If both these ‘methods’ tend to sound to the reader rather like the mumbo-jumbo associated with medieval witchcraft spells, then it is a feeling also shared by the author. However, as I am not a practising mystic – nor can I claim profound knowledge of the secrets of mysticism – I would not hastily denounce the documents or the ‘secrets’ they describe as complete nonsense. Rather, I think, they contain elements of truth presented in a disguised fashion to intrigue the casual reader while retaining the original secrets sacrosanct – if these were ever actually known. It is a very typical ploy found among similar allegedly secret occult and mystical documents which have somehow found their way into the public eye.
My belief is further substantiated by the fact that the explanation as to what Vril Power is, and how it may be obtained, is both easier to find and less elaborate to achieve, albeit without all the capabilities which Bulwer Lytton and other even more imaginative writers have suggested it possesses.
For my researches have shown that Vril is actually an ancient Indian name for the tremendous resources of energy which are made available as a result of mastering the Etheric Body (or Time Organization) and control of the life forces in the human body. It is, in essence, the control of what Bulwer Lytton called ‘the one great fluid pervading all nature’ and which the Hindu mystics call Kundalini. If I explain as concisely as I can the definition and complexities of Kundalini I think the reader will see how Vril is simply the attainment of this personal inner power force developed to its highest level. He will understand too, why Bulwer Lytton described it as the finest attribute of his superior subterranean race and why it has been much sought after by mankind.
As anyone who has made even the most cursory study of Indian mysticism – and its Tantric philosophies in particular – will know, trying to define any elements is extremely difficult because of the demand for great study and concentration under the teaching of a guru to attain the state of mind or body in question. Such is very much the case with Kundalini, which might, very simply, be described as a potential source of immense power lying dormant in man, represented by a tiny coiled serpent, which can be used for great good, but can be extremely dangerous if aroused without due care and attention. Perhaps as good a definition as any is to be found in Ajit Mookerjee and Madhu Khanna’s The Tantric Way (1977), where they write:
The Kundalini is the microcosmic form of universal energy or, more simply, the vast storehouse of static, potential psychic energy which exists in latent form in every being. It is the most powerful manifestation of creative force in the human body. The concept of Kundalini is not peculiar to tantras but forms the basis of all yogic practices, and every genuine spiritual experience is considered to be an ascent of this power. The Kundalini is described as lying ‘coiled’, ‘inactive’ or in ‘trance sleep’ at the base of the spine, technically called the Muladhara Chakra or root centre, blocking the opening of the passage that leads to the cosmic consciousness in the brain centre. In most cases the Kundalini may lie dormant all through one’s lifetime, and an individual may be unaware of its existence.
According to Mookerjee and Khanna, the closest parallel to this concept in modern terms is what behavioural scientists term the gap ‘between our potential and actual self’. The findings of these scientists have shown that the average individual uses only 10% of his capacities, while the greater part of his potentialities, talents and abilities remain unrealized. However, the authors say that Kundalini should not be confused merely with a person’s creative capacities, but should be conceived as a ‘force which has the potency to awaken an undeniable psychic power inherent in all of us’. They add:
No tangible description of the Kundalini in symbolic or physiological terms will suffice, for it is a highly potential ultra-subtle vibration which eludes the ‘surgeon’s knife’. However elusive its nature, its efficacy can be judged only by experiencing it and the effect its arousal produces in the human body.
Many Western authorities have tried to describe the attainment of the power, but few better than Sir John Woodroffe in his various works on the Tantras, including Shakti and Shakta (1920), which devotes a whole section to the topic and from which I have drawn my broad outline, with due acknowledgement. Sir John begins by explaining that the Hindus believe that man is a microcosm – ‘Whatever exists in the outer universe exists in him also.’ He goes on:
The body may be divided into two main parts, namely the head and trunk on one hand, and the legs on the other. In man the centre of the body is between these two at the base of the spine where the legs begin. Supporting the trunk and throughout the whole body is the spinal cord. This is the axis of the body, just as Mount Meru is the axis of the earth. Hence man’s spine is called Merudanda, the Meru or axisstaff.
Linked to this spinal cord are a number of invisible ganglia rather like veins, radiating out through the whole body. These strands come together at certain points, also connecting with the physical body, which are known as Chakras or ‘wheels’. These Chakras are, quite simply, believed to be centres of super-physical energy, says Sir John, and may be thought of as ‘psychic dynamos’. Although these ‘wheels’ have no tangible existence, they are said to be seven in number and situated as follows: one near the base of the spine, one close to the sex organs, another in the region of the solar plexus, the next close to the heart, the fifth by the throat, the sixth in the forehead above the bridge of the nose, and the final one on the crown of the head.
All of the Chakras are arranged along a shaft which can be imagined to run from the base of the spine to the top of the head. This shaft is referred to as the ‘Rod of Brahma’. (Could this be the origin of Bulwer Lytton’s ‘ Vril Rod’?) At the base of the spine lies the Kundalini, the small, coiled serpent, as the Tantras describe it, which when made manifest releases great powers. What occurs in the wrong circumstances has been graphically described by Benjamin Walker in his recent work, Hindu World (1968):
In the astral body of the average person the Kundalini lies asleep, with its head blocking the central channel, the sushumma of the ‘Rod of Brahma’, the ‘gateway of ascent’; the man is left undisturbed by its presence and indeed unaware of its existence. This is all to the good. For the ordinary man it is important that the serpent should remain dormant, since it has a tremendous power when aroused. If disturbed, accidentally or by recourse to techniques ignorantly applied to awaken it, this force can prove very dangerous. Then the Kundalini raises its head and begins to move about in a disorganised manner, raging unrestrained through the lower Chakras and causing an abnormal excitation of the baser instincts and passions.
However, when the awakening of Kundalini is achieved by the discipline and practice which is necessary, a ‘transformation and reorientation of the supreme power in the human body’ occurs according to Mookerjee and Khanna:
By activating its ascent it transcends our limitations. When the Kundalini sleeps man is aware of his immediate earthly circumstances only. When she awakes to a higher spiritual plane, the individual is not limited to his own perception but instead participates in the source of light. Thus in her ascent, the Kundalini absorbs within herself all the kinetic energy with which the different psychic centres are charged. By awakening the Kundalini’s dormant force, otherwise absorbed in the unconscious and purely bodily functions, and directing it to the higher centres, the energy thus released is transformed and sublimated until its perfect unfolding and conscious realisation is achieved.
In the simplest terms, this unfolding opens up vast dormant areas of the brain – for it is a neurological fact that we only use a small percentage of the total capacity of our brains – and with it the attainment of supernatural powers, which the Hindus call Siddhis. There are said to be eight great Siddhis, and they seem to me to relate closely to those ‘powers’ or ‘forces’ credited to Vril Power. Mookerjee and Khanna have listed them as: mastery over the elements; the power of leaving and re-entering the body at will; supernormal hearing; weightlessness;
the power to see things of the minutest size as well as enlarging the conceptions so that one can understand the functions of the solar system and the universe; the control of mind over matter; and, perhaps most significantly of all, the power to generate great motive forces.
It is no purpose of mine in a book such as this to even attempt to describe the complex technique required to awaken this ‘coiled serpent’, merely to indicate that it requires great learning, super-concentration, bodily control (including, especially, breathing and eye-focusing) and enormous discipline. For as Benjamin Walker has written:
Those who wish to further their knowledge of Kundalini by practical experience, or who desire to achieve the powers that the aroused Kundalini engenders, have to submit to a long period of preparation, for the ability to control the released force takes many years of arduous training to acquire.
To anyone who reads these pages and feels such a desire, I can only recommend the literature on the Tantric and Yoga doctrines as a starting point.
Yet it is surely not unreasonable to assume that the attributes I have listed would naturally be those of initiates of a high order, or the members of a super-race far advanced in their civilization? If such a race does exist beneath the surface of our world, is it not well within the realms of probability that they would have long ago achieved such a state of being, having never been distracted with the problems of numerous wars, conflicting political systems and social unrest which have beset all the nations of the surface world for centuries?
To conclude, then, I believe the practice of Kundalini may be the key to Vril Power. It certainly bears striking similarities to what we know of the strange force Bulwer Lytton brought so dramatically to our notice. If, as an initiate, he concealed and disguised some of its attributes, this is understandable and does not, I believe, detract from the validity of my assumptions. I therefore leave it to the reader to reach his own conclusions, for it is now time to return to trying to solve the remaining mysteries about the much more tangible world of Agharti and its subterranean tunnels. Once again, we shall be discovering some remarkable facts which lead to still more surprising conclusions …
THE DISCOVERY OF SHANGRI-LA!
We are now nearing the end of our journey in search of the lost world of Agharti. In the foregoing pages I have, I trust, fully detailed the ancient traditions associated with the underground kingdom as well as recounting the modern developments in its story, and at the same time presented a wealth of material on the existence of the subterranean passageways which are believed to be linked to it. Much that I have recorded is based on facts that I consider beyond reproach, while the remainder is primarily the result of expert and carefully argued speculation. I think the case for both the reality of Agharti and the tunnel network is a convincing one. But there are still a number of important questions left to be answered.
Firstly, if the tunnels exist and, as the legends say, join the major continents of the world – how could they possibly provide a link between the American continent and those of Africa, Europe and Asia across the enormous fastness of the Atlantic Ocean? Secondly, can we pinpoint the actual locality of the heart of the subterranean world, the magical city of Shangri-La, known as Shamballah? And, thirdly, is there any evidence in our modern science that it is feasible for such an underground world to have been constructed at any age in the past and permit the existence of people in conditions so different to those in which we, the surface dwellers, live?
In the pages which follow, I shall endeavour to offer you positive answers to all of these questions.
To begin with, I should like to try to unravel the mystery of the tunnel network. As the reader will see from the map on the endpapers of this book, I have come to the conclusion from my researches that these passageways did exist and that the main artery followed the route I have marked. (I shall also mention the possibility of some diversions linking other countries in due course.) The reader will immediately appreciate from this that it is my belief, firstly, that the passageways provided communication between North America and Asia beneath the narrow strip of sea about fifty miles wide known as the Bering Strait. A perfectly feasible claim, I think, and one supported by the traditions of the Eskimos living there. In this context, Robert Ernest Dickhoff has written;
Let no one underestimate the importance, the value, the existence, of these tunnels, especially those still open for use by such as know of their whereabouts … It is through them that the Eskimos travelled from Asia to Alaska and Canada. They claimed that they did not use a surface method of immigration as historians wish to put it, but these Eskimos insist that underground passageways connecting both Asia and the American continent running beneath the Bering Strait were used to accomplish the waves of migration.
However, while this may be a perfectly acceptable explanation as far as the Bering Strait is concerned, at the southern end it is a very different matter altogether, because here the distance between South America and the nearest landmass, Africa, is two thousand miles. Yet I believe the tunnel network did once link two mighty continents – by way of the lost continent of Atlantis!
It is my conviction that, in fact, these tunnels had no further to travel below sea than those in the Bering Straits, covering only a few dozen miles before reaching the landmass of Atlantis, where they continued in conditions no different to those anywhere else in the world. This is, of course, the hardest part of my hypothesis to prove, for the destruction of Atlantis obviously caused the obliteration of this part of the system. But without saying any more, let me tell you how I reached this no doubt surprising conclusion.
I came across the first clue on which I built my theory quite by chance come years ago when reading an ancient history book called the Oera Linda Boek. Written over a period of almost 500 years, but primarily by a Frisian named Ovira Linda in AD 803, the book is a compendium of historical records and facts collected from all over Europe assembled from both oral traditions and ancient manuscripts. In one of the later sections, evidently written by a descendant of the first author, a man called Hiddo Oera Linda, there is an appeal to the reader to ‘keep these books with your body and soul’. And as I glanced over the pages, something else caught my eye which made me read on with growing interest:
In these books are the histories of all our people, and of our forefathers. Last year I saved them in the flood … But they got wet and so began to perish. In order not to lose them I copied them on foreign paper. When you inherit them you must likewise copy them, and your children must do so, too. They may, therefore, never be lost.
Fascinating though these words were, it was the postscript beneath which really excited my interest: ‘written in Liuwert (Ljuwert) in the 3,499th year after Atland (Atlantis) sank, or 1256, the year of the Christian reckoning.’ Having long been intrigued by the legend of Atlantis, I continued to flip over the pages, reading about the exploits of the Frisian people and their contact with the rest of Europe.
A bit further on I came across another reference to Atlantis, but this time with an even more exciting reference. The writer of the Oera Linda Boek here said that Atland (or Atlantis) was destroyed when ‘the Earth trembled, the heavens grew dark, and there were heavy explosions and reverberation of thunder.’ At this, the King of Atlantis ‘lead those of his people who were not destroyed through tremendous and very ancient tunnels to the land of Votan’ (my italics).
In the edition of the Oera Linda Boek which I was reading (a translation made by William R. Sandbach in 1876) there was a footnote which explained that the ‘land of Votan’ was, in fact, Central America. So here was an early mention of a link between Atlantis and South America – a fact which I think further strengthens my earlier chapter on this topic – but more importantly a clear indication that the two continents had been linked by ‘tremendous and very ancient tunnels’. It was a discovery never far from my mind when I came to research the legend of Agharti.
The second piece of evidence I found appeared in Harold Bayl
ey’s remarkable volume Archaic England (1919) and came to light when I was already at work on this book. Although I had not even begun to formulate my theory, there was something in one of his paragraphs which stopped me dead in my tracks. He wrote:
It is now well known that there was communication between the East and West long before America was discovered by Columbus, and there is nothing therefore improbable in the Chiapenese tradition that their Votan, after settling affairs in the West, visited Spain and Rome. The legend relates that Votan ‘went by the road which his brethren, the Culebres, had bored.’
Here was a remarkable statement indeed. Clearly the road which the Culebres had ‘bored’ could only be a reference to a tunnel, and any tunnel which enabled a person in South America to visit Spain and Rome clearly must traverse the Atlantic Ocean. The reference in the Oera Linda Boek flashed into my mind with its talk of Atlantis linked by tunnels to the land of Votan. Had I stumbled upon the answer to an age-old mystery? The reason why there were uncanny similarities in the cultures of the peoples living on opposite sides of the Atlantic?
Harold Bayley went on to explain in his book that although it was difficult to establish who the Culebres of this Mexican tradition were, this should not detract from the probability of tunnels having once been built by people who lived either permanently or temporarily in Africa. He says:
The allusion to a road which the Culebres had bored might be dismissed as a fiction were it not for the curious fact mentioned by Livingstone that tribes lived underground in Rua: ‘Some excavations are said to be thirty miles long and have running rills in them; a whole district can stand siege therein as long as required.’
Mr Bayley also tells us that he is totally convinced about the existence of Atlantis:
The Lost World of Agharti- the Mystery of Vril Power Page 20