May 2011 Trimondi Red Shambhala

CRITICAL FORUM KALACHAKRA

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RED SHAMBHALAMagic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart Of Asia

Abstract:

Shambhala is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist prophecy about the land of spiritual bliss. At the same

time, it was a powerful call for spiritual resistance originally directed against Muslim invaders in

the early middle ages. Using archival sources and memoirs, Red Shambhala explores how in

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our, modern age, particularly in the 1920s and the 1930s, a group of people (spiritual

adventurers, revolutionaries, and nationalists) wanted to use Shambhala and related prophecies of

the Tibetan-Mongol world (Oirot, Amursana, and Geser) to promote their spiritual and

geopolitical schemes.

The greater part of the book is focused on the Bolshevik attempt to use Mongol-Tibetan

prophecies in their “liberation theology” to railroad Communism into Inner Asia. It explores

clandestine activities of the Bolsheviks from the Mongol-Tibetan Section of the Communist

International who took over Mongolia and then, dressed as lama pilgrims, tried to set Tibet

ablaze. The reader will enter a bizarre geopolitical contest over indigenous prophecies between

the Bolsheviks and their powerful opponents: Ja-Lama, an “avenging lama” fond of spilling blood

during his tantra rituals, and renegade Baltic baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, who wanted to

plug into Tibetan Buddhist legends in order to revive monarchies both in the east and in the west.

We also meet Buryat monk Agvan Dorzhiev, a former tutor for the 13th Dalai Lama and a one-

time Bolshevik fellow-traveler, who wanted to bring all Tibetan Buddhist people of Inner Asia

into a huge theocracy, and his fellow countryman, Elbek-Dorji Rinchino, the first Red dictator of

Mongolia, who nourished a utopian dream of building up a socialist republic that would unite

Tibetan Buddhist nationalities from Siberia to Tibet.

Another prominent character profiled in Red Shambhala is Nicholas Roerich, the Russian painter

and occultist, who toyed with the same idea of merging Tibetan Buddhism with Communism.

Driven by his otherworldly Master, he posed as a reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and flirted with

the Bolsheviks in an attempt to unleash the Shambhala war in Tibet. The ultimate goal was to

bring about the Sacred Union of the East – a Tibetan Buddhist theocracy that would spiritually

regenerate humankind. The book also draws attention to Roerich’s friend and another interesting

character - Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Vice-President Henry Wallace, who similarly tapped

into Buddhist wisdom in the hope to engineer a better world.

Last but not least, we meet such characters as Gleb Bokii, the secret police commissar and the

chief Bolshevik cryptographer, who, along with his friend writer Alexander Barchenko, tried to

use the Shambhala prophecy and Kalachakra techniques to conjure the ideal Communist human

being.

Despite their differences, all these seekers were driven by the same totalitarian temptation – a

quest for power and ultimate solutions. They were sincerely convinced that they would be able to

build a paradise on the earth – an orderly human commonwealth devoid of any spiritual and social

contradictions. It was only natural that almost all of these “enlightened masters” ended their lives

tragically. Essentially, Red Shambhala is a sad story about political power and spirituality – a

story that is set in the turbulent environment the past 20th century, which one historian once called

the age of extremes.

Contents:

Preface



Shambhala, Kalachakra Tantra, and Avenging Gods of Tibetan Buddhism

Power for the Powerless: The Mongol-Tibetan World and its Prophecies

Alexander Barchenko: Budding Red Merlin and His Ancient Science

Engineer of Human Souls: Bolshevik Cryptographer Gleb Bokii

Prophecies Draped in Red: Blood and Soil in the Heart of Asia

Red Prophecy on the March: Mongolia to Tibet 127

Th e Great Plan: Nicholas and Helena Roerich 155

Shambhala Warrior in a Western Body: Nicholas Roerich’s Asian Ventures

Epilogue: The End of Red Shambhala 217

Excerpt taken from Chapter 7

NICHOLAS AND HELENA ROERICH: PEOPLE OF THE GREAT PLAN

As Nicholas and Helena explained to their adepts, on the morning of October 6, 1923, someone

knocked on the door of their room at Lord Byron Hotel. George Roerich opened the door. The

visitor introduced himself as a clerk from the Paris Bankers Trust. The clerk quickly handed him a

mysterious package and immediately departed. When Helena, George and Nicholas opened the

package, they found a small box inside decorated with silhouettes of a man, woman, kingfisher,

and four gothic letters engraved “M” on the edges. However, the real surprise was inside the box

itself – a black shiny aeroliths stone. The next day from Paris, telegrams flew to all associates of

the Roerichs in various countries: lo and behold, the Great White Brotherhood entrusted the

Roerichs with the sacred Chintamani stone. This magic jewel, which possessed incredible power,

was to be carried on their Asian expedition and be delivered to the Shambhala kingdom.

In Tibetan Buddhist tradition the Chintamani stone is known as a wish-granting gem. Ferocious

deities, protectors of the Tibetan Buddhist faith, were frequently portrayed on sacred scrolls

holding this stone. On these scrolls the Chintamani is depicted as either an ordinary jewel or a

stone engulfed in flames – this theological link to the Roerichs’ Agni (Fire) Yoga might have been

a reason why they were attracted to this sacred item. The Roerichs described Chintamani as a

powerful occult geopolitical weapon that would help their Asian mission. Now they could act not

only as prophets who could fulfill wishes by using the “wish-granting gem,” but also as protectors

of the Buddhist faith: “The stone draws people like a magnet. Entire nations can rise up if one lifts

the stone up. An enemy can be destroyed if you say his name three times looking at the stone.

Only people who are pure in their spirit and thought can look at it.”28 It is highly probable that

George Roerich, a professional student of Tibetan Buddhism who was shrewd in intricacies of this

tradition, fed the Chintamani legend to his parents who then layered on it their own personal

mythology and then manufactured the entire story about the mysterious gift.

The fantasy of the couple moved further. The Roerichs wrote to their friends that the Chintamani

was not only about Asian tradition. The magic gem was also known to the ancient Druids and to

European bard singers (Meistersingers) as Lapis exilis. The stone “delivered” to the Roerichs

was wrapped in a piece of old fabric that has an image of the sun with mysterious Latin letters

inside the sun circle: I.H.S., which might be rendered as “In hoc signo [vinces]” (“by this sign [you



will win]). The same Latin abbreviation was inscribed on the banner of Constantine the Great, the

famous Roman emperor who was the first to legalize Christianity. Weaving Buddhist and

European mythology together, the Roerichs argued that the Chintamani magically disappeared

and then reappeared at crucial historical moments to be handed to the righteous ones who guided

humankind to a better future. Of course, the righteous people were the painter and his wife.

Armed with the power of the sacred stone, on December 2, 1923, George, Helena, and

Nicholas, the three Shambhala warriors, reached Bombay. By railroad, the family quickly

traveled to northern India where they stopped in the town of Darjeeling (a corrupted version of

Dorje Lingam (Hard Penis),29 the capital of Sikkim. Here, in the “hard” town, famous for the tea

that grows in the area, the Roerichs established their temporary base. For their residency they

picked up not just any house, but a small summer cottage called the Palace of Dalai right on

southern slopes of the Himalaya; the place was once used by the 13th Dalai Lama when he had

to flee from the wrath of the Chinese in 1910. The painter and his wife feasted their eyes on the

picturesque site surrounded by mighty cedar trees. From their windows they could enjoy a divine

view of the Himalayan ranges and valleys.30 Somewhere north of these mountain ranges lay

mysterious Shambhala and her prophecies, waiting to be stirred and awakened.

Reviews:Red Shambhala enters a maze of intrigue with a colourful cast of Bolshevik secret police officers,

spies, occultists, Mongolian warlords and Buddhist monks. Andrei Znamenski shows how Soviet

Communists in the 1920s sought geopolitical influence over Mongolia and Tibet, projecting their

world revolution onto ancient messianic prophecies amongst Inner Asian tribesmen. Inspired by

the myth of hidden sages directing the world's destiny, the Roerichs add visionary adventure amid

the great game of competing powers, England, Russia, China, for mastery of the East. A first-rate

espionage story, all from recently opened Soviet archives. (Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, author of

The Occult Roots of Nazism and Black Sun)

Red Shambhala is a rare, rigorous exploration of a landscape where occult drama and political

intrigue meet, and where human hopes and ideological schemes inevitability, and tragically,

collide. Andrei Znamenski handles all of this delicate material with depth, poignancy, and the

drama of great historical writing. (Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America)

Red Shambhala is a fascinating, and at times astounding, story about the interplay of mysticism

and politics in the shadow of Stalin's Russia. The lines between mystical seekers, secret

policemen, spies and charlatans constantly cross and blur and the story, not surprisingly, ends

tragically for almost everyone. (Richard Spence, Professor of History, University of Idaho)

Fascinating, compelling and erudite, Red Shambhala, utterly readable yet a work of impressively

pioneering scholarship, is a history of Western mysticism, Mongolian/Tibetan Buddhism and

imperial geopolitics, filled with stories of derrring-do and a cast of unforgettable mystics, monsters

and adventurers. A wonderful read. (Simon Sebag-Montefiore, author of Young Stalin and

Jerusalem: The Biography)



Andrei Znamenski’s Red Shamabala draws on wide-ranging research but reads like the best of

thrillers. Anyone interested in the complicated history of Russia’s relationship with the worlds of

Tibet and Mongolia should read this fascinating and engaging book. (Willard Sunderland,

Professor of History, University of Cincinnati)

An amazing story, told by a fine scholar, but writing accessibly rather than just for other scholars.

Larger-than-life characters against the background of a myth of Shambhala that haunted the

Russian imagination as it did the Western, but with rather different consequences. Sometimes

worrying, sometimes entertaining, and always informative. (Mark Sedgwick, Associate Professor,

Aarhus University and author of Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret

Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century)

Znameski’s new book is a challenge for everyone who refuses to accept connections between

legend and politics. Red Shambhala gives a solid piece of evidence that the atheist communist

ideology of the 20th century did not disdain to use a Tibetan Buddhist myth as a sort of

instrumentum regni, actually a political tool for propaganda; Russian left and right thinkers, and

spiritual seekers as well, were united in an old-fashioned idea of rebirth, dreaming of an egalitarian

Land – a Red Shambhala –, where a changed humankind could live in a New Era of peace. Prof.

Andrei Znamenski provides a ground-breaking investigation, through which we are aware that the

Sacred and Profane can share the same mythical milieu: a must-read book for people interested in

that fuzzy area between Mystique, Esotericism and Politics. (Marcello De Martino, PhD, Istituto

Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, Rome, Italy and author of Mircea Eliade esoteric)

Professor Znamenski pursues the improbable merging of two prophesies after the Russian

Revolution, the future Commmunist utopia with the ancient Buddhist myth of Shambhala, the

return of a redeemer who would lead suffering people into a golden age of spiritual and sensual

bliss. Combining Victorian parlour mysticism, a cast of eccentrics, the rise of modern nationalism,

the intrigues of the Bolshevik secret police and a Comintern bent on world revolution, and an

arena as big as all Asia -- this is high drama indeed. (Max J. Okenfuss, American Editor -

Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas )

Internet, Video, Audio:

Trimondi Magazine features Red Shambhala

Paranormal Plus Club Interviews RED SHAMBHALA author Andrei Znamenski

Ja-Lama, ruthless warlord from Mongolia, maguswest channel

Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia

Tibetan Buddhism, Communism, and Totalitarian Temptations

Amazon.com

Quest Books



"Don Croner’s World Wide Wanders" profiles Red Shambhala

Quest Books Facebook

Baron von Ungern Sternberg as Mahakala

Vita:Historian, anthropologist and translator, Andrei Znamenski was a resident scholar at the Library of

Congress, and then a foreign visiting professor at Hokkaido University, Japan. He has taught

various courses at The University of Toledo, Alabama State University, and the University of

Memphis. Among them are World Civilizations, Russian history, and the History of Religions.

Znamenski’s major fields of interests include the history of Western esotericism, Russian history as

well as indigenous religions of North America, Siberia, Inner Asia, particularly Shamanism and

Tibetan Buddhism. Znamenski lived and traveled extensively in Alaska, Siberia, and Japan. His

field and archival research among Athabaskan Indians in Alaska and native people of the Altai

(Southern Siberia) resulted in the book Shamanism and Christianity: Native Responses to

Russian Missionaries (1999) and Through Orthodox Eyes: Russian Missionary Narratives of

Travels to the Dena'ina and Ahtna (2003).

After this, Znamenski became interested in the cultural history of Shamanism. Endeavoring to

answer why shamanism became so popular with Western spiritual seekers since the 1960s, he

wrote The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination (2007) and edited the

three-volume anthology Shamanism: Critical Concepts (2004). Simultaneously, he continued to

explore shamanism of Siberian indigenous people, traveling to the Altai and surrounding areas,

which led to the publication of Shamanism in Siberia (2003). Between 2003 and 2004, he resided

in Japan, where along with his Japanese colleague, Professor Koichi Inoue, Znamenski worked with

itako, blind female healers and mediums from the Amori prefecture.

© Copyright 2003 – Victor & Victoria Trimondi



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May 2011 Trimondi Red Shambhala