Turanian stream

The Turanians were the fourth sub-race in the Atlantean epoch. It represented the height of the Atlantean culture and what was achieved on many fronts through the use of the then magical capabilities and the use of the vril (etheric formative) force. The Turanians were technically very skilled and also made use of symbolic drawings. This was also the period of the betrayal of the Mysteries and the start and rise of black magic, see also seduction by the Rakshasas and the selfish satisfaction of desires.

The School of Turanian Adepts is referenced by Rudolf Steiner as an important highlight of the teachings of the White Lodge, and from statements can be derived that its base was moved to Central Asia. This may have to do with the start of the downfall of the Atlantean culture.

From there, the following quote "the highlands of Turan are the starting point of the Egypto-Chaldean and Greek cultures" (1920-12-25-GA202) confirms other statements by Blavatsky and Steiner of the link between this stream and the remnants of these great cultures such as the pyramids in Egypt and the Man-made interventions to rechannel the flow of the Nile. See also Schema FMC00.205 and the Migrations topic page.

During the second ancient Persian cultural age, a great conflict raged between the Turanian and the Persian cultures. The Turanian people are described to be based north of the Persian. Research positions ancient Turan in the area that today corresponds to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan (see Schema FMC00.557).

Aspects

the great war between Iran and Turan (which "lasted not decades but centuries"!) as an expression of duality, the antithesis between the North and the South (1910-09-01-GA123)
School of Turanian Adepts: Rudolf Steiner describes the Turanian Mysteries, and the important adept school of the White Lodge (1907-02-18-GA096 and 1907-07-03-GA097)
In the current epoch and fifth cultural age, the Hungarian culture represents a remnant branch of the Turanian stream (1918-12-GA186, 1920-06-09-GA337B)
contemporary: see wikipedia Turan and Turanism (and even Turanian Society)

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.105 gives an overview of the sub-races in the Atlantean epoch

Schema FMC00.557 depicts the location of Turan in more recent times. The Turanian empire is described by Rudolf Steiner as the great opponent of the Persian empire in the second Persian cultural age, some 5000 to 7000 years ago. Nevertheless the below still appears correct from geographic indications in his lectures ("Turan to the North, towards Siberia", see 10910-09-01-GA123). as these locations (like Egypt or Persia/Iran) are stable across millenia.

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.

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

ee also: Migrations and Human races

Note 1 to Schema FMC00.205

Just as in the current Postatlantean epoch, the dominant cultures set out to explore and conquer the world, so also the Atlantean cultures migrated across the globe to different parts of the world. The schema illustrates how different subraces settles in Central America (re the later Maya culture) and East-Asia (re the later Chinese culture).

The fourth and fifth sub-races moved to the areas from which would spring the foundation for the Postatlantean cultures. Rudolf Steiner often describes the small groups taken from the Primal Semites sub-race that migrated to the Gobi desert under leadership of Manu. However also the Turanian stream moved to Central Asia, and sources states the whole knowledge of the major Atlantean (Turanian) School of Adepts was saved and moved there.

Based on a multitude of statements by Blavatsky and Steiner, it appears (or: the working hypothesis is put forth) that this new center provided the basis for guidance and leadership of the Postatlantean cultures. There are very specific quotes stating that the Turanian/Persians lie at the foundation of the Egypto-Chaldean culture, and were also the builders of the great pyramids. See also Discussion Note [1] below.

Note 2 to Schema FMC00.205

Schema FMC00.205 is to be correlated with the many statements by Rudolf Steiner and Helena Blavatsky of the origin of current cultures and how they relate the various migrations from the Atlantean culture. For example the Mongolian and Chinese culture are stated to be remnants of the seventh Atlantean sub-race, laggers versus the developments that had gone forward from the seed of the Semites that was the basis for the new culture of the Current Postatlantean epoch.

Lecture coverage and references

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

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.

Blavatsky - Isis Unveiled

discusses at length how Turanians are a people that very little is known off, and they are often or mostly - erroneously - taken to be the Assyrian culture

The Shemite, or Assyrian, ought, perchance, to have been called the Turanian, and the Mongolians have been denominated Scyths.
But if the Akkadians ever existed otherwise than in the imagination of some philologists and ethnologists, they certainly would never have been a Turanian tribe, as some Assyriologists have striven to make us believe.
They were simply emigrants on their way to Asia Minor from India, the cradle of humanity, and their sacerdotal adepts tarried to civilize and initiate a barbarian people.

Halevy proved the fallacy of the Turanian mania in regard to the Akkadian people, whose very name has been changed a dozen times already; and other scientists have proved that the Babylonian civilization was neither born nor developed in that country. It was imported from India, and the importers were Brahmanical Hindus.

and in a footnote even states

The appropriate definition of the name “Turanian” is, any ethnic family that ethnologists know nothing about.

In some sections Blavatsky lists the Turanian as one of three world-families or races of origin

the three great world-families; namely, the Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian nations, if so they must be called.

1904-GA011

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.

1904-XX-XX-GA090A

longer extract and direct link on: Migrations#1904-XX-XX-GA090A

The dispatch of a new branch constituted the second migration. We can follow this when, to begin with,
we look toward the East
and study the Medes and Persians, and then the racial stock which made its way through Chaldea and into history in the journeyings of Abraham.

On the other side, the racial stock that went Westward also came into contact with the remains of Atlantean civilization — actually the fourth subrace, the Turanian population — which had engaged in agriculture. A strange mixture was the result. By dint of vigorous effort, this racial stock was grafted upon the former Turanian people who in earlier times had practiced magic.
From here came the teachings of the Medes and Bactrians. Here labored the first Initiates of Zarathustra, intent upon employing the outer accomplishments of the age of magic in the service of civilization. The result is an imposing development of agriculture and vine-cultivation. These activities constituted a revival, in a new form, of the ancient magical achievements.

1907-02-17-GA097

School of Turanian Adepts

In that remote past, teaching was a pouring out of wisdom which came from inside, not outside. Between that time and our own there was an intermediate period, the Atlantean age. When this was at its mid-stage, human beings were able to see outlines of objects and life forms. But everything was still enveloped in a mist of colours for them, with sounds alive in it that had something to say, that were wise. A teaching then developed that later became religious teaching as we know it. Aeons of time ago they had a great school for adepts. Everything we learn today comes from those Turanian adepts.
Pupils passed it on right to the present day. But people taught in a different way in those times. It had to be taken into account that humanity was in an in-between stage. Even the wisest men could not have counted up to five. But by reacting to their inner reality it was possible to illuminate them, teach them wisdom in images. They could not have been given the wisdom in words, for those would not have been understood. Human beings did not have the bright daytime consciousness that we have today. On the other hand it was easy to put them in a state where the godhead illumined them from inside. The teachers would put the pupils into a hypnotic state. This would not have been the hypnotic state used to cause so much mischief today, but it was similar. The teachers would use this sleep state to illuminate the pupils.
They had occult writing at that time, something we might also call occult language. We still have mantras that rank higher in value than thoughts. They are mere shadows, however, compared to the sound compositions of those early times. These were simple, but when a note was sounded, the lost capacity for illumination would be restored. The world of inner illumination then came to people artificially and they would see the cosmic spirits at work as in earlier times. The pupil would receive formulas and specific drawings from the teachers. This would give direct perception of cosmic secrets. This sign, for instance, would teil him how a new plant grows from a seed.

1907-03-07-GA097

important Atlantean adept school of the White Lodge

1910-02-09-GA123

in context of the development of the Hebrew people, discusses that the forces of the decadent remainder of old clairvoyance which was preserved among the Turanians worked internally in the Hebrews and became productive and transformative ..

1910-09-01-GA123

see: Persian cultural age#1910-09-01-GA123

1918-12-GA186

(page 179 in DE version)

The Hungarians are the Turanian folk soul members [Volksglieder] in Europe

1920-06-09-GA337B

mentions the small European nations and the 'Turanian' Hungarians and the Bulgarians (that are related to them but slavicised)

1920-12-25-GA202

The highlands of Turan are the starting point of the Egypto-Chaldean and Greek cultures.

Discussion

Note [1] - Origin of Egyptian wisdom and building capabilities

From Blavatsky:

quote A

How came Egypt by her knowledge?
When broke the dawn of that civilization whose wondrous perfection is suggested by the bits and fragments supplied to us by the archæologists?
Alas! the lips of Memnon are silent, and no longer utter oracles; the Sphinx has become a greater riddle in her speechlessness than was the enigma propounded to Œdipus.
What Egypt taught to others she certainly did not acquire by the international exchange of ideas and discoveries with her Semitic neighbors, nor from them did she receive her stimulus. “The more we learn of the Egyptians,” observes the writer of a recent article, “the more marvellous they seem!” From whom could she have learned her wondrous arts, the secrets of which died with her? She sent no agents throughout the world to learn what others knew; but to her the wise men of neighboring nations resorted for knowledge. Proudly secluding herself within her enchanted domain, the fair queen of the desert created wonders as if by the sway of a magic staff. “Nothing,” remarks the same writer, whom we have elsewhere quoted, “proves that civilization and knowledge then rise and progress with her as in the case of other peoples, but everything seems to be referable, in the same perfection, to the earliest dates. That no nation knew as much as herself, is a fact demonstrated by history.”
May we not assign as a reason for this remark the fact that until very recently nothing was known of Old India? That these two nations, India and Egypt, were akin?
That they were the oldest in the group of nations; and that the Eastern Ethiopians - the mighty builders - had come from India as a matured people, bringing their civilization with them, and colonizing the perhaps unoccupied Egyptian territory?

see also Migrations#1904-XX-XX-GA090A, and Schema FMC00.453 and variants, that confirm this. quote B

That this period is now beyond the reach of documentary history, does not preclude the probability of our theory that it was the mighty race of builders, whether we call them Eastern Æthiopians, or dark-skinned Aryans (the word meaning simply “noble warrior,” a “brave”). They ruled supreme at one time over the whole of ancient India, enumerated later by Manu as the possession of those whom our scientists term the Sanscrit-speaking people.