The Lost World of Agharti- the Mystery of Vril Power

by Alec MacLellan

  As I said earlier, this theory does provide us with an explanation for two unusual remarks in the works of Ferdinand Ossendowski and Nicholas Roerich. In his Beasts, Men and Gods, published back in 1923 long before the terms UFO or Flying Saucer were coined, Ossendowski describes how the people of Agharti ‘in cars strange and unknown to us rush through the narrow cleavages inside our planet’. What else could they be but Flying Saucers, several experts have asked? And these same people also quote Roerich, from his book Heart of Asia (1928):

  We notice something shiny, flying very high from the northeast to the south. We bring three powerful field glasses from the tents and watch the huge spheroid body shining against the sun, clearly visible against the blue sky and moving very fast. Afterwards we see that it sharply changes its direction from south to south-west and disappears behind the snow-peaked Humboldt Chain. The whole camp follows the unusual apparition and the lamas whisper, ‘The Sign of Shamballah’.

  The reader should remember that no aircraft of that size, shape, speed or manoeuvrability had been invented in 1928.

  Such a mountain of evidence, then – the strange green lights, the persistent rumbling sounds, the geological possibility of habitable cavities below the Earth’s surface, the wherewithal for a massive tunnelling project, and the scientific capability to run a subterranean world – all these plus the legends and histories I have recounted, convince me that Agharti is a reality. That somewhere below the plateau of Tibet lies the heart of this nation, a super-race of remarkable people who still exist and live out their lives: as much a mystery as any of the other mysteries which still flourish in our world and which likewise only our lack of knowledge prevents us from understanding.

  Quite who these people are still puzzles me. The reader is invited to judge for himself whether they are remnants of the lost Atlantean civilization, people of an antediluvian culture, or even beings from another world across the galaxy. Of less doubt, I think, is the massive network of passageways that girdles the Earth; a tribute to their remarkable skills as constructors. That much of this labyrinth is lost beyond discovery may well be true: but I think enough remains to substantiate the hypothesis I have argued in these pages.

  One final element in the story of Agharti still remains to be considered: the claim that this subterranean world is ruled by an all-powerful overlord, ‘The King of the World’. Ossendowski, Roerich and others have written about this mysterious figure, each independently describing him as the ‘guiding light of the Earth’, a man attuned to both god and humanity, able to direct life and inspire the religions of the world. Such claims are somewhat difficult to accept, ipso facto, and while I would not dismiss the idea of a supreme ruler of the underground kingdom, I think his powers may be somewhat overstated. If he does exist, I believe he is probably an initiate of a very high order, preserving the traditions of his people from the earliest times. I am drawn to this conclusion because most descriptions of him tend to be obscure and overblown: perhaps the most convincing and acceptable being that of Ferdinand Ossendowski in Beasts, Men and Gods. In the book, Ossendowski relates how an old Tibetan lama told him of a visit of ‘The King of the World’ to a lamasery in Lhasa:

  One night in winter several horsemen rode into the monastery and demanded that all the lamas should congregate into the throne room. Then one of the strangers mounted the throne, where he took off his bashlyk or cap-like head covering. All of the lamas fell to their knees as they recognised the man who had been long ago described in the sacred bulls of Dalai Lama, Tashi Lama and Bogdo Khan. He was the man to whom the whole world belongs and who has penetrated all the mysteries of Nature. He pronounced a short Tibetan prayer, blessed all his hearers and afterwards made predictions for the coming half century. This was thirty years ago, and in the interim all his prophecies are being fulfilled.

  During his prayers before that small shrine, a huge red door opened of its own accord, the candles and lights before the altar lighted themselves and the sacred braziers without coal gave forth great streams of incense that filled the room. And then, without warning, The King of the World and his companions disappeared from among us. Behind him remained no trace save the folds in the silken coverings which smoothed themselves out and left the throne as though no one had sat upon it.

  Two facts about this statement particularly intrigued me. Firstly, the talk about prophecies that had come true, and, secondly, mention of a door through which ‘The King of the World’ had disappeared. Could this, I wondered, be one of the gateways to Agharti?

  My subsequent research has led me to believe that it was: and that the gateway still exists, in the heart of the palace of the exiled Dalai Lama, the Potala, which sits on top of a small mountain, surrounded by monasteries and temples, in Lhasa. My conviction was first strengthened by a rather enigmatic statement from a lama quoted by Roerich: ‘The capital of Agharti is surrounded with towns of high priests and scientists. It reminds one of Lhasa where the palace of the Dalai Lama is the top of a mountain covered with monasteries and temples. They are joined spiritually and physically.’ The inference of this I found inescapable, and then I secured an illustration of the huge red door in the throne room in the Potala – which is reproduced in this book – and found that it matched Ossendowski’s description so closely I was left in no doubt that here lies one of the authentic tunnels to Agharti. Perhaps the day will come when I, or some other intrepid soul from outside the closed borders of Tibet, will have the chance of putting this theory to the test and at last opening the way to the mysterious world underground.

  The intriguing possibility that ‘The King of the World’ had also made a number of predictions which had subsequently come true also set me off on one last search for his original statement. When I found it, I saw that the claim of the old lama that Ossendowski had quoted had not been far short of the mark. According to the Tibetan, ‘The King of the World’ made his pronouncements ‘thirty years ago’, which we can assume to be about thirty years prior to the publication of Ossendowski’s book in 1922.

  This, then, is what he foresaw for the future of the world way back in 1890, and I leave it to the reader to interpret for himself the King’s vision of world war, the fall of monarchs, the rise (and ultimate decline!) of Communism, and the inexorable degeneration of mankind. Perhaps his closing remarks on the need for the people of Agharti to serve as the agents of salvation for our doomed world are the most poignant on which I could end a book such as this. Indeed, there are those believers in the Kingdom who say this is precisely what they have been waiting to do in their subterranean fastness for untold ages …

  More and more the people will forget their souls and care about their bodies. The greatest sin and corruption will reign on the earth. People will become as ferocious animals, thirsting for the blood and death of their brothers. The ‘Crescent’ will grow dim and its followers will descend into beggary and ceaseless war. The conquerors will be stricken by the sun but will not progress upward and twice they will be visited with the heaviest misfortune, which will end in insult before the eye of the other peoples. The crowns of kings, great and small, will fall … one, two, three, four, five, six, serve, eight … There will be a terrible battle among all the peoples. The seas will become red … the earth and the bottom of the seas will be strewn with bones … kingdoms will be scattered … whole peoples will die … hunger, disease, crimes unknown to the law, never before seen in the world.

  The enemies of God and of the Divine Spirit in man will come. Those who take the hand of another shall also perish. The forgotten and pursued shall rise and hold the attention of the whole world. There will be fogs and storms. Bare mountains shall suddenly be covered with forests. Earthquakes will come … Millions will change the fetters of slavery and humiliation for hunger, disease and death. The ancient roads will be covered with crowds wandering from one place to another. The greatest and most beautiful cities shall perish in fire … one, two, three … Father shall rise against son, brother against br
other and mother against daughter … Vice, crime and the destruction of body and soul shall follow … Families shall be scattered … Truth and love shall disappear …

  Then I shall send a people, now unknown, which shall tear out the weeds of madness and vice with a strong hand and will lead those who still remain faithful to the spirit of man in the fight against Evil. They will found a new life on the earth purified by the death of nations. In the fiftieth year only three great kingdoms will appear, which will exist happily seventy-one years. Afterwards there will be eighteen years of war and destruction. Then the peoples of Agharti will come up from their subterranean caverns to the surface of the earth.

  * There is also a curious French tradition that from time to time strange noises have been heard in some deep caverns near Marseilles. The historian E. Lucan has written: ‘It is reported that the ground is shaken and strangely moved, and that dreadful sounds are heard from the caverns.’ It has been suggested that this may have some significance to the Agharti legend because the noises resemble ‘throbbing machines’ and sometimes flashing green lights are seen in the vicinity: two factors which we shall be examining later in the book.

  * It is possible that a story related by Dr George Hartwig in The Subterranean World (1871) might explain this mystery, so I include it without comment: ‘In the year 1848 an American gentleman persuaded the guides of Baumann’s Cave in the Harz Mountains to accompany him on a voyage of discovery through parts of the cavern hitherto untrodden by man. It was no easy task to clamber over slippery rocks and deep chasms yawning into black abysses; but curiosity and the spirit of adventure kept leading them on from passage to passage and vault to vault, when suddenly the light began to burn more dimly; and the glass of the guiding compass having been accidentally broken warned them to retrace their steps. They had been wandering for twenty-four hours in the subterranean labyrinth, and after so long an absence from the light of day, joyfully hailed the green hill slope which decks that mysterious palace of the gnomes. Franz Baumann, the first discoverer of the cavern, was less fortunate. Its tortuous windings confused the expert and intrepid miner, who lost his way in the recesses of the cave. While seeking in vain for an outlet, his sparing light went out. Three days he groped about in darkness, until at length, worn out and exhausted, he was led by a wonderful chance to the mouth of the cave. Before he died he had yet sufficient strength to briefly mention the wonders he had seen during his fatal expedition.’

  * In support of this statement, I would simply quote from Dr George Hartwig’s classic study, The Subterranean World (1871), in which he writes of underground tunnels: ‘Many are mere rents or crevices in the disrupted rocks; others wide vaults, not seldom of hall or dome-like dimensions, or long and narrow passages branching out in numerous ramifications. Not seldom the same cave alternately expands into spacious chambers, and then again contracts into narrow tunnels or galleries. The walls of many are smooth and nearly parallel; the sides of others are irregular and rugged. Many have narrow entrances and swell at greater depths into majestic proportions; while others open with wide portals, and gradually diminish in size as they penetrate the rock.’

  * An American writer on prehistory, Brad Steiger, recently commented that this explanation has apparently become widely accepted amongst Occultists. Writing in an article entitled, ‘The Smoky God, Deros and Other Dwellers of Inner Earth’ (Strange Magazine, Vol. 1. No. 3, 1971) he said; ‘Occultists interpret Agharti to be a continuation of the civilisation of Atlantis, whose inhabitants are content to remain in their peaceful network of subterranean cities with only occasional excursions to the outer world.’

  * Recently, in a fascinating article, ‘UFOs and the Mystery of Agharti’, in Prediction, January 1979, Nadine Smyth addressed herself to this problem and wrote: ‘The extraterrestrial explanation of the UFOsistoday being widely questioned among students of this subject: especially as the space-probes directed at our nearest neighbours in the solar system have disclosed no life or possibility of life as we know it. More and more, experts on UFOs are considering the possibility of a psychic rather than a physical explanation. They suggest that UFOs come, not from other planets but from other dimensions; “an invisible world coincident with the space of our physical Earth”. As Air Marshal Sir Victor Goddard expressed it in a lecture he gave at Caxton Hall in 1969. The Inner Earth! Is this the real truth about Agharti and Shamballah? That the legends about the inner earth, the hidden world, and so on, are really attempts to express a para-physical reality? This would tie up with one account of Shamballah, that it is located in the Gobi Desert, but can be seen only by initiates and is invisible to everyone else. Are the two mysteries of Agharti and of the UFOs, really one mystery? Is there both a physical and a non-physical Agharti? And are its inhabitants benign, malignant, or some of both? These questions may well be dismissed as fantastic; but on the other hand, they may be more important than we think.’

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  THE LOST WORLD OF AGHARTI

  The Mystery of Vril Power

  by Alec Maclellan

  One of the world’s oldest legends tells of a vast underground network of tunnels and passageways linking the great continents of the earth to a subterranean kingdom somewhere beneath the heart of Asia. This Utopia is said to be inhabited by an ancient race of people who have lived in seclusion for untold centuries, hidden from the sight of the rest of mankind, but aware of everything happening on the surface of the earth. The underground country is called Agharti.

  Tales of this ‘lost world’ survive in the traditions of countries throughout the globe, and both Agharti and the passageways that lead to it have been sought by generations of explorers. In the last hundred years alone, the quest for Agharti has fascinated such diverse figures as the English occultist Lord Bulwer Lytton, the Russian theosophist Madame Helena Blavatsky, the American mystic Nicholas Rosrich and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, Adolf Hitler who actually based part of his philosophy of world domination on the legend of the subterranean ‘super race’.

  But what attracted Hitler most of all were the stories of Vril Power - an amazing force that the people of Agharti were said to have developed for the control of both man and nature. Possession of this power, he believed, would make certain his dream of a Thousand Year Reich, and throughout the years of his dictatorship German scientists and soldiers were sent on one fruitless expedition after another, in search of the lost world.