Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Osterrieder Markus
Title : From Synarchy to Shambala The role of political occultism and social messianism in the activities of Nicholas Roerich
Year : 2007

Link download : Osterrieder_Markus_-_From_Synarchy_to_Shambala.zip

Since the late 1980s, the teachings of Agni Yoga, also known as the “Teaching of Living Ethics” (Živaja ėtika), have become an influential and exceedingly popular element in the esoteric scene of post-communist Russia. There are several Roerich museums (in New York City, Moscow and Naggar, India) and various competing Roerich centers. The opening of archives as well as the recent publication of various diaries and personal papers of the Russian painter and occultist Nicholas Roerich (Nikolaj Konstantinovič Rerih, (1874–1947), his wife Elena Ivanovna (1879–1955) and several of their closest collaborators eventually revealed the amazing scope and messianistic ambition of the ‘spiritual geopolitics’ (John McCannon1) which was the driving force behind the activities of the Roerichs. Roerich’s ultimate objective – usually referred to as the ‘Grand Plan’ (Velikij Plan) – was to establish a pan-Buddhist, transnational ‘New Country’ (Novaja Strana) stretching from Tibet to southern Siberia, including territory that was governed by China, Mongolia, Tibet, and the Soviet Union. This ‘New Country’ was conceived as the manifest, earthly expression of the invisible Kingdom of Shambhala, “the Holy Place, where the earthly world links with the highest states of consciousness”2. Roerich’s presumptuous ambition was nothing less than to prepare the coming of a New Age of peace and beauty, which would be ushered in by the earthly manifestation of Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future. Only a small inner circle of confidents and supporters in New York was initiated in the full extent of the beliefs and aspirations of the Roerichs. ...