In breathtaking style, Ossendowski described his actual life-and-death adventures as well as local landscapes, cultures, and prophecies of Asian nomads. A central theme is how the Bloody Baron hijacked Mongol prophecies. Roerich, who read and reread the book, certainly noted how quickly Ungern, an ordinary cavalry oi cer with average intelligence, by chance happened to liberate the Mongols from the Chinese and was elevated by the nomads to semidivine status. h e painter might have assumed that if such a mediocre and mean individual was able to stir indigenous prophecies and to entrench himself in the Tibetan Buddhist world, it surely would be easier for a person of a higher intellectual caliber like himself, who knew more about cultures of the area and, unlike the crazy baron, had a noble agenda, to do the same. h e Roeriches took very seriously what they read in Ossendowski’s book.
Unlike bashers of Beasts, Men and Gods who unwarrantably accused Ossendowski of making up all his stories (critics could not forgive him for weaving into his text Alexandre d’Alveydre’s myth of subterranean Agartha), the Roeriches knew exactly what Ossendowski was talking about. At er all, the couple had their own personal source to check the facts in Ossendowski’s book: Nicholas’s brother Vladimir was the White oi cer in charge of the supply train in the Bloody Baron’s army. Af-ter Ungern’s demise, Vladimir escaped from the Reds, made his way to China, and settled in Harbin. 20
Obstacles, Magic Stone, and Reincarnation as the Dalai Lama Early in 1923, armed with ideas of spiritual advancement, brotherhood, and collectivism, the Roeriches concluded the time was right for 172
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them to go and build their new-age kingdom of peace, love, beauty, and spirituality in the heart of Asia. h eir teacher Morya instructed them along the same lines: “It is time for the fairy tale to become real.” 21
Yet, George, who had purposely been sent to Paris to be trained in Tibetan and Hindu studies, nearly ruined the Great Plan with his reckless behavior. At the end of 1922, when Master Morya kept sending his messages preparing the family for the Asian venture, George suddenly announced that he was going to get married. Away from the watchful eyes of Nicholas and Helena, George had fallen in love with a fellow Russian émigré, a beautiful and highly intelligent brunette named Marcel Mantsiarli, a h eosophist and follower of Jiddu Krishnamurti.
George was excited and wrote to his parents that his beloved was not only a beautiful girl but also a mystically inclined and sensitive person, and, “most importantly, she is devoted to our cause.” 22 Helena and Nicholas were infuriated. A marriage on the eve of such a grand enterprise? h is was a disaster! Helena was so mad that she immediately showered George with letters denigrating Marcel: the girl was i ve years older than George and simply wanted to trap her innocent boy. Even Master Morya interfered, giving Helena an alarming warning: “h e rep-utation of the son that I need so much is being shattered.” For George, the uncompromising position of his parents became a real drama. Marcel’s mother, who specially came to New York to i x the problem, could not convince Helena to change her mind. h e son desperately plead-ed, “I beg you, I ask you, do not break my happiness.” 23 Despite all of his pleas, nothing was able to melt the hearts of the messengers of the Great White Brotherhood. h
e spiritual crusaders who were about to bring enlightenment to Asia and then to all of humankind could not af ord to have such a trivial thing as love meddle with their Great Plan.
Eventually, George’s parents took him away from Paris on a trip across Europe. Under their pressure and brainwashing, George broke up with the girl—a choice he regretted for the rest of his life.
Ironically, as soon as they settled “George’s problem” another potential Shambhala warrior fell into precisely the same trap. Colonel Nikolai 173
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Kordashevsky, an eccentric Lithuanian aristocrat of Polish descent from Lithuania whom the Roeriches had similarly groomed as part of their future Asian venture, suddenly fell in love as well. Surely the devil’s forces were at work here, putting obstacles before the forces of light. Kordashevsky, a former White oi cer who had fought the Reds in Siberia, was a die-hard romantic and spiritual seeker. He loved monarchy and, like Baron Ungern, toyed for a while at er the collapse of the Whites, with the idea of moving to Tibet to serve the last true monarch—the Dalai Lama. But he changed his mind and returned to Europe. At er a brief and disappointing experience with the celebrity occult teacher Gurdjief , who exhausted the oi cer-aristocrat with his rigorous physical training, Kordashevsky wandered over Europe seeking new spiritual experiences. While in Paris in 1923, he stumbled upon Nicholas Roerich, who mesmerized him with his Asian plans. Soon, Kordashevsky was introduced into the painter’s inner circle by receiving a ring and the esoteric name Chakhembula.
Bored to death on his Lithuanian estate, the colonel craved action and was ready to depart for Tibet right away. Helena and Nicholas had to restrain him. Waiting for orders from his new guru in New York, Kordashevsky was killing time by reading h eosophical books and Nordic legends, and composing a novel about Joan of Arc when he suddenly fell in love with a local high-school teacher, a soul mate fascinated with the mysteries of ancient Egypt. h is development presented a new challenge for the Roeriches, and it took another batch of letters to convince the romantic colonel to drop the girl. How could Kordashevsky af ord such childish nonsense, Nicholas Roerich chastised him, when soon he was to saddle a horse, draw his sword, and ride into the heart of Asia? Kordashevsky followed the advice of his guru and forced himself to drop the girl.
Although the Roeriches were contemplating building an Inner Asian theocracy based on reformed Tibetan Buddhism and Agni Yoga, they had not settled on an exact itinerary of their activities. A tentative plan was to enter the area as an embassy of Western Buddhists, then 174
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somehow to contact the Panchen Lama and bring him to Tibet. At er that they hoped to play by circumstances, going farther northward to Mongolia and Russia, stirring up en route Shambhala and other local prophecies. To i nalize their plans, the family decided to make a reconnaissance trip to Sikkim, a small Indian principality in northern India conveniently located on the southern border of Tibet.
h e Roeriches did not simply buy tickets and casually depart to India. Since theirs was a historical mission sponsored by the otherworldly forces of the Great White Brotherhood, they needed an occult blessing, at least in the eyes of their friends and associates. On the way to Sikkim, the couple stopped in Paris to secure identii cation documents.
h e Roeriches still held Russian passports issued before the Bolshevik revolution, and they did not want to draw too much attention to themselves in India by using passports of a nonexistent state. France aided the White Russian émigrés, providing them with necessary papers.
h e occult blessing arrived, as Nicholas and Helena explained to their adepts, on the morning of October 6, 1923, when someone knocked on the door of their room at Lord Byron Hotel. George Roerich opened the door. h e visitor introduced himself as a clerk from the Paris Bankers Trust, handed him a mysterious package, and immediately departed.
When Helena, George, and Nicholas opened the package, they found a small box inside decorated with silhouettes of a man, woman, king-i sher, and four gothic letters engraved “M” on the edges. However, the real surprise was inside the box—a black shiny aerolite. h e next day telegrams l ew to all associates of the Roeriches in various countries: lo and behold, the Great White Brotherhood had entrusted the Roeriches with the sacred Chintamani stone. h is magic jewel, which possessed incredible power, was to be carried on their Asian expedition and delivered to the Shambhala kingdom.
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition the Chintamani stone is known as a wish-granting gem. Ferocious deities, protectors of the Tibetan Buddhist faith, were frequently portrayed on sacred scrolls holding this stone. On these scrolls the Chintamani is depicted as either an ordinary jewel or 175
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a stone engulfed in l ames—this theological link to the Roeriches’ Agni Yoga might have been why they were attracted to this sacred item. h e Roeriches described the Chintamani as a powerful occult weapon that would help their Asian mission. Now they could act not only as prophets who could fuli ll wishes by using the wish-granting gem, but also as protectors of the Buddhist faith: “h e stone draws people like a magnet. Entire nations can rise up if one lit s the stone An enemy can be destroyed if you say his name three times looking at the stone. Only people who are pure in their spirit and thought can look at it.” 24 It is highly probable that George Roerich, a professional student of Tibetan Buddhism who was shrewd in intricacies of this tradition, fed the Chintamani legend to his parents, who layered on it their own personal mythology and then manufactured the entire story about the mysterious git .
h e couple’s fantasy moved further. h
e Roeriches wrote to their
friends that the Chintamani was not only about Asian tradition: the magic gem was also known to the ancient Druids and to European Meistersingers as Lapis exilis. h e stone delivered to the Roeriches was wrapped in a piece of old fabric; on it was an image of the sun with mysterious Latin letters inside the sun circle: I.H.S., which might be rendered as In hoc signo [vinces] (by this sign [you will win]). h e same Latin abbreviation was inscribed on the banner of Constantine the Great, the famous Roman emperor who i rst legalized Christianity. Weaving Buddhist and European mythology together, the Roeriches said that the Chintamani magically disappeared and then reappeared at crucial historical moments to be handed to the righteous ones who would guide humankind to a better future. Of course, the righteous ones were the painter and his wife.
Armed with the power of the sacred stone, George, Helena, and Nicholas, the three Shambhala warriors, reached Bombay on December 2, 1923. By railroad, the family quickly traveled to northern India, where they stopped in the town of Darjeeling (a corrupted version of dorje lingam [hard penis]), 25 the capital of Sikkim. Here, in the town famous for the tea that grows in the area, the Roeriches established their 176
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temporary base. For their residency they picked not just any house, but a small summer cottage called the Palace of Dalai, on the southern slopes of the Himalayas; the place was once used by the thirteenth Dalai Lama when he had to l ee from the Chinese in 1910. h e painter and his wife feasted their eyes on the picturesque site surrounded by mighty cedar trees. From their windows they could enjoy a divine view of the Himalayan ridges and valleys. 26 Somewhere north of these mountain ranges lay mysterious Shambhala and its prophecies, waiting to be stirred and awakened.
h e reconnaissance trip to Darjeeling turned out to be very stimulating. Nicholas spent his time not only painting awesome Himalayan landscapes and contemplating the coming Shambhala war, but also rubbing shoulders with visiting Tibetan Buddhist monks. A group of them from the Moru monastery visited the painter in April 1924; stunningly, they recognized him as the reincarnation of the great i t h Dalai Lama by the moles on his right cheek, which formed the shape of Ursa Figure 7.2. Nicholas Roerich with visiting Buddhist monks, who recognized him as a reincarnation of the i t h Dalai Lama, Darjeeling, India, 1924. Standing, right to let : George Roerich, Lama Lobzang Mingyur Dorje, Nicholas Roerich, Helena Roerich
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Major, thereby coni rming what Master Morya had already revealed to the couple. But Nicholas had not simply sat waiting to be discovered as the reincarnation. Rather he had actively worked for this by donning lama vestments when entertaining his native and nonnative visitors. By all his demeanor and talk, Roerich emanated high dignity and spiritual wisdom. h e strategy worked.
Figure 7.3 Nicholas Roerich, wearing his Dalai Lama robe.
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Yet, not everything was going well for him. British intelligence noted the strange Russian and put him under close watch. h e painter sensed
this attention and diplomatically never bragged about that miraculous recognition or his historical mission in Asia. Instead, he let other people do the talking. It was here in the “hard” tea town of Darjeeling that Roerich i rst heard about the Panchen Lama’s l ight from Tibet—news that prompted the painter to speed up his Great Plan. h e escape of the spiritual leader of Tibet was a sure occult sign that the Shambhala war was coming. h e prophecy was hot, and he needed to move quickly to unleash its energy in order to bring about the new age.
