(10) The writer above quoted from, says of the civilization of Atlantis: "The civilization of Atlantis was remarkable, and its people attained heights which seem almost incredible to even those familiar with the highest achievements of man of our own times. The Chosen Ones preserved from the cataclysm which destroyed Lemuria, and who lived to a remarkably old age, had stored up within their minds the wisdom and learning of the civilization which had been destroyed, and they thus gave the Atlanteans an enormous advantage at the start. They soon attained great advancement along all the lines of human endeavor. They perfected mechanical inventions and appliances, reaching far ahead of even our present attainments. In the field of electricity especially they reached the stages that our present race will reach not sooner than two or three hundred years from now. Along the line of occult attainment their progress was far beyond the dreams of the average man of our own race, and in fact from this arose one of the causes of their downfall, for they prostituted the power to base and selfish uses, and practiced black magic. And so the decline of Atlantis began. But the end did not come at once, or suddenly—it was gradual. The continent, and the surrounding islands gradually sunk beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, the process occupying 10,000 years. The Greeks and the Romans of our own cycle had traditions regarding the sinking of the continent, but their knowledge referred only to the disappearance of the small remainder—certain islands—the continent itself having disappeared thousands of years before their time. It is recorded that the Egyptian priests had traditions that the continent itself had disappeared nine thousand years before their time." As in the case of the Chosen Ones of Lemuria, so was it with the Elect Ones of Atlantis who were taken away from the doomed land some time prior to its destruction. These advanced individuals of the race left their Atlantean homes and "led by the spirit" migrated to portions of what are now known as South America and Central America, then but islands of the sea. These people left the traces of their civilization in these lands, and our scientists discovering these wonders greatly at the evidences of the high culture shown in them. When the Fifth Race appeared, these brave and advanced souls became the teachers of the new race, and were afterwards remembered as "gods," and the heroes of mythology. The Fifth Race evolved rapidly, owing to the urge of the souls of the Atlanteans pressing forward for reembodiment, and human forms were born to supply the demand, the fertility of the new race being marked.

(9) A writer says of the character of the civilization of Lemuria: "Life in Lemuria is described as being principally concerned with the physical senses and sensual enjoyment, only a few developed souls having broken through the fetters of materiality and reached the beginnings of the mental and spiritual planes of life. Some few indeed made great progress and were saved from the general wreck in order to become the leaven which would lighten the mass of mankind during the next great cycle. These developed souls were the teachers of the new races, and were looked upon by the latter as gods and supernatural beings, and legends and traditions concerning them are still existent among the ancient peoples of our present day. Many of the myths of the ancient peoples arose in this way. The traditions are that just prior to the great cataclysm which destroyed the people of the Third Race, there was a body of the Chosen Ones which migrated from Lemuria to certain islands of the sea which are now part of the main land of India. These people formed the nucleus of the Occult Teachers of Lemuria, and they kept alight the Flame of Truth with which was lighted the torches of the Fourth Race—the Race of the Atlanteans." With the passing away of Lemuria—the home of the Third Race—there arose from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean the future home of the people of the Fourth Race—the continent of Atlantis. Atlantis was situated in the space now occupied by a portion of the Atlantic Ocean, beginning at what is now known as the Caribbean Sea, and extending over to the region now known as Africa. What we now know as Cuba and the West Indies were the highest points of the continent of Atlantis, the lower portions being now buried beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

(25) Critias: and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your warriors was swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island created as it settled down.” You have now heard, Socrates, in brief outline, the account given by the elder Critias of what he heard from Solon;

(25) Critias: over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvellous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent; and, moreover,

(9) The Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians is believed by those best informed to have been built up gradually, carefully, and slowly, by the old occult masters and adepts, from the scattered fragments of the esoteric teachings which were treasured by the wise men of all races. The legend runs that these fragments of the Secret Doctrine were the scattered portions of the old esoteric teaching of ancient Atlantis—the bits of the great mass of the Atlantean occult teachings which were scattered in all directions by the great cataclysm which had destroyed that great continent. The few survivors of the Atlantean civilization carefully preserved these Fragments of Truth, and passed them on to their chosen students and capable descendants.

(12) Special attention has been given to this chapter by Mr. Goodwin ( Zeitschr. , 1873, p. 104), and by M. Lefébure ( Mélanges D’Arch. , 1874, p. 155), whose work is very much more valuable than that of his English colleague. But the most important study bearing on the relations between the older and the more recent recension is that of M. Naville, ‘Un ostrakon égyptien,’ in the first volume of the Annales du Musée Guimet

(10) The old Masters who made it the object of their lives to gather together once more these scattered fragments, and to thus reconstruct the Occult Doctrine of the Atlanteans, found a portion of their material in Egypt, in India., in Persia, in Chaldea, in Medea, in China, in Assyria, and in Ancient Greece, and also in the mystic records of the Hebrews, such as the Kaballah and the Zohar. The common source, however, may be regarded as distinctly Oriental. The great philosophies of the East, in fact, may be said to have been built upon the base of these still more ancient teachings. Moreover, the great Grecian Secret Teachings are believed to have been based upon knowledge obtained from this same common source. So, at the last, the Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians may be said to be the Secret Doctrine of Atlantis, transmitted through the descendants of the people of that great centre of occult knowledge.

(68) Attamus saith: Know, O all ye investigators of this Art, that our work, of which ye have been inquiring, is produced by the generation of the sea, by which and with which, after God, the work is completed! ‘Take, therefore, Halsut and old sea stones, and boil with coals until they become white. Then extinguish in white vinegar. If 24. ounces thereof have been boiled, let the heat be extinguished with a third part of the vinegar, that is, 8 ounces; pound with white vinegar, and cook in the sun and black earth for 42 days. But the second work is performed from the tenth day of the month of September to the tenth day [or grade] of Libra. Do not impose the vinegar a second time in this work, but leave the same to be cooked until all its vinegar be dried up and it becomes a fixed earth, like Egyptian earth. And the fact that one work is congealed more quickly and another more slowly, arises from the diversity of cooking. But if the place where it is cooked be humid and dewy it is congealed more quickly, while if it be dry it is congealed more slowly.

(20) The two chapters which are numbered by M. Naville as 136 A and 136 B are represented in the later recensions by a single chapter, which has been made out of them. There is very much obscurity in the ancient texts, though the MSS. containing them are numerous, and the more recent versions are quite as difficult to understand. We must be satisfied for the present by a strict literal and grammatical translation, wherever this amount of success is attainable. The royal sarcophagus 32 of the British Museum gives the latest form of 136 A

(59) Timaeus: owing to its having large interstices within it,—this particular kind of the bright and solid waters, being compounded thus, is termed “bronze.” And the portion of earth that is mixed therewith becomes distinct by itself, when both grow old and separate again-each from the other; and then it is named “rust.” And the rest of such phenomena it is no longer difficult to explain in full, if one aims at framing a description that is probable. For as regards this, whenever for the sake of recreation a man lays aside arguments concerning eternal Realities and considers probable accounts of Becoming,

(8) The text which has been followed in the translation of this chapter is that of the Royal Tombs of Rameses IV and Rameses VI, called by M. Naville Chapter 127 A . The lost Busca papyrus, of which Lepsius had a tracing, furnishes a different text, (127 B ), and the text of the Turin Todtenbuch has been enlarged by means of numerous interpolations. M. Naville has called attention to the close relationship between this chapter and the second part of the “Solar Litany.”

(9) Note 1. Tombeau de Seti I. (Musée Guimet, Vol. IX, Plate 34