“other side.” h e other side was two spiritual masters who represented the Great White Brotherhood hidden in the Himalayas—spiritual baggage Helena borrowed from the famous Helena Blavatsky, founder of h eosophy. Just as in the case of Blavatsky, Helena Roerich’s hidden masters were Hindu men who i rst appeared to her in London’s Hyde Park. Eventually, the spiritual masters who visited Helena began to appear to Nicholas as well.
From early on, Nicholas Roerich nourished grand dreams. h e painter was convinced that he was predestined for a great role in life. In fact, he never tried to hide his self-importance: “I have a big ego. Although this sometimes gives me moments of dii culty, I am glad that I have much of it. Like a good whip, my ego makes me move forward fast.
Without such a source of energy I would not be able to accomplish many things.” 6 Since childhood, Roerich was also fond of playing roles of imagined persons, usually great historical and mythological personalities. Eventually this habit became his second nature. His round face, pink cheeks, well groomed hair, and small beard seemed like a mask that could be cast aside in an instant and replaced by another one.
h is ability to wear dif erent masks later helped him play dif erent roles and cultivate useful people. h e mysterious Roerich skillfully penetrated dif erent spheres, including the court of the tsar. Smart, cunning, and polite, he knew well when and how to l atter and be courteous.
His approach was usually very simple: “Make friends with a person,”
and “listen to him and let him speak.” h is talent in captivating useful people not only brought him many contacts and riches, but also enabled him to pursue his utopian projects. In fact, in their relations 159
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with people, Nicholas and Helena never thought in terms of emotions and friendship. h
e world was strictly divided into those who were useful and those who were useless. h e people who surrounded them were just pawns in their schemes. Such an approach was natural, for the couple was not concerned about individuals—their goal was to bless all of humankind. h
us, one of their closest associates, Frances Grant, was a “good instrument.” Rich and powerful philanthropists from New York, Washington, and Chicago were “useful for the future.” Even the painter’s own brother Vladimir was put on this grading scale: he would
“be useful in our work.” 7
In 1909, another important event in Roerich’s life aroused his interest in Tibetan Buddhism and triggered his quest for Shambhala. A group of Tibetan Buddhists in St. Petersburg headed by Agvan Dorzhiev, the Buryat Buddhist monk and envoy of the Dalai Lama to the Russian court, received Tsar Nicholas II’s blessing to erect a Tibetan Buddhist temple in the Russian capital. Backed by bohemian spiritual seekers and cultural dignitaries fond of h eosophy and Buddhism, Dorzhiev was able to convince the tsar (who was prone to mysticism) that it would be good for both spiritual and geopolitical reasons. Playing on the Russian-English rivalry in Asia in hopes of shielding Tibetan sovereignty from English and Chinese advances, the Dalai Lama’s ambassador told the tsar that inhabitants of the Forbidden Kingdom viewed the Russian emperor as the king of northern Shambhala who would protect their country from the aliens’ intrusions.
Roerich eagerly joined the project, designing stained glass for the temple. h e painter also became fascinated with Dorzhiev’s stories about Shambhala, the mysterious Buddhist paradise somewhere in the north. No less captivating was the Buryat lama’s dream of bringing all Tibetan Buddhist people together in a united state under the protection of the Russian tsar. Roerich and the “learned Buryat lama,” as the painter referred to Dorzhiev, had many cohorts among Russian intellectuals and aristocrats, whose cultural life was saturated with the occult. h e early twentieth century in Russia was the time of the so-called 160
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Silver Age—an incredible resurgence of humanities, music, art, and esotericism. Even some Marxists, to Lenin’s dismay, paid tribute to this cultural renaissance, openly pondering how to elevate humans to the status of gods and how to turn communism into the religion of a new age. In St. Petersburg and Moscow salons, people were talking about the end of the Enlightenment era and its rationalism, turning away from Western civilization to the Orient. h eosophy, the i rst modern countercultural spirituality, which at that time was heavily loaded with Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism, l ourished among Russian people of arts and letters.
At the end of 1916, just on the eve of the Bolshevik takeover, Roerich and his family, as if sensing which way the wind would be blowing, conveniently let St. Petersburg and settled in a quiet summer cottage amid pine woods in Finland, away from the coming revolutionary storm.
h is turned out to be a very smart decision, allowing the Roeriches to avoid the bloodiest period in Russian history: the Communist Revolution of October 1917, mob attacks on “bourgeois” intellectuals, and the brutalities of so-called War Communism imposed by the Bolsheviks on Russia. h is lack of hands-on experience with the “joys of Communism” might explain why later it became so easy for the couple to make friends with Red Russia.
Soon, invited by a rich admirer to exhibit Nicholas’s paintings in London, the Roeriches moved to England. Here they could forget about everything and continue their Silver-Age lifestyle, joining the h eosophical Society and frequenting occult and spiritualist salons. In 1919, replicating experiences of her famous predecessor Helena Blavatsky, Helena Roerich had her spiritual breakthrough: in London’s Hyde Park she “met” her Himalayan spiritual masters (mahatmas) named Morya and Khut-Humi. Later, Khut-Humi somehow dropped out, and the couple dealt only with Morya, who became their spiritual guide for the rest of their lives.
Although the Roeriches were able to rub shoulders with fellow spiritual seekers in England, they were not happy in London. Helena and 161
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Nicholas wanted something bigger than just being a minuscule part of a large h eosophical crowd. h ere was no room for them to spread their wings to become spiritual teachers. h e great occult celebrity Peter Ouspensky far overshadowed the newly arrived couple with budding mystical aspirations. Just across the English Channel in France, the l amboyant George Gurdjief was a magnet drawing European seekers to his spiritual school. Even in the world of painting, Nicholas Roerich was relegated to a secondary role in the shadow of such European giants as fellow émigrés Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich. Helena and Nicholas, who liked to compare themselves with Prometheus, could not stomach such a situation. Like this ancient Greek hero, they dreamed about storming heights, stealing i re to bring it to people.
For a while they played with the idea of moving to India and making that country a staging ground for their worldwide spiritual mission. In fact, they had already made contact with the famous Hindu writer and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, who promised them “light, space and quietness, but not dollars.” Yet the Indian option was swit ly cast aside.
In one of her letters, Helena made a sarcastic remark about this of er: one could i nd such “treasures” in any desert. 8 h e couple did need money and fame, and in this respect America sounded far more appealing. Again, like their prominent predecessor Blavatsky, they chose to move to New York City. Morya, the newly acquired spiritual guide from the Himalayas, backed up this decision. Before embarking overseas, Roerich coni ded to one of his friends: “He guides me and my family. Now he has given me a new assignment—to instill spirituality into American art and to establish an art school there named at er the Masters.” 9
Soon at er arriving in America in October 1920, the Roeriches pio-neered their teaching, an of shoot of h eosophy called Agni Yoga that invoked i re, the recurrent image from Helena’s visions and a symbol of destruction and creation. At the center of Agni Yoga was the idea of reincarnation, giving people the opportunity to improve and raise themselves to the level of the divine beings in the Himalayan Great White Brotherhood. h ese masters, who included Morya, guided humankind 162
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in its spiritual development and from time to time sent out sages to speed up this spiritual evolution. Of course, Helena and Nicholas were thinking about themselves as these sages-messengers sent to enlighten humankind. In his Shambhala (1930), the painter hinted about their historical mission: “Verily, verily, the people of Shambhala at times emerge into the world. h
ey meet the earthly co-workers of Shambhala. For the sake of humanity, they send out precious git s, remarkable relics. I can tell you many stories of how wonderful git s were received through space.
Even Rigden-jyepo [Rigden-Djapo, king of Shambhala] himself appears at times in human body. Suddenly he shows himself in holy places, in monasteries, and at time predestinated, pronounces his prophecies.” 10
Communication with the brotherhood was conducted through Morya, who began to issue detailed instructions regarding all aspects of the Roeriches’ lives, from their political preferences to family matters. To get in touch with the master, Helena entered a trancelike state and recorded her messages by automatic writing, a technique popular among contemporary spiritualists. Although not blessed with divine headaches, Nicholas nevertheless learned how to get in touch with Morya, and from time to time he contacted the master, relying only on automatic writing. Turning his head aside and covering his eyes with the palm of one hand, the painter usually “talked” with Morya while simultaneously writing down the messages from the otherworld.
h e new teaching drew initial converts: Frances Grant, a reporter, and a Russian Jewish couple, Sina Lichtmann-Fosdick and Maurice Lichtmann, two piano teachers who had moved across the ocean long before the revolution and had become almost fully Americanized.
Soon another Jewish couple joined the group: Natty and Louis Horch, who had lost their i rst child and were searching for spiritual comfort.
Louis, a currency speculator whose face was disi gured by a horrible trauma to his skull, turned out to be a treasure trove for Nicholas and Helena. By the early 1930s, he would blow more than one and a half million dollars funding Roerich’s artistic and geopolitical ventures. In 1924, Nicholas Roerich added to this group George Grebenstchikof , 163
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a writer and expert on Siberian geography and ethnography. Another prominent member of the inner circle was George Roerich, one of the Roeriches’ two sons, whom they specially sent to Harvard and then to the Sorbonne in France to be groomed as an Orientalist. George was expected to learn about Tibetan and Hindu traditions—necessary assets for a future Shambhala warrior who was to assist his parents in their geopolitical plans.
Figure 7.1 Nicholas Roerich’s inner circle, December 7, 1924. Let to right, sitting: Esther Lichtmann, Sina Lichtmann-Fosdick, Nicholas Roerich, Natty Horch, Frances Grant; standing: Louis Horch, Soi e Shafran, Svetoslav Roerich, Maurice Lichtmann, Tatiana Grebenstchikof , George Grebenstchikof .
h ere were other close contacts and associates who were never fully informed about the Roeriches’ ultimate goals. Among them were industri-alist and philanthropist Charles R. Crane; Frank Kellogg, U.S. Secretary 164
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of State under Hoover; and later on Henry Wallace, FDR’s Secretary of Agriculture, who was admitted into the painter’s inner circle but at the same time was not completely devoted to his plans. h e most trusted disciples received specially designed rings and esoteric names—symbols of belonging to the elect. 11 h e rest of their friends and acquaintances, Nicholas stressed, should not be told of their long-term goals. For the general public, Roerich was to remain simply a painter and archeologist interested in Oriental cultures. In 1922, at er establishing his Master School of United Arts in New York, Roerich reminded the inner circle,
“h ere are two sides of our school: the pretend illusionary one, which exists for all surrounding people, for many things must not be mentioned, and the real one—those wonderful events and miracles known only to us.” 12
