I think the reason that we didn’t talk much about the specifics of root races in class is obvious– they’re absolutely crazy. While the idea that humanity is descended from a root race that inhabited a lost continent like Lemuria or Atlantis doesn’t entirely come out of left field, it’s a little bit like A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Seurat: the closer you look the less sense it makes. It might seem like root races have something in common with Darwin’s theory of evolution, but Helena Blavatsky and other Theosophists were actually opposed to Darwin’s theory. In their minds Darwin was wrong because he claimed that humans had evolved from apes, not one of the root races. 

Blavatsky believed that the third root race had lived on the lost continent of Lemuria around 34 million years ago. Since this would place the Lemurians among the time of the dinosaurs, the first three subraces of the third root race were said to have laid eggs rather than give birth to live young. The fourth subrace of the Lemurians reproduced more like modern humans, and from there the seventh Lemurian subrace would go on to become their own root race– the Atlanteans. Modern humans (us) are descended from Atlanteans who colonized the earth after being forced to leave their island after it was destroyed. 

The Aryans were the fifth root race, evolving from the same Lemurian subrace as the Atlanteans but following a different developmental track. They were far fewer in number and represented the minority of the population of Atlantis. They were seen to be smarter and more complex than other Atlanteans. The distinction between who was and was not an Aryan is unclear to me, partly because Blavatksy mixes so much science with philosophy. In some of her writings Aryans are physically different, and in some it is their souls that make them different. 

Personally, I think that the root races are a crazy concept. They’re formed from this strange mix of science and philosophy that makes my head hurt. On one hand, they play into the idea of scientific evolution, but on the other they promote the unscientific idea that some races are better than others. In addition, there is no physical evidence for the root races. We have fossils of the dinosaurs and the remains of the archaeological Atlantis, so why are there no traces of the Lemurians, the Atlanteans, or the Aryans? At the end of the day there is no evidence because they aren’t real, but it’s interesting that such a crazy set of theories was able to take hold of and influence important people during the 20th century.

Sources:

Blavatsky, H. P. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy. Theosophical University Press, 1888.

Blavatsky, H. P. The Voice of the Silence. Theosophical University Press, 1889.

Seurat, Georges. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte- 1884