The hardened unresponsive condition of some of the Saturn beings prevented the awakening of the divine spirit within them, therefore they remained simply mineral...

These stragglers and the newly arrived life wave formed dark spots in the otherwise glowing gas sphere which was the densest Globe of the Sun Period, and our present Sunspots are an atavistic remainder of that condition. In the sixth Revolution of the Sun Period the life spirit was awakened by the Cherubim, and again it was found that some who had safely passed the critical point in the Saturn Period, had fallen behind in the Sun Period and were unfit to have the second aspect of the spirit vivified. Thus there were another class of stragglers, who had lagged behind the crest wave of evolution. In the seventh Revolution of the Sun Period the Lords of the Flame reappeared to awaken the divine spirit in those who failed to qualify for it at the end of the Saturn Period, but had attained to the point where they could receive the spiritual impulse in the Sun Period. The Lords of the Flame also awakened the germ of divine spirit in as many of the new life wave entities as were ready, but here also there were stragglers....

Those who cannot pass [the critical point which will come in the next Revolution of the Earth Period] will be held over until some future evolution reaches a stage where they can drop in and proceed with their development in a new human period. They will be debarred from going forward with our humanity because it will be advanced so far beyond their status that it would prove a serious clog to our progress to drag them along. They will not be destroyed, but simply held in waiting for another period of evolution. Progression with our present wave of evolution is what is meant when "salvation" is spoken of in the Christian religion, and it is something to be earnestly sought, for though the "eternal damnation" of those who are not "saved" does not mean destruction nor endless torture, it is nevertheless a very serious matter to be held in a state of inertia for inconceivable milliards of years, before a new evolution shall have progressed to such a stage that those who fail here can have an opportunity to proceed....

It is said, however, that of the total number of virgin spirits which started evolution in the Saturn Period, only about three-fifths will pass that critical point in the next Revolution and go on to the end....

The instrument is graded to suit the life that is to dwell in it. Those of class 2, in whose vehicles the above mentioned division could be made were raised to the human kingdom, but were given the indwelling spirit at a point in time later than class 1. Hence, they are not now so far evolved as class 1, and are therefore the lower races of mankind....

Those whose desire bodies were incapable of division were put into the same division as classes 3a and 3b. They are our present anthropoids. They may yet overtake our evolution if they reach a sufficient degree of advancement before the critical point already mentioned, which will come in the middle of the fifth Revolution. If they do not overtake us by that time, they will have lost touch with our evolution....

Where the desire body separated, the higher part became somewhat master over the lower part and over the dense and vital bodies. It formed a sort of animal-soul with which the spirit could unite by means of the link of mind. Where there was no division of the desire body, the vehicle was given over to desires and passions without any check, and could therefore not be used as a vehicle within which the spirit could dwell. So it was put under the control of a group-spirit which ruled if from without. It became an animal body, and that kind has now degenerated into the body of the anthropoid...

Mention has been made of the stragglers of various Periods who in later Periods were enabled to take a step upward in evolution. There were some, however, who did not take this step. They did not evolve, and were therefore left further and further behind, until they became a drag and a hindrance to the progressive ones. It became necessary to get them out of the way, that the evolution of the others might not be retarded.

In the beginning of the Lemurian Epoch, these "failures" (note that they were failures, not merely stragglers) had crystallized that part of the Earth occupied by them to such a degree that it become as a huge cinder or clinker, in the otherwise soft and fiery Earth. They were a hindrance and an obstruction, so they, with the part of the Earth they had crystallized, were thrown out into space beyond recall. That is the genesis of the Moon....

[In the Lemurian Epoch] the Lords of Form vivified the Human spirit in as many of the stragglers of the Moon Period as had made the necessary progress in the three and one half Revolutions which had elapsed since the commencement of the Earth Period, but at that time the Lords of Mind could not give them the germ of Mind. Thus a great part of nascent humanity was left without this link between the threefold spirit and the threefold body....

Races did not exist in the Periods which have preceded the Earth Period, and they will not exist in those Periods which follow it. It is only here, at the very nadir of material existence, that the difference is so great between man and man as to warrant the separation into Races....

What has been said about the enlightenment [by the Lucifer Spirits, the "light-givers"] of the Lemurians applies to only a minor portion of those who lived in the latter part of that Epoch, and who became the Seed for the Seven Atlantean Races. The greater part of the Lemurians were animal-like and the forms inhabited by them have degenerated into the savages and anthropoids of the present day. The student is requested to note carefully that it was the forms which degenerated. There is a very important distinction to be kept in mind between the bodies (or forms) of a race, and the Egos (or life) which is reborn in those race-bodies.

When a race is born, the forms are ensouled by a certain group of spirits and have inherent capability of evolving to a certain stage of completion and no further. There can be no standing still in nature, therefore when the limit of attainment has been reached, the bodies or forms of that race begin to degenerate, sinking lower and lower until at last the race dies out.

The reason is not far to seek. New race bodies are particularly flexible and plastic, affording great scope for the Egos who are reborn in them to improve these vehicles and progress thereby. The most advanced Egos are brought to birth in such bodies and improve them to the best of their ability. These Egos, however, are only apprentices as yet, and they cause the bodies to gradually crystallize and harden until the limit of improvement of that particular kind of body has been reached. Then forms for another new race are created, to afford the advancing Egos further scope for more extended experience and greater development. They discard the old race bodies for the new, their discarded bodies becoming the habitations for less advanced Egos who, in their turn, use them as stepping-stones on the path of progress. Thus the old race bodies are used by Egos of increasing inferiority, gradually degenerating until at last there are no Egos low enough to profit by rebirth in such bodies. The women then become sterile and the race-forms die.

We may easily trace this process by certain examples. The Teutonic-Anglo-Saxon race (particularly the American branch of it) has a softer, more flexible body and a more high-strung nervous system than any other race on earth at the present time. The Indian and Negro have much harder bodies and, because of the duller nervous system, are much less sensitive to lacerations. An Indian will continue to fight after receiving wounds the shock of which would prostrate or kill a white man, whereas the Indian will quickly recover. The Australian aborigines or Bushmen furnish an example of a race dying out on account of sterility, notwithstanding all that the British government is doing to perpetuate them. It has been said by white men against the white race, that wherever it goes the other races dies out. The whites have been guilty of fearful oppression against those other races, having in many cases massacred multitudes of the defenseless and unsuspecting natives -- as witness the conduct of the Spaniards towards the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, to specify but one of many instances. The obligations resulting from such betrayal of confidence and abuse of superior intellect will be paid -- yea, the last, least iota! -- by those incurring them. It is equally true, however, that even had the whites not massacred, starved, enslaved, expatriated and otherwise maltreated those older races, the latter would nevertheless have died out just as surely, though more slowly, because such is the Law of Evolution -- the Order of Nature. At some future time the white race-bodies when they become inhabited by the Egos who are now embodied in red, black, yellow or brown skins, will have degenerated so far that they also will disappear, to give place to other and better vehicles.

Science speaks only of evolution. It fails to consider the lines of degeneration which are slowly but surely destroying such bodies as have crystallized beyond possibility of improvement....

As the heavy fogs of Atlantis condensed more and more, the increased quantity of water gradually inundated that continent, destroying the greater part of the population and the evidences of their civilization. Great numbers were driven from the doomed continent by the floods, and wandered across Europe. The Mongolian races are the descendants of those Atlantean refugees. The Negroes and the savage races with curly hair, are the last remnants of the Lemurians....

The sixteen Races are called the "Sixteen paths to destruction" because there is always, in each Race, a danger that the soul may become too much attached to the Race; that it may become so enmeshed in Race characteristics it cannot rise above the Race idea, and will therefore fail to advance; that it may, so to speak, crystallize into that Race and consequently be confined to the Race bodies when they start to degenerate, as happened to the Jews.

***

The greatest apprehension of occult scientists is materialism, which if carried too far, not only prevents progress but will destroy all the seven vehicles of the virgin spirit, leaving it naked. Such an one will then have to commence at the very beginning of the new evolution. All the work it has done since the dawn of the Saturn Period will have been utterly wasted. For this reason, the present period is to our humanity, the most critical of all. Therefore occult scientists speak of the Sixteen Races, of which the Germano-Anglo-Saxon is one, as "the sixteen possibilities for destruction." May the reader safely pass them all, for their grip is worse than the retardation in the next Revolution.