We will continue to explore the findings of Charles Leadbeater’s investigations into the chains, roads and globes of our solar system. We have arrived at the 4th round, of the 4th chain, in our Earth scheme. To remind ourselves, each chain sees a live wave of seven streams of monadic life, pass through seven globes, which are the physical manifestation of a great monad called a planetary chain logos. The seven globes of a chain are passed through seven times. These are called rounds. We are currently on the 4th globe of the 4th round. Once on a globe, the human stream passes through seven root races, each having in turn, seven sub-races. We are currently looking at the 3rd root race in the 4th round. The first two sub-races of the 3rd Root Race were recapitulations of the 1st and 2nd rounds of the Earth Chain, which itself is the 4th chain in a scheme of seven chains. Over the time it took to traverse these two sub-races, Humanity solidified further and further into matter, eventually, the human monads of the day had an internal skeletal structure that allowed them to walk upright. We are now approaching a physical form for these early monads that would be more recognisable to us today. So, let us now proceed further into the story of the 3rd, the Lemurian Root Race.
In the 3rd sub-race, the human monads developed within an envelope, which was now a shell, and which became thinner and thinner. It also evolved double sex organs. When born, by the breaking of the envelope, it was fully developed, like the chicken of the present day and able to walk and run. This may really sound weird, but humanity of the time literally was born from eggs. These human monads were hermaphrodites; later, hermaphrodites with one sex predominating. Still later, they developed into uni-sexual beings.
They, together with the fourth sub-race, have been called the Lords of the Wisdom, a name which, however, properly belongs to a certain class of Barhishads who, as we shall see presently, came into them and used them as vehicles, in order to evolve, from the best third sub-race, bodies suitable for the fourth sub-race, in which sexes would be definitely separated.
The consciousness of the third sub-race was a triplicity, being in touch with Âtmâ (45)-Buddhi (46)-Manas (47). Notice here how we are building out the 2nd triad. It seems bizarre that this hardly self-conscious monad should have started from World 45 and worked its way down to World 47, when here we are on the 1st triad, trying to work our way back to the 2nd triad and consciously function in our higher mental envelope. This all goes back to the point that everything is given from above. We then have to take what is given and work on it until we can return fully self-conscious beings, rather than the automatons whose monads were in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Root Races.
Like all the forms then on Earth, 3rd sub-race of humanity was gigantic compared with our stature today. Leadbeater tells us that the 3rd sub-race of the 3rd Root Race was the contemporary of the pterodactyl, the megalosaurus, and other gigantic animals, and had to hold their own among them. I can see a huge red flag going up here in the audience. Do you mean humanity was roaming the earth at the same time as the dinosaurs? Well, apparently, according to Laurency they were. However, Laurency tells us that our chronology for the demise of this order of creatures is inaccurate. They left the earth 20 million years ago according to him. The evidence we have in our fossil records is that the dinosaurs seem to have gone out with a bang and this has been attributed to the arrival of the giant comet. Hold that thought for a while. Something certainly caused them to go extinct in very short order. If it was not a comet 66 million years ago, according to current science, then what was it?
Organs of vision evolved in the 3rd Root-Race; at first, there was a single eye in the middle of the forehead later called the third eye – and then two eyes. But the two eyes were little used by 3rd Root-Race humanity until the 7th sub-race; and they did not become the normal organs of vision until the next Root-Race – the 4th.
This ”third” eye, developed under the influence of the Monad, possessed far greater powers of vision than the two later eyes, or, more accurately, offered less obstruction to the perceptive power of the Monad. But, as the Monad drew back before the intellect, the physical triumphed, and the two feeble organs of vision, which we call eyes, were gradually developed, these being greater obstacles to the Monad’s power of perception, but yet giving a sharper definition of objects, and so leading to a keener vision than before. You win some and you lose some. The ”third” eye gave impressions of the physical environment in outline rather than in detail and the temporary closing-in on a two-eye morphology was the way to clearer sight.
Third Race humanity who possessed the ”third” eye, although apparently primitive in form, were nonetheless intuitional, responding quickly to the impulses sent out by the Divine Kings (who will be described presently).
The atrophied remnant of the third eye is now known as the pineal gland. This is now a centre solely of emotional-world vision, but to the Lemurians, it was the chief centre not only of emotional but of physical sight. This psychic vision continued to be an attribute of the race, not only throughout the whole of the Lemurian period but well into the days of Atlantis – the 4th Root Race.
The 1st and 2nd Root-Races, not being physical, did not need to produce a series of sounds in order to convey their thoughts; but in the 3rd Root Race, when humanity became physical, they could not remain dumb for long. The sounds which the primitive humanity of the day made to express their thoughts were at first composed entirely of vowels. In the first two sub-races, it consisted of mere cries of pleasure and pain, of love and anger; in the 3rd sub-race it became monosyllabic, and in fact in Lemuria, never reached beyond that stage, the consonant sounds gradually came into use. According to The Secret Doctrine, the Chinese of today is the sole great lineal descendant of Lemurian speech, for ”the whole human race was at that time of one language and of one lip”.
We come now to the fourth sub-race. But we need to understand that the development of one sub-race from the preceding one is a very gradual process, extending over a long period of time so it is often difficult to draw a sharp line of division between one sub-race and the succeeding one.
It will be recollected that the third sub-race had been brought up to the point where eggs were being laid, this being a stage in the whole process of the complete separation of the sexes, a process which, as already said, occupied some 5½ to 6 million years. To some of the eggs, very special treatment was applied. They were taken away by the Lords of the Moon and were carefully magnetised and kept at an equable temperature, until the human form, at this stage a hermaphrodite, broke out. It was then specially fed and carefully developed, and, when ready, was taken possession of by one of the Lords of the Moon. Many of these Barhishads thus incarnated in order to work on the physical plane, and for a long period of time, they used these carefully prepared bodies. This seems to have occurred only a few centuries before the separation of the sexes. If you consider what has just been recounted, you can see us today taking eggs or embryos from one organism and transferring them into an environment where they can be carefully nurtured to achieve a desired outcome. OK, so we do not take up residence in these organisms, but give us time and we will one day. Maybe on the next chain.
By the end of the fourth sub-race, the young creature emerging from the egg could no longer walk, having become steadily more and more helpless at birth. The human embryo still reproduces the stages which have been described; it shows the amoeba-like form of the 1st Root Race; the filamentous form of the 2nd Root Race; the sexlessness of the early stages passes into an androgynous state, and then slowly male or female characteristics predominate, determining the sex, as in the 3rd Root Race. It should also be noted that the traces of sex-duality never disappear, even in maturity, the male retaining the rudimentary organs of the female, the female that of the male.
These varied modes of reproduction are preserved in some of the Hindu myths told in the Vâyu Purâna; thus, in the account of the sacrifice of Daksha, various modes are given: ”From the egg, from the vapour, vegetation, pores of the skin, and, finally, only, from the womb”.
That is enough for today. In the next presentation, we will carry on our investigations into the evolution of the 4th sub-race of the 3rd Root Race.