse of these conditions — namely, the least influence upon the physical and the greatest influence, precisely of the Spirits of Form, upon the human spirit. Hypothetically you can conceive that there may he a point in history where the reverse of the great Atlantean catastrophe applies. Of course it will not be so easily noticeable, for the Atlantean catastrophe, when parts of the very earth were blotted out, is bound to be a very striking event for people of our Post-Atlantean epoch, with their strong leanings to the physical. When the Spirits of Form are exercising a powerful influence on the human personality and have only a little influence upon what is taking place in the external world, the impression will be less vivid. The point of time when this condition — in the nature of things, less perceptible to men — set in, was the year A.D. 1250. This year 1250 is of momentous importance in history. It fell in a period that can be characterised briefly as follows. ..

1917-10-06-GA177

Something is happening in this fifth post-Atlantean period of civilization which is similar to something that happened in Atlantean times, during the fourth Atlantean age. I have spoken of this before.

Up to the fourth Atlantean period the divine spirits who guide human evolution used certain elemental spirits. They had to use them because not only birth and death had to be brought about at that time, but also something else, which may be said to be closer to the earth. You will remember some of the descriptions I have given of the Atlantean epoch, when human beings were still flexible in their physical nature and their souls could make their bodies grow large or remain dwarf-like, with their outer appearance depending on their inner nature. Please call this to mind again.

Today the service certain elemental spirits give to the divine spirits on occasions of birth and death is clearly apparent in physical terms. In those times, when outer appearance was in accord with inner nature, certain elemental spirits were serving the gods for the whole of human life.

When the Atlantean epoch had reached its fourth age, people again began to rule the elemental spirits, which had previously been used by the gods, to govern the growth and general physiognomy of human beings. Human beings gained control of certain divine powers and made use of them.

The consequence was that from about the middle of the Atlantean age it was possible for individuals who desired to harm their fellow human beings to use all kinds of creative powers on them — keeping them dwarf-sized in growth or making them into giants, or letting the physical organism develop in such a way that the individual concerned would be an intelligent person or a cretin. A terrible power was in human hands in the middle of the Atlantean age.

You know, for I have drawn attention to this, that this was not kept secret, though not from any kind of evil intent. According to one of the laws of world history, something which initially was the work of the gods had to become the work of human beings.

This led to serious mischief in the Atlantean age, so that over the last four or three periods of civilization the whole of Atlantean civilization had to be guided towards its own destruction. Our own civilization was saved and brought across from Atlantis, as I have described elsewhere, and you will recall my descriptions of what happened in the Atlantean age.

1921 - Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa: 'The first principles of Theosophy'

We know that the surface of the Earth is changing all the time, with here a coastline slowly sinking, and there new land rising out of the waves; but how may anyone know exactly what was the distribution of land and water a million years ago? It is this that is possible; first, by watching the Record, and secondly, by study in the museum of the Adept Brotherhood. The Hierarchy, or the Great Brotherhood, mentioned in the Introduction, has preserved, from the day man began his habitation of the earth, fossils and skeletons, maps, models and manuscripts, illustrative of the development of the earth and its inhabitants, animal and human. To those who, through utter renunciation of self and service of man, earn the privilege, the study of past forms and civilizations in this wonderful museum is a never-failing delight. There, the theosophical investigator finds models in clay of the appearance of the earth long ago, before this or that cataclysm, patiently constructed for the guidance of later generations of students by the adept investigators of past civilizations.

The maps of Figs. 21-24 have been drawn after a survey of the land and water by watching the earth's changes, and afterwards checking such survey with the globes in the museum of the Brotherhood.

• As we look at the map in Fig. 21, we see that most of the land today was under the waves then, while most of the land of those days has sunk below the sea, leaving here and there remnants, as in Australasia and in parts of other continents. The continent which is seen to extend along the equator and south of it, covering much of the present Pacific Ocean, is called Lemuria by the students of Theosophy. The term is taken from the naturalist Sclater, who believed in the existence of some such continent, because of the unusual distribution over wide territories of the Lemur monkeys. Even in the days of Lemuria, men peopled the earth, and the Lemurian peoples were of our first type, as in Figs. 14 and 15. The pure Negroes and other woolly-haired races today are remnants of the ancient Lemurians, with little change of type, except a diminution of stature.
• Where the Atlantic Ocean is today, there existed once upon a time a continent, which Theosophists, after Plato, called Atlantis. It was on this continent that there arose the second type of those peoples whom Flower and Lydekker have called Mongolians — those with smooth hair and high cheek bones. From their original home in Atlantis they migrated in all directions, and give us today the millions of China and kindred peoples, and the fast-disappearing Red Indians of North and South America.
• By the time of the map in Fig. 23, Atlantis and the remnants of Lemuria have changed in outline,
• and as we come to the days of Fig. 24, there remains of the once vast continent of Atlantis only a large island in the Atlantic Ocean. The story of its sinking as narrated to Solon, Plato's ancestor, by the Egyptian priests, is given by Plato in his Timaeus and Kritias. In 9564 B.C. mighty convulsions destroyed this last remnant of Atlantis, and the island sank so rapidly under the sea that it created a huge tidal wave which swept the low-lands of the earth, and left in men's minds the tradition of a vast, devastating "flood". As Atlantis sank under the waves, other parts of the earth, such as the desert of Sahara, rose up; and what was once an inland sea of Central Asia became what is now the Gobi Desert, and the earth took on more or less its appearance of today.

That Atlantis is not a mere myth is easily seen when we look at Fig. 25. It gives us in outline the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, as mapped out according to deep sea soundings. Round the Azores, the land does not slope gently down, as in the ordinary coast lands, but descends precipitously; for, when Atlantis was above the level of the ocean, the present Azores were the inaccessible, snow-clad tops of the highest mountain range of the sunken continent.

1930 - Arthur E. Powell: The Solar System

Powell makes a summary of information found in theosophical literature and publications by Blavatsky, Chapters 35 to 44 are on the subraces.

Check the link to the online book in the header above (right click to open in new tab).

Atlantean Oracles and link to the planets

See also link with Human races and Planets hosting beings at various stages of evolution

Additional references in German, see anthrolexus page here

1909-03-07-GA109

We have often talked about the fact that humanity must consider its ancestors to have come from ancient Atlantis, a former geographical region situated between what is today Africa and Europe on the one hand and America on the other. All the souls that are present today had already been incarnated in Atlantis, but in bodies that were in part considerably different from the ones we are accustomed to seeing. The Atlantean humanity had its own special form of leadership, and the soul-forces — indeed all the faculties — of the Atlanteans differed greatly from those of human beings. Hence, leadership as we know it today was nonexistent. In Atlantis, for example, there were no churches, ceremonial centers, or schools in the modern sense, but there existed an intermediate institution between ceremonial center and school; that is what we call the mystery sanctuaries or centers. Leadership of the Atlanteans with respect to learning and the conditions of external life was vested in these sanctuaries, and one could say that the spiritual leaders were at the same time kings of the Atlantean tribes. Initiates, whose mission can be circumscribed by a word of later coinage, by the word oracle, imported knowledge and exercised leadership in the mysteries. We therefore designate the great centers of Atlantean culture as the “Atlantean Oracles.”

We have to get a clear understanding of the function of these oracles. They had to impart knowledge to human beings about the spiritual world behind the physical world. Knowledge such as this is different from ordinary knowledge in many ways; to stress only one difference, spiritual knowledge is not confined to space as is our present knowledge of the physical world. Anyone who, for example, knows about the mysteries of Mars also knows a great deal about the spiritual mysteries of the entire universe. All the heavenly bodies of our solar system are interconnected, and as such they are the exterior expression of spiritual beings. The individual who knows these spiritual beings also knows the forces that are at work from one planet to another as well as in the spiritual world during the time between death and rebirth. And so it was the primary task of one oracle in Atlantis to transmit and proclaim to human beings the mysteries of Mars, whereas the primary task of another was to communicate the mysteries of Jupiter, and so on; and these compartmentalized insights made it possible to lead certain sections of the population. We shall speak about the reason for this at another occasion since our task today is a different one.

The Atlanteans were divided into groups, and part of the whole developmental process was that one group of human beings had to be governed especially by the forces that could be acquired through the knowledge of Mars. Other groups had to be governed by the forces acquired through the knowledge of Venus, or Mercury, and so on. In ancient Atlantis there were actually human beings alive whom we could call 'Jupiter people' or 'Mars people', and there were seven oracle centers because the populace in ancient Atlantis was divided into seven groups according to racial characteristics. The names applicable to these oracle centers corresponded to the names of the planets, but they were assigned to the oracles at a later time.

The leadership of, and supreme sovereignty over, all other oracles was vested in what we may designate as the Atlantean Sun Oracle. Whatever oracles existed in the Postatlantean periods - in Greece, Egypt, Asia, all were successors of the Sun Oracle in Atlantis. This is true also for the Apollo Oracle in Greece. The initiate who headed this Sun Oracle was the guardian of the deepest mysteries of our solar system. Together with his subordinates, he was called upon to investigate the nature of the spiritual life on the sun itself. His role was to proclaim to Atlantean humanity the secrets of the whole planetary system and to exercise supreme authority over the other oracle centers.

1909-05-10-GA104A

At that time there were great mystery places. Our mystery and secret schools of today work much more secretly than those. Those of that time were generally known as something that was both a school and a church. Piety and wisdom were cultivated there at the same time. Those who were leaders in those times can be called the great teachers of the Mysteries. They taught in these Atlantean oracular places. There were seven of them. There the mature students were initiated into the mastery of the magical powers and into conscious clairvoyance in the spiritual world. The Atlantean wisdom definitely extended beyond the physical earth to the spiritual facts, not only to the three lower realms as in our culture. Today's science sets itself a limit in these which does not go beyond the earth. Through clairvoyant development, however, the Atlantean initiate also attained to the vision and experience of the high spiritual beings who work beyond the circle of the earth up to the stars and their circles.

Thus, there were mystery places at that time that were particularly concerned with the various stars of our planetary system and the spiritual powers behind them. Therefore, there were Mars, Venus, Sun, Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn and Moon oracles.

The greatest and most sublime, however, was the ancient sun oracle. The initiates of this solar oracle could overlook and watch over all the other oracle sites. At the top was the great sun initiate of the sun oracle; he foresaw the water catastrophe in Atlantis. Therefore he had to see to it that the culture was guided over the catastrophe.

1909-05-31-GA109

(SWCC)

quote A

Let us look back into the past to all the spiritual individualities of whom I want to speak to you, all the way back to the ancient Indian culture. If we went further back in human evolution to the remote age of Atlantis and its end, this would lead us to the event that separates us from an even more ancient epoch of humanity where our souls led lives greatly different from the ones they lead in our present physical bodies. However, rather than dealing in detail with a description of life and culture in those ancient times, let us today be content to illuminate the answer to the question: How was humanity guided in ancient times, and where did the forces that influenced it come from?

When a seer whose spiritual eye is opened so that he knows how to read the fine script of the Akasha Chronicle looks back into the spiritual worlds, he discovers the sites from which the culture and all spiritual life of those times emanated. Our souls can discover the sites where the masters and their disciples assembled in the mystery schools of that time. There were many such Mystery Centers on the ancient Atlantean continent, and they differed from those of today and were given a different name. They were not just churches and not just schools, but rather a combination of both. Those who searched for truth could find both religion and wisdom in the mystery schools; here, religion and wisdom were one. Using a modern word, we can characterize the concept of those cultic centers, the mystery schools, by the term “Atlantean Oracles.” This is the name given to them by the European mystery schools, but originally they were called something entirely different.

In the Atlantean Oracles and their centers of wisdom, spiritual life was differentiated in the same way that external knowledge and the areas of trade and professions are subdivided in external life today. There were various branches of spiritual investigation and occult wisdom in ancient Atlantis, but everything in those times depended on different conditions. Wisdom varied from one oracle to another according to the capacities of the human beings and their external environment. A connection existed between certain human capacities and certain planets. Certain spiritual faculties were connected with special planets. Therefore, we should distinguish between Atlantean oracles of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Just as did our earth, our present capacities also developed out of the cosmos, and they are in each case tied to different planets and their influences. On Atlantis, people who were suited to develop this or that cognitive capacity were chosen from the population and assigned to one of the seven oracles. Of the seven oracles, which were named after the seven planets in ancient Atlantis, the Sun Oracle stood out from all the others, but next to it the Vulcan Oracle prepared itself in secrecy for its future task.

Each of these oracles had emanated from the cosmos according to its capacity, but there was one center in which the capacities of all seven oracles flowed together, and it was here that the wisdom of the seven oracles in Atlantis coalesced. The adepts of this center, of the Holy Sun Oracle, had been initiated into the mystery and service of what we today know as the Sun. We should not forget that the physical sun is only the external expression or physiognomy — the body and garment — of the spiritual life of the exalted Sun-Being.

All of you have heard of the time when the sun separated from the earth, and along with the physical sun those beings abandoned the earthly arena who had advanced through the human state and, therefore, could no longer use the earth for their development. After the moon too had left, the earth was able to realize its destination of becoming the abode of humanity.

If the sun alone had influenced the earth, the latter would have gone through such a rapid development that human beings would have become old soon after birth. By contrast, if our earth had been only under the influence of the moon, human beings would have been stiffened and become mummies Development would have been too slow, and their bodies would have reached a state of rigidity and lignification. However, through a wise guiding force, sun and moon maintained a balance in the external influence they exert on the earth; and this enabled earth and human beings to develop at a speed suitable to them.

The beings of Mars, Mercury, Venus, and so on, who did not need the forces that had left with the moon and earth for their development, departed with the sun to take up their own abode. Yet they continued to be connected with the earth and sent their beneficial forces down to it in the sunlight.

quote B - migration by Manu

During the ancient Atlantean epoch, the adepts of the Sun Oracle had been initiated into the deeds of this lofty Sun-Being. The Great Initiate who was the leader of this highest oracle had been initiated in the most comprehensive ways into these mysteries. The entire ancient Atlantean and, as we shall see, also the post-Atlantean culture proceeded from him. The “Manu,” as this leader of the Sun Oracle was called — although the name doesn't really matter all that much — did not choose the main representatives of the post-Atlantean culture from among the so-called scholars and scientists, nor from the clairvoyants and Magi of that time. The people who were endowed with spiritual and psychic knowledge and who in those days were approximately comparable to the scientists and scholars of our time were not considered suitable by him; rather plain people who had begun gradually to lose the clairvoyant faculty were chosen. Our present state of consciousness began to develop only at the end of the Atlantean epoch. That was the time when the old clairvoyant consciousness was waning, gradually giving way to a full consciousness of self, to the ability to address the “I” in oneself. The great Manu gathered about him those who were able to function intellectually, not the clairvoyants and Magi but those who absorbed and developed the rudiments of arithmetic. They were the despised who knew nothing in the opinion of the leading people, and in this they were not unlike the theosophists today. Yet it was they with whom the great Manu journeyed to the sanctuary in Asia from which the postAtlantean culture was to emanate.

Disregarding America for this purpose, let us say that Europe, Asia, and Africa have all been populated by the descendants of the ancient Atlanteans who had moved to these continents under Manu's leadership. This initiate of the Sun Oracle now had to take care that the founding of this post-Atlantean culture and the evolution of its human beings would proceed under the proper influence. From the very beginning he had to take care that everything that was valuable for a future development should be carried forward. This preservation of values from the past is a law of occultism, of spiritual economy, but it is also a law that can only be known through spiritual wisdom.

Now the Great Initiate took something very valuable with him when he journeyed from ancient Atlantis to Europe. To accomplish this, he had — let me put it this way — traveled to and inspected the other oracles. You all know that in the case of ordinary people the etheric body separates from the astral body and the ego soon after death and gradually dissolves in the universal ether. The same happens with the astral body after a certain time, but this law is sometimes broken in the interest of spiritual economy. This is what happened in the case of the etheric bodies of the seven greatest initiates who were the leaders of the ancient Atlantean oracles.

1909-06-29-GA112

describes the Atlantean oracles in more detail, as well as the link with the Mysteries in the following current Postatlantean epoch

In Atlantis the leaders and their disciples kept a careful watch for everything that excited passions, instincts, and desires, for everything emanating from that quarter which aroused in man a deeper interest in his physical-sensible surroundings than was beneficial for his progressive development in the cosmic scheme. The first duty of one who aspired to become a leader was to practice this self-knowledge, to guard carefully against anything that might arise in him through Lucifer's influence. He had to study these Luciferic spiritual beings in his own astral body most accurately, for by so doing he could keep them at a distance. This also enabled him to perceive the other divine-spiritual beings, the higher, guiding ones, and particularly those that had transferred their own sphere of action from the earth to the sun, or to other planets; and the regions beheld by men corresponded to that from which they had descended.

• There were human souls, for instance, that had come down from Mars; and when these, in keeping with their development, combatted the Luciferic influences in their own astral body, they attained to a higher degree of clairvoyance, to a pure and good seership, and they beheld the higher spiritual beings of the region from which they themselves had descended, from the Mars region.
• Souls that had come down from Saturn learned to see the Saturn beings,
• those from Jupiter or Venus, the Jupiter or Venus beings: each beheld his own region.
• The most advanced among men, those who had survived the moon crisis, were able gradually to prepare themselves to envision not only the spiritual beings of Mars, Jupiter, or Venus, but those of the sun itself, the exalted sun beings.

Having come down from the various planets the initiates were again able to behold the spirituality of these planets. From this it is clear why in ancient Atlantis there were institutions, schools, where those who had descended, for example, from Mars were accepted, when sufficiently mature, for the purpose of studying the mysteries of Mars; and that there were other sanctuaries where those who had come from other planets could learn their mysteries. Applying the later term “oracle” to these institutions, we have in Atlantis a Mars Oracle, where the mysteries of Mars were studied, a Saturn Oracle, a Jupiter Oracle, a Venus Oracle, and so on. The highest was the Sun Oracle; and the loftiest of all the initiates was the ranking initiate of the Sun Oracle.

Because suggestion and the influences of will played so important a part, the whole method of instruction was very different. Let us try to imagine the nature of the intercourse between teacher and pupil. Assuming the presence of spiritual teachers who had achieved initiation as by an act of grace, we ask, How did the later neophytes arrive at initiation in the Atlantean age? Here we must imagine first of all the mighty impression exercized by those already initiated — through their whole conduct, their mere presence — upon those predestined to become their pupils. The very sight of an Atlantean initiate was enough to start a sympathetic vibration in the soul of the neophyte, thus disclosing his fitness for the discipleship. The influences that passed between men at that time were entirely remote from objective day-consciousness, and the type of instruction we know today was then unnecessary. All intercourse with the teacher, everything the teacher did, worked hand in hand with men's imitative faculty. A great deal passed unconsciously from teacher to pupil; hence the most important factor, for those sufficiently matured through their previous life conditions, was that in the beginning they should merely be admitted to the sanctuaries and remain in contact with their teachers. Then, by observing what the teachers did and by impressions made on their feelings and sensations, they were trained — prepared, indeed, over a very long period of time. Eventually the harmonious accord between the soul of the teacher and the soul of the pupil reached the point where everything the teacher possessed in the way of deeper spiritual secrets passed over of itself to the disciple. — Such were the conditions in those ancient times.

Now, what was the situation after the union of the etheric and physical bodies had become established?

Although the two bodies had come to cover completely during the Atlantean epoch, the union was as yet not very firm, so that by an effort of will the teacher could, in a certain sense, withdraw the pupil's etheric body from the physical. It was no longer possible, even when the right moment had come, for the teacher's wisdom to pass over into the pupil as of its own accord; but the teacher could easily withdraw the pupil's etheric body and then the pupil could see whatever the teacher saw. So the slight or loose connection between the etheric and physical bodies made it possible to release the former, and the wisdom, the clairvoyant vision, of the master passed over into the disciple.

Then there occurred the great cataclysm that swept away the Atlantean Continent. Mighty elemental disturbances in air and water, terrific upheavals in the earth, gradually altered the entire face of the globe. Europe, Asia, and Africa, which had been dry land only to a very slight extent, arose out of the water, as did likewise America. Atlantis disappeared. Men migrated eastward and westward, and a great variety of settlements came into being. But after the mighty catastrophe mankind had advanced another step. Again a change had taken place in the connection between the etheric and physical bodies: in the Postatlantean time the union of the two became much firmer. The teacher could now no longer detach the pupil's etheric body by an impulse of will and thereby transmit his power of vision as he had formerly done. Hence initiation, leading to vision of the spiritual world, had to take another form which can be described somewhat as follows:

The instruction which had been based largely upon direct psychic influence from teacher to pupil had gradually to be superseded by a form slowly approaching what we know as instruction today; and the farther the post-Atlantean age advanced, the greater grew the resemblance to our modern method of instruction. Corresponding to the Atlantean oracles, institutions were now established by the great leaders of mankind exhibiting similarities to the old Atlantean oracles: Mysteries, initiation temples, came into being in the Postatlantean epoch; and just as formerly those fitted for it were received into the oracles, so now they were admitted to the Mysteries. There the neophytes were carefully trained by means of exacting instruction, because they could no longer be influenced as they were formerly. In all civilizations over a long period of time we find such Mysteries. Whether you seek in the culture we knew as the first post-Atlantean, which ran its course in ancient India, or in that of Zarathustra, or among the Egyptians or Chaldeans, you will invariably find neophytes being admitted to the Mysteries which were something part-way between church and school; and there they underwent a severe training calculated to promote thinking and feeling as these apply to events of the invisible, spiritual world — not merely as related to things of the sense world.

And what was taught there can now be accurately defined: to a great extent it was the same as what we have come to know today as anthroposophy. That was the subject of study in the Mysteries; and it differed only in that it was adapted to the customs of that time and was imparted according to strict rules. Today people who in a certain sense are ripe can be told of the mysteries of the higher worlds in a more or less free way and comparatively rapidly. Of old, however, the instruction was strictly regulated. In the first grade, for instance, only a certain sum of knowledge was imparted and all else kept completely secret. Not until the pupil had digested this was he apprised of anything pertaining to a higher grade. Through this sort of preparation, concepts, ideas, sensations, and feelings referring to the spiritual world were implanted in his astral body, a procedure tending at the same time to combat the influences of Lucifer; for all that is imparted in the way of spiritual-scientific concepts refers to the higher worlds, not to the world in which Lucifer aims to stimulate man's interest, not to the sense world alone.

1910-GA013

for more on the nature of the Atlantean Oracles such as the Sun Oracle, see Human races#1910-GA013 (oa quote D)

1910-09-03-GA123

[separation of sun and moon]

What gradually evolved as human understanding was like a recapitulation of the earth's evolution. When separated from the sun, the earth would have become enclosed within itself and hard, had it retained all the substances left within it. The influences of the sun could not penetrate at first into the development of the earth they failed to do so until the moon had separated from it. In ‘Moon’ we must recognize those rejected substances that made it impossible for the earth to receive the direct influences of the sun. By ejecting the moon, the earth really opened her whole nature and being for the first time to the influences of the sun, from which she had been parted. She sent part of her being back towards the sun, in the opposite direction to that from which she had herself gone forth from it, and this part — the moon — reflects back the sun-nature to the earth as outwardly it reflects its light.

The separation of the moon from the earth must be regarded as an event of the greatest importance; it was a voluntary opening of the earth to the influences of the sun. This cosmic event had now to be enacted again in the life of humanity. A long time after the earth had thus opened herself to the reception of the sun-forces, the moment arrived when man himself had to be cut off from these forces.

By means of their clairvoyance, the direct solar influences could still be perceived by the Atlanteans; but just as at a certain stage in its evolution the Earth began to harden, so a time came when man withdrew within himself and began to develop an inner life of his own. Like the Earth, he became unable to open himself to the direct influences of the sun. The process of developing an inner life by ceasing to be susceptible to solar influences, and only of developing in himself what was a faint reflection of the activities of the life-ether and sound-ether, continued for long into post-Atlantean times.

Direct perception of the solar forces, which was characteristic of the early Atlanteans was eventually lost. As the effects of these forces could no longer penetrate to the consciousness of mankind, his inward life continued blossoming more and more.

Then came the time when it was only in the Mysteries that Man's spiritual powers could be developed. There, by means of Yoga, a pupil of the Mysteries could be withdrawn from earthly conditions and made directly aware of the solar influences. Therefore, during the second half of the Atlantean period what were rightly called ‘Oracles’ appeared. They were places where a class of people, who no longer perceived the activities of the higher ethers normally, were received as pupils and trained, in sacred wisdom. Here, through training, they learnt to suppress mere sense-perceptions and to become conscious of the revelations of the sound-ether and life-ether. The power to do this was preserved in the true centres of occult science. Indeed, the possibility of this endured so powerfully that even external science, without understanding it, still retains a tradition from the school of Pythagoras that one can hear the harmony of the spheres. Science, ignorant however of what the true ‘Harmony of the Spheres’ was, has changed it into a mere abstract idea. The pupils of Pythagoras understood as the power to perceive the harmony of the spheres, the actual reopening of a man's being to the tone-ether and the divine life-ether.

1915-10-11-GA254

Steiner also makes reference to Scott-Elliot's book in 1915-10-11-GA254 to describe the difference between the 'mediumistic' way that knowledge was received in the Theosophical Society, and his methods of direct clairvoyant spiritual investigation

In accordance with the position I have to take in the spiritual movement, no other course is possible for me than to carry into strict effect those methods of investigation which are suitable for the modern world and for modern humanity. There is a very significant difference, you see, between the methods of investigation practised in spiritual science and those that were practised in the Theosophical Society. All communications received by that Society from the spiritual world — including for example, those given in Scott-Elliot's book on Atlantis — came entirely in the way described, because that alone was considered authoritative and objective. In this connection, the introduction of our spiritual-scientific direction of work was, from the very beginning something entirely new in the Theosophical Society. It took thorough account of modern scientific methods which needed to be elaborated and developed to make ascent to the spiritual realms possible. This discussion was significant. It took place in the year 1904, and showed how great the difference was between what is pursued in spiritual science and what was being pursued by the rest of the Theosophical Society; it showed that what we have in spiritual science was unknown in the Theosophical Society at that time and that the Theosophical Society was continuing the methods which had been adopted as a compromise between the exotericists and the esotericists.

Discussion

Note 1 - The rise of black magic

See more: black magic

The crisis in the middle of the Atlantean epoch was often referred to by Rudolf Steiner. However in the early lectures on gets a more dramatic sense of what happened. An objective short factual description is in 1909-01-01-GA107 above.

• Read 1904-06-26-GA090A and 1904-06-26-GA090A where is described how they became black magicians, .. as well as 'Man: Fragments of Forgotten History' where the same sense of dramatic events is conveyed.
• .. then read about the seduction of the Rakshasas. Little is said, but one can feel the seriousness of the theme as the link is made with the three day descent into Hades or Hell by Christ-Jesus. And the fact that is not the end of it for humanity.
• Furthermore, study FMC00.077A and the early references to the development of the evil races in 1905-08-11-GA091 and 1905-08-12-GA091.
• There is also a link of the above with the eight sphere, and 'who will be saved from evil and when', see Christ Module 14.

It is understandeable not the scope to give attention or interest into evil and its development, which is probably why Rudolf Steiner also limited the information on the topic. Nevertheless look for his coverage on the topic of black magic and the asuras to put the above in further context.

Note 2 - Research on the continent of Atlantis

Edgar Cayce

Edgar Cayce stated in 1933 that Atlantis would be found off Bimini in 1968 or 1969, and referred to Bimini as one of the mountaintops of ancient Atlantis. People from the Edgar Cayce Foundation have conducted various expeditions (more info oa here), focusing on the Bimini area.

For further research, search on 'Bimini Road'. Another such underwater site is Yonaguni (Japan). See also: Schema FMC00.545 on Mystery School tradition#Illustrations

In popular media

For more info on research done in the last decades, see oa the documentaries in the Further reading section below: Atlantean epoch#Popular media

Related pages

• Evolution
• Development of the I
• Development of the chakras
• Human races
• Migrations
• Two streams of development
• Turanian stream

References and further reading

• Ignatius Donnelly: 'Atlantis' (1882)
  • available online here
• William Scott-Elliot: 'The story of Atlantis' (1896)
  • Charles Leadbeater assisted William Scott-Elliot to write his book using astral clairvoyance, drawing the maps. Sinnett wrote the preface.
  • re Steiner's statement in 1907-05-28-GA099 that this follows from astral research and not the true akashic records (see above under Aspects)
  • available online here
• Arthur E. Powell: 'The Solar System' (1930)
  • Chapters 35 to 44 are on the subraces
  • downloadeable in PDF here and online here
• Sigismund von Gleich:
  • 'Der Mensch der Eiszeit und Atlantis (mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Urgeschichte der Mongolen, Abessinier und Basken)' (1936, 1990)
  • 'Siebentausend Jahre Urgeschichte der Menschheit zwischen 12000 u. 5000 v. Chr.' (1950, 1987)

• Ernst Uehli:
  • 'Atlantisforshung' (1943, Das Goetheanum)
  • 'Atlantis und das Rätsel der Eiszeitkunst. (Versuch einer Mysteriengeschichte der Urzeit Europas) (1936, later edition 1980)
• Hugh Clayton Randall-Stevens: 'Atlantis in the Latter Days' (1954)
• Gunther Wachsmuth: 'The evolution of Mankind' (1961)
• Fred Poeppig: 'Das Zeitalter der Atlantis und die Eiszeit' (1962)
• Hans Gsänger: 'Atlantis: der Beginn der Mysterien' (1975)
• Chris A. Bartzokas (editor): 'Rise and Demise of Atlantis' (2006-2019)
  • bundles references from The Secret Doctrine and other theosophical sources on Atlantis, see also www.philaletheians.co.uk.
• Andreas Delor (publisher) and Pascale Aeby (1966-2012)
  • Atlantis: Völker und Kulturen - unkonventionelle Erkenntnisse aus hellsichtiger Forschung (2012)
  • Delor published 8 volumes of over 3900 pages in total, the first five focus on Atlantis, volumes 6 and 7 are on Lemuria, and volume 8 is on the first two epochs, the Hyperborean and Polarian.
  • Kampf um Atlantis: Ein Beitrag zur anthroposophischen Atlantis-Diskussion (2004)
  • Atlantis: nach neuesten hellsichtigen und wissenschaftlichen Quellen (8 volumes)
    • Band 1: Der südliche Auswanderungsstrom aus Atlantis (2011)
    • Der südliche Auswandererstrom aus Atlantis - Teil 2; Indien, Ägypten, "MU", Jericho, Sumer, Tiahuanaco (2012)
    • Band 3 - Der nordischen Auswanderstrom aus Atlantis. Das Thule-Geheimnis (2012)
    • Band 4 - Die siebente "mongolische" Atlantis-Epoche. Vom Ursprung der Völker (2013)
    • Band 5a - In den Tiefen von Atlantis Teil 1; Gottessöhne und Erdentöchter (2018)
    • Band 5b In den Tioefen von Atlantis Teil 2; Das Goldene Zeitalter von Atlantis; Väinämöinen und die Geburt der Sprache (2018)

Others

There is a huge literature on Atlantis. Below follows a sample of some references, unqualified. This includes traditional mineral science, as well as those 'debunking the myth'.

• https://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/index.htm contains an overview of further documents and references

20th century

• Man: Whence, How and Whither, a record of clairvoyant investigation (1913)
• Pierre Termier:
  • lecture on Atlantis (Oceographic Institute France, 1912)
  • Atlantis (Annual Rept. of the Smithsonian Institution, 1915)
    • reviews by Rudolf Schuller and Charles Schuchert (Geographical review, 1917)

• Lewis Spence: 'The Problem of Atlantis' (1924)
• Lyon Sprague de Camp: 'Lost Continents: Atlantis Theme in History, Science and Literature' (1954)
  • science fiction author with an interesting work from a spiritual scientific perspective, looking at the themes covered and the intentions in terms of influence through popular media (myths, ape-man, rogue queen)
• Angelos Galanopoulos, Edward Bacon: 'Atlantis; the truth behind the legend' (1969)
• Eberhard Zangger: 'The Flood from Heaven: Deciphering the Atlantis legend' (1992)

Contemporary 21st century

• Paul Jordan: 'The Atlantis Syndrome' (2001)
  • most reviews don't speak highly of this book, but it may be an exponent of the sceptic side proving it's all made up

• Heinz-Günther Nesselrath: Platon und die Erfindung von Atlantis (2002)
• Frank Joseph: 'The Destruction of Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden Fall of the Legendary Civilization (2002)

• Tony O'Connell:
  • 'Atlantipedia' website
  • Joining the Dots. Plato’s Atlantis in the Central Mediterranean (2018)

• Rainer Walter Kühne: profile here and here, overview Atlantipedia for Kühne

Popular media

Most of the excitement in the 21st century is about the search for the continent of Atlantis from a geographical scientific perspective, and the subject of underwater megalithic sites and ruins or potential remnants of sunk ancient city (eg Bimini road, see 'Sunken realms' by Karen Mutton)

• documentaries in popular media (oa National Geographic)
  • 'Finding Atlantis' (2011) - Simcha Jacobovici and Graeme Ball, about the 2009 expedition
  • 'Atlantis Rising' (2017) - James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici
  • 'El mar nos mira de lejos' (2017) - Manuel Munoz Rivas
  • 'Atlantica' (2019) - Michael Donnellan