The Theosophical Forum – June 1937

THE SEVEN HUMAN GROUPS — G. de Purucker

[In The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, p 1, it is stated that the Secret Doctrine "teaches the simultaneous evolution of seven human groups on seven portions of our globe." The members of the Secret Doctrine Class at Point Loma wishing for further elucidation of this statement, Dr. de Purucker was appealed to, and sent the following most illuminating explanation, which by general request, and with permission duly accorded, is hereby placed on record for future reference and for the information of all readers. — H. T. E.]

This passage and other passages appertaining to the same point of the occult teaching, mean just what they say, and are not to be construed metaphorically. These passages do not refer to inner and outer rounds, nor to the other globes of the Earth-Chain, nor to the seven different human principles, as astral, physical, etc., except indirectly; as is shown very clearly by H. P. B.'s own words, "seven human groups on seven different portions of our globe." Here it is our Globe D or Earth, our planet Terra, which is meant.

Thus it is a fact that original mankind, which does not mean any branch of humanity but the very beginnings of what we popularly call the First Root-Race on Globe D in this Fourth Round, refers to the matter of the sishtas from the preceding Round. In other words, it means that our human life-wave as a whole or totality, when it again reached our Earth during this Fourth Round on this Globe D, awakened the seven classes of the then living sishtas on this our Globe D, because the forerunners of our Life-wave were themselves composed of the seven different kinds of human monads. In other words they were composed of what, in other connexions, H. P. B. has called the different classes of the Pitris. This is a little intricate but very simple when other teachings about the incoming life-waves on a globe are properly understood, and must not be confused with other life-waves; and I may add of course that the last word of this teaching is highly esoteric and belongs to higher Degrees even than the E. S.

However, mark the following points: the sishtas waiting the incoming septenary human life-wave were themselves sevenfold, i. e., seven different groups of sishtas, each group being composed of individuals who through evolution were more or less alike. The life-wave when it reaches our Globe, is thus composed of the bulk of what we call the First Sub-race of the First Root-Race, intermixed with forerunners, i. e., more advanced monads of six other kinds, representing the other six classes of human monads.

Hence it was that all the seven classes of sishtas were more or less contemporaneously awakened, as it were, which means that they became vehicles for the different classes of the incoming monads, and began to increase; and thus it was that in this Round, on this Globe, as H. P. B. says, there was a "simultaneous evolution of seven human groups on seven different portions of our globe." These seven different classes of monads of the incoming life-wave, including the majority and the forerunners of the other six, started the seeds of the different Root-Races, which in time were to develop in this Round on this Globe, and of which Root-Races 1, 2, 3, and 4 have come and gone, and we are now in the 5th, although there are representatives amongst us even today, forerunners, of the 6th and 7th Root-Races to come before our life-wave passes on to Globe E.

It is thus clear that The Secret Doctrine teaches not a mono-genetic origin of humanity, i. e., the birth of the human race from a single individual, or from a single couple like the Jewish biblical story; but teaches a polygenetic origin, that is to say an origin of the human race from seven different living foci, which I have hereinbefore called the seven different types or kinds or sub-classes of the sishtas, each one such type or sub-class being awakened by the similar incoming portion of the human life-wave. Of course the portion of the incoming life-wave which was to become specifically the First Root-Race was the most numerous at that earliest period in our humanity, and became the First Root-Race. Then when it died out, it was preceded and followed by the growth in numbers of the class of the monads which was to become the Second Root-Race, etc.

In this connexion, it must not be forgotten that all these seven types or classes of monads in the incoming life-waves are not separated in water-tight compartments, any more than the different types of men today, advanced and less advanced, are all separated off from each other. But they more or less mingled as time went on, yet the members of each class as it were gravitated to its own particular group and part of the globe.

From this teaching we likewise see that there may be, and indeed are, groups of humanity which inhabit portions of a globe, and where these portions of humanity remain almost quiescent for ages, until their time comes to begin to increase and to become the dominant Race or Sub-race. Thus H. P. B.'s words are to be taken literally.

I hope these thoughts will be of help to the members of your class who are puzzled, but of course they will require some thinking and study to get a clear picture of the process, because what is here briefly said took scores of millions of years to come about, up to the time of our own Fifth Root-Race.



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