Russians who stare at goats

"Red Shambhala" is an entertaining, but also somewhat sloppy book about a couple of almost unknown episodes in Soviet history. Believe it or not, there was an "occult underground" in the early Soviet Union. With or without Communist aid, this underground reached out to Buddhists in Mongolia and Tibet, or to remaining shamans and other spiritual practitioners in the Soviet Union itself. Znamenski's work (published by Quest Books, the publishing house of the Theosophists) seems to be the first book-length treatment of this truly esoteric subject in English.

About half the book deals with Nicholas Roerich, who is relatively well known due to his career as a painter, his connections to U.S. vice president Henry Wallace, and Elizabeth Clare Prophet's book "The Lost Years of Jesus". Roerich's wife Helena founded a new religious movement, Agni Yoga, based on Theosophy and chanelled messages from "Master Morya". Znamenski fills in the blanks of the story. It turns out that Roerich was an adventurer and opportunist who worked closely with the Communist regimes in Moscow and Mongolia (despite himself being a White émigré) to further his plans to create a Central Asian Buddhist theocracy. The man clearly had delusions of grandeur, since he claimed to be a reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and wanted the future theocracy to be headed by none other than himself! Meanwhile, the Communists used Roerich (a resident of the United States) as a convenient cover to penetrate Tibet.

When Roerich's expedition failed to reach Lhasa, the disgruntled occultist broke with the Soviet Communists, instead throwing in his lot with the United States, Japan, Mongol anti-Communist rebels, and Russian White Guards in Manchuria! And then, maybe he didn't. Znamenski suspects that Roerich might have been a Soviet spy, perhaps an involuntary one (his brother was imprisoned in the Soviet Union). Roerich's second expedition, nominally sponsored by Wallace to gather drought-resistant herbs for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, took him to Japanese-occupied Manchuria and the Manchukuo-Mongolian border, giving the erratic cultist ample opportunity to spy on the Japanese on Soviet behalf. In the end, Roerich was one of the few Soviet-entangled occultists to get out of the web alive - he died a natural death in Indian retirement.

The fate of most other colourful characters mentioned in "Red Shambala" was almost invariably to be shot by Stalin. Alexander Barchenko was a self-taught occultist obsessed with finding the secret land of Shambhala-Agartha, where he believed he could find advanced scientific knowledge, including techniques for mind-reading. Barchenko's ideas caught the attention of a number of excentric individuals working for the Soviet secret police (sic), chief among them Gleb Bokii. Believe it or not, but Barchenko and Bokii came close to convincing the Soviet leadership to sponsor an expedition to Tibet to search for Shambhala. The plans were eventually quashed by Soviet foreign commissar Chicherin (but note that Roerich's equally occult expedition was approved). Barchenko and Bokii carried out parapsychological experiments in the very offices of the secret police, contacted Buddhist lamas living in Petrograd, dabbled in the Kalachakra Tantra, and did research on shamanism. They also created a spiritual commune, practicing nudism and group sex!

While most of this sounds nuts, like something from "The Men Who Stare At Goats", the Bolshevik-occult interface did take place in a rational political context. The Bolsheviks attempted to use Buddhist apocalyptic prophecies to further the Soviet cause in Siberia and Mongolia. According to these prophecies, the land of Shambhala was situated in the far north (i.e. in Russia). Its king would appear at the end of days to drive out the enemies of the Buddhists or the Mongols. Just as the Bolsheviks cultivated relations with Muslim reformers of varied quality, they decided to attract disgruntled Buddhist reformers, usually educated middle monks in the Lamaist hierarchy. The Mongolian capital of Urga was taken by Bolshevik troops carrying Buddhist flags! Mongolia had been liberated by "Red Shambhala", after a fashion. In Tibet, the Bolsheviks rather bargained on the *traditionalist* faction around Panchen Lama, since the modernizing faction had pro-British sympathies. This seemingly positive orientation to religion was coupled with an orientation to anti-colonial, nationalist movements and to "affirmative action" for non-Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union itself, all to smooth the path to an Asian revolution.

Thus, when Nicholas Roerich stepped onto the scene with a scheme to create a Communist-Buddhist theocracy in Central Asia based on appeals to Shambhala legends, he wasn't saying anything the Bolsheviks hadn't heard before. Nor was Barchenko completely out of step with his times when he contacted Tibetan Buddhist dignitaries in Petrograd, who hoped that the Communists would further their cause in the East. "Red Shambhala" also points out that the 1920's were a time of social experiments in Soviet Russia, making Barchenko's and Bokii's free love commune seem less extreme. To this can be added that many secret services have been conducting parapsychological research, and that bizarre cultish practices thrive in the dark... It wouldn't surprise me at all if Stalin ordered parapsychology to continue, even after the occultists mentioned in this book had all been shot!

While "Red Shambhala" is an interesting and captivating read, it's also frequently annoying due to Quest Book's sloppy editing. English clearly isn't Znamenski first language, and it shows. More curious is the author's equally sloppy approach to the Russian revolution - I assume that Znamenski is a Russian national? For instance, he wrongly claims that Lenin abolished money and markets immidiately after the October revolution, confuses the Petrograd soviet with its Military Revolutionary Committee, and seems oblivious to the fact that Chicherin's homosexuality was well known even internationally. This might not be a big deal to Theosophists perennially uninterested in the Russian revolution, but it *is* irritating to us history buffs.

Due to this bad editing, I will give "Red Shambhala" four stars rather than five. That being said, I nevertheless recommend this study of Russians who stare at goats to both spiritual seekers and, yes, history buffs...