Namely, Blavatsky used both terms to mark the whole human population on Earth in a certain period as different to all previous and following humans (races/civilizations). The basic idea is that living beings had not evolved to become to humankind, but instead, humankind was the first divine creation to be gifted with intelligence. The history of humankind’s civilization was not one of continuous progress leading to us, contemporary humans as the peak of the progress. Previous civilizations went to ruins, retrogressing to degenerate civilizations four times prior to ours, the fifth one. Blavatsky saw the first ancient sin of humankind in evil, endless wars, destructions and in misused psychic energy gifted by the divine. Karmic punishment was the confiscation of this psychic energy. The yet-to-be-perfected fifth civilization was thus deprived of the most powerful of humankind’s divine gifts, which had made humankind of the third and fourth civilizations god-like: it lost its connection to the universal information space. The main part of the article is dedicated to a detailed analysis of Blavatsky’s understanding of the creation of humankind and the phases in its development. The author analysed not only the creation of the world and paradise/golden age, apocalypses, but also communication with upper civilizations and similarities with theory of evolution. Blavatsky’s Anthropogenesis is a high quality piece of literature, which also possesses the capacity to connect people of various beliefs.
Keywords: Helena Blavatsky, anthropogenesis, five human races, ancient humankind sin, lost paradise, retrogression of humankind, diminishing of human powers, the third eye, loss of psychic energy