6. (Q) Are the places designated for the beginning of the five races correct?
(A) As we find, these are changed, in that: Those in the Gobi, the yellow. The white - rather in the Carpathians than India, though this is the change to which they are made. The red, of course, in the Atlantean and in the American. The brown in the Andean. The black in the plain and the Sudan, or in African.
7. (Q) Where was the Carpathian region?
(A) Aarat.
8. (Q) Where is the location? Is it on the map today?
(A) Southern part of Europe and Russia, and Persia and that land. Caucasian mountains.
9. (Q) Why was the number five selected for the projection of the five races?
(A) This, as we find, is that element which represents man in his physical form, and the attributes to which he may become conscious FROM the elemental or spiritual to the physical consciousness. As the senses; as the sensing OF the various forces that bring to man the activities in the sphere in which he finds himself.
This, to be sure, may be expanded upon. This must bear in the same relation to that as did exist, to the promise that He will come again. Does any individual group think of themselves so exalted as that only to one peoples will He appear as in the beginning, so shall it ever be, that man's indwelling must recognize that not only must his desires carnally be crucified, but all elements that make for the awareness OF the spiritual manifestations in the material plane!
10. (Q) Did the appearance of what became the five races occur simultaneously?
(A) Occurred at once.
11. (Q) Describe the earth's surface at the period of the appearance of the five projections.
(A) This has been given. In the first, or that known as the beginning, or in the Caucasian and Carpathian, or the Garden of Eden, in that land which lies now much in the desert, yet much in mountain and much in the rolling lands there. The extreme northern portions were then the southern portions, or the polar regions were then turned to where they occupied more of the tropical and semi-tropical regions; hence it would be hard to discern or disseminate the change. The Nile entered into the Atlantic Ocean. What is now the Sahara was an inhabited land and very fertile. What is now the central portion of this country, or the Mississippi basin, was then all in the ocean; only the plateau was existent, or the regions that are now portions of Nevada, Utah and Arizona formed the greater part of what we know as the United States. That along the Atlantic board formed the outer portion then, or the lowlands of Atlantis. The Andean, or the Pacific coast of South America, occupied then the extreme western portion of Lemuria. The Urals and the northern regions of same were turned into a tropical land. The desert in the Mongolian land was then the fertile portion. This may enable you to form SOME concept of the status of the earth's representations at that time! The oceans were then turned about; they no longer bear their names, yet from whence obtained they their names? What is the legend, even, as to their names? [See Source File Key #2746 for 4/41 Comdr. Wynne's map of coming rising Atlantis, re 2746-3.]
12. (Q) Are the following the correct places? Atlantean, the red.
(A) Atlantean and American, the red race.
13. (Q) Upper Africa for the black?
(A) Or what would be known now as the more WESTERN portion of upper Egypt for the black. You see, with the changes - when there came the uprisings in the Atlantean land, and the sojourning southward - with the turning of the axis, the white and yellow races came more into that portion of Egypt, India, Persia and Arabia.
14. (Q) There was no original projection in upper India?
(A) This was a portion rather of the white and the yellow as represented. Let these represent the attributes of the physical, or the senses and what forms they take, rather than calling them white, black, yellow, red and green, etc. What do they signify in the SENSING? Sight, vision - white. Feeling - red. Black - gratifying of appetites in the senses. Yellow - mingling in the hearing. What is the law of the peoples that these represent? Their basic thoughts run to those elements! 
 	  	 
Edgar Cayce's Secret, Part 14

By "history" I do not mean to insist on the traditional criterion of written records--indeed, many of Cayce's favorite "time-culture slots" (to resort to a Meltonism) are otherwise unknown. For Cayce, history is the story of souls being led to spiritual perspectives over the course of multiple incarnations. This is a group process as well as an individual one, since human relationships (and ultimately, events in history) are part of the teaching process through which these perspectives are imparted. Just as the Old Testament records God's guidance of the Israelites to a higher purpose, so do the readings record a similar process which begins with the first incarnations into the earth plane, meanders through the fall of Atlantis and corresponding rise of ancient Egypt and Central America- and culminates in the life of Jesus. History and metaphysics blur together in the Cayce readings if we go back far enough (e.g. to creation), delve deeply enough (e.g. to the mechanisms of reincarnation and clairvoyance which underlie the entire process), or focus on the example of Jesus (who is the subject of the next chapter).

A. Earth Changes

Geological cataclysms are a recurring theme in the Cayce readings. and in this area the most important influence on him appears to be Madame Blavatsky. According to Cayce, the worlds geography has changed markedly since the dawn of humanity:
In giving such in an understanding manner to man of today, [it is] necessary that the conditions of the earth's surface and the position of man in the earth's plane be understood, for the change has often come since this period, era, age of man's earthly indwelling, for then at that period, only the lands now known as the Sahara and the Nile region appeared on the African shores; that in TibeL Mongolia, Caucasia, and Norway in Asia and Europe; that in the southern cordilleras and Peru in the Southwestern hemisphere and the plane of now Utah. Arizona, Mexico of the North-westem hemisphere, and the spheres were then in the latitudes much as are presented at the present time.

The man's indwelling then in the Sahara and the upper Nile regions, the waters then entering the now Atlantic from the Nile region rather than flowing northward. The waters in the Tibet and Caucasian regions entering the North Sea, those in Mongolia entering the South Seas; those in the cordilleras entering the Northern Seas.

When the earth brought forth the seed in her season. and man came 'in the earth plane as lord of that in that sphere. man appeared in five places at once--the five senses, the five reasons. the five spheres, the five developments. the five nations.

The period in the world's existence from the present time being ten and one-half million (10,500,000) years. [5748-1]
A number of nineteenth-century geologists had wrestled with the question of what geological forces could explain such massive structures as mountain ranges and canyons. In 1812. Georges Cuvier presented a theory known as "catastrophism" in which sudden earth changes (e.,-. earthquakes, floods) result in the periodic extinction of plant and animal life and the creation of new species. The chief advantage of catastrophism was its consistency with the biblical account of the Noachian deluge, and of the age of the earth as calculated by Bishop Ussher. The contrary view, "uniformitarianism," teaches that mountains and canyons are formed slowly, over aeons. The term was first used by James Hutton in 1788, and with the publication of Charles Lyell's

Principles of Geology in 1830, the theory became the scholarly consensus. A further distinction should be made between Lyell's "gradualist" uniformitarianism (which held that the rate of geologic change remains constant), and the "actualist" school of James Dana (1873), which allows for localized catastrophes. Still others (e.g. Airy, Suess, Taylor) tried to map the collision and break-up of prehistoric continents. a line of research which eventually led to Alfred Wegener’s 1915 theory of continental drift. Not everyone, however, was prepared to reject catastrophism, or the ancient myths which it supported. Among the holdouts was Madame Blavatsky. According to The Secret Doctrine, each root-race has arisen on a different continentrespectively. "the Imperishable Sacred Land," Hyperborea, Lemuria, Atlantis, and Europe.(283) Note. however. that in The Secret Doctrine, the root-races are separated temporally, not merely geographically. Like Cayce (5748-1), Blavatsky links the five root-races with the five senses. (284) As for the subraces, Blavatsky elsewhere alludes to a yellow Adam, a red Adam, and so on. (285)

For Cayce, catastrophic earth changes are not limited to the distant past--on the contrary. we may expect more of them in the near future:
As to the physical changes again: The earth will be broken up in the western portion of America. The greater portion of Japan must go into the sea. The upper portion of Europe will be changed as in the twinkling of an eye. Land will appear off the east coast of America. There will be the upheavals in the Arctic and in the Antarctic that will make for the eruption of volcanoes in the Torrid areas, and there will be shifting then of the poles--so that where there has been those of a frigid or semi-tropical will become the more tropical, and moss and fern will grow. And these will begin in those periods from '58 to '98, when these will be proclaimed as the periods when His light will be seen again in the clouds.
[976-15]
According to Cayce, around the year 2000 to 2001 a shifting of the earth's poles will occur (826-8), an event which is to signal the dawn of a new age. (It is unclear whether the magnetic or geographic pole is meant--Cayce appears to conflate the two.) The notion of a pole shift originated with the geologist Loeffelholz von Colberg, whose 1895 paper "Die Drehung der Erdkruste in geologische Zeitraunen" presented evidence of crustal rotation, or polar wandering. No doubt von Colberg was relieved to hear that his theory had won the endorsement of Madame Blavatsky, who sees pole shifts as milestones marking stages in spiritual evolution. (286)

B. Human Evolution

In answer to the debate over evolution, Cayce concedes that humans have evolved, but stresses that "man was made as man" and certainly did not "descend from the monkey" (3744-5). It may be that Cayce means here to distinguish between the creation of the human soul and that of the physical body. Both evolve, in a sense, but human souls have always been distinct from those of animals. We originally fell from above. rather than rising from below. The issue of physical evolution is more debatable--early incarnating souls appear to have taken proto-human bodies which had been formed for that purpose over a period of millions of years, but Cayce does not make it clear as to how closely this process is intended to correspond to scientific notions of human origins.

Many of Cayce's ideas relating to humanity's physical evolution seem to have been inspired by Blavatsky. One inquirer was said to have lived "...in Atlantean land when there were the separation of bodies as male and female" (2121-2). The idea that humans were originally androgenous, but later separated into male and female, is found in Plato's Symposium (189c- 193d, where it is presented humorously), as well as in the Midrash for Genesis 5:2 ("male and female he created them"). The image of sexual union is an old alchemical one taken up by several of the Hermetic groups of the "proto-New Age," although here the symbol is uniative rather than divisive- Axguing against Darwin--who in The Descent of Man considers, but rejects, the possibility of a hermaphroditic ancestor of modem vertibrates--Madame Blavatsky traces the separation of the sexes to the third root-race. (287)

A word about Theosophical race theory is in order. The second half of The Secret Doctrine describes five "root-races" which have so far inhabited the earth: (1) an "etherial" (gaseous or jelly-like) race which reproduced by fission, through yoga, (2) an asexual race which reproduced by budding, (3) a hermaphroditic race whose offspring were "sweat-born." (4) a race of giants which reproduced sexually, and (5) the Aryan race. Each Round or epoch is characterized by the emergence of a new root-race. Now the races we know today are not rootraces, but sub-races of the Aryan root-race. (There are exceptions, however--the Australian aborigines are remnants of the previous root race; Plato and Confucius were representatives of a complete fifth-round humanity; and Buddha was an early manifestation of the sixth root-race.) Root-races are divided into a number of sub-races, the newer invariably dominating the older. Leadbeater adds that we are now living in the era of the Anglo-Saxon sub-race, perhaps forgetting that Madame Blavatsky was hardly an Anglo-Saxon. While Cayce does not explicitly endorse the Theosophical system of root-races, he appears to have copied freely from it, and on one occasion refers to the imminent rise of the "fifth root race" (5748-6), which according to Blavatsky arrived long ago.

Intriguingly, Cayce follows Blavatsky in holding that archaic humans mated with animals, producing viable offspring. For Cayce, the practice originated with the first souls who became enmeshed in the material plane, and was maintained by the more perverse among the archaic humans of Atlantis. Vestiges of animal characteristics persisted among their descendents until the rise of pre-dynastic Egypt under Ra Ta. At this time, a "Temple of Sacrifice" was constructed where these unfortunates could have such animal appendages surgically removed. These characteristics then disappeared in succeeding generations. (Note that Cayce's account assumes a Lamarckian view of heredity, unless we suppose that some form of genetic engineering is meant.) This detail is anticipated in The Secret Doctrine:
In the initial period of man's Fourth evolution, the human kingdom branched off in several and various directions. The outward shape of its first specimens was not uniform, for the vehicles (the egg-like, external shells, in which the future fully physical man gestated) were often tampered with, before they hardened, by huge animals of species now unknown, and which belonged to the tentative efforts of nature. The result was that intermediate races of monsters, half animals, half men, were produced... [Later] the 'Egg-Born' sons had taken several of their females unto themselves as mates, and bred other human monsters... Upon seeing this (state of things), the Kings and Lords of the Last Races. (of the Third and Fourth) placed the seal of prohibition upon the sinful intercourse. (288)
Blavatsky maintains that, contrary to the popular understanding of evolution. apes actually descended from man, as the result of humans interbreeding with members of other species. (289)

Cayce's reference to five races corresponding to five colors (red, yellow, black, white, and brown) originated with Johann Blumenbach, who reduced the peoples of the world to five basic races (Caucasoid, Ethiopic, Mongoloid, American, and Malay), and incidentally coined the term "Caucasian" as synonymn for white people on the now-discredited belief that white people originated in the Caucasus region. Cuvier narrowed the list to three basic races (Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid). Today anthropologists are more inclined to treat Australian aborigines, Central African pygmies, and Southern African bushmen as independent races, although the task of demarcating "races" (whether on biological or sociological grounds) is widely conceded to be hugely problematic.

C. Atlantis, Lemuria, and Oz

The myth of Atlantis originated with two late Platonic dialogues. the Timaeus and the Critias. In the Timaeus, Socrates hears the story of Atlantis from Critias. to whom it had been passed down within the family from Solon (Critias' great-grandfather's brother). who in turn had heard it from a priest of Sais, Lower Egypt, while on a visit there. Here Atlantis is described as an "island --- largerthan Libya and Asia together" (24E, Jowett translation), which had existed beyond the "Pillars of Hercules"(290) some nine thousand years before the time of the dialogue. At that time, the "real sea" was navigable, and ships could island-hop all the way across it.
... for this within the Straits is only a harbor, having a narrow entrance. but that other is the real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a continent. [25A]
Atlantis was ruled by a powerful federation of kings, whose military forces
had rule over the whole island and several others, as well as over parts of the continent, and besides these they subjected parts of Libya within the Straits as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. [25B]
Greece and Egypt remained unconquered, however, and the Atlantean forces were eventually repulsed by an Athenian-led coalition. Later, as the result of flooding and earthquakes, Atlantis "disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea" (25D). Navigation in that part of the ocean was rendered impossible due to the large deposits of shoal mud created by the island as it sank.

The Critias describes the founding of Atlantis by the god Poseidon and his ten half-human sons (five pairs of twins). The eldest, Atlas, was made king over the rest, and it was from his name that the island came to be called "Atlantis" (literally, "of the daughters of Atlas"). This arrangement became hereditary, so that the descendents of Atlas retained sovereignty over the descendents of the other nine brothers. Under their rule, the island grew prosperous as a trade center (metals, timber, game. elephants, fruits. and vegetables are listed as important local products), and as a result was able to build ornate palaces. temples, harbors. docks, and bridges. The main city of Atlantis consisted of a low mountain in the middle of a fertile rectangular plain hundreds of miles in area, surrounded by alternating circles of land and sea. There were many gardens, and a hippodrome was located along the central island's periphery. Atop the hill stood the royal palace. In the center of the palace was a temple to Poseidon covered with silver and gold, at a site where Poseidon had created two springs--one of them flowing with warm water, the other with cold. A pillar inscribed with the laws of Atlantis was located there as well, along with golden tablets bearing the texts of oaths and judgements. Assemblies were held there every fifth or sixth year, and bull sacrifices were conducted within the sacred precincts. Eventually, however. the people of Atlantis lapsed into decadence. Zeus has just resolved to chasten them when the dialogue ends, unfinished.

It is unclear whether Plato meant his Atlantis as straight history, allegory, political commentary, or something else entirely. Furthermore, even if we assume Plato to have been relating an authentic family tradition (Critias being his great-grandfather), we would then have to consider the reliability of Solon, his Egyptian informant, the translators, and possibly many other links in the chain of transmission who remain unknown to us. As it stands, the story is inherently implausible. No evidence of a high civilization from the tenth Millennium B.C. exists anywhere. as it should if trade had existed between Atlantis and the various Mediterranean peoples; and in any case Greece, was far too sparsely populated in this period to have led the defensive forces described in the Timaeus. Furthermore, the sudden disappearance of a continent-sized land-mass makes no sense in light of our present understanding of geology. One promising possibility is that the Platonic accounts of Atlantis represent a distorted memory of real historical events, but that the island's size and antiquity have been exaggerated by a factor of ten. On this reasoning, scholars have proposed a number of Bronze Age sites (e.g. Them Sicily. Crete) as the "real" Atlantis. My favorite theory sees the fall of Atlantis as a garbled account of the fall of Troy. (291)

For our purposes, the next important development of the Atlantis myth is Ignatius T. T. Donnelly's magnum opus, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882). Besides this work, Donnelly (18311901)also wrote The Great Cryptogram (1888)and The Cipher In the Plays and On the Tombstone (1899),which argue for the Baconian authorship of Shakespeare's plays; Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (1883),in which he traces the Ice Age to a catastrophic comet strike: and several futuristic utopian novels advocating such radical ideas as universal education and women's suffrage. One of these, Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century (1891),speculates about a Jewish plot to control world finance, and anticipates the invention of radio, television, and poison gas. Amazingly, Donnelly also served in the U.S. Congress (R-NN) between 1863 and 1871, where he took advantage of his Library of Congress privileges to do the research for his books. Later in life he even ran for vice president under the Middle Road Populist banner.

In Atlantis: The Antediluvian World.Donnelly accepts the Platonic accounts as historically true, but elaborates on them considerably. As the subtitle indicates, he believes that myths of a great flood from both sides of the Atlantic represent dim memories of the sinking of Atlantis. It was on Atlantis that human civilization first arose; and our legends of the Garden of Eden, the Elysian Fields, and other happy lands hearken back to this formative period in our past. Survivors of Atlantis peopled lands ranging from Egypt to Central America. According to Donnelly, this explains a host of pan-Atlantic cultural and linguistic similarities ranging from the observation that both sides have pyramids, to the fact that the root atl is related to water in both the old world (e.g., "Atlantic") and the new (chocolatl). The religion of Atlantis centered around sun-worship (Cayce agrees-cf. 4543-2). Our myths of gods and goddesses are often garbled stories of the kings, queens, and heroes of Atlantis. (Cayce follows the same euhemeristic principle 'in the context of his account of Ra Ta and Isris, better known as Ra and Isis).

After Donnelly, the next important development of the Atlantis myth came from Theosophy, which made the continent the birthplace of the fourth root-race. Apart from The Secret Doctrine, W. Scott-Elliot's The Story of Atlantis (1896)is the classic Theosophical treatment. Scott-Elliot states that Atlantean society achieved a high level of technology. including primitive airships propelled by a form of free energy called "vril" (a word taken from Bulwer-Lytton's novel, The Coming Race). (292) Cayce, too, credits Atlantis with flying machines (2437-1) and something like free energy (2124-3, 2562-1). Scott-Elliot also holds that prior to their destruction, the Atlanteans had misused their formidable psychic and occult knowledge. (293) Like Cayce, he describes Atlantean politics as centered around a rivalry between two factions, which was carried over into Egypt. (294) The pyramids, he says (like Cayce later), were halls of initiation built by Atlantean refugees. (295) Other refugees settled the Basque country, thereby accounting for the fact that the Basque language is unrelated to other European tongues.

Cayce's version of Atlantis is similar to Theosophy's. Civilization originated as the result of the cooperative efforts of archaic humans to defend themselves against
... enormous animals which overran the earth, but ice, the entity found, nature, God, changed the poles and the animals were destroyed, though man attempted it (destroying the animals] in that activity of the meetings. [5249-]
Dinosaur fossils had first been discovered in large numbers in England during the 1820's. and were finally recognized for what they were by Richard Owen in 1941 (who coined the term "dinosaur"). The fossils created quite a sensation--not only on their own merits, but also for their implications for traditional Christian conceptions of the history of the world.

According to the Cayce readings, the development of increasingly sophisticated weapons for use against the giant beasts inspired a prehistoric arms race, as humans began to turn these armaments against one another. Atlantis thereafter rose to great technological heights. rivaling the achievements of our own civilization:
...the entity dwelt among those where there was the storage, as it were, of the MOTIVATIVE forces 'in nature from the great crystals that so condensed the lights, the forms, the activities as to guide not only the ship upon the bosom of the sea but in the air and in many of those now known conveniences for man as in the transmission of the body, as in the transmission of the voice, as in the recording of those activities in what is soon to become a practical thing in so creating the vibrations as to make for television-as termed in the present. [813-1]
The reader will recall that Cayce's generation saw numerous scientific and technological advances. including the invention of the typewriter, electric light, cash register, automobile, dirigible, sewing machine, phonograph, radio, telephone, airplane, motion picture camera, and the modern bicycle, to name only a dozen of the most familiar. Cayce's Atlantis reflects the technological advances as well as the social turmoil of his times.

As Atlantean society grew more and more decadent, it became increasingly polarized between two competing factions, the Sons of the Law of One (the good guys) and the Sons of Belial (the bad guys). The Law of One is difficult to pin down, but is apparently related to the Shema ("Hear O Israel…"). For Cayce, the Law of One extends beyond the mere recognition of monotheism to an awareness of the unity of all forces (262-52), all life (262-32), and all experience (3581-1). As corollaries it commands inner unity of purpose (1770-2), recognition of the brotherhood of man (900-429), and even monogamy (826-6). Interestingly, Oliver's A Dweller On Two Planets (1899) refers to the Law of One in connection with Atlantis. (296) Although the context does not make it clear exactly what the Law of One is, elsewhere that book refers to the One Energy or One Substance. (297)

The phrase "Sons of Belial" is found in the Bible (e.g. Deuteronomy 13:13). Cayce's Atlantean group by that name
... had no standard, save of self. self-aggrandizement.... [But others believed] that the soul was given by the Creator or entered from outside sources NTO the projection of the IMENTAL and spiritual self at the given periods. THAT was the standard of the Law of One, but was REJECTED by the Sons of Belial. [877-26]
Theosophical lore sometimes refers to an order of evil Masters which Blavatsky- calls the "'Brotherhood of the Shadow'-the murderers of their souls, the dread Dad-Dugpa clan." (298) The Brotherhood of the Shadow functions as a kind of counterweight to the Great White Brotherhood-where the latter attempts to aid spiritual aspirants. the former tries to misdirect them down the path of Spiritualism and tantra. Outside of Theosophy, other possible sources of inspiration for the two groups are the Faithists and Uzians from the Oahspe Gospel. as well as the Nephites and Lamanites from the Book of Mormon. (299)

The dispute between the Sons of the Law of One and the Sons of Belial centered on the status of
...automatons, or THINGS, that were retained by individuals or groups to do the labors of a household, or to cultivate the fields or the like, or to perform the activities of artisans or the like. And these were those activities through which much of the disturbing forces grew to be factors to be reckoned with. between the Children of the Law of One and the Sons of Belial.
[1928-2]
These enslaved creatures were not robot-, but the offspring of humans and animals referred to earlier. The parallel with American slavery should be obvious. 

The conflict between the two factions escalated until Atlantis was tom apart. literally as well as figuratively.
With the continued disregard of those who were keeping the pure race and the pure peoples ... man brought in the destructive forces as used for the peoples that were to be the rule, that combined with those natural resources of the gases, of the electrical forces, made in nature and natural form the first of the eruptions that awoke from the depth of the slow cooling earth, and that portion now near what would be termed the Sargasso Sea first went into the depths. With this there again came that egress of peoples.... Hence we find in various portions of the world even in the present day, some form of that as WAS presented by those peoples in THAT great DEVELOPMENT in this. the Eden of the world. [363-4]
According to Cayce, Atlantis actually sank in stages, Poseidia being one of the portions to disappear. This is the Atlantis recorded by Plato, he says. Naming an island for Poseidon is a natural move given that god's prominent role in the Critias. In fact, the name "Poseidonis" is found in Leadbeater, Scott-Elliot, as well as Oliver. (300)

For Cayce, Atlantis is of more than merely academic significance. First. with the coming geological cataclysms, parts of Atlantis are due to rise again from the ocean: "And Poseidia will be among the first portions of Atlantis to rise again. Expect it in sixty-eight or sixty-nine--not so far away!" (958-3). Second, large numbers of Atlanteans are presently reincamating. since their former misuse of technology required them to be reborn in a world where they could face the same choices again, and perhaps make better decisions this time around (364-1).

The idea of a Pacific counterpart of Atlantis originated with Ernst Haeckel, who hypothesized that lemurs might have migrated from mainland Asia to the various islands of the Malay Archipelago by means of a landbridge, thereby accounting for their widespread distribution. This hypothetical landmass was whimsically dubbed "Lemuria" by his colleague, P.L. Sclater. Sclater's joke goes largely unappreciated by modem readers--it alludes to the fact that before "lemur" came to be used for the diminutive primate by that name, the word referred to the zombie-like wraiths of popular Roman religion who had to be propitiated through special festivals in their honor, called Lemuria. Haekel eventually changed his mind about the need to invoke such a landbridge, but by then the idea--and name--of Lemuria had become popularized by Augustus le Plongeon (who made the connection with Central America), by Theosophy (which made it the home of the third root-race), and later by James Churchward (1852-1936) in his five Mu books. While "Mu" might appear to simply be a contraction of "Lemuria," le Plongeon traces it to one Queen Moo of the Yucatan.(301)

Cayce refers to Lemuria or Mu (the latter being one of three island remnants of the former in his usage), but does not give us very much detail. According to the readings, at least some of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel made it to the New World--not over the Atlantic, as one might expect, but by way of Lemuria, in the Pacific:
The joining in the activities there were for the attempts to establish with those peoples that had been a portion of the lost or strayed tribe that came across from Lemuria; as well as with those that came from the lands of bondage by the Persians and those that were later called the Indo-Chinans--or those peoples from the mountain who raided the Indian land. There the entity aided in establishing a new unison of activity, in what would now be called the Arizona land- [1434-1]
The idea of tracing the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel to the New World dates at least back to the Spanish conquistadores (e.g. Diego de Landa, Bishop of Yucatan); however, the source most likely to have influenced Cayce is the Book of Mormon. Like Cayce. the Book of Mormon asserts that the Lost Ten Tribes sailed to America by way of the Pacific, not the Atlantic. Led by the prophet Lehi, these hardy souls first made a caravan journey to the Indian Ocean. then sailed for the west coast of North America (I Nephi 16-18). While the Book of Mormon does not mention Lemuria, the notion of an eastward journey from Palestine to America is too bizarre a detail to be attributed to chance.

In several readings (e.g. 5750- 1), Cayce refers to a land called "Oz" or "Og", which he locates in the vicinity of Peru during the Atlantean period. Like Mu, Oz is described as one of three island remnants of Lemuria, and its name represents more than an occasion for humor.

Lyman Frank Baum, a Theosophist, published his fourteen Oz books over the first few decades of the twentieth century, beginning with The Wizard of Oz (1900).A theatrical version of The Wizard of Oz premiered in 1902 and was quite successful. The film version starring Judy Garland came out in 1938, riding a wave of popularity generated by the theatrical tours. While Cayce does not say much about Oz, the flavor of Baum's novels curiously resembles Cayce's account of Atlantis and Lemuria-human/animathybrids, fabulous cities in a strange hidden realm, magical battles between good and evil, and so on. Devlin points out that just as Cayce named Oz and Mu as neighboring civilizations, so did Baum in Scarecrow of Oz say the same of Oz and Mo. (302)

D. Predynastic Egypt

Popular European interest in Egyptology in modem times was initially sparked by scholars and artists associated with the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt (1798-1801). The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, and deciphered in the 1820's by Jean-Francois Champollion. By the late nineteenth century, a number of museums in Europe and the United States boasted collections of Egyptian artifacts. Wallis-Budge published a number of works during this period, of which the most widely-read was his translation of The Book of Going Forth By Day under the apparently more marketable title, The Egyptian Book of the Dead (1897). Fake papyri bearing Egyptian heiroglyphics drawn from this text were widely available in nineteenth-century America, as were patent medicines made firorn mummy cloth. The discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 attracted considerable public interest--not only in the historical, and artistic value of the find, but also in legends to the effect that its discovers had incurred a curse upon themselves for disturbing "King Tut." Freemasons, Mormons. and Theosophists were particularly enchanted with Egyptian lore. whose antiquity and prestige they sought to claim for their own esoteric traditions.

Cayce joins Donnelly and Scott-Elliot in having refugees from the sinking of Atlantis settle ancient Egypt, Central America, and other places in the area:
... in the Atlantean land, during those periods particularly when there was the exodus from Atlantis owing to the foretelling or foreordination of those activities which were bringing about the destructive forces. There we find the entity was among those who were not only in what is now known as the Yucatan land. but also the Pyrenees and the Egyptian. [1859-1]
Naturally, the peoples who were already living in those places resisted this influx. Matters were not helped by the fact that the Sons of Belial tended to regard native populations as being similar in status to the "automatons" or "things" they had brought with them from Atlantis (281-43). And so, the Sons of the Law of One and the Sons of Belial carried their conflict to new battlegrounds.

In Egypt, a religious leader named Ra Ta (one of Cayce's previous incarnations) managed to negotiate a political settlement between the Atlantean refugees and the native Egyptians (294-148). (Ra Ta was neither an Atlantean nor a native Egyptian, but had led a previous group of invaders from the Caucasus.) In addition, he addressed the problem of humans with animal appendages by establishing two temples, the Temple of Sacrifice and the Temple Beautiful. The former was a place of physical healing, as these beings had feathers, body hair, tails, claws, and other animal protuberances removed (294-8). The latter was devoted to spiritual healing by means of music, dance, and light (281-25). Other temples which were eventually constructed include the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of Records, and the Temple of Initiation.

Being a follower of the Law of One, Ra Ta tried do away with the native Egyptian custom of housing men and women in separate lodges (with mating arranged by decree of the royal household), and replace it with state-legislated monogamy. Unfortunately, despite his beliefs, he found himself unable to adhere to the standard he had set. When a dancer named Isris (Gertrude Cayce) became pregnant with his child Iso (Gladys Davis), the result was political turmoil, with Ra Ta forced into exile by the Sons of Belial (294-149). "Richard Roche" and Stephan A. Schwartz both point out the similarities between the Ra Ta story and the myth of Isis. Osiris, and Horus from Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride (chs. 12-19), with Cayce's rebellious Prince Ralij of Ibex standing in for Typhon or Set. Schwartz additionally names Herodotus and Solon as sources, and Roche points to Diodorus Siculus's account of Dionysius.(303)

After many misadventures, Ra. Ta eventually returned to power. He then commissioned a mysterious figure named Hermes to build a monument which would record the accumulated wisdom of his culture--the Great Pyramid:
In the information as respecting the pyramids and their purpose in the experience of the peoples, in the period when there was the rebuilding of the priest during the return in the land, some 10,500 years before the coming of Christ into the land, there was first that attempt to restore and add to that which had already been begun on what is called the Sphinx, and the treasure or storehouse facing same, between this and the Nile, in which those records were kept by Arart and Araaraat in the period.

Then, with Hermes and Ra ... there began the building of that now called Gizeh ... that was to be the hall of the initiates of that sometimes referred to as the White Brotherhood....

In this same Pyramid did the Great Initiate. the Master, take those last of the Brotherhood degrees with John, the forerunner of Him, at that place. As is indicated in that period where entrance is shown to that land that was set apart, as that promised to that peculiar peoples, as were rejected--as is shown in that portion when there is a turning back from raising up of Xerxes, as the deliverer from an unknown tongue or land, and again is there seen that this occurs in the entrance of the Messiah in this period-1998. [5748-5]
The idea that occult initiations were conducted somewhere in the vicinity of Giza is an old Theosophical one. Leadbeater names Tehutui or Thoth. "called Hermes," as the architect of the Great Pyramid. (304) For Leadbeater, what appears on the surface to be animal worship actually conceals profound esoteric mysteries, as in the Book of the Dead. The ancient Egyptians, he says. developed levels of lesser and greater mysteries corresponding to those of modem Freemasonry. Cayce appears to have taken the part about Jesus' initiation from the Aquarian Gospel (see. XI) or its derivative in H. Spencer Lewis. (305) Lewis even anticipates Cayce's references to a doorway between the paws of the Sphinx leading to subterranean passages. (306) Roche (1975: 44) points out that the ideas of tunnels under the Sphinx is found in Iamblichus, who connects them with the Egyptian mysteries.

In Cayce's account, Ra Ta (appropriately enough, a Caucasian) is said to have had white skin. blond hair, and blue eyes. While this description is unlikely from the point of view of conventional Egyptology, the notion that white people were present in ancient Egypt is confirmed by Spalding, who credits them with the glories of Egyptian civilization. Modern readers can hardly avoid noticing that Spalding has the unfortunate habit of linking spiritual purity with lightness of skin complexion. Consider the following:
These people [the ancient Egyptians] were the pure white race and were always known as the Israelites, of whom the Hebrew race is a division. Thoth ruled wisely and attempted to maintain the Osirian teachings but, after his day, the dark and material concept crept in, as the Egyptian or dark hordes from the south. who had swept him into power, gained sway. The succeeding dynasties fell away from Osirian teachings. gradually took up the dark concept of the dark race, and finally practiced black magic entirely. (307)
Cayce, for his part, hails the period of Ra Ta as one of a "change of the race to become--and is now--the white. Hence, as Ra Ta means and indicates, among--or the first PURE white in the experience then of the earth..." (294-147). H. Spencer Lewis agrees that the ancient Egyptians were Aryans, and argues based on Matthew 4:15 ("Galilee of the Gentiles") that Galileans were Aryans as well, in order to claim Jesus as a member of the Aryan race. (308)

Cayce claims that the structure of the Great Pyramid records--or prophesies--every significant spiritual event throughout history:
All changes that came in the religious thought in the world are shown there, in the variations in which the passage through same is reached, from the base to the top--or to the open tomb AND the top. These are signified both by the layer and the color in what direction the turn is made. [5748-5]
The notion of "pyramid prophecy" can be traced back to the writings of John Taylor. author of The Great Pyramid.- Why Was It Built and Who Built It? (1859); and Charles Piazzi Smyth, author of Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid (1877). According to Smyth, it would be wrong to interpret the Great Pyramid as the work of heathens-" We find in all its finished parts not a vestige of heathenism, nor the smallest indulgence in anything approaching to idolatry." he writes.(309) Instead, the Great Pyramid is a repository for the divine wisdom of the ages. Three "keys" provide a sort of Rosette Stone capable of translating the Pyramid's geometry into spiritual truths: mathematics, natural science, and the Bible. For example, we learn that the ratio of the pyramid's height to twice one of the base segments equals I : 3.14159 ... ; that the pyramid stands at the geometric center of the world's land mass; and that the various twists and turns in the Great Hall record all the great spiritual events in history from the seven days of creation to the birth of Christ and on to the end of time, which was scheduled to occur sometime between 1881 and 1944. All calculations are based on something called the pyramid inch, which according to Smyth must be assumed since it is the only unit of measurement capable of revealing all these exact geometrical correspondences. Skeptics point to the impossibility of reconstructing the exact dimensions of the Great Pyramid once Napoleon's soldiers stripped it of its limestone casing.

A multitude of later pyramidologists continued ideas begun by Taylor and Smyth. Cayce is asked about a work entitled The Great Pyramid by D. Davidson and H. Aldersmith. which he evaluates as follows: "Many of these that have been taken as deductions are correct. Many are far overdrawn. Only an inititate may understand" (5748-5). The work in question centers around predictions of the coming "period of chaos" (expected to last between 1928 and 1936) followed by a period of "judgement" (1936 to 1953). Cayce too speaks of such periods, with 1936 being one of several turning points mentioned.