Root Races

Each root race passes through various stages: youthful, mature and decline. Each population of a root race is divided into 7 sub races. Each sub race maintains itself for a long time while others are developing alongside it. That is why the world population is as it is because different stages of development are living together here on earth.

With each subsequent sub race, evolutionary changes occur. As an example, memory consisted of vivid sense impressions, color and sound. They then developed feelings, which their Lemurian ancestors did not yet know. Memory came with language. Memory did not show up until the final Lemurian period. The Atlantian period is the one in which the development of language took place. A new bond was formed among humans in the early states of the first sub-race as the result of sound-words inside themselves and to the objects of the external world.

Soul powers of the first Atlanteans still possessed something of the forces of nature. Their sound-words contained a power over things and other human beings. They could cure, advance the growth of plants, tame the rage of animals and perform other similar functions. All these powers progressively decreased in form among the later sub-races of the Atlanteans. As spirit and soul become increasingly earth-matter oriented, the psychic powers decrease.

Rudolph Steiner's Akashic Record

Steiner states that the early Atlanteans had a different mental capacity than ours; they were not equipped with logic but did have a highly developed memory. Whatever they performed, they did from memory. They thought in images, like our animals and not in concepts. Over a long period of Atlantean life they lived uniform lives because of the developed and faithful memory. They did not invent a million years ago, they remembered. People respected a person who looks back upon long experience.

The Mystery Schools back then had a requirement for admission. The student had to remember previous incarnations and acquired the faculties for receiving wisdom. No logic...only memory. The personality was not important. They knew how to control the life force, how to control the energy dormant in grains and plants. They had vehicles that could float at ranges lower than mountain ranges. The vehicles could not be used today because at that time the cover of air, which enveloped the earth was much denser than it is now. During the early cycle the water on the whole earth was much thinner than today. Because of the thinness, the water could be directed and used for technical services. Civilization was radically different than ours.

Atlanteans took into himself water, which could be used by the life force of his body to increase physical power when he needed them for a project. Their ideas of fatigue and depletion of forces were quire different from ours. In the early cycle, the community did not resemble our modern city. They lived in alliance with nature. This alliance continued to the middle of the third sub race. Settlements resembled a garden in which houses were built of trees with artfully intertwined branches. Their social sense was related to nature. Nature was considered common property. Plants and animal form have become quite different since that time. All of nature has been subjected to transformation.