Page 69 (part 7)

Funnily enough, Haeckel, in his fantastic "Pedigree of Man," considers "the Australians of to-day as the lineal descendants, almost unchanged (? !), of that second branch of the primitive human race. . . that spread northwards, at first chiefly in Asia, from the home of man's infancy, and seems to have been the parent of all the other straight-haired races of men. . . . The one, woolly-haired, migrated in part, westwards" . . . ( i.e ., to Africa and northwards to New Guinea, which countries had then, as said, no existence as yet) . . . "the other, straight-haired, was evolved farther to the north in Asia . . . . and peopled Australia . . . " (p. 81). "Behold," writes a MASTER, "the relics of that once great nation (Lemuria of the Third Race) in some of the flat-headed aborigines of your Australia" (" Esoteric Buddhism, " p. 65). But they belong to the last remnants of the Seventh Sub-race of the Third. Prof. Haeckel must also have dreamt a dream and seen for once a true vision! It is to this period that we have to look for the first appearance of the Ancestors of those, who are termed by us the most ancient peoples of the world -- now called respectively the Aryan Hindus, the Egyptians, and the oldest Persians, on the one hand, and the Chaldees and Phoenicians on the other. These were governed by the DIVINE DYNASTIES, i.e ., kings and rulers who had of mortal man only his physical appearance as it was then, but who were Beings from spheres higher and more celestial than our own sphere will be, long Manvantaras hence. It is useless of course to attempt to force their existence on sceptics. Their greatest pride consists in proving their patronymic denomination as catarrhinides ; which fact they try to demonstrate on the alleged [[Vol. 2, Page]] 329 CHANGES OF CLIMATE. authority of the Coccyx appended to their os sacrum, that rudimentary tail which, if they only had it long enough, they would wag in joy and for ever, in honour of its eminent discoverer. These will remain as faithful to their ape-ancestors as Christians will to tailless Adam. The Secret Doctrine, however, sets right on this point theosophists and students of Occult Sciences. If we regard the Second portion of the Third Race as the first representatives of the really human race with solid bones, then Haeckel's surmise that "the evolution of the primitive men took place . . . . in either Southern Asia or . . . . Lemuria" -- Africa, whether Eastern or Western being out of question -- is correct enough, if not entirely so. To be accurate, however, in the same way that the evolution of the First Race (from the bodies of the pitars ) took place on seven distinctly separated regions of the (then) only Earth at the arctic pole -- so did the ultimate transformation of the Third occur: it began in those northern regions, which have just been described a few pages back as including Behring's Straits, and what there then was of dry land in Central Asia, when the climate was semi-tropical even in the Arctic regions and most adapted to the primitive wants of nascent physical man. That region, however, has been more than once frigid and tropical in turn since the appearance of man. The commentary tells us that the Third Race was only about the middle point of its development when: -- " The axle of the Wheel tilted. The Sun and Moon shone no longer over the heads of that portion of the S WEAT B ORN; people knew snow, ice, and frost, and men, plants, and animals were dwarfed in their growth. Those that did not perish REMAINED AS HALF-GROWN BABES* IN SIZE AND INTELLECT. This was the third pralaya of the races.** Which means again, that our globe is subject to seven periodical entire changes which go pari passu with the races. For the Secret Doctrine teaches that, during this Round, there must be seven terrestrial pralayas, three occasioned by the change in the inclination of the earth's axis. It is a law which acts at its appointed time, and not at all blindly, as science may think, but in strict accordance and harmony with Karmic law. In Occultism this inexorable law is referred to as "the great ADJUSTER." Science confesses its ignorance of the cause producing climatic vicissitudes and such changes in the axial direction, which are always followed by these vicissitudes; nor does it seem so sure of the axial changes. And being unable to account for them, it is prepared rather to deny the axial phenomena altogether, than admit the intelligent Karmic hand and [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * "Half-grown babes" in comparison with their giant Brethren on other zones. So would we now. ** Relates to Lemuria. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 330 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. law which alone could reasonably explain such sudden changes and their results. It has tried to account for them by various more or less fantastic speculations; one of which would be the sudden, and as imaginary, collision of our earth with a comet (De Boucheporn's hypothesis), as the cause of all the geological revolutions. But we prefer holding to our esoteric explanation, since F OHAT is as good as any comet, having, in addition, universal intelligence to guide him. Thus, since Vaivasvata Manu's Humanity appeared on this Earth, there have already been four such axial disturbances; when the old continents -- save the first one -- were sucked in by the oceans, other lands appeared, and huge mountain chains arose where there had been none before. The face of the Globe was completely changed each time; the survival of the fittest nations and races was secured through timely help; and the unfit ones -- the failures -- were disposed of by being swept off the earth. Such sorting and shifting does not happen between sunset and sunrise, as one may think, but requires several thousands of years before the new house is set in order. The Sub -races are subject to the same cleansing process, as also the side-branchlets (the family-Races). Let one, well-acquainted with astronomy and mathematics, throw a retrospective glance into the twilight and shadows of the Past. Let him observe, take notes of what he knows of the history of peoples and nations, and collate their respective rises and falls with what is known of astronomical cycles -- especially with the Sidereal year, equal to 25,868 of our solar years.* If the observer is gifted with the faintest intuition, then will he find how the weal and woe of nations is intimately connected with the beginning and close of this sidereal cycle. True, the non-occultist has the disadvantage that he has no such far distant times to rely upon.