Table of Contents
Man: Whence, How and Whither
In Man: Whence, How and Whither (1913), Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater describe the history of Egypt as they say they saw it by clairvoyance. The dates and events below come from that book, mainly from its appendix on the Aryanisation of Egypt. They are Theosophical claims, not findings of archaeology.
As we know, in due time the prophecy was fulfilled, and in the year 9564 B. C. the island of Poseidonis sank beneath the Atlantic. The effect of the cataclysm on the rest of the world was of the most serious character, and for the land of Egypt it was specially ruinous.
Man: Whence, How and Whither, Besant and Leadbeater, 1913, archive.org scan, p. 504
The book dates the sinking of Poseidonis to 9564 B.C. and calls its effect on Egypt ruinous.
The Emigration of 79,797 B.C.
The book places the first event in 79,797 B.C., which it notes is “usually called that of 80,000 B.C.” The Manu wanted to withdraw the white sub-race from the influence of the Dark Ruler. He called them to the coast and sent them by ship through the Sahara Sea.
The fleet had thirty ships. The largest was no more than about 500 tons, and three were cutter-like vessels carrying only provisions. Each voyage carried about 2,900 people to the eastern end of the Sahara Sea, and the voyage was made three times. The group, about 9,000 men, women and children, then went east on foot, by the south of Egypt, to the high plateau of Arabia. They brought animals that looked “like a cross between a buffalo and an elephant with something of the pig”, which they ate only when other food ran short.
At that time, the book says, a Toltec civilisation ruled Egypt. Its ruler tried to bribe the emigrants to stay. Some stayed in Lower Egypt and later became slaves of the Toltecs. The rest reached Arabia by the route of today’s Suez Canal.
The book adds that the Atlanteans had conquered Egypt and built the pyramids, on which Cheops later put his name. When a flood swamped Egypt about 77,000 years ago, people tried to climb the pyramids but slipped on their smooth sides. After the flood came a negroid domination, another Atlantean empire, and then the Aryan one of 13,500 B.C.
The Aryanisation of Egypt, 13,500 B.C.
Around 13,500 B.C., VIRAJ ruled the South Indian Empire with his wife BRHASPATI. The Manu appeared to him astrally and told him to send their son MARS to Egypt by way of Ceylon.
VIRAJ obeyed, and MARS departed upon his long journey, taking with him (according to the instructions received) a band of young men and women, of whom twelve are recognisable : Ajax, Betelgueuse, Deneb, Leo, Perseus and Theodoros among the men, and Arcturus, Canopus, Olympia, VULCAN, Pallas and Osiris among the ladies.
Man: Whence, How and Whither, Besant and Leadbeater, 1913, archive.org scan, p. 502
Mars set out for Egypt with twelve named young men and women.
Egypt was then under Toltec rule. The Pharaoh JUPITER had one child, his daughter SATURN. In a vision, the MAHAGURU told the High Priest SURYA to welcome the strangers and to advise the Pharaoh to give his daughter to MARS in marriage, which he did. Marriages into the Egyptian nobility were soon arranged for the others. According to the book, the mix produced the type with Aryan features and Toltec colouring known from Egyptian monuments.
Not everyone agreed. Clio and Markab were among the statesmen who opposed the Aryan immigration and plotted against it. Their wives, Adrona and Avelledo, were part of the plots. All four were exiled, and so was Cancer, Adrona’s sister.
The Clan, the Exile and the Sinking of Poseidonis
For more than a thousand years a clan claiming descent from MARS and SATURN ruled Egypt. Then a Pharaoh married a foreign princess who turned him from the old traditions. The clan kept apart from then on and married only among themselves.
After nearly four thousand years, prophets in the clan warned that the corrupt civilisations of Egypt and Poseidonis would be destroyed. The clan left Egypt, crossed the Red Sea and took refuge in the mountains of Arabia.
When Poseidonis sank in 9564 B.C., the bed of the Sahara Sea rose, a tidal wave swept over Egypt, and almost the whole population died. The western sea became a salt swamp that later dried into desert. Only the pyramids remained. For another account of the island, see Poseidonis – W. Scott-Elliot. For more on this land, see The Sahara: Fertile Land and Inland Sea.
The Return to Egypt
The desolation lasted fifteen hundred years before the clan returned from Arabia, by then a great nation. In the meantime other peoples had moved in. Citing Flinders Petrie, the book lists five of them:
- An aquiline people of the Libyo-Amorite type, who held out longest
- A Hittite people with curly hair and plaited beards
- Mountaineers with pointed noses and long pigtails, wearing long, thick robes
- A people with short, tilted noses in central Egypt
- A related people with longer noses and projecting beards, in the marshland near the Mediterranean
Probably earlier than all of them, it adds, there was a “savage negroid race from the interior of Africa” that left almost no record.
The clan settled in Upper Egypt with its capital at Abydos, and over time became the ruling power, more by absorbing other peoples than by fighting them.
Mars and Menes
A thousand years after the clan’s return, in what the book calls the twenty-first life of Alcyone, MARS reigns over a well-organised empire. Fourteen hundred years later, the Manu himself, whose name the book says was corrupted to Menes, unites all Egypt, founds the First Dynasty and builds Memphis. See also Account of Menes.
The appendix says its own date for this reunification, “though not yet verified with perfect exactitude”, falls within a few years of 5,510 B.C., the date then favoured by “the most distinguished living Egyptologist” for the start of the First Dynasty.
Timeline
| Date (as given in the book) | Event |
|---|---|
| 79,797 B.C. | The Manu leads the emigration from the Sahara Sea to Arabia |
| About 77,000 years ago | Flood in Egypt; the Atlantean civilisation there ends |
| About 13,500 B.C. | MARS arrives in Egypt and marries SATURN |
| After nearly 4,000 years | The clan leaves Egypt for Arabia |
| 9564 B.C. | Poseidonis sinks; a tidal wave sweeps over Egypt |
| 1,500 years later | The clan returns and settles at Abydos |
| 1,000 years after the return | MARS reigns (21st life of Alcyone) |
| 1,400 years later, about 5,510 B.C. | Menes unites Egypt and founds Memphis |
See the site timeline for other dates.
