Scott-Elliot, William

William Scott-Elliot (1849–1919) was a theosophist and amateur anthropologist who elaborated Helena Blavatsky's concept of root races in several publications, most notably The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904), later combined in 1925 into a single volume called The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria. Scott-Elliot's works elaborated the claims of fellow theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater who said he received knowledge about ancient Atlantis and Lemuria from the Theosophical Masters by "astral clairvoyance."

Scott-Elliot located Lemuria in the Pacific Ocean, claiming that it was a gigantic landmass that eventually sank, leaving only small islands. According to Scott-Elliot, the Lemurians were around fifteen feet tall, with brown skins and flat faces, no foreheads and prominent jaws. They could see sideways like birds, and could walk backwards and forwards with equal ease. They reproduced with eggs, but interbred with animals to produce ape-like human ancestors. After the demise of Lemuria, new races emerged on Atlantis from the surviving ape-like creatures. This led to the Atlantean races, beginning with the black skinned "Rmoahal" and leading to the "copper coloured" Tlavatli, who were ancestor-worshippers, and then the "Toltecs", who had advanced technology including "airships". The Toltecs were succeeded by "First Turanians" and then "Original Semites". These later produced further sub-races, the Akkadians and Mongolians. A group of Akkadians migrated to Britain 100,000 years ago, where they built Stonehenge. Scott-Elliot also claimed that Atlantis split into two linked islands, one called Daitya, and the other Ruta. Eventually only a remnant of Ruta remained, called Poseidonis, before that too disappeared.