The Vril Society -
The first hint of the Vril Society’s existence was discovered in a scene that would not have been out of place in one of Dennis Wheatley’s occult thrillers.
The first hint of the Vril Society’s existence was discovered in a scene that would not have been out of place in one of Dennis Wheatley’s occult thrillers.
'On 25 April 1945', it is reported, 'a group of battle-weary Russian soldiers were making their cautious way through the shattered remnants of Berlin, mopping up the isolated pockets of German resistance that remained in the heart of the Third Reich.
The soldiers moved carefully from one wrecked building to another, in a state of constant readiness against the threat of ambush. In a ground-floor room of one blasted building, the soldiers made a surprising discovery.
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| Tibetan Swastika |
Lying in a circle on the floor were the bodies of six men, with a seventh corpse in the centre.
All were dressed in German military uniforms, and the dead man in the centre of the group was wearing a pair of bright green gloves. The Russians’ assumption that the bodies were those of soldiers was quickly dispelled when they realised that the dead men were all Orientals.
One of the Russians, who was from Mongolia, identified the men as Tibetans.
One of the Russians, who was from Mongolia, identified the men as Tibetans.
It was also evident to the Russian soldiers that the men had not died in battle but seemed to have committed suicide.'
Over the following week, hundreds more Tibetans were discovered in Berlin: some of them had clearly died in battle, while others had committed ritual suicide, like the ones discovered by the Russian unit.
Over the following week, hundreds more Tibetans were discovered in Berlin: some of them had clearly died in battle, while others had committed ritual suicide, like the ones discovered by the Russian unit.
What were Tibetans doing in Nazi Germany towards the end of the Second World War ?
THE VRIL
Maria Orsitsch
Not only was the 'Vril' a new form of energy, but it was also the force that the inner occult circle of the Thule Gesellschaft were so desperately trying to unleash upon the world, and which the 'Vril Society' were working with Adolf Hitler to achieve.
The idea of 'mutation and transformation' into a higher form of a 'god-man' was envisioned, through the 'Vril', in Buller-Lytton's 'The Coming Race'.
Lytton, himself, was an initiate of the 'Rosicrucians', and was well versed in the arcane-esoteric philosophies (and, of course, in the greatest advances in the sciences of his day).
Through his romantic works of fiction he expressed the conviction that there are beings endowed with superhuman powers.
These beings will supplant us, and bring about a formidable mutation in the elect of the human race.
THE VRIL
The Vril Force or Vril Energy was said to be derived from the 'Black Sun', - represented as a Swastika made up of Sig runes - which supposedly exists in the center of the Earth, giving light to the Vril-ya and putting out radiation in the form of Vril.
The term 'Schwarze Sonne' (Black Sun), also referred to as the 'Sonnenrad' ("Sun Wheel"), is a symbol of esoteric and occult significance.Its design is based on a sun wheel mosaic incorporated into a floor of Wewelsburg Castle during the Nazi era. It is also used in occult currents of Germanic neopaganism, and in Irminenschaft or Armanenschaft - inspired esotericism. The Vril Force or Vril Energy was said to be derived from the 'Black Sun', a big ball of "Prima Materia" which supposedly exists in the center of the Earth, giving light to the Vril-ya, and putting out radiation in the form of Vril. The Vril Society believed that Aryans were the actual biological ancestors of the Black Sun. This force was known to the ancients under many names, and it has been called 'Chi', 'Ojas', 'Vril', 'Astral Light', 'Odic Forces' and 'Orgone'.
In a discussion of the 28th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry - called Knight of the Sun or Prince Adept - Albert Pike said,
"There is in nature one most potent force, by means whereof a single man, who could possess himself of it, and should know how to direct it, could revolutionize and change the face of the world."This is the force that the inner occult circle of the Thule were so desperately trying to unleash upon the world, for which the 'Vril Society' had apparently groomed Adolf Hitler.
Vril is a substance first described in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1871 novel 'The Coming Race', which was later reprinted as 'Vril: The Power of the Coming Race'.
The novel is an early example of science fiction.
However, many early readers believed that its account of a superior subterranean master race, and the energy-form called "Vril" was accurate, to the extent that some theosophists accepted the book as truth.
However, many early readers believed that its account of a superior subterranean master race, and the energy-form called "Vril" was accurate, to the extent that some theosophists accepted the book as truth.
The Vril Race was originally published anonymously in late 1871, but Bulwer-Lytton was known to be the author.
Samuel Butler's 'Erewhon', ('Nowhere' - in reverse) was also published anonymously, in March 1872, and Butler suspected that its initial success was due to it being taken by many as a sequel by Bulwer-Lytton to 'The Coming Race'.
The uses of 'Vril' in the novel among the Vril-ya vary from an agent of destruction to a healing substance.
According to Zee, the daughter of the narrator's host, Vril can be changed into the mightiest agency over all types of matter, both animate and inanimate.
It can destroy like lightning or replenish life, heal, or cure.
It is used to rend ways through solid matter.
Its light is said to be steadier, softer and healthier than that from any flammable material.
It can also be used as a power source for animating mechanisms.
'Vril' can be harnessed by use of the 'Vril staff', or by mental concentration.
'Vril' can be harnessed by use of the 'Vril staff', or by mental concentration.
A 'Vril staff' is an object in the shape of a wand or a staff, which is used as a channel for 'Vril'.
It is also said that if an army met another army, and both had command of the 'Vril-force', both sides would be annihilated.
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2013 |
Considering Bulwer-Lytton's occult background, many commentators were convinced that the supposedly fictionalized 'Vril' was based on a real magical force.
Helena Blavatsky *** (see below and left), the founder of 'Theosophy', endorsed this view in her book 'Isis Unveiled' (1877) and again in 'Die Geheimlehre' (The Secret Doctrine - 1888).
In Blavatsky, the 'Vril power', and its attainment by a superhuman elite, are worked into a mystical doctrine of 'race'.
The racial ideas of Madame Blavatsky, concerning 'root races', and the emergence of a spiritually-developed type of human being (Aryan Man) in the Aquarian Age, were avidly accepted by the nineteenth-century German nationalists who mixed Theosophical occultism with anti-Semitism, and the doctrine of the racial supremacy of the Aryan or Indo-European peoples.
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2013 |
For more information about Theosophy and Madame Blavatsky
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In Willy Ley's article, "Pseudoscience in Naziland" in the science fiction magazine 'Astounding Science Fiction' he attempted to explain to his readers how National Socialism could have fallen on such a fertile ground in Germany.
He explained this with the high popularity of irrational convictions in Germany during the time.
Among other pseudo-scientific groups he mentions a very peculiar one:
"The next group was literally founded upon a novel. That group which I think called itself Wahrheitsgesellschaft - Society for Truth - and which was more or less localized in Berlin, devoted its spare time looking for Vril."
The article by Ley describes a 'perpetual motion generator' based on Vril, and is the main basis for the speculation that developed later.
The 'Society for Truth' that Ley describes was conducting 'research' on the existence of Vril.
The speculations surrounding the Third Reich 'wonder weapons' might support links to research to the existence and application possibilities of Vril, for example in the purported top secret and highly sensitive scientific technological device 'Die Glocke'.
Die Glocke (German for "The Bell") is a purported top secret Nazi scientific technological device, secret weapon, or Wunderwaffe.
It is associate with Nazi occultism and antigravity or free energy research.
Allegedly an experiment carried out by Third Reich scientists working for the SS in a German facility known as Der Riese near the Wenceslaus mine. Die Glocke is described as being a device "made out of a hard, heavy metal" approximately 9 feet wide and 12 to 15 feet high having a shape similar to that of a large bell. This device ostensibly contained two counter-rotating cylinders which would be "filled with a mercury-like substance - “Element 115". Additional substances said to be employed in the experiments, referred to as Leichtmetall (light metal), "included thorium and beryllium peroxides". Die Glocke emitted strong radiation when activated.
More precisely, the Luminous Lodge or Vril Society was a secret community of occultists in pre-Third Reich Berlin.
The 'Berlin Vril Society' was in fact a sort of inner circle of the Thule Society.
Whereas the related 'Thule Society' ended up focusing primarily upon materialistic and political agendas, the Vril Society put its attention on the 'Other Side', and 'etheric technology'.
Whereas the related 'Thule Society' ended up focusing primarily upon materialistic and political agendas, the Vril Society put its attention on the 'Other Side', and 'etheric technology'.
One important member was Karl Haushofer, and members included Alfred Rosenberg, Dr
Theodor Morrel, later the Führer's doctor, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering, and Hitler
himself.
It was also thought to be in close contact with the English group known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2013 |
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2013 |
The Vril Society in Germany believed that the Aryan race was a creation an Aeon, through the medium of the 'Black Sun' - which is represented as a form of Swastika, and had originated close to the Pliades star cluster, from a planet orbiting the star الدبران Aldaberan (which translates literally as "the follower" presumably because this bright star appears to follow the Pleiades, or "Seven Sisters" star cluster in the night sky).
The upshot of this belief was that the Aryans were originally aliens of divine origin - 'heaven born'.
And this information came from and young girl called Maria Orsitsch (see right), in cooperation with the occultist Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorf, the Gurdjeff disciple Karl Haushofer, the engineer and ace pilot Lothar Waiz, Prelate Gernot of the secret "Societas Templi Marcioni" (The Inheritors of the Knights Templar).
Maria Orsitsch
Maria Orsitsch was born in Vienna.
Her father was a Croatian, and her mother was a German, from Vienna.
Maria Orsitsch was the head of the 'Alldeutsche Gesellschaft für Metaphysik' (The All German Society for Metaphysics), founded in the early 20th century as a female circle of mediums who were involved in extraterrestrial telepathic contact.
The society was later renamed the ‘Gesellschaft der Frauen des Vril'.
In 1917 Maria Orsitsch is said to have made contact with extraterrestrial entities from Aldebaran with her female Vril circle.
At the end of September 1917 Sebottendorf met with members of the "Lords of the Black Stone" at the Untersberg to receive the power of the "Black Stone", after which the secret society was named.
At the end of September 1917 Sebottendorf met with members of the "Lords of the Black Stone" at the Untersberg to receive the power of the "Black Stone", after which the secret society was named.
In December 1919 a small circle of persons from the 'Thule Gesellschaft', the Vril Society and the DHvSS - Die Herren vom Schwarzen Stein (The Lords of the Black Stone DHvSS - said to be the true meaning of the use of the double sig rune SS), met in a specially rented forester’s lodge near Berchtesgaden, close to the home of Dietrich Eckart - (and here is the direct link with Hitler) and close to the Untersberg.
Take note : The Holy Grail ("Ghral" is holy stone, Persian-Arabic) was said to be a black-violet crystal or stone, half quartz, half amethyst, through which Higher Powers communicated with humanity. It has been speculated that such a stone was the essential power source of contained in the Ark of the Covenant - thus connecting up the Grail with the Ark.
They were accompanied by the medium Maria Orsic, and another medium only known as Sigrun.
Maria had mediumistically received transmission in a secret Templar script – a language unknown to her – with the technical data for the construction of a flying machine.
According to Vril documents, these telepathic messages also came from the solar system of Aldebaran, which is sixty-four light-years away in the constellation Taurus.
The Vril Society not only taught concentration exercises designed to awaken the forces of the 'Vril', their main goal was to achieve 'Raumflug' (Spaceflight) to reach Aldebaran.
To achieve this, the 'Vril Society' joined the 'Thule Gesellschaft' and the 'DHvSS Die Herren des schwarzen Steins' to fund an ambitious program involving an inter-dimensional flight machine, based on psychic revelations from the Aldebaran aliens.
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2016 |
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2016 |
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The idea of 'mutation and transformation' into a higher form of a 'god-man' was envisioned, through the 'Vril', in Buller-Lytton's 'The Coming Race'.
Lytton, himself, was an initiate of the 'Rosicrucians', and was well versed in the arcane-esoteric philosophies (and, of course, in the greatest advances in the sciences of his day).
Through his romantic works of fiction he expressed the conviction that there are beings endowed with superhuman powers.
These beings will supplant us, and bring about a formidable mutation in the elect of the human race.
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| 'The Coming Race' |
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| Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
Bulwer-Lytton was considered, in his lifetime, to be one of the greatest writers in the English language.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC (25 May 1803 – 18 January 1873), was an English politician, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of best-selling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune. Bulwer-Lytton is credited with the appellation for the Germans "Das Volk der Dichter und Denker", that is, the people of poets and thinkers.
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| Bovril Advertisment 1900 |
Bulwer-Lyton penned many other works, including 'The Coming Race' or 'Vril: The Power of the Coming Race' (1871), which drew heavily on his interest in the occult, and contributed to the birth of the science fiction genre. Its story of a subterranean race waiting to reclaim the surface of the Earth is an early science fiction theme. The book popularised the 'Hollow Earth Theory' and may have inspired Völkisch Aryan mysticism.His term "vril" lent its name to Bovril meat extract - Bovine Vril.
Unfortunately, Lyton's reputation for vanity, ostentation and eccentricity attracted a good deal of hostility from the press, and this has damaged his subsequent literary reputation to a disproportionate extent, with the result that today his books are extremely hard to find, and his work is seldom - if at all - taught in universities in the English-speaking world.
Throughout his career, Bulwer-Lytton wrote on many themes, including romance, politics, history, social satire, melodrama and the occult.
Throughout his career, Bulwer-Lytton wrote on many themes, including romance, politics, history, social satire, melodrama and the occult.
It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that he should have turned to the subject of Utopian science fiction with 'The Coming Race', published in 1871.
In this novel, the narrator, a traveller and adventurer of independent means, explores a mine in an unnamed location and discovers a vast subterranean world, inhabited by a superior race of humans called the Vril-ya. Once tenants of the Earth’s outer surface, the Vril-ya were forced to retreat underground by a natural catastrophe similar to the biblical Flood many thousands of years ago.Their technology is far in advance of anything to be found in the world of ordinary humanity, and is based on the application of a force known as ‘vril’.Befriended by a young female Vril-ya named Zee, the narrator asks about the nature of the vril force.Therewith Zee began to enter into an explanation of which I understood very little, for there is no word in any language I know which is an exact synonym for vril.I should call it electricity, except that it comprehends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which, in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as magnetism, galvanism etc.These people consider that in vril they have arrived at the unity in natural energetic agencies, which has been conjectured by many philosophers above ground, and which Faraday thus intimates under the more cautious term of correlation: ‘I have long held an opinion,’ says that illustrious experimentalist, ‘almost amounting to a conviction, in common, I believe, with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, into one another, and possess equivalents of power in their action.’According to Zee, all Vril-ya are trained in the application of vril, which can be used to control the physical world, including the minds and bodies of others, as well as to enhance the telepathic and telekinetic potentials of the human mind.
Michael Faraday
The vril force is most often applied through the use of a device known as the Vril Staff which, like the vril force itself, requires many years to master. (The narrator is not allowed to hold one, ‘for fear of some terrible accident occasioned by my ignorance of its use’.)The Vril Staff ‘is hollow, and has in the handle several stops, keys, or springs by which its force can be altered, modified, or directed - so that by one process it destroys, by another it heals - by one it can rend the rock, by another disperse the vapour - by one it affects bodies, by another it can exercise a certain influence over minds’.During his protracted stay in the subterranean realm, the narrator learns of the system of government by which the Vril-ya live.They are ruled by a single supreme magistrate who abdicates the position at the first sign of advancing age.Although their society is entirely free of crime or strife of any kind, they consider strength and force to be among the finest virtues, and the triumph of the strong over the weak to be in perfect accordance with Nature.Democracy and free institutions are, to them, merely the crude experiments of an immature culture.The government of the tribe of Vril-ya was apparently very complicated, - but really very simple.It was based upon a principle recognised in theory, though little carried out in practice, above ground - viz., that the object of all systems of philosophical thought tends to the attainment of unity, or the ascent through all intervening labyrinths to the simplicity of a single first cause or principle.Thus in politics, even republican writers have agreed that a benevolent autocracy would insure the best administration, if there were any guarantees for its continuance, or against its gradual abuse of the powers accorded to it.There was ... in this society nothing to induce any of its members to covet the cares of office. No honours, no insignia of higher rank were assigned to it.The supreme magistrate was not distinguished from the rest by superior habitation or revenue. On the other hand, the duties awarded to him were marvellously light and easy, requiring no preponderant degree of energy or intelligence.After a number of adventures in the subterranean world - and a great many conversations with its denizens - the narrator comes to the following conclusion regarding the ultimate origins of the fantastic Vril-ya race.'This people - though originally not only of our human race, but, as seems to me clear by the roots of their language, descended from the same ancestors as the great Aryan family, from which in varied streams has flowed the dominant civilisation of the world; and having, according to their myths and their history, passed through phases of society familiar to ourselves, - had yet now developed into a distinct species with which it was impossible that any community in the upper world could amalgamate:'And that if they ever emerged from these nether recesses into the light of day, they would, according to their own traditional persuasions of their ultimate destiny, destroy and replace our existent varieties of man.Although greatly impressed with the knowledge and accomplishments of the Vril-ya, the narrator is nevertheless terrified by their power and the ease with which they wield it, implying at one point that, should he have angered them at any time, they would have had no compunction in turning their Vril Staffs on him and reducing him to cinders.This uneasiness, coupled with his natural desire to return to the upper world and the life with which he is familiar, prompts the narrator to begin seeking a means of escape from the subterranean world of the Vril-ya.Aid comes in the unlikely form of Zee, who has fallen in love with him and has attempted to persuade him to stay, but who nevertheless understands that an unrequited love cannot result in happiness for either of them.It is she who leads him back to the mine shaft through which he first entered the realm of the Vril-ya. Upon his return home, the narrator begins to ponder the wonders he has beheld far below the surface of the Earth, and once again hints at the possible dreadful fate awaiting a blissfully unaware humanity at the hands of the ‘Coming Race’.In the final chapter, we read: 'The more I think of a people calmly developing, in regions excluded from our sight and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, powers surpassing our most disciplined modes and virtues to which our life, social and political, becomes antagonistic in proportion as our civilisation advances, - the more devoutly I pray that ages may yet elapse before there emerge into sunlight our inevitable destroyers.'
Vril Staff
It is an assumption of many occultists that 'The Coming Race' is fact disguised as fiction: that Bulwer-Lytton based his engaging novel on a genuine body of esoteric knowledge.
He was greatly interested in the Rosicrucians, the powerful occult society which arose in the sixteenth century, and which claimed to possess ancient wisdom, discovered in a secret underground chamber, regarding the ultimate secrets of the Universe.
There is some evidence that Bulwer- Lytton believed in the possibility of a subterranean world, for he wrote to his friend Hargrave Jennings in 1854:
‘So Rosenkreuz [the founder of the Rosicrucians] found his wisdom in a secret chamber. So will we all. There is much to be learned from the substrata of our planet.’
‘So Rosenkreuz [the founder of the Rosicrucians] found his wisdom in a secret chamber. So will we all. There is much to be learned from the substrata of our planet.’
Some writers, including Alec Maclellan, author of the fascinating book 'The Lost World of Agharti' (1996), have suggested that 'The Coming Race' revealed too much of the subterranean world and was, as a result, suppressed in the years following Bulwer-Lytton’s death in 1873.
Indeed, he describes the book as ‘one of the hardest to find of all books of mysticism’, and informs us of his own search for a copy, which for some years met with no success.
While doubtless an intriguing piece of stage-setting on Maclellan’s part, the rarity of the book can surely be accounted for by the unjust waning of Bulwer-Lytton’s posthumous literary reputation (mentioned earlier).
What is the connection between Bulwer-Lytton’s strange novel and the Third Reich ?
If there really was a large colony of Tibetan monks in Berlin in the 1940s, what were they doing there?
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| Dietrich Eckart |
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| Karl Haushofer |
It seems that the connection was none other than General/Professor Karl Haushofer (1869-1946) whose theories of Geopolitics gave rise to the concept of Lebensraum (living space), which Hitler maintained would be necessary to the continued dominance of the superior Aryan race and which he intended to take, primarily, from the Soviet Union.
Haushofer, along with Dietrich Eckart (1868-1923) - the journalist and playwright, who influenced Hitler by traiining him iin the occult sciences and, in addition, introduced him to influential social circles after the First World War - is frequently described as a practicing black magician, and probably the master magician of the National Socialist Party’.
Haushofer excelled at Munich University, where he began to develop his lifelong interest in the Far East.
After leaving university, he entered the German army, where his great intelligence ensured a rapid rise through the ranks.
His knowledge of the Far East earned him a posting as military attache in Japan.
Haushofer believed that the German people originated in Central Asia, and that it was the Indo-Germanic race which guaranteed the permanence, nobility and greatness of the world.
While in Japan, Haushofer was initiated into one of the most important secret Buddhist societies, and to have sworn, if he failed in his ‘mission’, to commit suicide in accordance with the time-honored ceremonial.
Haushofer was also a firm believer in the legend of Thule, the lost Aryan homeland in the far north, which had once been the center of an advanced civilization possessed of magical powers.
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| Thule Society |
Connecting this legend with the Thule Society, we can say that beings intermediate between Man and other intelligent beings from Beyond would place at the disposal of the Thule Society Initiates a reservoir of forces which could be drawn on to enable Germany to dominate the world again, and be the cradle of the coming race of Supermen, which would result from the mutations of the human species.
One day her legions would set out to annihilate everything that had stood in the way of the spiritual destiny of the Earth, and their leaders would be men who knew everything, deriving their strength from the very fountain-head of energy, and guided by the Great Ones of the Ancient World.
It would seem that it was under the influence of Eckart and Haushofer that the Thule Society took on its true character of a society of Initiates in communion with the Invisible, and became the magic center of the National Socialist movement.
After the end of the First World War, Haushofer returned to Munich, where he gained a doctorate from the university.
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| Arms of the Teutonic Knights |
He divided his time between teaching and writing and founded the 'Geopolitical Review', in which he published his ideas on Lebensraum, which could ‘both justify territorial conquest by evoking the colonizing of Slav lands by Teutonic knights in the Middle Ages and, emotively, conjure up notions of uniting in the Reich what came to be described as Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) scattered throughout eastern Europe’.
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| Hitler at Landsberg am Lech |
While incarcerated in the fortress of Landsberg am Lech, following the failure of the Munich Putsch in 1924, Adolf Hitler read and was influenced by Haushofer’s books on geopolitics (he had already been introduced to Haushofer by the professor’s student assistant, Rudolf Hess).
There is no doubt that Hitler occupied his time in Landsberg judiciously, reading widely in several fields, though not for the sake of education so much as to confirm and clarify his own preconceptions.
(He later said that Landsberg was his ‘university paid for by the state’).
There is no doubt that Hitler occupied his time in Landsberg judiciously, reading widely in several fields, though not for the sake of education so much as to confirm and clarify his own preconceptions.
(He later said that Landsberg was his ‘university paid for by the state’).
Haushofer visited Hitler every day in Landsberg, where he explained his geopolitical theories and described his travels through India in the early years of the century.
While in India, he had heard stories of a powerful civilization living beneath the Himalayas: Thirty or forty centuries ago in the region of Gobi there was a highly developed civilization.
As the result of a catastrophe, the Gobi was transformed into a desert, and the survivors emigrated, some going to the extreme North of Europe, and others towards the Caucasus.
The Scandinavian god Thor is supposed to have been one of the heroes of this migration.
Haushofer proclaimed the necessity of ‘a return to the sources’ of the human race - in other words, that it was necessary to conquer the whole of Eastern Europe, Turkestan, Pamir, Gobi and Tibet.
Haushofer proclaimed the necessity of ‘a return to the sources’ of the human race - in other words, that it was necessary to conquer the whole of Eastern Europe, Turkestan, Pamir, Gobi and Tibet.
These countries constituted, in his opinion, the central core, and whoever had control of them controlled the whole world.
After the cataclysm that destroyed the Gobi civilization, the survivors migrated to a vast cavern system beneath the Himalayas, where they split into two groups, one of which followed the path of spirituality, enlightenment and meditation while the other followed the path of violence and materialistic power.
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| Agartha |
The first of these centres was called Agartha, the other Shambhala
(These names have many different spellings: for Agartha, we use the simplest; for Shambhala, the spelling favoured by Orientalists.)
Among the many books Hitler read while languishing in Landsberg was Bulwer-Lytton’s 'The Coming Race' (see above), which, Haushofer informed him, was an essentially correct description of the race of Supermen living far beneath the surface of the Earth and corroborated much of what the professor had himself learned while travelling in Asia.
Bulwer- Lytton’s novel apparently galvanized Hitler’s imagination, and he ‘began to yearn for the day when he might establish for himself the actuality of the secret civilization beneath the snows of Tibet ...’
Bulwer- Lytton’s novel apparently galvanized Hitler’s imagination, and he ‘began to yearn for the day when he might establish for himself the actuality of the secret civilization beneath the snows of Tibet ...’
In the following year, 1925, the Vril Society (also known as the Luminous Lodge) was formed by a group of Berlin Rosicrucians including Karl Haushofer.
There is only one primary source of information on the Vril Society: Willy Ley, a German rocket engineer who fled to the United States in 1933 and followed a successful career writing popular science books.
The subterranean humanity may have been fiction, but the Vril was not.
Possibly it had enabled the British, who kept it as a State secret, to amass their colonial empire.
Such a group actually existed, they even got out the first issue of a magazine which was to proclaim their credo.
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| Rudolf Steiner |
This echoes Rudolf Steiner’s suggestion in 'Knowledge of Higher Worlds and Its Attainment'.
In addition Theosophists were themselves interested in the concept of the vril force, which bears some resemblance to Reichenbach’s Odic force, and to the Astral Light: a subtle form of energy said to surround the Earth, in which is preserved a record of every thought and action that has ever occurred.
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| Theosophical Seal |
These rumors doubtless gave rise to the famous legends about Hitler’s obsessive search for the entrances to the inner world.
The first expeditions were dispatched purely under the auspices of the Luminous Lodge, beginning in 1926, but later, after coming to power, Hitler took a more direct interest, overseeing the organization of the searches himself.
Hitler believed unequivocally that ‘certain representatives of the underground super-race were already abroad in the world’.
As Hitler is reported to have related 'The new man is among us. He is here! Now are you satisfied? I will tell you a secret. I have seen the vision of the new man - fearless and formidable. I shrank from him.’
Hitler also ordered a number of expeditions into German (Untersberg), Swiss and Italian mines to search for the entrances to the cavern cities of the Supermen.
The Untersberg is known to be inhabited by certain kinds of elemental spirits of Nature, some of which are good and benevolent, others of a wicked and malicious nature, and inimical to mankind; and there are innumerable tales circulating among the people in the neighborhood, telling about the doings of the gnomes, fairies, and giants, dwelling within caves and in gorgeous marble halls and grottoes filled with gold and precious stones that will turn into dead leaves and stones when seen in the light of day.
“Some of the friendly tribes come out of the Untersberg on certain occasions, and they are said to have sometimes associated with the inhabitants of our plane of existence, partaking in the dances and amusements of the peasants, and even taking stray children with them into the Untersberg; and, incredible as it may appear, it is even asserted by, “those who know” that marriages have taken place between citizens of our world and the inhabitants of the kingdom of gnomes. Of course it is well known that within the mysterious depths of the Untersberg there dwells the soul of a great emperor in his astral form.There, together with his retinue, he sleeps an enchanted sleep, waiting for the liberation of his country.Sometimes very suddenly, even on a clear summer day, clouds are seen to issue from the sides of the mountain; grotesquely-formed ghost-like mists arise from the caverns and precipices, crawling and gliding slowly upwards toward the top, and form on the neighboring peaks also, clouds of monstrous shapes and sometimes of gigantic proportions floating on, until the head of the Untersberg is surrounded by a surging sea of vapours growing dense and dark. Seldom included in historical analysis of the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler, is the spiritually mesmerizing impact of Mount Untersberg. Hitler’s first direct encounter took place in 1923, upon which date the future führer would describe his feelings, “It was so wonderful! A view of the Untersberg! Indescribable!”. While not specifically recorded, it is unlikely that the youthful Hitler would have been unaware of the writings of Franz Hartmann. A recent expedition (August 2008) into the gigantic cave-system under the mountain revealed that it goes down so far, that its lowest point had not been reached yet. The cave explorers had to return from their expedition without knowing how far down it goes.
Telescope at the Berghof And on the terrace Hitler installed the finest, very large terrestial telescopes (see left) so that he could observe the mysterious Untersberg in detail.According to a German newspaper report they had gone down 1056 meters before being forced to return at an abyss-like precipce. This had been accomplished by being able to pass an extremely narrow passageway that had been previously un-passable. They also discovered more than 800 new passageways and a lake in 930 meters depth.
Hitler is even said to have ordered research to be conducted into the life of Bulwer-Lytton, in an effort to determine whether the author himself had visited the realm of the Vril-ya.
 |
| Dr. Antonin Horak |
Dr Horak kept quiet about the discovery until 1965, when he published an account in the National Speleological Society News.
In his article, Dr Horak stated that he and two other Resistance fighters found the tunnel near the villages of Plavince and Lubocna (he is quite specific about the location: 49.2 degrees north, 20.7 degrees east).
Having just survived a skirmish with the Germans, the three men (one of whom was badly injured) asked a local peasant for help.
He led them to an underground grotto where they could hide and rest.
The peasant told the Resistance men that the cave contained pits, pockets of poison gas, and was also haunted, and warned them against venturing too far inside.
This they had no intention of doing, such was their weariness.
They attended to the wounds of their comrade and fell asleep.
The following day, Horak’s curiosity got the better of him and, while he waited for the injured man to recover enough strength to travel again, he decided to do a little exploring inside the cave.
Presently, he came to a section that was completely different from the rest of the cave. ‘Lighting some torches, I saw that I was in a spacious, curved, black shaft formed by cliff-like walls. The floor in the incline was a solid lime pavement.’
The tunnel stretched interminably into the distance.
Dr Horak decided to take a sample of the wall, but was unable to make any impression with his pickaxe.
Dr Horak decided to take a sample of the wall, but was unable to make any impression with his pickaxe.
He took his pistol and fired at the wall. ‘The bullet slammed into the substance of the walls with a deafening, fiery impact,’ he wrote. ‘Sparks flashed, there was a roaring sound, but not so much as a splinter fell from the substance. Only a small welt appeared, about the length of half my finger, which gave off a pungent smell.’
Dr Horak then returned to his comrades and told them about the apparently man-made tunnel. ‘I sat there by the fire speculating. How far did it reach into the rocks? I wondered. Who, or what, put it into the mountain? Was it man-made? And was it at last proof of the truth in legends - like Plato’s - of long-lost civilisations with magic technologies which our rationale cannot grasp or believe ?’
No one else, apparently, has explored this tunnel since Dr Horak in 1944.
The peasants who lived in the region obviously knew of its existence, but kept well away.
In addition to the stories of German mine expeditions in Central and Eastern Europe during the Second World War, occult writers have frequently made reference to the German Tibet Expeditions, allegedly an attempt to locate and make contact with a group of high lamas with access to fantastic power.
The American researcher Peter Levenda experienced skepticism with regard to the supposed Nazi-Tibet connection, until he began to search for references in the microfilmed records in the Captured German Documents Section of the National Archives in Washington, DC.
 |
| Emblem of the Ahnenerbe |
 |
| Dr Ernst Schafer |
He discovered a wealth of material, running to many hundreds of pages, dealing with the work of Dr Ernst Schafer of the Ahnenerbe.
These documents included Dr Schafer’s personal notebooks, his correspondence, clippings from several German newspapers, and his SS file, which describes an expedition to East and Central Tibet from 1934-1936, and the official SS-Tibet Expedition of 1938-1939 under his leadership.
As Levenda demonstrates, the expedition was not so much concerned with contacting Tibetan representatives of the subterranean super-race as with cataloging the flora and fauna of the region (an activity of little military value to the Third Reich, which accounts for the difficulty Schafer occasionally had in securing funding for his trips).
Born in Cologne on 14 March 1910 into a wealthy industrialist family, Ernst Schafer attended school in Heidelberg and Gottingen, and embarked on his first expedition to Tibet in 1930 under the auspices of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia when he was only twenty years old.
The following year, he joined the American Brooke Dolan expedition to Siberia, China and Tibet.
 |
| Emblem of the SS |
He became a member of the SS in mid-1933, finally reaching the rank of Sturmbannfuhrer in 1942.
In addition to being an SS officer, Schafer was also a respected scientist who published papers in various journals, such as the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
Schafer was ‘a man of many parts: one part SS officer and one part scholar, one part explorer and one part scientist: a 'National Socialist Indiana Jones’.
Schafer was also deeply interested in the religious and cultural practices of the Tibetans, including their sexuality. (Indeed, the members of the 1938-1939 expedition displayed a somewhat prurient fascination with intimate practices: the film-maker Ernst Krause, for instance, took great care to record his observation of a fifteen-year-old Lanchung girl masturbating on a bridge beam.)
 |
| Schafer's Group in Tibet |
Schafer noted height and weight, the shape of hands and feet, the color and shape of eyes, and even took plaster casts of Tibetans’ faces.
At first sight, it might seem strange in the extreme that the architects of the Third Reich would be interested in a region that many consider to be the spiritual center of the world; until, that is, we remember that, according to Thulean mythology, this center was once the Aryan homeland in the Arctic, and was displaced with the fall of Atlantis around 10,800 BC.
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| Shambhala |
Since then, the spiritual centre, while remaining hidden from the vast majority of humanity who are unworthy of its secrets, has nevertheless been the primary force controlling the destiny of the planet.
The two hidden realms of Agartha and Shambhala constitute the double source of supernatural power emanating from Tibet, and have come to occupy an important place in twentieth-century occultism and fringe science.
The Third Reich - Tibet Connection
Tibet was once the Aryan homeland in the Arctic, and was displaced with the fall of Atlantis around 10,800 BC.
Since then, the spiritual centre, while remaining hidden from the vast majority of humanity who are unworthy of its secrets, has nevertheless been the primary force controlling the destiny of the planet.
The two hidden realms of Agartha and Shambhala constitute the double source of supernatural power emanating from Tibet, and have come to occupy an important place in twentieth-century occultism and ocult science.
Before we address the Third Reich’s alleged interest in Agartha and Shambhala, it is essential that we pause for an examination of the role of Shambhala in Tibetan mysticism.
Shambala
The ancient writings of China, refer to Nu and Kua, the ‘Asiatic prototypes of Adam and Eve’ and their birthplace in the Kun Lun Mountains of Central Asia.
It is something of a mystery why such a desolate, forbidding place should serve as the Chinese Garden of Eden rather than more hospitable regions such as the Yangtse Valley or the province of Shantung, and we can speculate that the Gobi Desert may at one time have been an inland sea with accompanying fertile land.
The Gobi is a prime candidate as a site for one of the ancient and unknown civilising cultures whose wisdom has been passed down through the ages.
The concept of an oriental garden of Eden, in the centre of Asia, was popularised by the novel 'Lost Horizon'. Lost Horizon is a 1933 novel by English writer James Hilton. The book was turned into a movie in 1937 by director Frank Capra of the same title. It is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery high in the mountains of Tibet.
The Kun Lun Mountains hold a very important place in Chinese mythology, since it is in this range that the Immortals are believed to live, ruled by Hsi Wang Mu, the Queen Mother of the West.
Hsi Wang Mu, who is also called Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy, is said to live in a nine storeyed palace of jade.
Surrounding this palace is a vast garden in which grows the Peach Tree of Immortality.
Only the most wise and virtuous of human beings are permitted to visit the garden and eat the fruit, which appears only once every 6,000 years.
The Immortals who aid Hsi Wang Mu in her attempts to guide humanity towards wisdom and compassion possess perfect, ageless bodies, and are said to be able to travel anywhere in the Universe, and to live on the planets of other star systems.
Whether the ancient Chinese believed that the Immortals could travel in space in their physical bodies or by projecting their minds, this is still a remarkable concept to entertain, since it is based on an acceptance of the plurality of inhabited worlds in the Cosmos.
Ancient Chinese texts are replete with legends regarding the attempts of many people to cross the Gobi Desert to the Kun Lun Mountains.
The most famous of these searchers is surely the great philosopher Lao Tzu (c. 6th century BC), author of the book of Taoist teaching Tao Te Ching, who is said to have made the journey across the Gobi towards the end of his life.
The Vatican archives also contain many reports made by Catholic missionaries concerning deputations from the emperors of China to the spiritual beings living in the mountains.
These beings possess bodies that are visible, but which are not made of flesh and blood: they are the ‘mind-born’ gods whose bodies are composed of elementary atomic matter, which allow them to live anywhere in the Universe, even at the centres of stars.
The people of India also believe in a place of wisdom and spiritual perfection; they call it Kalapa or Katapa, and it is said to lie in a region north of the Himalayas, in Tibet.
According to Indian tradition, the Gobi Desert is the floor of what was once a great sea, which contained an island called Sweta-Dvipa (White Island).
The great Yogis who once lived there are believed to live still in the high mountains and deep valleys that once formed the island of Sweta-Dvipa.
This island has been identified by Orientalists with the Isle of Shambhala of Puranic literature, which is said to stand at the centre of a lake of nectar.
In the seventeenth century, two Jesuit missionaries, Stephen Cacella and John Cabral, recorded the existence of Chang Shambhala, as described to them by the lamas of Shigatse, where Cacella lived for 23 years until his death in 1650. (Chang Shambhala means Northern Shambhala, which differentiates the abode of the spiritual adepts from the town called Shamballa, north of Benares, India.)
Legends of a hidden spiritual centre, a sacred zone whose inhabitants secretly guide the evolution of life on Earth, are widespread in the ancient cultures of the East.
The concept of the hidden spiritual centre of the world is to be found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, shamanism and other ancient traditions.
In the Bon religion of pre-Buddhist Tibet, Shambhala is also called ‘Olmolungring’ and ‘Dejong’. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Shambhalic tradition is enshrined within the Kalachakra texts, which are said to have been taught to the King of Shambhala by the Buddha before being returned to India.
As might be expected with such a marvellous, legend-haunted place, there has been a great deal of speculation as to the exact whereabouts of Shambhala.
While some esotericists believe that Shambhala is a real place with a concrete, physical presence in a secret location on Earth, others prefer to see it as existing on a higher spiritual plane, what might be called another dimension of space-time coterminous with our own.
Alternatively, Shambhala might be considered as a state of mind, comparable to the terms in which some consider the Holy Grail.
As with the Grail, Shambhala maybe a state within ourselves, in which we may gain an insight into the higher spirituality inherent in the Universe, as distinct from the mundane world of base matter in which we normally exist.
Having said this, it should be noted that there are certain cases on record in which Westerners have experienced visions of a place bearing a striking resemblance to the fabled Shambhala.
Our knowledge of the Shambhalic tradition in the West has come mainly from Orientalist scholars such as Helena Blavatsky, Rene Guenon, Louis Jacolliot, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and Nicholas Roerich.
Shambala and Theosophy
the first time that we have anything written in a European language about Shambhala was in 1833.
This was by the great Hungarian scholar Csoma de Körös, author of the first Tibetan-English dictionary.
He wrote an article about Kalachakra, and in it he mentions Shambhala. and that’s the first time that anybody in Europe hears anything about Shambhala.
Over the following decades we find that a little bit more becomes available
In the 1860s a book was published by a German, called Schlagintweit, entitled 'Buddhism in Tibet', that also speaks about Shambhala.
In addition the 'Vishnu Purana' also gets translated into English.
At the same time Madame Blavatsky travelled to India
The only sources of information that she had about Shambhala were from the two above publications.
Now in terms of the development of these European ideas about Shambhala, we find that there are two main streams that develop.
One is to emphasize Shambhala as a type of spiritual paradise, and the other one derives from this idea that the forces of Shambhala destroyed or drove out the harmful invaders that were trying to do away with all spiritual practice.
So a more destructive aspect of Shambhala is introduced - forcefully purifying the world of a so-called evil.
Blavatsky, however, emphasized the first aspect - that of Shambhala being a spiritual land, introducing it in terms of Buddhist and Hindu geography - with Mount Meru in the center, and the four continents surrounding it.
The first of these continents,Lemuria, sank, and then the inhabitants moved to another one of the continents, which Blavatsky identified as Atlantis.
The spiritually developed ones, however, fled to Shambhala when Atlantis was overtaken by disaster .
Blavatsky claimed that Schambala was a sacred island in the Gobi desert.
It was later claimed, by Roerich among others, that Shambhala was the source of her teachings, the 'Die Geheimlehre' (The Secret Doctrine).
Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947), poet, artist, mystic and humanist, and perhaps the most famous and respected of the esotericists who brought news of this fabulous realm to Westerners.
Born in St Petersburg, Russia in 1874, Nicholas Roerich came from a distinguished family whose ability to trace its origins to the Vikings of the tenth century inspired his early interest in archaeology.
This interest led in turn to a lifelong fascination with art, through which, in the words of K. P. Tampy, who wrote a monograph on Roerich in 1935, he became ‘possessed of a burning desire to get at the beautiful and make use of it for his brethren’.
After attending the St Petersburg Academy of Fine Art, Roerich went to Paris to continue his studies. In 1906, he won a prize for his design of a new church, and was also rewarded with the position of Director of the Academy for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Russia.
However, the Russian Revolution occurred while he was on a visit to America, and he found himself unable to return to his motherland.
Roerich’s profound interest in Buddhist mysticism led to his proposing an expedition in 1923 that would explore India, Mongolia and Tibet.
The Roerich Expedition of 1923-26 was made across the Gobi Desert to the Altai Mountains.
It was during this expedition that Roerich’s party had a most unusual experience - one of the many experiences that seem to offer strange and puzzling connections between apparently disparate elements of the paranormal and that make it such a complex and fascinating field of human enquiry.
In the summer of 1926, Roerich had set up camp with his son, Dr George Roerich, and several Mongolian guides in the Shara-gol valley near the Humboldt Mountains between Mongolia and Tibet.
Roerich had just built a white stupa (or shrine), dedicated to Shambhala.
The shrine was consecrated in August, with the ceremony witnessed by a number of invited lamas.
Two days later, the party watched as a large black bird wheeled through the sky above them. This, however, was not what astonished them, for far beyond the black bird, high up in the cloudless sky, they clearly saw a golden spheroidal object moving from the Altai Mountains to the north at tremendous speed.
Veering sharply to the south-west, the golden sphere disappeared rapidly beyond the Humboldt Mountains.
As the Mongolian guides shouted to one another in the utmost excitement, one of the lamas turned to Roerich and informed him that the fabulous golden orb was the sign of Shambhala, meaning that the lords of that realm approved of his mission of exploration.
Later, Roerich was asked by another lama if there had been a perfume on the air.
When Roerich replied that there had been, the lama told him that he was guarded by the King of Shambhala, Rigden Jye-Po, that the black vulture was his enemy, but that he was protected by a ‘Radiant form of Matter’.
The lama added that anyone who saw the radiant sphere should follow the direction in which it flew, for in that direction lay Shambhala.
The exact purpose of this expedition (aside from exploration) was never made entirely clear by Roerich, but many writers on esoteric subjects have claimed that he was on a mission to return a certain sacred object to the King’s Tower at the centre of Shambhala.
According to Andrew Tomas, the sacred object was a fragment of the Chintamani stone, the great mass of which lies in the Tower.
Astonishingly, the stone is said to have been brought to Earth originally by an extraterrestrial being.
The Third Reich - Tibet Connection
 |
| Tibet |
 |
| Lahsa - Tibet |
Since then, the spiritual centre, while remaining hidden from the vast majority of humanity who are unworthy of its secrets, has nevertheless been the primary force controlling the destiny of the planet.
The two hidden realms of Agartha and Shambhala constitute the double source of supernatural power emanating from Tibet, and have come to occupy an important place in twentieth-century occultism and ocult science.
Before we address the Third Reich’s alleged interest in Agartha and Shambhala, it is essential that we pause for an examination of the role of Shambhala in Tibetan mysticism.
Shambala
It is something of a mystery why such a desolate, forbidding place should serve as the Chinese Garden of Eden rather than more hospitable regions such as the Yangtse Valley or the province of Shantung, and we can speculate that the Gobi Desert may at one time have been an inland sea with accompanying fertile land.
The Gobi is a prime candidate as a site for one of the ancient and unknown civilising cultures whose wisdom has been passed down through the ages.
+-+Shangrila+-+Occult+History+Third+Reich+-+Peter+Crawford.jpg) |
| Shangri-La |
The Kun Lun Mountains hold a very important place in Chinese mythology, since it is in this range that the Immortals are believed to live, ruled by Hsi Wang Mu, the Queen Mother of the West.
Hsi Wang Mu, who is also called Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy, is said to live in a nine storeyed palace of jade.
Surrounding this palace is a vast garden in which grows the Peach Tree of Immortality.
Only the most wise and virtuous of human beings are permitted to visit the garden and eat the fruit, which appears only once every 6,000 years.
The Immortals who aid Hsi Wang Mu in her attempts to guide humanity towards wisdom and compassion possess perfect, ageless bodies, and are said to be able to travel anywhere in the Universe, and to live on the planets of other star systems.
Whether the ancient Chinese believed that the Immortals could travel in space in their physical bodies or by projecting their minds, this is still a remarkable concept to entertain, since it is based on an acceptance of the plurality of inhabited worlds in the Cosmos.
Ancient Chinese texts are replete with legends regarding the attempts of many people to cross the Gobi Desert to the Kun Lun Mountains.
The most famous of these searchers is surely the great philosopher Lao Tzu (c. 6th century BC), author of the book of Taoist teaching Tao Te Ching, who is said to have made the journey across the Gobi towards the end of his life.
The Vatican archives also contain many reports made by Catholic missionaries concerning deputations from the emperors of China to the spiritual beings living in the mountains.
These beings possess bodies that are visible, but which are not made of flesh and blood: they are the ‘mind-born’ gods whose bodies are composed of elementary atomic matter, which allow them to live anywhere in the Universe, even at the centres of stars.
The people of India also believe in a place of wisdom and spiritual perfection; they call it Kalapa or Katapa, and it is said to lie in a region north of the Himalayas, in Tibet.
According to Indian tradition, the Gobi Desert is the floor of what was once a great sea, which contained an island called Sweta-Dvipa (White Island).
The great Yogis who once lived there are believed to live still in the high mountains and deep valleys that once formed the island of Sweta-Dvipa.
This island has been identified by Orientalists with the Isle of Shambhala of Puranic literature, which is said to stand at the centre of a lake of nectar.
In the seventeenth century, two Jesuit missionaries, Stephen Cacella and John Cabral, recorded the existence of Chang Shambhala, as described to them by the lamas of Shigatse, where Cacella lived for 23 years until his death in 1650. (Chang Shambhala means Northern Shambhala, which differentiates the abode of the spiritual adepts from the town called Shamballa, north of Benares, India.)
Legends of a hidden spiritual centre, a sacred zone whose inhabitants secretly guide the evolution of life on Earth, are widespread in the ancient cultures of the East.
The concept of the hidden spiritual centre of the world is to be found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, shamanism and other ancient traditions.
In the Bon religion of pre-Buddhist Tibet, Shambhala is also called ‘Olmolungring’ and ‘Dejong’. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Shambhalic tradition is enshrined within the Kalachakra texts, which are said to have been taught to the King of Shambhala by the Buddha before being returned to India.
As might be expected with such a marvellous, legend-haunted place, there has been a great deal of speculation as to the exact whereabouts of Shambhala.
 |
| The Holy Grail |
Alternatively, Shambhala might be considered as a state of mind, comparable to the terms in which some consider the Holy Grail.
As with the Grail, Shambhala maybe a state within ourselves, in which we may gain an insight into the higher spirituality inherent in the Universe, as distinct from the mundane world of base matter in which we normally exist.
Having said this, it should be noted that there are certain cases on record in which Westerners have experienced visions of a place bearing a striking resemblance to the fabled Shambhala.
Our knowledge of the Shambhalic tradition in the West has come mainly from Orientalist scholars such as Helena Blavatsky, Rene Guenon, Louis Jacolliot, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and Nicholas Roerich.
Shambala and Theosophy
the first time that we have anything written in a European language about Shambhala was in 1833.
 |
| Csoma de Körös |
He wrote an article about Kalachakra, and in it he mentions Shambhala. and that’s the first time that anybody in Europe hears anything about Shambhala.
Over the following decades we find that a little bit more becomes available
In the 1860s a book was published by a German, called Schlagintweit, entitled 'Buddhism in Tibet', that also speaks about Shambhala.
In addition the 'Vishnu Purana' also gets translated into English.
|
Еле́на Петро́вна Блава́тская
Madame Blavatsky
|
The only sources of information that she had about Shambhala were from the two above publications.
Now in terms of the development of these European ideas about Shambhala, we find that there are two main streams that develop.
One is to emphasize Shambhala as a type of spiritual paradise, and the other one derives from this idea that the forces of Shambhala destroyed or drove out the harmful invaders that were trying to do away with all spiritual practice.
So a more destructive aspect of Shambhala is introduced - forcefully purifying the world of a so-called evil.
Blavatsky, however, emphasized the first aspect - that of Shambhala being a spiritual land, introducing it in terms of Buddhist and Hindu geography - with Mount Meru in the center, and the four continents surrounding it.
The first of these continents,Lemuria, sank, and then the inhabitants moved to another one of the continents, which Blavatsky identified as Atlantis.
The spiritually developed ones, however, fled to Shambhala when Atlantis was overtaken by disaster .
Blavatsky claimed that Schambala was a sacred island in the Gobi desert.
It was later claimed, by Roerich among others, that Shambhala was the source of her teachings, the 'Die Geheimlehre' (The Secret Doctrine).
 |
| Никола́й Константи́нович Ре́рих Nicholas Roerich |
Born in St Petersburg, Russia in 1874, Nicholas Roerich came from a distinguished family whose ability to trace its origins to the Vikings of the tenth century inspired his early interest in archaeology.
This interest led in turn to a lifelong fascination with art, through which, in the words of K. P. Tampy, who wrote a monograph on Roerich in 1935, he became ‘possessed of a burning desire to get at the beautiful and make use of it for his brethren’.
After attending the St Petersburg Academy of Fine Art, Roerich went to Paris to continue his studies. In 1906, he won a prize for his design of a new church, and was also rewarded with the position of Director of the Academy for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Russia.
However, the Russian Revolution occurred while he was on a visit to America, and he found himself unable to return to his motherland.
Roerich’s profound interest in Buddhist mysticism led to his proposing an expedition in 1923 that would explore India, Mongolia and Tibet.
The Roerich Expedition of 1923-26 was made across the Gobi Desert to the Altai Mountains.
It was during this expedition that Roerich’s party had a most unusual experience - one of the many experiences that seem to offer strange and puzzling connections between apparently disparate elements of the paranormal and that make it such a complex and fascinating field of human enquiry.
In the summer of 1926, Roerich had set up camp with his son, Dr George Roerich, and several Mongolian guides in the Shara-gol valley near the Humboldt Mountains between Mongolia and Tibet.
Roerich had just built a white stupa (or shrine), dedicated to Shambhala.
The shrine was consecrated in August, with the ceremony witnessed by a number of invited lamas.
Two days later, the party watched as a large black bird wheeled through the sky above them. This, however, was not what astonished them, for far beyond the black bird, high up in the cloudless sky, they clearly saw a golden spheroidal object moving from the Altai Mountains to the north at tremendous speed.
Veering sharply to the south-west, the golden sphere disappeared rapidly beyond the Humboldt Mountains.
As the Mongolian guides shouted to one another in the utmost excitement, one of the lamas turned to Roerich and informed him that the fabulous golden orb was the sign of Shambhala, meaning that the lords of that realm approved of his mission of exploration.
Later, Roerich was asked by another lama if there had been a perfume on the air.
When Roerich replied that there had been, the lama told him that he was guarded by the King of Shambhala, Rigden Jye-Po, that the black vulture was his enemy, but that he was protected by a ‘Radiant form of Matter’.
The lama added that anyone who saw the radiant sphere should follow the direction in which it flew, for in that direction lay Shambhala.
The exact purpose of this expedition (aside from exploration) was never made entirely clear by Roerich, but many writers on esoteric subjects have claimed that he was on a mission to return a certain sacred object to the King’s Tower at the centre of Shambhala.
According to Andrew Tomas, the sacred object was a fragment of the Chintamani stone, the great mass of which lies in the Tower.
Astonishingly, the stone is said to have been brought to Earth originally by an extraterrestrial being.
To be continued ........
there was a proto Indo-European civilization forged on the Pontic Steppes(Middle-Earth) as 1,000's of groups of hunter gatherers vied for territory during the height of the ice age.
ReplyDelete"The Holy Grail ("Ghral" is holy stone, Persian-Arabic) was said to be a black-violet crystal or stone, half quartz, half amethyst, through which Higher Powers communicated with humanity."
ReplyDeleteThis stone is the black Kaaba Stone of Mecca.