The civilization of Atlantis was remarkable, and its people attained heights which seem almost incredible to even those who are familiar with the highest achievements of man in 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 races that had been destroyed, and they thus gave the Atlanteans an enormous starting-advantage.  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 races will reach in about two or three hundred years from now.  Along the lines 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 Black Magic.

And, so the decline of Atlantis began.  But the end did not come at once, or suddenly, but gradually.  The continent, and its surrounding islands gradually sank beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, the process occupying over 10,000 years.  The Greeks and 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 was the case with the Chosen Ones of Lemuria, so was it with the Elect of Atlantis, who were taken away from the doomed land some time prior to its destruction.  The few advanced people left their homes and migrated to portions of what are now South America and Central America, but which were then islands of the sea.  These people have left their traces of their civilization and works, which our antiquaries are discovering to-day.

When the Fifth Cycle dawned (our own cycle, remember) these brave and advanced souls acted as the race-teachers and became as “gods” to those who came afterward.  The races were very prolific, and multiplied very rapidly under the most favorable conditions.  The souls of the Atlanteans were pressing forward for embodiment, and human forms were born to supply the demand.  And now begins the history of our own Cycle—­the Fifth Cycle.

But before we begin a consideration of the Fifth Cycle, let us consider for a moment a few points about the laws operating to cause these great changes.