Talk:Root race

Using the term "Negroes"

African "Negroes"? Is that term still used in the 21st century? I thought that all blacks stopped being called negroes and coloreds in the 20th century?|mpa|

It's a term used in The Secret Doctrine, which was written in the 19th century. The passage is a quotation. Anyway, since negro is just Spanish for "black" it's difficult to see why the English word is fine, but the Spanish one with identical meaning isn't. Paul B 21:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

About the errors

Interesting read. Great Science Fiction.

All anthropology textbooks and papers everywhere totally debunk this. Sorry.

Errors in the time intervals, defining the Root Races.

In this article are used two methods for defining the time intervals for the five Root Races. The first method is a reference to the geological Epoch (shown in a chart in the same article). The second method is in Millions of Years. The problem is that the two methods do not match. For example: "... The first root-race is claimed to have originated 130 to 150 million years ago in the Silurian or Devonian periods ...". This can not be true, because the charts below show that the Silurian period started 445 million years ago, and Devonian period ended 360 million yrs ago. "... The second root-race (Hyperborean) is claimed to have originated in the late Carboniferous or in the Permian, and ended in the late Triassic or early Jurassic ... (some 25 to 30 million years ago)". The chart, shown later in the text shows Jurassic ending 150 million years ago!!!

The same errors can be found in the time definitions for the rest of the Root races. These discrepancies have to be fixed, but I am not competent enough to do this.

I found that the errors, listed above are coming from some “occult scientists”, publishing on the internet. My problem with these people is that they demonstrate complete disregard for the readers and publish obvious nonsense under the umbrella of secrecy. Instead of admitting openly that they don’t know something, they claim that it is a “secret, available to initiates only”, so anything goes.

Regards, Boris Spasov, email redacted

• I think what's going on is that Theosophy was developed in the nineteenth century, before radiometric dating was discovered; so Blavatsky had to guess at the lengths of the epochs. Evidently she guessed wrong... 04:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe that this crackpot article was really written in a serious and scholarly tone.Taharqa 01:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, i wouldn't be so sure: remember the discoveries of the recent expedition launched to the Article pole (2004):

"North Pole was once subtropical: An international scientific team which has been drilling beneath the bed of the Arctic Ocean says it enjoyed a sub-tropical climate 55 million years ago." [1]. They further stated: "The early history of the Arctic Basin will be re-evaluated based on the scientific results collected on this expedition."

Now, compare to what is described in this Wiki article about the Hyperborian epoch:

"The second, Hyperborean continent is presumed to have comprised the regions around the north pole in the arctic circle, including Greenland, Spitzbergen, Scandinavia, and northern Asia." (they also say elsewhere [2]: "The ever-blooming lands of the Second Continent (Greenland, among others) were transformed, in order, from Edens with their eternal spring (...)".

This is told to have happened 25 to 30 million years ago in the Theosophical dates, which are about half shorter than the Scientific geological dates: the Age of the Earth is seen as being 2 billion years in Theosophy against 4,5 from Science; this would put the Hyperborian 'eternal spring' epoch in north pole at about 55 million years ago when converting to the current geological dates (in agreement with the 'sub-tropical climate' at those times found by the mentioned drilling in the Artic).

Now, imagine what it would reveal further scientific drilling into the ocean bed in other locations of the planet, as deemed necessary by a few top scientists, in order to verify the validity of current Plate tectonics theory (a theory based on mere assumptions: where is the asthenosphere as a single continuous zone in order to make possible the movement of lithospheric plates over long distances, as single rigid bodies, as assumed by current Plate tectonics theory? It is absent! [Pavlenkova, N. I. (1990). Crustal and upper mantle structure and plate tectonics. In Barto-Kyriakidis, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 73-86]):

"We are surprised and concerned for the objectivity and honesty of science that such data can be overlooked or ignored. ... There is a vast need for future Ocean Drilling Program initiatives to drill below the base of the basaltic ocean floor crust to confirm the real composition of what is currently designated oceanic crust." Dickins, J. M., Choi, D. R., & Yeates, A. N. (1992). Past distribution of oceans and continents. In Chatterjee & Hotton, 1992, pp. 193-199

Cheers. --Lusitanian 18:39, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

As I have pointed out in my rewrite of the article, scientists in the late 19th and early 20th century thought that the age of Earth was only about 200,000,000 years (because they had not yet used radioactive dating); thus the Theosophical dates for the geological epochs were consistent with the geological science of the late 19th and early 20th century. The description of how humans evolved, however, is completely out of synch both with the science of then and of now. Keraunos (talk) 21:11, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Problems with the image showing the plate boundaries

The plate boundaries are supposed to be the dashed lines, right? There's one going straight through South America in a NE--SW direction. That's the middle of a Continental shield; there is no geological fault in that direction. Rather, there should be a line coasting the Western edge of South America (along the Andes).

Also, the icosahedron does not have pentagonal faces, like the central region surrounding Africa. That's the dodecahedron. However, the other faces are triangular, like an icosahedron. The inescapable conclusion is that the lines, even if they did match with actual plate boundaries, don't describe any kind of regular polihedron. Can anyone conversant in this material enlighten me on this? --Wtrmute 20:21, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

"Root races" in theosophy - "Earth epochs" in anthroposophy

I have removed the statement "In his writings, Rudolf Steiner often uses the term Cultural Epoch instead of Root Race to describe similar spans of time" from the article.

In the development of anthroposophy, separate from theosophy, Steiner replaced the theosophical concept "root race" not with "cultural epoch" but with the geocentric term "Earth epochs". It refers to the stages in the development of our present solar system from beginning to end. In anthroposophy, "cultural epoch" refers to the periods after the glacial ages, that in theosophy are (mis)described in racial terms as "subraces of the Aryan Root Race". See also here. Thebee (talk) 13:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

So why did you remove the sentence instead of changing it? You've just said that it refers to "to the periods after the glacial ages, that in theosophy are (mis)described in racial terms as "subraces of the Aryan Root Race"". Leaving aside the question of whether one or other version of these supposed phases is a "misdescription", you seem to be saying that Steiner replaced the term Root Races with Earth Epochs and that Cultural Epochs refers to Blavatsky's concept of sub-races of the Aryans, which seems to be what the sentence you deleted was trying to get at, albeit less precisely. Paul B (talk) 14:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I see that the identical sentence appears lower down in the article. I've rewitten that one and left the lede one out. Paul B (talk) 16:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Lack of third-party sourcing

Most of this article is sourced to The Solar System, by Arthur E. Powell, a Theosophist, with most of the remainder sourced to Blavatsky and other Theosophist sources. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 09:35, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Merge article

Theres no third party reliable sources for the Root race idea outside of Theosophist sources. I suggest that this article should be merged into the Blavatsky article, where the concept of root races is already discussed. GreenUniverse (talk) 03:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. It is a doctrine of the religious/spiritual belief system of theosophy, which is historically significant in the religious history of the world. I am sure one can find non-Theosophist or anti-Theosophist sources which mention this concept. We have articles on the individual doctrines of various religious, spiritual, political systems; of course, one will not find sources outside those systems asserting the truth of their doctrines, but you will find outside sources which discuss them neutrally or criticise them. SJK (talk) 09:17, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Heresy

Why this is strictly heresy. Why use the term Aryan for the fifth root race? That is insulting. I am a Jew. Aren't the Theosophists aware of the Nazi connotations involved? Anonymous173.74.57.205 (talk) 21:37, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

That term has very different connotations within Theosophy. Unfortunately certain groups have appropriated these terms and ideas (such as how certain eastern and Nordic symbols have been appropriated by the same groups). "Aryan" in the Theosophical sense means essentially "Homosapien". These Theosophical ideas pre-date Nazism by almost 70 years. Valgrus Thunderaxe (talk) 22:05, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

The term heresy only makes sense in the context of a particular religious movement - heresy for whom? I think this idea is a reflection of the prevalent racism of the period in which it originated - prior to Nazism. And Theosophy and Nazism do have their points of interconnection. SJK (talk) 09:29, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Removal of {{in-universe}} tag

I removed the {{in-universe}} tag from this article since it is not appropriate on an article about people's religious, philosophical or political beliefs. You are entirely entitled to believe their beliefs are fictional, but {{in-universe}} should be reserved for conscious works of fiction, not for real beliefs of others, however wrong those beliefs are. I take it the point was that this article should be more critical of the concept of "root race", which is a fair criticism - one can easily criticize it as lacking in factual scientific or historical basis, as being an expression of racist attitudes, etc. But this tag is not the right tag to use for that. SJK (talk) 09:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

@Wing gundam: – in this edit you put this tag back despite it not being appropriate. I have removed it again per reasoning above. SJK (talk) 11:18, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@SJK: – Those reasons don't apply here. The point isn't that it's religious/philosophical/political, or that anyone even purportedly disagrees with it. The point of {{in-universe}} here is that the article's text and explanation presumes the particular religious/philosophical/political theory to be true. It would be like writing the Ragnarök article as a confirmed prediction of the future, rather than as a component of the Norse religion. This article currently has this bias, and it must be communicated to the user. {{in-universe}} marks this, albeit in an imperfect way since it's normally used for conscious works of fiction. But rather than just reverting it over and over, you should instead seek to replace it with a more appropriate template if you feel it isn't.—wing gundam 19:18, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Root Race Theory's Connections with Nazism and Hitler's Ideologies

Hello,

I believe we should work on compiling a section of this article which explains Adolf Hitler's Thule Society being Theosophical, outright completely... and also we should cite and expound upon the ways in which this ideology, particularly the fifth 'current' 'root race' influenced Adolf Hitler as a person and his National Socialist "Nazi" party which came out of the Thule Society.

Christopher N. Crepon73.253.154.161 (talk) 16:00, 22 November 2016 (UTC)