Book excerpt: Seismic disturbance is the physical sign of disturbance in the moral, psychic, and mental fields. Earthquakes, floods, and social upheavals presage a new order of things for the human race — the rule of the strong hand in the shape of bureaucratic despotism, and military intimidation with global reach. Earthquakes are dreadful but they can be avoided when their probable place is known. But social earthquakes and moral pestilence go with man where he goes, and cannot be averted by any alteration of place. So, do your duty where you find yourself and, if from your goodness you are a favourite of gods, you will escape; if not, it is better to die and take another chance at building up your character in a future life. As solid Earth began as a ball of liquid fire, so did man. At the beginning of every new Round, the earth casts off her old skins as the serpent does his skin to be born again. Her Seven Skins stand for the seven geological changes which accompany and correspond to the evolution of the Seven Root-Races of humanity. The human races that succeed each other are separated by large-scale change in the earth’s surface and rapid continental subsidence. Violent minor cataclysms and colossal earthquakes are etched in the annals of most nations. Elevation and subsidence of continents continue as we speak. The Himalayas, the Alps, and the American Cordillera were depositions drifted to the bottom of the seas and then upheaved by Titanic forces to their present elevation. Earth is convulsed each time that it reawakens for a new period of activity, like a field which has to be ploughed and furrowed before fresh seed for its new crop is thrown into it. At last, the form of the gigantic Ape-Man of the former Round has been reproduced in this one by human bestiality and transfigured into the parent form in the modern Anthropoid. The old astrologers and mathematicians predicted natural disasters with far more precision and correctness, than their modern counterparts. Modern buildings may tumble into the street, but much of the ancient monuments remain intact. The “wonders” of our age are the nightmares of the times, where philosophicules pour out modern wisdom as milk, and curdle it like cheese.