User:Llerro/The Lost Lemuria
The Lost Lemuria[edit]
The Lost Lemuria is a pseudoscientific book written in 1904 by William Scott-Elliot.[1] The book was based on theosophical concepts found in The Secret Doctrine (1888), by Helena Blavatsky mainly root races and the titular Lemuria. Scott-Elliot wrote this book after publishing The Story of Atlantis (1896)[2] and the two were later published in single volume titled The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria (1925).[3]
In The Lost Lemuria, Scott-Elliot, a Theosophist and member of the Theosophical Society attempts to prove that the continent, an example of a lost land, once existed and that it harbored an ancient race called Lemurians.
Geographical Evidence[edit]
Scott-Elliot claims that Lemuria was a continent that was once located in the northern portion of the Indian Ocean. The ancient land connected the continents and countries that bordered it, such as East Africa, India, and West Asia. According to him, Lemuria's disappearance was caused by volcanism that destroyed the continent and caused it to be submerged under the ocean. Scott-Elliot compares this to the destruction of Atlantis.
The evidence provided for Lemuria's existence are the fossil records of the surrounding landmasses and geographical evidence based on the dated theory of periodic elevation and depression of Earth's crust.
Fossil Records[edit]
The Lost Lemuria cites the similarity of many fossils found in East Africa and India to prove that an ancient continent once connected the two landmasses.
Scott-Elliot cites a paper written by Henry Francis Blanford in order to provide scientific evidence for his line of thinking. The paper was presented by Blanford to the Geological Society of his time.
The affinities between the fossils of both animals and plants of the Beaufort group of Africa and those of the Indian Panchets and Kathmis are such as to suggest the former existence of a land connexion between the two areas.[4]
While the similarities of ancient plants might have seemed like definitive evidence for the existence of Lemuria when he was writing, the concepts of plate tectonics and continental drift had not yet being accepted by most geologists of the time.[5]
Continental drift is the current explanation for the similarities among fossils in East Africa and India, as the two landmasses were connected directly in the past and not through another continent.
Crust Elevation and Depression[edit]
At the time Scott-Elliot was writing in early 1900s, the prevailing theory of the creation and changes of continents was through expansions and contractions caused by the Earth going through phases of heating and cooling.[6] The Lost Lemuria also subscribes to this belief, as it helps prove the existence of Lemuria.
His book discusses how coral atolls and archipelagos such as the Maldives, are evidence of submerged mountain ranges that are part of a much larger undersea continent. Scott-Elliot provides the island of Madagascar as evidence for this claim, as the animals endemic to the island are so vastly different from the animals of the nearby Africa and India that it was thought it must have been part of some other continent. Madagascar is also home to a variety of species of Lemurs, which were the original inspiration for the name of Lemuria.
The Lost Lemuria also uses some geological evidence to strengthen its claims. It points out how the composition of granite and metamorphic rock present in North India and Sri Lanka are considerably different than the rest of South Asia. Scott-Elliot uses this as evidence that South India and Sri Lanka were at one point bordered by a northern sea and part of a large southern continent.
The Lemurian Race[edit]
The discussion of the Lemurian race in The Lost Lemuria is tied heavily with the concept of root races that originated in The Secret Doctrine. In that scenario, the Lemurian race was the Third Root Race of humanity that existed 34.5 million years ago. The Lemurians were asserted to have lived among dinosaurs and had the ability to make tools.
Description of the Lemurians[edit]
The Lemurians are described in great detail in The Lost Lemuria, covering the anatomy and sexual reproduction of the race.
Lemurian Anatomy[edit]
When Lemurians first evolved from the Second Root Race, they had a soft-bone structure, with similar plasticity of human infants.
Lemurians had two eyes at the front of their head and a third at the back. The two frontal eyes were normal, but the third eye was special in that it was central to both the Lemurians' physical and spiritual sight. Lemurians could also walk backwards with great proficiency, which the book attributes to their third eye but also their uniquely projected heels.
Scott-Elliot provides a detailed description of the bodies of a Lemurian:
His stature was gigantic, somewhere between twelve and fifteen feet. His skin was very dark, being of a yellowish brown colour. He had a long lower jaw, a strangely flattened face, eyes small but piercing and set curiously far apart, so that he could see sideways as well as in front, while the eye at the back of the head -on which part of the head no hair, of course, grew enabled him to see in that direction also. He had no forehead, but there seemed to be a roll of flesh where it should have been. The head sloped backwards and upwards in a rather curious way. The arms and legs (especially the former) were longer in proportion than ours, and could not be perfectly straightened either at elbows or knees ; the hands and feet were enormous, and the heels projected backwards in an ungainly way.[7]
Sexual Reproduction[edit]
When the Lemurians first evolved from the Second Root Race, they were basically sexless beings. It was only through gradual evolution and the creation of new sub-races were the Lemurians able to evolve into hermaphrodites, and then gonochoric beings.
Lemurian Evolution[edit]
The Lost Lemuria discusses the changes the Lemurians underwent when they were the dominant race. The soft-bone structure they originally had was replaced with a hard-bone structure similar to those of modern humans. The two frontal eyes replaced the third eye as the primary source of physical sight, but the third eye kept its exclusivity to psychic vision. Only when the Lemurians evolved to become gonochoric, did they begin to resemble human beings.
Discussion of Root Races[edit]
Scott-Elliot discusses Lemurians in the context of supposed root races. He claims that descendants of the Lemurian race still exist today, with descendants being Aboriginal Australians and the Indigenous people of the Andaman Islands and Tierra del Fuego as well as some indigenous tribes of India and Africa.
Scott-Elliot claims the Chinese language evolved from ancient Lemurian speech, claiming it is more "primitive" than what he considers to have been higher-developed Aryan languages.
Sstatements proclaiming the physical and spiritual superiority of the Lemurian and Aryan races have been identified as a form of racism and, in the case of the Aryan race, white supremacy.
References[edit]
- ^ Scott-Elliot, William (1904). The Lost Lemuria. London: Theosophical Publishing Society.
- ^ Scott-Elliot, William (1896). The Story of Atlantis. London: Thesophical Publishing Society.
- ^ Scott-Elliot, William (1925). The Story of Atlantis and The Lost Lemuria. London: Theosophical Publishing Society.
- ^ "Scott-Elliot 1904".p. 6.
- ^ "The Geological Society".
- ^ "Southern California Earthquake Center".
- ^ "Scott-Elliot 1904".p. 23.