(7)
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. (It is unlikely to be found at Koros’s map coordinates.) 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. Victoria Le Page cites a particularly intriguing case in her book Shambhala: The Fascinating Truth Behind the Myth of Shangri-la. The case was investigated by a Dr Raynor Johnson who, in the 1960s, gathered together several hundred first-hand accounts of mystical experiences. It involved a young Australian woman who claimed to have psychic abilities, and who was referred to simply as L.C.W.
L.C.W. wrote that at the age of 21 she began to attend a place she came to know as ‘Night-School’. At night she would fly in her sleep to this place, the location of which she had no idea. Once there she would join other people in dance exercises which she later recognised as being similar to the dervish exercises taught by George Gurdjieff. After several years, she graduated to a different class, where she was taught spiritual lessons from a great book of wisdom. It was only years later, when L.C.W. began to take an interest in mystical literature, that she realised the true location of Night-School must have been Shambhala.
L.C.W. had other visions in which she saw what appeared to be a gigantic mast or antenna, extending from Earth deep into interstellar space. The base of this antenna was in the Pamirs or Tien Shan Mountains, regions which are traditionally associated with Shambhala. She was taken towards this antenna by an invisible guide, and saw that it was a pillar of energy whose branches were actually paths leading to other worlds, marked by geometrical figures such as circles, triangles and squares.
According to L.C.W., this ‘antenna’ was nothing less than a gateway to other times, other dimensions and other regions of this Universe. In addition to the antenna serving as a gateway for souls from Earth to travel to other times and places, ‘she believed souls from other systems in space could enter the earth sphere by the same route, carrying their own spiritual influences with them’. (8) L.C.W. also maintained that the antenna could be controlled directly by the mind of the voyager, and would extend a branch or ‘pseudopod’ in response to a single thought. This branch then became a ‘trajectory of light’ along which the soul would travel; in her case, she found herself in China 30 years in the future. The spiritual being who was guiding her explained that the earth was in the process of being purified, and that a ‘great rebirth’ was about to occur. She also witnessed the apparent falling of a cluster of ‘stars’ that represented the arrival of ‘high souls [that] were now coming down to help in the special event’. (9)
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. Since we have already spent some time with Madame Blavatsky, we may turn our attention to the work of the others, notably 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’. (10) 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.
According to tradition, a chest fell from the sky in AD 331; the chest contained four sacred objects, including the Chintamani stone. Many years after the casket was discovered, five strangers visited King Tho-tho-ri Nyan-tsan to explain the use of the sacred objects. The Chintamani stone is said to come from one of the star systems in the constellation of Orion, probably Sirius. The main body of the stone is always kept in the Tower of Shambhala, although small pieces are sometimes transferred to other parts of the world during times of great change.
It is rumoured that the fragment of Chintamani which Roerich was returning to the Tower had been in the possession of the League of Nations, of which Roerich was a highly respected member.
The concept of a subterranean realm (which we will discuss in much greater detail in Chapter Seven) is common throughout the world’s religions and mythologies. With regard to the present study, we can identify a powerful antecedent to the legends and rumours still extant today in the mythology of Tibet. In his 1930 book Shambhala, Roerich describes his attempts to understand the origins of underworld legends ‘to discover what memories were being cherished in the folk-memory’. (11) In commenting on the ubiquity of subterranean legends, he notes that the more one examines them, the greater the conviction that they are all ‘but chapters from the one story’. (12) An examination of the folklores of ‘Tibet, Mongolia, China, Turkestan, Kashmir, Persia, Altai, Siberia, the Ural, Caucasia, the Russian steppes, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Germany, France’ (13) will yield tales of dwellers beneath the earth. In many places, the local people can even guide the curious traveller to cave entrances in isolated places, which are said to lead to the hidden world of the subterraneans.
Central Asia is home to legends of an underground race called the Agharti; the Altai Mountains are the dwelling place of the Chud. In Shambhala, Roerich states that the name ‘Chud’ in Russian has the same origin as the word ‘wonder’. His guide through the Altai Mountains told him that the Chud were originally a powerful but peaceful tribe who flourished in the area in the distant past. However, they fell prey to marauding bands of warriors, and could only escape by leaving their fertile valley and departing into the earth to continue their civilisation in subterranean realms.
Roerich’s guide continued that at certain times the Chud could be heard singing in their underground temples.
