Black Experience Religion IV

he First (Polar) Root-Race. Its humanity was most unlike present day humanity. The forms taken by the incarnating souls were "huge, filamentous, sexless" and the color was yellow-white of varying shades. They were not human, although into them came entities who evolved as human beings. They expanded in size and then divided. Neither fire nor water could destroy them. Fire was, in fact, their element, and of water they were unconscious. But in time they were vivified by the sun, and a good form for their use was provided. It could stand, walk, recline, or fly, The race had no cares as we know them; they had no concern with poverty, possessions, hunger, sex. As they never died, but only modified into the next stage, they actually give us part of our physical heredity today.

The Second (Hyperborean) Root-Race. The types of body evolved at this stage have also been described as filamentous, very heterogeneous in type, only some being semi-human in outline, while others approached animal types, or even showed a treelike appearance. In color they were golden yellow, sometimes glowing to orange, sometimes of the palest lemon shades; they went drifting, gliding, climbing, crying to each other in flute-like notes, in the dense heavy atmosphere of splendid tropical forests.

Each Root-Race occupies its own Continent or World Region. The Hyperborean region of those early days rejoiced in a rich growth of Iuxuriant vegetation; it was a gladsome land, full of exuberant vitality, bounded on the South by the sea that then covered the Gobi desert, Greenland, Iceland, Siberia, Spitzbergen snd the Northern parts of Scandinavia and of the British Isles yet remain from it, although some — even of these parts — have been under the waves and have come up again since then.

It is hardly possible to talk of 'sub-races' in connection with this Second Root-Race, but seven stages can be recognized between the first dreamily contented and unresponsive condition with which it began, and the more awakened stage when the incarnating egos were encased in bodies more differentiated in type, and found themselves able to begin budding forth a progeny capable of being used as the nucleus of the Third Root-Race.

The Hyperborean Continent extended southwards from the North Pole. It has been called the birthplace of the first giants; but these same giants were such primitive and undifferentiated bodies that, like some of the sea creatures of today, they multiplied by budding forth their progeny, which became detached when ready for independent existence. The buds were not, apparently, always what might have been desired for a progressive race, and, as better and more capable and ever denser forms were produced, those bands of thinkers awaiting incarnation tended more and more to enter only the best available, leaving the comparative failures to sub-human entities, who were not yet able to think, and were more easily contented because they were more backward in the scale of being.

These took possession of the rejected forms and used and improved them according to their own desires for greater swiftness, greater height, greater weight or specialized fitness of tooth and claw and so forth, thus evolving the various animal forms, extinct or still existing, in all their marvellous diversity. It is the human origin of the bodies ultimately banded over to animals that accounts for the fact that theosophical writers sometimes speak of animals descending from manrather than the other way round, when physical evolution is under consideration. The types of bodies evolved at this stage of man's evolution was such that nothing so solid as the framework of a fossil could ever be associated with it.

Some authorities hold that human evolution is in fact the unfolding of potentiality into actuality; man must become actively that which aIready he is in essence, evolving from a potential to a self-conscious creator. History therefore properly is, not the record of events which happened long ago in civilizations that have vanished, but ''the living record of the psychological growth of humanity." The Polar and the Hyperborean Root-Races of approximately 40 million and 30 million years ago respectively, represent the initial stages of this unfoldment, during which the physical body that man must have was slowly evolved, perfected and brought under the control of his mind, which also had to evolve. Since the bony structure had not yet developed, no geological evidence can be found for this vast period. It was in the Third (Lemurian) Root-Race that eventually man — as we recognize him today — finally arrived, bringing with him not only his body and his mind, but also direct responsibility for whatever uses he made of them; this was to lead to the total destruction of two vast continents: Lemuria, and then Atlantis.

The Third (Lemurian) Root-Race. The Continent which the Lemurians occupied virtually "girdled the globe"; it included Ceylon, Sumatra, Australia, Tasmania, and Easter Island, besides stretching Westward to Madagascar and Kamschatka, Two maps of the Lemurian Continent will be found in Scott-Elliot's book. It was in this race that human intelligence in action, as distinct from merely instinctual behavior, first began to manifest. The human race develops one particular faculty during each of the seven root races, which have been correlated to the seven ages of man in Sbukespeare's As You Iike It. During the first root race, humanity "listens and wonders," developing the faculty of hearing; it "handles and experiments" in the second root race, thus developing the faculty of touch; sight develops in the third root race as it "observes and adores," and in the fourth it "savours life" through which the facuIty of taste develops. The fifth root race is humanity's school for developing abstract thought, as it "questions and doubts," associated with the faculty of smell. ln the sixth root race, humanity will develop intuition, as it learns to synthesize its previous experiences, and in the seventh, clairvoyance will develop, as humanity "sees and understands" far beyond all that our imagination can conceive now.

During this third root race period, tremendous physiological changes which required millions of years went on; in the first sub-race, a sort of budding reproduction was still the method of "giving birth," until in time the sexes became separated. Then "after the boneless grew and changed, becoming animals with bones," the present mode of reproduction was established. But this does not mean that the nlne-month gestation period was established overnight. Yoruba oral traditions refer to a period of time when children were born after three months' gestation; even this period was too long for the Yorubas, and they went to Olodumare (God) to complain, both about the gestation period and about the new method of producing babies!

The early Lemurians possessed a vertebrate structure, but it had not solidified into bones such as ours, and they could not stand erect. A solid bony structure developed somewhere about the middle of this Lemurian period.

The leaders of the Lemurians were "magnificent, glorious red-gold in hue." They were gigantic in height and correspondingly broad, with a single eye that flashed like a jewel. The men that followed them, however, did not compare in magnificence; they had a retreating forehead, flattened nose, and projecting heavy jaws, with a dull lurid eye that glowed red. This "single eye" later retreated inwards to become the pineal gland, as the physical eyes that we now have developed and became active.

This pineal gland is sometimes referred to as "the third eye," and it forms the theme ot Vera Stanley Alder's The Finding of The Third Eye (Rider 1938, 16th impression 1967). The preceding throws considerable light on one of the sayings of Jesus of Nazareth: The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness: (Matthew 6:22-23).

With the development of this third eye — the eye that is single — man becomes as much at home in the (so-called) invisible world, as he is in the visible through his two physical eyes. He sees those Beings Who are invisible to our physical eyes, and about the real existence of Whom we argue day and night without being able to reach satisfactory conclusions acceptable to all. But we must return to the Lemurians.

The fifth sub-race had developed a body much more like what we would consider human. The color was brown, or brownish-black, the skull was rather like an egg in shape, and the eyes were set curiously far apart, so that he could see sideways as well as in front. The arms and legs were longer in proportion than ours, hands and feet were enormous, and the heels projected backwards.

In the sixth sub-race, the color changed to a blue-black, the color of the more advanced types being quite a respectable blue. The seventh sub-race started as a grayish-blue, passing through various shades into grayish-white. It was these last who erected the colossal statues of Easter Island, most of them twenty-seven feet high, and eight feet across the shoulders, one of which can be seen [on] the grounds of the British Museum in London.

The darker fifth and sixth sub-races of this same Lemurian Root-Race also provided some of the great builders who have left behind them that massive masonry known as Cyclopean, in which tremendously heavy stones have apparently been dealt with by some method which leaves our modern engineers marvelling still, for with all their modern appliances, they never think of tackling such weights in the course of constructing bridges or walls.

It was in Lemuria that the first taking of life occurred. Antagonism first developed between men and animals, and subsequently men began to use weapons of offense against each other, and become cannibals. The Lemurians went from one wickedness to another, and eventually the Continent was destroyed by volcanic eruptions which were followed by tidal waves; the Lemu rians perished therefore by suffocation.

Unlike Atlantis, which would be destroyed in four great catastrophes, Lemuria was "slowly eaten away by internal fires, for, from the time when the disintegrating process began, . . . there was no cessation from the fiery activity, and whether in one part of the continent or another, the volcanic action was incessant, while the invariable sequence was the subsidence and total disappearance of the land, just as in the case of Krakatoa in 1883." A comment by Scott-Elliot which reminds me of the comment by Mutwa quoted above, as two independent records of one and the same historical event.

The fourth (Atlantean) Root-Race. No summary, however full, can replace a reading of Scott-Elliot's book, for much that is important and relevant will have to be left out of any con densed version, partly because more information is recorded for this Atlantean Root-Race, which is also known as the Black Root-Race.

Now the color Black is commonly associated with evil, sin, darkness, and such like ideas, and this association has often been transferred bodily on to peoples of African descent, the logic being that their skin is black because they are evil. But the color White also signifies cowardice, lack of backbone, surrender, as in such phrases as "showing the white feather," "white-livered!," "runing up the white flag." etcetera. Even so we know that White is also the symbol for Purity, Holiness, Innocence. It is at this level of interpretation that the terms Black (For the fourth: Atlantean Root Race) and White (for the fifth: Aryan Root-Race) must be understood. Here, white relates to black in terms of "the light that shineth in the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not," or in psychological language consciousness that has emerged out of the unconscious, but of which the unconscious is not conscious; for that which characterizes the White Root-Race is the development and use of the analytical faculty, of abstract thought; that is the contribution that the White Race has made — and is still making — to general humanity, It is the keynote of the current phase of evolution. No matter the skin color of a member of the Aryan Race, he is "white" in the sense that he belongs to s race of men who, by their very nature, utilize the analytical faculty at every turn.

How then do we interpret "black"? Blavatsky refers to an old Eastern proverb: "Darkness is Father-Mother: Light their son," and she points out furthermore, that the opening sentences in various cosmogonies refer either to a circle, an egg, or a head, and that Darkness "is always associated with this first symbol, and surrounds it. She cites the Hindu, the Egyptian, the Chaldeo-Hebrew, and even the Scandinavian systems, where we find black ravens, black doves, black waters, and even black flames.

She comments: "Two black doves flew from Egypt and settling on the oaks of Dodona, gave their names to the Graecian: gods. Noah lets out a black raven after the deluge, . . . after which began the real creation or evolution of our earth and humanity. Odin's black ravens fluttered around the Goddess Saga and "whispered to her of the past and of the future." What is the real meaning of all those black birds? They are all connected with the primeval wisdom, . . . symbolized by the Head, the Circle, the Egg; and they all have an identical meaning and relate to the primordial Archetypal man, . . . the creative origin of all things."

To adopt any other interpretation of the terms "white" and "black" in this context is to create insoluble problems for our understanding.

The first sub-race, the Rmoahal, was born roughly at latitude 7 degrees north longitude 5 degrees west, which lies on the coast of Ashanti in our modern atlas. They were a dark race, their complexion being mahogany black. Their height was about ten or twelve feet, but their stature gradually dwindled, as did that of other races in turn, and later they had shrunk to the stature of "Furfooz Man."

The second sub-race, the Tlavatli, were a powerful and hardy race of red-brown color; they were not quite as tall as the Rmoahals, whom they drove further north. They were always a mountain loving people, and their chief settlements were in the mountainous districts of the interior, an area approximately coterminous with what ultimately became the island of Poseidonis. This island was the last portion the Continent of Atlantis to be destroyed and submerged, around 10,000 BC with — we are told — the loss of 64 million people. But a million years had yet to come and [gone], before that disaster.

The third sub-race, the Toltec, "was a magnificent development. It ruled the whole continent of Atlantis for thousands of years in great material power and glory, Indeed, so dominant and so endowed with vitality was this race, that intermarriages with the following sub-races failed to modify the type, which still remains essentially Toltec. Hundreds of thousands of years later we find one of their remote family races ruling magnificently in Mexico and Peru, long ages before their degenerate descendants were conquered by the fiercer Aztec tribes from the north."

The Toltecs were also a tall race, averaging eight feet, but dwindling as all races do, to dimensions common today. Their complexion was a red-brown, but redder or more copper-colored than the Tlavatli. Perhaps the author of that old Jazz lyric "Copper-colored girl of mine" knew a thing or two: However, it was this third sub-race that developed the highest civilization and organized the most powerful empire of any of the Atlantean peoples, and they established for the first time, the principle of hereditary succession.

While the Lemurians had started using weapons of offence against one another, it was the Atlanteans who carried the thing several stages further and used armies. At first, the Toltecs were divided into a number of petty kingdoms, constantly at war with each other, and all at war with the Lemurio-Rmoahals of the south, who were gradually conquered and made subject peoples, many of their tribes being reduced to slavery. About a million years ago, however, these separate kingdoms united in a great 1ederation, with a recognized emperor at its head. This federation was inaugurated by great wars, but the outcome was peace and prosperity for the race.

In Toltec days, the law allowed two wives, but most men had only one wife. The position of the women was in no way inferior to that of the men. Women were not barred from taking part in government, and sometimes they represented the emperor in various provinces as governors.

The fourth sub-race, the First Turanian, had its origin on the eastern side of the continent, south of the mountainous district inhabited by the Tlavatli race. They were never a thoroughly dominant race on the mother continent, although some of their tribes and family races became powerful. As they were greatly outnumbered and were losing out in wars with their Toltec neighbors, they set out to increase their population by enacting laws whereby the State maintained all families, took charge of and provided for the children, who were State property. The consequences on marriage and family life were such that the scheme was abandoned. "Other attempts at finding socialistic solutions of economic problems which still vex us today were tried and abandoned by this sub-race."

The fifth sub-race, the Original Semites, were "a quarrelsome, marauding and energetic race, always leaned towards a patriarchal form of government. Their colonists, who generally took to the monadic life, almost exclusively adopted this form"; they developed a considerable empire, and possessed the great "City of the Golden Gates" of Atlantis.

The sixth sub-race, the Aakkadians, first came into existence after the first great catastrophe of 80O,000 years ago. They aroused the hostility of the Semites, (which could not have been a difficult thing to do considering the turbulent nature of the Original Semites), and many battles were fought between the two sub-races on land and on sea; considerable fleets being used on both sides. Finally. about 100,000 years ago, the Akkadians completely vanquished the Semites, and ruled the country wisely for several hundred years, They were a "great trading people, sea-going and colonizing, and they established many centers of communication with distant lands. It was in the early Akkadian days, of one hundred thousand years ago that those Akkadian initiates who landed in what is now Great Britain founded Stonehenge. The size of the massive pillars indicates the gigantic stature of these Akkadians.

The seventh sub-race, the Mongolians, was born at about latitude 63 degrees north, longitude 140 degrees east. It seems to be the only one that had absolutely no touch with the mother continent, directly developing from descendants of the Turanian race, which it gradually supplanted over the greater part of Asia.

Under the Rmoahals, government was the most perfect conceivable, for they were ruled by a Spiritual Entity from a much more advanced evolutionary scheme, known as The Manu, Who acted as their King. "The memory of this divine ruler was naturally preserved in the annals of the race, and in due time he came to be regarded as a god among a people who were naturally psychic, and had consequently glimpses of those states of consciousness which transcend our ordinary waking condition." In later days this attitude passed into a kind of ancestor worship.

The Tlavatli, on tbe other hand, were under the authority of High Initiates, who taught them about a Supreme Being whose symbol was the Sun. For this sun-worship the Tlavatli repaired to the hill tops, where they built great circles of upright monoliths which were intended to symbolize the sun's yearly course, but were also used for astronomical purposes. The Akkadians who erected the monoliths at Stonehenge in Great Britain, had merely reverted to this primitive building pattern.

In the days of the Toltecs, religious instruction was in the hands of an initiated priesthood and an Emperor who was also a high initiate, an Adept. Ideas concerning the nameless and all-pervading essence of the Kosmos were imparted in the form of symbols. Sun and fire worship became the religious cult, for the celebration of which truly magnificent temples were reared throughout the length and breadth of the continent of Atlantis.

In education, all the schools and colleges were endowed by the State. Every child had to pass through primary school, but from there on, his training dictated by his aptitude and interest. Some were sent to technical schools, some to the agricultural schools. Those who showed superior abilities bad a much more elaborate education.

"The properties of plants and their healing qualities formed an important branch of study. There were no recognized physicians in those days — every educated man knew more or less of medicine as well as of magnetic healing. Chemistry, mathematics, and astronomy were also taught. The training in such studies finds an analogy among ourselves, but the object towards which the teachers' efforts were mainly directed was the development of the pupil's psychic faculties and his instruction in the more hidden forces of nature. The occult properties of plants, metals and precious stones, as well as the alchemical processes of transmutation, were included in this category" (Scott-Elliot: idem).

But it was also in the days of the Toltecs that some of the initiated priests — chiefly Turanians — began to use their knowledge of occult matters for improper ends: personal aggrandizement, the acquisition of wealth and authority, the ruin of their enemies, and all sorts of selfish and malevolent purposes. They drove the Emperor away, together with those initiated priests who remained true to their calling; then the rebel priests turned the capital city of Atlantis, the great City of the Golden Gates, into a perfect den of iniquity; tributary kings unilaterally declared their independence, and great battles went on in different part of the empire, sorcery being used to supplement the destructive powers which the armies possessed. From then on, evil became more and more rampant, until, about 800,000 years ago, the Continent experienced the awful retribution of a catastrophe which destroyed millions upon millions of people, and rent the continent asunder.

"But the actual amount of territory submerged by no means represented the damage done, for tidal waves swept over great tracts of land and left them desolate swamps. Whole provinces were rendered barren, and remained for generations in an uncultivated and desert condition" (Scott-Elliot).

For a time, sorcery was much diminished among those who had escaped death. But it was only a matter of time before it came back again, leading to three more catastrophes, around 200,000 . . . and 10,000 years ago respectively. After the catastrophe of 80,000 years ago, only the island of Poseidon was left, to be submerged round 10,000 BC, an event which Plato recorded in his Timaeus and Critias.

Each catastrophe was preceded by emigrations of the faithful who were led by those priests who had remained true to their calling. One such emigration took place about 400,000 years ago, after the first catastrophe. Egypt was then isolated and thinly populated, and it was there a great Lodge of Initiates was founded which for nearly 200,000 years did its work. It was this Lodge that founded the first Divine Dynasty of Egypt around 210,000 years ago, at which time the first great body of colonist was also brought from Atlantis. During the 10,000 years which elapsed before the second catastrophe, the two great pyramids of Gizeh were built. But subsequently Egypt too became submerged; on its re-emergence, it was again peopled by the descendents of many of its old inhabitants who had retired to the Abyssinian mountains, as well as by fresh bands of Atlantean colonists from various parts of the world. The second Divine Dynasty was now founded, the country being ruled again by Initiated Adepts.

The third catastrophe of 80,000 years ago once more caused the submersion of Egypt. but this time it was only temporary. When it receded, the third Divine Dynasty began its rule, and it was under the early kings of this dynasty that the . . . [a short lacuna in the original occurred here] . . . . . Egypt were constructed. The fourth catastrophe which led to the submergence of Poseidonis sent another tidal wave over Egypt; this again was only temporary, but it brought the Divine Dynasties to an end, for the Lodge of Initiates had transferred its quarters to other lands.

In her 1888 publication, however, Madame Blavatsky was already stating with reference to Africa:

". . . nowhere does a more extraordinary variability of types exist, from black to almost white, from gigantic men to dwarfish races; and this only because of their forced isolation. The Africans have never left their continent for several hundred thousands of years. If, tomorrow, the continent of Europe were to disappear and other lands to re-emerge instead; and if the African tribes were to separate and scatter on the face of the earth, it is they who in about a hundred thousand years hence, would form the bulk of the civilized nations. And it is the descendants of those of our highly cultured nations, who might have survived on some on island, without any means of crossing the new seas, that would fall back into a state of relative savagery. Thus the reason given for dividing humanity into superior and inferior races falls to the ground and becomes a fallacy."

As to the cause of the destruction of the Fourth Root-Race, Blavatsky quotes the following Stanza of "Dzyan" given in part hereunder:

"Then the Fourth became tall with pride. We are the Kings, it was said; We are the Gods.
"They took wives fair to look upon. . . . They built temples for the human body. Male and female they worshipped. Then the third eye acted no longer. They built huge cities. Of rare earths and metals they built, and out of the fires vomited, out of the white stone of the mountain and of the black stone, they cut their own images in their size and likeness, and worshipped them.

"They built great images nine yatis high, the size of their bodies. Inner fires had destroyed the land of their fathers. The water threatened the Fourth.

"The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands. All the holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the earth."

Mutwa's "The Race That Died" (in the first portion of his Indaba, My Children), fits hand-in-glove with the above quote, as (I think) another record of the same event, from which we see another facet of the same history.

The possibility of the continent of Europe disappearing and other land re-emerging is no longer fanciful, even though it may have seemed so last century, but not today, for there are for too many sombre predictions in the contemporary present for one's peace of mind, in such widely different publications as, for instance, Astrology: The Space Age Science by Goodavage; He Walked the Americas by L. Taylor Hansen; Ultimate Frontier by Eklal Kueshana — the grimmest of all that I have come across so far.

It is therefore that purblind thought-free pigeon-hole mentality that can only see any worthwhile thing which the African seems to have as necessarily having been "borrowed" from this or that non-African race. A good example comes from "Hebrewisms of West Africa by Joseph. J. Williams, (Biblo and Tannen, where we are told that one of the attributes of the Ashanti "Nyame" is Bore-bore, meaning Creator, but also (a) that Rattray has drawn attention to the fact that the Supreme Being of the Ashantis equates with the Jehovah of the lsraelites; (b) that the attribute — for reasons adduced by the author — is an easy equivalent for "the Lord of the Sabbath of the Hebrews"; (c) that Bore-bore is the exact equivalent, in sound and signification with the participle BORE of the Hebrew BARA which means "to create"; etcetera.

Two points must be made here, First, in his SUBSTANCE OF ADAM, (Rider), Ancona began his Short History of the White Race with the following passage:

"When the white race, at the end of its infancy, was beginning to appear in action over the continent of Europe, finding its way slowly from the north, the black race, in its full age between youth and maturity, was master of the world. All Africa, all the south of Europe and almost the whole of Asia were in its power. Their peoples were enjoying an incredible prosperity, with thousands of fortified cities, often cut out in the slope of the mountains, of which the architecture and the formidable beauty were above anything the imagination can conceive. Their metropolis was Ethiopia, where Moses. so much later would be initiated into all their traditions . . ." (etcetera) [italics mine].

No one has yet suggested that the Hebrews pre-dated Moses; but even that may yet turn out to be one the major 'discoveries' of twentieth-century scholarship. However, there is a second point to be made. In Life and Its SpiraIs, Preston said, of the Second (Hyperborean) Root-Race, that while the First (Polar) Root-Race was, in our sense, 'speechless,' the Second Root-Race had a Sound-language, "chant-like sounds composed of vowels alone," and further: "this kind of utterance is still to be found in the animal world of today and also in the human infant during its early years." If, on the other hand, we turn to Mutwa, we find:

"The Ba-Mileke of the Camerouns is so old that these tribesmen still speak the language their witchdoctors call 'spirit talk,' and which came down to us through the Ba-Kongo and the Ba-Mbara. We use this language when communicationg with the very old spirits of the 'Ancient Ones.' This language is actually the language of the Stone Ape — the first efforts by Man to speak. It consists largely of grunts and guttural animal sounds in which there are faintly distinguishable the words we use today."

The Hausa herdsmen driving their cows through the side streets of Ibadan today still talk to their cows in what seems almost certainly this same 'spirit talk.' Scott-Elliot also pointed out in his discussion of The Lost Lemuria, that the sounds which primitive men first made to express their thoughts consisted entirely of vowels; consonant sounds gradually came into use, "but the development of language from first to last on the continent of Lemuria never reached beyond the monosyllabic a en(?). It was on the Atlantean continent that the combining of these monosyllables into words took place, resulting in that type of language known as the "combinatory" or "agglutinative," which means of course that in the language the longest word is in fact a joining-up of monosyllabic meaningful words. The Chinese language is held to be the lineal descendent of this Atlantean agglutinative language. But so is Yoruba, which seems not to have been noticed by authorities on this subject; what is more, Yoruba is as tonally inflected as the Chinese; For example, the Yoruba "de" means 'to cover,' and "ade" refers to the crown which covers the head of a king; "re" means to comfort, to sooth; "mi" is the personal pronoun "I," and "ekun" is the Yoruba word for "tears." Thus the Yoruba name Aderemilekun yields the meaning: "my crown has soothed my tears, i.e., dried away my tears, i.e., comforted me." The prefix "Ade" signifies automatically that this name belongs to a member of the 'kingly' family.

If, therefore, the BORE-BORE of the Ashantis and the BARA of the Hebrews are indeed related one to the other in any context whatever, then it is clear from the foregoing that what we see is not Hebrewisms of West Africa, but Africanisms of the Hebrews. Long before Moses appeared on the scene, Ancona records:

". . . the social organization of the black race was without castes and with equality of the sexes; the unit of government was the village, the officers of which were elected by the fathers and mothers of the families. The priests had control of the associations of trades and arts; and the central government was divided between two dynasties, to one of which belonged the spiritual power and to the other the temporal, . . . with the spiritual power controlling the entire life of the nation. The religion was based on the oneness of God, symbolized by the hierogram of Wodha, the Unity, "manifesting itself through Iswara, male, spirituality, and Prakriti, female, intelligence. The whole system of the Brshmans is derived from the conceptions of the civilization of the Blacks. . . ."

With reference to Religion, therefore, what we have on the African continent today are those elements of the Black Experience of Religion in Atlantean days, which have managed to survive, with unavoidable modifications perhaps, but a lineal descendent nevertheless. These elements include a lively awareness of the World of the Spirit and of its factual existence; a practical approach to Religion in which the concept of "original sin" has — and can have — no place; the recognition of the spiritual force which exists in and manifests through all things, including those which contemporary thought terms "inanimate" and dismisses therefore as being lifeless; the knowledge of tapping and utilizing in predetermined directions and for specific objectives, the "occult virtue" in any imaginable object, animate or inanimate, a knowledge which is as deep and profound as the knowledge of the powers of the mind and soul. Knowledge so profound that it wrecked worlds, although the Blackman destroyed himself in the process.

Mutwa's account of "The Race That Died" is no mere fiction. The Black Race had for its tutors highly evolved Spiritual Beings from higher realms, and he learned his lesson so well that to Mutwa at his initiation, the High Instructor was able to say:

"My son, for thousands of years, we, the Chosen Ones, have been trying to breed a new kind of man who will walk this earth without fear of flesh-and-blood enemies, and who could offer defiance to some of the gods who hate us. Such a man, we hope, would use the forces of his brain, his mental power, to destroy his enemies, instead of using spears and shield. Such a man would not use his tongue to speak, but he would use the powerful voice of his mind to speak both to beasts and to fellow men. There would be nothing hidden from this man, who would be using the forces latent in our minds to do even the most seemingly impossible things. He would be able to read the thoughts of birds and he would be able to swim against the current of the River Time — backwards into the past or forwards into the future — as he pleased. And, my son, we are nearer to achieving this ideal today than most people think!"

I can think of nothing that would more completely or more adequately sum up that which, in fact, constitutes Black Experience of Religion.

Appendices

The Mind of the South

"The plantation, however, involved even more than these things. As we know, it had fetched in the Negro. But the Negro is notoriously one of the world's greatest romantics and one of the world's greatest hedonists. I am well aware that, when it is a question of adapting himself to necessity, be is sometimes capable of a remarkable realism. But in the main he is a creature of grandiloquent imagination, of facile emotion, and, above everything else under heaven, of enjoyment.
"And in this society in which the infant son of the planter was commonly suckled by a black mammy, in which gray old black men were his most loved storytellers, in which black stalwarts were among the chiefest heroes and mentors of his boyhood, and in which his usual, often practically his only, companions until he was past the age of puberty were the black boys (and girls) of the plantation — in this society in which by far the greater number of white boys of whatever degree were more or less shaped by such companionship, and in which nearly the whole body of whites, young and old, had constantly before their eyes the example, had constantly in their ears the accent, of the Negro, the relationship between the two groups was, by the second generation at least, nothing less than organic. Negro entered into white man is profoundly as white man entered into Negro — subtly influencing every gesture, every word, every emotion and idea, every attitude."

Appendix III

He Walked the Americas

By L. Taylor Hansen

Almost two thousand years ago an early Christian, perhaps a witness of the birth and execution of Jesus, walked from tribe to tribe among the American Nations. He came to the west Coast of Peru, South America, from the Pacific in the ocean-going canoes of the Polynesians, and after winning to the laws of God one of its ancient trading empires, left for the lands of the jungles in the North.
He sailed by ship as told in the Song-of-Quetzel-Coatl, from the now partly-sunken island of Cosumel, on the Atlantic coast of the Mayan country, and sailing North eventually travelled on foot around what is now the United States. Many years' journeying, preaching and teaching in the words that Jesus Himself used, brought him back at last to South America, to Tollan Mexico which was the great power of the ancient world.

Who was he, this white Prophet who spoke a thousand languages, whose slightest touch was a miracle of healing? Some believe this saintly man to be St. Thomas Didymus. Perhaps, but it is a question that will haunt us for years or may indeed never be answered.

In this highly original book, of expecial appeal to all those interested in the esoteric, Taylor Hansen gives us the results of twenty-five years' research. He has collected legends from many different tribes all over the Americas and has consulted museums, libraries and experts on folk-lore, correlating his findings into this fascinating book.

Appendix IV

The Prophecy of Colula

Mexico

When the Prophet climbed his Temple for the last time in the beautiful morning of One Reed, bitterly weeping were the people of Colula for he was leaving, perhaps never again through the ages to walk the Toltec Empile.
Once more he took them through the cycles of the Dawn-Star, sometimes called the Star of the Prophet, Tlau-Izcal-Pan-Tecutli, and into the vistas of the future. He repeated the warning given at Tula against the deeds of the Sacrificers, and foretold again the invasion of White Man, describing the suits of shining metal, the rods which make much noise and kill at a distance.

Then he bowed his head in silence. When again he bagan, it seemed to the people that his voice was husky with tears.
"Once I had a great hope for these people for I saw them kneel and kiss the sweet earth, and I saw the shadow of the Cross which they carried with them. Yea, I had great faith in these people. Now I must warn you against them.

"Carry your books into the jungles. Place your histories deeply in caverns where none of these men can find them. Nor bring them back to the sunlight until the long cycle of war is ended. For children of war are thse bearded strangers. They speak my precepts but their cars do not listen. They follow only the law of the jungle, seeking naught but the golden metal, as if that would buy them passage to the Isles of the Blessed.

"They have but one love and that is for weapons. Ever more horrible are these weapons, until they reach for the one which is ultimate. Should they use that, there will be no forgiveness. No forgiveness in that Vale where there is no turning. Using such a weapon is reaching into space for the God-Head. These things are not for man's decision. Woe to those who do not listen! There are lamps beyond that which ye are burning; roads beyond this which ye are treading; worlds beyond the one ye are seeing. Be humble before the might of the Great Hand which guides the stars within their places. There are many lodges in My Father's Kingdom for it is more vast than time, and more eternal.

"Keep hidden your books, O my children, during the time of which I speak. The day will come when they will be precious.

"For five full cycles of the Dawn-Star, the rule of the warring strangers will go on to greater and greater orgies of misery and ruin. Hark ye well to all I have taught you. Return not to the ways of the Sacrificers. Their path will but lead to the last destruction. Know that the end will come in five full cycles, for five, the difference between the Earth's number and that of the gleaming Dawn-Star, is the number of these children of war.

"As a sign to you that the end is nearing — uncovered will be My Father's Temple. Remember this in the days which are to come."

For a moment quietly stood the Prophet, then he recommenced in a low and sorrowful tone:

"Once there was a man who dreamed of a new world, without war and sickness. He wished to see the people happy and so he fought sacrifice and slavery. He knew that this was the desire of the Great Spirit, but suddenly there came upon him mocking visions.

"It would have been well if what he saw was the redemption of suffering mankind, but this was not so.

"Tula was shattered by a savage earthquake. Then came the Sacrificers, and blood dripped from the altars of idols. He saw that it would be the same in other cities.

"The visions were even worse of Colula. The streets ran red with the blood of combat. First, even upon our Temple, he saw the blood of sacrifice. Then an even more hideous desecration. There was fighting up the tiers of the Temple!"

The people drew in their breaths as one, whispering in shocked tones to one another:

"What manner of men would commit such heresy?"

After a pause, the Prophet continued:

"Soul-sick of these hideous visions, the man sought the comfort of a mountain, to be alone and near the God-Head. He must renew his will for teaching, or pray for death that the visions be ended, for they told him that his work was mockery in this future, if indeed there was a future.

"In the silence and cold, a great sorrow upon him, the man sank down and prayed for either death, or guidance.

"There in the snows he received his answer. The man was lifted beyond the cold earth. No longer did he see the Age of Destruction. Gone the horrible Age of Warfare. He was seening beyond the Age of Carnage!"

The Prophet stopped and stared about him. He looked on the young and on the aged, on the masses who followed each word in silence. Then softly he continued:

"Walk with me through this future time. Tula shines in all its glory but the metals are of types we know not. Loving hands have rebuilt the parkways, have paved the streets, and the Temples. There is a great building where books are kept for the scholars, and many are those who come to read them. Tula is a great centre of culture.

"Come with me to the new Colula. Shining again is My Father's Temple, and those inscriptions that you see today all now are able to read. Once more the city is filled with fountains and the parkways netted for the birds of rare plumage, and those who sing to enchant the listener.

"The buildings are unlike those we fashion, yet they have a breathless beauty. Here people dress in materials we know not, travel in manners beyond our knowledge, but more important than all this difference, are the faces of the people. Gone is the shadow of fear and suffering, for man no longer sacrifices, and he has outgrown the wars of his childhood. Now he walks full-statured toward his destiny, into the Golden Age of Learning.

"Carry this vision on through the ages, and remember Kate-Zahl, the Prophet."