The teaching of the Secret Doctrine divides the period during which human evolution proceeds upon this globe into seven periods.  During the first three-and-a-half of these, the ethereal humanity who appeared in the First Race gradually become material in form, and the psychic spirituality of the inner man is transformed into intellectuality.  During the remaining three-and-a-half periods, there is a gradual dematerialization of form; the inner man by slow degrees rises from mere brain intellection to a more perfected spiritual consciousness.  We are told that there are correspondences between the early and later periods of evolution; the old conditions are repeated, but upon higher planes; we re-achieve the old spirituality with added wisdom and intellectual power.  Looked at in this way we shall find that the Seventh Race corresponds to the first; the Sixth to the Second; and the Fifth Race (which is ours) corresponds with the Third.  “We are now approaching a time,” says the Secret Doctrine, “when the pendulum of evolution will direct its swing decidedly upward, bringing humanity back on a parallel line with the primitive Third Root Race in spirituality.”  That is, there will be existing on the earth, about the close of Fifth Race, conditions in some way corresponding with those prevailing when the Third Race men began their evolution.  Through this period may be yet distant hundreds of thousands of years, still it is of interest to forecast that future as far as may be, for the future is concealed in the present, and is the outcome of forces working to-day.  We may find out from this enquiry the true nature of movements like the Theosophical Society.

One of the most interesting passages in the Secret Doctrine is that which describes the early Third Race.  “It was not a Race, this progeny.  It was at first a wondrous Being, called the ’Initiator,” and after him a group of semi-divine and semi-human beings.”  Without at all attempting to explain the real nature of this mysterious Being or Race, we may assume that one of the things hinted at is the consciousness of united being possessed by these ancient Adepts.  Walking abroad over the earth as instructors of a less progressed humanity, their wisdom and power had a common root.  They taught truth from a heart-perception of life, ever fresh and eternal, everywhere pervading nature and welling up in themselves.  This heart-perception is the consciousness of unity of inner being.  The pendulum of evolution which in its upward swing will bring humanity backwards on a parallel line with the primitive Third Root Race, should bring back something corresponding to this primeval hierarchy of divine sages.  We should see at the end of the Kaliyuga a new brotherhood formed from those who have risen out of material life and aims, who have conquered self, who have been purified by suffering, who have acquired strength and wisdom, and who have wakened up to the old magical perception of their unity in true Being.  “At the end of the Kali, our present age, Vishnu, or the “Everlasting King,’ will appear as Kalki, and establish righteousness upon earth.  The minds of those who live at that time shall be awakened and become pellucid as crystal.”  —­(Secret Doctrine, II, 483)