The Most Ancient Lost World of All
Long, reportedly millions of years, before Atlantis rose as a supremely advanced empire, there was Lemuria. Nobody knows what the place was actually originally called, or indeed the name of the people who lived there. But it is described as a vast tropical continent stretching all the way from Madagascar across the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, and that was home to the earliest forms of humanity.
In occult tradition Lemuria is also referenced a lot, as it is/was considered to be both paradise and a warning of a catastrophe. It was the cradle of life and the people that lived there had very advanced technology and powers to almost rival, if not surpass, the Gods themselves. From the sober 19th-century science expeditions and quests to locate the lands of Lemuria, to Helena Blavatsky's visions of 15-foot tall giants who laid eggs(!?), to the Tamil legends of a submerged homeland older than recorded time.
The story of Lemuria remains one of the most haunting lost-continent stories ever told. Oh, I almost forgot... Atlantis and Lemuria went to war with each other and unleashed a level of destruction surpassing all the wars mankind has waged in the last 6,000 years combined.
A Continent Born from Lemurs
The name Lemuria first appeared in 1864 when British zoologist Philip Lutley Sclater puzzled over identical lemur fossils in Madagascar and India – separated by thousands of miles of ocean with no trace in Africa.
"The anomalies... can be explained by assuming that Madagascar and India were once part of a larger continent, which I propose to call Lemuria."
– Philip Sclater, Quarterly Journal of Science, 1864
German biologist Ernst Haeckel took it further, suggesting Lemuria as the cradle of mankind.
"Lemuria, now sunk below the Indian Ocean, was the probable cradle of the human race."
– Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation, 1876
By the 1880s, maps showed a massive land bridge connecting Africa, India, Australia, and Polynesia.
Blavatsky's Vision: The Third Root Race
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy, transformed Lemuria from zoology into esoteric history in her monumental The Secret Doctrine (1888). Claiming access to ancient Akashic records, she described Lemuria as the home of the Third Root Race, the first truly Human beings after ethereal First and Second Races.
"The Lemurians were gigantic (14-15 feet tall), egg-laying, hermaphroditic beings with four arms in early stages... They had soft, malleable bones and sideways vision from an eye in the back of the head."
– Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine
Late Lemurians separated sexes, discovered physical love, and built stone cities. Some interbred with animals, producing ape-like offspring (explaining Darwin's "missing link"). Over time some of the best Lemurians migrated to Atlantis, in doing so they became the Fourth Root Race.
The Atlantis-Lemuria War and Catastrophe
In the vast timeline of Theosophical esoteric history, no chapter burns brighter or darker than the prolonged conflict between the declining Lemurian civilization and the rising power of Atlantis. This was not a war of swords and armies alone, but a cosmic struggle of wills, or the ultimate dick-waving contest if you will. Psychic battles, black sorcery, moral corruption and karmic retribution that ultimately triggered the fiery submersion of Lemuria and set the stage for Atlantis' own eventual doom.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, in her monumental The Secret Doctrine (1888), lays the foundation. She describes how the later sub-races of the Third Root Race (Lemurians) fell into grave moral decay, practicing unspeakable black magic and perverting natural laws.
"In consequence of this [black magic], war was declared, the story of which would be too long to narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured allegories of the race of Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his righteous family. The conflict came to an end by the submersion of Atlantis."
– Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine Vol. 2
Though Blavatsky focuses more on Atlantis' fall, she hints that similar forces operated earlier in Lemuria, where advanced Lemurians misused their psychic powers, interbreeding with lower beings and delving into forbidden arts. The most vivid accounts come from William Scott-Elliot, whose works The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904), informed by Charles Webster Leadbeater's clairvoyant investigations, paint a dramatic picture of escalating strife as the Fourth Root Race (Atlanteans) began to dominate. Scott-Elliot explains that toward the end of Lemuria's existence, its sixth and seventh sub-races had become deeply corrupted. Powerful sorcerers wielded tremendous psychic forces, but for selfish and destructive ends. Meanwhile, the more spiritually inclined Lemurians migrated northward, seeding the early Atlantean race on emerging lands.
"The black magicians of the sixth and seventh sub-races... engaged in constant warfare with the more advanced communities."
– William Scott-Elliot, The Lost Lemuria
As Atlantean power grew, open conflict erupted. Early Atlanteans, guided by divine kings and Adepts, viewed the remaining Lemurian strongholds as threats, bastions of dark sorcery that endangered the evolution of humanity. The war was multidimensional: physical skirmishes on surviving islands, but primarily psychic and magical attacks were unleashed. Lemurian sorcerers reportedly summoned living elemental forces, unleashed volcanic fury prematurely, and projected astral attacks on a constant basis. Atlantean initiates countered with higher white magic, protective barriers, and karmic invocations. These attacks from both side continued to escalate.
The turning point came when Lemurian black magicians overreached, disturbing planetary balances. Massive volcanic chains erupted prematurely across the continent. Scott-Elliot describes series of cataclysms: fire from below, massive tsunami's rushing in, entire landmasses fracturing and sinking.
"The continent was submerged in a series of catastrophes involving fire from below and water from above... The final destruction was terrific."
– William Scott-Elliot, The Lost Lemuria
Survivors fled to Australia, Easter Island, and Madagascar, remnants that preserved diluted Lemurian bloodlines. The best of the race had already transitioned to Atlantis, carrying forward their immense spiritual and technological knowledge.
This war's karma echoed into Atlantis itself, where it is said similar hubris and sorcery led to its own destruction millions of years later. Theosophy teaches these cycles as lessons in spiritual evolution, the fall of old races making way for new. Whether psychic apocalypse or symbolic allegory, the Atlantis-Lemuria war remains one of occult history's most dramatic chapters, a reminder that great power without wisdom invites catastrophe, no matter how "advanced" the people of the time are.
Other remnants of Lemuria are said to have survived on islands like Australia and Easter Island, influencing aboriginal cultures. They might still be there today.
Kumari Kandam: The Tamil Connection
In South India, ancient Tamil Sangam literature speaks of vast lands south of Kanyakumari swallowed by the sea. 20th-century researchers identified this "Kumari Kandam" with Lemuria, a 1,000-mile-wide homeland where the first two Sangam academies flourished before floods destroyed them.
Legends claim 49 countries, rivers like Pahruli and Kumari, and cities like Tenmadurai were lost. Modern bathymetric maps show submerged ridges in the Indian Ocean, fueling speculation.
Maps Through the Ages
From Sclater's modest land bridge to Scott-Elliot's enormous continent stretching from Easter Island to Madagascar, visions varied wildly. Some included California and New Zealand as mountain peaks of Lemuria.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1864 | Sclater coins "Lemuria" |
| 1870s | Haeckel proposes human origins there |
| 1888 | Blavatsky publishes The Secret Doctrine |
| 1904 | Scott-Elliot's detailed maps and war accounts |
| 20th Century | Tamil revival links to Kumari Kandam |
| 1960s onward | Plate tectonics debunks sunken continent |
Sources
- Philip Sclater – Original papers
- Ernst Haeckel – The History of Creation
- Helena Blavatsky – The Secret Doctrine (1888)
- William Scott-Elliot – The Lost Lemuria (1904)
- Tamil Sangam literature and Kumari Kandam texts
Final Verdict
THE MOST ANCIENT LOST WORLD OF ALL. Science gave Lemuria a name to solve a zoological puzzle. Blavatsky gave it giants, eggs, and apocalyptic psychic wars. Tamil poets gave it rivers and academies swallowed by the sea. Whether land bridge, occult paradise, or submerged homeland, the idea of Lemuria lives on. I choose to believe "Lemuria" really did exist at one point, and then was indeed lost in a cataclysmic event. After all, modern humans (anatomically modern humans) that are essentially physically indistinguishable from people today, have existed for at least 300,000 years. In the last 125 years alone we've went from "Man will never be able to fly" to Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have now entered interstellar space. We've went from the first enourmous computers that filled HUGE rooms (ENIAC), to having computers on our desks that are not millions, not billions, but literally TRILLIONS of times more powerful. And now we're close to created a brand new life-form in AGI. You really going to tell me with a straight face that for 294,000 years we sat around and done nothing? Come on now.