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Occult Chronology

By James Arther

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The Geological Eras

OCCULT chronology is a tricky thing to deal with, especially in connection with scientific chronology. Like a steel spring or a piece of rubber, it may easily be stretched or compressed. But when stressed too far either way, it is apt suddenly to jump out of our control, leaving nothing but thin air for our hands to grasp. The reason is, of course, that we know yet so little of it, only a few of the largest milestones, with enormous gaps in between and faint hints where others might be.

In H.P.B’s time there was an enormous gulf gaping between “the chronology of the Secret Doctrine” (II 450) and the figures of science, seemingly unbridgeable. But time is a master-builder, and since last century the progress of science has made, expanding half a million times the four thousand years allotted to the Earth’s creation by the Biblical time-table, has been very satisfying for the occult chronologer.

A notable attempt to bring the ancient occult and the modern scientific figures in alignment was made by Miss E.W. Preston, M.Sc., in her book The Earth and Its Cycles, which appeared in 1931. Her work has perhaps not received the recognition it deserves. But it has two shortcomings from the Theosophist’s point of view. First - some of the “alignment” has been obtained at the cost of, or by suppressing the occult figures in favour of the scientific data. Second - where the older teachings (The Secret Doctrine) differ from the younger (Man: Whence, How and Whither), the book “sides” with the latter, and ignores the former. Examples of these shortcomings will be cited in the course of this paper.

The basis of our chronology and the starting-point of all our calculations must necessarily be the two great time-tables, found in The Secret Doctrine. These, combined with a third table in H.G. Wells’ The Science of Life, make up the following time-schedule of the geological eras and periods, with the place in them of the four stages in the evolution of life - mineral, vegetable, animal and human (Table1).

Columns 1 and 4-5 are from Wells’ book (1931, page 198), columns 2-3 and 6-7 from Secret Doctrine’ II 710, and columns 8-9 from Secret Doctrine’ II, 312. Column 10 is added to show the continuous flow of time from 320 million B.C. up to the present day. All the figures indicate millions of years, and have been generally rounded off.

The Laurentian Period is not mentioned in Wells’ table. It consists of the oldest schists and granitoid rocks in the Precambrian or Aarchæan Era, the younger part of which is also called the Proterozoic, and the oldest, the Archaeozoic. For the sake of fixing a definite time-limit for this period, I have added an entirely speculative 150 million years to Wells’ figures (top of column 4).

H.P.B does not give any figures for the periods (column 6), only totals for the eras (column 7). These have therefore been subdivided in proportion to the scientific figures for the periods.

A comparison of the occult with the scientific data shows that the latter are far in excess of the former, in fact twice as large, generally speaking. I cannot attempt to reconcile the two. I have only the suggestion to offer that science somehow or other has entangled itself with and is therefore embracing in her figures some previous Round or Rounds. The occult figures, as we shall see hereafter, are concerned only with our present Fourth Round. We shall recur to this problem of Rounds later.

It is here the place to give an example of the first shortcoming of The Earth and Its Cycles noted above. Miss Preston seems to think that the names given by H.P.B in The Secret Doctrine or by the Masters in The Mahatma Letters to the Eras and Periods, have no significance at all; that, for example, when H.P.B assigns the beginning of the Primary Era and the Devonian Period to 150 million years ago, she does not really mean the “old red

TABLE -1-
ERAS		PERIODS	FIGURES IN MILLION YEARS				STATE OF THE EARTH	STAGES OF THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE	TIME B.C.
MODERN NAMES	OLD NAMES OF H.P.B.'S TIME		SCIENCE		OCCULTISM
			PERIODS	ERAS	PERIODS	ERAS
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ARCHAEAN	PRIMORDIAL	LAURENTIAN	150	300	76	171	TRANSLUCID	MINERAL	320 244 210 180 149 120 108 62 46 30 22 18 31 2.25 1 1
PALAEOZOIC		CAMBRIAN	124		64		OPAQUE	VEGETABLE
		SILURIAN	26		31		THROES OF ADOLESCENCE	ANIMAL
	PRIMARY	DEVONIAN	70	175	41	103	PERIODICAL CONVULSIONS; COOL, HARD AND SETTLED	HUMAN
		CARBON	77		46
		PEEMIAN	28		16
MESOZOIC	SECONDARY	TRIASSIC	48	125	16	42.5
		JURASSIC	24		8
		CRETACEOUS	53		18.5
CENOZOIC	TERTIARY	EOCENE	20	50	1.25	3.00		SEXUAL MAN
		MIOCENE	20		1.25
		PLIOCENE	10		0.50
	QUARTERNARY	PLEISTOCENE	0.50	0.50	0.50	0.50
		TOTALS	650.5	650.5	320	320

 

sandstone,” but the “Rhaetic, Keuper, Muschelkalk and Bunter” formations of the Triassic Period and the Secondary Era. This is of course unacceptable. As if the Masters, speaking on their own account or through their mouthpiece, H.P.B, did not know what kinds of material things they were really talking about as if they were uttering hollow sounds! Their “dates and names are quite out of agreement with modern thought,” we are told by the author (page 50). That is very unfortunate for modern thought, but it may leave us quite serene. At all events, the rejection by science of the occult data justifies least of all the submission of the latter to a procrustean treatment to suit the former, but rather the reverse.

To give a concrete example of such a treatment, in the table on page 43 of her book, Miss Preston lets it appear as if the “occult statements” make allowance for the “first sedimentary rocks” to reach back to 600 million B.C., in conformity with the scientific figures. H.P.B however is emphatic that “in the Esoteric doctrine sedimentation began in this [fourth] Round approximately over 320 million years ago” (Secret Doctrine II, 715) [See also ML 151]

This figure, 320 or 300 and odd million years, is the first of those great milestones referred to in the opening paragraph of this paper. Again and again H.P.B recurs to it: Secret Doctrine[See also ML 151] II 52, 66, 68, 149, 251, 308, 312, 710, 712, 715. It apparently marks the beginning of this our Fourth Round. It is up to that very beginning that the materialization, solidification, sedimentation, crystallization, or stratification - all terms used by H.P.B: we shall meet each in turn - of the Earth’s crust reaches back. Says H.P.B: “Humanity has existed upon it [the Earth] for the last 18 million [and odd] years. This period was preceded by 300 million years of the mineral and vegetable [and animal] development” (Secret Doctrine - Volume II, page 149)

This epoch of 320 million years is subdivided by the occult commentaries as follows: “During the first seven crores (70 million years) of the Kalpa the Earth and its two Kingdoms (mineral and vegetable), one already having achieved its seventh circle [cycle?] the other, hardly nascent, are luminous and semi-ethereal, cold, lifeless, and translucid. In the eleventh crore [110 million] the mother (Earth) grows opaque, and in the fourteenth [140 million] the throes of adolescence take place. These convulsions of nature (geological changes) last till her twentieth crore of years [200 million], uninterruptedly, after which they become periodical, and at long intervals. The last change took place nearly twelve crores of years ago (120 million). But the Earth with everything on her face had become cool, hard and settled ages earlier” (Secret Doctrine II, 312)

It is on the strength of the last sentence - that the Earth had become “cool, hard and settled ages earlier” than 120 million years ago - and also because of the assertion immediately following - that “even before that time the Earth was ready to receive her human stock” (Secret Doctrine II, 315) —that I have divided the epoch from the 14th to the 20th crore into two, and drawn the second half into the human evolution, bringing this therefore 30 million years further back, from 120 million to 150 million B.C., as shown in column 9 of our Table.

We are assured by H.P.B that the totals for the geological eras shown in column 7, and derived by her from the scientific figures of her time, “harmonize with the statements of Esoteric Ethnology in almost every particular” (Secret Doctrine II, 710). It is only with regard to the relatively small figures for the Quaternary and Tertiary Eras that she notes their being “probably in excess.” It is therefore misleading when it is said in The Earth etc., (p.50), speaking of all her figures indiscriminately, that “H.P.B says herself that they are too long.” On the contrary, she definitely asserts the correctness of all the figures amounting to 311 million years, and only allows an excess for the comparatively insignificant figures of the last 9 million years of the Tertiary and Quaternary Eras. Let us see if we can find out how much that excess is.

In one place H.P.B tells us that “the last of the lands of Lemuria perished about 700,000 years before the beginning of the Tertiary Period” (Secret Doctrine I, 433) [See also ML 151.] which according to her unrevised figure would be 9,700,000 B.C. I assume that the last land of Lemuria will not have perished much before or after the last sub-race of the Third Race had run its course, so that, roughly speaking, we may take the end of the Continent and of the Race as coinciding. In another place she writes that “the third Earth went down into the lower Deep (the Ocean) 4,242, 352 years ago” (Secret Doctrine I, 439). If we deduct 700,000 years from this last figure, the remainder, 3,242,352 years, will represent the lifetime of the Quaternary and Tertiary Eras together. This 3½, instead of 9 million, seems indeed a rather drastic reduction. I would not have thought that the words “probably in excess” could ever mean an excess of nearly two-thirds. However, we have to stick to H.P.B’s figures. They are the only things we are sure of in occult chronology. Dividing these 3½ million years between the fourth periods involved, from the Eocene to the Pleistocene, in the same proportion as the scientific figures, and assigning to the Pleistocene the ½ million years of science, will give us the revised figures as shown in columns 6-7 of our Table. The remaining 5½ million in excess I have added to the preceding era, thereby bringing its total from 37 to 42½ million, also divided proportionately over the periods.

There is another date given by H.P.B which broadly confirms these revised estimates. “The Secret Doctrine,” we are told, “assigns from 4 to 5 million years between the incipient and the final evolution of the Fourth Root Race, on the Lemuro-Atlantean Continents” (Secret Doctrine II, 10) [ML 151]. The last remnant of Atlantis, Poseidonis, was destroyed in very recent times, only 9,564 B.C. [ML 151]. We may accept this date also as roughly marking the end of the Fourth Race. The 5 millions (to take the highest estimate) of its lifetime would therefore not reach into the Secondary Era or into the Lemurian Race if we followed H.P.B’s unrevised figures, but according to the revised estimates they would be respectively 1½ million within the lower boundary of the Secondary Era, and ¾ million within the limits of the Third Race and Continent. Says H.P.B “This [Secondary Era] is the age of the Third Race, in which the origin of the early Fourth may be perhaps also discoverable. We are, however, here left entirely to conjecture as no definite data are yet given out by the Initiates” (Secret Doctrine II, 713). The above revised figures however make the “perhaps” into a certainty, and the “conjecture” into a fact. That may be counted a fortunate result indeed.

We must now turn to the problem of the Rounds, and the relation of our figures to these evolutionary cycles. In these later years we have come definitely to identify the Hindu cycle known as a Manvantara, or about 310 million years, with what Theosophy calls a Round. [See The Earth p.19 ff.] And I think in a general way this assumption - for it is only that; there is no recognized occult authority for it in our literature - may be more or less correct. Still, in some ways our later conceptions regarding the Rounds must be somewhat modified.

For example, it is generally accepted that our present Fourth Round has only run a little more than half its course, so that from the beginning of this Round up to the present moment some 160 million years have passed. Yet, as we have seen, H.P.B definitely says that “in the Esoteric Doctrine sedimentation began in this Round [Her own italics] approximately over 320 million years ago” (Secret Doctrine II, 715) [Her own italics]. Again, this “process of materialization or crystallization took place at the beginning of the Fourth Round [My italics] and reached its maximum after the appearance of man” (Secret Doctrine II, 68) [Her own italics]. Now, if indeed the beginning of our Round was 320 million years ago, then it would appear as if the whole Fourth Round, according to our later conceptions, were already finished. Or does H.P.B call a Round something else than we at present do?

Each Round in our later conception is followed by a Dissolution Period (Pralaya) of equal duration, and it is as if H.P.B starts our Fourth Round from a point situated halfway in what we are wont now to call the Dissolution Period of the previous Third Round. This difference in counting Rounds between The Secret Doctrine and our later literature is shown in our Table II.

 

TABLE II
EALIER TEACHING	PRALAYAS AND MANVANTARAS	LATER TEACHINGS
FIRST ROUND	SECOND HALF DISSOLUTION
	FIRST EVOLUTION	FIRST ROUND
	FIRST HALF DISSOLUTION
SECOND ROUND	SECOND HALF DISSOLUTION
	SECOND EVOLUTION	SECOND ROUND
	FIRST HALF DISSOLUTION
THIRD ROUND	SECOND HALF DISSOLUTION
	THIRD EVOLUTION	THIRD ROUND
	FIRST HALF DISSOLUTION
FOURTH ROUND	SECOND HALF DISSOLUTION
	FOURTH EVOLUTION	FOURTH ROUND
	FIRST HALF DISSOLUTION
	SECOND HALF DISSOLUTION

Undoubtedly H.P.B’s method of counting these Rounds is more logical. And probably more in conformity also with Hindu teachings which, for example, let every Evolutionary Period both be preceded and followed by a Twilight (Secret Doctrine II, 308).

An Evolutionary Period is a time of outgoing energy in the first half of its cycle, when it follows the Pravritti Marga. In its second half the energy returns or turns inward again (Nivritti Marga). With the Dissolution it is just the other way round. Its first half is as it were a continuation, a further deepening of the inturning movement, while its second half is the re-awakening to the outward call, continued, strengthened, and brought to its highest pitch in the first half of the next Evolution. From this re-awakening (second half Dissolution) to the turning inward (second half Evolution) is therefore logically the real complete Outgoing Way, while the other half, from the second half Evolution to the second half Dissolution, is the real complete In-turning Way. And these two together, from reawakening , or from the second half Dissolution to the next second half Dissolution, form one complete Round.

That there may not be any misunderstanding as it were concerning the starting-point of the Fourth Round, H.P.B further remarks: “With regard to the 320 million of years assigned to sedimentation, it must be noted that even a greater time elapsed during the preparation of this globe for the Fourth Round previous to stratification” (Secret Doctrine II, 715) [H.P.B’s italics]. By this preparation of even a longer duration, must be understood the three Evolutions and 2½ or 3 Dissolutions previous to the Fourth Round, and embracing a period of six times 310 million or 1860 million years, just about the age of the Earth, recognized by modern science.

When therefore the figures of science for the duration of the geological periods assign an age from 600 to 650 million years to the oldest rocks in the crust of the Earth, there is no doubt that they are embracing, according to H.P.B’s counting, pre-Fourth-Round times up to half-way the previous third Evolution. The explanation of this confusion is that in the Fourth Round only the real physical materialization of the Earth’s strata began, but that their organization and differentiation into the various kinds of rocks and minerals started, of course, from the beginning in the First Round, when matter was still in subtler, etheric, super-etheric, and perhaps astral, states and only gradually condensed, becoming what matter is now. [Cf Secret Doctrine’ II, 68, 712-3.]