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Occult Chronology

By James Arther

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The Human Races

Having in the previous part established the timetable of the Geological Eras as well as given the rough outlines of the place of human evolution in that time-scheme, our next concern will be to work out the details of the latter, giving for each of the Human Races separately the times of its beginning and end so far as known, or as may be more or less safely conjectured. Our starting-point will be roughly 150 million years B.C., that is, half-way up to the beginning of our Fourth Round, according to H.P.B’s method of calculating, or right up to the beginning of our Fourth Round, according to our later way of counting the Rounds (see Table II). The following Table will make this clear:

                                          

TABLE III
310 million B.C.	2nd half previous Dissolution	Total 4th Round 620 millions years
155 million B.C.	1st half 4th Evolution
o.o.o	2nd half 4th Evolution
155 million A.D.	1st half next Dissolution

This also shows that we have still in another respect to revise our ideas about Rounds. When speaking of a Round, we are apt to imagine that no activity on a certain planet, say the Earth, happens before the life-wave, circling around the string of seven globes constituting a Planetary Chain, and visiting these globes one after the other, arrives at that particular planet. In the case of our Earth, the middle planet of the string, that would be about the middle of the Round, or near to the point in the above Table, marked 0.0.0. But from H.P.B’s figures we see that the activity, even of the human evolution, starts from the very beginning of the fourth manvantara, or what we in later parlance call the beginning of our Round. I take it therefore that the reawakening to activity does not start on one globe after another successively, but simultaneously on all, radiating out as it were from the centre to all the seven globes at the same time, or nearly so. Yet, I also think that the conception of the successive development is not altogether to be discarded. Only it is restricted to the middle stage, when the evolution on each globe is brought to maturity and perfection or to its full fruit. This happens indeed, I think, successively, as the Planetary Logos fixes His full attention on one planet after the other. And that crucial point in the history of the Earth in this Round was reached some 20 or 18 million years ago. We shall recur to this important event later.

In the following Table the beginnings and ends of the seven Races of humanity are listed exclusively according to the chronological date of The Mahatma Letters and The Secret Doctrine, without taking into consideration any scientific figures, widely divergent as these are from the occult.

 

The First and Second Races

TABLE IV
Races and Sub-races	B.C.	Geological Period	Lifetime of the Races	Total Life-Time for 7 Races
Beginnings 1-2 Race	150 million	Devonian		125 Million						150,000
Beginning 3 Race, 1-3 sub-race	30 million	Jurassic
Beginning 3 Race, 4 sub-race 1 half					25.75 million
Beginning 3 Race, 4 sub-race 2 half	18 million	Cretaceous
Beginning 3 Race, 5 sub-race						5 million
Beginning 4 Race	5million	Cretaceous
Beginning 3 Race, 6 sub-race
Beginning 3 Race, 7 sub-race
End 3 Race, Lemuria destroyed	4.25 Million	Cretaceous
Highest point of 4 Race, first sinking of Atlantis	3.5 million	Eocene
Main sinking of Atlantis	2 million	Miocene					1.5 million
Beginning 5 Race	1 million	Pliocene
Sinking of Ruta and Daitya	850,000	Pliocene
End 4 Race	9,564	Pleistocene
Beginning 5 Race, 6 sub-race	2,500 A.D.							300,000
Beginning 6 Race
Beginning 5 Race, 7 sub-race	210,000
End 5 Race	425,000								60,000
Beginning 7 Race	500,000
End 6 Race	510,000
End 7 Race	560,000

“For the last 120 millions of years, even before that time, the Earth was ready to receive her human stock. The actual duration of the first two and a half Races is with-held from all but the higher Initiates” (Secret Doctrine.II, 312). Again this discouraging secrecy, and yet in the same breath as it were, namely, in the immediately preceding sentence, the truth is let out. For we may be sure, that when the Earth was “ready” to receive its human stock, Nature will not have waited a moment to make use of it. In that sense there is no waste, either of matter, space or time, in Nature. I take it therefore that the First Race started “ 120 millions of years ago, and even before that time,’ so let us say, to take a round figure, 150 million years ago, that is, in the Devonian, nay, it may even be in the Silurian Period. We may therefore just say, as “the Secondary Age is the age of the Third Race” (Secret Doctrine.II, 713), and the Tertiary of the Fourth, so is the Primary Era the age of the First and Second Races, while the Quaternary embraces the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Races.

The Third Race

“The Third Race goes very far back into the Secondary Age” (Secret Doctrine. II, 710). We are not told how far, but to account for “very far back,” two-thirds, or somewhat less, does not seem too much. That would bring us to about 30 million years B.C., or to the beginning of the Jurassic Period.

“ The middle [that is, the second half of the fourth sub-race of the] Third Race began to evolve into separate males and females” (Secret Doctrine. II, 198). “By the end of the fifth [sub-race of the Third Race] mankind was born under the same identical process as our historical generations” (Secret Doctrine - Volume II, page 197). That is to say, in the fifth sub-race the separation of the sexes, begun in the fourth, was completed. It is in that sense also that the following passage must be understood: “It is during its [the Third Race’s] fifth sub-race that mankind [finally or completely] separated sexually, and that the first man was born according to the now normal process” (Secret Doctrine - Volume II, page 715).

“The figures 18 millions of years embrace the duration of sexual physical man” (Secret Doctrine. II, 157). We are not directly told if these 18 million years refer to the beginning (fourth sub-race) or to the completion (fifth sub-race) of the separation into different sexes. I have accepted the first alternative as the most probable, and approaching nearest to the figures in Man: Whence, How and Whither (1st Edition, page 96): “These [sexual] changes began some 16½ million years ago, and occupied some 5½ to 6 million years.”

As regards the length of time it took for the separation of the sexes to be fully developed, there are no figures in The Secret Doctrine to confirm or contradict directly those just quoted from Man. But we may get some approach to the truth if we accept the following conjecture, which in my opinion seems reasonable, and even unavoidable. I believe, namely, that the seeds for the new Fourth Race, which was to be born from the Third Race, were not taken from one of the latter's sub-races that were still in an unstable mode of transition as regards its sexual state, and I also believe that Nature will not have lost much time in starting the Fourth Race once the separation of the sexes was a universally established fact. I hold therefore that the beginnings of the Fourth Race do not reach back much farther than the fifth or sixth sub-race. The rule of the later teaching that every successive Race is developing from the corresponding sub-race of the preceding Race sounds to me too exact and too exacting. Nature, particularly so-called animated Nature shows a remarkable freedom and ability to leave the beaten track, and to disregard in one way or another the prescribed rule. I have worked the above conjuncture into our Table IV. On the strength of it we are able to say that the separation of the sexes occupied some 13 million years, instead of 6½, reaching its completion 5 million years ago, instead of 10. If the last figure taken from Man were correct, it would mean that Nature has waited five million years after the full completion of the separation of the sexes, before starting the Fourth Race, This I cannot believe. The Third Race would at such a late date be definitely on its downward path, heading for the end. Whereas if the seeds for the Fourth Root-Race had been taken immediately after the complete separation of the sexes, that is to say, after the Third Race had reached its full maturity, that must be called the reasonable act of a good and wise breeder and husbandman. And we may be sure that there is no better breeder and wiser husbandman than Nature.

It seems here also the place to give an example of my second objection to The Earth and Its Cycles, mentioned in the opening paragraphs of the first chapter, that is, its ignoring of the chronology of The Secret Doctrine, and its following only of the Man chronology. I quote from page 67, and add between brackets what The Secret Doctrine teaches differently: “The Third Root-Race, the Lemurian, began 18 [read: 30] million B.C. The separation of the sexes began in the early [read: middle, or fourth sub-race of the] Third Race [18 million years ago], and occupied 6½ [read: 13] million years culminating about 10 [read: 5] million years ago in the third [read : fifth] Lemurian sub-race.” [See also Secret Doctrine. I, 439, II, 433].

The most important figure in the life-story of the Third Race, in fact the turning-point of its career, in one sense its “Fall,” in another its “Salvation,” at least a decisive step forward in its evolution, is the date 18 million B.C. This date is of fundamental importance in The Secret Doctrine, as is shown by its being again and again referred to by H.P.B I give here the probably full list of its recurrence in her book; Volume I, page 609; Volume II, pages 9, 46, 68, 69, 72, 73, 148, 149, 156, 157, 250, 251, 261, 307, 308, 310, 312, and796. The 18 millions are only a rough approximation. Hindu chronology is nothing if not minutely exact, and has computed the birth-year of sexual man at 18,616,841 B.C. (Secret Doctrine - Volume II, pages 69 and 251). For simplicity's sake however we shall keep to H.P.B’s round figure.

The Fourth Race

Of the Fourth Race, I have only to add to the previous data establishing its beginning and end, the figures for the successive stages in the destruction of its great Continent. “Lemuria had perished [4½ million B.C.] before Atlantis had fully developed” (Secret Doctrine. II, 8). “In the Eocene Age [3½ million B.C.)—even in its ‘very first part' - the great cycle of the Fourth Race men had already reached its highest point, and the great continent showed the first symptoms of sinking “ (ML 151). Atlantis belongs “to the Miocene times” (ML 154), and its main sinking “began during the Miocene period” (ML 155). “The main Atlantis perished several [say 2] million years ago during the Miocene period “(Secret Doctrine -Volume II, page 314). “The Ruta and Daitya Island-Continents perished some 850,000 years ago, toward the close of the Miocene age” (Secret Doctrine. II, 433). But elsewhere H.P.B says: “The destruction of the famous island of Ruta and the smaller one Daitya occurred 850,000 years ago in the later Pliocene times” (Secret Doctrine -Volume II, page 314). This agrees better with our first Table. But our figures for the Geological Periods being only rough approximations in half and quarter millions, we may accept either of the two statements without difficulty.

The Fifth Race

Of our own Fifth Race H.P.B tells us that “the first of these, the Aryan Asiatics, witnessed the doom of the last of the populations of the giant Atlanteans, 850,000 years ago (Secret Doctrine. II 433). If we suppose that those first Aryans were then already in existence, say for some 150,000 years, their first beginnings must be dated one million years ago. Another calculation gives the same result. Every sub-race is in its turn subdivided into seven “family-races,” each of which lives “approximately from 25 to 30,000 years” (Secret Doctrine. II, 433). Each family-race is again subdivided and re-subdivided into countless branches, shoots, offshoots, smaller and larger nations, tribes, clans, etc. (Secret Doctrine. II, 434). From the beginning of the Fifth Root-Race up to the present fifth family-race of the fifth sub-race, gives a total of 33 family-races. This multiplied by 30,000 years for each family-race gives again about one million years. [If we have to allow for overlappings, the average age of one family-race would be still greater than 30,000 years. Neither has there been taken into account any decreasing in the age of each successive family-race. The figure 30.000 must therefore indeed be accepted as a very rough “average” only, still the best we have.

A Digression

This affords an interesting side-view on the previous and the present world-war, as well as on future similar, larger and smaller, local or global wars, by each of which an old order has to pass away and a new order is trying to assert itself, when an old “family-race” or shoot or tribe has to cede its dominating place to a rising, younger branch, “family-race,” sub-race, or Race. I see the present world-war as just one phase in such a struggle for supremacy between the older branch of the fifth family-race (the present Anglo-Saxons) and a younger branch (the present Germans). In the future a similar death-struggle the beginnings of which are already visible now, will have to be fought out between the younger branch and a still younger one (the Slavs or present Russians). Older branches preceding the present Anglo-Saxons I see in the Norsemen or Danes, including the Normans, physically and culturally overcome and absorbed by the Anglo-Saxons, further in various of the still older branches of the Germanic or Teutonic peoples, like the Goths, Franks, Vandals, Alemanni, etc.

The younger race must naturally win, either physically or culturally, or both. Else it would not properly fulfil its destiny, which is that each race in its turn shall lead a particular stage in the world-evolution. But many wars, not one or two only, may have to be fought, before the younger can overcome the natural resistance of the older against its supersession. Therefore do not read in the above remarks an easy prophesy that the Germans will win the present wars. I do not aspire after the role of a prophet or a seer, but only after that of a student.

[The above was written a full month before the invasion of Russia by the Germans on that memorable day of June the 22nd, 1941. At that time Germany and Russia still seemed friends, the former leading triumphantly everywhere on the Continent, the latter apparently following in its wake like Italy. But how the aspect of things have changed since then! Germany cowed and on the defensive, Russia in the lead and watched by jealous eyes from everywhere. It was a revelation, the rising of this mighty world-power of the Slav people, battling its way to the front with the heart-blood of uncounted millions of its sons. I have not changed the text of my former remarks, because it illustrates what I said, that I am not a prophet but a student. With the added knowledge of the last two years - which did not come as a surprise to one man only, “the ablest, most successful, powerful and communistically souled ruler in Europe,” as Bernard Shaw has recently described Stalin, and he might have added in America as well - in the light of that new knowledge at hand, I would have formulated my deductions differently of course. I would have grouped the Anglo-Saxons and the Germans together rather as of the same great Teutonic branch of nations. The rivalry between them I would have viewed more as that between sub-branches of one same branch, than as between different branches. The real struggle, as it is showing its true colours more and more in the development of the present war, as well as in the vague foreshadowings of hidden jealousies and rivalries that are fast growing from it, point in my opinion to a still greater struggle in the future between the older Anglo-Teutonic and the younger Slav branch of our fifth European sub-race. A struggle which, if we of the older branches could only accept and follow that “communistic soul” which is inspiring Russia in her great movement forward towards something really new, we might be able to convert from the expected third great world-war into a more peaceful and harmonious movement towards the needed change, towards the so-much wished for new world-order].

Of this I am sure - that the best runner eventually wins the race, but also that however many races he may win, in the end, as he grows older, he too will inevitably be out-run by a younger, stronger man, with newer ideals and fresher enthusiasms. The “best” does not mean only the physically strongest or quickest. The one great fault of the masses is that they do not know what fair play means. Instead of leaving each free to run his race as best he can, they rather seek to obstruct the other’s running, or even, if they can, to wipe him out entirely from the field. Yet, there is infinite room for each and every one, for the field is the unbounded universe, and it is only stupid mulishness that wants to walk over a man, instead of around him, in order to get to the goal. The former shows the imbecility of brute strength, the latter the sagacity of reason, man’s highest talent.

To return to the age of our present Aryan Race, both The Mahatma Letters and The Secret Doctrine are most definite and exact. “The fifth race began in Asia, a million years ago.” Again: “The oldest branchlet of the present fifth Human Race was evoluted in Central Asia more than one million years ago.” [ML 150, 121. Secret Doctrine. II, 10, 714]

I must here point to another discrepancy between the earlier and the later teachings. The latter declare that the Fifth Race was actually started 80,000 years ago, and that the 1 million B.C. refers only to a kind of “earmarking” of certain egos for the new Race. [Man, pages 110 to 111, 239]. But the words of the Master, quoted above, leave room but for one interpretation - that the Race was actually living in Central Asia at the remoter date.

The Future

Having traced man’s history so far in the past, there remains the natural question, what about the future? And though I may not wish to be a prophet or a seer, still legitimately to speculate regarding the future upon the basis of the past, is a sensible pastime for a creature of reason.

Taking the 30,000 average for the lifetime of a family-race, and counting sixteen such family-races for the remainder of the Fifth Room-Race, leaves a further lifetime for it of ½ million years, bringing the total life-period of the Aryan Race up to 1½ million years.

And this fits in well with the statement that “the Aryan Race is now in its Kali Yuga, and will continue to be in it for 427,000 years longer, while various ‘family races’ are in their own special cycles” (Secret Doctrine. II, 147) [See hereafter, Chapter 4, “Kali Yuga - Iron Age”.] The figure 427,000 is based on the Hindu calculation of 432,000 years for the complete period of a Kali Yuga (Secret Doctrine. II, 69). The Aryan Kali Yuga “is said to have begun between the 17th and 18th February in the year 3102 B.C.” and its first sub-cycle of 5,000 years has therefore passed on the same date in the year 1898, seven years after H.P.B’s death (Secret Doctrine. I, xliv, 396, 612; II, 69, 435). [See hereafter, Chapter 4, “Kali Yuga - Iron Age”]

Most interesting are H.P.B’s prognostications about the sub-races yet to come of our Aryan Race. “The Americans have become in only three centuries a ‘primary race,’ pro tem., before becoming a race apart, and strongly separated from all other now existing races.” As I interpret these words, the American, that is the United States American and Canadian is indeed a “race apart.” They have come from the fifth sub-race, and greatly from the Anglo-Saxon branch, but they are to go a quite “separate” way, for “they are the germs of the sixth sub-race, and in some few hundred years more [in Table IV I put it at the round figure of A.D. 2500], will become most decidedly the pioneers of that [sub-] race which must succeed to the present European or fifth sub-race, [including the Russian or Slav, presumably] in all its new characteristics. After this, in about 25,000 years, they will launch into preparations for the seventh sub-race, until the Sixth Root-Race will have appeared on the stage of our Round.’

There is one strong objection against the above prognostication, and that is especially against the figure of 25,000 years hence as the birth-date of the seventh sub-race. This ought to be nearer 250,000, if each family-race within each sub-race has a life of 30,000 years. In Table IV I have put it at 210,000, that is half-way towards the end of the Fifth Race.

“Throughout the whole sixth and seventh sub-races” of the Fifth Race, we are further told, “the process of preparation for the Sixth great Race must last.” I have therefore in Table IV made the beginning of the Sixth Race coincident with the beginning of the sixth sub-race of the Fifth Race.

“But the last remnants of the Fifth Continent will not disappear, in consequence of cataclysms which must one day destroy Europe, and still later the whole Aryan Race and thus affect both Americas, until some time after the birth of the new Race; when another and new dwelling, the sixth continent, will have appeared above the new waters on the face of the globe, so as to receive the new stranger. When shall this be? Who knows save the great Masters of Wisdom , perchance, and they are silent upon the subject as the snow-capped peaks that tower over them.”

No further dates, then, except in confirmation of former dates, the information that “the Fifth will overlap the Sixth Race for many hundreds of millenniums” (Secret Doctrine. II, 445). The exact number of cento-millenniums is shown in Table IV to be possibly nearly 4½.

The Sixth and Seventh Races

Our further speculations on the future are based upon the ratio of decrease in the lifetimes of the different Races, as shown by the fourth column of our Table IV. Taking the First and Second Races together, the first four races show a ratio of decrease of about 5 : 1, and from the Fourth to the Fifth the ratio is about 4 : 1. Assuming a similar ratio to hold good for the last two Races, I have allowed about 300,000 years for the life-period of the Sixth, and 60,000 for the seventh and last Race.

I do not deny that in this calculation the taking together of the First and Second Races is an inaccuracy. Still, it is the best we have to offer, the date 150 million B.C. for the beginning of the First Race being also largely problematic. And there is some reason for taking the First and Second Races as one Race as it were. For “the First Race never died. Its ‘men’ melted gradually away, becoming absorbed in the bodies of their own ‘sweat-born’ progeny,” the Second Race (Secret Doctrine. II, 121). However, let it be granted and clearly understood that these final speculations are pure conjectures based on imperfect knowledge, helped out by analogy and comparison.

I have allowed 10,000 years of overlapping for the Sixth and the Seventh Root-Race, also an entirely speculative estimate of course. Still, I have the conviction that the figures in our Tables cannot be very far out. In a half-million years, the life-wave may pass on to the next planet and leave the Earth to enter her pralaya till the next awakening. We may therefore well say that we are nearing the end of this Round’s humanity upon Earth. The few hundred-thousand years still before us seem negligible , compared with the 150 million years that lie behind us, only one-three-hundredth part. Still, to our limited consciousness of time and space it seems long enough, and to the wise man it must at any rate appear important enough to try to make the best of it. For it is the last step and the last effort that always count most, and may just bring the victory which without it might slip through our hands.